Empress Hiding

  Empress Hiding

  Y. M. ROGER

  Copyright © 2017 by Y. M. Roger.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017904986

  ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-5434-1215-4

  Softcover 978-1-5434-1216-1

  eBook 978-1-5434-1217-8

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

  Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

  Rev. date: 04/07/2017

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  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Terminology Lexicon

  Character Name Listing**

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Surely overdue by a year or more, I hope this work finds its way into your fantasies as it has mine. Thank you to my family – especially my husband and youngest son (the other ones were off at school and got out of most of the madness!) – for weathering through the past year together: we made it! I love you all!

  To everyone: remember to always look deep inside at who you truly are as well as beyond the four walls around you to the many worlds that could be yours … . and make something BIG happen!! Carpe Diem!!

  Introduction

  In this far sector of a nearby galaxy, the Bohrean Empire – whose center of authority is located on Bohrea Cardinal – has stood for millennia as the dominant military and economic power. There are many names, titles, phraseology, and nomenclature defined at the back of this work that will make the reading of this volume and the relationships contained herein more understandable and the characters more relatable.

  See Character Name Listing and Terminology Lexicon.

  Chapter 1

  The day could not have been any more perfect – the setting stars’ rays reflected off of and warmed Runa’s colorfully plated skin as the breezes buffeted her face and full, magenta-sprinkled-with-chartreuse mane. She ran at full speed on all fours across the field as the shadows of late evening crawled across the land – robust wings held tightly against her – powerful, armored tail roiling with her sizable, clawed-foot strides. Her destination in sight, the magnificent dragoness was simply enjoying the temperature differences across her colossal muscular and iridescent frame. The run was a trade-off for her allowing her Chiyoto – her Treasure – a diving and swimming workout in the filled quarry back around the bend. No, Runa had never enjoyed full water immersion the way her Chiyoto did – the beautiful altare deemed it unsettling and unnecessary. But even in her own absence, Chiyoto could almost feel Runa’s eyes glow that – what was it Mamere had always called it? Yes! Amaranthine. She could feel them heat to amaranthine in unison with Runa’s mane because of their mutual happiness.

  It was rare that both Chiyoto and Runa found mutual anything – perhaps it was simply that each had very dominant and demanding yet so very different personalities. But Chiyoto knew the real reason: it was because Runa could be so querulous in the use of their magical abilities and definite preeminent predator status while Chiyoto had to hold onto control so that they could live a peaceful, unburdened life.

  But it was times like this – times when their magic thrummed like omnipotent music through their veins, practically igniting the air around them with a kind of magical electricity that soothed their entire being from the depths of their soul – it was this state of existence that made Chiyoto doubt Mamere’s warning to always stay humble and to shy away from civilization. Because at times like this, the feeling of invincibility could be intoxicating … and Mamere had known that.

  Chiyoto needed to hide.

  She needed to be isolated.

  But with a good, reliable source of nourishment.

  Otherwise, she would …

  Chiyoto swallowed hard and pushed the thought away with the power she now felt with Runa in control. It almost seemed that in this magical state of existence with its physical and emotional high that nothing – no Crimsons, no Green Prisons, no Executioners nor even the Preeminent Khedive himself – nothing would dare even feign to approach them.

  Runa halted at the outer gate rather than trample her Treasure’s carefully planted garden on the interior and let out an ear-splitting victorious cry that seemed to still even the breezes. As they reared on incredibly strong back legs and spread her astonishingly large yet nearly transparent wings, the dragoness’ breath sent a hail of magenta-hued energy that matched her eyes into the now-silent air – her tail slashing menacingly at enemies that did not exist.

  At least not here.

  The piercing sound echoed between the mountains beyond where they had just come from their swim and the hills that separated this valley from the single tiny village on the surface of this small and yet officially uncharted celestial rock that was their Haven.

  After letting her beautiful altare root around a bit, Chiyoto pulled hard to push Runa back into absence – herself to presence, the dragoness altare certainly not in any mood to be restrained at the moment. Oh, Runa was the wild part of them alright – strong, cunning, and more than a little uncivilized, no matter how much Chiyoto worked to the contrary. And, yes, Runa was the reason they could never live in a populated area and would, without question, never mate. But – as Chiyoto had discovered since their re-location to this isolated planetoid over twenty-four Bohrean cycles ago – when you have never known something, it is impossible to miss or even long for that something.

  Alone was peaceful.

