Chapter 12: Decisions

Note: Thanks to b0b for beta reading this!

Aurora Xandra – Dominari’s Lair, The Despeir Mountains

Conflict warred through me as I watched my husband administer Thrak the healing potion. The orc drank the creamy elixir, his wounds knitting together. Elation and anger, joy and horror swirled through me. Chaun lived. He survived the fight with the dragon.

He fucked my mother.

The images the Goddess Slata showed me burned through my mind: Chaun in my father’s form seducing my mother, mounting her, fucking her, making her moan and gasp and break her marriage vows. My husband survived, and he betrayed me. Betrayed everything my people stood for. How could he do it?

The anger beat faster and faster, a drum drowning out the symphony of joy at his survival. It grew louder with every roaring thud. My heart pounded in my chest. I clenched my hands as I glared at his back.

His pointed ears twitched, thrust black through silver hair. He turned, staring up at me, and I could see it in his face. The guilt. The words spilled out of my mouth, “You did it. You slept with my mother!”

He nodded his head, his eyes glossy.

The anger’s beat exploded through my ears. I couldn’t hear anything else. He did it. The Goddess showed me truth. How could he fuck her? How could he assume my father’s form and violate their nest? He made her his whore.

Just like he made me.

With a screech, my body transformed. I couldn’t look at him. I wanted to rip out his eyes. His cock. I became a hawk, my toes growing into sharp talons, my lips into the sharpest beak. I spread my feathered wings wide, screeching again.

A single flap, a single swipe of claws. I could hurt him.

He survived.

I flapped my wings. He didn’t flinch as I launched at him. My claws flexed. But I tucked them beneath my body. Another flap propelled me up and over his head. I winged towards the exit of the cave. I flapped harder and harder, the wind howling past me as I burst out into the overcast day, a soup of murkiness wreathing the mountains. I soared past Angela sitting at the cliff’s edge and danced on the air currents swirling through the pass.

How could he do that to my mother?

Warlock Faoril

Aurora’s screech echoed through the cave, drawing my attention away from my wounded husband. Chaun, kneeling on the other side of Thrak, flinched as his wife flapped over his head. He turned, watching her soar out the cave, his shoulders sagging.

No one was happy. Thrak, groaning beneath me as his wounds healed, grimaced. There was pain in his eyes, and I knew it wasn’t from his injuries. Slata had shown me my betrayal, and Thrak had seen his.

I stroked his face as Chaun slumped. I traced my husband’s brutish features, brushing the bone piercings dotting lips and eyebrows and nose. My fingers were pale on his swarthy skin. I reached his woolly hair, sliding through the thick curls, my fingers growing tangled in the strands.

“She showed you the truth about Serisia’s death?” I asked.

His hands clenched. Murderous rage flashed through his eyes. “Bruk!”

“Your brother?” I gasped in shock. “He...”

He grunted again, a deep, snarling rumble bursting from him.

“So we’ll be traveling to your home after all,” I said.

“You understand.”

“I do.” I leaned down, kissing his forehead. “I know you, Thrak. He has to die. You have to kill him.” It was so strange to speak of such callous murder, but I had known Serisia, if only briefly as a spirit. Such a loving woman. Thrak would have been happy living his life with her. I never would have met him, but he wouldn’t have had this sadness that not even I could touch.

“What about you?” he asked, sitting up, the wound almost knitted in his side, the dragon’s bite vanished. Only his blood remained behind.

The images of Saoria’s betrayal, sabotaging my vials and ensuring that I failed the test, hurt, but it was an old pain. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t change anything.”

“Change?”

“I’m still a Warlock. The Magery Council won’t let me retake the Test if I expose her treachery.”

His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t make a mistake.”

“I did, just not the mistake I thought.” I believed Saoria was my friend. I took a deep breath. “I’m a Warlock. That’s who I am.”

Saying those words filled me with a kind of peace. It wasn’t a great peace, giving up my lifelong dream, but it was gone, evaporated. Angela would never be High Queen, she would never reinstate me. My life was different. I was a Warlock, free of the Magery Council’s rules.

“I can do as I please, Thrak. It’s ... freeing.”

“And what is that?” he asked.

Minx

“What is it?” I asked, still hugging Xera’s waist. I felt like such a child right now, clinging to her taller body, my head resting on her hip while she cried with quiet pain. “Why are you so sad?”

Her green eyes stared at me with such raw, naked grief. Tears welled in the corners before tumbling down her greenish-tinged cheeks. “Atharilesia cheated on me. With my sister.”

I trembled. “She ... put her elf-cock in another hermaphrodite.”

“The other way. She let my sister ... fuck her pussy.”

My heart tightened. “Oh, no, Xera. She’s not your ... daughter?”

