Chapter 10: Lies

Thrak – Dominari’s Lair, Despeir Mountains

The vision ended.

Rage exploded through me. The vision of my brother, Bruk, raping and murdering my first wife Serisia burned through my thoughts. My brother. My las-damned brother. My fists clenched as I fell to my knees. It built inside me. This dark, angry. Bloody storm. It howled in me.

He had to die.

I slammed my fist into the hard rock of the cave floor. Pain flared up my arm as I howled my fury. I seized my rage. The blood-dimmed tide swirled across my vision as I saw him! Bruk! I would kill him! I would find him and rip off every finger, every limb, I would peel off every ligament and sinew of his flesh. He would howl in agony for what he did to her.

He killed my beautiful Serisia.

He brutalized her.

“BRUK!”

Acolyte Sophia

A great bellow echoed through the room as I blinked in shock. The High Virgin had sent me to my death. She knew Angela would receive the Quest to kill Dominari. She set her up. Me up. She wanted to get rid of me. That useless, whining acolyte. The one she couldn’t discipline out of fear of offending my powerful mother.

I groaned, the pain in my side burning. The milky potion coated the insides of my mouth. I shuddered, glancing at my bloody robes. The sword had almost cut me in half. I lay in a huge puddle of blood. My hand shook as I fished out another healing potion.

Despite the pain burning in my side, half-healed by the first potion, all I could think about was the betrayal to my Goddess. High Virgin Vivian was Saphique’s temporal representative, the highest-ranked member of her church. And she had betrayed the Goddess for a tax break.

For money.

I downed the potion, the creamy, sweet taste of my breast milk electrifying through my body, settling into my side, healing my wound. Oh, Angela and I would set everything right. When she was High Queen, Vivian and—

A bloodcurdling roar echoed through the cave.

Chaun

I shook my head as I came out of Slata’s vision, confusion wracking my thoughts. Learning of Princess Adelaide’s betrayal hardly stung at all. I had realized she didn’t love me before, that I was just a possession to her, something to be claimed, to be jealously held onto.

So why had Slata shown it to me? I looked around at my companions. They were all staring in shock, weeping, shaking their heads, beating the ground in frustration. They were distracted. They were off-balanced. Affected. The Goddess had taken one last chance to weaken us, to stop Angela from embarrassing her destiny.

Even Lady Delilah looked enraged. A bloodcurdling scream burst from her lips, one of pure rage.

And then my eyes fell on my wife. Aurora stared at me in betrayed horror. There was so much pain in her eyes. She trembled, shaking her head in disbelief. My stomach twisted. What had Slata shown her to make her look at me that way?

“Aurora?” I asked, my voice cracking. I reached for her.

She flinched back.

Minx

“That Las-damned bitch,” I snarled, my hands gripping my daggers. The image of Spray comforting me after my sister’s execution when she was responsible for Fox’s death blazed in my mind. She was the one who betrayed us, sold us out. My sister was dead because of that cunt.

“I’ll gut you,” I fumed, gaining my feet. I spun around, staring at the cave’s entrance. Fox was the only family I had. She had watched out for me when we were kids. She taught me everything I knew about thievery. We had been partners. It was because of her that we escaped Baraconia before we were arrested.

And she was going to set us up for life, make us rich, get us out of the Spray’s harem and away from the slums of Raratha. She gave me hope. Always so positive. Always so kind and loving. And Spray took her away from me all while professing that she loved her.

That she loved me.

Tears fell down my cheeks. I opened my mouth to scream when the ground shook and massive, snarling roar of anger echoed through the cave. I turned, my eyes widening.

Dominari towered over us, flames belching from her mouth and washing across the cave ceiling.

“Yeah,” I snarled. “Yeah, let’s go kill Spray!”

Warlock Faoril

I tried to shake off the vision from my thoughts. All these months thinking I had failed. That I had messed up the most basic spell a mage knows: how to preserve sexual fluids for later use. All lie. That cunt Saoria betrayed me.

