/b>
Karchedon
It was a prison. A luxurious prison, to be sure, furnished in royal style and adorned with every comfort a king's son might wish. Quintus had not seen its like since he was a young boy, not even in Danae's opulent quarters.
He thought it must be a jest, a condemned man's last view of a life he would never have. A life he had never wanted.
Quintus sat in an ivory inlaid chair, exhausted from a long night's pacing. No one had come to see him since his transfer to Nikodemos's custody. He had expected far less pleasant accommodations, where he could remind himself with every clank of chains and breath of stale air that he was Tiberian.
But he'd been spared a painful and inevitable death at the High Priest Baalshillek's hands only to face a prospect as bitter as it was unthinkable.
He was the half brother of Nikodemos, ruler of the Arrhidaean Empire, nephew of Alexandros the Mad. How the absent gods must be laughing.< ...
read full excerpt from Hammer of the Earth ebook
