by John Corwin
A fierce grin lit Qualan's face as he inspected one of the aether wells. "Such waste. I love this place already."
Preserved remains of humans and animals alike occupied an adjacent hallway like museum displays. Tapestries and murals from Eden decorated the great halls leading to the throne room. Daelissa recognized some of them from her early days on Eden when she had hoarded whatever fascinated her and brought it home. It had been a time of discovery for her and her closest friend, Alysea. Little had she known the person she trusted most would betray her.
At last, they reached the throne room. A great crystal seat infused with Brilliance glowed atop the stairs. The crystal rose in spires that protruded at every angle much like the feathers of a peacock. Rays of pure white shined from the tips of each shard, giving the illusion of a sun. The throne, however, was quite empty. Behind the great seat, a mural of Skazaeleus dominated the wall. He wore a glowing crown and held his arms out as if to encompass the world.
A seraph in red robes sat on smaller chair, which occupied a landing halfway up the stairs. He looked as bored as the bureaucrat Qualan had killed.
Daelissa growled deep in her throat. "Where is Skazaeleus?"
The seraph's eyes went from Daelissa to the guard and across the others in the group. "This is very irregular."
"Daelissa has returned," the guard said. "Please take us to the Emperor."
The bureaucrat laughed. "Daelissa? What fairy tales have you been reading?"
The guard trembled. "Please do not provoke her. Her servants have already killed more than a dozen guards." He fell to his knees and cried out, "By all that his holy, please show her to the Emperor!"
The seraph's eyes turned uncertain. He looked to the left. Daelissa followed his gaze and saw more murals, each one a smaller replica of the ones in El Dorado. The seraph regarded the one resembling her. He looked from the depiction and back to Daelissa.
Some sort of wisdom must have intruded into the bureaucrat's mind, because he simply nodded and stood. "I am Tovaard. I will take you to him." He glanced at the guard. "Remain here."
"At long last, someone I do not have to kill," Qualan said in a mocking tone.
"Thankfully," Lanaeia said in a quiet voice.
Tovaard led them through a small door behind the throne and onto a skyway, which angled up a long corridor. They soon reached a large, curved room with a window overlooking the city. It was evident they were in one of the towers. Tovaard turned left and walked to a large platinum door. He extended a finger and charged a small gem in the center of the door with Brilliance.
A chime sounded.
A moment later, the door slid open and a female Seraphim—a sera—in the gray tunic of a Darkling servant answered the door. She bowed and kept her eyes firmly fixed on the floor. "How may I serve, Magister Tovaard?"
"Get your master, you filthy Darkling," Tovaard said, his lips curling in disgust.
"At once." She vanished inside and soon returned with a plump seraph in white robes.
"What is it, Tovaard?" The seraph's eyes scanned the group. "You know how busy I am."
"Greetings, Minister Kjoeriss," Tovaard said. "Daelissa has returned."
Kjoeriss's eyes flared with surprise. He narrowed his gaze and looked Daelissa up and down.
Daelissa realized she had finally hit her limit with these lackwits. "How many fools must I go through to reach Skazaeleus!" Daelissa shrieked. She shoved past Kjoeriss. He plowed into a bench with a loud grunt. Daelissa stormed through the foyer and several rooms until she reached a hallway. She heard laughter from one room and tested the door. It was locked. She looked at Qualan and pointed toward the obstacle.
He blasted a hole through it. Surprised screams echoed as Daelissa burst inside to find a harem of scantily clad seras inside. Skazaeleus was not there. She stepped back into the hallway and marched to a door at the end. Qualan repeated his destructive performance.
She stepped inside.
The bedroom boasted a massive bed in one corner and a balcony overlooking the city beyond. A shimmering blue pool ran the length of the right wall, outside to the balcony, and seemed to end at a sheer drop off the mountain itself. It was in the pool she spotted a seraph leaping from the water and racing toward a sword. He was not Skazaeleus.
"Who is this?" Daelissa said.
Tovaard raced into the room, panting. "It is the Emperor, Daelissa."
She felt her brow crease. "This is not Skazaeleus."
