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.

Time ceased to exist while you tortured me in that cell. But your bedchambers have windows; in the rare moments when their slatted iron shutters are open, I can see Athens in its glory, and I can see that it's summer now. I can see freedom, or what passes as freedom for the subjects of your empire. And with every stolen glimpse, I must turn my face away from the sight, turn away from the place inside me where I hide my memories of before.

I no longer have a past or a future: just you in the now.