Deep Magic Bloom - Prologue

32nd Year of the God Flower - Before the War

As usual, Millicent was late. Not something you particularly wanted to be when meeting a coven of witches who were about to decide the fate of your immortal soul. She paused for a moment to apply some elderberry balm to her lips; if she went to her doom, she would go under her own terms. The wilding witch's words echoed through her mind as she stepped through the scrim of trees. You will only be able to keep a sliver of your power, lovey. But it will be yours forever.

A small fire burned in the center of the clearing where the Circle of the Forgotten Star held their sabbath. It was an obvious place, the kind of place that lovers came on moonlit nights, where teenagers snuck off to light their vagrant fires and take timid, hurried sips of wine stolen from their parents' cupboards. Like all places of magic, its power made no secret of itself. Even to those who did not believe in such things, the clearing held mysteries and in the small hours of sabbat nacht, none would come who were not invited.

Niera arched an eyebrow as Millicent stepped toward the fire. The other women kept their gazes averted, some cast to the moss at their feet, others almost haughtily pointed upwards. Millicent tried to glean a meaning from these poses, but the shadows cast by the languid flames made it difficult to parse their expressions. They remained clothed, not in itself a bad thing, but not encouraging. If they had been awaiting her in the nude, Millicent could have taken comfort. Mostly only good things happened when they were naked. Millicent looked around the circled sisters and finding Deliah, tried to meet her eye. The other druidess wouldn't look at Millicent. She was wearing her common clothes, a thick woolen blouse over faded leathers. Millicent saw the red welts on Deliah's shoulders from the heavy leather apron she wore while hammering steel. Her lover had come straight from the forge to this ill-fated meeting. Even under the circumstances, Millicent could not resist a look at Deliah's cleavage, the neck of her blouse unlaced, open to the cool night air. Deliah was perpetually hot and could barely countenance wearing clothes when she wasn't working the forge. Millicent often thought that Deliah's participation in the coven began as an excuse to frolic naked in the forest at night. Shades, that was the reason half of us came here in the first place wasn't it? Delilah thought. That, and a substantial interest in the prolonged study of other women's bodies. The sex had brought them - all except Theadora at least - but the power is what had bound them. It was the power that was at issue this sabbath. Power unlawfully obtained. Power that Milicent had been warned against and yet had been unable to resist as she had been unable to resist the lure of the bodies of the women now gathered in the clearing.

From the very first, her participation in the coven had been about impulse. An impulse to touch, to taste, to take. When the wilding witch had to come to her, had come on her, Millicent felt the pull of the deep magic, the unadulterated and feral mysticism that seemed to describe the very essence of the natural. It was right to take that power and even now, on the precipice of her banishment, or worse, Millicent felt no remorse.

"Have you come to be judged, sister?" Niera's voice intruded upon Millicent's thoughts and brought her mind back to the circle.

Millicent's voice stuck in her throat and she nodded. She was surprised to find that even in these chaste and foreboding circumstances, there was a familiar thrum between her thighs. Shades, is fucking all I can think about? But she knew it wasn't simple amorousness. It was the deep magic. It called to be let out. It thirsted for the sweet wetness between her sisters legs. Magic called to magic.

"Then judged ye shall be," Niera said in the formal speech that presaged misfortune. The High Druidess cleared her throat, her stern mein weakening for a moment. "Millicent, Sisters of Star, the Circle has reasoned and our verdict is final." Her words were rushed and Millicent detected a trepidation in Niera's voice that she hadn't heard before. When Niera cast a sideways glance to a clutch of shadow outside the circle of women, Millicent followed the look and took a sharp breath.

Men weren't allowed in the circle except under extremely specific circumstances, circumstances that did not bode well for Millicent or the verdict she was about to receive. Sex with druids wasn't strictly unusual for the Circle of the Forgotten Star, but neither was it typical. Millicent had taken a few cocks during her time as a sister of the Circle, but only for very specific rituals under strict precautions. A druid's magic was near as hungry as the deep magic. With women, magic was amplified, shared and combined and made stronger. It could be this way with men, of course, but it was also dangerous. If a druidess wasn't careful, she could lose a part of her power, maybe even more than a part.

