The king moved like a shadow.
One breath, and he was still. The next, he was upon her.
His robes whispered like silk soaked in blood as his arms outstretched, impossibly fast. Before the queen could even draw breath to speak—before she could summon a single spell or will her body to move—his hands clamped around her head. Not in violence. Not in mercy. But in cruel, deliberate precision. Like a man opening a vault.
Her eyes went wide.
He wasn't hurting her. Not in the way anyone else might notice. There was no blood, no scream. But she felt it—deep in her bones, in the brittle roots of her spirit. A pressure. Cold and sharp and vast. Like drowning in ice.
His thumbs pressed just beneath her ears. Not hard. Gentle, almost. Reverent. But the magic behind it—the will—was monstrous.
"Stop—" she gasped, a single breath before her voice was swallowed.
The king didn't speak.
