The White Knight

I remember that his hair shone like gold… I remember that his eyes were like pools of the sky. I remember that he rode a white horse with speckles on its hindquarters.
I’ll always remember.
He rode up to my tower and faced the dragon that guarded me without even a grimace. She was a fearsome beast. Many had tried so hard to best her, and so many had failed; so many had died. But he destroyed her, and that alone would have been enough, but he came up the spiral stairs with such speed and fervor that I had no time to think, no time to hide.
The doors flew open and banged against the wall, and I believe I looked quite lovely there with the sun shining on my hair and silhouetting my figure. He bowed on one knee and kissed my hand, and said that he had come to rescue me.
He took me back to his castle and I stayed there for several months. I ate at his table, and I drank his wine, and I engaged him in what I thought to be lively company. But for all that I accompanied him, and for all that I acted the nobility that I was, and no matter what I wore, he never laid a hand on me; I never even saw longing in his eyes. Never had I wanted anyone so badly.
It frustrated me, possibly even angered me that he was so unshakable against my charms. It left me crying in my chambers at night, desperately hoping that he would hear and come to hold me in my anguish, but he never came. Part of me finally came to grips that he would never want me. I began searching for another.
At his parties I would flirt with his comrades, sometimes in front of him and sometimes behind his back. I would stress that we were not a couple, and that I was still available for wedlock, and that my dowry was significant. Eventually, I knew, someone would take the bait.
That someone was his best friend, a man with dark hair and brilliant green eyes. He stopped the party one night and called me up to him. He presented himself on one knee and offered me a ring, his hand, and his name. I took it, refusing to look at the knight who I had lived with but had never taken.
I left the following week to be wed and to share the bed chambers of my new husband, with tears in my eyes that I wiped away quickly. I claimed that they were from joy, but my heart screamed of my lies. He came to my wedding, he was even the best man, but I refused to even look at him. The ring was on my finger, my veil was swept away, and I forced a smile onto my face. I wished that time would freeze, for in the moment that I gave the kiss that sealed my vows, I saw heartbreak in his eyes. I wondered why.
I wondered why he looked so distraught. I wondered why he refused my eye. I wondered why he sat alone and did not dance. I wondered if he had loved me to, and why he had not told me so.
But no, my heart lied to me again. Years went by, and I heard nothing from him. I bore my husband two sons and a daughter; I slept with him every night and made myself a good wife, lady and mistress of his lands. Every time I saw he who haunted my dreams I ducked into the shadows. My children grew to dislike he who made their mother scurry, and my husband grew to think that he had done something to me in our months at his castle.
There is one day that I remember very starkly. A messenger came to our castle from his, bearing a note that stated his death, and the time of his burial. I went to my private chambers and cried myself to sleep. I refused to come out, and I ate as little as I could. My servants could not console me; I ordered that my children not be allowed entrance. My husband stole in through the trickery of one of my servants, and he could not stop my tears.
I died that day, deep in my soul.
Years have gone by since, and still I cry from time to time. My children bore children, and they are babes yet. My husband lays on his deathbed, as he has for several days, and it is now that I utter a curse upon he who stole my soul from me, he who was everything I ever wanted. May he never forget what I could have given him, and may the blood from the knife in my hands forever haunt him in his eternal slumber. As the knife pierces my breast, and I breathe my last, I pray that my children will forgive me, and that my husband will die in peace. My curse:
I loved you.