The land remembered him in whispers.
He was the monarch whose cruelty became the language of fear. Mothers invoked his name to quiet children at night; bards sang of him not in praise but in trembling, their verses cracking like ice. His throne was carved from black marble, but what truly gave it weight were the bones of those who had tried to defy him. Kingdoms bent or burned, and the soil drank blood until the rivers stank of iron.
He was not a ruler. He was a storm in the shape of a man.
And yet, storms do not long for sunlight.
Beneath the crown, behind eyes that had watched a thousand executions without a flicker of remorse, a strange hunger grew. Not for land, not for riches, not for the submission of men. No, this hunger was softer, crueler: it was for a girl.
She had no throne, no banners, no armies. She lived at the edge of the city, her hands red from washing linen, her back bent from labor. But when she smiled, the world seemed to still, and when she spoke, even sparrows lingered in the rafters as if to listen. She was warmth where he was cold, mercy where he was merciless. She was the thing he had never conquered, because she did not fear him.
When he rode to her village in a procession of steel and banners, she did not kneel. When he looked into her eyes, expecting terror, he found pity instead. It infuriated him—and yet, it also intoxicated him. For the first time in his blood-soaked life, the king wanted something he could not simply seize.
"I can give you a palace," he told her once, his voice low and sharp as the edge of a blade. "I can make you queen above all women. Name a jewel, and it shall hang from your throat."
The girl only shook her head. "What use are jewels if the hands that place them are stained with blood?"
Her words clung to him like a curse.
The king tried to change. He executed fewer, pardoned some who begged on their knees. He forced smiles at children, tried to hold a door open for the old. But cruelty was not a garment he wore—it was his flesh, his marrow. A beast does not become a lamb because it walks gently for a day.
And she knew it.
Her heart, unshaken, turned to another. Not to him, but to a farmer. A man whose greatest power was patience, whose strength was in knowing the rhythm of soil, rain, and harvest. He was not mighty. He was not feared. But he was good. And for the girl, goodness was a crown greater than gold.
The king watched them together once—her laughter like bells, the farmer's hands calloused but gentle as they touched hers. And something inside him cracked.
On the night he learned she had chosen the farmer, he sat alone in his hall. The torchlight burned low. His generals avoided his gaze. His servants moved like mice in the corners, afraid to draw his notice.
The king set his crown aside, its weight suddenly unbearable. His hand trembled against the steel of his sword. His laughter was hollow, sharp, and jagged, like broken glass.
"Power," he muttered, "and still I am less than a man who digs in dirt."
He thought of her eyes, soft and warm, turning away from him. He thought of the farmer's arms around her. He thought of his own hands—hands that had held scepters, swung axes, written decrees of death—and how they had never known tenderness.
"I wish…" His voice faltered. For once, it was not the voice of a king but of a man. "I wish I was born a good person."
The hall gave no answer.
Steel whispered from its sheath. The blade rose, and before the silence could question him, it fell.
His crown clattered to the ground, a hollow sound echoing through the hall. The storm had ended, not in battle, but in a single desperate cut.
The ruthless king was gone.
But the heavens had been watching.
---
In the vastness above, where stars burned like the eyes of gods, voices stirred. They did not speak in mortal tongues, but their words rolled across creation like thunder through clouds.
"Did you hear his last wish?" one god asked, his voice sorrowful. "Even in cruelty, he longed to be good."
Another answered, her tone gentle: "Perhaps there is hope for him yet. Rebirth can heal what life could not."
A third, older and sterner, rumbled, "It is not our place to intervene. The Almighty forbids it. Mortals must walk their paths without our hand."
But pity is a dangerous thing, even for gods.
"He was made cruel," one whispered. "Made so by the shaping of fate. Should he be punished for what was carved into his bones? If we could return his memories in another life… perhaps he might walk differently."
"But the price," another warned. "It would cost the life of one of us."
Silence followed, heavy as a hanging blade.
At last, the youngest of them spoke, his voice trembling but firm: "Then let it be me. Let my death serve his second chance. If a god must fall for a man to rise, then let it be so."
The others hesitated. But slowly, like trees bowing to the wind, they agreed.
"Then it shall be done."
The ritual began. Stars dimmed. The voice of the sacrificed god echoed once, then fell quiet forever. His essence burned, unraveling into light, sinking down into the mortal coil where the king's soul had fled.
The price was paid.
And when the king was reborn into another age, another body, another time—he was no longer the storm, but sunlight. Innocent. Kind. Pure.
But fate has a cruel sense of humor.
For even as the gods blessed him with memory's gift, the wheel of love turned again. And the girl, reborn, did not see him. She saw another. A man who was not good, but cruel. A man whose hands hurt as often as they held.
And when the kind-hearted king watched her fall into the arms of a bully, he clenched his fists and whispered a different wish, one the gods did not expect:
"I wish I was bad… as him."
And somewhere in the heavens, pity turned to dread.