Absorbing Narissa’s heart energy left a rotting taste on my tongue. It was absolutely disgusting. Yet, the emptiness of my Core and the dire need to act now left me with no choice but to absorb the energy, repulsive as it was.
Some stared at me with awe. Most just looked shocked. A few were terrified. That terror was familiar; it was a basic lesson among Queen and King candidates that fear was a necessary tool for leading a country to an age of prosperity. Those who could not tolerate hate and fear would lead to nothing but a weak rule.
“I know many of you don’t understand what is happening. You don’t understand how a little girl like me is wielding such terrifying power. You fear, as Narissa accused, that I am a demon or possessed by one.” I gave them all a noncommittal shrug. “Does it matter what I am? I am here to give you an opportunity. What matters is what you choose to do with it. You may have refused the choice of power, but I can still offer you freedom. Still, your freedom is something you must fight for. Your life will never change until you pick up a weapon and change it yourself.” I tossed Dralos his bloodied dagger, which I had dropped to extract Narissa’s heart. He easily plucked it from the air, and I turned back to the scared slaves, many of whom had fought only a battle or two since arriving. Some had fought none. “Those who wish to fight for their freedom, step forth so I may remove that which marks you as a slave,” I said, lifting my sleeve to reveal the section of burned flesh on my arm where I’d previously been marked.
This time, many more came forward. Nearly all the slaves came to have their marks removed. Even some who had cowered, trembling at the death of Narissa, stepped forward. Most of them screamed while my heart energy burned the marks away, though some only winced. The few who didn’t step forward for their freedom were sickly or elderly. I noticed that the group Narissa had been a part of also didn’t step forward. That was for the better.
The energy used for breaking the tattoo markings was significant. Even with the energy I’d regained from Narissa’s core, it didn’t take long before I started to feel the drain. When I finally finished with the last volunteer, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“Let’s go,” I commanded, immediately heading toward the dungeon exit. I was honestly surprised no one had discovered what I was doing despite all the time that had passed. However, considering this was the slave area and both our slavers were with us, voluntarily or not, perhaps it was unsurprising. I didn’t imagine many slave uprisings occurred in the city.
They nodded at my words, but their expressions turned puzzled when I moved not toward the exit into the city but toward the one we knew opened into the coliseum.
The seventeen Paragons moved instantly to obey. My comrades, who had all chosen not to become Paragons, were slightly more uncertain and cast doubtful glances my way.
“Shouldn’t we use the passage to the city?” Romeo asked, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. His hands clenched tightly around his sword with such strength they turned white. Whether in excitement or fear, I didn’t know. It didn’t really matter. He looked at Narissa’s corpse and bit his lip with palpable anxiety.
“Why would we do that?” I shot him a wicked grin, bending mid-stride to pick up a steel sword from the weapons bucket as I headed toward the passage. “We’re already inside the home of our prey. Where would we go?”
“Wait a moment,” Marisar said, his big fish feet slapping with their usual wetness on the floor. “I do not believe you have thought this through, Lady Lilliana. The fifty or so of us will not be able to defeat an entire squadron of guards. We are weak and underfed. And with the King and the Church here, there are only elites everywhere, ya know? We would be killed for treason and crimes against the Crown.”
I nodded slowly, letting the Selenian finish before giving him the same grin I’d given Romeo. “Then we better not lose. Let’s go.” I knew a full-out battle in a city hosting royals was effectively suicide. But who said I’d be going to war against the city?
Dralos took the lead as we entered the passageway toward the coliseum and left behind the dungeon cavern. He continuously shoved Chella forward, who now only occasionally struggled against her restrictions. She was still taller than Dralos - taller than everyone except Ethan. But the cuffs and restrictions kept her somewhat compliant despite her towering monstrosity. Fortunately, the passage ceiling was vaulted enough that Chella and Ethan could walk through it, though Ethan was forced to hunch a little or risk scraping his head whenever the ceiling dipped from age.
Nida sauntered up beside me, still flexing her claws in awe. Mixed with her black-striped white hair, I noticed a set of ears that turned and twisted, as if tracking the sound around her. A similarly colored tail lopped around her waist, still but for its occasional twitch. I was, again, about to ask her about the title Tigerkin, but Romeo interjected from a step behind us.
“What did you do to that woman?” he asked a hint of accusation in his voice. “And how did you know you could?”
“I wasn’t entirely sure I could,” I answered honestly. “Do you remember Damien?” Romeo nodded, seeming to catch on to my implication. “It was something like that, but this time I initiated it.”
“... was it necromancy?” His face looked like he’d sucked on something sour, though it appeared to be more from thought than disgust.
I laughed. “No, that was not necromancy.” I debated whether I should explain further considering the risk of exposing my affinity to necromantic energy manipulation. In the end, I figured it wouldn’t make a difference one way or the other and decided to explain. “Necromantic energy manipulation is the practice of inverting heart energy by stripping the purity using a Core. Its main purpose is to act against the inherent nature of heart energy, or life energy, which results in the decomposition of life or a manipulation of death. If someone tried to use inverted heart energy in the practice of necromantic manipulation to absorb pure heart energy, the forces would repulse and recoil quite painfully in both hearts.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Romeo was silent for a moment, apparently contemplating. Nida just stared at me with a blank expression, clearly having no idea what we were talking about.
“What about necromantic magic?” he asked, shifting his gaze back toward me. “Could that be used to absorb someone’s energy?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know anything about magic.” With that, we all slunk back into a silent trudge through the stone hallway. The air was cooler than usual, no doubt due to the fact it was long past sun hours. As we walked, I let my hands run freely across the thick, rough-hewn stones lining the passage, each stone a story of centuries gone by in the dark.
