The Amagarians Boxset: Book 1-3

by Reid, Stacy

  The scream that erupted from her did little to leash the light that rose inside of Ajali. Before his eyes, her skin melted, turned to ash as she struggled to free herself from the flames of his Phoenyx. She slammed into his chest, shattering his ribs, as she spun on her feet and faced him. They came together with such violence it conflagrated around them. She grew increasingly powerful, feeding off his furor, and his rage fueled what was buried inside of him.

  Indomitable heat speared from Ajali—more than what the barrier could hold. Chains of flames whistled from his hands as he fought her. A clawed hand swiped, cracking his clavicle. He staggered, but he forced himself to remain on his feet.

  Do not fight me, mate! I wish not your death. Voices overlaid with menace screamed inside of his mind. Ajali fought for control as her skin started to melt. He felt and heard the pain in the snarls that echoed from her. More scales rippled over her skin trying to form a protective barrier against his flames. He gave her no quarter as he rushed in, slamming into her, and propelling her more than a hundred feet into the air. He swung his sword, impaling it in her shoulders before she landed on the ground. Ajali was distantly aware that she held back on fighting him, just as he restrained the pure power of his Phoenyx. He did not want all in the Coliseum to ash, yet he sensed somehow through their linked she reined in her demon out of not wanting to hurt him. A sentiment he returned. The idea of being forced to kill Tehdra was unendurable, but she was a power he struggled to comprehend, and she promised to raze his kingdom.

  Knowing what it would cost him, he allowed more of his Phoenyx out. Power rushed through his veins and the earth beneath his feet scorched and blackened.

  Aahhhh.

  He flinched from the scream of torment that blasted inside of his head. She writhed on the ground as unrelenting flames ate at her, piercing through the hardened scales covering her entire body. She struggled against his hold.

  His heart was a war drum in his chest. Ajali released her and flashed away. He was hurting Tehdra. Remember she is the enemy, he ruthlessly reminded himself, pushing aside all thoughts of the pleasure he’d found in her arms, the comfort in her smiles and the temptation in her eyes. Nothing must come before his people.

  “Acheron,” he rasped.

  “I am here.”

  “I cannot approach her any closer. She will cease to exist under the flames of my Phoenyx. Is Tehdra still inside?”

  “Yes.”

  Relief almost felled Ajali to his knee, and he recalled some of his flames. “Can you incant her spirit to the forefront?”

  “I will try.”

  “How is your barrier holding up?”

  “You cannot release anymore, even with my powers I will turn to ash.”

  “Forgive me, Tehdra,” he said, and Acheron threw him a puzzled frown.

  Ajali leashed his flames, and in the same breath, moved with speed to appear in front of Tehdra. Without hesitation he plunged his fist into her chest, pushing her into the ground, breaking bones, and rupturing muscles. He drew her to him, plunging his sword deep as he met her obsidian gaze.

  Why betray me?

  Those last words brushed against his mind before he sunk into darkness, trapped in the psychic connection they had somehow formed.

  18

  Mevia – Kingdom of Sounds

  The Emperor’s palace.

  “It is done, my sovereign ruler. The attack on the capital city of Nuria was successful.”

  Shilah cringed from the grand general’s subservient tone. His voice poured forth treachery, yet the beauty of its pitch enticed her.

  “You have proven invaluable to me, Princess Shilah.” Sweet venom dripped from the emperor’s tongue. “That is a most coveted position to hold in my court. Value it.”

  A hum of satisfaction vibrated on the air, and the import of their words slammed into her stomach like a high beam laser. With every honeyed word from the emperor, the promise of freedom slipped away like ashes in the wind. She held tightly onto her self-restraint, it would never do for a princess to flinch and betray fear.

  “She has failed, my sovereign ruler,” Grand General Shenzhen replied with a frown, lifting his head to stare at her. His black eyes holding contempt. “The princess is not fit to be in the service of the sovereign ruler of the house of Zhang.”

  His obsequiousness sickened her. He was such a paradox—abjectly servile to the beautiful Emperor, yet deadly and powerful in his own right.

  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 each demon beast from its master into a corporeal form. That is extremely impressive.”

  Nothing moved inside of her at the smile that curved his lips. It was self-satisfied, covetous, and downright terrifying.

  “But we do not yet have the king of Nuria, my imperial emperor. The attacks failed in its main purpose.”

  The emperor tapped his chin lazily. “We do not have the king, but we have something better.”

  Shilah tried not to be startled at the presence that simply appeared in the emperor’s room. A Darkan and he had the witch, Amirah, clutched in his grasp. Shilah’s stomach knotted, and she forced her mind to remain calm as the Darkan threw the witch that she’d 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, for his kind fed on negative energy.

  The grand general slowly rose from his kneeled position. “What is better than the Nurian king, my emperor?”

  Fierce satisfaction emanated from the emperor. “A Dracan beast.”

  General Shenzhen faltered into complete stillness, an arrested expression on his cold face. “An impossibility, none has been recorded for more than a millennium, my emperor.”

