Weight of Regret

The palace was never the same after that fateful night. The birth of three daughters, so auspicious, should have been a cause for celebration, yet the halls of the grand estate echoed with a profound emptiness. No fanfare greeted the births. No festival was planned. Instead, a heavy silence draped itself over the kingdom like a shroud of mourning.

King Arion stood at the foot of his private chambers, staring into the distance, his eyes hollow. The grief had settled into him like an illness, slowly draining the strength that had once defined him as a ruler. He was dressed in his royal robes, though they hung on his frame as if the man wearing them was barely present. His hands rested on the banister of the grand balcony, but his mind was a thousand miles away, lost in memories of the queens he had loved.