CHAPTER 52: IN THE PATH OF THE DAGGER

Lorraine froze by the King’s act, but her husband surprised her more.

Without a word, Leroy knelt even before the clattering stopped.

No hesitation. No question.

He dropped to his knees on the filthy wooden floor. Out of nowhere, that man she saw outside, the one Leroy didn’t go against... he stood by the King’s side, fisting his hands

Lorraine’s breath caught in her throat. She didn’t ask. She didn’t need to understand. She stood, bowed her head, and knelt beside him.

That was her role. That was what a consort did. Even if she understood none of it, she belonged on the filthy ground beside her husband.

Even if the ground was shifting beneath them.

"Talking while eating? Have you licked enough dog ass, you turned into them?" the King of Kaltharion roared, voice thick with disgust. His hand slammed against the table with a hollow thud, making cutlery clatter and goblets tremble.

Leroy didn’t move.

"Or do you think you’re better than us now?" The king stood, the chair scraping violently across the tavern floor. "You strut around in that disgusting lion’s colors, riding their horses, parading their banners. You speak their tongue, wear their fashion... hell, you probably piss like them too."

Still, Leroy remained kneeling. Not even a flinch.

His spine was straight, knees pressed to the rotting wooden floor, like a knight in fealty, except there was no honor in the position tonight. Only humiliation.

Lorraine’s throat tightened.

She watched his stillness, the way he held himself without defense, without pride, almost like he agreed with the accusations. Like he had long accepted this ritual, this slow, public stripping of dignity, as his due penance.

Was this his life back there too? She wanted to hug him, so tight he couldn’t breathe, so tight he forgot everything else.

"You’re a dog now," the King growled, circling the table like a predator. "A southern-trained hound who eats from their hand and wags his tail when they whistle."

A few uneasy glances passed between Gaston and Lucia, but neither said a word. Even the Queen, seated beside her husband with ice in her eyes, did not flinch. She didn’t even look at her son.

And still, Leroy knelt. Not speaking. Not reacting. His eyes fixed downward, shoulders square, jaw clenched until the tendons in his neck bulged. Shame coiled off him like smoke, thick and choking, and still he bore it.

It made Lorraine sick.

She knew he’d been raised on obedience and bruises, but this? This was too much.

"Look at you," the King sneered. "You kneel better than your wife. Is that what you’ve become? A mute, barren noble girl’s pet?" He spat the words like they were filth in his mouth. "How fitting. One cripple for another."

Lorraine froze.

The insult didn’t surprise her. She’d known it would come the moment she stepped into this room. But hearing it aloud, with that tone, in that voice, cut like a jagged shard of glass.

"Deaf. Dumb. Barren." The King spat each word like it curdled his tongue. "Is this what the great Duke Arvand offered as a bride? A broken mongrel who can’t speak, can’t hear, and can’t even give you an heir?"

He laughed bitterly, shaking his head. "Tell me, did he send her as a gesture of peace, or just to mock us? Was she meant to be a wife, or a walking reminder of what we lost the day we sent you away?"

His eyes glinted with something crueler than scorn. "Did the Grand Duke offer her to you out of goodwill, or was she the only one he could spare for a traitorous son playing soldier in a foreign land?"

Leroy’s shoulders tensed.

Lorraine saw it—a slight shift. A breath held too long. His fingers twitched once before curling back into fists.

And for the first time that evening, she saw anger spark behind his silence. Not at his father. But for her.

The realization landed like a drumbeat in her chest. He’d sat through his own public flogging with a bowed head. But this? A few low jabs at her, and fire flickered behind his eyes.

She should have felt touched. Instead, she felt a foreign tightness blooming in her throat. Because she realized then, it was not kindness. It was guilt.

He couldn’t defend her because to do so would admit that she needed

defending. That she was as helpless as they saw her. And he hated that. Hated that they were right.

The King saw the tension, too. It only made him laugh.

"Still not going to talk back? You really have become one of them. No spine. No shame. Just a well-dressed puppet who bows to the very beasts who stole our waters and butchered our land."

Then he drew his dagger.

Lorraine’s breath caught.

The glint of the steel in the dim tavern light was sharp and sudden, cruel in its simplicity.

"You wear our braid like it means something," the King snarled, stepping down toward Leroy. "You think it gives you rank? Honor? You think it makes you Kaltharion?"

He seized Leroy’s thick braid, the golden cord twined between knots clinking against the hilt of the blade. The gesture was violent, possessive, and Leroy’s head jerked back with the force of it.

"These first three knots?" The King held the braid aloft. "I gave you those. When you were still my son. When you still belonged to this kingdom. Before you sold yourself."

He lifted the dagger to the braid, its blade hovering just beneath the fourth knot—the first Leroy had earned in blood, not birthright.

"Maybe I should take them back," the King hissed. "Strip you bare like the southerners did, and see what’s left underneath all that pretty hair."

The King’s words were getting sharper now, crueler, each one a lash meant to strip Leroy of whatever pride he had left.

Lorraine could hardly breathe.

He held the dagger close, poised to sever not just hair, but everything that symbolized what Leroy had earned for himself. Not inherited... earned.

And that was when something in her snapped.

How dare he?

It was this same King, his father, who had bartered Leroy’s life away to avoid war. It wasn’t Leroy who chose to grow up a stranger in a hostile land. It wasn’t Leroy who asked to wear enemy colors or eat their food or fight under their banner.

He was seventeen when he was sent away. Just a boy. A bargain.

And the King spoke as if Leroy had wanted it. As if he’d gleefully pledged himself to Vaeloria. As if every scar he earned there was some act of betrayal, not survival.

How could he blame him? How dare he?

He should be grateful. Grateful that Leroy endured the shame. That he bowed his head and swallowed every insult Vaeloria hurled at him, because he did it for Kaltharion. For the man who now stood there, spitting venom like he was speaking to a traitor.

Leroy didn’t deserve this.

He had sacrificed enough.

If anything, his father should be praising him. Honoring him. Thanking him for what he gave up and for what he survived.

But no. Instead, he stood there, ready to humiliate him all over again. To take something from him again.

And Lorraine... she couldn’t bear that.

Not when the braid in question had come to mean so much to her. Each knot, a victory. Each thread, a testament to what Leroy had earned in blood and grit. The first three might have been royal gifts, but the rest? He bled for those. He bled for her kingdom, too.

The King didn’t have the right to touch even a hair.

He didn’t have the right.

Before she could stop herself, Lorraine moved, thrusting her body between the dagger and the braid with the force of a scream she couldn’t make.

*Swish*