by Reid, Stacy
She unleashed the unremitting strength of her power and crashed into the walls of his mind, battering his shields. Aura glowed around her in a blue pulse of fiery energy. It traveled through the opening he had allowed, crumbling it from the insides. No doubt he believed he had been safe, but she was an Imperial, and her power over the mind was absolute. His hand snapped up, gripped her shoulder, and flung her with shocking strength. She spun across the tiles and crashed into several decorative suits of armor, smashing them to the floor. Shilah pushed past the pain lancing through her body and glanced up, frowning at the smoky tendrils of chakra that rose beneath him as if he were on fire.
Connected with his mind, she felt the cold fire of Lachlan Ravenswood’s torment and denial. “No!” his roar echoed through her. Uncertainty pierced her when through the large hole now present in the wall of his mind, a clawed foot stepped from it. Bricks rippled in their minds as the wall tried to rebuild itself, but a power that was not hers battered against it, shattering the stones.
There was a monster within him.
The knowledge bloomed, and she tried to pull back, lending her strength to Lachlan Ravenswood as he attempted to reinforce his barriers. But whatever lurked in the deep shadows of his mind reacted and threw itself against his barrier. The blackest of chakra exploded from within him, swirling around him like tendrils of black smoke.
A harsh rasp escaped her throat. She’d only seen chakra like that from the Darkans in the dungeons. But surely this couldn’t be possible. The prickle of unease grew until her skin felt as if a thousand pins and needles stabbed into her. Power clung to him as if he were power manifested into a tangible entity. What was he?
“What is happening?” The grand general demanded, his dark eyes narrowed to slits, his demeanor one of battle readiness.
Lachlan had also frozen into profound stillness, and she felt his determination to repair what she had damaged. He lifted from the ground and stood as if invisible hands had drawn him to his feet. His hair crackled around him as if alive, and he raised his head and inhaled. Then he smiled. The man before her was the darkest creature she’d ever seen—merciless, ruthless, and implacable.
It struck her that he was also beautiful and wild, but so damn terrifying her heart nearly ripped from her chest. Shilah could sense the mass and energy of him in the room, like a storm threatening to unleash lightning.
“Shilah, what did you do?”
“It wasn’t me Kala, it wasn’t me. His wounds are healed, and his leg is no longer broken. You will run at the first chance you get, and you will not look back.”
Another claw pushed from behind the shield wall in his mind.
“I won’t leave you.” Her sister’s voice echoed fierce and determined.
“You will obey! I think he is a Darkan and the power I sense feels ageless.” She sent the thought to Kala, hoping she understood the severity of their situation.
The grand general and the emperor slowly moved toward the man standing so still in the center of the room, and she wanted to scream, run you fools, for they hadn’t grasped the significance of the black chakra swirling around Lachlan yet. Or perhaps they did for the emperor spoke, his voice rich with pleasure.
“A Darkan, how wonderful.”
“Not just any Darkan,” she said hoarsely, sensing the unfathomable well of chakra strength buried beneath his mind. “He is not a fledging like the others.”
“How old is he and what beast does it control?”
How could the emperor not perceive what stood before them? Of course, the fool would only see another Darkan to imprison and control for his army. She ignored the emperor and twisted her fingers into a symbol, centering the strength of her aura and telepathy to that single anchor inside, desperate to build back the mental shield of Lachlan Ravenswood, caging the terrible storm she felt at his center. The emperor had used her to manipulate the chakras of at least four Darkans, and she had never felt such a force, and the wall separating man and demon had not shattered yet.
A primal scream of rage and dominance blasted through her thoughts, the sheer savagery of it akin to the sensation of a thousand knives stabbing at the insides of her body. She dropped her hands limply to her sides as the shield wall in his mind crumbled. She had never known darkness had a taste. It coated her senses, as something appeared from the ashes of the shattered shield wall. The first wave of energy hit her so hard it drove her to her knees, and a cry of despair tore from her throat. Violence and bloodthirstiness—dark, malevolent.
