Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1597  Morning Gathering

Felicity walked.

Morgana followed.

Her legs moved without her permission. Each step was smooth, obedient, and completely outside her control, and no matter how hard she willed them to stop, they carried her forward through the corridor as if her will was a suggestion her body had already declined.

'Stop. Stop walking. My legs answer to ME!'

Her legs disagreed.

Felicity didn't look back. She moved through the mansion's hallways with the confidence of someone who'd lived here for months, turning corners without hesitation, nodding to servants who smiled at her as a respected ally of their lord, not a nation's princess.

"You will release me." Morgana's voice was hard, the tone she used on ministers who forgot their station. "Whatever this binding is, it cannot hold an Elemental Sovereign of my level indefinitely. My mana channels will recover. My resistances will adapt. And when they do-"

"They won't."

Felicity said it the way someone corrects a child who insists the sun is green. Gentle. Final.

"Mom, you really don't understand what you're dealing with."

Morgana's teeth ground together.

They reached a set of double doors that opened onto the grounds outside. The morning air hit Morgana's face, cool and tinged with dew, and for a moment the beauty of the estate registered despite everything. Green lawns, trimmed hedges, a stone courtyard framed by old growth trees whose canopy filtered the dawn light into golden columns.

Then she saw him.

Quinlan Elysiar stood at the center of the courtyard.

His arms hung at his sides. His gaze was fixed on the treeline past the estate walls. He wore no armor, just simple dark clothing. The wind moved through his hair and he didn't react to it.

Women surrounded him.

They arrived from every direction. From the mansion's side doors, from the grounds, from the garden paths that connected the estate's buildings. One by one and in pairs, they crossed the yard and took positions near the man at its center with the wordless coordination of people who'd done this before.

None of them spoke.

Morgana recognized some from intelligence reports. The white-haired woman with crimson tattoos. The petite samurai whose crystal blue eyes swept the grounds once before settling. A blonde elf whose celestial glow made it clear she was a healer type. A muscular redhead, rumored to be the strongest of the harem members alongside the Hexwitch.

Cold and ready. All of them.

These women had been forced to retreat from a battle while leaving one of their own behind. The grief had hardened into resolve. A few glanced at one another, and in those glances Morgana saw shared fury. No one was looking for blame.

They were here because the man at the center had returned, and every one of them had felt it.

A dark-haired girl with a sword at her hip arrived from the eastern path. Oriental features, young, sharp-eyed. She fell into step beside Felicity and her mouth split into a grin.

"Morning. Your mom-"

Felicity's glare could have frozen a campfire.

"Shush, Jiai. Not interested."

"You don't even know what I wanted to say!"

"Let's keep it that way, shall we?"

The grin widened. Feng Jiai said nothing else, but her eyes danced between Felicity and Morgana with the delight of someone who'd just been handed the best joke of the year.

Morgana's composure held as she cataloged everything. Faces, positions, body language, power levels she could sense.

Her legs stopped.

They stopped because Felicity had stopped, which meant Morgana's body recognized the hierarchy and obeyed without being told.

The humiliation alone cracked her composure.

Quinlan was still looking at the treeline. She was the Queen of the human kingdom, an Elemental Sovereign who'd hunted this man across borders and battlefields, and he was looking at trees.

Morgana's pride made the decision.

"I demand my immediate release."

Her voice rang across the grounds. Every woman present turned toward her.

"I am Morgana Ravenshade, Queen of the Vraven Kingdom and wife of King Alexios Valorian. Whatever you believe you've accomplished with this it will not last. My husband's armies are on the march. Duke Ravenshade has already dispatched-"

"Silence."

One word. He said it without turning.

Morgana's mouth closed.

Her jaw locked. Her tongue pressed flat against the roof of her mouth. Her vocal cords went still. The sentence she'd been building, the threats, the demands, all of it hit a wall inside her own throat and died.

She hadn't chosen to stop talking.

Her eyes went wide. Her fingers flew to her throat again, pressing against the skin, searching for the mechanism, the seal, the artifact that HAD to be there because this was IMPOSSIBLE-

Nothing. Smooth skin. No collar. No inscription.

Quinlan turned.

His eyes found hers for the first time, and Morgana flinched. She had stared down Level 74 continental threats many times before.

But this was different.

His eyes held nothing. She was an object in his field of vision, a problem to be managed between more important things.

Morgana's pride surged. It was the only thing left.

She couldn't speak, couldn't move beyond the boundary, couldn't access her mana. But she could glare, and she put fury and wounded pride into it before aiming it at the man who had taken everything from her in a single night.

"I don't like your expression."

Quinlan's voice was cold, final.

"Change it."

It happened like a switch.

Every muscle in Morgana's face went slack at once. The glare, the defiance, the last fortress of her dignity, wiped clean in an instant, replaced by absolute nothing.

She felt it happen. She felt every muscle surrender simultaneously, felt her own face become a stranger's face, and the scream that built inside her had nowhere to go because her vocal cords were still locked and her expression was still empty and she was standing in a yard full of his people who'd just watched the man take her FACE from her-

Silence held the courtyard.

Then, slowly, reactions rippled through the group.

The Hexwitch watched Morgana the way a cat watches a cornered bird, her lips curving with open satisfaction. Then her red gaze slid to Quinlan, and her teeth caught her lower lip. The heat that rose in her cheeks had nothing to do with the morning sun.

Morgana was looking at a wanted criminal getting aroused watching the humiliation of the authority who put said bounty on her head.

The blonde elf standing near Quinlan's left had a smile so sly it practically had a tail. She leaned toward the silver-haired elven woman beside her and opened her mouth-

A sharp pinch caught her forearm.

"Focus," the moon elf whispered.

Seraphiel's mouth closed. The sly look didn't leave.

On his right, a blonde dogkin woman bounced on her feet. Her fluffy tail was spinning so fast it blurred, cutting the air behind her in rapid circles, her whole body vibrating with barely contained energy at the display of her master's authority.

No one spoke.

His people looked at the Queen of Vraven standing slack-faced and silenced in their courtyard, stripped of voice, expression, and power by a man who hadn't raised his hand or his voice. One of the most dangerous women on the continent, reduced to furniture.

On the stone wall at the edge of the grounds, well away from the gathering, Rosie sat perched on the shoulders of a maid named Emily. The dryad's small legs dangled against Emily's collarbone. Her amber eyes watched her dad with utmost attention, refusing to miss a single moment.

She would stay behind, for she was the guardian of his lands.

His spear, she was not.

Quinlan's gaze left Morgana.

She'd already been forgotten.

Quinlan's gaze swept across his people.

The smirks died. The sly looks vanished. Blossom's tail went still. Every woman in the courtyard felt the shift in him the way a change in air pressure precedes a storm, and every trace of amusement over Morgana's humiliation evaporated in the space of a single breath.

"The Alliance of Elvardia and the Covenant of Eternity betrayed us."

His voice carried across the courtyard, flat and cold. The voice of a man reciting facts he'd already processed and discarded the emotions attached to.

"We have two immediate goals. Find Black Fang and kill everyone responsible."

A pause.

"We don't know where she is. So we'll work on both goals at once."

No one asked what he meant.

"Before we begin, I have special tasks for some of you..."