He kept pumping into her as he came, painting the inside of her womanhood white with his seed. Malon quivered, biting her lower lip slightly, and held him to her even as he continued to buck his cock forward, drunk on pleasure and lust.
She gently ran her hand through his hair, caressing him with such gentleness and love that he was tempted to fall asleep on top of her. They kissed again. They hugged again. Slowly, Damon shifted sideways, Malon sliding in to cuddle with him and rubbing her hand across his chest.
“You shouldn’t do such things to your aesta,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “What? I thought…”
“I said you shouldn’t,” she repeated. “Not that you couldn’t. You’re a wild one, solas.”
“You enjoyed it.”
“I did,” she whispered. “Very much so. But that doesn’t and will never make it right.”
CHAPTER 33
At Malon’s urging, Damon returned to his room within the same hour. He brought up Vel, how she might pay him a visit later in the night, and she merely shrugged and once again told him “to make sure seta got enough sleep.”
As it happened, Kastet kept Vel in her company through until the next morning. Damon joined the others in the common room, and they set off with Wrath in her carriage as soon as she arrived.
The next two days passed in the uneventful rhythm of traveling along the road. They shared the carriage through the day, stopping only when needed. They made camp each night, and though Damon would have loved to share a tent with Malon or Vel, the group’s collective nervous energy kept any of them from being in the right sort of mood.
Avaricia eventually drew into view in the distance, with its walls looking as majestic and impenetrable as any fortress. Wrath brought the carriage to a stop at the end of what appeared to be a dead-end road, a thin path into a forest leading nowhere.
“Here we are,” said Wrath as the seven of them climbed out. “There’s a cave not far from here that will bring us underneath the city, and eventually to the Old Sewer that runs directly through Veridas Keep’s dungeon.”
Damon nodded slowly. It was happening. It was real. It was hard to keep his own tension from manifesting in absentminded clenches of his jaw, or plank-stiff shoulders. From how the others looked, the feeling was mutual. If anything, he was faring better than anyone, aside from perhaps Wrath.
“Gabriel will be meeting with the Godking shortly after sunset,” said Damon. “We’re perhaps three… four miles outside the city? We’ll need to account for how long it will take us to traverse that distance through a cave and an underground tunnel.”
He looked toward Malon, who stood behind Seffi, hands resting reassuringly on the teenage girl’s shoulders. Malon wore a maroon tunic and dark gray leggings. Her hair was neatly braided, and she looked resolved, if not openly confident.
Damon had been more worried for how Vel would fair, especially once the fighting started. She had her crossbow with her, however, along with a cute leather buckler shield that she’d acquired at some point. Her hair was in the same tight bun she’d worn the previous night, though she’d foregone her spectacles. She only really needed them for reading.
“I can scout ahead,” said Lilian. “I’ll get a sense of how the first section of the cave looks, and we’ll go from there.”
“Do it,” said Damon, with a nod.
It was late enough in the afternoon that they didn’t have much time to work with. The sky overhead was deeply overcast. It had snowed the previous night, only briefly, but the weather had stayed cold, signaling the potential for more.
Malon began pulling food out of her bag and assembling a simple meal of bread, cheese, and smoked fish. She offered some to Kastet, who shook her head, claiming not to be hungry. Damon did eat, though he could barely taste what he chewed and would have preferred a strong drink.
“Walk with me,” said Wrath.
She brushed by him. Damon hesitated. He wasn’t interested in having her dangle her crest in front of him again. His decision, if anything, was more resolved than it had been earlier in the week. There was simply too much potential for the unexpected for him to commit his life to Wrath. Not here, not now.
Wrath looked over her shoulder at him, and the insistency she put into her expression called his assumption into question. He followed after her, shooting an apologetic glance at Malon and Vel, who didn’t trust Wrath in the same way he did.
They walked a short distance through the forest and up a hill that gave them a view of both the road and Avaricia in the distance. Wagons and carriages bustled to and from the city, eager to make the gates before they closed to most traffic come nightfall. They looked like industrious ants from so far away, single-minded and part of a greater collective than each individual realized.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight,” said Wrath. “This might work. I think it will. But it also might not.”
“You aren’t going to try to convince me to stay behind, are you?” asked Damon. “I already tried asking Vel the same. She refused to hear. Said that if our aesta was going, and if I was going, she was, too.”
“You’re lucky to have that kind of family,” said Wrath. “But no. My intention is not to convince you to stay behind. I need to explain a facet of this conflict which you may not have previously understood.”
She sat down on the grass. Damon took a seat beside her, watching the afternoon sun drooping on the horizon.
“There’s a secondary reason why both Avarice and I sought out the Athlatak,” said Wrath. “Why we traveled all that way to engage with a sibling who might want nothing to do with us. It wasn’t solely around forming an alliance, you see.”
“I figured Avarice was playing it safe,” said Damon. “He didn’t want an alliance. He wanted to eliminate the competition.”
“Exactly,” said Wrath. “Except, in this competition, the winner takes the pot.”
She gave him an unpleasantly grave smile.
