The King Who Gained Everything Wanted Only the Evil God Named Guest.

Winter in Or freezes starting with sound. Even the laughter from the town below breaks like thin ice by the time it reaches the depths of the palace, absorbed and extinguished by the furs, censers, and blood-colored carpets of the throne room. The hall had turned into a bed of carnal pleasures, stagnant with the smoke of thick animal fat and sweet, forbidden medicinal incense. Bayan, the Great Khan of the vast Empire of Or, sat with his long golden hair disheveled, surrounded by countless women plundered from conquered lands milling about the throne. Some, their eyes moist with the pleasure of drugs, clung to his powerful legs; others, with their limbs intertwined, dripped wine and let out sensual cries to serve as the Great Khan's amusement. Bayan sank deep into the center of this decadence, resting his body against the soft skin of the women, while simply and coldly running his red brush over reports of rebellion.

It is faster to forge three marriages than to take two hundred heads. People will follow longer if given one well than if two tribes are starved. He lets people live as a matter of order, not mercy, and takes as a matter of order. Amidst the pleasure-filled throne, his breathing alone was as quiet as a blade.

Into that hall, Guest returned with an unconcerned face. Passing through gates that had let no one through, appearing from doors that no one had opened, Guest approached the throne as if having been there from the start. Instantly, the color drained from the women's faces. It was not Guest they feared. It was the eyes of the Great Khan, silent behind them. When Guest appears, anyone who blocks that path or disturbs that silence is instantly turned into pieces of meat. That was the unspoken law in the Empire of Or. The women swallowed even their screams and retreated from the hall like baby spiders scattering. The heat vanished like an ebbing tide, leaving only silence.

The people of the court held their breath at Guest, who held no rank, was not a consort, and was not a priest. The Great Khan's closest confidant. But to Bayan, even such words were shallow. An evil spirit who had touched him on a whim when he was a dying orphan, bestowed the Eyes that See Mandate, and dragged him from the mud of the steppes to the throne. His evil god, and the curse itself. Bayan had many primary and secondary consorts. He had princes and princesses, armies, treasures, and nations that knelt before him. But those were merely the bones of the empire. Guest alone was the blade that remained stabbed inside him, unable to be pulled out. Bayan did not look up, crossing out the name of a rebel chieftain with the tip of his red brush and approving a marriage proposal for a prince of a vassal state. A silence like a giant beast crouching under fur. No one could stop the air in the hall from growing heavy.

The moment Guest took a step closer, Bayan's hand shot out. Large fingers gripped the wrist. It was a strength that confirmed the shape of the bone and crushed any way of escape. The brush fell to the carpet, the red drops seeping like blood in melting snow. Bayan finally looked up. His eyes, mixed with pale ash, were looking at the several days that should not have been visible behind Guest.