Page 40 of Warlord’s Plaything
40
XYRON
T he chains bite into my wrists.
Tight. Unyielding. Heavy as a fucking tombstone.
I don’t let it show.
I don’t fucking flinch.
Even when the guards yank me forward, dragging me out of the darkness of my cell, hauling me into the light like a prize beast meant for slaughter.
The city awaits.
And I know exactly what they want to see.
I can hear them before I see them.
The crowd is already gathered.
Their voices a low, ugly murmur, swelling with sick anticipation.
The execution of a warlord is not just death.
It’s a fucking festival.
A moment of power, of submission.
A god brought low.
A legend torn to pieces for the amusement of those who once feared him.
The first guard shoves me forward.
The second slams an armored fist into my ribs.
Pain bursts through me like fire, sharp, deep—but I do not fall.
I will not fucking kneel.
Not for them.
Not ever.
The territory is a wall of bodies, pressing in, waiting.
Sunlight beats down, hot and relentless, burning against my skin like a punishment from the gods.
I keep my head high.
I meet their gazes—one by one.
And I see it.
The hunger.
The cruelty.
The thrill of watching a man die.
But beneath it, buried deep, in the ones who do not cheer?—
Fear.
Because even now, they know I am not broken.
Even now, they know what I am.
A warlord.
A monster.
Something they should have killed the moment they got the chance.
"Where’s your crown now, warlord?"
The first stone hits my shoulder.
The second clips my jaw, splitting the skin, sending a slow, warm trickle of blood down my neck.
The people laugh.
The guards drag me forward.
I bare my teeth.
This is nothing.
This is the prelude to their own fucking destruction.
My body burns with exhaustion, with pain, with what’s coming.
But my mind?
It’s somewhere else.
Somewhere darker.
Somewhere hotter.
Somewhere that smells like wild fire and sweat, like skin and sin, like her.
Hira.
Her touch is still on me, still carved into my flesh, soaked into my bones, burned into every part of me that refuses to fucking forget.
The way she took me like she was drowning, like she needed me as much as I needed her.
The way her fingers dug into my back, her body arching, her gasps turning to desperate fucking prayers in the dark.
The way she whispered—I never left.
Which means she’s coming.
The steps leading up to the execution platform in the center of the arena are slick with blood from the last poor bastard who stood here.
The aura of iron and death thickens the air.
A block of black stone waits in the center, stained with the ghosts of a hundred dead men.
The executioner stands beside it, blade already gleaming in the sun, hungry for the next kill.
For me.
Kaelith is already waiting at the top of the platform, watching, his expression that same smug amusement.
"Such a waste." He sighs, shaking his head as I’m forced to my knees before him. "You could have been something greater, Xyron. You could have been a god."
I spit blood at his feet. "I already am."
The crowd roars.
The guards grab my shoulders, forcing me down, pressing my face to the stone, baring my neck to the blade.
The executioner raises his sword.
Kaelith steps forward, speaking loudly, addressing the people like a fucking king.
"Let this be a lesson to those who think themselves above the laws of our people."
A slow smirk.
"Let this be the final breath of the Herox line."
The blade swings down.
And then?—
Chaos.
A single arrow rips through the air.
It pierces the executioner’s throat before the blade can land.
A gurgled choke.
A spray of blood.
A moment of pure, perfect silence.
The place erupts.
The first explosion rocks the ground beneath me.
The second sends the guards into a frenzy.
Screams.
Flames.
The stench of burning flesh, of war, of revenge.
And through it all?—
Her.
Hira.
A shadow in the chaos, a weapon in the flesh, moving like a storm ripping through the execution platform.
Her eyes lock onto mine.
And I swear to the gods, I have never seen anything more fucking beautiful.
The warlord is not dead.
The warlord is rising.
And this place will burn.