by A. S. Etaski
I nodded in agreement. “What were they doing underground?”
“Looking for something. Probably not for us. Even the blonde Elf seemed surprised when she found our stash.”
My hand slowed, and I held her foot. My eyes still felt very wide. “You said you warned her. It wasn’t a good idea. You fucked her, but let her live?”
My Lead watched the ceiling like she could see through all the way to the Surface. “Yeah. Humans don’t know us, but she did. Already knew what we were.” Jaunda frowned in what I thought might be confusion. “Almost thought I could understand what she said in her tongue, but…not really. It was only when she switched to the Human Common I got it. She knew that language, too. Better than us.”
That worried me for some reason. “What about the Humans? How did you deal with them?”
“Killed them. Wasn’t gonna let them go off telling real stories. They’ll be forgotten soon enough.”
I struggled to follow her logic. “She knew what we were and spoke with Humans better than you. She must be allied with them. They know her but don’t know us, and she can tell them about us.”
Jaunda shook her head slightly, and I thought a bit more.
“Unless…she wore a disguise, like you?”
Jaunda hadn’t noticed that I’d stopped scrubbing her feet. “Yeah. Her illusion broke during the attack. Might’ve been the only reason she lived, now I think on it. She was hiding from Humans, like us, even though she was traveling with them.”
“Why not choose to bring her here, Lead?” I asked in a carefully respectful tone. “Our Elders could have questioned her.”
Jaunda snorted softly. “D’Shea asked the same thing.”
I could tell it hadn’t been easy for her to explain then, either. I waited, sitting up carefully, rinsing out the cloth and gently wringing out the water. Jaunda listened to the splash and drip like it was quiet music.
“The pale Elf had magic,” my Lead said. “She was a mage of some kind. Smelled like flowers, even underground.”
“Flowers?”
Jaunda glanced and smirked at me. “Perfumed plants on the Surface, like some of our mushrooms. Draw insects to them with pretty colors and scent.”
I frowned. “Draws…fleas? Flies?”
“Close. Lots more variety on the Surface. True about most anything you could think of that we have down here. If we got it, they got even more of it above.”
“How can that be?”
My Lead grinned. “There’s an all-important source of light, greater than thousands of candles lit all at once. The whole Surface depends on it moving across the big space above. Why it’s only dark enough to leave the cave at certain marks of the cycle. It’s too bright, it hurts to see. The scholars call it a ‘Sun’.”
I stared, my mind working diligently to connect it with any stories I’d heard or read. There were a couple, but no one seemed to pay as much attention as I’d think. No one seemed curious enough to ask for more. Not as I felt now, looking at Jaunda, knowing she’d been there. She’d seen it and returned to tell about it.
“How does moving light equal the Surface has ‘more’ of everything?”
“Light makes things grow on the Surface,” Jaunda said. “Food. Shade. Different than down here. Much different. And that pale Elf had odd magic linked to that light.” Jaunda paused. “Got the impression she’d die if we dragged her away from the Surface. Like a flower wilts without that ‘Sun’ giving it light every half-cycle.”
My Lead frowned in concentration as I waited, watching her every breath. She absently fondled her netherlips, and I watched that, too.
“D’Shea said something like the plants ‘eat’ light. Or make food from it, somehow. So blocking the light starves the plants up there. Same thing for that pale Elf.”
“You were certain?” I asked, intensely fascinated as a new expanse stretched out far above my head within my mind’s eye. “How?”
Jaunda turned her head, stared at the far wall of her room as if trying to put words to her thoughts. “The Sisterhood sometimes kills children. The Priestesses sacrifice the unwanted ones. But under Rausery and D’Shea, we don’t use the Feldeus on them. We don’t do what your sister did, and a Red Sister who breaks the rule doesn’t get off easy. The last two I knew about didn’t die fast, but we eventually killed them, because their demon was no longer the Sisterhood but their need for the half-grown.”
