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of all help him. But the feeling turned to fear… Be wary, he’s a lethal man and an assassin, he admits it himself. Those thoughts kept her on guard but she could not help these new emotions from stirring inside her. Sleep overcame her mind. She tried to reject it, but the night was calm and she was tired, so tired… And the presence of the Assassin at her side comforted her, filled her with warmth…
    She was swallowed up in the world of dreams.
    Firm hands over her mouth and shoulder woke her. She opened her eyes, startled, and they met the slanted black eyes of her companion. He whispered in her ear, “He’s discovered it. They’re coming up. We must leave.”
    Iruki jumped to her feet at once and cursed between gritted teeth. She turned and pointed inside the cave.
    “That way,” and she lunged into it.
    Into the Cave of No Return.

Dark Power
     
     
     
    The emissary knelt before the Dark Lady. Without even daring to raise his eyes to her, he stretched out the hand that held the dusty message. Isuzeni looked at his Queen: Yuzumi, sitting in a heavy marble throne which emphasized her beauty, did not even look at the emissary. She simply waved at one of her loyal Moyuki to hand her the message.
    Yuzumi broke the seal of the parchment. Her eyes read avidly, as was her custom. Her pale, beautiful face —the most astounding Isuzeni had ever seen— remained calm, like a lake of deep black water. All the same, Isuzeni detected a tiny twitch of his lady and mistress’s eye-brow. As her Royal Counselor and High Priest of the Cult of Imork, Lord of the Dead, he was alert to the slightest anomaly. Unconsciously he straightened his body, then leaned on his staff and moved away from the emissary.
    The Queen, now Empress of the whole continent of Toyomi by right of conquest and blood, cast a spell on the emissary who knelt before her with a whip-like wave of her right arm and words of power. Isuzeni recognized at once the intense, dark flash which the Empress’s power gave out. A black cloud took shape in the air and enveloped the kneeling soldier, who began to scream desperately as his body was consumed by the spell. The body of the wretched emissary began to be sucked dry until everything liquid, everything alive, had been drained from it. In a matter of seconds, what had been a healthy, vigorous body had dwindled to nothing more than a mummified silhouette. The screams went on until all life had been consumed, leaving only dried skin and bones.
    The Dark Lady snapped her fingers, her long black nails shining like her jet-black hair, and two guards removed the corpse. The poor messenger had brought bad news and had then been consumed by a necromancer’s spell of the highest level. This woman was as cruel as she was beautiful. She turned her head and fixed her eyes on Isuzeni.
    The High Priest’s heart skipped a beat. He was aware of his own danger. The Empress turned on him an inscrutable look of such force it was almost tangible. Fear and uneasiness filled him, so that he did not know what to say. He lowered his head and waited for his Mistress to address him, praying meanwhile to Imork to save him from being consumed by her overwhelming power.
    “Isuzeni…” she said in a velvet voice.
    The Priest felt a chill run down his back as if a water snake were crawling over him.
    “High Priest… I am informed that the Marked is still alive.”
    “I don’t know what could have happened. I don’t understand how he could have survived,” said the highest representative of the Cult of Imork, fully aware that his Mistress did not accept failure.
    “The news has caused me great unease, as you can well imagine.”
    Isuzeni looked at her. The brightness of her eyes showed the fury inside her, although the exquisite face remained absolutely calm.
    “What’s happened, my Lady? The task was entrusted to an agent whose success was guaranteed.”
    “That might have been the case, but despite that, success was not achieved