by Zoey Ellis
“Only report back to me if you find something worth sharing,” Malloron snapped. “And what about our visitor from the Southern Lands? Banon said he hasn’t arrived.”
“He delayed his trip due to reports of the battle here a few months ago. He then asked for confirmation of your return before he sets out.”
Malloron grunted, reluctantly. That was understandable. “Send him confirmation.”
Emric bowed again and turned to leave.
“Banon said you haven’t visited the chambers lately,” Malloron said.
Emric froze and turned back to him. “No… I did not see any need to visit frequently while you were away, Your Majesty.”
“If anything, you need to visit more when I am away,” Malloron said, raising his eyebrows. “The chambers are not separate from the castle, Emric, and you administer the castle. Whatever issue or problem you and Banon have, it should not cause any part of my system to become vulnerable when I’m away.”
Emric’s face dropped and he nodded.
“Do not let it happen again.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Emric bowed again and exited the room.
As soon as he left, the charm in the rug reactivated automatically.
Malloron searched through every inch of the book on the stand, the Visant Spell Book of Magical Energies Volume Eighty-Four, for any mention of Omegas and their use of the Talent. He needed to know what he was up against before he tried to engage the Omega from the dungeons. Unfortunately, nothing noteworthy was recorded. He didn’t recall anything important in any of the other Visant books either. Frustrated, he began searching the bookshelves for some of the older documents and books. If Omegas could use the Talent in a unique way, that would be something his family members from the past would have known about. It would have been documented somewhere over the years, possibly when the Talent was first discovered and refined.
By midnight, his patience had run its course and yet he had not completed searching even quarter of the bookshelves. Returning to his altar, he flicked back to a spell in his book he often used for determining whether someone used the Talent or not. He hadn’t thought to use it when he had the Emperor’s Omega in his grasp before, and that lack of foresight burned him. He was not going to make that mistake again. Besides, the spell could help him find more than just one Omega, and that put him in a much better position.
The difficulty with the spell was that it had to be targeted toward a specific individual or item with an exact location. He didn’t know who in his castle was an Omega or where in the castle they might be.
He stalked over to the large throne in a corner of the room, and poured himself a fortified magical wine to calm the tenebris. Although the tenebris was not a conscious magical force, it could be calmed and riled when exposed to certain magical energies. Luckily there was no correlation between his emotions and the tenebris, otherwise it would be exploding within him right now. As he sipped, it mellowed to a low hum and drifted around his body aimlessly. The vibration slowed so drastically, he could almost pretend it didn’t exist; however, it had inhabited him for so long, he couldn’t even imagine what that would feel like.
As the night wore on, Malloron considered once again if Emperor Drocco lied, but he had known about the poisons Malloron used, and that could have only been disclosed by someone in his castle. Although that did not confirm the theory about Omegas, it did prove that there were disloyal people in his staff. And that in itself was unusual. Malloron was not stupid enough to believe in true loyalty, like Emperor Drocco did. He believed people had to be forced, persuaded, and, if necessary, magically poisoned in order to remain loyal to him. Every single person who worked in the castle had been magically conditioned against betraying him. And yet someone had. Someone told one of his captives that she was being poisoned. It shouldn’t have been possible, and that lent truth to the Emperor’s statements.
Time stretched on until it was the early hours of the morning, and Malloron finally came to a conclusion about how to locate the Omegas. He rose and returned to his book to analyze the spell.
Amending some of the words, and adding a few extra, Malloron adapted it so that it would run along the channels of magic that already existed in the castle for the summoning charms. If he was able to get it just right, no one in the castle would have the ability to escape the spell. He targeted it toward females, honing it to detect any fluctuation of magical energy, like what he sensed in the servant. Anyone could potentially be a Talent-crafter capable of using magic. The Talent was easy to learn in the Western Lands, but his great great grandfather had set up a sophisticated prevention spell so that it was impossible for anyone to use magic inside Eiros without express permission from the king; anyone circumventing that needed to be found, whether they were Omegas or not. Any use of the magic detected by this spell was illegal.
By the time he felt confident that the spell would work successfully, the morning sun beamed through the stained glass windows, and the tenebris was alive in his veins again.
Standing in the center of his altar, he focused his mind, alert and watchful, and began to say the spell.
With each word, the magic around him snaked and contorted as it came together, twisting into golden clusters. As he continued to speak, the clusters moved toward the walls of the room, and as they penetrated, he felt the magic spreading along the outer corridor. With the final words, the magic shot deep into the castle in every direction, coating the existing channels of magic.
Malloron took a deep breath and exhaled as soon as he'd finished casting. The magic continued to travel all over the castle, from the top of the highest spire to the deep basements of his pleasure chambers. He smiled to himself as he stepped down from his altar and closed the book on the stand. There was no one who could escape him now. Any use of the Talent, no matter how minute the spell would alert him. And now he could spend more time on the servant who was still an enticing mystery to him.
***
Later that morning, Malloron followed the pulse indicating the servant’s location, anticipation tickling his spine.
