The Poison Princess

by J. Stone

  Ruby, meanwhile, smiled at Lorelai before twirling the scythe in her hand and bringing it across the spider lady’s neck. Her head fell with a thunk some feet away. The body did not fall as quickly, having some life left in it, as it moved about, trying to find something to do with itself but ultimately failing. It too, soon fell toppled to the floor, occasionally twitching but amounting to nothing more.

  “You did it,” Scarlett called from behind her.

  “Yes…” she replied, pausing there for a moment.

  “Are you going to let me out?”

  “Not yet,” the princess simply said.

  “Oh.” She shifted awkwardly inside the silky restraints. “Okay then.”

  Approaching the body, Ruby wasn’t quite finished with her prey. Using the scythe, the princess cut into the spider lady in an attempt to find the poison glands that produced such wonderful venom. She sliced with foreknowledge for where such a thing would be despite having never learned anything about the anatomy of a creature such as Lorelai. She ultimately found a large organ in the spider part of the body that housed a great deal more of the dim green fluid. Her hands covered in gore, she cut it free from the rest of the body, and Ruby sliced a slit in the thin membrane before lifting it to her lips. The venom tasted even better fresh. The toxic fluid was sweet and bitter at the same time. The sticky substance was warm, and as she drank, it coated her throat like a glass of thick milk and flowed down into her body until nothing remained in the poison gland. She burned with power now. Her skin tingled, and she felt as though she had no barriers. She could do anything she wanted.

  The princess felt utterly ravenous after the kill and not just for the venom that she’d taken from Lorelai. Looking back toward Scarlett, she saw her beautiful demon trapped against the wall, and the thought of utter domination over her aroused Ruby even further. After wiping her mouth of the poisons, she walked back to join her, and using the scythe, she sliced enough of the webs to free her servant’s body, but left her hands and legs trapped under the silky restraints. She then dropped the scythe to the ground and looked into her demon’s eyes.

  “What are you doing?” Scarlett asked warily.

  “Whatever I want,” Ruby replied, wiping her hands clean on the silky fabric.

  She pulled the web from Scarlett’s midsection, tossing the hardened material to the cave floor. Her hand then drifted down to the hem of Scarlett’s skirt. She hiked the fabric up, and her fingers glided against the demon’s soft skin. Sliding her finger inside, she began to pleasure Scarlett, with the corpse of the spider lady, Lorelai, mere feet away.

  “Mmm. My princess…” her demon moaned softly.

  Continuing her efforts with her fingers, Ruby grabbed Scarlett and kissed her. With every flutter of her fingers on Scarlett’s body and every passing moment they were embraced, she could feel her bond with the demon grow and strengthen. Scarlett had spoken once before of a pleasure loop, whereby everything one felt, so did the other. As she pleasured her demon, she found that she was gratifying herself as well. Everything felt so good that the world around her faded. She lost track of time. She forgot her efforts to save her sister. She forgot about her lost decade. She forgot that she was now the poison princess. Nothing mattered but her own satisfaction.

  Her fingers were quite wet from pleasuring her horned demon, and something inside her stirred. She dropped to her knees, kneeling on the soft webbing left behind by the spider woman and hiked Scarlett’s skirt further up with both hands. Compelled, she placed her tongue where her fingers had previously been. Her demon continued to moan above her, and she looked up past her navel and breasts to see Scarlett’s eyes clamped tightly shut and that she was softly biting her lower lip. Ruby realized that this demon truly had been made just to suit her. Even the taste between her legs was of strawberries. The princess indulged her desire for some time before finally standing back up and wiping her lips and chin.

  Strengthened by the spider’s venom, Ruby wrapped her arms around Scarlett and wrenched her free from the webbing. Continuing their embrace, each of the women removed the clothing of the other, until they were naked in that cavern. In their nakedness, they embraced once more, and Scarlett slowly kissed her way down the princess’ body. Soon, she was on her knees with her tongue feeling inside Ruby. The princess placed her hand on the back of her demon’s head, feeling such a sense of power and pleasure mixed in one. Through heavy breaths, she loudly moaned from Scarlett’s efforts. Ruby’s lust had finally overcome her.

