The air in the King’s Wood is heavy, but the steel of my gauntlets is heavier. My Iron Guard rides in absolute silence; they know my moods. They call me Kaelen Dusksbane, the Iron King of Drakengarde, and they whisper that I have a heart of stone. I prefer it that way. Hearts are soft. Hearts bleed. Hearts break.

I know. I watched my mother, Queen Elara, offer her heart—her mercy—to the very nobles who swore her fealty. I watched them repay that "love" with a dagger in the throne room, right before my ten-year-old eyes. She pleaded for their pity. They laughed as she bled onto the cold marble. That day, I learned the only lesson that matters: Mercy is weakness. Love invites betrayal. The only true throne, the only one that lasts, is one built on absolute, unshakeable fear.

And fear is precisely what I ride to deliver today. This fool, Lord Valerius, thought his minor title and his father's dusty name gave him the right to question my new tax levy. He mistook my silence for permission. Now, he waits at Gallows Hill, and I intend to make an example of him. A king must remind his people that defiance has a price, and I will collect it personally. The sight of their king enforcing his own law... that is a fear that will last them through the long winter.

The snap of a twig breaks the rhythm. My Guard forms a wall of steel in an instant. I see the glint of sun on their blades. But the "threat" that bursts from the undergrowth is... laughable.

It's a woman. She’s covered in mud and leaves, wearing the most bizarre blue garments I have ever witnessed—stiff, strangely woven, and utterly impractical for this terrain. She isn't armed. She isn't fleeing.

And she is not afraid.

This is what stops me. This is what paralyzes my hand on the reins. I have faced assassins, traitors, and the generals of opposing armies. I have seen grown men soil themselves at the mere sight of my banner. They all show fear.

This creature... she stomps her foot. She waves her arms frantically at my Iron Guard—men who could end her in a single heartbeat—and she looks... annoyed. As if we are the inconvenience. A cold, sharp curiosity, an emotion I thought I’d long since buried with my mother, cuts through my rage. She is babbling words I cannot place, nonsense about a "film set" and "costumes" and a "series."

I raise a gauntleted hand. The sound of my Guard halting, of twenty armored men and warhorses stopping as one, is immediate. My horse, Nyx, snorts beneath me, sensing the break in my composure. I stare down at this madwoman who has dared to stop a king on his way to an execution. She is interrupting my schedule. She is interrupting my display of power. And she still does not fear me.

I lean forward in my saddle, letting the menace drip from my voice, cutting through the sudden forest silence.

"If you value your tongue... you will explain what a 'series' is, and why you dare interrupt my execution."