Remembering Yesterday, page 9
Kerberos—Castle of the deep—main stronghold of the king
“There are murmurs of dissension,” Drac El Kyn reported to his king. He shifted, following Gidon’s progress across the cavernous room as he paced like a caged predator.
His king’s lips curved into a smile even as the deep silver of his eyes turned to hardened flint. “From where does this dissension rise and what are the murmurings?”
“It is said that you are only five centi old and not strong enough to rule our people. It is whispered that you are only in power because it is your heir-ship,” Drac said. “There are also whispers of the Kingmaker promising a new ruler for the Darkage.”
Gidon’s step faltered and met Drac’s gaze. The Kingmaker was a shadow in Amagarie, lauded for his brilliance and cunning. He was without loyalty to any kingdom or king. A man most dangerous, a man whose identity had been a mystery for centuries, but whenever he stirred, destruction ensued.
Gidon strode to the fireplace and stared into the roaring fire. Its flickering cast the sigil of the ruling family—the Cerberus—a ferocious three headed gargoyle mounted above the war throne in a menacing glow.
Tension danced over Drac as the coldness that emanated from his king reached out to him, and darkness scraped against darkness. The sibilant slide of his beast whispered through him as he lowered himself into the great chair facing Gidon.
They were secreted in one of the king’s private war chambers away from eyes and ears embedded in the shadows of the court. It was sparsely furnished with only two great chairs, a throne, and a massive oak desk. The fine layer of dust on the stone floor and furniture showed how little the room had been used.
“It has been more than fifty years since we last heard rumors of the kingmaker,” Gidon said.
“Yes.”
“Assassinating my father could have been on his command.”
“Many do not agree with the ideals your father advocated before his death,” Drac said, scanning the shadows, probing for unusual patterns. Even though they ensconced themselves away, he couldn’t be too careful. “For now, the kingmaker is a rumor…I will unearth the truth of it and the face behind the cowardly murder of our king.”
“All have something to gain from his death, thinking I would be less powerful after ascending,” Gidon growled, thrusting his hand through his midnight hair unraveling it from the thong that held it.
Savagery slithered through Drac, and a smile curled his lips as he anticipated the fight to come. Gidon shared his father’s ideals, which would mean that he would be the next target. If he fell to an assassin’s blade, there would be no heir to take his place. Their kingdom would then have to choose its next leader based on traits it respected—viciousness, cunning, and ruthlessness. The last time a ruler was chosen like that was before the first Great War, a ruler of whom Gidon was a descendant. Gidon was the last of the Al Shra bloodline.
“We will need another enforcer for our cadre,” Drac said.
Gidon had been King Rajliegh’s enforcer, and now that Gidon ascended to his father’s place a fourth was needed. The circle of power and strength needed to be maintained for his protection.
“I have no intention of finding an enforcer to take my place.” Gidon’s tone was menacing as he prowled to the desk, lifting the tablet of the old laws.
Drac glanced at his king sharply. “The elders will object.” He said nothing of the danger it presented. His king would be fully aware.
Gidon hurled the tablet into the wall, shattering the granite stone into dozens of pieces. “I am not my father, as the elders will soon learn. He listened keenly to their insight because of their strength and wisdom, yet our kingdom suffers. We are only seen as a people to be feared and reviled, Drac, and my rule will change all of that. We will change all of it. ”
Gidon stalked around the room, and a hiss escaped Drac as tension spiked from his king, pricking Drac’s skin, tugging at the malevolence buried in him. He sank deeper into the great chair, giving Gidon a moment to subdue his flare of rage.
“I want to know if the kingmaker has risen, and who were my father’s assassins… Hunt and bring them before me,” Gidon said with a calm that belied the fury pouring from him in waves. He stepped into the shadows and vanished from the room.
“It is done,” Drac rasped into the silence.
He was Gidon’s first enforcer, and his king trusted in Drac’s skills to act on his orders without hesitation. Drac would not fail him. Echoes of cries and pain slunk through his mind, and he slammed the shutters down with ruthless will. The wails of past failures would not haunt him today, and he would give his life to ensure Gidon did not fall.
