The Demon Chain

The Ruins

Jalissa stumbled into the ruined stone building, desperate for cover from the storm. Three days of dry weather had made poking about the jungle-covered ruins an excellent foray, but eventually, it had to end. The storm came up with little warning and blinding speed, dumping a deluge of rain and deafening thunder down on her within seconds.

None of the other crumbling heaps of ancient buildings had anything resembling a roof, but this one did. It was a godsend in the sudden downpour. Only a few dried flakes of what must have been a once grand set of gigantic doors lay strewn across the entrance, which was growing darker by the second.

Jalissa set her pack down and fumbled inside. The contents were blessedly dry. She set aside the carefully wrapped gems she’d been able to find, as well as the two little idols that would fetch a good price at the market in Canilia. This latest scavenging hadn’t been the most profitable, but at least it wasn’t a total loss. She located her catch-flint, flicked the little metal box back and forth until it sparked, and then lit one of the tallow torches from her pack.

The flickering glow threw menacing shadows across the old, weathered stone floor and walls of the place. The little bubble of light didn’t reach far. She replaced the items in the pack, shouldered it, and made a quick circuit of the room. On the walls, faded artwork was mostly unrecognizable. What was left didn’t provide much of a clue to the structure’s purpose. Since it had a well-constructed stone roof, which had remained intact over the centuries, she supposed that it must have been a place of some importance. Little remained of the rest of the city but broken rock, swallowed by the jungle.

On the far wall, she found the only remaining piece of evidence, and it was valuable. Inlayed in the stone was a pattern of gems, laid out in the symbol for infinity. The gems glittered red under the dancing flame of her torch, and they were breathtaking. All the centuries gone, yet these beautiful stones remained? It seemed impossible. Surely other adventurers and looters had picked this place clean through the years. How had no one managed to find this?

Torch in one hand, she slid her knife from her belt and tested the edges of one of the gems. The stone around it flecked away against her work. She carefully dug at the edges of the gem, sweat beading on her brow in the suffocating heat of the enclosed space. Finally, the first of the red stones came free. She nearly dropped it as it popped out with a crack. She shoved it in a pocket for the moment and went to work on the next. This one was lodged in tighter than the other and she had to work delicately to get enough of the surrounding stone wall away to get her knife under the edge.

She managed it after a time, but as she began to work the blade around the edge something clicked in the wall. She stepped back and then turned to run back out into the storm as the building began to vibrate, and then began to shake.

“Shit!” she cursed and darted, certain that the place was about to collapse.

She hadn’t gone ten paces before the shaking slowed and then suddenly stopped. She paused, one hand on the doorway, as the rain and thunder pelted the world outside. Looking back, she could feel a rush of stale air buffet her face, blowing back her hair. It carried with it the scent of… death, she thought. Still, she took a step back toward the wall, and then another, until the torchlight fell upon an even darker opening. Where once the back wall had stood, cradling the red gems, now there was an empty hole where the wall had slid back and away to reveal an entrance. Or an exit?

She thrust the torch into the portal, watching the licking flames beat back the darkness, but there was naught therein but more blackness. Jalissa hesitated, waving the torch back and forth, but no answers were forthcoming. She gave the stormy entrance behind her another look, and then stepped inside. The darkness within was like a cloying thing, clinging to her skin, devouring the light of the torch like a hungry kithrok that had been denied its kill.

The light in her hand barely broke through it, but she took another step. The feeling of the place made her skin crawl and the sweat on that skin made her itch with the instinct to turn around and run. One didn’t go ruin hunting by being easily scared, though, and she wouldn’t allow herself to be now. The greatest treasures often lay in the darkest places. But then, so did vamprats, lich spiders, and willow vipers.

She took another step and her foot kicked against something soft. A moment later a cloud of dust struck her face and she coughed. She leaned down, bringing the torch to the ground. The thing was a skeleton, dressed in ancient rags. Her intrusion had turned the rags into dust. She was breathing in the remains of ancient clothing and of death.

The torchlight showed her something else, though, something that glittered as none of the red gems had. Wrapped in the bony fingers of the corpse was a heavy, silver chain, and all along its length were gems of onyx and red. The stones seemed to shine from the inside with their own pale light, which was magnified by that of her torch.

“Holy shit,” she whispered and even the small sound echoed around her in the darkness.

She touched the chain and the brittle fingers fell apart, as though offering her their prize. A prize that this lost adventurer had died for. What had prevented his escape? Impossible to tell after all this time. He could have been injured before he entered, poisoned, betrayed. So many possibilities.

So many ways to die.

She picked up the chain and held it up to the torchlight. No stranger to hunting ruins, Jalissa had seen her share of ancient treasures. She’d held gold coins from the ancient kingdom of Li’ath-Kit-Kenan. She’d retrieved crowns and tiara’s from Silith Brele. Gems, weapons, parchments, scrolls, even a vial of death magic that she’d sold to a black-robed mage. The little chain and its gemstones, though, were something wholly new. Looking at the stones was entrancing, as though they were singing a song in her head.

It was with an effort that she pulled her eyes away from them and stuffed the chain into her pocket as she stood. She slowly padded in one direction until she came to a wall, then followed it around, measuring off the space. The room was small, barely twenty paces square. The only other thing of note was a hewn altar of solid rock, placed at the center. On the altar were shards of glass that didn’t seem to hold any value.

Jalissa made for the muted gray light of the room’s entrance and felt like a weight had lifted off of her the moment she was back in the main room. She examined the wall around the entrance, but couldn’t find any way to close the portal and retrieve the remaining gems. She shrugged off the pack and removed the contents again, wrapping the single red gem and the silver chain, then placing everything back. Outside, the vicious storm seemed to be blowing away.

She stood by the entrance, watching the dark sheet of rain as it swallowed the sky, moving into the distance. Eventually, the sun broke through, low in the sky now. For a moment, she considered camping here, but a glance back at that dark portal changed her mind. Something about it just made her uneasy. Better a night in the jungle than next to that. She shivered and left the ruin.

***

The Compulsion

The city of Canilia was built against the natural barrier of a high mountain range. On one side of the range lay dense rainforest, while on the opposite side, in the rain shadow, sat the city. Cut straight through the range was what was known as simply, “the pass,” the site of a long dried-up river, that had cut its way through the mountains over millennia. The resulting pass was like a giant had cleaved the mountains in two, leaving a wide road-like traverse from one end to the next. Canilia had lain a roadway through that pass, where resources could be carted in from the rainforest.

The west end of Canilia was a filthy place, but cleaner than most slums in the ramshackle nest of viperous cities that made up Unlious, the country Jalissa called home. Decades of war, punctuated by short years of truce, had left indelible marks on every part of Unlious. Most of the cities were more slum than anything else at this point, the majority of the wealthy citizens having moved into the upper ends, what had come to be known as “fortress zones,” where they could hide from their fellow man behind guarded walls.

The market of Canilia was a place of pirates and smugglers, which also brought in the other dregs. Whores plied their trade openly, while the beggars and street urchins huddled in the shadows of the dilapidated buildings. It was into one of these buildings that Jalissa entered with one hand on the hilt of her knife. In the market, you always had one hand on your knife.

From the outside, the shop was as unassuming as the rest of the tumbledown buildings. It didn’t even have a sign. It didn’t need one. Everyone in Canilia knew the place, no matter their station. All around the outer wall were shelves holding vials and flasks, filled with powders and liquids in so many different colors that they would have made a rainbow jealous. Some of those glowed, while others seemed to suck the very light from the room.

The floor of the shop housed tables and stands, each of them neat and organized to perfection. On those tables and stands were glass cases, locked, containing gems, small arms, and other less descript items. An unfamiliar patron might have mistaken those items for nothing more than what they appeared. However, Jalissa knew that each of those things held some kind of power. That power ranged from mundane to lethal. Among those tables were arrayed stands of cloaks, light armor, and tunics.

On the far end stood a long, polished, wooden countertop. Hanging on the wall behind this were larger swords, spears, and other instruments of violence. Between the counter and the wall stood a man, who at first glance was little more than a frail man in a drab brown robe. His skin was weathered like old parchment and the fingernails on the hand holding a gem up to the light were yellowed from smoke, as well as working with chemicals and powders. Those things were part of his trade, and that trade was the reason that he could blatantly display so many valuable artifacts openly in a place like the Canilian market.

To call Eldris Witchfire’s craft a trade was to do it a disservice. It would have, in fact, been wholly inaccurate. A trade was something that a person might be proficient in, even renowned for. They used their trade for their livelihood or took it up as a hobby. Many people plied more than one trade. Eldris’s craft was simply what he was. There was no greater mage of warding in the entire country, perhaps even within the next three kingdoms.

No one knew if the man had an actual surname, at least no one alive who was willing to talk about it. He was known as Witchfire, because of his part in fending off the last invasion on Canilia. That had been decades ago, before Jalissa had been born. His wardings, powerful even then, had burned men by the thousands as they laid siege to the fortress zone around the city’s innermost keep. According to the stories, Eldris had stood atop the walls, alone, and laughed as men died by the score, burning alive as his green fire melted their flesh and turned their bones to ash.

In that single night, more men had died from his warding than in the previous month of the war. The event secured the last truce, which held to this day. The old man’s skills may have slipped in that time. No one knew. Nobody wanted to test it by thieving from his shop. Thus, Jalissa entered it much as she had on so many occasions. Uneasy, and in a hurry to get her business done as quickly as possible.

“Jalissa,” Eldris called as she entered, without even taking his eyeglass off of the jewel he examined.

“Eldris,” she said back, by now used to the fact that he knew exactly who was entering his shop before they’d even stepped inside.

Used to it, she was, but not comfortable with it. One was never comfortable here.

“You’ve brought me something special?” he asked, setting the jewel down and giving her his attention.

“Just the usual,” she said, shrugging off the pack and rooting through it.

She produced the gemstones she’d acquired in the ruins and arrayed them on the counter for his inspection. The two small idols she set next to them. The chain, she held onto for last. Eldris glanced over the gems and idols, his brows knitting, and then the look passed. Jalissa was silent as he took up each gem, inspected it with his glass, and then carefully examined the idols.

“Worthwhile vessels,” he said, nodding. “I’ll give you 500 lains for the lot.”

“500?” Jalissa spat, sounding offended.

For the next several minutes, she haggled with him, as was their custom. They finally settled on 650 lains for her haul, both of them satisfied, but putting forth a mask of displeasure that both of them recognized as a lie. That was the way of it, though.

“What else do you have?” Eldris asked, swiping away the gems and idols. “There’s something more you’re not showing me. I can feel it.”

Jalissa grinned and said, “There is one more thing.”

She pulled the chain, wrapped in a cloth, from her pocket and set it on the counter, and unwrapped it. Eldris recoiled so violently from it that his back hit the wall and sent numerous items from the display clattering loudly to the floor. He threw up his hands and drew something in the air with practiced quickness. A green rune flared in front of him and the whole place seemed to darken. The reaction caused Jalissa to take a step back in response.

“Neesa and all the gods! Where did you get that?” Eldris exclaimed.

“In the ruins on the other side of the pass. What is it?”

“Did you touch it?” Eldris asked, his voice fearful as Jalissa had never heard it. “Did you touch the damn thing with your hand?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

Eldris stared at the thing as though it were a willow viper prepared to strike. It was the look of a man who knows that death is staring back at him. He shuddered.

“Then it’s already too late,” he said. “You may as well put it away.”

“What are you on about?” she demanded, her heart seeming frozen in her chest.

“Put it away!” he hissed.

Jalissa swiped the chain off of the counter with a trembling hand and stuffed it back in her pocket.

“It’s a demon chain,” Eldris said, visibly relaxing now that the thing was no longer in sight.

“A demon chain?”

“Old magic, older than most,” he said, shaking his head. He actually looked sad as he said, “I’ve enjoyed your visits, Jalissa. I’m sorry.”

“What is it?” she demanded again, the fear rising, apparent in her voice.

“Seven such chains were made, long ago, to contain seven demons,” Eldris said. “You’ve heard of the Black Fields, yes?”

Jalissa nodded. Everyone had heard of the Black Fields. They stretched over miles, the sight of what had once been the kingdom of Rutheran. Now, all that remained of that once-great civilization were those empty fields, which were not really empty. They writhed with something black, like a sea of tar. Every now and again, they would spew forth some horror, which would assault the walls that had been built around the place. The mages that guarded that wall would lose a number of their ranks to kill whatever it was, and then the fields would go quiet again. Until the next horror.

“Rutheran’s king was given what’s purported to be a demon chain. That was the end of Rutheran,” Eldris said. “What became of the other six, no one knew. Now, you’ve uncovered one. From what I can tell just from my sense of the thing, it’s already part of you. Do you feel… less? Drained somehow?”

Jalissa had felt a bit tired, but weariness was nothing new. She’d just spent days in the jungle, crawling through ruins, after all. She was always tired after an excursion.

“A little tired,” she admitted. “That’s normal, right?”

“I can feel a consumption from it, almost a pull,” Eldris said.

Jalissa recalled the way the chain seemed to sing in her head when she looked at it, as if it was drawing her in.

“When I looked at it,” she said, “I felt like it was… pulling at me.”

“That’s because it was,” Eldris said. “While I can’t be absolutely certain without examining it more closely, I’d say that it’s Succubi’s chain.”

At Jalissa’s continuing, perplexed look he continued, “Succubi was an ancient demon that stole life to feed her rebirth. She could not, of course, draw life herself. She was not corporeal. Rather, she inhabited a body and used it to draw the life from others, consuming them, either in part or wholly. Ultimately, enough stolen life would give her form, and allow her to enter the physical world herself. You, I’m not at all pleased to say, are now her host.”

“You’re saying I’m…”

“Possessed?” Eldris finished. “Yes. That is what I’m saying.”

“Fuck you!” Jalissa spat, filled with terror. “How do I get it out?”

She brushed at her clothes, looking herself over, as though she could physically wipe away the demon.

“You don’t,” Eldris said. “At least, I’ve never heard of it happening. It’s been so long since anyone’s dealt with something like this, though, that it’s impossible for me to say.”

“Do you know someone?” she asked, panicking, reaching for him.

She cried out as her hands came up against a ward, which flared green in front of the old man.

“Don’t!” he commanded. “There’s nothing I can do.”

He paused, thinking, then said, “Wait here.”

As if I could fucking move, without pissing myself!

Eldris vanished into the back of his shop, while Jalissa stood quaking. A moment later he returned and laid a coin on the table, along with a cinched, brown sack.

“She’ll go away if I pay her?” Jalissa asked, incredulous.

“The bag is your payment for the gems and idols. I’ve added some extra as a parting gift. Go get yourself drunk. Go whoring. Do something enjoyable with the time you have left. I wouldn’t recommend trying to kill yourself. At best, someone else would pick the thing up. At worst, you’d just come back.”

“Neesa take you, Eldris!” she spat.

The old man sighed and said, “The coin is warded. Hold onto it. It’s a sanity ward for those under a compulsion spell. I don’t imagine that you’ll be able to resist her altogether, but the ward should allow you to retain… something of yourself while she devours your soul.”

“I wish you were a fucking liar,” she said.

“In this case, I wish I was, too. You’ve been a good client, Jalissa. I’ll miss you.”

“What if I throw it away? What if I give it to someone else?” she said, scrabbling.

Eldris shook his head and said, “No good. I don’t imagine you’ll be able to get rid of it. She won’t let you.”

Jalissa wanted to prove him wrong, needed to. She pulled the chain from her pocket and made to throw it on the floor, to stamp on it, to shatter the gems and crush them into dust. Her arm moved, but her hand held the thing in her fist, refusing to release her grip. She tried again, but her fingers held it wrapped so tightly that her nails dug into her palms. She held it and stared in horror at the old man, her eyes pleading. He only shook his head.

