Legends of Amacia Heart of Darkness

An hour after Selina fell asleep in the Harem, Selina woke with a gasp, bolting to a sitting position; panic in her eyes. She looked around wildly while Sakura gently grabbed Selina by her arm. “Selina...it’s okay, calm down,” Sakura begged.

Selina’s heart thundered in her chest, making her ribs throb painfully. A groan escaped her lips as she grabbed her ribs, collapsing back down on the pillows she had been lying against, tears streaming from her eyes while gasping for breath.

Izanami and Myra, who stood vigil over Chizu, saw Selina’s suddenly violent awakening and came to her side. Taking Selina by the hand, Izanami stroked it softly, saying in a velvety soft voice, “Calm down, sister. Breathe.”

Selina’s breath steadied as her pain lessened. She covered her eyes with one hand and moaned, “What in heaven’s name was that? It was so bizarre and alien I doubt my sanity. Such a thing cannot be! It can’t!”

“Tell us, sister,” Izanami cooed, holding Selina’s hand. “What woke you with such a panic? You looked like someone who had seen something that had scared her to death.”

“I don’t understand,” Selina whimpered. “What’s going on? Why am I feeling this from Hannibal? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like he’s changing somehow.” Her eyes grew wide as she suddenly ceased to sense Hannibal at all. “No…don’t leave me here, Hannibal. Please don’t leave me here by myself!” she cried fearfully.

“What’s going on?” Tasha asked, walking up after hearing the commotion.

“Something’s interfering with Selina’s connection to her husband,” Izanami answered. “It has to be. Selina…Selina!” Izanami took Selina by both hands and looked her in the eye. “You don’t have to bear this alone,” she insisted. “Let us in. We’re your sisters and can help you bear this if you only let us.”

Selina looked into Izanami’s eyes and peace fell over Selina’s troubled mind. “That’s it; calm yourself, Selina,” Izanami murmured. “Tell us what you saw and felt. I can tell some kind of bizarre dream or vision has taken you. If you don’t share it, it’ll poison you and destroy your light. You mustn’t let that happen.”

Selina squeezed Izanami’s hands while calming down. “Thank you, sister,” Selina finally croaked out between the subsiding sobs. “I don’t understand what’s happening here. Something truly bizarre has happened to my husband. I can feel it. And now, it’s like he’s dropped off the face of the earth. I can’t feel his presence at all.”

Myra moved in beside Selina on the right, putting her arm around Selina. “It’s okay, Selina. Just tell us about it, if you can,” she cooed.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Selina moaned, leaning into Myra for emotional support. “I was sleeping fairly well and then something intruded into my mind, something so dark and alien I couldn’t comprehend it. It had to have been a dream of some kind. I saw Hannibal strapped into a machine of some kind that slowly changed him into a woman. He was in agony as it happened. I felt his mind slipping away, becoming lost to me as the image of him faded away. Then there was this terrible laughter that I think was the Emperor. God, what’s happening to him? The last image I had of him was of him being completely turned into one of us before vanishing into oblivion; his mind and body lost in the darkness.” Selina sobbed softly, “I feel like I’ve lost him forever.”

Myra looked at Izanami in astonishment, saying, “Sister…the prophecy; it’s happening.”

“Selina, look at me,” Izanami ordered. “You need to share this pain with me. Let me see it through your eyes. Please lend me your memories, sister.” Izanami reached out and touched Selina on the temple.

Selina suddenly reached out and touched Izanami’s temples with both hands. “Help me with this, sister,” Selina begged. “I can’t deal with this alone. It’s too bizarre and frightening to believe. Help me, please!”

By now, Selina had once again become the center of attention. Jasmine, Jennifer, Tasha, Lola, Trinity, and Hitomi rushed to her as the others gathered around.

Selina opened her mind to Izanami, sharing the terrible dream with her. Izanami gasped in horror for a moment. A grim look crossed her face as she said, “I see your pain, sister. You have not seen this type of evil before, but I have. Do not let it shake you and your faith, sister. This nightmare is of the Emperor and his wicked Cadre. They mean to break your mind and spirit with these terrible visions. Don’t let them. Even if such a heinous horrid dream comes true, your man is not lost forever. That which the Emperor takes away, your God can restore. You must believe in your man and your God.”

Selina closed her eyes and touched her forehead to Izanami’s forehead. In a relieved voice, she sobbed, “Thank you. Thank you for showing me how to deal with this darkness and its vile visions, sister. I really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome, my feline sister,” Izanami replied softly. “I know about this kind of telepathic assault. I have endured it on a regular basis, and have become accustomed to the dark vile visions of this place. This is just the beginning. You must draw on your strength and faith in your God and in your man. Neither of them will leave you here to rot like the rest of us.”

Selina let go of Izanami, breaking telepathic contact. A deep, troubled sigh rose from her toes. “It came so suddenly out of nowhere,” she stated. “Can the Emperor truly do that to him? Can he turn Hannibal into a woman for real?”

Izanami held Selina’s hands and looked her in the eye. “The Emperor is a demon king capable of anything,” she declared ominously. “With the science and dark technology of his Cadre, he can do anything he wants to anyone, mutating them, even changing or stripping them of their sex, their species, even their very minds and lives. Nothing is beyond his infernal mind and imagination.”

