The Creators: Chapter 2 Redux

Chapter Two: The Heat Bringer

JULIA

Eighteen years ago, the incubus mystic came to the elven capital of Terondia, and with him, came a shadow that darkened the empire. The matriarchs of the Church of the Holy Mother denounced him and tried to bar him entrance, but the emperor waved them away; the mystic’s prophecy was too tempting to disbelieve. The old man stood in the great hall before the horrified eyes of the matriarchs, the scrutinizing eyes of the wizards, and the greedy eyes of the emperor, and he spoke his heresy.

“A Creator of elven blood will be born a week from this night,” the mystic had said. “She will be of the pure blood, and she will be the Heat Bringer.”

Then, he died. The matriarchs claimed his death was divine punishment, the wizards claimed it was an enchantment of astral power, but the emperor saw it as proof of the man’s prophecy. What would a man have to gain for such heresy, if he were to die after it was told? Clearly, the emperor postulated, the man’s prophecy was his very life force, and its release marked it as truth. At first, a census was taken of all babes born on the prophesized night. Only high-elf babes were catalogued, as the ‘pure blood’ no doubt meant those of porcelain skin, blue eyes and blonde hair. Dark-elves had bloodlines mixed with orcs, bright-elves had bloodlines mixed with dwarves, and dawn-elves had bloodlines mixed with nymphs, but high-elves could trace their lineage back to the days of the old blood. High-elves were once again reassured of their superiority (of course a returned god would be of high blood; pure blood), and the world went on as it usually did.

Five years later, the emperor took the children. Seven-hundred daughters of high blood were stripped from their mother’s arms, and sent to Terondia to live in the palace. The families were assured that their sacrifice was for the good of the empire, that their reward would be bountiful, and their children well cared for, but they were never allowed to see their daughters again. Whispers started breathing through the populace, rumors of the horrors that occurred behind the palace’s stone walls. The emperor became more secluded, and the government became less responsive. Riots broke out, markets crashed, and people took to the streets to demand answers. The response they were given, was violence. Police forces smashed into the protestors, people were seized in the dark, and curfews were placed indefinitely. The brutality quelled the dissenters, and the elven empire came to the sinking realization that they were ruled by a manic tyrant.

But I was safe. I was of bright blood; my crimson straight hair, green eyes and shorter stature marked me as impure, at least in the eyes of the emperor. He couldn’t know that the mystic’s prophecy meant those descendants from the line of the dwarven Creator, Arbitrus Gen. At least, that’s what I’d told myself every night, when I lied awake listening for the sounds of police bootsteps outside my window.

“Sister Julia?” Mother Septina called. I sighed, and closed my book.

“Yes, Mother Septina?” I called back from the kitchen, hiding the book beneath a pile of napkins.

“The princess would like to speak with you,” Mother Septina responded, thankfully not coming into the kitchen to snoop around. I slipped the book beneath my habit and walked briskly past the ornery mother. A flight of steps later, and I was on the top floor of the estate, and knocking on the door of my princess.

“Come in, Sister,” Princess Lucilla Flitari called. I opened the door with my head bowed, and closed it silently behind me. Princess Flitari stood in the window; her twenty-year-old statuesque frame curving in a subtle hourglass figure beneath a silken dress, her platinum blonde hair lying straight behind her pointed ears, and her blue eyes sparkling from the porcelain mask of her beautiful face. She smiled brightly to me, and after I scanned the room for anyone else, I smiled back.

“What do you think of this dress?” she asked, twirling extravagantly in front of me.

“It looks perfect, of course, Your Grace,” I smiled politely, “if you’re intention is to be with child before the night is out.”

“Maybe that is my intention,” Lucilla smirked, extending a perfectly formed leg from the slit cut alongside her dress, and raising an eyebrow. “Though I must be terribly bad at it, because no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get pregnant.”

“Your chastity is holy, Your Grace;” I replied. “It is good to hear that my teachings have not fallen on deaf ears.”

“No one’s listening, Julia,” Lucilla said with a wry smile. “You can cut the shit.”

“Well then, Lucilla,” I said, allowing my smile to grow wicked. “I’d say that your fertility problem lies in a lack of biological understanding.”

“And why’s that?”

“One cannot conceive a child from her anus,” I grinned.

Lucilla twisted her face, and then burst out laughing. She gestured for me to sit as she fought to regain control of herself.

“Oh, sweet Mother,” Lucilla croaked as she sat across from me, wiping tears from her eyes. “It never ceases to amaze me what dirty thoughts go through that pure mind of yours.”

“Devotion to the Holy Mother is a testament of one’s actions,” I replied, pouring wine in her glass, and water in mine, “Thoughts and words are of little consequence.”

“I wish the other sisters shared your interpretation of the texts,” Lucilla said as she took a sip of wine. “All I get from them is judgement and lectures.”

“You are a reflection of our order,” I said, drinking my water in congruence with her sips, “and your reputation does not make us look good.”

“The Holy Mother herself could shine on me from the heavens, and I’d still drink, smoke and fuck my way through life,” Lucilla smiled, wiping purple wine from her lush lips. “Your order just pulled the short straw in terms of princesses.”

“At least you’re not boring. Not a day goes by when you haven’t presented us with a new crisis of faith.”

“And yet, you pour me wine,” Lucilla pointed out. “My own priestess, tempting me with sin.”

“Of all your sins, Lucilla,” I said, pouring her another glass and smirking, “consumption is the least of our problems.”

“But doesn’t it lower my inhibitions?” Lucilla responded with a raised eyebrow. “Doesn’t wine lead to more nefarious sins?”

“It’s a question of timing, really,” I said, sitting back. “If you drink four glasses now, you’re likely to be too tired to go out tonight, but if you wait until this evening, the wine will compel you to act on your baser desires. You see, I’m suffering a minor sin now, to prevent a major sin later.”

“How tactful of you,” Lucilla chuckled. “You will do well as my advisor in the High Court.”

I felt my heart leap into my chest. The High Court? Of Terondia?! That’s the last place I can go!

“What was that, Your Grace?” I asked.

“‘Your Grace,’ hmm?” Lucilla smiled knowingly, “Funny how decorum comes roaring back once a little discomfort is salted into the conversation. Why do you hate that place so much?”

“It’s far from home,” I lied, “and my charge is here, with you.”

“Well, I won’t be here,” Lucilla said. “I’m leaving for Terondia this afternoon.”

“I don’t see why I should come with you. There are sisters in the capital who are more than willing to preach and lecture for you.”

“I’m not coming back, Julia,” Lucilla said, and her usual playful nature diminished. “I’m moving there permanently.”

“What?!” I exclaimed, unable to keep my composure.

“My father has executed Telavia,” Lucilla said gravely. “She betrayed the crown… somehow.”

“He killed your sister?” I whispered, putting my hand on hers.

“She was a traitor,” Lucilla said, keeping her lip stiff, “and she was my half-sister, Julia; we barely knew each other. But the act reshuffles the line of succession. I’m third in line to the throne now, which means I’m too important to be governing estates in the country.”

“‘Governing’ is an interesting word for what you do here,” I said with a sad smile. Lucilla laughed a joyless, dry laugh. Her hands were shaking.

“I know I’m not the most responsible of royalty,” she said, tears welling in her eyes, “but maybe I can fake it. Maybe, if I just… if I just…”

Lucilla gripped my hand tighter, and took a huge gulp of wine to steel herself. It didn’t work. Her face fell into my chest, and she bawled.

“I’m so fucking scared, Julia!” she sobbed. “I’m not ready for this! Father is demanding my assistance with his mad project! He killed Telavia because she wasn’t getting results; his own daughter! And now he wants me to take her place?! She’d been working with him for two years, and I haven’t so much as read a book on the subject!”

“You’ll do fine,” I whispered, petting her hair and trying to calm her as much as I was trying to calm myself, “you’ll just have to be careful.”

“He’s insane, Julia!” Lucilla cried. “They say he hasn’t been seen for two years, that he spends his life in the palace with those girls he stole, that he rants and raves about the prophecy, trying to figure out why a lie told by an old man didn’t come true!”

But it did come true, I thought. The mystic’s words were more prophetic than anything spoken by the holy matriarchs, and now the prize the emperor has sought will be traveling right through his front door.

“I am so fucked,” Lucilla whimpered in my lap. “Father will blame me for his own failures, and they’ll put my head on a—”

She stopped when her hand found the hard spot below my habit. Her fingers reached around it, and clutched the outline of the book’s spine.

“What is this?” she asked, pulling the book from the pouch sewn to my habit.

“A little piece of sacrilege I was trying to hide from the mother,” I replied, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice.

“The Journal of Arbitrus Gen,” Lucilla said, looking from the book, to me. “This is a juicy piece of blasphemy. Why are you reading it?”

“To ease the monotony,” I replied, “holy texts are wonderful, but they don’t offer much in the way of entertainment.”

“And histories of dead Creators do?”

“Sometimes,” I smiled, taking the book from Lucilla’s hands, “reading about what actually happened is a nice reprieve from reading about what might’ve happened.”

“Sister Julia!” Lucilla gasped. “That is bordering on blasphemy!”

“It’s no worse than the things you do on a nightly basis,” I smirked, crinkling my nose at my best friend. Lucilla’s smile shined on her face, and I was relieved for two reasons. The first, was that she wouldn’t question me further, and the second, was that the terror in her eyes vanished for a moment. I never wanted to see that look in her eyes again, but I suspected it would become commonplace in Terondia. I knew deep down that the darker days were just around the corner.

