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Jellen had once commanded the attention of kings, subverted mighty governments, and crumbled immortal towers. He had seeded rebellions and wars that scarred the world for centuries, even millennia. He was the snake in the grass, the dragon in the lair. He was the insanity in the mind of emperors, the whispers that led the most loyal astray, and the sickness that poisoned fertile lands. Once, he had been great, and his word could destroy the mightiest kingdoms in the most subtle of ways.
Now, he was little more than a petty errand boy with a high title, answering to a whelp he'd once delivered to death and madness. He was a shadow of his great past, and every day he awoke sickened and raving with fury. He was desperate to master the demonic art of possession so that he could inhabit his shell and curb these disgusting emotional outbursts. His lack of success only made him even more furious.
He growled at the ceiling, as if it were responsible for reducing him to this pathetic state. He was the one who had poisoned the hearts of sorcerers and brought the defense of the High Kingdom of Faiden to its knees. The most powerful kingdom in the world had crumbled beneath his touch. Yet, in the final hour, the boy prince, Sayron, had stolen the victory from him.
"Sayron," the name slithered from his tongue like a curse, as it had thousands of times in the past eight centuries. The prince should have died, as so many other sorcerers did, died or succumbed to the thrall of Jellen. Instead, the great Orb of Power had abandoned its master and filled the pathetic prince with its strength and ambition, leaving Jellen a hollow, embittered wretch.
Jellen had been so weakened by the loss of the orb and its power, he thought he would die. Sayron had no idea from where the dark magic came, not at first. In the centuries since, the dark lord that had once been a fae prince learned it was Jellen who had brought the accursed object to the kingdom. It was Jellen who had shattered the Sorcerer's Crystal and Wizard's Crystal, and it was Jellen who had caused the internal war that tore Faiden asunder. If he had learned it sooner, before his mind was so twisted by the orb, Sayron might have raged at Jellen.
Now, all the dark lord cared about was keeping Jellen from his rightful possession of the orb. That and having as little interaction with his subordinates as possible. Jellen could not fathom why the orb would choose the prince over him. After eight hundred years of Sayron doing nothing with the orb or the gift of unimaginable magical strength it offered, Jellen struggled to imagine why it had not returned to its first vessel.
Jellen would not have squandered the past eight centuries languishing in a tower in the bleak and savage Northern Mountains like the dark lord. Faiden was meant to have been the head of the serpent, struck from the body to cripple the world. Faiden had been the center of trade, the highest and most respected authority of all the great kingdoms. Jellen had intended to follow the momentum of the world's shock to crumble castle after castle until the whole of Midia was in ruins. It was what the orb had wanted, what Jellen had been working for centuries to accomplish. All of his great plans had been for naught.
Tears stung Jellen's eyes as he looked up at the stone ceiling of his chambers. He had been betrayed, abandoned, ignored by the orb. The loss if its presence in his mind was like a worm eating at his brain. With each passing day, its absence was felt greater, and the pain was not lessened. Jellen had become consumed with recovering the orb at all costs.
It had taken centuries to rebuild his strength enough to have the courage to face Lindimood, his most powerful ally. Only with the demon's help could he hope to steal the orb back from the dark lord. Lindimood could not know why or how he was being used, and his steward, Melior, was very sly and more difficult to deceive. Jellen was playing the most careful and risky game he'd ever dared. The stakes were high, but the prize was nothing less than the reacquisition of the single most powerful object in the seven realms and the smoldering ashes of Midia. That thought brought a smile to Jellen's lips and bolstered the amalgamer to rise and face the day.