LABORATORES
Cold wind whipped across the sprawling fields outside the capital city. Storm clouds gathered overhead, blotting out the pale sun and casting the landscape into a hush of tense anticipation. At the heart of it all stood Adair’s growing army—a sea of peasants, workers, ex-soldiers, and villagers who had rallied under the banner of BELLATORES. Their makeshift camp sprawled across the muddy terrain, rows of tents interspersed with weapon racks and cooking fires, as if a new town had sprung up overnight.
The city walls—tall, ancient, and fortified—rose in the near distance, surmounted by banners of the royal crest. Beyond those walls lay the palace where the King and Queen still clung to power, ignorant or dismissive of the tidal wave of fury about to crash upon them. For too long, the monarchy’s demands had drained the lifeblood of common folk. For too long, peasants had been told to work, to obey, to die nameless under harsh taxes and stricter punishments. But no longer.
A muffled drumbeat rumbled through the wind, low and resonant. Somewhere in the ranks of rebels, a chant rose in time with the drums:
“Freedom! Freedom!”
It started as a low murmur, then escalated into a roar that pulsed across the camp. Beneath the chant, the heavy percussion hammered in steady, bone-rattling beats. Some voices added rough snatches of a new rallying cry, half sung and half shouted:
“Eat, Sleep, Work, Die—
Eat, Sleep, Work, Die—
You want my labor—
My labor’s not for you!”
Adair stood at the edge of the encampment, gaze fixed on the city walls. The winter sky pressed down, mirroring the heaviness in his chest. He wore simple armor over a padded tunic—cobbled from looted plate and leather straps. A battered sword hung at his side, one that had seen too many battles and drawn more blood than he cared to remember. Tonight, though, that blade would be aimed at the ultimate target: the monarchy’s seat of power.
He inhaled, memories of the fisherman’s hut where he had been rescued surfacing amid the swirl of tension. In his mind, he heard the faint echo of the private tune that had once haunted him. Now, a new melody saturated the air—the rallying cry of workers and peasants, echoing everything from the backbreaking labor the kingdom demanded to the stolen harvests and the punishing taxes. “You want my body / My body’s not for you.” The refrain pounded in time with his pulse, amplified by the rows of drummers placed strategically among the restless crowd.
Elira approached, her shoulder long-healed but bearing the scar of the fortress raid. She bowed her head in greeting. “Scouts say the palace remains locked down,” she reported. “The King has recalled most of his loyal lords. They’re barricaded inside the walls, along with the city guard.”
Adair exhaled, crossing his arms. “We’ve forced their hand.”
“The people inside the city—some have tried to slip out. Rumor spreads that we’re here, that we bring an uprising in the name of freedom.”
A flicker of grim satisfaction crossed his features. “Let the palace quake in fear. Let them see the cost of years of oppression.”
He glanced around at the throngs of rebels, their expressions a patchwork of anger, hope, and desperation. Some wore the rags of field laborers; others brandished stolen or salvaged weapons. In corners of the camp, blacksmiths hammered repairs, laborers hauled crates of arrows, while volunteers served hot broth to those too weary or wounded to stand. Children skittered between tents, half excited by the commotion, half terrified by talk of a final siege. This is more than an army, Adair thought. It’s a new society forming on the ashes of the old.
Near a makeshift platform, a drummer pounded out a rhythm, and again the swelling chant echoed:
“Freedom!
Inhale, Exhale,
Bodies for Sale—”
The lines of the new rebel anthem, forged from the harsh truths of a life spent under tyranny, reverberated across the muddy ground. Adair felt a surge of electricity in his blood. We are unstoppable now. Yet beneath the fervor lurked a gnawing dread of what final confrontation might cost. A memory of his sister’s still body. His brother’s wrath. His parents’ faces—one sneering, the other cold. He had not seen them since the night he fell from the palace tower into the raging sea. They believed him dead…until rumor of the rebel leader reached their ears.
“They’re calling us the voice of the laborers—‘LABORATORES,’” Elira said, following his gaze over the assembled throng. “A fancy word, but it means something to them. The ones who toil, who endure. They see you as one of them, Adair, even if they know nothing of your past.”
He gave a tight nod, heart pounding. “Let them believe what they wish. I stand with them because I know what it means to be suffocated by someone else’s demands.”
Elira laid a hand on his pauldron. “Are you ready? When we breach the city gates, there’ll be no turning back.”
