by JM Guillen
I rent my nails down his back, and he kissed me again.
My Goddess’ gift, Her Fervor, began to drift through me. The candles flared again, brighter this time. I focused, holding the Fervor at bay. It was nigh impossible.
Focus. I had to pay attention to my task.
The Touch of Rydia made an amazing aphrodisiac. When caught in Her grip, the man in my arms became my devotion, my one love in the entire world. My lovemaking became powerful, my every small act seductive.
According to the stories of other Handmaidens, carelessness on my part could kill a man.
I felt Her strength as Orin kissed me again.
He has beautiful eyes.
He’s so strong. His chest—
No. Breathe.
“Is that what you needed?” His voice rumbled against my skin.
“Oh yes.” I fought to remain focused as the storms of my Lady’s magic tore through me.
His fingers curled into my hair, and he held me. “You know, I saw you the other day at the Vance’s manse.”
I grinned, thinking about the lovely party, a party where social graces mattered.
“What—?” I gasped again. “What did you see?”
He couldn’t speak for a moment as his mouth devoured me.
I bit my lip, stifling a moan.
“You know what I saw.” His mouth found its way up my neck. “You were wearing that stunning red dress, all silk and lace. You stood up by the balcony with your eyes on me all night.”
He was right; I had. Sire Mattias had me following Orin for some time now. I leaned forward, my lips up to his ear. “I didn’t watch you all night. I slipped away after a time. I needed some solitude so I could think about you.”
“I can imagine why.” His voice was like the night wind in my ear. “What did you do in your solitude, Keiri? What did you think about?”
I whimpered. “I think you know what I thought about, my lord.” I clutched at him, my expression positively sultry. “I think you know what I needed.”
Men love lies.
I caught his eyes, my fingers digging into him. Like a sweet blossom of fire and roses, pleasure unfurled itself in my depths.
Ouigiin. I focused on the strangely spiraling sigil, pulsing and hot and alive. I felt it awaken to my mind, felt the power within it.
The power of the bond.
My eyes drifted closed as I became lost in it. Awash in the waves of sharp, red flame deep within my body, my red nails dug their way into his back, and I bit his chest.
“Keiri,” his voice was low, grumbling with warning. He was on his edge.
Then everything became glorious, like brilliant lightning.
For a moment, all was primal. Nothing else mattered but this one shining moment. In the back of my mind, Ouigiin gleamed, beckoned, sang.
The power of my Goddess unfurled within me. I bit my lip and gasped, trying to hold Her strength back. I couldn’t let myself be overtaken by Her; I only needed a measure of the magic She brought.
And only at the correct moment.
Breathe.
Orin crested like a summer storm. Lost, wrapped in his own sensation, he wasn’t with me, not really.
As I clutched to him, I watched his control slip.
“Orin.” I panted. “Please.”
“Yes.” He kissed me as he started to tremble.
Now.
Fire and infinite light.
Orin growled.
Quitting my fight, I relaxed my focus and felt Rydia’s Flame deep in my body, burning in the shape of Ouigiin.
I allowed it free reign, and Her power, Her desire, spiraled up in tendrils of pleasure, of red ecstasy, of life itself.
The Goddess leapt from me, screaming forth from my mouth. She was in my nails, clawing blood from him.
I trembled, my body heaving as if a thunderstorm grew inside.
My passion mounted, starving and mad.
Then and there, in that moment when he completely surrendered, lost in my body, I won.
The moment that a man released himself was only that, a moment, an instant in time where all thought, all plans and hopes and dreams are lost. In that brilliant, shining moment, he became open, wild, and free.
In that moment he had no secrets.
As Orin trembled, I let Ouigiin’s strength ebb into him. I devoured his mouth with my own, my tongue delving into him as the sigil’s passion leapt from my body to his. He tightened suddenly and then began to scream, convulsing in mind-rending pleasure.
The bond formed between us, a link woven of silver and red, pleasure and blood.
Everything burned.
