Sympathy had undone her too many times to count and still she could not help but be softened by it when he lifted his face from his hands and he looked back at her. She could offer little comfort with all that was uncertain in that moment, on that day, for the forseeable future. No matter how her heart ached at the thought of it, the uncertainty and the worry that gnawed at her were too real to dismiss and her affection and respect for the man before her equally so to flinch away from what needed to be said.

"You are not," she told him, her voice gentle where her words were not. "You know then, that the Queen's left?"