#and that fear was passed down to callebero as this really narrow model of how he was allowed to live

[curiosity-killed]

wip wednesday

Callebero had never hated anyone until he met the Capallan king. He had not known how much he did hate him until he saw the walls of the city rising from the sand, how that hatred could fill him like a scouring flame until he was sick on how much he wanted him to suffer. Devolt stood before him now, with grey curling in his hair and new wrinkles by his eyes and mouth, and Callebero felt—tired. Spent. He had had chances to kill the king before. He had not stayed his hand out of mercy or a sense of honor or nobility. First, when he took Tikana, Callebero had let him live because he would live the rest of his life with the weight of Callebero’s boot against his neck and he would not be made a martyr to rally his people in rebellion. Then, when he had attacked the camp, Callebero had spared him because Jisel, incomprehensibly, did not want her father to die. Catterik had been furious. He’d fumed, seethed, hissed out all the ways Jisel was implicated in the attack—her arrival the night before, the blood on her hands, the knife shoved in her belt. When Callebero did not sway in his decision, he’d subsided only because Callebero was Alir’s child and Catterik loved Alir.

sometimes Callebero takes after his mom in military focus and legacy and sometimes he takes after his mom by getting a military commander to fall hopelessly in love with him