She smiled, and it was so adorable that it stung my heart. “Finish your wine, Earthman,” she said. “We must bind again.”
Of course, I’d never get tired of getting into bed with Sephara, but the timing, and the context, seemed a little off.
“You know how much I love being with you,” I said. “But this seems a little strange, doesn’t it?”
Without a word, Sephara walked over to the bed chamber door and locked it. As I drank my wine, she undid her kimono, letting it slip quietly down her supple body until she stood naked before me.
She curled her forefinger, beckoning me to her. I swallowed the last of my wine and silently went to her.
There was yet another strange look to her, one that was a far cry from the way she’d looked at me the last time we made love.
She ran her fingers down my cheeks, got on her tiptoes, and kissed me. The kiss was tender, yet there was an undercurrent of unmistakable intensity running just below the surface of it.
I tightened my arms around her waist, pulling her naked form tighter to mine, but when I tried to lay her down on the bed, she made me stop.
Instead, she shoved me onto the bed. I stared into her normally-mischievous eyes but noted a certain foreboding in her gaze. She climbed onto the bed with me and slowly undid my pants, never once breaking eye contact with me.
I pulled her on top of me, aching to taste her mouth again, and as we kissed, she grabbed me by my shaft and angled the tip of me into her warm opening.
I gasped as I felt her tight wetness, the warmth of her walls, and Sephara let out a sudden, piercing moan as she took me inside of her.
“What’s going on?” I asked her, but she silenced me with a kiss. When I thought to ask her again, she merely tightened her walls around me, promptly leading me to forget all about my question.
Twice, I tried to snatch her by the hips and lay her down, so that I could spread her legs and take her, but each time, she grabbed my wrists and guided them back down to the mattress.
Now, she had her grip right around my wrists, holding my hands above my head. Aside from the obvious desire burning her gaze, I realized she had a look of determination on her face, as if this act of lovemaking was more than it seemed.
She quickened her pace, arched her back, and I drank in the sight of her naked form as she rode me. “Sephara…” I panted, unable to finish my sentence because I was so lost in the sensation of her, so close to the brink of orgasm.
Then, suddenly, I remembered what she’d said mere moments ago.
She never said that she wanted to make love.
No, Sephara had said that we must bind.
As if in response to my realization, she moaned and tightened herself around me anew. I looked up into her eyes and saw them sparkling with blue restoration magic.
But more than just her eyes, her fingertips and her mound were similarly glowing blue…glowing, yes, but also seeming to transfer to me.
All throughout my body, I felt a sudden, almost violent torrent of magical energy flood into me.
“Sephara!” I gasped, even as I wrenched and writhed beneath her as her tight sex brought me right up to the edge of an explosion.
Now, that blue, sparkling restoration magic flashed brighter and brighter still. Each time her eyes and body pulsed with that magical light, more of it seemed to pulse right into me.
Soon, though, the blue sparkling lights grew dimmer with every flash, and that was all the evidence I needed to convince me of what I’d been fearing.
In this new act of binding, Sephara was transferring her magic into me. And not just her supply of mana. No, she was transferring the very essence of her magic into me.
I grabbed her by the hips, so lost in the tightness inside her that I could scarcely think of anything else.
Suddenly, Sephara screamed as she came, and she dug her fingernails into my chest and fell upon me shuddering. A moment later, I came as well, an explosion that made my body convulse and made my voice ring out throughout the bed chamber until, at once, the world disappeared into a fiery haze of blazing, sparkling blue.
*****
This time, when Ciara reached out to me, I understood what Sephara meant when she said this wouldn’t be like those times we’d spoken before.
The sensation that I was falling in all directions at once was familiar, in a way, yet far more violent than it had been before.
I felt as though I was being stretched, as if the concept of space-time itself was intent on ripping me to shreds.
I seemed to fall forever like that, into a void of impenetrable dark, until finally I recognize the watery, dark blue void that I’d come to know.
But this time, the blue void shimmering in the distance seemed to be below me, rather than in front of me, and I was falling toward it at what felt like the speed of sound.
The only thing that helped to keep my wits about me was the certainty that Ciara would meet me when I fell through that void.
Yet, I quickly pulled up my restoration and shielding spells. I remembered what had happened to Ciara when she’d reached through the void to hand me a teleportation amulet, back in the early days of my adventure, and remembered how badly she’d hurt herself.
But that’s when I realized what Sephara had done to me.
She’d given me her magical essence, yeah, but not in a way that I’d anticipated. She hadn’t given me any new restoration spells or improved my master-level skills.
No, when we were binding, Sephara had been using the very essence of her restoration powers to protect me.
Suddenly, I shot through the void. My vision filled with blue fire as Sephara’s protective spell absorbed the cataclysmic damage of falling through the void. My skin instantly grew sweaty, and even blistered in some places, but on the whole, I got through unscathed.
I didn’t land nearly as hard as I thought. Instead, I seemed to float down into a soft, grass-covered field. I blinked and the blue fire was gone.
I looked up and saw a lush, ultramarine sky that seemed to be on the verge of dusk. There were strange, multicolored stars dotting the silky sky and the faint glow of an oncoming sunset burned on the horizon in every direction.
