The talk reached an end without any satisfying conclusion or distinctive additions. Everyone within the room agreed that they would set out for their attempt early the next morning, with King Gabriel traveling with his retinue, and Damon, Kastet, and the others traveling in Wrath’s corrupted horse carriage.
Damon returned to Kastet’s lodgings on the water with Malon, Seffi, and Vel. Wrath declined to join them without voicing her reasons. Lilian had drawn baths for them while they’d been gone, and she seemed on edge until Kastet began explaining to her what had transpired.
“There are partitioned sections in the bath, solas,” said Malon. “You don’t have to wait for us to finish to get in. Just give us time to undress and get into the water.”
With Kastet busy catching up with Lilian, and Seffi having retired to her room as soon as they’d arrived back, it was just Malon and Vel in line for the baths. Damon nodded, distant and somewhat lost in his own thoughts.
“Thanks,” he said. “I think I’ll just head to my room for now, though.”
“If you’re sure,” said Malon. “A bath might clear your mind.”
“I think he needs his rest, aesta,” said Vel. “Come on.”
She pulled Malon toward the common room stairs with surprising urgency. Damon stayed in the common room. Kastet and Lilian had already gone upstairs to Kastet’s room, so it was just him, with a few stray bottles of brandy lying about. He poured himself a glass and tried to think.
Should he have taken Wrath’s crest? He still felt as though he’d made the right decision in refusing her, but the weight of his refusal, the heaviness of the decision, seemed twice what it had been earlier. Knowing Famine wouldn’t be a part of the attack made the strength of the non-Forsaken who would be fighting that much more important, Malon, Lilian, and especially himself.
Maybe Wrath would offer Lilian her crest? He chewed on the idea, finding it pretty unlikely. He decided to head upstairs and ditch his sword belt to get more comfortable. He brought the brandy with him, sipping it gingerly as he walked.
Laughter came from the next floor up as Damon returned from taking off his myrblade. It could only be Malon or Vel, and the image of the two of them naked and soapy and enjoying their wash time compelled him to take the stairs on up.
He applied the full range of his stealth tactics as he slowly crept toward the door leading to the baths. It was open, with a slice of lamplight illuminating the hot, billowing steam. He could hear Malon and Vel’s voices, and he felt an urge to stay where he was instead of barging in.
“I was safe,” said Vel. “I promise I was, aesta. It felt so… different to be traveling on my own.”
“It is different,” said Malon. “Especially when you’re a young woman. I felt no small amount of anxiety when I first began adventuring. This was long before I had become Seffi’s guardian and had any magical ability to speak of.”
“In that regard, I suppose I’m safer than you were back then,” said Vel. “I have my dreamspelling. I used it each night when I camped, feeling out the area around me. It wasn’t as though bandits would have had an easy time stumbling upon my tent in the dark.”
“That’s pretty clever, seta.” Malon sighed. “I suppose my worries stem less from how capable you are and more from my innate concern. For you… for Damon… for Ria.”
There was a pause in their conversation, the silence broken by dripping water and a contented sigh. Damon slid closer to the door. He risked a peek, but the way the partitions were angled left him with only a silhouetted view of two women comfortably submerged in two separate bathtubs.
“Can I ask you something?” asked Vel.
“Anything,” whispered Malon.
“Did you know about all of us? Before we did, I mean?”
“I’m sorry, seta, I’m not sure I understand…”
Vel shifted sideways to lean against the edge of her bathtub, slender profile visible even through the parchment barrier. “Damon is a wielder. Ria is a tempester. And I’m a dreamwalker. It just seems like such a great coincidence.”
Malon let out an amused chuckle. “So it is. If I were a more deceptive woman, I think I might claim that it was all part of a grand plan of mine in the making. But no, that’s not the case. It does seem like quite a fortuitous accident, and it is, though more because of our circumstances than by default.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well…” Malon leaned her head back, her shapely breasts briefly coming into view behind the barrier. “If our lives were less chaotic, it’s very possible that you may have never discovered your aptitude for dreamspelling. You weren’t truly aware of it until Jilou helped you test what you could do, were you, seta?”
“I… suppose not,” said Vel.
“It’s the same with Damon,” said Malon. “If he’d never encountered his sword, he would still think himself normal. His ability isn’t nearly as versatile or obvious as yours or Ria’s, either.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty weak, from what I’ve seen. He’s lucky his sword has such a strong enchantment.”
Damon scowled through the sliver of the door gap, thinking of all the times he’d saved Vel’s life. There was another pause as Malon and Vel’s topic of conversation stirred a new line of questions.
“Aesta,” said Vel.
“Yes seta?”
“Has Damon bedded you?”
He heard the water splash as Malon practically jumped halfway out of her tub. His own heart threatened to jump out of his chest. He weighed the risks of barging in and trying to pull the conversation in a direction less consequential, but it was already too late.
“Seta!” said Malon sharply. “That… sort of question… I mean, really. Solas and I are, well, that is to say… I’m his aesta, as I’m yours.”
“You’re dodging the question,” said Vel. “I’m not mad at you, or him. I just want to know. I want to hear your answer.”
