𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀 𝐒𝐔𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘. 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐑𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍.
It's the beginning of a new age when Jaylah Imperatrix seemingly returns from the dead to reclaim her throne. And in perfect timing.
In her absence, evil has be...
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Act 3 Chapter 137 JAYLAH
Jaylah's body still emitted thin trails of smoke as she staggered down the hallway. She passed several windows that displayed dawn's early light. It made the backs of her eyes ache.
Today was the day she was going to be married.
She pulled on her wedding dress over her thin nightclothes, so white it hurt to look at. She had lowered herself in her own coffin.
Shaky as her limbs were, she walked with purpose. Her tears had stopped falling, and the salt tracks on her face had hardened. There was nothing left inside her. All she wanted now was to inflict as much pain as she was feeling, to make anyone know what she felt.
She knew exactly where Ermalai's chamber was; she had given him the worst possible one so it was the farthest from anywhere he would need to go. Her footfalls were alone on the way down the wide staircase, but she suspected she would be having company very soon. That was fine. She had brought her swords with her for that single reason.
When she turned the corner, she found it populated by Navrikan soldiers. All standing guard before Ermalai's room, all motionless like the puppets they were.
If she could have smiled, she would. He was frightened of her. Finally, she was worse than him.
"Let me through," she demanded of the soldiers who refused to budge from the door. Her words came out thick from the effects of the wine.
They did not listen.
"Let me through," she screamed. They would have to hear her now. She lunged, taking them all by surprise. Did they not expect her to swing her swords when they ignored her? Did they think she was a fraud too?
She took out three soldiers at once with the first blow. Her physical state was not ideal, but she did not care. She would not lose another thing. Her unsteadiness was made up for by the unhinged power behind every strike. She was done dulling herself—it was time to enjoy this pain.
One of the soldiers—a boy clearly younger than her—screamed when she smashed his skull in with the flat of her blade. He was still alive to experience the shards of bone piercing his brain. You deserve this, she thought. Stop crying. You were the one standing against me.
They could not kill her. How could they? She was their Czarevich's bride. All they could do was maim, and even then, they could not touch her. She became her blades as they swung in lethal arcs to cut the soldiers' puppet strings.
Bones crunched, faces split, blood washed in like a high tide. Jaylah was invincible. This was her world and they were mere ants on its surface, so small and insignificant that they were practically asking to be tread on.
At last, only one soldier still stood. He was older, likely a father, and was beginning to show the lines from smiling too much near his eyes. His eyes. His eyes. She could not look away from him standing there alone in a sea of his slaughtered comrades. His eyes were calling her liar. Charlatan. Hypocrite. Pretender.
