TW: Suicide attempt.

Please call 800-273-8255 if you have any suicidal thoughts.

"Surrender and no one dies. Fight, and the bodies of every single one of your subjects will float in an ocean of their own blood."

Those were the words uttered by the Vistilian messenger who spoke to her on the day of her coronation. The day of the ships. 

The boy stood at the bottom of the stairwell that led to her throne. The stairs were held up only by the two platforms on either side, balancing over a pit in the ground that was filled with a miniature of the whole city of Caiparta. The pit formed a semicircle around the throne just as the capital of the Kingdom of Musila circled around the crescent shape of the harbor it was built upon. The stairs acted like something of a bridge between two worlds: a world of freedom and fellowship below, and a world of unfathomable responsibility and leadership above. 

Thousands will die if she chooses greatness in evil, and she will die if she chooses greatness in good.

What was evil? What was good? How could she be destined to choose one or the other if she didn't even know the difference?

Fifteen-year-old Ariadne could only surmise one thing: thousands would die if she chose evil. Thousands would die if she chose to fight. Perhaps, this time, they were one and the same. 

The girl was fairly certain that the messenger felt sorry for her, despite his steely gaze. Whether this was moon magic or idealistic disillusionment, she did not know. He wasn't much older than she was. No doubt they had sent someone unimportant with the idea that he would most likely be returned to them as a corpse. This boy was trying so hard to be brave. She tried to ignore that tiny part of her that enjoyed how much power she had in regards to his fate. How could she not? Everything else, it seemed, was so out of her control. 

"What's your name?" She asked, as if they were both just children on the playfield. 

"Asa," he replied. "Asa Golero."

Ariadne felt her eyes tear up.

"I'm a Queen, Asa. It's my job above all else to protect my people."

Thousands will die if she chooses greatness in evil, and she will die if she chooses greatness in good.

The young queen stood up from her throne, making her way down the small set of stairs. She wished she could cross the bridge from responsibility to freedom metaphorically just as easily as she could physically. 

"I accept the terms of surrender. The Kingdom of Musila is yours."

Ariadne's eyes opened. The linen curtains that divided her room from the balcony fluttered under the light of the full moon. 

Both of her sons were sleeping next to her. It had become clear some weeks ago that Abasi was not going to die, but Ariadne still couldn't bear to leave him by himself just yet. He had almost been taken from her forever. And if she allowed one of her sons to sleep next to her, she certainly had to let the other do so as well. What if Shida resented the attention his sick brother had been getting? What if he doubted her love for him? 

Motherhood, she had discovered, was very rarely uncomplicated. 

Ariadne carefully slipped out from the grasp of her sons knowing she wouldn't be asleep any time soon. They were seven and five, and the moment she had escaped their embrace the boys rolled into one another's warm arms. She couldn't help but smile at the picture. Perhaps she had done something right. 

Their father had died of fever shortly after Abasi had been born. Truthfully, there was a part of her that was relieved. Her responsibilities to her kingdom had taken her public autonomy, and her husband had taken her private autonomy. His death allowed her just a bit more of the control she was always so desperate to possess. 

Ariadne sat on the balcony, spreading her legs so that they each went on either side of one of the small poles that held up the banister. The view was phenomenal: even now she could make out noisy ants strutting home from the pubs. A building in the distance omitted a wild collective laugh. Smells of cumin and cardamom overwhelmed even the pungency of the mucky river harbor. 

That damned prophecy had rendered her frozen in the face of everything, hadn't it? Her whole life had been dictated by that single terrible sentence: 

Thousands will die if she chooses greatness in evil, and she will die if she chooses greatness in good.

Frankly, it was hard for her to condemn the countless assassination attempts. Were they not just people with their own families, with their own love and devotion to the country that had been conquered by power-hungry people who cared only for the fertility of the land?

Perhaps what the world needed was for Ariadne to die.

She will die if she chooses greatness in good.

Prophecies were never wrong. Perhaps she could force the hand of Fate. Perhaps it was the way to save her country. Perhaps it was the way to save her sons.

Ariadne stood up and walked back into the bedroom, kissing each of her sons on the forehead. 

She made her way to the wall that stood on the left of the bed and groped one-handed around behind the tapestry before the hidden door clicked open. Quickly, Ariadne grabbed the thick waxen candle lit by her bedside and ducked inside. The passage had been built at least a century before so that royals could sneak in lovers. Ariadne used it so that she could be in charge of her own fate every once in a while, no matter how short the time.

In the end, it always boiled down to control.

The stairway led to what was now a storage room. The extra linens would be brought up soon for the impending chillier months. Ariadne looked around for a knife.

It wasn't hard to find. A crescent-shaped knife with a grey hilt lay resting on a torn open sack of wheat glinted in the candlelight. Ariadne had to put the candle down before she could pick up the knife, her shriveled arm useless for multitasking. 

Clumsily, Ariadne lowered herself to the floor, leaning against the sack like a pillow. The queen blew out her candle, afraid that it should light fire to the poorly assembled piles of linen everywhere. 

Complete darkness.

Ariadne fumbled with the curved knife, sliding it out of its hilt. She pushed up her gown so that it was gathered at the hips and aligned the tip of the blade with the inside of her upper thigh.

 Breathe.

She will die if she chooses greatness in good.

The blade sank into her vein as she roughly pushed it from side to side. The blood almost instantly flooded out of her.

Perhaps she could finally find peace.

"Your Majesty?"

Ariadne turned her head to her left. Darab stood some distance away, holding up a lamp.

"I--"

"What are you doing here at this hour?" Darab asked, making his way to his queen. "Are you--"

Darab stopped for only a moment, taking in the scene. 

A pool of blood gushed around his sovereign, her skin colorless and her eyes hazy.

He wasted no more time. 

He dashed for the needle and wire thread he kept nearby. 

Ariadne faintly recalled that she had recently given Darab this very room to make a science lab out of. She had forgotten. 

She will die if she chooses greatness in good.

Momentarily, Darab was back by her side. 

"Your Majesty, what have you done?"

Ariadne sobbed. 

"I just wanted to be good."