  Alone was free and unchained and unhindered.

  Alone had provided Chiyoto and Runa ample time to come to a somewhat harmonious state of existence – somewhat being the operative word here.

  Because they still had their disagreements.

  Sometimes.

  And, besides, the other Blood-bornes that lived in hiding here had kept her in constant supply of magazines and novels and other reading materials through which to experience those population and relationship issues
and concerns – and neither she nor Runa had any desire to experience first-hand even a whit of which they read. In fact, they both had veraciously scoffed at the whole idea of a mate in this current reality in which they would probably exist for the remainder of their lives.

  However interminably long that turned out to be.

  Chiyoto smiled up into the dual-starshine as she secured her fitted jodhpurs and slipped her large, over-sized tunic over her head. Her thoughts wondered back to Mamere as she remembered her beautiful yet so very old progenitor’s statement as they had shopped for clothing once puberty had hit Chiyoto.

  “Never have any in our line been so finely and fully endowed like you, my beautiful Chiyo,” she had smiled that old and loving smile at her extremely late-in-life daughter, “You should always wear very loose-fitting clothing or fasten yourself firmly so as not to attract the wrong attention.”

  She felt Runa growl within her chest at the memory – the sound being borne mostly of the animosity engendered with Mamere’s use of the term “wrong attention”.

  “Now, Runa,” Chiyoto chided to herself, “There are no Crimsons here on Haven,” she giggled to herself because she knew there was part of Runa’s protest that was not related to the ‘attention’, “And there will be no fastener today, my wild altare.”

  She felt Runa try to nervously re-settle herself as she donned her tall, Neltskin boots – a trophy they had fashioned from the amazingly tough hides of one of Runa’s prize kills a few cycles back. But as she stood to walk to the deep-well cooler – beautiful lilac and aquamarine hair shimmering in the starlight – she warily acknowledged that had been her second prominent recollection of Mamere this day.

  Chiyoto brushed away the feeling of unease as she focused her attention on the raising of the heavy box from deep beneath the water at the base of the well. Although the box was definitely not a hardship for her – the strength they harbored within themselves was easily two or three times that of a an average predator Blood-borne – she had to be careful not to start the box swinging such that it banged up against the stone walls of the well itself. Chiyoto did not want the box to break: building a new one that fit so perfectly and then cooperating with Runa in finding just the right magic with which to infuse it – enough to protect but not to raise any suspicions – was not a task on which she would choose to embark this day.

  It had actually been a very good day, and Chiyoto preferred to keep it that way. She felt a slight purr beneath the skin of her back and up through her neck – it seemed that her Runa preferred it that way as well.

  But even as she heard the first of the small yet distant hurried footfalls on the trail from the village, another vivid memory of Mamere smiling and waggling that familiar, timeworn finger in Chiyoto’s face surfaced,

  “As Empress, we do not choose our destiny, its time, or its day, my Chiyo,” she leaned over and gently kissed Chiyoto’s forehead, “All are chosen for us.”

  Chiyoto almost unknowingly released the rope she had been working and let the box fall back into the depths at the base of the well as she sat quietly on the stones surrounding it trying to quiet both Runa’s and her own imagination.

  And waited for the approaching young messenger to arrive.

  Three recollections from old will call forth a journey of new.

  Those words from one of the spinning Elder Volutes in the Blood-Borne Pantheon on Bohrea Cardinal kept echoing through her head as she sat and tried to calm Runa until the tenderfoot messenger hydenna – his flat and stiff green-brown coat glistening with his sweat from the run over the hills, and his overly-muscular build screaming of the dangerous predator he was becoming – stood at the edge of the trail and stepped behind a tree. The young male that stepped out had donned a pair of hunting britches and carried his messenger pouch on his bare shoulder rather than strapped across the back as worn by his altare.

  Raylen was even built like a predator in his svelte cognate form.

  Chiyoto tried to smile warmly, although she felt nothing of the sort as Raylen approached her position with marked humility and reverence. About four paces in front of her, he fell to one knee and extended the missive he had pulled from his pouch.

  “This came on today’s supply transport, Chiyoto-sama,” he maintained a head-down posture as she stood and approached, “My sire thought it best you receive it straight away.”

  Probably because she never received anything.

  Ever.

  Outside of Haven, no one even knew Chiyoto existed except Mamere. Sure, the Blood-bornes knew an Empress must be alive somewhere – there had to be for them to still be in existence – but no one knew of the Heiress officially, especially not what she actually looked like.