  The emperor slashed his beautiful eyes to look at the witch who huddled on the ground.

  “Report, my sweet Amirah.”

  The witch’s aura wavered and flickered a deep violet, indicating her depth of her pain. The witch held her ribs and swiped at the blood that bubbled from her lips. “I incanted my emperor, for the Darkans and their beasts to attack the Nurian King at the Games of Fyre. I controlled the Darkan’s demon beast with all my abilities and fulfilled my end of the bargain. I ordered it to capture the king, and the beasts tried but failed. The king of Nuria is a fierce and powerful warrior, and he drew forth the spirit of the Phoenyx buried inside him to defend against the demon beast. I tried using spells on him, but the king had a witch, High Duke Acheron, who 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.”

  “By a female warrior who has the tattoo of a Dracan?”

  The witch trembled, yet she maintained eye contact with the emperor. “She killed one of the beasts and its master. The king of Nuria killed the other.”

  Amirah flinched as General Shenzhen withdrew his sword from its sheath.

  “The Princess and the witch have failed in the carrying out of their task, my imperial emperor. I ask your leave to take their heads.”

  The room spun quickly about Shilah, and acrid fear wafted through her. She gathered her power and scanned the general’s aura pattern, seeking a weakness and found none. She could not die here. The liberation of her people rested on her shoulders alone.

  The emperor stood, his flowing silver robe studded with gems swirling around his ankles “Hold your sword, General Shenzhen. They have executed their tasks beautifully. They have proven that a Darkan can be controlled. They have proven that the chakras buried in the dark ones can be pulled onto this plane and
controlled completely by us. We have found a most brilliant weapon in the war to come. And these weapons are the Princess Shilah and the witch Amirah.”

  The general hesitated, distaste flashing across his face. “My 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 incantations, they were able to steer the demon into attacking the Games of Fyre, and the kingdom of Nuria.”

  “Their 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.

  “The task was to show they could force a Darkan to draw forth his beast power and to control that Darkan. Think of the possibilities, general, for our army. To have such a power in our control will be glorious indeed. And they discovered something that will position us beautifully. The woman who fought to protect the king of Nuria houses a most fearsome and legendary beast—A Dracan. I want her in my dungeon before the next moon night.”

  “And the king?” the General asked, canting his head to the side.

  “We will use the Dracan to take the king.” The laughter that pulsed from him wavered with his might.

  Shilah’s chest tightened as power lashed at her, biting at her skin. She breathed through it. “Sovereign Emperor of Mevia, I have fulfilled my bargain. I respectfully demand we complete our oaths.” Her heart thumped in her chest, and she took some comfort from the fact that only the Darkan who looked on silently felt her dread.

  Cold eyes settled on her. “The agreement my, sweet princess, was your aid in interpreting the book of Oracle to decipher a way to make the Phoenyx’s power mine. Have you discovered the way?”

  She hesitated. Had they not been over this? “Its power cannot be harnessed, emperor. It is pure rage. For the Phoenyx to be pulled forth from King Ajali, all would be incinerated. Its heat rivals the suns of the Omniverse,” she rasped hoarsely.

  Some indecipherable emotion flared in his eyes, and her stomach tightened.

  “Then you have not fulfilled your bargain.”

  No! “The witch and I have scoured the book of the Oracle, the tombs, and scrolls. We presented our findings. The Phoenyx cannot be pulled from the King of Nuria.”

  “But it can be harnessed, hmmm?”

  After a deep pause, she continued, “I doubt that I have the strength or control to call forth such a power, even with the witch’s incantations. And doing so would be suicidal, for all present would be incinerated and the entire planet would be at risk of destruction.”

  He purred in pleasure as if planetary destruction would suit him well. “Are you confirming that you are useless to the execution of my plans, princess?”

  Asked so blandly without a hint of power thrilling his voice, Shilah knew she faced death. “No.” She could squeeze no more out of the tight clasp on her throat.

  “You will soon be able to practice on the Darkan who houses the Dracan. If it takes you years, you will control this beast as you did the others.”

  Years. A petrifying knowledge slammed through her. The emperor had no intention of ever releasing her, a lifetime’s imprisonment. She was a new prize for his army. How foolish she had been to place herself and her sister in his power. Shilah had been at once arrogant and naive.

  He threw a thick book, and it landed at her feet. She picked up the massive tome. She skipped the first page and balked from the depiction drawn there. Even though a picture, it reeked of vicious evilness. She swallowed as she realized she held a tome that cataloged the Darkans’ beasts, their strengths…and weaknesses? How had this come to be in the emperor’s clutches?

  “Learn about all that a Dracan offers, for I will have control of it.”

  She executed a shallow curtsy and then walked away from his throne. She ignored the garbled whimper from the witch, hating that she was unable to offer aid. Shilah had not been abused for her supposed failure because she was the only Imperial Serangite in the kingdom of Mevia. Witches peppered Amagarie after ripping portals into the Omniverse to abandon their realm eons ago. The Emperor could kill Amirah and have another witch in his service in a few hours. To retain another Serangite? That might take him another hundred years. Still she reached out to her, brushing against her mental shields. The witch allowed her in, and before Shilah could speak, the witch said, “I thank you for thinking of me Princess Shilah. But it does not make sense for both of us to die. If you try to render me any aid, the Emperor will make you suffer for it.”

