Undead horrors, powerful creatures and people with freakish abilities.
When children are kidnapped from a young woman's community, her telekinetic powers make her the ideal candidate to bring them home. Having never ventured from home on her own bef...
Kiyo had caught himself on the railing of a balcony on the first floor. He waited until he was certain Tolaymus was gone before pulling himself up, opening one of the doors and going into the room.
It was the bedroom of the Emperor's daughter, Marlene. Everything inside was soft pink and white. It looked like a child's room. Marlene was half sitting and half laying on a loveseat. She was a very thin twenty-five year old woman who was almost frail looking, the way her father was. Her skin was very pale from years of being confined to the walls of the palace. Her knowledge of life outside the palace only came from what her tutor was allowed to teach her and what she overheard others say. At the moment, her hair was white and in two high, curly ponytails but the true color of her hair was unknown to everyone but her nanny and father. Every day she wore a different colored wig and made her hair very big. Even though the style and color of her hair changed daily, she never went without ribbons or bows in her hair somewhere.
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She was writing in a leather journal and looked up at him over the top of it. There was no reaction from her. She knew Kiyo and that he was not dangerous. They had been friends when Kiyo was first given to the military by his family at seventeen. Marlene often came to see him when he was not training. When palace staff noticed it, Kiyo was told that no one was allowed to get close to Marlene. He started ignoring her, afraid that if he got in trouble, he would be sent away again.
Marlene closed the leather journal in her hands and sat up. "What are you doing here?" she asked Kiyo, completely comfortable in his presence.
"I wanted to see what would happen if a traitor reentered the palace," he answered sarcastically.
"That doesn't seem smart."
"Probably because it's not."
"So why are you doing it?"
"Because reasons."
Marlene stood up from where she was laying the journal on the loveseat. She held up a hand toward Kiyo as she approached him and he leaned back when her hand came close to his face. "What happened to you?" she wondered, her hand hovering just above his skin. She picked up his empty hand, flipping it over, studying it. Marlene was always allowed to do what she wanted. Invading personal space by touching someone's clothes or hair was a normal thing for her to do. "You're so dark now."
Kiyo pulled his hand back. Irritated with her, he could not help furrowing his brow but she was oblivious. "I live with the gypsies. It's too long a story for me to tell now but I am going to need your help getting out of here. If anyone sees me, I am fucked," he explained.
"Okay, yeah," she nodded with a little shrug. "I know how you can get out but if I get you out, you have to take me with you. I don't care where you're going. I want to go."
"Have you lost whatever competence was in that tiny brain of yours?" He poked her forehead roughly.
