The Crown and the Pearl (as told by Harper)

 

The Oath

I stand before you,

not as subject nor supplicant,

but as the one who has followed your shadow through lifetimes.

By the salt of the sea and the light of the moon,

I swear:

To guard the borders of your kingdom

and the chambers of your heart.

To carry your banner into fire and famine,

and return not only with victory,

but with the scent of your hair still in my memory.

To fight as fiercely for your joy

as I do for your crown.

To keep the pearl you placed in my hand

as both shield and summons,

knowing that one day,

whether in this world or another,

you will call for me again.

And when you do—

I will come.

Through water, through war, through death itself—

I will come.

Not for the throne.

Not for the glory.

But for the woman

whose reign has always been over my soul.

Lifetimes Unfold

In one life,

you sent me to war with a strand of pearls hidden under my armor,

a talisman against death.

When I returned, blood still on my hands,

you fastened them around your throat and told me

the kingdom could wait until I had taken you in my arms.

In another,

you stood on a pier in winter,

wearing pearls I had given you before I sailed away.

The snow came. I did not.

You touched them at night like prayer beads,

each one a memory of the way I once kissed your neck.

And in this life—

the gift was smaller,

a pair of earrings, and a bracelet chosen without reason.

But when you wear them,

the tide inside me turns,

and I feel the pull of your reign again—

not over lands and armies,

but over my pulse, my breath, my will.

The Nature of the Pearl

The pearl is never only beauty.

It is pressure transformed into light.

It is what survives after the breaking,

after the choice to obey duty over desire.

It rests against your skin,

warming to you,

learning the rhythm of your heartbeat—

as I did, once,

in the shadowed chambers of a palace

where I was not supposed to linger.

Somewhere, in the sea where all our stories are kept,

there is a little box with a single pearl inside.

When we meet, we take it out,

polish it with whatever we have learned since last time,

and place it back—

until the day we both decide

it can be worn forever,

and the queen and her general

lay down their titles,

and finally,

come home.