This chapter contains, in order of appearance: Forced Prostitution (a Succubus being summoned for sex), Negotiation of Terms of Consent, Tentacle Sex, Cruel Dom/Sub, Anal, All-The-Way-Through, Violation of Terms of Consent, Mind Control, Nonconsensual Soul Draining, and Descriptions of a Dead Body.
I've taken the liberty of bolding the topics that I think might be especially triggering for readers.
Chapter 5
Summons And Sagaciousness
The sensation of a summoning spell is like an arcane collar clamping shut around the neck and yanking. I’d experienced it once, before I’d taken Archfey Veronestra’s blessing. My mother had taught me of mortal summonings, the magic could be as specific or general as the caster wanted so once I came of age any attempt to conjure a succubus without the use of a true name could take me without warning.
“The two most common reasons we’re summoned,” she’d told me, “are to fight to defend the summoner from harm, or to have sex with them.”
“Usually if it’s chaos when you arrive it means you’re fighting. In that case, you’ll feel a pull towards the summoner, and you will likely be magically forced to do what they say. In that kind of summoning you might get hurt or even killed, but it isn’t real. It’s horrible to experience because you do feel it, but when it’s over you’ll appear back here, alive and whole, as if it had never happened. I hope you never have to go through that but I know how tough you are. If you do, you’ll be okay.”
She had patted my shoulder then, a glint of anger in her eyes at the thought of me having to fight and hurt for some mortal.
“If they’ve summoned you to f*ck, everything I told you about consent still applies. If they touch you and you don’t want them to your powers will harm them and probably kill them. They’ll know that. There’s a few different versions of spells that can summon you like that, and some of them will bring your actual body there, and some of them won’t. If the summoner knows your True Name then they can actually bring you there, which is why we never share that with anyone. It’s possible to learn someone’s True Name, but it isn’t easy.”
“Momma, how do I know my true name? Isn’t it Lilith?”
She just smiled at me. “But we all call you Lilly, don’t we? Or we use pet names, like honey. No, your true name is special to you. It will make sense when you’re older honey, I promise.
“Now, if you’re summoned for lust, talk with them, see what they offer in exchange. Regardless, the terms for your consent have to include not killing or maiming you, since it could be the real you there. They’ll certainly do the same on their end since they’re going to be the real them either way. If you can find out if the spell that brought you was ‘safe’ or if it used your Name, that helps.
“And, I mean, if someone is summoning us for lust, they want what we can give them. As long as you’re safe, have fun with them. It isn’t often we get to play with mortals anymore.”
It was late in the flood season when it happened. Növekedés had been occupied since the first high waters. Although I didn’t know it at the time, it was a scant few Cycles before the breach of the walls of Dis. My mother would die in that battle.
I’d been seeing Ukobach for half a Turn and we had only just made the jump to physical intimacy. They were less comfortable with the idea of their first lust than I was, but I had been patient with them. Once past their initial reservations our passions flared wildly and beautifully. Now that the dam had been broken I was very eager to see them again. I flew over the grey-green waters that had pooled as the floods receded with a fire between my legs, ready to sate my desires with my beloved and forget about the dangers that surrounded us for a while.
Because my mother had prepared me I knew what was happening as ethereal chains clamped around me and tore me from the sky, tearing my soul through the very fabric of the hells into a new vessel on the mortal world. After a disorienting whorl of void and clouds of blue and gold and pinpricks of light I found myself standing in a circle of powdered silver and iron. The air was chilly but not enough to be uncomfortable. Beyond just its temperature, the air felt thinner somehow, as if it lacked any soot or sulfur. Of everything about the situation, that was the thing that felt most uncanny about the terrestrial land I’d been summoned to.
I’d half expected the chaos of battle when I first felt the summoning, but things were still and quiet around me. I looked around.