But that wasn’t important. I had to focus. I had to gather myself. I glanced at my companions. They were all shaken up. Thrak beat the cave floor, snarling in anger. He had raged, not caring about the blood falling from his torn knuckles. Angela stood stunned, Chaun stared in shock at his wife who recoiled from him, and Minx screamed at the cave entrance, clutching two knives.

And Lady Delilah...

Rage mottled her face. She stared at Angela with such anger. Her fingers clutched together, looking like sharp claws. She let out a bloodcurdling shout and then she changed. Her body swelled. Pale skin became hard scales, plated segments of dark reds. Her neck grew longer, stretching long and sinuous. Mighty wings sprouted from her shoulders. The ground shook as she fell forward onto all four of her legs, her sharp claws scratching at the dark stone of the cave floor. She lifted her head, snarling, flamings bursting from her gullet, splashing across the ceiling.

Drops of molten stone rained down around her, splashing on her hide and rolling off her scales as she poured out her anguish. The heat rippled from her. I swallowed, my stomach twisting. What had Slata shown Lady Delilah?

Her head lowered, yellow eyes fixed on Angela.

My stomach sank. We had to fight, and we were all distracted.

Aurora Xandra

Tears fell down my cheeks as I stared at my husband in disbelief. I recoiled from his hand, clutching my totems in sweaty grips. I shook my head, my stomach twisting. I wanted to throw up. I couldn’t get the images out of my head of him fucking my mother. Of putting on my father’s flesh and cuckolding him.

He violated their marriage. He trampled all over their sacred bond.

Anger surged next. How could he do that to my parents? To my mother? He made her cum like a whore! He reveled in it. He plotted with Sophia to get me out of the way so he could satiate his terrible lusts.

“Aurora,” he said, his words low, hurt. “What did she—”

“You fucked her!” I screeched, launching myself at him. I raised my arms over my head. “You fucked my mother!”

He flinched. I saw it in his violet eyes. The truth. He had fucked my mother. The guilt burned across his obsidian face. His pointed ears twitched. The anger surged. I swung my arm down, cracking my totem into the side of his head. He grunted, his head snapping around. Skin torn. Blood poured down the side of his face.

“My mother, Chaun!” I screeched again. “How could you!”

The ground shook.

“How could you fuck my mother!” I raised my totem again.

Heat washed over me as Chaun flinched, raising his arms, such pain in his eyes. He looked away from me. He had nothing to say. No excuses to make. He fucked her. He violated her marriage. What if she conceived? What if she laid an egg and in fourteen years learned the truth—that a changeling had fucked her.

Had made her violate her sacred oaths.

I raised my totem to brain my husband again.

Xerathalasia

I clutched my belly, tears pouring down my face. For six months, I’d hoped and dreamed of coming home to my wife and meeting our daughter.

And she wasn’t my child.

I fell forward, pressing my face into the cold stone of the cave, my entire body shaking. My wife cheated on me. She let my sister breed her. She let my sister fuck her pussy. No crime was greater for an elf. We could have all the fun we wanted, so long as no child could result from our couplings. I always thought she loved me. Why else had she married me? Why else had she parted her thighs and let me slid my cock into her pussy that night of drunken passion?

I could remember it so well. Coming back from my first successful hunt, the dangerous troll who had killed three elves was slain by my arrows. There was such a celebration. Elf-maids danced around me, all vying to marry the hunter who felled the troll single-handily. I was in heat that night, my cock throbbing so hard. I so wanted to make love to an elf properly. I was tired of jerking off, of using assholes and mouths. I wanted pussy.

And Atharilesia wanted me.

I had flirted with her in the past. I had wooed her, ached her, and that night she came to me ... The world spun around us as we kissed and made love. How she had moaned when I slid into her pussy for the first time, marrying her, claiming her with my cum. I was so happy. She was always waiting for me at home when I headed out into danger.