He navigated to the lower side of the castle, near one of the entrances to the garden. As he turned down a corridor, he saw her. She was cleaning moss from the stone walls. He slowed down as he watched her. Her back was to him, and she seemed to be cleaning methodically as though she had been doing it for a long time, which raised an interesting thought. How long had she been in his castle?
As he passed her, he felt for magic. Magic existed as an integral part of the natural world; however, most of the magic in the Western Lands was tainted, overused from the numerous Talent-crafters that recycled it so often for their own spells. Another reason his great great grandfather cordoned off magic in Eiros, not allowing just everyone to make use of it, guaranteed it remained pure and abundant for the Visant family.
Strangely, he didn’t feel any fluctuations within her this time. In addition, the spell he used to locate Omegas did not alert him that she was a Talent-crafter. He watched her closely as he passed behind her. She wore a gray tunic instead of black, but she appeared to be the same servant; same black hair, same complexion, same size. And the beacon indicated it was her by the power with which it pulsed. Why had the spell not worked? Did that mean it wouldn’t work to find the others?
He passed her and went on into the garden, his annoyance growing. What had happened? Why couldn’t he feel her fluctuations? If she was the same servant, he should be able to feel something and at the very least, the spell should be alerting him. These Omegas were more deceptive than he had first thought, but certainly intriguing.
Malloron monitored the servant carefully for a week. At first, her routine seemed normal; she followed a cleaning schedule and turned up to all of her shifts on time. By the third day, she wasn't where she was supposed to be. Malloron visited the location where he sensed her beacon and found her in the library. This time she wore a green tunic and was sorting books onto their shelves. Malloron i
gnored her and casually browsed the library, picking up various books and sorting through stacks of parchment, while trying to his suppress his excitement. This female was certainly an Omega. No one could jump from being a gray tunic servant to a green tunic servant in the matter of a few days. Malloron could not remember the color coding—Emric would have to explain it to him—but it was not the normal progression.
He sat in the library shuffling through his books and feigning interest in them until she finished her task.
When she turned, her eyes flicked up to him and then immediately down. She kept her eyes lowered and away from him, like most servants were trained to do, yet he was disappointed by that—he preferred the challenge he’d seen in her eyes down in the dungeon, even though it was highly disobedient behavior.
She exited the library immediately, leaving him staring after her. He clutched the arms of his chair, forcing himself not to get up and follow. If she suspected he knew what she was, he would not be able to use the element of surprise when he needed it. He was already unaware if any of the Omegas had contact with each other across the Lands. If so, she may already know that he was aware of their existence.
Over the next few days, Malloron found every excuse to happen upon her again. He walked past her in corridors, he watched her from afar in various rooms as she completed chores, monitoring her location at all times.
He found out from Emric that her allocated servant room was on the far side of the castle, near one of the training dungeons. That could not be a coincidence. Perhaps that was the reason why she was in the castle.
There were a number of other servants that he saw her with frequently, whom he guessed to be Omegas as well. Most of them were small in stature like her and it was well known that Omegas were smaller than the other dynamics. One of them, a dark-skinned girl with straight black hair had the distinctive sapphire blue eyes that suggested she was from Eridemont, a territory where almost all of its people shared the same hue of blue eyes regardless of their natural skin or hair color.
Malloron had been both perplexed and intrigued by the sight of her. How deeply had Omegas penetrated the Western Lands if they could appear to be so local? Was it possible for Omegas to come from the Western Lands and not have had any dealings with the Omega village he heard about? Within a few moments of pondering, Malloron dismissed the idea. Drocco insisted that the Omegas kept themselves hidden, which meant that the Omegas had certain skills in order to thrive and survive while conducting their business. They clearly went to great efforts to avoid being detected, and who knew what kind of skill they had with the Talent if they were able to hide from him; his spell had still not alerted him of anything unusual, even though he was watching them with his own eyes.
It wasn't long before he was finding excuses to cross paths with the girl. He rearranged his whole days so he would pass her at some point on her scheduled routine, much to the confusion of Emric who had assistants organizing his meetings and royal engagements. Of course when her routine changed, the thrill was discovering what the new one was. She went from being a green tunic servant to a brown tunic servant to a flowery tunic servant, back to the brown tunic servant and then a tan tunic servant. It amused Malloron to watch her when she wasn't aware of it. She played her role well, her head down constantly whenever he was around, meek and unassuming, even though there was no way she could truly be that way. No one who could so blatantly jump between roles was meek, and the idea of that excited him even more. Of course, it would have been much easier to simply have her arrested and tortured to find out more information, but that would have taken all the excitement out of it.
After watching the Omega for two weeks, he noticed that she frequently spoke to a male servant. Over the course of a two-day rest period, they seemed to spend quite a bit of time together and Malloron found it annoyed him. Deeply. The male servant was nothing special, he was average looking, average height, and ranked averagely as a servant in his tan tunic; Malloron could not tell what she thought was interesting about him, he was a servant for fuck’s sake. Malloron wondered what the hell they were doing whenever he wasn't able to see her directly every few hours. During the night, he paced in his temple, sipping his magical wine and wondering if they were together. More than once, he caught himself heading out of the room to storm into her servant's quarters to see what she was doing. By the end of the week, he resolved to speak to Emric about getting the male servant moved to a job out in the castle city, preferably a job cleaning shit from shoes.
