Harin shoved his seat back from the table, throwing his fork onto the table with a loud clattering echo. He pushed up and out of his chair.

“Baby brother, sit back down,” Anastasia said, her voice amused.

Harin scowled at his sister. “I find the company foul, the meal isn't worth putting up with you and your lies all night,”

Anastasia laughed. “Just because you do not want to hear it, does not make it a lie my dear brother. Do you think that the truth should bend itself to your will my liege?

Harin looked up at the ceiling and muttered a prayer to the gods.

“What was that?” She asked.

Harin opened his eyes and sat back down and mustered the most annoyed look he could for his sister. They spent many nights together in their lives. Most of it on the Street of Roses at their mothers home. The last few years, after the death of their grandfather at the castle. Lucille, their mother had always endeavored to keep them at the dinner table for as long as she could, but after her death, Harin found it painful some night.

“I asked Zufier to grant me the strength not to kill you with a spoon,” Harin quipped.

Anastasia laughed again, throwing her head back and howling.

Harin felt the corner of his mouth lift up. His sisters laugh was pure. When she laughed, you’d earned it. She had never given in to the political training of their mother, to laugh even when things were not funny.

She was more like their father than Harin was.

“It doesn't change the fact that he did steal the money,” Anastasia speared one of the roasted tomatoes off her plate and plopped it in her mouth.

“How’d he do it?” Harin asked.

“My people tell me that his half brother had set up the contract with the crown. Our people did not know that they were related. Some bastard his father had sired,”

Harin sighed. “So the man that I’ve trusted my life with, the life of our family -” Harin stopped, realizing that it was just he and his sister now.

Anastasia put her hand across the table, reach for Harin’s arm.

Harin pulled it back, raising his hand. “I’m fine,”

Anastasia shook her head. “I’m not. Not anymore. Not since it happened,”

Harin looked away, feeling the welling of tears. He willed them away. He’d cried all that he could when he heard the news of their deaths many months before. He picked up the leg of the chicken his cook had prepared and chewed off a chunk of meat.

The meat was tender and had hints of mint and savoury spice on it. He could taste none of it as he chewed mechanically. His mind was occupied with trying to fit his sorrow back in the box that he hid it in. He knew that if he let the emotions take him, he’d order the south burned to the ground. Such was the hole left after his mother and brother were killed.

A king does what is right for his people. Not himself.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Harin remembered the words of his grandfather. Snippets of advice when He’d asked why things were done the way Kallen had done them. He wondered now what Kallen would think of his sons quest for revenge. The months of assaults in the south. Rampaging through cities and towns, beatings and killings.

The south had never been so safe as when Dragh had emptied the criminal underbelly, looking for his families murderers.

“So, the man that heads my Praetorian Legion has been siphoning money off to himself and his bastard half brother for more years than I’ve sat atop the throne of Landor?”

“You’re going to have to have him killed. This cannot stand. When the people of Landor find out. And they always find out. Our enemies, everyone. They will think you weak unless he is dead. He has emptied the coffers of Landor,” Anastasia said, sipping from her glass of wine.

Harin sighed again. “It cannot be so sister. I am not my father. I will not kill this man because he stole from me. I rule with the law, not with the blade,”

‘Hah.” Anastasia smirked. “You rule by the blade. Every law is backed by the blade my little brother. You still have much to learn, kill him and be done with it,”

“I am the king, I will not kill the general of the Praetorians. If I do, I condemn everyone who steals to death. I will bleed soldiers as if I turned the blade on myself,”

Harin chewed off another piece of meat from the leg of the chicken. As he chewed, the flavor of the spices began to sink through his melancholy. It was a fine meal.

—--

Dragh sat in the cell of The Slab, moisture collecting in rivulets and dripping down the walls of the place.

The stone was the same stone that made up his castle. This stone was rough cut in comparison to his castles. The edged of each stone jagged and sharp. The mortar sloppy and spilled over the edges of each block. Iron bars were askew as he waited. The seat he chose was cold, the cold seeping into his bones.