LUCILLA

It had been three weeks since Julia, myself, and a host of guards and servants had left the estate for Terondia, and I was freezing my fucking ass off. Whatever genius founded Terondia should’ve been taken behind a barn and shot. From the south, the city is incredibly easy to get to. Tributaries, lakes and flat plains make for simple travel, but from the north, it’s damn near unreachable. We climbed mountain after mountain, sometimes having to stop for hours to replace the carriage wheels with sled blades, and the whole time—the whole fucking time—I froze my ass off.

Julia’s blasphemous interest in dead Creators proved to be an invaluable tool, and she took the opportunity to give me a crash-course on all the things I should’ve already learned. I remembered a time when Julia was just a little redhead with a penchant for mischief. Now, she was lecturing me like I was a child, even though I was two years her senior. Why she chose to become a nun, I’ll never know, but ever since she took her vows, she’d been the adult between us. Sure, I had sex plenty of times, and she was a virgin (and would be until she died), but the maturation of experience and the maturation of the soul were two different things. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without her, and that’s why I decided she was going to be glued to my side the whole time we were in Terondia.

“Oh, good Mother!” Julia gasped as she looked out the window. We were carefully sliding down a glacier pass, and descending into a wide, green valley. Three thousand feet below the tree-line, sprawled a massive city. Terondia was a poorly placed city, but it was a magnificent one. The entire city was built on an uplift of rock that sprouted just before the mountain range. It seemed to swell from the earth in spiraling streets and buildings, all of which led inevitably to the five-hundred-foot spire at its peak that marked the beacon tower of the palace. Some ancient Earth Former named ‘Iona’ had apparently made the city, but of course, the high-elves took all the credit. That would be my home now; probably forever. Though I dreaded the prospect of living there, the idea of a warm hearth and hot cocoa was very enticing. Julia however, did not seem to mind the cold at all. I swear, I didn’t see her breath fog the glass even once. Being a bright-elf meant that at least one of her ancestors had to be a dwarf, so that probably explained her comfort in the cold, but it didn’t stop me from being slightly irritated at her. In my humble opinion, if I was uncomfortable, everyone else should be too.

We switched the sleigh blades to wheels, and then rolled briskly down the mountain pass to the city’s center. Before long, we were bustled through the palace gates; massive stone blocks that opened and closed with agonizing slowness. The moment the gates shut behind us, I finally saw the discomfort on Julia’s face. I felt bad for her, but I smiled inwardly. Finally, someone as uncomfortable as me. From there, we endured a modest procession, and then were briskly taken to the throne room. My father was of course, not present for my arrival. The man was more of a stranger to me than the bartender at the local tavern (although, few people knew me better than he), and he hadn’t even corresponded with me since I left for the estate fourteen years ago, when I was six.

“Princess Lucilla Flitari,” one of my father’s advisor said to me, standing in front of the vacant throne, “thank you for your spirited arrival. His Highness is waiting for you in the keep.”

“He wants to see me?” I asked, feeling my breath catch in my throat, “Now?!”

“Of course,” the adviser said, looking very amused at my distress, “you’re his daughter. You can leave your priestess with us, and we’ll escort her to your quarters.”

“No,” I said firmly. “She goes where I go.”

“Your Grace,” Julia whispered behind me, “I don’t think that’s—”

“Women of the church have been banned from the palace keep,” the adviser said. “His Highness’s orders are final.”

“Your Grace,” Julia whispered again, “I’ll be fine on my own.”

“But I won’t be!” I hissed back. “I fucking need you, Julia!”

“You’re a strong woman, Lucilla,” Julia whispered, giving me an apologetic smile. “You will find a way.”

Julia actually looked relieved that she didn’t have to go. I couldn’t blame her, but once again, I was mad that she wasn’t going to be sharing in my discomfort. I gave her a parting scowl, and then followed my escort to the keep. They were two heavily armored guards, both of dark blood. Of all the races of elves, dark-elves were the most different. Their bronze skin, black hair, and dark brown eyes distinguished them from the porcelain skin, blue eyes, and platinum hair of high-elves; the pale skin, green eyes, and red hair of bright-elves; and the tan skin, hazel eyes, and golden hair of dawn elves. Not only that, but they stood several inches taller than high-elves, the next tallest race, and were of much stockier build. They still bore the fair features and pointed ears of all elves, but there was a fearsomeness about them that made them excellent soldiers.

“We’re going to be your guards from here on out,” one of them said to me, oddly not addressing me by my honorific. “I’m Drask, and this is Torondi; don’t try to talk to him, he doesn’t speak.”

“And why’s that?” I asked.

“He gets attached to the people he’s charged to protect,” Drask explained.

“And that’s a bad thing… why?”

“You’re to be the emperor’s assistant,” Drask said. “So to be honest, we’re not really expecting this to be a long-term relationship.”

“Oh,” I muttered, feeling a chill crawl up my spine, “I see.”

“If you want my advice, just do what he says. Telavia started screaming about how his whole project was bullshit, and look where that got her. Just put on a smile, and say ‘yes, sir,’ no matter what he asks of you.”

Drask stopped at the door to the keep, and then turned to face me, a stern expression on his face.

“Let me see your poker-face, Princess,” he said.

“My… what?”

“Show me the face you give ambassadors and merchants when they insult you,” Drask said. “That face that says, ‘I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear that.’ You’re going to need that face in there.”

“I… don’t have that face,” I said nervously, entwining my fingers together. “I’ve never actually dealt with ambassadors or merchants.”

Drask snorted. “Well, you’re fucked.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, not caring any longer about this man’s lack of propriety, “I am.”

“At least you know it,” Drask said, and then opened the door. “Try not to scream.”

I walked through the door, and barely held the shriek that bulged in my throat. The sound hit me first. Moans and screams assaulted my ears in a discordant symphony of depravity that echoed to form a demonic roar. The sight hit me a second later when my brain realized the abstraction my eyes beheld. It was like I was staring at a demented renaissance painting. The pale fine skin of high-elf women mingled with the dark-green flesh of orc; their bodies strewn about the expansive marble floor; gyrating in debauched motions, wriggling in perverse heaves and bending in rows of arching backs. The platinum strands of elven hair flailed wildly as their bearers were taken violently in every which way from which angle, their bodies engulfed with the musculature of their assaulters. It seemed that not a hole was left unfilled. Each woman was stuffed to capacity, some with multiple men in a single hole, all of them occupied mercilessly. The woman nearest to me was bent over; an orc beneath her, an orc behind her, and an orc in front of her. She writhed between the men taking her ass and pussy, shifting to some depraved dance whose cadence only she could hear. She watched me with unseeing glazed-over eyes as she took the orc in front of her all the way down her throat, her neck bulging with his girthy length. Her occupied mouth leaked soft gurgles and gags, and though she looked to be in discomfort, she also seemed to be entranced in a euphoria too great for her mind to take.

They thrusted harder and harder into her, and she only seemed to move with greater fervency in response. In and out, in an out; the cocks piercing her were slick with the nectar of her arousal and the secretion of her mouth, the lubricant spilling out from her ruby gaping anus to further grease the violation of her sanctum slit. Faster and faster; her body began to ripple; her breasts flailing beneath her, her ass jiggling with the impact of the orc sodomizing her, her thighs quivering in abject pleasure. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she uttered a primal desperate scream as the thrusts reached their peak, and she dove into a violent spinal arch, her breasts jutting forth, her hips shooting back, her entire body quaking as she came in a toe-curling, leg-trembling display of vulgar lust the likes of which I’d never seen. The men came as well, and the woman ravenously drank the seed of the one in her throat as the viscous white fluid spilled from the gaping holes behind her. They pulled out with a slop of rubbery meat, and left her comatose and leaking upon the floor, her pink holes unable to coalesce from their reamed state. She shuddered with the aftershocks of ecstasy, then her eyes fell upon me. As she watched me from beneath her brow, she dipped her head low, and began lapping up what had been expelled from her.

As I watched her, I realized with a strange sort of fascination that I was both horrified and aroused, and that both emotions seemed to beget the other. The woman had been wantonly destroyed, but she had enjoyed it; she had enjoyed more than anything I had ever enjoyed in my privileged life. I ruminated on how it must feel to be so well filled, to be so thoroughly taken that you’re no longer a person, but a debased object with a singular purpose: to come. To come, and to please those that make you come. It was… exciting to fantasize about, which concerned me. I was a compulsive and reckless creature, and my fantasies didn’t stay fantastical for long.

“Lucilla!” a cheerful voice sounded from above. “So glad you could make it. Please, come up here.”

I looked up to the balcony, and saw my father for the first time in over a decade. He was haggard, with an untamed beard and hair well past his shoulders, but he still looked like the man I remembered. I ascended the steps to the balcony, pulling my dress up to keep the skirt from trailing in the sexual filth that littered the floor. Father was in a heated discussion with two of his assistants, whom he dismissed once I reached the top step.

“Your locker is on the far wall,” Father said, reading something on his desk and not looking up at me, “you’ll find a habit and a pair of slippers in there; I suspect you don’t want to ruin your fine clothing.”

I stared at him for a moment. Nice to see you too, Dad. I guess we’re just going to pretend that what I walked into is completely normal. I remembered Drask’s words: poker-face. I walked over to the open locker, took off my stiletto heels, and threw on the habit and slippers. This is what Julia wears every day, I mused, looking down at the formless clothing, it’s so boring! No one can see my curves, or my cleavage! I shook the vain thought from my head, and then approached Father. I stood behind him with my hands clasped in front of me, waiting for whatever it was he needed.

“Glatian!” Father called to one of his assistants. “What is Sara doing?”

“Which one is Sara, your Highness?” the assistant asked.

“Three-twenty-seven,” Father said, “you really should know their names by now. What is she doing?”

“She says she has cramps, your highness,” the assistant said. “She’s going to the sauna to warm her muscles.”

