We were so desperate for one another that we lost all reason. After the fifth climax, a new sound joined us, the ripping and breaking of wood. Eris tore deep chunks from the nightstand as she gripped it. The furniture was crafted of solid oak, and rather than see it as the frightening display of strength that it was, it only made me want to work harder.
I bent over, trailing my tongue from the peak of her breasts to the nape of her neck and opened my mouth, biting softly.
Eris shuddered and moaned, gripping my back with her fingers, digging into my flesh. Warm blood slipped down my back, but I didn’t care.
The rest of the night was a blur; as we went on, more and more of my rationality faded away into pure hunger, and I lost control of myself. Through our bond, my need bled over to Eris and rolled her under along with me. Her eyes were bleary and unfocused as we abandoned all reason.
After that, I lost sense of time, and the only thing I cared about was Eris’s flesh in my hands.
When I finally came back to myself, be it hours or centuries later, we both lay tangled together on the bed. The pillows and comforter strewn about on the floor, and we were filthy with sweat.
Eris was curled against my side, her hair a mess, but I was enamored with the nape of her neck as it fell to her spine and back. Her vertebrae pressed against her porcelain skin as she breathed in and out deeply. I placed my hand just above her ribs and slowly caressed toward her hips and backside, marveling at the perfection of her skin.
A flash of red on my bicep drew my attention. A thin droplet of blood snaked from my bicep to my shoulder and continued towards my neck. Did I bite my lip in my sleep?
It wasn’t just on my arm, a thick drip of dried blood was on my chest as well. What the hell?
Looking myself over, I didn’t have any injures, and it was then that I took in my surroundings. The gray sheets were stained red, a deep splotch of it under the two of us. I wasn’t bleeding, so that left only one conclusion. Turing Eris on her back, I found the source of the blood.
Eris had heavy crimson stains down her chest, stemming from a vicious gash in her neck. The broken skin was ragged, and even moving her opened the wound, causing a fresh tendril of blood to mix with the sticky mess.
Eris had been bitten, and a chunk had been torn from her flesh.
Cold dread filled me as I swallowed, and the tang of iron filled my mouth.
I turned to the mirror in the far corner and looked at myself. Blood was caked around my mouth and lips. As soon as I saw it, my stomach couldn’t take it and I scrambled off the bed, heaving too much blood and the remnants of last night’s meal all over the wooden floors.
I heaved my guts out until nothing but bile remained. My throat was raw and burned with the acidic remains of my vomit, but before I could wash my mouth out and check on Eris, my vision swam.
My strength fled as darkness crept along the edges of my sight, and I fell to my knees and then to oblivion.
***
I didn’t dream, for it was much too vivid to ever be confused as such. It was more like an out of body experience than a dream; my body was lying on the floor of the safe house, but my mind was someplace else entirely.
I was in a void of darkness, I couldn’t hear, couldn’t speak, but I was aware. Flashes of memories ran through my mind, but they weren’t mine. Places and things I knew I’d never seen before, but it didn’t dawn on me what I was experiencing until the flashes slowed, settling on a scene that played out like a movie.
I found myself in a dwelling, the likes of which I’d never seen before. It reminded me of the houses the elves lived in, but the elves were a practical race, and the residence I found myself in reeked of affluent wealth.
It was as if the house had been carved from a tree, one so large it could fit the entirety of Castle Gloom-Harbor inside it and still have room left over. The furniture looked like it had been sprouted from the very wood itself and was so finely carved and detailed, it put my own woodworking skills to shame. I could have spent a hundred years perfecting my craft, and I could never hope to match the quality of even the lowest barstool in the kitchen.
A chandelier hung fifty feet overhead and slithered like roots coming alive and forming the pattern of a rose. Mana crystals were sunk into the roots and shone brilliant blue-white light down on the entire house.
Eris, a young version of Eris, perhaps four or five, sat at a table in the kitchen, eating. On the table was a plate of food, and a vase of fresh flowers, arranged in a beautiful display. Eris reached for her drink, a crystal cup of water, and accidentally bumped the vase with her hand. It tipped over with a silent crash and spilled water and flowers over the table as the porcelain vase broke into several large pieces.
Before she could even rise from her seat to clean up the mess, a man appeared. He was an older entomancer. Tall and handsome, with broad cheeks and a chiseled jaw. His light brown hair was long and pulled back out of his face in a ponytail. He was well built; the bulging veins in his arms were surrounded by pure, functional muscle. But what struck me most about his features were his eyes.
His eyes were a pale cobalt that shone in the light, while his irises were pure black. I didn’t know who this man was, but I was immediately put off by his presence. He was most likely Eris’s father, but he unsettled me in a way few could manage.
The man took one look at the mess, and rage clouded his face. He marched over to the table, yanked Eris out of her chair, and slapped her across the face.
She reeled from the shock, her face already reddening from the impact. Tears welled in her eyes as the man shouted wordlessly at her and pointed at the mess, the water from the vase spilling over the table to drip on the rich hardwood floor.
With a shove, he released Eris, and she crumpled to the floor, though still, she did not cry. Only when the man stormed off, and she was alone did she let the tears fall. Eris curled in on herself and sobbed.
