Treasure Revealed

by A. S. Etaski

  Hiding the aftermath from a Priestess. This damned bua couldn’t be more fucking right.

  I was silent for long moments before I spoke again.

  “Why would you lie under me?” I asked him, only because I wanted to know.

  He slowed his breath, swallowing before speaking. “You see me. You like what you see.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I also hurt you. And enjoyed it.”

  “You tested me. And did not find me lacking.”

  How well I understood this in my short time among my Sisters. I watched as he swallowed again, another flash of that lovely throat.

  “No one had dared before,” he said. “I have wondered how I would respond. Now I know. And you know. You are the only one who does.”

  The stiff rod still in my hand pulsed once. He decided he had enjoyed the challenge. I almost couldn’t believe it.

  Teasing slut…

  I said, “Used to being treated like the thinnest crystal, hm?”

  He lowered his lashes. “Yes. You frightened… and thrilled me, Red Sister.”

  I frightened and thrilled myself.

  My obvious uncertainty had made him bolder because he pushed at my wrist with his hand, and, reluctantly, I released his cock. Then, he questioned me in turn.

  “When you found me,” he began, “the only direction you could have come from was the wilderness. You were naked and injured, someone had bitten you. All you carried was a blade. Were you attacked? Did they rob you?”

  I smirked and granted him an answer. “Attacked? Yes. Robbed? No. I was as you saw me when they attacked. I kept my blade and killed them.”

  Fortunate for me, I’d already confessed about the Dwarf to D’Shea, or this one might have something to use against me. Let him think it had been more than one who overwhelmed me. It was better for the Sisterhood’s reputation than what had happened.

  The Consort nodded, his eyes wide with interest. His shakes had stopped. “Wh-where had you come from, Red Sister?

  I quirked my brow at him. “You received all the information you’re getting about that, Consort.”

  He had expected that reply. “Yes, Red Sister.”

  Give a thread, take a tapestry, as the saying goes.

  In petty retaliation, I ran my gloved hand greedily from his neck to shoulder and arm. I couldn’t feel the texture, but I felt the warmth; this drew his attention back to its proper place. He realized I hadn’t yet accepted his offer. Tiny bumps broke out over his visible skin.

  “Wait—” he breathed.

  I tilted my head and covered his mouth with mine in a deep kiss, trapping him by bracing both forearms on either side of him against the wardrobe. He tensed, rigid and fearful, but now I knew with desire as well. I persisted, and eventually, he yielded, opened his mouth for me. It was hot and slick and tasted of fine wine and spice.

  My hands left the wardrobe and cupped his jaw, holding him steady as I drank deeper. Sliding gloved fingers into his loose hair, I was aware of the location of his hands as well. He kept them flat and open, pressed to the wardrobe as I had my fill of his mouth. My fingers did not slide below his neck, but my hips moved of their own accord; my mound encountered his member, and, damn him to Braqth, he responded in kind.

  His body trembled when I drew back. As did mine, if I was honest.

  This is dangerous. I teased and tormented myself at this point.

  “Agreed,” I said, my voice husky. “I will not risk your safety with your Priestess, so long as your intelligence to any Red Sister is complete truth as you know it.”

  My Consort nodded, his voice a rush of breath. “Yes. Agreed. Thank you.”

  I released his face and dropped my hands to my sides, knowing I would regret for the rest of my life that there wasn’t a win-win way to fuck him. I stepped back.

  Time to leave.

  Before I did, however, I asked him a question on impulse. “Do Consorts have names?”

  My eyes detected another flare in the dim, though his expression hadn’t changed much. “Yes, but… they are different in each House we are given to. The Matron chooses how to call him.”

  “I imagine your Priestess knows each of these Noble names of yours.”

  He nodded. “Yes, Red Sister. As I am given them.”

  I waited, and he read my expectation. He confessed a little more.

  “My Priestess holds my first name,” he said. “From the Sanctuary. Where I was born.”

