by Jillian Keep
“Mae’lin!” Firia cried out as the elf sputtered to the surface, spitting water and flailing about. Something about it all sat so badly with her, and she was reminded of the curious display of misdirection that Bran had done during his trial to get into the academy.
She looked back to Ala, searching some aid or help, but that off feeling didn’t dissipate. She didn’t have time to understand it, and instead she desperately tried to cast her magic, to tug Mae’lin out of the infested lake.
As she nearly finished her casting, Ala’nase tumbled into her, knocking her over and ruining her casting. “Sorry,” she muttered.
But Firia was only concerned for Mae’lin. She got up to resume her spell casting, but saw the outline of that bizarre underground fish moving towards him on the surface of the water. “Mae’lin! Watch out!” she cried.
The elf saw the danger, and began to move away with the aid of her spell helping him.
That feeling of wrongness only grew, however, and just as Mae’lin reached safety he went flying up and back as if struck a blow on the chin. The mystery made sense as she caught a flicker of something; a dark augmented spell had made Bran invisible to their eyes by some illusory magic.
It was a competition. They were being turned on one another in their pursuit of the prize.
“Mae’lin!” she cried out again, but this time she was casting something different. Something more her speed. Quickly she summoned Luka, her fox familiar, and sent him towards Ala’nase. She needed protection from her friend, though she had little reason why. With that, her fingers began working again in an intricate frenzy, her sights instead set on the glimmer of the attacker.
“Firia! Why?!” cried her friend as the fox slammed into her, knocking her over onto her back.
Though beneath her she watched that fish thing rise up out of the water. Firia had little time to act, and her telekinesis was not strong enough to pull Mae’lin out of the water.
It was however, strong enough to knock someone in.
With a deft sweep of her wrist, she sent Bran tumbling into the murk directly before the monstrous fish-creature. It took the bait and lunged for the human.
Before she could do any more, however, she heard the yelp of Luka being knocked away and the force of some dark magic.
When Firia looked behind her, she saw the spectral fox upon its side, the victim of some sort of magic amplified through a dark crystal which Ala’nase held on a chain. “You–”
The elven woman lashed out, but not with spells, instead it was a swift kick that set Firia off balance and took her quite by surprise.
They were mages, not brawlers, the physical blows seemed too off. So very wrong. But most importantly, unexpected.
“You stole everything from me that crossed your path!” cried the elven woman, and she was upon Firia’s back before she could get up, twining her dark hair about her caramel fingers.
It was such a savage maneuver, but Ala’nase yanked back on her hair, and the sharp move – though painful – gave her a brief glimpse of below. The fish-monster had ripped a large piece off of Bran’s robes, and the human sorcerer tried using his dark crystal to ward it off.
Before she saw more, Ala’nase slammed her face down onto the mushroom top. “You had to have it all!” cried her former friend in a shrill voice, slamming her face down again, giving her another brief glimpse of Bran tossing the amulet away. But why?
The third slam of her face into the mushroom brought her another reprieve and she saw the creature lunge for the crystal and snap it up out of the air. It was drawn to whatever magics inhabited that trinket.
Firia was dazed, her mind reeling upon things other than breaking out of her former friend’s assault in the confusion. Though it passed; the spongy, flesh-like material of the fungal bloom was not hard enough to cause her any serious injury.
She hardly had any idea what Ala was talking about. She knew that the woman had been upset and withdrawn, and that Varuj had likely told her that Firia was the reason they couldn’t be together. That would cause her friend pain, but not like this.
She began casting, her hand growing warm though not hot enough to scorch. Just enough to let a spark of flame fly toward Ala’s face as Firia rolled onto her back.
The spark sent the elven woman back screeching. Despite her efforts to not seriously harm her friend, the fire did ignite a few strands, and she rolled about trying to douse them.
Firia, however, was already turning her attention back to the struggle below, her worry for Mae’lin outdoing her own troubles in her mind.
And what she saw troubled her deeply. The fish-creature was bigger, more freakish than before. It had sprouted long, hideous limbs, and was growing in size. She didn’t need to wonder what was happening, as she felt the tainted arcane magic warping its structure. Perhaps some combination of the dark crystals and the curious makeup of the cavern itself.
It slashed out with its claws and struck Bran, the human falling into the water face down.
Mae’lin, however, went to his own attacker’s rescue. He dove back into the deeper water, and grabbed for the human. He pulled him out of the water, gasping for air and bleeding from his revealed chest through several claw marks.
“Mae’lin!” cried Firia, but it was too late. She saw it all unfold.
Heroically, when he saw the monster coming for them both, he shoved Bran to the shore with all his strength, and the monster got him and him alone. Its long, dagger-like fangs sunk into the lanky elf’s shoulder and he let loose a terribly cry just before vanishing from the testing area in a burst of arcane energy.
He had failed.
He had been betrayed.
Sabotaged.
Attacked.
Firia’s fury grew at what had happened to the noble man she loved, but before she could unleash it, the blow to her back knocked her forward.
She went spinning, and should’ve careened off the side of the mushroom. Yet somehow she came short, and slid to a halt just along the edge, able to look up and see the approaching Ala’nase in a rage of her own.
