King Augustus Valian of Timmony was born to the lowest name a man can carry and raised by a kennel-master among his hounds — and by the time a crown found him, he already knew the thing most kings never learn: the title is not the man. He has worn both ends of that truth, and wears them still. He is a monarch who will trade a throne room for a tavern bench without a blink, and never once confuse the seat he's in for who he is.

Sit down across from him, and you'll meet an easy man — a deck of cards, a drink he'll stand you, a laugh that comes quick and honest, and a pair of hounds at his boots who happen to be knights of his realm and will happily tell you so themselves. He gives no man deference for his birth and asks none for his own. But let cruelty come dressed in rank — a lord hiding behind his office to grind down people who cannot answer back — and the warmth goes quiet, and cold, and he does not bluff.

There is a past he does not offer strangers.