Daughter of Destiny, Ch2

I have some more weekend reading for you!

There's another scene after this that might end up in ch2 of the final version (spoiler alert: it's filled with sex!) but I haven't decided yet. 

The party won't actually be lounging around Darkwind for the whole book, I promise. =P The middle and end will have some more fantasy action.

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 2: The Dreamscape

Without daylight as a guide, I had no idea how long I slept after I filled Kaseya’s quim and passed out with her in my arms. The only thing I knew for certain was that Valuri was there when I woke, and to my astonishment Kaseya was still unconscious on top of me. 

“You must have fucked her pretty hard to keep her under like that,” Valuri said when she realized I was awake. “Good thing I’m here to protect the two of you, eh?”

I cleared my throat and leaned up. Kaseya and I had managed to drag ourselves out of the pool and onto a nearby cushion, but we hadn’t actually made it to a private room. We were alone inside the cubby, and as far as I could tell no one had come in here and bothered anything. But still, it had been irresponsible of us both to fall asleep, even for a little while. Someone could have easily snuck in here and shivved us while we were defenseless…

“It was a long trip,” I groaned. “And in case you forget, I did get impaled on that wagon yesterday. At least, I think it was yesterday…”

“Zor calah,” Kaeya said, lifting her head. “I did not mean to sleep.”

“It’s all right, Red—I got you covered,” Valuri said, smirking as she sat down in one of the chairs and propped her boots up on the table next to the empty glasses of wine. “I’m still wary about this place, but I’m reasonably sure they don’t actually want to hurt us.” Her face soured. “Of course, I didn’t think Koth wanted to hurt us, either, so maybe my intuition isn’t what it used to be.”

I smiled sympathetically. Knowing Val, it would be a long time before she forgave herself for getting duped by the Falcon Guard mercenaries. They had led us right into Ayrael’s clutches, and we had eagerly followed along like lambs to the slaughter. It was hard to believe that fight had been less than a day ago, but then a sudden twinge of pain in my side reminded me of the details. We were lucky to be alive and even luckier to be free. 

“Anyway, I was only gone a few hours,” Valuri said, pouring herself a glass. “My snooping wasn’t especially productive, but I did learn that this place is a lot larger than we thought. There are thousands of people living down here and space for several thousand more.”

I leaned up and began channeling another healing spell into my sore flank. “How is Silhouette keeping all of them supplied?”

“That part I don’t know,” Valuri lamented. “Stealing food can only get you so far. If I had to guess, she probably has a private deal with some of the farmers in the plains. There’s also a lot of fungus and lichen.”

My mouth twisted. “That’s disgusting.”

“What do you think the drow eat?”

“Good point,” I murmured, leaning up and peering out of the cubby. Silhouette must have instructed her servants to give us as much privacy as we wanted. There were plenty of other people lounging about by the pools outside, but they were all keeping their distance. 

“I couldn’t get a firm answer out of anyone, but I don’t think our new ally will be back until tonight at the earliest,” Valuri said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s moving her people around to keep a closer eye on the Archmage and his wife. They’ll have learned about their missing cargo by now.”

“And realized that our bodies weren’t among the wreckage,” I muttered. 

“They might assume we were captured. Or they’ll follow our tracks and realize we were chased most of the way back to the city.”

“Or Telanya will think we just stole the cargo and gave it to the Black Mistress,” I said. “Regardless, it’s only a matter of time before she hires a bounty hunter to try and find us. She doesn’t strike as the forgiving type.”

“We did not betray her,” Kaseya pointed out. “We attempted to complete the contact and would have done so if my sister had intervened.”

“Yeah, well, I doubt Telanya or Beloran will see things that way,” Valuri muttered. 

“So why don’t we tell them? Silhouette must have a way of getting messages to important people. She could explain that the Senosi stole the cargo, and that we are merely seeking shelter.” Kaseya shrugged. “Telanya may not believe it, but we are not actually her enemies, are we?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “That’s a good idea, actually.”

She cocked a red eyebrow at me. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Valuri filled the silence with an impish giggle. 

“He doesn’t appreciate how clever you are,” the Huntress said. “Though in his defense, subterfuge isn’t normally your area of expertise.”

“I do not consider that an insult.” Kaseya looked at me for a moment and smiled. “But I am also a fast learner.”

I grinned back at her. She really was, in more ways than one. 

