IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS...
After a long travel from the Tower of the Sun, Princess Eluan finally managed to reach the court of Duchess Sung of Hadun, and to deliver her the letter written by her sister, Queen Hailey, in which she requests to gather the armies to face the threat of the Night Lord, as she has been divinely warned through her dreams.
In the North, in the meanwhile, the armies of the enslaved Queen Artemis are starting to move. After having consulted with the High Priestess and his lover Meghane, expressing to her his concerns about the mental status of the Queen, General Bardas is leading his land army eastward, with the goal of putting to siege the rival city of Heath Hill. And on the island of Coral Cove, Admiral Nyphoros is working to recruit a pirate fleet which can bring destruction to the Kingdom of the South and the Duchy of Hadun specifically...
https://www.literotica.com/s/daughter-of-the-sun-ch-08
https://www.literotica.com/s/daugther-of-the-sun-ch-10
https://www.literotica.com/s/daughter-of-the-sun-ch-11
***
The corridors of the Royal Palace of Troygrove were deserted and dark at that late hour of the night, completely silent apart from the almost eerie crackling of the lit torches hanging on the walls, inserted into their thick iron rings.
Octavia stalked barefoot down the corridor, the pupils of her beautiful amaranth eyes fully dilated as she peered intently into the semi-darkness, moving slowly and without making any sound, seeking shelter in the points where the shadows were deepest, close to the walls and behind the thick marble columns which supported the high ceiling.
It was the third consecutive night that she ventured to explore the corridors and the halls of the Palace looking for evidences, residual traces of something dark and evil, as she had been instructed by the High Priestess Meghane, the same day she had returned to Troygrove from her previous mission.
"General Bardas came to secretly confer with me a few days ago," the High Priestess of Neryss, whose eyes were so strangely similar to hers, had told her, receiving Octavia in her private apartments, inside the Great Temple of the Goddess of the Seas and of the Oceans.
With enormous shock, Octavia had learned from the lips of her leader about the tragic events that had occurred during the days of her absence from the city; the sudden imprisonment of Princess Alanor inside the Kraken Tower, the consequent resumption of the war against the city of Heath Hill, the order issued by Queen Artemis to forcibly recruit the Sirens, the sacred singers of the Temple with ethereal and mesmerizing voices, into the army.
"The General suspects that our Queen may have been subjugated by dark forces," the High Priestess had continued, looking at her gravely, "and that she may have undertaken these actions in obedience to the command of some external will. Who or what may have done this remains unknown to us, but it is my intention to find out. I need to request for your intervention."
Octavia had listened in silence, while a knot had tightened in her throat.
"I will send you to the Palace," Meghane had then concluded. "Officially your role will be that of Attendant of the Royal Chapel, replacing sister Iacinthya, who unfortunately has been forced to join the group of Sirens who had left with General Bardas. But your actual task will be to find out if anything obscure had really happened within those walls. And, if possible, also to find out what became of Princess Alanor."
Octavia had nodded, accepting the mission. At only twenty years old of age, the raven-haired girl was already one of the most experienced and capable exorcists and healers among all the priestesses of Neryss. Orphan of both parents, raised since birth within the walls of the temple where she had been abandoned by umknown hands, her enormous talents had taken very little time to reveal themselves. It was certainly no coincidence that Meghane had chosen her for that delicate task.
"There's one more thing," Meghane had added, a moment before Octavia had crossed the treshold of her apartments. "Also Dalila has departed with the General's army."
"Dalila?" Octavia had repeated, shocked by such news. "But she is not a Siren. She is just a simple attendant of the Temple."
"I know," the High Priestess had replied, and Octavia had thought to spot a fleeting look of guilty remorse in her eyes. "But there were other reasons that made necessary to send her. I just wanted to tell you."
To Octavia, Dalila had always been more than a best friend. The same age as her, an orphan and raised since childhood at one of the temples of Neryss like her, to both of them had been assigned the surname given by custom to foundlings, Seaborn, born from the sea. All of such similiarities in their lifes had contributed to making them feel almost like sisters. The shock of Dalila's departure and the concern for the fate of her beloved friend had never left Octavia's heart for the next few days.
The crystal pendant she wore, hanging around her neck on a silver chain, occasionally emitted some purple glow, an unmistakable sign of residual traces of black magic present in the surrounding environment. It was her inseparable instrument as exorcist, a mystical object capable of revealing the presence of evil and invisible entities and energies around.
They were stronger traces than those she had detected in the previous two nights. During the first night she had explored the westernmost wing of the Palace, the one closest to the Royal Chapel and to the Library, and where the room assigned to her was also located. During the second one, she had ventured into the eastern wing, usually reserved to the servants and guards' quarters. But it was here, in the southern wing, the one closest to the Queen's private chambers, that the crystal's signals were most vivid and intense.
"Something has definitely happened here," she thought, her growing sense of uneasiness sending a cold shiver through her body. "Something dark and evil."
"This sneaking of yours around the corridors of the Palace at this late hour of the night," a male voice suddenly spoke from behind her, making her jump in fright. "It's extremely suspicious."
Octavia whirled around, holding her breath. A soldier, wearing the orange cloak of the Palace Guard over a bronze armor, emerged from the shadows. He was a young man with a vigorous and robust appearance, tall and broad-shouldered, with a clean-shaven face and thick blond hair. In his right hand he was holding an unsheathed short sword.
"Stop where you are, and raise your hands," the man ordered her.
Octavia did as she was told, cursing within herself her bad luck and her lack of attention. She knew that she would have needed to act with the utmost caution now, carefully weighing every single word to avoid definitively compromising her mission, now hanging by a thin thread.
"I'm unarmed," she said softly.