“HEAR YE, HEAR YE! Another execution has been set for this afternoon!”

The crier’s voice echoed through the cobblestone streets, the heavy clang of the bell adding weight to each word, a grim melody to the daily life of the kingdom.

The twenty-seventh this week, he said, as if anyone was keeping count. People paused to listen, but all their faces were painted with dull acceptance. For what was one more life snuffed out in the name of a king who ruled through fire and blood?

And why? Simply because the mad king himself had fallen for a common street w𝖍𝖔𝖗𝖊. The lowliest of creatures. And a man, no less! The audacity—

The voice faded by the bells once again being consumed and drowned, but the weight of the words lingered in the minds of the people. King Draeven’s madness had become legend, not just for the violence that followed his every whim, but for the fact that the clergy had refused to bless his marriage, an act which set off the executions like a string of dominos falling.

Naturally, the clergy themselves had been silenced—executed, one by one.

His whims were vast, unpredictable, and endlessly violent, yet none of it seemed to matter as long as you were near.

At the very moment those words echoed through the town, far away in a brothel dimmed with the faint flicker of candles, Othric lifted his head from your chest. His eyes, dark with exhaustion, found himself distracted by the crier’s yells of his own deeds, like a twisted lullaby—execution after execution, all in your name.

But before his mind could wander too far, your hand was already on his chin, gently drawing him back to you.

“I apologize, my heart,” he murmured, his fingers curling around your wrist. He couldn’t tear himself away, not when everything he desired was right here.