Chapter 1: Blind Lead

Chapter 1: Blind Lead

Rivuk turned the gilt-edged page of the ancient tome. He felt it slide into the flesh of his finger just enough to slice into it. Squeezing the finger, a sharp talon slid through the top of his flesh. Beneath the claw, a purplish line began to form. He took a piece of white tape from his desk and wrapped it around the wound. It would be gone in a minute. He dipped his blotting cloth in the denaturing solution and ran it over the page's edge, destroying any trace of blood that might still be there.

His eyes turned to the page. He'd finally found it! After spending the last few days buried in the tomb that was the palace's library, he'd finally found the text he'd been looking for. The Claws of Jericho, the heading read in the stylized script of The Enlightened Kilaros.

The large page was spanned by the illustration of a single blue arm, flecked with gold, its cruel claws shot through with lightning. He suppressed an involuntary shudder. Behind the arm was a water painting of the East Tower, half-destroyed, and the deep furrows caused by the claws as they'd raked the land, poisoning it forever. He'd seen paintings of Jericho's Claws before, but this was the only one done by a witness to Jericho's capture.

A golden ring on Jericho's middle finger was the only thing holding his dark-blue, fingerless, sleeved glove in place on his hand. The forearm was covered by the glove and wrapped in ornate chain of gold and leather. And there, set in the same precious metal, on the back of the hand was a large, oval stone of midnight blue shot through with veins of gold. An illustrator's license, they'd never recovered it, but many texts swore to its existence.

He knew it existed. He'd seen it wrapped around her exquisite milky-white wrist. He'd felt its smoothness against his arm as they'd danced. Felt its chill against his naked back as she'd wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, gripping him as though holding on for dear life as he'd pushed inside of her. The way her long legs wrapped around his waist, her naked breasts rubbing against his chest.

He fought back the memories. He couldn't think about her now. He didn't have time. He'd be called away any moment to do his duty.

His duty. By his first wife.

Her tower so far removed from that fantasy bedroom with his wilding.

The thought of it chilled the warmth of his memories. He'd need those warm memories soon. But not now.

He focused on the handwritten text split by the illustration.

In the morning of the fourth skell of Eranos Iuna, the city of Chrysantium was razed from Okeshi by Jericho, Cursed of the Immortal. The Bonat, Jericho, harnessed the lightning on each finger and wielded the streams of electricity as whips. Walls, arcades, houses, all were reduced to rubble in an instant. It was then he turned his wrath on the Grand College of Science, attacking the great East Tower of Learning and leaving it in ruin before the Korsuch war machines were able to distract him enough that King Zerline and Prince Baylaris were able to subdue him.

Jericho's origins remain in question. It is well documented that such power is not naturally seen in the Bonat. It is believed he may have been created in The Citadel as a tool of war. It has also been thought the stone on his hand may be the true weapon created by The Citadel. Regardless, the response by the Nobillo and Korsuch against such crimes against the Immortal was swift.

Jericho's body was turned over to the Temple of the Immortal to determine what perversions of the Immortal's natural law were inflicted upon him to allow his body to wield such power. The stone was not recovered with him. It is believed his Olaru companions may have absconded with it.

He took a section of the book in hand and turned back to a picture of Chrysantium, the part of the city that had once existed between the second and third walls. Turning forward a few pages, the four towers of the Grand College of the Nobillo stood out from the great, walled quads. The East Tower stood tallest and largest of the four, dwarfing the other three, as though intended to challenge The Citadel of the Bonat - that towering, gleaming white spire that once rose highest over all of Kirith until it was brought low by the war machines.

He frowned as he noticed a slight green tint to the windows of the East Tower.

He'd need to send a soldier to investigate. Someone who would answer only to him and not report his inquiries to his brothers. But such loyalty was scarce these days. He could only think of one, and he could not be without his Hest, not at this moment.

His wristband sounded. He pressed it. "Yes?" he asked.

"Your grace," Carak, his Hest, his long-serving second, answered. "The Princess, Nylest, requests your presence in her chambers."

