Beneath the kingdom’s rotting floors and weathered stones, a cursed knight hung by his wrists from rusted chains. The familiar dull snap of bone wrenching him awake, the shock ripping through his forearms as his feet desperately searched for the floor. There was no floor. There was never a floor.
This time, something else broke.
The rusted chains gave way.
He collapsed hard, stone slick beneath him. He wept as his body healed—not from pain, but from the sudden relief of it. The cold pressed into his back. Every nerve sang.
“Free.”
The word tore through his throat like broken glass. He could not remember the last word he had spoken before it. Speech had been buried with the light.
Once he’d caught his breath, he pushed himself onto all fours. His hands found the steps that led to the door. How he would open it was another problem entirely.
He sat on the landing with his back to the door and wondered what kind of man left this place alive.
Anger rose—not new, merely uncovered. It had always been there, buried beneath the vast, smothering patience of despair.
He stood and pounded at the door.
“Let me out.”
Iron coated his mouth.
He stepped aside.
The lock turned and light burned his eyes as a guard rushed in, panic breaking his voice. “He’s gone—his chains—”
The knight took the sword from him and ran it through his body in one motion.
Another followed. Then another.
The rest blurred together.
Stone halls, clashing steel, bodies falling. By the time he reached the throne room, only one figure mattered.
The king begged.
The knight said nothing.
The blade was buried to the hilt before time caught up to the moment.
Marigold screamed.
Then the king spoke again—alive, seated, robed in white and crowned in silver.
“I would never,” the knight said.
“You imagined it after only two months,” the king replied.
“I was angry, and rightfully so,” the knight spat. “A fantasy and nothing more.”
“And you are certain this isn’t?” the king asked gently as he gestured at the keep.
The knight had no answer.
Beneath the kingdom’s rotting floors and weathered stones, a cursed knight hung by his wrists from rusted chains.
The snap.
The light.
The swing of an axe.
Alaric’s voice whispered his name as he fell to the ground. The axe fell beside him. The door closed, and darkness returned.
Bread touched his lips.
Strength returned too quickly—too easily.
“Quickly, the guards will return soon.”
“Alaric,” the knight groaned.
“Yes, we haven’t much time,” Alaric replied as he helped the knight to his feet. “They betrayed you. Sir Draven. Marigold.”
Before the knight could respond, the door burst open and the light rushed in once more.
Steel burst through the knight’s ribs.
Alaric fell.
The knight grabbed the axe and swung.
The guard’s arms came off at the elbows; the sword still stuck through the knight.
Alaric lay dead.
With a wailing shout, the knight pulled the sword from his body and dispatched the guards in seconds.
Blood followed him into a garden where Draven stood with his back turned.
The knight took his head without a word.
“Sorry I’m la—”
Behind him, Marigold stood in stunned silence. The fear in her eyes weakened him. Both blades fell from his grip.
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“Don’t kill me,” she replied.
“I wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Sir Draven’s head spoke.
The knight turned to the king sitting on his throne.
“I was half mad with suffering,” the knight said, marching toward the king. “And I’ll not have you twist my desperation into illusion.”
“Half mad?” the king asked as the knight approached, raising his sword. “You are certain only half?”
Snap.
Chains.
No floor.
He closed his eyes and thought of her.
Hands on his face. Light beyond his eyelids. There came a voice kind enough to make the pain recede.
“You poor thing,” Marigold said. “Unchain him.”
The shackles came loose and he fell into her arms.
“I have you,” she said.
“My Queen,” a guard said. “What would you have us do with him?”
“Feed him, bathe him, and treat him as you would the king.”
“As you wish.”
The throne room held two seats.
A boy entered. Eight years old, with curious eyes.
“Father? Is it true you’re immortal?”
The knight broke.
He sank to the floor and embraced the boy.
Years passed gently. The fear faded and love took root. He taught the boy to fight. Together, they walked the kingdom and ate full meals at warm tables.
They’d trained hard that day, and as he ate with his son, his son spoke.
“Had I been stronger, I would have freed you myself.”
“No,” he said, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Do not think of it.”
Marigold entered as they ate—a smile on her face.
“How was training today?”
“He did well, as always,” the knight replied.
“Glad to hear,” Marigold said, puzzled. “Why do you still hold your blade?”
The sword was in his hand.
Black.
Warm.
“Father, you were meant to leave your sword,” his son said.
“Getting forgetful in your age?” Marigold teased. “Please set it down. The table is no place for a weapon.”
Confused, he glanced down the table.
It was impossibly long.
His heart beat hard, pounding at his thoughts. This had to be real. He needed it to be.
“You’re beginning to worry me, husband.”
“Are you alright, father? Here, hand me the sword and I’ll put it away for you.”
When the boy reached for it, the knight recoiled. He stood at the head of the table, uncertain.
The sword sat in his hand as though it belonged. The table stretched before him, ordinary again, painfully so. Bread. Plates. Faces buried in concern.
Marigold began crying.
