Year 500 BCE Kingdom of Siluria
The Kingdom was Siluria was at peace with all nations around them. They had the best army and most advanced weapon system in the world. The walls around the Silurian valley had grown weathered with time. They seemed no different from the adjoining cliff faces. The Silurian spies roamed among the humans, taking advantage of their lost humanity. The spies mostly consisted of human corpses brought back to life while their bodies were still warm by Silurian powers. The Aether Priestess had disappeared the morning after the curse was placed. Some suggested that she had surrendered her being to the ancients, a group of powerful Aetherruvians who had managed to cross-dimensional and temporal limitations. A journey to the Ancients was usually a one-way trip if you are not Belshazzar. He had made the trip quite early in his life, thereby mastering all powers. It was a pity to see the same Belshazzar reduced to the role of a child abuser. The sobbing was incessant. The ornate door was closed from the outside. The man in the golden mask stalked towards the room in a rage. His anger was mostly an expression of helplessness. In the middle of the room stood a four-poster bed covered with lavender drapes. It was his room but he wished to be anywhere but here. In the centre of the bed, a silver-blonde girl lay prone with her face buried in the mattress.
"Stop your whining child and accept this. You are not going to be treated unfairly, " he, insisted, intending to fulfil his word. He spoke perfect Aetherruvian as well as Silurian. However the girl screamed in a language that was not known to him If she could form a blood bond, communications would be far easier as they will be able to hear each other's thoughts. The girl looked up defiantly, her emerald eyes rimmed red with her tears. Her nose twitched with indignation at the sight of the golden mask that had become a symbol of hatred and terror in her family. "My mother told me that this would happen. You took her and now you came for me. What have we done to you?" she demanded.
"It doesn't have to be by force. I will make it as painless as possible. You will enjoy a lot of privileges being tied to me. If you wish you can return to your normal life as well." he promised, looking at the child and training his mind to see his future mate in the insolent brat.
"You think that I will give my purity to a monster like you? My mother did not go without a fight. How can you imagine that I will be any different?" the girl challenged. The term monster was something he had gro accustomed to. He was an anomaly. A Silurian fae or an Aetherruvian Royal, no matter how you said it, was a contradiction of sorts.
"Your mother didn't have to fight it either," he said, without wanting to give it any more thought. It was a painful memory. The girl resembled her mother. They all resembled each other and the sad thing was that he was attracted to each one of them. He had been lonely for already too long. By his age, his father was mated with his first child- him.
Out of the frustration of loneliness he knew wouldn't be removed by regret he snapped his finger and tendrils of violet light wrapped around the girl's limbs as the girl screamed in helplessness. His magic held her immobile and he reached out his hand to cover her mouth. He couldn't bear the screams for what was more than necessary. This was not the way in which a girl should lose her purity. Yet to make it most palatable to her he had to do it this way.
A few minutes later the servants heard the cries die down and the door to the King's chamber torn open and the King marched past towards the servant's quarters. Two of the yellow-cloaked servants came forward and closed the doorway after him, muffling the now imperceptible hiccups that came from the room.
The morning came with a fresh bout of crying and screaming. "Why are you here again?" the girl sobbed. She had fallen asleep towards the end of the night when she was sure that the monster would not return. Yet when she opened her eyes he stood before her in all his royal glory. She sat up and winced with the pain between her legs. A moment later she gasped noting the crimson stain that covered the sheets.
"Did your mother not tell you?" King Belshazzar wondered. "If you do not bear a child at the end of a month you will be let go and compensated, just as your mother was," he assured before he let out the tendrils of power once again to bind her. She did not object or cry out this time. She behaved no different from a corpse.
Belshazzar left the girl tied up in his power. He didn't trust her not to escape. The first time he brought one of Aesther's descendants to discover the bond she jumped from the window, maiming herself for life. She was not the One however and he regretted it.
He sat on his throne, deep in thought. The woman in purple robes came near her. "I don't think it is her," he confessed. "You don't have any way to know, my son. I wish you were pure blooded, then all you would need was a taste, like your father," she informed.
Belshazzar smirked. "A lot of good it did to you. You were separated for forty years after it." Belshazzar remembered growing up without knowing his father. To him, the man protecting his mother at all times was all the father he needed. When he was instructed by the Northern Colonies to leave the colony land, Jessie chose to go with him and they roamed the plains of the human world for almost two decades before being captured in a nearby kingdom and returned to Siluria. Apparently, Belshazzar resembled the Silurian King and was hired to be his body double in case of an attack by the enemies. It was much later that it was discovered exactly why they resembled each other so much.
The Aether Queen once belonged to the enemy and his father, the the-then king had assumed that she left for that purpose. Now she was the queen mother of Siluria and putting the Kingdom before anything else. "I just wish that if we found a way to loosen the curse, if you could at least feel the sparks, then you could be more confident." she surmised.
"I don't like violating these children, mother. What have I become?" the King spoke helplessly. The Aether Queen noticed the redness of his eyes and knew that her son had been weeping again.
"You can't do this every time. You can't put your feelings before the Kingdom. You have responsibilities as the King." she scolded, failing to hide the hitch in her own voice.
"I wonder if Siluria wouldn't be better without a cursed King. Father should take the responsibility and once the baby is born, he can be made heir," he suggested.
"I had a vision that it is a girl, Belly." the mother confided.
The king's eyes changed from misery to love. "The Silurians will not accept a girl as heir to the throne, son." the mother continued.
The king nodded. "Can you try for a son, the next time, mother?" he asked miserably.
"You will definitely meet her before that son," the mother said confidently.
King Belshazzar shook his head. "I wouldn't get my hopes up yet. This is the fifth one. Aesther wouldn't let me go that easy."