What have I done? Tears swam in her eyes, blurred her vision. A wave of inconsolable grief and rage washed over her senses. And those came from the man within as oily darkness conquered all the light that had shone inside him. She had taken that peace from him.
Shilah cried out her regret. “Forgive me, Lachlan Ravenswood.”
Dozens of warriors rushed to stand before their emperor who stared at Lachlan, glee, and cunning in his gaze.
“Control him!” he snapped at her.
“I cannot tame such a power,” she said hoarsely, staggering to her feet, and slowly backing away from the man who still had not moved. “You cannot feel it, or sense it, but what is buried in that Darkan cannot come to life.” It gutted her soul to even suggest it, but she said, “He will have to be killed, now!”
Another wave of energy crested from him and rolled through the room, and the tiles beneath his feet cracked. The monster in him raised its head, inhaled, and fed hungrily, desperate to fill the terrible clawing emptiness it had endured locked away in his mind. It drew from the negative emotions that filled every crevice and heart of those in the castle. It fed on her fear, her sister’s pain, the wail of the widow in the courtyard who just learned of her husband’s death. She could see the thread of dark energy in the form of dark green light racing from several directions to be inhaled through his nose and mouth.
“No!” Kala screamed, her eyes clutching her throat as she stared at Lachlan. Wild eyes swung to Shilah and back, and then her eyes swirled with foresight, her voice became broken and garbled with the rush of it. “Upon your head, I see a crown of snakes and thorns. Queen of darkness you shall become, and our people will know desolation. I see an army of beasts by your side, and our kingdom at your feet.”
Fear acrid in its harshness pelted Shilah. Her sister’s vision had evolved. What did it mean?
It was then Shilah saw the tattoo spreading over Lachlan’s skin as if painted by an invisible force. It painted over him in violent swirls and curled around his body like a possessive lover, the black, red, and purple scales hugging his chest around his shoulder, and then over his back. His beast revealed itself in a full-bodied tattoo. A leviathan—the high lord of serpents.
Dread unlike any Shilah had ever known cramped her stomach and dark dots danced before her eyes. Upon your head, I see a crown of snakes and thorns...
The emperor’s order to bind him was a distant drone.
She tried to pull her thoughts from Lachlan, and clawed hands reached out and touched her. She felt the phantoms caress against her face. Her psychic eyes snapped open and tried to see through the dust swirling around the collapsed wall. There was no aura, no flavor, just a flatness that made her completely aware of what hopelessness tasted and felt like.
Warriors rushed toward him, valnetium chains in their hands. The chains whistled as they wrapped around Lachlan until his entire body was chained. The emperor glided closer but faltered as Lachlan laughed—low, dark, mocking, and dangerous.
Her mouth dried.
The chains shattered and dropped to his feet. The display of power shook her. All Darkans in the dungeon were held with fewer chains and they hadn’t been able to move.
“Take him,” the Emperor snapped to the hovering warriors.
Shilah rushed to her sister’s side, expanding her aura, and holding it in place to create a barrier around them. Sound waves rippled into the room, curving around her shield, and slammed into her body. Kala screamed as her rib
s cracked from the pressure, and Shilah struggled to breathe through the pain battering her insides.
And then the pain was no more, for, with a blink, more than a dozen warriors littered the ground. All dead. She hadn’t seen Lachlan move. Yet he stood amid the bodies, blood dripping from his claws. The door was flung open, and more than one hundred warriors rushed into the throne room.
Powerful soundwaves poured from the Mevian warriors. Vibrations ran through the air, sinking into every crevice and shadow, battering Lachlan. With casual speed and strength, he moved through the force trying to pin him, went behind the lead warrior, grabbed hold of the man’s hair and, with one sharp move, snapped his neck.
Then he ravaged. Shadows danced in the room, blood-spattered and arched in several directions. Jumbled thoughts filled with rage and terror filled her senses as the warriors battled with a force they did not comprehend.
The grand general drew his swords, the aura around him glowing red. Then he screamed. The beauty and energy from his voice roiled the earth, shaking her with its purity. Shilah pushed her skills to their limit further, building the strength of her barriers to protect herself and her sister from their terrible strengths. The sound waves slammed into her force field, and with a grunt she braced against it, digging her heels and toes into the cracked tiles.