Not loudly. She never cried loudly. Her hands trembled as she reached for him, stopping short of the sword.
“Please,” she said. “You’re scaring us.”
“I’m scared as well,” he replied.
The boy stood beside her, confusion written plainly across his face. He was so solid. So warm.
“Father?” the boy asked. “What’s wrong?”
Father. The word struck deeper than any blade.
The knight closed his eyes.
For a moment, and only a moment, he allowed himself to imagine that this was mercy. That the dungeon had broken him, and this was the kindness that followed. That suffering was a door, and love waited on the other side.
He opened his eyes.
The table was longer now. Not impossibly so, but wrong. The boy followed his gaze.
“What are you looking at?” he asked.
“Nothing,” the knight answered. “Nothing at all.”
Then wept.
Not quietly. Not with dignity. His shoulders shook as though something inside him were tearing loose. He covered his mouth, trying to contain the sound, but it escaped him anyway—broken.
“I wanted you,” he said. “I wanted you more than anything.”
Marigold stepped closer.
“I know,” she said. “I’m here. We’re here. You don’t have to—”
“I do,” he whispered. “A proper rest for the love I lost. She deserves as much. More than I deserve.”
She froze.
“I am she.”
The knight shook his head.
The boy took a step back.
“Father?” he said again, smaller this time.
The knight looked at them—really looked. At the way Marigold’s fear fought with love. At the boy’s hands, still open, still trusting.
“I know what this place wants,” the knight said. “Once my task is done, I will offer it freely.”
Marigold shook her head, tears running freely now. “This isn’t a curse. This is your life. Our life.”
“No,” he whispered. “This is the life I was denied.”
He raised the sword.
The boy screamed.
Marigold moved first—faster than he expected.
The blade passed through easily. She gasped—not in pain, but in disbelief. Her hands fell away, slick with blood, and she crumpled against him.
He held her as she fell.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair, as though she might still hear him. “I loved you as much as I was able.”
She went still.
The boy stood frozen, staring.
The knight turned to him.
Tears blurred his vision. His grip slipped. His knees threatened to give.
“I need you to know,” he said, voice breaking completely now, “that you were real to me. Every moment.”
The boy shook his head, backing away.
“No,” he said. “No, no, no—”
It was quick.
He needed it to be.
The sword slipped from his hand.
It struck stone and rang once before settling into silence.
Marigold was gone.
The boy was gone.
The knight dropped to his knees.
He did not sob now—that had been spent. What remained was hollow, a soundless heaving as though his body were trying to remember how grief was supposed to work.
At the far end of the throne room sat the king.
He had not moved.
The silver crown rested lightly on his brow, untouched by blood or illusion.
The knight looked up.
“I chose truth,” he said. His voice sounded older than the king’s. “Was I wrong?”
The king nodded slightly.
“Yes.”
“Then let me leave. I wish to suffer this keep no more.”
The king’s expression did not change.
“You cannot.”
The words landed gently.
“They were lies,” the knight said. “Merely thoughts long past, not reality.”
“The only difference between the two being that which you perceive most true.”
The knight pushed himself upright. Each step toward the throne felt resisted—not by guards, not by force, but by the room itself. The stone beneath his boots shuddered faintly, like breath drawn in pain.
“What is this place?” the knight asked.
The king laughed. Not out of amusement, but relief
The silver crown slipped from his head and struck the stone with a soft, last sound.
Sagging forward, the king’s hands gripped the knight’s wrists—not to stop him, but to steady himself.
“You cannot leave. Not while it beats.”
Then he went still.
The knight staggered back, dropping to his knees.
He let the loss wash over and past him as he’d done so many times with pain.
It was a lie that wounded him as truth.
A low, seismic groan rolled through the keep, deep enough to rattle the knight’s teeth. Cracks crawled along the pillars. Dust rained from the ceiling in choking sheets.
The floor split, swallowing him.
Heat enveloped him, damp and suffocating, carrying the smell of old blood and wet masonry. The knight stood. There, in the broken hollow of the keep, was a vast structure of stone and mortar—arched, ribbed, unmistakable.
A stone heart hung at the center of the room.
It was bound in iron bands, each one etched with runes worn nearly smooth by age. With every shudder of the keep, it pulsed—slow, immense—dragging the world around it into rhythm.
Cracks wept dust like ash.
The knight felt a pressure in his chest.
A mirrored ache.
He pressed a hand to his ribs and gasped as the heart stuttered, stone grinding on stone. Understanding came to him then.
Whatever he did to this heart, he would do to himself.
He approached, dragging his blade.
The heart towered over him, but he did not look at it. He looked through it and into the lies he’d left behind and the time he could not recover.
An empty space ahead of him and inside.
He raised his sword and slid it slowly through cracks in the stone. The sting of his blade piercing his own heart. He stifled a grunt and continued to drive the blade deeper, twisting it as he went.
The keep rumbled, and the knight trembled.
The heart raced until it didn’t.
Stone buried him, and he was grateful for the peace.
