He remembered the cold of his homeland. The sting of snow in his lungs. The honest bite of steel. Not this velvet cage of crowns and couriers.
And in the morning? If he still lived—he would decide whether to be a king again. He remembered the cold of his homeland
His bare feet—calloused from a thousand battlefields—rested on the mosaic of a serpent he’d crushed with his own hands. Outside, the city of Aquilonia whispered his name like a prayer and a curse. King. Barbarian. Savior. Tyrant. He remembered the cold of his homeland