A swirl of wind carried the smell of campfires and wet earth. Adair lifted his chin, recalling the vow he had made. To cut down the monarchy, root and stem. He remembered the old, haunted lines that once swirled in his mind: I am the nightmare you created. If that nightmare was the only way to free the realm, then so be it.
“I’m ready,” he said quietly. “Rouse the captains. Tonight, we march.”
Shortly before midnight, the rebels began their assault. A dense fog crept in from the river, blanketing the fields, muffling footsteps and the clank of armor. Under the cover of darkness, waves of fighters advanced on the city’s main gates. In a coordinated move, smaller units spread out to the rear and side walls, using stolen siege ladders and improvised catapults. The King’s army might have the advantage of stone walls, but BELLATORES had numbers, cunning, and the fury of a people who had suffered too long.
A hush preceded the first strike. Then, in unison, the drummers unleashed a thunderous beat, shaking the night air. A roar went up:
“FREEDOM! FREEDOM!”
Like a spear thrust, the mass of rebels rammed into the gates with a massive battering ram. The wood groaned. Archers perched atop the walls responded with a hail of arrows, but rebels shielded themselves behind makeshift barricades. Another surge of the battering ram. Another. With each impact, the chant grew louder, surging like a heartbeat in Adair’s ears.
Elsewhere, rebel detachments scaled ladders or chipped away at the mortar between stones. Screams and clashes of steel echoed in the fog-shrouded streets as the city guard fought to repel them. But in many quarters, citizens flung open their doors to greet the rebels, offering safe passage or attacking the guards from behind. Years of festering resentment boiled over in chaotic bursts of violence.
At last, the main gates shattered under the relentless pounding, splinters raining down. The rebels flooded in, pushing past the threshold of the once-impenetrable city walls. A tide of bodies surged through the streets, torches lighting the way amid swirling fog. Resistance was fierce, but the rebels’ sheer determination overwhelmed entire garrisons.
On a small rise overlooking the carnage, Adair led a mounted detachment, urging them to secure critical choke points. He spurred his borrowed horse forward, shouting orders to press deeper into the city. Through winding alleys and open plazas they fought, each yard gained through savage skirmishes. All around, the chant persisted, pounding with the force of a living drum:
“You want my body—
My body’s not for you—
You want my labor—
My labor’s not for you—!”
Now, from distant corners, the single word “Freedom!” echoed like a clarion call, carried on the wind. In response, Adair felt the old, familiar strain of the song from his darkest days stirring in the back of his mind, faint as a whisper. Just like that day. He shivered, remembering how that voice had once fueled a rampage in the palace corridors. Am I losing myself again? Or perhaps that furious melody was a harbinger of the final reckoning—Adair’s destiny to finish what he started.
Amid the uproar, Elira galloped up, her face streaked with soot. “The King’s forces are making a stand at the inner walls. We can break through with the catapults, but it’ll take time.”
“Then we buy that time,” Adair said grimly. “Hold off any counterattacks.”
He reined his horse toward the palace’s tallest spires, visible even through the haze—those towers he once knew so intimately. Lightning flashed in his mind’s eye: the memory of his sister’s blood, his brother’s accusing gaze. His lips thinned. Tonight, I face them all.
He spurred the horse forward, urging it along the rubble-strewn streets. A knot of city guards loomed up ahead, brandishing spears. Adair led a surge of rebel fighters to crash into them, steel singing. He parried a thrust, then slashed the guard’s chest. Behind him, peasants wielding axes cut down another. The guard line collapsed.
As the rebels swept onward, more voices joined the tumult, chanting lines from the LABORATORES refrain in an eerie unison:
“Eat, Sleep, Work, Die—
It all feels the same—
Inhale, Exhale, Bodies for Sale—”
A savage chord of empathy and rage bound them together, forging unstoppable momentum. Adair’s heart hammered in time with the drums. The monarchy’s centuries-long reign was crumbling in the face of an uprising fueled by oppression’s breaking point. Yet each step closer to the palace gates stoked the old echo inside him: the song from the day I decided to live. His breath caught. If the final confrontation conjured that terrible lyric again, would it consume him as before?
He banished the thought. No time for doubt. The inner walls must be breached, the palace overtaken. The next hours would decide everything—victory or devastation.
