Chapter 14 · free to read
He wanted his life, a horse and the north road. I gave him two of the three.
He wrote it the year they hanged him. He had forged a cage, and the empire had called it a crown ever since.
Two feet of oak, a bolt on the outside, and no window anywhere in it. A very tidy way to lose three people and one confession.
Four nights to the full moon, sealed in a stone room with the only proof that the crown can be broken. I had two more deaths in my pocket and I had promised myself I would not spend them.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.