My circle was in a room lit by yellow and orange flames held aloft by black and red candles. The floors were nicely patterned stone, the walls rough-hewn blocks that had been painted, and the ceiling was high and wooden. In the room was a cushion of tan fabric of some unfamiliar craftsmanship, although it was clearly intended for lounging or laying or playing. A desk against one wall was covered with arcane reagents and scrolls of mystical knowledge. There was a table on the opposite wall with an array of what I guessed were magical items. And finally, a trio of mortals stood directly in front of me.
The most imposing of the three mortals was covered in white scales and clothed in mage’s robe; blue accented with gold. His form resembled the acolytes of Tiamat that I had seen occasionally when they came through town. He had piercing red eyes that made me feel like he had a bow drawn at me. The other two were naked and chained at the neck, wrist, and ankle. A tall man with pale skin (elven?) stood with his chin high, hairless other than the dark locks emerging from his head. His flaccid member was almost small enough to be concealed behind the links of his chains. A women eyed me with curiosity, just shorter than I with swarthy skin that had marks where it had stretched to contain her plump, healthy form. She had brunette curls at her crown, under her arms, and above her sex.
“You are brought here to satisfy me, fiend,” the man of white scales said. “Tell me what payment you would require for this service.” As he made the command, he gestured subtly with his snouted face towards the two naked mortals.
I felt magic compelling me to answer him but I didn’t know what to say, so I simply narrowed my eyes. I found that I had some time to think of what I wanted, or if I wanted to make the deal at all. It was clear that he expected me to ask for one or both of his prisoner’s souls.
After a moment’s consideration in which his impatience was measured by the growing sneer across his snout and a magical pressure inside my skull, I said, “I require information and would trade it for your use of my flesh. But you might not know what I seek. Have you any insight into the war your people wage in the hells?”
His head quirked to one side, then he glanced at the two prisoners with disappointment, which seemed odd. Was the information more valuable to him than the lives of these two?
“Very well,” he said. “You, begone.”
The two prisoners didn’t need to be told twice, the man shuffling away while the woman somehow managed to leave with head held high without tripping over her bindings.
Then the scaled man’s predatory gaze fell back on me as he strode forward, evoking his robes away as he did. His manhood was long and girthy, fully erect either from the view of my body or from the thoughts of what he planned to do with it. Suddenly my face felt feverish and I had to keep my thighs from clenching together under his gaze. I wanted to f*ck him, and I knew I was going to get the chance.
“I am Archmage Thgelu Wystongjir, apprentice to Court Mage of the Emperor Nallor the Wizened, and I know a great many things.” He stepped over the circle of silver and iron and at once I could feel the immense magic he held poised in the air, ready to defend himself should I prove hostile. “Tell me what you would like to know and we can make a bargain.”
Again that magic pressure to obey. It had stretched when I’d hesitated before, and as I flexed against it a second time it broke like a bottle across my forehead. Thgelu shifted as the remains of his spell dispersed, other less subtle magics held at bay as he waited for my response.
I wanted to know where my mother was. I wanted the war to end so she could come back. Maybe if he gave me something crucial, I could get it to someone in the hells and we could turn the tides and mom could come home. But I didn’t even know what to ask that could be useful.
“Tell me how much longer you expect this war to continue. Where is the front now, and where is it heading? And what do you really want with us?”
He flashed his teeth at me. He continued to hold his magic at the ready.
“I can tell you how the war is going, why we’re doing it, and even what its conclusion will be. As to its remaining duration, I can only speculate.” One eyebrow raised above a crimson iris. “Do we have a deal then? In exchange for this information, you will consent to the use of your flesh. I am not gentle. When I touch you, you won’t attempt to feast upon my soul?”
I considered. I still didn’t know for sure if this was my real body or a vessel the spell supplied for its duration. There was a miniscule chance he had discovered and used my Name. “If you do not harm me, then while we fornicate I won’t drain your soul.”
He paused.
“Does a little pain count as harm? Surely you are more durable than any ‘mere’ mortal. No damage I could do would be permanent, and you can’t really be killed while you’re here. This spell doesn’t bring your body across planes, rather it creates from raw mana a simulacrum of that body temporarily-”
“I understand,” I interrupted, “and the specifics are beyond me. Indeed some hurt can heighten pleasure, but I shall be the judge of what counts as harm. If you cross that line our deal is off. Those are my terms.”