Xera shook her head, more tears spilling down her cheeks. My heart only ached. I hugged my elf tighter, tears burning in my own eyes. That horrible bitch! How could she cheat on this wonderful elf? What was wrong with her? Every aching beat of my heart fueled a growing anger. I stared up at Xera, a fierce heat flooding through me.

“Then we’ll kill her, too,” I hissed.

“Too?” Xera stared at me. A crystal tear fell off her cheek and splashed on my forehead, burning hot. “Who do you want to kill?”

“Spray!” The words came out with such vehemence. I pictured that damned nixie who had hugged and comforted me after my sister’s death. “She betrayed my sister and me. She’s the reason Fox hung! And then she told me she loved us both!”

“Oh, Minx,” Xera said, then she fell to her knees, her face at my level. Her delicate fingers cupped my cheeks.

“We’ll kill them both,” I spat. “How could she cheat on you, Xera?”

“She never loved me.” Xera’s ears twitched. “We were both young and drunk when it happened. I think ... I think she thought I was my sister, and then it was too late. My cock had entered her pussy, cum in her, uniting us.” She shook her head. “She encouraged me to go with Angela so I would...” Wounded pain shone in her eyes.

“That bitch!” A dagger appeared in my hand. “We have to kill her.”

“No!”

Xera’s exclamation made me flinch. I blinked at her, my heart aching so badly. The pain had to be stopped. “No?”

“Killing her ... It won’t change anything. It won’t undo her betrayal. It won’t mean I have a daughter...” Her pointed ears twitched. “I don’t even know where I’ll go. I can’t go back. They don’t want me. Need me.”

“You’ll go with me,” I told her, cupping her cheeks, feeling her hot tears.

Xera nodded her head. “I love you, Minx.” Something touched her tear-filled eyes as a smile crossed her lips. “I can ... say that without feeling guilty. I’m really no better. I cheated on her with you.”

“It was never cheating with us,” I said. “Remember. I’m not a hermaphrodite. You can’t knock me up.”

“I still loved you more.” She shivered. “But ... I really wanted to hold my daughter. I was so excited and...”

Fresh tears fell down my face. I really, really wanted to kill her wife and sister.

Then she sniffed and shook her head. Her head glanced past me. I frowned, following her gaze. She peered at the dragon’s corpse, the piles of gold behind it. A smile touched her lips, something light and amused.

“What?” I asked, blinking.

“You’re not rolling in the gold.” Her ears twitched. “Are you feeling okay?”

I shivered. “I’m not sure I ever will feel okay.”

Chaun

An exhausted emptiness consumed me. I stared out at the cave, watching Aurora vanish into the sky. I could remember that day so clearly. We had only been married the night before. I was so confused by everything that happened. I wanted to prove I was still myself. It was so stupid. I saw all the avian women, how bright and white their auras were. I had never seen married women shining so bright.

I had to fuck one. And why not my mother-in-law? To make it as depraved as possible.

I pushed up from my knees, not hearing Thrak and Faoril’s conversation. I stumbled across the broken cave, bending down and picking up a piece of my lyre, a long chunk of the frame with broken wires still clinging to it. I walked a few paces, picking up another and another. The wood had snapped and splintered, the gold filigree bending out of the joints or gone entirely. The priceless strings tattered.

I was given this lyre when I graduated from the Bardic College of Az, proof that I had done what only a handful could. Hundreds failed every year to master the magic of song and note. It was an instrument crafted for masters.

Broken.

I held the pieces. I stumbled out of the cave, away from the sulfurous reek mixing with the coppery tang of blood. I needed fresh air before I vomited. I blinked against the gray glow of the clouds, the sun hidden behind them, but its light diffused and assaulting my gaze from a thousand directions.

I reached the ledge’s edge, sitting down, my legs dangling off the side. Angela and Sophia were nearby, peering down at the mountain pass. It was a gorgeous sight. A song could be composed about it.

I snorted. A song. Could I even finish my epic now? What was the point? It didn’t feel like we won.

“Chaun,” Sophia gasped. “Your lyre.”

I glanced down at the pieces as Sophia broke away from Angela and knelt beside me, her robes stained crimson with her blood, ripped and torn in so many spots it barely hung on of her. Dirt and more blood smeared her face, stained her brown hair.

“It was so beautiful,” she said, running her finger across the largest of the broken pieces.

“It was.” I blinked my eyes then glanced up at Angela. She looked so strong, so resolved. “What are your plans?” Were they going to pursue making Angela High Queen anyways?

I realized I didn’t care about that. I didn’t care about being a Court Bard any longer.

“We’re building a temple,” Sophia said. She sounded ... not quite happy, but contented, accepting of what had happened. “We’re guarding the pass. Angela thinks Lady Delilah set up her lair here for a reason.”

“The Shizhuth Empire,” I said, glancing to my right. The dark land of the nagas. “A noble idea.”