But before he could take any action, the perfect thing happened. She disappeared.
The moment her beacon stopped throbbing in his hand, he shot out of his armchair. It was the middle of the night, and he had been sipping his wine as he considered how to move things along with her. Then the signal simply stopped. He straightened his clothes and headed out of his temple, excitement bounding through his entire body. This was it.
He headed to the last place her signal indicated, letting the echo from the beacon lead him.
He entered his popular pleasure chamber to cut through to the servants’ area, but the Beta ruler of Norryth, a wealthy territory that neighbored his own, approached, flanked by two guards with a number of Talent-crafters trailing behind.
The man was the picture of overindulgence. Wide, soft, and saggy, he seemed to enjoy wearing tunic suits that barely fit and were clearly rarely washed. His sallow, blotchy skin and brown, cracked teeth indicated his ill health, but the man had hung on for years so far. He had powerful Talent-crafters as part of his staff and was allies with most of the other rulers in the Western Lands, which was the only reason Malloron hadn’t killed him yet.
The duke balefully eyed Malloron, his glassy black eyes sweeping over him. "You seemed to be too busy to meet of late, yet here you are taking in the view."
Malloron kept a faint smile on his face. As always, he longed for the day he’d watch the man die slowly and painfully. "Greetings, Duke Brecc. I had business to deal with in the Eastern Lands. Urgent business. It could not be avoided. I have only just returned."
The duke nodded slowly. "No more unavoidable than the war that destroyed part of my territory?"
Malloron kept his smile in place. The “war” he referred to was no more than a battle that lasted a few days when the Emperor of the Eastern Lands, Drocco, attacked Eiros castle—Malloron’s home. It was the castle city that suffered the most damage; although, regrettably it did spillover into a couple of the surrounding territories. Once that happened, Malloron had ensured that the fighting stopped, but no doubt Brecc would try to use it against him for as long as he could. "Yes. But there is no longer any war. It has been resolved.” Malloron gestured around him, eager to move onto find the servant’s last location before the trail disappeared. “I assume you enjoyed yourself thoroughly in my pleasure chambers while I have been delayed.”
Brecc leaned forward. “My territory still remains in poor condition, King Malloron. I trust you will do all you can to help repair it.”
“I have offered you more use of my chambers and had most of the building damages repaired, Duke,” Malloron said tightly. “Is there more that you wish to gain from me?”
“The cost to my people was great,” Brecc almost snapped. “It was not my war, I do not see why I have to be the one to cover the costs of them being uprooted and harmed.”
Malloron’s smile fell from his face. “You have made use of my chambers at no cost for years. There are risks for the kind of service I provide for you, and in order for me to be able to keep providing them, you need to be more generous when any dispute I have impacts your territory. Or,” he said, his voice lowering, “I can calculate how much you owe me for all of your visits here since you came into power.”
Brecc clenched his teeth and remained silent for a moment.
They held each others’ eyes, the sporadic chorus of low moans and whimpers from the restrained echoing around them.
“The other rulers will not like your appr
oach to this matter,” Brecc said finally.
“You do not speak for them,” Malloron said sharply. “Nor should you be disclosing our private business dealings to them. It is bad enough you have approached me now, while those around you are trying to get a good fuck, in peace, before the sun rises. Tell me immediately if you wish to sever our agreements.”
At that, Brecc finally decided to show some respect. As much as he liked to posture and pretend it was possible to make demands, the fact was he would be at a disadvantage if their alliance ended, more so than Malloron.
“There is no need for that,” the duke said slowly, after hesitating for a moment. “I’m sure that, this once, I can cover the cost."
Malloron nodded. "I'm glad that you are being so gracious," he said, evenly. "May I remind you, that many of your dealings with the Visant family began with my father. Although I am honor bound to uphold his contracts with you, I am not him. I would urge you to remember that when you think to threaten me."
Brecc's eyes narrowed. "And I would urge you to remember that when you invite war to your territory, it affects the entire Western Lands, not just you. We should all be involved in a decision that would cause another Land to go to war with us. It was shortsighted of you, especially when you cannot offer to compensate those who were affected. You are indeed not your father, for he would have not been so reckless." With that the man turned and headed back to his private room at the back of the chamber, surrounded by his staff.
Malloron flicked and curved his right hand in a rapid pattern and bright sparks of magic flared into existence. Before the duke or his Talent-crafters could react, the shimmery magic formed into the shape of a blade against the duke’s throat.
The duke stopped in his tracks. His Talent-crafters lifted their hands, prepared to take action, while his body guards drew their daggers and advanced toward Malloron.
Malloron said nothing, but every step the men took, he pressed the magical blade deeper into Brecc’s throat.
