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Those last words brushed against his mind before he sunk into darkness, trapped in the psychic connection they had somehow formed.
Chapter Eighteen
Mevia—Kingdom of Sounds
“It is done, my sovereign ruler.”
Princess Shilah cringed from the emperor’s grand general’s subservient tone. His voice poured forth treachery, yet the beauty of its pitch enticed her. A sob caught in her throat. She had been deceived. Her sister’s freedom and aid to their kingdom had been promised. Shilah had fulfilled her task, but she was still a prisoner. A unique one—she had the freedom to traverse the empire but always with a guard. And not just any guard. Someone from the grand general’s elite warriors.
She waited silently with foolish hope beating inside of her for the emperor of Mevia to make his ruling. A ruling from who she perceived as the most dangerous man in Amagarie. Beauty should not sit so well on evil. He’d been the only ruler of the imperial empire of Mevia for three thousand years—no other leader in Serange or Amagarie had ever done so. He’d held his throne against war and seditions. It had been why she’d approached him, not realizing that she dealt with a monster until it was too late. “You have proven invaluable to me, Princess Shilah.” Sweet venom dripped from the emperor’s tongue.
She held tightly on her restraints, it would never do for a princess to flinch and betray fear.
“She has failed, my sovereign ruler,” Grand General Shenzhen replied. “The princess is not fit to be in the service of the sovereign ruler of the imperial house of Zhang.”
His obsequiousness sickened her. He was such a paradox—abjectly servile to the beautiful emperor, yet Shenzhen she believed was one of the most dangerous men in the empire to ever hold the title of Grand General.
Shilah exhaled slightly, relieved when the emperor responded in a moderate tone. Sounds were weapons for Mevians. Their voices were not naturally beautiful. They merely had the ability to manipulate the variance of sound whenever they chose to turn their voices into a lethal instrument.
“Come now, General Shenzhen, the princess has proved her worth. She was able to pull forth the demon from its master into a corporeal form and then control both. That is extremely impressive.”
Nothing moved inside of her at the smile that curved his lips.
“But we do not yet have the king of Nuria, my imperial emperor.”
“We do not, but we have something better.”
Shilah tried not to startle at the presence that simply appeared in the emperor room. A Darkan. Her stomach knotted, and she forced her mind to remain calm as the Darkan threw the witch that she worked with on the ground. She was a bloody mess. A hard shaft of fear slammed into Shilah, and she cringed as the Darkan shifted his gaze to her, sensing her rising dread.
“What is better than the Nurian king, my imperial emperor?”
“A Dracan.”
“An impossibility, none has been recorded for more than a millennia, my emperor.”
The emperor slashed his beautiful eyes to look at the witch that huddled on the ground.
“Report, my sweet Amirah.”
Her aura wavered and flicker a deep violet, indicating her depth of pain. The witch held her ribs and swiped at the blood that bubbled from her lips. “I incanted, my emperor, for the Darkan to attack the king. I controlled his will with all my abilities and fulfilled my end of the bargain. I was unable to touch what housed inside of the king. He had a witch, High Duke Acheron, on the battle field that incanted to counter attack my spells.”
She paused as she labored for breath, and then continued. “The Darkan and his summoned beast were defeated before the king was incapacitated for his retrieval.”
She trembled, yet she maintained eye contact with the emperor. The witch Amirah was unable to contain her flinch as Shenzhen withdrew his sword from its sheath.
“The princess and the witch have failed in the execution of their task, my imperial emperor. I ask you leave to execute them.”
Shilah gathered her power even as acrid fear wafted through her. She tried to scan the general’s aura pattern, seeking a weakness and found none. She could not die. The sole liberation of her realm rested on her shoulders.
“Hold your sword, General Shenzhen. They have executed their tasks beautifully. They have proven that a Darkan can be controlled completely by us. We have also found another weapon in the war to come. And these weapons are the Princess Shilah and the witch Amirah.”
The general hesitated. “My imperial emperor?”
“The task I set before them was to breach the wall that separated man from beast, bringing the beast to the forefront. The princess executed that task brilliantly, and with the help of the witch’s incantation, they were able to steer the demon into attacking the Games of Fyre.”
“The task was to capture the Nurian king, my emperor, and they failed.”
The emperor smiled, and it was so beautiful Shilah was forced to look away.
