by Yoshiyuki Ly
I made my way downstairs. The whole way, I heard them hollering and screaming from the conference room. They were like a bunch of kids. I scoffed and put them out of my mind. Even though I had business to take care of, I wanted to have a good time with Videl that night. As I got to the exit, I heard her voice echo faintly down the hall. She must’ve been talking to her sister while she waited for me. The second voice—it definitely didn’t sound like Luna. Not at all. My most loyal bandits stayed at their posts along the hallway, giving me a weirdly worried look. Like something had happened. I didn’t ask what was up. I prepared myself for whatever it was as I turned the corner.
There I saw Videl standing in front of the sealed steel doors. Nyte was with her, leaning against the wall close by, sweating and heaving for breath. She didn’t have any injuries, but she looked exhausted—mentally, emotionally. I didn’t see her wedding ring on her hand. Nyte saw me and looked away a second later, like she was ashamed. A few more of my boys stood nearby, the ones I’d assigned to mix up her transportation to Slutgarden. I leaned against the archway nearby, listening for now.
“I don’t know who she is anymore,” said Nyte, glaring at a corner of the room. “Stella, my wife, doesn’t exist. She’s this persona now! Mistress Fury, Mistress Fury… That character isn’t real. She’s obsessed with this rivalry. The second I told her I wanted nothing to do with it, she treated me like I was nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a person. Just a thing that didn’t unconditionally agree with everything she did.”
Videl sounded somber. “I know the feeling,” she replied. “It’s too easy for some people to lose themselves to their ego. It gets to their head. In your case, I think it’s worse. Sounds like she’s obsessed with how much better off Elysium is than when she had the throne. Like she resents it. Do you think she took that out on you?”
“Now that you mention it…probably.”
I dismissed my bandits. “You know what to do,” I told them. They each nodded to me and left. “Well, Nyte, did you finally leave that tyrant wife of yours?”
“I had to. Your bandits told me to come here. I feel like I should leave. I don’t want to be a burden.”
“Why would you be a burden? We’ve got plenty of room here.”
Nyte finally pushed herself from the wall. “You know she’ll come after me,” she said.
“So?” I asked, shrugging. “I ain’t afraid of her. What’s she gonna do, poke my eye out with those boots? You know as well as I do that she’d never lay a hand on me. She’s too proper and stuck-up for a real brawl. I’ve got the best intelligence network Tynan’s ever known. I know where she is at all times. I want you to stay here until you figure out your next move.”
“Why?” Nyte bit back. “The last time we talked, you made it clear you don’t give a damn about me. I have nothing, no one. That’s supposed to satisfy you. Don’t pretend like you care!”
I should’ve sent Videl away. A part of me didn’t want her to hear this. But she needed to. I needed her to.
“Besides,” she went on, glancing at Videl, “I don’t want to get in the way of your new thing. The last thing I need is more reminders that I made a mistake in leaving you for Stella. I have more self-respect than that. Why can’t you have your victory and leave me to fend for myself?”
“This ain’t a victory for me, Nyte.”
Nyte scoffed. “That’s rich,” she soured. “You spent all this time wishing I’d wise up. You wanted me to suffer for what I did to you. I’m suffering now—just look at me! You should be happy!”
“I’m only happy because I know you’re safe here. These walls are impenetrable. I know I should’ve mentioned this in the message I sent you. I’m sorry for treatin’ you like scum of the earth all these years. I was bitter. I didn’t like that Mistress Fury had you, like she won somethin’ over me. In a way, I get how she feels now—why she hates me and wants to bring me down. I ain’t gonna provoke her. Hopefully she’ll grow the fuck up and stop all these games. I’m givin’ her the benefit of the doubt. I wish you’d do the same for me so that we could be friends. If you don’t want that then I understand. At least let me protect you while things settle down.”