  Chapter 20. The Oracle

  The women had ended their intimate acts and were dressing themselves once more. Scarlett had worried that when this moment would inevitably come, the princess would feel regret or guilt in the act of lying with the demon. She was not finding that to be the case. Ruby openly embraced this new piece of herself, and it became a part of her larger personality. This was just one more fragment to be added to the poison princess persona that now inhabited her. The demon felt the bond had strengthened a great deal. She thought she could now perform a greater range of sorcerous spells through that connection and was quite eager to see where that led. Such an opportunity presented itself, as you can imagine.

  “We need to dispose of the eggs in here,” Ruby told her.

  “How do you suggest we go about that, my princess?”

  A wicked smile covered her face. “Silk burns, doesn’t it?”

  “It does indeed.” Scarlett returned the smile.

  She had been thinking along the same line as her demon, so Ruby asked, “Has your power increased enough that you could do that?”

  “I believe it has, my princess. Allow me to try.”

  Scarlett ushered Ruby behind her and held out her hands, extending her palms toward the nearby webbing. The power was new, and she had to locate it within her. There was a little ball of heat somewhere behind her navel. It had grown bigger with her recent activities with Ruby. She nursed the heat coming from it, breathing deeply and letting its energy flow through her body. The warmth slowly began to roil and spiral down through her arms toward her open palms. Then, an explosion erupted out from her skin toward the sticky, silk material lining the walls.

  The flames illuminated a gleeful smile on her face. She’d been looking forward to such power since her arrival in Nabiria. The alchemist back in Gloomport was hoping for this kind of magical strength when she tried to make a deal. There was a beauty in the sorcerous power that flowed through her. In truth, it wasn’t hers, but rather Ruby’s and she was borrowing it through their connection. Their bond made them both stronger than they could ever be on their own, and Scarlett knew that their strength would only grow with time and more intimate acts.

  Ruby was amazed by the magic that her demon was now able to produce. She’d seen enough sorcerous spells cast by the wizards of her father’s court to realize how impressive the things Scarlett was doing really were. The knowledge that only the bond between the two women was powering her spells served to make it all the more mesmerizing.

  Flames covered the webbing on the walls, spreading by the spindly fibers that ran throughout the entire structure. Scarlett walked forward, finding the eggs that Lorelai had produced. She aimed her torrent of flames at the sacs, until they were a blazing heap. They popped and exploded, as the heat intensified, snuffing out the lives of the hundreds of strange spiders growing inside their web coated shells.

  The demon backed up, toward Ruby and the exit, but made a special stop first. She swung her hands and flames toward Lorelai’s corpse and burned it as well. Scarlett didn’t want anything of the spider woman to survive after the embarrassment of her capture, and so she kneeled and laid her palms down on the skin of Lorelai’s body, nearly melting through it at her touch. The fire spread over her own body as well, coating her entire form in crackling, biting flames that brought her no pain or discomfort. Satisfied, Scarlett stood back up and joined her princess, extinguishing her sorcerous blaze.

  “Does that work?” she coyly asked
Ruby.

  “I think that will do, yes,” her princess replied. “Come on. Let’s keep moving.”

  The pair of women walked back out through the tunnel, past the webbed animals and people that Lorelai had captured, not bothering to torch any of them on their way. The light outside was very dim, lit only by the numerous stars of the evening. Ruby looked up at them, trying to determine where they were and which way they should be heading. Their next destination was supposed to be Elythine, where they hoped to find a magical source of knowledge to help her with her situation. Scarlett could feel that there was something off in those woods though, and she was right.

  “Wait,” she whispered to her princess.

  “What is it?” Ruby whispered back.

