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

as he tried to bite it off.
    He shoved himself against her, trying to throw her off balance with the mass of his body in an attack born of pure desperation.
    With a snort of contempt, she deftly stepped aside, allowing his momentum to carry him into a thick wooden table. His face struck the smooth, polished surface, and he slid to the floor, dazed.
    “A priest, you clearly are not.” She stripped out of her armor, letting it fall to the floor beside her in a bloody heap before kneeling, nude, to straddle him. As he groaned, she began to unfasten his armor. “Not yet. But you shall be.”  
    “No!” He struggled against her as she stripped him of his armor, then his clothing, just as she had already stripped him of his dignity.  
    She kept him pinned, her knees on his shoulders, as she undid the third braid of her own hair. While she despised the Way and all it represented, the hair of the Kreela was more than a mere adornment or vestige of evolution. The bonds were real, even among the honorless ones. With her talons, she severed a lock of hair from the braid, close to her scalp, grimacing at the unpleasant sensation that ran through her core.  
    What she was attempting was something that none had dared do since early in the Second Age. It was dark knowledge that had been buried deep in some of the most ancient Books of Time, kept in the mountain fortress of Ka’i-Nur in the heart of the great wastelands to the west. It was guarded by the seventh of the ancient orders. Unlike the other six, it had fallen from grace long ages ago. Few, even among the other orders, even remembered it. Only a handful of the curious or unlucky were foolhardy enough to try and cross the wastelands to find it. Fewer still ever returned.  
    Syr-Nagath had been born there. While she had been raised as a warrior, she had spent many an hour poring over the ancient tomes and pulling secrets from the tongues of the keepers. Vast riches of powerful knowledge were to be found. Much of it was dark, forbidden to the world beyond Ka’i-Nur’s walls. In past times, many had sought to destroy those Books of Time, which is why the surviving texts and keepers had been cloistered away in the ancient fortress.  
    Her mother had been the high priestess, although the title rang hollow. Unlike the other six orders, the Crystal of Souls that had once belonged to Ka’i-Nur had disappeared. None knew the fate that had befallen it. Without it, none who followed the order’s ancient ways could ever inherit the crystal’s special powers, as did the priesthoods of the other orders.  
    Syr-Nagath had been born of a Ka’i-Nur mother, but her father had been an Outsider, a pilgrim from the far southern lands of Ural-Murir on a quest for knowledge. He had met the fate of all but a few unfortunate enough to reach Ka’i-Nur: he had never been allowed to leave. The high priestess, on a whim, had taken him as a lover, and Syr-Nagath had been the product of the forced union. He had died in an attempt to escape soon thereafter.  
    When Syr-Nagath had been born, she had created something of a stir, for in appearance she was like the outsiders. This had given her mother the opportunity to attempt something that she and her forebears for generations had sought, the destruction of the outsiders.
    Born of Ka’i-Nur, trained in combat and steeped in their ancient form of the Way, Syr-Nagath was sent out into the world of outsiders to wreak havoc.
    And so she had.
    With dawning horror, the acolyte began to snap his torso back and forth, desperately trying to throw her off.
    She bared her fangs, an expression of humor, at his pathetic attempts to escape.  
    Using his own twisting motion against him, she easily flipped him over on his stomach before slamming a fist against the back of his head, stunning him. Then she removed the ring binding the stump of his third braid and carefully began weaving in her own hair.  
    When she was done, she drew a talon across her right