“No,” Father insisted, “tell her we’re sorry, but she still has to finish. Give her water for the cramps.”

The assistant bustled off, leaving Father alone with me.

“You’re rumored to be quite the hedonist, Lucilla,” Father said, still watching the debauchery below with a studious expression, “tell me, what would you change?”

“I… uh…” I started, “…I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

“You have a reputation of getting drunk, using narcotics, and engaging in rampant sexual activity,” Father said in a very matter-of-fact way. “So, given your penchant for the carnal things in life, I’d like to know what you’d change to get the results I’m looking for.”

There wasn’t any judgement in his tone, and there was no way I was going to lie to him about something he obviously deemed trivial. It was apparent that Father would not suffer fools, and I did not want to prove myself as such. I sifted through my mind, recalling Julia’s lessons in the carriage.

“You’re trying to trigger an extreme-pleasure response,” I said, and Father nodded.

“We hired a succubus to design this. I thought incubi would be our best bet, but she insisted that orcs would induce both stress and pleasure in equal extremities. They are a vigorous lot, and at first, the women seemed to be only in pain, but after a while, they adapted. In post-experimental surveys, the subjects gave the orcs resounding reviews. They look like they’re in states of extreme pleasure, but still, not a single woman has shown herself to be what we’re looking for. We must be doing something wrong.” Father slid a thick ledger over to me. “These are all of the experiments we’ve conducted,” he said. “Maybe an untrained eye can spot what we’re missing.”

I opened the book, and as I read through it, my jaw dropped lower and lower. These women had been through the gauntlet. Some of the experiments were designed to be tortuous than pleasurable, and I noted in horror that the most perverse of these was designed by none other than my dearly-departed half-sister. It seemed that she had tried desperately to get the results Father wanted, but of course, the results never came. I felt a chill run up my spine. How long before he decides I’m useless? Will he kill me, or just send me away?

“It looks like your experiments so far have been very… extensive,” I replied, flipping through the pages and taking mental notes on some of the acts for later experimentation of my own. “I’m afraid I don’t have any insight I can provide. I just don’t have the experience.”

“Well,” Father said, still shuffling through his notes, “then go down there and get the experience.”

“What?!” I nearly screamed.

“Go down there,” Father smiled as he pulled the ledger from my hands, “and get the experience you feel you need.”

The way he smiled was almost paternal, but not quite. It was the kind of smile someone gives you when they’re disguising an order as a request. It was not the kind of smile I could refuse. Tevalia’s head was on a spike because she didn’t recognize the danger in that smile.

“I…” I swallowed, not believing what I was about to do, “…of course I need more experience. I’ll do it.”

“Wonderful!” Father said, the danger leaving his smile, “When you’re done with that, you can leave for today; I suspect you’ll be of little use to me afterward.”

Father turned away and recommenced looking through his notes, trying to find the reason nothing was working.

Because it was a lie by an old man, you insane fool! I wanted to scream, but I didn’t. Instead, I turned from him, and walked down the steps, into the debauchery below.

I stared blankly at the scene before me with no idea where to start. Do I just… jump in? I thought, or do I pick some orcs from a lineup? How much control do I have? God, those things are huge; how do those women get them to fit?!

“Hey,” a female voice said from behind me, “we’re out of wine over here, could you give us a refill?”

I turned, and saw a group of beautiful teenage high-elves chatting with a robust group of orcs at a table. They were all smoking, drinking and laughing as if the hellish debauchery surrounding them were nothing but a picnic. And I supposed for these girls it probably was.

“I’m not a steward,” I said, more than a little intimidated by the women, whose nonchalant nakedness and easy smiles put my sexual confidence to shame, “I’m a princess.”

“Nice to meet you, Your Grace,” the woman smiled, and shook her empty glass. “Now, could we get some more wine?”

“I’m not here to serve you!” I said, lifting my chin with a touch of royal indignation, “I’m here to… to…” I dropped my head and sighed. “Can one of you tell me how this works? Father says I need experience.”

“Oh, virgin blood!” the girl exclaimed happily.

“I’m not a virgin.”

“Yeah, you are,” the woman smiled, punching out her cigarette and walking toward me. “I don’t care how many princelings or farm boys you’ve fucked, Princess, in here, you’re a virgin.”

She strutted around me, assessing me. I felt like an idiot being the only girl wearing clothing, so I pulled off my habit, and kicked off my slippers. The girl touched me on the shoulder before I could take off my dress.

“Leave that on,” she said, her voice a sultry fry, her eyes studying me. “I want to watch it get torn off you, piece by piece.”

“I didn’t know you were in charge,” I said sternly to the woman, “what’s your name, girl?”

“Sara,” the woman smiled, “and yours?”

“Lucilla,” I said, aware that honorific titles meant nothing here. “How are your cramps, Sara?”

“Oh, they’re much better now,” she smirked. “I didn’t even need the water; Bron just fucked them out of me.”

I laughed at that. It was a nice change to talk with women who didn’t lecture me on my behavior, or speak to me like I was a child. For once, I wasn’t the whore of the room. Actually, I was probably a prim maiden compared to these girls. I let my pride fall, and put myself in a pupil’s role to the women and orcs who would be my teachers. There was no use in clinging to titles and decorum here; I was a novice in need of experience.

“I have to admit,” I said to Sara with a nervous smile, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“That’s obvious,” Sara chuckled, taking my arm. “I’ll be your coach for today, Lucilla. You just do what I say, and you’ll get all the experience you need.”

She walked me to the table, and then patted an empty bench. I sat down, and she gently guided my hands to the edge of the tabletop.

“You’re going to need to hold on to something,” she winked, and then began to pull up my dress from behind me. “Have you ever done anything back here?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling my heart flutter as my dress was pulled past my hips, exposing my supple naked backside, “many times, to avoid pregnancy.”

“Oh?” Sara cooed, and pulled out a bottle of lube, “Maybe I underestimated you, Lucilla. Do you like it in the ass?”

“Yes,” I grinned back.

“Perfect,” she whispered, and squirted some lube into my crack, “then I don’t need to stretch you out.”

Two strong green hands grabbed my shoulders, and a pain the likes of which I’ve never felt before shot into my rectum. My eyes flashed open and trembled in their sockets, my knuckles turned white against the table’s edge, and my mouth gaped wide, but no sound came out. My back curved into an arch so deep it hurt, but it was all I could do in the wake of the agonizing penetration I was experiencing. My rim expanded and stretched into a tight pulsing white circle as the orc’s cock pushed deeper and deeper into my bowels. The snug tender flesh within me uncoiled about his advance, and I felt his rigid heat separate me in places I didn’t know existed, breaching the sphincter to my colon. He throbbed in the tightest reaches of my sinful hole, his pulse drumming against my thin membranous flesh, adding a second heartbeat to my own. Finally, his pelvis met the supple fat of my backside, and he held me there, forcing me to accept his brutal invasion as my destroyed protesting hole mouthed in useless clenches around him.

“It’s quite the sensation, isn’t it?” Sara whispered, her breathing heavy in my ear. “To take an orc into your ass for the first time? I wish I could experience it again; the pain is just so…exquisite.”

I found my voice, and the sound that came from my chest was not a sound I’d ever made before. A shrill animalistic scream erupted from my gaping lips, and Sara clapped her hands and giggled. She pulled down the bodice of my dress, and my porcelain bust flew out in a jiggle display of nipples and domes. She pinched her thumbs and fingers about my erect nipples, and slowly stretched them forward, rolling them between her digits as she did.

“Your older sister made that same face,” she smiled as the orc began to pull out. “I liked Telavia; I wonder why she left?”

The orc’s girth had ruined my channel, causing my rectal flesh to cling to him like a sleeve. I could feel myself exiting my own body, and my scream grew higher, but not for the pain. Though I was in abject agony, the feeling of being turned inside-out was so alien, and I was a hedonist of new bodily experiences. The pressure inside me subsided as my insides relaxed into their former positions, and I could feel air sinking coolly into the prolapsed pink bud that clung like a fleshy condom to his birthing cock. There was a tingling pleasure that permeated from my emptied rectum, and a… a hunger within my vacant channel. My scream subsided on my lips, and I looked up to Sara through teary-eyes, and smiled.

“What an adaptable little creature you are,” Sara smiled back. “It’s already starting to feel good, isn’t it?”

“So fucking good!”

She twisted my nipples harder, and grinned as I moaned. “God, I love breaking-in prim royal sluts.” She torqued breasts until they were shadowed with spirals, “Welcome to the fucking sisterhood, Princess Lucilla!”

A moan escaped me, and I twitched my ass, looking backward at the well-muscled monster lining up his next shot. What a fearsome beast he was; all tattoos, tusks, and dreads. An alpha male stud made for violence and death, a subhuman piece of beast filth who’d be raping high-elf girls even if he wasn’t getting paid for it. I despised his kind, but in that moment, I loved the idea of being his helpless little rape victim. I gave him an inviting bit of my lip, and a vulnerable tilt of my head. He grinned, and thrusted back into me even harder than before, and I screamed in comingled delight and agony as my insides were filled again. It felt like he was forcing my colon into my guts, and I savored every brutal inch of it. My body was propelled upward; the backs of my hands colliding with my ribs, my arms bending sharply at the elbow, my breasts bursting from above the table, and my ass lifting off the seat, where strings of glistening nectar snapped from my leaking pussy.

In minutes, my screams of agony became moans of pleasure became screams of ecstasy. I’d never been taken so deeply, so violently, so beautifully. He treated me like a piece of meat, like a baseless slut with no humanity, and I reveled in it. I’m just your little anal whore, I thought, GAAH, fuck me like the worthless pig I am! Then I wondered why I would keep those thoughts to myself, so I vocalized them, encouraging him to fuck me harder, to drive deeper, to impale my pink insides until they were raw and weeping.

