Dark, musty air spilled toward him and collapsed like the brittle husk of a fetid past.
He gripped the doorframe, urging his reluctant mind to see the space for what it was. A closet. Comfortably roomy.
That’s where the daydreams ended, and reality took hold with sharp, bloody teeth.
A long, slim table on wheels with manual locking mechanisms had been set to the side. Shackles yawned atop the red-stained wood, attached to their chains like hollowed bones. Like the severed remains of something that had never been set free.
A corpse that refused to die.
Horror and rage released the lock on Dimitrios’s knees, and he stumbled deeper into the room. He turned and turned and turned, and the truth wrapped him in a barbarous cocoon.
The shelves here weren’t merelyshelves. Malevolence seeped into the grain and warped the wood. And their offering still lay in wait, polished by flesh, kissed by bone, relics worshipping agony.
Every gruesome and harrowing detail he’d been forced to hear barreled through his imagination with every piece. He saw the screws. The clamps. The cages. The widening springs. Metal stained black from fire. Pins, needles, nails. Clubs. Hammers. An anvil. But he relived the words “opened” and “burned” and “stabbed” and “broke” as if the men responsible werestill there.
Dimitrios dry heaved beside the table, clutching the side to keep from falling. Spittle dribbled off his lip into the layer of old dust.
He never should have come here. The vague facts of the matter had been sufficient. This was…this was…this?—
Another thought interrupted his horror like a flaming breath.
This had all been for a name. Pandora’s name.
For Dimitrios. So he could stand on these grounds and call himself “king” of a land that wasn’t home. Wasn’this.
Only an hour ago, he’d been nothing more than a reluctant heir and a quiet farmer. A loving son, a gentle brother, and a favorite uncle. A husband to a dead wife and a father to a child that never drew breath.
Those soft, benign skins of the past burst violently at the seams, and a different man erupted into the shadows of this death chamber.
Dimitrios reached blindly, and his fingers curled around cold metal—hedidn’t need to look to see what exactly. He hurled the item through the open door into the room beyond. Glass shattered. Whatever he’d thrown was now in the courtyard.
He didn’t care. Let everyone learn what happened here in grotesque detail. Let the doubters find out who their precious King Orestis had been.
Dimitrios grabbed and threw. Over and over and over again. When the shelves lay empty, he moved to the wall and emptied pegs of their precious weapons. Before he knew it, only the table remained. He shoved it toward the opening. The wheels creaked but rolled easily into the sunlight-splashed gloom.
A fresh, murderous calm stole over him as he stared at the table. He’d picked up a warhammer for this part somewhere along the way. The handle was short, and the hammer and curved spear were a weighty iron—perfect.
He brought the hammer side down on the table. The wood bounced and splintered.
Not enough.
More. He needed more.
With a quick twist of the handle, he slammed the spear into the wood. It caught deep, refusing him, so he yanked back harder. Splinters sprayed the air like startled birds, sent flying by the force of his spiraling, fevered thoughts.
They called him a liar. A usurper. A man raised on the wrong soil—what could he possibly know about ruling these lands of sea and steel?
Let them find out.
Let them see exactly what was done to arealking in this tower. Let them witness what his son had become because of it.
His shoulders ached. His hands throbbed, now raw and blistered. Still, the table remained—stubborn, unbroken. Dimitrios heaved the entire thing into the nearest wall, a roar burning past his throat like it could set the very air on fire.
When the haze later cleared, the sunlight was brighter, and the table was in hundreds of pieces. With renewed clarity, he became aware of the burn with every breath. Sweat streamed down his face and body. Dust stuck to his arms and legs, and he was covered in tiny cuts. A throb lived across his left cheekbone, though he couldn’t recall striking himself.
Despite all of this, a weightlessness held him upright, and he could pullmore air into his lungs. It was as if he’d been living in a cage with bars wound tight around his chest, and suddenly, he was free to move about.
The appearance of hot tears surprised him, and he let them fall. He coughed on a sound that could have been a sob but might have also been an attempt to laugh. It didn’t matter. Something had broken loose inside him, and he felt…
