Alpheo's breath came in ragged gusts, his broad chest heaving as if he'd just run through a battlefield rather than stood in a council chamber.
When he spoke, his voice was a blade dragged across stone—low, grating, and honed to a killing edge.
"I bled for this." He started "for all of this "
His gaze—dark as a starless night, burning like siege fire—swept across the room, challenging every soul present to contradict him. None dared.
"I've dug graves in ditches foaming with shit and rotting men. Taken the lash until my back was a map of scars. Every soldier who let this crown prance in victory's sunlight? I dragged them from the pyre they were meant to burn on. Gave them the chance to have graves instead of ashes."
His voice surged now, raw as a gut wound, every syllable dripping with the filth of a hundred battlefields. "And now, after crawling from the dark on hands and knees—you ask me to kneel? To hand over what I carved out with my teeth?"