“It will be.” Sophia bit her lip, looking at me. “You are more than your lyre, Chaun. You make beauty with your voice.”

Tears burned in my eyes. I croaked, “Thanks.”

She gave me such a beautiful smile.

I stared down at the broken pieces of my lyre. Then I threw them off the ledge. They clattered against sharp rocks, breaking into splinters as they tumbled down to the twisting path we had climbed up what felt a lifetime ago. One of the horses neighed where we picketed them outside the cave.

Then I looked up at the gray sky. I cleared my voice and sang out my pain, wondering if she would ever come back.

Thrak

I sat in the cave, Faoril leaning beside me. Minx and Xera talked near the gold, tears and smiles on their faces. My thoughts dwelled on Bruk. The image of my brother raping and murdering my wife burned through my thoughts. The rage called. But he wasn’t here. He was thousands of miles away.

I could already feel his neck snapping beneath my fingers.

Armor clinked. Angela walked back inside the cave, Chaun’s sad song drifting in with her. Sophia sat beside the changeling on the ledge, her body rocking side to side with his crooning lament. My eyes flicked to Angela as she walked past and then knelt before the scaly head of Lady Delilah. Her hand reached out, stroking the still snout.

With a grunt, I rose. Faoril didn’t say a word. She just gave my hand a squeeze before letting go. Despite Sophia’s healing potion, my entire body ached. I had almost died ... three times today. I was so reckless in the fight, so consumed by the rage for Bruk’s crime, I didn’t care about myself. I just had to take out my wrath on something.

On the dragon.

The Goddess Slata was such a petty, vindictive thing. She wanted us all to kill each other. But only one of us died.

I reached Angela, standing over her as she stroked the dragon’s snout. “I don’t know what to do with her, Thrak.”

“Do?”

“She’s so big.” Angela didn’t look up as she spoke. “I want to bury her, but how? She’s immense.”

“Faoril could do it.” I put my hand on her pauldron, the shoulder guard groaning as I squeezed. “It was a nice dream.”

Angela nodded her head. “But so many people would have died to see it realized. We’d have to fight the entire world. All the mages, the three knightly orders, and all the kings and their armies. Maybe Peter did it a thousand years ago, but he had a God’s blood in him. After all that much time, how much do I have? A drop of Holy Pater’s blood?”

“More than a drop,” I grunted.

She looked up at me, her blue eyes filling with tears. They fell down her face. “Slata won.”

“Only if we surrender.” I looked at Lady Delilah. “Only if we don’t make something with our lives. If we don’t create something ... important out of all of this.”

Angela back straightened against her burden’s weight. “I know where to bury her.”

Aurora Xandra

I drifted through the mountains, flying aimlessly, letting the vagaries of currents guide my wings. As the anger grew colder and colder, a fire dying down to coals, I felt so empty. The rage had burned out everything in me. I felt so hollow.

And thoughts echoed through my emptiness, memories of the terrible things I did.

I defiled myself.

I let those two pirates ravish me in the hold, begging for their cocks, eager to violate my marriage. I sucked them and fucked them. I was eager to spread my legs for Thrak, to violate my marriage vows, to satiate my lusts.

Lust ... It was such a powerful thing.

I could still taste Castor and Abdwal on my lips, feel them in my body.

Was I any better than Chaun?

When he found me dripping with their cum in the hold, seeing the proof of my adultery, he had apologized to me. He hadn’t been angry, he hadn’t been disappointed. He hadn’t hated me. He had loved me and felt my pain. He felt so guilty for pushing me towards violating our marriage. He’d finally understood how important monogamy was to my species.

It was ingrained in us. Luben had stamped his love strongest on our souls.

Memories of Chaun fucking my mother echoed through my thoughts. The dead coals flared to life.

And then a song of pure grief drifted on the wind, a wordless lament. My claws flexed as it swirled around me, my feathers rustling as I banked in the wind. A melody and countermelody of sorrow and guilt. It was so beautiful. So heartbreakingly pure. Raw.

My husband was a changeling. I was compelled to monogamy. He was compelled to polygamy. We never should have loved each other. I never should have chosen him. He never should have returned my affection. But we had. Our love had been so hard. We didn’t fit together well. We had to shape each other, carving a place for the other in our hearts.

And what he did to my mother ... That was at the beginning, when our marriage was ill-fitted.

I could keep flying. I could keep feeling so lost. I could raise our son without him, making an empty nest. Or ... Or I could smooth another rough edge to make us fit together even better than before. My claws flexed. I balanced on those two decisions as his song wavered, the wind shifting, taking it away from me.

My soul could be desolate of love or populated with it.

