King Esarhaddon

Esarhaddon rules with the easy cruelty of a man who has never questioned his own rightness, waging war and taking tribute as natural privileges of power. His mystical displacement into Lailie's body forces him to experience the fear, love, and grief of the very man he meant to destroy, and to see his own actions from the receiving end. The story's arc turns on whether this forced empathy can survive the return to his own throne, and what he will do with what he has learned.