Final Throne / Season 1, Episode 8
Cannon's Cruel Dawn
The scream of stone splitting stone tears through the dawn, a sound so deep it rattles the marrow in my bones. I grip the edge of the rampart, my gauntleted hand scraping against the ancient grit of the Theodosian Wall, as another shot from Mehmed’s monstrous cannon slams into the base below. Dust blooms like a ghost, stinging my eyes, and I blink through it to see the fissure widen—a jagged scar running up from the breach we’ve patched twice already this week. My men are shouting, their voices raw over the din of iron and fire, hauling timber and rubble to shore up what’s left. I taste ash on my tongue, feel the chill of morning sweat under my armor, the weight of a crown I no longer wear pressing down all the same. “Basileus!” Theodoros is at my side, his scarred face streaked with soot, eyes wild under the brim of his dented helm. “It won’t hold another day. Not with that beast firing twice an hour. We’ve got no lime left for mortar—only dirt and prayers now.” I turn to him, my breath heavy, the ache in my chest not just from the dust. “Then we pray harder,” I say, my voice a low growl, the kind I’ve learned to muster when hope is a lie I...