33 Risen#re

Lirian took deep breaths to calm himself, he'd been quiet these past days, bottling everything up inside, it was how he always done things in the past it was the only way he truly knew how to endure.

But currently he was glad about the anger, it was the first feeling he felt since Edith's death and it sure as hell beat whatever he'd been feeling since then.

He strode back to his room with his hands tucked in his pockets, and when he entered he found Anya already there, as Lirian shut the doors he pulled of the blindfold to see her sitting at the foot of his bed starring at him intently.

"Is there something you need?" Lirian asked but refused to make eye contact with her, she had been probing into things a lot over the past few days, asking him many questions that he wasn't ready to answer.

"You look better today," Anya commented, in the past few days Lirian had been completely downcast with an unbreakable air of gloom around him, but currently the gloom seemed to have lessened significantly and a greater range of emotions appeared on his face.

"Yes, well I'm angry," Lirian said plainly not explaining any further.

Anya sighed in exasperation, "Lirian I need you to explain to me what happened and what your plans are?"

"The elites from the families are one thing I can shrug them off all I want to but his majesty the emperor is also requesting your presence, you can't keep shrugging him off!" Anya complained to Lirian.

"If you don't want to open up that's fine but I need details, I've been threading lightly around Alastor, he doesn't seem to bothered about finding out how we got on the ship, but I don't even know what memory you planted in his head, how do I answer the elites questions and the emperors?" Anya continued to complain, because Lirian was not saying anything it even felt like Lirian was giving her the cold shoulder which frustrated her to no end.

"I planted a memory in Alastor's mind of him coming down to pick up the survivors," Lirian said plainly and sunk into a couch.

Then Lirian pulled out a ring from his pocket and tossed it to Anya, "That was everything that was on the leader of the zealots, show the items to the emperor he'll understand and tell him to continue the plan as scheduled, when you are done return the black disc to me, you can leave now," Lirian said and closed his eyes.

Anya clenched her fists in frustration seeing Lirian's attitude, she knew that she had to take the credit for capturing the zealots, it was all in the fake memories Lirian gave her, but she didn't know what some of the items were and Lirian showed no intention of sharing.

"Are you angry at me about something, is there a reason that you're treating me like empty air?" Anya asked with a fuming voice.

Lirian didn't respond for a while, but his next words only angered her even more, "Tell Alastor to put the fleet into dark mode, I don't want anyone discovering us before we arrive at the banquet."

Anya gritted her teeth together and stomped out of the room in anger, Lirian wasn't just treating her like empty air, no, he was treating her like some common servant.

She couldn't understand what the hell was going through his mind, she was the only one aware that the memories in her head were fake, which had to mean that Lirian trusted her to keep his secrets, but if he trusted her then why was he so cold to her, she couldn't understand him at all.

A short while later Anya was alone in a her room, when she contacted the emperor and took out the items in the ring, but amongst them their was only one that caught her eye a black disc, she couldn't tell what it did but she could tell from its aura that it was calamity grade.

The disc looked very ordinary which is why Anya was confused when the emperor was staring at it fixedly, with a great deal of anger.

"Your majesty, do you know what this is?" Anya probed sensing that it was a very complicated matter.

"All of those devices were supposed to have been destroyed," the emperor fumed he didn't need the AI to identify the submission disc, it was a cause of serious trouble during his first days as emperor.

An object that could enslave even seventh grader cultivators, a troubling object that came from a gods trial ground and that he went through great effort to find and destroy every disc like it.

He even got the other civilisations involved and they used their authority to find every last one in the universe.

"Why have you only found this now?" the emperor questioned Anya.

"It was hidden inside the zealot's body," Anya lied she was prepared for this question and this was the only answer she could give.

"Keep that object close and do not let anyone know about it at all," the emperor said seriously, "When you get to Xelia give it to your empress, she knows how to handle it," the emperor said and cut off the connection.

"Still no explanation," Anya complained after the called ended and looked at the disc, 'It's seems a little like an oath disc, but the feeling I get from it is slightly off,' Anya thought and gave it a light probe with her energy.

She immediately felt a connection from the disc to several people on the ship, and as she looked through it she found that the connections were linked to all the zealots that were currently locked up in the ship.

Anya felt power over them through the link, the power to completely control and dominate their thoughts and their every movement.

The power she held over them was intoxicating but it also terrified her, she quickly released the connection and put the disc away, "It's no wonder his majesty was so angry to see this," Anya muttered thoughtfully.

She wasn't around when the emperor first took his throne, but she did learn a few things from her comrades, and it her speculation was correct that disc must be one of the submission discs that was used to begin a rebellion, some very important figure were bound by the discs, and betrayed the empire.

It caused a great deal of chaos and many nobles were wrongly accused of betraying the empire, when the truth was found out that the nobles weren't traitors and they were controlled, it created a very bad image for the emperor at the time.

The nobles claimed that he should have investigated more before performing the executions, the entire thing was disaster, that the emperor probably wanted to forget.

---

Taliyah was dressed in a lovely golden dress that revealed her bronze shoulders and a lot of her lovely long legs.

She sat in front of her mirror as her hair was being braided into a crown on her head, a crown of black and white, having a child again Taliyah believed that her hair might return to it's usual full black, but none of that happened.

She figured it was because Lirian gave her far too much anxiety, the thing that she didn't expect was that her head of hair that was black and white became a trend amongst the nobles.

For the past few days numerous nobles had visited her and she meet many women whose hair resembled her own, but more than that she ended up meeting several lords that imitated her hair colour as well.

That was the thing about being the empress, if it was anyone else they would have called her change in hair colour a curse or a sign of bad health, which it was, but because she was the empress it became a new fashion trend.

Taliyah didn't mind it to much, the thing that she truly minded at that moment was the blaring trumpets that were sounding one after the other without stop for the past several hours.

There was a barker shouting out the names of the newly arrived nobles between the trumpets explosions of sound, but Taliyah couldn't hear the introductions, and she highly doubted that anyone else could, because every blast of the trumpets made her ears ring.

"Belinda would you please stop the sound from reaching my ears, it's frustrating," Taliyah complained to her aid.

Belinda lightly shook her head, she knew this was going to come eventually, her majesty always did hate the blaring trumpets, once she even partition for the trumpets to be changed to violins, but there was something about violins not being as attention grabbing as trumpets, which foiled her noble crusade.

With a flip of her hands the sound of the trumpets was drowned out and a relaxed smile appeared on Taliyah's face, only for a look of anxiousness to fill her face.

She got a call from her husband a few weeks ago, and from it she heard that Lirian had performed so exceptionally on the expedition that her husband called him personally, and from there they discussed a few things and Lirian decided to take the road of no return by challenging the unbeatable trial.

For that reason she had to throw a huge a banquet and many nobles from the different star zones were gathering here for the banquet and show.

Knowing Lirian, Taliyah believed that he could easy accomplish what no other had before, but her worry came from the news she received four days ago, the teleporters had trouble and it was said that it would only come back online today.

For that reason the teleporters were brought from the academy to the manor and set up in the gardens.

It was then that another blast of the trumpets went of, but it didn't affect Taliyah in the slightest, and this time she could hear the barker introducing the guest.

"Welcoming the former advisor of the emperor and the current headmaster of the Xelia academy, his excellency Telamon Dao!"