I turned, my wings flapping hard. My heart beat faster. The anger was still there, but I concentrated on that other emotion I felt. That joy on witnessing that my husband survived the devastation of the dragon’s attack. With every flap of my heart, my gizzard tightened with fear. Was this the right decision? What if he betrayed me again? What if he seduced my mother again? What if she ... liked it?

What if she craved that passion and wondered why my father never gave it to her again?

I rounded a peak, my keen eyes spotting him sitting on the cliff’s edge, Sophia beside him, her eyes closed as she rocked to grief of his music. Gold glittered on the mountain slope. Light caught thin strings.

His broken lyre.

He looked up as I swept towards him. His face tightened. His song fluttered. Sophia blinked as I landed on the other side of my husband, blurring into my avian form, my clothing springing upon my body. I perched beside my husband, knees folded up to my chest. I hugged them, balanced on the balls of my feet. Sophia stood up and hurried away as Chaun stared at me, his eyes wide, his body trembling.

“I’m sorry about your lyre,” I said, not sure what else to say.

He shrugged, just staring at me. Such fear in his eyes, warring with hope.

My stomach roiled. “Would you sleep with her now?”

“No,” he said at once. “I understand now. You showed me how important monogamy is to your people. I wouldn’t seduce any avian, especially not your mother.”

“Good,” I said, and then I sat down beside him, legs joining his dangling off the edge. Everything felt fragile.

I forced myself to reach out and take his hand. He smiled at me, his body still trembling. He didn’t hold my hand tight, but with a light touch, like he feared if he squeezed too hard I’d fly away. I took a deep breath. The pain was still there, the betrayal still stinging, but...

But he had changed since that day. And so had I. If I found out in the aftermath, I would have hated him. But know I understood him. I rested my head on his shoulder. His hand tightened on mine.

“Are we going to the princess?” I asked.

Chaun shook his head. “She betrayed me to her husband. That’s why he caught us abed. Why I had to run.”

A new anger shot through me. Indignation chirped out of me.

He smiled. “She regrets it, but...”

“But you don’t want our child raised around her.” I nodded my head in agreement. “She gets jealous so easily.” I bit my lip. I don’t think I could return to Black Glass Aerie, to see my mother, knowing a secret that would devastate her. “So ... where are we going?”

Chaun looked down at the pass. “I think I know where.”

Knight Angela

It took most of the day, and a half-dozen loads of cum, for Faoril to bring Lady Dominari’s corpse down to the base of the mountain pass, her desolation spread out around us, the spears of the Despeir Mountain thrusting above us. She placed the dragon on a small hill near the pass’s entrance and then, with the help of Aurora’s elementals, excavated the burrow.

As the world darkened into twilight, I stood over the grave, staring at the dragon’s corpse, her severed wing draped like a cloak over her body. She lay coiled, her head resting near her tail, her good eye closed. She appeared asleep. That at any moment, fire would breathe from her mouth and she would rise.

Tears burned in my eyes.

My friends and my lover stood with me. I was so angry when I found out that Lady Delilah had manipulated me onto this Quest. That, thanks to King Edward and High Virgin Vivian, my task wasn’t chosen at random, but selected, against all custom, to ensure that I would become High Queen.

But now, I just wanted her alive again. I could still remember the first time I ever laid eyes on her, riding onto my father’s estate, looking so regal in her armor, similar to what I wore. A cape had draped down her back and across the flanks of her warhorse, her hair so fiery-bright. She had been so elegant, so powerful, so beautiful.

A knight.

She’d inspired me. I loved her from that moment, worshiping her from afar. And I had one night of passion with her, shared with my acolyte.

“You brought us all together,” I said, my voice choked by tears. “You manipulated us, but I am still glad for the journey. For the friends I made, and the love I found.” I glanced at Sophia, tears shining on her cheeks. “I understand why you did it all. Why you wanted me to be High Queen. You missed him. Your husband. You wanted to find that love again.

“Which is why I know you’re at peace. Your soul is free of the last thousand years of pain and torment, of the suffering you put yourself through. You wouldn’t have been happy as my concubine. Not truly. You might have found pleasure, you might have convinced yourself serving me was proper, but in your deepest heart, I know you would yearn for him.

“You spent a thousand years ensuring his dying dream would come true. That is a devotion I could never live up to. He must truly have been a great man to inspire that in you. And I am glad you shared a bit of that with me. I hope you find him in the Astral Realm, that you serve your true king once more.

“Thank you for bring us together. I won’t be High Queen, but I will put your Peter’s sword to good use. I will be a knight. I will protect the world in my own way.”

Sophia took my hand, squeezing it. She nodded her head, her face so fierce.

Chaun and Aurora’s song swelled, a lament that spilled tears down my face. I swayed, staring down at Lady Delilah one last time. She wasn’t a monster, though she had killed so many. She had tried to do the right thing. That was all any of us could do. She had made mistakes, terrible mistakes. She had caused pain.