The courtyard still smelled of blood and smoke the next morning. The crimson had soaked deep into the cracks of the stone stains that no amount of scrubbing could erase. Elias stood at the balcony above it all, staring down at the aftermath, as if the ghosts of yesterday’s trial still lingered there.Below, servants worked in silence, hauling away broken tables, gathering torn banners, and washing away what little could be washed. The bodies were gone, but the shame remained.“You should rest,” Rynna said softly behind him. Her voice was gentle, but the edge beneath it hadn’t dulled since the duel.“I can’t,” Elias murmured. “There’s another trial today.”She stepped closer. “The people are afraid, Elias. And the court they think you’ve lost control.”He turned to her, eyes hollow but hard. “Let them think what they will. I’ll show them what control means.”Rynna hesitated, searching his face. “Then at least be careful what you show them.”He didn’t answer.Outside, the horns sounded

The rain hadn’t stopped for three days.It came down like penance steady, unrelenting, whispering against stone and steel. Every drip through the palace halls seemed to echo the same thought: The city bleeds because of its king.Elias hadn’t left his chambers since the execution. He told himself it was strategy time to let the kingdom absorb the shock but truth was, he couldn’t face their eyes. Not Mara’s triumph. Not Rynna’s disappointment. And especially not Rhys’s silence.Rhys had stopped speaking to him entirely.At first, Elias thought it was anger that would pass. But each morning, when he entered the training yard or council hall, Rhys would be there silent, efficient, colder than the steel he trained with. The same man who once laughed at dawn duels now moved like a ghost through the corridors.The bond they once had forged in war and brotherhood now felt brittle, splintering under the weight of command.That evening, Seren entered the king’s chamber quietly. “The city’s quie

The morning broke red.Not with sunrise but with banners dyed in crimson, hung from the towers as if the city itself had chosen the color of judgment. Bells tolled from every corner of the capital. Slow. Relentless. Their sound crawled into the bones of the people gathering in the King’s Square. No market stalls, no laughter, no coin changing hands only the murmurs of thousands drawn by one command: the King’s justice.Elias stood behind the high balcony of the old citadel, watching his city breathe in fear. He had not slept. The execution order, ink still fresh with his signature, felt heavier than the sword strapped across his back.Below, the scaffold waited stark and black. A single figure knelt there, shackled, bruised, and silent: Lord Caleon, once a noble with laughter like wine, now reduced to trembling silence. He had confessed before the tribunal, spilling every thread of Alaric’s schemes. The crowd had demanded his head. Mara demanded it still.And so, Elias had promised bl

The city had learned its rhythm under fear.Every decree from the palace became scripture. Every order from the throne was obeyed before it was fully read. The air smelled of obedience and ash the kind of peace that left no room for questions.And at the center of it all stood Mara.She moved through the palace corridors like a flame through dry parchment, her presence impossible to ignore. Servants stepped aside when she passed. Nobles lowered their eyes. Her word carried almost as much weight as the king’s and she wore that influence like perfume.The council chamber had grown smaller over the past weeks not in size, but in courage.Those who remained spoke less, nodded more, and avoided Elias’s gaze.It was Mara who filled the silence. She reported on treasury matters, military readiness, grain distribution always polished, always confident, always subtly reminding everyone that she, not the trembling advisors, was the true architect of the realm’s stability.Elias watched her as s

The fires began in the outer districts.Small at first a merchant’s storehouse here, a stable there each dismissed as accident or vagrant mischief. But by the third week, when half of the Weaver’s Row had burned to cinders, no one called it coincidence anymore.Elias stood at the palace balcony one dawn, the city spread before him like a wounded animal. Smoke coiled upward from the lowlands, gray and stubborn against the pale sky. Bells tolled faintly in the distance warning, mourning, or both.Behind him, the chamber doors opened with the soft shuffle of guards. Seren entered quietly, bearing a sealed report.“They say it began near the granaries again,” he said. “Same symbol carved into the door.”Elias turned, voice low. “The serpent?”Seren nodded. “But this time, Majesty, they left words burned into the wood.”“What words?”He unfolded the parchment. The ink was smudged, but still legible.The crown smolders, and ash remembers.Elias’s jaw tensed. “A curse, then.”“A message,” Se