“Fuck!” she spat.

“If there were a stronger word, it would be more fitting.”

“You’re saying that there’s nothing I can do?” she begged.

“I’m saying that I do not know of anything you can do. The demon chains were made to keep their horrible powers contained, but the strongest magic of the old kingdoms couldn’t harness them fully. The only place that I can think of that might have the slightest hint of an answer is the College of High Sorcery.”

“That’s days away! How long do I have?” Jalissa implored.

“I can’t say,” Eldris admitted. “The more you give in to the compulsion, the faster it will happen. The more you can resist, the longer you have. It’s not exactly a science. I wouldn’t hesitate to find a ship across the sea and a fast horse on the other side.”

“Eldris,” she whispered. “Thank you. I’m... I’m sorry I got angry.”

“Understandable,” he said, shrugging. “Now, would you kindly take that thing out of my shop, out of this city, and as far away from me as possible?”

Jalissa nodded, swiped the money and the coin off the counter, pocketed them, turned to go, and then stopped. She turned back and had the oddest, most out-of-place desire. She’d just been given a death sentence and told that a demon was consuming her soul. And yet…

“Eldris,” she said.

“Yes?”

Jalissa did not want to say the words that she could feel about to roll off of her tongue. They were the most wildly inappropriate words for this moment, that they were utterly ludicrous. She said them anyway.

“Are you sure I can’t suck your cock?”

Eldris paled and he drew another ward, this one red. She could feel the power of it from this far, like a wall of heat that caused sweat to bead on her skin.

“Get out, Jalissa. Don’t come back.”

Jalissa felt her lips curl up in a sneer, like she was a puppet in a mummer’s show, with little strings directing her movement. Eldris raised his hands again and they were glowing, green like the fires that had earned him his name. The feeling of compulsion faded.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” she said, and then turned and ran from the shop.

Standing on the street, with the press of people passing by, Jalissa was struck by the absurdity of her misfortune. She’d just offered a blowjob to a man nearly three times her age. As the thought flitted through her mind, with it came a peal of dark and seductive laughter, like an echo from across a room. She nearly shouted at the laughter but caught herself. She pulled out the coin and turned it over in her hand, as she slipped the bag of money into her shirt. Then, the coin vanished into another hidden pocket. With one hand on her knife, Jalissa beat a hasty path to the harbor.

The low docks of Canilia were built along the shores of a deep bay, which opened out onto the Sorry Sea. The sea was so named because it was just that, a sorry excuse for a sea. It was, in truth, not much of a sea at all. It was, however, a large enough body of water that one needed a stout ship to cross it. If that ship traveled far enough north, it would eventually reach a real sea, and then an ocean. Jalissa did not need to travel that far, though. She only needed to cross the Sorry Sea to the Port of Elenthia.

The docks smelled of fish, spilled wine, and the reek of bodily fluids. The low docks were the port for middling merchants, those that were engaged in piracy, or smugglers. Further north, in the Great Bay, lay the high docks, where the city’s wealthy merchants unloaded their cargo. The high docks were protected by the Crown’s Man-O-Wars, while the low docks were patrolled (in a sense) by the constabulary’s less formidable craft. These were essentially in place to accept the bribes that allowed the smugglers and pirates to use the docks.

Booking passage across the Sorry Sea was not a difficult thing. A few farriers made their living running back and forth across the sea, a journey of about half a day in good weather. Today, the weather was good.

Jalissa consulted the board at the ferry. This late in the day, there were no more of them going out. However, there was a departure just after sunrise tomorrow. She purchased a ticket and then wove through the crowd to a nearby lodge. The sign swinging above the door read The Lookout. Likely more than half of those that visited the establishment couldn’t even read the sign. Jalissa entered, rented a room, received a key, and made her way to the upper story.

The small room wasn’t filthy, and the sheets on the little bed were clean. Satisfied with the accommodation, she used the room’s key to unlock the safe and stowed her pack. With just enough coin to pay a bath fee, she left and locked the room.

After all the days in the sweltering jungle heat, with only cool streams to wash in, the heat of an actual bath was a luxury well worth the money. Once she was clean, she replaced her grimy clothes with fresh ones, bundled up the previous ones, and tucked them under her arm. She returned to her lodgings and put away the clothes, then walked down to the common room.

While she tucked into a plate of food that was far better than she’d expected and drank a glass of wine that was far worse than advertised, she quietly scanned the room. It was a habit to be watchful in a place like this, no better than the market, especially for a woman. It was even more so for an attractive woman. Jalissa had fended off more than one unwelcome sexual partner in places like this.

Savoring the meal, and displeased with the wine, she was joined at the table by a brutish man in a cotton tunic. His arms were covered in badly done tattoos and his head was bald. The most surprising thing about him was his smell. He didn’t smell bad.

“Lovely,” he greeted her, as if it were her name.

“Ugly,” she shot back.

The man chuckled.

“I seen worse,” he said and gave her a predatory grin. He was missing one tooth.

“I’ve seen better,” she countered.

“Ain’t seen much more prettier ’n you,” he added.

“You don’t get out of the city much.”

She popped a grape into her mouth and chewed, her other hand resting on her knife. The man’s eyes flicked to it, back to her face, and then moved down to her chest.

“Fancy a bit of good company tonight, Lovely?” he asked her tits.

“Did you see an invitation?”

He nodded his head at her breasts.

“Those aren’t an invitation,” she said.

“Looks like one to me,” he remarked.

Jalissa, suddenly confused, followed his eyes down to her chest. Her tunic was unlaced, and she was showing off quite a bit of her ample assets. Had she forgotten to lace it up after the bath? No. She distinctly remembered doing it. When had she undone it? Why was she smiling? Oh, shit!

“Maybe I like to invite… trouble,” she heard herself say.

Her mind recoiled at the words as the man grinned back.

“Pleasure to meet ya’,” he said. “You can call me Trouble.”

Jalissa thought it was lame and had a very pithy response on the tip of her tongue. Instead of her witty reply, though, she said, “Funny. I was going to say the same thing, and then ask if you’d like to get into Trouble.”

He chuckled at the stupid joke as Jalissa blushed. Her fingers brushed the hilt of the knife and with a disgusted knot in her stomach, she realized that they were curling around it like she was jerking it off. And she couldn’t stop herself. His eyes followed her movement and his grin widened at the implication.

“I think I would like to get in Trouble,” he said. “I won’t even need a knife to penetrate you.”

Jalissa shuddered with revulsion, even as her hand continued the movement and her own smile turned seductive.

“Promise?” she heard herself whisper.

“By Neesa and the four hells,” he whispered back.

Jalissa did not want her legs to move, but they did. They scooted the chair back and they made her stand, and then she leaned over the table and gave him an enticing view of her breasts.

“That’s a promise I’m going to hold you to,” she said.

The man pushed back his own chair, excitement at his good fortune evident. She followed him from the room and up the stairs, screaming inside her head for her body to stop, willing her hand to draw the knife, but she was a prisoner in her own body. She stumbled as she exerted her will against the movement, her feet dragging. The man glanced at her, likely assuming she’d drank too much of the piss wine. But then her feet were moving again, and a second later he unlocked a door with his own key.

She followed him in. Once the door was shut, he immediately rounded on her and began to tug at the remaining laces on her tunic. Her hands helped him along, much to his delight, and then she pulled the tunic off and flung it aside. His eyes locked on her bare tits and his calloused hands soon followed, groping and mauling them roughly.

At least he didn’t try to kiss me.

She fought against the compulsion with everything she had and managed to wiggle away from him, but he seemed to think it was some kind of game and came after her. Jalissa tried to make her leg kick him in the balls, but instead, she managed to trip herself and give him the opening he needed to sweep her up and toss her on the bed. He pulled off one of her boots and then the other. Her traitorous hands worked at the laces on her trousers, undid them, and then he pulled those off, too.

“Fuck me, but that’s a sight,” he said and began to remove his own clothes.

Jalissa could see his hard cock tenting his trousers, and then it was out in the open, thick and ready. He pulled her legs apart and his smile broadened.

“Shaved like a proper whore, too,” he remarked and wet his fingers.

Jalissa yelped as he stuffed his fingers between her legs and roughly mashed them against her pussy. It was wet and it was hot. The horror and shame of it made her blush like a virgin.

“Wet as the Sorry Sea, ain’t ya’?” he said, chuckling. “I got what you need, Lovely.”

Jalissa did not need or want what he had, but instead of fighting, she sat up and wrapped her hand around his dick. A moment later, it was in her mouth. Her lips closed around it and swallowed it with a desperation that she didn’t feel. No, she did feel it, she realized. It wasn’t coming from her, though. It was coming from that… thing. The thing inside of her was hungry, the hunger of a thousand years of starvation and want. She moaned needily as she sucked this strange brute’s cock as she’d never sucked cock before.

The man gasped in surprise at her ferocity and gripped her head in his big hands, as though hanging on for his life as she worked on his penis with her tongue and lips, fucking her own face on it. Drool pooled in her mouth, squelched, and ran from the corners of her tightly sealed lips. It dripped onto her tits and then it began to run in small rivers as she inhaled that engorged cock like the most well-paid whore in the market.

“Gods!” he exclaimed. “Best you back off or yer gonna drain me dry before we even got to the good part!”

Jalissa did not stop. She continued to assault his cock, cradling and squeezing his balls in her hand as she purred, whined, and then moaned around his well-wet shaft. His body bucked and his dick jerked in her mouth. The first blast of his cum rocketed into her mouth and her own body quivered with delight, even as her mind reeled with horror. She was not a swallower, but the demon didn’t care what she was. The demon was hungry.

She swallowed the first shot, then the second, gulping it down as though it were the promised, delicious wine that the innkeeper had offered with her meal. On the third blast of semen, something in the man changed. His grip loosened and he convulsed. Rather than the expected groan of relief and pleasure, he made a pained grunt, and then he shuddered violently.

“What…” he whispered, terror in his voice.

His hands fell limp at his sides, but his cock continued dispensing more cum, more than her experience with the stuff had ever felt. It kept flowing and his body continued to jerk and twist. As she watched from her prison, all the color seemed to drain from his skin and it turned white, then gray. Finally, her mouth released his shriveled organ. He fell to the floor and with a feeling of dread she saw that the once thickly muscled body was nothing more than an emaciated husk.

As she watched, the husk that had once been a man crumbled into dusty powder on the floor. Her own mouth gave a satisfied purr of pure pleasure and then her body trembled. She moaned loudly and then gasped, falling back on the bed. Detached from herself, she could only watch her own hand move between her legs and begin to vigorously masturbate her soaking pussy. She cried out and then an orgasm unlike any she’d ever felt obliterated her conscious thought. For a moment, she and that other were one, both of them overcome with the mind-melting pleasure of that feeling.

She could feel her spine pop as her back arched so far off of the bed that she felt like she might fold in half. The unreal, otherworldly intensity of that powerful cum was like staring into the face of Neesa herself. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she could hear herself giggling and gasping as she convulsed on the bed.

By the time she could move again, the compulsion had faded, and she was herself. She tested her arms and was able to move them, then her legs. She had control. A disturbing feeling, a presence. sat in the back of her mind. It felt sated, like a sleepy kitten that had just filled its belly with too much milk. It felt vile.

Every part of Jalissa’s body tingled with the afterglow of that incredible feeling and, though she had control of her body, it still resisted her efforts to sit up. For a few minutes, she stared at the ceiling and allowed the feeling to slip away. It didn’t happen without some reluctance. That long, pulsing wave of pure pleasure had been more intoxicating than the finest wine she’d ever drunk.

At last, she was able to sit up and look down at the layer of gray ash on the wood floor that had been a person, only minutes ago. Jalissa had killed before. It had never been without purpose or reason, purely in her own defense. Those times had been hard, though it became easier with each one. This time felt different. It felt wrong.

Despite knowing that she hadn’t actually done it herself, there was a burden of guilt as she looked at the ashes. She couldn’t understand how it happened. One moment the big bastard was having the time of his life, and the next he was being consumed, drained of everything he was until nothing remained but that layer of gray dust. With the feeling of guilt came the absurdity of it. She’d killed a man with… with a blowjob.

Numbly, she picked up her discarded clothes and dressed, careful not to disturb the dust. Somehow, it felt disrespectful. She left the man’s clothes where they’d fallen, padded to the door, and swiftly stepped back out. In the morning, when they came looking for him, what would someone make of the dust and the discarded belongings? Surely others had seen them leave together. How could they possibly make the connection between the dust and the man? She didn’t believe they would.

Jalissa stumbled back to her room in a daze and locked herself inside. She drew the thin blanket on the bed around herself and huddled in the dark. It had never seemed more menacing. Tonight, she lifted the glass on the bedside lantern, lit it, and fell asleep, watching the shadows dance on the walls. They looked like the demonic fires that she knew were devouring her from the inside.

***

The Crossing

During the night, Jalissa had dreams unlike any she’d ever had. They were dreams of torment and dreams of pleasure. When she awoke just before dawn, the details were hazy. She could recall whispers in those dreams, soft and seductive, as loving as her dead mother’s embrace when she was a child. With the voice came half-formed images of people bowing before her, like servants. Or slaves.

The thing in her head still sat there, but now it felt as though it were awake and watching, like a spider in the dark preparing to skitter forward across its web and ensnare its next meal. When she retrieved her pack from the safe, she held up her small looking glass to her face. She looked like her. Outwardly, there was no sign of the spider.

“Go away,” she whispered into the glass.

There was no reply, but her skin crawled when she could feel it moving, sifting through her mind like a thief going through drawers. The feeling made her shudder and feel dirty. She fought back panic, settled on a sense of cold dread and impending doom, then shouldered the pack and left. She turned in the key at the desk, received back her deposit, and then indulged in some bread and weak beer.

The streets were already busy with morning dock work as she made her way to the ferry. Here, she checked with the counter, found that the weather still looked favorable, and cashed in her ticket. The sun was just coming up as she waited to board.

By the time the ropes were pulled back to allow entry to the ferry, there was a line of passengers waiting, some of them with small carts or hand trolleys burdened with sacks. She boarded, found seating toward the bow of the ship, and waited another two hours for the ferry to depart.

While she waited, she planned the trip. Jalissa had never been to the College of High Sorcery. She wasn’t gifted and had never had any reason. Like most drifters, though, she was familiar with its relative location within the city of Brille. There, she had been, but only as a stop on a trip further inland to scavenge the aftermath of some battle that hadn’t been worthy of being named.

Battles were always good scavenging if one happened to be in the area at the time. Battle scavenging wasn’t proud work, but it did pay if you could locate gems, idols, or other vessels of power. If those still had magic in them, they could be even more profitable. Unfortunately, scavenging the killing fields also came with battles of your own, making it dangerous work.

As she thought out her route to Brille, she wondered if the thing in her head, Succubi, could actually read her thoughts. Did it know what she was planning? Did it know that she was going to attempt to find help to remove it? Was she betraying herself by even thinking about it? Did she have any hope if she couldn’t think about it? The uncertainty of it all was as dreadful as the fact that it was even happening.

Jalissa grew bored as the ferry made its slow way across the calm sea. The sun was well up and the breeze was gentle when she finally grew restless and began to walk about. She drifted idly, listening to the other passengers chatting away their own boredom. One of them was even reading a book.

Books were difficult to come by. Literacy wasn’t all that common amongst the pilferers and other low classes, like her. Jalissa had found it an advantage, though. If you could read, you could study. A literate person could visit the libraries and they could learn. They were able to read histories, find clues, and track down places and artifacts that those who were illiterate would never know about.

Jalissa’s mother had served a minor noblewoman, who had insisted she be able to read. That knowledge, she’d passed on to Jalissa. It was the most valuable thing she’d gotten from the woman. Seeing a book out here, so brazenly displayed, so casually held was striking. Was this man so careless with such a thing as to expose it to the wind and the water?