“What do you mean?” asked Damon.
“What I mean is that when one Divine Remnant kills another, for a time, they gain their essence,” said Wrath. “It fades as whoever was reborn comes of age and begins to pull from their birthright, but it’s still a period of ten, sometimes twenty years of immensely amplified power.”
Damon stared at her, unsure of how to react to the information. He could understand why she hadn’t told him earlier, given how dangerous it might be to someone associated with another one of the Forsaken. A chill ran through him as he considered how it would apply to the upcoming encounter.
“Avarice,” continued Wrath. “He called himself the Godking. It sounds so fanciful. You’ve seen his power before. He’s incredible, but if you’d seen him decades ago, when he held the essence of several other of our brethren… you would understand. He was a god, for a time.”
“You’re telling me that tonight, if it comes to a fight, will boil down to who gets the first kill?”
“It will come to a fight,” said Wrath. “You shouldn’t doubt that for a moment. And yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
“Why do I need to know this?” He set a hand on her shoulder, leaning closer.
“Because you’re one of the few mortals powerful enough to make a difference,” said Wrath. “You can also be surprisingly ruthless when it suits you. If you see the tide turning against us… If I, or Lascivious, suffers a grievous injury… I need you to understand what’s at stake.”
The gravity of what she was asking finally dawned on him. “If it looks like you’ve been defeated, and Avarice or Conceit is going to kill you… You want me to do it instead. You’d rather die at my hand than theirs, knowing it would strengthen them.”
Wrath nodded slowly. “You should also realize now why I think it’s far more likely that Famine was killed by Avarice, rather than being strong-armed into his alliance.”
“Is that going to be
a factor?” he asked. “If he killed Famine, he’s already ahead of you and Seffi in terms of baseline power.”
“Yes. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about it. If that is the case, it’s only a matter of time before he grows even stronger.”
“Is this the real reason why the Forsaken are so prone to going to war with one another?” he asked.
“I suppose it’s part of it,” said Wrath. “Mostly, it’s just the dysfunction of any family, amplified by the fact that none of us ever really die.”
She closed her eyes. There wasn’t much more to be said, and eventually, they both returned to the carriage.
CHAPTER 34
Lilian returned from her scouting foray a few minutes later. It was just before sunset when the party officially set off into the underground, committing themselves to the plan and whatever outcome resulted from it.
The cave was small, easily missable, with an opening shaped like a half-closed mouth. Vel had a rope with her, and though it wasn’t long enough to tie everyone together, they still made use of it as a guide by having Lilian, upfront, hold one end, and Damon, bringing up the rear, hold the other.
Seffi lit the way, conjuring a globe of crimson power which gave off a glow bright enough to illuminate every inch of the cave as they passed through. It was relatively straightforward, with no sharp descents or inclines. The ground was slick in places, however, and old cave-ins left sections littered with tiny boulders that shifted and wavered underfoot.
No one spoke. Lilian seemed to have scouted enough to know the way as they approached the first intersection. They took the middle path, squeezing through a gap tight enough to force them each to turn sideways. Damon felt his sword’s scabbard catch as he made his own passage.
“Oof,” whispered Myr.
“Sorry,” he said. “You holding up alright?”
“Fine,” she whispered. “A little nervous.”
The entrance of the cave had been thick with a rich smell of mud and dank mildew. As they pushed deeper, the air took on a drier quality, chalklike and dusty. Noises echoed weirdly, contained within the enclosed space.
Damon felt a prickle of claustrophobia as he risked a glance back the way they’d come and considered how far he’d have to walk to catch sight of the cave’s entrance. They couldn’t go back. He knew that. It didn’t make sense to, but even so, it unnerved him to think about, as though the cave were a living monster whose throat they’d crawled into.
“Here,” said Lilian, after another half hour of spelunking. “See that hole above us? That leads to the sewer of Veridas Keep.”
A shadowed opening in the cave’s ceiling was visible next to one of the cave’s walls. The texture of the cave was rugged enough to allow them to climb up to it, but nobody seemed eager to volunteer to be the first one through.
“I’ll go,” said Damon. “I’ll take one end of the rope with me to make the climb easier for everyone else once I’m through.”
“Be careful, solas,” said Malon. She touched his hand, giving it a worried squeeze. He smiled at her, knowing this would be far from the most dangerous act he’d be attempting that night.
He made it up easily enough after taking off his sword belt. Wrath passed it back up to him once he was through and, with his assistance, scaled the rope in a flash of azure. The rest followed more slowly, though without much trouble.
“This is the Old Sewer,” said Wrath. “If my sense of direction is still accurate, we need to go this way.”
She gestured to one side of the uniform tunnel, which seemed to extend endlessly in both directions.
“It doesn’t smell bad,” whispered Vel. “I’m surprised by that.”
“This was the sewer used by the Old Rem,” said Malon. “It was buried by the time the Merinians colonized the city, but I suppose they must have unearthed part of it while constructing the dungeons and lower levels of Veridas Keep.”
“Quite so,” said Wrath.
