After Lord Halloway's public execution, the usual clamor of the morning markets and the idle gossip of the plazas had been replaced by a heavy, expectant stillness.
The blood on the inner courtyard stone had been scrubbed away, but the memory of it lingered.
Among the high nobles, was terror.
They had spent years maneuvering around a King who operated within the traditional frameworks of the Council and the Authority. Now, they were faced with a King who had personally beheaded a High Lord without a trial, with a justifiable reason.
Among the commoners, however, a different energy was stirring. In the taverns and the cramped tenements of the lower districts, they spoke of him in hushed, almost reverent tones.
The King Who Bled and Didn't Kneel.
The image of Cassian, pale and wounded, crowning himself amidst the ruins of the cathedral, was already crystallizing into a founding myth, leaving them in awe.
