Chosen (38 page)

Her auburn hair moved and a white hand wrapped around her throat. She swallowed hard as the hand caressed her smooth white skin. She closed her eyes and willed back the tears threatening to fall.
I am Queen and I will
not
blubber and cry like some commoner.

Fa' Vel emerged from behind her throne, hand enfolded in her hair. She winced as he tugged hard.

“Well done, your
Highness.”
He whispered the last word sounding like a hissing snake. His face was pale and haggard, the scar running from his left cheek to his chin standing out more than ever against his pasty white skin. His black eyes were full of a feverish light. “As long as you continue to do as I say, all will be well. Together we will wipe the scourge from our land and prevent our doom.
I have seen it!”

Queen Cheye dared not interrupt his tirade. She kept silent and sent up a prayer to the good Spirits to watch over her and the people of Astra. While the ramblings and mutterings of the seers and prophets were odd, they did not strike her as being dangerous in any way. Fa' Vel's claim to have seen the old man and the others disappear into a rock face was ludicrous. She thought that perhaps Fa' Vel had killed them all and had gone mad.

She longed to fight him, but he had taken control so quickly and completely that she had no choice but to do what he said and hope a solution presented itself. The man was ordering all seers, prophets, bone readers, Mystics and their families killed. He had managed to acquire a group of followers that he sent into the countryside to kill all involved in any sort of mystical doings. He said he killed the families to stop the spread of the “disease”.

Word had reached her ears of people slaughtered as far away as Romalla in the Valla Territory. The Patriarchs had prices on the heads of Fa' Vel and his band of thugs but he only seemed to acquire more and more followers as his message of purging the evil from their midst gained momentum.

“Just do what I tell you,” he purred. “And all will be well. I will save Astra from the evil that comes.”

THE END

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