She waved a hand and began leading the party down the tunnel. The way their footsteps echoed through the long, uniform space unnerved Damon. It sounded simultaneously as though someone was approaching them from the front and back. He cracked his knuckles, trying to shake off his growing nerves.
“How long have we been down here?” whispered Vel.
“I’ve not the slightest idea,” said Kastet.
“How do we know we’ll arrive at the right time?” asked Vel. “What if Avarice has already met with Gabriel? What if we’re too late?”
“What if they serve chicken for dinner instead of pheasant?” asked Damon.
Vel let out a nervous huff and went silent. Damon put his arm around her. He could feel her heart racing even through just that small amount of contact… or was that his own?
It was hard to tell whether minutes or hours had passed by when they finally reached a grated door barring their path forward. There was another grate of a different style set into the side of the wall, and it was that one which Lilian focused her attention on.
“Once we’re through this door and the one after it, we’ll be in the dungeon of Veridas Keep,” she whispered. “Any guards we encounter will attack us on sight. Avarice’s prisoners might also be a factor. It’s likely they’ll react to our presence.”
“Weapons out, then,” said Damon, drawing his myrblade.
Wrath drew her longsword, and Vel had her crossbow ready. Damon found himself wondering how it was that they had so few real weapons between them, though he supposed Lascivious and Malon’s magical abilities were weapons in their own right.
Lilian finished picking the lock and pulled the grated door open. It let out an ear-splitting screech that echoed both ways down the tunnel. They waited for several breaths once it was open in case any guards came running. None did.
The section of the dungeon they found themselves in was unfinished, likely abandoned due to how the construction had stumbled upon the ancient sewer tunnel. The party moved along a hallway lined with empty cells on either side. A heavy wooden door barred them from continuing forward as they reached the end.
“Can you get this one open?” asked Damon.
Lilian shook her head. “It’s barred from the other side, and there are no gaps I can slip myself through.”
“Seffi,” whispered Malon. “Would you care to do the honors?”
Seffi stiffened in surprise, but collected herself and stepped forward. She turned around, gesturing for the others to move back, and then held her hands out.
A whoosh sounded in the air as she released a tremendous fire spell. It carried such power and heat that the wooden door let out the merest of crackles as it all but dissolved into ash and embers. An appreciative whistle came from the chamber ahead of them.
“See, that’s what I told ya, Barnard,” muttered a voice. “I said they’d be coming for us. I said they’d be coming, and they’re here!”
There was no point in playing it stealthy in the near term, so Damon strode forward, surveying the hallway and the various cells on either side. Only one of them appeared to be occupied by a man deep in conversation with no one in particular.
“I think so, too,” said the prisoner. “Right? No, I wouldn’t, though. I’m fine right here.”
“Should we try to help him?” asked Vel.
“Help?” The man laughed. “I don’t need help. I’m safe from them in here. But you… you might need help. Be quick. They’re coming.”
“We can’t do anything for him, or for any of these prisoners,” said Damon. “Too risky to let them out, and even if we did, they’d never make it out of the palace alive.”
“Many of them have committed real crimes,” said Wrath. “I doubt you’d want to release the rapists and murderers onto the streets.”
They pushed forward, traversing another identical hallway. The next door was neither locked nor barred, but Damon heard the distinctive sound of scuttling metal against stone as he slowly pulled it open.
“Copper spiders,” he
whispered. “Avarice must be using them to guard the palace.”
“I’ll handle them as they come,” said Wrath. “Stay clear.”
Damon gave her space, leading the others in her wake. There were more prisoners calling to them at routine intervals, though most were too confused or outright mad to say anything meaningful or relevant.
A copper spider skittered by as they approached an intersection. It reoriented toward Wrath, hissing steam out of a spout atop its dog-sized body. Wrath blurred with azure light as she attacked. Before Damon could blink, the metal monster clattered to the stone floor in a pile of useless copper parts.
It felt almost unfair, like some cheat or convenient indulgence. Wrath disposed of two more of the spiders as they continued forward, one equipped with the fire-breathing ability which had devastated Yvvestrosai. It never got a chance to do more than flicker a few sparks outward before Wrath dismantled it.
“Pathetic,” she whispered.
“To you,” said Damon. “To a normal prisoner who would be fighting them unarmed and without magic, they’d be terrifying.”
“I would assume that’s why Avarice has set them to this task,” said Kastet. “It’s ingenious, in a way. They’re unthinking, immune to the pleas and appeals of the prisoners, while also being too frightening for any of them to imagine taking on in a fight.”
“We can appreciate Avarice’s intimidation strategies later,” said Damon. “Come on.”
The dungeon’s last chamber was also the first to be occupied by flesh and blood guards. Damon and Wrath were first through the door. Two men in Avarician guard uniforms rose to their feet off a wooden bench set against the wall, each fumbling for their weapons in surprise.
Damon slashed the throat of one, while Wrath snapped the neck of the other. He didn’t enjoy killing, especially not like this, but it was necessary. They couldn’t risk one of them raising the alarm before they reached Avarice.
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