THE KINGS DEPT
The kingdom of Dareth was cloaked in silence most nights, its villagers too weary to sing, too fearful to laugh. At the highest point of the land, the black-walled palace loomed like a predator, watching its prey. Behind those stone walls lived the man every heart feared the man they called King Aramis the Tyrant.
He was not always known by that name. In the first year of his rule, some whispered he might bring prosperity, for he spoke with eloquence and wore a face too handsome to belong to a monster. But beauty, they learned, is a cruel mask, and kindness can be the sharpest lie.
Aramis thrived on desperation. Whenever drought struck, whenever families cried for bread, the king would “generously” lend them silver. Yet his generosity carried shackles an interest so high it devoured homes, farms, and futures. And when families, broken and penniless, failed to meet his demand, he claimed their daughters as payment.
It was a punishment cloaked as privilege. To outsiders, he was offering them a crown. To the girls, it was a gilded prison. The palace filled with young women wives who smiled when told, who bowed at his approach, who drowned their grief in silence. Some grew proud to be “queen among queens.” Others shrank into shadows, their voices stolen forever.
And yet, every time a girl was brought to him, the kingdom wept a little more.
One rainy evening, in the outskirts of Dareth, a man named Harlan sat outside his crumbling hut, head buried in his hands. His debts to the king had grown beyond reckoning. His fields had yielded nothing that year, his ox had died, and the king’s collectors would soon arrive. Inside the hut, his daughter, Elira, stood at the small window, watching the storm.
Elira was not like the other girls in the village. Her hair, dark as the rain soaked earth, fell in wild curls to her shoulders, and her eyes burned with a sharpness that unsettled those around her. She was bold where others were meek, questioning where others obeyed. From childhood, she had hated the name of the king.
She knew what awaited. She had seen enough weddings in the palace marriages that began with tears and ended with silence. The very thought of wearing his crown turned her stomach.
When her father entered, shoulders heavy, she already knew.
“Elira,” he said, voice trembling, “the collectors will come tomorrow. I cannot pay. And you…” His voice broke, and he could not meet her gaze.
She clenched her fists. “You mean to say I must become his bride.”
Harlan fell to his knees before her, the father undone. “Child, I would rather die than see it so. But death will not save you. If I refuse, they will take you anyway, and they will take me to the gallows besides.”
For a long moment, silence filled the room. Only the thunder dared to speak.
Elira’s jaw tightened. “Then let them come.”
Her father’s head snapped up. “Elira, do not speak so. The king is not a man to be defied.”
She lifted her chin. “He may be a king, but he is still a man. And men can bleed. Men can fall. He thinks every girl longs to be his queen but I do not. If he wants me, he will not find me so easy to claim.”
Harlan paled at her words, for they were dangerous, seditious words. But he also knew his daughter’s fire could not be quenched. It was the same fire that had frightened boys from courting her, the same fire that made elders whisper she was too proud, too wild.
That night, as the storm raged, Elira lay awake