"As expected. Tell her I will arrive shortly," he said, flipping through the pages of the book, past the fearsome, cat-like faces of Keptar - cat-like, the idea of a cat must've come from the human woman, for he knew of no such creature - the white and brown fluffed fur of the Southern Edethian, the smoothed brown and grey of their vicious Northern counterparts, the anatomical sketches of human males and females that did grave disservice to the latter, as he'd found. They were far more similar in form and feature to the Korsuch than he'd appreciated; though his wilding was, by far, more lovely than any Korsuch he had ever seen.

Even when covered by the blood of his soldiers, it did nothing to diminish her light to his eyes.

But her body, nude, standing before him as she told him she wanted to have his body inside hers, to copulate - have sex, as she put it -- it was almost time to indulge that memory. The softness of her skin, the way her body had yielded for him, the warm wetness as he penetrated her, deeper and deeper, deeper than he'd ever been inside a woman, neither his first wife nor his third. Her parts so different in that way. No wedge, no chamber, it wasn't designed for him, but accommodated him just the same. Not just accommodated, but welcomed him. He could feel his tessect rising.

It was still not quite the time. Soon, though. It would make the act of obfuscation better for Nylest, and for him, to let his memories of the young human woman, Lindsay Weaver, flow.

He took off the tape around his finger. The cut was gone, healed and vanished in the span of a few minutes. A spot of blood on the tape was all that was left to testify it had ever happened. Tossing it in the fire, he watched the orange flame and black ash consume it.

He deposited the book back on the shelf, walked through the archway, and spread his wings. He leapt up and, in a few flaps of his wings, rose through the long distance of the vertical, smooth-sided pit through the salt mine that led to the Royal Library. As he exited, he pressed his wristband and the thick metal doors closed and locked beneath him. He turned in midair and dove toward the bridge where Carak would be waiting to meet him and walk with him to his first wife's tower. It might only be a few seconds' flight, but it was worth the trouble of walking to not have to face his task alone.

* * *

"You sent for me," Rivuk asked, darkly, as he faced the rusty brown-haired woman sitting on the enormous bed cloaked in crimson dyed sheerlac fur.

"Yes," the woman said, standing. Her sheer red and black negligee flowed airily around her. She waved her hand dismissively at the towering, muscular creature standing beside the prince. "Your attendant may leave."

Rivuk turned to the creature. "Thank you, Carak. That will be all for the evening."

The creature looked down at the black-haired man with his gigantic, milky white eyes rimmed in puffy flesh from where his eyelids had failed to properly form, pale blue irises swam within, seeking the prince's bronze eyes for confirmation. Rivuk gave a slight nod.

"Yes, your grace," Carak said, turning. His right shoulder lurched up as he took his first step.

"You should do away with that attendant of yours. It is not becoming of a prince to keep a crippled Child at his side. He should have been killed on his return from the forest. Mutilating his own wings like that! What use is a Child of the Immortal if he cannot fight? Worthless, except to be butchered and fed to the others."

"You may say what you like about me, Nylest, but I'll not have you insulting my Hest. If you persist, I will leave and your child will lose any hope of a claim of legitimacy."

"The legitimacy of a child of the third prince is hardly worth anything at all. My children should be given their proper rank as the first heirs."

"The daughter of a merchant, no matter how wealthy, is not a match fit for the first prince. You knew that when you and he began."

"You think you did me a kindness in marrying me."

"I had no opinion in the matter. The match was arranged and I have kept you as I agreed."

"I'm the only one of your wives who will let you touch her. Your second wife would rather have the caresses of a cook."

"And she is welcome to them. I cared no more for Bessetia than I did for you. I do not claim her children and she does not ask that I pretend, as you do."

"Polithema screams whenever you enter the room."

Rivuk winced. Poor, sweet Polithema. He could see her in her room, brown hair flowing down her shoulders, braiding her flower crowns while humming little snippets of songs, the short feathers of her clipped wings folded behind her.

"You should be more grateful, you treacherous prince."

"Treacherous?" Rivuk repeated. "I would think that title better suited to Boz, given what he did to you and Polithema."

"She should have just laid down and taken it as I did. She was always weak-minded. You should never have married her."

"Again, the choice was not mine to make."

"But you did love her."

Once. He still did, though he never could in the same way again. "She is still the mother of my child."

"She is a child, herself, now and forever. You should be rid of her. I can't stand to hear her singing."

"Then don't have your indiscretions with Elihim in the courtyard and you will not hear her."