With renewed focus, he spurred onward, shouting to the rebels to form ranks and press ahead. The city teetered on the brink of freedom or utter ruin, and only their resolve to overthrow the King and Queen would tip the scales.
In the heart of the capital city, flames licked at shattered windows, and the roar of battle thundered through the narrow streets. Under flickering torchlight and the eerie glow of distant fires, Adair led his rebels ever closer to the palace gates. Their army had grown even as they fought, with city dwellers throwing off the shackles of fear to join the uprising. The chant continued in waves— “Freedom! Freedom!” —its steady drumbeat echoing against stone walls.
At the palace’s high gates, a final ring of royal guards waited. Clad in polished armor and bristling with pikes, they had fortified the entrance with barricades and a lowered portcullis. Archers took positions atop balconies and towers, arrows raining down upon the rebels who surged forward. The push for the palace had begun in earnest, with siege ladders braced against the outer walls, and catapults lobbing stones at statues and parapets.
Adair stood amid the chaos, shield raised against a volley of arrows. Sweat and grime matted his hair. Around him, the rebels pressed forward, battering at the portcullis with heavy mallets. A swirl of smoke drifted from the burning rooftops behind them. Despite the carnage, the roar of the uprising never let up:
“Eat, Sleep, Work, Die—
Eat, Sleep, Work, Die—
My body’s not for you—
My labor’s not for you!”
Every chord of that new protest hymn seemed to resonate with the pounding in Adair’s head. Yet beneath it, faint as a fever dream, he heard a different refrain—the old melody that had once driven him to bloody rampage. It was whispering again, as if from deep within his memories, dredging up images of marble floors awash with red, and a father’s hateful sneer. It’s coming, he thought. The final reckoning.
With a resounding snap of chains, the rebels managed to haul the portcullis open. A fierce skirmish erupted under the archway, swords clashing in sparks of steel. Archers on the balcony loosed arrows, but more rebels poured in from the side, overwhelming them. Step by bloody step, Adair’s forces advanced into the palace courtyard.
The courtyard was vast—lined with hedges and sculptures, once a testament to royal vanity. Now it was a battlefield. Royal guards in resplendent livery formed defensive ranks near the main doors. Above them, towering spires loomed against the smoke-blackened sky.
Adair dismounted a wounded horse, grimacing at the swirl of commotion. Elira joined him, sword dripping with gore. “We have to breach the inner doors quickly,” she shouted over the din. “If we’re bogged down in this courtyard, reinforcements could trap us.”
He nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. “We push through together. Watch the balconies for archers.”
She raised her blade in agreement. The pair led a tight wedge of rebels into the courtyard’s center. Royal pikes bristled ahead, but Adair’s fighters had momentum and fury. The first guard lunged, and Adair blocked, twisting his weapon to strike the man’s unprotected knee. Another guard thrust a spear at Elira; she batted it aside, raking him across the chest.
All around, the clash of metal and the screams of the wounded merged with the relentless chant from the rebels behind them:
“Freedom! Freedom!”
At last, the palace’s great doors came into view, flanked by thick columns. More defenders massed there, determined to protect the monarchy’s inner sanctum. A swirl of movement caught Adair’s eye, and he froze. Parting from the guards was a tall figure clad in ornate armor, a familiar silhouette. His older brother.
Rage and grief constricted Adair’s throat. He remembered that face twisted in heartbreak when their sister had died at Adair’s hand. He remembered the final glimpse of the brother, high on the tower, as Adair plummeted into the sea. We’re bound to finish this.
“Get away, rebels!” the brother roared, sword gleaming in torchlight. The golden emblem on his breastplate marked him as a royal son—no question of his identity. He pointed the blade at Adair, voice thick with loathing. “You. You should be dead.”
For a moment, the flow of battle around them seemed to dim, leaving only the two of them locked in each other’s sights. Adair’s heartbeat pounded in his ears, and that old private tune—the monstrous refrain from days gone by—rose stronger, thudding along with the heavy drums of the peasant chant. Yes, he thought. We end this now.
He stepped forward, sword raised. “You tried to kill me once before. You should have finished the job.” The words emerged cold, but inside, Adair felt a swirl of sorrow—this was his own blood, yet shaped by the same cruelty that had nearly destroyed him.
Snarling, the brother hurled himself forward. Their blades collided with a ringing clash that seemed to slice through the cacophony of the courtyard. Soldiers on both sides paused, forming a wide circle around the two men, uncertain whether to interfere or stand back in awe.