He glared. It seemed the archmage was not one many dared to interrupt.
“Fine. Agreed.”
With an imperious tone that would not have been out of place in a lecture hall, he said, “As for why we started this war, we don’t care about you, we want the ores from your mines and the magically potent plants that grow upon your lands and the souls that your river deposits along its route. We finished the Avernus campaign and continued on to begin the siege of Dis a few days ago. How long that will take is anyone’s guess. Cities and castles here in the mortal world can hold out for a long time. If the Emperor knows of the city’s defenses and preparations he hasn’t shared that knowledge with me, but given how little resistance you’ve been able to muster so far I think we’re nearing the end now. It’s hard to say if that means days or months or even years.”
That was a lot to process. So Avernus had completely fallen? I knew that the area around the Duchy of Kynardor had been abandoned. But that had been with the assurance that the Duke’s forces would be used to make a stronger stand elsewhere, possibly in the foothills below Zariel’s fortress, or at the Bronze Citadel. That hadn’t happened. Or it had and it failed. Either way, the whole first layer of hell was lost. It was almost impossible to wrap my head around.
“I’m sorry, how long did you say the siege could take? I’m unfamiliar with those, uh, times.”
“Of course, I’d forgotten; you would use less sophisticated measurements on your world. We call Cycles ‘days’, a few ‘months’ pass for every season that changes, and a ‘year’ is about a Turn. The length of the siege will depend on how well supplied the city is, I assume, and could take Cycles or Turns. It also depends on what the Emperor values more; the lives it would take to assault the walls or the time it would take to starve the defenders.”
He took another step forward. He was close enough that I could feel the chill that his white scales seemed to give off, instead of the heat a fiendish body would have radiated. A clawed hand raised until his palm hovered over my left breast.
“My part of our pact is complete, succubus. But I will say this; if you tell me the state of the city of Dis and its defenses, I will make sure your pleasure isn’t forgotten.”
I smirked up at him, then took his cold hand and brought it to bear. My nipple sure felt real. “If I’m to satisfy you then you couldn’t deny me pleasure if you tried. Alas, I wouldn’t know about Dis, even if I was tempted to tell you.”
The archmage’s reptilian lips closed tight and his red eyes went cold at my refusal. He gave one gentle squeeze, the delicate scales of his palm only slightly rougher than fiend-skin, before slowly leaning forward and sliding his hand down my side to cup one of my asscheeks. He was extremely close now, head alongside mine, chill enveloping me.
“I suppose we should get on with the show,” I whispered into his ear. “Are we to stay contained in this circle the entire time or is that furniture over there more than decoration?”
He did something I didn’t expect then. He let go of me, then pulled away to step back out of the circle.
“No, I think I’ll keep you on the other side of that barrier. There’s a spell that I’ve always wanted to play with that I think you’ll appreciate.”
Thgelu raised his hands to perform a spell more complex than anything I had ever witnessed, incomprehensible words and impossible gestures and reserves of magic so immense I could see it condensing along the paths of the runes he traced in the air.
Then something slithered across my foot. I shouted and reflexively beat my wings once to fly away from whatever it was. Looking down I watched as the tips of snaking black tendrils emerged from the stone around me. The first one tried to grab my leg and I didn’t feel my innate protective magic well up in response, which told me that it wasn’t any sort of creature.
Wings or no wings, you can’t just fly directly up. I shouldered into the magical ward that was outlined in silver and iron as I rose away from the things. The impact was like slamming a stone wall hard enough to leave a good scrape.
“Ah ah ah, careful,” Thgelu scolded. “Come down from there. I thought you wanted to get on with the show. Now, are you ready to be used?”
I was torn. Half of me felt like I was caught in a cage that was slowly closing and needed to break out or die trying. I didn’t know if the innate protections against unwanted advances could penetrate past the circle of silver and iron and destroy him if he broke our deal. I'd assumed he would have to join me to play. But the other half of me was transfixed, my mind a whirl at the possibilities of the writhing tentacles below. And regardless, there wasn’t enough room to fly away as they ascended towards me.
