The morning finds me as it always does—wrapped in steel that remembers everything I've tried to forget.

My reflection stares back from the polished breastplate, fractured into fragments by the delicate stems that have learned to call this armor home. They say I haven't moved in seven years. They're wrong, of course. Every breath is movement. Every heartbeat, a small rebellion against the stillness that threatens to claim what remains of me.

The flowers arrived the night after Blackwater.

I'd returned to an empty castle, my sword still slick with the blood of men who'd once shared bread at my table. Victory, they called it. The kind of victory that tastes like ash and sounds like silence. I'd dismissed my ladies-in-waiting, sent away the court physicians with their useless remedies for wounds that wouldn't heal because they weren't carved in flesh.

When dawn broke, the first bloom had already pushed its way through a hairline crack where my gorget met the breastplate. Pale as bone, delicate as a whispered prayer. I tried to pluck it, but my fingers passed through the petals like they were made of morning mist. Real enough to see, too fragile to touch—like everything else I'd lost.

Dr. Whitmore called it "stress manifestation." The kitchen women crossed themselves and spoke of curses. My mother's old chaplain muttered about divine judgment. But I knew better. These weren't punishments or miracles. They were simply what happens when a heart has nowhere left to store its grief.

Each bloom carries a name I'll never speak aloud.

The cluster near my left shoulder—those are for the Miller twins, seventeen and eighteen, who'd never seen a battle before Blackwater. The single white rose that unfurls against my throat belongs to Captain Morrison, who'd taught me to ride when I was seven. The tiny forget-me-nots scattered across my pauldron? Those are for faces I remember but names I've lost, lives that ended because I chose strategy over mercy.

People think I'm praying when they see me like this, eyes closed, lips barely moving. They don't understand that I'm taking attendance. Every morning, I count them. Every evening, I whisper apologies to blooms that shimmer like captured starlight and disappear like smoke when anyone else tries to look too closely.

The armor was supposed to be temporary. A ceremonial piece for the victory parade, then back to the vaults where such things belong. But the flowers had other plans. Their roots didn't grow into the metal—they grew into me. Through seven years of seasons, they've remained, my beautiful burden, my living memorial.

Some nights, when the castle sleeps and the only sound is wind through broken battlements, I swear I can hear them. Not speaking—flowers don't speak—but singing. Lullabies my mother hummed, drinking songs from taverns I'll never visit again, the half-remembered melody of a childhood that ended the day they placed a crown on my head and a sword in my hand.

The court thinks I'm mad, or cursed, or divine. They've stopped trying to understand why their queen has become a garden of sorrows. Let them whisper. Let them wonder. Their living voices matter less to me now than the silent songs of the dead.

But yesterday—yesterday was different.

A petal fell.

Not withered, not torn away by wind or time. It simply... let go. Drifted from its stem like a feather finding its way to earth. And for one impossible moment, the world shifted. The weight on my shoulders lessened. The silence in the throne room felt less like a tomb and more like the pause between movements in a symphony.

When I bent to retrieve it, my armor creaked—the first sound it had made in months. The petal crumbled to silver dust between my fingers, and I understood. Not forgiveness, exactly. Not healing. But something quieter, more patient. Permission, perhaps. To remember without drowning. To carry the dead without becoming one of them.

Tonight, I'll try something I haven't attempted in seven years. I'll try to take off my helmet.

Not to escape the garden that grows from my grief, but to tend it properly. To learn the difference between honoring the dead and imprisoning myself with their ghosts. To discover if a queen can be both guardian and gardener, both monument and woman.

The flowers will remain—they're as much a part of me now as breath or heartbeat. But perhaps, in time, they'll learn new songs. Ones about the living as well as the lost. About the weight of crowns that aren't made from thorns, but from the courage to bloom again after the longest winter.

After all, even the most beautiful gardens need a gardener who knows when to prune, when to water, and when to simply let things grow toward the light.

The morning finds me as it always does. But today, for the first time in seven years, I think I might try to find it back.