As I stood up, I got the feeling that I was being watched.
Behind me, a billion tiny corpuscles of shimmering rainbow-colored light suddenly burst into view. I took a step back, grabbed the hilt of my amber longsword, then realized yet another difference from the last time I spoke with Ciara.
Whenever she brought me into that watery void to speak with her, it had only truly been my psyche that had made the journey. Sure, I’d manifest as my physical self, but it was only a way to process what had been happening.
This time was different. This time, I was really here. I could feel the difference the moment I closed my fingers around the hilt of my amber longsword.
The glowing rainbow corpuscles combined and took shape. There was a bright, multicolored flash that nearly blinded me.
Yet when my vision cleared, I saw Ciara standing in front of me, in the flesh.
I supposed I should have been more cautious. After all, the Emperor had taken me off-guard like this before, but as Ciara’s lips curved into a grin, I knew she was the real deal.
Without so much as muttering a word, I stepped toward her. I looked at her shoulder-length red hair then brushed it away from her neck. The skin there was smooth, unblemished…and there was no shackle around her neck.
She reached up and took my hands. The strange forever-sunset encircling the world warmed her face, slathering her in sunset gold. For all the time I’d been here, I’d been aching to see Ciara in the flesh. Now that I had her, I found that I was all but incapable of uttering a single word.
“You’ve come, just as I knew you would,” she said.
Without being filtered through telepathy or the void, her voice sounded smoother and sweeter than it ever had before. And, now that she was free of the Emperor’s control, there was a certain light effe
rvescence in her tone.
“Ciara,” I said, finally finding my voice. “I was starting to think that I’d never get to actually touch you.”
She laughed an innocent laugh, with nary a hint of the sad tones that filled her voice back when she was imprisoned.
I looked around at the strange landscape surrounding us. “Ciara, where are we?” I asked.
She smiled then took my hand. “In the last place anyone would ever suspect,” she said. “Come with me, Champion. Walk with me.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
We walked alongside a gently babbling stream, bluer than blue, like liquid sapphires. Flowers sprouted from the earth and bloomed within seconds, as if to greet our approach, and their multicolored petals were like a prism of light.
Strangely ethereal butterflies drifted past, but they’d vanish and reform in little puffs of neon light. Overhead, doves circled and chirped then darted off into the trees.
Ciara took a long, deep breath, enjoying the warm summer-like air and her gentle fingers tightened around mine as we walked.
She sighed. “You’ve figured out the Emperor’s plan, I suppose,” she said.
I nodded. “We have,” I said. “He’s pulling his troops home. Then he’s going to unleash an army of monsters on us.”
“Indeed he is,” she answered. “And just as he exploited my magic to call upon the seraphs, he’s using the magic he siphoned from me to open the door to the darkrealms.”
“Does he know you’re here?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not at the moment, no,” she said. “When he siphons my magic, he does it a bit at a time, or else he gets overwhelmed. I waited until the last time he was done with me to flee here. Now, he’s deep in meditation, working on opening the doorways to the darkrealms. When he attempts to refill his magic, though, he’ll realize that I’m gone.”
“So if you’re gone, he won’t be able to keep the portals to the darkrealms open?” I asked.
“Not for as long as he’d like, no,” she said. “But even so, he currently has the strength to open the portals and bring a legion to his side. Our forces will be vastly outnumbered, Champion.”
“It’s always something,” I grumbled.
Despite the grim battles that were awaiting us, Ciara nevertheless turned to me and smiled. “For all the years that I’ve been under the Emperor’s thumb, I’ve never seen him as frightened as he is now.”
“He might be frightened, but that just makes him more dangerous,” I said.
“Indeed, you’re quite right about that, Champion,” Ciara said. “In his desperation, the Emperor will grow far more powerful than he ever has before.”
“If that’s the case, I don’t know how I’ll ever defeat him,” I said. “Even when I wielded the Spirit Stone, it wasn’t enough to kill him. He’s more powerful than the Necromancer, that’s for sure.”
Ciara smiled sadly. “You’re right. The Emperor transcended his own mortality thousands of years ago and his power has only grown exponentially ever since,” she said. “I fear that he’s the most powerful being in all the realms combined, save for Mother Gaia herself.”
“So, what should I do?” I asked. “I’ll need Gaia Stones and Gaia Gems to defeat him, but I don’t know where to find any. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have time to go acquire them. There’s no telling when the Emperor’s going to make his move.”
“Again, you’re right,” Ciara said as we looked out over the sapphire stream running through the grass. “The rebellion is going to need you in their fight against the Emperor’s dark horde.”
“It’s hopeless,” I said.
She stopped, turned to me, and took both my hands in hers. “It was hopeless,” she said. “Gamelord, Mother Gaia has shown me visions of the future. Even armed with her stones and gems that are currently in existence, there’s not one iteration of the future where you both kill the Emperor and survive the battle.”
I swallowed hard. My mouth went dry. I thought of the False Champion, who’d fallen in her battle against the Necromancer.
“If I have to give my life for the rebellion – and for you and your sisters – you know that I will,” I said.
