Scales croaked before jumping onto the bed and digging his face into the pillows.
“Migo, you should consider things for a moment,” Katsi said.
“What specifically?”
“The bleeder shamans turned you into a… Ashjagar, whatever that is, and sent you here to seek justice after your father’s real murderer. Then the emperor’s shamans tell you that they’re the real enemy? It’s a back and forth. It could be the same thing all over again. Everyone trying to use us to further their own designs.”
Migo nodded. “I understand. I’ve been everyone’s fool. But I won’t be again. This time, I make my own choices. We’ll look at things more carefully, but if there really is a bleeder army trying to take the world, we’ll be ready for them.”
“Just me and you,” Katsi said.
“And Hatan. I know I can trust him.”
“And Scales.”
Migo smirked. “Of course. How could I forget? You know they actually used one of his teeth to make the potion that turned me into… that thing. Your not-so-little friend is technically part of me now.”
“I did see the similarities, though apparently you adopted none of the beautiful colors in your transformation.”
“Ah, perhaps they wanted me to appear more terrifying than adorable. I won’t be expected to be winning over the hearts of young ladies anytime soon.” He clamped his mouth shut and instead focused ahead, following the trail of ravaged tiling that would lead him to the ballroom he’d crashed into.
“Migo,” Katsi said, voice soft. He turned, catching the worry in her eyes. “How are you, really? I mean… just moments ago, you were a giant, flying lizard, and now you’re back.”
Migo stopped in his tracks, placing a hand over his chest where that burning energy still filled him with strength, flaring to life as her glinting eyes stared up at him. “It was… painful. But I’m better than ever now.”
“But is it gone? Could you still change at any moment?”
“It’s not gone. I think it will forever be a part of me. I feel in my chest, like a second heart or another organ, pulsing with energy.” He shook his head, still overcome with the idea that he’d become some completely different kind of being and somehow changed back to a human. “I didn’t think that I’d end up back like this, honestly. I thought…” He resumed walking. There was so much he wanted to say; words that would only bring pain. He wanted to tell her everything—that the reason he’d taken the potion, that the very thing which gave him the strength to survive the mutation was her.
She was his strength.
He gripped the pommel of his new sword, letting out a shuddering breath as Katsi hurried to catch up with his long-legged stride. The castle was darker than he remembered, less light filtering through the windows than before. A roar of conversation rose from down the hall as they approached the shattered doors of the ballroom. It was a shame to have destroyed so much of the castle, a building he’d revered as the most beautiful human construct. But it was worth it. Any amount of damage was worth it to save Katsi.
A few guards had assembled, and Migo watched them warily, but they kept a wide distance. He wondered how many of them recognized him from his duel with the emperor on that first cycle he’d arrived. But now they saw him wearing the emperor’s clothes, wielding the emperor’s sword.
There was no question in their mind now. Migo held the power.
A familiar smell permeated the area, like the pungent scent of sharp, raw body odor. Fear. He rubbed his nose. He wouldn’t mind a diminishing of the lingering strength of his Ashjagar senses.
Adrina stood near the entryway with her arms folded, her freckled face hidden by a placid expression. Migo nodded to her as he approached. She hated him. He suspected she would be his greatest adversary in winning over the shamans of Ranaz’s old advisory, but he needed them. They were no doubt a treasure trove of knowledge. Ranaz would have had an intricate network of spies and agents across the entire Ring. The thing Migo was unsure on was if Ranaz had been the one pulling all the strings directly, or if there were other leaders he had that helped direct certain functions. As Ris had mentioned earlier, Ranaz had issues with trust. Which was absolutely justifiable.
Migo had been a terrible politician so far, and possibly the worst king in Jehubal’s history. But now he was about to declare himself emperor. A seventeen-year old king with practically no experience governing a general populace.
But if the warnings were true, a governor wasn’t what Malahem needed. It needed a general. And Ranaz had at least given Migo an official title before sending him off to slaughter.
“There is a podium at the far end of the room on which to address everyone,” Adrina said, pointing to the far side of the massive ballroom.
Despite the chaos from earlier, the room was surprisingly orderly. A host of nobles gawked at him from either side of the room, many of them likely far wealthier than Migo’s family had ever been. Would they know that he was the monster who’d come tearing through their party?
Katsi walked beside him, and she caught even more shocked expressions than Migo did. It made him suspicious that perhaps they knew she was a shaman. They’d learn a lot more than that before the cycle was over.
He glanced up at the darkening sky through the high windows. Perhaps there would be no cycles or marks any more, but days and hours.
Silence settled over the crowd as Migo and Katsi walked between them, but he could still hear their whispered questions, muttering under their breath as they criticized their age, Migo’s clothing, and Katsi’s status. Whispers he shouldn’t have been able to hear, but they may as well have been speaking in his ear. Many questioned who Migo was, and the word “whelp” was used plentifully. They had reason to doubt him.
Two guards at the base of the podium averted their eyes as Migo and Katsi approached. They owed no loyalty to him, but they’d want order in the castle. He smiled inwardly and climbed atop the short podium. Katsi got up from the other side. Together, they looked out over the crowd as even the whispers started to quiet down.
Migo had no speech. Only honesty remained.
“The emperor is dead,” he said in his commander's voice, roaring the words out in a hollow echo. “And I have killed him.” He let the sentence settle in as the crowd muttered amongst themselves, and many of them were angry. After a moment he continued. “He was not who he claimed to be. Emperor Alyssad Malrabia was in fact Ranaz Malrabia, the very same person who first established Mazanib five-hundred years ago. He was a shaman who had been using a potion to extend his life for hundreds of years. He was the same person who locked the planet, and the same person who summoned the Maedari that we have been trying to end for all these years.”
Many of them shouted in disbelief, calling Migo a liar and even a shaman. He shook his head. People were always subject to their own bizarre interpretations. “The evidence is already before you,” Migo said, pointing to the windows. “That trembling in the ground was Malahem returning to its cycle. With the emperor’s death, nightfall is coming. And with it, the whole world will change.”
The uproar that filled the room was so clamorous that Migo’s voice drowned out. The smell of fear still permeated the air. They shouted and argued not only at Migo, but at each other, some of them turning to leave the room altogether.
Katsi gave Migo a sympathetic frown, but the beast inside Migo flared with displeasure. If there was truly a threat from a bleeder army, they would need the allegiance or alliance of as many people as possible. There was no room for such discord. His chest burned, skin crawling as if threatening to change once again. He pushed it back, recalling the pain it brought him, but he roared, voice shaking the walls, the chandeliers trembling.
Fresh screams filled the chamber as eyes returned to Migo. “We don’t have time for squabbling!” He went down from the podium so that he could walk closer to them all. “The emperor was a tyrant. His time had come. The extermination against all shamans was a sham. He was collecting their blood to strengthen his own power. We were all tools to further his own ambition. I’m here to tell you that the war against shamans is over, but the true war may yet be coming.”
The people grew silent once again. It quickly became clear that Migo’s words would be the most valuable thing for them to hear. “Some of you may recall that the emperor sent me in command of a few hundred soldiers to root out what are called bleeder armies. There is a type of magic that is able to turn regular people into mindless beasts.”
“Like you,” a voice shouted from the crowd.
Migo nodded. He was ready for this. “The beasts I speak of have no ability to take human form.”
Katsi surprised Migo, jumping down beside him and adding her voice. “There have been incidents throughout the Ring of these bleeders raiding settlements and enslaving people. We can only expect this to increase. The more people they enslave, the larger their army grows.”
Migo hadn’t even heard of this yet, but the idea that this was already happening was even more alarming. It seemed he and Katsi had much to talk about indeed.
