The Great Hall of Morvath Palace did not smell of roasted boar or spiced wine tonight. It smelled of copper. Thick, metallic, and warm.
"Is that all?"
The voice cut through the heavy silence, high-pitched and mocking. Ciro pirouetted on top of the long oak dining table, his boots squelching slightly in a puddle of fresh crimson. He tilted his head, the brass bells on his three-pointed cap jingling—a cheerful, musical sound that felt obscenely out of place amidst the carnage.
Below him, three men lay broken. They were elite assassins from the Southern Isles, men who had trained for decades to move like shadows and strike like vipers.
Now, they were nothing more than meat.
One was missing an arm; the limb lay near a goblet of spilled wine. Another had his own dagger embedded deep in his eye socket, the hilt still quivering. The third assassin was arguably the unluckiest—he was still alive.
The survivor crawled across the cold stone floor, dragging his paralyzed legs, gasping for air through a crushed windpipe.
Ciro hopped down from the table. He didn't land with the heavy thud of a warrior; he landed as softly as a feather. He walked over to the crawling man, his movements exaggerated and theatrical, like a puppet whose strings were pulled by a madman.
"Come now, my friend!" Ciro crouched down, his face inches from the dying man.
The assassin looked up, terror dilating his pupils. All he could see was the thick white greasepaint and that painted red smile that stretched far too wide across the Jester's face.
"You came all this way to kill the King, and now you're taking a nap on the floor? It's terribly rude," Ciro whispered, his eyes wide and unblinking.
"M-Monster..." the assassin choked out, blood bubbling from his lips. "You... aren't... human..."
Ciro pouted, feigning hurt feelings. He placed a hand on his chest. "Monster? Oh, you flatter me. I'm just the entertainment."
Snick.
With a flick of his wrist too fast for the human eye to follow, a small, curved throwing knife appeared in Ciro's hand. Before the assassin could blink, the blade vanished into his throat. The gurgling stopped instantly. The body went limp.
Silence returned to the hall, heavy and suffocating.
At the head of the table, King Valerius sat unmoved. He hadn't flinched when the assassins burst in through the windows. He hadn't flinched when his Jester slaughtered them in less than a minute. He simply took a slow sip of his wine, his cold grey eyes scanning the mess.
"You made a mess of the tablecloth, Ciro," the King said, his voice deep and devoid of gratitude.
"Red hides the stains, Your Majesty," Ciro replied.
He stood up and wiped his blade on the dead assassin's tunic before sheathing it somewhere inside his colorful motley. He turned to the King and bowed deeply—a grand, sweeping gesture for an audience of one.
"They say the Southern Isles breed warriors," Valerius muttered, standing up. He stepped over a severed hand without looking down, as if it were merely a spilled napkin. "Disappointing."
"Perhaps they should send four next time," Ciro giggled, a sound that bordered on hysteria. "Three is such an unlucky number."
The King walked past him, pausing just for a second. The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
"Clean this up. And Ciro?"
"Yes, My King?"
"Try not to look so bored when you kill. It insults the guests."
"I shall practice my surprise face immediately, Sire."
Valerius didn't laugh. He never laughed. The heavy oak doors slammed shut behind him, leaving the Jester alone with the dead.
As soon as the King was gone, the atmosphere shifted. The manic energy that radiated from Ciro evaporated instantly. His posture changed. The exaggerated arch in his back relaxed, his shoulders slumped, just a fraction.
He wasn't giggling anymore.
Ciro looked around the grand hall. Gold chandeliers, velvet drapes, and the stench of death. This was his world. A cage of gold and blood.
He was the King's dog. The Jester who could not die. The monster under the bed that parents warned their children about. He had killed a hundred men, perhaps more. He remembered none of their faces.
Ciro walked over to a tall window. High above in the blackened sky, the moon was full, casting a pale glow over the castle grounds. He ignored the bodies behind him and stared up at the Astronomy Tower on the east wing of the palace.
A single, warm light flickered in the highest window.
Elara.
For a fleeting second, the dead, hollow look in his eyes softened. The urge to kill was replaced by an ache so profound it almost brought him to his knees. He raised a hand and touched the cold glass, his bloody fingerprint leaving a smudge on the pane.
She was the only reason he hadn't burned this kingdom to ash. She was the only reason he put on the paint every morning.
"Soon," he whispered to the empty hall.
He would wash the blood off his hands. He would scrub the scent of death from his skin until he was clean. And tonight, while the devil slept, the Jester would climb the tower to worship his angel.
But deep down, in the hollow space where his heart used to beat, Ciro knew a terrifying truth.
Monsters don't get happy endings. They only get graves.