Mara cockily sat on Godwin’s throne with her legs crossed on the cushion of the armrest. Thirty guards surrounded the chair in an unbreakable circle of shields and spear. There was a bowl of grapes remaining from Godwin’s previous commonfolk hearing, she ate them as seductively as one could, pulling them from the stem with her long tongue, keeping eye contact with any guard that dared to lock eyes with the whore.

  “All of this protection for little old me,” she moaned. “There’s so many of you… why don’t we have some fun while we wait for the king to come and spank me on my ass and send me on my way. We all know that’s all this is. The king’s gonna give me a little slap on my wrist.” She stood from the throne, pulling her white silk gown tighter against her waist and breasts as she got closer to one of the shields. “Don’t you want to say you’ve fucked a princess?” She circled the lips of a sweating guard. “Harren won’t mind. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  The guard pushed the shield forward and broke Mara’s nose, she fell back, blood gushing from both nostrils. She gagged, coughing, and not one person helped her. “Help me!” she cried. “You’ll be hanged for striking me! I’m on the council!”

  “Captain Zishang told us to strike you if you try seduce us,” the guard said. “Keep your hands off me, whore.”

  “Whore?” she scoffed. “You’ve loosened my front tooth, you pig. My husband will kill you when he finds me here.”

  “He also gave us an order to cut out your tongue if you talk too much or mention Prince Harren in any way,” another guard said, pulling a knife from his belt. “This is your final warning, whore. Sit on the steps and wait for the king. I won’t tell you again.”

  “Who do you think you are?” she coughed. “I’ve sat the council just as long as Zishang. I order you to let me go!”

  The guard stepped forward and struck her in the jaw with his knife’s pommel. He stood over her, beating her until she yielded into silence.

  Two loud bangs rang the grand double-doors of the throne room. Screams echoed under the gap, falling silent with a bloody squelch. Two feet cast a shadow under the door, which slowly opened.

  “Fuck you,” Mara spat. “I told you. Prince Harren would come for me. You’re all going to fucking die.”

  The guard kicked her neck. “Form a line, men,” he ordered. “If it is the prince, we shall strike him down.”

  They pointed their spears towards the doors. Two dead guards rested at the feet of a cloaked figure, the blue Valan hair poking out of the hood, a godsteel sickle dripping with blood hiding inside the black robes.

  “Prince Harren!” the guard yelled. “Surrender your weapon and yield to us!” He put the tip of his spear against Mara’s throat. “We are under order to kill the whore if you come too close to us. There is no path you can take that we weren’t given orders for. Do not make this more difficult than it must be.”

  They raised the sickle against the guards from afar, sauntering closer without a word.

  “Prince Harren!” another shouted. “Stop where you are at once.”

  “Don’t compare me to that scum.” The prince removed his cloak and shown his face to them, still covered in blood and broken glass. “I am not him. I’m not. Yes. Runaya, I hear you.”

  The guards were relieved, then confused, then angry. They kept their spears raised, aware that he’d killed two guards already.

  “Prince Stroke, save me!” Mara yelled. “I’ll do anything you ask of me! These guards kidnapped me!”

  Stroke’s eyes twitched as he got even closer. He stared at the guards like they were bright lights, squinting and groaning. “Move,” he ordered. “I dismiss you from your duties. Go home.”

  “We are under order to keep Mara here, my prince. I cannot let you take her out of this throne room.”

  “Oh, well I guess that’s fine then,” Stroke said. “My Brother’s orders come above all, don’t they? All must listen to the king. Who decides who the king is? Is it a crown? Is it power? Is it, dare I say it, loyalty? Yes, Runaya, I agree—it’s none of the three. The answer is delusion. I will make this simple. Leave now or die.”

  “The young prince doesn’t have a God Arm!” one yelled. “There are thirty of us and one of him! He can’t get by us!”

  Half of the guards shared firm nods and dropped their spears, sprinting past Stroke with their hands raised in surrender. The ones that remained took an offensive stance, remaining loyal to their duty to King Godwin. Whether it was bravery or stupidity, Stroke didn’t care one bit.

  “They were willing to fight Prince Harren with the God Arm, but not me… how telling of his character. Yes. Yes. I know. I hear you, Runaya, I am better than him.”

  “Prince Stroke!” a guard yelled. “King Godwin has ordered us to keep this whore under our protection until he arrives to give her justice. We are your men. You don’t need to fight us. Punishment comes for the wicked if you remain patient.”

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  “Do you hear that?” Stroke whispered. “Runaya… these people know the truth now. Mara is a whore. A whore. Whore. Whore.” He took a step closer. “My brother is not coming. He is busy, outside of the city, searching for me in places I am obvious not. He is too far to see through the eyes of the Sentinels, and he will remain outside the walls for a long while. Surrender. Throw down your weapons and you may live.” He pointed the sickle at Mara, then to the two dead guards once tasked with defending the doors. “Don’t make the same mistake as them. I hear the god’s song. They say you can live if you give me the whore.”

  Mara began to cry fake tears. She begged the guards not to leave her at Stroke’s mercy, ordering them to kill the young prince.

  “We cannot defy the order of a king,” the guard said. “I am sorry, my prince. I didn’t wish for it to be this way.”

