Page 40 of The Throne's Undoing

Why had the king not ordered her death, too?

Myra didn't know how much time had gone by.

For the first few days, she could barely manage to push away the grief from her limbs to stand, letting the day's rations go to waste. Soon, her ribcage poked through her stomach, her limbs grew feeble, her body became frail.

Myra tried to have hope. She tried to recall happier days: playing with Mynhos in their garden while their mother sat on a bench embroidering and their father chopped wood for the fire.

But as each day passed, those memories became harder and harder to dredge up.

She dreamed of escaping, clawing through the ground and digging her way out.

She latched onto the single strand of hope that she would see her brother again. She had heard the king saying he would keep both of them alive.

Yet if Mynhos was alive, where was he?

As the last ounce of hope she clung to began to slip through her fingers, the door creaked open, blinding light pooling across the floor of her decrepit prison.

Myra lifted a frail, shaking hand to block the bright flame as a guard shifted, making room for another to enter.

Every muscle in her body tensed as the stench of the individual's emotions draped over her. Myra knew who the man was before her vision steadied.

King Domitius crouched in front of her. The king's blond hair shone bright white in the flickering flames. Half of his face was cast in shadow. When Myra met his gaze, he quirked a brow in befuddled amusement.

She knew she was supposed to drop her gaze; it was what her mother had always told her when the king's guards patrolled the streets. It was a sign of respect--but more than that, it was to deter the crown's attention.

Yet she had no energy to move. She had already failed to avoid the king discovering her, so what was the point of hiding anymore?

"Do you wish to see your brother?" he asked.

"Mynhos?" The first word she had spoken in months left her lips on a gasp. "Where--where is he?"

Myra's heart hammered in her chest. As the king tipped his head to the side, she was sure he could hear it pounding, too.

The corners of Domitius's lips tipped up, but his smile brought her no comfort as darkness swirled within his irises. "What would you do to ensure his survival?"

"Anything."

Boots pounded against the ground,pulling Myra from her slumber. She blinked her eyes open, but darkness blanketed the cell. As the guards neared, the usual clatter of keys did not ring at her cell door or any other.

Fear flooded Myra's body, but the emotion didn't belong to her. This fear was tainted with pain and was bitter on her tongue.

A chain scraped against the floor, metal scratching against the stone outside her cell. But the guards didn't stop; instead, the guard and whichever prisoner they led kept walking, the manacle continuing to screech.

The fear that slipped through the tiny cracks around the door filled Myra's cell until she felt like she was drowning in it.

Her hand flew to her throat as it lodged itself there and overwhelmed her senses. She gasped for air, for a reprieve. Pressing her palm against the wall, she begged the cool temperature to soothe the agony consuming her.

But no reprieve came.

The fear strangled her, like thick black smoke filling a room. It wrapped its tendrils around her body and yanked her to the ground.

Her nails bit into her palms as she struggled to regain her breath.

On her hands and knees, Myra heaved.

Only once the sound of the grating chains and footsteps vanished further and further into the depths of the dungeon was Myra at last released from the torment.

Her limbs shook beneath her as her breathing slowly returned to normal. When she tried to push herself up, her arms and legs collapsed beneath her weight. She fell onto the stone floor, her cheek smacking against the ground with a hardthump. Pain spiked her jaw. As her ears rang, nausea twisted ather stomach until the pain was too much to handle, and Myra retched the little nutrients she had been given.

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