REGALT STOOD over the shards of the shattered psiode. Anger sat comfortably on her comely features. She shoved the pieces around with her foot. She pushed out with her will and tried the same thing. Nothing. She slammed her hand on a pitted wooden counter. Twenty open-topped glass containers rattled from the impact, nineteen of which contained the mate of a psiode. The twentieth lay at her feet. She kicked the shards hard, and they skittered and clinked under the counter.

Weiss. She braced herself against the table and shook her head. There was no way to be sure whether he recognized her before she destroyed the psiode. However unlikely, she couldn’t take that chance. Weiss would complicate things if he discovered her before she needed him.

Regalt turned and took long strides across the large dank underground laboratory. The walls were alive with water flowing from the ceiling to the floor. Twelve large wrought-iron cages, six on each side of the rectangular room, hung from the ceiling on thick chains. Mold and algae grew on the floor under the cages, giving the whole room a musty irritating aroma that nearly concealed the scent of human waste and rotting meat.

Moans and pleas followed her as she strode past. The withered, corpse-like men and women begged for death in weak strangled voices.

"Pathetic," she said and opened the heavy door exiting the room.

Regalt slammed it behind her. Two guards stood at rigid attention on either side of the doorway.

"Dispose of those," she gestured back to the lab, "and bring fresh ones."

She started up a set of stone stairs. She paused.

"Yes, Mistress," came the nervous voices. She concentrated on the two men. Their eyes glazed over and emotion disappeared from their faces. They turned and entered the lab.

She continued up the stairs to a long torch lit hall. The rank odor of decay faded from the air as she moved gracefully through the wide, column-lined great hall. Her footsteps echoed hollow and empty on the stone floor. Dried leaves and scattered piles of light dirt swirled on gentle eddies as a light draft blew through. She absently took in the collected debris in the hall and reminded herself that she needed to gain more servants. She had used up the ones that maintained the keep, most of which she had just passed in the lab.

Regalt flexed her hands, alternating between open palm and closed fist. She tingled with Aspect power. She always did when she absorbed a life, a useful side effect of bonding with psiodes.

It cost a spy and she would have to start over tracking Weiss, but at least she had this. Though it was a relatively small amount of power, and only temporary, it intoxicated her.

She focused her will on the ambient heat in the air around the oily torches. With supreme effort she gathered it and moved it to the small pile of leaves. Several of them darkened. A small flicker appeared, and went out. She held her breath and pushed harder. The leaves burst into flames and turned to ash, which floated away on the light breeze. Regalt smiled and made a tight fist. She was getting better. She found it easier to focus. It had taken over a year to learn, but it was possible to strengthen her Aspects by absorbing life energy. It never crossed her mind as significant that it took the lives of twelve slaves and a spy to boost her energy Aspect high enough to set a pile of dried leaves ablaze. Such a small price for progress. The inefficiency was bothersome.

The power was already fading from her and with it her good mood. She couldn’t imagine power coursing through the bodies of Weiss and Alessandro. It wasn’t fair. They squandered their ability. And for what? The service of inferiors? She scoffed, paced, and adjusted her gown.

Regalt wanted to break something and spun on a nearby column. The smallest bit of dust fell away under the full assault of her will. She slapped the column and knocked substantially more dirt free. The impact caused the tips of her fingers to sting. Her lips moved rapidly as she cursed under her breath.

Regalt hated impotence, especially her own. Weiss and his late brother did not deserve the abilities they possessed.

"Alessandro," she said and trembled. She could barely imagine a life that powerful inside of her. His mastery of the Aspects was absolute. The fact that Weiss killed him surprised her. It’s what she needed to happen, but it amazed and pleased her none the less.

She took a pride in the part she played. Ironically, an ancient book she found in Alessandro’s library showed her the way: A lethal combination of herbs and minerals that nullified the Aspects. Necrethal. She took the formula and began time-consuming search for the ingredients. The process to refine the poison was meticulous and dangerous but it had been worth the risk.

Once complete, the experiments began. She discovered that while the poison wouldn’t kill someone with strong Aspect outright, it was absolutely lethal to normal creatures.

Regalt sent assassins to several small towns, looking for Alessandro. They distributed the Necrethal in the drinking water. Hundreds of people died on the off chance that Alessandro might visit his people, as he often did, and drink the water or eat food prepared with it. He had. Perhaps less than she would have hoped, but it had been enough. It gave Weiss the edge he needed to kill his brother.

