They will remember me for the crown.
Not for my doubts.
Not for the nights I sat awake while the empire slept.
Not for the weight I carried without ever truly holding it.
They will remember the glory — the gold, the goblets, the grandeur.
The banquets that stretched for months.
The decrees sealed in my name.
The gallows ordered, the robes bestowed.
But scrolls do not tell you how lonely a throne can be.
They do not write of the silences between decisions — the way the walls close in when every man nods too quickly and no one dares to say, “You are wrong.”
You may think this is the story of a king who ruled from India to Cush. But it is not.
It is the story of what I did not see.
Of the queen who stood before me, not with jewels, but with truth.
Of the man I nearly forgot, who honored me more than those I called friends.
It is the story of how power blinds. And how the eyes that are most closed often wear a crown.
I am Xerxes, king of Persia, bearer of rings and regrets.
And this… is the story of what I learned when a girl named Esther opened her mouth and changed the world I thought I ruled.
