In a time when kingdoms were carved into the flesh of the earth like wounds on a warrior's body, there existed a system unwritten in laws and unspoken in public squares, a system silently etched beneath the skin of men. A system ruled by crowned heads who placed their titles on mindless skulls, enforced by hands more familiar with swords than with justice.
In this world, the warrior did not own himself. He was a piece of flesh dragged across a slab of dirt, moved by a king who saw him only as a tool to enhance fleeting glory. War was not a clash of values, but a silent dance of ambitions. The soldier married death like a bridegroom to a massacre, never being asked if he wished to attend.
Those kings perched atop towers heard neither the screams of those who died for them, nor the call of the earth that buried them. They moved their soldiers like pawns on a chessboard: advance this one, kill that one, sacrifice the horse to protect the queen. No one questioned the outstretched hand or the heart that had long since frozen. Lives became mere numbers to be counted on a leader's record.
What madness is this, where heroism is measured by the number of bodies, and the victor is praised not for being just—but simply for being the last one standing? What justice comes from sharp swords, rather than the tongues of the wise? Does truth have a voice when it is stifled by the smoke of war?
This is how the kingdoms of yesterday were, and this is how they remain, reborn in every age with different names. Castles may change, but thrones remain. Swords have become words, yet they still kill.
In such a world, the question arises:
Who holds kings accountable when their hearts are stone and their commands are fire?
And who mourns the crushed, guiltless pawn, buried nameless?