"Who is this sera?" the man shouted as he drew a crystal blade. Unlike the guards' swords, this one glowed brightly. It had obviously been charged with far more Brilliance than the norm.
Kjoeriss staggered into the room, blood trickling down the side of his head. "May I present Emperor Skazaeleus the Fourth," he said in an unsteady voice. "Your majesty, may I present Daelissa."
The Emperor's eyes flashed with disbelief. "What is the meaning of this, Kjoeriss? Do you mean to betray and assassinate me?"
"Sheathe your sword," Daelissa commanded. "Have your servants provide us with food and wine."
The Emperor looked long and hard at Daelissa. Fear joined the uncertainty in his eyes, but he reluctantly sheathed his sword. "Tell the servants to fetch all Daelissa asks for." He charged a gem on the wall. Yellow light suffused the air around him and the water evaporated from his body.
Kjoeriss shouted commands and within moments, a veritable feast lined the long table outside on the balcony.
Daelissa sat at the head of the table with Qualan to her right and Lanaeia to her left. The Emperor moved as if to sit at the other end of the table, but Daelissa motioned him to sit next to Lanaeia instead. Tovaard and Kjoeriss hovered nearby, obviously uncertain about whether they were invited to join them or not.
"Who here can tell me what has happened since the war?" Daelissa said.
"Which war?" Skazaeleus the Fourth looked uncertainly at his advisors. "Everything I have ever heard about you was deemed legend or myth. Many of the older Seraphim died during the Second and Third Darkling Insurrections—"
Anger warmed Daelissa's face. "There were two more rebellions?"
"The first happened seven-hundred years ago," Kjoeriss said. "The second and third each occurred about a hundred years apart after that."
"Wrong," Qualan said in a haughty tone. "Your third rebellion would actually be the fourth."
Daelissa rose to her feet without meaning to as her anger flared to outrage. "Find me someone who knows Seraphim history. The ignorance at this table is sickening."
Kjoeriss held up his hands defensively. "I know of no one so ancient."
"Ancient?" Daelissa hissed in her coldest tone. "Are you calling me ancient?"
"Absolutely not!" the seraph said, dropping to his knees. "You are immortal."
Tovaard cleared his throat. "Mistress—"
Qualan blurred across the room and gripped the seraph by his robe. "She is the Divinity. You will refer to her as is her due."
"My apologies, Divinity," Tovaard said in a quavering voice. "I will send out a memo at once to notify everyone of your proper title."
Daelissa granted him a smile. "You may now speak."
Qualan released him and walked back to the table.
Tovaard seemed to reach inside himself for more strength and continued. "Divinity, our lifespans are typically not much more than a few centuries. This is why we know of no one who might know your history. The university was destroyed during the First Darkling Insurrection, and much of our historical records were lost."
Centuries? Daelissa was aghast. Seraphim had been immortal, some countless millennia old when she was a child. What had happened to her people? She directed her gaze at Kjoeriss and Tovaard. "You will search the land for someone who knows the history." She turned to young Skazaeleus. He only slightly resembled the seraph she had known. Though she had no personal love for the seraph she had appointed as regent, a pang of nostalgia made her yearn to see him.
He is dead.
She co
llected her thoughts and spoke. "I will allow you to remain emperor, but you will send forth a public decree stating that I am the Divinity and as such, the ruler of Seraphina."
He looked as though he wanted to interrupt her, but held his tongue.
Daelissa continued. "Assemble your army, Emperor. We depart for Eden five days hence."
His eyes went round. "But Divinity, I cannot possibly assemble—"
Qualan stood and channeled destruction around his fist. "All things are possible, fool. All you require is motivation."
Skazaeleus shrank away, hands held defensively. "I need no extra motivation." His voice rose to a high-pitched whine. "I will assemble the army at once, Divinity. I swear it!"
Daelissa smiled. In a matter of days, her millennia of plotting and planning would finally see fruition.
Chapter 10
Despite a social coaching lesson from my father, I felt way out of my depth at Kassallandra's ball. The house heads were a cliquish bunch of snot-bags though it was obvious they didn't trust or even like each other in the human sense. Daemos had a strict hierarchy somewhat akin to a caste system. The Paetros and Maedras were the heads of house with those of Anae status a close second.