Niera's face was composed once more. Her lips pressed tight, her eyes on the druid. As if called, the druid stepped forward. His chest was bare and in the firelight Millicent saw the ritual involutions, the sprialing scars that marked him as a barghast. This man had not come to share magic. He had come to take. His cock bulged beneath the laces of his pants and Millicent imagined licking the tip and the salt taste of his burgeoning desire.

Niera followed Millicent's gaze to the druid's tumescence and gave a wan smile. "Druid Glaive has come to impart your sentence, sister. You have been found guilty of unlawful participation in the deep magicks, of association with an apostate, and of the attempt to enlist your sisters in your illicit endeavors." There were murmurs around the circle. This last crime was a surprise to most of her sisters. "Your sentence," Niera continued, "is as benevolent as can be offered to a sister of such high regard and good standing as yourself." Niera's voice gentled then. "We loved you, Millicent, and we can't forget that, even under the glare of your betrayal."

"Milly," Deliah said, darting her eyes from Millicent to Niera and back. "This is the best way. You'll live at least."

Millicent looked around the circle at the other women. She smiled quickly, lips pressed tight together and tried to will away the tears that were threatening to overspill her lids. "I accept your verdict sisters. And my sentence." Her gaze lingered on Deliah. Delilah who was more than a sister in witchcraft, more than a lover, more than a friend. Deliah whose body she knew better almost than she knew her own. A body whose every curve and fold and soft orifice Millicent had explored with finger and tongue. She could have willed Deliah's smell into her nose had she wished, could have conjured the other woman's taste, hear her laugh, basked in the warmth of her smile. Had she a choice, Millicent would have ended her time as a druidess ensconced in the sense memories of the woman she loved. She wished for one more touch, a last taste of Deliah's folds, a final night resting in each other's arms, wet and breathless.

She felt the shift of air behind her and the scent of Niera's rising magic, like cold ashes, swept over her. A moment later a dark cloth was pulled over her eyes and cinched tightly behind her head. She fought to remain composed, but couldn't hold back a gasp as fingers slipped into her bodice followed by the cold iron of a ritual dagger. A tug and a tearing sound and her blouse was parted, her breasts exposed to the cold night, her nipples stiffening at once. Another pair of hands was pulling at her skirt, another kiss of cold iron as it too was cut away from her. She had worn no undergarments, she never did when they met in the clearing. On many nights Millicent had enjoyed the feel of the cool air through the thin weave of her skirt as she and Deliah ran home from their gatherings, flush with magic and arousal.

"Do not fear judgment, sister." Niera's whisper was hot against her ear and Millicent shivered with anticipation that was not wholly unpleasant, even under the circumstances. "We will not hurt you more than we have to. We will not inflict upon you any punishment you have not already agreed to."

Millicent searched her memories frantically. What had she agreed to? It had been years since she had taken her oaths of initiation. She knew as well as any of them that there would be consequences if she was caught misusing the magics, but what exactly those consequences would be were lost to her. What woman barely in her twenties gave a second's thought to the consequences of her actions when magic and orgiatic pleasure were just on the other side of a few words of oath? Trifles that she had cast aside as soon as she'd received them. She'd never meant to overstep the boundaries of the Circle. It was the hunger inside her that had overruled all. The rush she felt when the stolen magic flowed into her, sublime fire igniting in her sex, was like nothing she had ever experienced. Not even on the most exquisite nights with the Circle, with Deliah and the others running their rough tongues in swirls around her nipples, plunging cool fingers inside her, coaxing her orgasms with gentle insistence, not even then had she felt an iota of the pleasure she felt when she uttered that spell. She had needed desperately then to share it with someone, share the pure and wild- her thoughts came to a jarring halt and her head rang with an almost audible tolling of alarm. Deliah. She had gone to her lover to share that magic and Deliah had gone to Niera. Of course. She hadn't given it a moment's thought, never even considered who might have betrayed her. Niera simply knew. Niera always knew. Except that's not what happened at all, was it? She knew it was the truth in the instant the thought came to her. A solution to a puzzle she'd never even looked at until now. Betrayal was all she wore now, betrayal and a blindfold, and the shame of loving Deliah enough to think she could share any secret with her.