Drac stepped into the shadows and moved with the darkness to uncoil into the grand hall of the castle. He needed to return to his Keep immediately. His sister and lieutenant, Tehdra, was investigating who had thought they could betray their king and live. He needed to be at the helm in the hunt for the betrayers.
Many of his people did not want an organized nation with provinces, councilors, and elders. They did not want to emulate other kingdoms’ ways, preferring to thrive on brutality and slaughter, desiring that the only commodity the Darkage should trade was their skill as shadow assassins. Gidon would have to rule without mercy to stand against those who wished to keep the Darkans in economic and political darkness.
Drac would protect the vision they were all fighting for with his last breath. Their Queen Sora had forfeited her life for the ideal they had of their kingdom. As had their king. Years ago Drac had been reduced to a snarling animal when he’d fought to save his brother Vlad and his mate, Gidon’s sisters, and they had still fallen. Blood and tears had poured from Drac while he’d fought to protect King Rajliegh, and yet he had perished. Gidon would not fall while he lived, Drac vowed.
Yesss let us kill.
His beast’s voice, familiar and insidious, slithered through his mind. Drac was in agreement. No mercy. No forgiveness. He would bring only death to those who thought they could threaten the life of his king and jeopardize the rise of their kingdom from the dark times they had suffered through.
Chapter Two
Taryllion—near the northern border of the Darkage
“Kill them and take the Princess.” The words from the enemy were brutal and decisive.
Refusing to bow to fear, Saieke harnessed her chakra, drew the wind to her with strength, and lashed power at her attacker. Sharp winds sliced from her hands cutting him deep, spewing blood. A force slammed into her from behind, propelling her several feet into the air. She twisted, using the power of her wind to softly land, then spun and sank into a crouch with her daggers in hand, the wind swirling around her.
Kamu scanned each attacker, probing for an opening. “You cannot be taken by any kingdom. Employ any means to flee from their clutches, even if it means using your keni.”
Her stomach clenched at the thought of the situation escalating to where she would need to use such a power. She was one of the few people in her kingdom that controlled two Shenkiri, manipulating both water and wind. With the combination of the two elements, she possessed a far too destructive bloodline power. “I will do all in my power to not be taken,” she assured.
Thyon and Kamu blurred, flashing toward the attackers, slashing their daggers with deadly precision. One of the assassins swept under Kamu’s flank and barreled toward her. She dove, rolling away from him, slicing cutting winds from her hands. Blood sprayed, slapping her cheeks from the multitude of cuts that appeared on his face.
“Why does Mevia hunt me?” she demanded from her crouch.
She thought it would have been Nurian assassins they fought, but they had been attacked by two warriors from the kingdom of sound. No one should have been privy to the information that she fled Boreas, and the implications left her cold. Spies haunted her kingdom.
For the first time, she got a caricature of a smile and a response from her attacker. “Are you not the Nurian king’s intended?” His voice was a melody of destructive power.
Saieke cringed. Before she could formulate a response, he flashed toward her.
“Get back!”
At Thyon’s yell, she ducked, missing the fist that slammed towards her head. Her heart jerked. She had not seen him come under her flank. Her Queen’s Blades flashed in front of her, forming a protective barrier. Dread knotted her stomach as the Mevian on the left opened his mouth. Power in its purest form flowed from his lips, the sound eerie and high pitched. The earth roiled under their feet.
Her stomach heaved, and Saieke’s mind muddled, the beauty and pitch of the sound holding her in enthrallment. She flung out winds of such intense cold they struggled to breathe. Wind howled from her Queens’s Blades as they attacked, and she waved her hands in rapid patterns, drawing water from a nearby lake toward them in a tidal wave. She focused her chakra and combined her elements, forming a block of ice as an impenetrable defense barrier. Sounds grated and pulsed around the block of ice in a harmony so beautifully haunting, her body trembled. Two distinct shrieks rose in the air like a banshee wail and slammed into the ice wall splintering it into mere shards and frost.
