Demon's Promise: a high fantasy femdom novella (9 page)

It had been the same that night.

What had Nairee seen that night?

What had really transpired?

Giggles echoed at the periphery of his senses. He
whipped around, but saw nothing.

Only a spiraling mass of darkness swirling out to
grab him.

Then he did see it. Grotesque shapes in the shadows.
Human bodies, naked, rutting, stretching and contorting.

The first of the darkness closed in over him. His
clothes blazed away into dust, and he felt the touch of a thousand
soft hands running down his chest, his back. And little damp
tongues lapping at his swelling manhood, sending jolts of pleasure
down his spine, through the haze of pain.

If they meant to shame him, they were sadly
misguided.

They could not shame him. How could they?

Ash was the only one who had ever been able to sway
his heart. Even now she was the only one.

He could make out writing on the ground now. Not
words – but patterns. Symbols. Signs. Wrapping around him. Dragging
him under.

No. Not him.

He saw now, at the edge of his vision, the white
stag, racing just out of reach of the darkness.

How blind he had been, he thought wildly. Had it not
been there all along? That beautiful, noble creature?

He lifted his arms, and the stag, as if sensing his
movement, turned to him. With a snort it reared and charged.

It cut a swathe through the murk, horns and hooves
shredding away the shadows, dispersing the distorted figures.

When it reached his side, it nuzzled him, and faded
in a shimmering cloud.

It was as if he had been dreaming all his life, and
suddenly awoke. The veil of darkness had lifted. Each of his senses
was sharper, clearer than they had ever been in his life. The
colors of the trees, the sky. The sounds of the worms deep beneath
the earth. The smell of snow and magic bursting in his
nostrils.

Looking all around him, he saw that it was night
again, and grew afraid. Driven by urges he did not fully
understand, he raised his hands and called for wind.

The wind took him.

The earth whirled beneath him, splotches of darkness
interspersed with white. He soared, giddy with power and wonder.
The magic in his veins trilled, and the veins of power below him
responded.

Someone was working the curse.

A hunched, rail-thin man in the forest, not far away.
One who shared his blood, the magic hummed.

Ruen descended, swooping in on the source of the
offending magic.

“Gods above!”

“Hello, cousin,” said Ruen as vines coiled from the
ground and seized the man’s limbs.

“How – The seal was supposed to –”

Ruen, enveloped in an ineffable calm, formed a blade
from the earth and sliced off the man’s hand in a single clean
stroke. The man screamed and screamed as Ruen cauterized the wound
shut with a burst of flame.

“Next is your other hand. Or perhaps an ear? A
foot?”

“Gods – Oh gods – it’s too late – that fucking bitch
–”

“I want an explanation. And I want it
now
.”

“It was Sava – it was all Aunt Sava’s idea – believe
me –”

He had known. By now, how could he not? And yet Ruen
froze regardless.

“Aunt Sava?”

“Yes – when you were born – the midwives said you had
the most potential for magic that they had ever witnessed in a
newborn babe. The representative from the main branch was furious.
Was convinced there had been some forbidden affair or other – how
else could such talent be born into one of the lesser houses? She
wasn’t the only one. Many demanded your death; others were
determined to adopt you forcibly into their lines. Your father
would have taken the highest bidder – to him, after all, you were
only a seventh son. It was Sava who convinced him otherwise.”

“My father is dead. He caught the fever and died
before I could even speak.”

“The fever?” The man laughed. “Is that truly what you
believe?”

Ruen had not believed it since he was a boy, but he
did not bother to say so.

“The main branch – they’re pathetic. They haven’t
seen a truly strong mage among their broods in generations. All
these years they’ve managed to cling to power. But they knew it was
only a matter of time before the lesser houses rebelled.

“Sava convinced your father that it would be better
to play it safe. Not to draw attention. To keep your power
suppressed, hidden, to be used as leverage when the right time
came.”

“In other words, i
t was all a lie.
My magic awakening after all this time. Ash coming to teach me.
Your disgusting offer of patronage!”

“The seal was supposed to keep you under control! I
don’t know how in the seven hells it broke the first time. We were
going to repair it! I don’t understand why Sava kept putting it
off. Why she decided to have you – educated, instead. After all, it
was she herself who performed the first seal. She and that filthy
demon of hers!”

“Demon…?”

“But of course. Magic of that level cannot be
performed without a contract. The amount of power that must be
harnessed to accomplish such a task is beyond your comprehension!
It takes a demon’s magic to bind, and a mortal’s magic to root the
bind –”

The blade pressed a little too hard. Blood welled
against the man’s skin, and he squeaked.

“Please. I beg you, cousin. Spare me. Spare me, and
I’ll tell you where she is. Where our aunt is, along with that
treacherous demon bitch –”

Ruen lowered his blade. Tuned out his cousin’s
grateful babbling.

“Where are they?”

“At the summer villa, cousin. Sava left the capital
as soon as she heard the news – she’s been staying there all this
time… Wait, what are you – No, please – No!”

Magic surged through his veins and lashed through the
air. Power leaked everywhere, thick and crackling. The vines
squeezed and contorted and soon enough the screaming stopped.

The blade would have been too kind. And too
bloody.

Ruen knelt and removed his cousin’s robes, ignoring
the stench of final release. The fur cloak, at least, was
unstained, as was the outer tunic. These he wrapped around
himself.

Then he rose and continued on his way.

He knew the villa his cousin spoke of. It was on the
other end of the forest, and left unoccupied most of the time,
though some of the servants ventured down every month for its
upkeep. No one important, after all, came to these parts whether
for business or for pleasure.