Pure hatred filled me as the scene unfolded. I wanted nothing more than to scoop her in my arms and tell her everything would be all right, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I could only watch as she silently picked herself up and wiped the tears from her face.
The vision faded after that, the edge of my sight distorting and going black before a new memory unfolded in front of me.
I found myself in a well-lit room. The stone that comprised the room was white marble, perfectly smooth, and even. Lit torch sconces lined the walls as twilight streamed through open windows. From my viewpoint, I could see the tops of trees, thick and unending as far as the eye could see.
I returned my attention to the room; it was packed with entomancers. Every color of the rainbow was reflected in the eyes of the well-dressed men and women here.
They all stood lined up on either side of an empty throne—a few dozen or so at most. There was a thick white and gold rug that lined the floor, which stretched from the throne to the entrance of the room.
The dark wooden doors at the entrance of the room opened, and a team of warriors in heavy black plate marched in on either side of the door. Followed shortly after by a few important-looking men garbed in beautiful clothes. Though the style was unusual: green flowing tunics with most of the chest bared and dark mantling that draped about their shoulders.
As the next guest entered the room, all eyes were on her.
She was beautiful.
By every form of the word, she was beautiful.
Long silken hair cascaded down her back like a golden waterfall and fell behind her long ears. Her cheekbones were high on her face and were sharp enough that I expected her face to start bleeding. She had the face of someone who demanded much and received everything she asked for.
As with every other member of the entomancer race, the most captivating aspect of her visage was her insectoid eyes. The held a bottomless pit of black at the far edges fading to a beautiful golden yellow, before returning to pitch black for her irises. Her eyes held the same pattern as the stripes on a bumblebee. T
hough the woman walking toward the throne was far more dangerous than any bee. She held an air of power about her that chilled me to the bone.
I knew immediately who she was. Eris was reflected in her features, though where Eris was soft and kind, this woman was a knife. Sharp and deadly.
As she turned to gaze at the patrons who came to watch the coronation—for it was obvious that’s what this was—her eyes for the barest moment flicked to gaze directly at me. A bolt of fear shot through me, and I withered under the intensity of her gaze.
Then her eyes left mine, and everything returned to normal. The fear drained out of me and left me weak. I turned around to find Eris’s father directly behind me. We lined up almost perfectly. I realized, with a wave of sweeping relief that she hadn’t been staring at me at all. She’d been staring through me at her husband, who was looking a little worse for wear since the previous time I had seen him.
His light brown hair was much longer than in the previous scene; it fell past his shoulders, looking lank and greasy, and his face was sunken as if he’d been starved. The look in his dulled blue eyes was vacant, and his once-beautiful clothes were little more than shredded and soiled rags.
He looked nothing short of a dead man walking. Empty and void of life or hope.
As Eris’s mother reached the throne, she sat upon it in a dramatic, flowing fashion. Exaggerated motions portrayed not a self-assured monarch, but a pretender playing at being queen.
I’d met true monarchs; I knew what a ruler should look like, and this woman did not measure up. Her beauty was her weapon, and I could tell she was a master in her form of combat, but beauty alone wouldn’t make her a ruler.
Once she had so elegantly arranged herself on the throne, she barked an order, and immediately, everyone knelt and bowed their heads. All except for her husband, the walking corpse, and for just a moment, some fire returned to his eyes.
He hefted his chin proudly and stared down his wife, whose face held cold and righteous fury toward her defiant husband. She barked out another command, and everyone raised their heads. She then motioned for one of her aides, a spindly man with long features. He approached her nervously and bowed his head as she spoke.
When she had finished saying whatever it was to the man, he turned and called out. He was looking at the two intimidating entomancers in the heavy armor. They nodded their heads and moved to open the door.
Eris walked in, wearing a lovely flowing dress. Black with golden accents that matched her hair perfectly. Her hair was done up around her head, and she looked adorable. Judging by her appearance, I put her age around fourteen or so. Not quite out of adolescence just yet.
She walked calmly down the carpeted room toward her mother, holding a neutral expression, but I knew that face was a mask. If she was hiding behind a mask, she knew what was about to happen and steeled herself for it.
As she approached her mother, she bowed and moved to stand by her mother’s side. With her so close to her mother, you could see even more the resemblances the two shared. You could also see, so sharply contrasted, how utterly different they were to each other. When Eris had settled in a small chair by the side of the throne, the festivities continued.
The queen bellowed out more commands, and one of the two knights moved away from the door, while the other stayed in place. The knight who moved lumbered over to Eris’s father and grasped him by the neck, dragging him in front of the queen.
The rest of the patrons were shocked, with bewildered looks across their faces as her husband was unceremoniously dumped in on the white rug. He stayed huddled on the ground until the queen barked once more. The decision weighed heavily in the man’s cerulean eyes. He was torn between obeying the queen and accepting his fate with grace or to defy her one last time and disobey her orders and continue staying on the floor.
Finally, the man seemed unwilling to lie down and die like a dog. He rose to his feet, and a bit of honor breathed some life back into him. My respect for the man grew, if only by a sliver.
