Novan strode purposefully through the halls of the manor home in Drega, Hayll's capital. He always felt conflicted when in Drega. He hated the city for everything it was; it was cold and lifeless, there was barely a patch of greenery anywhere in the entire city. The whole place stank; the streets were dirty with the inevitable grit of all those people living close together. Garbage was piled in the alleys. The place was over crowded and stank of stale human sweat. And all that was aside from the thousands of frightened, angry physic scents that assaulted him the moment he got near the place. But he felt a strange thankfulness to the disgusting city. It was here that he had been shaped into what he was today. He couldn't help but feel that he owed the gray faced city for the coldness they had instilled in him. He smiled a small feral smile at the thought; a strange thing indeed to be thankful for, but it was his hard shell, his cold veneer, that allowed him to survive the courts.
His smile widened minutely as he noticed horrified nobility scurry past, or else freeze where they stood as the watched him pass. Noticed one Yellow Jeweled witch leaning smugly against a wall with a self-assured, crooked little smile plastered across her face, dressed in complete formal attire, in the middle of the day. Without even breaking stride he stared her down, golden eyed meeting as he strode towards her. Even as the shock began to register on her face, he reached out and caressed a golden-brown cheek gone ashen.
He couldn't stand the nobility. Their blatant disregard for their duties to their people and to the land upset him. And what's more, they truly seemed to enjoy the perversion that had come to Blood society. They reveled in the free reign they had given themselves. The common people he had no problem with, be they Blood or landen, so long as they had no problem with him. But those people were becoming fewer and farther between. And even those who feared and hated him, he could not bring himself to blame. That debt fell squarely on three sets of shoulders.
A thousand years ago, as memories of the long ago Witch who had cleansed the realms finally began to fade into obscurity, three ambitious Queens had seen their chance, and seized it. The Terrillian Queens of the three long lived races, Hayllian, Eyrien and Dhelman, set in motion certain events that would eventually bring them to Power. They slowly leaked stories into the daily gossip in every village. Tales of grotesqueries committed by the dark Jeweled blood against the weaker. They waited for decades, making every public effort of trying to keep the supposed crimes under wraps, but insuring that the false information somehow slipped out. They let the citizens work themselves into a terrified frenzy. And then they orchestrated the real thing.
They hired six dark jeweled males and three females to travel their territories committing these atrocities in broad daylight. To ensure that they and their strength were known. When the Queens finally "came out" with the shocking truth that they'd so carefully constructed, the reaction was forgone. The people, riled by the tales of depravity they'd been spoon fed for years, terrified by the doctored evidence, rose up in defense of themselves, their families, and their lives.
They attacked their darker Jewel brethren in hordes. The streets became unsafe for those wearing darker than the Blood Opal. A village of braided Jewels can overcome even a strong witch. The Queens let the slaughter rage on for months, horrified by the acts but with no feasible way to stop it, or reason to. After all there is no Blood law against murder. And the dark Jeweled attacks were being kept to a minimum by the ferocity of the people's anger.
Then they revealed that they'd made a shocking discovery; only female members of select, strong, stable blood lines, could handle the dark power without becoming unbalanced. All other Blood females, and males for that matter, would snap under that kind of strain and become a danger to themselves and others. For the females, there was little hope. Strong females were taken young, and properly trained, and occasionally, when needed, sedated. But for females who couldn't be steadied by the courts, and by special guidance from those blessed few women there were two options. They couldn't be left with that power and their choices were death or breaking. A surprising number of witches went to their deaths. There was, however, another option for the males.
These specially blooded females could help the males contain their power, and keep them sane for longer than could be expected on their own. With the aid of a special ring. They called it a Court Ring, and it kept the males well enough in line to serve in the court in some low circle, or simply as a slave. Families paid a great deal to give their unfortunate sons a chance. Novan would had laughed had it not been so deranged, they bought their way into slavery.
Once within a court, with their manhood within a Court Ring, these truly unfortunate males learned the truth about service. They of course rebelled, fought against the corrupt power controlling them. Lashed out at their captors. Which quickly proved the Queens' point. For those males too powerful even to be helped by the Ring, drastic measures had to be taken, for the safely of the people of course. It was added to the short list of acceptable circumstances under which a male could be shaved. They were broken, shaved and turned back out on their own.
Fear was thick anywhere you went. Especially for people like Novan, a Black Jeweled, Warlord Prince. Even though he'd managed to conceal he Jewel of rank for the most part, his Birthright Red was common knowledge and that was more than enough to spook the people around him, even Ringed. He was a useful tool, juggled between the three Queens. Bouncing from Naccia's Dhelman court, to Saerrian's court at Askavi and home to Hayll and Drega. But though he was used by all three bitches, he belonged only to Kylope SaDiablo. He grinned as the whimpering Yellow Jeweled bitch collapsed dead away in a faint, and lengthened his stride.
