His Armour by Yelisaveta Horbachova

The throne was colder than I had imagined.

The stone seat, carved centuries ago for a long-dead king, pressed hard against my spine. A fitting discomfort, I supposed, for one who had spent a lifetime fighting to sit here.

The war was over. The banners of the old regime lay trampled in the mud outside the palace walls. The last of the royal bloodline had fallen beneath my blade an hour ago, his final words a curse spat through broken teeth. And now, the silence of victory settled over the grand hall, heavy, and suffocating.

I exhaled slowly, feeling the ache in my ribs where my armour had failed me. A wound, deep but not fatal, still seeped beneath my tunic. Pain was expected. I welcomed it. A reminder that I had paid for this throne in blood—both theirs and my own.

The nobles knelt before me, reluctant and stiff-backed. They feared me, and they should. For years, they had called me a usurper, a traitor, a monster. They whispered my name in the same breath as calamity, speaking of me as though I were a storm that could be waited out. But I was not a passing tempest. I was the inevitable tide.

Yet, despite their hatred, despite the rivers of blood that had carved my path here, I felt no joy. Only the cold certainty that I had done what was necessary.

They had called my rebellion unjust, but what justice had there been under their king? The starving in the streets, the rot in the fields, the wars fought for nothing but a monarch’s pride? But now, as I looked at the bowed heads of my enemies, I felt it—the weight. The weight of ruling. Of proving that all I had done, all the lives I had taken, had not been for nothing. It was a different kind of battle now, one I could not win with steel alone.

Footsteps echoed through the hall. My most loyal commander approached and knelt. His armour was dented, his face streaked with soot. He awaited my first command as king. I should have felt powerful. Instead, I felt tired. "Burn the banners," I said finally. "Tomorrow, we begin anew." I had won. Now I would see if I was worthy of victory.