by Simon Archer
“Release me, and I’ll show you how much power I still have.” Laurelin snapped her jaws at me. I was able to move my hands deftly away before she could take a chunk of my hand with her.
“I’ll be seeing the full extent of your power soon enough.” I placed my fingers on her stomach as she twisted as much as she could within those chains. She wouldn’t be escaping in this century or the next, but as I felt for the scar I’d made, I remembered how I came about capturing her.
“To think, dear Angel,” I said as I stroked the indentation of the black spot I had placed upon her years before, “if I had been more thorough with this wound, none of this would have come to pass. But I didn’t want to spoil anything so precious.”
“It’s that pompous arrogance that will kill you, Khaba.” Laurelin spat on me. “You should have just killed me. Now, when I get out of this, I’ll snap your neck like a toothpick for everything you did to my family.”
“Still upset about what happened to your dear father-in-law?” I said, stroking my cheeks as I inspected them. “I think I’ve gotten much more use from his corpse than he ever did, wouldn’t you say?”
“My only solace in all of this is that you couldn’t do the same to Richard.” Laurelin poured all her lust for vengeance from her eyes into mine. “Your face is proof enough that you didn’t get him, and through your blatant disregard for life, you ruined your chance at any other Tyler in the family line. Your collection will forever be incomplete, and I’ll rip every year that he should have lived out of your hide!” Her tears dripped down her cheeks as she stared at the wound that I gave her. “My baby boy. I didn’t even get to name him.”
“His name is William,” I said simply, using my nonchalance as a dagger to wound her.
“What?” The Angel dropped her tough facade. “What did you say?”
“The boy goes by William Tyler.” I pulled my hand away as I mused aloud. “At first, I suspected that the people were propagating news of a fake Tyler to spur their hopes, considering what I had done to you. I thought that faking your death and killing your child would be enough to break their spirits. But, somehow, your boy lived. And he’s on his way here.”
“My precious boy.” The tears streamed down her face like waterfalls. Pathetic. The living are so easily swayed by their own emotions. False hope satisfies their hearts just long enough for them to build their lives around it, making it all the more crushing when the lies fall beneath them.
“Do not get me wrong, dear Laurelin,” I told her. “I do not tell you this so that you may dream of a life away from the Blood Ruby. I want you to understand something very important.” I leaned up to her ear, then. “Your son will be the masterpiece in my collection. With your blood in his veins and his mortal lineage, he will be the perfect vessel for me to execute the full range of my abilities for the rest of time. Because you fell in love with one mortal man, you have single-handedly doomed this world, as well as the Upland… and any other world I can place my hands upon.”
“You are depraved, Khaba,” Laurelin stuttered out in the breaths between sobs. “My boy has nothing to do with this.”
“Your boy has been a pain in my side for some time now, my Angel.” I pulled away from her, lifting my hand as it became coated in a shroud of dark purple energy. “And he is the truly depraved one. You can blame him for the torture you will endure until you are a husk.”
Ending on that note, I thrust that hand into Laurelin’s chest as she screamed with such agony that it would have curdled my blood if I had any. The Blood Ruby pulsed with life, engorging on the divine power I fed into it. The obelisk grew brighter and brighter as it fed upon the Angel, illuminating the entire room. When the gem grew too bright, cracks popped into the jewel, fracturing the tiniest of flakes off of it as the Ruby strained to contain the whole of the Angel’s power.
This is part of why I wished to wait to enact this stage of my conquest. The Blood Ruby was powerful, but it could only hold so much energy at once. It would have needed time to drain the Angel completely, time I no longer had. If I weren’t careful, I would destroy it completely, releasing all of the energy I had gathered into oblivion. Despite my best efforts, I was forced to pull my hand away from Laurelin as she dropped her head, falling unconscious from the pain.
“Release the Miasma now,” I psychically messaged my two concubines.
“But, my lord,” Via replied back, “would you not like to--”
“Obey,” I sent with a pulse of my dark energy, spurring them to more immediate action. As I sent out the command, the Blood Ruby shot a beam of light directly upward, reaching through the centric rings at the Necropolis’ center, reaching the top. Already, I could see the Blood Ruby’s fractures almost relaxing as the pressure of the energy was removed from it. I channeled my energies to my shadow, creating a portal for me to step through to the top of the Necropolis with ease as I left Laurelin to hang upon her chains.
As I walked upon the other side, I found Via and Nethum standing on the opposite ends at the peak of the ziggurat, focusing their white and black energy into the center between them as they contained the red energy of the Blood Ruby within it. The hot rays of the desert suns beat down upon us as I surveyed my kingdom. The sands of the Morkanna were as far-reaching as they were deadly to the living. The great monuments to the dead kings of old had proven most useful in providing bodies to be my workers and soldiers, and they acted as natural garrisons for them to house themselves. As far as I could see, the undead slaved over every stone building, reinforcing and expanding them as others brought the corpses of conquered lands to be housed within them.
As my concubines poured themselves into their spell, the sanguine energy shot up once again into the sky. The beam rocketed into the suns, flooding them with a reddish hue as the same light spread to every corner of Morkanna. The red light thickened and darkened as it spread across the sky, stretching and growing to far edges of the desert. When it coated everything in sight, the air became thick with a blood mist that wisped through every grain and encircled every stone.
From deep under the sands, dead hands reached out to pull the bodies of a legion of corpses out. They slowly rose to a stand, brandishing their weapons and armor. Out of the Necropolis, and out of every mausoleum and crypt in Morkanna, whispering spirits flew out, dancing through the air as they crashed into the corpses and skeletons that stood before them. The eyes of the undead glowed with unnatural light as a false life was poured into them. Their bodies filled with dark auras as the new power bestowed upon them coursed through them, giving them power unlike any undead before them.
My brother and sister Brands finally had homes for their souls. And together, we would take this world, and all worlds after, back from the living.
A Note From The Author
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