I’d have gladly killed the man myself and done it with a smile, but it has to be said that anyone who would stare down the face of their executioner with dignity is worthy of respect, regardless of the heinous crimes committed while alive.
Death is the great equalizer. To face it boldly and without fear is to be commended.
Eris’s father looked at the queen with no hesitation or remorse for his actions, whatever they had been, that had led him to this moment. He stared down the woman he had once been bonded to. She rose from the throne in a single fluid motion and sauntered over to stand before the man with nothing short of victory in her eyes.
The queen raised her hand, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, strands of black chitin exploded out of every pore of her arm and hand, coating every inch in under a second, reshaping itself to form a wicked black sword. The queen raised the sword aloft, before swiftly bringing the blade down into her once-mate’s neck.
Thick blood rained from the severed artery, coating the room and the queen in the hot and sticky mess; bright red painted her gown and face. As soon as it splashed across her mouth, she lost herself in the frenzy of the kill. She pounced on the dying man and proceeded to stab him over and over again.
She kept going until he was nothing more than scraps of shredded meat and blood. Only once she was satiated with her kill did she cease her maddened assault on the dead man.
She stood back up, back to the regal posture as before, though still spattered in crimson gore. Without a word, the chitin that was her weapon melted back through the pores in her skin, as if it had never been there at all. She motioned her hand as she turned to walk back to her throne, immediately there was bustling about by several of her aides to clean up the mess that was now cooling on the once-white rug.
Before she sat down on her throne, the queen knelt to look her daughter in the eyes. Eris tilted her head to stare at her mother, whose eyes had lost the gleam of power. The queen seemed an entirely different person while she held the gaze of her daughter, both staring at each other before the queen reached up to fondly brush Eris’s cheek, meant to be a loving gesture—but Eris’s cheek came away stained red.
The queen stood up and went to sit on her throne to continue with the coronation, but my eyes never left Eris. When her mother walked away, I saw the mask slip on her face, and horror and sorrow filled her eyes.
Once more, my vision faded to darkness and to one final scene.
I stood in what once looked like a town center or shopping plaza. I saw the ruined and splintered remnants of what were once makeshift shops or stalls, now nothing more than splintered planks of wood. They’d been cleared out of the center of the square and brushed against the crumbling stone buildings that lined the plaza.
What looked like an execution was taking place.
Several hundred men and women had gathered around an impromptu jail, hastily constructed in the center of the marketplace by magic. The crowd that had gathered was a mixture of elven and dwarven people. As I reached the center of the plaza, I recognized the inhabitants of the cells.
Eris and her mother were side by side, each bound and chained.
Eris looked exactly like she had when we first met. Wearing the same tattered and torn clothing as she had on in when she appeared out of the crystal. Her hair was dirty, slick with moisture, and matted to her forehead with sweat and ash. She seemed to be staring at the ground, her eyes unfocused; she looked as if she’d checked out of reality altogether.
Her mother, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be taking her captivity lying down. She constantly railed against her cell. While she still held the same stunning beauty as before, it was marred by her utter and complete insanity. As I got closer, I could see Eris was only bound by one thin chain in her cell. Her mother, however, was bound in every possible way—dozens of thick heavy chains wrapped around her and were bolted into the ground.
She had both physical and magical shackles on her. The swirling
ethereal blues and green of binding magic writhed over her irons...which looked to be comprised of pure shadowsteel.
The dwarves were taking no chances, it seemed, in letting their captive escape. The queen was even bound across her mouth to keep her from speaking. The only portion left uncovered was the top half of her face. Her hair was lank and strewn with bits of soot and flecked with blood. Her eyes were wild and unhinged. She seemed to be raving on the inside; her eyes were screaming at her captors.
She had lost all sense of herself to the madness of defeat.
She’d waged war, and she had lost.
The scene I had stumbled in on made more sense now. Eris had told me the story. Because of the mad queen, the entomancers had brought war and ruin to the world of the elves and the dwarves. This was the aftermath. The price Eris and her mother had to pay.
Several of the dwarven soldiers marched over to the cage that held Eris’s mother and unlocked the door. They unlatched the shackles on the bars of her cell. She surged forward once the final lock clicked free. With nothing to support her and her feet bound tight, she didn’t make it far. She careened out of her prison and crashed to the ground.
She tried to squirm her way free, but the chains held fast, and she found no purchase to freedom. Two of the men went and calmly bent down, hefting her onto their shoulders. From there, they carried her a short distance to a small post that looked like it had been created from the very street itself using earth magic.
Once she was as secured as a person could be to the post, the soldiers left with looks of scorn and disgust plastered across their faces. As the guards departed, the rest of the crowd followed suit, and soon no one was within fifty feet of the queen or the jail cells.
Shuffling from the far end of the courtyard caught my attention. A group of robed and hooded figures walked through the throng of bystanders to stand before the imprisoned queen. I counted thirteen of them and tried to get a better look at their faces, but even though they wore no masks, and I could see their faces, I couldn’t remember a single detail about their appearance. Man or woman, short or tall. Nothing.
Hive Knight: A Dark Fantasy LitRPG (Trinity of the Hive Book 1) Page 30