The brother attacked with disciplined, powerful strokes—each blow aimed to kill. Adair countered, fighting with a mix of brawler’s grit and the skill gleaned from countless skirmishes. It was no refined duel. Their swords screamed against one another, sparks flying. A well-timed thrust nicked Adair’s forearm, drawing a dark line of blood. He hissed in pain but pressed on, forcing the brother back with a savage combination of strikes.
“I did nothing but be myself,” Adair snarled, voice raw. “Yet you all tried to bury me in a lie. I bled because of you, because of Father, because of Mother’s blind compliance. I lived, brother—and this kingdom will change.”
“Change?” The brother’s eyes brimmed with bitterness. “Look at you—leading peasants to slaughter. You call that freedom?” He parried a downward slash, twisting his sword in a maneuver that nearly disarmed Adair. “All you’ve done is unleash anarchy! You killed Clarice. You destroyed our family!”
Adair’s grip faltered for an instant at the mention of his dead sister. The brother seized the moment, slamming his pommel into Adair’s ribs. Pain exploded through Adair’s side, nearly toppling him. Gasping, he reeled backward, raising his sword just in time to block a killing blow.
Their blades locked near the hilt, each man straining against the other. Faces inches apart, they glared into each other’s eyes—one consumed by righteous fury, the other by vengeful sorrow. Over the roar of the rebels’ chant, Adair heard that old lyric building, a tempest in his mind:
“I am the nightmare you created…
It’s not my fault you love me…”
Memories of that day when he slaughtered palace guards flickered like lightning—Clarice’s pleading eyes, the swirl of blood on polished floors. The brother’s tears, the horror. There could be no reconciliation. Only one of them would walk away from this.
Summoning a burst of adrenaline, Adair wrenched his sword free and spun low, slicing into the brother’s calf. With a cry, the brother dropped to one knee. Blood spattered across the courtyard stones. Adair hovered a moment, panting, sword raised for the final strike.
The brother tilted his face up, twisted with both fury and heartbreak. “This…this was never right,” he rasped. “All because you couldn’t accept your place.”
Adair clenched his jaw, tears threatening to blur his vision. “No. All because you refused to see me for who I am.”
Then, with a raw shout, he plunged his sword down. The blade bit deep into the brother’s chest, cracking through armor. The older sibling’s eyes went wide in a silent gasp. Adair yanked the sword free, watching as the brother sagged to the ground, blood pooling beneath him.
All around, the courtyard seemed to hold its breath. Rebels and royal guards alike stared, some in horror, others in mute awe. Adair swayed, breathing raggedly, stunned by what he’d done—again. Yet this time, I will not fall. The old melody in his head reached a crescendo, swirling with the “Freedom!” chants around him, blending into a single, deafening roar.
The moment passed in a blink. The roar of the rebels returned, resuming their push toward the palace doors. Adair bent down, pressing trembling fingers to his brother’s cooling cheek. It’s over. Another piece of his family, lost to the kingdom’s brutality.
Rising with unsteady steps, he turned to face the still-barricaded entrance. Guards there, seeing their champion fall, faltered. The rebels, led by Elira, charged. Splintered wood flew as the barricade was torn apart. In the distance, the King’s standard flew from a high tower—a final bastion of royal arrogance.
Adair tasted salt tears on his lips, but his eyes held no softness now. Next are Father and Mother. The old refrain from his nightmares whispered in a ghastly harmony with the peasants’ defiant chant. He would finish what he started, no matter the cost.
“Push on!” he roared, raising his sword for all to see. “The palace is ours!”
With a collective cry, the rebels surged inside. The revolution swept forward like a flood, unstoppable and vengeful, as Adair stepped over his brother’s body and walked into the gilded halls that had once been his prison.
A heavy hush clung to the palace corridors, broken only by distant shouts and the thunder of rebel boots on polished floors. Statues of past monarchs loomed in the torchlight, their stone faces gazing down with cold detachment at the tide of insurgents that now swept through these hallowed halls. Beyond shattered windows, the city burned, the sky suffused with the glow of fires and streaks of dawn’s first gray.