“My, my, my, Princess,” Sara laughed, twisting my nipples with malice, “those are not words royalty should be saying.”

I clung to the edge of the table as my body shook with the fervent blasts of his lust. His cock scorched through me, and then abruptly stopped as his pelvis smacked into my ass. The porcelain canvas of my backside was marred with the red impact of his pelvis, the pristine complexion of my face was flushed with my exertion, and the tender flesh of my breasts was pulled by Sara’s calm, yet sadistic pinches. God, it was good, better than anything I’d ever had, and it only got better. The orc picked me up by the hips, his cock still throbbing in my desecrated anus, and then he grabbed me by the underside of my thighs, and spread me wide. Another beast approached, his massive engorged member swaying from between his muscled quads. My eyes widened in fear and arousal, and I simultaneously beckoned him forward as I cringed for what was to come. The orc in my ass stopped thrusting, and my new partner lined up his shot. He grinned at me, the tusks protruding from his lower lips gleaming, his black eyes shining, and his nostrils flaring like a bull in heat. I smiled weakly back, the vulnerability and apprehensiveness mixing with the carnal hunger. He teased me with his tip, separating my tender petals with a girth I doubted would ever fit, but with every brush of his brutal organ, my need grew, my insides opened, my nectar flowed. My body shifted on its own about the man impaling me, and I moaned a pleading tone. I no longer cared if it would hurt, I no longer cared if it would break me, I just needed it inside me; I needed it more than anything. He stopped his teasing, his cock glistening with the sheen of my lust, and he pushed inside.

My legs stretched to lateral splits, my back arched behind me, my shoulders pinched back, and my neck striated with tension as I tilted my face skyward to yield a scream. My dress hiked past my hips, the slits on the sides draping about my exposed thighs, the trail of my skirt soaked with the secretion of my violation. My heart thundered in my chest as I felt the greatest pain and pleasure I’d ever known. Deep, stretching, piercing penetration; the cocks inside me pressed along the fleshy division of my channels, rubbing mercilessly through every nerve-covered expanse of lewd flesh as they thrusted in unison, lifting me between them and then dropping me, impaling me mercilessly, exploiting every inch my body had to offer, hollowing me to the bottom. My violation was so complete, so filling, so perfect. I screamed higher and higher, louder and louder as my body shifted up and down, flailing and jiggling, writhing and squirming. I clasped my fingers together behind the neck of the orc sodomizing me, and I danced in a possessed gyration; my abdomen flexing in waves, my breast jutting outward and then falling, jiggling to the cadence of our fervent samba. My dress was torn and darkening with the strain of sex, my body was moving in simple reaction to the feeling, and my mind was clouding, drifting in haze of lust. Focused thought gave way to transient inklings, and I lost myself for a blissful, euphoric moment.

It started as a weakness; a wonderful, disarming feeling that left me incapacitated and gelatinous. The sensation slowly changed, becoming something more primal, more… violent. It churned in me, boiling in my desecrated nethers and simmering its heat into my pelvis. The feeling expanded, rushing into my abdomen, scorching into my chest, leaving me breathless, gasping, trying to find a voice that was no longer there. It compelled me to move, to shift, to clench. My body tensed as the feeling built and built, ballooning from the center of my defilement and radiating its electric pleasure into every extremity that bore nerves. It roiled through me until I could take no more, and then it burst. The cathartic release washed over me, and my scream sung out high and clear as my back wrenched into an arch that touched my shoulders to one man and my navel to the next. I bent myself backward in the wake of my euphoria, and I squirted the final note to my debauched symphony. The orcs erupted into my depths, sending their viscous lava into the ruined caverns of my body. It seeped into my colon, and burned its wonderful heat into my open womb.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit!” I stammered when language reentered my brain. They pulled out of me, and my ass prolapsed in a wonderfully exhausted ruin. My pussy didn’t fare much better, but at least it stayed inside me. Hot white seed leaked from my violated holes, and dripped freely from my body to the floor below. Sara helpfully pushed my ass back inside me, and a shiver of residual pleasure shot up my spine. I turned to her, matching her gaze. Then, I was kissed by another woman for the first time in my life. Sara’s lips were sweet and lush, and her tongue was gentle and playful. I found my eyes drooping in bliss, and my hand entangling in her platinum strands. As I drank the woman in, my mind drifted, and for some reason, my thoughts went to Julia.

JULIA

A single blue flame danced in the palm of my hand. I focused on it, trying to keep it small and manageable, trying to keep my emotions in check. I was a devout servant of the Holy Mother, but that was only half the reason I was a nun. Nuns live a sanguine life of moderation, nuns live a life of humble service, nuns live a life without passion or lust. Nuns experienced neither extreme pleasure, nor extreme stress; perfect for a Creator in denial. The flame dwindled in my palm, becoming a sapphire ember. Terondia was a place of terror and anger, and would test the limits of my resolve. I had avoided traveling into the keep, but I was still just a few footfalls from the heart of the beast. There was something I’d been avoiding that I could no longer. I would have to face it now, lest it consume me at a dangerous time, and dangerous times were upon me. I took a deep breath, and the flame became nothing but a spark.

Daddy’s screaming at Mommy. She did something bad, but I don’t know what. I run to them, trying to get them to step yelling. Daddy pushes me aside, and Mommy screams at him. He hits her. She falls to the ground in a flail of crimson hair. He’s screaming at her, and she’s crying, sobbing on the floor, saying she’s sorry. He kicks her, still screaming, his face as red as his hair, his eyes bulging. She’s shrieking on the floor, curling up, trying to protect herself, but he just keeps kicking! Someone else is screaming; a high, shrill sound. It’s coming from me. Blue flames, tendrils of heat coiling in the air, surrounding me. I’m on fire! I’m not burning, I’m not on fire… I am the fire! An uncontrolled blaze, an inferno of fear pouring from my heart and blasting from my skin. They’re screaming, shrieking, blackening. They’re rolling in agony, but I can’t stop! I can’t stop! I CAN’T STOP!

My eyes flashed open, but my heart stayed calm. The flame in my hand had flared a bit, but not too much. There had been a time when the memory consumed me, and I had to dive into the nearest well, lake or river to conceal my nature. If a body of water was not available when a fit came, I would run to the quarry and hide in the caves. People thought I was crazy, but Lucilla just thought it was funny. Her estate housed the orphanage for the rural province, and she always wanted to hang out with the unfortunate children. To her, we were the cool kids, and the young lords and ladies she was supposed to socialize with were boring. She took an especial liking to me, mostly due to my crazy antics, and we’d been best friends ever since. I heard footsteps down the hallway, and I extinguished the flame in my hand.

Lucilla walked into the room, looking like she’d spent the afternoon in a tornado. Her platinum hair was a frizzled mess, her pale cheeks were flushed, her makeup was smeared, and her dress was torn in multiple places. She limped her way into the room with a goofy smile strewn across her lips.

“Sister Julia,” she said tiredly, “if you would be so kind, could you draw me up a bath?”

“Good Mother!” I gasped. “What happened to you?!”

“I accepted a job position as assistant director of the Creator Project,” Lucilla said, flopping on the bed and kicking off her shoes, “and the interviewing process was incredibly rigorous.”

I shuffled over to the tub and turned on the water, adding fragrances and soaps to the basin before moving to assist Lucilla. She sat upright, and I undid the buttons on her dress, noting the sucking marks on her neck, the bruises on her back, and the hand prints on her thighs. My first instinct was to worry, but then I saw the satisfied grin strewn across her lips.

“I think you have quite the confession to give me,” I mused with a sly smile. “Your sins are painted across your body.”

“Bless me Sister, for I have strayed from the Maternal Path,” Lucilla said as the tattered remains of her dress fell off her naked back.

“Bare your sins upon me, so that I may ease the burden on your soul,” I recited, helping her to her feet, and walking her to the bath. “Now,” I grinned excitedly, “give me all the juicy details.”

I washed my princess as she recounted the day’s events in vivid detail. My eyes grew wider with each passing detail, and I interrupted her several times to say a prayer for her damned soul, before eagerly beckoning her to continue.

“Orcs?” I hissed, a giggle mixing in my horror. “You laid with beasts?!”

“Two of them,” Lucilla smiled up at my shocked face.

“Holy Mother, protect this wicked child,” I recited, drawing the crescent symbol over Lucilla’s head. “Now, how were they?”

“Amazing,” Lucilla exclaimed, “you know I am not a size-queen—motion of the ocean and all that—but these guys… ho-lee shit. They made an elf-sandwich out of me, and it was absolutely wonderful.”

“That sounds incredibly painful,” I said, lathering her hair with soap. “I don’t know how anyone could possibly enjoy that.”

“We’re not all asexual zealots;” Lucilla smirked at me, “some of us like fun.”

“I am not asexual,” I said, splashing water in her eyes. “Just because I made vows doesn’t mean I don’t have desires.”

“Oh?” Lucilla perked-up. “Well, let’s hear them.”

“Are you sure?” I smiled at her, “Because you can’t unhear them.”

“Oooo,” Lucilla sniggered, “I always suspected they’d be dirty. I have a theory that nuns are the kinkiest bitches; repressed sexuality does strange things to people’s fantasies.”

“My darkest, dirtiest, most depraved fantasy,” I whispered, looking Lucilla in the eyes as I massaged her scalp with fine oils, “is you,” I watched Lucilla’s eyes grow wide, and a devious smile formed on my lips, “married and with children, engaging in a life of humble propriety in service to the Holy Mother.” I laughed as Lucilla’s face fell in disappointment. “It’s terribly perverse, I know. I’ll make sure to pray all night for my depravity.”