I looked down briefly, not sure why she spoke about this. It was accurate from what little I’d seen so far; the Red Sister punishments and humiliations were only forced on adult Nobles who either needed a lesson or would be an example how to die from shame before dying for real. If there were children who were condemned to die for whatever reason, the Red Sisters weren’t called first.
But I didn’t see the relevance here.
“What does this have to do with the pale ‘flower’?” I asked. “You said she was tall. She wasn’t a child, was she?”
Jaunda shook her head. “She had tits. Blonde fur where you’d expect it. She smelled grown, Sirana, in every way. She was built for fucking like the rest of us.”
“You desired her?”
Jaunda shrugged. “I was curious.”
I watched her ruffle and tug at her pubic fur. So was I, now.
“Did she feel any different?” I asked.
One corner of her mouth lifted. “No. A pink cunt is still a cunt, it seems. So is the rosy pucker of a white ass. Nice and tight, like you.” She winked at me. “The pale one also recognized cock when she saw it. She’d taken one before, I could tell.”
“Oh?” I was tempted to smile at the comparisons, the similarities. “What sort of things did she say in Human tongue when you showed her your cock?”
My Lead’s teeth showed in a dark smile. “Like a Noble. Mostly begging and insults about how the parts don’t match.”
I let myself laugh at that familiarity—a reaction the entire Sisterhood enjoyed—and for a moment Jaunda joined me. When she stopped, however, I studied her expression.
“But?” I asked, shifting my sore backside. “What else?”
Jaunda sounded rueful. “You’re like a mind-reading mage, sometimes, Sirana.”
I shifted closer, following the scent. “What else, Lead?”
“Her eyes were different. Green as emeralds, but nothing like our sly Priestess. She wasn’t like one of our Nobles, either.”
“What? But you just said—”
“I know what I said,” Jaunda interrupted. “Except that any Noble we’ve punished has already done worse things. They might not like it, might want to deny it could happen to them and they might break when it does, but they’ve always seen it before. Ordered it done, or done it themselves. The blonde Elf was…”
Jaunda paused. It was a real exercise to keep my mouth shut.
“She resisted, sure,” she continued, “and babbled all sort of things as I fucked her, but she…hm. Seemed ignorant how the world works. Or, at least, how it does underground. Like she’d never seen some of the ways we can kill and fuck each other, let alone acted like she’d already done it to anyone else. I think I was the first cock she’d ever had in her ass, even though she fully expected and dreaded my Feldeu using her throat and her slit.”
Again, I tried to smile at the likeness, something I knew about personally, but Jaunda’s frown had grown. She stared at the ceiling again.
“My caits had their fun with the Humans, too, before killing them off. Our prisoner could see it, I made sure of that, and… that really seemed to break her. Didn’t seem like she’d even killed before. Everything about that ambush surprised her. Afterward, I didn’t take long to decide. I couldn’t kill her. And I couldn’t drag her back here. I hauled her all the way back to the Sun and threw her out. Told her to never come back.”
Now I believed I had enough pieces. Finally. I couldn’t help but try to put them together.
“Mercy?” I said
, almost squeaked.
It wasn’t a word the Davrin used very often.
Jaunda didn’t look at me. “Basically, yeah. Elder D’Shea wasn’t impressed, but Rausery was. Remains to be seen if they will convince the Prime I don’t need a ‘lesson in transgression’ of my own for making that call. I own it, though.”
As I watched her, my chest felt warm. “Elder Rausery was impressed? Why?”
Jaunda smiled a little, looking sideways at me. “She’s been to the Surface more than any of us. She’s the one who taught us a different set of rules for engagement up there. What works down here doesn’t always work up there. And she’s never seen a pale Elf, as many times as she’s gone. She was glad I didn’t kill the Surface Elf or put us in a position where we’d have no choice but to hand her over to the Priestesses. Even if I scared the snot out of her and probably made enemies we don’t know about, Rausery said it was the right call.”
