Like a leaf in the gusting wind, my body trembled until I could listen to the chattering tunes of my teeth chomping together. Overwhelmed by a herd of shivers, the everlasting embarrassment I keep reliving for the past ticking time. Shrouded in darkness, away from the dusk rays sunlight, I keep to the shadows, feeling unworthy of it's warmth.

Perched In front of my vanity mirror, I stare distantly at my exhausted reflection, the massive weights under my eyes that hang down to my cheeks and the puffy eyes that still leak with tears of sorrow. The glimmering green on the crown slices my eyesight and I tear away, focusing on other objects.

Silence. Not even a word from Nasir. He stands beside the door, leaning his back against the wood, white dress sleeve rolled to the elbows with his hands in pockets as he looked at me carefully and intently. His gaze burning my backside, but it was the only warming feeling i had since me skin kept going cold. Numbed.

Despite the tears of wept, there was still more, and I felt them rushing in my veins, ready to brim my eyes. My heart sliced in half and riddled with humiliation.

"The unfit Queen." I murmured before sniffling, staring at the emerald green Vase before me. Like a madwoman I speak to the inanimate object, the signals released from my brain to soothe the ache tickles and I giggle absentmindedly.

There was a gruff sound from Nasir's chest. As if he is readying to catch me if I throw myself out of the window.

"Denounced. And Unfit. If my father were to hear these words, where he is, I just know he would have scolded me. Or worse, he would have hit me."

"No one will touch you." Came the baritone of Nasir's voice behind me. He said those only words, but it was carried by a cloud of darkness.

I scoffed, "As if you know what he is capable of."

"That is of no concern to me. I said, no one will touch you."

I sniffled. Leaving him and his words to fade in black, while I returned to my self deprecation, forcing my head to stay align despite my drowsy exhaustion for all the tears I've wept. The crown must stay on.

"I take it you told him."

I peel my lulling eyes to the sound of his baritone voice, this exhaustion is overpowering, I never knew when I was slumping, but the deep rumble of his voice is thunderous. Without a word I slightly tilt my head, angling it downwards to hide the guilt from the reflection.

"About what we told you. In the shed."

"All I did was speak on the cults that are underground." My voice as light as a feather.

I could hear the breath he inhales, the breath that suppresses his brewing rage. His heels click on the ground as he steps in closer behind me.

"He could have hurt you for bringing this up." he says.

"Gunter wouldn't hurt me." I shook my head.

"He medicated you. In case you forgot."

"Didn't you hear?" I lift my head to look at his frame in the reflection. Close behind me. Arms crossed across his chest with bulging muscles. "I was too unstable," I sniffled, watching everything blur by the brimming tears. "Unfit, because of the death of Patrick that you caused." I found my voice, but it was synchronized with rage.

Nasir steadily dropped his hands, slipping them back into his pockets, with an impassive face.

"I am an Unfit queen, because I was still suffering the damage you caused!"

"Tiana-"

"All of this your doing! you took everything from me. Patrick is dead because of you." It makes sense, it all makes sense, My father was maybe right after all. I rose from the seat, the medal scuffed the tiles as I rounded to him. He watched my every move with hard eyes. "My father was right about you commoners," you are all jealous of those in power, all you do is find ways to destroy stuff and take it for your own."

"You sound ridiculous." he retorts, not paying mind to the beads of tears that hit the bone of my shoulders.

"You took Patrick away, he did nothing, you took him from me!" My fisted hands beat his chest, hitting him with no dent to those solid muscles. "You humiliated me!" I wept over and over, and the violent flex of my muscles imbalance the crown and it falls to the ground. A single emerald on the side bursts from the impact flinging its shards in opposite directions. I don't get the time to simmer the sudden action when Nasir's frame shielded me from the mindless glass, his calloused palms grip my biceps and twisted our frame until he gave his back.

I shuddered. Unblinking and at a loss for words. My crown, the crown of my ancestors have fallen, shattering the jewel that took centuries to molt. Nasir stepped from view with a sympathetic eye to me.

"N-no. I shuddered, tumbling down to my knees. "No, my crown." I stare at the broken pieces of the emerald, flabbergasted by the millions that scatter. Those millions were each millions of lives that gave their lives to bring me where my family is today, and it is destroyed.

I winced to the clinking glass of the crown itself as I lifted it, my finger scraped over a shard and I sucked my teeth to the feel of glass slicing over the pad of my middle finger. Crimson red leaked from the open wound, oozing like a trail of syrup.

"Let me see." Nasir says, crouching down to my level, and gently gripping my wrist. I don't acknowledge him until he steps defines in my view. And as he pulls the Tiara from my hand I flinched and tightened my fingers at the edge.

"Let it go." I growled.

"Let me see your hand first."

