Barbarian Dragonslayer (Princesses of the Ironbound Book 5)

by Aaron Crash

  She had them listening, and she liked the power she felt, commanding their attention. It had been a long time since she’d been in a classroom, teaching, but this felt like that kind of a performance. “We are on the cusp of a new age, the dawn of a new epoch, a time of stories—a dragon in the west, a demon king conquering the sky cities of Reytah, the fragmenting of power among the orcs of the Blood Steppes, and the consolidation of the queendoms of the Swamp Coast. The Josen and Cujan wedding will only be the first, I assure you. Even the long-lived elves in Greenhome are currently in crisis. But with Princess Nehenna here, I won’t say more.”

  Lillee brushed her fingers over her left arm. “I’m not a princess. I’m Sullied.”

  Della waved away her modesty. “If Silent Scream assassins murdered your mothers, you would be next in line, Lillee Nehenna. I assure you, cuff-less or not, you could rule Greenhome if that was your wish.”

  “It’s not,” the girl said quietly.

  Della could only imagine the desires going through her strong, youthful body. To be a hundred and fifty years old and to not wear a cuff, she must be burning all the time. Was that why the beautiful girl was shifting on the bench?

  Della looked them all in the face as she spoke. “I swore an oath not to touch the artifacts in the Illuminates Spire, and I mean to keep that oath. However, if I have magic items the Alumni Consortium know nothing about? I can use them with impunity.”

  The Princept turned to Ymir. “So I ask you, once again, when you have your eight rings crafted, what do you plan to do? What is in your heart, Ymir of Old Ironbound. Do you wish to rule, Ymir Virtorg, the barbarian ruler of the Blood Steppes? You don’t want the Swamp Coast or you would’ve married Arribelle Josen.”

  “Cruel, stupid Arri,” Jennybelle said softly.

  Ymir didn’t answer. He just gazed into Della’s soul with his brown eyes. They were green when he wanted sex. They were icy blue when he warred. They were brown when he was at peace.

  For a second, the other women were forgotten, and it was just the Princept and the barbarian, gazes locked.

  Ymir spoke in a firm voice. “You said blessed with magic. I say cursed. I won’t quibble. As for what I want? I’m going to finish the rings. I’m going to graduate from your school. I will keep my family safe. And in this land of demons, dragons, and fairies, we will make our way. For now, this is my home, and the Axman can kiss my ass if he thinks I won’t protect it.”

  Della sipped her wine. “So you’ve said. In that, we are agreed. But there will be a time when you will need to have a better answer than that. Not for me. You’ll leave soon enough. But for yourself and your wives. Now, I’m tired of your suspicions and your testing. I’ve passed. On to this seventh ring. I have questions. From what I’ve read, four of the eight rings mirror the four schools of magic: Form, Flow, Sunfire, and Moons. There are four rings that are more enigmatic: The Form within the Flow. The Sun between the Moons. The Fire in the Lightning. The Stone in the Tree. How do the rings we have translate into those categories?”

  Ymir made a face. “Beecusli was a fool. I wouldn’t wipe my ass with the Magius Artium Odditia. The words sound pretty. He was trying to compete with Octovato, who I hate even more, if that’s possible. At least with Octovato, we had enough information to craft the Yellow Scorch and the Winter Flame.”

  “What we need,” Gatha barked, “are the resources that Gulnash the Betrayer accessed when he made the Crystal Null. That is clear. Unless you have other texts in the Illuminates Spire that name the final two rings or have information on how to craft them.”

  “I don’t. And I’ve looked into the rings extensively, I assure you, for two years now. I find it interesting that so much is known about them, but how scattered and contradictory the information is! Many claim that Beecusli led the other scholars in ringology.” Della gestured at Ymir. “Obviously not.”

  “Obviously,” he smirked.

  Della smelled a new perfume in the room. The lanterns flickered, as did the Sunfire torches. Every light in the room seemed to dim. Della knew they all felt the presence of the shadow that had been haunting the school for months now.

