ature 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.
***