While I was delighted to have my Charter close to completion, I was absolutely overjoyed by the prospect of Líann’s departure. The elven queen’s ability to out-maneuver me had given me fits, and hopefully the public reception, where she could do little harm, would be the last time I’d have to deal with her for some time.
The only troubling note during that time was Bane’s continued absence. He’d never returned after our battle with Gilfri’s soldiers, and although the bond we shared let me know that nothing bad had happened to him, I was growing concerned. Fortunately, after a few days, I found him in his room again one evening.
‘Bane, you’re back!’ I sent to him in a mixture of joy and relief as I rushed to embrace him.
Yes, I have returned Sintári.
‘Why did you stay away from me for so long? Is everything alright?’
I am well. I stayed away to make sure that was the case.
I understood what he meant without him having to offer any uncomfortable explanations. The last time I’d seen him was when he dragged the body of an elf into the woods, intent on eating the man he’d killed. While I didn’t want to make his return any more difficult than was necessary, I needed to know what had compelled him to act as he had.
‘You have to explain what happened, Bane.’
I cannot. All I can tell you is that I had to do it. I do not know why that was the case. The urge has passed, but I believe that it will return when I kill again.
‘This urge you felt, your compulsion to feed; do you have the sense that it will be limited to those you kill in battle, or do we need to take precautions to keep my people safe?’
Your people are safe from me, Sintári. It seems to be some sort of battle-rage, at least that is how I can best describe the feeling.
‘Is that all you’re able to tell me?’ I sent back, letting my sense of concern flow to him freely.
There was a bit of… discomfort afterwards, Sintári. That is why it took me so long to return. I felt a sense of itchiness and irritation inside. I waited until it passed, and I was certain that there were no ill-effects before I would allow myself to return to you.
‘What kind of discomfort? Were you ill?’
No, it was not quite that bad. Just an odd sensation in my mouth and throat, and a strange feeling inside me. But it has gone now, and I feel better.
Bane’s description of his discomfort reminded me of Nentai’s curious inspection of him, when she had carefully examined his mouth and teeth. She had seemed oddly satisfied with what she’d found, and declared that it would not be long before the nature of the transformation I’d brought on in him would finally become obvious to me. I couldn’t help but wonder if devouring his kill had been some necessary step in his metamorphosis.
‘As long as you’re fine and are sure that it is safe for you to be here, then I don’t care.’ I sent to him as I got up to retrieve some of the blankets we kept in his room. ‘Let’s just get some rest now. We’ll deal with whatever happens when we have to.’
I bundled up next to him and lay my head in the crook of his foreleg as he curled himself around me in an almost protective circle. The thrumming of his loud purr was like music to my ears, and for the first time in a while, I sent a thread of my love to him.
He jolted just slightly as I slipped the thin tendril past his scales, but settled down immediately as the emotion gently filtered into him. Together, we soothed each other to sleep, him with his purr and me with my loving thread, and we both slept far better that night than we had since before Bane’s self-imposed exile.
My blissful sleep came to a rather abrupt and violent end the next morning when Bane broke out in a harsh fit of coughing. He jerked his head up, and I was unceremoniously dumped onto the pile of his pillows as his hacking became more and more intense. Finally, as I was trying to free myself from the tangle of blankets I found myself in after I’d been dislodged from my comfortable sleeping spot, I heard him blast out a tremendous sneeze, which brought the entire episode to an end.
When I got loose from the covers, I saw Bane staring mesmerized at the draperies that were used to cover the glass doors when we wanted their light to be dimmed. His episode had apparently knocked over a table or something where a lamp or candle must have been left burning, and the fabric of the draperies had caught fire. Bane should have been able to tear them down and stomp out the small flames easily but was totally useless as he stood there transfixed by the accident he’d caused. So, I moved towards the fire with one of the covers in my hand to try and bat down the flames, but before I could, Tási rushed in from our bedroom and doused the small inferno with a well-placed gush of water.
“New Spell?” I commented as I looked over the charred mess of wet cloth.
“Not terribly useful, I’m afraid, except for putting out small fires,” she replied. “What happened?”
“Bane sneezed,” I smiled in amusement. “It must have turned over a candle or something and caught the drapes on fire.”
That is not what happened, Sintári. Bane’s voice came to me in an almost disturbing tone.
‘Somethings not right. What is it, Bane?’ I couldn’t hide the anxiety in my response.
This was no accident. I did that. There was no candle, Sintári. The flames came from me.
Nentai’s cryptic words and odd inspection of him all came flooding back to me. I rushed to him, and without any preamble, pried open his mouth. Inside were the rows of his sharp teeth, and the long, deadly canines that were once his venomous fangs. Nothing seemed unusual, until his tongue moved, and I saw the two deep pits that were hidden beneath it.
As soon as my eyes saw those dark holes, a flood of information surged into my mind unlike anything I’d experienced before. This was not the subtle tickle that Nentai used to nudge me gently towards some conclusion, but a torrent of knowledge that flowed into me through the bond I shared with Bane.