The morning finds me as it always does—wrapped in steel that remembers everything I've tried to forget.

My reflection stares back from the polished breastplate, fractured into fragments by the delicate stems that have learned to call this armor home. They say I haven't moved in seven years. They're wrong, of course. Every breath is movement. Every heartbeat, a small rebellion against the stillness that threatens to claim what remains of me.

The flowers arrived the night after Blackwater.

I'd returned to an empty castle, my sword still slick with the blood of men who'd once shared bread at my table. Victory, they called it. The kind of victory that tastes like ash and sounds like silence. I'd dismissed my ladies-in-waiting, sent away the court physicians with their useless remedies for wounds that wouldn't heal because they weren't carved in flesh.

When dawn broke, the first bloom had already pushed its way through a hairline crack where my gorget met the breastplate. Pale as bone, delicate as a whispered prayer. I tried to pluck it, but my fingers passed through the petals like they were made of morning mist. Real enough to see, too fragile to touch—like everything else I'd lost.

Dr. Whitmore called it "stress manifestation." The kitchen women crossed themselves and spoke of curses. My mother's old chaplain muttered about divine judgment. But I knew better. These weren't punishments or miracles. They were simply what happens when a heart has nowhere left to store its grief.

Each bloom carries a name I'll never speak aloud.

The cluster near my left shoulder—those are for the Miller twins, seventeen and eighteen, who'd never seen a battle before Blackwater. The single white rose that unfurls against my throat belongs to Captain Morrison, who'd taught me to ride when I was seven. The tiny forget-me-nots scattered across my pauldron? Those are for faces I remember but names I've lost, lives that ended because I chose strategy over mercy.

People think I'm praying when they see me like this, eyes closed, lips barely moving. They don't understand that I'm taking attendance. Every morning, I count them. Every evening, I whisper apologies to blooms that shimmer like captured starlight and disappear like smoke when anyone else tries to look too closely.

The armor was supposed to be temporary. A ceremonial piece for the victory parade, then back to the vaults where such things belong. But the flowers had other plans. Their roots didn't grow into the metal—they grew into me. Through seven years of seasons, they've remained, my beautiful burden, my living memorial.

Some nights, when the castle sleeps and the only sound is wind through broken battlements, I swear I can hear them. Not speaking—flowers don't speak—but singing. Lullabies my mother hummed, drinking songs from taverns I'll never visit again, the half-remembered melody of a childhood that ended the day they placed a crown on my head and a sword in my hand.

The court thinks I'm mad, or cursed, or divine. They've stopped trying to understand why their queen has become a garden of sorrows. Let them whisper. Let them wonder. Their living voices matter less to me now than the silent songs of the dead.

But yesterday—yesterday was different.

A petal fell.

Not withered, not torn away by wind or time. It simply... let go. Drifted from its stem like a feather finding its way to earth. And for one impossible moment, the world shifted. The weight on my shoulders lessened. The silence in the throne room felt less like a tomb and more like the pause between movements in a symphony.

When I bent to retrieve it, my armor creaked—the first sound it had made in months. The petal crumbled to silver dust between my fingers, and I understood. Not forgiveness, exactly. Not healing. But something quieter, more patient. Permission, perhaps. To remember without drowning. To carry the dead without becoming one of them.

Tonight, I'll try something I haven't attempted in seven years. I'll try to take off my helmet.

Not to escape the garden that grows from my grief, but to tend it properly. To learn the difference between honoring the dead and imprisoning myself with their ghosts. To discover if a queen can be both guardian and gardener, both monument and woman.

The flowers will remain—they're as much a part of me now as breath or heartbeat. But perhaps, in time, they'll learn new songs. Ones about the living as well as the lost. About the weight of crowns that aren't made from thorns, but from the courage to bloom again after the longest winter.

After all, even the most beautiful gardens need a gardener who knows when to prune, when to water, and when to simply let things grow toward the light.

The morning finds me as it always does. But today, for the first time in seven years, I think I might try to find it back.