POV: Alric
She rejected him. And it's destroying everything.
I've felt pain in this body for centuries. The crown scars when they were burned in, which was not a quick process and was not designed to be. The chains over time, the way the iron has worked itself into the awareness of my skin so thoroughly that I stopped being able to separate the sensation of wearing them from the sensation of existing. The curse's punishments, which are specific and varied and have been applied to every version of genuine feeling I've had since the sentence began, and which I've learned to endure the way you learn to endure anything you have no choice about — not without pain but without losing function.
None of that prepared me for this.
