Cover Copy
When is an Empire not an Empire? When it rules the West, the North, and the East, but the Death-White Border to the South must never be breached...
The Empress, all darkness and allure, has betrayed the Emperor. Raeche does not know what the cruel and calculating warrior will do when the baby growing in her belly is born and Lanus discovers it is not his. Only, when the child is born, she is the image of the Emperor. Raeche is shocked... and intrigued. The game is afoot. The Emperor's trickery becomes unique seduction as the keys to the true Empire are unlocked.
Warning: Scenes of graphic violence and sexual situations.
Teaser
“What is your greatest fear?”
A spark jolted her heart and she jumped, wrapping an arm reflexively around the swell of her belly. The Emperor’s deep voice had pushed through her shield of silence and isolation.
Perhaps he had knocked at the door and she had not heard. He usually knocked despite the glaring truth: an emperor did not have to knock to gain entry anywhere.
Perhaps he had intentionally startled her.
What is your greatest fear?
In moments like these, when a surge of power signaled his nearness and her heart raced, Raeche understood in her Spirit that she would never be safe.
Yet, as dictated by breeding, she recovered quickly. She stood to face him.
“Emperor.” Her voice more air than tone, she raised her right hand, thumb and forefinger together, then bowed her head slightly in a greeting which showed respect but was absent of deference. For in this strange, strange world to which she had been born, Raeche was his equal.
“Your greatest fear, Empress,” he continued, “once was my bed, but now that I no longer require you in it…”
A single slow step brought him into the chamber. Another and he stalked her.
The Empire
By Grayson Reyes-Cole
The Empire
9781616503833
Copyright © 2012, Grayson Reyes-Cole
Edited by Danielle Fine
Book design by Lyrical Press, Inc.
Cover Art by Valerie Tibbs
First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: June, 2012
Lyrical Press, Incorporated
http://www.lyricalpress.com
eBooks are not transferable. All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
Published in the United States of America by Lyrical Press, Incorporated
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my Lanus.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank Danielle Fine for her endless yet perfect edits.
Author’s Note
In The Empire, Book 1 of the Lovers’ Opalus, I hope to deliver a full fantasy experience. In the world-building of this Empire, the editor and I took creative license with grammar conventions and capitalized some common nouns where we felt necessary in this fictional world.
I hope you enjoy.
Chapter 1
Alone in her chamber, staring out at the dense, night-green forest to the East, Raeche felt safe. No one ventured to that part of the palace unless bidden and Raeche, who cultivated and nurtured and was seduced by her solitude, rarely bade. Even Taritana, her Personal, only came once at Light and once at Dark, at which times the Personal waited and monitored–hunger of a different sort in her eyes–to make certain Raeche took enough food.
On this day, the Personal had long since come and gone, so Raeche exploited her freedom to do as she always did when alone. Sitting at the window with one hand tangled in the thick, embroidered window covering, she studied the sheltered entrance to the East Forest–though it never changed, nevermore produced a dream in the shape of a man. Having a thought to be sad about this, Raeche sometimes summoned sorrow. Her throat closed when she realized the emotion, though carefully constructed, remained completely inauthentic. Manufactured longing where true longing should have been.
In truth, during these past cycles of the nightstar, though Raeche had grieved, it had not been for the loss of a true love. She grieved for the absence of definition. She was nothing of her own, had never been anything of her own. Raeche had always been the Empire.
“What is your greatest fear?”
A spark jolted her heart and she jumped, wrapping an arm reflexively around the swell of her belly. The Emperor’s deep voice had pushed through her shield of silence and isolation.
Perhaps he had knocked at the door and she had not heard. He usually knocked despite the glaring truth: an emperor did not have to knock to gain entry anywhere.
Perhaps he had intentionally startled her. What is your greatest fear?
In moments like these, when a surge of power signaled his nearness and her heart raced, Raeche understood in her Spirit that she would never be safe.
Yet, as dictated by breeding, she recovered quickly. She stood to face him.
“Emperor.” Her voice more air than tone, she raised her right hand, thumb and forefinger together, then bowed her head slightly in a greeting which showed respect but was absent of deference. For in this strange, strange world to which she had been born, Raeche was his equal.
“Your greatest fear, Empress,” he continued, “once was my bed, but now that I no longer require you in it…”
A single slow step brought him into the chamber. Another and he stalked her. Two heads taller than she, with shoulders almost as wide as the doorway, his presence shrank the large room. Raeche believed she might never breathe again. He took yet another step. When she did finally breathe, his earthy scent curled in her nostrils, filled her lungs. He smelled of the East Forest. His eyes–the color of the Clear Pool beneath the trees there–bored into her.
