Starwalker | The Alura Trilogy, Book 2 [She-Ra 2018] ✔️

68 | Royal Blood

Note: This chapter depicts suicide. If that's a problem for you, please skip the second scene of this chapter.

And indeed, she was correct about the manipulation involved in her consent to be a test subject. If Emeth Peree's account is to be believed, Auctor had a romantic relationship with the young woman when she was only sixteen, and he was nearly forty.

❂❂❂

Nausea sloshed through Carmen's stomach. Not from her lady's earlier gesture, slammin' her wrist against the wall – nor from the sight of 'Beck's' body on the ground. She hadn't dared to ask her lady about the reason for the brutal execution.

No. Carmen was sick from one fact: she and Shads were at the gates of Dellanova. A child would die at her lady's hands today.

Shivering in her coat, Carmen scraped her claws on the ice. She had wept for these people the day before, and no tears were left to shed. This was her lot as a Kryteyan. She had to obey, even if her lady was about to commit a despicable act.

If God isn't absolutely loving, he is no god at all.

Carmen didn't understand the argument. Couldn't God do whatever he wanted? Wasn't that why Carmen suffered and continued to suffer today?

She took deep, shuddering breaths. And do I accept that my lady deserved her suffering before I met her?

She became evil 'cause of pain. She was not pained 'cause of evil she'd done.

Carmen's stomach felt cold. Here she was...disagreeing with a significant tenant of Kryteya. The priests would say the rule of alkrm – karma – only applied to the Felali. But according to Hordak, Horde Prime was not simply the god of the Felali, but of all. So Carmen would hold him up to the proper standard.

Still, I can't abandon her. Carmen gazed at Shads, who wore an ornate crimson gown. Her choppy hair billowed violently behind her head, and her blank eyes stared ahead intensely.

"My lady?" Carmen said softly. "You know you can talk to me about anything, yeah? You don't have to kill a kiddo to make your point."

"Question me again," Shads said tiredly, "and you will meet the shifter's fate. We will take this place for the Horde. It is too strategically important."

Carmen swallowed. For Catra, I gotta stay alive. "Yes, my lady."

Shads brandished a dagger. "If your loyalty to me is compromised," she said softly, "I suggest you run."

Carmen forced herself not to make any movement. "Yes, my lady." What happened to her?

Her mind snapped back to Catra. Catra, telling her that Shads would kill her.

Carmen prayed desperately to Raiya that Shads would get some help. It was as though her lady – her sweet, gruff lady – had been replaced by a demon. But before Carmen could reflect further, another Force Captain sounded the signal.