Harin could feel the pressure of the mountain above him, it’s stone aching to fall inward on itself.

The scraping of a door came from the long hallway. Harin stood form his seat, straightening his jacket, pushing down at the creases.

“In, general,” A guard called.

A squat man walked into the cell, rubbing at his wrists and looking backward.

The bars of the doors did not close, the squat man giving the guard a quizzical look.

“They won’t close it until I am done, Gallis,” Harin said.

Gallis whirled to face him on the balls of his feet, much faster than Harin would have thought possible for a squat man.

“Harin,” Gallis spit out the words, looking like he had a foul taste in his mouth.

Harin put his hands behind his back. “You’ll be staying here for the rest of your life, Gallis,” Harin turned, looking around the cell again.

He could hear Gallis breathing heavily behind him.

Without turning, Harin put his hand on his blade. “You know, they all wanted be to use this. Dawnbringer,”

Harin patted the blade at his side, looking up at the one window that that gave light to the cell high in the wall.

“Of course you wont,” Gallis said behind him.

Harin turned to face the former general. “Tell me, what is that you all call me behind my back? Come now, I know that you whisper it too,”

Gallis smirked.

“King of Ink,” Gallis used the words as a slur.

Harin laughed. “It’s funny, all of this time, all of the time you’ve been stealing from me, from the crown. Did you know it would come to an end? Did you think it would end with your neck in a noose or on the butchers block?”

Gallis took a step forward, his face red. “I took what I deserved after I gave my life to defend your family!”

Harin wiped the spittle from his face on his sleeve. “And you think you deserved the treasury?”

Gallis pushed Harin.

Harin steadied himself, catching himself before falling. He held the hilt of Dawnbringer still. He looked down at the sword and then to Gallis. Tempering his emotions. He wanted to pull the sword out and cut Gallis’ head from his body.

“Where is the money Gallis? Tell me where the money is and I will do my best to spare you and your kin,”

“Pah,” Gallis spit at Harin’s feet. “I need no sympathy from you. They money is gone. Spent. I spent it every chance that I had, and I took pleasure in listening to your people speak to you of the hardship of your treasury. The hardship of the Sunborns. I served you and your grandfather your whole lives, and what did I get? Nothing. A measly salary that hardly kept a room over my families heads. I toiled, from one end of this pit forsaken kingdom to the other to serve you and yours. I decided to take some for myself,”

Harin shook his head. “You old fool. Being of service is not about the reward, it is for the people. We serve them,”

“I’ll not take lessons from a king who’s barley wet behind the ears,” The old General said.

“Gods, you act as if your life is secure. Do you not know what it takes to keep you alive after what you’ve done?”

Gallis huffed. “You’ll not kill me. You have not the stuff that your father has,”

Harin stepped forward, a handbreadth from Gallis’ face. “You can thank you king of ink for your life. Whatever life it may be. You can thank me for your life. But mark my words, the law will hold you and your family accountable. Everything you own, that golden palace that you have for a home will be chopped up and sold. Down to the last stone. Your family, your wife and two boys will be out on their arses. They will have to fend for themselves, in this pit forsaken nation,”

Gallis turned a deeper shade of red, lunging forward with his hands going up towards Harin’s throat.

Harin spun, driving his right hand across Gallis’ body and then spinning away from the man. He batted down the general’s hands as he turned, letting the older man fall to the ground in his wake.

Gallis cursed as he hit the ground.

Harin heard a satisfying crack of Gallis’ head hitting the stone floor.

The guards rushed past Harin as Gallis got up from his fall. Harin did not look back as Gallis began to scream for him. Obscenities, curses form the gods.

The shouting echoed down the stone hallways as Harin walked past the other cells. Each prisoner shouting in echo of Gallis. The madhouse had animated itself, a song of screaming and curses. Harin walked to the door at the end of the hall, knocking on the steel door once to let the guard know he was done. He could hear the struggles from the cells behind him. The guards now trying to regain peace after Gallis’ outburst.