When you die, little Devil, a kingdom will fall to its knees and crawl to your bier. In a thousand years and a thousand after that, they will still sing of the Prince and his Devil. So long as you do as I say.

You couldn’t name the emotion you felt, in that last second before you fell into your squire’s arms, but I can: relief.

“I would rather love a coward than mourn a legend.”

Your kingdom, once small and unremarkable, had grown fat, spilling over its borders like flesh around a tourniquet.

A bone knife pierced your cheek, the tip scraping obscenely along your molars.

“I could have killed you,” you said, and he had answered, obscurely, “You never do.”

You could not decide if they were prophecies or memories, or whether there was any difference between the two.

That I have lived and killed and lived again in the name of a man who does not deserve it because I wanted so badly to be beloved.

And you found you did not mind being a devil, so long as you were his.