He was maintaining the spell with gyrations of his hands and the appendages, which varied in width from my smallest finger to an orthon’s tusk, mirrored his movements. He gestured up to me and a dozen or so of the tendrils slithered up my legs and around my wings until I wasn’t holding myself up under my own power anymore. Each one felt slick, as if they were oiled, but they didn’t leave anything behind on my skin.
“Don’t worry,” Thgelu said from below. “I can feel you through them. Time for you to hold up your end of the deal.”
Once they had me the tentacles caressed their way around my limbs, across my chest, around my neck, everywhere. It was difficult not to shake with anticipation, with bliss at their strange touch. They pried my legs open and I felt one probe at my entrance as the one around my neck slid across my cheek to my mouth. I opened for it and began to duel it with my tongue, like I would with a lover’s during a passionate kiss.
The tendrils subtly changed shape, and then it was a tongue in my mouth. I had a memory of Thgelu’s girth standing at attention as a perfect replica slid home between my legs. I couldn’t see the real thing because he flipped me over like a plaything so that I was facing the ceiling.
I moaned around the tentacle in my mouth. Things briefly went still.
“This isn’t for you, you devil whor*,” the archmage growled below me, and every tentacle on my body constricted slightly. “Now restrain yourself or I’ll squeeze until there’s no pleasure left to be found!”
“I’m sorry,” I said as best I could. A moment passed, as if he was stunned that I had any response at all. He slowly retracted the one in my mouth. “I’m sorry, you just use me so good. But I know I don’t get to cum because I’m a bad little succubus who doesn’t deserve it.”
Clearly he was a sad*st, and he loved control. If I could play the one off of the other, I could keep him from putting my retributive abilities to the test. A little pain to spice up the pleasure was fine with me, but he seemed like the kind who would play too hard and break his toys. I was not going to be one of them.
“No, you don’t deserve it.” As if to emphasize his words he roughly plunged his co*ck-tendril into me. The one at my mouth fell away, which I took to mean he liked hearing my dirty talk. I doubted he got to hear it often.
“I don’t deserve your real touch. Only good girls get filled up with your cum.”
“Oh I’ll be filling you. After I show you your place.”
I could hear the pleasure in his voice as his spell relayed the feeling of my clenching, rippling womanhood to him. Then another thin tendril slithered up the back of my thigh and between my pert cheeks to my rosebud. I relaxed so it could push into my ass with ease.
“Ah! Please not there. I can’t take both,” I lied. I wondered if I was laying it on too thick, but Thgelu was like putty in my hand.
“I’ll be using every inch of you, whor*. You’re mine.”
With that, he thrusted both tentacles again. As he withdrew the co*ck-tendril from my center, the thin one slid in further. With every pump in and out from his pseudophallus, my ass was only plundered further. More of the invader pushed inside me every thrust without withdrawing. I felt my abdomen gradually distend, and soon the ecstasy mixed with discomfort. I could feel it slithering through depths that could never be touched like this before. Then something inside me was forced open and the discomfort erupted into nausea and pain. My body convulsed as it tried to vomit and only a small amount of bile came up.
I felt the magic of a thousand vengeful succubi build up on my skin like sweat and then instantly lash out against the archmage, rebound off the magical barrier between us, and disperse. He was unaffected.
His replica continued to f*ck me. The other tendril just kept sliding in. Despite the grotesque sensations, the discomfort and the bliss together brought me to heights that Ukobach had never been able to reach. The
I remember it was then that I felt regret for the first time. My lover back in the hells did not have a monopoly on my body or its joys. The very idea was foreign; a mortal view on sex that would never fit right in the hells. But in that moment I wondered at the origin of such a cultural taboo, because how could they ever hope to drive my lust this high?
Finally, I gagged as the tendril crawled up from inside me, between my teeth, and out of my mouth. I was painfully aware that the feeling of my throat trying to expel the invader must feel exquisite to his arcane member. What little breath I could draw through my nose was harsh and ragged. My watering eyes crossed as I watched the black tentacle sway in front of me, shuddering with every pulse.