“You know what?” Lucilla said. “I’m going to move in with the project girls; you’re too fucking boring.”

“I’m sure you’d be right at home with them.”

“Not really; those women are fucking crazy.”

“After all that’s been done to them,” I said somberly, washing her shoulders, “madness is surely the only way to cope with reality.”

“Oh, they’re not insane;” Lucilla said, “they’re just wild. I was expecting tortured, soulless husks who needed help feeding themselves, but they’re not.”

“Did you speak at length with them? How can you be sure they’re not being coerced into complacency?”

“I spoke with one of them, and if she was acting, she was doing a very convincing job of it. She…” Lucilla’s expression changed subtly, and she looked up at me with an inquisitive glance, “…she kissed me.”

“And the sins pile on,” I sighed, leaning forward and washing the tops of her breasts. “At this rate, Lucilla you’ll have to spend the rest of your life praying for a chance at forgi—”

Her lips stopped my words. The lush moist flesh pressed to mine, and traced fire into the tender outline of my mouth. My heart dropped in my chest, and I sat in paralytic shock as her tongue pushed between the crease of our mouths, and tickled my own. A deep blissful feeling thrummed gently in the back of my skull. It was accompanied by a desire… a hunger whose alluring fulfillment rested upon Lucilla’s lips. I wanted to sate my hunger, to taste the sweet promise that lay in Lucilla’s mouth. I almost did, but my mind came roaring back to me, and I ripped my face from hers as my heart thundered in my throat. The flames that stoked my essence danced within me, begging to light upon my flesh, and I quelled them with all the resolve I could muster.

“Julia?” Lucilla asked, her voice small and scared. “Julia, I’m sorry, I don’t know what—”

“You’re drunk,” I said, eyes still closed, breathing deeply through my nose, pushing down the fire. “I could taste the wine on you. You will finish bathing yourself, and then you will go to bed. Come morning time, we will both pretend this never happened.”

“Julia….”

I stood up, and left my naked princess alone in the tub. As I walked away from her, I focused my entire being on trying to dull the sharpness of my nerves, trying to quench the flames inside me, trying to stop savoring the taste of her lingering on my tongue. It was my first kiss; it was a sin, it was perverse, and it was wonderful. Forbidden thoughts danced teasingly before my god-fearing complex, singing songs of flesh and moans, inviting me to succumb to them. But no, I would not. It was a sin, it was perverse, it was wonderful, and it was dangerous. My clenched palm shown dully blue between the lines of my pressed fingers, and I opened my hand to reveal the flame that had ignited in my lust. Lucilla didn’t know how close she’d come.

LUCILLA

The next morning was the most awkward of my life. Yeah, I was drunk last night, but not nearly drunk enough to get away with that. It was just… Julia looked so pretty in the fire light. Her green eyes were twinkling, her apple cheeks blushed ruby against her pale complexion, her full, red lips matched the deep passion of her hair, and on top of it all, she was gently washing my breasts. Maybe it was because Sara gave me my first sapphic kiss, and it awoke a part of my sexuality I didn’t know existed. Maybe I wanted to share my lustful revelation with the person I cared most for in this world. Or maybe, I was just drunk and horny. Julia’s a fucking nun for Mother’s sake; what was I thinking?!

As Julia and I silently ate breakfast, I realized this wasn’t just a one-off feeling for me. My eyes lingered on her; the subtle swell of her breasts beneath her habit, the way the cloth narrowed at her waist and then widened, showing the outline of an ass that she tried oh-so-hard to conceal. She had a body beneath that habit, a body that couldn’t be hidden even with the formless drape of nun clothing. Had I never noticed it before? Eye-contact between us was fleeting and painful, and I quickly finished breakfast and went to the keep. It would take a while before the awkwardness of last night’s mistake was buried.

“Lucilla!” Father said warmly as I entered the large room. It seemed I’d come before today’s debauchery commenced, as he and six of his assistants were the only ones there. As I ascended the steps, I realized that the men surrounding Father were wizards, marked by their bald heads and the glowing dot between their eyes that signified their bond with an astral being.

“Father,” I nodded curtly.

“I trust the experience you garnered yesterday will prove invaluable,” Father said, sharing notes with the men and signing forms as I approached him. “I think a fresh perspective is what we really need right now. My wizards have found something very exciting, and I’d like your interpretation of it. Let’s be off.”

The wizards stepped away from Father, forming a circle around him with their hands clasped together. Father beckoned me into the circle, and I took a tentative step forward and ducked beneath the joined arms of the mages. I’d never traveled by portal before, and I was more than a little nervous. The wizards’ eyes lit with yellow light, the dots on their foreheads shot beams of power, and a translucent orb grew around us, blinding the world for a moment before dimming to reveal a new landscape.

We were in a desert, with sand stretching as far as the eye could see in one direction, and an imposing wall of cliffs blocking the sunlight in the other. The wall of sheer cliffs stretched endlessly from horizon to horizon, standing in absolute verticality before sloping into snow-capped peaks that towered three miles over the flat sand. This was the Gratoran Wall, the unnatural division between the orc empire of sand, and the dwarven princedom of hills and mountains on the other side. This particular spot would be a nameless, unimportant place, were in not for the landmark that had made this patch of sand and rock one of the most significant locations in the world. A swath of the wall was cut neatly and perfectly from one peak to another, splitting the tops of the mountains all the way down to the base. The imposing profile of Iona, the largest mountain in the world, towered along the north face of the cutout, its slope flattening into a shear drop that exposed its geology like the cross-section of a cake. It looked as though someone had taken a knife to the landscape, and had carved out a perfect hallway three miles high, half a mile wide, and thirteen miles deep. The hall was complete with a smooth floor of granite that ran between the mountains, connecting the orc empire to dwarf princedom. This was Droktin’s Pass, named after the orc Earth Former who had created it two millennia ago. He had carved it from the wall made by his predecessor.

“It is understandable,” Father said, glancing at the geometric gash in the landscape, “why the matriarchs of the Holy Mother feel so threatened by Creators. This is a tangible act of god, a landmark of true divinity. Gratora made a wall along the mountain range to divide the entire continent, and Droktin made a doorway to reunite it in the bloodiest war in recorded history. How can the Holy Mother compare to this?”

“It is amazing,” I said, gawking at the scene, “but why have you brought me here? This is nothing new.”

“No,” Father said, walking past his wizards and beckoning me to follow, “but this is.”

I stared down at the black rock he was gesturing to.

“You’re confused,” he smiled, reading my expression. “It’s just a piece of obsidian, after all. Interesting that it would be here when the nearest volcano is five-hundred miles away in Breyta, but still, nothing to take much note of. What about that?” he pointed at another obsidian boulder, larger than the one before, and shaped slightly differently. “That can’t be a coincidence, can it?” Father smiled at my confused face, and then beckoned me to follow him. We passed boulder after boulder of obsidian, each growing larger than the next, each forming a more distinct shape until we reached a large, perfectly-formed black cube, measuring twenty feet in all dimensions with a surface so glossy I could see my reflection in it. Protruding from the side of the cube, was a fist made of rock, so perfect in its imitation that not a single carving mark nor chisel scratch could be seen.

“He came here to practice,” Father said, brushing his fingertips along the glassy surface, “maybe he sought inspiration in the shadow of a miracle, or maybe he thought ancient power still dwelt within the carved mountains.”

I felt my heart skip a beat as the realization dawned on me.

“I’ve been following him—or her—I don’t really know their gender,” Father said. “I’ve been following this Creator for eleven years.”

“It’s true,” I whispered, touching my palm to the cool surface of the rock, “they’ve actually returned.”

“Of course, they’ve returned!” Father chuckled. “Did you really think I’d take seven-hundred children on just the promise of an old man?”

“I thought…” I started, “I thought….”

“You thought I was mad,” Father grinned. “Everyone does, but being emperor means I don’t have to care about what everyone thinks; just those with influence, and those I love.”

“Like Telavia?” I asked, and then immediately regretted it when Father’s expression darkened.

“Telavia lost faith,” he said somberly. “The pressure I put on her was… significant, and she betrayed me.”

“What did she do?” I asked.

“We had a difference of opinion,” Father looked away from me, “and we could not reconcile that difference.”

“I need to know, Father,” I said. “I can’t help you if I’m second-guessing every decision I make, wondering if any mistake will be my last.”

Father looked genuinely hurt at my concern. He walked toward me, and held out is arm. I took it, feeling a foreboding sense of dread as he walked us away from the six mages.

“As you know,” Father said, “Creators first exhibit their powers under conditions of extreme stress. When I took the children, I began putting them through stress-tests. It was… hard, at first, to do that to them. I refrain from the use of the word ‘torture,’ but it wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that’s what occurred. Obviously, we did not get the results we wanted. So, we waited until sexual maturation, and then we began extreme-pleasure tests. Telavia and I worked tirelessly to perfect the tests, to evoke the reaction we desired, but the results never came.”

“So you blamed her,” I said softly, “and you killed her.”

“It wasn’t as callous as that,” Father said, turning me around so that I faced him. “Telavia was convinced that we didn’t have the woman we were looking for. She tried to free the subjects, and destroy years of work. She betrayed me, and I punished her for her treason.”

“Is it treason?” I asked him, “Is your project a concern of national security?”

“You see that pass?” Father said, directing his hand to the carving in the cliffsides. “That pass opened an unassailable range, and led to a war that killed millions. Creators are weapons, Lucilla, and nations that do not have them will be forced beneath the heel of those that do.”

I could not deny the wisdom in Father’s words. The Creators had returned, and their return marked both a threat, and an opportunity. Still, there was something he was missing, something that he couldn’t see for himself, but I could.

“Telavia was right, Father,” I said cautiously, gaging his reaction, “you don’t have the Heat Bringer.”