In that moment, I saw him, everything he was, everything he had ever been, everything he had ever done. Orin Devariis flashed into my mind: Orin the child, Orin the merchant, and yes…
Orin the sorcerer.
Blood dripped from his hands, black in the candlelight. He read from a yellowed scroll, then took up a knife, and carved the blasphemous symbol into the woman’s flesh.
She screamed.
“Y Noi! Teh kirim Noi!”
He smiled at her, hard and cruel. Slowly, he licked the blood from her stomach.
Then, he met my gaze in slow-dawning realization.
Impossible.
I broke from that moment, my heart thundering in my chest.
I cast about in his memories, looking with my mind’s eye. In this moment that stretched back to his birth, I could learn anything about him, but I wanted to witness only one thing: further proof of his corruption. How far did the contagion go? Orin couldn’t be working alone. Impossible. He had collaborators. I needed proof; I needed names.
There.
Everything turned brilliant white, ablaze with flame. Next to a ship, Moon-keeper, Orin stood on the docks with two large men. They loaded their cargo, two score of young women bound in chains and little else, obscured in the dark of night.
Most were the graceful barbarian human-kin of the northern wood with their wide, strangely-colored eyes and delicate ears.
When one of his men leered and caressed the backside of one of the slave girls, Orin laughed.
“You’ll get enough of her on the trip, Piotyr.”
The man laughed back and said something, but I couldn’t make it out.
I took note of Piotyr. The man had Caed features: blond hair and light eyes. He wore a small, falcon insignia on his lapel. Unfamiliar with the noble houses in Caedrun, a falcon insignia meant as much to me as a bear insignia.
What was a noble of Caedrun doing here? Their country lay far from ours, accessible only by months of hard travel.
Of course tall-masted Caed ships docked here regularly, full of tow-headed seamen and traders, but the nobles?
Never.
Most nobles wouldn’t risk an evening to boredom. Travelers often got injured or caught sick over the route from Caedrun to Stormhaven. Many a man met his fate on the open waters. No, nobles didn’t risk the journey.
Still, the man took no offense at being addressed by his given name, not by his title, thus Piotyr was not such a high-ranking noble.
He must have been sent by his betters to oversee this sensitive project. If all went well, he gained favor. If not, well, his house could stand to lose one minor noble, whose ambition rose above his ability, with no ill effects.
Yes. This made sense. It explained how Devariis suddenly had such an influx of gold. He had been selling slave girls, slipping underneath the guild’s watchdogs. Even the barbarian girls were human-kin, thus selling them was illegal in all civilized lands.
He used the barbarian girls as sacrifices, reagents for his sorceries, since no one sought for them here and escape would mean little for them in an unknown land with a foreign tongue. This left little doubt.
Sire Mattias had been right.
There were more girls in the ship. He probably had a small fortune just in this shipment.
Another person, a woman, wore an iron and obsidian mask…
I pulled myself back. That was enough.
Orin continued quivering and trembling as his pleasure swept over him, again and again. His voice had gone hoarse, and he rambled nonsense. Lost in passion, he had become less man now, more animal. ‘Lost’ was a good word for it. He had lost his senses, lost his control. His loving was a mad, crazed thing, never finished. He would never stop until I released him.
Breathe.
Ouigiin practically screamed. It was hungry and had scarcely fed. I hadn’t given Orin all of my Lady’s strength, and I called on Her now.
Focus. Control.
Sire Mattias and I had planned on this minor blood bond. Ouigiin could create something far more permanent if required, but I would never want that with Orin. Already, we would share this slight bond the rest of our lives. Always I would feel just the slightest breath of his presence, as if he were just in the other room. His most intense emotions would color mine; his temperament would provide a unique flavor to my own.
I would never be just myself again, but my job was done. I had all I needed.
I again forced myself to focus and successfully pulled the strength of my Goddess back.
My body thrashed, humming with pleasure and power. Ouigiin burned with sweetness. The pleasure did not want to be harnessed, it wanted to course through me, to make me moan and beg and scream.
