The Breaking — Chapter 4

One warm summer evening, your attendants arrive to take me to the bath earlier than usual. They bathe me, anoint me in rose-scented oil, apply kohl to my eyes and rouge to my lips. They cover the awkward length of my hair with a wrap of silk, then dress me

The Breaking — Chapter 3

You keep me close to you now. When you work in your study, when you eat in your dining room, when you survey your city from your balcony, I kneel beside you. At night, I sleep on the floor, and I'm only locked in the cage when you

The Breaking — Chapter 2

Winter comes to Athens, and with it, plague. I see funeral pyres burning across the city. I see the empty streets below your palace. I see your soldiers accompanied by slaves, distributing wagonloads of food to the people trapped in their homes. But the plague is not an army defeated

The Breaking — Chapter 1

It took you five months to break me. I lasted far longer than anyone else. Judging by the triumphant way you dragged me from your torture chamber to your bedchamber, I might be the only one who's ever left that place with enough sanity intact to serve you.

The Breaking — Prologue

On the day Kyra was supposed to be executed, the guards who came for her didn't have to drag her from her cell. She'd already accepted that she was going to die screaming in front of a crowd. The torturers would have their way with her,

The Breaking

In which Alexios the Eagle Bearer is long dead, killed by his sister Deimos, who took the Spear of Leonidas for herself and went on to conquer the world. Now Deimos rules her empire with brutal efficiency, crushing the traitors and rebels who dare to oppose her. Rebels like Kyra,

She Goes There

In which Kassandra is a scientist at an Arctic research station, and comes face to face with a threat that has reawakened after a millennia of slumber.

A Gritty Beginning

In which Kassandra flees Sparta as a child—only to wash ashore on Mykonos instead of Kephallonia.

Kassandra of Sparta Has a Cold

In which Kassandra of Sparta has a cold, and finds herself waiting in a tavern while her Archon is off doing Archon things.

Firebreak

In which Kassandra makes an unexpected appearance after months away on assignment, and bares coming gifts.