The forever-sunset glow struck the sapphire water at our feet. The light reflected off of Ciara’s porcelain skin, giving her an otherworldly hue to her face. “I know that quite well, Champion,” she said. “But even when the Emperor is dead, there are other threats to the realm, and the people will need your assistance. So no, I can’t let you sacrifice yourself, even for a cause as great as this one.”
“Ciara, there might be threats to the realm in the future, but the Emperor is threatening to destroy us now,” I said as gently as I could.
She didn’t reply right away. Instead, she reached up with her gentle fingertips and ran them down my cheek. Her smile widened, yet also grew just a note sadder.
She turned to the horizon and gestured toward the ring of sunlight hugging the world. “This world is beautiful, is it not?” Ciara asked.
“It is,” I answered.
She sighed wistfully. “This is the world wherein I’ll spend eternity,” Ciara said. “I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of it.”
I frowned. “What do you mean by that?” I asked.
She turned back to me. “Champion, this world is one I created,” she went on. “This world is the nexus of what will become Mother Gaia’s greatest gem.”
“What do you mean, ‘will become?’” I asked.
“I’m not finished building it,” she said. “There are still steps to complete its construction.”
“I didn’t know that it was possible to build new Gaia Gems,” I said.
“Neither did I,” Ciara said, grinning. “Not until Mother Gaia showed me the path.”
Despite Ciara’s smile and the beauty of the world around me, I started to get a bad feeling about this place.
“Ciara, why did you bring me here?” I asked.
“Because this is the only place I’d be able to meet you in the flesh, Gamelord,” she said.
I lowered my head, gritting my teeth, and felt tears threatening to leak from my eyes. “Tell me how you built this place,” I whispered.
“I think you’ve already figured that out,” Ciara answered softly.
A single tear zigzagged down my cheek like a prisoner evading capture. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at her as the awful truth filled my mind.
“You’re constructing a new Gaia Gem from your own soul,” I said. “The soul of a Mananymph is like a shard of Mother Gaia herself. A gem made of a Mananymph’s soul would be more powerful than any of the others. The tradeoff is that you forfeit your freedom, that you can’t leave this place…because you are this place.”
“See?” Ciara giggled. “I told Sephara she’d been wrong to question your intelligence.”
I laughed at that, despite the grief growing in my heart. “Ciara, you can’t do this,” I said.
“I’ve made my decision, Earthman,” she said.
“There has to be another way,” I countered.
“There isn’t,” she said. “At least, there’s no other way for you to defeat the Emperor while staying alive to guard the realm in the future.”
I shook my head. “You can’t make me,” I said. “I’ll refuse to wield the gem. Ciara, I will find a way to defeat the Empire without you doing this.”
“You won’t,” she said softly. “And I know I can’t make you wield this gem, however, you should know that I’m not the only Mananymph to sacrifice something to construct this world.”
I swallowed the growing lump in my throat. “What did Sephara sacrifice by getting me here?” I asked.
“Her connection to restoration magic,” Ciara answered. “Just as Pandora’s connection to mysticism was severed all those years ago, Sephara suffers the same…if not even a bit worse.”
“Can she reestablish her connection to it?” I asked. “Pandora did.”
“It’s unlikely,�
� Ciara said. “But when I told Sephara that sacrificing her magic was the only way to get you here alive, she offered to do it without question. If you refuse to take this gem, Champion, then Sephara will have sacrificed her powers for nothing.” She paused, took a breath. “And that means I would have sacrificed myself for nothing.”
Then, the awful reality struck me in the face like a fist.
“You can’t undo what you’ve already done,” I said.
“No,” she answered. “All I can do is finish it. There’s no going back. And, even if there were…”
I smiled, brushed my fingers against her cheek, then ran them through her hair. “Even if there were, you’d never do it,” I said. “You’ve got an iron will, Ciara. And I admire it, even though I wish you hadn’t done this.”
She reached up and clutched my hand and held it tighter to her cheek. “Armed with my gem, you’ll have the best chance – the only chance – of defeating the Emperor. But Gamelord, this future isn’t set in stone. My gem will give you the opportunity to defeat him, but it’s your spirit that will decide who wins this coming battle.”
I stared into her eyes and knew what I had to do. “I’ll wield this gem, Ciara,” I said. “I’ll do it for Sephara, and I’ll do it for you.”
“You warm my heart by agreeing to this, Gamelord,” she answered.
“But what happens if the gem is destroyed?” I asked.
She laughed. “Once finished, you could place this gem into the middle of a thousand exploding stars and it wouldn’t be destroyed,” she said. “Mother Gaia has blessed this place. Though I sacrifice my spirit, Mother Gaia won’t allow harm to come to me here.”
“Okay, but what happens when the battle is over?” I asked. “You said you’d have to stay here for eternity, so there’s no undoing the gem.”
“No,” she said. “This will be my home from now until forever.”
“But will I be able to return?” I asked.
She looked off, with tears brimming in her eyes, the same color as the sapphire waters of the stream beside us. “No,” she said. “I fear that you won’t, Gamelord.”
“So you’ll be alone, then,” I said.
Monstergirl Quest Book Three Page 18