This was so thrilling of a story to me that I grinned. Jaunda observed me for a few, quiet moments and huffed a laugh.
“Qiv is right,” she said, amused. “So fucking curious, Blue Eyes.”
“Why did you tell me all this, if I wasn’t supposed to listen.”
My Lead reached between my legs, nudging between my thighs until I opened them, and she stroked my sex. It felt good enough that I relaxed and she pushed me onto my back, getting up on her knees and in between mine, already preparing for round two.
“D’Shea’s also right,” she mused, touching my skin. “You learn enough from us, survive long enough, you might be called on to see the Surface one of these turns.”
CHAPTER 12
A rare sort of mercy may have been at the core of Jaunda’s last mission, but I knew it wasn’t in the next one to which I was assigned. Elder Rausery wasn’t present in the torch-lit strategy room when I answered my summons, either, but the Elder Sorceress was.
So was the Prime.
Fuck.
I saluted them both and stood at attention, waiting.
“Strip down, novice,” the Prime ordered, jerking her chin toward a table. “Everything laid out there.”
I stared straight ahead, first controlling my breath, so my heart didn’t race away from me. I removed my cloak, rested it on the table. Then I unloaded the items on my belt, piece by piece, my weapons and pouches neatly lined up on the clean, grey-brown expanse, before placing the belt itself at the end. I removed my boots and socks, worked every piece of cloth and armor and displayed them for the Prime.
It only took a few hundred heartbeats—mine, not the Prime’s, which was no doubt thudding much slower in her chest.
For the first time, I thought, the Prime inspected my gear while Elder D’Shea stood patiently, meeting the Prime’s eyes whenever she glanced her way and answering the occasional question. I remained silent, hoping I hadn’t been chosen to alleviate the Prime’s boredom. She checked the sharpness of my blades, sniffed the contents of my pouches and vials, inspected the stitches on my bracers. How grateful I was that I had taken my Sisters’ tutoring seriously and all my equipment was in excellent shape.
“Passes muster,” the oldest Red Sister stated, faded eyes scanning my naked body as if it was another article on the table—something she’d seen thousands of times before and only used when she had the need. “Glad she can do the basics by now.”
By now.
It had been half a turn since Gaelan had swept me up from the Consort’s Farm of Solitude. How dumb did she think I was?
Craning her neck to meet my eyes deliberately, the Prime added, “The black belt needs to go.”
I hesitated how to answer.
“It shall be, Prime,” D’Shea answered, and I realized our superior had been speaking to the Sorceress from the beginning.
Nodding, the old Davrin stepped back to observe as my Elder lifted from the table upon the platform a large, broad, and shallow box made of hammered reed. I didn’t see that relatively fragile material often inside the Cloister; I could see it give under her fingers, seeing that it had a lid, as Elder D’Shea stepped off the platform to place the box in front of me. She straightened up, smiling in that unreadable way of hers.
“New items out,” she instructed. “Redundant, old items in.”
I signed the acknowledgment and went to one knee to turn the lid over to my left, away from the table and my Elder. Inside was a newly crafted uniform made of bright red leather. I stifled excitement and doubt. The others had claimed it would be custom made. I hadn’t stood still for any such fitting, so I could only hope that it fit me.
New items out.
I did not have enough room on the long inspection table to lay out a second uniform, the clothing, and the armor, in its entirety. With a third of the items removed, I needed to begin trading items as I could. It became a puzzle of concentration, noting how something new was placed and packed in the box before taking it out, and next returning the old version to fit roughly the same part in the pattern.
The Prime and D’Shea said nothing as they watched. I worked without pause or excess noise, and eventually had all the new pieces switched out for old and the lid back on the hammered reed box. Most of my tools and weapons remained, but I had a new, red belt upon which to thread them.
The Prime jerked her chin. “Show me, novice.”
Get dressed.