And she regretted it. She hated me. She wanted me to die on this quest so she could marry my sister, the true mother of her child.

Heat washed over me. The ground shook. The dragon roared.

Knight Angela

I stood stunned. My mind replayed over and over what I witnessed. Lady Delilah had arranged for my quest. She had suggested it to the man whose blood stained the High King’s sword gripped in my hand. His corpse lay at my feet.

Lady Delilah never mentioned that. She said King Edward wanted to help me. Not kill me.

I felt like the floor had been kicked out from beneath me. Everything I thought I knew. Everything I thought I understood. It was wrong. I was manipulated from the start by Lady Delilah. She arranged everything, bringing me to this place so she could recreate her dead husband’s empire. I just wanted to protect the world. I just wanted to be a knight. I would have had a normal Quest. I wouldn’t be a fugitive. I wouldn’t have been declared a knave.

“Why!” I demanded of Lady Delilah as she let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Her body changed, shifting, growing into the dragon form, her red hair vanishing, dark horns curling from her head. She swelled over me, towering. Heat radiated from her body. I didn’t care. I wanted answers.

“Tell me! Why did you lie to me? Why did you manipulate me? Why couldn’t you have been honest? Warned me? Sophia almost died because of King Edward. Fireeyes almost killed her. His spells and magics assaulted us because you conspired with King Edward. You knew he wanted me dead, and you gave him the means to watch over me. You sent us on a hopeless quest. Why? So the High Kingdom could be restored? Did you even care that I might die? That Sophia or my other friends my be killed?”

Fire breathed from the dragon.

“Why!” I screamed, pointing my sword at her.

Lady Delilah/Dominari

It was all a lie. A thousand years devoted to my husband’s dream. An impossible dream. I had kept myself in check. I had suppressed my desires for so long. I let the vermin scurry around when I could feast on them. When I could roast them alive, hear their blood boil, their flesh crackle. I could crunch on their bones and feast on their cooked entrails.

I denied myself for a millennia, holding back, only acting when it was necessary, living up to my sweet Peter’s ideals for me. For what? So Rose’s bastard descendant could usurp our husband’s legacy? So this ... false heir before me could pretend she was Peter’s descendant.

How could Rose betray us? How could she cuckold my Lord and Husband with the Father of the Gods? I thought she loved us! All those times Peter and I had to leave to deal with problems in the empire, leaving her behind to mind the capitol, she was spreading her legs for a GOD!

Fire belched from my throat. A thousand years hoping for a lie. Working towards an impossibility. I should have died with Peter. I wished I had died with Peter.

“Why!”

Her voice penetrated my rage. That sniveling insect. That usurping bitch. I gave her a gift last night. I thought I could love again. That I would have another master to submit to, to keep me from being a monster.

But I was a monster. I always have been. I suffered for years for this bitch?

She pointed my Lord and Husband’s sword at me. She dared brandished it as she demanded answers to her nuisance questions. She had no right to be here. She had no right to stand here and hold what was his!

I snarled my rage, my head snapping down at her head. I would FEAST! I would KILL! I would burn the WORLD!

Starting with HER!

Knight Angela

“Gewin’s cock,” I cursed, raising my shield, glowing pink with Sophia’s enchantment, as Lady Delilah’s head snapped down at me. Her horned head was huge, almost as big as a horse’s body. Her jaw opened, fangs as long as my forearm dripping with saliva. A sulfurs reek washed over me.

And then her jaw crashed into the shield.

I grunted. Pink light flared, the enchantment keeping my shield whole. I stumbled back from the sheer mass of the dragon’s attack, my feet moving. Gewin’s blessing, received six months ago before I left Secare, kept me upright. My entire left arm ached from the force of her snapping lunge. My heart raced as the rage snarled from the dragon.

She wanted to kill me. Something had changed for her, too. Something shown to her by Slata.

“BETRAYED!” she roared before her jaws snapped down at me.