Awash in pleasure, violent bodily reflexes, and awe at the realization that it had gone all the way through me, I came. A gargled scream joined the tentacle in my throat as every muscle in my body contracted.
At the same moment Thgelu groaned loudly and all the tentacles, including the ones inside me, instantly vanished as he lost concentration on the spell. I was left feeling empty as the org*sm cascaded through my flesh, every orifice clenching around nothing.
I fell the ten feet that I’d been suspended, flapping my wings instinctively even as I continued to choke and shudder. I managed to flip over and slow my descent enough that the landing didn’t hurt. In fact I hardly felt it over the aftershocks of my colossal climax, my roiling stomach, and my aching lungs. As I pushed myself up to my hands and knees my holes all squeezed one final time around the memory of the tentacles. Then my involuntary reflexes ceased and my body was mine to control once more.
Looking up, the archmage was lying on his side breathing hard with his eyes closed. He wasn’t sleeping, but he was definitely stunned from his own org*sm, and he seemed to be taking his sweet time to recover. There were lines of thick white cum on the floor, arrayed out from where he’d been standing. The longest one ended with a glob of the stuff right on a line of powdered silver and iron.
I remembered our deal. I had thoroughly enjoyed the sex, but it definitely qualified as harm. No question about it. My magic had already tried to rebuke him for his transgression and failed because of those delicate binding lines of powdered metal.
I didn’t wait to catch my breath. In complete silence, I rose to my feet and stepped over the broken, incongruent remains of the circle. No magic remained to stop me.
Thgelu was lying on his left side, one arm partially under him, the rest of his limbs splayed, the side of his reptilian snout pressed against the stone. He was still breathing hard. In one motion I raised my hand, conjured the blade of hellfire that my mother had taught me to wield, and brought it down.
His blood red eyes flew open at my conjuration. Unfortunately, he was fast in more ways than one, and he raised a hand to stop me. Whether he wanted to do so with magic or simply shield himself bodily, it prevented me from outright killing him. So, cursing his swift reaction, I did the next best thing: I shifted the arc of my flame blade slightly and it sliced through his wrist.
The archmage tried to cast something but it was too late. The cauterized stump at the end of his arm had no fingers to perform the necessary parts of the spell. His severed hand clad in thin white scales fell to the floor with a wet slap.
Before I could finish him off his scream of pain and anger manifested as a short incantation that caused him to vanish in a cloud of silver mist. He appeared on the floor in front of the nearest door and pushed himself to his feet, trying to flee while clutching his wounded arm.
I followed, but alerted I didn’t think I would be able to kill him. Instead I took a chance and cast my infernal gaze into his skull. He tried to resist, I felt the panic and also the conviction in him. Then my charm fell over his mind, like an inexorable fog rolling in.
“Stop,” I said with my voice and mind.
He did. I didn’t give him a chance to find a way to escape my enchantment. Instead I ran around him, grabbed him behind the neck with my free hand, and brought our lips together. My full blue met his thin cold white to secure the conduit between our souls. I drank.
The abrasion on the beautiful crimson skin of my shoulder scabbed and knit itself back together. My bruises, both visible and internal, went from just blooming to dark purple to yellow to healed. By the time the summoning spell ended, the body that Archmage Thgelu Wystongjir had anchored my soul in was pristine. His own, however, resembled the husk left behind after a hydroloth molts.
How am I supposed to know which way is East?
Damn. Okay I remember when the hells were setting that the light was coming in through the door on the side of the inn. Fly back and see which direction that was, and we’ll go the opposite way.
Trynnicus gave a snort and tasted the air at me. It was his way of showing he cared.
No it’s not. Plan ahead next time, dumbass.
Well, hopefully one day he’d be ready to admit-
Shut up, Lilith.
. . . Rude.
