Unlike the slave dungeon, the royal throne room proved much easier to track down for Sune.
After all, it was the part of the castle they wanted you to see. That became ever more clear once Sune stepped inside. Making sure no one else was around.
The paintings caught his eye first. Enormous portraits spread evenly across the walls, hung on ornate golden frames. Each presenting Vikram's supposed honour and valour as a leader. One portrait showed him courting some sort of noblewoman. Another showed him standing amongst his army before battle, rousing them to the occasion. Another showed him signing papers, or perhaps writing a speech.
'Whatever he was scribbling down there is a lie.'
However, what each painting shared in common was his demeanour, his expression.
Puffing out his chest, his chin held higher than the sun. Eyes closed, yet still Sune could read them. They simply said "look at me, praise me!"
'How subtle!' Sune thought, his attention diverting elsewhere.
In the centre of the room stood a roundtable. Carved of dark oak, with detailed yet obscure pattens and symbols embedded all across it's frame. The wood thick and glossy as though it were metal. It appeared to Sune more like an oversized coin than a table.
The chairs too were of a similar finish. They numbered seven in total. At a certain angle, the bespoke patterns almost glowed in the light from the window, like some sort of ancient, magical ore. Sune ran his hand across their marble-smooth surface, admiring the craftsmanship. Never before had he seen woodwork of this quality.
The first six chairs were entirely identical, that was when Sune noticed the seventh.
Nearly double the width of the others, taking up an entire side of the table on it's lonesome. It had no legs, the rich oak body was simply thick and long enough to support itself. The design ever more intricate, with spirals and shapes protruding from all sides, as though it were overgrown with roots. It shimmered even more in the light, glowing a dark orange as though it were being slowly melted. Sune could almost smell the smoke. From there, it became clear as day to him. This was the royal throne.
He marvelled at much of this room for some time. Even noticing the archaically large, bejewelled chandelier above his head.
'So this is how you've been living, Vik? Must've been nice.'
And for a moment, Sune began to imagine that niceness. Being worshipped like a God when you don't even understand what it means to be human. He imagined himself in Vikram's shoes. How he may have turned out. The person he would have become.
'...Someone worthy.'
Breaking out of his trance, Sune commenced his rampage.
"HURAH!" Sune drove his fist into the back of the throne. The oak shattered on his knuckles as the cracks grew larger. Impaling it as though it had a heart, which it did.
For Sune, at this moment, that throne was the heart of all his suffering.
Then, leaping back, he swung his shin to the side of the throne. A huge chunk of wood was ripped off, debris flung to the wall.
Crying out like an animal, Sune bolted towards one of the other chairs, grabbing the legs on both sides. With a spin for velocity, he hurled the chair at the wall, striking one of the paintings down. It clattered to the floor like an earthquake, echoing all through the walls, almost through the entire castle itself.
Not even looking at his work, Sune stomped over to another painting, wrenching it down from the wall in one fell swoop. The elegant golden frame cracked and splintered into chunks.
Taking a goblet from the roundtable, Sune tossed it at a painting on the other side of the room, bringing it down once again. The sound of his destruction deafening, and yet no one was around to hear it.
All the guards were preoccupied with trying to recapture the lost slaves. Just as Sune intended.
This manoeuvre would leave only one possibility.
The only person left on this floor of the building, perhaps in the castle itself, would be the one person he came here for. The one who took everything from him. The one who took everything from the Gimen, even while they had nothing to begin with.
The Gale King Vikram.
He hoped his racket would lure him.
*****
Sune had long grown irritated by the wait.
'He definitely heard me. All that power, and the bastard is still hiding.'
He briefly considered leaving the throne room to track him down.
That was when he heard footsteps. When his mark finally turned the corner.
'It's him!'
"Well well... what have we here?"
Vikram was nearly the splitting image of his son. Only, far older, his face far more weathered and wrinkled. Mounds of grey in his unkempt, greasy long hair like patches of dust. He wore a purple dressing robe with a black inseam tied loosely around his body, . His dishevelled appearance made perfect sense to Sune, despite the fact he was supposed to be royalty. He was someone who did not have to be presentable to be feared. Less of a king, more of a monster. He had seen it first hand, after all.
Sune adored imagining the discontent Vik must've been hiding.
The broken remains of his precious ornaments strewn across the floor. This grand shrine to himself, defaced. And perhaps the grossest insult of all...
Sune sat atop his shattered throne. Slouched like a bored prince. One leg resting on his roundtable, the other perched on the base of the throne. Simply waiting. Challenging him in silence.
"Call them consequences, Vikram. That is all you shall find in this room."
Vikram burst out into laughter.
*'Like father like son...'* Sune thought.
"Oh-ho-ho! Consequences? Scary! Please, enlighten me, o' great purveyor of justice... for what grave sin shall I be receiving these 'consequences?'" he put his hand to his forehead like a maiden in distress. Mocking him.
Sune turned away. Fiddling with a goblet as he settled even deeper into his seat on Vikram's throne.
"Oh, come now Vik. You're a king, after all. I don't suppose you have all day." Sune mused.
Sune slowly lifted himself from the throne, but made no further move toward him. He wanted to let Vikram sit in his confusion, his anger, with no explanation offered to him. He wanted to see him malfunction. He wanted to see him suffer.
That was the least he deserved.
For killing his mother that day.