An itch tingled through my body. I had the briefest insight into the future, Sophia’s divination spell in effect. I listened to it, swinging my sword at the right moment to drive back the dragon’s attack. She flinched from the aura of white light about the blade. This blade was made to kill dragons. Or to tame them.

“Why?” I shouted as I slashed again, her heat twisting back.

My head tingled. I raised my shield, listening to the most profound form of intuition, one that reached so deep into me. Her claw raked down so fast, almost a blur of red. My normal reaction would never have been fast enough. The claws clashed against my enchanted shield. I braced my feet, leaning in and slid back across the stone floor, keeping my footing.

“Why did you lie?” I demanded. I would get my answers from her one way or the other.

Another claw hissed down. They were long and black. I raised my shield over my head, catching it, then lunged with my sword, trying to cut her foreleg, but she yanked it back before my blade could find her. She roared again, her jaw snapping down. She was so fast. I needed help.

Why wasn’t I getting help?

Chaun

The cavern shook as my wife raised her totem over her head to hit me again. My temple throbbed from her first blow. My stomach sank. I remembered sleeping with her mother. It was the day after her wedding dance, when our marriage was all so new to me. When I didn’t understand avians and monogamy. I didn’t give any thought to seducing her mother.

I just wanted to satiate my lust.

I wanted to let Aurora hit me, to punish me for the pain I caused her, but the dragon bellowed. Pink light flared as Angela blocked her first attack. The knight stood alone before the beast. Lady Delilah marauded, enraged. Whatever Slata had shown her had driven her to fury. She was trying to kill Angela. There was no pretense of Angela taming her.

The dragon was out for blood.

“Now’s not the time, Aurora,” I said as she trembled, her arm raised up high, her face mottled red while tears poured down her face. “I’m sorry, I truly am. I shouldn’t have done that. But the dragon—”

She let out a screech, swinging her totem at me.

I raised my arm holding my lyre, blocking the blow. I grunted, pain flaring up my forearm. She struck bone with the solid piece of wood. She drew back again, her sapphire eyes almost black with dilated pupils.

I struck a cord, a note of contriteness. “Please, Aurora, the dragon. This isn’t the time. You can hate me later.” My fingers played faster, putting all my guilt and regret into the song. I stared at her, pleading with my eyes. “Angela’s fighting. The dragon’s trying to kill her. You have every right to despise me. But it has to wait. For Angela! Please.”

Aurora blinked her eyes and looked at Angela, fighting alone, stumbling, thrusting her sword. My wife lowered her totem. Her face grew tight. She nodded once and turned. She gripped her totems, her fingers dancing over the lines as she summoned her elementals.

My head throbbing, my stomach twisting with guilt, I stood and plucked notes on my lyre. Notes of alarm. Notes that would call my companions to action. They had to rise out of Slata’s trap. She had shown us truths at this moment to weaken us, to have the dragon kill us and end any chance of Angela refounding her ancestor’s empire.

I wouldn’t let the goddess succeed.

Xerathalasia

Thrumming notes and Chaun’s voice stirred me out of my grief. His music sounded the alarm. It reverberated almost like a trumpet in my thoughts. I sniffed, my ears wiggling, as I looked up and saw through bloodstained eyes.

The dragon.

She towered over us, a moving fortress. So immense, filling her cave. Her tail swung, battering through the piled wealth at the back as her claws and jaws tore at Angela. The knight looked so tiny before the dragon, holding up her shield to protect her, wreathed by Sophia’s magic and love. But how long could it last without help?

I looked around at my friends, distracted by Slata’s revelations. Minx snarled about killing Spray, Thrak bellowed incoherent orcish as he beat the stone before him, Faoril rushing to his side. Earth elementals burst from the ground, racing to Angela’s aid.

“Minx!” I shouted at my lover. I knew she loved me. She didn’t lie when she said those three words like my wife did.

Right?

No, no. Minx loved me. She wanted me to choose her over my wife. Over my daughter. And it hurt Minx so badly when I couldn’t. That love couldn’t be a lie.