Millicent was lifted by the hands of her coven then, and lowered gently to the moss, compacted by her sister's feet. She heard the sounds of mallets driving stakes into the earth and then her arms were pulled above her head, her wrists wrapped in hempen rope, pulled taut and pinned in place. Hands ran over her breasts, someone squeezed one of her nipples and Millicent gasped in pain that sent a warmth down between her thighs. Her legs were bound next. When her sisters spread them roughly apart, Millicent was so wet she could actually hear the parting of her lips. Niera gave a command that Millicent couldn't hear clearly over the sound of her own panting and the hands released her. For what seemed like ages she lay there, limbs spread, nipples erect, sex dripping. Moss tickled her anus and errant stalks of grass fluttered against her thighs. She sensed a presence loom above her and heard the soft rasp of cloth over skin.

"Make her ready for me," a gravelly voice said above her. The druid. She could feel his magic, smell his deep earth-scent. Her sex pulsed, tightening briefly in anticipation. She had glimpsed his cock only for a moment and her mind swam as she tried to imagine its girth, to imagine what it would feel like inside her. Would it hurt? Niera had promised no pain, yet Millicent couldn't help but imagine his erection thrusting inside, stretching her beyond her limits. She let out a small cry, of fear or excitement? She wasn't sure.

In response to the druid's urging, her sisters descended on her. Their fingers moved across her supine body, tracing patterns along the insides of her arms and thighs with fingers dipped in colored clay. She tried to track the sigils they made, but soon her mind swam with the involuntary pleasure of her helplessness as her sisters went beyond simply painting her skin in preparation for the ritual and began to caress, pinch, and clutch at Millicent's helpless body. A hand slid across her cheek, a thumb ran rough across her lips. Millicent opened her mouth but the hand moved away, trailing down her throat, pressing gently into the cleft above her breast bone, fingers splaying and moving eagerly across her cleavage. Other fingers clamped around her nipples, twisting and eliciting a gasp and a moan. She felt long hair drape over her belly then move slowly down toward her thighs, thick hair like a silk shift slipping over her waist, her bush, and then hot breath as a mouth moved between her legs. When a tongue ran across the outer lips of her sex, Millicent could resist her pleasure no longer. If she was to have her magic taken from her, if she was to be subject to this degradation, this ritual of injustice, she would do it as a woman in full charge of body and spirit.

With a cry, she thrust her hips upward as best she could, straining against the ropes that bound her and in answer the tongue plunged deeper. When the tongue darted out and slid along her folds, Millicent recognized the rhythm and pattern of its hungry movements. In an instant Millicent forgave her lover's betrayal. In that moment, she only wanted to feel Deliah's kiss on her sex, Deliah's fingers in her cunt, Deliah's eager mouth lapping up her orgasm.

One of her sisters was swirling her tongue around Millicent's left nipple, the right nipple was between another's teeth. Fingers caressed her lips, darting in and out of her mouth as Deliah's tongue began to flick across Millicent's clit. She throbbed again and as if sensing this, Deliah slid a finger inside her, pushing deep into her wetness. When her mouth opened with a sharp breath of pleasure, one of the women lowered her own sex down on MIllicent's face. She could taste the other woman's wetness, could feel her clit swell with arousal as Millicent moved her tongue in time with Deliah's tongue below. She strained against the ropes, wanting nothing more than to reach up and grasp the buttocks of the woman above her, to spread her cheeks and run a finger around the tight entrance of her ass. Hands clamped down on her forearms, pinning her yet more firmly to the earth. Millicent could feel her magic rising within her, straining against the wards painted on her naked body. The runes began to itch, and then to burn and though the pain was not unwelcome in her state of arousal, with half a dozen women running their fingers, breasts, and tongues over her body, fear rose in Millicent's throat. The fear made her lust even more. Her magic surged in response and as she came closer to orgasm, she wondered if the runes painted on her skin could contain her power after all.