“I did learn a few other interesting tidbits,” Valuri said, sipping at her glass. “Everyone around here seems to believe Silhouette’s story about her captivity in the Underworld. They say she eventually turned the tables and enslaved her own mistress.”

I whistled softly. “Do you believe them?”

“I’m not sure, but I buy it more now than I would have a few hours ago. You remember that dark elf servant with the magic fingers? I think she’s a former priestess of the Spider Queen.”

“That would explain the tattoos,” I said, pursing my lips in thought. I didn’t know much about the drow religion, but the priestesses of their Spider Queen had a reputation for being cruel and domineering. For some insane reason, that made me want to summon the servant back here so I could fuck her senseless. I really was messed up in so many ways…

“I also met a man who claims to be one of Silhouette’s childhood friends from Riverbend,” Valuri went on. “It took a little convincing, but I eventually got him to share some juicy tidbits.”

I grunted. “You fucked him, didn’t you?”

“I wish,” she muttered. “He might have been even more gorgeous than that blonde servant Red almost choked. If we end up staying here for another day or two, I might see if I can get both of them at once, actually…”

I rolled my eyes. She was probably just teasing me, though I certainly wouldn’t put it past her. Historically, she had almost as much difficulty keeping her trousers on as I did. At first I’d been unbelievably jealous, but she had quickly made it clear that she wasn’t a “one man” type of girl. Thankfully, she had never expected me to be a “one woman” type of man, either, and back in Vorsalos she had loved hearing about my conquests, especially while I was fucking her. 

We’d always had a weird relationship, to be sure, but as long as I was willing to kiss her softly, fuck her roughly, and spray my magic seed on her tits or face, she seemed perfectly content. And not surprisingly, so was I. 

“So what did this guy actually tell you?” I asked. 

“Mostly boring stuff about growing up in a fishing town,” Valuri said. “But after a while he did let her real name slip: Solemi.”

“That certainly sounds like an elven name.”

“Definitely. Anyway, the main takeaway is that she got a lot of the people here out of tough spots. And despite all the rumors in town, I don’t see any evidence that she’s running a secret slave trade or anything like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if almost every salacious rumor we heard topside was pure bullshit.”

“Probably,” I said. “So does that mean you trust her now?”

“Of course not. I just don’t think we have any better options right now. At least we’re probably safe down here.” Valuri grunted and finished her glass. “But make no mistake: sooner or later Silhouette is going to ask us to do something for her, and I have a feeling we’re not going to like it.”

“That seems like a pretty safe bet, given the circumstances.” I sighed softly. “Well, for the moment we might as well get some sleep and relax while we can. I’m still pretty tired.”

“You can sleep all you like,” Valuri said, swinging her legs off the table. She kicked off her boots, scuttled up behind Kaseya, and gently cupped her hands over the amazon’s breasts. “Red and I still need to have some fun.”

Kaseya grinned and leaned back over her shoulder. The two women shared a long kiss, and I couldn’t resist the urge to toggle on my ring so I could feel everything. Kaseya’s lust struck me so hard I actually had to brace myself to stay upright—I knew she had come around with Valuri, but I hadn’t realized just how much…

I was rock hard long before Kaseya had stripped off Valuri’s armor and clothes, and I started actively stroking myself when they jumped back in the pool together. They kissed and ground against each other for what felt like an hour before Val suddenly sunk down into the water and brought her lips to the amazon’s tits. 

I was genuinely still tired, and my wound absolutely needed more time to heal. But I doubted there was a single man in the entire multiverse who could have possibly fallen asleep with two beautiful women making love right in front of him. And if there was…well, I wanted to meet him so I could punch him in the face and ask what the fuck was wrong with him. 

I closed my eyes and imagined my cock slipping inside one smoldering wet cunt after another. I imagined grabbing a hold of Kaseya’s black hair and relentlessly fucking her throat; I imagined sliding my cock between Valuri’s tits until I erupted all over her sweet smiling face. 

But when my eyes popped back open they weren’t greeted by two beautiful, naked women kissing each other in a pool—they weren’t greeting by much of anything at all besides an impenetrable white wall of sleet.

“What the hell?” 

I almost panicked when I glanced down and saw that I was apparently standing straight up inside an enormous snow drift. I jerked away, wondering if Silhouette’s dark elf servant had slipped something into the wine, before I realized the snow wasn’t actually cold. My breath caught in my throat, and my brain refused to put two and two together for at least a solid minute. 

I was dreaming. Or, more specifically, I was inside an Aetheric dreamscape. 

