Each step Augustus took felt heavy as he dragged himself into the throne room, a cavernous chamber his father rarely spent time beyond state events, in but had curiously granted him an audience in.
His boots echoed on the marble, ringing through the ornate, yet empty space only adorned with banners bearing the imperial sigil, a tall imposing throne, and an emperor. Emperor Helio perched on the arm of the great chair, reviewing a letter. He did not look up as his eldest son approached.
"You... you lied, Father," Augustus said, uttering his first words he had said to his father in over a month, a month that had felt longer than a lifetime. "I wasn't sent up north for the Mad Dog, was I?"
