Killing Aldric…
It sounded decisive when he said it out loud. A good solution, remove the man making the demand and the demand dies with him. But he knew it wasn't that simple and he had known it wasn't that simple even as the words were leaving his mouth.
Valdenmoor had advisors. A council filled with men who had been managing the territory's affairs alongside Aldric for years and would continue managing them if Aldric disappeared overnight.
The debt existed in ledgers, not just in one man's memory. It had documentation, correspondence and agreements that predated Darion's arrival in Percvale and would outlast Aldric's death regardless of how that death came about.
Killing the king didn't erase the debt. It just changed who was collecting it.
And the new person collecting it might be angrier about it than Aldric had been.
Aldric had been patient, by his own account, patient for years before sending the first letter.