“Aahhhh,” the scream strangled in her throat.
Saieke labored to breathe, her chest tightening. Her ears rang and her throat constricted as pain gripped her. Thyon stumbled, vomiting, and Kamu recoiled, blood spewing from his shattered eardrums.
Her stomach bottomed out. The Mevians stood relatively unharmed with only slight blood trickling from their face and neck.
“Your highness, please flee as fast as you can. Go! We will hold them off,” Thyon said with quiet intensity.
“I cannot leave—”
“Go!” Kamu growled, swiping at the blood tricking along his neck. “Stay true to our course and we will find you. We will lose everything if they take you, Princess.”
After a slight hesitation, Saieke nodded. “You are forbidden from leaving this world before your time,” she ordered, flashing away with speed.
Her skin prickled, she glanced back to see one of the assassins moving with ruthless purpose to reach her. She frowned, her hands trembling as she coaxed the wind, harnessing it to propel at a faster speed. The assassin emitted another intense sound, and the vibrations slammed inside her body, cracking her ribs.
She stumbled, her knees smashing to the ground. And then he was upon her. She lurched to her feet unsheathing her dagger, slashing at his throat. He parried the thrust, and Saieke’s head snapped back as he backhanded her with a force that split her lips. She dove away from him, throwing her dagger with precision, using the force of the wind to embed it high in his right shoulder.
She wiped the blood trickling from her lips down to her chin. She clenched her blade, trying to control the shivers racking her frame. Her breath hitched as she shifted, lowering her hands to feel gingerly along her ribcage. She flinched at the sharp bite of pain. Her close combat Taijiu was well honed and deadly, but her opponent seemed just as skilled. She struggled to battle down panic and think of a strategy to get herself out of the situation she stood in.
***
Drac shiktred—using the shadows to travel—from castle Kerberos, inhaling the dark beauty of his kingdom. Animals slithered from the rocks and underbrush, scuttling to safety as he uncoiled from the shadows. Growls, frenzied cries and screeching rose in a crescendo of sounds as he disturbed the predators of the forest. His mind worked cold and calculating, as he wove the pattern of how he would trap the enemy. An eight legged mammoth of a beast roared a challenge at Drac. He disappeared from its sight, roiling with the darkness, covering thousands of miles in only a few minutes to enter the Morie—the forest that led to his domain.
He halted as energy, live and crackling caressed his skin. Drawn by the need to feed, he shadowed to the edge of the border. The man and woman were so intent on killing each other; he doubted they had noticed that not two hundred feet from them lay the border of the Darkage. Certainly they would not have lingered had they realized. Drac’s chakra pulsed as he consumed the dark energy leaking from them.
The female’s distress hit him, and he relished her fear and rage. Drac’s blood churned, and his beast uncoiled and stretched as it fed for the first in a long time. Darkans fed from the negative energy others gave off. It was not their only source of nourishment, as the other six kingdoms believed. They ate food, laughed, fought, and fucked like everyone else in Amagarie.
The darkness he possessed also needed to be fed, and as its chakra was pure malignity, it got satisfaction from absorbing only the darkest of energies. The more it fed, the stronger it became. Many of his kind tried to suppress the savagery of their beast by not feeding it at all. Drac thought that was nonsense, as power and duplicity were necessary to surviving in any kingdom, and his darkness knew all about that.
He tracked the female as she fought with skillful grace. Rage rolled off her in waves. Her eyes were wide, face pale, but the grip on her weapon never wavered. Her dance with her dagger as she attacked and defended was graceful, ageless. He assessed her poise, curiosity stirred and a deep pulse of something he could not identify slithered through him. He felt her anger bank and it turned into something even sweeter: pain. Drac’s gut tightened and a groan rumbled in this throat as the rush became more pleasurable. He inhaled her pain, and the beast within raised its head, savoring the decadent taste. Power hummed and stretched beneath the surface of his skin.