If so, he must either have more books than sense or he was wealthy enough that the potential loss of one meant little. Either way, this was the kind of person worth speaking with. Such a person might cure her boredom and provide knowledge of some kind. How much that knowledge would avail her, considering a demon was consuming her soul, was not worth thinking about.

“Hello,” Jalissa said, drawing the man out of his book.

He looked up, perturbed at the disturbance, but then he took her in and his expression changed. His face softened at the sight of hers, flickered with a brief hint of desire as he looked at her large breasts, and then he masked it behind a sudden curiosity. His hair was whispy and white, though she could see now that he was not old. He didn’t look much older than her. His features were soft and delicate, hinting at having spent more time indoors than out, and his indigo robe indicated that he was likely some sort of mage.

“Hello,” he said back, now looking pleased at having been approached by an attractive woman.

Jalissa suspected that such a thing did not happen to him often. He placed a thumb in the book and shut the cover.

“I was just curious what you were reading,” she said, helping herself to a seat on the bench next to him. “I like books.”

“You read?” he asked with a hint of doubt.

“Not as often as I’d like, but I can.”

He chuckled and said, “Old fairytales.”

He showed her the book. In silver script across the cracked, red leather cover were the words, On Demons and Dragons. The words made her shiver. The thing in her head shifted. The spider was watching.

“What does it say… about the demons?” she blurted and then realized that she’d said it with desperation.

The man looked confused for a moment and then said, “Um, well, they’re just old stories. I wouldn’t put much faith in them.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m Jalissa.”

She held out her hand. The man clasped his own on her wrist and she returned the gesture.

“Bandric,” he said. “You have a love for old stories?”

“A recent curiosity,” she said more carefully. “I just spent some time in the ruins beyond the pass. In Dir’Kasha.”

Bandric looked impressed as he said, “Dir’Kasha? You’ve been? Personally?”

She nodded.

“Gods, you’re braver than I,” he said respectfully, “Some of us only get to see such places as words on a page. Most don’t even get that. What was it like?”

He was genuinely curious she could see, fully attentive, his book forgotten. Jalissa bit back her need to question him again and decided, instead, to indulge him in order to get him comfortable.

“Truthfully,” she said, “there isn’t much left. The jungle’s reclaimed most of it. What there is of it is mostly just leftover rubble. I found one building with some faded art, but otherwise just a few gems and trinkets.”

“You do this sort of thing often? Dig through ruins?” he asked.

“It’s really all I do.”

He looked wistful, sighed, and said, “Had I the courage or vigor for such things,” he waved his bony fingers over his body and said, “The Gods didn’t see fit to bless me with the constitution or bearing that such adventures require.”

Jalissa decided that she quite liked Bandric. Most mages were a haughty bunch. She’d sold her findings to many of them. Eldris was an exception. Jalissa had the feeling that Eldris had lived a hard life and that they had an understanding. Other mages tended to look down on her like street garbage, but she was the kind of garbage that found things for them that they needed, and so they tolerated her. Bandric did not see her this way, and she could tell that it was genuine.

“They seem to have blessed you with other things,” she said, indicating his robe.

He chuckled and replied, “I’m middling at best. I’ve a better head for history and penmanship than wielding the power. My magics are more useful for entertaining the children’s parties of nobles than any real use.”

When she laughed, he seemed quite pleased and blushed.

“Watch this,” he said excitedly.

He reached into his robe and pulled out a carved, wooden figure that vaguely resembled a bird. He showed it to her, then clenched it in his fist. Holding it up to his lips, he blew into it, then unclasped his hand, and a gray dove flew into the air. Jalissa grinned and then clapped her hands when the dove exploded with a bang into a shower of fireworks. The other passengers glanced up, muttering at the sudden noise and light. When no further entertainment seemed to be forthcoming, they quickly lost interest.

“You see? I’m more a clown than a mage,” he said.

“The world needs entertainment as much as war mages,” she remarked sadly.

He nodded.

“Where are you bound?” she asked.

“Back to the College. I’ve been in Canilia making copies of one of the patron’s books for months. Now, they’re on their way to join the College’s library.”

Jalissa felt the spider shuffle forth.

It knows what I’m doing

She masked the terror by looking away and pretending to cough, gaining some composure and willing the thing to go back to sleep. If she hadn’t wanted to know more about Bandric’s fucking book, she might have left him right then. She was a danger to him, and she knew it. But she did want to know. Besides the knowledge, there was also the coincidence that was impossible to shake.

Jalissa was not a strong believer in gods. They hadn’t done much for her in the past. Putting her on a ship with a mage, who happened to be carrying a book about demons, and traveling to the very place she was also bound, though? That seemed almost like the will of Ailin the Shepherd, rather than mere coincidence.

“I’m headed that way myself,” she said, instead. “There’s…”

What’s a reasonable excuse?

“There are fabled to be caverns, on the western coast, where gems as big as a man’s head can be found,” she said.

“You’re braver than I suspected,” Bandric said, clearly impressed. “You’re going into The Dying Regions?”

“I like a challenge.”

“That’s not a challenge,” he said. “That’s suicide.”

“Just because no one has done it, doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”

“Well, I for one, will mourn your passing.”

I’m getting quite tired of hearing that.

Aloud she said, “Well, when I succeed, perhaps I’ll come and bring the College a gemstone as big as my audacity.”

That brought a hearty peal of laughter that belied Bandric’s frail form and otherwise soft voice.

“I find you positively delightful, Jalissa,” he said. “You are the best sort of disturbance a book-cozy man could ask for.”

“I think that’s a compliment.”

“Oh, it is.”

“Will you tell me about your book? You’re not the only one that likes histories. They’re part of what I do,” she said, “I’ve often found that the oldest stories have some grain of lost truth in them.”

“Indeed, they do,” he agreed. “I confess, this one seems to be more for entertainment. Some of it is quite… titillating, actually.”

“Demons and dragons don’t exactly evoke thoughts of the erotic kind.”

“On the contrary,” he said, grinning, “demons are given to all sorts of carnal pleasures. Their form, or lack of form, really, negates any ability to experience physical pleasures themselves. It’s only through possessing human bodies that they get to feel those things themselves. Why, I imagine such a simple act as eating something delicious would be exquisite, had you been denied it for thousands of years.”

The thing in her head seemed to sigh. Jalissa could feel its hunger, its need. It moved again and now it wasn’t so much a presence in the back of her thoughts as it was a looming shadow over them. It hung there, waiting, and while it waited it began to whisper. Bandric spoke, but she couldn’t focus on his words. They were like a buzzing insect. The whispers were tugging at her, and then they were like the song she’d heard when she’d first picked up the chain.

The song was like a lullaby, a humming, a thing that promised pleasant dreams if only she’d give in. It was different from the feeling of control it had exerted over her the day before. That had been like a mind rape, being taken over, the compulsion so strong that she hadn’t been able to fight it. This feeling was like seduction, the whispers like honeyed poison being poured into her mind. An image of Bandric on his back, naked, his hands gripping her hips as she tossed back her hair and rode him to their mutual pleasure, passed through her imagination.

“Jalissa?” his voice said from far away.

Jalissa felt her hand trembling, moving with a sense of agonizing slowness as she forced it into the secret pocket and touched Eldris’ coin. When the pocked metal touched her fingers, the spell broke like black glass and the spider recoiled, bolting back to its hole like it had been burned. Her thoughts cleared and she shook her head. A wave of nausea hit her, and she quickly leaned over the railing of the ship and vomited.

When she settled back in her seat, Bandric was holding out a handkerchief, which she accepted gratefully. She wiped at her mouth.

“I’m... I’m sorry,” she said.

“It happens. I once spent two weeks on a Lamurian freighter. I’ve never been so sick.”

Jalissa pocketed the handkerchief, pulled out the coin, and held it in her fist. She could feel the thing glaring at her from its hole, waiting for her to put it away, to make a mistake. Softly, it began to hum. She clenched the coin so tightly that it hurt and tried to ignore the sound.

“You were telling me about the demons,” she said, with half her mind on her own.

“Um, yes. Ribald tales mostly. If the seven demons ever actually existed, it seems likely that they would have indulged themselves in such a way. Succubi, in particular, was referred to as the pleasure demon. The author of the book seems to have a particular fondness for, um, graphic depictions of her many seductions.”

Jalissa could feel the thing smiling if that were possible, and it made her stomach want to heave over the railing again.

“I say her, as that’s how she’s depicted,” he continued. “Gender seems meaningless when discussing something that doesn’t have a physical form. In the stories, she commonly inhabits women, though.”

“Interesting. Was there any mention of fending off her advances?”

Bandric laughed again and said, “No. Not in anything I’ve ever read. This book, as I mentioned, isn’t particularly concerned with fending her off as much as inviting the pleasure she gives. As I said, fanciful, ribald tales.”

“You said if they ever existed. So, you don’t believe that the Black Fields were the work of a demon chain?” she asked.

Bandric looked surprised and more respectful.

“My, you’re more widely read than I’d have guessed. One surprise after another! Even some mages I’ve spoken with have never heard of them. Of those that have, only a handful give any credence to their existence. Clearly, whatever created the Black Fields was a potent and terrible magic. Was it a demon? Lucifel the Black, as the legends would have us believe? I don’t discount anything. There’s so much that we’ll never know, so much that’s been lost. I don’t hold an opinion on the matter.”

The conversation turned away from demons, Jalissa surmising that the book held little real value concerning her plight. Instead, Bandric told her of his time at the college, and of other books that he’d read and copied. He was well-traveled, like her, but for opposite reasons. By the time the ferry docked on the other side of the Sorry Sea, she felt that she could count the man among her paltry list of friends. They walked down the gangplank together and clasped wrists again at the bottom. Jalissa turned to go.

“Jalissa,” he said, stopping her.

She knew what he was going to ask, and she wanted it, too. It felt good to have a friend, especially as she had so few. Despite his frail appearance, he was handsome. That white hair suited him well. His conversation was amusing and stimulating, and since they were bound in the same direction, it would be convenient, fun, and safer to travel together. It would not be safe for him, though. She turned back.

“Would you care to travel with me as far as the College? I’ll be booking passage on a wagon. I should say that it’s been an unexpected pleasure meeting you, and I’d… be… remiss if I did not say that I’d welcome your continued company.”

There was a blush in his cheeks that made her think of a bashful schoolboy. Her supposition that he had little experience with women, outside of his books, seemed confirmed.

“I’d like that,” she said. “Only, I don’t know that it would be… safe for you. There are things you don’t know about me.”

“There are things I’d like to know about you,” he countered.

Damn him for being so fucking charming.

“And if it’s my safety you’re concerned for,” he added, “Why, I once faced down a full-grown kithrok with nothing but a shadow ward and a half-conjured fireball.”

“And no bards have yet sung of your deeds?” she jested, amused.

“Sadly, there are no songs of Bandric kithrok-killer,” he admitted, shaking his head sadly.

“Don’t feel bad. No one sings about Jalissa the pilferer, either.”

“Then, you’ll join me? Perhaps we’ll have an adventure that will be worthy of a song!”

Charming and boyishly exuberant. Damn it.

“I need to get some supplies,” she said. “Where are you staying?”

“I have lodgings arranged in the northeast end, at the Will-o-wisp and Wand. Do you know it?”

“I’ll find it,” then she grinned. “It’s what I do.”

He returned the grin, chuckled, and parted company.

***

The Warding Chain

Jalissa decided that her first stop should be a jeweler. Elenthia had no shortage of them, as some of the country’s most prominent gold and diamond mines lay less than a week’s travel south. She had an acquaintance here, though, one that she’d sold some of her findings to more than once.

Clenching tightly to the coin, she made her way out of the docks and passed the shitty end of the market, moving north until she passed into the slightly less low-class merchant district. This area was gated and guarded against the common rabble. The two sentries at the gate required a small fee, as well as a thorough pat-down of her person that was in truth the two of them groping her tits and her ass as though she’d hidden a sword in them. They also examined her pack, and she gave one of them a mild glare of disgust when he pocketed her underwear.

The groping drew the demon from its hole, but it still seemed wary of the ward in her fist. If Eldris had mentioned that she actually needed to be holding the thing, rather than simply carrying it, the world would be populated with one more brutish oaf today. She passed by the guards, checked her knife in, and was allowed to enter. Little of the district had changed since her last visit. A few of the shops had been replaced with new ones and some of those that had been here previously were empty.

She was frisked again at the door by a bruiser she hadn’t seen before. Once again, she had her large breasts manhandled roughly, her ass squeezed far more than was necessary, and then received a beefy hand between the legs that made her realize that her pussy was actually quite wet. By the look on the bruiser’s scarred face, he could feel it, too. He released her, not without reluctance, and let her into the shop.

The bell on the counter tinkled under her hand, a minute passed, and then a man emerged from the workroom behind the counter. He smiled at the sight of her.

“Well, I thought you’d got lost in one of those old ruins you dig around in,” he said. “Gods smile on you, Jalissa.”

“Taymen,” she said.

“What have you brought me today?”

“Nothing to sell,” she said. “Actually, I’m here for a service.”

“Need some fancy jewels for a party?”

She shook her head and placed the coin on the counter. Immediately, she could feel the ward weaken. The effect was still there, but faint. The demon moved forward, sliding over her mind like a dark film, like the writhing tar that coated the Black Fields. It was so forceful that it made her head spin and she had to put her palms on the counter to steady herself.

“You alright?” Taymen asked.

She shook her head and said, “A little queasy from the ferry.”

He picked up the coin and raised his eyebrows appreciatively.

“Rutheran steel,” he said, flipping it between his knuckles. “I thought you weren’t looking to sell? It’s a nice piece, but I can’t take it as payment. It’s a collectible more than anything.”

“I want you to…”

She paused and the feeling of dread intensified as she felt her mouth move in opposition to her thoughts.

“Tell me how much you’ll give me for it,” the thing made her say.

No!

He weighed it in his hand, pulled out a jeweler’s glass, and looked it over. She felt her lips curl up into a triumphant grin.

“It’s not in great shape, but I’d be willing to give you, oh, fifty lains?”

He set it back down on the counter, close to where her hand rested. The ward exerted some of its power and she felt the demon take a mental step back. It was enough to force her hand to pick it up. When she did, the darkness retreated again, leaving her feeling like there was a hole in her mind that her true self poured back into. She clutched it, regaining her composure while pretending to think it through.

Then, she asked, “Why don’t you turn it into a necklace for me?”

“Hmm,” he considered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “I suppose it would be unique. Silver chain and drilling through it. Fifteen lains, and I’ll need about an hour.”

“An hour?” she asked, her hopes falling.

An entire hour without the ward? Someone was going to die.

“Rutheran steel is tough. Even a diamond bit will take some time to get through it right. I don’t want to damage the rest of it. Then I’ll need to loop the chain and seal it. An hour should be fine,” he explained.

Jalissa dithered. She did not want to relinquish the coin, even for a second. She couldn’t go around holding the thing in her hand for the rest of her short life, though. She needed a way to keep it in contact with her flesh. If the demon could force her, the way it had yesterday, she’d have nothing to protect her. It knew what she was doing and there was no chance it would allow her to come back.

Unless. No. Yes. She had to feed it. Once it had been fed, it had seemed to give up the control, soaking in whatever power the victim’s life had given it. If she were quick enough, she could be back for the coin while it slept or… whatever it was that fuck-happy, soul-devouring monstrosities did after sucking the life out of their most recent tumble.

“Alright,” she said. “Just, could you do me a favor? Could you go in the back and let me leave it on the counter for you?”

“Um, I suppose so,” he said, giving her a curious look.

“I’m feeling a little superstitious about it, that’s all.”

