It wasn't just the guilt,

No, it'd never quite been about guilt. She'd never meant to betray him. She'd never meant to hurt him. She'd never, not once, felt guilt for sleeping with any of them.

She hadn't loved them.

She couldn't love them.

Just like he and his women. The dozens and dozens of other women. She'd never faulted him for it, never asked him to stop. He was a man, and that's what men did.

It was his emptiness.

It was the way expression failed to reach his eyes, the way his food sat untouched. It was the way he seemed to be dieing inside. She could feel it, like knitting needles through her chest, pushing slowly through her. A pin for ever man, a pin for every stolen kiss from lips not his own. An all consuming pain which lead to numbness so profound it seemed the entire world was made up of puppets acting in the places of people.

It was her fault.

She'd ruined him and still her claws sunk into his flesh because she didn't have the will to take them out. She couldn't let him go and she couldn't make herself stop loving him. She couldn't.

But there was another option.

She knew Mereavus had thought of it. It was just like her to come up with a scheme like this, setting people up like dominoes on a tile floor. It only took one finger, one finger to end it all and create a new pattern. She'd always been the one setting up the bones, no matter what people thought or said. She ruled the kingdom through a hundred, thousand, tiny strings and she'd have her way. She'd always, have her way and it loathed her to give that much to her.

It loathed her to let Mereavus win.

But if Mereavus didn't win, the poison on dagger she'd so delightedly slipped into her son's mistress's back, was just going to spread. It had to be stopped.

It all, had to be stopped.

Every vicious cycle.

Merripen had never once, thought of taking her own life. That was for the stage of midwinter faire or tragic tales around the hearth. For nobles who couldn't stand life as anything lower than a god amongst men. It was distant, unreal in the world she'd grown up in. She'd never understood it until now and even now, it seemed oddly distant.

Even with the misericord in her hands.

The blade felt cold in hot, wet, hands. Colder to the gentle lap of water against her bare thighs. How romantic to die as she'd been born. Less romantic, that it was for the purpose of tidiness. There'd be no horrific scene. There'd be no stained carpets to remind anyone of her. Just a metal tub in the back of the castle laundry where it could be dumped and used again the same day.

The note had been written, a few, smeared, words: "I love you, I'll never stop loving you."


She almost forgot the echoing sting of the blade as it bit into her skin, the soft insides of her forearms. Nice and neat, she'd spare him that horror of cutting her own throat. She's spare him the horror of seeing her with her insides on her outside because the poison allowed her too much time to think. Too much time to loose her nerve.

The hot water stabbed into the open wounds, disrupting the stark patterns of red on white which vanished into the blackness of where the stub of her candle failed to illuminate. She bit her lip and sunk into the fragrant embrace. Lilac, sandal wood and blood. She'd never imagined that this was how it was to end.

It was the first time, that guilt, moved center stage.

It was the first time, Merripen VanGatt, had ever taken a life.

Or tried to.