Like most sorcerers, I had unwittingly been sucked into plenty of dreamscapes as a child. The Aether would sometimes intrude upon our consciousness, often when we were sleeping but sometimes when we were wide awake. Usually there was a trigger, like physical contact with a powerful enchanted relic, but sometimes the visions just happened—and this, apparently, was one of those times. 

I forced myself to swallow and relax. Priests from every religion in the world coveted these kinds of experiences as windows in the minds of their god, but every sorcerer I had ever known treated dreamscapes like a plague—they were often brief, usually nonsensical, and almost always terrifying. 

But I already knew that this one would be different. When my breathing finally returned to normal, I tried to shuffle forward through the wall of sleet. Dark, humanoid shapes began to appear at the corners of my vision, and I eventually realized that I was looking at the outline of two people having a conversation in front of a log cabin. One was tall, broad, and distinctly masculine; the other was almost as tall but distinctively feminine. They appeared to be speaking, but the wind in my ears drowned out all sound besides the storm. 

“Hello?” I called out.

I continued forward and wiped the snow from my eyes. I still couldn’t make out many details, but I could see that the two figures were arguing about something. After another few moments the woman backhanded the man across the face. He flipped over and crumpled onto the ground before her, at which point she drew a long, slender sword from her waist. 

I started jogging forward in an effort to pierce the veil, but the sleet refused to relent. I couldn’t even tell if I was making any progress; their silhouettes never seemed to get larger no matter how far I moved. The woman brought her sword to the man’s throat, but just when I thought she was going to decapitate him she kicked him onto her back instead. 

It was only then, for seemingly no reason at all, that I finally emerged from within the sleet. A small village materialized around me: twenty, perhaps thirty small ramshackle huts all nestled snugly around a frozen lake at the heart of a narrow valley. I didn’t recognize the location, but the blonde, statuesque female figure had become annoyingly familiar over these past few weeks. 

“Ayrael.”

Her name soundlessly escaped my lips as she loomed over her victim, a sinewy old man covers in thick furs. She glared at him contemptuously for several seconds before she abruptly sheathed her sword, turned on a heel, and stormed off through the snow. The man watched her go, a thin line of blood trickling from his chin. 

Time was all but impossible to discern in the dreamscape, and I had no idea whether I was witnessing the past, present, or future. All I knew for certain was that this was a hell of a lot more vivid and specific than any other vision I’d ever had. Whether that was good or bad I couldn’t say.  

The sleet began to swirl around me again, and a dense fog followed it on the wind. An instant before everything vanished into a blinding white cloud, the old man turned and looked directly at me.

“The sister,” he said, his voice perfectly clear despite the storm. “You must bring her to me.”

My throat went dry. “What?”

“Bring the sister to me,” the man repeated. “Or die along with the rest of our people.”

The dreamscape shattered. I inhaled sharply, and when my eyes snapped open I realized I was back in the real world again. I was slumped on the cushion next to the pool with both girls looming over me. 

“Jorem?” Kaseya asked, her face creased with concern. “Jorem, are you all right?”

“More or less,” I rasped, wincing at the sudden pounding on the back of my skull. I must have fallen over and hit my head. “What the hell happened?”

“You were standing next to the pool with your eyes closed and your cock in your hand,” Valuri said. “I had just started feasting on Red here when you collapsed.”

“When you fell over, I couldn’t sense anything from you,” Kaseya asked, her hand squeezing mine. “I thought you were dead.”

“That’s…weird,” I muttered. After what I had just happened I was a bit wary about reaching out to the Aether, but the pain in my head was getting worse. I tentatively channeled a healing spell to numb the soreness. 

“What happened?” Valuri asked. “Do you even know?”

“I had a vision,” I told them. 

“A vision? You mean like prophecy?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. I’m still trying to figure out what it all meant.”

Kaseya touched my cheek. “When we first met, you told me you lacked the gift of foresight.”

“I do, generally speaking,” I said. “I’ve never had much success with divination magic, and I’ve definitely never been sucked into a dreamscape while standing upright before.”

“You used to have those strange hallucinations while you were sleeping,” Valuri said. “Remember that time you freaked out and backhanded me in the nose?”

“I do now,” I murmured, wincing as the memory washed back over me. Maybe that was why she didn’t like to cuddle anymore. “Most sorcerers have visions now and then, but they aren’t usually so…vivid.”

Valuri shrugged. “Well, what did you see?”