“What makes you say that?” Father asked, his expression darkening.

“What I felt yesterday…” I started, recalling the feeling of the orcs inside me, “…was a sensation so extreme I lost function of my mind. If you had the Heat Bringer, she would have shown herself already.”

“Telavia said the same thing days before she betrayed me.”

“I will not betray you,” I said, trying to keep my poker-face, and not break down in panic, “but if you will not listen to two of your daughters telling you the same thing, then I cannot help you.”

Father looked at the gash in the mountains, contemplating my words. I waited with bated breath for him to draw his sword and end me for my insolence, but he didn’t. He dropped his head, and I saw genuine sorrow on his face.

“I broke those girls, Lucilla,” Father said. “I twisted them and molded them to my liking. Over a decade of subtle manipulation, of giving and taking, of playing god with their psyches until they adored me. Do you know about binding?”

“It’s when a Creator comes out of their infancy,” I replied. “They create a reservoir of power in another person, and can draw infinitely from it.”

“The Creator has to choose their binder; they cannot be coerced into it; it has to be a genuine connection. They must love the person they bind with, so I have made the girls love me even as I took everything from them. If what you’re saying is true, then any hope of our nation acquiring the permanent allegiance of a Creator is lost. I let her slip through the cracks, and now she is too old and too warry to mold. I fear, given my reputation, that the Heat Bringer will make an enemy of us.”

“What are you going to do?”

“This point of contention between Telavia and myself is what compelled her to act as she did,” Father said. “She told me I did not have the Creator, and I told her that if all else failed, I would lay pitch upon the floor of the palace keep, and light all seven-hundred of the girls ablaze.”

“What?!” I yelled.

“It is a misnomer that Heat Bringers cannot be burned,” Father said. “They are flesh and blood like the rest of us. However, their ethereal flame burns hotter than any earthly fire, so when they ignite, the blaze of other fires will not scorch them. We burned the palms of the girls when they were children, but none reacted favorably. Perhaps the threat wasn’t real enough; perhaps a mortal test is required. If it fails, then I will know definitively that you and Telavia were right.”

“Father,” I whispered, horrified, “even if it works, you will have killed hundreds. How will the one remaining ever bind with you after you’ve murdered all her friends?”

“That is why it is a last resort,” Father said grimly. “It is a terrible thing that I do not wish to do, but increasingly, I am realizing it is a thing I must do. If I cannot bind with the Creator, I can at least break her.”

JULIA

I did not want another awkward morning, so I decided that ignoring what happened probably wasn’t the best idea. Tonight, I would get Lucilla good and drunk, and then we’d bury the hatchet, and laugh the whole thing off. I ***********ed her favorite wine from the royal cellar, and prepared her a bath to clean the sin from her skin. When Lucilla came into her quarters, her dress was intact, her face was unmarred, and her porcelain complexion was much paler than usual. She was shaking.

“Lucilla?” I asked as she carefully sat on her bed. “Lucilla, what’s wrong?”

She stared at the fire crackling in the hearth, and didn’t seem to hear what I said. I walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder, and she jumped in surprise.

“Your Grace?” I asked her, feeling the tension in her body, feeling the panic in my chest rise. I’d never seen her like this.

“He’s going to burn the girls,” she whispered. “He’s going to burn them all alive.”

“What?!” I hissed, my panic growing to horror.

“It’s why he killed Telavia,” she said, her voice hushed and terrified, “because she was going to free them before he could do it.”

There was a silence between us as the gravity of her words sunk into my chest. Seven-hundred women were going to be burned alive. Seven-hundred women I could save just by giving myself up. Could I do it? Could I enslave myself to save hundreds I didn’t know? How many thousands would die if I put myself in the control of a tyrant? What would he do to me?!

“I…” Lucilla gulped, “…I have to get them out, Julia. If I don’t try something, I won’t be able to live with myself.”

“You can’t,” I replied, feeling numb. “After what Telavia did, he’ll be expecting it from you.”

“I still have to try,” Lucilla whispered. She sat in silence for another moment. “I think…” she finally said, her voice void of emotion, “…I think you can give me my final rites now.”

“Lucilla….”

“No,” she said, “don’t. Just… just give me my rites, Julia. Maybe if I do this… maybe, if I try… maybe your god will let me into that heaven of yours.”

“Let me speak with your father,” I said, my voice wavering. “I think I can convince him otherwise.”

“Father doesn’t care about the words of The Holy Mother. He seeks another god.”

“Then,” I said, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, “I will bless him with her presence.”

LUCILLA

Julia splayed her hand before my eyes. The glowing hearth cast shadows across her subtle veins and faint lines, then the shadows were gone. A blue flame ignited in her palm, and bathed her delicate fingers in sapphire. The heat was steady, unwavering, and did not scorch the flesh that bore it. My eyes widened, and my mouth dropped as my heart pounded in my ears.

“Arbitrus Gen,” Julia said softly, “is a name everyone knows, but few people understand. In modern tongue, it translates roughly to ‘Man of purity.’ I am his descendant, Lucilla; I am of pure blood.”

“No,” I whispered, gazing at the sapphire blaze in the palm of her hand, “that’s impossible.”

“You will take me to your father, and you will save those girls.”

“No,” I whispered again, not believing what I was seeing, “no, no, no.”

“It’s the only way,” she said, her voice level and unshaking. “If we don’t, then we might as well have lit the match ourselves.”

“Julia,” I said in hushed tone, touching her wrist reverently, “you’re a god.”

“I am no god, Lucilla,” she smiled down at me. “There is but one.”

My hand ran along the soft skin of her arm, it’s pale hue bathed in the orange-red firelight of the hearth and the blue blaze in her palm, casting a purple gloss about her complexion. I looked up at her smiling face, and saw the flames mingle in her green eyes, dance shadows across her crimson hair and shining against the flushed roses of her high cheeks. Her red lips glistened in the wavering light, and they creased in a gentle smile about her gorgeous portrait. No, my father would not have this woman. This woman belonged to me. I flattened my palm against her wrist, and stared into those green eyes as I clasped my hand over the blaze in hers. The fire died between us as our fingers curled in an embrace. I guided her forward, our gazes connecting as she leaned into me.

“Lucilla,” she whispered as my other hand found her waist, “we can’t do this.”

“Yes, we can,” I smiled, unknotting the rope that bound her habit.

“God forbids it,” she replied, not stopping me from pulling the rope loose.

“Do you?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Blasphemy.”

“I’m a Creationist now, Julia,” I smirked. “Come, let me worship you.”

“Your god demands you to stop!” Julia laughed.

“Great,” I grinned, “now I’m a sinner in two religions.”

I pulled the rope from her habit, and the cloth that wrapped her figure loosened. My fingers trailed along the crease of buttons that bound her clothes to her body, and I deftly pulled each of them apart.

“I can’t control it, Lucilla,” Julia said, reaching behind herself to stop me. “I’ll burn you.”

“You won’t burn me,” I smiled, undoing the last button. “I know you won’t.”

Her habit fell, and the dainty slip she wore beneath it draped scandalously off her. The soft curve of her shoulders lay bare, the pale crease of her breasts shown from the top of her bodice, and the silky flesh of her thighs angled full and supple from the frilled skirt that barely contained them.

“For a woman of god,” I laughed softly, “you have an interesting taste in underwear.”

“Lucilla,” Julia whispered, her body leaning into me, her eyes baring a needful, pleading glint, “we need to stop.”

“Do we?” I asked her, one hand still clasped in hers, the other trailing up her arm, to her bare shoulder.

“Lucilla,” she whispered again, her voice shaking slightly, “please stop.”

“You keep saying that word, ‘stop,’” I smiled as my hand found the strap of her slip, and pulled gently downward. “I don’t think you know what it means.”

Julia’s slip trailed from her top in graceful flutter of folding silk. Her chest was laid bare to me; perfect, sloping breasts that swelled from her figure into milky domes that hinted at their supple nature, each dotted with a small pink nipple, each nipple covered in goosebumps and throbbingly erect. She concealed them with a shy forearm as I guided her to me by the waist. She sat tentatively on my lap, like a child on her father’s, and I couldn’t stifle the laugh.

“Julia, what the fuck are you doing?” I giggled endearingly, guiding her by the hips to face me, and pulling her thick thighs apart until she straddled me about the waist.

“Trying to decide whether or not to set you on fire,” Julia laughed back, some of her anxiety fading. “You’re not making it an easy choice.”

“And you,” I said, gently gripping her covering forearm and pulling it away from her, “are a god with body-image problems. You do know you’re beautiful, don’t you?”

Her arm fell away from her chest, and I guided both her hands in my own. I placed her fingers along the straps of my dress, and smiled as she nervously hooked them. She pulled down, sliding the spaghetti straps off my shoulders and watching as inch after inch of my breasts were exposed to her until we sat bare-chested in front of each other. Her eyes lingered on me, soaking in every curve of my bust, trailing along the arch of my neck, and then connecting with my gaze. She giggled bashfully, and her face fell, concealing her expression in a tumble of luxuriant crimson locks. I laughed with her, and then brought my hand to her face, cupped the gentle bow of her blushing cheek and raised her eyes to mine. The smile that was revealed beneath the parting curtain of hair was not a scared smile, but a loving, longing smile. I shared it with her, and then brought our smiles together.