Adair strode at the head of a small cadre of rebels, their steps echoing on the marble. Blood smeared his blade, and his breathing was ragged from the brutal fight in the courtyard. With each step, a strange layering of sound filled his ears: the new anthem of the workers and peasants chanting “Freedom! Freedom!” somewhere below, and a distant echo of that private, haunting melody that had once driven him into a frenzy. It whispered at the edges of his mind, growing louder the deeper he ventured into the palace.
Archways led to grand salons and ballrooms, once sites of lavish feasts. Now they were strewn with debris and bodies. Panicked courtiers had fled or been cut down by the rebels’ unstoppable advance. Servants in ragged livery cowered in corners, uncertain whether to rejoice at the monarchy’s downfall or fear the vengeance of those who had been wronged.
At length, Adair reached the gilded double doors that opened into the throne room. The place he had hated more than any other. His heart pounded, a fierce swirl of anticipation and dread. He had dreamed of this moment—approaching the seat of royal power—yet the nightmares of the past clung to him. His brother’s blood was still wet on his hands. His sister’s final breath replayed behind his eyes.
Elira and a few others caught up with him, faces drawn. “We’ve driven back most of the resistance,” she reported softly. “Only a handful of guards remain near the throne. The King and Queen are inside.”
Adair nodded once, tight-lipped. He could almost feel the presence of his parents beyond that door—two forces who had tried to mold him into something he was not, who had turned a blind eye to every cry of protest, who had refused to see him as a son. Not a princess. Never a princess.
Summoning a deep breath, he shoved open the double doors.
Columns soared to a vaulted ceiling, lined with stained-glass windows that once cast resplendent light on proud ceremonies. Now, flickering torches threw dancing shadows across the marble floor slick with spilled blood and overturned benches. Panic clung to every surface, thick as incense smoke.
At the far end of the hall, the King and Queen stood on the dais before twin thrones, their features contorted with desperation. A handful of loyal guards barricaded the steps, pikes at the ready. The King’s regal attire was spattered with grime, his face creased with disbelief at the audacity of the rebellion. The Queen hovered a step behind him, trembling in a fury mixed with terror.
Adair advanced, footsteps ringing. Elira and a small band of rebels followed, weapons drawn. One last bastion of monarchy separated them from final victory.
The King’s voice boomed, though it shook with anger. “How dare you desecrate these halls? You—traitor—filth!”
He recognized Adair, of course. In that moment, the illusions of a docile princess cracked beyond repair, laid bare by the battered man standing before him. The King’s eyes flickered from recognition to revulsion. “I should have known you’d crawl back from the depths, cowering snake.”
Adair’s pulse thundered in his ears. In the background, that old melody flared— it’s not my fault you love me —a twisted refrain that had haunted him since the night he destroyed everything in these very halls. His hand tightened around the sword hilt.
The Queen stepped forward, expression strained. “Daughter,” she whispered, clinging to a final vestige of denial. “End this madness, I beg you. Don’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve brought slaughter to our kingdom. You’ve murdered—”
“I am not your daughter.” Adair’s tone cut like a blade. “I am the man you refused to see, the child you tried to silence. This kingdom bleeds because of you, because your tyranny crushed its people beneath your whims.”
The guards at the dais glanced at the King for orders. The King gave a curt nod, and they charged down the steps, pikes leveled. Elira’s rebels met them halfway, steel ringing on steel. Adair sidestepped a thrust, slashing with lethal precision, guided by fury and a lifetime’s worth of secret sword practice. In moments, the guards lay sprawled on the marble, their blood seeping across intricate mosaics.
The King, spluttering in rage, reached for a ceremonial sword that had been displayed by his throne. He gripped it clumsily, face contorted. “You think you can rule this land?” he spat, voice cracking with both terror and hate. “You are nothing but a failed experiment—a twisted creature.”
Adair advanced, silent. He could taste the tension in the air, a final confrontation that had always been inevitable. The old tune in his head thundered, merging with the rebel chants seeping through the distant walls. He was consumed by it, every sense sharpened to a cruel edge.
“You made me a monster,” he said quietly. “Now face the monster you created.”
With a roar, the King lunged, swinging the ornate sword in a wide arc. The blow was heavy but unskilled, fueled by blind rage. Adair parried easily, knocking the King’s blade aside. He delivered a punishing kick to the King’s abdomen, sending him sprawling to the floor. The Queen shrieked, stepping back in horror.
Elira and the other rebels watched from the periphery, ensuring no one else interfered. For a long moment, the King lay dazed, disbelieving that this child he had despised could defeat him so handily. “Y-you—” he coughed, voice trembling.
