The execution yard of Arkenfall was not grand. It had no statues, no banners, no roaring crowds.
Stone walls enclosed it like a quiet tomb. Thick columns cast long shadows, and only the high-ranking lords of the realm stood beneath the canopy of gray sky — their cloaks heavy, their expressions unreadable. No music played. No cheers rose. This was not spectacle.
This was judgment.
At the far end, on a raised granite platform slick with morning dew, the block stood — dark and stained from executions past. A low hum of armor and steel whispered through the yard as guards took position, forming a half-circle around the central clearing.
And at the center, still as a mountain, stood the King.
His dark tunic was marked only by the golden sigil of the Bannerlands at his shoulder, and a light mist clung to the hem of his cloak like the breath of some old god watching from above. His hands were clasped behind him. His face unreadable.
Behind him stood Ethan — broad, silent, and vigilant. At his hand gleamed the King's ceremonial axe, freshly whetted.
Then the doors opened.
Boots dragged against stone.
The prisoner was hauled into view.
Lord Travis from Stonecrest — once draped in silks and arrogance — now bore chains and blood. His tunic was torn and soaked through; his lips bruised; his right eye purple and swelling. Peppered blood stained his beard like rust. But still, he laughed.
"Your Majesty," he said through cracked teeth, "how noble you look."
The guards forced him to his knees.
Travis looked up at Damon — and though blood dripped from his mouth, he smiled. "So this is justice now? One man's word and a blade?"
Damon didn't speak. His gaze remained fixed.
"I suppose you'll say the law is clear," Travis went on, voice thick with mockery. "And maybe it is. But we both know what this is. You think this will stop it?"
He turned his head, spitting blood at the floor.
"The trade breathes beneath your very castle walls. Cut me down, and ten more will rise. The Bannerlands were built on the bones of rotten lords. You know it. They all do."
He gestured with a jerk of his chin to the lords gathered along the perimeter. Their cloaks fluttered gently in the cold wind — red, green, silver, black. Not one of them moved.
"Say something!" Travis barked. "Say it!"
Silence.
Travis laughed, bitter and feral. "Cowards. All of you. You bought from me. You sent coin, turned heads. Some of you—" he snarled, pointing to a few without naming names, "—some of you have stocks hidden in your own fiefdoms."
Still, no one spoke.
Only Lord McCain of Stonecrest met his gaze. He did not flinch. But he said nothing.
"You too, uncle?" Travis snapped, voice beginning to fray. "You'll let me die like this?"
McCain's jaw flexed. But he remained still.
Travis's laughter cracked now. "I fed you all with what you desired. I made you rich! And now you pretend to be clean."
He turned back to Damon. "You think you've won something? All you've done is show them how dangerous you are."
Damon's gaze didn't waver. His voice, when it came, was calm as still water.
"And yet you kneel."
Travis snarled.
Ethan stepped forward. He only placed the axe gently in Damon's open hand.
The king took it without a word.
The blade gleamed.
Travis was still spitting curses when the guards forced him forward — his throat against the execution block, his breath rasping from cracked ribs and pain. He writhed, then began sobbing. No longer a lord. No longer anything at all.
"Please," he whispered. "Please…"
But the axe fell.
A single, clean strike.
The blood sprayed hot across the stone. Across Damon's boots. Across the silence.
And then there was nothing but the dull sound of the head hitting the ground.
The wind picked up.
Damon stepped back, the axe still dripping in his hand. He turned slowly to face the gathered lords — each one now unnervingly quiet, their faces pale, their eyes heavy.
He held their gaze.
Let the silence stretch.
"Let this serve as lesson," the King said, voice cold and steady. "Let it ring across the Seven Regions, from Braemorin's peaks to the shorelines of Edravon — the Crown is not blind."
He took one slow step forward.
"No name, no sigil, no inheritance protects a man who preys upon the innocent."
Another pause.
"I do not yet have proof of the others."
A beat. Tension rippled across the yard like a taut rope pulled tighter.
"But I will. And if I find any of you in it — you will kneel next."
The threat was not shouted. It was not flared with drama or rage.
It was quiet.
And that was why it landed like thunder.
And the air reeked of blood and fear.
********************
Neriah stood at the stone balcony above the courtyard, her fingers curled around the carved balustrade. Lady Rhea was beside her, elegant in her crimson robes, eyes keen with something between amusement and calculation.
Below them — far below — the execution yard was still.
From this height, Neriah could see everything. The lords, standing like weathered statues in a half-moon; the guards with their pikes; the block.
And Damon.
He stood with his hands behind his back, his cloak trailing like shadow, his face unreadable. There was something terrifying in how calm he was — how composed. This wasn't the man who tucked her hair behind her ear or kissed her. This wasn't the man who whispered to her in the early hours or promised to ride with her to Halemond.
This was the King.
And then they dragged Travis out.
Neriah had never seen a man so bloodied and broken. His face was almost unrecognizable, and yet he still laughed — mocking, spitting, trembling with something vile in his veins. She watched the way he cursed the gathered lords, the way he shouted at Damon, the way he bled and still smiled through cracked teeth.
And she watched Damon… say nothing.
Not one word.
Until he took the axe.
Her breath caught. Her chest tightened. Something inside her — something childlike and fragile — began to curl in on itself.
She couldn't look away. She didn't want to see, but her eyes refused to close.
They pressed Travis to the stone. He thrashed. He cried. He broke.
And Damon—he lifted the axe like it weighed nothing at all.
Then came the strike.
The sound.
The blood.
Neriah staggered back, her hand flying to her mouth. Her stomach lurched violently, and for a moment, she thought she might be sick.
It was everywhere. The blood. It splattered across Damon's tunic, across the stones, across the block. And the head—
Oh gods.
She turned away, stumbling from the balcony.
Her footsteps echoed down the hall as she fled, skirts hiked in one hand, her heart slamming against her ribs like a caged thing.
This couldn't be real.
This couldn't be Damon.
She had seen him smile. Had heard him laugh, slow and low, when she read the old market riddles aloud. She had felt his warmth beneath her fingers, seen the way his jaw clenched when she shivered and he instinctively pulled her closer. That man—the man who kissed her like she was fragile glass wrapped in fire—could not be the same man who—
But she had seen it.
With her own eyes.
She rounded a corner and pressed herself against the cold stone wall, trying to catch her breath, trying to understand.
Had she been wrong? Had the rumors in Halemond been right?
The whispers. The warnings. The stories of the Storm Lord who rose to power with a blade in each hand. The brother-killer. The blood-born king. The monster who kills mercilessly.
She had laughed at them.
She had called them nonsense.
But now… her hands were shaking.
Maybe she had fallen into something she didn't understand.
Maybe his gentleness was a mask.
Maybe his kisses were meant to lull.
Her vision blurred.
Behind her, soft footsteps. A familiar presence.
Lady Rhea came to a stop a few paces away, her expression unreadable. She leaned lightly against a column, watching Neriah with a quiet sort of curiosity.
She didn't speak.
But she smiled. A small, knowing smile.
Neriah didn't see it. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her breath still ragged. Her hands pressed against her chest, trying to still the pounding beneath them.
The yard was far behind now.
But the blood was still fresh in her mind.