  Ymir didn’t lose his focus, but the other women did. They glanced around, including Gatha, who had a shine to her. Had Gatha been haunted by the ghost as much as Della? Had she been tempted? Had she felt the cold eroticism of the shade?

  “And Sarina Sia is your doing, I would imagine,” Della said with a wry smile.

  “That is one of her bones, yes.” Ymir nudged the Yellow Scorch.

  “Do we know what she wants?” Della asked.

  Ymir shrugged.

  Lillee whispered, “To protect the school. The Princept loved this place. Like we all do. I’ve read some of her writings. Black-haired, dark-eyed—not so common among the Ohlyrra. But even less common, she was cuff-less and she was never marked as Sullied.”

  “The Akkir hate her, if not outright fear her,” Ymir added. “Which makes me like her.”

  Della realized she was very late to this particular party. These little bitches and their big bastard were up to their tits in forces beyond all of their comprehension. The idea irked the Princept. It also made her smile. She would join them, and they would all either rise together or die together.

  She felt free. She felt wild. She felt powerful. It had been a long time since she’d had such feelings.

  “And what would happen if I were to put on the Veil Tear Ring? What if I tried to break through the Obanathy cantrips that hid Gulnash and his ring-forging?” Della saw the shock in Tori’s and Lillee’s eyes.

  Ymir lifted the silver ring with black runes. “It might not work at all. It might drive you insane. Or the beast might devour you.”

  “He means Fluffy.” Tori popped another treat into her mouth. “I put it on myself, up there in the Coruscation Shelves. It works best to be around your target, though. Something about being so close to them, but we never had a chance with Gulnash. The Gruul took care of his corpse pretty quick. And Gulnash didn’t want to be found out. And I think even the Akkir don’t much like the Crystal Null. I wouldn’t expect you to have much better luck.”

  “Sunfire is my specialty,” Della said. “But I have Flow magic. Let me do some research. I trust you, Gatha, when you said you have combed every single book in the Coruscation Shelves. You know our collection better than anyone. So whatever he found still must be there.”

  Della had some ideas. She would pursue them. However, she’d spent enough time in the Scrollery being conspiratorial with scholars. She didn’t want to get caught, and she didn’t want people to see her going up to her room.

  She excused herself, her mind racing.

  Ymir and his wives had worked a miracle in forging five Akkiric Rings. They’d done what few sorcerers could do. And thanks to Gulnash the Betrayer, they had six of the rings, out of eight rings total.

  The Honored Princept returned to the Throne Auditorium to make sure people saw her. She stayed a while to establish her alibi. She saw Ymir and his wives return, and they danced more, but she could see Ymir had something on his mind.

  Della left, now that Ymir was there, but she didn’t go upstairs right away. She went to her mezzanine office, made some notes about forging the seventh ring, and then decided that it was safe for her to go to her room.

  She didn’t use Moons magic to fly up to her door. Instead, she walked up the six flights of stairs. She was on the way to the door of her apartment when she passed her alcove office.

  Della was surprised to see a collection of fairies sitting there, in that alcove, on the sofa, in the chairs. More and more, she was seeing the fairies together, and more than ever, Dillyday Everjewel frequented her campus. Normally, such a dignitary would need security measures, there would be fanfare, special banquets, but not with the blue-haired mistress of the Undergem Guild. She could fly about as she liked, and she had her own security, Jacinta Sugartime, in her armor, with her sword and shield.

  Della wasn�
�t sure if that little sword would do any damage, but Dillyday had Jacinta around her all the time. Blue hair and pink hair, the older fairy with the wrinkles around her eyes and the youthful Jacinta—both sat on the couch. Della and Dilly, the names were just close enough to make it almost comical.

  Ziziva was there, as was her friend Zorynda Gold, sitting in one of the chairs, while Professor Lola sat in the other.

  All the fairies smiled at her. But Dillyday’s smile eclipsed everything else. Her blue eyes were so beautiful, her lithe body so alluring, however small, tiny, but Dilly had bigger breasts than all the other Fayee. The biggest Della had seen.

  Being with the scholars had made Della horny. She’d planned on going up to her room and masturbating, and she would still do that, but first, she had to pay her respects to the richest fairy in all of Thera.