Taymen shrugged. It was a weird world. He’d heard crazier things. He walked into the back. When he was out of sight, Jalissa turned to the leering bruiser.

“Big guy,” she said and his eyes moved from her tits to her face.

“Open that door. I’m going to set this thing down, and then I’m going to run out of here,” she said.

“Why?”

“Neesa, just do it. If you do, maybe there will be something nice in it for you when I come back.”

The mental image he, no doubt, had of her naked body made him nod.

Or maybe you’ll be a pile of gray dust.

Aloud she said, “Thanks,” as he opened the door. Jalissa set the coin on the counter, released it, and sprinted for the door.

After only three paces she stumbled as the demon surged forward and took her. The big man caught her as she fell, groping her in his haste, though this time not intentionally. In the second that it took for the man to right her stumble, she was a prisoner again.

She watched through her own eyes as her gaze settled on the man’s crotch, then moved up his body to his lusty face. He was not her type, but that did not stop her jailer from using her mouth to smile at him, nor to place her palms against his chest and bat her eyes at him.

“Thank you,” she said. “You’re so… strong.”

Had she been able to use her body, she might have vomited again at the feel of his hand pressing the small of her back, the other resting on her hip. She could feel the demon rummaging through her memories, her thoughts, examining the contents like she might an ancient ruin, but with far less care. It was learning.

Jalissa had some sense, not quite sight, but it was the only way she could describe it, of seeing the thing appropriating her knowledge and experience to make itself blend in. That signified something, she thought. A weakness? Perhaps. It hadn’t fed in so long. Its hunger was maddening and she shared the feeling with it through their bond. It was powerful, but it needed to consume in order to strengthen itself. Was that why it… slept after feeding? Was it consolidating that power somehow?

The bruiser’s hand slid down her back to her ass and groped it again. The demon made her gasp and titter playfully, teasingly. Her hand returned the gesture with one of her own, fondling his hard cock through his trousers. He growled.

“Easy there, lady,” he whispered. “I’m on duty.”

There was clear regret in his voice and mild annoyance from the demon.

“Pity,” she said.

“I’m off when the shop closes in a few hours,” he stammered.

She released him, frustrated, and left the shop. Jalissa rode along in her own mind, mentally stabbing at the thing in control of her as it continued to pick apart her memories of the city. She realized that it was searching for somewhere to feed, somewhere that wouldn’t attract notice. As it used her body to ambulate, it observed every man that passed by, evaluating, processing, like she might pick which tavern to take her next meal in.

She stopped in front of an inn named The Restless Ox, which sounded rowdy, even from the street. The sounds of singing and booted feet came, muffled, through the heavy wooden door. The demon pulled it open and stepped inside.

In many taverns, inns, or drinking holes, Jalissa’s presence normally turned a lot of heads. Here, most of the patrons were focused on the two bar wenches dancing on a tabletop. The table was littered with coins as the two women danced, arm in arm, clicking their heels and flipping their skirts. The crowd of men around them sang.

My lady fair

Without Compare

They Call’er a blushing bride

When the lights are low

What they don’t know

Is she ain’t got naught to hide…

A few men on the periphery of the crowded tavern turned in her direction when she stepped inside, looking her over. She could practically see them going through a mental rundown of which pick-up line would give them the best shot at taking this full-chested tart to their rooms, to stuff her full of their cock. With the demon running the show, she supposed she was about to find out.

Succubi sat her at a table, alone, and it watched the frolicking lasses with curiosity. The men, it watched with hunger. Barely a minute passed before the first attempt to bed her came. It was from a man with long, golden hair, which was tied back in a braid. couple with his tawny skin and gray eyes, Jalissa guessed that he was from The Reaches, far on the eastern side of the country. A long way from home.

“Evening, missus,” he greeted her, spinning a chair around and straddling it gracefully. His handsome smile was cocky and self-assured, much like that of every Reacher she’d met.

She’d yet to meet an ugly Reacher, and most of them were aware of this fact. It was the cockiness that was a turn-off. The fucker was devilishly handsome, though.

Demonically handsome.

Jalissa took a mental step back from her attempt to exert her will on her body. Had the thing just spoken to her? Had it just… made a joke as a counter to her own internal monologue? It smiled across the table and, inwardly, at her.

“Fancy a drink and a chat?” the man asked, raising his glass.

Jalissa’s hand swiped the glass from his and, as she eyed him seductively over the rim, she quaffed the entire thing and banged it down loudly on the table. The man blinked in surprise and then grinned.

“I’ve had the drink. Why don’t we skip the chat and just get to the part where you fuck me?” Jalissa’s mouth said.

Her fingers toyed with the laces on her tunic. The Reacher eyed her over suspiciously.

“How much?” he asked.

“I’m not a whore,” she said.

He chuckled and countered, “Generous as a priestess on Orphan’s Day, then? What’s your game?”

She could feel the demon’s annoyance, its need.

“Clearly you’re not for me,” it said and made to stand. “I thought you Reachers had spine. There are three great joys in life. To Drink, fight, and fuck? Isn’t that what you people say?”

“Oh, sit down, will you?” he said. “Can’t blame a man for having his suspicions, can you?”

The demon made her sit.

“Never had a Reacher,” she said. “And I’ve been away awhile. Can’t a lady just want the company of a strong man?”

Jalissa could hear the emphasis on the word. It wanted strength. It was also appealing to the Reacher’s sizable ego.

“Right, then,” he said. “You want to see just how far a Reacher can reach, eh?”

The demon smiled. Jalissa sat back and watched. She wanted to fight it, but she also needed it to feed and then rest. She told herself that this was a sacrifice she, and the Reacher, had to make for the rest of the world. When it fed, Jalissa could retrieve the coin. The coin would keep it at bay until she could find a way to remove it. Once it was removed, it would be imprisoned again, where it could no longer hurt anyone.

To do all of that, the Reacher had to die. It was not much consolation to Jalissa that he’d die happy, doing one of the three things Reachers enjoyed most. Succubi turned its attention inward, and Jalissa could feel it look at her. She felt small, weak, like a fly in the web. It didn’t skitter toward her, though. It only gave her that horrid, mental smile that would have made her quake if she’d had control of her body.

The demon unlaced the front of her tunic, toyed with it, watched the Reacher’s eyes watching her fingers, and it said, “That’s exactly what I need.”

“Let’s go,” he said and stood.

The demon made her follow him to his room. Once inside, she flung herself at him and pressed her lips to his. Her kiss was ravenous, catching him off guard for a moment, but then he returned it with equal fervor. His tongue probed her mouth making her groan.

Jalissa could feel it all, even as she remained trapped. She could feel the squirming of his tongue, his hands on her body, groping, touching. Her true self recoiled from it, even as her body responded to it. Then, she could feel something else. It started as a hot rush at her core, which flowed like burning liquid up her chest, to her lips, and then it passed from her to the Reacher. He sighed into her mouth and relaxed.

When he broke the kiss and looked at her, his eyes were dark and hollow, his face slack. His hands continued to move, and his excitement was still there. If anything, his passion burned more hotly. But those empty eyes held a look of pure devotion.

The demon unlaced his trousers and pulled him toward the bed, and then it lay back. The Reacher undid her own for her, then worshipfully, almost carefully, removed her boots and set them aside. His hands trembled as he peeled down her trousers, slid them off her legs, and then he knelt in front of her.

“Pleasure me, pet,” the demon said.

The Reacher did, putting his mouth to her sex and licking the length of her slit. Jalissa felt the pleasure of it, but also the exultation, the rush of power over him that the demon felt. Though she didn’t know magic herself, Jalissa guessed that the demon had laid some sort of thrall over the man. He lapped and sucked at her lovingly, making her body quiver. His hands roamed her legs, then up her thighs as he pleased her and the Demon hissed with pleasure.

“Come,” it whispered, and its slave complied, standing to look down on her with his slack jaw wet and shiny with her honey.

“Fuck her,” it commanded.

Jalissa gave a mental shudder. Not me. Her. The thing was letting her know who was in control, as though she could have forgotten. The Reacher’s long cock pressed against her pussy and Jalissa’s hand gripped it, slid the head of it along the slickness from her slit. The Reacher whimpered, less a man now and more a needy dog.

He pushed at her entrance, his hands clinging to her legs. Jalissa couldn’t deny that it felt wonderful, even though she wanted nothing more than to snap her legs closed and run from the room.

Enjoy…

The single word shocked her. Until now, there had been no real communication. It had been whispers, urges, the dreams. None of it had been so clear as that one, terrible word, delivered in a hiss so filled with longing, but as venomous as a serpent.

The Reacher pushed his length deeper into her and the demon tossed back her head with a gasp of pleasure. Her hands reached for him, pulled him on top of her. The slave followed, his empty eyes fixed on her adoringly as he groaned and buried the full length of his cock inside her wet channel. Her hands moved over his muscles and Jalissa had the sense that it was admiring their strength, savoring it like a delicacy. Because it was.

The handsome Reacher pulled back his hips and pushed his cock into her again. The demon quivered and gasped as a rush of pleasure rippled through Jalissa’s body. She wept, mentally, as she watched that slack and soulless face staring back at her. He moved in her like an automaton, the motion rhythmic, without any real passion. Her hand touched his face and the man’s slack mouth curled into a smile, and his dark eyes became teary.

“Love her,” the demon whispered.

His eyes brimmed with tears, and they fell, hot against her face. Jalissa knew that this was necessary, but she didn’t want to watch it. She willed her eyes to shut, to blot out the sight of that look of pure bliss and love in his black eyes. She could not.

Her body shook, her breasts heaving as she felt the pleasure. He wrapped her in his arms and then his weight was on top of her. He held her tightly, panting into her ear as he fucked her harder. Her legs encircled his waist, urging him on, while her mouth made small moans to convey the pleasure that he was giving her.

Jalissa’s only consolation was that she no longer had to look at his face as the demon raped her, used her body to feed its desires, to assuage its hunger. That consolation lasted only minutes, though. His thrusts became harder, and rougher, the rhythm faltering as she felt his cock twitch and jerk.

“See,” the demon hissed, and he released his grip on her body.

He pushed himself up while continuing to fuck his cock into her. Her hips met the thrusts, rocking against him, coaxing his own pleasure from him. Her hands touched his cheeks, wet with his tears, and held his gaze on her. He groaned, convulsed, and then Jalissa could feel his seed splash inside of her, hot, hard at first. Then, it began to pour in a torrent.

Horrified, Jalissa watched as his strong, youthful, and once cocky face held onto his pleasure. His devotion never wavered as he looked down on her, while the color drained from his skin. The color went from white to gray, and then his cheeks began to hollow. They caved in on themselves. His golden hair turned white and began to fall out, raining down on her like autumn leaves.

Jalissa was powerless not to watch it happen. Before her, he withered within seconds, even as he continued to fuck her, filling her with his life, his essence. Seconds later, his thrusts stopped abruptly and his desiccated husk burst into a cloud of gray ash that fell on her.

Jalissa had watched men die a dozen ways. She’d killed them herself. She’d seen the effects of stab wounds, and poisons, even watched from afar as one was devoured by a pack of kithroks. None of those deaths had been as horrific as this. Bloodless as it was, she knew that for whatever time she had left she would never forget the look of utter devotion on this man’s face as he withered and flew apart. And she’d never forget the way the demon had used her own mouth to laugh triumphantly as it happened.

Still reeling from the horror, the intense pleasure that followed obliterated her awareness, abruptly severing all other lines of thought. Just like the last kill, the heavenly, orgasmic burst blotted out all else. The demon gasped, sucking in air as if it hadn’t breathed in a century. Her body convulsed and, through the mind-melting euphoria of it, she could hear it laughing stupidly, reveling in the joy of that feeling, consuming whatever power it was that had given that cloud of dust life and thought.

She could feel the power of that life coursing through her, becoming part of her, joining with her more wholly than any form of physical coupling. Jalissa could feel the demon’s pleasure, too, but hers was not merely the physical sensation or the orgasm. That was only part of it. It was Succubi indulging in the feeling that she needed Jalissa’s body for. The real pleasure for the demon was the power, the stolen life.

A billion images flashed across her mind at the speed of a single thought. They were a life, the life that belonged to that gray dust that had been a man with ambitions and desires, only seconds ago. Now, they were feeding the thing inhabiting her, giving it form, providing the energy that it needed to consume Jalissa herself. It was the power that would soon allow her to take full control and birth its evil upon the world. And it was her fault.

As it had the first time, the overwhelming pleasure took long minutes to fade. The return of her control happened quickly, though. Having gorged itself on the life, the demon withdrew, skittering back into the far corner of Jalissa’s mind. She could feel it there, sucking in that power, and then it seemed to shrink, to curl in on itself. The presence of it shrank as well.

Jalissa’s limbs felt numb as she forced herself to sit up. She was covered in the gray dust. More of it was between her legs. She stood, staggered, and retched on the floor as she realized that more of that dust was inside of her, mingling with her own wetness and the dead man’s ejaculate. She sat on her knees and batted at the dust on her clothing. Some of it was wet, sticking to her tunic and clumping. She realized she was crying and couldn’t decide if it was from disgust or sorrow. Both, she decided, and added guilt.

Get up, fool!

She didn’t know how much time had passed. There was a duty to perform. She needed the ward, needed it now more than ever. This was her one chance to make it back and retrieve it. There was no telling how long the demon would sleep. It knew what her plan was, just as she knew its own.

If she allowed it to take her again, to continue to feed, the dreams she’d had would be reality. The pleasure she’d felt as it killed, as it devoured that life, would be the fate of far more than one Reacher. If it continued to feed, that fate would be everyone’s, and Succubi would use her body to make it happen.

Jalissa fumbled on her pants and boots, tied them, slung her pack on her shoulder, and laced her tunic as she walked from the room. She quickly checked her clothes, shuddered at the remains of the gray dust she saw there, and continued to brush it away as she made her way down the steps. Moving as quickly as she could without drawing attention, she navigated the streets back to Taymen’s shop.

The bruiser made a grab for her as she entered but she flinched away. He looked confused but allowed her to pass. She dinged the bell on the counter and shifted uneasily on her feet. From her hidden pocket, she extracted her purse and took out the payment as she waited, setting it on the counter. She tapped one of the coins against the wood impatiently.

In the dark recesses of her mind, the demon awoke. She could feel its weariness, its reluctance to disturb its slumber, but it also knew what she was about, and it did not want it to happen. The ward wouldn’t keep it trapped forever, Jalissa knew, but it bought time. The thing was impatient. It had spent centuries waiting and now its freedom was close. It was tired of waiting.

It was sluggish, though. Whatever consuming life did to it, it was not an easy thing to draw it in and do… whatever it did. Jalissa suspected that it was because it was still weak. As it fed, it would likely not need the rest. Taymen finally emerged from the back room, carrying the warded necklace in his hand.

“Fine little piece,” he said, holding it up.

Jalissa pushed the coins across the counter and held out her hand for it, doing her best to mask her anxiousness.

No… trinket…

Her hand pulled back from the necklace by a fraction. Jalissa froze and willed her hand to move forward, to take it.

No… trinket…

Her hand wouldn’t move. Taymen put the necklace into her hand. The metal of the coin touched her palm. Jalissa felt a flash of fury from the demon as it retreated. A fraction of a second later, the feeling vanished as the thing went back to sleep.

Oblivious to the battle she’d just fought inside her own head, Taymen only nodded at the necklace and said, “It will look good on you. Sure I can’t interest you in anything else?”

Jalissa shook her head and draped the chain over her neck. She slid the coin into the front of her tunic, where it rested between her breasts, against her skin. The demon did not stir.

“That’s all I need today,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Sure. Sure. If you come across anything good out there, you know where to find me.”

“I do.”

She hefted her pack and turned to go, then stopped. She turned back.

“Taymen. If I don’t see you again, you’ve been good to me. Fair.”

