Succession

You didn't think of the dead as you approached it. You didn't think of the cost. The throne waiting for you, built a thousand years before by the Mad Emperor, seat of the Empire for a thousand thousand years to come, was prize enough for any cost.

You sat on the throne deaf to the cheers of your soldiers, the moaning of the dying, everything but the roar in your chest. The throne's whisper was startling in its clarity.

"I rule," you said, as the Emperor before you had, and the one before him, and the dozens before. They weren't your words, and you knew that if you could only rise from the throne, you might remember what you had intended your words to be.

The throne smiled with your face.

.finis.