Imperial ((Imperial) Web of Hearts and Souls) by Jamie Magee Read Free Book Online Page A

emotion that resides within every emotion. If he had acted out, there would be nothing left.”
    “Is that what you would wish?” she asked humbly.
    I really didn’t have an answer for her. I would not wish for destruction, but I wished to be vindicated. I wished that Vade had at least sent word that I was still in his thoughts.
    Instead, he was calling me home breaths before everything our Creator had envisioned was sure to vanish.
    “We are eternal, my dear First, and we will always be.” My words eased some of the tension in her body, but not all. “Did you sense Colton below, or now?” She would be able to sense him even if he were cloaked.
    “I do not. And I did not sense him within the lilies below. I sensed her king.”
    “Fielder?” That was the name of the sovereign of grief, though it did not do you much good to memorize it. He often changed his name and lurked within the human race. His emotions were habitually found in the fields the dead lie within; hence the name we call him by.
    I’ve never spent much time with him. I really couldn’t see eye-to-eye with him either. He felt his emotion, grief, was the most powerful, the one the human race needed to be relieved of first and foremost. It was one emotion that my soul had never truly endured, so that reasoning was lost on me. Not to mention that, in my opinion, if you were saturated with grief you did not move forward, but lived in the past.
    All the other emotions moved you to a new point. Anger tore everything apart, forcing you to rebuild the way it should be. Shock gave you a reality check and pushed you forward. Fear forced you to find new paths. Obsession pulled you toward your goals, whether they were material or ethereal. Trepidation plotted a new course, preventive actions. Exaltation pushed you to find that ecstasy once again. But grief, grief pushed you to live in a past that will never occur in the exact same way again. Pointless.
    I was told often by those that had felt it that grief was the worst, and in most cases Fielder was considered a saint by those he relieved.
    I’m sure the fact that he was built like a God had nothing to do with that. He was a charmer. Often gave gifts of paintings and such to those he adored. The paintings would capture a moment that had a deep meaning to whomever he adored—cute, huh? Yet what did that do but trap them in a past memory?
    I knew there was grief on the first level of The Realm, but I didn’t sense the power of a sovereign in the energy, which meant Fielder was masked. Not really an odd thing for him in the human world, but it was in The Realm.
    Then again, I would hide myself, too, if I’d partnered with Xavier against Vade. If that were even the case.
    With each second, more and more questions arose. I was assured by Rasp that Vade had not crossed with anyone, but this revelation that Mazing had displayed now said that the kings of grief, shock, and fear were working together. Against Vade. That enraged me.
    We had passed more levels now, the sky was brighter, and in that light I could see how Mazing was near translucent. One glance told me I was, too.
    We had not been nourished properly in eons, and it clearly showed. Before our death, I was already teaching my line—or trying to—that they did not have to create the emotion of wrath to pull from it. I knew from my human life that there was enough anger in the world without someone fanning the flames.
    My only issue was that once you taste power, you crave it. To heed that, I was teaching them to find energy that was given freely. Energy from masses of souls, or even nature—water was the most powerful source we’d found. That was in part what my and Vade’s last fight was about. He thought I was starving them. Moving the race backward. We were the first line to ever show signs of hunger: being translucent.
    I was honestly amused by the argument when he brought it to me. I thought he feared that I’d vanish from his arms. Apparently,