In Her Name: The First Empress: Book 01 - From Chaos Born by Michael R. Hicks Read Free Book Online Page A

village that was taken added their warriors, their resources, to her campaign. It was part of the Way, a code of life and honor that she so fervently wished to destroy.  
    But to do so would take more than armies of warriors. That was the simple part, and one that many leaders in the past had used to control a continent, or even the entire Homeworld, if only briefly. A very few had even reached toward the stars in the time since the Settlements had first been founded, seeking to unite their race under the Way.
    Unification was not Syr-Nagath’s dream. She did not want her race to rise to something greater, but wanted to utterly destroy it. She wanted to sever it completely from its past in an orgy of destruction, before rebuilding it according to her own design. The conquest of T’lar-Gol was only the first part of her plan. But before she could span the stars, before she could fulfill her desires, she would need more than mere warriors. She would need to control the powers of the ancient orders.
    To do that, she would have to destroy them.
    “My mistress.”  
    Syr-Nagath turned to find her First kneeling at the entryway, sensing the excitement in her First’s blood. The Dark Queen flicked a velvety tongue over her lips, tasting the blood of her last victim. “Bring him.”
    With a quick salute, the First stood and disappeared.  
    A few moments later, Syr-Nagath heard the clank of chains and watched as a prisoner was led in, escorted by six warriors and the First. Bound by the hands and feet, badly beaten, the captured male was forced to his knees before her, cursing with anger at his captors through swollen, bloodied lips.
    “Leave us.”  
    The guards and her First saluted before marching from the room.  
    Stepping forward, Syr-Nagath took hold of the prisoner’s hair and forced his head back. One of his eyes was swollen shut, while the other was blood-red, staring up at her with undisguised hate.  
    Ignoring his baleful gaze, she looked at the Collar of Honor around his neck. There was no sigil, but she saw the outline of the Desh-Ka rune on his breastplate. An acolyte.
    “What is your name?”
    He only glared at her.
    “There is no point in denying me that much, acolyte of the Desh-Ka.” Kneeling before him, she reached out and drew the tip of one of her talons along his face, from his ear to the tip of his mouth.  
    He made no reaction beyond the glare with which he favored her as blood welled up from the wound.
    She sat back, licking his blood from her talon. It had taken all this time, over ten full cycles, for her to capture one of them, an acolyte, alive. She could not confront the Desh-Ka directly, but she had bound an army of honorless ones to her. Setting them to cause the mayhem expected of their kind had merely been cover for their true purpose, which now knelt in chains before her.
    The young acolyte spat on her, the blood from his mouth mixing with the stains on her armored breast.
    She entwined the talons of one hand in his hair. As with all who followed the Way, it was carefully braided into seven braids, each representing a different covenant. The two most important were the first, the Covenant of the Afterlife, and the third, which was the Blood Bond. His third braid had been severed, the roots of it bound in a black ring. He had been cut off from the empathic link to his bloodline, and could not sense those who shared the blood of his forefathers. Nor could they sense him. To all who had known him, he had simply disappeared.
    With a snarl, she took hold of his hair, her talons tearing into his scalp, and hauled him up by his braids. Her grip was far more powerful than seemed possible for her lithe frame.  
    As the acolyte opened his mouth in a gasp of pain, she brought her lips to his. He clamped his mouth firmly shut until she sank the talons of her free hand deep into his side.  
    His mouth flew open, screaming at the pain, and her tongue darted in to tease and violate him, retreating