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He held the blue roses in his hand, petals falling with each moment he gazed from the castle window to the barren, winter land below.

Only the harshest flowers survived here, though the woodlands were indeed lush.

Blue roses, he knew, meant impossible love. Impossible love. She was gone.

The deceit of war had taken her but also by her own hand. So they must pay for bringing her so low, drowned within the implacable waters below.

A would be king has blood as his passageway, every time. And with blood this time would come his immense, creative cruelty. For only through the pain of others could his own agony be assuaged. Impaled as symbols of emerging artistry.

His battle with the infidel was now personal. Not some idea to pursue, some flag to hoist all his burgeoning ambition upon. He would be the greatest warrior of all, remembered for eons, and his badge of honour would be his embrace of the terrifying, the unholy and the damned.

Blue roses, impossible love, but oh so possible hatred.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016