“Fair’s about the best a poor peddler like me can hope for,” he said, grinning.

Jalissa said no more as she walked out of the shop. She swatted at the bruiser’s beefy hand as it made to give her a parting grope, earning a look of disappointment from the man.

Believe me. You’ll be thankful that you didn’t fuck me.

***

Demon Dreams

Jalissa tossed fitfully that night, in her room. The demon was awake. If her dreams the night before had been disturbing, barely remembered visions, tonight they were more than dreams.

Whatever power Succubi had taken from her latest kill, it had strengthened it. Now, it showed her things and it spoke to her. The visions were hazy, dreamlike themselves, but clear enough that she felt them with her own body. The sensations, whether they were from the demon’s own memories or foreshadowing its evil desires, were as potent as if they were happening to her now.

They were visions of seduction. Men and women fell on their knees before her, enthralled, devoted, worshipful. Some she rewarded with her body or with her praise, others with gifts and treasures that were grander than anything Jalissa had plundered in the ruins. Still others, she consumed, and the terrible pleasure she eeked out of their deaths was more potent than anything she’d felt thus far.

There’s no need to fight. We can be one. We will be as a goddess among them.

The words came in that whisper, calming, alluring, bewitching. The whisper promised devotion and captivated her imagination with the visions.

We will be their queen. This world and those beyond it belong to us. Succumb.

Jalissa wept as she touched herself, the pleasure of those visions so real. One hand worked between her spread legs, while the other rested on the warded coin. Her fingers itched with the compulsion to tear it away, discard it.

Build your own world with me. Take all that you care to. Let them worship at your feet. Tear it away, Jalissa.

That beguiling whisper tempted her with everything that she’d ever wanted. Almost everything. There was one temptation, one desire, that it could not promise, though. It was the only thing that she clung to, the sole reason that her hand continued to clench around the coin, rather than ripping it off and giving herself to the demon.

Succubi, for all of its power, with all its wiles, intrigues, and seductions, could not give Jalissa the one, silly thing that all her life she’d wanted. Succubi would never love her. No thrall, no slave, no conquest could ever truly love her.

The torture went on for hours, Jalissa stroking and pleasuring herself to the visions. Despite those pleasures, though, she did not give in. By the time the demon withdrew with a mental snarl, Jalissa’s tears had soaked the thin, straw-filled pillow of her room. As weary as she felt, however, she couldn’t bring herself to sleep more than a few minutes at a time.

***

The Road

Jalissa splurged on the luxury of a second bath, eager to clean her pussy out more than anything else. The thought of the dead Reacher’s cock dust inside her made her ill. As she cleaned herself, she blushingly thought of Bandric and realized that she, also, didn’t want him to think that she smelled bad.

Handsome.

The whisper made her pause in her cleaning. The demon had been silent since tempting her the night before. It had been so quiet that its lack of presence was nearly as disturbing as its actual presence.

Go away.

The demon did not reply. She could feel it there, spider-like again, watching. She had hoped that, somehow, exerting enough power to show her all those visions had weakened it in some way. She felt a flash of anger at the thought and gave the thing a mental fuck you in response. That earned her a quick, harsh loss of control that forced her to rise out of the bath, despite the ward.

No!

She felt the demon throw its will against the ward, felt its pain at the effort, its anger at her. It wanted to show her that her paltry magic coin was no true barrier against its wrath if it chose to exert itself. Even as the thing forced her, naked, to open the door of the bathing room, she could also feel its power draining away. It was making a point, but it was doing it at a cost.

She pushed back against it with her own will, but the thing was strong, stronger than her if it chose to be. It did. She pulled open the door and stepped out into the open waiting area, dripping wet and nude. Outside, there were other patrons waiting for their turn in one of the hot, private baths. They turned to look at her, expressions ranging from shock to revulsion, to lust. The demon drew back with a hiss and she had control once more. She flushed and almost stammered an apology, but instead, she rushed back into the room and slammed the door.

After drying herself and dressing in lighter traveling clothes, she shouldered her pack. Embarrassed, she opened the door once more and trudged past the other patrons. They leered and giggled at her as she hurried out, her cheeks red. The sun was just lighting the sky as she walked toward the northeast end.

Gaining entry into one of the upper-class areas required another frisking and inspection of her goods, as well as checking her weapons and paying a tax. Finding the will-o-wisp and wand proved easy enough, too. Alenthia’s climate was only slightly cooler than the jungle heat of Canilia, thus Jalissa’s lighter, more revealing blouse of white linen drew appreciatory glances from the few patrons who were already awake. Bandric was not among those already gathered, and so she took an empty seat to wait, ordering a watered-down wine from a serving girl.

She waited the better part of an hour, while the demon seethed quietly in the back of her mind. When Bandric did appear from the inn’s upper floor, he seemed surprised and pleased to see her waiting. He quickly made his way over, clasped wrists with her, and then took a seat, shaking out the sleeves of his robe. Four silver coins fell from the sleeves, spinning across the tabletop. He mumbled a feigned apology, and clumsily snatched at the coins.

Jalissa watched, delighted and amused, as the coins continued to elude him, popping out of his fist after he’d gathered them. Then, he was juggling the things, swaying in his seat with a look of embarrassment and saying, “I’m so sorry. They just… keep getting away from me!”

She laughed and then blushed as one by one, the coins flipped from his hands and dropped down the front of her blouse, four in all.

“So sorry,” he said again, and then reached behind her ear and plucked one, flipped it away, the second, flipped it away, then the final two. As each one flipped away into the air, it turned from a coin into a red rose petal, which drifted lazily downward. After the fourth one changed, Bandric snatched them each out of the air and clenched them tightly in his fist. With a flourish and puff of flame, he opened his hand and handed her a complete rose, red, fresh, and real.

“May our journey be filled with magic and merriment,” he said, holding the rose.

Jalissa took it, smiling, and sniffed it.

“You see,” she said. “Your talents are just as necessary as any war mage. Thank you. I don’t believe anyone has ever given me a flower.”

“Neesa’s living breath,” he cursed, “What a travesty!”

He snatched the rose from her hand, making her flinch. She squeaked as he smashed it, grinding it between his palms, but when he opened them, an entire bouquet bloomed before her eyes. He handed it back.

“May you always have flowers as lovely as yourself,” he said.

Jalissa took them and felt tears brim in her eyes. She was not soft, not given to bouts of feeling, much less overcome by emotion. The way he said the words, though, with genuine want for her happiness, made her sad in a way that she didn’t know she was capable of.

This near stranger, on such short acquaintance, had made her feel more deeply with this one, silly gesture, than every other person she’d met in her travels. He couldn’t have known it, but with that same gesture, he’d utterly destroyed her. There would be few days ahead for her, and fewer with flowers. The demon whispered its poison.

Give in. I will make him yours.

She ignored the whisper, inhaled the scent of the flowers, and dabbed at her eyes. Bandric’s hand touched hers.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to entertain you a bit.”

“It was lovely,” she admitted. “Lovelier than you can know. Thank you,” then she set the flowers down and composed herself, saying, “Should we eat before we set out?”

Bandric leaned back and agreed.

***

Jalissa did not often travel by wagon. Most of her wanderings were done on foot. She’d had the pleasure of owning a horse once, given to her in trade. The willow viper that had bitten it had nearly gotten her, as well. Losing the horse was still a painful memory.

Bandric’s rented cart was laden with two large chests, which he’d sent ahead to the mage’s guild in Elenthia for safekeeping. The wagon was a small thing, more of a cart in reality, pulled by a single horse and with a bench seat just wide enough for two. A tarpaulin covered the chests in the back, the precious books safely wrapped and stowed inside.

The weather today was fair and clear, and the road was theirs alone this early in the day. As the primary port city in the region, and with its proximity to the valuable mines, the roads surrounding Elenthia were well-maintained. In theory, they were also patrolled. The vast empty space between Elenthia and the nearest town, Bainbridge, would take them the bulk of the day to traverse, even with the aid of a wagon.

Jalissa, despite her hurry, did not mind the time spent with her new companion. Bandric was, perhaps, more entertaining now than he’d been on the ferry. They traded stories of their travels, each of them providing the other with a different sort of excitement. Bandric was rapt at her reminiscences of the many ruins and ancient battlegrounds she’d scavenged. He seemed to know them all from his books and was delighted at her descriptions of them.

In turn, Jalissa soaked in his knowledge of the places, their stories, and their history. Some of those things she was able to pair with her own experiences of them, but Bandric’s depth of knowledge gave those memories further depth and meaning. She described to him the pattern of red gems on the entrance to the secret room, where she’d obtained the chain that was now destroying her. The chain itself, she left out of the story.

“In the texts,” he explained, “the symbol is tied to the endless cycle. That which always is and yet can never be. It’s linked to the demons.”

Jalissa felt the demon stir, gazing through her eyes, listening.

He continued, “Without form, they could never truly assert their power, yet they could never be destroyed. Thus, like the gods, they were a symbol for those things that would always exist, but could never truly exist as we do. Unless you believe in the old stories of demons inhabiting human bodies.”

This last he said with a chuckle. Jalissa masked her feelings behind curiosity and probed further.

“For the sake of… academic argument, let’s say that I believe such a thing. Does the College have any texts that would hint at how to drive one out?”

Bandric was thoughtful, sorting through his mental library of the many books he’d studied.

“I can’t recall anything specific about them,” he said, shaking his head. “What’s left from that time is more like On Demons and Dragons. That is to say fairytales and fanciful imaginings. Places like Dar’Kasha, or the other ancient cities, fell quickly during the pestilence. Actual writings from the time are rare, so most of what’s written down about them passed by word-of-mouth from one generation to the next. It’s changed over the centuries, lost much of the truth, I’m sure.”

They shared a companionable silence for several minutes as the wagon creaked along, then Bandric spoke again.

“If demon magic works the same as that which we work with, I suppose that it could be countered by its opposite,” he shrugged. “Just as sympathetic magics, those that are most alike, work to strengthen one another, those that are antithetic will oppose each other. Sometimes spectacularly.”

“Like oil and water,” Jalissa suggested.

“Just like, yes. A shadow ward might be broken or dispelled by light, given that one is stronger than the other. A fireball meeting an ice barrier or a water prison could fizzle into smoke. If demon magic existed, I suppose it could be countered by its opposite.”

“So, a demon like, say, Lucifel the Black might be countered by the light of The Herald,” Jalissa said.

Bandric nodded, saying, “Yes, though now you’re talking about demon magic versus that of one of the gods. They’re in the same realm, but unequal sorts of power.”

Jalissa could feel the demon spit in her head.

Gods. Filth! Usurpers!

She ignored the whisper and probed further.

“What about something like Succubi?” she asked, giving Bandric a teasing grin and batting her eyes.

The look made him blush, as she’d hoped, and made the question seem like more of a playful game, a flirtation, than any serious consideration. The demon laughed at her.

“Yes, well, in the stories, Succubi is a temptress. She feeds off life and devotion, much like the dark goddess, Neesa, and her need for worship. Again, though, we’re talking about a lesser being than a god. Still, temptation and seduction, by their nature, appeal to base instincts. They’re like the momentary pleasures of… of sex. My best guess would be that something true and real could oppose that. Like, love. Real love.”

Jalissa felt despair and the demon laughed at her again.

There is no love.

She was tempted to shove back against the thing but didn’t want to provoke it. Not here, with Bandric. It would probably kill him just to torment her.

No. I would make him yours. He could be chief among your slaves.

Jalissa shivered at the whispered poison.

“Looks like a patrol,” Bandric said suddenly and nodded ahead.

Jalissa focused on the tiny dots in the distance, approaching along the road from the opposite direction. She dug in the pack and removed her spyglass, put it up to her eye, and observed. She saw a group of six men, all of them mounted. They were lightly armored in what looked like leather, and each man wore the symbol of the crown.

At first glance, Jalissa believed it was a patrol, as well. Then, she saw that two of the men’s leather armor didn’t quite fit right. Another carried a sword that was out of place. As she looked at the others, each of them had small things that seemed wrong. She’d traveled this road a half-dozen times. She’d even once camped with a patrol in a cave to shelter from a storm. These men looked like a patrol, but she had the suspicion that they were anything but.

“How’s your battle magic?” she asked, tucking the spyglass away in her pack.

“What?”

She shook her head and said, “I think they’re bandits. It looks to me like they gutted a patrol and stole their gear.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have much,” Bandric admitted, his pale skin going even whiter. “Perhaps they’ll let us be, seeing as we have nothing of value.”

“You don’t,” she said, giving a derisive snort. Then she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant…” she flicked her eyes down to her breasts.

Bandric’s pale skin flushed as he took her meaning. Six armed men of violence would find her to be a good time, whether she liked it or not. They’d end up enjoying it far less when they were being turned into clouds of gray dust as they took their pleasure from her. She could feel the demon doing something akin to salivating, and it whispered in her head.

Free me. Feed. I will protect you. I will protect him.

The company of bandits was approaching fast. As entertaining as Bandric’s magic was, she didn’t think flowers and fireworks were going to get them out of this alive.

“When they stop us,” she said, fixing him with her most commanding glare, “Let me talk. If I go with them, I want you to ride on. Don’t come back. Don’t look back. Just go.”

“You can’t be serious,” he balked, returning her glare.

“They won’t care about books, Bandric. They’ll steal what little money we have, kill you for sport, and rape me a dozen times on top of your corpse. If I go with them, they might let you just pass by.”

“I won’t let you do it,” he stated. “It’s not right.”

She guessed they had only a minute before the bandits intercepted. She could already see them quickening their pace, fanning out to surround the wagon.

“What’s right is that you live. Now, shut the fuck up and do what I tell you.”

Before he could argue, she kissed him for half the time they had left. When she pulled away, he was speechless.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s not the first time. I’ll probably live.”

She did not add that they would be less fortunate.

“Jalissa—“

“Quiet!”

The big man at the head of the company pulled his horse up short and slowly clopped toward them, while his compatriots surrounded the cart. He looked down on them from behind a leather helmet that was not a good fit, his broad face unkind. A long scar ran from his chin and up into the helm.

“G’day travelers,” he said. “The road’s a dangerous place for a pair of women.”

The other bandits chuckled and Bandric grimaced with rage at the insult.

“How fortunate that you’re patrolling it to keep us safe,” Jalissa said.

“Aye,” the man agreed, “Good fortune it is. It’s a tough business, though. We’ll need to collect a tax.”

“I don’t recall the king imposing a tax on travelers,” Jalissa said back. “But then, I’m just a woman. What do I know of these things?”

“A fine one, too,” he said, looking her over. “What are we carrying in the chests?” he asked, then added with a lusty grin, “The ones in the cart. I can see what you’re carrying.”

“Just books,” Jalissa said. “My companion is a mage from the College. We’re hauling books for the library.”

She could see the other men step their horses back apace as they eyed Bandric warily.

“Open them,” the leader commanded, nodding to the chests.

Jalissa nodded to Bandric, who reluctantly threw back the tarp and opened the two chests. The leader peered inside from atop his horse. Before he could speak, Jalissa preempted him.

“If you’ll let my friend go, I’ll come with you,” she said.

“An observant one, are you?” the man shot back, narrowing his eyes.

Behind them, Jalissa heard the click of two crossbows sliding bolts back. Beside her, she saw Bandric’s hands glowing green.

“Stay that shit, mage,” the man barked.

“I can melt you where you sit, sir,” Bandric said through gritted teeth.

“Aye, you might get that spell off before those bolts go through your skull. Do you want to try?” his hand came to rest on his sword.

“Just let him go,” Jalissa said again. “Take me. You can do whatever you like.”

The big man looked at Bandric’s glowing hands, and then Jalissa’s tits. Then, he decided that raping her would be preferable to murdering a mage or being melted by magical fire.

