The rune glowed purple as Ashton etched the final stroke with his hammer and chisel. The merry commotion wafting up from the feast had been cut short when he started the tetragram. Upon the word’s completion, voices of disorder had begun calling out into the night.

“The king is dead!”

Some horn that hadn’t been blown in thirty-five years trumpeted the news throughout Monarch’s Hold and the surrounding villages. Ashton turned away from his work and peered out the belfry, hammer and chisel still in hand.

Patrols of Lancaster guards in their golden armor could be seen abandoning their stations around the city. From his vantage point high above the pandemonium, he could even spot riders from outside the walls attempting to enter the city.

Cruor, all of them, scurrying toward an open wound to help curdle the lifeblood of their precious kingdom.

Ashton placed his hammer and chisel back into the toolbox and observed the first few lines he had engraved around the bell’s rim. After triple-checking that the grams matched their corresponding models in the text, Ashton closed the tome and carried it, along with his toolbox, back down into the duome.

There was still much to be done tonight. One rarely has the opportunities that a dead monarch provides.