Clark kept his head bowed low, not daring to look his liege in the eye.

"I've failed my duty, Your Majesty," he said, his voice steady despite his inner turmoil. "I will take whatever punishment you have for me."

He'd been a champion, the most renowned knight in all of the kingdom. His prowess had been legendary; he was known far and wide as a man that couldn't be defeated. Such was his reputation that his presence alone had served to stay the empire's hand; Clark could've easily taken down multiple dragon riders and not even broken a sweat.

To his people, he'd been a chosen of the gods, and his sudden arrival in his adoptive parents' farm, a sign of his divinity. To his enemies, he'd been a demon capable of taking on entire armies unarmed, his uncanny strength and ability to fly unaided a sign of his unnatural origins. Now he was neither; he was just a man, one who had failed his duty. One of the monarchs was dead, and the remaining one had no kingdom to rule anymore.

Clark had been captured, his mind controlled by the enemy court wizard, his power turned against the very people he'd sworn to protect. By the time the enchantment had worn off, it'd been too late; he'd already decimated hundreds, killed one ruler, and come dangerously close to killing the other. The spell had drained him of his powers; he'd just barely managed to escape the capital on horseback with his remaining liege before the enemy army's arrival.

No doubt the capital had fallen to the empire by now. It was all his fault. He'd let his guard down, and the result was that he'd failed his mission, failed his oaths, and doomed his entire kingdom. Now he was powerless, his hands stained with blood, his honor crushed beyond repair.

"But I beg of you," he pleaded, knowing he didn't have a right to, not after having killed his liege's spouse. "Spare my family, if they yet live. My parents, my son, they're not responsible for my failures."

He hoped against all hope that they were all safe. That his failure hadn't taken them, too.