I wish I could stop dreaming. I wish to God I could stop dreaming. Everything I have dreamed of loving for is all lost.

All I wish I could do is sleep. I want to sleep all day: from dawn until twilight. 

Before when I had everything I could ever wanted --from autumn to spring-- everything seemed to burn slowly through marked hours, though Alexander will never see light again.

The servants take a taper to a fresh candle every day at noon, and every hour the candlelight dims as if time means nothing to me now. Time feels lost though it leans so heavily on me. All day, everyday, I wait for the skies to turn gray and mournful and pray for his soul, though it is not enough.

 It seems He will never again hear my whispers, nor the quiet chanting of the priests.

At night I fall into my bed as if I were drowning in deep water; sinking below the depths, as if I let the water to possess and consume me. Taking me like a mermaid, and for a moment I feel deep relief as if, submerged in water, my grief can be drained away. 

As if the river Lethe and the currents can bring forgetfulness and wash me into the cave of dreams.

Three months ago, I never heard from Alexander again--I don't dream of his death. It would be the worst of nightmares to see him go down fighting.

But I never dream of the battle, I don't see his final charge into neither the very hearts of Sir Tilghman nor my father, Lord Schuyler. I don't see him hacking his way through. 

I don't see Sir Tilghman's army sweep down and bury him under their feet as Alexander is "thrown off of his horse". Alexander sinking under merciless cavalry charge, shouting: 

"Treason! Treason! Treason!" 

I don't see my father raise his (beheaded) head on a pike and sit on the chair of gold that his blood once stained permanently.

I don't dream any of this, and I thank God for not giving me more at least. Such constant reminders become daytime thoughts that I cannot seem to escape. 

Such bloody reveries that fill my head while I stroll and talk lightly of the unseasonal heat, the poor harvest this year. 

The upcoming wedding with another man that is to be my downfall of reassuring happiness.

One night, my dreams at night become far more painful, far more painful than this, for then I dream that I am in Alexander's arms and he is waking me with a kiss. I dream that we are walking in a garden, planning our future like we always have. 

I dream that I am pregnant with his children, my rounded belly under his strong, warm hand. And he is smiling, delighted, and I am promising him that we will have a son for us, or a daughter for the two of us. One with his deep blue ocean eyes that suck me in. And his hair color like fire that gives me a sense of warmth from a man like him. 

"We'll call him Philip," he says. "We'll call her Elizabeth, like you, for us."

...The pain, when I wake up to find that I have been dreaming again, seems to get worse everyday. I lose hope for a better world to live in, and oh how I wish to God I could stop dreaming.

Alexander sees that I have lied about my identity as the true royal Chatilot daughter of the enemy that assassinated his beloved father who was ever kind to me. 

He has left me. And I brought this upon myself.