No. Not now.
Orin collapsed onto me, breathing heavily.
“Keiri, I…” His eyes grew wide with amazement. “I saw…” He was rambling, unknowing of what had happened.
“Sleep, Orin.” I caressed his chest.
“You are wondrous.” He kissed me again, not the hungry kisses of before, but sweet, tender things. They were the kind of kisses that a man saves for a woman who is more than a quick roll. They were kisses that were supposed to tell a woman that she meant something to him.
Orin Devariis would never mean anything to me, but men often fell in love with Handmaidens.
“Shush now.” I ran my fingers through his hair. It’s not uncommon for a man to fall for a Handmaiden.
He had no idea of what had happened.
I hoped.
No need for concern. As far as Orin knew, he’d simply taken an amazingly skilled lover. He laid his head against my breast, exhausted. His eyes drifted closed.
I held him there as he murmured sweet lies, of a life that would never be. He nuzzled into me, telling me that my scent intoxicated, that I was a unique flower in a garden of thorns. He needed me. He understood that now. Life wouldn’t be complete until I was his.
Yet I had only one thought. After all, my work here was done.
Now, I must make my escape.
3
Now to make away.
It should be simple.
Orin soon fell asleep. The touch of Rydia’s Flame left most men completely exhausted. Even though he hadn’t tasted Her full fury, he would be difficult to rouse. He would sleep longer than normal and awaken ravenous, but most of all he would remember our loving, a pleasure he would remember for the rest of his life, an ecstasy he would always yearn for. He would always compare his other women to me and find them lacking.
And I would never give him that delight again now that I knew Orin Devariis was a sorcerer. His magic had been illegal for almost seven centuries. The foul rites he used earned the penalty of death in all civilized lands.
It was almost impossible to believe.
Lithia, the Headmaiden of our order, had scoffed at the idea of sorcery within Stormhaven.
“Sorcery was abolished six-hundred-fifty-nine years ago,” she’d recited as she ran a delicate hand over the small bookshelf next to her office window. “The Paladins of Michael scoured the last practitioner from our land and burned all of their manuals: every grimoire, every tome, down to the last scroll. All destroyed. Even if heretics wanted to follow the once ways…” She gave a faint shudder. “They could not.”
Lithia had been wrong.
Sorcery had a long and twisted history in the northern empire. Once, sorcerers of ancient and fell power enslaved entire races of eldritch peoples, drawing off their natural magics with rites of torture, pleasure, and pain. These sorcerers had ruled over a dynasty of a thousand generations before they were finally overthrown.
They had created an aeon of horror and darkness.
Orin, no doubt, wished to emulate that legacy.
Tonight’s seduction unveiled the final piece of the puzzle for Sire Mattias. The formation of a Handmaiden’s bond was sacrosanct to the temple. No one, not even the Headmaiden, would doubt any claims I leveled against Orin.
We had everything we needed.
Orin proved the source of human-kin slaves in Stormhaven. He also used them for his foul rites.
I had evidence enough for the Rydians to move against Orin, to stop his blasphemy once and for all.
He would be excommunicated from the House of Pleasure. He would lose his fortune; his name would be purged from all records and ledgers.
The temple might even execute him.
As he snored, I slowly slipped from the bed. I gathered my casually tossed clothing as quickly as I could. Naked, I moved quietly, graceful like a hart.
“You’re not leaving, little whore.”
I froze in place at the words. They were strangely sibilant, a whisper in the shadows of Orin’s room.
Play the part. Be what they expect.
I stammered just the smallest bit. “I—I need to make water.” I peered through the shadows, trying to see the speaker. “You don’t think I’m—”
“Your lies will do no good, Keiri. I know who you are. I know why you are here.”
There. I caught the slightest motion in the doorway.
“I’m here for Orin.” I stepped backward, toward the bed.
“Orin will be the last fool you cozen.”
I heard the whisper of drawing steel as the shadowed figure stepped forward. The candles in the room flared slightly as my heart pounded in my chest.
