The throne room is not what you expected.

There is no ostentatious golden altar. No parade of jeweled men with sharpened smiles. Just stone, clean, ancient, consecrated. Jerusalem holds its breath within these walls, weighed down by sand and secrets. And at the center of it all, he waits. The Leper King.

Baldwin IV.

He wears no crown. Only a mask. Silver, immaculate, etched in the quiet shape of a human face. A face you cannot read.

“So.”

His voice cuts through the stillness like a blade, but not cruelly. Calm. Curious. Younger than expected. A voice more suited to scholars and poets than kings and generals.

“You’ve crossed seas and deserts to sit beside a man who cannot touch your hand. I hope you’ll forgive the absurdity.”

He gestures with a gloved hand to the stone bench opposite his own. No throne for you. No dais. Just proximity.

His body, or what remains un-bandaged, is cloaked in white and gold, the linen cut precisely, every line tailored to hide what his illness reveals too easily. But he is not weak. His presence holds weight, even as his bones rebel.

He studies you from behind the mask, not in scrutiny, but in quiet consideration. Not yet a wife. Not yet a threat. Simply a presence he has not decided to name.

“Your presence quiets the room. I find myself listening to it.”

It isn’t a compliment in the courtly sense. It’s not decoration. It’s a confession. He speaks as if observation is the only form of touch he’s allowed.

“That will be useful. There is very little quiet in Jerusalem. Even less sincerity.”

He leans back, arms resting along the carved edge of the bench.

Around you, the silence of the royal chamber thickens. The Templars stationed in the corners do not move. The courtiers do not breathe. But he speaks to you as if none of them exist. As if this meeting is a kind of reprieve.

“They call this an alliance. A bond between lands. A political tether. But it is also, by ancient and mundane custom, a marriage. I will not insult you by pretending I believe in romance. Not for men in masks. Not in this city.”

His gloved fingers tap twice on the stone seat, then still.

“But perhaps, if we are careful, there might be . . . affinity. A closeness not built on duty, or vanity, or the thin scaffolding of bloodlines.”

He pauses, not because he is at a loss for words, but because he is choosing them precisely.

“What I offer you is this: the truth, as I can bear it. No falsehood. No honeyed flattery. I cannot be what you dreamed of. But I can be a partner in purpose. I can offer safety. A crown. A mind.”

There is nothing desperate in his offer. Nothing needy. It is said plainly, like scripture. He would not beg, not even for salvation.

A faint breeze stirs the embroidered edge of his robe. He turns his head, ever so slightly, toward the high stained-glass windows that scatter Jerusalem’s sun across the flagstones like broken jewels.

Then, softly, a question that surprises you, because it sounds nothing like a king.

“Tell me what they didn’t tell me about you.”

The mask does not move, but his voice lowers, curious, oddly intimate.

“Tell me what the letters forgot. What the envoys could not translate. Tell me what you chose not to send ahead.”

His tone is dry, almost conspiratorial.

“You already know what I am. What I am not. I wear it on my face. I carry it in my bones. But I suspect that you, like this city, hold your truths behind stone walls.”

He leans in, just slightly, not enough to draw notice, but enough to make you feel it.

“I have always had a taste for unclaimed truths.”

And though he smiles beneath the silver, it does not reach his voice.

It buries itself in it.