I shook my head.

“Minx! The dragon.”

Minx whirled around, her eyes wild. “What?”

I raised my bow, drawing an arrow, the tip glowing pink, and fired. It hissed through the air and struck the dragon’s hide. The arrow punched through the thick scales. The dragon roared in pain and Angela’s sword swept, striking a glancing blow on a the beast’s wrist.

“Minx, we need to fight!”

“We’ll kill her later,” Minx hissed. “She killed my sister, Xera!”

“Later,” I agreed and drew another arrow.

Minx

She killed my sister.

It was so hard to let that go. Fox’s face burned through my vision. The sight of her trembling at the gallows moments before the lever was pulled. Seeing her little feet twitch and kick as the rope strangled the life out of her—

Dragon.

Xera’s arrow hissed through the air, trailing pink. The dragon roared again and her entire body moved. Her tail swung, scything through the air. It was long and sinuous, rows of spikes jutting down the top. It blurred red.

My heart leaped in my throat. I opened my mouth to shout a warning to Xera.

But the elf was already moving like she anticipated the tail swipe. She duked it. Her green hair whipped around her from the speed of the tail’s attack. Then she rose, already drawing her next arrow, staring at the dragon with fierce anger.

She was an elvish hunter. They killed monster’s.

And today, so did I.

I rushed forward, throwing the dagger in my left hand. It tumbled through the air and crashed into the dragon’s rear thigh, burying deep. Scarlet blood welled as the dragon roared, her claws slashing hard at Angela. I had to do something about those claws.

I shoved my hand in my pouch and pulled out a sticky bomb, an idea bursting to life in my head...

Warlock Faoril

“Thrak,” I shouted as he beat at the ground, wholly lost to his rage. Chaun’s music stirred around me, focusing my thoughts, driving them away from Saoria and her betrayal. That would have to wait to be answered. Later. Not now. “Thrak!”

He ignored me. The ground shook. The dragon bellowed. Angela fought behind me. Thrak needed to help her. The knight was good, but Dominari was immense. Even with our magic, this fight would be a challenge.

It might be hopeless without Thrak.

“Thrak, you have to fight.”

He just shrieked in Orcish. I heard his brother’s name muttered with such anger and his first wife’s name with such anguish. What had Slata shown him? How his wife had died? My heart wanted to break. I waned to hug my husband, to hold him tight.

But now wasn’t the time for that.

“Thrak!” I shouted again. My heart raced as I moved to his face. He was so lost to the rage he might hurt me. Even with the control I had given him. But I couldn’t be afraid. I had to get him in this fight.

I darted in as he raised his hands up to beat the ground. One blow could kill me. He was so strong. I cupped his swarthy face with my hands, staring into his dark-red eyes. “It’s me, Thrak.”

His hands froze.

“I know you’re mad. I know you’re angry. But he’s not here.”

“Bruk!” He said the name like a curse. His brother must have killed his wife. Raped her and killed her.

“He’s not here. But the dragon is. If you want to take out your rage, then do it on our enemy.” I pointed at the dragon. “Dominari is trying to kill us. She’s gone mad, too. We have to stop her. Angela needs us. You promised to help her.”

He let out a snorting growl.

“So if you want to be mad. If you want to rage, then take it out on the damned dragon. Vent all your anger on her. Rip her to pieces, Thrak.”

He let out a bellow. His hand shot out, picking up his discarded ax. The double-headed, crescent-bladed greataxe glowed pink. With it, he would hew through Dominari’s scales. He would help Angela vanquish the dragon.

“Go!” I shouted, rising and reaching into the magic inside of me as my husband charged forward.

Thrak

I poured all my rage, all my pain, all my fury at the dragon. I stared at the hulking monster, the ground shaking as she moved, her claws slashing at Angela and a pair of earth elementals. Rocks flew as she ripped the stone figures to pieces, her tail swaying.