I instantly knew that the pits I’d seen were indeed the source of the flames that had ignited the draperies. I was also shown the entire path of the transformation he’d gone through. From the strengthening of his muscles and bones, to the slow process of converting his venom glands into the fire-producing organs that they had become. I caught a bare glimpse of the ancient Sintári ritual that my predecessors had used to induce these same changes on their own Rhastoren familiars—changes that had once filled the skies with creatures just like Bane. Powerful beings that had not been seen since the last Sintári had vanished millennia ago—beings that had been rightfully known as Dragons.
Consuming the elf had given Bane the final thing he needed to complete his transformation: the Aura of a sentient being. It hadn’t really been the flesh he’d felt driven to devour, it was the man’s energy. The energy that Bane required for the last step in the process that I’d initiated—the fuel for his fires.
“What’s going on?” Tási asked, breaking Bane and I from our shared dream.
Before I could answer her, Bane draped his neck over my shoulder, nuzzled his head against my back, and pulled me into him by coiling his long neck around me. He’d never embraced me this way before, but it felt strangely familiar, and I wrapped my arms around him in return. As we stood together, I felt his bond more strongly that I ever had before, and I knew that it was the completion of his transformation that was responsible for the increased intensity of our shared link.
“It done, Tási. It’s done,” I whispered to her in answer.
“Alright,” she responded even more puzzled. “What’s done?”
“You were right all along, Tási,” I smiled as I turned my head just enough to catch one of Bane’s golden eyes. “Bane really was a baby dragon after all.”
His eye narrowed just a bit as he remembered the comment he’d originally taken as an insult, but with the reality of the situation, he realized that he no longer had any grounds to object, and he responded without any irritation.
The baby ogre girl was apparently correct about me, he replied with
amusement.
It took some time for me to calm Tási down and relay the story of what I’d seen in the vision that Bane and I had shared. After I finally convinced her of the truth, we held a somewhat awkward three-way conversation as we tried to determine just what to do with this new-found information.
Bane would need to learn how to use his new weapon, and that was clearly what it was—there was simply no other way to think about it, but we eventually decided that it was best kept as a secret for the time being. He would find a place to practice far away from prying eyes and learn to use his new-found ability. Our enemies would learn about it for the first time on the battle field, without the opportunity to prepare for his fiery onslaught in advance.
Once we finally understood what had happened, Bane was eager to begin, and flew off immediately to start training with his new ability. Even though I made him promise to return each night, I still felt a slight pang of separation as I watched him fly off into the distance.
Although I couldn’t tell anyone else about Bane’s amazing transformation, it still brightened up my entire morning. Things only got better when a messenger delivered a reply from Gilfri, graciously letting me know that he would be arriving in a little over a week. After all his underhanded attacks, I actually looked forward to meeting the treacherous elven royal, and immediately began scheming over just how roughly I would be putting him in his place. Then, when Talína informed me that the Imperial Charter had actually been completed during a final round of negotiation late the night before, my mood could not have been better. The draft copy she provided me had everything I’d insisted on and gave the vassal states within The First Sintári Empire virtual free rein to conduct their affairs as they saw fit, so long as they abided by the general outlines of the Charter.
With the Charter complete, the celebratory diplomatic gathering was already scheduled for later that evening. The leaders had been away from their Realms for longer than most were comfortable with, and were anxious to return home. Perhaps almost as anxious as I was to see one of them in particular be on her way.
Late in the afternoon, I retreated to my closet to choose a gown for the evening affair. Birt had begun filling the hangers and shelves, and there were a number of suitable dresses for me to pick from, but then, with an almost malicious grin on my face, I picked out what I thought would be the perfect outfit for the evening. I set the garment out to put on after Rhia and Wenda finished their work and went back to my bedroom where they were waiting for me.
“No need to be so subtle this time,” I told the two of them as I sat down. “In fact, since it’s our farewell event, I’m looking to make quite an impression tonight.”
An impression on a certain departing elf queen who’s been quite a thorn in my side the entire time she’s been here, I thought.
“I can do that,” Wenda smiled as she went to work.
The two of them spent quite a bit of time putting me together, and if I hadn’t requested them to go all-out, it might have been too much. But the dark shadows Wenda crafted around my eyes and the subtle way she’d highlighted my features while still managing to make her work nearly invisible was quite captivating. Rhia wasn’t one to be outdone, and she’d draped my hair down around my shoulders, framing my face and even accentuating Wenda’s handiwork. When I slipped into the gown I’d chosen, my look was complete, and Tási noted the dress I’d chosen when she helped me with the last few of its closures.
“Are you sure you want to wear that one?” She asked flatly as she tried to keep her thoughts from entering into her tone.
“Consider it a going away present, Tási,” I smiled back at her.
“If you say so,” she replied doubtfully.
Once we were both ready, Tási and I descended down the stairs to join the festivities. Unlike the other affairs we’d hosted, this one had been limited to the visiting dignitaries and their staffs; therefore, it was a much smaller gathering than the previous occasions. Still, I waited in the small room adjacent to the Great Hall, ready to make my entrance at just the precise moment. Then, when I saw Líann gathered together with the other monarchs, I made my move.
