The stairs were steep and spiraled tight. His heavy steps and breath were the only sounds, climbing with him in tight echoes.

  He wondered if the Question was outside, waiting. How long would it wait?

  Then another thought followed it—quieter, heavier. Whether it had brought him here intentionally. Whether it had been blindly searching for an end to a story it could not see. Whether his journey had already been written, his steps nothing more than punctuation.

  The idea weighed—that somewhere ahead of him, this moment was already finished.

  He climbed far too long without knowing how long he’d climbed. For the final stretch, his arches burned with every step. At the top, he dropped to his knees before a long, narrow hall. A short set of stairs led to a door at the far end. Five tapestries lined the wall to his right. Five torches flickered opposite them.

  When he found the strength, he stood and walked on.

  The first tapestry drew him like an embrace. His shadow danced across its surface.

  A childbearing woman stood atop a green hill beneath blue skies. Flowers grew at her feet, and birds circled her like a halo. Around the very edges of the cloth, stains like ink and mud crept inward.

  She was smiling and crying.

  He felt her tears as his own.

  Only then did he notice the blood. Her white gown soaked through, running down her legs and pooling at her feet.

  His breath stuttered. Her eyes met his—too knowing, too close. How he wished to stay.

  Before long, he could bear no more.

  He moved on.

  The next tapestry depicted a baby carried through a land strangled by curses. The child was held by a knight. He knew the armor well. How could he forget the knight that raised him?

  Sir Armant.

  He was a kind man. A quiet man.

  He’d learned everything he knew from Armant. The weight of a sword and how to wield it. The value of honor and how to earn it. Armant raised him as though he were already a man—worn and resilient. He was only twelve when Armant died. The king offered him Armant’s post personally—when the time came.

  Few knew of his curse, but those who did knew its value.

  He accepted the honor quietly.

  When he noticed the blood running from beneath the helmet, a long-slumbered pain lifted its heavy head and spoke.

  Gone.

  He lingered no more.

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  The third tapestry depicted a man engulfed in blue flame.

  The knight remembered the breach.

  A starving nation had driven its army through the waste—desperate, hollow-eyed. Their ranks swelled with mages bearing blue flame lanterns. He had watched them from a tangled dead forest, far from any gate. No one guarded that far out. No one was meant to.

  It had been his third watch. His first alone. The old anxiety returned, sharp and vivid.

  In the distance, a rider in pale armor stood apart, overseeing the army. There was nobility in his posture. King or a knight—it mattered not.

  He stood transfixed by curiosity as two men stepped forward. Their skin covered in tattoos—lantern symbols needled deep into the flesh. They knelt without hesitation and prayed. Unbound and unforced.

  Two mages answered.

  They reached into their lanterns. The flame burned in their hands as they pressed it into the men’s foreheads.

  Blue fire took them.

  They did not scream.

  From their bodies, a ring of flame tore outward, racing across the land—washing the waste clean, carving a vast space where curses could not tread.

  It was the first time he had seen magic twisted so deliberately.

  The army spread along the outer wall in three groups. At the head of each, an officer carried a satchel. He called for help as the men knelt.

  Moments later, three explosions split the wall. Green fire lit the sky.

  The war that followed was brief. Chaotic. The outer wall gave way to three small openings large enough to fit men by two.

  They poured in.

  The pale rider vanished.

  He left the wall and joined the rest of the royal guard. The enemy was starving. Desperate men and women, fighting not for conquest but survival.

  Victory came swift and bloody.

  It tasted wrong.

  He remembered a boy among them, scarcely younger than himself. He took a sword meant for the boy straight through the heart.

  The knight pressed a hand to his chest as the memory struck anew.

  He made a friend that day.

  The same now lost.

  He turned away.

  The fourth was Marigold.

  She wore a lavender gown and smiled at him. His shadow enveloped her. Tears came easily and without sound.

  He reached out, brushing the fibers. When he pulled his hand back, the tapestry clung to him, resisting until the world itself pressed it back into place.

  Her face filled his vision.

  Deep in her eyes, he saw himself—hanging from rusted chains in a dungeon outside of time. The image drew him closer, deeper, until he could feel his own breath reflected back.

  Rot. Iron. Lavender.

  He could not look any longer.

  At the final tapestry, he stopped without turning his head. From the corner of his eye, he caught only fragments—four black shapes extending from a single robed figure. A smear of black and gray.

  The end, he thought, feeling a fool.

  The knight did not look closer.

  He passed it and approached the door.

  It was old and thick. Iron-bound and scarred by use rather than age. Its surface was worn smooth where hands had pressed against it over years—centuries, perhaps. Heavy in a way that suggested it was meant to remain closed.

  Dungeon-heavy.

  He stopped.

  For a moment, the stairs behind him felt distant. The hall narrower. He thought of chains. Of counting breaths. Of the way time folded in on itself when there was nothing left to do but think.

  He felt as though this door might take him there.

  Take him back.

  Perhaps not in body, but in thought. Trapped, regardless.

  He weighed the choice longer than he had any other. Longer than the sword. Longer than the apple. Longer than the Question’s promises.

  At last, he reached out.

  The iron was cold.

  The door opened without resistance, and beyond it lay a throne room.

  It was vast and plain—no banners, no windows, no extravagance beyond scale alone. Stone pillars rose to a ceiling lost in shadow. The floor was bare and unmarked. No color. No heraldry.

  At the far end sat a throne of the same dark stone.

  A king occupied it.

  He was old. Older than the knight expected. His crown was simple, unadorned, and silver. His robes were clean and white, but unremarkable. Deep lines marked his face, worn by thought rather than rule.

  The knight did not know him.

  The king’s eyes lifted.

  “I’ve been waiting,” he said.

  The words did not echo.

  They settled at his feet like listless stone.

  The knight stood alone in the center of the room, his sword heavy at his side, the Question nowhere to be seen.

  Behind him, the iron door closed.

  Softly.