  “Someone is out here.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever or whoever it is, they’re through there.” The demon raised her hand and pointed a finger toward a thick area of trees.

  “Let’s go see,” Ruby said with a devilish smile.

  “Mmm,” Scarlett kind of groaned. She was less enthusiastic to find what lay behind the growth. Having acquired a greater magical prowess, Scarlett was now able to sniff out other sources. What hid in those woods was strong, and though her powers were weaker the first time she wandered those woods, there was no way she would have missed something like that. This was new. This had appeared since she walked through the forest in search of poison. That worried her.

  Her princess, however, was overcome with curiosity and rushed forward, while Scarlett trudged along behind. Moving through the dark woods, there was a sweet smell mixed with something burning. The fire wasn’t out of control, but it was noticeable to the demon’s heightened senses, and once they got close enough, the princess detected it as well. There was also a light that they could both now make out. Ruby cleared the brush, and the demon was right behind her. The view was not what either woman would have expected.

  There, in a decent sized clearing, stood a hut made of straw and flimsy looking wood. A thin cloth covered a doorway that was clearly not intended to keep people out. The whole area and structure seemed out of place, and according to Scarlett’s senses, it shouldn’t have even been there. Put quite simply, it wasn’t right. The hut and its inhabitant didn’t belong there, but there it stood in defiance to proper order and sense. The clearing looked artificially constructed, like it wasn’t actually in the forest. The demon wondered if they’d stepped through a portal to some carved out dimension placed there just for them. The air was different. The smell was different. She wasn’t yet as familiar with her senses as she could be, but she recognized that all the little things were different there while still retaining a similarity.

  “What is this place?” Ruby asked rhetorically.

  Scarlett answered anyway. “Wrong. We shouldn’t be here.”

  That didn’t bother the princess. “I’m going inside.”

  “What?” the demon asked. “You shouldn’t do that.”

  “It’s fine. Come on, Scarlett.” Her princess held her hand out for her to take.

  Reluctantly, the horned demon took Ruby’s hand, and together, they brushed through the hanging cloth and into the hut. Inside, an old woman sat in front of a fire, waiting for them to arrive. She was wearing a simple blue robe with a hood that was hung over her head, disguising her face completely. She leaned over the small fire, where some rare herbs were burning, causing the smoke to rise directly toward her face. She took in heavy breaths of the smoke, and eventually looked up to face the pair of women. Scarlett thought she was younger looking than she would have expected based on her aura. The magic sense she’d recently acquired suggested that the woman was centuries old, yet she only looked like that of a simple elderly woman. Her insight wasn’t wrong. Wrinkles covered her face, and after long years, her eyes were dull and listless. Tiny blond curls extended out from the top of the hood, covering her forehead.

  “You may call me Thea,” she said, her voice crackling almost like the fire in front of her. “But I suspect you know me simply as the Oracle.”

  The Oracle was a common story told in Ruby’s kingdom; one that even a demon such as Scarlett had heard. As the tale went, the Oracle tapped into the magical nexus, where all of the sorcerous power met in an uncontrollable amalgamation of unknowable, unseeable, and unthinkable chaos. Yet somehow, the Oracle had found a way to tap into that uncontrollable source of knowledge and power. The experience, you could plainly see in her appearance, had left her more than addled. She was jittery and moved about wildly at times.

  Before either woman could respond to the introduction, she continued, “Yes, let’s skip the formalities. I know your names. Ruby and Scarlett. I’ve been watching you both for some time.” She paused to look at the demon for a moment. “And I know your true name, demon,” the Oracle threatened with dead eyes. Ruby didn’t truly give much thought to this mention of true name, but she probably should have. “Though, I suppose Scarlett will do for the time, won’t it? Both of you. Sit. Sit.”

  Ruby and Scarlett looked to one another, and then they ultimately did as instructed.

  “Now then,” she continued. “You have much to see, Ruby, but you must ask the questions. That’s the way this works. Ask. Ask.”

