Dynasty of Evil Read Online Free PDF

will always love you, and whatever happens you will always be my daughter.”
    I am Caleb’s daughter , she thought to herself, still idlyflipping through the hangers of her wardrobe. I am strong, just like my father .
    She finally selected a pair of dark pants and a blue top, emblazoned with the insignia of the Doan royal family … a gift from her husband. She missed him, too, though it was different than it was with her father. Caleb had sent her away, but Gerran had been taken from her by the rebels.
    As she dressed, Serra tried not to think of her crown prince. The pain was too sharp, his assassination too recent. The miners responsible for the attack were still out there … but not for much longer, she hoped.
    A soft knock at the door interrupted her train of thought.
    “Come in,” she called out, knowing only one person could be at the door of her private chambers this early in the morning.
    Her personal bodyguard, Lucia, entered the room. At first glance the soldier was unremarkable: a fit, dark-skinned woman in her early forties with short, curly black hair. But beneath the fabric of her Royal Guard uniform it was possible to catch glimpses of hard, well-defined muscles, and there was an intensity in her eyes that warned she was not someone to be taken lightly.
    Serra knew that Lucia had fought during the New Sith Wars twenty years ago. A sniper in the famed Gloom Walkers unit, she had actually served on the side of the Brotherhood of Darkness, the army that fought against the Republic. But as Caleb had explained to his daughter on many occasions, the soldiers who served in the conflict were far different from their Sith Masters.
    The Sith and Jedi were fighting an eternal war over philosophical ideals, a war her father had wanted no part of. For the average soldiers who made up the bulk of the armies, however, the war was about something else. Those who rallied to the Sith cause—men andwomen like Lucia—did so out of the belief that the Republic had turned its back on them. Disenfranchised by the Galactic Senate, they had fought a war to free themselves from what they saw as the tyrannical rule of the Republic.
    They were ordinary people who became victims of forces beyond their control; expendable pawns to be slaughtered in battles waged by those who believed themselves to be great and powerful.
    “How did you sleep?” Lucia asked, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind her to ensure their privacy.
    “Not well,” Serra admitted.
    There was no point in lying to the woman who had been her near-constant companion for the past seven years. Lucia would see right through it.
    “The nightmares again?”
    The princess nodded, but didn’t say any more. She had never revealed the content of her nightmares—or her true identity—to Lucia, and the older woman respected her enough not to ask about it. They both had dark times in their past that they preferred not to talk about; it was one of the things that had drawn them together.
    “The king wishes to speak with you,” Lucia informed her.
    For the king to send for her so early, it had to be important news.
    “What does he want?”
    “I think it has something to do with the terrorists who killed your husband,” her bodyguard replied, picking up a delicate black veil from its stand in the corner of the room.
    Serra’s heart jumped, and her fingers fumbled over the last button on her top. Then she regained control of her emotions, and stood perfectly still as the older womanplaced the veil atop her head. According to Doan custom, Serra was required to wear the mourning shroud for a full year following her husband’s death … or until her beloved was avenged.
    Lucia moved with practiced precision, quickly tying up Serra’s long black hair and pinning it in place under the veil. The soldier was only average height—slightly shorter than her mistress—so Serra bent slightly to accommodate her.
    “You’re a princess,” Lucia chided her.