The marble was freezing.
Not "oh, that's brisk" freezing. No.
It was the kind of cold that crept through fabric and skin and bone and settled somewhere deep in your ribs. I was wearing my thickest wool trousers, and I could still feel it.
I shifted my weight by the pillar, trying to look deliberate—brooding, composed, princely.
Mostly, I was wondering if I'd left the mana stove on in my private quarters.
Don't trip.Whatever you do, Alex, do not trip in front of the Royal Guard.
That would be it. Not assassination. Not political scandal. I'd die of embarrassment, and history would remember me as "Alexander the Clumsy."
In the center of the hall, the man from Solmere was sobbing. Not dignified tears.
Full-body, humiliating sobbing. His shoulders shook. His face was wet and red.
His nose ran. He kept trying to wipe it on his sleeve despite the anti-magic cuffs biting into his wrists.
He looked small.
I felt it in my throat.
If I were kneeling in front of my father in chains, I'd be sobbing too.
Dad—King William to everyone else—has a face that permanently suggests he's reviewing your soul and finding it structurally unsound.
"Alex."
My stomach dropped.
Stay cool. Act like a prince. You were raised for this. You were literally educated for this. You memorized policy documents for this.
I pushed off the pillar and walked forward, counting each step so I wouldn't rush or hesitate.
Six-foot-three and all limbs, trying desperately not to resemble an overgrown golden retriever wearing a crown.
"Yes, Father?" I said.
My voice came out smooth. Detached. Perfect.
Inside, I was spiraling.Is my hair out of place? Is there lint on my cloak? Why does my left sleeve feel wrong?
"Dispose of it," my father said, flicking his fingers as though brushing crumbs from a table. "The weeping is giving me a headache."
Dispose of it.
He's a person, I wanted to say.
He's someone's husband.
But I could already hear the lecture forming: The Weight of the Crown.
The Burden of Mercy. Weakness in the Face of Treason. Three hours in the council chamber while my spine fused to a chair.
I turned to the spy.
He looked up at me like I was the last plank in a shipwreck.
"Mercy!" he cried. "Prince Alex, please! I have a wife! Two daughters!"
Two daughters.
For a split second I saw it—two small girls with ribbons in their hair, waiting by a window, arguing over who got to sit closer to the fire.
A wife pacing the floor at night, listening for boots that wouldn't come home.
My chest hurt.
If this were just me, if there weren't armored men lining the walls and mages studying every twitch of my fingers, I would have cut his cuffs.
I would have pressed a purse of gold into his hands and told him to run until the kingdom was a rumor.
But the Royal Guard were watching.
If I faltered now, they wouldn't see compassion. They'd see weakness. And weakness spreads faster than rot.
"Mercy?" I repeated, buying time. My mouth felt dry. "Kingsworth is beautiful because we remove the weeds…"
Oh, that was cruel.Why would you say that?
His face crumpled.
I lifted my hand.
Here's the humiliating truth: I am not some grand, brooding avatar of destruction.
My magic reacts to stress.
When I panic, the light around me doesn't glow heroically. It compresses. It tightens. It turns sharp and heavy because I'm holding my breath so hard my lungs burn.
It's less "dark lord" and more "overwhelmed honors student about to faint."
But the mages stiffened like I'd declared war on existence.
"I'll make you a promise," I said softly.
I leaned closer so no one else would hear. My voice dropped because if I spoke normally, it might crack.
"I'll send someone to find your wife and daughters."
I meant: They won't starve. I'll see to it. Quietly. Discreetly. They'll be told you died bravely, or retired honorably. Something kinder than this.
But I was trying to look severe.
Trying to look like my father.
It came out wrong.
The man's eyes widened. His body went rigid. He screamed—a raw, animal sound that scraped across the marble and lodged itself in my ears.
No, no, not like that—
My heart slammed once. Hard.
And then—
CRACK.
The pressure slipped.
It wasn't a dramatic gesture. I didn't cast anything. I didn't chant. It was like something inside me lost its grip.
The marble beneath him fractured outward in a spiderweb of white lines. The air compressed so violently it felt like the room had been punched.
There was a sound.
Wet.
Heavy.
And then he was… gone.
Not vanished.
Gone in the way meat is gone after a cleaver falls.
Red spread across white stone. Too bright. Too fast. A metallic smell flooded the hall.
I stared at it.
That was a person.
My stomach lurched. I swallowed hard. Do not look down. Do not look too closely. You will vomit. You will absolutely vomit on your boots in front of everyone.
"Clean this up," I said sharply.
My voice cracked at the edge, so I made it colder.
The guards moved immediately. No one questioned it.
No one reacted beyond the professional stiffness of soldiers accustomed to horrors.
I turned toward the throne.
My father blinked twice.
Approval.
That was approval.
"Done," I said.
My hands were shaking inside my sleeves.
"Good," he replied. "Go check on your brother. He's being a nerd in the lab again."
Normal. Casual. As if we'd just concluded a budget meeting.
I bowed.
Walked.
Counted my steps.
One. Two. Three.
The doors closed behind me with a heavy thud.
The silence in the corridor was almost gentle.
I slumped against the wall the second I was alone.
The cold stone pressed through my clothes again, and this time I welcomed it. It felt grounding. Real.
My breath came out in a shudder.
"I am a monster," I whispered to a suit of armor that had probably seen more kings than I ever would.
"I am a horrible, golden-haired monster who needs a hug and a therapist."
My hands wouldn't stop trembling.
Somewhere in the throne room, servants were scrubbing red from white marble.
Somewhere in Solmere, two little girls were waiting for their father to come home.
And I was supposed to grow into this.To become it fully.
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold floor, crown slightly crooked, pulse still racing.
I didn't feel like a prince.
I felt like a scared twenty-year-old who wanted a muffin, a nap, and someone to tell him he hadn't just broken something inside himself that would never mend.