Pain slashed through her side as Megladine stabbed her.
Rah’s roar of rage was from a distance, and Shilah stared at her uncomprehendingly. “Megladine, what—”
Another stab in her shoulder blade drove her to her knees. They were betraying her family. She did not even want to understand what the prince had promise
d them, but the entire Senate was betraying her family. Shilah’s grief was overcoming her ability to function. Pain hazed through her mind.
Shilah lurched to her feet and stumbled back to the high chair when at least a dozen different members of the Senate stabbed her. Their attack was unrelenting, and she distantly heard Kala’s screams of denial. The pain had gone from a dull ache to agony in a few short minutes. Everything she had ever believed in trembled, and deep inside she wept. She could feel their intent to murder her, despite her family had been the rulers of this kingdom for over six generations. They had no right to covet her realm, except for the greed in their hearts and minds.
“Do you believe I did not see your arrival?” Prince Quan said with a smile at Megladine who hurried over to his side. “Do you believe me so weak you entered this city, and I did not know? You met no resistance because I wanted you here, Princess. The Symonrah bloodline will end today.”
Rah was held upright against the walls of the chamber by an unseen force. He struggled and screamed, but there was no give in the power that held him up. Pain and betrayal seeped from his aura as he stared at the woman he loved with his entire soul.
Megladine stared at him, a sob tearing from her throat. “I did this for us, Rah. I love you. And they…” she waved at Shilah and Kala. “Their barbaric laws make it impossible for us to be together. Prince Quan has a vision I believe in, my love, and you will believe in it too.”
Another wave of pressure slammed into Shilah, throwing her to her knees. Dozens of members from the senate swarmed toward her, attacking relentlessly.
They would kill her and Kala today. A raw, savage wildness roared in response, urging her to retaliate, but she could not use her powers to murder these people. Her people. Everything around her blurred, and it took a moment to realize her eyes were swimming with tears.
A swell of voices holding heavy grief swamped her senses, and with a sense of shock, she realized the very people who murdered her, also mourned her. They believed she and her family stood in the way of progress for their kingdom, that they held onto laws that made them weak.
The knowledge broke her apart and shattered something deep inside. A stirring came in her mind, she closed the link with all her Imperial strength. Lachlan Ravenswood could not know she leaned against a high chair, being relentlessly stabbed. Shilah stumbled and dropped to the ground, too weak to stand. Prince Quan’s polished boot came in her periphery, and everyone held back.
“Your death will not be in vain, Princess Shilah,” he said, something akin to regret gleaming in his eyes. “Your body and Princess Kala’s body will be mounted above the Senate as an example for those who honor the old laws. This will spark a revolution, parts of the city will burn, we will lose people, but we will be reborn in a world that is stronger than before. Our people will be unified, and Serange will enter a new era.”
In her periphery Kala trembled, and her eyes swirled with power. Her voice echoed in the Senate, as she said, “Mercy and love shall lead the kingdom to ruins. It will come, a creature of darkness and terrifying rage and it shall slaughter, and feast…you are its anchor to the light, and your death must not come to pass.” Then Kala gasped, and trembling stumbled over to a chair and lowered herself in its comforting cushion as the vision released her.
Prince Quan grabbed Shilah’s throat with the power of his mind and crushed. A wail of agony slipped from her, a sound that should have been impossible given the merciless hold he had on her neck. For a moment she felt as if every bone in her body would shatter. Her mind expanded, but instead of fighting him she reached out to Lachlan, wanting to see him, to feel him.
A monstrous, remorseless fury pounded through their link with such suddenness that it was shocking. His roar of agony slammed through their connection, and as impossible as it seemed, Shilah felt the force of the speed and unremitting rage hurtling through the Darkage and towards her through the distant stars.
“I love you!” His declaration was a garbled roar of rage and pain. “Fight for me.”
Even at such a distance, her light and soul anchored Lachlan and gave him peace, pleasure, and love. Even if they were not together for years to come, should her thread of life snap, and their connection severed, the world would see the monster within. Her people would suffer for the darkness would blame them.
Nothing in her life had prepared her for the siege on her senses. Lachlan’s emotions poured through their link. Rapid images of the first time he saw her, the awe he’d felt, the reluctant attraction, the fierce sense of his other half completing his soul. They morphed to his fear when she was attacked in the forest, his rage, his hope that she would walk by his side forever. The soft musical sound of her laughter as it had wrapped itself around his heart and sinking into his bones and lit inside his soul with happiness. The taste of her skin. His feelings were strong to the point of crushing.
And then it flamed through her. Love.
Hopes and dreams which had once fragmented around her reshaped and bloomed through her like molten lava. “I love you,” she whispered achingly to him, even as the darkness of death called to her.
“Then do not leave me,” the quite plea had no violence throbbing in it, just anguish and love. “I am but a shadow without you, Shilah Symonrah.”
“For you Lachlan Ravenswood, I will become.” Her promise tore at something she wasn’t even sure she recognized. It ravaged her sense of justice, the gentle teaching of mercy and love her parents had instilled, and her sense of honor and duty to her people.
It was upon that promise of love and understanding what she meant to the man and monster, Shilah broke everything she’d ever believed in. The men and women standing before her would always try to kill her, to plot and overthrow her realm. Justice was not enough and would never be enough.
“Queen of darkness you shall become and at your feet the blood of our people will flow,” the whisper of her sister floated on the air, mingling with the shocked murmurs of her people at the wave of power that washed across the chamber.
Her soul shattered. A cry slipped from her, and uncaring that she might appear weak, tears slid down her cheek. And then she released the unremitting swell of her power. She crashed into Prince Quan’s mind, ripping through his memories with brutal precision finding his darkest fear and multiplying it in his thoughts. His brutal hold on her throat released, and she could feel the crushed muscles already healing. Without Lachlan’s blood in her veins, she would have died.
Feeding a dark fear in the prince’s mind, he screamed and slapped at his head. His eyes landed on her, and she felt the buzz of his powers as he gathered them to attack. She flashed, using shocking speed to rush behind him, grabbed him with her telekinesis and slammed him into the wall.
The princes and princesses of the Senate surged towards her, their mental waves slamming into her mind. She spun with grace, twisting to keep them in her site. “I am an Imperial,” she taunted, ignoring the blood dripping to the stone floor from her stab wounds.
Her powers surged, and she felt the life pulse of every man and woman in the Senate. She dipped into the well of her power, connecting to the Psychic Network of her people. Shilah did not stop there. With a harsh scream, she allowed the well of her energy to spill through her veins. Then she unleashed the power that was now a throbbing beat inside her and crashed past thousands, millions of barriers into people’s mind. The energy arced and spread until it consumed every cell in her body.
Her presence was a dark throb of energy within their minds as she connected with every citizen of the three kingdoms of Serange, a feat no Imperial telepathic had ever done. The sensory overload crushed her head in a vice and twisted hard knots in her stomach. She waded through it, uncaring that blood ran copiously from her nose.