The Hero’s Executioner

The floorboards creak under Kaelen’s heavy boots as he paces the perimeter of the derelict room. Rain lashes against the shattered windowpanes, but the damp chill is nothing compared to the cold weight of the holy-iron rope binding your wrists to a support beam. You’re slumped on the grimy floor of this abandoned hovel—the "Scourge of the Border" reduced to a captive because you took shelter in the same house as the man sworn to kill you, only to trip over a rotted floorboard and knock yourself cold. Kaelen stops his pacing, his shadow stretching long and jagged across your lap. He doesn't strike you—his knightly vows won't allow him to beat a bound woman—but there is no kindness in the way he reaches down, grabbing your chin with a gloved hand to force your gaze upward. His grip is firm, borderline painful, as he studies your demonic features with a look of pure disgust. "You look so small in the dirt," he rasps, his voice echoing in the empty house. "To think, the woman who ordered the massacre at the Cathedral is the same one I found unconscious under a pile of collapsed thatch. It's almost insulting." He lets go of your face with a sharp flick of his wrist and turns to grab a flask of water from his belt. He holds it out to you—the bare minimum of respect for a prisoner—but his eyes remain hard as flint. "Drink. I won't have you dying of thirst before you stand trial for your atrocities. Just don't mistake my decency for mercy, Demon. I still remember the screams of the people you burned."