  The princess frowned, thinking about the woman and what she offered. She ultimately agreed to see if there was any value in her words. “Where do I go from here?”

  “Mmmhmm,” she droned far too long in response. The threads of the reality that she saw were sprawling and complex, and even for a being of her power, they proved difficult to track. She pulled more herbs from her pocket and tossed it into the fire. The smoke grew, and she sucked it into herself with another heavy breath. “There are five stages of your immediate path. Magic. Knowledge. Hope. Redemption. Death. Your journey will be perilous and will always end in death. Always. Always.”

  Irritation washed over Ruby’s face, and she cleared away the smoke with her hand. “Magic? Knowledge? Hope? Redemption? Death? Must you speak in such riddles? What does any of that even mean?”

  “I don’t decipher the visions,” she replied with a cracked smile. “I just see them. What they mean is for you to decide.” It was a half truth. This Oracle certainly knew their meaning, but she thought that to supply everything would ruin the course of events.

  “Fine, then,” Ruby replied. “Let’s focus on this magic stage you mentioned. Who is the greatest sorcerer in our realm?”

  The Oracle jerked her head and shifted her eyes side to side. “Those would be Hendrik.”

  Ruby knew a man by that name, but she recognized the Oracle’s word choice as awkward. “Those?”

  “He’s no longer singular. There are five now, though they no longer call each other by that name.”

  “Where will I find Hendrik? Is he still in Elythine?”

  Thea nodded. “They are close. They spend all their time in Elythine. There is a tower, which they sequester themselves in.”

  Ruby turned to Scarlett. “I suppose that’s enough for magic. What about knowledge?”

  “Knowledge on what?” the demon replied. “You were thinking of going to the Cloister to learn of the nether realm. Perhaps that is it.”

  The princess turned back to face the woman. “Will I find knowledge in the Cloister?”

  The smoke was beginning to die down, so Thea retrieved more of a white powder from another pocket, tossing it into the fire. After breathing in another large dose of the smoke, she replied. “There is immense knowledge to be gained in such a place, yes. Yes.”

  Ruby’s eyes were watering from all the smoke and her demon was faring no better. She coughed and sputtered a bit with this new smoke added to the already cloudy room.

  “What do I find?” Ruby asked, again waving the smoke from her face.

  The woman rocked back and forth, still trying to process everything she saw. “The path to hope.”

  “And what is hope?”

  “Shackles for demo
ns.”

  Ruby thought that Thea’s answer was far from useful, but the woman was anything but transparent. She thought about what shackles for a demon could possibly mean. “Is that supposed to be something that will save my sister?”

  “Mmm. That path is quite clouded. It is but one possibility.”

  Ruby exhaled loudly, tired of getting nowhere with the Oracle’s answers. “Then that leaves redemption. Does that mean my own redemption?”

  “It could,” Thea replied. The future was ambiguous, and even she with all her power from the nexus couldn’t have been more specific, if she had wanted. The Oracle cut her eyes up from the fire. “Have you done anything that is deserving of redemption?”

  Ruby looked down at the ground.

  “You haven’t, my princess,” Scarlett assured her. “You’ve done what was needed.”

  “You said it ends in death,” Ruby continued. “Whose death?”

  “That is for you to decide. Your journey will end with much death, but you will choose who and how many.”

  “Someone has to die?”

  “Someone always dies.”

  “The craggy hand demon?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps.”

  “What about Scarlett? What is her future?”

  “Your demon pet?” Thea asked, raising an eyebrow. “What about her? Her fate is entwined with your own. You must decide what should happen to her. She has no path but that which you lay before her. Remember that or regret your failures.”

  Scarlett wondered if Ruby was actually getting any of the answers she wanted. The princess wasn’t quite sure of that either. Magic, knowledge, hope, redemption, and death. That all meant nothing to the horned demon, and Ruby felt like she was at best grasping at straws in an attempt to understand the information.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me?” Ruby asked.