“Why won’t you just go away?!” Ala’nase cried, and the smell of smoke in the air was too pungent to be the small singing Firia had given her. She’d been hit by a fireball! The same sort that had been flung at her earlier.
Yet, when she looked back, she saw no signs of it, but a light blackening of the fabric on her robes. What had happened?
“You’re done taking from me,” Ala’nase reasserted, and Firia watched as the woman struck out with her long, shapely leg to kick her in the face.
Firia’s eyes closed in anticipation.
Yet the blow never came.
Instead a yelp filled the air, and when she looked up she saw the elven woman in a pair of dark arms, confined.
Varuj held her restrained, and with a prick of his nail and a muttering of an incantation, he caused her whole body to go limp and unconscious before letting her fall to the spongy mushroom top.
She’d not been so relieved to see him in so long. Her head felt so full, so heavy, but she smiled tentatively at the demon before looking at her friend with concern. “She hates me…”
If it had been nearly anyone else, she wouldn’t have been too surprised. But the friends she made, she was dedicated to, and Ala is… was her best friend.
“She’ll get over it one day,” he said to her, striding over to her purposefully and taking her by the arm before helping her to her feet. “We have no time to mourn lost friendships, however. There is still a contest on, and we shall make it together. As we always should have,” he said, giving her a faint little smile that said more than his many other wider and more charming ones.
She nodded, simply, for what else was there to do? She recalled Luka back into herself, feeling him nestle within her soul, as she looked forward to their destination.
“Let’s get this done, already.”
Varuj took her by the hand, and together they ran. He made the leap so easy, she could f
eel his powerful sorcery projecting them higher and further, carrying them from one mushroom to the next. Though something caught his eye.
“Competitors,” he said, and she saw them, two others doing something similar, sorcerously controlling the wind to propel them forward on their robes. “I’ll take care of them,” he said, and with a subtle flick of his wrist he sent them one off course, causing him to land back where he came from. The other lost his footing just before take-off and crashed onto his bottom.
Neither was hurt, nor out of the game, and the demon who held her hand abided by the rules perfectly, she had to confess.
Though his own focus on the game meant he didn’t see the slimy, googly-eyed monster climb over the edge of the next mushroom towards, its fangs and claws ready to gouge them both.
Firia used the telekinesis she was quickly becoming a master of, and knocked the thing from its precarious perch back into the murky waters below. The splash let her know her job was well done, but Varuj’s appreciative grin did the trick too. “Well done,” he remarked as they carried on.
“I told you I studied,” she shot back, pride resounding in her tone.
When they landed upon the stony island, she saw none of the spongy fungal growths at all. Instead there was the oddly out-of-place trees, as if a real jungle lurked at the heart of the underground fungal version.
Together they walked to the center, and amidst the greenery a light began to grow stronger.
They had to squint their eyes against it, but looking up, Firia saw that it came from a hole in the cavern itself. It was sunlight from above.
With a blink of their eyes, they felt themselves being lifted up into the light. Hand in hand, together.
Chapter 54
The great dining hall was decked out for a celebration, curiously glowing lights in the shape of the first students to arrive – Varuj and Firia – graced the center, while gorgeous streamers and all sorts of other magical displays lit the place up. Yet the mood was anything but celebratory.
A great disturbance had filled the hall, and all the occupants clustered around a central area.
Firia immediately thought of Mae’lin and pushed her way forward.
Before she got there, the booming voice of Professor Yae’ra demanded her attention. “Someone will need to explain what has happened to this young man.”
Someone.
Chapter 55
The words of the healer still rang in Firia’s ears.
Mae’lin was unconscious, and nothing they’d done had changed that. They were out of ideas.
She saw his pale, sinewy form wrapped in bandages and bed sheets before her. Treated with potions and elixirs, they did what they could, yet the venom from the creature that had bit him had been altered in some way they couldn’t place. It never should’ve happened, they assured her. The entire cavern was enchanted so that any serious harm would’ve been extracted, just as any students that suffered it would be extracted.
“Bran has been expelled,” came Varuj’s voice as he rested his hand upon her shoulder.
She somehow didn’t feel mollified. Mae’lin had tried to save the man, his attacker, and she’d gotten him kicked out. Even after what he did, how forceful he’d been, she did feel an odd kinship with him that wasn’t easy to shake.
Getting him in trouble had been difficult, and she’d tried to paint it as innocently as possible, but how could she? She had to tell them about the strange amulet, hoping desperately that it would help them cure Mae’lin.
She’d spared Ala’nase, though they hadn’t spoken since. What was there to say?
Varuj and Firia had finished in a tie for first place. Yet there had been no celebration. Not on their end.
Some of the assistant healers came in, jabbering about violent upheavals throughout the countryside, but she couldn’t handle it.
“Come along,” Varuj said, as if reading her mind. He took her hand in his, and guided her out of the room.
“I just don’t understand,” she sighed, not for the first time. “They were supposed to be my friends.”