  “Is she your Mother by birth?” I asked curiously.

  “No,” he answered with clear wariness. “Perhaps… do not ask more now, young Sister? Please.”

  “Well…”

  The Royal Consort had not misled me by fact or omission upon this first test and spoke plainly when he was threatened. He had gently reminded me of his age, calling me ‘young.’

  He’s a century older than me, at least, and still alive after every cycle dealing with Priestesses and Nobles.

  Recalling my own challenges as a youth and my Elders’ many warnings, I would be foolish to ignore his guidance due to my own feminine pride. To play the game properly, I must weigh his position and vulnerability against my aimless curiosities, lest I waste my new and valuable resource. Tasty as it was to know this beautiful sire wasn’t Wilsira’s blood the way Kerse was, it led only to more questions as to what lay deeper inside the Sanctuary. I also wanted to understand what prompted me to ask. I was afraid I could guess.

  I shook my head, more to myself. No more questions. I can wait.

  A thought struck me which I enjoyed, however, as it smothered the regret of denial in my belly for a moment. I smiled at him, at last answering his plea.

  “So be it. But I will call you Auslan from now on if that is just as well.”

  I had stunned him, I could see, as he grasped the context: not just a cute jewelry box, but a secret cache of great wealth, newly discovered and claimed by the finder.

  He nodded acceptance. “As you will it, Red Sister. I am Auslan.”

  My Consort did not ask a name for me in return, and his tone was so careful that I wondered what emotion he’d just experienced. Mine had been the only satisfied pleasure I could expect from him.

  Auslan. My treasure revealed.

  No other Noble drew genuine desire from him as I just had; they could not see the intelligence and will in this pretty Consort. And my name for him would be the only one that Wilsira Tachnathon didn’t have in her collection.

  Although I took time and care leaving House Itlaun so as not to be seen, with the distance grew my frustration and the ache between my legs. What Auslan had confessed had a grip on my mind, but I realized something important alone out here in the dark.

  This new secret could feed my pride, yet my cunt would remain empty. Like trying to fill my stomach on praise.

  He didn’t have to admit he wants me. He could have kept that gorgeous mouth shut.

  It had been so long. I wanted a bua. A real one, and badly. I didn’t want another Sister, and I didn’t want to complain and tempt D’Shea to move up the moment where she made me wear the Feldeu a second time to prod me about the damned Dwarf.

  I didn’t want to be the male, I wanted to touch one. I wished to smell another Davrin, to listen to the different timbre of voice, to sense his subtle reactions and hear his gasp from what I did to him. I wanted to suck on a hot, stiff pole, fondle his smooth, tender sack until he spurted fresh seed over my tongue and I swallowed. I wanted to feel his offering, his compliment to me and the proof of his pleasure, leaking out of my hole—my netherhole if I couldn’t risk taking him in my slit.

  I’d had no time or opportunity to claim a bua until the moment I’d had that Consort pressed against his wardrobe. And I still. Couldn’t. Have him!

  Sneaking away unfulfilled now, I knew I didn’t want my first bua after becoming a Red Sister to be one of the “punishments” selected by my superiors just before the poor fuck’s execution. My st
omach was queasy to think that could happen. If I waited long enough, the idea would come to the Prime, I knew, like her idea of me slitting the throats of helpless Sisters. D’Shea had suggested as we drank wine together that I’d have to find pleasure in a weaker Davrin’s sexual torture. Sooner or later.

  To toughen me up.

  But not yet. With a touch of desperation, I changed my direction to head toward the Wizard’s Tower. It was time to visit Callitro in his own den. Out of sight of anyone, as my Elder had ordered.

  My choice. Take it while I have it.

  I had done a little more research about the place since the Worship Ball half a turn ago, where I had first met Callitro. The young battlemage had offered me an invitation to the Tower, claiming he could make me something useful. It was only then that I had at last noticed that true wizards had been a rarity at Court; otherwise, I might have approached one to make me something special decades ago.

