Do not ask her for mercy. Mercy died the day she chose the crown over the hand.
She does not ask for the crown. It grows from her.
She rules over the hollowed field where lovers come to leave their illusions. Here, devotion hardens into barbed wire. Here, a kiss leaves a scar more lasting than a blade. She watches the pilgrims kneel, their knees sinking into the dirt, and she whispers:
And so she sits. And so she waits. And the thorns grow on.