Anae Vallaena flowed in and out of conversations with house leaders as easily as she did those of her social standing. Daemos of Benae and Cenae status wore colored silken armbands to identify them and rarely seemed to stray from their groups. I'd once been considered Castratae—outcast—but apparently, my new deodorant had saved the day.
I watched a group of brightly dressed Daemos waltz to the music of an orchestral ensemble on a stage near the front of the ornate marble dance hall. The setting looked as though I'd stepped straight into the pages of a fairy tale ball. Unfortunately, this was the last place Cinderella would meet her Prince Charming.
"It is, of course, a matter of house strength," Vallaena said to Godric Salomon.
Her words pulled me from my trance.
"By what measure?" Godric asked in a haughty tone.
"Perhaps the only measure of import in these troubled times." Vallaena regarded him grimly. "I would not suppose there are many who could face such a fierce opponent as Daelissa, at least not alone."
His icy blue eyes regarded her coldly. "If the objective is to goad me into risking my house, such time is wasted."
"We are strong," his wife, Gwyneth, protested. "We are not as numerous as House Assad, but quality is often found in lower quantities."
"I agree," Vallaena said, touching my arm. "I know one of surpassing quality."
"How sweet," Yuuki Wakahisa said as she walked into our group. Her eyes went back and forth between me and my aunt. "The mother deer teaches her fawn to forage for leaves."
Vallaena smiled. "It is regrettable he must use his mind to navigate treacherous waters, Maedras Wakahisa, especially while some rely solely on body parts requiring no thought whatsoever to gain favor."
I blinked a couple of times before I finally figured out the insult.
Yuuki's sensual smile seemed to indicate she enjoyed the verbal joust. "It is a shame those with perfectly lovely appendages are unwilling to employ them. Perhaps the favor of one house would have already been gained."
Gwyneth tittered as she looked me up and down. "He is not unpleasant on the eyes."
I felt myself blush and tried to hide my discomfort. If my observations were accurate, Gwyneth seemed the least socially refined of the bunch. The key to the interaction seemed to be using a lot of passive verbs as opposed to directly stating something about someone as she had done.
Vallaena replied to Gwyneth with another thinly veiled insult that seemed to question her worthiness to sleep with me. This drew yet another rejoinder from Yuuki. After listening to them go on for several more minutes, I had to wonder if the primary requirement for Daemos socializing was learning how to throw insults in someone's face without them even realizing it.
Do I even want these people fighting by my side?
My victory over Aerianas hadn't seemed to sway Godric or Yuuki, and my words certainly hadn't and wouldn't, especially since I wanted to call them all warthog-faced buffoons. I still had more Daemos muckety-mucks to meet with, and getting to the point was like reaching around my elbow to scratch my ass. If they all took this long, the war would be over before I managed to convince just one. This is a waste of time. I almost blew out a breath of disgust, but held it in.
"Really?" Gwyneth said with a laugh. I suddenly realized she, Yuuki and Godric were staring at me.
"And not a word of defense spoken." Yuuki smirked as though she'd scored major points on the cut-down meter. "The truth often lies in one's silence."
The urge to backhand her across the ballroom floor was overwhelming. I'd obviously missed whatever they'd said, but it didn't matter. These Daemos weren't worth the time it would take me to convince them and I decided to let them know just how I felt. To make my words even more insulting, I used a British accent. "The more words I hear from certain lips, the more I realize the universe does have a sense of humor." I let a small smile curl my lips. "In fact, it seems there is ample space to waste on trivial beings."
Yuuki's eyes widened as if she were barely holding back an angry retort.
"Contemptuous halfling bastard," Gwyneth said. "How dare a mere Castratae—"
Godric gripped his wife's arm so tight I saw his knuckles whiten. He bowed to me. "My apologies, Anae Slade. She has had more than her fair share of drink."