“Please.” I uttered that single word in a mewled whisper, the epitome of helplessness. In actuality, my mind raced. Hadn’t there been a second door—?
“Quiet.” The whisper was sharp. “I am not fooled, Handmaiden.” He stepped forward again. Now, in the flickering candlelight, I could see the shadowed cowl of his cloak. “Silence now, and I will send you to the painless blanket of death.” The metal of his long knife gleamed in the candlelight.
Finding no way around him, I made my eyes hard.
“No.” Power, pleasure, and pain sang through my body.
Sire Mattias had prepared me well. I’d spent hours in his bed before I came to Orin. Sire Mattias played my desire like a lute, sculpted my passions like an artisan. As a result, I come to Orin with sigils full of my Lady’s desire.
Inside me, Her Passion raged like a river.
Briefly, the Karas sigil flashed with warm delight. Then, in answering call, the candles of the room all flared as one, so bright as to be almost blinding.
I saw his face.
He was no man.
Pale skin gleamed beneath the hood, deathly white. Black veins ran beneath the surface, and his eyes gleamed a hellish red in the light. The smug curve to his lip gave way as the candle flames leapt upward.
He was a horror.
“No!” This time, I laced the word with Rydia’s power. I released all control I held and focused on the Karas sigil. It burned, my Lady’s Fire singing within it.
The candles grew brighter, hotter. Orin’s drapes caught aflame. On the bookshelf, the flames grew so hot that a sheaf of paper smoldered until fire burst forth, creating a plume of black smoke.
He leapt at me with a wordless snarl, swinging his blade.
I dodged backward, still holding my clothing underneath my arm. I stumbled onto the bed, falling squarely against Orin’s face. He mumbled and rolled away.
“Fire, Orin! Wake up!” I slapped at him, scrabbling across the bed to get away from the not
-man. Now, the bed and Orin lay between the two of us; and the room was quickly catching ablaze.
“We’re not through, Handmaiden.” The not-man whispered, still sibilant and bladed. “Not by a long stride. Your Sire has been toying with things best left alone.” He stepped backward through the door, out of the range of the firelight. “Stay inside. Burn.” He paused. “If the flames do not claim you, I will. Fire will be a more pleasant death than any I offer you now.” The shadows swallowed him whole, as if he were part of them.
“Keiri?” Orin coughed, glancing about in confusion. The smoke must have roused him. “What—?”
It was unfortunate. Much of our problems might have been solved if the man had burned.
Play the part.
“We have to go, Orin! One of the candles must have—!”
He sat full up now.
“Oh!” Fear leapt across his face. He gave me one long, odd look. Then the fire flared, and he began to move. Orin stood and began to grab at his clothing.
“No time for that!” I dragged him from the room. Orin stumbled toward the darkened doorway, coughing from the smoke.
No cloaked not-man awaited us in the hall. We made our way into the open air without threat of whispering assailants or glittering knives.
No sight or sign, he had simply left.
The night outside felt blessedly cool. In the distance, I could hear the yelling of Orin’s bondsmen and the clanging of a fire-bell. I collapsed onto the grass. The earth was soothing underneath my bare skin, and the stars sang overhead.
I could still imagine those hellish, scarlet eyes, watching me.
I needed to get back to the temple.
4
Understandably, the fire distracted Orin, creating the perfect opportunity to slip away. I dressed, then strode from Orin’s garden house, mostly undetected in the chaos and madness, as his bondsmen worked to keep the fires at bay.
As a beautiful woman leaving this home in the dead of night, no one found anything unusual at my presence.
I stole my way through the confusion, following the widest path in the garden. At first I’d thought to avoid the crowds by slipping through the shadows, but people kept tripping over me, running toward the fire. They would brush my shoulder or trip over my foot, give me an annoyed glare, and continue on, frantic in their haste to put out the growing conflagration. After the first few encounters, I decided to follow the wide path around the other outbuildings to the side gate.