This was speedier than dressing down had been; both the new gifts and the fact that my orifices escaped a burning violation had a hand in this. Elder D’Shea was smiling wider now, as she saw the same as I did, each piece fit me very well. Comfortable. Strong. Familiar.
As if it was made for me.
I tested making fists in the new gloves and lifted my chin with a surreal pride I could barely describe. I saluted in lieu of being called upon to speak; I wasn’t sure I had the words then, anyway. Not ones I wanted the Prime to hear. The next moment, I heard her grunt.
“She’s ready, Elder?”
The Sorceress allowed amusement to show. “We shall soon find out.”
I felt a chill enter my middle; again, I breathed to help keep my heart slow. I waited for the orders I did not expect to enjoy.
“We need a confession from House Thalluen,” the Prime said bluntly, crossing her arms before her. “And, after you get it, proof of execution.”
If I wanted to walk in the same way Elder D’Shea had done when Jilrina died, if I tried to order them to take me to any one of their mistress’ rooms, they would do it. I could stroll in, request their defenses taken down and take their measure as I saw fit.
But that would give her a warning. A shield to build resistance.
It also wouldn’t impress anybody in the Sisterhood.
The Red Sisters dedicated a lot of time and effort gathering intelligence, to find weak points in every House and workarounds to various wards. The Elders possessed a great selection of counter-items, created as tools for a specific task, probably crafted under compulsive silence by the Wizards in the Tower. Perhaps that was also how the Feldeu was made.
We hid both our methods and the discovery of any vulnerability; we shared those secrets with no one, not even the Sanctuary. The Nobles and the Priestesses had to feel reasonably secure in their methods defending against themselves and us. We allowed the assumption of “common practice” to work in our favor because then we seemed unstoppable when enforcing the Queen’s Will. If one of us arrived unannounced, our target would spend precious focus and time fretting where their defenses had failed, weakening their will before we had even begun.
Jaunda had even used that tactic on me at Court.
While this eve was not my first time alone and outside the Cloister, it was my first entering a free-standing House rather than a wing or room using the spyways of Court. I felt ready yet wary, both aided and pressured by the fact that I was familiar with the grounds of the plantation and the mansion itself. And those within it.
First, I rode a lizard mount to the
outskirts, its only tackle being the chew-proof bridle. There I left it behind, crossing the land on foot, knowing it would wander back to the sentry border if it weren’t collected in a cycle. Nothing on the plantation was very tall so the House Guards would see a massive, dark lizard and rider slinking along the road, but if it was only me, my cloak masked much of my life sign and, from afar, a crouching Sister could mimic a humble boulder quite nicely.
During my training, I’d grown more sensitive to the presence of wards, runes, and circles from repeated exposure and the discomfort they caused. This was the area of skill where I had spent the most time with D’Shea one-on-one, and while she was not my only tutor in this regard, she was an exacting one.
Now I felt I could be glad about that. If the magic ring on my left hand and beneath my glove did not warm pleasantly, indicating it protected me from setting off the alarm, then I could choose to break a pellet from my pouch which opened a brief, counter-magical disruption through which I could step. That second option wasn’t my first choice; it made the magic waver, even if it did not destroy it, and a sensitive mage would sense it.
There are no sensitive mages at my former House.
Still, I didn’t want to risk it. I preferred the climbing and picking of more mundane locks to using too many magical tools anyway, even if I wasn’t foolish enough to think I could get by without them. Affinity to magic was inherent in our bodies and our culture; our very society encouraged the development of new tricks and counter methods to overcome them. Knowing how to use the tools one had access to was essential, even if one was not a mage.
It had been a long time since some attack had happened at this House, I knew. The guards were bored in a way I recognized and, as I expected, loitered a bit while changing their watch. That was my opportunity to scale the three stories directly beneath the room I sought. She could have changed bed quarters since the last time I was here, or the last time a Sister had made any notes, but this didn’t concern me. Part of this assignment was to report every known change and make those notes on the Matron and House Thalluen myself.
