Tonight, as I stand on the balcony overlooking the conquered city, the moonlight is the same pale silver as the hair of my captor. I can still taste his cock on my tongue from earlier, when I knelt to serve him his evening wine. My mouth, which once spoke decrees as a queen, now opens on command for his pleasure. I think of the white hands that strangled my husband now tangled in my dark hair, pushing me deeper. The shame burns, but deeper still is the hollow ache—my womb, which carried kings, now clenches around nothing but memory and a treacherous, slick desire for the seed of my enemy. To bear a child of this pale skin would be the ultimate betrayal of my bloodline, and yet my cunt throbs at the fantasy. I am a vessel for ghosts and for the living man who made them.