Revenant Slaves Chapter 21: Chapter 20: Ash

Read chapter 21 of Revenant Slaves by Zee on NovelPedia.

Chapter 20: Ash Ash stared at the Silver Princess as she came to life on the black plains and the orange-streaked skies of Mortrum. This projection of her felt so real that he thought he might be able to touch her if he reached out. The backdrop to the projection was the erupting volcanoes of Mortrum, giving her image an unmatched aura. The Princess, beautifully dressed in her signature silver colors, was over a hundred meters tall, her voice carrying flawlessly across the empty valley outside the settlement. And as he looked around, he witnessed the same longing and anticipation in thousands of other faces that his face undoubtedly showed. His people had come out in droves like never before to witness their princess. Slaves and their ensalvers, segregated in the gathering but joined by their awe and reverence, watched as she strode among the elite of their universe. Envious of the people in the projected room for seeing her in person. They all rejoiced as she met up with her siblings, the way she started with her youngest, and their smiles turned to furious disapproval as she moved on to her elders. They grew nervous as she met her mother. Parents and siblings held their young ones close as the little sister she carried mispronounced her name and hid her head in the princess’s embrace. The disapproval returned when her mother suggested that she be more like her father. A voice was raised calling for her father to be more like her instead. The crowd grew silent as Lord Whiterock appeared. To him, even the sovereigns were like slaves. The crowd followed the Silver Princess as she spotted a young girl getting harassed. The slaves stared with stony faces, while some of the enslavers looked away in shame. Both sides had seen too much of this kind of cruelty before. Yelps rose, and the fear spread among the gathered crowd as they saw the terrible power of a noble, a boy, no older than the Princess, who willed the servant’s arm to break, and it did. They were all as stunned as the boy on screen when the Silver Princess slapped him across the face. All hell broke loose as he attacked the princess directly, and she tossed him aside as if he was nothing, and went to check on the servant girl. “It will be alright”, echoed loudly from the princess’s lips; it was louder than everything else said by the projection. Ash felt like she had whispered it to him personally. The scene progressed impossibly slowly, mesmerizing everyone. Ash wasn’t a big believer in things beyond his control, but he wanted to believe the Princess’s words then; he wanted to believe the pain and hurt in her eyes as she saw the servant, as she would see him someday. He would burn the empire to protect her, the same way he would to protect Rain. Ash’s eyes opened wide. As hard as it was, he tore his gaze away from the projection of the Silver Princess and looked around frantically, at the thousands of his people all mesmerized by the same scene. ‘Where is Zain?’ The mood in the crowd shifted; expressions of bliss turned to fear and agony. He looked back to see the same noble rising from the ground, his terrible will now focused on the Princess, hurting her. That wasn’t supposed to happen; the nobles couldn’t be hurt. Yet the princess struggled, to no avail; she was as helpless as that servant had been. He kept hurting her until she screamed in terrible agony. Ash was stunned, his hands clenched into tightly balled fists. He remembered Zain’s words, ‘ This might be the last broadcast we ever get from the Silver Princess.’ ‘No, it can’t be…’ Ash desperately wished it. He didn’t want to see the princess die today. He couldn’t. That same disbelief painted the faces of the people around him. Ash and those around him breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Princess collapsed on the ground, no longer affected by whatever the other noble had done to her. She might be hurt, but she was alive. Ash shared in the collective silence as the same pain afflicting their beloved P