The Tyrant King And I

26. Sins of Mercy

Adriel's fingers brushed over the jar, but he didn't open it. Not yet.

His thumb traced the inscription slowly, as if testing whether it was real. His silence stretched long enough that Natalie almost asked again.

But then he spoke. Quiet. Measured.

"It was the height of my reign," he began.

His gaze was distant, fixed not on her but on something far beyond the tomb walls.

"I was untouchable. The kingdom was strong. Disciplined. Feared. Criminals were executed without mercy," he continued. "Spies skinned alive. I thought I did what was necessary."

His jaw tensed.

"Once, I was... troubled by such things. At first."

He glanced at her, as if to gauge her reaction. But Natalie said nothing. Adriel exhaled deeply.

"It stopped bothering me," he admitted. "Eventually."

For a moment, the weight of that admission hung between them, cold and heavy.
But then he pressed on, his voice lowering, like he was speaking to the stones themselves.

"One day," he said, "a boy was caught stealing fruit from the market outside my mound. Perhaps fifteen years of age. He had stolen before, they told me. He was rail thin. Starving."

His hand tightened around the edge of the jar.

"The merchants dragged him before my council. They demanded punishment. Execution."

Natalie winced but said nothing.

"There were crowds gathered," Adriel said. "They chanted for his death. Said the boy needed to be an example. So the people would fear breaking my laws."

He paused, his gaze flicking to hers.

"I believed them."

Natalie's throat felt tight. "What did you do?"

Adriel's fingers tapped lightly against the ancient clay. He was visibly unnerved.

"The boy's mother came forward," he said. "She knelt. Begged. Said he was foolish but not evil. She spoke of his dreams—how he wished to become a scholar, to learn, to serve the kingdom in better ways."

Adriel's voice grew quieter, rougher around the edges.

"Most of all, she reminded me of someone."

Natalie watched him closely. "Who?"

Adriel's eyes darkened with memory.

"My mother," he said.

He leaned back on his heels, looking older suddenly.

"She died giving birth to my youngest brother. But before that... she was kind."

His gaze was far away again, softer now.

"When I was a boy, I was small. Weak. Beaten by others who sought to prove themselves by challenging a prince. I told no one. Not my father."

He paused.

"But she knew."

He swallowed once.

"She found me bloodied one night. I thought she would be ashamed. Instead, she told me... I would be the greatest fighter the world had ever known. If I trained. If I endured."

Natalie's chest ached quietly. 

"I did train," Adriel said simply. "I became the best."

He looked at her then, as if pulling himself out of the memory.

"And in that moment, with the boy and his mother, I remembered."

He ran a hand over his face, weary.

"I sentenced the boy to prison," he said. "To show strength before my council."

His mouth pressed into a thin line.

"But I freed him that night. I told him to run. To never show his face again in my kingdom's daylight."

Natalie let out a slow breath.

"You showed mercy," she said softly.

Adriel shook his head.

"Only once."

The silence hung thick around them as Natalie tried to process it. It wasn't much. But it was something.

"What was his name?" she asked quietly.

"Sahal," Adriel said. "Sahal Khan."

Natalie frowned, the name itching in her brain like something familiar, like she'd heard it on the news or radio before. She pulled her phone from her pocket and typed it into the search bar. The page loaded in seconds, the light bright in the dim tomb.

A name. A face.

Sahal Khan, billionaire pharmaceutical entrepreneur, living in Bali. He had discovered several groundbreaking chemotherapy drugs for diseases thought incurable, and saved many lives.

Mysterious past.

"Must be a coincidence," she said to herself quietly.

Adriel leaned closer, his gaze narrowing at the screen. And then he stilled.

"That is him," Adriel said.

Flat. Certain. Natalie stared.

"That's... impossible."

But even as she said it, the weight in her stomach told her it wasn't. Nothing was impossible anymore.

Adriel looked back at the jar in his hands. His fingers curled around it tighter.

"It is not impossible," he said. "It is certainly him."

Natalie's pulse thrummed in her ears.

"What does that mean?" she whispered.

Adriel's eyes flicked to hers.

"Perhaps Paco and I are not the only ones who survived the past. Perhaps there are others."