Kylope SaDiablo rose from the comfortable, leather chair behind her imposing blackwood desk and walked to where a full-length mirror stood in one corner. She anxiously smoothed the silk of her dark blue dress over her slim hips. She tugged at the thick lace that covered what would have been cleavage on he boy flat chest. She pulled her gold set Sapphire Jewel out from beneath that lace band and contemplated it for a moment before tucking it back in. Only to pull it back out to display it prominently against the intricate, white lace that nearly covered the entire square of her neckline, from dress to shoulders. She nearly called in a hairbrush and a finer set of combs but stopped herself just short. She always felt so nervous calling Novan home and she hated herself for it.
Why did she fear him? He was a Ringed male, the whole point of a Ring was to keep dangerous males under their control. The controlling ring had never failed her before she thought, as she looked down at the primary controlling ring on the middle finger of her right hand, right net to her Sapphire ring. So why did he have the power to make her doubt it? She could feel him through it, he had entered the city last night sometime near midnight, and now he was in the damn building, on his way to her office at that very moment.
She walked back to her desk and set herself coquettishly on the edge. She took long deep breaths, it wouldn't do to seem frazzled when he arrived. She carefully formed a mysterious, knowing smile and firmly set her face. There was a firm knock at the door. Kylope took one more deep breath and found herself feeling surprisingly ready to face him again. "Come." She called quite unperturbed.
The door swung open. Hell's Fire, Mother Night and may the Darkness be merciful, she thought, as her thought clawed desperately back up near to calm and coherence, and her smoothly entered her office. He hadn't changed in the fifteen or so years since he'd been away, serving those fool women. Black shoes, tailored black pants, fine black silk shirt, perfect sun-kissed skin, perfect black flecked ,gold eyes, the only evidence of his mixed blood. Tousled black hair, fine, chiseled features. He was gorgeous. Then she looked passed the features themselves, to the set of them; he was hard as stone and pissed off. He smiled.
"Kylope." He said softly as he sat in the chair before her desk.
"Novan." She replied, trying for cool and failing miserably.
"So why am I back here now, bitch?" a little tremor ran through her as he dismissed all her power, her influence, and he saw her as any other woman. A woman he hated, that was all she was to him and nothing else about her mattered. She wanted to slap him, she wanted to kiss him. She just wanted to touch his face.
She pursed her lips and suppressed the conflicting emotions, "You know I could have you whipped for that with a snap of my fingers." She said calmly, examining one finely manicured nail.
"So have me whipped." He didn't even twitch an eyelid. Kylope's heart kicked up a notch. She called in a nail file and worked at an imaginary rough edge while she composed herself. But when she turned back to him, he was smiling that feral smile of his and she knew he'd seen through her again.
"You'll stay for a few weeks, of course." She tossed out casually.
"For you and your coven?" he asked disdainfully, "I think not. What do you want?"
She fumed and worried inwardly, "There are reasons you should stay." With worlds of punishment implied.
"Not enough. What's the assignment, Kylope?"
"You should really call me Lady SaDiablo." She couldn't keep suppressing what his disregard for rank did to her. And if someone were to overhear there could be terrible backlash against her.
"That's not your name. You have no right to it."
That just pissed her off, "My family inherited that name from Dorothea SaDiablo." She protested petulantly.
"There's a possibility that someone you're related to married into the woman's distant family. You're stretching history." She opened her mouth to put him in his place, he cut her off, "And you're stretching my patience. What's the job?"
She sent a quick jolt through the Ring, just to remind him who served whom. He didn't even flinch. She would have screamed in frustration if she didn't know she'd be met by that cold smile. And she was sure that smile would drive her mad. She regained her composure before speaking, "There's an important little girl. She lives here." Kylope called in a map of Hayll and pointed to the nameless village in the woods of western Hayll. "She's just come away from her Birthright ceremony with a dark Jewel, the Green or maybe the Sapphire. It-"
"Get to the point, Kylope. Is this a retrieval or a kill?"
She made a vexed noise at the interruption, "Both. I need you to retrieve the girl and kill her guardian and anyone else living with them. Make it look like you killed the girl to. I don't want questions."
"More slander?" he asked dryly, caressing her outer barriers with a Red psychic thread.
Kylope bit her lip and pressed on, "The woman watching the child is a Summer Sky Jeweled, Healer. She's the only healer in the village so they should be easy to locate." She shuddered as he dropped the thread.
"I take it they'll be unwilling then?" he asked calmly.
"Most likely." She tried again, "You're sure you won't stay a few days?"
"I think I'll leave right now." He said, rising smoothly from his chair. He turned to go.
"Novan," she called as he opened the door. He turned back, clearly impatient to be gone. "This is a very important little girl. Don't do her too much emotional damage. I need her able to think, for now anyway. Please?"
He smiled.