You know I'll always love you" she said to me. Out of all the things I'd gone through, all the things I've lost, this isn't anywhere in comparison. How could I lose her in an instant, when I've spent an eternity on saving her? My greatest efforts were in vain in the end and I couldn't have done more. I can't accept the truth, nor can I believe the lie. As long as she remains in my memory evermore, she will always exist and no-one can tell me otherwise.

The men were coming closer and although I had an insuppressible urge to attack them, I had to resist the temptation. They would make her suffer in more pain. He smirked at my pain-stricken face. I was nothing to him, just another pawn. She was his Queen, so she had to be destroyed. "It is the only way I can check the King. You must understand that." His appetite for power utterly repulsed me. How could he think of it this way? Not just in the means of chess, but in the means of royalty and rulers? I closed my eyes, hardly able to stand on my own two feet. My mind twisted and turned, like a madman running through a maze with no way out. The daydreams I've had over the past 3 months flickered before my eyes like a dim candle as if they were all happening at once. I heard a fire being lit and sleeves being pulled up and I winced. Everything was happening so fast, it was hard to keep calm and rational.

And then the wolves came. And that changed everything.