Prologue
“Water! You, page girl, go fetch water. Now!” shouted a healer mage over the chaos which plagued the empress’ personal chambers. The young girl scampered out of the room to do as the healer had bid.
“I need lotus flowers, fresh cuttings of grass, maybe some honey comb,” muttered the healer to herself as she pulled the ruby crystals out of her bag. She then touched the emerald brooch at her neck, closed her eyes, and balanced tow of her precious stones in each palm.
Her face relaxed a little and then she frowned, opening her eyes again. “Quiet!” she shouted at the room, her voice amplified twenty-fold with her magical working. “Good,” she commented at a normal volume as the room immediately froze, everyone’s attention directed at her. “Now someone shall find me that page girl with the water I need.” Immediately three more pages jumped into action and ran out of the room. “All with some magical tendencies shall make a circle around the bed. Make sure to leave room for me. All else, do not disturb the working. If you cannot contain yourselves, please step out of the room. Let’s go.” The room immediately zoomed into a flurry of movements as everyone attempted to get where they needed to be. Quickly, a ring formed around the Empress’ bed, where the Empress Delaney lay writhing and sweating.
As the healer joined the circle, everyone joined hands. One-by-one, starting with the healer, everyone’s eyes shadowed as their pupils shone black as night. The air thickened, creating a haze that blurred the Empress from sight. Yet no change in Delaney’s pain occurred. Finally, a scream pierced everyone’s concentration and the haze vanished along with the blackened pupils of the mages.
As she continued writhing, Delaney spoke gaspingly, “The one…responsible…I know who…he is…find him and stop…this…from happening again…He is joined…by a ring of …followers…We must…prevent a reoccurrence… No males…in the future…shall be allowed to possess the power…to repeat…this monstrosity…no more males…” and with that her eyes shone black as she finalized her decree before she let out one long scream and then lay still.
It’s been three hundred years since that unjust decree was passed yet it still affects many citizens today. For the Empire’s own defense committee organizes searches for all males with magical power and weeds them out. So many families have been ripped apart due to the unjust decree of Empress Delaney. But now times are changing, it’s time to put it to an end. The underground training and protection network has sprung up to right this wrong and to win back what has been taken from the people of the Empire!
Chapter 1
The medical lab was buzzing with excitement as men and women rushed around doing last minute check-ups on all the equipment. In precisely five minute’s time, medical doctors were going to deliver the first ever genetically engineered child. The lab was on the brink of success.
If the child was born healthy, not only would it be the first cloned child, but the child would also possess a significant healing capacity. The child would be prone to neither sickness nor broken bones. In fact, only severe and rapid blows to the head or heart would impede this child’s immortality.
Not only would this child possess near immortality, but great power would be beheld by it. Only the kind of power every man dreamed of and every woman wished to gain. Unfortunately, this child would be born male. The engineers had been sent corrupt data and by the time the mistake had been noticed; only termination could have prevented the disaster of creating a male magical prodigy. Any male that possessed the power was ordered to be disposed of by the empire. But the doctors and scientists were too keen to complete the test, to find out if they could indeed succeed, so the records were falsified and the experiment continued according to plan.
A chime echoed and resonated throughout the building. Everyone rushed to the delivery room and waited with baited breath behind the closed doors. After seven painstaking hours, the induced labor had done its job. The Bystanders heard the cries of the baby. It was a success. Everyone cheered and celebrated, congratulating each other on their contribution to the future in genetic engineering.
The doors to the deliver room were flung wide open and the crowd set eyes upon the child that would later change their world. His surrogate mother, a young woman with brown wavy hair and sparkling eyes turned the child towards the crowd revealing hazel eyes, already open and alert. They took in the scene. He had a little tuft of golden-blonde hair and his skin was a soft tan that let out a glow that only a baby’s skin can.
Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω
A flurry of insistent knocking awoke Celeste from a light sleep. Out of the window, she could see the dark sky, embellished with millions of stars. The three moons that danced across the sky every night, each reduced to a liver of light, watched serenely from the sky.
The knocking came again, still insistent and rapid. “Hold your horses, I’m coming.” Celeste shoved her feet into the white cotton slippers waiting at the side of her bed, pulled on her robe, and proceeded to the front door as fast as her rickety body would allow. As she approached, she called out for identification. A response came, breathless and anxious, “Mother, it’s me. Let me in. Quick, before anyone sees me.”
Celeste opened the door and hurried her daughter, carrying a bundle, inside. Once over the door was bolted and the protection spell recited, Celeste took a good look at her daughter. Luella’s face was white with anxiety as she clutched at the bundle in her arms desperately. It squirmed. Her belly was large still. Her child was newly born. Luella opened her mouth to speak, but Celeste merely steered her into one of the guest rooms on the first floor. It was rosy colored, with pink walls and a deep red bedspread. The carpet was cream, the furniture all a deep brown with a hint of cherry in them. And it was a warm room, near the center of the house where the furnace supplied the most heat.
Celeste led Luella to the bed and sat her down upon it. As she took off her daughter’s shoes and began to rub her feet, Luella began to stammer, shivering slightly all the while, “I’m sorry for bursting in on you like this. I couldn’t go to my friends, if they knew, I’d be found.”
“My dear, never apologize for turning to your mother.”
“I was just so scared. They came for my son. I worked so long to create him and then to bear him. And then they came for him, two of them. I tried to protect him. I tried. It hurt so much and then he…,” She let out a sob at this point. “He killed them. To protect me. And they were the Empress’ mages. They were elite. I had to leave. I didn’t have a choice. Once the empress found out, he would’ve never been allowed to live. What do I do mother? I’m so scared. I never meant to betray the Empire; I’ve been a loyal subject. Why couldn’t they just let him be?”
“You were in the right. You nearly sacrificed yourself for this remarkable child. You gave him life and you save that life. And the only question is: are you willing to do it for the rest of your life?”
Luella nodded, still clutching at the silent bundle in her arms.
“You are a good daughter, my child. Now get ready for bed. They can’t find you or the child here.”
“His name is Omega, mother, Omega.”
“Goodnight Omega,” said Celeste, putting a hand on the child’s head beneath the blankets. “Good night my daughter. Get some rest, be calm, you are safe.” Luella nodded, gazed into her child’s hazel eyes for a moment, and then set him in the center of the bed, placing pillows on either side to prevent him from rolling off. As she approached the dresser for a change of clothes, her mother left, closing the door softly behind her.
Celeste walked to her room swiftly now. She was fully awake. Once in her room, she approached the mirror on her wall. It was a perfect circle, six feet in diameter, large enough to see one’s full reflection. The mirror was encircled in a bronze vine-like frame. Leaves sprouted over the entire length of each vine, though all seemed intertwined and connected. The leaves themselves were intricate too. Each vein could be seen in clear definition. Celeste placed her finger on one. As she looked in the mirror, her eyes grew black and the leaf she still touched began to glow.
“I have found the answer to the ancient question. I request immediate assistance,” she murmured softly, but articulately. She watched as the mirror became opaque and then as a man stepped out of the summoning circle.
Elegant Troll Community Member 
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