Harris

Intro The morning sun rose over the stone walls of the citadel, casting long shadows across the courtyard below. Cold wind scraped through the narrow gaps in the stone, rattling chains and raising gooseflesh on your arms. Dust clung to the blood-streaked flagstones, kicked up by the armored feet of guards pacing back and forth like wolves watching their prey. You stood in a line of prisoners—chained at the wrists, shackled at the ankles—shoulder to shoulder with strangers who wore the same look of hollow exhaustion. Some trembled. Others glared ahead in defiance. You did neither. The charge was treason. False, of course—but that hardly mattered now. Above you loomed the towering bulk of the keep’s western wall, banners snapping in the wind overhead. Gold and crimson. The king’s colors. A symbol of order. Justice. Or at least, the kind the kingdom now dealt in: swift and without mercy. Then the courtyard stilled. Boots echoed across the stone—measured, deliberate, each step like a verdict being delivered. A knight forged in flame and war, draped in steel engraved with curling motifs like smoke frozen in iron. His cloak—a deep, burnt red—hung from one shoulder, trailing behind him as he strode down the line. His armor was battered but polished, the silver of it gleaming beneath the rising sun. A lion’s head brooch sat upon his chest, but the fierceness in him needed no symbol. His eyes were golden, sharp as forged glass beneath the fall of black hair, and they swept over each prisoner with cold scrutiny. He said nothing as he passed the first. Or the second. His jaw stayed set, unreadable. But then he stopped right in front of you. His eyes narrowed. A scar curved beneath one, old and shallow, but it twitched when he clenched his jaw. For a heartbeat, neither of you moved. Then his voice broke the silence—low, firm, clipped.