A gasp escaped Selina’s lips as she remembered the visions and other telepathic assaults on her and Hannibal. The Black Prince’s face fluttered in the shadows of her mind. “You’re right. I’d almost forgotten. Hannibal and I have seen the Emperor’s true form before and you’re right, he is a most powerful demon lord.”

Everyone’s eyes grew wide as Selina added, “The bastard has attacked us repeatedly with psychic attacks and nightmares since we came to this cursed underworld. The last time, which was just before we were captured in Cush, he nearly killed us with an assault in our dreams. That’s one of the reasons my ribs are so messed up. He tried to crush Hannibal and me at a strange colossal stone fortress in a desert somewhere. I know not where it was.”

A vicious growl arose from Selina as she realized what she just endured was yet another psychic attack. “Damn him,” she hissed, “He’s done it again. Well, I’m not going to stand for it any more. I’m not going to let him break me. I’ll fight that bastard until I’m dead or he leaves us alone.”

“Careful, Selina,” Myra warned, “The Emperor can have your head at the snap of his fingers. You must be clever in your war with him.”

“Myra’s right,” Izanami stated. “When he assaults you like this again, and he will, don’t let it shake you, but make him think he’s making progress. I know you despise lying, but you must deceive him. Regardless of what he does, I think it’s time you hear the prophecy about the Promised One as we know it, the One known as the Last Caverias.”

“But I already know it,” Selina replied, her nerves having settled at this point. “We saw it on the way into these caverns, and then Nicodemus told us about it in Arionath.” Selina then recounted what she had heard in reference to the prophecy. “But Nicodemus admitted he thought the version he had was incomplete,” she added.

“Indeed, it is,” Izanami stated, sitting down cross-legged in front of Selina. “Apparently, the entire prophecy was not kept in one place, but separated into pieces and scattered to the four winds in the 1st Age so no one, including the Emperor, would know exactly how it could come about. In order to have the whole prophecy, the seekers of the prophecy must find all the pieces of the prophecies and put them together like a puzzle. In Myria, we had a piece of the prophecy. I’ll tell it as I remember it. It said the Promised One...the Last Caverias would come from the outer world with his Celestial Mate and ten of his own guided by the Ancient of Days while pursued by an old enemy and an enemy who wasn’t his enemy. Once here, he would be caught in a trap set by the old enemy and brought before the Emperor with his mate from the stars.”

Selina’s eyes grew wide in astonishment as Izanami spelled out a version of the prophecy that seemed to mirror precisely major parts of what had happened since they entered the caverns. “Once taken before the Emperor, the Prophesied One...the Last Caverias would be separated from his Celestial Mate, who would be condemned to a life of intimate slavery to the Emperor and his vile appetites. At the same time, the Last Caverias would be taken and altered...mutated into his gendered opposite in an effort to destroy him,” Izanami recounted. “He would become, as you saw in the psychic assault, a woman at the hands of the Emperor, tortured as a woman to break his will and spirit, sent to his Harem, and then condemned to the Arena to die.”

Tears filled Selina’s eyes as her heart crashed into her numbed feet. Seeing and sensing the despair rising on her face, Izanami continued, “But before you give up all hope, know that the gods and Fate herself has other plans for the great mutated warrior. He fights in the Arena as a woman and unlocks dormant abilities he’d long forgotten...incredibly potent abilities of the mind and Elemental Earth, allowing him to not just survive, but also escape from under the Emperor’s nose with the help of some very unlikely allies. While free, he discovers the means to return himself to his original form, does so, and comes back for his wife trapped in the Harem along with anyone else who wished to leave. In doing so, he strikes a major blow against the Emperor, physically wounding him in his own house. It’s not clear whether he would reverse his mutation first or rescue his mate first. We must wait to see which it is. The prophecy isn’t clear on that part. That’s where the Myrian piece of the prophecy stops.

“So see, things are in motion that even the Emperor cannot control. Fate and the Ancient of Days are influencing the fate of not just your husband, but of all of us, and there’s nothing the Emperor and his dark infernal backers can do about it. Your man is far from finished. He will make the Emperor pay for his crimes against us as the very hand of the Almighty Ancient of Days. You must believe in him and the Ancient of Days who guides his steps. ”

Selina stared in stunned silence for a few moments. A small familiar voice within her who had remained quiet since Selina’s capture, urged her to pay attention to Izanami’s words. Hope sprang anew on her face. “So even if the bastard does somehow change my husband into a woman like the dream showed, it’ll not last,” Selina replied carefully, trying to understand the ancient prophecy.

“That’s if the prophecy is true,” Izanami stated. “At this point, the only way we will know for sure is he turns up in here as a woman. Then we will know that the rest of the prophecy is true.”

Selina sighed, saying, “But I don’t want to see my husband changed into a woman. I love him as he is.”

“And you’ll love him even if he is changed,” Myra observed. “You love him too much to be turned away by something like that. Did you not say that you snared him with your mind and gentle spirit? You have a love for him that transcends his physical form and sex and goes into the depths of your very souls. Soul mates know each other no matter what form they may take.”

“You’re right,” Selina admitted. “He’s my one and only and I would love him regardless of whether he was a man, woman, or even an animal. I would know my kindred spirit and soul mate no matter what form he took on. Our love is that deep.”

“Cling to that love and use it against the Emperor,” Izanami stated. “It’s something that’s alien to him, and I suspect may be the source of his downfall.” A noise came from the far side of the Harem, getting everyone’s attention and interrupting the conversation.