The sound of armored boots and rattling chains was the last thing Marcus remembered. Hands had clamped down on him, dragging him away from her, away from that gaze that cut into his very soul. He had struggled, but the grip of the guards was merciless, and then-
Darkness.
When awareness returned, it was not gentle.
Marcus's eyes snapped open to a suffocating sky. It wasn't the golden light of the palace, nor the silver shafts that fell through stained glass. No, this sky was wrong. A dull crimson, pulsing like a wound in the heavens, smeared across endless black clouds. The air was heavy, cloying, and it stank of blood, ash, and rot.
He wasn't lying down. His body was slumped in a seat, no, not a seat. A throne.
Cold stone pressed against his back, jagged and uneven, as though the thing had been carved from the ruins of a mountain. Veins of glowing red pulsed faintly within the cracks of the black rock, like magma running through the veins of a corpse. It radiated heat, though not warmth. More like the suffocating breath of a furnace, the kind that burns skin without fire.
He tried to move. Chains rattled.
His wrists were free, but the sound had been real; it was the throne itself. Long coils of chain snaked around its arms and down to the ground, each link fused into the stone as though forged by hands older than time. They didn't restrain him, not yet, but their presence was a threat, coiled serpents waiting to tighten.
Then he heard it.
The growl.
Low, guttural, vibrating through the ground.
Marcus froze, his chest tightening. He shifted his gaze, careful not to move too quickly. Shadows moved in the fog that clung to the cracked earth below the throne's steps. Something large shifted, scales brushing against stone.
Eyes. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, flickering into existence in the gloom. Some glowed yellow, others red, others a ghastly pale white. Their shapes were indistinct at first, some lumbering on four legs, others slithering, others crawling with too many limbs. The stench grew stronger, copper and decay filling his nose until it made him gag.
A laugh almost bubbled up, hysterical, half-delirious. Of course. Of course, it's monsters this time.
One of them stepped forward, dragging itself into the light of the magma veins. Its hide was blackened, cracked like burned leather, and its maw opened far too wide, teeth like shattered glass, dripping with viscous strings of saliva that sizzled when they hit the stone. Its breath alone rattled the air.
And it wasn't alone.
Dozens more circled, massive bodies dragging claws across stone, tails whipping. Wings blotted out portions of the already ruined sky. A sea of predators surrounding him, waiting for him to move.
Marcus swallowed hard. His pulse pounded in his ears. Not this again.
But his body didn't let him collapse. The throne wouldn't allow it. He could feel it, a subtle vibration beneath him, like the heartbeat of something ancient. His spine stiffened without his consent, his shoulders squared. The chains on the throne quivered, metal singing as if alive.
The monsters snarled but did not attack.
A realization twisted in his gut. They weren't here to kill him. Not yet.
They were waiting.
For what? For him to speak? To rise?
The ground cracked as one of the beasts, a towering, horned thing with a body like a skinned wolf and the head of a bull, stomped closer. It exhaled a gust of smoke that seared the air between them, its dozens of eyes blinking in different rhythms, always focused on him.
Marcus gripped the arms of the throne until his knuckles whitened. He wanted to scream, to run, to beg, to laugh. His mind spiraled back to the palace, to her gaze, to that slip of a name. He had been recognized once, pulled into a story that wasn't his. And now?
Now he was in another story. A darker one.
He glanced at the monsters again, an audience, a court of horrors, and bile rose in his throat. He wanted this to be different. He wanted warmth, beauty, women draped in silks and jewels, bending to pour him wine, whispering his name. He wanted the fantasy he had dreamed of, not this nightmare masquerading as destiny.
But the throne beneath him pulsed again, and he felt it: a strange resonance, as if the seat was claiming him, crowning him in silence. The monsters did not advance. They only waited.
Marcus's laugh finally broke free, low and bitter, trembling on the edge of madness. His voice echoed across the empty wasteland, swallowed by the crimson sky.
"…This is wrong."
The monsters twitched at his words, heads turning slightly, attention sharpening.
Marcus closed his eyes, inhaled the rancid air, and muttered through clenched teeth:
"Not this again."