From childhood to present, she had never truly mastered gathering her thoughts when he came close. Pregnancy had only enhanced that affliction. He both repelled and magnetized her, inspiring confusion. In turn, that confusion served to excavate more of that certain madness which constructed her nature. Wildly, she wondered if he could or would kill her while this babe grew inside her. He had never been known for violence toward women or children but perhaps a man who had bathed in the blood of so many would have no conscience when seeking revenge for such intimate treachery.
“I wonder what it is now…”
Closer still he came.
A thump and thrum within her made Raeche’s chest heave. She placed one hand over her belly, the other over her heart, while taking care to hold his eyes with her own despite the insistence of instinct that she lower them. Desperation sped her pulse. Something foolish made her stand her ground, refuse to step back or make herself even smaller, more fragile.
This infant rebellion had started within her cycles ago and grew as her baby did. She felt something when in the Emperor’s presence she had yet to unravel. The emotions were, perhaps, easy to identify–anger, terror, misery–but their cause remained a mystery. He had only brought her pain in one way and it had been unintentional. Since that time, he had treated her with persistent coolness
and formality. His fine masculine features rarely creased or lined or even colored to demonstrate that his Spirit yet lived behind his deep green eyes. He spoke pretty platitudes to her.
Distance. The Codex of the Empire listed the Spirit of Distance in the Appendix of Cultivation. The Emperor wielded the Spirit of Distance as weapon and armor both.
Standing before him, close to him, she raised her chin. Dared him, though all reason urged against it.
He licked his lips. Bent closer. “Your greatest fear.” His tone glided over her skin like the fur of a shaksa.
Another woman may have found it seductive. After all, no man in the Empire wielded such an abundance of desirable circumstance. Through inheritance, intelligence, and brutality, the young emperor ruled the West and North with absolute power. Now, through his marriage to Raeche and his deserved legend, he preserved his rule of the East. At rest, he appeared cool and calm. Amiable. Even now, he cultivated the Spirit of Distance with a soft tone. His hair, warm blond like the color of the daystar, and his hooded, pale green eyes reflected the appearance of peace and serenity. The Empire had fallen in love with the alluring façade, yet Raeche knew the truth. Inside, he raged.
Invisible sparks rained from him–showering over her, scalding her skin, burrowing into her body, scaring her even as they heated her with something she dared not confess. Inside the Emperor dwelled a beast he unleashed at will and with joy whenever he needed to secure what he believed to be his own. This included all things–plant and beast, soil and sky, water and hearth–in the great Empire. It included a virginal, frightened Raeche in his bed so many rings before.
Raeche knew these things and this knowledge made clear the picture of her doom. As long as he practiced Distance, she would seek to bring forth the beast.
Lost in thought, she had somehow lost track of him. The heat of his presence had become molten and, if she looked up, her nose would be a mere inch from his throat. He placed his hands on her stomach so lightly she could barely feel the touch, but inside her, the child rolled and kicked and reached for him in greeting.
The Emperor smiled and Distance shattered. Expressive lines around his mouth turned an already handsome man into one that both mesmerized and frightened her. Wed for nearly three rings, betrothed and known to him since birth, Raeche’s abject fear of him had been immediate. It had not lessened in all this time. In recent rings, it had developed into an all-too-physical, near-debilitating reaction. Even in this moment, even as he smiled in pleasure and peace and his body radiated warmth, Raeche vibrated with tension. What would he do when the babe came?
“My greatest fear is for her,” the Emperor confessed, interrupting her flailing thoughts. “My Rucha, she will have my intelligence, and more. Your indefatigable will, and more. My Spirit, and more. Your Spirit, and more. Yet our combined gifts will not be able to protect her from the Road of Pain.”
“We all walk the Road of Pain. It is on the Map from–”
“It is on the Map from Birth to Earth.” He quoted the old proverb. “Indeed.”
He said no more. Instead, he gave her belly a pat in farewell to the babe. Before he quit the room, he said, “You need not fear me, Raeche. You have never needed to fear me.” He closed the door quietly behind him.
Raeche exhaled before dropping back onto her bed. She struggled for calm. Rubbing soothing circles on her belly, she tried not to upset the child. The girl. She had not known she would have a girl.
Rucha.
The name the Emperor had given her meant “Raeche” in his language.
Chapter 2
On a day that knew no daystar, on a day when only the blackest of dark clouds blanketed the sky and hung so low they were pierced by the mountains in the West, a storm brought the child. Raindrops fell, fat and fast, accompanied by the crack and roar of thunder. The windows rattled and at some moments it felt as if the palace itself shook.
Raeche knew only pain. Her body had become a prison walled with suffering and strife. The primal instinct to push pulsed through her, dragging screams from her throat. She fell to the Spirit of Agony, sobbing as her flesh rent. While she struggled to deliver her, the child, angry and frightened, lashed out with her first blast of Spirit, swamping them with her emotions.