“Alright,” he said. “Stand down mage. We’ll have the woman.”

Bandric’s hand glowed brighter. Jalissa put her hand on his arm.

“Do this. For me. Go and live. Don’t worry about me. We have more stories to tell one another,” she said.

He lowered his hands and the glow dimmed, then faded.

“Gods go with you,” he said and took her hand.

She felt him press something into her palm. She clutched it. It felt silky, like a rose petal. He gave her a quick grin and added, “The petals of the Canilian rose burn as brightly as your beauty, lady. Until we meet again.”

Jalissa hopped down from the wagon. The leader waved his hand, dismissing the mage, and the men blocking the cart’s path moved aside. Jalissa turned to the mounted man, who offered her his hand. She took it and he swung her up into the saddle with him, his arm encircling her waist.

“Fine choice you’ve made,” he growled into her ear. “Promise I won’t let ’em damage that pretty face.”

Jalissa didn’t reply. She watched the cart trundle down the road as the other bandits closed back in around them. The demon only offered her exultation. It hungered.

***

Jalissa was not surprised that they didn’t take her right then. There were likely other patrols on the road. At some point, the missing patrol would be noticed. It wouldn’t do to be found gangraping a woman on the side of the road while wearing the crown’s livery. Instead, they rode for nearly two hours while the bandit leader fondled her, molested her, and described in detail the things they’d do with her. She stayed silent and clutched the rose petal in her hand.

Finally, they dismounted in front of an old farmhouse behind a fallow field. The place looked like it had been deserted for a long time. The field had gone to weeds and even a few saplings had begun to spring up from the soil. The bandits tied up their horses behind the place, while the leader ushered Jalissa into the house.

The inside had the marks of a hideout. All the necessities of uncomfortable living were here, including bedrolls and dented cookware. The place seemed quite disused, and she guessed they hadn’t been here long. Likely they’d be moving on just as quickly, considering they’d murdered at least six men today.

The leader wasted no time in pulling off her light blouse and groping her breasts. The other five men entered the house and arrayed themselves around the room, chuckling, grinning, rubbing their crotches, and pulling off their clothes.

Free me! Feed! I will make these insects suffer for you.

Jalissa made no reply.

“Compliant bitch, aren’t you?” the leader said. “Thought you’d be a bit of a fight.”

“I told you I’d do whatever you wanted,” she said, grimacing as he put his mouth around her nipple and sucked it.

“I say we keep her for good,” another of the men spoke up.

“Damn fine cunt, she is,” yet another added.

Jalissa trembled as she unlaced her trousers and slid them down. The coin, on its chain, swung back and forth as the leader’s rough mauling and sucking jostled it. His rough hand dipped between her legs and he made an appreciative grunt when he found her wet. He pulled his mouth off her boob and pinched the nipple between his fingers.

“Wet little slut, aren’t you?” he said.

Jalissa didn’t reply. The man laid her on her back on his bedroll and pulled her legs apart, staring at her sex as he undid his pants and slid them down just enough to get his cock out. Jalissa didn’t feel impressed, but then she didn’t want to be. She shuddered, anticipating more the horror that they were about to experience than the rape that she was. How would they react when their leader became a cloud of dust? Perhaps they’d kill her and put an end to the demon’s plans. Of course, they might just steal the demon chain off her corpse and start the cycle all over again.

No. You and I are one. They will die for what they do.

Jalissa shuddered again at the whispered words in her head as the man pushed his cock into her with a groan. This time, she had the power to shut her eyes, but he didn’t like that. He slapped her.

“Look at me, slut,” he growled.

Jalissa opened her eyes again and impassively looked into his face as he buried his dick in her. His hand went around her throat, and he squeezed it hard enough to make her cough, then held it there as he fucked her in hard, short thrusts. His eyes flicked from her face to her jiggling breasts, then back and he growled in his throat. She whimpered through his hold on her as he continued to jam his cock into her.

“That’s some good cunt,” he hissed. “Yeah, I think we’ll keep you a long time. Might even whore you out a bit and make some coin.”

His thrusts became harder, faster. Jalissa’s heart quickened as she anticipated the moment of his death. This time, she did not feel sorry. His kind was vile. She could feel the demon’s hunger in her mind as it turned and turned, like a caged rat looking for an exit. It hit the ward on the coin, hissed, and continued to turn.

Then, in the span of a second, the entire world around her descended into total chaos. The bandit leader growled, grunted, and ejaculated into her. The first pent-up cumshot filled her insides. Even as he came in her, the other bandits laughed or whistled. The rear door of the place burst open in a sharp crack of splintering wood. A chunk of it rocketed outward and struck the bandit leader in the head. In his moment of pained confusion, Jalissa slapped the rose petal in her fist against his cheek.

He cried out in pain and surprise as he reeled back from the dual assault, then screamed as the petal seared his flesh. His abrupt withdrawal also removed his hand from her neck, but it caught in the chain and ripped the necklace from her with a snap. The other bandits had barely turned to face the door before a ball of green fire engulfed the one closest to the splintered portal. The demon, freed, surged forward like the coiled snake that it was, and took control.

Jalissa’s fist punched through the astonished bandit leader’s chest, and she stood, holding his body aloft, her arm straight through him, gripping his still-beating heart in her hand. The burning bandit by the door screeched in agony as he fell to his knees and the green fire set the place alight. Jalissa, now a prisoner in her mind, stared through her eyes at her rapist’s dying face. Another bandit screamed as a second ball of mage fire engulfed him.

Bandric rushed through the doorway as the remaining three bandits drew steel, waving a hand that quelled the green fire in less time than it took to breathe. The smoldering corpses filled the room with the scent of cooked meat. The dying man, impaled on Jalissa’s arm, gave a howl of pain that stopped everyone else in their tracks. In horror, they watched their leader’s body, held aloft by this stick of a woman, crumple in on itself like a sheet of dry paper and burst into ash.

“Jalissa!” Bandric cried, but his voice was far away.

The power of the stolen life flowed through her body, bringing with it that orgasmic rush, but this time the demon didn’t take it in fully. It did something with it, channeling that power away from itself and outward. Bandric took a step back through the door, his eyes wide with disbelief. The remaining bandits made a dash toward the doors, but the demon was faster. From her prison, Jalissa watched the angle of the room change, the press of her feet against the floor disappearing.

She hovered, a foot off of the ground as her arms reached out toward the remaining men. The demon drew her lips up into a smile of pure, unadulterated glee at their fear. Red tentacles of light lashed out from her hands, struck them where they stood, coiled about them, and drained them of all that they were. Bandric’s gasp of terror was barely a whisper to her, it seemed so far away. The demon’s ethereal appendages sucked the life from the men, and she could feel that life flowing like a river into her. Then, it turned toward Bandric.

No! Not him!

Jalissa beat at the monster with everything she had. She flung a lifetime of rage against it, pulling from every indignity she’d ever suffered, every injustice she’d witnessed, every moment she’d stood by and watched a cruel world destroy innocence and beauty. It wasn’t enough to stop the thing. The demon looked through her eyes at him for an instant, and it relented.

The entirety of the existence of those three remaining men flashed in front of her as the demon consumed them, fed on them, and destroyed them where they stood. They dissolved into ash on the wood floor. She felt her feet touch the floor again and then she pitched forward. Her body twitched, convulsed, and then she shrieked, an inhuman cry of otherworldly pleasure as the demon drank in all that life at once. Together, they shared in it. Her pleasure and Succubi’s were one, as they were at each feeding. She felt the full weight of that pleasure, but even that word couldn’t describe it accurately.

This was the touch of something divine, like drinking a well of stars from the heavens. Her body rolled and shook with that pleasure, her mouth open in a silent scream of ecstasy that seemed like it would never end. However, the life had been tainted this time. This time, they had died in terror.

The rush of pleasure gave way to an immense, soul-crushing fear. Jalissa clawed at the wooden floor and screamed as the last moments of those lives assaulted her. In their dying moments, she saw the horror that she’d become. She was the demon, powerful and beautiful beyond their comprehension. She was a naked thing, awash in blood, with eyes black as pitch and mouth turned up in the smile of a child who had been given a new toy.

She wept for that horror and that pain. Evil as they were, they didn’t deserve this. Their sins hadn’t warranted the annihilation of all that they’d been in order to fuel the blood-soaked monster that she’d become. Was this the reason that the demon had made her fuck the previous kills? Was it somehow sparing her this feeling, giving her only the pleasure?

Through her screams and her convulsions, she felt hands on her, real hands, human. They pulled her close, held her through the fit, through the grief, even as she spat and cursed. There was a voice behind them, calm, saying her name. Jalissa. That was who she was. She was not the monster. She was the monster. It all came so fast, the press of memory and the storm of emotion. She tried to hold onto the voice, but it slipped away just like all those moments of stolen life. And then the world went black.

***

When she was able to stitch her mind back together, she realized that she was in control. The demon rested, consolidating its power. Bandric hovered over her with tears in his eyes and the most genuine look of concern she’d ever seen. She felt cloth against her naked skin and, as she forced herself to look down, she saw that he’d covered her with one of the bandit’s cloaks.

Clarity returned. Her movements were leaden as she sat up, heedless of her nudity.

“The coin,” she blurted. “Where is it?”

She cast about wildly, falling over on her side and then pushing herself onto her arms. Gods, her body felt so heavy. She spotted the coin on its broken chain a foot away, lying in a heap of gray ash. She scrabbled for it and held it tight, breathing with relief as she collapsed. Bandric was by her again, pulling the cloak around her, holding her to him. The blood from the dead man soaked into the cloak as she huddled beneath it.

“Are you alright?” Bandric asked and then the two of them chuckled nervously.

“I told you to go,” Jalissa whispered.

“And miss my chance to be the clumsy mage who rescues the princess? What sort of ending would, ‘he rode away like a coward and left her to her fate’ be for a story?”

His hand found hers and held it as they sat in silence. The smell of blood and death, the reek of melted flesh hung in the air around them.

“Jalissa,” he said after a time. “What are you?”

“Tired,” she said. “So tired.”

“Can you stand?”

“I think so.”

Bandric let her go and found her clothes. He set them aside and helped her to her feet, and then to a barrel that contained rainwater. He averted his eyes as she dropped the cloak and splashed the cold water on herself, washing away the blood. When she finished, she dressed again.

“Bandric,” she said, and he turned around. “Thank you.”

He bowed humbly, his wispy, white hair, falling over his face.

“I left the cart nearby. We should retrieve it,” he said.

“You’re not going to go on your own?” she said, incredulous, “After… this?”

She looked around at the chaos, taking in the charred bodies, the burnt floor, and the piles of gray ash that had once been men.

“My lady,” he said, “The seven demons themselves couldn’t keep my curiosity at bay.”

If she’d had the strength, she might have laughed.

***

Nightly Temptation

They pushed the horse hard to make up for lost time, in order to reach Bainbridge before dark. Night fell before they made it. They rode the last few miles with a conjured ball of blue light leading the way.

“I understand now,” Bandric said, “your recent interest in the histories of demons. Neesa’s cunt!”

He immediately looked embarrassed at the curse and apologized.

“I feel the same way,” Jalissa said, waving away any offense.

“You can feel it, even now?” he asked, his voice both frightened and curious.

“I always feel it,” she said. “Right now, it’s... asleep, I guess. It’s the best way I can think of to describe what happens after it feeds.”

“I have to say that, before that happened, I’d have never guessed that you were… possessed,” he said.

“I told you there were things you didn’t know about me.”

“Well, most people have secrets,” he said, shrugging. “Most aren’t as poignant as yours.”

“Do you think I’ll find something at the College that can help?” she asked.

Bandric drove the cart on, the lamplights of the town now in view ahead.

“I suppose if there’s anywhere that would, it would be the College. I have a colleague that may have some ideas. Most think he’s bat shit, but he’s quite convinced that the demons were a real thing. Getting a look at an actual demon chain would likely be the high point of his life.”

“What if something… happens. You know, like what happened back there. I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Jalissa said.

“There are more wards on the College than anywhere in the world. The mages are manipulating so many different magics that it’s probably the most well-protected place on the planet. If that little ward of yours,” he nodded to the coin tucked beneath her shirt, the chain having been repaired with a flick of his finger, “can keep it at bay, then I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Jalissa shook her head and said, “It does to an extent, but if it really wants to make me do something, this thing won’t stop it. I’ve seen it happen. When it wakes up, it will be stronger now.”

Bandric shuddered next to her, likely recalling the horror of watching her punch through a man’s chest with her fist and crush his heart.

“We’ll rest tonight and press on more quickly in the morning. There’s a mage’s guild in Bainbridge that can shelter us. I’ll leave the books with them. In the morning, we’ll take fresh horses and make haste for the College. Fear not, lady. No demon shall take you from me.”

Jalissa slipped her hand into his and squeezed it gratefully. He looked at it, not with terror, but with surprise. He did not recoil from her touch, even knowing what she was.

***

Just before crossing into the town, Bandric stopped the wagon.

“The necklace was a fine idea,” he said, looking between her breasts. “If it’s all that’s keeping the thing in, though, it might be better to have it more permanently attached.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I have a simple binding spell. It will keep it in place against your skin. That way, it won’t come off. The binding is a trivial thing. Even the lowliest mage will be able to remove it if you need.”

Jalissa nodded and said, “Do it.”

“I’ll… need to see your chest,” he said bashfully.

Jalissa grinned and asked, “Do you use that line with all the ladies?”

“What? No! I didn’t mean… I’m sorry. It’s just how it works.”

She tugged down the front of her blouse, showing him the coin and her cleavage. It might have been a simple spell, but it took him two attempts to focus his concentration enough to cast it. When he was finished, the coin adhered to her skin like it was burnt into her flesh.

“Thank you,” she said and kissed his cheek.

He spurred the horse on.

The guild provided rooms for the two of them. Jalissa found hers to be more lavish than anything she’d slept in for years. Apparently, mages valued a good night’s rest. And a comfortable one. The bed had a down-filled mattress and even the pillows were feathered, rather than straw. As exhausted as she was, she didn’t look forward to sleep. If the last two nights had told her anything about how her remaining time in this world would be, it was that those nights would be filled with temptation and terror. Soon after she’d closed her eyes, this one was.

Jalissa had just crossed over into sleep when the whispers began, and the dreams this time were no longer hazy. They were brilliant, crisp, and detailed. The demon’s power was growing. They were not the same as on the previous evening, though.

The demon had both time and power now, and it had not been idle. It had been in her thoughts and her memories, ingesting them in the same way that it had those stolen lives. It had also taken the memories of its victims. Now, it knew her weaknesses, and her wants.

The visions tonight showed her power once more, yes, throngs of subjects willing to worship her. But they also showed her Bandric, seated beside her on a throne as terrible and black as her own. He wielded magics so potent that no practitioner of the arts could have turned them down. And he loved her.

His eyes were as worshipful as the rest, but only his were a love that was born of something more than fear of her. It was a love and an acceptance of her for who she was, and what she had become. It was not a love of the power she had, but a desire to follow her wherever she went, to be at her side through the endless centuries of conquest. That love was pure and real, and it could be hers.

I will make him yours. He will be wholly devoted to you, a true king, immortal, eternal. Not a slave, but a partner in our power.

The demon showed her the two of them, writhing in pleasure together whenever they chose, and he was not frail. He was strong, his body lean and hard, vigorous as he made love to her in ways that no man ever had, or ever would. Untold millions served their whims. The two of them were like gods, nothing beyond their reach. All the secrets of history were theirs for the knowing, and the future was theirs to shape. It could all be hers, theirs, together if she just gave in.

That isn’t him.

The demon did not care for that answer. She felt it slide across her mind like a sludge, wrapping its tendrils into her and taking hold. Her hand flew to the ward and touched it. The demon growled and hissed, but it dug in. She could feel its pain, like Bandric’s green fire, burning it as it exerted its will against the magic ward.