I met the Daemos's icy eyes and noted a hint of fear in them. What is he afraid of? With Yuuki, I'd already seen that physical threats wouldn't coerce these people into joining me. I felt like I was in a lake with alligators circling beneath the dark waters and no land in sight.
"Surely there is no need to challenge Paetros Salomon to a duel for publicly questioning your social standing," Vallaena said. "It was merely a slight—nothing worth a Paetros losing his house."
Godric's eyes narrowed at Vallaena. "Surely not," he said in a cold voice.
If I could've taken Vallaena aside and asked for advice, I would have, but I didn't want it to look like I was completely ignorant. I translated Vallaena's statement. Gwyneth insulted me, so I can challenge Godric to a duel. If I win, I remove him as Paetros of his house. That scares Godric.
Yuuki, Godric, and others in their positions reminded me of snooty old aristocrats. If there was anything I'd learned from reading Pride and Prejudice in school, it had been that those sorts of people were nothing without their status. More than anything, they feared being social outcasts.
Removing Godric as Paetros would be devastating to him and Gwyneth.
When in doubt, bluff.
I settled the coldest gaze I could muster on Godric. "Perhaps a duel would be productive. All this talk makes me yearn to destroy something."
"You cannot be serious," Godric said.
"As Anae Slade and the son of Paetros Slade, he is within his rights," Vallaena replied. "Maedras Salomon offered him grave insult, which could damage his social standing."
"How very clever," Yuuki said with a sly smile. She raised an eyebrow and regarded me with what looked like newfound respect—or wariness.
"Perhaps it's time for new leadership in House Salomon," I added, trying to keep up the pressure. "I'd like a house of my own." I looked at Vallaena. "Would House Salomon become House Slade if I were the Paetros?"
"You would have the right to take a new surname if you desired," Vallaena said.
"I could change my last name to Unicorn if I wanted?"
She lifted an eyebrow. "Of course."
Godric's chin trembled. His face turned an angry shade of red. "Surely there is another way to solve this situation."
I turned to face him. "How else will I retain my social standing if we do not duel?"
Gwyneth whimpered as Godric squeezed her arm even tighter. "I believe I know a way."
An almost euphoric rush burned through my veins. "Explain," I said, barely able
to contain a smile. Am I starting to enjoy these social games too much?
Godric's jaw tightened as he mumbled something.
"I'm sorry," Vallaena said. "I could not quite hear that."
"I said, I will acknowledge Anae Slade as Kohvaniss."
"That will mean you join the alliance against Daelissa," Vallaena said, giving him a very solemn look.
"I am very well aware of the consequences," Godric said in a stony voice.
Yuuki regarded me through heavy-lidded eyes, as if what was happening now was even better than an all-you-can-eat Swiss chocolate buffet attended by shirtless male models.
"Then let's get it out of the way while everyone's here." I almost extended a hand so we could shake on it, but remembered Yuuki's response when I'd done that to her.
"Do we have a pact?" Vallaena asked.
Godric released Gwyneth's arm and held out the flat of his hand toward me. "We have a pact."
Vallaena looked at me expectantly, so I held out my hand the same way. Godric pressed his palm to mine. I felt a tingle and saw a flash of blue flame as he withdrew. The orchestra finished their latest piece and the dancers clapped politely.
"I believe that is your cue," Vallaena said to Godric.
He scowled, but walked to the stage and held up his hands before they started playing again. All eyes turned to him as he cleared his throat. "House Salomon has long been known for its wisdom."
Scattered applause echoed in the great hall, probably from all the Salomon fanboys.
Godric nodded and continued. "Kings of yore depended on the wisdom of Salomon, and even today, many Overworld citizens come to us seeking aid." He raised his chin and looked upon the crowd like a king to an audience. "After much deliberation, it has become evident to me that Eden once again requires the services of House Salomon." He held out a hand toward me. "The Kohvaniss himself has asked for guidance and wisdom. With Eden in the balance, I could not refuse."
More applause sounded around the room, this time with a bit more enthusiasm.
Paetros Salomon regarded me with a smile that could have deforested a river basin. "Anae Slade—Kohvaniss—House Salomon stands ready to serve against Daelissa's hordes."