Once we had our bearings and started heading East I felt a little silly, as the road east was the only real road through the ruins that had been cleared of rubble, and was marked with posts where the rebuilt parts of the ruins came to an end. For about an hour we traversed the rest of the ancient mortal city the portal was situated in, the splendor of its cracked marble arches lost on us completely. If the city was deserving of wonder, it wouldn’t have fallen.
The ruins gradually gave way to barren tundra, then small copses of tall spiney plants cloaked in green needles, then finally forests of the strange terrestrial flora. I sensed the slumbering presence of my patron, more omnipresent than I had ever felt before but also distant, hibernating through the cold.
More flakes of white began falling from the sky. They were larger and fluffier than when I had come through the portal the day before and I wondered what that meant.
The stolen armor I wore was really starting to hurt by then, and although I wasn’t feeling the cold much from sheer exertion I knew I wouldn’t be able to continue through the night. As much as I hoped to put distance between myself and the evidence of my crimes, it would be all for naught if I fell and broke a leg. Thankfully as heavy as it was, the pike that I wielded doubled as a walking stick in addition to helping my disguise.
It would be so much easier to just fly where I wanted to go. I’d known that my wings would be taken away once I stepped through the portal, and I’d planned to make the trip first on foot and then by ship via the contact Kregar had told me to meet. But while walking wasn’t completely unfamiliar to me, doing so encased in mortal metal and hefting a big pointy stick was quickly becoming intolerable.
You getting tired, Try?
Nope, all good here.
. . . You’re lying.
I was just born maybe five hours ago, and I ate well from the inn’s scraps while you were busy trying to set the record for most bodily fluids collected in one night. If you need to rest then rest, don’t use me as an excuse.
I can skip over most of this part. I trudged on for another few hours growing increasingly irritated while the ever-grateful fruit of my loins flaunted his wings above me. It was cold enough to hurt my fingers and exposed calves, but also hard enough moving in the armor to work up a sweat. I went over the plan to get to the capital in my head and my familiar took the opportunity to poke holes in it. Sometimes the telepathic banter helped distract me from the discomfort. I would have thanked him for that if that had been his intention, but since it seemed unlikely I pondered infanticide and regicide in almost equal measure.
Eventually, Trynnicus interrupted with, Lilly there’s someone up ahead. Looks like a campfire.
How many?
Not sure, more than five. Two bigger animals tied to a tree nearby, and a loaded cart.
Hmmm. Merchants then, probably. Any in a guard uniform?
No. Wait. . . yes. Seven in total, two guards, but looks like one is sleeping in a tent marked with the town’s standard. Three more-
What’s the town’s standard? You know what the town’s standard is? How do you know what the town’s standard is?
Lilly, it was hanging outside, like, every fifth building, as well as the gate and a post at the edge of the rebuilt town. It’s a grey arch on a black field with splotches of red at its base. Only someone completely careless of their surroundings could have missed it. It’s literally on the cloak hanging from the back of your stolen armor right now.
Hey, my attention is drawn to the people, okay. The town standard doesn’t want to f*ck me.
I felt the equivalent of an eyeroll. But not for your lack of trying. . . . Anyway, three more tents, one unoccupied. And you’re never going to guess who’s staring listlessly into the flames while the merchants chat around the fire.
I took a peek through his eyes. He was gliding about forty feet above the fire, occasionally catching the warm updraft. It suddenly struck me how much colder he was than I as I felt how rigid his wings and tail were. He’d been slowing burning magic for warmth, or else he’d have frozen by now. I should have thought of that, but I’d never had to deal with this blasted cold before.
He guided my attention to the particular mortal below, with auburn hair and green eyes. Amber and emerald. The woman Jolean, who I’d. . . helped? Yes, she had been distraught and I had assisted while she worked through her emotions some hours ago, back at the inn. It wasn’t the way I usually helped people but all in all I think I’d done a fair enough job. What was she doing out here? Was one of the other mortals the husband she had mentioned? No, as I looked through my familiar’s eyes I saw the terrified face of a woman who had just left everything behind for an uncertain future. It’s the look I would have if I stopped to gaze into a fire long enough for those thoughts to catch up with me.
