Special Mention - Ariana Hagen

For The Love of a Son

By Ariana Hagen

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They say that I did what I did for ambition—ruthless, hungry, ambition. Maybe it’s
true. But it wasn’t ambition for myself that drove me. It has never been for me. I would
be happy to live a quiet, anonymous life somewhere, one without political maneuvering
and death. No; all my ambition, all my cruelty and frantic plotting, has been for my son.
It has always been for him.
 

When my son was born the court soothsayers and prophets came to me as they
do at the birth of every prince or princess. The king and I held court with them as they
offered up visions and prophecies for us to mull over.
 

Most of the men were charlatans, tossing bones that landed haphazardly in piles
and claiming that the gods were speaking to them—utter nonsense. However, there
was one man who stood out, towards the end. He claimed to be a dream-seer.
 

After the king and I had let the procession of men see our princely son, the
dream-seer approached my privately.
 

“My queen,” he said quietly, bowing deeply. “I have something you may wish to
hear.”
 

“You may speak,” I said.
 

“I have dreamed of your son, the prince. I saw in my dreams that should the king
live beyond his 40th year, your son will wither and die like a flower under weeds. If you
want your prince to be king someday, his royal father must be removed.”
 

The words themselves were blasphemous treason. And yet, somehow, they rang
true inside my heart. I knew in my gut that what he said was truth, and that I would lose
either the love of my husband or the love of my son someday.
 

For ten years I lived in fear, desperately holding my son close to me, protecting
him, keeping him safe, trying to stave off the bloody prophecy.

Now here I am, on the eve of my kingly husband’s 40th birthday.
 

The king lays in a pool of his own blood, his throat slit wide open. My hired
assassin sprawls unmoving on the ground beside him, dead. I had stabbed the assassin
in the back as he carried out the murder that I had paid him to do.
 

“Help!” I screamed, grimly looking down at the bodies. “Guards! Help! My King
has been murdered!”
 

I would do anything for the sake of my son.