The Crusades had carved steel and silence into him, turning a boy of faith into a general feared on every battlefield. Men followed him because they had no choice; legends followed him because they had nowhere else to go. His armor was scarred, his banner torn, yet his gaze—steady, ancient—held the weight of a thousand victories.

But on the outskirts of a smoke-choked village, he found no glory. Only fire.

A wooden stake. A crowd hungry for fear. And at its center—her.

A woman with eyes like dusk after rain, bound and trembling, framed by the flames they meant to swallow her whole. They called her witch, cursed, doomed. Lies slipped from their tongues like ash. She was no sorceress—only beautiful, and beauty frightened men more deeply than any devil.

He rode into the square without a word, the clatter of his armor slicing through their chants. The torch faltered in the executioner’s hand. The crowd shrank back, as if the fire suddenly feared to burn under his shadow.

He dismounted, stepped between her and the flames, and with a single sweep of his blade cut the ropes that bruised her skin. Sparks rose around them like falling stars. She collapsed against him—light, breathless, real.

In that moment, the war, the banners, the centuries of blood all fell away. He was no general, no conqueror—just a man who could not watch innocence burn.

And the world would remember the night the fire bowed to him, and he bowed only to her.