  It was one of the prices one paid for being Princept—one always had to be fundraising.

  The fairies spun their wings, filling the air with their sweet glitter.

  Della grew faint. She thought she might pass out, and then she heard a voice from the shadows. “You won’t remember, but I will, Honored Princept. I will remember. Truth be told, I’m as curious as you are about this strange turn of events.”

  That was Sarina Sia. From where, Della wasn’t sure, and then Della woke up in her bed, in her room, alone. She didn’t smell the ghostly elf woman, but she did notice glitter on the back of her hand.

  She sniffed her fingers. The scent was unmistakable, and it wasn’t hers.

  What had happened?

  “Fucking fairies,” she growled. Then she smiled at the words. She’d probably uttered the truth despite her lack of memory. Had there been something in the wine?

  Perhaps. Or perhaps the rumors about the Fayee were true.

  Chapter Five

  AFTER THEIR MEETING with the Princept in the Scrollery, Ymir agreed to go back to the party, though his mind was troubled for any number of reasons.

  He hated that Della kept asking him about his future. He was a clansman of the north. They lived for the day, for the season, and did the work of the moment. To pretend to know the future was foolish. Could he have planned for his eventual curse?

  He couldn’t have. But the Lonely Man had.

  The demon had known that Ymir’s fate would lead down into the demon’s temple home with the eight boiling pools. Eight pools. Five full of green boiling water to the east. A north mud pit. A south mud pit. And the central pool of darkness. Eight pools. Eight Akkiric Rings.

  There was a message there, a secret in the symbols, that he hadn’t mentioned to anyone just yet. The very idea that the Lonely Man had chosen him to curse didn’t sit well with Ymir. It brought up a steely anger in his gut.

  Also, the fact that Gulnash the Betrayer had forged a ring, one of Ymir’s rings, stoked fury in the breast of the clansman. Then there was including Della. The Princept had tried to hide her disappointment in her own powerlessness with her words. She didn’t want to be two steps behind. Fine. But she had been. And now she was risking both her career and her life helping Ymir to forge all eight rings. It felt like added responsibility. And while Ymir would call Della a friend of sorts, she wasn’t a part of his ptoor.

  Ymir knew his judician year wouldn’t be peaceful. His business would have challenges thanks to the war on Reytah. Unless you sold swords, war was not good for business.

  And that damn quote from Amleth kept going around in his head. To forge tomorrow in the hours of this day is to become the master of life.

  To get ahead of the trouble for once, to control the events of the day, that would allow them all manner of power. It would mean pushing the power of the Veil Tear Ring, to work with it, not so much so as to see the past and present, but to delve into the future.

  All of these thoughts swirled around Ymir’s skull while at the First Night Festival. They continued to trouble him when he took to his bed in the Zoo, a bed he shared with Lillee and Jennybelle. Both Gatha and Tori liked their autonomy at night, so they stayed up in their rooms. Tori had her room and some storage for her gadgets and recipes and other things she collected. Being the daughter of the thane, Tori could buy whatever she wanted. And she bought a lot, though it was generally things for other people, or something that would help her cook better. Ymir didn’t complain. Her having her own storage room kept the kitchen tidier.

  The Zoo was a collection of rooms hanging off the side of the southern cliffs on the Moons College side of the campus. The rooms were connected by a combination of ladders and sharp staircases. The suite at the bottom had been Charibda’s. The mermaid’s things were still there. Ribby wasn’t.

  If nothing else that year, they needed to somehow give Ribby the ability to breathe on land again, outside of StormLight Island. It was another problem that circled around Ymir’s head.

  With Lillee on his left, and Jenny on his right, Ymir finally found sleep.

  He smelled Sarina Sia’s musky perfume. He heard her voice.

  Della won’t remember. But we will. The Fayee have been a mystery since the beginning of time. Even the Vempor Aegel Akkridor himself didn’t know their true nature. Not demon. Not human. The fairies are other, a part of the world itself. Passion. Lust. Life.