Nyte didn’t protest. She only looked at me, and then Videl, and back again. Then she asked which room she could have. I pointed upstairs, telling her to pick whichever one without anyone’s stuff in it. She quietly thanked me and went on her way. I went over to Videl and held her tight. She leaned against the door and stroked my hair, giving me this moment. I didn’t like this situation. Mistress Fury had every reason to think that Nyte was here. I cared more about making sure Nyte was safe—and that was my problem. I cared. If I was a real empress, I’d lay down the law, tell Nyte she was a liability, and make her go beg on the streets. I cared about my people, beyond Nyte—the ones who were loyal to me, and treated me with such respect, and I wanted Elysium to be better for them. I was tired of having to shut us all off from the nobles up in Eden. I was sick of this us versus them shit that had turned Elysium and Eden into two different cities. I didn’t want to have to steal from the rich anymore just so my people could survive from day to day. I hated having to rely on Mistress Fury’s business to keep clothes on everyone’s backs. Here, one of Eden’s most powerful paladins held me in her arms—a victim to corruption and greed in the Holy Knights Thirteen. I knew she held all the answers to my troubles. I knew she could help me make all of Tynan a better place for everyone, not just my people or hers. That was the only way this shit could ever end.
Just like with most of my bandits, I didn’t want my people turning on me the second I started making changes down here. They wouldn’t see that it was for their own good. They’d only see my actions as a betrayal and rebel against me. I talked to Videl about this as she held me. She listened patiently and understood. She told me that I didn’t have to make any decisions yet. At least not until she had to return to Eden—most likely to get fired properly before she came back to me. Even that, I knew, I wanted to stop. I had no real power to do anything. Only Videl’s fealty to me made me believe that I had control over something, over her body and emotions. I chose to spend my days drowning in that small reassurance, letting it grow as we grew to trust one another more deeply.
One day, I would have to make a decision. I’d have to act. I accepted that the day, and the decisions, and the actions would be chosen for me. Until then, I had my scorpion to lean on.
Chapter Eight
Clemency
(Videl)
Time…I had so much of it. I was at its mercy as I waited for the Excalibur’s verdict. Corruption hung my knightly duties in the balance. Another week passed, and another, and another; it grew harder to not worry, to not despair. Raj took advantage of this in her own ways.
Whenever I wasn’t working on the play with Satya’s troupe, Raj and I spent a lot of time together alone. Or she forced me to be alone, waiting for her. She filled me with purpose—the kind I hadn’t had in a long time, the kind I needed. On the rare occasions when I could do as I pleased, I felt strange to go somewhere without an order from her. Having her approval, giving her what she needed, and pleasing her—these etched themselves in my mind and heart as bare necessities. I dreamed of her whenever I slept: maddened images of subservience to her, my conscience clinging to her every desire, spoken or unspoken. Three words, such beautiful words, spread through my chest as a sweet miasma. Sweet from the joy; miasma from the festering it caused in keeping my silence.
That silence overwhelmed me most in my sleep. Each night I slept with Raj in her bed, falling asleep after leaving her spent and exhausted. The depth of my sleep felt as a coma. Through that darkness I heard lingering echoes of her pleasure from the night before. Those echoes twisted into the images that overwhelmed me: Raj’s essence surrounding me as a phantom of lust for me to serve, endlessly. I woke up that morning with her holding me from behind, as she so loved doing. She smoothed her hand along my legs, up to my shorts, fingertips gripping harder t
he higher she went. Lust rushed through her breaths as she pressed her lips along my neck and shoulders, firmly. Her strength, her assertiveness brought me out of my haze. Whenever she touched me like this, it felt like she never wanted to stop or let me go.
Raj sucked in her breath right next to my ear. “You kept me up ‘til four in the mornin’,” she murmured. “We can’t keep doin’ that…I’ve got a city to run.” I was about to remind her why we were up so late. She saved me the trouble: “Mmm, yeah, I know, I know—I told you not to stop. I meant it then. It wouldn’t be fair to punish you for bein’ obedient. I’m still gonna have my way with you today.”
She had me go shower while she got things set up for the day. When I was done, I put on a clean undershirt and shorts, as she preferred. Raj returned not long after and had me sit up on the bed. She propped a few pillows behind my back, grinning at me all the while. Fascinated, I watched her as she fed me breakfast.
“You’re so precious, you know that?” said Raj, running her nails through my damp hair. “I just wanna take care of you all the time… It’s the least I can do for you.”