Her hand fell away and she sat up in bed and swung her legs over the side. She stood and wobbled on her feet, fighting against the demon, but no match for it. The effort came at a cost to the power it had gained. Jalissa could feel that power slipping, drying up like rain in the summer heat. The thing held onto its control, though, sacrificing that power in order to make whatever example it was going to make.

Her hands straightened the thin nightgown the mages had given her and then she padded softly to the door. Her hand opened it, despite her will that it do otherwise. Jalissa fought it every step of the way down the hall, and with more fury as it put her hand on Bandric’s door. She could feel some sort of magic in the door, but the demon whispered a word and the magic faded. The door opened.

She stepped into the darkness and approached the bed, then looked down on Bandric sleeping off the day’s exertions. She pulled back the blanket. He looked frailer than ever in his thin, cotton sleeping robe. Jalissa’s body slid into the bed next to him, pressed against him. He blinked himself awake.

“Jalissa?” he hissed in the dark.

“It’s me,” she said.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Her hands slid over his chest, moved to his neck, and she drew him in. Their lips met and he gasped into her mouth in astonishment. It took him only seconds to melt into her kiss, but only seconds more to pull away roughly and scoot back. His hands came up, glowing blue, casting shadows over her features.

“You aren’t her,” he said.

“I am,” the demon replied. “We are… will be one.”

“I... I won’t let you have her!” he stated with more confidence than he felt.

“I already have her. But she can be yours, as well. She fights, but she cannot win,” it said, and Jalissa’s lips curled up into a mocking smile.

“Let her go,” Bandric commanded.

“Or you’ll kill her? You and your weak magic?”

The demon spoke a word and the blue glow in his hands blew out like a candle. It held up Jalissa’s hands and twisted the air, sending Bandric sliding back across the bed and pinning him to the wall. She crawled across the mattress like a cat and drew up against him, inhaling the scent of him like an animal. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and she purred with desire as she caressed his cheek.

“She begged me not to kill you,” it whispered. “And so, I won’t. I can take her, anytime I choose. But we can be stronger together, she and I. Her strength is admirable, worthy of a true host.”

Stop! No!

Jalissa threw her tears and her pain against the demon’s hold, willing its power to drain more quickly. Fighting the ward and her together, she could feel, was weakening it, but not quickly enough.

“She longs for you,” it hissed in his ear. “I can make you strong enough for her, powerful enough to be a god among your kind. Join us and take your place, mage. Rule this world and all those beyond. You… cannot… stop it.”

The last words faltered and then the demon withdrew. Its retreat gave Jalissa control and dispelled the magical bonds holding Bandric in place. He collapsed into her arms. Then, he was holding her as she trembled, tears pouring, soaking into his robe.

“I can’t…” she sobbed. “I can’t fight it.”

He embraced her and held onto her like the most precious treasure he’d ever laid eyes on.

“You’re not alone,” he said. “We’ll fight it together.”

***

Pleasure or Pain

Despite her protest, and her fear of the demon coming to take her again, Bandric held her through the night. In the morning, she awoke with gratitude.

“Thank you,” she whispered as he held her. “You kept the dreams away.”

“Whatever strength I have, I’ll give it gladly,” he said.

They made ready for the journey together. Bandric left the cart with the guild and appropriated two horses, the fastest that the mages had available. With fresh supplies, they set out just as the sun rose.

With only a brief stop for lunch and to rest the horses, they pressed on through the day and arrived at the town of Hilmont by nightfall. They took their lodgings at The Crossroads, a speck of an inn in the speck of a town. Saddle sore and weary, Bandric paid for baths for the both of them.

While the heated water eased the tension in her body, Jalissa watched the demon watching her. It was a sickening feeling, having the thing in her thoughts, lurking there like a shadow. Now that it had rested and soaked in the power of its kills, she could also feel its strength. And her own weakness against it. The ward would not be much of a barrier for long.

I did not wish to give you their pain.

Jalissa sat up in the bath at the sudden whisper.

That’s why you made the others fuck me?

Yes. You lived through it. Others have not. I wish only your pleasure.

Then go away. That’s my pleasure.

The demon laughed.

I am that which is, and yet can never be. You will give me yourself, or you will receive only the pain.

Jalissa shuddered coldly, despite the hot water. Even now the memory of those deaths and the tortured emotions made her sick.

“Then… the pain,” she whispered, out loud.

It was a small defiance but the only one she could muster.

Very well.

The demon crawled across her mind and sank into her thoughts, taking hold. She fought it, just as she’d done every time, but the strength it had gained only made her own tiredness and weakness more apparent. The ward flared but the monster only hissed as it pushed back against the magic and commanded her to rise. She walked to the door and opened it.

Just outside sat an attendant on a stool, waiting for Jalissa to finish her bath so that she could clean the place. The woman was young, perhaps nineteen, and the look on her face showed confusion and shock at the sight of Jalissa’s naked body, wet, standing in the doorway.

“Is… is there something you need?” she squeaked, looking away.

The demon used Jalissa’s mouth to whisper a word and the girl looked back. Her expression now was the same as that on the dead Reacher’s face. Her eyes were hollow but worshipful.

“Come,” the demon commanded, and crooked Jalissa’s finger.

The girl abandoned her post and followed Jalissa inside. The pain of the ward was more an annoyance to it, Jalissa could feel, and even her own efforts to fight it did not have the same effect. The demon shut the door, locked it, and rounded on the girl.

She’s very pretty.

Don’t!

She will die. Will it be in agony or will it be in pleasure? The choice is yours.

The demon used Jalissa’s hands to strip off the girl’s clothes as she stared back at her with those empty, black eyes, enthralled.

You told me you wanted their pain. Is that true?

The demon retrieved Jalissa’s knife from her nearby clothes and brought it back. It placed the point of it an inch from the girl’s eye.

She’ll suffer and her pain will give us life, just as her pleasure will. Will you make her suffer, Jalissa? Are you so cruel as to make her death an agonizing one, merely to spite me?

Please! Don’t! Let her go.

Dither not, or I’ll decide for you. My control is limited, for now. You know this. Soon, though, I’ll have you.

The thing chuckled in her head and pushed the knife closer.

Pleasure!

The knife stopped. The demon tossed it aside and it clattered to the floor. The girl still stared back stupidly, enrapt. Was the girl trapped in her mind, watching herself become the demon’s prey?

Does she know what’s happening to her?

The demon smiled with Jalissa’s mouth.

No. She dreams her most erotic dream. But at my whim, I can make her aware. Shall I?

No!

The demon hefted one of the girl’s breasts and put Jalissa’s mouth around it, while it used her hands to caress the girl’s sex. Jalissa could smell the day’s sweat on the girl’s skin, and hear her excited breathing as she lost herself to whatever fantasy the monster had put in her head. It put the girl on her back on the floor and followed her down, then kissed her with all the passion of a true lover. The girl moaned into her mouth and her body trembled with arousal. Jalissa’s hand worked between her legs, stimulating that arousal.

Jalissa fought back all the harder, desperate to weaken the thing enough to make it relinquish its hold on her. It had a well of power to draw on now, however, and the combined power of the ward and her own pitiful flailing drained only a small bit of that power. The demon was not in the mood to draw this out, though. Jalissa could feel it weighing the power it had against the battle it waged, and it would only sacrifice so much. She saw it calculating, and knew that the girl’s life was going to end in a matter of minutes.

The demon slid down the girl’s body and lapped at her pussy, bringing a squeal of surprised pleasure from its victim. She bucked against Jalissa’s mouth, surrendering herself to this new sensation. The demon drank from her body, just as it would soon drink from the rest of her, and there was nothing Jalissa could do to stop it. Within a minute, Jalissa’s tongue had brought the girl to a leg-quaking climax that had her writhing in ecstasy. Then, her whimpers of pleasure turned to gasps as her flesh grew pale.

The color drained from her as the demon devoured her essence, drawing in everything she’d been. Her slender legs ceased their quaking and then her pert breasts stopped rising and falling with her passion. Those breathy sighs of pleasure ended, and then the girl was nothing but a shell that crumbled into gray powder on the floor. The monster rolled onto her back and let the energy of its latest kill course through Jalissa’s veins, bringing with it the final pleasure of the dead girl’s life. Jalissa did not want to indulge in it. She wanted to feel the sorrow, the horrible pain of what she’d allowed the demon to do. Her will, however, did not matter. Succubi had proven that to her again and again.

The pleasure rushed through her, feeding the demon and refilling all of the power it had spent in its fight. The well grew even deeper, brimmed with the girl’s energy, and pooled inside of Jalissa’s soul. The orgasmic explosion that came with it rocked her to the core, just as it did every time, leaving her a trembling, twitching thing as the demon withdrew with its latest stolen life. In that flash of heaven, she watched the dead girl’s appropriated life become a part of her and she wept through the pleasure.

She felt the girl’s love for a young man. They had so little and yet so much. She saw laughter and kisses in the dark as they made love and the dreams of their youth. That man would never know where she’d gone, what had happened to her. His love would ache and tear at his heart. Jalissa’s weakness had destroyed more lives than that one tonight.

The pleasure faded. The twitching stopped and slowly the euphoria faded away, leaving only the sadness and the guilt. It was too much. Her own life wasn’t worth this. It couldn’t go on. She fumbled on the floor, found her knife, and put it against her chest. The point drew a bead of blood that ran hot down her breast.

The demon stirred, watching. It felt amused. Jalissa gritted her teeth and pushed the knife through her own heart. The pain was horrific and her mind struggled to comprehend what she’d just done. She felt the blood well up, and pour from the wound as her life drained out, just as those stolen lives had poured into her.

She shut her eyes and waited for death, but it didn’t come. Instead, there was a tingling, and then the feeling of the demon taking her again. It felt annoyed. Her hand pulled the knife from her chest and, to her continuing horror, the wound closed.

You are mine.

At those whispered words, the demon withdrew again and went back to sleep.

***

The College

Bandric found a haggard and distraught Jalissa, huddled next to the horses in the stables the next morning.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said. “What are you doing out here?”

Jalissa looked up at him with eyes dark and swollen.

“It has me,” she whispered. “It has me. I’m the monster.”

Bandric looked around and then knelt next to her, placing his hand on her arm. She recoiled, scrabbling back.

“Don’t! I’ll kill you, too! I’ll kill them all!”

Bandric looked hurt but didn’t move. He did something with his hands and a watery, wavering image hovered in the air.

“That… thing is the monster. Not you,” he said.

The image in the air was of them, on the cart, on the day they’d set out from Elenthia.

“I have a preservation spell,” he explained. “It’s a simple thing, as most of mine are. I’m not good for much else. I thought it important to preserve this moment because it was one of the few things I never wanted to forget. This, Jalissa, is you.”

In the image, she was laughing at something, one of his silly tricks most likely. The image was impossible to reconcile, inside herself, with the broken and beaten thing that she’d become.

“I killed her,” Jalissa hissed. “I killed a girl last night, Bandric. She was young. I took everything she was and everything she had the chance to be. I… I tried to kill myself for it.”

His face became a pallor as white as his hair. Jalissa met his eyes.

“It wouldn’t let me die. I can’t die!” she hissed.

“Then we need to free you of it,” he said.

She laughed and choked on a sob.

“Free? There is no freedom. There’s only death, only the monster, and I’m it.”

“Get on the horse, Jalissa. We need to go. Quickly,” he commanded. “If there’s any chance, don’t you owe it to them all to try?”

Despite her weariness and her hopelessness, the words rang true. If she sat here, the demon would simply exert its will, kill again, grow stronger, and then torture her with guilt until she gave in. With Bandric, there was still a chance that she might stop it. No matter how slim those odds were, she had to try. She took his outstretched hand, pulled herself up, and mounted the horse.

***

Today, there were no tricks or banter. There were no stories told and few words spoken as the two of them rode harder and faster than they ever had. They stopped to rest for an hour, only when Jalissa fell asleep in her saddle. Ignoring the soreness and their aches, they rode on after the rest and reached the city of Brille at dusk.

Unlious’s capital city was a massive sprawl cradled in a low valley and nestled on the banks of a great river that spanned the length of the continent. At the heart of the city stood the College of High Sorcery, itself a gigantic campus of squat buildings. At the center of those stood a crystal tower, the seat of the mage’s council, and the center of modern magic.

Jalissa hardly spared a glance at the structure as Bandric gained them entry to the campus. Her sense of adventure seemed to have been stripped away from her as everything else she was had been. Bandric felt sadness at the sight of her pale face and dark eyes. All of the life and curiosity that he’d come to care for these past days seemed to have been devoured by the evil that plagued her soul.

The tower held wonders that few ungifted people would ever lay eyes on and, before today, Jalissa would have been ecstatic at this opportunity. However, as Bandric led her into the place, she was only capable of giving it the most cursory glance. What did all these wonders matter, when soon she’d cease to be? Bandric led them onto a gleaming platform of blue crystal. At a word, the platform ascended, carrying them up the spire and depositing them on an upper floor.

The halls were the same crystal, glittering in the light of ethereal torches mounted in sconces on the walls. The flames within were magical, casting a pale luminescence throughout the corridors as they walked. They passed by other mages, each of them robed in different colors. The mages gave Bandric curt nods and looked at Jalissa with suspicion. Finally, they came to a heavy, iron-bound door and Bandric laid his hand on the wood. It glowed, briefly, and a moment later it opened of its own accord.

A rotund man with a ring of gray hair stood behind a table, which was covered in stacks of books and neatly-tied scrolls. He wore black robes, the symbol of dark magic, but his eyes were not unkind as he looked up from whatever he’d been reading.

“Bandric,” he said, his voice deep and powerful, belying his appearance.

“Amos,” Bandric greeted him back.

They clasped wrists and then the man turned to Jalissa.

“Lady?”

“Jalissa,” Bandric answered for her.

Jalissa gave him a nod, but her thoughts were muddled and tired. Inside, the demon was awake and stirring. She could sense its curiosity now, like it was sniffing the air, studying the various powers in this place. It did not, however, seem threatened. Was that just its confidence, its certainty that these mages had no real way to extract it from her?

“Amos,” Bandric said, “do you have wards in place? Silence? Concealment?”

“Of course,” Amos answered, his eyes narrowing. “Why?”

“Seal the door. We’ll not want to be disturbed.”

Amos shrugged and worked his magic. The door banged shut and then glowed, brightly.

“You’re still doing research on the demons?” Bandric asked.

Amos sighed and said, “Yes, among other things.”

“Jalissa,” Bandric said. “Show him.”

He took a step back from the table as she strode forward, reaching into her pocket. The demon watched, and coiled, but it didn’t move. It made her anxious. Why wasn’t it trying to stop her? She pulled the demon chain from her pocket, unwrapped it, and the monster gave her free reign to set it on the table. Amos’ jaw dropped in horror and fascination. He, too, took a step back. The onyx and red gems pulsed with life.

“Gods save us,” he whispered. “It’s… you’re sure?”

“I am,” Bandric said.

“And you’ve touched it?” he asked Jalissa.

She nodded.

“How long ago?”

“Four days,” she said.

The mage didn’t touch the chain, but he did extend a hand toward it and whisper a word. The chain glowed, then flashed. The demon hissed in her mind.

“It’s well-bonded to you, certainly. And the compulsion,” he shook his head. “I’ve never seen one this strong. Never heard of one outside the stories. Young lady, if it hasn’t taken you fully by now, you’ve got some spirit in you.”

Jalissa tugged down her blouse and showed him the coin, bonded to her chest.

“Eldris Witchfire gave me this,” she said. “It’s warded, but it’s not… not enough.”

Amos’ brows went up at the mention of the warder and he gave a nod of respect.

