The Indoctrination

The story begins: “Empress Dehartra-Kasar, you have been charged with ninety-thousand counts of murder and multiple counts of high treason. How do you plead?” “I plead guilty!” I shouted so my voice would carry above the crowded room. “Guilty to more murders than I can recall. But never, never in my life have I ever committed treason!” Lady Chrissalynn Dehartra Kasar is Empress of the Setian Empire: a powerful, parasitic race infesting known species throughout the galaxies. This story is a testimony told before her enemies. Kidnapped as a child and raised as the protégée of the powerful Lord Kasar, Lady Dehartra is trained in the ways of the empire. She learns that emotions are for the weak. That torture can be a necessary evil or a priceless work of art. That the lives of those lower in rank are always expendable and that the greatest honor is to die for the glory of the Empire. At the age of seventeen, Lady Dehartra wins her first major victory at the cost of hundreds of lives and becomes the first non-setian to ever be indoctrinated into the empire. Once promoted to this position of power, Lady Dehartra is ordered to facilitate the capture of Earth where she meets Darin, leader of the resistance, who may just prove her greatest challenge yet. As Lady Dehartra rises through the ranks to surpass even that of the master who trained her, she soon finds herself reigning over an empire to which some claim she has never truly belonged.