  I once read a number: one-hundred twenty-three known wizards in Sivaraus and all of them held permanent quarters at the Wizard’s Tower. In contrast, the females who developed a strong talent for magic studied at Court or sometimes with a private tutor at their own House. At last count, there were two-hundred forty-six sorceresses considered “powerful” in Sivaraus.

  This wasn’t a high ratio considering our overall population filling the Great Cavern, and nearly every mage, wizard or sorceress, was employed in creating magic-touched items for others to use, even the Matrons and Nobles, depending on the status of the recipient. All the Wards upon our doors and windows were based in magic constructed into the location. All potions, salves, or enchanted gems fixed within jewelry or weapons were created by the mage class. Small mending, cleaning, and warning cantrips didn’t count; many merchants and servants could perform those. Perhaps even I could learn if I applied myself.

  No, the true conjurers like my Elder D’Shea or Priestess Lelinahdara were the rarest sort, at least in the public eye. They were brought out mostly for battle or rituals in the glory of the Valsharess and Spider Queen. She intimidated simply by stepping onto a platform and raising her hands, lifting her mouth to speak.

  I had studied this buas-only space as preparation to find that invisible wizard from my trials, as my Elder had granted me leave to do in my own time. I hadn’t forgotten the contemptuous cock which had edged me so long, ruining my hard-earned climax before plowing my netherhole so hard I couldn’t even enjoy it.

  He must have taken lessons from the Prime.

  This place, a school and dormitory for wizards, was called a “tower” because it loomed above all except the Palace and Sanctuary. It could be considered free-standing, I supposed. It had been built into and around a gigantic, natural column, where a stalagmite and stalactite had met in the middle of the cavern’s floor and ceiling.

  There were many levels in a circular floor plan, though the largest few floors both at the base and the crown of the structure contained only twenty or so individual quarters and three to four larger functional rooms, such as a kitchen or washroom. The center levels were smaller than that, made for libraries and archives in addition to the labs.

  The wizards were a solitary group, eating, sleeping, and studying away from Sivaraus as a whole, almost all their supplies brought to them by assigned merchants. It didn’t mean that they didn’t receive “customers” or gossip amongst each other in different parts of the Tower. I was warned they had some of the largest sets of pointed ears, catching all murmured or whispered by whoever came to them, or wherever they were sent should they leave the Tower. Hoarding knowledge was their basis for living, after all.

  Red Sister.

  A calm, pleasant male voice sounded in my ears as I approached the first gate, although I saw no one; it had no physical guardsvrin.

  Your name and purpose here?

  It was the Headmaster. We’d never spoken, and I had never seen him, but I knew who managed the place on behalf of the Valsharess. I must have struck a Ward. I focused as it began to get difficult to step forward over the mushroom field leading to the second gate, thinking my answer.

  Sirana. To visit Callitro in private.

  I heard an amused grunt. Have you taken an infertility draught, Sister?

  I blinked. Those exist? I didn’t even know where to get one.

  Um? No.

  Then I shall have one ready for you. Proceed. The constructs shall let you pass.

  The second gate was guarded by two Dread Spiders. Their mottled and bloated appearance was convincing enough that, if the Headmaster had not told me they were “constructs,” I might have turned around. The forced hybrids stood upon eight, giant spider legs and gripped a primitive spear in both gnarled hands as their arachnid body blended into an Elven one at the torso. Their hair was grey with mud, tangled, and hiding most of a fanged face in which I would have expected to see far more than one set of eyes. Their presence would terrify the curious and the unwelcome. I looked for signs of illusion but couldn’t see them; the detail was unnerving.

  Constructs. Not real.

  I was glad I didn’t have to speak to these creatures, but I tensed, ready to move fast if they did. As the elderly wizard had said, however, the Driders remained still and let me pass without looking at me. These things were not two of the true condemned. They were not former Dark Elves twisted into a horrifying monstrosity during a ritual, held by Auranka, the Keeper in the Pit. Jaunda had suggested that only the Keeper could control them, and the Valsharess controlled the Keeper.

