Eleven Steps

I drew in a deep, steadying breath as I turned the corner into the stone courtyard for the princess’s coronation, a deep feeling of knotted dread low in my abdomen.

The modest courtyard was decorated in purple and pinks - a celebration as my beloved turned 25 and ascended the throne of the monarchy. We would not be allowed to be together until she could make the laws herself.

I turned towards the center dais, knowing, that even though she would be queen - a forever with her would go against Fate’s plans.

The stairs were burned into my mind. It would take me eleven steps to reach the platform where she stood. I remember the first time I stood at the bottom of those steps. I had counted them then too.

During one attempt, I tried not taking the stairs at all. I shouted like a madman cursed with knowledge of what was to come. It didn’t matter. It never did. No matter how many times I tried, Fate always fell exactly as it was supposed to, with the rush of red spilling over cobblestones.

I took a long breath and started the ascent up the stairs, where my princess stood. She smiled at me - as she always did. I couldn’t help but smile back. That perfect smile she wore, she had no idea what was lurking in the shadows just past the train of her delicate, purple dress.

She laughed at me once when I asked her why she insisted on wearing such elaborate costumes to every single public event. Especially since I found her the most beautiful when she was wearing that brown smock dress, the floral apron, with that sunflower tucked in the plait of her hair.

Sometimes, I wish I had thought to tell her that even though I loved the simple, unadorned look, that purple dress with the gauzy train was my favorite. Maybe because I had seen her in it so many times. It stopped looking like a dress and just started looking like her.

I wouldn’t have time to tell her now - to set the record straight. It was something I had grieved many times before. I would only have enough time for a single sentence. One breath of a thought to pass from my lips to her ears. Before… well…

Her lovely lavender eyes shot to my own, a sort of mischief dancing in them. I closed my eyes after a moment, burning the soft expression of those eyes - so happy and at peace - into my memory. It would make what happened next worth it. I wish it would have stopped there. I could live for eternity with my eyes closed as the vision of her own echoed in my thoughts.

It was not my destiny. It was not hers.

The coronation. Of course it would have been here. Before I was cursed to live in this Sisyphean nightmare, I should have known. I should have been more careful to check and send other guards to double check. I should have had her surrounded by handmaidens. I should have stopped her from going at all.

One breath more as my armor clad foot clanged on the cobblestone step. The tenth step. There wouldn’t be an eleventh.

She turned fully to me now.

“My knight.” She almost whispered.

“My queen.” I said, just as I had so many times before.

“Not yet!” She protested with a giggle.

“Soon.” I whispered back.

As soon as my whisper faded into the twilight and firelight, a cry rang out through the crowd. The assassin had appeared. He was clothed completely in black - not a single identifying mark. I knew that better than I knew my own name. So many times I had tried to scan him - to try to give her any piece of information or warning before the end.

But there was nothing.

Instead, I turned once more to face her, positioning my body between her and the assassin in the shadows.

“You will be queen.” I whispered to her. Four words. I had tried many times before to make it to a fifth or even a sixth word. Fate was not so kind. I never knew what happened any time I tried to do something new. I never knew how Fate took the tale once I left it. I just prayed to any and every god that might hear a lowly, cursed knight. I prayed she would find hope. I prayed she would be queen. I prayed that my sacrifice would mean something. And, sometimes, I selfishly prayed she would mourn me.

None of it mattered, though. Not this time, not every time before. Because, just like the very first time - before my destiny played on a loop for eternity - it was time for it to end.

“Close your eyes.” Was the last thing I said to her. That was new. I had never before been able to make a second sentence before I felt the cold steel find its way through the gap in my armor. Something stirred deep in my chest as she scrunched her eyes closed, screaming as the sword pierced through my armor.

I knew, just as I knew every single one of the hundreds of times before, that the feelings that ripped through my body as the tip of that blade pierced my rib cage, spilling my hot, red blood onto the portcullis of the castle wall - I would relive this incident as many times as I had to - as long as she stayed alive.

Soon Fate would start anew and I would face those steps again. Eleven stairs between me and my beloved. Eleven stairs to draw me closer to my end. Eleven stairs and hundreds of times to climb them.

Still, deep in the marrows of my dying bones, I pledged again that I would find a way. I would find a way to bargain with Fate herself if it meant one more second on the Earth that my beloved inhabited. I would beg on bloodied knees with every power of the earth to live a life with her for now and forever.

Until that happened, though, I would climb the stairs again and again. I would put myself between her and the assassin’s blade, and I would bleed out there on those eleven cobblestone steps from now until eternity.