Drogo stood up slowly. He looked around at the thousands of faces. He saw thin women holding hungry babies. He saw sick men coughing into dirty rags. He saw young children with no shoes. These were his people. The world called them trash. Drogo called them his family."Listen to me!" Drogo shouted. His voice echoed off the rusted metal walls of The Pit. It was a powerful sound. "For a thousand years, you lived in the dirt! For a thousand years, they made you pay the mana-tax!"The mana-tax was a terrible thing. Every month, the Emperor's guards came down to The Pit. If a poor person had a tiny bit of magic, the guards took it from their body using painful needles. If a person had no magic, they had to pay with their blood. The blood was used to make the Emperor’s sun shine brighter."They took your magic," Drogo said. "They took your blood. They took your children."Drogo raised his hands. The silver lines on his skin glowed very bright. "The mana-tax is gone!" Drogo roared.The silen

The heavy iron gates of the Upper City were broken. The golden guards were gone. The way down to The Pit was open.For many years, the long, winding stone stairs that led deep into the earth were a place of fear. The poor people, the Nulls, only walked up those stairs to pay the mana-tax. They always came back down with bleeding arms and sad eyes.But today, someone was walking down the stairs. It was not a soldier. It was not a tax collector. It was a young woman. Her name was Sister Elara.Sister Elara was a healer from the Temple of the Sun. The Temple was a place where mages learned to use soft, gentle magic. While the Emperor’s guards used fire to burn and destroy, the Sisters used light to heal cuts and cure sickness.Elara was twenty years old. She wore a simple dress made of pure white cotton. She did not wear shoes. Her bare feet stepped gently on the cold, wet stone steps. She did not carry a lantern or a torch. She did not need one. Her skin glowed.A soft, warm, golden li

Drogo looked down at the small, glowing girl in the mud. He saw the confusion in her pure white soul. He felt a strange pity for her. She was a tool. A tool built by the Emperor, but a tool that did not know it was sharp.Drogo took one slow, heavy step forward. He stopped right in front of her. He knelt down on one knee. Even on one knee, he was much taller than she was.He reached out his large, black, stone hand. Elara closed her eyes tightly. She waited for him to crush her head. She waited for the dark to tear her apart. But the pain never came.Instead, she felt a cool, smooth touch on her cheek. Drogo gently wiped a splash of mud from her face with his giant thumb. His touch was very careful. It was gentler than her own light had been.Elara opened her eyes. She looked into his silver eyes. She did not see a monster. She saw a deep, quiet, endless ocean."You do not understand the dark, little bird," Drogo said softly. His deep voice vibrated in her bones."The dark is evil," E

Elara gagged. She put her hands over her mouth and nose. She turned away and almost threw up. It was the worst smell in the world. It did not smell like normal garbage. It did not smell like dead animals or human waste. It smelled like sick magic. It smelled sour, like old milk, but it also smelled like burning metal and rotten, sweet flowers. It made Elara’s eyes water. It made the inside of her head hurt. "What... what is that?" Elara choked out. "Breathe through your mouth," Drogo told her. "Do not let it sit in your nose. Come." Drogo stepped through the doors. Elara forced herself to follow him. She stepped into the secret room. It was not a room. It was a giant cavern. It was so big that Elara could not see the other side. The ceiling was held up by massive stone pillars. But the floor of the cavern was not made of stone. The floor was a lake. It was a lake of poison. Elara stared in total horror. The water was not blue or green. It was a swirling mix of neon purple, sic

The white light in the toxic cavern was blinding. It was the light of a bomb. It was the light of the Emperor’s trap, hidden deep inside the heart of a young, innocent girl. But the light did not win. A hand made of absolute, freezing darkness pushed through the light. It was Drogo Payne’s hand. The King of the Abyss did not care about the burning heat. He pushed his dark, stone fingers right into the center of Elara’s glowing chest. Elara did not feel her skin break. She only felt a terrible, freezing cold. It felt like a block of ice had been dropped into a boiling pot of water. Drogo closed his large fingers. He grabbed the tiny, sick black seed. The seed was wrapped around Elara’s magic Core. It tried to fight him. It pulsed with gray fire. But Drogo’s grip was like a mountain. He pulled his hand back. POP. The blinding gray light vanished. The cavern was suddenly dark again, lit only by the faint glow of the toxic slime. Drogo stood tall. In his giant black hand, he held t