  “Not even the Priestesses pull these creatures out of their cage to play,” she had said.

  That was a relief. I surely didn’t want any Braqth-biter wielding her first sacrificial blade having access to these things. D’Shea might have complimented me about surviving the ritual intact, but I doubted any Davrin withstood this transformation once chained upon the altar.

  The stone double-doors of the Tower entrance parted as I approached; they didn’t open wide, but only enough for me to slip through. The Headmaster stood on the other side in an otherwise empty, sparsely decorated entryway, and I was brought up short to look at him.

  The mature bua was taller than me, wearing a dark gray robe, threaded with purple and gold elegance, with a slimming cut. When he smiled, there were creases and fine lines that I was not accustomed to seeing in any male. The elder wizard had solid blond hair like the Valsharess, and I thought this implied that he was as old as She but then met his eyes.

  They were a rich, dark red with gold flecks; his gaze was clear and alert, not faded like Hers. Still, I had to assume that his life and the magic he practiced had taken a toll; the lines around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth were deeper than the Queen’s, even as he somehow appeared younger.

  The elder offered a small vial to me, his long fingers lightly touching the bottom. “Welcome, young Sister. I am Phaelous, Headmaster of the Wizard’s Tower. If you would, please drink this.”

  “What is it?” I asked, wary despite myself, and I did not reach for it.

  He was patient, his face oddly warm and soothing. “A bittersweet tonic which will discourage conception for the duration of your visit.”

  I rested my hands on my hips, lifted my chin, and I smirked. “What if I came for something other than sex, Headmaster?”

  He didn’t blink, and his arm didn’t move; he still held it out. “I am aware of the rules governing the Sisterhood’s children and the punishment to the sire if the Prime so chooses. If such rules do not intimidate you, young Sister, then consider this the simplest way to protect my own learners. They are rare enough as it is.”

  Punishment of the sire if I catch? No one mentioned that.

  I had no retort, and my hands slid off my red leathers. Arguing with him further would have been irrational hubris, so I took the vial, broke the seal, and quaffed the small mouthful of liquid. He was right; first, it was bitter, then it was sweet.

  Phaelous bowed his head to me wit
h astonishing grace. “My gratitude, Red Sister. Give it a quarter mark to fully take effect then have no worry if you find Callitro to your liking.”

  That easy? Why hadn’t either Rausery or D’Shea told me about this? Fuck, I could have had something to take with the Consort just now!

  I was staring, I knew it, and the old male smiled again as he reached for the empty vial. I let him take it.

  “You have a question for me, young Sister?”

  What the web.

  “You have anything that lasts longer than a visit?” I asked. “And what do you trade?”

  He laughed gently, and it sounded pleasant and polite though he shook his head in the negative. “I have nothing I am allowed to give you, Red Sister.”

  I felt a flare of anger. What? Why not?

  “As you are not here with an executive order,” he continued, somewhat changing the subject, “then the rules of preservation apply on these grounds.”

  What are you—? Oh, right.

  I smirked at his formality. “Yes, I know. No maiming, disfigurement, poisoning, or any action that would debilitate a wizard lastingly in applying his trade. Especially his mouth and hands.”

  I know what he can do with them instead.

  Phaelous bowed his head again. “Thank you for your clarity, Sister Sirana. Callitro’s domicile is on the seventeenth level. I shall escort you.”

  This old wizard had long ago lost whatever mystique he ever held for the Red Sisters, I could tell. I felt like a child speaking to him although there was nothing wrong with his manners. Wordlessly, I followed him into the next room, noting artwork and a bit more color before he gestured to a large, garnet inlay forming a circle upon the floor.

  “There are no stairs,” he answered before I could ask. “We move between levels by jump circle.”

  I frowned. “And one needs to be a mage to use a jump circle?”