Page 106 of Queen
I pause, whisper it aloud, tasting the words in the quiet kitchen. “This is our happily ever after. It doesn’t look like theirs. But it’s ours.”
Tears sting, but I don’t brush them away. They are not weakness. They are proof.
To Guido:
You are my kingdom. My throne. My reason for every lie I tell, every weapon I sharpen, every mask I wear. In saving you, I save myself. I will die before I let the world take you. And if death dares try, it will find me waiting with fire in my hands.
My vision blurs, but the words remain, steady, strong.
Flashbacks slice through me— • The headlights chasing us down the cliff road the night I ran. • Guido’s tiny fists clutching my nightdress, his sobs pressed into my throat. • Emiliano’s mouth sealing against mine, not saying goodbye but branding me with silence. • Romeo’s whisper at the gate:We’ll call when it’s time.
The memory cuts and heals at once.
I close the journal with a snap, the leather strap binding it tight. Some truths aren’t meant to be sent. They’re meant to be carried. Like scars. Like crowns. Like vows.
“They’ll say I ran,” I whisper to the empty air. “They’ll say I broke.” My hand tightens around the cover, my jaw sharp as steel. “Let them.”
Because Emiliano knows better. Guido will know better, one day.
I didn’t lose my crown. I traded it—for a kingdom built on blood and love, for a throne no one can topple because it’s carved into the heart of a mother.
And as the fire in the hearth crackles, I brand the final truth into the silence:
“He loves me. I love him. Nothing—not betrayal, not exile, not death itself—will sever that.”
The waves crash against the cliffs outside, like applause from the underworld. And for the first time in years, my soul doesn’t feel like ruin. It feels like home.
A Queen’s Quiet Reign
The mayor’s invitation arrives folded neatly in his trembling hands, his hat pressed nervously against his chest. He calls meSignora Bianca, as he always does—never Zina, never Rivas. To him, to this town, I am only the widow on the cliffs who shops for fish and buys bread with exact coins.
I accept. Not for the mayor, not for his festival, but because Guido’s eyes light when he hears the music from the square. And because sometimes even queens need to walk among their people as if they are human.
The piazza glows when we arrive. Evening sun gilds the cobblestones, the air thick with the scent of roasted chestnuts and sea-salted air. The church bells toll overhead, childrenshriek with laughter as they chase each other in circles, and women in linen clap their hands to the rhythm of a fiddle.
I wear linen too. Loose, pale, a garment meant for anonymity. Yet the invisible crown presses against my skull all the same, reminding me who I am, even when no one here speaks it aloud.
“Signora Bianca!” A flock of children rush toward me, their sticky hands tugging at my skirts. Guido is swept into their game before I can blink. His laughter—bright, raw, unguarded—breaks across the square like sunlight through storm clouds. It’s been so long since I heard it that my chest aches with something dangerously close to joy.
I kneel, smoothing his hair as he runs past me, flushed and smiling. That sound, his laugh, is the true anthem of my reign. I have killed to protect it. I will again.
When the fiddles swell, I let the music take me. I spin barefoot across the worn stones with the villagers, linen skirts brushing against theirs, my body moving with a freedom I almost believe is real. For a fleeting heartbeat, I could be anyone. A widow. A mother. A woman.
But queens don’t forget.
Even as I dance, my eyes never stop measuring the crowd. Faces blur in the firelight, but I weigh them all the same—every smile, every stranger’s hand. The blade at my thigh presses cool and steady against my skin, reminding me that peace is only the costume I wear.
When I laugh, it is real. But it is never unguarded.
Later, as torches flare and the villagers toast to saints and blessings, I catch sight of my wrist in the firelight. The faint scar glows pale—a single line left from the night Emiliano and I pressed our palms together and bound ourselves in blood. No one here knows what it means. No one here remembers that vow.
But I do.
My fingers trace it as if by habit, and in that moment, I feel him. Across oceans, across silence—his presence still burns in me. Not gone. Not severed. Just waiting.
I raise my eyes to Guido across the square, his cheeks flushed, his grin wide as he collapses into a heap with the other children. My kingdom no longer laughs beneath chandeliers or behind guns. My kingdom is his joy, his small victories, his safety.
The villagers see a woman reborn. They see Signora Bianca.
