Dungeon of Torment

10. Coronation Day

The pantheon, the Titan elite who advised and helped Uranus rule, consisted of Eros, Erebus, Nyx, Hypnos and Thanatos. Kronos stood before them, his hands clasped behind his back. Nyx fixed him with a deadly stare. Shadows writhed around her, nipping at her blurred skin.

"Killing a Titan, killing your king, patricide – we should chain him to a rock and fling him into Tartarus." She spat angrily. Erebus nodded in agreement, his lips pulled up into a malicious smile that didn't meet his eyes.

"I overthrew a tyrant." Kronos countered.

"You are a murderer!" Nyx rose to her feet, blackness flooding her eyes, "and that is all you will ever be." She lunged at him, hands outstretched toward his throat.

"Not so fast, Nyx." Rhea countered, entering the chamber at that moment. Nyx came to a halt, her nostrils flared angrily as she breathed heavily through her nose.

"Queen Rhea?" Eros was the first to bow his head in respect. 

Nyx looked between Rhea and Kronos – noting how they stood angled toward one another.

"You stand beside this man?" Nyx exclaimed, incredulously.

"I stand beside my husband," Rhea replied - her voice filling the auditorium. Stepping forward she extended a hand, offering the marriage contract - ink still wet. Nyx didn't take the offered document. Instead, lip curling in disgust, she determinedly sat back down - insulting the queen. Erebus leant forward in her stead, accepting the document for perusal.

"It's legal." He asserted. "Rhea and Kronos were married in the early hours this morning."

"You have before you, the King and Queen of Earth." Rhea asserted, her blazing eyes daring them to challenge her. The pantheon looked to one another. Eros went to his knees.

"You cannot mean to bow to them?!" Nyx fumed, glaring at her colleagues.

"Uranus murdered his predecessor too." Hypnos asserted calmly.

"It wasn't his father though."

"It's not unprecedented." Erebus held Nyx's gaze as he too went to his knees.

Nyx, the only one left not kneeling, glowered at the royals. With slow, predatory slinking movements she rose to her feet and closed in on Rhea.

"You've made a fool's choice, my Queen. He's using you and when he's done – he'll cast you aside and acquire another, younger queen."

Rhea was trembling with anger.

"Bow before us," she managed between clenched teeth, "or fall into Tartarus."

Sneering, Nyx went to her knees. "My king and my Queen." She crooned in a mocking tone.

*

Coronation day. The sun was rising on the day Kronos would be officially titled King of the world (with Rhea at his side). Phoebe was drinking a whiskey, she hadn't slept – instead, she'd stayed up drinking, wallowing in self-pity. The sound of crashing doors didn't make her stir. She was sat on a bar stool, her forehead resting against the cool marble top.

"Phoebe?!" Kronos called out, storming through the palace. Phoebe's heart thudded erratically as hope ballooned up in her chest. Failing to sit up, she twisted around, turning her neck so that she was facing the door (just with a horizontal viewpoint). Kronos burst through the double doors. He wasn't dressed yet in his golden ceremonial robes, instead he looked unkempt and unwashed – with bloodshot eyes that clearly hadn't slept either. He stopped in the doorway, his chest heaving as he caught his breath. "I need you."