JULIA

I-can’t-do-this-I-can’t-do-this-I-can’t-do-this-I-can’t-do-this! The rational thought blared in my mind as our mouths connected. Lucilla’s breasts pressed against mine, forming a seal of warm flesh about our squishing busts as our lips formed a seal of humming love. I felt the apprehension melt from me, the anxiety bleed from my body as her lips gently drank of my budding lust. Her tongue flicked playfully across my own, and I joined her in the fun. I felt my body draw deeper to her as if she was pulling us together through some unseen, irresistible force. My hands moved from their cautious perches at my sides, and tangled into her platinum hair; blonde strands twisting about playful fingers. Our mouths rotated about the axis of our lust, and the novice nature of my embrace fell away to instinctive confidence. I tilted her head back with guiding fingers, and pressed myself closer to her as our kiss deepened. I could feel her heart beating through our squishing busts, and I could feel the need of our bodies soaking through my slip. Our breaths grew heavy in each other’s mouths as we inhaled the sweet life from our lungs, burning its passion into our hearts.

Her hands trailed down my sides, and pushed the slip from my waist. I lifted my legs about her, and let the last piece of my clothing fall from me. Our tongues entwined in lustful combat as I hovered my body over hers, and dragged her dress down her torso, over her pelvis, and off her legs. Our lips parted, and we stared at each other. Her sapphire eyes gleamed in the light, her porcelain skin was flushed with her lust, her full pink lips were parted and smiling, and her body… Good Mother, her body! Her breasts swelled from her dainty figure, larger than my own, but not exaggerated. Her belly was a soft concave curve of pale flesh with a navel dotting its perfect center, and her glutes widened from her pelvis in lascivious curves that rounded into toned thighs, whose precipice formed a gap where her tight slit was glistening for me.

“Well,” Lucilla smiled, “are you just going to look at it?”

“I’m not sure what to do with it,” I giggled, brushing my dangling hair over a pointed ear.

Lucilla sat upright, and took two handfuls of my backside, sinking her fingers into the delectable fat that rounded my curves. She dragged my body across hers, and our slits ran through each other as our clits connected. A shot of pleasure raced up my spine, and a shiver followed it. A vulnerable gasp slipped from my lips as the enormity of being touched so intimately for the first time came to my mind, and Lucilla smiled knowingly into my eyes.

“You know,” she smiled, “I’ve never done anything with another woman before, so this is new for both of us.”

“Well,” I smiled back, shifting my hips and savoring the feeling of her wet heat pressed against mine, “this feels nice; maybe we should keep doing this.”

“Oh?” Lucilla asked with a raised eyebrow as she guided me to grind on top of her, “Is this enough for you, Julia? Does it feel just… nice?”

Our clits rubbed against each other, each touch singing electric pleasure into my pelvis. I felt the wetness between my legs grow, and a hunger in my nethers ache with tortuous vacancy. The emptiness needed—no—craved to be satisfied. No, no this was not enough for me. My eyes drooped in the heat of my desire, and a needful, pleading whine drifted softly past my lips.

“No,” I whispered, pressing our breasts closer together, feeling her erect nipples toying with my own, “Lucilla, I need you to fuck me from the inside.”

I couldn’t believe those words just came out of my mouth. I said a silent prayer as Lucilla’s grin broadened to a wicked smile.

“Sister Julia!” Lucilla exclaimed through giggles, “Did I just hear you say that?”

“Forgive me, Holy Mother,” I started, feeling my face flush, “for the words of my—”

“Shh.” Lucilla smiled, putting a finger to my lips, silencing me. Her blue eyes twinkled as the tip of her finger circled the outline of my mouth, gently deforming the luscious flesh. She pressed her finger to the crease of my pursed lips, and I hesitantly opened them for her. When she put her finger into my mouth, I… (forgive me Mother for my lewdness) …I sucked it. I twisted my lips around her finger, and hummed a needful tone as I drew my cheeks gaunt with suction, my tongue flicking her fingertip playfully. Lucilla’s thumb gently traced my cheek as I wetted her invading digit, and then she pulled it out, a sheen of my spit glistening from her extended index finger.

“Your hip movements need some work,” Lucilla smirked, reaching behind me with her wetted finger as she spread my glutes wide with her gripping hand, “I think I know just the trick.”

“Lucilla!” I gasp, alarmed, “That’s the wrong…”

Lucilla’s wet index finger traced a teasing line down the crease of my backside, rested on the tight puckered dot of my rim, and then pushed inside. I felt my sphincter open to her external pressure, and then tightly close around her bottom knuckle. Her warm finger sunk into my sinful depths, and radiated its pressure into the coiled channel of my sensitive rectum. The feeling was so invasive, so perverse, so wrong, and so… so… oh, Good Mother above, what was wrong with me?! It felt so good!

“…hole.” I finished, my words seeping from me in a breathy exhalation as my body melted into hers; relaxing in sensuous flaccidity as her tender invasion gradually twisted inside me.

“Oh no,” Lucilla laughed softly, her breath tickling my lips, “the holy, pious, Sister Julia likes it in the ass.”

“Mother forgive me,” I whispered, astonished at the pleasure I derived from the alien sensation, “but it feels so good. Why does it feel so good?!”

Lucilla laughed gayly as she began twisting her finger inside me, compelling my hips to shift with her rotations. She was controlling me from the inside, making my body react without my permission, making me bend to the whims of my pleasures. I began to gyrate perversely; my hips tilting and swaying behind the stretched curve of my abdomen, my weight sliding from leg to leg as I moaned in pleasure for the first time in my life. Lucilla’s voice joined mine as she moved me to her liking, compelling my pelvis to shift against her in just the right ways, guiding our clits to rub tenderly together above the connecting petals of our erogeneity. Strings of viscous nectar mingled within our brushing and deforming flowers, mixing the secretion of our pleasure and glistening through the swollen lips that bore them. She spread her legs between mine, guiding me by the thighs to stretch wider as she toyed with my anus, opening it, making it relax until I wasn’t even clenching, but surrendering to savor the sensation. The twisted pleasure reverberated from my defiled rectum, and sent its caressing tendrils into the extremities of my body. My arms grew weak, and I struggled to keep them planted at Lucilla’s sides.

“You’re like my puppet,” Lucilla mused with a smile and a moan, “you’re so reactive, Julia.”

Lucilla’s ring and middle finger pressed alongside her penetrating index. I felt a stir of panic roil in my chest, and I opened my mouth to protest, but she pushed inside. My rim expanded, my sinful channel stretched, and the walls of my anus grew taut against the warm fingers inside me. My trembling arms gave out, and I collapsed face-first into the supple cushion of Lucilla’s breasts. My red lips gaped open and gasped as my cheek slid back and forth to the whim of my possessed gyrations. Holy Mother, it was good. Expanding, stretching, searing felicity ballooned from my violated hole, turning my pious equanimity into a splay of possessed delight. Lucilla’s nipple stood erect alongside my moaning mouth, and I took her between my lips and translated the pleasure of my body into my sensuous nursing. She tangled a hand into my crimson locks, and pressed me closer to her breast, cooing soft murmurs of bliss as I suckled from her, and she tenderly violated me. Our bodies locked to the swaying cadence of our lust, and we shifted together on the sheets. As our clits reddened with the constant grinding of our pelvises, the sheen of our nectar wetted between us, emanating from our joining in lewd squelches. Her fingers curled inside me, pressing against the walls of my anus, and I torqued in reaction to her, arching my back and pressing my body deeper into hers, savoring the thrumming of her heartbeat, the soft whimpers and moans of her mouth, and the seeping warmth of her flesh radiating into mine.

I reached between us as I nursed from her, sliding my hands along soft muscle and silky skin. My fingers found the wet petals between her legs, and I watched her from my sumptuous feeding as I pushed in one finger, then the other, then the other, marveling each time at how another woman felt from the inside. Lucilla’s brow furrowed, and her pink lips opened to sing her soft approval. My sucking mouth quirked in a smile, and I curled my fingers inside her womanhood as she had done to my tighter hole. Her head fell back into the bed, and her grip inside me tightened. A squeal of delight permeated from my occupied mouth, and I began rubbing my fingertips along the soft wet channel inside her. Her chest jutted forward, lifting my head upward, and her heartrate quickened. The crown of her head pressed into the sheets as her neck tilted back and striated with tension. I could feel it; the expansion of pleasure building within us both. Lucilla was losing control of herself, and I never even had control of myself. I simply responded to the motions of her lust, and now she was caught in the same reactive prison; bending and shifting to the demands of her pleasure.

“Oh, fuck!” Lucilla gasped, her chest heaving in sporadic breaths. “Julia, you’re making me come!”

“Oh, Good Mother,” I gasped, my open lips brushing her nipple, strings of my saliva glistening from its pink tip, “Lucilla, I feel it… I FEEL IT!”

It took me over, spreading through me in a flood of euphoria. The tingling gentle pleasure from our pressing clits grew to an exhilarating rush that propelled my moans into cries. Lucilla’s fingers gripped me like a handle from the inside, her knuckles whitening as her tips pressed into the delicate flesh. It sent a scream of ecstatic pressure deep into my abdomen, expanding in harmony with the surge of delight singing from my erogenous bead. My hips shot forward, pressing into the wet tender heat of Lucilla’s lust, and my cries grew shrill. Then, I felt the other thing. The inferno that laid dormant within me, the blaze that tickled just beneath the surface. Oh, no! Oh, Sweet Mother, not now! My horror and pleasure mingled in a final crescendo, and I forcibly launched myself backward as my naked figure erupted in blue flame. I echoed the release of my body in euphoric terror as I writhed helplessly on the stone floor, my back arching in the climactic sensation; my chest heaving in the cathartic tones of diminishment. I looked up to see Lucilla’s terror-stricken face staring back at me from the bed, and I felt my heart sink into my chest.

I can have no one, I thought in despair. I can never feel the touch of someone I love.

“Julia?” Lucilla’s soft, shaking voice asked me from above.

“This is why…” I panted, feeling tears evaporate from my flaming eyes, “…this is why we can’t do this, Lucilla; I’ll kill you.”

