“The Empress of blood.”
“Crimson twister.”
“Death bringer.”
Aldrik kept glaring from the corners of his eyes, a silent challenge for anyone to raise their voice to something more than a whisper. None rose to his challenge, and the gossip eventually faded. But it weighed heavy in her mind in the days that followed.
Vhalla woke from sleep with a searing pain through her mind.
All those things said of you.
She gripped her head, panting. Aldrik stirred.
They will never respect you. They will always fear you. You put your powers on display, your might, and that was their response? To call you a monster? Look at the ignorance of Commons. Victor’s voice echoed through her mind right behind her temples.
“Go away,” Vhalla hissed.
“Vhalla?” Aldrik sat, clearly hesitant to touch her. “Is he awake?”
Is that the man you claim to love? Tell Aldrik hello for me. I so look forward to killing him again. Do tell me, how did you survive the Crystal Caverns? The same way you forced me out of your mind yesterday? What power was that?
“I said go away.” Vhalla closed her eyes and imagined her mind like the wide plains of the East. Vast and overwhelmed with wind. Someplace that she knew, but any other man could be lost within.
Why don’t you come to me? Come to me, Vhalla. Victor’s voice was already weaker. Sehra had been right, he was certainly recovering from whatever the princess had done.
“Go away!” she screamed.
Victor released his hold on her mind.
Their tent flap opened without permission, a pair of concerned Western eyes looking between them. Vhalla stared back at Jax and realized her responses to Victor had been said aloud. Aldrik shook his head, and the guard retreated.
Vhalla did not want to acknowledge the looks the next morning. She ignored the faces of the people who she was supposed to lead. She tried to hold herself together as the world felt like it was slowly falling apart beneath her. She didn’t want to reveal the increasingly fragile sanity of their Empress.
No one would share her fire pit at night. No one would look at her for longer than a few seconds at a time. The majors spoke primarily to Aldrik. Everything she had worked for felt like it was falling between her fingertips.
The third night, the dreams returned.
Vhalla stood in a throne room, a place she once knew. On one end sat a large golden chair. On the other stood massive ceremonial doors, so large they required chains and two men each to open and close. Large vaulted ceilings displayed stonework reminiscent of the Imperial library. Where golden pennons once hung, black velvet strips featuring a silver dragon ran the lengths of the long columns.
A man sat in a chair, a crystal crown upon his brow. It glinted off the light from the windows overhead, but glowed mostly with its own unnatural aura. The glow was mirrored in the faintly shining crystals that were overtaking the room from the floor beneath the throne. Victor’s hair had been cut, and he now wore it in a style similar to Aldrik—combed back. It was a slightly looser hairdo, but it was similar enough that Vhalla wondered if it had been a conscious change.
He looked every inch a king upon the throne, save for the stones marring his skin. The crystals were embedded into his flesh, jutting from his body, growing from his bones. His veins pulsated black around them, the taint struggling to take hold. On occasion he’d shift his attention from the scene before him to one of the stones. It’d flash faintly, as if whispering to him, communicating with some distant point.
She wanted to feel hatred at the sight of him, she wanted to be ready to launch herself—even in a dream state—into an attack. But all Vhalla felt was empty. He didn’t look like a man any longer, he looked like a God. A God who had worn her down past the point of exhaustion.
However, following his line of sight, the object that he looked at with such malicious delight, brought feeling back to her—and the feeling was horror. It compelled her to movement. She held out a translucent hand, as though she was more than just a spectator in the nightmarish memory to which she bore witness.
Laughter rang out from all sides of the hall. Men and women swathed in black robes sat on one side of long tables, feasting and enjoying in the night’s revelries. In the center of the room were ten people, naked with sacks tied over their heads. They were of varying ages, from varying backgrounds, but the one commonality they shared was trembling fear.
“Who would like to go first?” Victor called from behind her.
“I found and put to death four Commons for besmirching your name!” a black robed man cried as he stood.
“I orchestrated the Eastern advance!” another shouted.
A third stood. “Two of the fare are women I supplied— Easterners!”
“To the man who is our benefactor goes the honor of the first spoils.” Victor’s voice grated through the cavernous space like rocks scratching over glass.
