Shepherd's Crown

Previously

…Saul was afraid of him, deeply afraid, and that fear had twisted into a murderous rage. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that the Lord was with him, and it was this very divine presence that Saul could not bear. The anointing, once a hidden promise, was now a beacon that drew the king’s envious eye and his desperate wrath. The shepherd boy, who had faced down a giant, now had to navigate the treacherous landscape of a king’s paranoia, a far more insidious and dangerous foe. The path to the crown, it seemed, was paved not only with courage and faith, but with the sharp edges of jealousy and the dark whispers of a troubled heart.