The attack from the grand general had broken several of Lachlan’s bones, and right before their eyes, he healed, the blackest of chakras twisting around his body. Then the tattoo slid sinuously along his body as if alive. No! He was summoning whatever demon he possessed, and Shilah knew if he were allowed to so do, everyone in the palace would die. “He is summoning his beast!”
Lachlan’s snarl trembled on the air and vibrated with menace. She took no satisfaction from the unease that rushed from the emperor. Acting on instincts, Shilah closed her eyes and pushed the sounds of the battle, the snarls, and the screams of the Mevians as they fell under his claws. The cruelty and the unadulterated blood-thirstiness crawled through her body like a nasty poison. The pain of enduring such terrible rage dragged a whimper from her. She trapped all the emotions inside of her and dug deep into the immeasurable well of her abilities, seeking his mental barriers. A violent, gnawing need to slaughter and devour tore through Lachlan’s soul and beat at her shields. She could feel the urgency of his needs beating at him. The beast had been caged for years, and it hungered.
The monster in him sensed her presence. And it paused. It was that slight hesitation which allowed her to sink deep inside her to the absolute stillness and blast out her telepathy. She tried to rebuild the barrier, but the beast gave her no quarter. Serpentine eyes snapped open in her mind, and his darkness slid against her light.
The profound savagery of his demon beast’s chakra took her breath. Every part of him seemed dark and shadowed, and Shilah fought back her rising dread.
The creature in him froze, then inhaled deeply.
Mine...
A possessive roar rose from man and beast she did not understand. What was his? She felt its vile chakra pressing against her natural shields as if he wanted to enter her mind, and terror filled Shilah’s soul. She hadn’t expected it to try and reverse the pathway she sent her telepathy on. Death brushed against her mind, creating a chill in her soul. The violent wave of bloodthirstiness made her heave and sweat broke out on her skin. The pathway widened, and his chakra churned around him.
The ground cracked beneath her feet, and the walls of the throne room expanded as a wild blast of energy swarmed the air. Then another insidious probe at her mind came from him. Shilah dropped on her ass as if she had been kicked, while the wave of violence swamped her, and a white-hot pain exploded through her head, the mass of rage and brutal intensity too much of a sensory overload to her psychic senses.
A scream ripped from her throat, and she grabbed her head. White spots danced in front of her eyes. Energy rushed through her as she tried to escape the raw, swirling force threatening to form a connection with her. Desperation burned through her. Why it wanted to connect with her, she did not know or care to discover, but every instinct screamed that if she allowed it in she would irrevocably lose all sense of herself.
Shilah flinched as pitiless eyes opened inside of her mind and malicious laughter echoed.
Too late.
Abandoning creating the shield wall, she built an intricate illusion, one of rampant destruction for the beast, and one of calm and serenity for the man. For she could sense the profound depth of Lachlan’s pain that he was losing control of the force within him. Energy so strong and sure surged inside of her as she tried to build the illusion to entrap him. She only needed a few precious seconds.
“I need the witch,” she screamed hoarsely, not daring to open her eyes to see if anyone obeyed.
The sounds of a battle raged on, the clash of swords, the awful drip, and scent of blood, and the screams. She closed her eyes even tighter, trying to drown out the cry of pain and terror. She ruthlessly built the images, feeding the construct to his mind, coaxing him to believe the memories she planted were real.
A wash of breeze caressed her face.
“Here is the witch,” General Shenzhen snapped, strain evident in his tone.
Ignoring him, Shilah concentrated on the mental pathway of the witch. Amirah’s thoughts crowded her mind, and Shilah absorbed the knowledge that this Darkan had been the witch’s avenue of escape.
“I need a binding spell, one effective enough to suppress his powers.”
A slight hesitation, then a whiff of magic burned along her senses as the witch responded, “I will try. I need his blood.”
“It is on my arms.”