“Trust in others is risky,” he said to her in that deep husk of his as he guided her through the building and out into the crisp air. “I have invested my all in trust of you, Firi,” he said with some fondness, the two walking hand in hand through the center of the academy. The hustle and bustle all gone, the students now took their time and enjoyed their break. “I pray you don’t let me down,” he said, looking to her fondly and squeezing her hand.
She was worn out, and his presence was reassuring. Comforting. “Varuj, thanks for saving me from Ala’nase.”
The demon lifted her hand and kissed the backs of her knuckles for all to see as he came to a stop. “I am glad I was there to do so,” he said smoothly. “Had I been further away I might not have been in time to see us both through to the finish.”
She withdrew her hand, though gingerly, as she looked up at him. “Varuj, I’m not going to let him find out by some drama monger. I want to tell him myself.”
“You worry too much,” he said to her, his smile fading a bit. “But I have a solution for you. The year is at an end. A brief break is upon us. The wealthier students are off to visit their families. You cannot do that.” He gestured with his hand around at the others who walked about. “However, you can come with me on a trip away from your worries.”
His full lips spread wide into a warm smile. “You need the rest to prepare for the upcoming semester. Or you shall be good to no one. Come with me, Firi.” His proposal so enticing as the handsome demon brushed back some of his ebon hair from his smooth, masculine face.
Yet she didn’t want to. Couldn’t.
How could she leave Mae’lin to wake up alone, and without anyone to care for him?
If she stayed, though, would that make things better or worse? He’d saved her life, and now she had to break up with him. Because she didn’t deserve him. Didn’t deserve that amazing, wonderful elf.
Firia looked to the handsome demon, the one who knew all her secret joys, and pleasures, and pains. Who had visited all of those things upon her. Who had caused her more hurt and more bliss than anyone ought to have been able to.
Mae’lin would never understand. Part of her hoped he one day could, though. When he woke up.
Chapter 56
In all her years, Firia had only been to two places. Her homeland in the fields of farm country, and the academy.
Varuj had changed that.
They had little time for enjoying such things; classes would resume before long, but when she walked to the open balcony door and smelled the sweetly warm air of the desert night outside, it was breathtaking. The curious black fruit that grew on the trees, with their beautiful pink blossoms, gave off such an aroma of decadent sweetness that wafted across the river and the oasis, mixing with the dry scents of the desert beyond before coming to her.
It was such a pleasant place. Even at night she felt comfortable walking out onto that window overlooking the private garden in only her tunic. The loose, untied garment barely covered her bottom as she revelled in the place. The sights of the curiously triangular buildings, their steeples gleaming copper even in the moonlight.
As she bent over the railing, the feel of Varuj’s heated presence came up behind her. His arms embracing her as the fullness of his hard body greeted her. He was so much bigger than her, his ruddy flesh so comforting, in such a bizarre way.
“Avoiding the bed?” came his ethereal voice, reverberating so darkly. So deliciously masculine. He was himself. As when she first met him. Well… almost. She thought him changed somehow. Not quite so… sinister in appearance. It seemed like proof of what he had said: that he had sacrificed some of who he was to be more human.
“Always,” she agreed, even as she leaned back into him. She’d shirked all of her responsibilities, put her heart on hold. She had no idea what she was going to say to Mae’lin, but she dreaded it. It was the only dimmer on the vacation, and she tugged V
aruj’s arms around her tighter. She’d deal with it when the time came.
Until then, she’d promised herself that she’d relax from the hardest year she’d ever suffered through.
His thick arms were a great comfort, the hard, broad muscles a shelter from the worries of the world, it felt. Each bicep seeming about as thick as her waist.
The villa Varuj had got them was away from the city, away from all others. Just a private getaway in a foreign land, where both of them were free to be themselves. For her to enjoy. For him to be the hulking fiend from another realm.
She felt the stirring of his loins, that oversized shaft rising up, and up, brushing betwixt her smooth thighs as he licked, suckled and nibbled her ear. “That’s fine by me,” he growled out in that otherworldly voice that should’ve scared any normal woman. But only made her cunny moisten.
Maybe she had always been a bit messed up. She thought back to the fateful night in the library, about how excited she was to summon a demon. How she’d specifically looked for a male demon, for someone like him.
Maybe she’d always known, deep down, that this is what she wanted, though it’d taken her so long to reconcile. Life would never be the same after she realized it, though, and she pushed back into him.
“I’m not going to be able to walk if you keep this up.”
The brush of his horn against her hair sent a shiver through her spine, but his cock jumped at her words, and when it slapped against her slit with its eagerness she felt her knees weaken. “Maybe I’d enjoy that,” he growled into her ear, his tongue teasing just inside it before he pulled back his hips, dragging his veiny girth along her moist cunny, teasing the bulbous crown to her engorged clit.
It wasn’t fair how easily he made her body his, even if her mind and heart remained more… non-committal.
Her nipples were so stiff against her top, her skin prickling with desire and arousal. She’d never felt like this before, so brazen and free. She couldn’t help but moan, her ass pressing into his hips as she stood up on tiptoes. “You’re a bad influence on me.” What an understatement that was.