Adair ground the heel of his boot into the King’s wrist, forcing him to release the sword. The King groaned, face twisted in agony. The Queen tried to rush forward but stumbled, tears streaking her pale cheeks. “Please,” she whispered, gaze darting between Adair and the King. “Show mercy. We can’t lose everything. W-we can still fix—”
He turned a cold glare on his mother. Mercy? Had they shown him any, year after humiliating year, forcing him into gowns and lies? Had they shown mercy to the peasants who starved under their taxes? To Clarice, who died in these halls, entangled in the monarchy’s web of cruelty?
No. Mercy was gone. Adair grabbed the Queen by the hair, ignoring her shriek of terror. His sword glinted in the torchlight. In one swift motion, he slashed across her throat. Blood spattered the dais steps, and she collapsed with a strangled cry. An eerie silence fell, broken only by the King’s ragged gasp.
A final, rasping snarl rose from the King. “You worthless demon—”
Adair pivoted, sword raised high, and brought it down with lethal force. The blade bit into the King’s neck, separating his head with a sickening crunch. For an instant, the entire throne room seemed frozen, as though the palace itself recoiled in horror. Then the King’s body slumped, blood pooling in a crimson tide.
Gasping, Adair stepped back. His heart hammered, and the swirl of the old melody in his mind reached a fever pitch, colliding with the rebel anthems echoing from beyond the broken doors. He heard the hush of the hall, saw the stunned looks on Elira and the other rebels. The monarchy’s rulers lay dead at his feet, the final act of a lifetime’s torment.
With unsteady hands, he bent and seized the King’s crown—an ornate circlet of gold and rubies. It was heavier than he’d imagined. Slowly, with trembling poise, he placed it upon his own head, heedless of the blood splattering his armor.
Elira took a tentative step forward, voice hushed. “You’ve…ended them.”
Adair turned, eyes distant, as if the magnitude of it all had yet to sink in. He ascended the dais steps and lowered himself onto the grand throne. The carved wood pressed against his back, reminding him of the rigid posture once forced upon him in smaller chairs, back when he was a “princess.” Now, there was no one to correct his posture or hush his words. He was King—but at a terrible cost.
In the hush, one of the rebels whispered, “The tyrants are dead.”
A beat passed, heavy with finality. Another rebel, older and still clutching a battered pike, stepped forward, voice wavering: “Long live the King?”
A murmur rippled through the onlookers, uncertain and awestruck. The monarchy they had reviled lay decapitated at their feet. Yet they still craved leadership, structure, an end to the cycle of oppression. And Adair, the man who had sparked rebellion, now bore the crown.
He fixed his gaze on the horrific tableau before him: the wide-eyed, horrified face of his mother, locked in death, and the twisted, furious expression frozen on his father’s severed head. The two objects of his lifelong torment lay in silent testimony to his rage. Outside, distant cheers or wails reverberated as more rebels flooded the palace.
Closing his eyes, he heard a child’s soft singing—a faint echo of the voice he once had, layered beneath the chanting. The same tune that had haunted him, twisted from the beginning, still whispered in his mind, as if mocking the final outcome:
It’s not my fault you love me…
’Cause I’m not your girl…
You’re no hero…
The new king opened his eyes, gaze dark and impenetrable. The hush extended through the throne room, every rebel soldier waiting, unsure whether to cheer or tremble. His face was grim, spattered with blood, and he wore the crown like a conqueror forced into the very role he had once despised.
He lifted his chin. “The tyrants are dead,” he declared, voice resonating in the cavernous hall. A final hush, then an echoing statement from those around him:
“Long live the King.”
The words reverberated, sealing the monarchy’s transformation in a single breath. Adair stared out at the hall. The cost was incalculable—siblings slain, parents beheaded, blood saturating the floor that once mocked him. Am I free? He could not tell. Only the hush answered, broken by the faint, childlike echo still singing in his head.
As dawn’s light crept through the shattered windows, casting an eerie glow on the new King’s face, Adair remained unmoving, sword across his knees, father’s and mother’s heads lying at the foot of the throne. The hush broke only with the distant roar of rebels proclaiming victory…and that solitary voice in his mind, still chanting a song that only he could hear.
-- Legend of the Undying King Adair's Ascension, 200 BS