There were many kinds of strength, I thought as the crowd watched the flesh stripped from the lady’s back. The strength to oppose a king, the strength to love in the face of convention…and the strength to look at the truth, witness its horrors, and refuse to flinch. When it was done, she lay in an unconscious, bloody heap before the dais. “A toast!” The king raised his glass and downed the liquid, not seeming to notice that hardly anyone toasted with him.
