Allen had once pulled their shared cloak over them on a winter's night that felt colder than the mountains. They had no fire, no food, only each other.
Simon had asked why. Why take in a boy no one else wanted? A thief. A street rat.
Allen had smiled, pulling the threadbare cloak tighter. "Because I know what it's like to have no one," he said. "And if I don't… who will?"
Simon had fallen asleep to those words, believing—perhaps foolishly—that Allen would be the one person in the world who never let him down.
Return to the Present
The rain had stopped.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Simon stood motionless in the center of the ruined throne room, surrounded by ash, blood, and the echoes of a memory that felt like another life. He stared down at Allen's lifeless form.
Then, slowly, with more reverence than strength, Simon bent and lifted the man's body into his arms.
He carried Allen to the base of the throne—not to place him on it, but to lay him beside it. It was never the throne Allen had fought for. It was the kingdom. The people. The fragile peace that had died long before he did.
Allen hadn't died for power.
He had died protecting it.
Outside, clouds thinned. The skies cracked open, not with thunder—but with light. The sun poured through the shattered ceiling in golden shafts, painting the ruin in soft amber.
It didn't cleanse the blood. It didn't erase the pain. But it offered something else.
Mercy. Or judgment. Simon couldn't tell the difference anymore.
He stood still in that golden haze, hands soaked red, his sword now resting at his side, tip dragging the floor. He could feel the weight of every eye in the hall—soldiers and servants alike, slowly stepping through the wreckage, their expressions unreadable.
Some stared at Allen's corpse with grief.
Others at Simon—with fear.
A few, with something more dangerous: expectation.
Simon didn't speak. Didn't look up. He knelt beside the man who had been his world, the man he'd loved, the man he'd killed.
"I don't deserve your forgiveness," he said, voice barely louder than breath. "But I'll carry your burden. I'll make sure they remember your name—not for how you died… but for everything you gave."
The words settled into silence.
Then, one by one, the soldiers lowered their heads.
Simon stood. Slowly. He didn't feel taller. He felt heavier. Older. Like the boy who had walked into that throne room would never walk out again.
The blade in his hand felt colder now. Not a weapon—but a responsibility.
Behind him, the throne loomed—cracked, bloodstained. Empty.
He didn't approach it.
He walked past it.
The world outside had changed. Screams no longer echoed from the city below, but smoke still rose. The battle had ended, but the war had not.
A kingdom without a king was a kingdom at war with itself.
And now, all eyes were turning to him.
Simon stepped into the corridor, boots thudding against scorched stone, the royal guard parting in silence. The hallways he'd run through as a boy were now lined with corpses and rubble. The paintings of past rulers hung crooked. Statues lay broken.
Everything sacred had been touched by fire.
At the end of the hall, a familiar figure waited.
General Kael. Loyal to Allen until the final hour. Weathered. Stern. Unyielding. But now, even he looked uncertain.
"Your Majesty," Kael said, bowing his head.
Simon flinched. "Don't call me that."
Kael straightened. "Then what should we call you?"
Simon didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
He wasn't king. Not really. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But there was no one else left to stand.
He moved past Kael, into the war room where maps still lay scattered across the long table. Pins marked sieges. Ink stained towns already lost.
He stared at the chaos laid bare.
The enemy had retreated—but not surrendered.
The kingdom was fractured. Half-loyal, half-afraid, and wholly uncertain.
Simon closed his eyes.
Allen had ruled with power. With strength. With fear, when it came to it.
That was no longer enough.
He opened his eyes again.
"This isn't over," he said.
Kael nodded. "The eastern lords await your decision."
Simon looked out the window.
The sun had fully broken through. Light shone across the capital. The fires had stopped, but the scars remained. They always would.
"Send word to the eastern front," Simon said, voice steady. "Tell them the crown has not fallen. And the war is not done."
Kael bowed again. "As you command."
Simon's hand brushed the edge of the table. There was a map of the north. His mother's homeland. A place he had never seen—but would need, now.
He would have to cross rivers of doubt, oceans of politics, and fires of rebellion.
But first, he would bury Allen.
He would let the world mourn.
And then he would rise.
Not as the king Allen had been.
But as the one Allen had died hoping he might become.