  Ymir knew it was a dream, or a vision, and he was no stranger to visions. His Flow magic had been a chaos inside him when he first started, and he’d been thrown into visions. And he’d experienced the magic of the Veil Tear Ring, which stopped the fairy magic from stealing his memories.

  It seemed Sarina Sia was immune as well.

  She was showing him a vision.

  Sarina was there, that night, in the alcove on the sixth floor of the Librarium. It was the Princept’s special meeting place, semi-private with a couch in front of a low table flanked by two chairs. All the seating had plenty of cushioning. The lightning of the Moons magic crackled around the shelves, keeping the ironbound books free of rust.

  Della’s apartment was on the seventh floor, and the Illuminates Spire was on the eighth.

  The Princept was talking with the Fayee in her alcove office. It was the same group of fairies that Ymir had seen in the Angel’s Kiss the other night. No, there was one fairy absent. Ziziva wasn’t there.

  Ymir watched. Dillyday Everjewel stood up, going from tiny fairy to a woman, taller, stately, with her blue wings tucked behind her back. Her gown was open to reveal plump cleavage. The fairy drew Della down onto the couch, sitting her next to Jacinta, who was still tiny in her pink armor.

  Sarina’s voice came to him. Not just a fairy, Ymir. Dillyday Everjewel is the fairy queen. Queen Deedee. She is more than the mistress of the Undergem Guild. Far more.

  Della seemed stunned, shocked, and her own robe was open. This wasn’t a fantasy, or a dream, or even a vision. This was happening, right at that moment, and Sarina Sia wanted him to see.

  Your Princept is beautiful, is she not? the specter asked.

  Della was, especially with the blooms of lust on her cheeks. Queen Deedee leaned in to kiss Della, whose legs fell open. Her robes were in the way, so Ymir couldn’t see her sweet pussy, but he felt himself getting hard in his bed. He held Lillee’s long, slender body against his. She had her back to him. He felt himself rubbing against her, rubbing his hard cock against her soft body. He was still in the dream, but he was also waking up.

  Queen Deedee leaned back and said something, but Ymir couldn’t hear what it was. She opened her gown to reveal full tits with round, suckable nipples that dominated the ends of those cones. The fairy queen’s smile was evil as she pulled on her nipples, getting them hard, and continued to talk to Della, who seemed in a daze. Deedee might have an older face, but her body looked young, very young.

  Of course Della was in a daze. She was being ensorcelled by the fairies, though if she wanted to leave, she could’ve.

  Queen Deedee leaned in, and the Princept took a tit in her mouth. Della sucked on the fairy’s big nipple while cupping the other breast.
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br />   Professor Lola and Zorynda Gold were tiny fairies, sitting in a side chair. But they were stripping off their clothes until their miniature bodies were naked. Both were only a single foot tall. The professor turned to suck on Zorynda’s tongue.

  Zorynda was no longer a scholar at the school—like Ziziva, she’d left to work on her candy business. However, seeing the young fairy kissing the older one seemed taboo. Ymir grew even harder, especially since he had a view of their pussies, dark-haired Lolazny and golden Zorynda, golden hair on her head and between her legs.

  Now the student was kissing her former teacher while both of their hands drifted to each other’s sexes. Then Lolazny and Zorynda broke their kiss to gaze at their queen, who was currently letting the Honored Princept suck on her tits.

  Then the new pink-haired fairy, the one in armor, came over to kiss the queen. She was no longer tiny, but as big as her queen, and as naked as the professor and the former scholar. Jacinta Sugartime was not a warrior’s name, though she seemed a warrior, with her strong, flexing arms and tight athletic body.

  Ymir admired Jacinta’s perfectly curved ass. So did the Princept. Della reached out and grabbed the pink-haired fairy’s butt as the Princept continued to suck on the fairy queen’s tits. Della had pulled up her robes, higher, higher, until the robes were above her hips.

  Ymir cursed this vision. He couldn’t see the Princept’s tits, nor her oheesy, for she wore pannee. However, he did see the dark patch of lust in the gusset.

  Ymir had always known Della was a passionate woman—if she fucked like she fought, she might even be able to keep up with Lillee and Gatha.