The Books of the Shadows II - The Broken House

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Some might say that only after he met his mate, Sheng Zung became the tyrant of today, but this is not true, and the truth is only known to those close to him, which are not many. He was an untamed child from the very beginning, and he remained so for a long time. He always got into trouble, because he did not obey the king's orders and he would always get punished for it. He always harassed his younger brothers who had not inherited the physical, robust constitution of their father, like him. He was the perfect soldier of the realm and he knew it.

His hair fell long in black waves over his shoulders, always perfectly combed on his back, perfect as everything he would do, actually. The knee-length linen black shirt always embraced the perfect muscles that stood out, catching the eye and distracting both women and men when he was passing by. 

His eyes were as deep blue as the ocean, but just as cold and cruel as the predators that dwell in the deep waters. He knew no mercy, and he had no weakness.

He was tall and possessed the power of mind control. With a single glance he aimed at his enemies, he could penetrate their minds to find the information he needed and he could use. Mind control was, in fact, one of the powers of the Warchild House, and he controlled it almost to perfection.

It is known that, when the shadow finds its mate, it really becomes freer, wilder. Of course, we can rather see this part of non-taming as a passion for him, because whatever he did, he did it well, almost from the first time, every time. And when Sheng Zung met his mate, he married her against the orders of his father, who for this very reason, disinherited him. It was only his mother that saved him from execution, because his mate was a pure-blooded shadow from the House of Diplomats.

This was the only wrong move Sheng Zung made in his entire life. To take a wife against the king's orders, from the house of Nobody, as the Diplomats were someone who did not have the right to have power in the kingdom. They did not have the right to exercise the slightest influence, and on top of that not the influence of a prince. That must have been the moment that he turned crazy, because his saruman found his mate, which must have made him lose his mind in order to decide to take her as his mate.

It is known that, when the saruman demon reaches the surface and finds his mate, the shadow body also changes internally, chemically also in thinking and feeling.

After consuming his Union in secret and without his father- the king's blessing and consent, they were found and upon hearing the news, the king became so angry that he killed the newlywed new daughter-suppose-to-be, throwing the prince behind bars. When he learned of his wife's death, in the dungeons under the palace, his saruman darkened to pitch black and attacked the other two prisoners who were his guards from the very beginning, but who had practically betrayed him and now sharing his faith too. Those killings frightening them all.

That is the day when he really changed and lost any trace of the light he had within, if he ever had some in the first place. That was the day when he started plotting against the king, his father. So at first, when he started the cold war, and killed all his brothers and sisters, he made himself remain the only option to the throne. 

And if you think it has satisfied him with just that, well, he soon challenged his father to a duel. 

He was brilliant, and gave the king a final blow by making him appear weak in front of his generals first, and they all rejected him. Allies or not, no one wants to submit to a weak king, and they all turned against him and retreated their support, which led to the fight for the throne that he had won. And that is how king Sheng Zung started his ruling. At only 26 years old. 

At first, he gathered around him his elite squads, in order to have the protection his father lacked. That alone allowed him to take advantage of his weaknesses and defeat him in the first place. So Sheng Zung built his defense slow and secure and it was all he prioritized for years. No one would take him by surprise as he did to his father. 

He also did not marry, knowingly breaking the old laws which stipulated that the king, once ascended the throne, should marry and bring in the bloodline heirs to secure the kingdom. The mate, his mate, was gone, and he had no interest nor intentions in taking just any other woman as a wife for himself. 

Within the next years, he just worked on undermining the influence of the house strong enough to claim the throne, the House of the Shadows Assassins, the one the first kings rose first. 

Their territory was in the south, and there were 5 fortresses at that time, which stretched along the southern borderline. At first, as they were the best scouts of the shadow world he used them as scouts. Then, he increased the taxes and the upkeep of the army. After some while, he established martial law and took away the right of all the Lords to own a private army, which led them to dismiss most of their army. That left most of them undefended and weak, but also gave all the power to the king and his favors. 

The new king even planned to send his men to assassinate the fiercest old Lord of the house of the Assassins. Why? Because he seemed to have become problematic, trying to challenge the king's decisions and always interfering... The young king was already bored... His men were instructed to make everything look like a suicide, making the blame fall upon anyone who would show signs of any thirst for blood, and some questions about their past, turned all the plans upside down. Nobody knew what really happened to him.

But the Lord had three sons left, and they were occupying the best cities in the south, as they were the Lord of the Lundun, the Lord of Hisa, and the Lord of Beranbur. He also left behind two young daughters, unmarried, which owned the other two fortresses at the southern border.

In order to control the southern territories, and disguise in front of all the "appreciation" for the Lord of the House of Shadow Assassins, Sheng Zung declared himself responsible for the destiny of the two Ladies, and contrary to the interests of their house he forcibly married them in the House of the Sun. Although the two fortresses in the south belonged to them and no one takes the land of a shadow woman, they passed into their husbands' house along with them both.

Even before Sheng Zung came to the throne, the House of the Shadow Assassins was not amongst the favorites in any king's eyes for what it actually represented was the danger of a golden dynasty that could arise at any moment from the mud in which it had sunk. 

Their Saruman demon's colors were blue or green and most of them were known to give camouflage and agility powers. They were the scouts of the kingdom; the perfect spies of the shadow world, and this combined with their fighting skills and the royal blood giving them claim to the throne made them the perfect enemy of the king.

If at first, they were loyal, the kings' attempts to weaken them in time led them to rebellion, so the southern territories were quite wild. The only way to tame the Lords of the House of Shadow Assassins, was to marry their women to other houses to control future births and send their young male heirs in missions from which they would never return.

This is the story of the broken house of the Shadow's Assassins, the greatest one that gave the first kings and it's now on the verge of extinction.