"That is rather interesting," the King spoke at last, the words peeling off a dry throat, "since I am told that the one named as such has been caught and captured."
"Yes. Some bastard has been impersonating me," Ludwig said. He removed his mask without hurry, the cloth parting like a curtain around a familiar stage. The large scars that had been carved over his face faded as if their ink had been washed out by a silent tide, and the plain travel clothes softened back into the regalia of the House of Bastos. The old silver thread caught and held the chamber light in small, precise lines. The weight of a name settled over him again, not boasted and not denied, simply worn.
"Your majesty." Steel came alive all at once. Points flared. Half the circle of royal guards tightened as one body, the ring of blades knitting itself around Ludwig with a craftsman's neatness. Polished edges showed the room back to itself in thirty thin slices.