I strolled into the Grand Hall and walked directly towards the four royals, snatching a glass of wine from one of the servers along the way. The dwarven King was the first to notice my approach and raised his mug at me as I drew closer. Nerec turned, and after a slight pause when he took in the garment I wore, mimicked the gesture as well. Nadiel raised not only her wine glass, but an eyebrow as well when she saw me, but it was Líann’s reaction I’d most wanted to observe, and she did not disappoint.
Líann casually turned towards me as she realized who her fellow royals were greeting, and I saw her glass nearly slip from her fingers when she noticed that I was wearing the dress that she’d left in my closet. Her mouth actually fell open as she gawked at me, and I had to stifle my own amused laughter as she responded in exactly the way I’d wanted her to. I was wearing her own forest green gown, blatantly adopting her color for the night, but that was not what had prompted her stupor.
The gown had been designed for her lithe, graceful figure, and the softer, gentler curves of her body. But when my Deathless powers shifted it to conform to the contours of my own more generous form, it had transformed into an almost completely different garment.
Instead of the waistline highlighting Líann’s narrow dimensions, it emphasized the flare of my hips instead. And where the dress had clung loosely to her body and accentuated her modest breasts, it hugged my every curve and lent a rather impressive appearance to my fuller bust. Overall, the transformation was quite striking, and I was amused to see how it had rendered Líann speechless for once.
“Is there some reason that you’ve chosen Líann’s colors for tonight, Empress?” Nadiel asked in amusement as she seemed to share in my pleasure.
“Líann and I exchanged outfits,” I explained. “As a gesture of goodwill between us, I thought it would be fitting for me to wear it on her last night here in the Imperial District.”
“I recognize the handiwork,” Nerec commented as he struggled to maintain eye contact with me. “But I didn’t know the elven seamstresses in Líann’s employ made their gowns in such… human dimensions.”
“Are you calling me fat, Nerec?” I couldn’t help but taunt him, despite the fact that I knew all too well what he’d meant.
“Ha!” Broda’s uncle burst out in laughter. “Don’t answer her, Nerec, you’ll only make things worse for yourself!”
“And what about you, Líann?” I asked her almost mockingly. “You said you wanted to see me wear your gift. Now that you have, what do you think of it?”
“It looks quite good on you, Empress,” she eked out before taking a quick sip of wine and excusing herself.
“I’ve never seen her quite so ill at ease,” Nadiel commented as the others also wandered away. “Tell me how you managed that.”
“I’m sorry, Nadiel, but that will have to remain my own little secret,” I replied. “Besides, even if I told you, you wouldn’t be able to duplicate the effect on her.”
“Such a shame,” Nadiel responded with true regret. “There are many occasions where I’d wanted to do what you just did to her.”
Tási joined me once I’d finished with the monarchs, and we mingled for a while after that, thanking the various diplomats for their efforts and wishing them well on their journeys home. As the evening grew late, our guests began retiring for the night in preparation for their early departure in the morning. Then, just as I took a last sip from my glass and prepared to head back upstairs myself, Thelmé approached and asked for a moment of my time.
“Thank you, Empress,” she began when I granted her request. “I only wanted to report my progress to you. Líann has taken well to the lessons I’m giving her, and although she still has quite a way to go, she’s trying hard and is taking my advice to heart. She’s always been quite intelligent, and a very quick study, so I’m optimistic that she’ll s
how great improvement soon.”
I thanked her for the news and then dismissed it from my mind as we climbed upstairs. Whatever further progress Líann made, it would be far away in Íforn, and I only hoped that the next time I had to deal with her was some time in the distant future, when I’d had some time to figure out how I was going to deal with the Queen and her uncanny ability to put me at a disadvantage.
“You’ll be saying goodbye to all of them again in the morning as they take their leave,” Tási remarked as we got ready for bed.
“Yes,” I replied as I slipped out of my gown and under the covers. “It will be nice to let things get somewhat back to normal again.”
“Líann will try to make her departure memorable for you,” Tási noted as she wriggled closer to me. “If only to get back at you for tonight.”
“Probably,” I agreed, recognizing the truth in her words. “But there’s only so much she can do when we say farewell on the Palace steps.”
“True,” Tási whispered as she wound body around mine and I felt nothing but her bare flesh.
“But no matter what she does, I want you to be thinking about me the whole time.”
22
Tási certainly was on my mind the next morning as I waited to offer my best wishes to each departing monarch. She had poured everything she had into me the night before, almost literally.
Almost as soon as she’d pulled herself around me, Tási had sent the strongest flows of emotion she had coursing through my body. If I’d had any idea of what she’d intended, I might have stood a chance against her far weaker powers, but she took me completely by surprise and immediately overwhelmed me.
I’d found myself in the strange position of being at her mercy, and although I could have summoned my strength and countered her, I chose not to. Through the many rivulets of emotion that she’d sent running through me, I felt Tási reveling in her triumph, and I let her do with me what she wanted.
Second Skin: Unified: A litRPG Adventure (Second Skin Book 3) Page 70