Maskli (Legacy Of Bluebloods 1#)

11

Bellagria

(Elda Machre)

Up high to the largest turret of Macrantha Castle, she stood and witnessed the apparent sunless kingdom below her knees. The vanity of her predatory eyes flitted to a country that she called hers. Her vanity had showered her beauty, her smoky iron eyes gleamed in red, her olive skin paled in pleasure, white hair floated along with the wind of her control.

They said no one can bargain with death. They said fate was unpredictable. They said power was corruption. They said no one should meddle with these three immortals.

And yet...

Here she stood, stringing death and fate like her favourite puppets. Little did they know, corruption is a part of a human, only some of them used it as their surface while others masked it as it grew. Eventually, they gave in.

She did.

Everyone is a villain in someone's story, and she chose to be a villain in everyone's story—even herself.

Dark magic spread to every corner of this kingdom and showed no mercy to poor and weakness, worse for richness and abundance. People had no such time for entertainment and laughter as they used to before the Dark Ages fell to them, there was no space for gossip or freedom, only daily routines such as slaughter, foul ransom, and tyrannical. No one dared to step out of their shelter, the only thing they ever cared about was saving their necks in time and dying peacefully. Nothing compared to the darkness that lay beneath the heart of Macrantha Castle. A ring of grey clouds flocked around the historical palace. It didn't have to take smart people to know it was a risk to go there.

Oh, how she loves the power of the greatest.

Yet someone did, didn't he? The childish voice in her, a naysayer in every event of her decision-making gnawed in the back of her mind, the sentence merely taunting her.

That's because he didn't meet me directly. Her present conscious snapped back, making that childish objection cower in fear.

Fear. The taste of it felt like heaven. Her fingers traced the fine structure of her scepter, tall as her and terrifically beautiful. The Macrantha Rose adorned the head of the scepter was blackening under her strokes of care. The scepter was her soulmate, what it wanted, she wanted it too.

Corruption.

Her sinful gaze wavered to the entrance of Macrantha Castle, where she saw her dutiful soldiers arrived, bringing along a guest of honor.

She had work to finish, straight back, chin high, she glided in like a silent snake to her chamber, paused just as she used to do every second, she laid her foot on that same spot. Her stare bored to a portrait, which she loathed every minute since that fateful day.

Long ago - yes. She was proud of this memory remained, joyful to have such a life. Now... She wanted very much to rip off that annoying memory, that emotion never came to her now. She made it came, her stomach turned. That was disgusting.

It is better this way.

No pain.

Her pride was the only reason the portrait shall survive from her wrath. No one is the greatest, not while she lived. No one can do what she is capable of. She concluded smugly.

She marched her way to the throne room, stunned to see her guard was standing at her front, she hid it well, just like a stone. She never allowed her men in the throne room before, unless it is an emergency. Her cold eyes traveled on a young man beside him, she knew him before - as a boy, long way of her past. The boy-man had sought trouble before.