  “Neither did I.”

  Stroke cut the throat of the speaker with a lung from his sickle and then buried the tip into a second attacker. They circled the young prince, attacking him with spear thrusts, all of which he parried and cut the spears in half while dancing around them.

  “Kill him!” Mara yelled. “Kill the prince!”

  The guards fell one after another in quick succession—a skull crushed underneath a quick stomp; a head cut clean off from the wide swing of the sickle; impaled by their own broken spears; the young prince Stroke killed each one in a different way, wincing in anger after each kill and ensuring they didn’t suffer.

  “I hear you Runaya,” he whispered. “All. Kill them all. Kill.”

  He hadn’t suffered a single blow from any of the guards, and only one brave soul remained. They raised their dagger against him, charging with a yell. Stroke sliced off the attacker’s hand calmly and grabbed him by the throat, pinning him against a godsteel pillar and choking him against it. Stroke screamed as he crushed the guard’s windpipe, making their face go red with bloodshot eyes. He dropped the corpse, sticking his sickle between the brows and destroying the brain. With all dead, he composes himself and looked for Mara, who wasn’t where he’d left her.

  “Whore,” Stroke yelled. “I hear you running.”

  Mara ran the length of the throne room, close to the doors, close to freedom from Stroke’s wrath—she knew that she was doomed, feeling her eyes growing sore as she stared at the prince standing ominously, waiting for her to blink.

  “Just let me go!” she cried. “I didn’t kill Runaya! It wasn’t me! It was the dog, I swear!”

  She blinked and Stroke was gone. She kept running, believing she had been spared as he was nowhere to be seen. The tears that came from her eyes this time were genuine, joyful.

  “Thank the gods,” she whispered. “Oh, thank you, thank you.”

  If any gods were watching, they would’ve laughed at her quick claim of mercy. She tripped and fell, both heels sliced at the tendon by the prince’s weapon. Stroke grabbed her hair and bashed her head into the concrete, breaking her teeth, nose, and jaw.

  “Preath,” she slurred. “Pinth Stoth, preath.”

  He broke her beauty with more harsh slams. He knelt on her back and pulled her hair back, exposing the tight skin of her throat. He put the sickle to it, listening to her beg further like it was a sweet melody in a tavern. He wanted to do it, gods knew he did, but he called upon his discipline and came up with a better plan.

  “You don’t deserve death,” Stroke whispered. “You deserve something far worse. If you think there’s a slither of a chance you’ll live through this, keep that hope, it’ll only make it so much nicer when I rip that faith out of you, whore.” He removed the sickle and seized her by her foot, dragging her like a dead animal. “I hear you, Runaya. No fate suits her better.”

  ————————————————————————

  Godwin came upon the tree from Stroke’s scribblings. His heart was steel, heavy in his chest—he’d been a terrible brother, and he knew in his soul that he’d tormented the wrong sibling. He walked slow, removing his breastplate and the black wrapping on his left arm. He put on a silk shirt of red, prepared to present himself to Stroke as a brother, not a king. When he searched the tree, he found nothing but disappointment.

  “I wouldn’t want to be found either,” Godwin whispered. “If you hear my words, Stroke, please forgive me. I want to be here for you now, even if it’s taken me so long to see clearly.”

  “He’s not here,” Bianca said. Fresh prints from Stroke’s boots were unbroken, starting at a random patch in the dirt and ending abruptly in the middle of a waterlogged field. “He came, went.”

  Godwin followed the trail to the tree. On the lowest branch, a pearl necklace hung from the wood with a godsteel ring tied it. He was careful not to damage it as he brought it down, giving to Bianca to keep safe, not trusting himself to keep it from harm.

  “Where could he be?” Godwin asked her. “You talked to him more than I. Could he have gone back to the castle? Maybe he used his gift to travel away from the city, the trail suggests he did.”

  Bianca sat on a thick tree root, looking into the city that burned red under the threat of the dragons. She knew if Stroke was in the city, he would be using the Sentinels to kill the dragons, not ward them away.

  “We wait,” she said. “Take a seat under this tree. “I know how Stroke is feeling. I wanted to isolate when I lost Cander. He knows we will follow his trail. Let’s wait for him to come to us, give him the choice of when.”

  “What if we’re here for hours? I need to return to the keep and punish Mara and Harren. They need to face justice.”

  “Trust in Zishang,” Bianca said. “He always does the right thing. He will keep them contained until you get back. Sit with me. It is cold. Sit close, we only have one sheet for warmth.”

  He sat by her, giving her the full sheet and refusing any of it for himself. “You’ll freeze,” she said. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said, shivering. “You deserve it, not me. When I feel I’ve been a good king, I’ll let myself be rewarded.”

  She shuffled closer, forcing him to share the sheet, holding his hand firmly as she did so. “Don’t punish yourself. I’m here for you. Stroke will be here for you. Be kind to yourself and others, that is the way of a hero.”

  “Is it not too late for me to be a hero?”

  “All that matters is you try,” she said. “If you fail, let’s fail as heroes. But that won’t happen. You’ll be a good king, with Stroke and I by your side. Have faith in him.”