The Darke Princess

The tingle in his sweaty palms should have been a warning to the young Commander as he passed through the throne room threshold, but when the Emperor calls for you, there is no refusing. "Did you believe that there was any secret that I wouldn't know about, Daniel?”

While he stood before his master, Daniel's black hair fell over his eyes as he closed them and tried to silence his mind, but there was little use. The sneer that curled on the decrepit old sorcerer's face revealed he had learned of Daniel's treachery. “I can gaze through your mind, young witch.”

With his rotting, wrinkled fingers bending again and again, the old man motioned for his guards to bring the prisoner forward. The falling sensation in his hands and feet warned Daniel that his mother entered the room, and he lifted his eyes to find her hands bound as she kneeled before the Emperor.

From beneath the shadow of his gray hood, the Emperor glared at his protégé. “What shall I do with a traitorous witch?” The old wizard raised his brow as a smile crossed his evil lips, and he raised his finger to his forehead. “I know.”

A glint of the knife he took from his belt sent a shiver of icy pain through Daniel's chest as the Emperor snatched the wide-eyed woman by her hair and sliced through her neck.

The delicate white dress she wore was soon drenched in crimson as blood poured down over her body and the spark of life left her dark eyes. The entire world collapsed on Daniel’s shoulders and crushed the once cruel man into nothing.

Her lifeless body slammed to the cold floor, and her blood splashed across the room and sprayed across the young man's face.

The wicked giggle wiggled its way through Daniel's devastation, and his eyes rose to meet the old man's. “Did you really believe that I wouldn't find her? Stupid, arrogant fool. Well, you were wrong, and now you will suffer for that egoism. Young one, you will bow to me and declare your undying allegiance, or you will suffer the same fate as this garbage at my feet.”

“I'll fucking destroy you!” Daniel's black boots beat against the slick marble floor until the Emperor raised his hand and froze him in place with his invisible grip.

The halted clicks and chokes of amusement gurgled in the villain’s nose. With a flick of his wrist, he flung Daniel across the room and sprung down from his throne. Pushing his cloak off his shoulders as he rushed to his apprentice, the Emperor held out his hand and stole the air from Daniel's lungs.

Without even enough air to curse his murderer, Daniel clenched his teeth and stared him in the eyes until he crashed to the floor with the laughs of his master echoing around the sterile room. The ageless monster circled him and clasped his hands behind his back as he laid out his plan. “Now, I will reign down an era of torture upon you like this world has never seen before. By the time I am through, nothing will remain. You will disappear, and no one will even remember you existed. You were nothing when you came to me and you will leave me as nothing.”

His trembling hands pushed against the cold floor as Daniel came to stand in defiance of the Emperor's desire to listen to him grovel. “You can kill me, I don’t care anymore, but I won’t die on my knees.”

The wrinkly thin cheek under his eyes lifted as a smirk came to the old man’s lips while he imagined all the pain he would inflict on the boy. “As you wish.”

While the Emperor decided on his next move, a whiff of something beautiful swept across Daniel's face, and his heart raced with a shot of life. A glowing form stepped from behind the monster and glided towards the doomed witch.