Nyssa felt her heartbeat accelerate. Someone was inside the cell with her! But that was impossible…
"Calm down. You don't have to be scared." The voice said calmly.
Don't have to be scared?
Nyssa's eyes darted sideways as she reached for the hand clamped over her mouth. Warm skin. A human, not a ghost.
The stranger slipped his hand away and stepped forward. Nyssa swallowed hard, fearing what he might do. Then suddenly, light burst across the cell.
She gasped as the light evaporated the darkness.
"Fire manipulator," she murmured.
He stood before her, a sphere of flame hovering above his palm. Nyssa frowned. Fire magic only belonged to elite families with old bloodlines.
Suddenly, a thought struck her. Her eyes widened.
"Wait. The light. It will alert the guards."
"You don't have to worry about that." His deep voice enveloped hers. "I made a dome over the cell. From outside, it still looks dark and silent."
Nyssa stared at him, astonished.
"W-who are you?" Did he come from their kingdom?
"Someone."
"Someone like who?" She probed further.
He didn't answer. Instead, he crouched in front of her.
Nyssa shifted back, wary. "How did you get in here?" The cell had only one entrance and exit - the gate.
"Teleportation."
Nyssa gasped. "W-what?"
That was forbidden magic.
She narrowed her eyes. "Do you… work for Damon?"
"If I did, would I be a magic wielder?"
Her breath hitched. "Then why are you here?"
He exhaled slowly. "You ask a lot of questions."
"You can't blame me."
One of his brows lifted before he slipped a hand to his hood and pulled it back. Nyssa watched, tense, as his face emerged. No recognition flickered. She had never seen him before.
"My name is Oren."
His gaze locked onto hers, steady and stoic. Nyssa instantly felt nervous, as his gaze felt unsettling.
…
Damon sat on the throne, a grim expression carved across his face. His councilmen crowded around the long table; an emergency meeting had been summoned after the unexpected magic incident.
His jaw clenched hard enough to echo in the room, and the chamberlain he had called flinched. Damon's aura chilled the air, sharp enough to scrape fear into anyone who breathed near him.
His advisor cast a quick glance at him before focusing back on the council of Lords.
"My Lord," the first councilman, Fausto, ventured, "your countenance seems troubled."
"Why wouldn't I be troubled?!" Damon roared, and Fausto jerked back.
"Sorry, My Lord. Pardon my ignorance."
Damon drew a slow, simmering breath.
"Wulric."
His chamberlain jolted. "Yes, My Lord."
He bowed, and Damon answered with a glare that felt like a blade sliding beneath the skin.
"I told you to fortify the palace against magic essence."
Wulric's heart plummeted. "M-my Lord. Yes, you told me to."
"Then why did the princess use magic?!" Damon seized him by the collar, terror shattering across Wulric's eyes.
"M-my Lord! Please, forgive me!"
"Forgive you?" Damon's eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring with molten rage.
"I… I didn't see a need to –"
" You didn't see a need to? So I'm foolish for giving you orders?!"
"No, My Lord!" Wulric trembled violently. Damon's anger turned grown men into wilting grasses.
"Your Majesty, please forgive him," one of the councilmen, Vitmus said, bowing deeply, pleading to him.
Damon gritted his teeth, flinging Wulric to one side.
"When this meeting is over, get the onyx stone!"
"Yes, your Majesty!" Wulric replied, with a shaky bow.
"But My Lord," Fausto said now, and Damon's gaze snapped toward him.
"I cannot blame Wulric."
Damon's eyes flared. "What?"
"Yes. You see, My Lord… you have defeated all magic-wielding kingdoms. You are now Emperor. None, absolutely no one, can stand against you. So fortifying the palace is secondary. Who would dare attack us when the magic wielders are either dead or locked away?"
Soft murmurs of agreement drifted across the room and Damon's lips twitched.
"So, can you explain what happened in my chambers a few hours ago?" Damon's stare drilled into Fausto, who swallowed hard.
"My Lord… it may be possible that… that wasn't–"
" That wasn't what? Magic?" Damon lifted a brow, and Fausto nodded, pale with uncertainty.
Damon rolled his eyes. He was surrounded by idiots.
"I know what I felt, Fausto. I know what happened. That brat princess used magic!"
"But we all know how weak the princess is," another councilman with a long moustache chimed in. "She can't even hurt a fly. How is it possible she could attack you, in all your might, in such a tremendous way?"
Damon's eyes sliced toward him. Was that mockery?
"If I knew, would I have called this meeting?!" He thundered, and the man toppled back into his seat, trembling.
Vitmus swallowed hard. Their emperor's mood was a storm with no shelter.
"If I may speak, My Lord," Wulric said quietly.
Damon flicked his fingers, granting him permission.
"It may be possible, considering what you and Councilman Jon have said, that the princess has hidden abilities."
Damon and the councilmen stared at him, baffled.
"What?"
"Yes, My Lord. Of course, the princess is a weakling but let's not forget that she's royalty."
Damon raised a brow, nodding as something clicked into place. "You are absolutely right, Wulric."
Wulric's face brightened, thrilled to be praised by the Emperor.
"That surely means the onyx stone is needed to nullify her magic powers," Fausto voiced out.
"What I've been saying," Damon replied with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.
A soft click echoed across the chamber. One of the councilmen tapped his tongue against a cigar clenched loosely between his teeth, his gaze drifting over each man at the table. He was the oldest among them, a relic who had witnessed the last years of Damon's grandfather's reign, all of his father's, and now Damon's own. Councilman Evan Mortimer.
"You're all confused," he said in a voice as dry as old parchment.
Everyone turned toward him.
"What?" Damon demanded.
"Why go through all these, when you can just eliminate the obstacle?" He spoke blandly with a bored expression, as if tired of his life.
Damon's eyes narrowed. "And what do you mean by that?"
The man's eyes met him calmly, and with no care in the world said, "Kill the girl."