GRETA
The curtain to my room opens. A tall dark shape slips inside. Sunken silver eyes observe me from a distance.
I sit up. "Adler?"
"You must be the emperor's secret."
"Who are you?"
"The one who is going to set you free. Has Enoch told you of my coming? I am here to kill some members of his family. Starting with his parents."
My sword is too far away for me to reach.
The stranger sets his lantern on my bed. I kick it off screaming and thrashing against him as he tries to steal me away from it.
"My name is Zard. You are nothing now. See the bed?" he tells the other men pouring into my room. "That item is worth more than you can imagine, but don't touch it. Rumor is one touch can fry you alive since it only accommodates her level of stardust. There is an even bigger one though, somewhere hidden in this empire, I want more. Not as priceless as the book. Little girl, can you tell us where to find it?"
I bite his hand.
"Youch!" Zard hollers.
With a grimace, he removes his hand from my mouth.
One of the men picks up my limpnut's cage and throws it across the room.
My Fluff shrieks as it remains trapped inside. Its cage slams heavily onto the floor where it remains motionless inside.
"Help! Let go of me! My Fluff!"
My hair gets yanked. The man named Zard grabs my chin drawing blood.
"Silence, you ignorant child. Stay still. The emperor stole something from me. I'm returning the favor," he growls in my ear.
I scream so loud hoping it will hurt his ears as he tugs me out of my chamber. Tears stream down my face as I look over my shoulder finding my pet still motionless inside. Its legs are unnaturally crooked and bent upward as it lays still on its back slowly silver bleeds from its head.
"My Fluff! My Fluff! Y-you killed it! Let me go!"
***
ENOCH
The door to my bedchamber opens. My war advisor walks in as he does every morning before training Greta.
"Good morning, Brommy. What news do you bring me today?"
"Adler and Cephine are to have breakfast with us. We are going to meet at the hospice before going to the market," he explains.
"Right," I mumble. I leave my desk and follow him out.
Brommy has a habit of walking ahead of me. It's rude of him not to match my pace, but we must be running late.
"Um," I huff while picking up a lantern in the hall. "Why has the morning not been made yet?"
"I don't know, Emperor," he replies as we step out of the palace. "It should be made by now. The hour is passed. Maybe Adler slept in."
Adler is never late. Never late when it comes to that duty. It's the only job he is actually always on time for.
One of his guards is waiting by his voltak. Odd. Adler must have left it here.
In the stables, I untie Belle and follow my war advisor with growing worry. Many citizens are crowding the streets, blocking our path from cutting through the marketplace.
"What is going on?"
"Emperor!"
"Is it the end?"
I hold my lantern above my head while my brother has his voltak nearly stomp over them to make a path.
"No!" I assure them while waving my arms. "My father is just running late making the day. Be calm. The light will return!"
I'm met, unsurprisingly, with anger. Luckily, my guards are here and can help Brommy force them out of our way.
Rocks and trash off the streets are thrown.
By the time we make it to the hospice, the crowd is so large ten guards must hold the doors shut to keep them from piling in.
Mirth waits ahead with the hospice keepers. They look ill and stare at the floor as we pass them by into Greta's room.
Cephine looks as sorrowful as Mirth. The two women leave the room leaving me inside with Brommy and my father.
The small clout bed is empty.
Blood covers the mess of white sheets strewn sloppily over her bed and onto the floor. The floor, where, Greta's desert rat lays unnaturally on its back. Dead and covered in a thick layer of buzzing larvitch fighting over its blood.
Brommy picks up the cage and sets it on the bed.
I step up next to Adler. His eyes are bloodshot. He remains still as stone watching the bed with an empty stare.
"My little pearl has been stolen," his voice shakes.
All change Greta brought in him vanishes in a split second. His whip lands on my back sending me crying out as I fall sharply onto my knees.
"I told you to protect her!" he roars.
"So you could make her your whore? Bastard!" I laugh. "You should have protected her yourself if you really cared. Too busy making love to your latest wife, were you!"
Brommy steps between us.
"And what did Greta get out of this all? Nothing. You both failed," Brommy tells me coldly. He turns to Adler. "She is dead now. Her small body probably defiled and tortured beforehand. You suspected it was Zard yet you listened to your whore of a wife and believed there was no threat."
Adler walks by him.
He lays on the blood-soaked bed appearing in his own world as his bone-chilling glare remains on me rather than Brommy - his favorite son.
My father sits up and tugs the bloody covers up to his face to bury his wasted tears in.
For a while, I let him have his time to grieve in his own way. He did strike me though and break the law. Now he will be off to where he belongs.
"Guards!" I shout.
