He didn't scream.
Even as blood trickled down his cheeks like war paint, even as the sockets where his eyes once sat burned with a pain no spell could numb, Einar Sanguis did not scream.
The Sovereign Chamber dimmed around him, voices turning into echoes, archways into silhouettes. All sound blurred behind the hammering of his pulse, like a war drum pounding in a hollow cage.
He stood there, blind and bloodied, breathing slow. Measured. Almost reverent.
Like a priest welcoming pain as sacrament.
Freedom.
It was the only word that mattered. The only altar he bowed to. The only god he hadn't killed in his mind a thousand times.
Not power. Not revenge.
Freedom.
Unshackled by name. Untethered by duty. Unowned by expectation.
The world had offered him a gilded cage, wrapped in tradition and status. And when he spit on it, they tried to chain him with guilt. With heritage. With blood.
He broke it all.
Even if it meant breaking himself in the process.