"Give me my crown." I commanded

"Give me your hand."

I tensed, pressing my fingers tighter at the jewel and attempted to tug the material from his grasp. "Let it go, give me my crown." I sobbed.

"You don't need it right now, give me your hand." His eyes deadpanned on me, not paying mind to the tears falling like bullets to the floor.

"This is your fault."

"Good. Maybe now you can see you will be alright without that crown."

"Don't you dare," I snarl. "This crown is my ancestors."

"Where are they than." he says. "They passed, forgive me for being blunt. Just because they laid their lives down for it, don't mean you need to."

"You are not in my position." I snapped. "You couldn't possibly know what it is I am going through right now." I attempted to tug the material again, but his grip is mightier than mine, it was like tugging a root imbedded deep in soil. It wasn't going anywhere.

I raise my hand, arrowing it to strike it across his face, when he grips the wrist. I rose up and he follows, now neither of us held the crown, I hear it fall again to the floor, but not hard enough to shatter. I flare my free hand, and he catches it, our footsteps waltzing as we wrestled and grunted. I fight for freedom and he held me with a tight grasp.

"Calm down." I hear him say, but I am to blinded by my rage. "Tiana, STOP."

The back of my feet hit the wood frame of my bed and I lose balance and come down on the mattress with Nasir above me, his grip hurts my wrist and he quickly releases my wrist, resting his hands aside my hand, caging me in with wider frame.

"Calm down." He drawls. Our heaving breaths mingling at the center, he makes no move to lift himself, the bed dipping and I felt his chest against me. My heart thumps wildly in its confinement and his eyes trail down to my bouncing breasts.

His eyes ink around the rim that spreads until they completely covered the pupil, and his tongue hungrily licks the bottom of his lips, and I watch every move awaiting for the perfect moment to catch him off guard.

"Like I was saying to you my queen. You do not need that crown, to remind yourself of your worth. Every knows to straighten their backs when you enter the room. You live the life of being the most envied, and the most copied. You do not need that crown."

I want to fall for the words. I wanted so badly to let them sink in, but I was too driven by my rage, the rage I never had the chance to heal from and he was the host that was to close to me. The moment arrived, and he loosens above me, I steal the opportunity, summoning a strength beyond imaginable, and before he could stiffen his muscles above me, Nasir was flipped, his back hit the mattress and I hover above him. Knees on each sides of his waist, I straddle him, and held him down with both palms to his chest.

Nausea winding itself in my head, he is only one man but it felt as though I lifted a bag of cement. I force my eyes to steady, still exhausted by the tears I wept but the hard wood in his trousers I sat on helped me focus.

He raised his hands in surrender, letting his head fall back onto the mattress.

"That crown, is important to me. I would not expect someone like you to understand." i recited my previous words. "Remember that none of this wouldn't be happening If it weren't for you."

He sat up suddenly, using his palms to keep him up. "So than what will you do about it. Will you kill me? how will you get revenge?"

What was it he is getting at. It feels as if he intentionally poked my nerves. And at the mention of nerves, the ones around his shaft pulses, heating the skin and growing harder by the second. I am ready to lift myself when he he coils a hand around my waist, pulling me in tighter onto him, the hem of my thong grazing against the rough fabric of his trousers. Locked in place, our lips inches apart and my hands held onto his biceps.

"How angry are you? Angry enough to exact your revenge and find those that are still out there killing the innocent. I did what I had to do. And faced consequences immediately, living in cell, rotting and beaten daily. Now think of those that still kill the innocent and get away with it." He spoke slow and dark, giving me time to soak it in. "Think of those that have the power to get away with it all and even have it covered and forgotten. You are the queen, your words are just as mightier, use me as your shield and sword, all you have to do is speak."

"I am no longer the Queen, Nasir. You were there when I was denounced." I force myself from his grasp miraculously, heading for the door with him following behind me, stomping and striding.

The door flings open and I meet the eyes of Charlotte, Ray and many guards that bow to my presence. All follow me until I reach the center of the hall.

"Tiana-"

"No Nasir!" I roared loud enough to shatter the windows. "I am no longer the Queen and it's all because I listened to you of all people, the very person that murmured lives and stole Patrick from me. My hard work and trainings have been thrown out the window, thanks to you and them." I threw an accusatory finger towards Charlotte, ray and everyone that stood silent, watching it all unfold.

"You don't know what it's like. You will never know what's it like to have everything taken, people you love murmured and your life finished before you even get a chance to decide how you want to shape it. You will not know what its like to have a tough childhood. And you don't care."

I released it. I finally released what held me by the throat. I finally spoke the hard part out loud, and the burden finally lifted its heavy grasp. But at what cost?

