The Price of Dominion by Artem Novosolov

The throne was cold beneath his fingertips.

A lesser man might have trembled, but Dorian merely let his fingers rest on the gilded armrest, feeling the weight of the moment settle into his bones. Outside, the city still burned. Smoke curled against the stained-glass windows, casting shifting patterns of light across the marble floor. For years, he had fought for this. Not out of greed, nor some childish hunger for power, but because no one else had the strength to do what was necessary. The old king had ruled through stagnation, indulging the whims of nobles while the people starved. Dorian had seen them, the beggars, the sick, the forgotten. He had walked among them, listened to their pain, and sworn that if no one else would fix this, he would. And now, he had won.The council lay at his feet—some dead, others kneeling in fearful surrender. They had called him a traitor, a monster, a tyrant. Dorian closed his eyes for a moment, allowing himself to feel something akin to sorrow. Perhaps they were right, in some way. His hands were stained red. His soldiers had slaughtered those who resisted. There was no clean way to seize power, no victory untouched by blood. A ragged cough broke the silence. Dorian opened his eyes. The old king—his cousin, the man who had once let him starve as a child—lay slumped at the base of the dais, his velvet robes torn, his crown rolling across the floor. He was still alive, barely. Dorian stepped down, retrieving the crown from where it had come to rest in a pool of blood. “You—” The king’s voice was weak, his lips trembling with pain. “You think they’ll love you for this?” Dorian crouched beside him, tilting his head. “No,” he admitted. “I don’t expect love.” He turned the crown in his hands, watching the way the dim torchlight flickered across its golden surface. “But I expect something better than love. Order.” The king let out a rasping chuckle, though it turned into a cough. “You’re a fool.” Dorian sighed. “Perhaps. But a fool who wins shapes the world, and a fool who loses is forgotten.” He placed the crown on his head and rose to his feet. The weight of it pressed against his brow, heavier than he expected. He turned to the council, the trembling nobles who had spent years ignoring the suffering outside their gilded halls. “Kneel,” he commanded. And one by one, they did. Victory was not the elation he had once imagined. There was no moment of pure triumph, no rush of joy. Only the realization that the battle had been the easy part. What came next—the ruling, the rebuilding, the proving of his worth—would be far harder. Dorian tightened his grip on the throne. He had won. Now he had to ensure that the world he had fought for was worth the cost.