The Origin of Fear

Chapter 19

The inside of the Emperor’s tent was brightly lit; bright torches lined the cotton walls, and Fera’s eyes lingered on the flames that almost licked the fabric. The guards led her with careful steps to the other end of the tent, where the Emperor was seated on a chair covered in furs, leaning over and clutching his head as if he were in great pain. Beside him was a wooden table covered in dozens of vials of different potions and powders; in his hand he held a large glass filled with a bubbling yellow elixir. The thirteen kings stood in a silent line behind him, their black-clothed sellswords waiting in the shadows.

She was pushed to her knees in front of the Emperor. He gave her a low, hoarse chuckle, which morphed into a curious ugly cough. She dared to look at him, and was taken aback by the drastic change in his appearance; his skin had turned grey, his yellow eyes bloodshot, and saliva pooled around his lower lip, which was apparently too heavy for him to meet with his upper. The silent kings exchanged telling glances, and shifted where they stood as their yellow eyes glinted in the torchlight. They had no idea what had their leader so sickly, and tried to hide the fear and panic for his weakness behind the dirty scowls they aimed at her. Fera ignored their scorn, unable to tear her eyes away from Shangor. She couldn’t help the looking at him, her eyes glazing over his. Horror did not fill her heart upon meeting his gaze as it did before. A creeping sensation whispered to her, but it was vastly overpowered by the bubbling question of why the Emperor looked like he was on the brink of death. With a sudden instinct, it became clear: the abilities he had taken from her were ill-suited for him. Her darkness was eating him from the inside out.

“So,” he rasped at her, wincing as though it took great pains to speak, “You couldn’t go down without a fight, could you?” 

Fera hesitated, staring at the collection of vials on the table beside him. “Are you in pain, milord?” She ignored his question, recognizing several of the potions within the glasses; most of them were draughts for relieving great pain, others for mental fatigue, and a few were for madness.

The Emperor hissed and glanced out the fluttering tent flaps, ignoring her question. “Your friends have unleashed the power of the Orcs upon themselves. And those Thursar half-wits,” he added with a disdainful wave of his hand. “It’s only a matter of moments before they’re all dead,” 

Fera said nothing as he let out another low chuckle, which turned into a coughing fit more violent than the last. “You’re ill, Your Highness,”

“Silence, you insolent usurper,” he growled in a low, strained voice, as if trying to restrain his cough. “I’m the most powerful being in the Nine Realms. I have the weapon that you cowered behind your whole miserable life, to use to my will. This darkness…it’s intoxicating,” 

“It’s toxic,” Fera corrected. The Emperor sat up straighter in his chair, gripping the armrests until his knuckles were white. “If you don’t know how to control it—which you don’t—it will consume you,”

“You were never meant to have this power,” he growled. “A Light Elf with the ability to control fear and darkness, traipsing in the daisies as this beautiful evil festered inside you,” 

“I killed your father. Or have you forgotten?” Fera answered in a clear voice. The Emperor shot up in his seat, leaning toward her and hissing in his foreign tongue, anger twisting his already pained features. Fera didn’t even blink. “Which is a pretty good indication of what my childhood was like. I’ve never traipsed through the daisies,” 

The Emperor slumped in his chair again, his chest heaving from his fury. “And you never will,” he said. “Because you are going to die. Right now. Guard!”

A soldier behind her unsheathed his heavy battle axe from a strap on his back and raised it above her head, looking to the Emperor for the word. The Emperor stared at Fera, smugness emanating from his ashen face.