There was a look in Nasir's eyes I could not decipher, there was something swimming in his eyes that shattered my heart to an oblivion, I could taste iron, in felt like dying in the spot. And as I peered around in the silence, I saw that many held the same look to me, but they looked at Nasir as if he was ready to tumble.

He suddenly smirked, masking that hurt I saw clear as day. "I guess in the end. We really were meant to be apart." he says. A bullet shot through me, a knife twisting simultaneously, and with that Nasir walked away from me, away from the crowd, without my dismissal. I watched his backside until he disappeared to the Patio.

A breeze gusted through me and I turn my head back, To see everyone kneeling before me.

"We were part of the missing children." Charlotte says. "Nasir lived with his mother, father and two brothers. He was young when he lost his mother, and brother and have since lived in the hands of his abusive father, who sought nothing but to harm him until he was in a coma."

My breathing staggers in my lungs.

"Nasir was stolen like all of us. The mob murdered our last bloodline, leaving us nothing but orphans." Ray interjected.

"We were taken to a camo run by King Gunter's father to find out who is the strongest. But many of us failed because of the drug they injected into us." A guard says, I search for the unfamiliar voice but another spoke in the distance.

"Nasir had tougher training because it was he that was entrusted to become the guard."

"Nasir has been the one to take many hits because of Gunter incompetence, and because of it all he wears gory scars around his body. That camp we lived gave us challenges daily, and barely enough food or water, our driving force was too live." Charlotte finished.

"What you see Nasir doing, is because he was ordered my Queen, the same way many of us have orders to execute. A guard will not have the mindset of his own, unless instructed."

A tear slips down my eyes. "R-ray." I forced, watching him tremble.

"I am sorry." he cries, "It is me with the disease, that sees the star. Nasir was given the blame to hide the truth."

It felt like I was sucked into a black hole. My eyes hazing and I fight for balance, emotions crashing in one.

"King Gunter has spent his days making Nasir pay for actions he did not cause my Queen. Yet we bow to you today, to clear his name. Nasir went through the worst of it because King Adelhied favorited him most." Charlotte says, lifting her eyes to me. A whip of electricity zips through my pupils and I hear her loud and clear.

"T-thank you," I forced twisting to find Nasir.

I searched for someone to blame, and bit off more than I could chew. Insulting him and reducing him to the same pain as me when all he has ever down was try and keep me up. Being my shield when I needed most, and now I pained him with my words. Frantically I search every door and room until I stroll out to the shed, rounding down the pavement of the castle heading towards the room in the back

I suddenly smelt the scent of burning cigars and I treaded cautiously, reminded of what I walked into the last time. I peeked my head over, and caught the sight of Nasir. I found him and my heart thumped. Smoke is blown from his mouth as he leans aside the wall, looking out to the never ending green of trees.

He lifts the cigarette to grip it between his lips and inhales the end. And at my approaching presence, he smirks, and crunched the bud underneath his dress shoes.

"My queen." he says. "You searched for me?"

"Nasir .. I -"

"Forgive me for walking out, what is it I can help you with?"

"Please listen I -"

"Oh does Gunter request for me?"

"Nasir!" I cry. "Look at me please."

He huffs, and the remnants of smoke blow out his nose. "Words cannot explain how sorry I am for what I said back there. I spoke out of term and stepped on eggshells of sensitive matter. Living in a bubble all my life, I failed to see that there are others that have it worse than me."

He smirks, and leans his back to the wall, with me stepping closely aside him. "I take it Ray and Charlotte told you huh?"

"Your childhood was awful." I trail my eyes towards the outline of his face, tawny skin glows even in the evening. His eyes of rich golden honey and indescribably handsome. For the first time there was no flirting or cheap shots to get me into bed, he was just normal, riding out his silent pain and I am there to watch him until he heals.

"My father, debated whether he wanted me dead or alive, but on the days he chose to kill me, I was too fast for him to catch."

I wanted to touch him. To reach out and hold him. Now that rage left me in the dust, it left room for sentiments.

"When he was murdered, all I knew than was the mafia. All I could do was survive. I couldn't speak back, or they would have lit me with bullets. Anything I did that was not standard met, would end with me limping and bruised."

I swallow. "Not even escape?"

"To where?"

"To me."

"Oh? and how would you have protected me?"

"The way You have always been protecting me."

He huffs. Shaking his head o stare back out into the forest with my eyes still analyzing him.

"You're an idiot." I giggled. "I take it the mob, is what you warned me about all those years ago." I smiled leaning the side of my frame against the wall.

"More or less." he chuckles.

"You mean to tell me your in this whole predicament because you were messing with the shadow man?"

He twisted his frame, to lean himself aside the wall, looking down at me with a mischievous gleam and shrugged as he sung his words. "Let's just say ... he was very charismatic."