She continued through to the end of the dirty hall, a little happier. She stepped carefully down a small stair and entered a dark room with a thin window. Pale morning light fought through the dusty air.

She crossed the room to a warped wooden desk. On it sat a faded, leather-bound book. She opened it to a marked page and lovingly ran her fingers over the old parchment. She didn’t know who authored the book, and at first doubted it was more than fiction or legend. However, her success with Necrethal changed her mind, and she eagerly wondered what else would prove to be fact.

Other interesting discoveries lay within that dusty old book. She found extensive passages on another form of power in the world. Though never named, it was immense and powerful, and they feared it.

Now there was the problem of Weiss. He was less powerful that Alessandro, but still formidable. For now, she had his trust, but that would only last until he discovered her.

She flipped the pages and paused at a favorite passage. It spoke of the Abyss and the power there. And of its location under Warden Hold. This passage alone explained why they guarded this book so well. Not so well, that Kali could not get at it, however. Efficient, arrogant Kali.

Regalt believed that Alessandro’s proximity to the fissure explained the strength of his Aspects. Since only a Warden could enter the seal chamber, only he would encounter it.

To Regalt, his proved that the power unified the Aspects. While Alessandro was oblivious to the effect the energy had on him, she would be ready and use everything she had learned to control the rate at which she absorbed the energy.

She would make herself into a god to be worshipped and feared. She closed the book.

She heard footfalls behind her and reached out with her will. She touched the mind of her servant, a Blood Hunter named Kali.

"Mistress," Kali said with no particular inflection of respect. "Your Weiss is very elusive. I have been unable to locate him."

"He cannot evade you forever."

"Yes, Mistress."

"When you find him, do not engage him directly," Regalt said. "You must introduce the Necrethal and bring him to me alive."

"It will be as you say, Mistress."

Regalt enjoyed owning a Blood Hunter, but hated the absence of overt groveling and abject fear. She never understood Weiss’ obsession with his servant, Miladda. Miladda. It sickened her that he treated it as a person. It was an animal, a tool. It wasn’t a companion or a friend.

"Dismissed," she said. Kali turned and left the room with a grace so precise and fluid it annoyed Regalt as much as she admired it. Kali brought her the book years ago. That deserved respect. There would come a time, however, when she needed no one. For now, she would endure Kali’s little annoyances.

After a moment, Regalt walked out of the study and turned down a short corridor. She pushed a heavy oaken door on worn squeaking hinges inward to her bedchamber. This room was largish with colorful tapestries and curtains. Natural light filled the room and a mist sweet incense smoke touched the air with the light scent of earth and flowers.

A small desk shoved haphazardly against the wall, making room for a huge golden throne with purple velvet cushions. She had her servants squeeze the throne in shortly after she took the keep from the previous owners.

Regalt arrived early that morning, seeking work as a kitchen servant. To her supreme annoyance, they offered her the work. Could they not see her regality? She showed them. They deserved their fate. She took control of parents and made them drown their children in the moat before cutting each other’s throats.

She retained a few of the more fearful, respectful servants. The others she persuaded to jump from the towers. Their plummeting bodies delighted her. The Baron and his family had a higher Aspect than most, and they became the first subjects in her experiments. She remembered fondly that she nearly moved a rock with their energy.

She lounged in the large throne. There wasn’t room for much else, aside from it and the bed.  She closed her eyes. She had been with Weiss many times in that bed. He was delicate and attentive, even loving. She did not deny the pleasure from the experience, but she could never love him. He was stepping stone. An obstacle.

She knew Weiss’ pain well. His brother’s apparent betrayal wounded him. During their carnal encounters, she drank in pain he carried with him and it made her pleasure nearly unbearable.

She trembled at the memory and moved her shaking hands over her light clothing and bare skin, down her stomach and teasingly across her thighs. The heady incense made her body tingle.

A knock came from the door.

"What?" Her eyes were flint as she slammed her hands hard against the throne.

"We have the creature, Mistress." Came a muffled voice through the door.

Regalt regained her calm.

"Finally," she said, barely audible. A creature native to the Wastes. It had been months since she had sent her men out to capture one.

"Take it to the lab. I will be along soon." Regalt said. She repressed a wave of giddiness.

Another piece of her plan fell into place.

Next Chapter: Chapter 4