Other than the red flicker of the occasional torch lighting the way, we were in total and colorless darkness. After a while, some of the newly freed fighters started to whisper among each other, some in anticipation, some likely in trepidation. I heard a few startled gasps as someone tripped over the uneven stone floor, and I resisted the annoyed sigh that threatened to escape my lips. I had to remind myself that these were not true warriors, but average individuals who had been forced into death fights.
When we came to a part in the passage where we could turn left, right, or straight ahead, we all instinctively continued straight toward the arena. I hadn’t even noticed I’d done it as well.
“Not that way,” Dralos grunted, shoving Chella, who’d tried to match us in heading straight.
“What is over there?” Nida asked, looking at me. She didn’t follow Dralos until I nodded and started heading to the right part of the forked path.
“Another slave group,” he said, motioning us forward.
“We’re freeing the others as well?” one of the freed slaves asked. I thought he might have introduced himself to me at some point.
“That would be good,” a Paragon to my left agreed. “My brother is in one of the other slave groups. He will join us.”
I pulled up his basic Paragon file with a thought.
[Name: Nasq Delacoire]
[Class: Primal Sorcerer]
[Race: Elf?]
[Level: 19]
Like Nida, Nasq was not human. His blond hair and green eyes were characteristics I wouldn’t have found odd in a human, nor would I have his perhaps six feet of height. It was his nearly ephemeral beauty that had initially indicated his oddity, as had the pointed ears jutting out from his shoulder-length hair. Based on his Paragon file, I knew he was called an “elf,” but that was not a species I was familiar with.
Elves. Tigerkin. Selenians. How many more species did this world have that Ordite did not?
“We won’t have time to free all of them,” I corrected as we turned down a third passage with Dralos still at the lead. “At some point, the coliseum officials will be alerted if we stay in the slave section for too long. In any case, our goal is not to free all the slaves, though that may be a result.”
“Then what is our goal?” Romeo pressed. I turned to glance at him and nearly missed the young boy, whose clothes and skin naturally melted him into the shadows.
“Our goal is to find Radford Coldrun.”
“Who’s that?” Nida asked with a little bounce in her step and ran one of her fingers along a patch of fur on the back of her hand.
“The Slave Master,” I said. There was no doubt in my mind they would have tried to ask more questions, but Dralos came to a halt at a large silver steel door. The slab was smooth and plain, as if its edges and cracks had long since been washed away by the motion of a nonexistent sea. “Open it.”
Dralos grunted and shoved Chella in my direction, then jammed his foot into the back of her legs so she knelt. “She must open it, my liege. My access is limited to your section.”
I sighed and removed her gag. “Open it, Chella.” She coughed as the brown leather restriction was removed from her mouth and stared up at me, her eyes small slits.
“You will not escape,” she said matter-of-factly as if it was predestined.
“Just open the door. If you’re right, then it won’t matter if we get in or not.” When Chella didn’t move from where she knelt, I clicked my tongue. “Okay. If you wish to do this the difficult way, I don’t mind.” I lifted the sword in my right hand and collapsed it with my left as well, raising it above my head in a slow, dramatic fashion that caused Chella to bite down on her lip hard enough to draw blood. “I don’t need you alive, slaver. I can simply bring you back.”
“W-wait,” she stammered, her cuffed hands struggling to come between her and the sword for all the good that would do her. “I-I am not a slaver. I’m only here on contract. With my help… with my help, you can escape! You can all get out of here.”
“I don’t want your help escaping. Open the door.” I leaned in close, letting my sword rest against my shoulder. “I will not ask again.”
She raised her cuffed arms. “I can’t if my energy is sealed. The doors operate based on our specific energy signatures.” I looked at Dralos, and he nodded in confirmation. Inwardly, I groaned. Then an idea came to me.
I glanced behind me toward the freed slaves. “Which one of you was the shapeshifter?”
A little rat-like man was gently nudged to the front of the group. He kept his elbows by his sides, and his fingers kept circling each other as if out of habit. His gaze seemed to be permanently attached to his feet, just as his posture was allergic to being straight.
“I am a shapeshifter… Lady Lilliana,” the sniveling man said with an exaggerated bow. I instantly found myself disliking him. His energy was thick like sludge; it had some of the most contaminated heart energy I’d ever had the displeasure of dealing with.
“Does your energy also morph to match your targets?” I asked.
He nodded. “If… if I am given some of their blood, then yes… Lady… Lilliana. I can… please you that way?”
I resisted the urge to wrinkle my nose in disgust. “Yes. Do it.”
Dralos took out his dagger again, slicing part of Chella’s shoulder for the rat-man. The rat-man cautiously approached Chella until he was certain she was not threatening him. Then he leaned down and licked the blood trickling down her shoulder. His eyes rolled back as he swallowed, and a perverse expression spread across his face.
His flesh began to bubble, and something writhed under the surface. Unlike the metamorphosis of the Paragons, his change was slow. Slow and sickeningly unnatural. The air around him shifted to match the sludge of his heart energy. The air became thick with pollutants, and the space between bodies became heavy as if trapped underwater.
With a final disturbing snap of his neck, a second Chella stood in front of me. The new Chella, like the rat-man, was hunched over, sniveling with her fingers twirling incessantly around each other.
“Open it,” I repeated, my ire rising at having to repeat myself for such a simple task continually.
This time, the "Chella" I spoke to nodded with a perverse smile. She reached over, and I felt her… his?... energy flood into the steel door blocking our way. It creaked open with a small thunk as whatever locking system released its hold.