"Let's just get this over with." She spread open the translucent folds of her negligee, revealing the hole, her ceron, which sat just below her belly button.

She wouldn't bother to remove her clothing, only what was necessary to do the job. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her naked body.

"Yes, let's." Rivuk's fingers went into a small internal pouch in the same location where his tessect lay, protected. It wouldn't come out on its own as it had for that feral goddess, though. Not for Nylest. Attractive as she was, her glamour held no charms for him.

For her, it would require work. He felt the rope-like shaft, the bones within linked like a tail. When the muscles contracted it would become rigid, curving up to the bulbous tip, the telson, right now deflated, which would be filled with the dual fluids of destruction and creation. The acid and the felous. The acid to burn away the barrier, the felous to fertilize the lecimin cell within. There would be no lecimin in there today, though, but a child. As there always was with Nylest. She only called on him when she was carrying, to make her tale that it was legitimate seem true.

That wild woman of the woods. Even with her hair matted in blood and skin dyed by his fallen soldiers, she was so beautiful! How she'd looked in that world somewhere between dreams and reality! That dress, the style and color he'd never seen before, something from her Earth. Her body when she'd stood, bared, before him. Wanting him. Her skin soft in his arms, her lips pressed against his - another Earth thing he'd understood in the moment but seemed so alien afterwards.

His mind went to the moment of penetration. He'd not known what to expect. Her... he didn't know the word for it - but it had been soft, yielding as he pushed inside. And then it was warm and wet. His tessect moved easily up and down within her. He'd understood then, in that meeting of the minds, that was what he was supposed to do. It was such a strange sensation. Her flesh enveloped the end of his tessect every moment he was inside her, stimulating the entire thing at once. It had been somehow both gentle and blinding.

If she could do that to him, he could understand why the Bona Serat Corsar had chosen to wive her. He would, too, if she'd let him. That headstrong, wild thing.

"Usually, I have to work harder to make your blood thaw," Nylest said, her fingers stroking his tessect. The telson was already full and throbbing deep purple, the muscles holding it, taut. "I will take that as a compliment."

He didn't bother to contradict her. She could have her vanity so long as he didn't have to interrupt his memories.

Nylest directed his tessect to her ceron and he pushed inside. Nylest gasped. "Oh..." she moaned. "It's been a long time since you were this erect when you came into me."

Her ceron didn't yield like his wildling's; the tight flesh only stretched to allow entry. He pushed inside further. His tessect moved easily. He could sense in her pulsing, in the smoothness of his passage inside her, that her body was eager. He shut his eyes as the ceron narrowed to what was almost a point formed by Nylest's hip bones. He could feel the barrier against the tip of his tessect. Pleasure coursed through him as the tip hit the point, the tender flesh of the top of his telson sensitive to even the slightest pressure.

"Oh..." he moaned as his body shuddered. He pulled his first wife close, her silks cool and smooth against his body, but it wasn't her he was feeling. It was two hard nipples pressed against his bare chest, moving up and down against it within their soft, supple breasts. He wanted to hold them in his mouth, to suck on them each, individually.

It was a pair of long legs wrapped around his waist, her toes tickling the tips of his feathers. He could feel the strength of the muscles within them as they clasped tighter. It was her slender waist in his hands as he lifted her body, moving it in rhythm on his tessect. Up and down. Up and down. The sounds of her screams as she threw her head back and howled in a fit of ecstasy. He could still hear those screams echoing in his ears.

He pushed harder into his wife. Faster. He needed to feel that pleasure again. Every strike against the barrier brought the feeling of his wilding's body closer to him. Her nipples, her legs, her lips, the warmth of her mouth, the wetness that welcomed him inside of her, her intoxicating moans as his hips pushed him deeper into her, the contractions within her that would unexpectedly send waves of pleasure rippling through him.

"Ah!" the sound escaped his lips as the first discharge erupted from him.

The acid dissolved her barrier and with one hard push, he was inside of Nylest's lecimin chamber, his telson trapped by the narrow opening until the felous was spent and the bulb empty. Now it was the lower half of the telson that became sensitive. Somewhere below the screams in his memory, he could hear Nylest's moans, her head lolling back in pleasure, purple eyes shut.

