Still, somewhere deep inside the walls of the castle, I could sense… something. I wasn’t sure what. The Pythora King? A single soul alone, far within a house of stone, might feel that way. From this distance, it was hard to tell.
“He’s in there,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.
“No one else?”
Atrius did not hide his apprehension. Rightfully. All of this seemed wrong.
I shook my head. Neither of us were comforted by that answer.
We reached the top. The two columns that guarded the entrance honored the leader of the White Pantheon—Atroxus, the god of the sun. Ironic, for a place so steeped in fog it likely never saw any.
It seemed far too simple to just open the front door and walk through. Simpler still for that door to be unlocked. When Atrius put his hands on either side of the double doors and pushed, I was legitimately shocked when they ground open.
Before us, a streak of cool misty light spilled into a vast, grand room, our silhouettes stretched across the tile floor. Torches and lanterns lined the walls, as if this place had been occupied moments ago but had suddenly emptied. Like at any second, a slew of wealthy lords and ladies could come spilling out of all these darkened doorways, lounging on the various velvet couches with their expensive wines perched in their hands.
Before us, at the end of the long carpet, across the massive room, was a large, arched doorway, and steps beyond it that led up.
There were few records of the layout of the Pythora King’s palace. The building was ancient, among the oldest in all of Glaea. When the king took control twenty years ago, he had been careful to destroy as many descriptions of the place as he could. He was, after all, very paranoid, and the less anyone knew about the layout of his home, the better.
But no one could wipe all mentions of a thousand-year-old monument away, and no one was better at collecting information than the Arachessen archivists. I’d pored over every scrap of paper I could find, every mundane letter from the courts of previous kings, to piece together what I would face when, one day, I would be able to slay the Pythora King.
I knew what lay up those steps.
“The throne room,” I whispered. The words stuck in my throat. My pulse raced, my hands sweaty around my blade.
Atrius’s eyes burned into the side of my face as his steps matched mine.
We crossed the room, leaving behind the cold darkness of the misty plains for the warm darkness of the castle, which smelled strongly of Pythora blossoms and faintly of mold. That intangible presence I had sensed outside grew stronger, albeit still… strange in a way I couldn’t pinpoint.
We passed beneath the archway, ascending the stairs. Step by step, the throne room unfolded before us—first the elegant arched ceiling, painted with chipped frescos of the gods’ wrath, then the gold molding and the arms built into it to hold stained-glass lanterns.
We reached the top of the stairs. The throne room was just as grand as ancient visitors had said it was centuries ago. Probably even grander, to those viewing it with eyes, but its beauty was so aggressive, so ornate, that I still felt it through the threads.
At the end of the long, long room stood a single throne, high upon the dais.
And slumped in that chair, lounging to one side, was the Pythora King.
For a moment, Atrius and I both tensed—waiting for a shout, a command, an acknowledgment.
None came.
My brow furrowed. Atrius’s jaw tightened.
I couldn’t shake the strange numbness in the threads, the unnatural silence that felt like cotton stuffed into my ears, but I still followed when Atrius crossed the throne room, his steps firm and long, sword ready.
The Pythora King did not move or speak.
And we were several strides away from him when I realized why.
“Atrius,” I choked out, just as he lifted his sword and drove it into the king’s chest, piercing through layers of purple silk and hair-mottled skin.
The king slumped a little. His eyes, which stared blankly into the middle distance, fluttered.
Atrius stood there for a long moment, gripping his sword, eyes narrowing first in confusion, then realization. Perhaps he, too, was noticing all the other marks on the king’s body—a slash or three at his throat, tears in his chest, a brutal mark, perhaps from an arrow, right over his heart.
The steady—unnaturally steady—rise and fall of the Pythora King’s shoulders said he was not dead.
But he was certainly not alive, either.
He was a breathing corpse, and we weren’t even the first people to kill him.
Atrius stumbled back, yanking his sword free. The thick, purplish substance that stained his sword and globbed at the open wound only vaguely resembled blood.