A single candle lit up the face of the Spymaster. She sat in the darkness of her chambers as she thought about the future of the wretched den of non-humans. Lira wore a sadistic smile as she fondled a small emerald wand in her hands.
She and Soleah were locked in a battle of wits for a while, and while she was sure that a lowly elf would be able to figure out her affiliation with the Red Dawn, she could not leave such a loose end.
The Great Inquisitor's First Disciple had ordered her to weaken the elven kingdom and to make sure they could not afford to let their gaze turn to the southern borders.
While she could not fathom what the Inquisitor had planned, it was not something she could ever hope to comprehend. Just as the elves were witless compared to her, she was the same to the Inquisitor.
Lira admitted that she was not the best, nor the Inquisitor's favourite, thus she had been given a rather plain, boring mission.
"Working with these lesser creatures is such a drag." She groaned as she placed her head on the table.
Her duty was surely important; she had fought tooth and nail to convince Lord Rolan that she was worthy of Inquisitor's grace, and thus she could not fail.
"Azure is under my control, the Servant girl should be dead by tomorrow, the princess Sheira is gone, and the king is still clueless…" She chuckled.
Her only threat was Soleah, someone who was smarter than what elves had any right to be.
"Perhaps she is part human?" That was a question she asked herself many times, yet what human would dilute their purity by copulating with a lesser species? It was no different than to lay with an animal.
Some kind of heretic for sure. An image of the fake smile that Soleah made when she was around her angered her deeply. Her brows furrowed.
With a sigh, she hid the wand in her dress and retrieved a letter her spies had delivered to her, yet unlike the information about lesser creatures, this one was sent by someone she ought never to anger.
Her fingers slid under the envelope's seal and retrieved the contents. "From the First Disciple."
A slight blush formed on her face before she coughed. "To the fourth disciple…" Her lips formed a small smile at her real title being uttered. Rolan had trained her and turned her into someone she could be proud of being.
There were three people she had admired: first, the God King who protected all of humanity, then the Great Inquisitor who had made the lesser races serve as they were meant to, and finally the First Disciple, Rolan.
He was trained by the Inquisitor himself and had graciously bestowed those skills upon her. While she was not nearly as skillful, she was in an enviable position.
Her eyes darted over the letter, "Beware… A powerful disrupting force." She scratched her cheek.
The letter stated that an unknown goddess with flowing red hair and piercing blue eyes attacked him and had destroyed two of his puppets.
"Doesn't that sound like that servant?" She shook her head. There was no way anyone who could disrupt Rolan's plans was a mere servant; it had to be a coincidence.
Yet despite the dire warning, she couldn't help but smile. " He cares so much about me as to warn me!"
However, she doubted there was a point in it; she had no clue what her mentor wished for, and the goddess had not attacked her.
She stashed the letter into her dress and pushed herself up. The puppet king had listened to her and called the council. Once the council that was under her thumb gathered, she would call upon Azure.
Lira grinned. Soleah would die by her own champion's hand, and then the pest that was the Champion would perish. The kingdom would be weakened and crushed by the savage hordes.
Yet even though she worked toward weakening and, in the end, destroying the kingdom, the inquisitor's real plan eluded her. She was not foolish enough to attempt to understand it, yet a small part of her yearned for such knowledge.
"No… I have my role and I will fulfill it to the best of my ability!" She picked up the candle and blew on it, plunging the room into the darkness.
Many would struggle to even see a simple shape in the darkness, yet to her it was not much different than normal light. While reading text was difficult, she could see shapes without difficulty, and what's more, it allowed her to be hidden under a gentle veil of darkness.
However, this was not the time to enjoy the lightlessness; instead, she needed to check on her puppet and reapply her mind control for the coming judgment.
Once that half breed is dead, then I will have to endure the humiliation of a marriage with that so-called king. She wanted to puke at the thought, yet it would not last for long. His exhaustion and the slow-acting poison she had been feeding him would bring him to his knees in mere years.
"I would find him rather admirable if he were a human." A king who only wishes for the betterment of his own people. That was rather reminiscent of the God King, yet because of his elven nature, he was lesser and not even worthy of sentience.
She approached the shape she recognized as the shelf, then, with a pull of a thick red book, the shelf moved aside.
The smell of rot and death invaded her senses, yet she did not care. This was the place where she threw her enemies and forgot about them. They would starve and be gone from her sight, yet Azure had a use.
She would not starve even if she had left without food for a couple of days.
"I guess I should at least water her before tomorrow…" She scoffed, "No, she will be dead anyway."
In front of her was a long, winding stairwell. She stepped down and quickly reached her private dungeons.
Not even the royal family knew about this place, and she had made sure no information about it reached anyone but her.
The stench of rot and decay grew stronger as she passed empty cages. Most were filled with at least three elven skeletons, some belonged to nobility with clothing that would make commoners die of envy, and some were merely civilians who stood in her way.
A small smirk formed on her lips, "Dying just like animals they are."
Women, Men, and Children were not spared. If someone stood in the way of the great inquisitor's plan, then they were guilty and deserved to be put in a cage and forgotten.
Floors were covered by waste from her prisoners, which attracted various buzzing insects, yet she did not care. Instead, she walked down the hall and toward the final cage.
Inside was a single figure surrounded by one well-dressed skeleton.
Her long white hair was disheveled, and her armor was ragged. It was the Champion of the elves, and the final tool Lira would require.
Her hands were raised in the air and held by two heavy chains, and her lifeless eyes stared at her, ready to obey any order she would give.
"It would seem my control is still holding strong," Lira smirked as she retrieved a small key from her dress and approached the cage, and unlocked it.
Lira's fingers reached beneath Azure's chin and lifted her head, then moved it left and right. "Good. Azure, you will kill the Queen tomorrow."
"Yes… Your Excellency. I serve and obey." Lira nodded, while her speech seemed less monotone than she would expect of someone under her control, it did not change the fact that the greatest fighter the kingdom had was in her hands.
The spymaster crouched in front of her puppet, and she made sure that her dress was lifted above the filth of the cage as she reached into her dress.
With quick motion, she retrieved her emerald wand and pressed it against Azure's forehead.
In an instant, she felt dread run down her spine. The endless abyss of darkness and the infinite lake of misfortune stretched before her, and just as swiftly faded.
"You and your damned resistant mind, filthy elven animal." Lira sighed as she continued. She would not fail merely because her puppet's mind conjured an image to scare her.
The chains wrapped around Azure's mind, and Lira retreated. "When you are gone, this kingdom will follow shortly."
However, just as she was about to stand up, she fell back and hit her head on the stone floor.
"Ow…" Her eyes widened. Despite her effort to keep away from the elven dying filth, she had to dirty her hair.
"What happened?" She felt fine, and then her vision became blurry, yet it quickly passed. "Could be exhaustion."
With a quick shake of her head, she locked the cage and headed toward her room. It was time to progress her role.