The next time, the queen found her writer swimming in a sea of parchment. The absence of further objections to his writing was enough encouragement for him and he had sunk his teeth into the story. Days blurred into nights and the bard lost his already weak grip on time. Was it a day since her last visit? Two? Three? He had no idea anymore, but once Roman’s widow sat on the table, he picked up the papers.

“You look unwell” - the queen said.

“Are you concerned about me?” - Bozmaroff replied, never missing the chance to crack a joke.

“Only about the memoir”

“It’s all fine and dandy - almost at the end now” - he uttered words of excitement with the levelled tone of a tired man - “I only wished he had a last charge to write about. Passing away in his sleep is a ridiculous way to end such a journey”

“Yes, or perhaps a mercy” - she said with a distant, tender expression - “A final act of love from god to spare him further pain. It was unfair, but it allowed him to leave with dignity”

“Not the kind of exit a poet dreams of”

“Never saw him as one. You warned me that I won’t like the stories, bard, and I’ve come prepared” - the queen put a small glass bottle filled with a brownish liquid on the table.

“If that’s the case, then I don’t like them either” - Bozmaroff said, his tongue remembering the taste of fine spirits.

“You’ve done a good job sober so far, let’s not ruin it.” - the queen replied and lifted the bottle.

Bozmaroff took a deep breath and sent her back to Roman’s reign, to his strongest years when he fought invading tribes and ambitious politicians, looking to steal his throne. He ruled for half a century, and in the end he sat on a pile of corpses, but he was most troubled by the fights he didn’t have to carry out himself.

“As I approve yet another church, I can’t help but think about the cycle of violence I’ve become a part of. The men in black erase traces of the old faith, replacing them with symbols of the new, a dead god who absorbs all blame, unreachable and unquestionable. My father started this and I have to finish it, aware of the blood spilled not by my hand, but by my command. It’s ruthless that together with the gods, common folk fill the graves too. I’m not one to lose sleep over the death of a god, but the women and children that find themselves on the pyres visit me in my nightmares.”

From a tale of glory and war, the last chapters of Roman’s memoir turned into a tale of bottled up guilt. Gods that live forever can learn to bear it, but a crown weighs too much for a mortal soul.

“In the eyes of many, I am the chosen one of a deity who cannot answer for the atrocities committed in his name. A convenient shield. Yet, I know the cost — the hatred in my people’s eyes, the villages emptied, the traditions lost. A necessary sacrifice, the priest say. But one that leaves a stain on my soul. I hate it, but I know that if I don’t do it, we’d get someone in my throne who doesn’t.”

Bozmaroff told her of his famous last battle against the imperial forces, the day when lightning came to his aid and rained death on Roman’s enemies. But he couldn’t end the memoir there, it wasn’t enough.

“It was his greatest accomplishment” - the queen said - “No other czar of ours has made the empire in the west beg for peace”

“But it’s not the end. A story’s finale has to hit the reader like the crack of a whip. An obvious but unexpected revelation, a sudden turn to brand the tale in their minds. This is not it.”

“He killed his own brother, then struggled every single day because of that, yet still stopped at nothing until he put the greatest army in the known world on their knees. What more do you need?”

“I made him look human so his feats become even more godlike, but he can’t turn into a god. I need to show something human of his at the end, but it alludes me. He died on his desk… this desk come to think of it…” - Bozmaroff said.

“What’s more human than that?”

“An arrow shot at him through the crowd by an assassin, a coup, an unfulfilled dream, anything. People get what they dreamed of in fairy tales, but this is not one.”

Everyone would wait for the crack of thunder after the lightning, and in the czar’s story it never comes. The whip never cracks. The next time the queen entered this room she’d want to hear the end of Roman’s story. Worse writers try to pull the trick that the journey’s more important than the destination. But Bozmaroff was too good for that. He needed an ending.

A good one.