A/N: Set a year after canon. The full saying is "as knowledge increases, so sorrow does."
No one ever led me to believe that being the most powerful man in the four nations would be easy; certainly even the spoiled prince I once was never harbored such delusions.
I just never expected it to be this hard.
"Why can't you help us?"
"I'm sorry, but many provinces have been affected by the drought, and there is only so much that the royal treasury can cover…"
On days like these, looking into this woman's eyes and telling her that her people are doomed, it is far too easy to remember that both my immediate predecessors went mad.