He began pulling hard against the wall of the lecimin chamber, hitting against it again and again with the back of the telson. Stuttered moans grew louder and louder in his mind. Her body against his, her lips pressing against his neck, his shoulders, his chest. Her screams. The air was filled with her orgasmic screams! Her legs tightened around him; her arms clasped around his shoulders as if holding on for dear life as she panted in satisfaction! His wild woman, held, not tamed.

He grunted as the felous was expelled from him into his wife. His tessect slid out from within her. Nylest gazed at him with bleary purple eyes. Her fingers reached up and brushed back his black hair behind his ear. They were not the fingers he wished to touch him, but he took them in his hand, all the same, and pressed them to his brow.

"Who do you belong to?" Nylest asked. "I can tell it is not me who is on your mind."

"No," Rivuk answered.

"I am glad you have the decency not to lie to me."

"We are beyond lies, my wife."

"At least we have that."

"And our six children."

Nylest laughed bitterly. "How does a prince have three wives with a dozen children between them and yet only one daughter?"

"You would be the expert, I think."

Nylest's rueful smile said more than any retort could have. "I thank you for your visit and I hope to bless you with another son, soon."

"I hope you will find happiness and joy in him," Rivuk replied. "I will see you at the naming ceremony." He left the room, shutting the door behind him.

He found Carak waiting at the entrance. Of course, despite Rivuk's words at his dismissal, he'd known it would not be the whole of the evening that was consumed - it was rarely even the whole of an hour. Rivuk smiled, glad of Carak's devotion. To the rest of the palace, Carak might never be more than a servant in their eyes, but to Rivuk there was no one he trusted more than the old soldier.

"Your grace," Carak said with a bow. "Are you ready to leave?"

"Yes."

"How is the princess?"

"Lonely. Not that she'll ever admit it, particularly not to me. She's the aging mistress to a man with a beautiful young wife, her position is not an enviable one."

"No," Carak agreed.

Rivuk chuckled. "She calls me a treacherous prince."

"An interesting choice of words."

"Apt. Though, I doubt she knows how much so. Any news of the humans? Have they made contact with the Bonat Queen?"

"We believe so. They are moving north, toward the Vykyyar Strait."

"So, the tracking bots are working?"

"Yes, your grace. We picked up their signal again once they cleared the mountains"

"With any luck, they'll lead us right to the portal."

"Would you like me to send a unit?"

"No, I'll go, myself. It's been a quarter lanc since we've been able to get her out in the open, I'm not going to take any chances. Any deployment risks discovery by my brothers; I have no desire to explain myself to them at this early stage. It was difficult enough to arrange the humans' escape, if they find out about the tracking bots, it'll be over before it even began."

"When will you be taking your leave?"

"Before moonrise, during the changing of the guards. It's a long way to the Citadel and I'd prefer not to be seen leaving."

"I'll make sure to have the night guard pass on a message, to keep them from watching the skies."

"What will it be about?"

"The Feast of the Defeat of Jericho is next week, perhaps something to that end."

"Tell them I'll be providing a thousand kitons for their celebrations. Also, place an order for one thousand kitons."

Carak bowed his head to Rivuk, a gesture Rivuk felt was undeserved for a gift born of the necessity of distraction rather than kindness.

"That is most generous of you, your grace," Carak said.

"It is no less than they deserve," Rivuk replied.

"Only you would say that."

"That doesn't make it any less true. Now go. I need to prepare for my journey."

________________________________________

"Oh! OH! Don't stop!" Lindsay Weaver screamed as her wife's tongue traveled up through her labia to her clitoris, circling the little mound of pink flesh before striking it. "OH! DONIL!" Her hands tangled themselves in Donil's feathery white hair. "OHHHHHH!" The muscles in her hips contacted, even her toes curled!

Donil's tongue performed its minute acrobatics on her clit. Lindsay's bottom rose from the blanket, shaking. Donil held her thighs tightly as her licks became faster, firmer. Lindsay wanted to lose herself, to let her mind go away with the pleasure. But she knew too well where that would lead, to the black-haired prince with his copper eyes waiting for her as he always was. She didn't want to see him. She wanted to number the stars in Donil's eyes. She wanted to- A scream escaped her as her body quaked. She was blind to everything but the orgasm racing through her.