As I ate, she told me about Nyte—how Mistress Fury had been writing her letters almost every day. Nyte’s decision to leave, and to stay here, declawed her Mistress in a lot of ways. She seemed more focused on apologizing to Nyte and mending their relationship than getting back at Raj. From her relative silence over the weeks, Mistress Fury knew that if she did anything against Raj, or Raj’s bandits, that she wouldn’t convince her slave to return home. Raj was too skeptical to call this a victory. At least she wasn’t paranoid about her rival finding some way to get back at her. Not with Mistress Fury acting like this. I still didn’t trust Nyte, her loyalties. It wasn’t my place to say anything. I didn’t have to. Raj did what she had to do to make sure nothing from Vassago got over to Nirvana. She knew better than to let Nyte have free reign around here. Unfortunately, that made her already disloyal bandits more of a liability. They continued to question my presence here—specifically why Raj trusted me, a paladin from Eden, with occasional details about her plans for Elysium, and how it was we shared a bed together; yet she made sure Nyte remained far enough away from her gang’s meetings at all times so she wouldn’t overhear anything. She’d known Nyte for over six years, compared to me, her girlfriend, her slave, and we’d only known each other for a few months. They seemed oddly organized. I couldn’t pin down how or why that was. It was mostly a feeling I had.
Today, Raj had said she would deal with her rogue bandits. She wanted me far enough away from the fallout, but close enough to keep an eye on me. Before she took me downstairs, Raj stared out her window next to the bed. She scowled deeply at the sight outside. I went over to her to see what had caught her attention. There I saw Mistress Fury, standing against the tailor’s shop across from Vassago. She looked different in her long, black dress, wearing her dark hair down her back without her ponytail.
Raj scoffed. “So that’s Stella,” she told me. “Who she really is without her Domme persona. Looks like a sad puppy down there without her slave. Well, I’ll be damned.” She held my hand and had us leave the room. “Thought for sure by now she would’ve sent her whores after me. I almost feel sorry for her.”
Down to the basement we walked together. In the quiet of the early morning, we passed by Raj’s most loyal bandits, Satya included, on their way to the conference room for the meeting. The basement was to be my hideaway for the day, in a not-so-typical way. It was for my own safety and for Raj’s sadism. The whole way there, I thought about Mistress Fury—well, Stella—and Nyte. A six year relationship couldn’t go away overnight. Every time I passed by Nyte’s room, I saw her reading Stella’s letters. As an outsider, I couldn’t just go up to Nyte and ask about it. Raj kept her distance as well, only talking to Nyte if it was about food, clothes, or money. I had no choice but to follow her lead. That also meant putting this out of my mind for the time being.
The dank chill of the stone walls found me again in the basement. I did my best not to wince at the cold floor beneath my bare feet. Raj locked the door behind us. “Headspace,” she said, leading the way to my area. “I want you to be good at all times—even when you think I ain’t watchin’ you. The idea of me bein’ upstairs, handlin’ business, while you sit and wait for me, patiently, for hours…there’s just somethin’ about it that gets to me.”
“I’ll do as you please, Empress,” I replied.
She smirked in satisfaction; my heart swelled at the sight of her approval. Against the wall, next to the claustrophobic bathroom, lay my full-sized mattress. A single pillow and a thin blanket were to be my only company for these hours. Raj didn’t have me sit down there as I expected. She pushed me up against the freezing wall. Hastened, with fumbling hands, she cuffed one of my wrists to the long chain attached to the stone surface. Long enough to let me reach the bathroom. Short enough to keep me from walking around.
“I can picture it now,” she growled against my ear. “I’m gonna be in a terrible mood all day. Shit’s gonna go down. I shouldn’t take it out on you. I really shouldn’t…” Raj hooked my collar around my neck. “I need you down here, away from that mess. You’re my only paradise in this world, Videl. Your innocence soothes my soul. No one’s takin’ that away from me. I’ve got this instinct to control you. Pain is unavoidable. If it comes from me, it’s all good. This is my fucked up way of keepin’ you pure.”
