King Tyran sat in front of the fireplace.

My boy, my beautiful boy. Golden hair, blue eyes. Tyran often thought that if he’d been the initial sketch for a masterpiece, Albrecht was the final work. Everything about the young man was bigger and bolder, like a sun that had burned through the morning’s gauze of clouds. His hair so thick and shining. His eyes so pale blue they were almost white.

Though he was not yet done growing, he was already taller than most men. He could outshoot them with his crossbow. Disarm them of their swords.

And the things he built … The bridge monkeys! The clockwork swans in the garden! The room with the false floor! He’d made the castle a wonder. Albrecht was a fine man. The finest of men. Yes, his son would be a good king. Had he not loved his wife so much, he might have given Albrecht the entire kingdom.

But he’d surprised himself by also loving his daughter from her first breath, and he had not stopped when her dual nature was revealed. He knew there was still time to civilize her, and he would help by giving her the portions of the kingdom that were soft and wild. The farmland. Was she not a ripe young thing herself? A field to be plowed? And then the forest too. Did she not love the music of it? Did a bear not need land to roam?

She would be a fine queen and had, after all, been the firstborn. She was intelligent and paid close attention to what her instructors had taught her. And she’d kept the bear in control so that she didn’t embarrass the family. She’d done well enough at that. And she could fight. He’d had to put an end to her sparring with her brother to save the boy’s dignity. Ursula was worthy. That business with the crown—that was unlike her. Most likely that was due to Albrecht’s shenanigans.

Ah, his children. He knew their ways. He’d loved them as well as he could. The decision was a good one. He was certain.

Tyran had never been this tired. Tired in his mind, his bones, his flesh. Tired of pissing blood. Tired of coughing it up. There had been so much lately. He felt like he was becoming a woman in his last days, oozing red from every orifice. It struck him as an undignified end, this leakage; but then, his feelings about it didn’t matter. Feelings never did. He was the king, and if this is how his body was going to cease its business, on a tide of red, then so be it.

The more he thought about it, the more it felt a fitting way to go. Warriors rode the river of blood to the beyond, did they not? So would he, and not at the hands of any enemy but time. He wanted to write these last thoughts, capture them, that a bit of himself might live on. He gripped the arms of his chair and stood, swaying on the soft tree trunks his legs had become.

The window framed a black sky above an even blacker smudge of forest. And there was the moon, perfect and round, the crisp white eye that gazed unblinking on kings throughout time. Tyran could scarcely see his hands in front of him and suspected it was not just because the hour was late. The horizon inside him had swallowed his light too.

He eased off his rings. The metal was rough from where he’d coughed on them, rough where the blood had devoured the gold. Then he lowered himself into his chair, opened a book, and dipped a quill in the ink pot.

The king departed on a river of blood.

Spent, he set down his pen and leaned back. His life was ending. His story was ending.

And his children ruled side by side, happily ever after.

It had been a perfect solution, one that arrived in a dream: His wife was still alive, wearing her dress from their wedding day. She was young again and laughing. She’d taken an apple in her hands and split it in two, a trick she’d loved performing when the children were young. She held out the two halves to him, and he awoke with a gasp that turned into a terrible coughing fit.

But that had been it. The solution. All would be well.

Tyran closed his eyes. He wanted to see his wife again. He wanted to inhale the scent of her. To feel the softness of her body against his. His lips parted. Something warm and wet issued from his mouth. More blood.

The darkness was complete now, even after Tyran opened his eyes one last time. He could smell the fire, the scent of centuries of growth being reduced to ash. He could hear the pop of wood—the protest against this indignity. It struck him as funny, that he had become so like a log, bloated and inert. So many years, so swiftly erased.

The king sighed, a single note, the last of a song. Then he was gone.

He never did learn who’d made all his gold.