The gasps changed in their tone from one moment to the next.
Because, at long last, the King moved.
Alexios Valorian, The Warrior King. The Unyielding Mountain. The Tyrant.
Slowly… so slowly…
His head tilted a few degrees to the side.
His eyes had long lost their focus, somewhere distant and untouchable.
And then,
A smile.
It spread inch by inch. An unnatural, eerie thing.
It was not monstrous in a sense, just too perfect. Too symmetrical. The kind of grin you only saw carved into statues, except now it was moving. Breathing.
And it didn't stop.
It kept growing, past what should be human. His lips peeled wider, the corners of his mouth twitching upward with a stiffness that felt like something long-forgotten waking up.
People in the ballroom stopped breathing.
