“Yes, you are more than ready, but not here,” he said, observing the city of Onus on the map. “For us, Onus is just another city, but to you, it was once your home. You still have family there; these are still your people.”
“No, Father,” he said loudly. “You and my brothers are my people.”
“My son, you have every right to feel the sense of betrayal you have towards the queen, however, I fear that it has consumed you.”
“She is my enemy, why should I feel anything other than hatred for her?” he growled in a gravelly tone.
“One of the edicts of the code among us is to pay due respect to a warrior deserving of honor, but to our enemies, offer no mercy. Is it not? However, the queen is neither a warrior nor our enemy, and what you feel for her are the feelings of a son who wasn’t deserving of her love. Your passion for vengeance has blinded you; you cannot see that you are not within the code,” Lucien softly admonished him.
“Father, I respectfully disagree.”
“Do you now? So you would have no problem with possibly killing your own brothers to exact vengeance upon the Queen?”
Darben’s words lingered long on his tongue. He tried hard to bring himself to free them from his pursed lips, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have to say a word to Lucien. The answer was in his cold glare.
“My son, there is no water strong enough that could wash clean the blood of your own from your hands.”
Placing a hand on his shoulder, Lucian gently guided Darben to take a seat. He walked over to the window, staring pensively out into the night sky.
“You know that I have more in common with you than any of your brothers. Like you, I was once a prince, and like you, I too was banished from my home and the kingdom,” he said with the goblet of wine in hand. He peered deeply into the red wine inside the goblet as if the ordeals of the past swirled around inside.
“My brother, King Odonnah, was the greatest of warriors. He would take on ten, even twenty, men at a time. However, as great as he was, I felt we would be no match against the Krethans. I was the captain of his army so the responsibility of protecting Twells rested heavily upon my shoulders. I heard of a man who could get the blood of a vampire. My thinking was that if we had an army within an army of just vampires, we could withstand them. But once we were discovered by Odonnah, he became frightened of us. Fearing that we would begin to feed off of our own people. Soon, we were all banished from Twells. Before I created the code, I was like an untamed animal, Darben. Later, I heard rumors started by a hunter that he witnessed my brother having a conversation with a Myathian. Which, according to the traditions of my people, could only mean one thing: a Warrior Priest had lost his sword in battle and had come to bury it.”
Darben had heard stories about the Myathians from Louisa; he just always assumed that they were some sort of old tales passed down to her from her people.
He sat up in his chair, “You mean they really exist?” Darben asked.
“Oh, yes, they are very real,” Lucien answered.
“The sword of a ‘Warrior Priest’ has unimaginable powers; they are divine. In the hands of a mortal, the sword means nothing, but in the hands of a Stellar, it can elevate them to the rank of a god.”
Darben was fascinated by what he was hearing.
“This is why they bury them once they have been lost; to protect them against falling into the hands of Stellars like us, too weak to dig them from the deep soil.” Lucien recalled the hunger he felt that fateful night. He wanted nothing more than to have that power.
