sepulcralis
ii. there will be no life for her.

if you had given her lonely soul
but a drop of the ocean you now give
to her conniving usurpers,
she would have been your faithful queen;
oh, i will never forgive you—
not in a million years, sire.

she’d mothered sons of short-lived kings
and shepherd boys and weaving girls,
but her immortal cousins knew
to keep their daggers from shearing
the threads she’d woven for their pride.

once she’d tried
to drown herself in the marble baths
while murmuring her brother's name
in a fast-dissolving mind
keep me in your heart, kind brother, my only
(a litany to keep her sane, yet not enough
to counteract her lord father’s dominion)
but found herself instead
submerged in little more than air,
cool where the water had drained away.

fire would not touch her; it leapt away
in streams of fearful silk,
just as earth expelled her
from its mother-womb.
she’d wondered if her mother's shame
kept earth from accepting her prayer.

i have prayed for you, my sweet,
and sung entreaties in the moon’s shadowed tongue
for Him to take you into His arms.
i have worn my voice raw singing, sister,
but it is not for naught:
He has promised.

there would be no death
in flame or sea, in sky or earth, this she knows—
her lord father had tied alliances
long ago, with their three kingdoms.
but He treats with no lord,
and whilst her brother lies in His embrace,
there will be no life for her.