The rug beside me was singed, the bedsheets by my feet were blackened and flaking with embers. I was the embodiment of destruction, a force that could not be contained. Lucilla knelt beside me, her eyes brimming with love. I looked away.

“I killed my parents,” I whispered, staring into the orange flame of the hearth, seeing their blackened screaming faces in every tendril of smoke, “and I’ll kill you too. I’m no god, Lucilla; I’m a monster.”

“Julia.…” Lucilla said, her hand reaching for me.

“Stay back!” I screamed, rolling away from her, seeing a flashing premonition of her scorched shrieking face in my mind, “Don’t come near me!”

The flame brightened and flared with my outburst, and Lucilla cringed backward, covering her face with her hands. This is what I am, I thought as I watched her fall away from me, just stay away from me, Lucilla. I rolled to my side, not wanting to look at her horrified expression.

“You should take me to your father,” I said, staring into the orange flame of the hearth, seeing my screeching parents again and again. “Save those girls before they burn. I deserve everything that will happen to me. Only though pain can we heal. I need to be punished for it! Maybe then I will finally find forgiveness!”

LUCILLA

I stared down in awe at the spectacle before me. Julia was… a god, there was no other way to describe her. Every inch of her beautiful naked form was alight with a deep sapphire flame, a flame that seemed to darken the closer it burned to her skin. I watched as its tendrils licked away at the bedsheets, burned away the frills of the rug, and blackened the stone beneath her. She was in pain; incredible, soul-crushing pain. Steam rose from her crying eyes as she confessed sins that weren’t her fault; the inferno intensifying and flaring with every heave of her inconsolable sorrow. I stepped back, shielding my eyes, feeling the heat whisk upon my flesh. She was alone in her own hell; a god caged by her own guilt. I’d never seen her in such agony. She thought she had no one. She wanted me to leave her. She wanted to die. Well, too fucking bad, Julia; you’re stuck with me!

I reached out a hand, and felt the heat tickling its warning on my skin. Icy fear placed its weight in the pit of my stomach, but I didn’t stop. I stepped closer to the blue hell before me as the cadence of my heart thundered in my ears.

“You won’t burn me,” I whispered, more to myself than her as I reached forward. “I know you won’t.”

My hand blistered, the hair on my arm singed off, my skin began to peel, but I kept reaching forward.

“You’re in control,” I said softly, extending through the burning pain, reaching through the flame, “you are the fire, Julia.”

The pain was incredible, the heat was searing, I could see the steam leaving my arm as the last protective wrap of moisture evaporated in the inferno. The blisters blackened on my hand, I could smell the flesh cooking, I could feel the fingernails melting, but I didn’t stop. Through the tears, through the agony, I extended forward, reaching for the woman whose internal pain dwarfed the torture of my flesh, reaching for my friend in need, my beloved in crisis.

“It’s just you, Julia,” I said, tears streaming down my face, my blackened hand crackling in the sapphire hell, “it’s only you.”

My scorched hand touched the dark blue of her shoulder, and she turned to me, her eyes widening in horror. The burning sensation crept up my arm; a sleeve of blisters trailing the scalding crimson. Through tear-stained eyes and the red haze of agony, I saw the raging blue inferno quell to a smoldering cobalt ash. Her entire form dimmed to a husk of flaking embers; her skin that of dwindling blue coals, her hair not but wisps of smoke. Then… she ignited, set ablaze in a white inferno that consumed me. I shrieked in horror, knowing that this was my last moment, but my breath did not scorch my lungs, and my skin did not melt in the heat. My ruined arm flaked with dead skin, and new unmarred flesh was revealed below. The fried nerves in my hand electrified with sensation, and I felt two arms embrace me, and a kiss melt onto my lips. I could see nothing in the blinding white light, but I could feel it all. The heat swirled around us in a vortex of energy, consuming the room, setting every waking tone and color ablaze in its brilliance. Through her lips, I felt a surge of power. It flowed into me, screeching through every vein and muscle, igniting every nerve and neuron. My eyes flashed open in the exhilaration, my heart thundered in the intensity of the euphoria, and every muscle in my body surged with energy from a higher plane.

I love you, her voice whispered in my mind, through the inferno, through the chaos, as clear as a songbird in the dew-soaked dawn after a hurricane.

I love you too, I whispered back, and I meant it; I meant it with every inch of my soul.

The vortex spiraled into twisting lengths of fire, and then dissipated. The afterglow of the inferno spotted the lenses of my eyes, and they cleared to reveal her image. An aura of white light outlined her figure, her emerald eyes glowed with power, and her veins shown through her skin with the same white energy. It dimmed and brightened with the pulse of her heart until the deific glow faded from her completely, leaving her beautiful, but normal—at least to unknowing eyes.

“Did you just…” she started, looking over my body, “…did you just bind with me?”

“I don’t know what the fuck just—” I stopped as I looked down at myself. Bright white patterns of energy glowed from flesh. The patterns were intricate and untouching, resembling curls of flame that curved along every swell and bow of my form. It was as though my body was a canvas, and Julia had painted the most complex, beautiful maze of flourishing lines upon it, accentuating every elegant stroke of my feminine figure with a fiery design. It flowed in spirals of impossible intricacy about the domes of my breasts, accentuated the subtle rises of muscle in my arms, created long, elegant bows along my torso, and curved in wide strokes along my legs. There was not a bare inch of me that wasn’t highlighted by the fiery maze of impossible knots, waves, and curves. The glowing patterns didn’t dissipate or fade like Julia’s aura, but thrummed steadily with the beat of my heart.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, “you turned me into your fucking mascot.”

“I’m sorry, Lucilla, I didn’t—”

“Sorry?!” I exclaimed, looking up at her. “Look how fucking hot this looks! Quick, get me a mirror; I need to see how my ass looks!”

“Lucilla–“

“Yeah, I love you too, babe,” I said, studying the patterns on my palms and the bottoms of my feet. “I know this is a big moment, and I’m definitely ruining it right now, but I honestly don’t know how to deal with that level of emotional intimacy, so if you could just please let me have a moment of vanity, that would be great. Thanks.”

Julia handed me a mirror, and I took an indulgent glance at my ass (it looked fucking awesome) and then checked my face. I really did love the patterns, but I was glad they only extended to the top of my neck; it would be hard to hide them otherwise.

“OK,” I breathed, taking a deep inhale, then exhaling through my nose, “we just bound ourselves. I am officially your reservoir of infinite power, and I love you with all my heart. Now what?”

“Um…” Julia said, looking around. Every window in the room had been blown out, there was a ten-foot hole in the wall that showed a vertigo-inducing five-hundred-foot drop from my room at the top of the tower, and on top of it all, the same patterns that now tattooed my skin were scorched black onto every surface of the room. They ran in straight perpendicular patterns with the edges of the walls, the tops of tables, and the bricks of the floor. From the behind the closed door, I could hear the sound of faint yells and footsteps charging up the stairwell.

“…I don’t think you need to rescue those girls anymore,” Julia finished. “I think it’ll be pretty obvious to your father what happened here. Does he know about me?”

“It won’t take him too long to find out,” I said. “People know you’re staying in my quarters. He’ll check the records, find out your suspicious birth date, then check the census books, track your lineage, and put two-and-two together. He’s insane, but he’s far from stupid.”

“So,” Julia said, “what do we do?”

“First, we get dressed,” I said, “then, we get my gold, and run.”

Excerpt from Arbitrus Gen’s Journal, Chapter Five, Page Fifty-Seven:

I will, for a moment, cease my critical authorship, and instead touch on something beautiful. Something we all feel. Love, of course. Love is the Holy Mother’s gift to us all, that we may find spiritual perfection in another person, and bind our souls to theirs. This binding is famously made quite literally upon the flesh of a Creator’s spouse, but the feelings are no different. Love is love; it is indescribable, so I will not attempt with my meagre sentimentalism to do it here. As many of you know, I was a homosexual, and I did bind with a man. Though I sired three children with a woman, there was no love between me and her. It was difficult for me to reconcile this sinful love with the teachings of the Maternal Path, but as they say, love is blind. Those decades of blissful ignorance were the happiest of my life, but upon John’s tragic passing, I was left unblinded to see what the world was becoming. My love and my ambivalence was what caused the catastrophe. Had I acted sooner, Droktin would never have been able to do what he did.

So the warning I send to you, reader, is to always keep one eye open on the world. Give praise to God in the heavens, but keep your ear to the ground. Listen closely, and you will hear the seditious words of the future. I acted too late, and I did too little. The orc empire is fallen, and the Gratoran Desert is barren, but evil lurks in the shadows. There is a name to this evil. Satan might be the moniker you think I’m hinting at, and you are right, but the devil does not work directly. The devil has factors among us, and these factors do not sleep. Tethered Ones are ultimately self-serving hedonists, but Sentients… Sentients are the voice of hell. As I have told you, they come from the Life Giver, but unlike Tethered Ones, these things were abandoned. They are without love, they are without soul, and their only desire is chaos. There are three of them, and if you are well-read, then you know of Wrath. Wrath famously infected Droktin’s horde, and made his soldiers manic with battle-rage. Sorrow has not been seen for a thousand years, though her mark is documented in history with crimson ***********s of suicide and decay. She is not as well-known as Wrath, but I believe she persists in her quiet way. But Sorrow and Wrath do not hold a candle to the true evil of the world. The ancients called her ‘the most ancient one,’ for she is older than history itself. You probably have never heard of her, but your ignorance is her weapon, for she does not leave a trace. She infects the highest echelons of power, she whispers in the ears of kings and queens, and she blackens humanity with her seductress’s drawl. She is not like the others. Wrath and Sorrow never knew love, but she knows hatred.