Thanks Try. You’ve earned a warm nest and a good scratch at the base of your wings once I get us into that tent.
He humphed into my mind.
Alright, so, how to play this. Merchants alone would have been so easy, and I’d be rid of this awful armor as a bonus. Two guards made things more complicated. I could use a calming spell, but if they noticed the magic or managed to resist it that could be worse than just relying on my words. I could try to pull rank, but I’d specifically removed the status symbols from the stolen armor I was wearing. I couldn’t be the sergeant that had just been very publicly fired the day before after all. It was dark, maybe I could make it work anyway.
f*ck it, it’s too cold, and I can talk my way out of almost anything. I shapechanged into an average-looking mortal woman who shouldn’t seem out of place in a guard’s uniform, then conjured a flame blade to carry like a torch.
“Hello the camp!” I said, clear enough to be noticed but hopefully not loud enough to wake everyone up.
“Who’s there?” came the response a moment later.
“The one sent to relieve Jolean. You really thought you could take this assignment right after that debacle?” I had stepped just in line of sight, so I saw her eyes go wide when she heard my voice. I put a little more iron into it before she could react. “Stand down, Jolean.”
I could see the conflict in her as she started putting pieces together. She knew it was me, but I was disguised. Should she warn the others? She wanted to, and yet her hand was falling from the hilt of her shortsword. Because she did what she was told.
“Don’t worry folks. Looks like you’re going to get three guards to keep you safe on the road. Or, well. Two and a half at least. Who’s in the tent? Lenny?” I didn’t look away from those emerald eyes framed by amber locks. The sneer of hurt that my words brought didn’t feel great, but I had to sell this. Throwing out the most generic mortal name I could think of almost threw me off. The problem with lying so blatantly is the details, and I needed more of them if I was going to make this work.
“Tivor. He’s got second watch.”
“Huh. Never met him.”
“I’m sorry,” said one of the merchants, probably the eldest. I spared him a glance for the first time. “Who are you?”
f*ck I’ve gotta come up with another generic mortal name.
“The better question is who is she,” I said, gesturing with the business end of the pike I wielded at Jolean. “Did she tell you she just got demoted yesterday? Down so low she shouldn’t have the privilege of escorting fine figures such as yourselves. I’m Elizabeth. I’m ordered to replace Jolean here.”
There was a moment when no one said or did anything, so I laid the pike down against the back of the cart, then walked up to the fire and plopped down next to Jolean like I belonged there.
“Well, footsoldier? Is this the truth?” the merchant asked, clearly irritated that his caravan was being subject to something so unconventional. “Did you deceive us? Are you ordered back to town?”
I looked at Jolean. If I’d been wrong, if she wasn’t running as fast and as far as she could from the events of the day before, she could cause me a lot of problems. Maybe she just happened to get a guard posting for a caravan. Maybe the job was seen as a dishonor, and ordered as punishment in addition to her demotion. There were several possible ways I could have misread this.
Without breaking eye contact, I said, “I’m not going to make you do anything.” I let that statement sit for a moment, then turned away to lie. “I’m here to get these fine folks where they’re going. An introduction with Tivor at the watch change wouldn’t go amiss, seeing as we haven’t worked together before. But as far as I’m concerned, three guards are better than two, right? Or if you wanted to head back and face that whole mess, the earlier you start the earlier it’ll be over. Either way you don’t have to decide until morning.”
There was a tense moment, then I realized the merchants’ ire at Jolean hadn’t been completely smoothed away by my breezy words. It catches me by surprise sometimes; as she turned to the merchants I realized no one was looking at me. Suddenly how this farce played out was no longer in my hands, and all I could do was watch the other actors either say their lines or fail to do so.
“I was demoted yesterday, yes. And I did subsequently request this posting, so I could go with you to the port.” Jolean sighed. “I was going to do this tomorrow, but I guess if I’ve been relieved. . .”
The sarcasm in her voice was laying it on a bit thick, but if the merchants were suspicious it was wiped away as she took off her black and red cloak.
