It wasn't the physical pain of the silver chains biting into his skin that haunted Herod in that moment, it was the echoing finality of his bloodline ending with him. The throne of the North, his legacy, would be left cold and empty. A crown with no head to wear it. Generations of strategy, manipulation, and cold, calculated ambition undone. Reduced to rubble in one night.
Herod looked at the couple moaning in front of him once more.
He could feel the love radiating off them. It was beautiful. Real. So real it made him ache.
Herod's thoughts turned back. To her. To Edith.
Once upon a time, he had loved too. Deeply. Madly. They had laughed. Whispered secrets. Danced.
