Chapter 1
I walked the length of my castle, and the sound of my boots echoed like a verdict.
The blood in my ears would not quiet. It pulsed, thick and heavy, as if my own body were warning me.
I was tired — not the kind sleep could fix. This was a tiredness that settled in the mind. A splinter lodged behind thought.
Something was wrong.
The air felt wrong. Too still. Too obedient.
The tapestries did not sway, yet I felt watched. The torches burned, yet the corridors seemed darker than before. Even the stone beneath my fingertips felt colder… almost resentful.
As if the castle rejected me.
As if it remembered a different king.
“Silence. The King.”
My guard’s voice struck the hall.
Silence? Had I spoken? I did not remember opening my mouth.
Or had I?
I replayed my thoughts. I had only said what was true — that something within these walls was festering. That the suffering creeping through my court had a pulse. A name.
He stood behind me now. I could feel him there. Too still. Too controlled.
Loyal men shift their weight. Loyal men breathe unevenly. Loyal men fear their king.
He did not.
There was a pause — too long, too careful.
Perhaps I had not been ruling this castle alone.
Perhaps I never had.
I think of the way whispers die when he enters a room. The way letters go missing. The way certain eyes avoid mine — but never his.
He says little. But he listens to everything.
And lately…
So do the walls.
If there is a serpent in my court, it is patient. It waits for me to doubt myself. To question my own mind. To wonder whether the rot is in the kingdom—
Or in me.
But I am not mad.
I am not.
And when I find proof…
I will not hesitate.
