Daughters of the Night

Chapter 4

What would it feel like to kill him? There should be no guilt, especially after his act of needless violence against me when I was seven.

Ezra wasn't afraid standing across from me. There were a couple reasons I assumed he would be. First, he wore no protective gear. His chest was completely bare save for a few fresh bruises. Second, he had no idea who I was. How could you attempt to kill another person without seeing their face? He probably didn't care.

I suspected he trained year after year to finally enjoy this moment with sadistic pleasure.

We waited to begin.

I looked up at the Elders who were studying me with an intensity set aside for an invader. Fitting, I thought. But they had no idea.

Without letting myself shy away, my eyes drifted higher to the Seven Princes settled in bronze thrones. Cups made of gold littered the floor – the contents spilled onto the platform reserved only for kings and princes and elders and those with long noses to look down. The Princes laughed amongst themselves, glancing occasionally in our direction and pointing their manicured fingers adorned with crystals.

I centered my focus on King Elias.

Unlike the Princes, he was not laughing. In fact, he did not look amused at all. King Elias held onto his stoic, broody expression like it was the gravity tying him to earth. He filled the space around him and owned every single inch of it. Even the throne did not seem big enough to seat him. The angles of his face and the contours of his body were god-like in comparison to even our strongest Warriors. The immortal king lived through many lifetimes, but his body and face didn't betray him in the way mortals did with the passing of time. In fact, he almost looked too young to be seated in such a position of power.

But beyond all this and beyond what I knew already knew about him, I couldn't let go of his beauty. All of it. His robe of deep velvet green adorned with gold buttons. His silver crown of vines intertwined with a galaxy of little diamonds. The way his eyes demanded attention and then captured it. Or the way the breeze played with his hair.

But even beauty can be wasted. King Elias showed no mercy. Within the borders of Aegaeon was an abundance of magic, wealth, and power. Unknown creatures rumored to be both divine and evil coexisted. Everyone lived forever and were not at the mercy of time. Humans did not enter Aegaeon unless they were asking to die. Juriah told me stories of many families desperate to leave our village and seek refuge within the magical boarders, but they always disappeared rumored to have been brutally murdered. King Elias' reputation was formed around unnecessary wars and games of torture. He had enough resources to take care of my village ten times over but never lifted a finger to do so.

I never understood why the court found our pitiful part of the world so diverting unless there was some treaty that required their attention here once a year. If there was, Juriah never told me.

Hatred for the beautiful, malevolent King boiled my blood, and I found myself mockingly bowing before him in an act of defiance – probably my last if Ezra didn't kill me now.

For a second, or perhaps a fraction of a second, the King's eyes widened before he resumed watching us with that same forbidding expression. The Elders were shocked by my action but not enough to stop Ezra and me from battling.

"What you just did is enough to get our whole village killed." Ezra spit at my feet as if I brought dishonor to our people. This whole event brought dishonor. Nothing I did was going to make it worse.

I fought back the desire to say something vulgar.

Instead, I steadied my hand around my weapon and held my head high. You've trained your entire life for this very moment. But the wind was whispering another gentle promise in my ear. This wasn't the battle I had been preparing for.