Crown | A Day Carved from Rising Winds

Blood-red wine gleamed in golden cups, water-hued jade lay upon pale braids.

Bare feet no longer tread slivers of silver snow; only slivered silver fall about her feet like snow.

Beneath the shadow of the towering spire, amidst a prison of delusive enchantment, the huntress believed herself cherished by a tyrant.

Consider the wandering craftsman who proffered to her a clockwork bird of pure gold, begging only for his life.

Both his hands were hewn away by her King's cold, sharp wind, lest such a toy ever be made again for another’s delight.

When the bloodline, long-steeped in ignorance, bowed down to the wrathful wind, offering her like a sacrifice to the king of the spire,

the huntress, who once roosted with owls on withered boughs and danced with hawks across the plains,

knew not that the Lord of Wind, feared by all, would elevate her to the place of favored counsel, so skilled was she with the bow.

Before she met her king, she knew not the tenderness of love, nor the searing sting of hate.

Before she met her king, no human heart had ever stirred within the huntress treading the plains.

If there are those born with dreams of kindness and liberty, yearning to cleave the wind-wrought wall of desolation with their song,

And if even Gods may be ensnared by their own delusion and conceit, doomed to drown in the barren dream called eternity,

Then there are those, born wanting, only able to fill their hollow hearts with blind devotion.

“My beloved master, other than you, no one has ever shown me gentle dreams.”

“Whether the waves kissing fine sand, or green forests embracing the lush earth.”

The raging wind never reflects the suffering of crouching ants;

In her eyes, there was only the solitary figure of the god‑king.

For the benefactor who taught her what love was,

Those fearful, hateful gazes deserved to be extinguished.

However—

No matter what victories she offered her king,

No matter whose throats she pierced for his prisons,

No matter how many rebellious villages she reduced to wasteland,

No matter how softly she whispered by his ear,

The king enthroned upon the spire, the king who crowned the raging wind,

The king who looked down upon, oppressed, and cherished every subject,

Never once bestowed upon her the love he spoke of—

The love he never begrudged even the lowliest of common folk:

The gale fierce enough to tear mortal flesh apart.

Awakening from blind devotion, she finally realized:

From the very day they met, from beginning to end,

His eyes had never reflected her at all.

Yes, yes—if dances for the wind’s veil and tender whispers could not earn even a moment of his gaze,

If all the blood‑stained glory and joy of annihilation could not make him look only at her forever…

—Then let his sight be fixed upon the moment he branded her.

This was the only way she could comprehend to repay that king’s love,

The only thing he had ever shown that could be called love,

For he spoke of love, but was only accompanied by razor winds.

“My beloved master, other than you, my heart will never love another.”

“So please—please look only at me, and at no one else.”

— Thus spoke one, a mortal knowing naught of love, to a god who could not know it.

Even in the moment they tore each other apart, neither had ever truly known the other’s heart.

Awoken from blind love, she realized she was the only one who spoke with sincerity.