Hurried steps echoed through the vast corridors; a man rushed to the large gilded doors of the Emperor''s chamber, swinging them open with the loud caw of metal rubbing against the tiles.
"What is the meaning of this?" Emperor Ellis shouted, slamming his fist against the armrest of his throne.
"Please, forgive me, Your Majesty!" The anxious aide stuttered, his legs trembling at the Emperor''s reproach. "I have an urgent report to make! Duke Valentine has disappeared, Your Majesty!"
"WHAT?" Emperor Ellis questioned sternly, "Are you certain about this, Gregor?" Kyrian''s stern voice continued to weigh on the poor aide.
Gregor was unfortunate to have chosen the short straw among the aides to have to report. Now, his life hung by a thread in the process. "Yes, Your Majesty! We have confirmed reports from the Valentine House— Chaos has overtaken it as the servants fled. They all refused to tell us what happened; all we know for certain is that Duke Valentine and his entire retinue vanished without a word." Gregor spoke with a hastened pitch.
The man breathed deep and exhaled before quickly continuing, "Additionally, after word of Duke Valentine''s strange disappearance spread across the noble houses, they began to act strangely. Your Majesty, they''ve gone mad!"
"Baroness Mugwort began capturing fertile boys of sixteen and under. Her entire barony is up in arms as mothers are threatening to torch Baron Mugwort''s mansion. Our messenger hasn''t returned from the barony even though he should have returned by now!" Gregor dictated with urgency.
"And, Your Majesty... Count Blackthorn started rambling audaciously; he was at a ball days after Duke Valentine disappeared, and he began reprimanding you. He claimed that if you can have a full harem of consorts, he would not restrict himself either. Since then, he''s taken girls and women alike from all across the Empire''s borders!"
Emperor Ellis stared with cold eyes, his left-hand fingers tapping against the armrest with mixed emotions. Gregor noticed the tense quiet halting his dictation and lifted his head slightly to see Emperor Ellis'' chilling death stare. "Gregor, are you making fun of this Emperor?" Kyrian enunciated calmly.
"No! Your Majesty. I would never!" Gregor flailed, waving his hands frantically. "I swear on my family that everything I''ve reported is accurate!"
"I see," Kyrian muttered flatly. He rapped his fingers against the armrest, causing an excruciating unrest within Gregor. Kyrian leaned back on his throne, crossing his arms before his chest. He stared attentively, his gaze focusing beyond the room. Various thoughts assailed his mind, and he recalled a story that his father used to tell him. ''My son, one day you''ll be the Emperor. But I fear that you may be the last. My father had told me, and his father told him. For generations now, our family has retold this tale. This world is headed for great peril, my son. The consequences of the past will rise, and insanity will take hold of people''s hearts. Hope will turn to ash, and our people will turn— to a monster of two dominions.''
Kyrian rose from his throne; he took leisurely steps as he walked past several maids scrubbing hastily on their knees. Splatters of crimson painted the decorative tiles as they dug their scrubbers into them. Their gazes glued to the floor, but hearing Emperor Ellis'' footsteps, shivers ran down their spines. Kyrian pulled out a sword lodged in the floor near one of the maids before walking out of the chamber with it dragging along behind him. "If the noble houses think they can walk over me so easily, I''ll have to show them who this empire belongs to."
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Elsewhere within the empire, a harrowing scene unfolded as cowled men dragged a line of chained men and women. Their feet dragged and scraped against the jutting stones of an overgrown cliffside path that led up to an altar. At the sides of the congregation, masked men followed along with torches in hand. Typically, people would wail miserably, yet these people walked with muddled, empty gazes. The eerie silence accented the procession, following it to the peak where a large altar stood; atop the altar sat the entrance to a well, the sides of it carved with patterns of feathered wings and countless eyes gazing out at the world in every direction.
The procession reached the peak, the cowled men unshackling the people one at a time and pulling them to the well; they took out daggers of chiseled bone and slit their necks in one fluid motion, allowing the gushing flow of blood to seep into the well. Corpse after corpse parted with its blood as the people''s bodies were flung apathetically to the side under a large tree. One girl approached the well, her muddled eyes flickering with struggle. Something snapped within her as she pulled away from the cowled man; her screams rippled across the landscape.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
As her voice echoed, the eyes on the well wriggled nervously, focusing their piercing gaze on her. The masked men lunged at her, kicking her onto the ground and stabbing a dagger through her mouth. The woman gurgled blood as the life fizzled out of her eyes.