No other words were exchanged as Shilah tried to trap beast and man into separate illusions. The witch’s spell rippled in the air, and her chant rushed through the room, echoing with the whisper of several voices lifted in eerie unison. Shilah then dug deep, weaving the illusions of peace and love for the man, and one of violent slaughter for the beast. Her fingers trembled, and a wave of exhaustion hit her as she poured her energy into saving their lives.
The taint of bloodthirstiness vanished as if it had been sucked in the vacuum of space. With a gasp, she opened her eyes and swayed. The throne room was a shambled mess. Dozens of bodies littered the ground, and blood coated the floor. She stood on legs that trembled, unable to grasp that he’d wrecked such carnage in minutes. He too was tumbled on the ground, wrapped tightly in valnetium chains. The witch drew symbols atop his forehead and cheeks, muttering, words of echoing voices in the room, and the strangest white light on the tip of her fingers.
Amirah straightened and glanced around at the bloodbath, paling. “The spell is one which dampens the capability by restricting the flow of chakra in the body. It cannot hold him. In truth, it is your illusions, Princess Shilah which have entrapped him, but I cannot say for how long they will last.”
“Take him to the dungeon,” the Emperor snapped.
Shilah turned to face him, surprised to see a brutal scar had flayed open his cheek, and that the hem of his robe was soaked with blood. How could he for even a minute think the dungeon could hold the force they had just tangled with? She did not care how enchanted those domains were, it was improbable. “He needs to be taken away from the empire!”
Cold reptilian eyes settled on her. “Put this Darkan in isolation and the princess with him in the cage,” he ordered without taking his gaze from her face.
At first, Shilah was certain she misconstrued his meaning. Then the horror in her sister’s eyes had his meaning scything through her heart. No. Pain exploded in the back of her head, and it was as she crumpled she realized the grand general had hit her with the edge of his sword. He lifted her, and she wavered in and out of consciousness. Interminable minutes passed, and then she was thrown onto a pallet on a stone floor.
“The sovereign emperor wishes that you learn how to control a powerful Darkan, Princess Shilah. Control this Darkan, and you will live. Fail to control i
t, and he will rip you to pieces and perhaps everyone else imprisoned. Including your sister,” he said with icy satisfaction.
She pushed up and tried to stand, but her weakened legs saw her stumbling to the ground. Several guards were frantically chaining an unconscious Lachlan to the iron wall of the cage as if they were afraid he would awake soon.
She had roused something monstrous in him, and Shilah sensed with every fiber of her soul she would not be able to manipulate him. “I cannot direct the mass of power I felt in him,” she said hoarsely.
“If it comes to that…it means you are useless to us princess. We need a Serangite that is powerful enough to control beasts such as this one.”
The door to the cage closed with chilling finality, and Grand General Shenzhen sauntered away impervious to her screams.
6
The dungeons were a pit of despair. A lone great torch barely lit Shilah’s prison, and the drip of water against rock pinged in the chilling silence. At least an hour had passed since the Grand General left her to face death. Trapped with so many prisoners, at times Shilah struggled to keep her shield in place. Exhaustion weighed on her shoulders like a boulder and the few whose thoughts she hadn’t been able to keep out reeked of hopelessness. The dungeon of the high lords of Mevia created a desolateness that corrupted and withered the souls of its captives. It was whispered throughout the Empire that what was left after being confined in the dungeons was the husk of a person−blank, empty, devoid of hope, emotions, and the will to live or die. A few of the minds she touched were like that, and the pain of it all made her want to weep. Their pain swarmed through the air, the intensity of it choking her, filling her until the pressure was unbearable. And she and her sister had been confined to its cruel walls.
She saw no avenue for escape. They were buried thousands of miles underground the empire, and a bottomless pit still loomed below their cage. When she looked down, she could see nothing but unrelenting darkness, and the only sliver of light was the lone torch hooked high through the small bars of the cage. The cage they were in hung suspended, and it seemed like the only one in the abyss. Several times she had flared her powers and sensed no other aura nearby. It was a wonder the grand general left the torch. Mayhap he thought it more fitting she saw the death that would come for her instead of the oblivion of ignorance. I would prefer not knowing.