“That was a fortunate thing,” he said. “I’d dare say that if it weren’t for that ward, we’d all be well on our way to being its slaves. Is it Succubi?”

Jalissa nodded.

“I suppose you’re going to ask me if I know of some way to free you from it?” he asked, and he already sounded sad.

“Is there nothing you can do?” Bandric asked with pain and desperation in his tone.

“I’d need time to study it,” Amos said. “Time I don’t imagine we have, by the look of you. I’d guess holding her back is taking everything you have?”

Jalissa nodded and began to cry. Bandric rounded the table and held her.

“Tell me you know of something,” he pleaded.

Amos thought as he stared at the chain.

“It’s not a solution,” he answered. “As I said, I need time. If we bind her, suspend her, I might be able to think of something.”

“Bind me?” Jalissa asked.

“It’s like a sort of magical prison,” Bandric explained. “Sometimes, we use it for the sick or those that might be afflicted by a fast-acting poison. For you, all time will essentially stop. It gives time for healers to concoct antidotes or remedies. It doesn’t hurt, I can assure you.”

“Do it!” Jalissa ordered. “Whatever you have to do, just don’t let it out.”

The demon laughed at her.

“Young lady,” Amos said, “I have no idea how long it will take to study it and devise a solution. I can’t even promise you that I’ll think of one. You likely know the consequences of unleashing something like that on the world better than we do.”

Jalissa nodded, wiping at her eyes.

He continued, “If there is no solution, I’m afraid that I can’t risk it getting out. I’ll destroy it, and you, if I have to. You understand, yes?”

Jalissa nodded again. Amos’ eyes flicked to Bandric, whose face was a study in sorrow. In a flash, the demon pounced, engulfing her mind as quickly as the viper that had bitten her horse. Jalissa couldn’t even register her surprise.

“If you have words to say,” Amos said to them, “I’d suggest you say them now. You might not have another opportunity.”

Bandric looked into her eyes and Jalissa wailed as the demon looked back. The days spent in her mind, going through her thoughts, had given it everything it needed to impersonate her perfectly. Bandric didn’t show the slightest hesitation as he reached up and put his hand on her cheek.

“If there is any way on this earth to put an end to this, to free you,” he said, “I won’t rest until I find it.”

“I know,” Jalissa’s mouth said and her eyes were filled with tears. “You’ve been so good to me.”

Jalissa struck at the thing, screeching, screaming, willing her lips to betray what was happening. It was useless. The ward flared but it was little more than a gnat biting an ox now. The demon put her hand on Bandric’s chest and her lips on his. The kiss was as tender as one that she’d wished to put on him herself.

His eyes were wet when she pulled away, but his look of pain slowly changed to one of confusion as her lips turned up. The realization came to him too slowly. Succubi’s magic pulsed through her palm, where it lay on his chest, and Bandric went flying backward with a startled cry. She reached out her hand and the demon chain flew from the table, into her fist, and she draped the thing around her neck. The ward on the coin shattered like brittle glass.

Amos cursed and drew a black ward in the air just in time to deflect the red tentacle that shot from Jalissa’s palm. He followed it with a flaring blue rune which caused a wall of cerulean light to encircle Jalissa. Bandric stumbled to his feet, drew another, and the blue glow around her intensified. Amos made a gesture and the air suddenly shrieked with a shrill chirping alarm.

“Again!” he yelled at Bandric, cast another rune, and the prison around Jalissa strengthened.

Bandric followed with his own. The demon’s smile never wavered. It placed Jalissa’s palms on the wall of light and the blue glow flared so brightly that the two mages had to shield their eyes.

“What is it doing?” Bandric cried.

“I don’t know!” Amos yelled.

The door of the room burst inward with a crash and two more mages rushed inside.

“Strengthen the barrier!” Amos shouted to them. “Do it now, fools!”

The two shocked mages cast their spell and the wall of blue light became tinged with red. Behind them, two more robed men piled into the room, drawn by an alarm that hadn’t been tripped in centuries. They added their magic to Jalissa’s prison. The demon pushed at the glowing wall with Jalissa’s hands, its expression one of glee and determination. The light flickered under her touch. The blue glow began to surge up Jalissa’s arms as if it were flowing in her veins.

“Gods!” Amos exclaimed, “It’s… feeding off of it! Stop!”

The mages lowered their hands, watching in horror as the demon gorged on the power they’d given it.

“Bandric,” Amos said. “She can’t be allowed to live.”

The demon turned toward Bandric and its expression softened. It lowered its hands and became Jalissa.

“Please,” it begged him. “You told me you wouldn’t let it take me!”

Bandric nearly crumpled under the weight of his failure as the sadness and the betrayal in Jalissa’s eyes bored into his soul.

“It isn’t her!” Amos shouted. “Don’t let the fucking thing fool you.”

Jalissa faded and the demon’s terrible smile appeared again.

“Live with your failure as they die,” it said.

It put Jalissa’s hands on the prison once more and pushed. The wall of light blasted apart in a billion sparks of rainbow light that blinded everyone in the room. Bandric heard the horrible screams of dying men before his sight returned, and when it did, he wished that it hadn’t. The demon’s glowing tentacles coiled around the other mages. Only he was left uninjured. In the time it took his mind to process the scene, Amos and all of the others withered and blew apart. The tentacles retreated and the demon stalked from the room without so much as a glance at him. More screams from the hallway ended abruptly as Bandric dashed out, following behind.

Jalissa could do nothing but throw herself against the demon. The effort was like a fly attacking a brick wall. It killed indiscriminately, lashing out and bleeding dry every mage that crossed its path. Their lives flowed into her so fast and with such potency that the cascade of emotion, of terror, would have been paralyzing, except that the demon did not drink it all in at once. The power flowed in and the thing held it, like a reservoir that it drew on in a continuous stream. She heard Bandric yell out her name but the demon ignored him.

It climbed on the railing and looked down at the ground floor, several stories below, and then it leaped. Jalissa felt the sensation, again, of floating. The monster fell like a feather on the breeze, its horrible, black magic surrounding it. Bandric followed, throwing himself over the edge, casting his own spell, and drifting down behind. The demon landed lightly on the floor as more mages poured out of rooms and hallways, drawn by the alarm and the cries of death. They flung their magic at the thing, pelting it with fire, and erecting barriers.

The lives of their comrades fueled the thing’s evil and no matter the obstacles they put in its path, it blasted them apart like twigs in a hurricane. And they died. Conjured entities of earth, water, and fire sprang up to meet it. Lances of ice rocketed from hands with blinding speed and unearthly force. All of these attacks failed as the monster walked, almost casually, through the halls of the tower, killing, consuming, and devouring.

Bandric realized, with growing terror, where the thing was going. It must have sensed the font of power at the heart of the tower, that wellspring of incredible, magical energy that the mages used to craft the strongest of spells. If it were to mingle its own magic with that, there would truly be no hope. It would be more unstoppable than it already was. He followed in its wake, brushing past piles of gray dust that had once been his colleagues, his friends, and his mentors. The vast majority of them had been far stronger, more adept at the craft than he. And yet, they had died. What hope did he have against it?

His failure ate at him, burned inside of him, and sat like an ache at his core. He’d been a fool to promise her such a thing as his help, to feed Jalissa that lie and give her hope. There was nothing left for him, except to give everything he had left to fulfill that promise. Or to die for it.

***

Jalissa's Rose

Far below the crystal spire, the font blazed with uncapped magical energy. After its discovery, nearly four centuries ago, the mages built their tower, and then their school atop it. There was debate as to whether it was the actual source of magic in the world, or merely something that enhanced that which already existed in nature. Whatever the truth was, to Bandric the only thing that mattered was that he stop the demon from reaching it, and that he force the thing to give up Jalissa. Neither of those things seemed possible.

He was tempted, again and again, to hurl his spells at its back. He’d seen the results of that all through the winding corridors of the tower, though, and knew that it was a waste of power. Instead, he trailed behind the demon inhabiting Jalissa, and scrambled for something, anything, that could stop it.

The demon took the winding spiral stairs into the bowels of the tower until it reached the bottom. Bandric followed. It paused at the set of great, stone doors that only a mage could open. Bandric prayed to all the gods that those doors would hold. The demon placed Jalissa’s hands on the stone and the doors blew apart like sand against the surf. It stepped inside. Bandric followed.

The gigantic chamber glowed with rainbow light from the blazing font, which blasted magical energy from the depths of the earth. This close to it, Bandric could feel his own power heightened to levels that he’d never experienced. Gods, he felt like he could shake the world itself apart with a snap of his fingers! He drew on it and threw up a prison around the demon. The wall of blue light glowed more intensely than that which the monster had shattered, and that thing had been the work of a half dozen mages.

For the first time since that moment, the demon turned back to face him. Jalissa’s face, that beautiful visage that had once held so much wonder and mirth, now showed only rage and hate. That look, the things that Succubi had stolen from her, cut deeper than all the death he’d witnessed today. He felt his rage equal to that of the monster before him as he looked upon that face.

Jalissa’s laughter at his ridiculous tricks echoed in his thoughts. Her playful, teasing smile as she flirted with him and made him blush like a boy, haunted him. The remembered warmth of her body next to him and the soft, sensual touch of her lips against his, drove him mad at the thought of losing her.

The demon laid her hands on his pathetic attempt to imprison it and blasted his magic apart like a dry leaf. The other mages in the room drew on the font for their own power, but the demon lashed out at them and coiled its tentacles about them.

“Stop!” Bandric shrieked. “Jalissa! Stop!”

The demon fixed him in her sight again, as it held its victims in its dreadful embrace.

“She is mine,” it said. “She will remember, for an eternity, how you failed her today. I can feel her loathing of you, her… disappointment.”

The thing’s face shifted and it became Jalissa, taunting him with his weakness.

“You let it take me,” she cried. “It hurts, Bandric. It hurts so much! Why?”

Bandric couldn’t turn away from her, though he knew that it was only the demon’s tricks, its pleasure at seeing him suffer. Still, he couldn’t turn away from her. He needed the thing to kill him, to put an end to a suffering that weighed on him more heavily than any he’d ever felt. A trick it might be, but he knew that the pain the demon was showing him, Jalissa’s pain, was all too real.

She was in there, right now, fighting against it, refusing to give in. He knew it. He drew on the font again, without a thought as to where he’d put that power. Nothing he threw against it would stop it, but he had to continue. He’d made that promise, and he’d be damned by all the gods if he didn’t see it through. The demon would take her, and it would take him, but he would not simply surrender the woman that he loved without dying in the process.

The demon’s face changed again and it fixed him with that mocking smile. The answer came to him with that single thought. It was right. It must be. If it were not, then at least he would be with her in some form after it happened. Bandric poured his accumulated magic into one, final spell, something that he knew he’d never be able to cast without the font. He simply wasn’t gifted enough.

In the blink of an eye, he teleported across the room and into the path of one of the tentacles. The heart-stopping feeling of his life draining away was indescribable. He’d emptied himself of magic before, and it had made him feel hollow. He knew, however, that magic would recharge. This action, there was no coming back from. It happened so quickly that it was impossible to process it. One moment he was himself and the next, he simply was not.

There was a flash of utter terror like nothing he’d ever experienced, and then that terror seemed to stretch out for an eternity. He could physically feel his very soul being ripped from his body and then shoved into a pipe that was far too small to contain it. It was like a river trying to force its way into a straw. And then it did fit and everything that he was, flowed through that pipe. His consciousness burst through the other end with something that felt like a pop, and there he saw Jalissa.

It was her, the real woman. It didn’t make sense. The essence of what had been him, only an instant before, actually saw her, even though he knew that it wasn’t possible. An essence didn’t have eyes, didn’t have form. He couldn’t see, and yet he did.

Jalissa stopped in her battle with the demon and they looked at one another. No. It wasn’t a look. They had no eyes. They felt one another, knew one another, more truly and more deeply than any human should be allowed. In that one flash, that single thought, everything she was had been laid bare before him, just as all that he had ever been was bare before her. It was more passionate than sex, more intimate than any conversation in the dark. In that span of a moment, suspended in infinity, the two of them truly met.

As the demon drank him in, made him part of her, and devoured him, he felt Jalissa and she felt him. She felt, truly, what it was to be loved, wanted, and desired by someone else that had no hesitation to throw his own life at the mercy of a monster for her. For her. It was the antithesis of everything the demon promised, something that stood in total opposition to its very existence.

For all its cunning and all its temptations, the thousands of years of seduction and destruction, Succubi had only lies. Its gifts were lies. Its promises were wind and dust. Its pleasures were as fleeting as a human life against the cosmos.

What Bandric had for her, though, that was true. And that truth was more powerful and more destructive against the lies than the magic of every mage in the tower combined. As every memory of him became part of her, indelibly etched on her very soul, Jalissa held onto him in the darkness and clutched at him. She followed him downward, into that deep well, where the demon’s power imprisoned her.

She exulted at the feeling of the thing’s fear, its confusion, and then its own horror. This. This was not a power of unequal measure. This was a longing fulfilled, a desire more than satisfied. And it was a magic that Succubi had no defense against.

The demon crumpled to Jalissa’s knees, clawing at her throat, gripping its chain as it choked and spat. It retched up black bile on the floor before the font, and growled in hateful fury with her lungs. Her eyes sunk in, and just as its victims, her skin paled, grayed, and then the demon chain burst into shards of shattered gems and twisted metal. Jalissa’s body flew apart into gray dust as the long-contained essence of the demon exploded forth. The release of the magic, combined with the power of the font, set the entire tower shaking. The shaking became a vibration so powerful that the stone chamber cracked, crumbled, and then gave way.

The crystal tower, a monument that had stood for hundreds of years, fell in on itself in a cascade of destruction that sucked the ground around it in for half a span. The demon’s magic, now released, but changed, altered by that one moment of sacrifice, surged outward, carried by the font. It flowed over the earth, devouring the site where the tower had once stood, consuming it just as the demon had all those lives.

Like the Black Fields, it bubbled up like tar, coating everything it touched. Then, the black ooze began to still, slowly at first. It cooled and hardened. Deprived of the demon that had held it together, it became a lifeless mass of dry, black emptiness, devoid of power. But so it did not remain. When the dust of the destruction settled and cleared, something new sprung from that field of death.

In the center of it all, was a single rose, unlike any that had ever existed. Its petals were vibrant and red, tinged with indigo. Had there been anyone to see it at that moment, they would have witnessed what came next. All around that single rose, blooming with the life of a love that had destroyed the very essence of hate itself, came a dozen more. That dozen bloomed into a hundred, and then a thousand, springing forth from that place of black death, to cover the entirety of it in a sea of red and indigo.

Buried, far beneath that field of beauty, somewhere deep in the rubble, was a fine gray dust. That dust had once been a thing with dreams and desires, a woman whose only true wish had been for a love that was real. Such a thing, in a world like this, one filled with demons and monsters, didn’t seem to exist. But against all hope, she’d found it. And that unexpected, impossible love had saved millions, who would never know it.

One day, they’d come from all around. They’d look upon this miracle that had bloomed in the wake of utter destruction, and that would never die. They’d pick the roses and carry them home, give them away, and carry that love out into the world. They’d never call them Jalissa’s roses, but they wouldn’t have to. Sacrifice didn’t ask for thanks, and it didn’t ask to be remembered. The field would be like those she’d scavenged, perhaps worthy of being named, but with no one left to name it.

The bards would sing no songs of Jalissa the pilferer, nor of the middling mage whose greatest strength was to give all he was for an impossible love. The histories would never tell of their deeds, and they would not regale the world with their story. But the everlasting field, all that remained of an unsung love, would forever bring the light of that love into a world that held too much darkness.

As the warmth of the late autumn breeze sighed across the newborn field, the winds plucked away two of those gorgeous petals. They danced across the sky, swirling, touching, carried lightly on the world’s breath, bound for places unknown.