The last time the villa had been used was for the
family gathering that had determined his fate after several years
of being passed around by the lesser families.

There was no honor, no political benefit whatsoever
in raising a child of no potential.

His cousin had to have been lying. Or mistaken. No
secret could have been so well kept.

Ruen called for the winds again, let them wrap around
him and carry him away in the direction of the villa.

Already the giddy wonder that had swept over him
earlier was lost, replaced by dull, gnawing dread as he skimmed
across the treetops.

In the end, he felt her before he saw her: a
persistent itch at the very boundary of his senses.
Overwhelming
wrongness
. And
yet sweet familiarity.

He dropped back to the earth.

“Ash!”

To his horror, he saw that she was bound to a stake
in the courtyard before the villa. Sun-iron shackles glowed crimson
along her arms and legs. Burns and gashes striped her breasts, her
sides, her stomach.

And her tail – they’d cut off her tail.

Somehow that was the worst of all.

“Ah,” she said, turning that brilliant silver
gaze upon him. “
You’re alive.”

“Ash –”

“Everything will be fine now. The seal is destroyed.
Now, it can never be remade.”

The seal? Destroyed? Remade?

Had his cousin spoken the truth after all?

No. That didn’t matter. None of that mattered right
now.

He ran to her, reached out to free her. But the
flames leapt between them, stinking of sulfur and other unspeakable
things, and no spell he knew could douse them.

“What have they done?” His voice cracked. “What have
they done to you?”

“I have broken my contract. For that I must pay.”

“No. No –”

“Oh, Ru. Dearest Ru. Why did you come? Even after I
told you not to?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Ash. Of course I’d come. I had to
come. How could I not? I –”

“Hush, boy.”

“Don’t. You can’t – you can’t just die on me like
this. Ash, please –”

“A demon does not die,” she whispered. “No. A demon
never dies.”

“Ash! Ash!”

She smiled, her red lips bright amid the licking
flames.

“
I’ll come
back,” she said. “In my next life, I’ll come back to you. Perhaps
in another body, with another face, another mind… Even so, I shall
find you again.
I
promise
.”

“Don’t do this, Ash. Don’t you dare –”

Her lips shaped into soundless words.

Then the fire engulfed her, and he could see her no
more.

* * *

His aunt looked exactly the same as he remembered
her. All angles and edges, harsh beauty tempered by impassive
stillness as she sat behind a desk in her study, seemingly lost in
thought.

Exactly as she had looked ten years
ago, when she approached him amid the bustle of silk and chatter
and whispered,
Bored, aren’t you? Shall we
sneak away and play a little game of our own?

The memory made him see red, made him shake and
tremble.

He took a deep breath. Forced his body back under
control. Adjusted his grip on his blade.

Shoved past the door and strode into the room.

She looked up at his approach, and seemed not at all
surprised to see him.

“Ah, if it isn’t my brother’s little Ruen.”

“
Your
little game
is
over.”

She stared at him for a moment, then sighed.

“Oh, that.”

“Bored, were you? Did you think it would be
funny? That it’d be
interesting
to see what would happen, how everything would play out? You
–”

Sava cleared her throat, but her expression remained
unchanging.

“I’m surprised,” she said. “I didn’t think you would
be so reckless. Did it not occur to you that this all –” she waved
her hand carelessly at the empty room around them, at the doors he
had found unlocked and open “– could have been a trap?”

“
You’ve
dismissed all the guards, all the servants. Your only ally is dead.
And Ash, Ash is…” His voice cracked, but he soldiered on. “Whatever
trap you’ve laid for me, it won’t work. You are only a third-rate
mage, after all, and I am strong. I
am
strong, aren’t I, Aunt Sava? The
strongest to be born to our family in centuries?”

“Not the strongest,” she said. “Not yet.”

“But I will be. Someday. When I have mastered the
extent of my powers. Someday…”

“Perhaps.”

“I would have been happy,” he snarled, “to have born
third-rate.”

“Would you, now?”

He took a deep breath. Breathed out. Breathed in
again.

“All this time. All this fucking time, I thought you
were different from the others. That you weren’t caught up in all
their power struggles. That you actually gave a damn, even if it
wasn’t much –”

Sava’s pale dry lips twisted in a bitter smile. “It’s
true. You always were my favorite nephew.”

“Because I couldn’t get in the way? Because I was the
only one you had completely under your thumb?”

“Oh Ruen, silly little Ruen. You’ve got it all
wrong.” She shook her head slowly, then shrugged, as if to say it
no longer mattered. “Very well, then. I know what you’ve come for.
Let’s get it over with.”

Her nonchalance even now infuriated him.

“Ash deserved better,” he hissed. “She deserved so
much better. So much better than you!”

“Yes,” Sava replied. “She did.”

With a wordless scream of rage, he lunged forward,
plunging his blade into her heart.

She did not cry out, but her mask faltered for the
first time with a pained grimace. A flash of something resembling
sorrow or regret flickered in her gaze, then faded. She slumped
back into her chair, her head lolling to the side as if she were
nothing but a rag doll.

There had been no trap after all.

He’d meant to ask her more. Ask
her
why
.

But what did it matter?

What did anything matter, anymore?

Why
would not change
what had happened. Everything that had transpired.

Better if he had died, after all, that night – that
cold and lonely night with Nairee at the abandoned shrine –

Yet even as the thought passed his mind, he knew it
was a terrible lie.

He was alive – alive – alive –

No longer did he have to live under subjugation.

No more.

Never again.

Ruen sank to his knees.

He wept, and the cold enveloped him in its
comfortless embrace.

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