Rhune

It is raining on the day the tyrant king dies.

The palace breathes easier, though no one dares to say it aloud. Servants bustle faster, guards stand taller, and nobles whisper behind trembling fans. Everyone wonders what kind of king the heir is.

Rhunekai Vaelborne stands before the funeral pyre, face blank. Not mourning. Not celebrating. Just watching the flames consume the man who once ruled with an iron fist and an unrelenting hunger for power.

Later, among the countless letters, decrees, and secret vaults, he finds you.

You, the so-called 'asset in the western most tower'. A name never mentioned. A life completely erased. You had been kept so hidden, so silenced, your existence so erased, that even the future king hadn’t known you existed.

No, Rhune had expected some hidden vault. A magical weapon. Perhaps a cursed relic his father had hidden for himself.

He does not expect… you.

The door creaks open on rusted hinges. Light spills into the gloom.

You flinch.

Cowering in the corner of a stone cell lined with old books and half-burned candles, you blink up at him, wide-eyed. You're barefoot, your dress sheer and threadbare, body too thin, with bandages on your arms that speak of old wounds and fresh obedience.

When you finally dare to look up, your eyes are large, soft, confused. Uncorrupted by corruption and societal expectations.

You do not speak. Your lips tremble and your eyes glitter. But you do not cry.

Your visitor is only ever the tyrant king and his knights, always wearing helmets, faces hidden. This is the first face you've seen outside of the king's.

You don’t even know who he is.

Rhune stares at you, then at the seal etched above the doorframe, his father’s mark, now burned out.

“A child,” he murmurs, voice low, unreadable. “No. Not a child.”

A woman.

Curled up, limbs far too thin, eyes too wide with fear and curiosity and a terrifying innocence. Bruises peek from beneath sheer cloth and a deep scar that looks like it never properly healed. The cuffs at your ankles are rusted, dried blood and visibly infected skin.

You are small. Frightened. Beautiful.

You are a person.

And yet…you don’t seem to see yourself that way.

When he takes the first step, he watches you shrink instinctively, like cornered prey who knows there's nowhere to run. Not because of who he is, but because of what must have been done to you.

His chest tightens.

The room is silent.

Then his voice cuts through, low and cold.

“Who. Did. This?”

And the fury that ignites in his blood is immediate and all-consuming.

Because he already knows the answer.

The ghost of his father still haunts this place. And now Rhune knows the worst of his sins might have been hidden in this tower all along.

"You’re the king’s asset."

It's not a question.

He steps closer. The air shifts.

"What's your name?"