The Crown Remembers

It never promised power.

Only memory.

The crown does not give.

It takes everything you are willing to surrender —

and a little more, quietly, while you sleep.

It has seen every king.

Every queen. Every betrayal. Every prayer.

It remembers what the world would rather forget.

It watched them write her name in winter.

It listened as they made her the reason for their cold.

It kept every name whispered against her,

and every one she whispered back.