  Besides, Mamere was still their Empress.

  She smiled inwardly at that irony as she reached out with both hands – one in which she received the simple yet unmistakably magic-sealed envelope and the other’s whose palm she laid firmly on Raylen’s solid shoulder and squeezed gently.

  “Thank you, my formidable attendant,” she forced Runa’s voice away from her own right now as she stepped back, “You may rise.”

  Raylen stood although he remained with his head-down posture as Chiyoto breathed gently upon the envelope to break the seal.

  Before she even pulled the parchment from between the folds, she inquired.

  “When is the next transport, Raylen?”

  Not pausing to look at him as he answered, Chiyoto unfolded the paper and read the few words scrawled in a seemingly ancient handwriting on the parchment.

  “There is not another supply transport for another fifteen days, Chiyoto-sama,” Raylen raised his face with anticipation, “But I recently received my flight warrant and would be honored to deliver you safely to the ICT just four hurs from here if need be,” Raylen smiled enthusiastically, “And meet you there on your return.”

  Chiyoto looked up from the missive and almost through the handsome young male as a million thoughts ran through her mind. Intra-system Commerce Terminals were not only crowded, but they were very, very crowded. She felt Runa grow restless at simply the thought of traveling to one, although her altare’s usual dominance and defiance were quite tempered now with the words of the missive.

  She glanced back down at the date on the parchment and sighed.

  “Do you have some of the old black ink in storage, Raylen?”

  Raylen bowed and answered.

  “We do, Chiyoto-sama.”

  “I would ask that you deliver a vial back to my doorstep just as soon as you are able, my faithful one.”

  Raylen looked a bit confused, but did not hesitate.

  “Straight away, Chiyoto-sama,” but he waited obediently to be dismissed.

  She sighed again.

  “And I will be down on the morrow to depart at first star, Raylen,” she gripped the paper tightly in a fist as she reached over and touched the youth’s shoulder in dismissal and parting, “You are certainly a blessing from the Makers.”

  She stood in place as Raylen raced off behind some trees, and subsequently tore off over the hills in his altare’s impressive hydenna form.

  Like the other families on Haven, Raylen’s people lived here in exile: predator Blood-bornes – or Green Killers or Yasaks as the Crimsons had named them – had been sentenced to death on their home planet of Bohrea Cardinal and, yes, throughout all of the entire Bohrean Empire simply because of whom they were. They had been supposedly hunted to extinction there because they were deemed a threat to the grisly Crimson rule that had heavy-handedly risen to tyrannical power some three or four centuries ago.

  And they were executed on sight when an adolescent Blood-borne presented as a predator.

  At least that was how the law was stated – there had been rumblings to the contrary over the past few cycles or more. But Chiyoto knew nothing more than the whispers of some s
ecret band of warriors that fought for those targeted by the insane law laid down all those centuries ago by the murderous Crimson traitor to the Empress’ line.

  Under that same law, from what Chiyoto could recall, the non-predator Blood-bornes were allowed to live only as a lower class of servants and slaves to the ruling Crimsons – their lives a mere subsistence compared to the harmonious reality Bohrea had been prior to that blood-bath. The “before times” were a reality now only known to the general population in verbal tales and, perhaps, in artwork that had survived the abhorrent Speciatic Cleansing.

  But those “before times” were a reality depicted and described in the finest detail for Chiyoto by Mamere from the time she had been old enough to understand – from lips so old the female should never have birthed an heir – all of the facts of Mamere and Chiyoto’s line in-grained into every fiber of the young female Blood-borne Heiress’ being.

  Runa growled restlessly at her Treasure’s thoughts – the dragoness’s wild, vengeful visions and thirst for the taste of Crimson blood trying to spread through Chiyoto even above the serene acceptance they both had felt through the reading of the missive.

  We are ready to move on, my beautiful heir.

  We will expect you within ten days.

  Mamere

  The date on the parchment left only five days for the approximate three to four day voyage to the heart of the governmental seat on Bohrea Cardinal.

  Because it was a voyage Chiyoto had no choice but to make.

  She squeezed the parchment even tighter in her fist as she began to run through all the things in her head that needed accomplishing before tomorrow’s first star. Chiyoto turned toward their dwelling and mounted the stairs.

  Mamere was prepared to pass into the heavenly realm of monarchs – even though she had never worn a crown and had lived a poor and simple seamstress’s existence for centuries.