I stand utterly defeated. How much more can I handle? What else must I endure? Oh, Gods! Why torture me thus? I have ever been faithful; always honored you. I have done what was expected of a maiden of my status. To my husband, my loving Hector, I gave my heart, my mind, my soul, and my virgin love. I was ever faithful to him. Never did my eyes wander to another man. Never did I long for another's embrace. I held my lord husband above all things and in return he loved me and I him. We found joy with one another, pure love that so few find. And through that love, we conceived of a son. I bore the heir to the throne of Troy, this beautiful child with his father's deep and tender eyes and strength of spirit that clings to my dress in his fear. He has seen things that a boy so young should never have to endure... and I as well. Our country is sacked by war. Our men lay dead, rotting in the streets. Our beautiful city, our home and sanctuary, has become an inferno, blazing to the ground. I hear the screams and cries of widows, mourning their fallen husbands. Their cries only remind me that I am among them. Oh, shall that image never leave my mind! I had to stand by, helplessly, and watch my husband, my love and my life, be murdered before me and all of Troy. His dying cry of anguish resounds again and again in my ears and every time I close my eyes I see the golden sword of Achilles, dripping rubies with Hector's blood. Achilles... that monster... I shall never forgive him for the atrocious act he performed to my husband's body! I swoon, feel my stomach churn as I see him in my mind, so tall and proud in his chariot of gold, my poor Hector's mangled body dragged through the sands of the plain by rope stitched through his flesh. Achilles' trophy. His prize... Our hero. Our leader. My world...
And now I hear whispers of a horror yet to come. My son, the one part of Hector I have left, is in danger. I know he is. Astyanax is Hector's heir- Troy's heir. The Greeks are weeding out the royal house- brave Priam, foolish Paris, innocent Polyxena, prophetic Cassandra; all murdered in cold blood. What will they do to him, my little boy? I don't want to think about what could be. My mind remembers a moment at Astyanax's birth. While the royal palace was in celebration, Cassandra stood white as that marble wall she leaned against, shaking, tears streaming down her cheeks, eyes fixed in horror upon my newborn son. What did she see? I know she is insane, but in the reality of the horror she once prophesied, I cannot push the thought from my mind that the brutal image she saw in her mind's eye that day, that shook her to the very core, was also a true moment of precognition. What other terrors await my boy and I, now that the Greek soldiers have over run our land? What does our bleak future hold?