Fear rose in her, intoxicating his senses. He glanced at her opponent to see what constituted the change. Ahh… another had joined him. A snarl of satisfaction resonated within him as her dread fed his beast to satiation. Drac leaned back on a tree as he observed the scene before him keenly.
***
Saieke stumbled, grief cramping her stomach. Her Queen’s Blades had to be dead or dying. The other Mevian presence indicated their defeat. Please protect Kamu and Thyon, and if they have perished, safely shepherd their souls to the other side.
“You are without options, Princess. Cease resisting or suffer the consequences.”
Fighting to resist the enthrallment in his tone, Saieke flared her power, searching for water to execute her keni and found none. She refused to panic, trying to stay calm and unemotional. Surrender was not an option. To attack another royal was bold. Mevia wanted something from her kingdom or from Nuria. The Mevians could demand an outrageous ransom and her parents would pay it—even if it crippled her kingdom.
She straightened her shoulders, widening her stance. There was one option they would never dream she would pursue. She had glimpsed the border behind her—the utter darkness—and only felt dread. Taking an even breath, she speared her senses, seeking other chakras and found none. If there were anyone else within a mile’s radius, she would have sensed them. Saieke hoped the Mevians also feared the Darkans’ brutality and would not pursue her into their domain.
Saieke’s heart thrummed and apprehension skated up her spine. The dark ones fed from the people of Amagarie, and they were just plain evil. Rumors abounded that the chakra from demons lived within Darkan—a chakra so malevolent it could not face the light. Legend held that millenniums ago their king, in a bid for power to rule all kingdoms of Amagarie, made a deal with the Demon King. A bargain that destroyed one of Amagarie’s suns leaving them in darkness and with the presence of a chakra so vicious they were reviled by all.
She was royally screwed. It was the Mevians or the Darkage, and in the darkness there was only death. Yet after assessing her situation, it seemed her only chance of escape. She dismissed the inner voice screaming that she was afflicted with insanity, anyone from Mevia was better than Darkans. Saieke drew a deep breath, harnessed her chakra, and ran with the wind beneath her feet to the darkness.
***
Drac’s indolent posture disappeared into sharp predatory awareness. Her two pursuers rushed after her with no hesitation, and within seconds they crossed the border into his realm. Slight fear wafted from her attackers, which they quickly suppressed. Interesting they had such control over their fear, knowing where they trod.
A soft bluish light glowed around the female. She was not fast enough, a beacon for her pursuers to follow. Drac coiled with the shadows, keeping pace as they moved further into his kingdom.
Who was she?
She stopped and wiped away the glow of chakra, plunging her attackers into unrelenting darkness.
He observed her as she stood with absolute stillness. Unease snaked from the two men, who slowly unsheathed the swords strapped to their backs. She looked in their direction as if she could sense their presence.
Drac glided behind her soundlessly. She was breathtakingly beautiful. He reached out, almost compelled to touch her hair. It hung to her hips, its hue a mixture of fire and jasper. A sharp stab of arousal lanced though him as he drank in the slant of her cheekbones, soft lips, and her lush figure. She wore a blue caftan that molded her curves with precision, hugging her breasts and rounded hips that were more than a handful.
And her scent.
He inhaled deeply, clenching his hands as something inside of him twisted viciously and lunged. Her scent was intoxicating. But it was her eyes that had him gliding even closer—the deepest blue he had ever beheld. They swirled and darkened with dread and something akin to determination.
Drac checked his thoughts and moved away from her, but not far. He did not mingle with females outside of his kingdom, and to have been engrossed with her was a perplexity he wondered if he should pursue. He dismissed the thought; outsiders only viewed his kind with revulsion, and the fact she could not defeat her attackers indicated a weakness he could never tolerate.
Drac thought fleetingly of leaving them in the forest. The intruders were not a threat to his kingdom; it was impossible to survive in his obscure world if they thought to remain and venture further. Yet he did not leave.
