The Throne Hall

The great hall was colder than the autumn wind outside its ironbound doors. Torches hissed and spat, throwing long shadows across the black banners stitched with the silver crest of his house: a wolf’s maw, gaping and merciless. The banners did not move. Even the air seemed to still when he entered.

Boots struck the flagstones in a rhythm steady as war drums. Guards in mail and steel bowed their heads as the prince passed, but none dared look into his eyes. Those who had before described them as twin shards of ice — eyes that weighed, measured, and cut down a man before a sword ever touched him.

At the far end of the hall, the throne of carved obsidian waited. It was not his — not yet. His father, the king, had claimed it for decades, and his rule was etched into the bones of the land. But the son was already a mirror of him, a living echo of cold authority. Some whispered he was worse: younger, sharper, untempered by patience.

The prince stopped halfway to the throne, letting silence hang heavy over the chamber. Courtiers fidgeted with rings and collars, avoiding his gaze. He relished their unease. Control was not given, it was taken — and he had been taking it since boyhood.

He spoke at last, his voice low but carrying across the hall. “Bring him.”

A pair of guards dragged in a man bound in chains. A thief, a traitor, perhaps only a fool — the prince did not care. The point was never justice. It was fear. Fear was the currency of rule, and he would spend it freely.

He circled the prisoner with the measured patience of a wolf testing a weakened prey. “You thought my father merciless,” he said, almost softly. “You have yet to learn my hand.”

When the blade fell, it was not swift. He wanted the courtiers to see, to remember. The lesson was not for the condemned but for the living.

And when the prince looked up, blood at his feet, he knew he had already begun to carve his dominion into stone.