Silence as sharp as broken shards of glass filled the space of the next few seconds.
“Solas and I are… closer than we should be,” Malon finally whispered. “I’ve tried to help him direct himself in better directions, as you know. He’s very passionate… but also very confused.”
“I knew it,” whispered Vel. She let out a laugh and slapped her hand down against the water’s surface.
“I know that you and solas are also close,” said Malon. “I… guess I’m a little surprised by your reaction.”
“Honestly, I’m relieved,” said Vel. “It’s meaningful to hear your experience. I’m sure you heard about the encounter Damon and I had in Avaricia, during the Turning Festival. There were more times, after that. The way he started to make me feel… I thought that there might be something wrong with me. That I was corrupted, or impure, or the like.”
“Seta…” Malon reached a hand across the space in between the bathtubs to touch Vel’s.
“It was different when I found out that he and Ria were intimate with one another,” said Vel. “I started denigrating Ria, telling myself that for her, as a Rem, right and wrong were different. I was cruel to her, more than once, but I was even crueler to myself.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” said Malon.
“Clearly, it is. I think we should blame Damon for it.”
Malon let out a surprised chuckle. “What do you mean?”
“It’s him!” said Vel. “It has to be him. If he’s pulled all of us into this wickedness, and he’s the common element, then he deserves the majority of the blame.”
“You have a very interesting way of looking at the world, seta,” said Malon.
Damon heard his aesta rising from the bath and hurried to sneak back down the stairs.
CHAPTER 32
Damon’s own bath was rather uneventful. He pulled on a comfortable pair of slacks and a loose shirt and joined the others downstairs for dinner. Kastet, Lilian, Vel, and Malon were at the table. He assumed Seffi had eaten already or fallen asleep early.
“I
t’s all settled,” said Kastet. “We’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning and travel to Avaricia. All that remains is for us to make the journey and traverse the tunnels leading into the city.”
“Well, that and killing Avarice and Conceit,” said Damon. He tried to put some light humor into the objective, but it was hard. He had doubts, plenty of them, of the variety that couldn’t easily be pushed out of sight.
“We’ll take each moment as it comes,” said Malon. “This is the only way forward. With Gabriel on the throne and Seffi discovered, there isn’t a path for us to turn away from this confrontation.”
“We’re ready,” said Vel. “Right, Damon?”
He nodded. “Right.”
A feast had been provided to them by the Lord Governor with food ranging from roasted hen to maple buttered sweet potatoes, to a layered fruitcake with a raspberry glaze. Damon raised the question of the food being poisoned, which Kastet quickly shut down.
“You think the Lord Governor would have the temerity to poison the sister of the King of Merinia?” she asked.
“If I hadn’t met the man, my answer might have been yes,” said Damon. “But I have met him, and you make a good point.”
They ate and drank their fill, speaking little to one another. It felt as though they’d reached the point where additional words and conversation risked raising the ambient tension, rather than relaxing them. One by one, they began to retire to bed.
“Damon,” said Vel. “Are you getting tired?”
He was on his third glass of brandy and knew that any more would spoil him for the morning. “Just about. You want to head up together?”
She looked as though she was trying not to smile as she nodded. She had her spectacles on, a rarity for her, given the fast pace of recent events, and her hair was twisted into a tight little nub of a bun.
Malon was still at the table, however, and she seemed torn between expressing her disapproval and ignoring them. She settled for standing as they did, drawing up next to Damon for a hug and a kiss.
“Solas,” she said, with a sigh. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“I won’t.”
She looked knowingly toward Vel. “And don’t keep seta up too late, either.”
Damon let out an awkward cough. “Of course not, aesta.”
She gave him another hug, and he couldn’t decide whether he was imagining the way she seemed to briefly, urgently, press her hips against his crotch. She pulled back before it could become more, hips swaying with delicious feminine style as she made her way upstairs.
“You’re leering at her, Damon,” said Vel.
He whipped his head toward her, smiling wickedly. “Then give me something else to leer at.”
Vel blushed, but hesitated for only a moment before pulling at the edge of her gown. She slid it downward far enough to reveal the faint pink edge of one of her perky nipples, her face reddening even more deeply as she saw the way Damon drank the sight in.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go upstairs.”
They almost didn’t make it to his room. Vel played a game of walking up the stairs slowly, letting Damon get as close as he wanted. He spent half a minute grinding against her, groping her breasts, bending her halfway over the railing at a diagonal angle as though it made sense to fuck her right there in the open.
“On a bed,” she hissed. “I’m not getting naked here.”
“You wouldn’t have to be completely naked.” He slid his hand under her gown and teased his fingers against her girlshorts. Vel shuddered, and he knew that he could make her give in, let him take her right there and then, if he really wanted to.
But it was still a bad idea, given how many other people were under the same roof. He scooped Vel up in his arms instead, letting her wrap her legs around his waist while he buried his face in her cleavage. It left him unbalanced and clumsy, and they were both giggling as he stumbled through the door leading to his room.
Vel gasped as he tossed her onto his bed, leaning against the door to shut it. She posed for him, making a show of crossing her legs just so, propping her head up on her hand to let her gown threaten to billow open and reveal her goods.
