The sound of flesh breaking beneath knuckles echoed through the banquet hall, dull and heavy, reverberating off the high stone walls. It had moments ago been proud and dripping with wealth, the chamber was now soaked in shadows and the iron ooze of blood.
The guards that remained—those who had not been recalled to the Imperial City days earlier—stood gathered at the far end of the room.
Their armor was dulled from negligence, their faces pale as they watched what unfolded before them.
Miller's massive fist rose again. It came down with mechanical precision, slamming into the duke's face with the inevitability of an executioner's axe. Bone cracked. Skin split further. The duke's features, haughty and jeweled with arrogance, had become a bruised canvas of agony.
Each strike landed with the sound of meat torn from bone. With each one, a guard or two would flinch involuntarily, shoulders jerking, jaws tightening, as if the blows were falling on their own bodies.