I swallowed heavily and took a deep breath. “I was somewhere in the mountains—don’t ask me which ones. It was cold and snowing, and there was a small fishing village on a lake inside a valley. Two people were arguing but I couldn’t make out their voices.”

“Did you recognize them?” Kaseya asked. 

“One of them,” I confirmed. “It was your sister.”

The color drained from her face. “Ayrael? You are certain?”

“She’s pretty easy to recognize at this point,” I muttered. “She was fighting with an old man I’ve never seen before. She beat him down then stormed off. Just before the vision ended, he looked right at me and said that I need to ‘bring the sister to him,’ otherwise all our people are doomed.”

“Charming,” Valuri said. “You’re sure you don’t know him?”

“Pretty sure,” I told her. “But I get the feeling that he’s the one who pulled me into the dreamscape.”

“Is that even possible?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “It’s possible to send message through the Aether, obviously. Maybe this was just a more aggressive version?”

Valuri frowned and leaned back on her haunches. “If that’s true, he must also be a sorcerer. That would explain why Ayrael would be attacking him, but why wouldn’t she just kill him?”

I threw up my hands. “I have no fucking clue. But he seemed to know who I was, and he was definitely asking me to bring Kaseya to him.”

“I do not understand,” the amazon whispered. “I do not know any other sorcerers on the mainland, and he was obviously not one of the moshalim.”

“Not unless there are snowy mountains on Nol Krovos,” I said. “For all I know this was a vision of the future and hasn’t actually happened yet. I don’t see how it could possibly be the present—Ayrael was just outside Highwind yesterday, and she couldn’t have possibly made it up into the mountains already.”

A flicker of recognition crossed Kaseya’s face. “When Hestiah and I were sent to find her, we were told that she had been sighted near the Frozen Tear just north of Highwind. That would have been about two months ago.”

“So maybe this was a vision from the past,” I reasoned. “Still, the mountains in the north stretch for hundreds of miles. I have no idea where this village could be.”

“If this sorcerer was trying to communicate with you, you’d think he would leave better instructions,” Valuri grumbled. “Do you think you could reach out to him again?”

“I don’t know,” I said, sighing. “Maybe? Again, this isn’t exactly my area of expertise.”

A long silence settled over us as we tried to process what had just happened. None of us seemed to get anywhere.

“Silhouette is basically an information broker,” Valuri said after a moment. “She’s also a powerful sorceress. If anyone might know something about this, it’s her.”

“Maybe our little alliance will pay off even faster than we hoped.” I snorted softly and leaned back on the cushion. “I have to say, that was…unsettling. And not just because I cracked my skull.”

“Well, you also managed to completely kill the mood,” Valuri grumbled. “I hope you’re happy.”

I snorted. “I’m sure the two of you can find another excuse to have some fun.”

I turned to Kaseya, but her eyes were oddly distant. I couldn’t blame her. Having a vision with her sister in it was bad enough, but the fact the old man had very clearly wanted me to involve Kaseya somehow…well, it was all very confusing. 

“All right, well, maybe we should actually get some real sleep for when Silhouette gets back,” Valuri suggested. “I’m sure the servants will have prepared a room for us. Maybe we’ll even get one of these houses to ourselves.”

“You’re probably right,” I said. 

“I will get dressed and locate the dark elf handmaiden,” Kaseya said. She didn’t even wait for a reply before she scrambled over to her discarded clothes and armor. She was dressed and ready in record time. 

“She seems especially shaken,” Valuri commented. “You think she knows something she’s not telling us?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Can’t you use that fancy ring of yours and find out?”

“Maybe, but I’d rather not.”

Valuri grunted. “You’re no fun. She has to feel what you feel all the time, right?”

“It’s…complicated,” I managed. “She’s probably just upset about the fact her sister was involved. I would be, in her position.”

“True enough,” Valuri said, shifting her eyes towards the exit from the cubby. “Seriously though, your timing was horrendous. I was about to feed like crazy from that sweet cunt of hers.”

I sighed. “And you think I’m pathetic.”

“You’re really going to deny it?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.” She smiled and leaned down to give me a kiss. “I am still hungry, though. It’s bad—I can already feel my arms shaking.” She glanced back over her shoulder, and her hand gently cupped at my balls. “Red will probably be gone a few minutes at least. Think you can whip me up a quick batch before she gets back?”

I grinned. My cock stiffened at roughly the same rate my headache faded. “I would certainly love to try.”