Syphon

4. Kaliah

He stilled and the strange Prince's suffocating power began vibrating the air around them.

His nostrils flared as though catching a scent on a non-existant breeze.

In one single, animalistic move, his head snapped in her direction.

The weight of that ice blue stare crashed into her, and her knees buckled.

Zenna just barely caught her before she hit the stone floor, the glass again slipping from her fingertips and shattering against the stone in a deafening symphony.

The eyes of the courtiers did not even turn to discover the disturbance.

All eyes were kept firmly on the predator that had just entered.

"Get up, child!" Zenna hissed in her ear, the hard woman's panic needling against her skin.

Kaliah could barely hear her over the pounding in her head.

The unbearable throb of his power as it focused solely on her.

Oh Divinities, his power.

It was overwhelming. Eternal. Limitless. Dark.

She felt all of it brush against her, trying and testing.

Kaliah shuddered.

She could barely breathe against its force as it slammed into her over and over again.

She tried to straighten her legs, but she could not rise with his power assaulting her senses.

It forced her down.

It was too much.

Too much.

To her horror, she released a small whimper, wanting to rip her very skin off as his magic rippled over it, probing, looking for a way in.

The noise stirred something within the man, for the instant it had left her lips, he moved.

The crowd parted as he strode forward, heading right for her.

She sucked in a shuddering breath that failed to reach her aching lungs.

Zenna pinched her shoulder.

"Get up!" She hissed again, fear dripping on every syllable."Get up now!"

She could not. And when Zenna's entire body went rigid, she knew he was upon them.

Slowly, she raised her head, regretting it immediately as the excruciating pounding of her racing heart rang in her head.

Another small whimper.

The man's keen eyes focused on Kaliah's trembling hands that still grasped onto Zenna's sleeves.

They focused on those two small golden lines on the black bands around her fingers.

"Ro Haema, Ro Cusla, Ro Somes"

That liquid smooth voice slid through her, all the way down to the marrow of her bones.

Those foreign words were heavy against her chest. Words with too much power, too much weight to be said in her presence.

She didn't know the language.

It was gruff and almost crude sounding, despite his smooth tone.

Something told her she never wanted to learn the truth of those words or what language he spoke.

She lowered her eyes, unable to meet his pulsing ice-blue gaze.

His power.

"Rise, Ro Cusla," He ordered, his gaze still fixed on her hands.

The crushing weight of his magic lifted just enough for her to find her feet again, Zenna stepping away from her as soon as she was upright.

Her legs wobbled, threatening to give way again, but she gritted her teeth, locking her knees into place.

What would this Prince, his dark power suffocating her very lungs, do to her if she fell to her knees before him?

She shuddered to think.

Kaliah's breathing was still ragged, and she dared not lift her head, painfully aware of the room full of courtiers silently staring at their exchange.

He reached forward, gripping her chin with strong, calloused fingers and forcing her gaze back to him.

The sting of his magic bit into her again, crackling against her jaw, making her teeth zing.

His skin against her own was electric.

The sensation was strange, not painful, but more unsettling, like that power was invading her, trying to burrow in.

It was an insistent force but not nearly so violent as moments before.

A small blessing, Kaliah thought as she squeezed more air into her seized lungs.

He stared silently for so long that Kaliah didn't realise she'd begun to shake until he placed his other rough hand against the skin of her arm, tracing his thumb across the dark lines that marked her arms.

A soothing rush of heat spread through her veins, warming her from the outside in.

Still, she shook.

"Ro Cusla," He whispered again.

In that moment, she was sure the prince had addled her brain with his power, for she thought that those whispered words were almost...reverent.

He released her in one smooth, primal movement and turned to Alton, the heat of his temper, forcing her back a step.

He addressed the royals, standing atop their resplendent dais with an icy tone that spoke of death and suffering.

"You stole from me"

King Jesophis went sheet white.

He gaped, his mouth open and closing several times, but no sound emerged from his terrified lips.

His son, however, did not share his fear, strutting forward and curling his lips into a sneer.

"We stole nothing" Alton snarled, his hand settling on the pommel of his decorative rapier.

Kaliah watched at the Etherial Princes frost gaze noted the movement, but remained peotrate with that unnatural stillness otherwise.

"She, and her w***e mother, came crawling to us, begging for their lives. They exult us now, we showed them mercy when your kind did not. They serve us now."

Thunder boomed from the skies outside, making the entire ballroom shake.

Prince Rowe was still a picture of calm distate but there was no mistaking who had summoned the sudden storm suddenly raging overhead.

Indeed, lightning flashed, sending the room into an eerie blue light as rain fell so thick and fast that it was threatening to c***k the windows that it lashed.

Many of the courtiers screamed, shuffling away from the windows. A few openly fled the ballroom.

Kaliah didn't blame them.

In fact if she hadn't been paralysed with fear she might have joined them.

As it were, she was the mirror image of King Jesophis, gaping with an open mouth at the sheer, mighty power of the scarred Prince.

He leveled Alton with an even gaze, his face remaining the picture of cool control, but those diamond eyes promised death and violence.

"Out!" King Jesophis bellowed, finally finding his voice.

He rose slightly from his throne, casting a hand out over the sea of his subjects

"The celebration is over! Everybody out! NOW!"

Like a tether snapping, the entire room moved as one and rushed to the exits.

Kaliah turned to move with them, more than happy to lose herself in the mass, but that liquid smooth voice echoed around the room again, halting her in her tracks.

"Not you, Ro Cusla"

Kaliah winced, turning slowly back to find his piercing gaze honed in on her.

Her heart thundering violently in her chest in time with strom raging outside.

The Ethereal Prince's nostrils flared again.

Violet-blue sparks erupted from his fingertips and another boom of thunder rattled the windows, as the sparks sizzled across the stone beneath.

The crowd screamed and began pushing for the exit more urgently, scrambling utop of one another to get away from the threat.

The threat that seemed to be wholly focused on Kaliah.

Her legs began to wobble, and she knew her face would be the picture of fear.

She couldn't rationalise it.

she couldn't calm herself.

She was terrified of him, and that fear was spreading, like a virus through her veins, nesting in every corner of her body.

"Come" He said, lifting his hand to curl his fingers in her direction, beckoning.

Kaliah wanted to whimper in that shameful fear again, but she dared not make a sound, casting her eyes down and, through sheer force of will, began to shuffle forward.

Close, but not too close.

"Lift your head, Ro Cusla" He growled, the first slip of that liquid smooth voice since the dangerous Prince had arrived.

She found herself unable to deny his order, lifting her head up and meeting those diamond eyes for the first time. "You keep your head up. Always."