Raj grabbed my undershirt and yanked it up over my shoulders. The cold around us rippled up my back. Her firm fingertips groped my skin, my muscles, through to my bones and underneath—mental, all mental, because I felt her bend down to pick my punishment. This was her sadism. Inflicting pain on me fulfilled the quota for the world inevitably hurting me. If she did it, she could live with herself; get off on me taking it for her. If anyone else did it, she’d hurt them back if I didn’t do it first. She controlled my fate by controlling me. She stung my skin with the cracks of her dragon tail whip. With every sound, every bit of pain growing and growing, she said to Elysium, to Eden that I belonged to her; that no one else was allowed to hurt me, because she did it enough to satisfy for the inevitability in this world. Raj whipped me so hard that she grunted in her efforts—pushing me, testing me, growing with me. My screams echoed through the basement. I fell to my knees. She laughed and laughed.
“Ain’t you a masochist?” Harder. ”Scream louder!” Sharp leather stinging against my skin; my throat ripped, breaking my screams. “Let it out!” Logic left me, rising high above and taking me with it; yet my sense dissipated in the cold air, lost amid Raj’s power over me. “If you hold anything back, you’re weak!” Screaming became intrinsic. To please her. To release. To rise higher into this subspace—so unexpected. “You’re a paladin, Videl—you can take anything I give you! Show me your honor!”
I clawed my nails into the stone wall. Such an illusion of digging through the surface to help me take this pain, yet it wasn’t real. I’d fooled myself. I believed that I could tear through this wall to show Raj how strong I was. She wouldn’t stop. So close to drawing blood; I could take it; I wanted her to hurt me, keep hurting me, so I could prove myself. In my mind’s eye, I faced her, bowing to her as she pushed the limits of my mental fortitude. Farther and farther she shoved me to that edge, high in this space as I already was.
I refused to yield if it was not at her behest.
I refused to show weakness if she didn’t demand it of me.
I refused to be anything less than honorable—to impress her, and to validate my own strengths.
Somewhere, the pain ended. I was at that place where I could be anything I wanted. Anything she wanted. The whipping stopped after a while. I felt her warm palm between my shoulder blades. Her touch was the only real thing that reached me here. The raw burning of my skin faded with my perception. I thought I imagined Raj setting me down along the bed over my stomach. Such a soothing substance she smoothed along my back, massaging, gentle enough to keep me rig
ht where I was. She whispered words that I couldn’t fully make out in this state. High, floating, somewhere, with her, while she was still on the ground, holding me up here effortlessly. Through the mist, I thought I heard Raj tell me that she loved me. I tried to ask if she meant it; my words came out as nonsense: quiet grunting that she only chuckled at. Her lips blessed my neck and shoulders. She held me for a while. I heard those three words again. I should’ve reacted. I should’ve done more than be passively moved by her, infinitely. In my stupor, they lulled me to sleep. I barely heard her disappointment when she finally had to leave; the soft sounds of her sandals as she left the basement, locking me alone in this darkness. Time passed as I slept, constantly in this lifted state, far above reality. Such blissful floating through the dark, passing through, up, and higher, basking in my fealty, in how much I’d pleased my Empress. The real world was so far away from me. So far…
…is this it? Is this all that awaits you replacing me in your heart for another? I won’t accept it.
The same darkness that held me forced me to look, to see. Reality embraced me as I awoke hours later. Armored footsteps crushed against the stone floor, nearing me. Gentle shifting of fabric, of a skirt beneath that armor, and trained breathing from behind a visor…
Vespair stared down at me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I hadn’t expected to see her ever again after she disappeared. Normally I would’ve been glad to see her. Instead I felt nothing. She was a stranger to me in this home away from home. She sighed over my silence.
“Did you really forget about me?” she asked, shrugging. “I leave for two months and you’ve gone and let her control you. Chaining your wrist to the wall? That’s a bit much in the name of loyalty, don’t you think?” It was hard to believe she was actually here. I didn’t feel her like I could before, though that had been her voice whispering to me about seeing. “Strange, isn’t it? I try to protect you, and you choose her over me regardless. I feel as if I have sinned.”