Damon all but dove on top of her. Vel let out a delicious squeal, but she didn’t simply submit to his aggressive onslaught. She barraged him with kisses, her fingers finding the drawstring to his slacks and pulling them down.
Damon’s cock sprang loose from his undershorts as Vel removed them. She stared at him, the glass of her spectacles reflecting the starlight outside and hiding her eyes, hands poised in sensual grips on both of his thighs.
“You’re so hard, Damon,” she whispered. “Did I do this?”
She poked his member with a single finger, exhaling and letting her humid breath stir his lust even further. Damon reached a hand down to pull her face in closer. Vel caught his wrist, brought his index finger to her mouth, and sucked on it.
“True Divine, Vel,” he muttered. “I promised aesta I’d be quick with you.”
“Maybe I want to take my time,” said Vel. “Maybe I want to torture you.”
She stuck out her tongue and seemed to make a game of bringing it as close to his cock as she could without licking it. It was torture, though of a variety that Damon loved far too much to object to. Vel, with her hair up like that, spectacles on, about to suck him off. He wondered how she’d reacted if he unloaded onto those little glass shields across her eyes.
Someone knocked at Damon’s door. He almost shouted something angry before catching himself.
“Vel, are you in there?” asked Lilian. “Kastet needs you.”
“What?” snapped Vel. “Right now?”
“Obviously,” said Lilian, a touch annoyed.
“Is it going to take a while?”
“Probably, knowing her.”
Vel let out an annoyed huff and quickly stood up from the bed, fixing her gown. Damon reached out to pull her back without thinking, or at least stop her for long enough to get a commitment for her to come through later. She was out the door before anything could be said.
He lay there on his bed for three throbbing, incredibly disappointing moments before getting up. He put his undershorts back on but didn’t bother with his pants. With quiet footsteps, he walked out into the hallway, and headed to his aesta’s room.
Damon knocked softly and waited for a span of two breaths. The door opened, revealing Malon. She was clad only in a quilt, wrapped around her body like an oversized towel. It was a fact which seemed to resonate through Damon’s loins. She was naked underneath that quilt.
“Solas,” whispered Malon. “What is it?”
He felt suddenly boyish and impulsive at the frankness of her question. “Ah. Vel was called to Kastet’s room.”
Malon smirked and leaned against the doorframe. “I see. So, you came to say goodnight to me?”
He felt his face flush. She still held that natural control, that tone of easy authority.
“I suppose I did,” he said. “Goodnight, aesta.”
“Goodnight, solas.”
She stayed there for a breathless moment, staring into his eyes. Damon felt the closeness of her presence like a physical thing, a throbbing, caressing pulse that ran inside and out. The tension grew so unbearable that there was simply nothing else he could do but rush forward to embrace her.
He all but slammed the door shut behind him as he manhandled Malon onto the bed. She gasped, the quilt falling to the wayside and revealing that she was very much naked underneath. Damon yanked his undershorts off with stupid speed and spread her thighs open with firm hands.
His cock was inside her before they’d even kissed. Malon had this look on her face, a mixture of surprise, disbelief, and pleasure laced with pride.
Damon felt the tight squeeze of her womanhood, though he realized she’d been turned on enough for him to sink practically his entire length into her on that first thrust. Either his presence alone had brought her to this point, or she’d been behavi
ng like a naughty aesta in the minutes before he’d arrived.
He did kiss her then, his mouth meeting hers in a flurry of lips and tongue. She was eager, so eager. Her body was open to him, and she wrapped her arms around him in that same loving way that she had for as long as he could remember, long before they’d ever become this intimate.
Damon began to thrust, cradling her head against his shoulder as he would have done with any woman. Holding her as though she was a virgin, new to such intimacy, someone in need of the reassurance and the presence of a man’s confidence as they were bedded.
Malon’s plump breasts were so soft against his chest, but he could still feel the points of her nipples and sense the way his increasingly rough movements echoed through the rest of her body. She started kissing and sucking on his neck. He pulled back, running his hands across her waist and hips while still having her speared through on his prick.
It was so unbelievable, almost novel, to look at her and see her like this. Her naked breasts were big enough to fall sideways at lopsided angles despite their tautness, pale and plump and perfect. Her hips were proper wife hips, a mother’s hips.
He lost himself to his own lust for the next minute, thrusting into her with the reckless strength of an over-horny young man. He grabbed her in different places, using her shoulders to lever his cock into her, and then wrapping an arm around her waist and groping a breast while he pushed into her thrust after thrust.
He kissed her deeply as he grabbed her butt and squeezed. She moaned and arched her hips up, giving him an angle so perfect and dirty to drive into her with. He wanted to hear her moan his name, but he knew what he’d hear instead even before it came.
“Oh!” she cried. “Solas!”
“Aesta!”
It was too much. It was more than enough. He drove into her again and again, feeling her shudder and dig her fingernails into his back in unthinking, orgasmic bliss. Damon heard the familiar clap of his crotch colliding with the cushion of her hips and butt as he reached a sweaty crescendo of motion.
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