Hive Knight: A Dark Fantasy LitRPG (Trinity of the Hive Book 1) by Grayson Sinclair (black authors fiction txt) 📕

The radiance within her chest grew in its brilliancy. It burned a hole right through her, taking her heart and most of her chest with its heat. Her screams died as the light entirely consumed her. Once more, I had to avert my eyes as the heat washed over me, taking away the chilled air that had surrounded me since I had come here. When it finally died away, nothing remained of the queen.

Nothing but ash.

Eris slumped against her chains in defeat. The remaining life seemed to drain out of her. She returned to stare at the ground, though tears dripped down her face. They landed on her dirt and bloodstained bare feet, washing away some of the grime that had accrued and dried on her legs.

A swirl of bright green smoke rose from the ash pile of what remained of the queen and drifted toward Eris. It flowed into her mouth, and she jerked, her eyes going wide. She panicked for a split second, before she paused, staring at the ashes of her mother.

The mages held a posture of superiority about them as they watched Eris sob. They weren’t satisfied with just the annihilation of her mother as guards marched over to the cage that held Eris. Her time had come.

The casters nodded at the soldiers next to her cage. They unlocked the chains and the door simultaneously. No longer held up by the chains, Eris fell to the ground and curled in on herself. She didn’t even put up a fight as she was dragged out of the cage by the men.

The mages started speaking to one another, but from the way their mouths moved, I could tell they were speaking normally, and not the convoluted language of Script. Though I could not hear what they were saying, the veil that prevented sound from reaching me had returned in full, and I was grateful for the reprieve.

As the soldiers dumped Eris on the ground right next to the spot where her mother was destroyed, she kept looking at the ashes as they drifted about in the breeze. She wouldn’t look up from the ground; one of the men yanked her by the hair to force her to show her face to the mages.

Her eyes were empty. The head mage spoke directly to Eris. She stared weakly at them, though she didn’t seem to be present enough to understand what the man was saying. The mage produced a crystal from within his robes and sat it on the ground in front of Eris. It was the same crystal that I had found in the loot room. This was the prison that Eris was sentenced to.

They quickly formed their circle around Eris, who wasn’t even chained, huddled on the ground. Uncaring.

The coven of mages all raised their arms in unison and began to chant once more. As they worked their way through the many different verses of Script, their hands started to pulsate with an obsidian mist. Heavy black clouds of smoke rose from their palms and drifted toward the ground.

As the first tendrils of mist reached the ground, they crept along drawn toward the crystal, and toward Eris. When the first cloud of smoke reached the crystal, it seemed to glow with ethereal light, but the light was continually drawn back into the void.

Once the first part of the ritual had been completed, the head mage spoke to one of the soldiers. A younger-looking dwarven male. He seemed to have some semblance of sympathy for Eris because he was gentle when he walked over to her and picked up one of her limp arms.

The young soldier drew a small knife from his belt; it was double-bladed and elegant in its construction. It was more ceremonial than functional, more of an athame than a dagger. He swiftly and as gentle as he could be, sliced a thin groove through her wrist. He moved her dripping arm over the crystal. A ruby red drop welled from her wrist and dripped onto the obsidian gem.

It hissed as it landed; smoke rose from within the crystal and devoured the blood. Once the drop was gone, the smoke changed color, now a verdant green. More dripped from her arm. Before it could land on the ground or the crystal, it changed. It shifted into the same green mist that rose from the dark glass.

Faster and faster, her blood turned to smoke. Then it reached her hand, and it too dissolved. It ate her away, slowly turning her entire body into a whirling green cloud, suspended in the air by magic. Then, as if the wisps were magnetized, it was drawn toward the crystal. The green and black smoke merged into one inside the shard of crystallized void.

All that remained of Eris or her mother was ash and a pretty bauble.

The head mage calmly walked over to the prison that housed Eris, picking up the gem and slipping it inside the folds of his robes while the rest of the coven drifted back out of the square. I was left alone, and the edge of my vision blurred one last time. Bringing an end to the memories.

My sight was slowly taken from me, plunging me into darkness, a place where light never shone.

I expected to be shown another memory, or be taken out of the hallucination, but neither happened. I stayed in the perpetual darkness for a very long time. What could have been hours or days passed in utter darkness. I felt, for a time, what Eris must have experienced for all those centuries, trapped in the void.

It made me see her in an entirely new light. Eris had endured more than any one person should ever have to bear, had gone through such tremendous pain. And yet she could still find the strength to smile. To hold out hope for love when