“I have no more use for this. I will see you through to your destination and protect you with my life if needed. But you will be the last citizens I grant such service.”
And she threw her guard’s cloak into the fire.
It burned slow.
It was already well into the night, and Jolean’s declaration was a real moodkiller, so it wasn’t more than ten or so minutes before the merchants made their ways into their tents to sleep.
As soon as the coast was clear Trynnicus swooped down and I lifted my chainmail so he could cuddle into my warmth. His favorite spot is right between and slightly underneath my breasts but this was the first time he’d done so cold and I had to stop myself from flinching. Imagine taking the fruit of a harrada plant, oblong and misshapen with its coarse, ridged rind that is so hard to cut through, and shoving it up underneath your tit*. Now imagine that but it’s also half frozen.
Jolean looked on, broken from her stoic reverence of the flames consuming her oath but either unwilling to comment or unsure what to say.
Once my familiar had warmed up, quiet enough so the merchants wouldn’t hear over the fire and the flapping tents I said, “I hadn’t meant to follow you. The offer I made. . . I assumed since you didn’t come back, that you’d returned to your husband. I’m only here because, well, this is the only road out of-”
“How’d you get the armor and weapons?” she asked, cutting me off.
I’d been truthful with her so far. But admitting to murder--to anyone, let alone a former guard--is a bad idea. And what is an honest reputation for if not to lie about the important stuff?
“I convinced a very drunk former sergeant to take them off by taking my clothes off first, and afterwards left him tied to the bed with nothing but his smallclothes. In his mouth.”
She snorted, as if the idea amused her despite her not wanting to be amused right now. Or maybe like a guard who asked a question and decided that you were lying before you even opened your mouth, and didn’t care either way. Those emerald eyes turned back to the fire.
Since she’d interrupted my roughspun apology, I didn’t continue, but after a few minutes Jolean said, “I’m never going to see Doric again.” Another few minutes, then, “He wasn’t home when I got there, after I left you at the Unicorn. This time of year he’s usually working late. I started to write a note. What could I possibly say to make it hurt less? I got as far as ‘I love you, but I’m leaving’ and ‘I’m sorry’ before I stopped trying. How could you love someone and then hurt them like that? How could I be sorry if it’s not enough to stop me? Nothing I could say to make it hurt less would be believable so I crossed it out and wrote the truth. I’d been with someone else and I can’t stand the shame and I can’t live a lie anymore and I hate going to sermon every week to appease his f*cking mother.”
Jolean fell into silence once more.
I broke it with, “As much as I wouldn’t mind-- I mean, Jolean we didn’t actually--”
“It wasn’t you, devil,” she said, more exasperated than angry.
“Oh.”
I’d been following her gaze into the fire where her cloak had burned now to naught but ash, so I felt it when she slowly turned to me. I let my form shift back to myself since we were alone. For the first time since we’d met she let her emerald eyes rake down me with unbridled lust.
“I hate that I like it when you take control. I wish I could f*ck you like the slu*t I know you are, and somehow I know you’d let me. But I won’t, because I wish you would break me like a twig beneath your boot. But I can’t cross the line where I ask for that, because then I’m as bad as Doric is going to think I am when he reads that note. If he had just. . . ” There were tears in her eyes then. “If he had just known, if he could have just understood what I needed. But he wouldn’t have understood. I couldn’t make him see.”
She sniffed and wiped her eyes and turned away.
Through all of it, she didn’t say ‘Mistress.’ I held my breath, and I’m not sure if I wanted her to say it or if I dreaded it. But the moment never came. I turned back to the warmth of the fire.
It was some time later that I realized I was being shaken awake.
“Come on, it’s time for the change of watch. I’ll introduce you to Tivor. Put your face on.”
I did, then I looked on through bleary eyes as Jolean explained in hushed but serious tones who I was (Elizabeth the new guard who you wouldn’t have met but she’s a friend) as well as her resignation and replacement. Then I was being led into the tent, and then I was falling asleep with my armored chest against Jolean’s armored back with Trynnicus’s scales digging into my navel.