The Emperor himself stayed near through the labor, soothing them both with his own Spirit of the Empath as much as he dared. The Imperial couple had been warned that the interference of too much Spirit during the birth could drive both mother and child mad, or worse. Despite the warning–and though Raeche knew herself to be an unfair woman–her Spirit told her she would be forever grateful for his help and restraint.
After the labor the nurses cleaned the girl child. Taritana, performing her duty as the Empress’s Personal and Woman of the Spirit, blessed her. As Raeche listened carefully–waiting for the Rage to overtake the Emperor–Valor, performing his duty as The Emperor’s Personal and Man of the Spirit, witnessed the Emperor’s acceptance of his heir. Then the child was returned to Raeche, laid in her arms against her breast.
When the new heir to the Empire, calm and on her way to slumber, blinked up at Raeche, the Empress noticed the pale, almost icy-green irises of her eyes, which were already open, aware. They looked like the Clear Pool beneath the trees of the Forest to the East. With timid, trembling fingers, Raeche brushed back the portion of the blanket covering the baby’s head. Skin fair as the nightstar, Rucha’s wisps of hair shone with the color of the daystar at its highest.
Raeche gasped before remembering that Taritana watched with narrowed eyes. Valor stood at her side and neither would fail in their duty. Raeche steadied herself and accepted Rucha with her own rite, proud she did not stumble and inspire further suspicion.
Raeche looked up at her husband–the tall, blond, all-powerful, fair-skinned, green-eyed devil.
She had known nothing of fear before this day.
Chapter 3
With their Personals flanking them, the Imperial couple stood on the tower balcony and presented the new heir to the Empire. The Personals swore on the Spirit the legitimacy of the child, vowing to protect her happiness and livelihood and, by doing so, protect the Empire’s happiness and livelihood, as long as they lived. This vow acted as the first official step in relieving them of their responsibilities to the Empire. Two more ceremonies and they would no longer be Personals. In the next ceremony, a child Personal would be chosen for Rucha. Her betrothed, young Eynow, would also receive one. In the final rite, Rucha would be deemed a woman, a scholar of the Spirit, and a warrior, thus ready to inherit the Empire.
As was the unwritten tradition of Personals, both Taritana and Valor relished this moment–the beginning of freedom–but neither would openly acknowledge their relief, which was also traditional. They were honored by this duty, the most important in the Empire after that of the Imperial couple, but it prevented either of them from pursuing their own lives, their own spouses, even their own property. They needed at all moments to be prepared to replace either ruler as half of the Empire in order to execute the strength of continuity.
When the ceremony was complete, the Imperial court retired to a reception in the Great Hall of Victory, named thus for its myriad tapestry depictions of the war that created an Empire even as it isolated the South.
After arriving at the reception, Valor used detached efficiency to extract himself. He greeted members of the Imperial court, danced with the Empress despite his distaste for her, and kissed his niece and Personal daughter, Rucha. He challenged the Emperor to a battle of swords–an ancient tradition–and was dutifully bested. Valor assured all in attendance that the Death White Border that separated the Empire from the land of Poachers and Riddlers needed him once more. He embraced his brother, ignoring the Empress, whom he found to be beautiful yet spoiled, powerful yet immature and spiteful. He made official declarations to Taritana while holding her hands, which she returned in kind. Then they made a traditional toast. All needed to witness their devotion to the Empire and the I
mperial family.
Finally, Valor quit the reception with plans to pack before traveling to the South. While stuffing the last provisions into a bag made of the thin but nearly impenetrable greatch hide, the door whispered open and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
“Taritana.”
“Valor,” she said, her voice deep and controlled as usual. “May I enter?”
“You may.”
Valor sensed her coming deeper into the room, though he did not turn to greet her. Laying eyes on her might very well lead to disaster. Besides, he did not need to look at her. No one in the Empire knew her form, the way she moved, the shape of her Spirit as well as he. He busied himself with reorganizing his bags.
“You are off to the South again,” Taritana said.
“Yes, as always.”
“Is that wise?”
“The Death-White Border is lovely this season.” He smirked.
Always so devout and dutiful, she ignored his quip. Instead, she paused to say a prayer and make a sign to the Spirit for the great, fallen aurus–once thought to be immortal, indestructible–whose bones now dug into the soil of the south and curled up to the sky, marking the line of destruction for any born of the Empire who dared cross it. “As Personal, you should not put yourself in direct danger.” She did not sound concerned for his good health. Like a perfectly dedicated Personal, her concern for the Empire ruled.
“Better me than Lanus.”
Her silence marked agreement.
“You and I both know the sole danger facing our Emperor is the Empress. What happens to me is of no importance. He will survive.”
He sensed her shudder. Sensed her come nearer. Not near enough to touch, only to whisper. She wanted something from him. “Valor, I know what part of the Spirit takes you. I know your real name. I need to know–”
The Empire (The Lover's Opalus) Page 1