Brommy stands to the side as they come in and remove Adler from her bed. My father does not let them take him away so easily. He fights and growls like the real animal he is at heart. With speed and strength no shellivian can match, he grabs his own whip and begins his sickening fast lashings. When they make the mistake of getting too close he simply grabs their arms, or throats, and surmises the strength to tear into their flesh with his disgusting black razor-sharp teeth.
Pulling out chunks of flesh like a starved street hound, he shakes his head violently and spits out the bloody meat onto the ground before moving onto his next victim.
Several bodies lay lashed to death at his feet.
Some of my unlucky guards he killed before Brommy and I found him here.
Not only has he traumatized Cephine, but all the old poor women taking care of this place. His violent episode we must have just missed. Poor Cephine. She trembles like a leaf watching Adler as she hides behind me near the doorway.
"Th-thank the gods you are both here, finally," she whispers, "I thought I would be next! How can he kill these innocent men? His own men? They were minding their own business, doing his bidding, before you arrived. They came into this room as he asked, and then, in a heartbeat, he turned on them. He blamed them for her disappearance I suppose. How could he be so cruel?"
"He's Adler. That's how. I am sorry, dear Cephine. This is who you have married," I speak under my breath. "And let us hope Greta simply has only disappeared. That would be the best case, meaning, the best case scenario is she's somewhere in our city walls still...and alive."
Adler crawls around the remains of my men, the dead bloody bodies of his own guards, making me certain he was truly born a krexbin. A desert demon.
The very ones shelliv weave tales of to ensure their children stay indoors at night, and more importantly, don't venture outside our city walls.
My only remaining guards still are hiding outside this chamber.
"Get in here! Everyone!"
They come in at my order.
Adler may be strong, but he's outnumbered now.
They beat him with their whips until he loses most of his strength.
Together, they pin him to the floor where he grows quiet. They tie twelve six inch thick leather straps around his huge mass to keep him still. The thickest one remains around his throat and has a long whip tied to it.
Shulor tugs on it, dragging my father's weight across the bloody floor with the help of four other of my advisors tugging on its end.
"How does he weigh this much?" Chelk grumbles.
Shulor watches Adler warily.
"Just keep moving. He is much stronger than you think. Stronger than the strength of us combined. He is only worn out. So keep moving. Quickly. Brometheous, a hand if you will?"
"I'm not so foolish. Every soul dragging him right now is going to die down in that dungeon."
"He is not getting out. No one else will die at his hands. He is officially detained," I assure everyone. I know he won't get out because he won't be the only I put down there. "When we find Greta, she is going to be placed down there for a short time until our father decides to tell us when our star's death will be. We'll torture them both if we have to."
Of course, I won't let Greta be harmed. I know these words will help me control Adler's temper though. I need all the control I can get out of him if we are to save our city before it bursts into stardust.
"Do you feel that?" Shulor asks.
He stops tugging the whip to look downward and kicks his foot as if to shake something off. My men stop behind him bringing the dragging of my father across the floor to a sudden hault.
"What are you doing? Keep moving," I order.
The air does feel a little warmer. They look down at the ground but there is nothing there. Then I see it. Strange little flashes of voltage tickle their feet making them squirm and shake their footing as though to shake off the static.
"I'm getting shocked by something! Ow! My feet!"
"Ouch! It's at my feet too!"
"Emperor, there is something strange going on! What do you think this is? We can barely tug him now."
My guards are afraid as they seek answers from me I don't have.
They are looking down at their ankles and shaking off some invisible annoying source. I look at Brommy. His attention is focused on Cephine's safety as he hastily tugs her out of the room and far away.
A dark chuckle leaves my father in their new struggle to pull him across the floor due to the strange phenomenon. However, once they reach the doorway, the mysterious electric cloud disappears.
"Hurry up," Adler chuckles, "Oh, I can't wait to visit the dungeon! I have so many friends down there waiting to get out! I hope you come visit us, Enoch. I'm sure they can't wait to meet you - the Emperor."
At last, he exits the small chamber and gets dragged out into the hall. His nutty laughter louder and louder.
"For Ashtium's sake, hurry up and get him down there!" I grit through my teeth. I clench my fists. "I can't stand him. No one can!"
Any normal shelliv would be screaming in pain for his wounds are open. The floor and leather straps digs into them. Adler is not normal though. The lashings will scar over his body and hide the treatch he wears for the wounds lash through them all.
How could Greta not see him for what he really is? This is him. The real him. He belongs exactly where he's being taken.
I catch up with Brommy and our father's wife.
"Zard is after Adler too. I am certain he is still within these walls, Enoch," Cephine tells me with certainty.
Brommy nods.
"If we give him the trove it may make him leave quicker."
"Find him first," I order. "I will not be giving Zard anything if we find Greta dead."
☁️