"Forgive us, Lord Joz-Run! The child had not absorbed enough of the trance drug!" The cowled man spoke as he kneeled beside the well. Gurgling sounds rose from the depths before quickly settling into quiet.
The cowled men sighed with relief and moved to finish off the rest of the chained prisoners.
A large armored man walked out from the brush with arms crossed, "Pawns, you almost angered the Lord." He uttered flatly, his husky voice drumming toward the cowled and masked men. "Pitter off and gather more sacrifices. We need the young and innocent blood now. Leave the aged ones for the others."
"Yes, Sir A. As you command!" The men replied obediently and left.
Such were the tides of time and fate, an insurmountable obstacle that took no chance. At the same time, Priscilla enjoyed a comfortable life for what one would have expected of purgatory. She grew as a person, adapted to her newfound powers, and spent quality time with Zae-Rin, which she could never have imagined. It was a vivid contrast to the empire, shrouded in a shadow that encompassed it with its vile machinations. The people could not know just how deep the plots went; the commoners lived to survive, but to the nefarious, they were mere tools to use and abuse to achieve their goals.
Another plot unfolded in the depths of the south, where Duke Valentine sat leisurely in a glass garden. Maxine nestled into his embrace as she sat in his lap.
Another woman stood behind him, massaging his shoulders. She leaned in, her breath tickling against Duke Valentine''s ear, "Do you think Kyrian is losing his mind about now?" She questioned, her voice warbling sweetly.
Valentine snickered as his hand caressed Maxine''s lower back. "He probably is." He uttered with mocking disinterest, "He won''t last until the Millennium with this anger and impatience, though, Beatrice."
The woman, Beatrice, leaned in more, nibbling on his earlobe softly with a smile. "Don''t be like that; we should show him the world his family ran from." She whispered.
"Perhaps; there''s no rush to deal with Kyrian immediately. There are still two and a half years until the dawn of the millennium. He''ll be a wonderful stepping stone once our plans settle and the day of reckoning comes." Valentine replied.
Maxine arched her back, soft to the touch, as Valentine caressed her back. "We still need someone to go and find out what that greedy bag of bones plans to do." She uttered through whimpers. "Why don''t you go, Bixxy? Leave the two of us alone."
"How about you go, Maxxy," Beatrice replied sweetly, hiding the cold venom in her eyes. "Or we can just send the pretty boy; he has time to spare."
"That is for the best. Let Carlisle know he needs to go to Bi''Sha as soon as possible." Valentine said with a smile.
If Priscilla could have seen the man once called her father, she would have been shocked to find out how incomparable he was. The once cold and stern man was now grubbing his paws all over the two women. The insatiable greed in his touch was vivid as they fooled around without a care in the world.
They had executed her in the nine-hundred and ninety-seventh year of the millennium; months later, they ingrate themselves into the empire''s schemes. They propelled to the surface. All in the pursuit of the fateful day. The people suffer, and villages burn. A thousand years of development headed for an unstoppable climax.
A year and a half after Priscilla''s execution, the turmoil within the empire intensified. Emperor Ellis ran rampant through the noble houses while attempting to quiet dissenting voices. His troops marched valiantly across the cities and towns, weighing down on the families and their cruelty, but in the process, Emperor Ellis managed to harm the people only. His troops were not solely extensions of his arms; they came from various backgrounds, including those from the cult who had wormed their way into the ranks of the empire. That was a fact he could not have known when he started his crusade, but even if he knew, nothing would have changed.
Time was an infinite constant, an unavoidable mistress that would take all that she desired. The seasons changed, and the avoidable turned into an inescapable net. The seas roiled, and the land quaked. Reckoning approached, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
The events had nothing and everything to do with Priscilla, but in her position, there was no way she could know or care about the extent of her bond to the empire. She awoke in purgatory, feeling the refreshing touch of a new day. As much as the past had scarred her, the only thing she desperately needed now was that her days with Zae-Rin continued. Priscilla could not explain what she felt; being with Zae-Rin was akin to time with a mother''s warmth, a friendship that transcended time, and more. It was the thread that kept her sanity grounded, an escape from the dread of death. Her time in purgatory was nearing its end, and what the fate of her sanity would be after was yet to be seen.