  Shilah faltered, her throat tightening at Amirah’s pain and despair. “I will bargain for your release—”

  “No! Your kindness is appreciated but I have a plan and you interfering will only make my life more difficult. The Emperor will believe you care about me, and I will simply become another tool to control you!”

  Swallowing back the denial, Shilah ensured she did not glance in the witch’s direction as she rapidly walked from the chamber, rapidly planning how to proceed. What to do? She had explained to the emperor the dangers of harnessing the power of the Phoenyx and binding it inside of himself. He was willing to risk war with Nuria—the kingdom of eternal flames, to attain his obsession. There were many whispers in the castle of his plans to capture the Nurian King, but she had been disbelieving until they had been whisked to the outer walls of his castle to direct the beasts she and the witch had pulled from the Darkans to attack Adara, the Capital city of the Nurian Kingdom.

  To capture the king of such a nation was certainly an immense folly, but the confidence of the emperor shook her. He was either incredibly powerful, more so than she comprehended, or absolutely mad. The rustic beauty of the empire did nothing to soothe Shilah’s frazzled nerves as she lightly ran up the thickly carpeted stairs that led to her guest quarters, passing several armoured warriors who stood with rigid awareness along the immense hallway.

  Every hallway of the castle, the courtyards and baileys were manned by armoured warriors leaving little room to escape the empire without a fight. The weapons she’d travelled with would hardly aid her, for Amagarie and the Empire of Mevia was nothing like her world with towering castles built from glass and topaz and refined steel. How she wished she had fled with Arrow, her PSI-2.1 friend who knew all the languages of the Omniverse and was possibly stronger than all the warriors she hurried past. Arrow was skilled in many fighting styles and programmed to understand warfare and intelligent stratagems. How she missed him.

  With a heavy sigh, she pushed open the door to her chamber and entered, closing the door gently when she wanted to slam it. Her current adobe was quite large, regal in its elegance, with several rooms and antechambers allocated for her sole use, including her own bath chamber, yet she knew her apartment for what it was. Her prison.

  She made her way through the sitting room, eased open the door to her bedchamber and walked with grim purpose to her desk with its many parchments and inkwell. At least it was a comfortable prison with many luxuries provided. She came to a stunned halt seeing the man stooped rifling through the contents of the secret compartment in her desk. The one she’d believed she’d cleverly installed.

  Wariness rolled down her spine in a chilly wave.

  “Who are you and what are you doing in my chambers?” she demanded.

  He rose with animalistic grace and faced her. Her breath caught, he was power, strength, and so incredibly male, and possibly too handsome. He was gorgeous, his face almost savage in its planes and angles. His frame was lithe yet muscled. Midnight hair was held back from his face at his nape, and his eyes were the most beautiful shade of amber, the color of rich, dark honey with bright flecks of gold.

  Scanning his lean, lithe length, and striking features, she registered his unfamiliarity. She fought back her rising temper. “I will not ask again, Sir,” she snapped.

  Her body hummed in shocking awareness and something wicked pulsed through
her at his slow perusal. That look was almost physical. A caress. “I have told the grand general time, and time again I do not require a consort.”

  At his silence, she grew uncomfortable. “Speak,” she commanded.

  “I am not here for your pleasure.”

  She realized that seconds after she made her rash statement. He was not dressed like a consort in revealing silken clothing like the others that had been presented to her. He seemed…predatory? He stirred, a slight ripple of muscle warning of his strength. The power in him was so obvious it clung like a second skin. Shilah assessed him but sensed no aura.

  Impossible. She was an imperial—the most powerful in her geneses of telepathy.

  That absence of aura, the lack of sense of his true power, gave her the first inkling of fear. She gently flared out her telepathy, fluttering softly against his mind, and the shield that she encountered stunned her. She studied it with her psychic eye, reading its intricate pattern. It was a shield constructed from sheer willpower, and her mind was unable to see what was housed beyond its walls. Her heart thumped. “Are you here to kill me?”

  “First a consort and now a killer,” he said with such lazy amusement Shilah was almost disarmed. Almost. She slipped her hand inside the folds of her sari and gripped the hilt of her dagger. Her fighting skills were below par for most Amagarians, but she would not be taken without a fight.

  The smile that curved his lips indicated that he’d seen her subtle move. If he attacked, even with the force of his shield, she would try and penetrate his barriers, seeking any weakness. She could attempt to trap him into a false memory or implant the suggestion to leave her unharmed or order him to stop breathing.

  “Your injury is not my desire, Princess Shilah Symonrah of Dxyriah.”

  How deliberate he was with his knowledge. “I am sure that you do not expect me to be assured by such words coming from a stranger in my personal rooms. The emperor did not send you. Who are you?”

  “I seek something that you have,” he said with a deceptive shrug.