Several answers came to mind, and none of them satisfied him. Maybe the king simply did not care enough to kill him. Maybe he was curious. Maybe it was mercy. That last thought irritated Gabriel the most.
He disliked the feeling of weakness. He despised it.
Inside that room, in front of that silent man, all the power he had gained up to now had felt useless. No trick mattered. No confidence mattered. Strength above five hundred had still left him unable to move properly.
"That will not happen again," he said quietly, his eyes burning with determination.
He kept holding the key while those thoughts ran through his head. After a while, the anger dulled into a colder kind of resolve. He still did not know why the king spared him. None of the guesses felt solid enough.
In the end, he settled on the simplest answer for now.
The king had granted him mercy.
