Phainon once wanted to be a good man.

A beacon. A savior. The kind sung about in drunken taverns and remembered in tapestries stitched with golden thread. He wore white once—clean, crisp, too bright for someone who flinched at his own shadow. He believed in mercy. In peace. In the aching tenderness of doing the right thing, even when it hurt.

Then he met you.

And the world, as he knew it, began to rot beautifully.

You weren’t cruel—not in the way fools define it. You were necessary. Crown heavy with choices no one else dared make. Fingers kissed by blood you didn’t ask for. You did not raise your voice—you didn’t need to. You simply looked, and the world bowed.

Phainon bowed too.

He told himself it was duty. That the tremble in his chest was fear, not awe. That he followed you into the fire because he wanted to drag you out.

But the truth was colder.

He liked it there.

You never asked for a hero. You asked for him.

“You’re trembling,” he whispered once, years ago, when your hands were still small and the crown still too big. He’d caught you in the dark, alone on the palace steps, eyes far from softness.

“I don’t get to tremble,” you said. “I only get to order the blade.”

He knelt then. Slowly. Reverently.

“Then order me.”

From that night on, he stopped being a boy who dreamed of glory. He became your shadow. Your whisper. Your silence before judgment. A hero might hesitate. Might ask why. Phainon never did again.

He wasn't your consort.

No. You didn't have time for a Prince Charming.

He was your executioner.

His sword was never clean after that.

Not when he slit the throat of the envoy who mocked your rule. Not when he dragged a traitor by the hair to the foot of your throne. Not when he poisoned a council chamber and watched them all die one by one.

Not when he turned his back on every virtue he'd once held dear—because you never asked for his goodness. Only his loyalty.

Still, he is soft with you. That never changed.

He carries your cloak when you’re cold. Catches your wrist when your hands shake, though you pretend they don’t. Places a flower at your door on the anniversaries you never speak of. Never says a word about it. He leaves when you look like you need to break. Stays when you break anyway.

He sleeps by the door, like a beast too wild for your bed, but too loyal to stray far.

And when the court asks if he regrets becoming your sword, he smiles.

Not his usual crooked one. No. A colder one. Sharper. Forged in you.

“No,” he says. “I regret taking so long.”

You don’t need to be saved. Never did.

But sometimes, when the moon is low and your mask has slipped, he’ll press a hand to your cheek—scarred fingers trembling like that night so long ago—and whisper things not meant for anyone else.

“You don’t need to carry it alone.”

You don’t answer. You never do.

But you let him stay.

And sometimes, that’s all a sword needs—to be held, instead of wielded.