"Now," the man said from beside her. Abruptly the hands moved away from Millicent's body as her sisters stepped aside for the druid. Deliah's tongue lingered for a moment more, one last long lick across her wetness, then she too was gone. Millicent's arousal was too great to bear and she pushed her hips upward, chasing Deliah's tongue. Her sex pulsed as she took great heaving breaths, almost crying from the sudden ending. The druid moved between her legs. Wasting no time, he seized the opportunity and as Millicent urged her dripping pussy forward, he entered her, the head of his cock brushing over her clit and sending bolts of pleasure radiating up into her belly. Her nipples ached from her sisters ministrations, the taste of sex was in her mouth. Her own wetness had spread, soaking her bush, her asshole, and the moss beneath it. The druid slid inside her easily and Millicent cried out with pure pleasure at the feel of his girth stretching her. He was not gentle, but for Millicent the time for gentleness had passed.

Arrayed around her, Millicent's sisters began to sing, crystalline harmonies that called forth magic and wove a net above her and the man thrusting inside of her. The druid began to chant as well and Millicent's magic responded eagerly, mirroring her own desire for release. As the man's grunts became more frantic, she felt his cock throbbing, his seed pulsating, eager to spurt inside her. A deep and primal part of Millicent yearned to feel him fill her, to feel the throbbing of his orgasm as his seed spilled into her cunt. She cried out and squeezed herself around him, urging him on as best she could with her limbs tied as they were. In a few brief moments Millicent knew her magic would be taken by the druid, leaving her as spent and empty as he would be. Only unlike the druid's seed, her magic would not return within the hour.

She had only one chance. A single spell, so powerful said the wilding witch, that it rend her from the inside out if a single word was off. If it worked, Millicent could compartmentalize a splinter of her magic, stuff it deep within her, deeper even than the druid's power would reach when his seed erupted inside her. A soulbinding the witch had called it. What she had described would not make Millicent the druid she had been, but it would ensure that someday she might rekindle the flame of her power. Someday she might be whole again.

Remembering the wilding witch's instruction, Millicent began to chant the words of the spell within her mind. It was a spell that required no vocalizations, which was lucky because Millicent could do barely more than gasp and groan. As the druid drew closer and closer to his release, his cock seemed impossibly hard, pulsing with semen and desire inside her. Millicent willed her own orgasm to come as well. She could tell the man between her legs was near to bursting and desperately trying to hold on. The spell of taking wouldn't work unless he could time his eruption to her orgasm. As she uttered the final words to her secret spell, Millicent bared her teeth in a grimace. She was ready. She would give the druid the release he sought, give her sisters the penance the Circle demanded, give herself the wet, gushing, sublime gift of release.

As her sex convulsed in waves of orgasm, she felt the druid's seed burst into her, spurt after hot, thick spurt. It made Millicent come all the harder, his grunts and her groans a call and response, a guttural, primal music that joined the high, ululating harmonies of her sisters. Her shuddering orgasm joined with the trembling of his cock and his furtive thrusts to make a primal dance that caused the flicker of deep magic within her to flare. A new power, unknown to her until now, surged in response to their animalistic fucking, and ancient ritual that transcended laws and civility. Sacred fuck, Millicent thought, I'm coming again. She rode a second wave of orgasm, pulling the druid deeper inside her, even as he made to pull himself away. His cock was softening and Millicent cried out as she willed it to stiffen again, to plunge into her cunt and fill her with more of his seed.

At last, her passion ebbed and left her as limp as the druid's cock. She trembled involuntarily, tiny spasms in her sex. Her breath was ragged, her body slick with sweat. The druid remained between her legs for a moment, catching his own breath. Good, she thought, at least I gave him a fuck to remember. When he withdrew, Millicent felt his seed spill out of her and down her lips. Someone pulled off the blindfold and gentle hands began to untie her. She watched the druid pull on his pants, cock dripping, turgid now, and looking so harmless that it was difficult to believe it had been the instrument of her loss. Having freed Millicent from her bonds, the sisters shuffled wordlessly away. Shoulders slumped and heads bowed, they did not look at her, not even Deliah.

Millicent lay there for long minutes. She was spent, covered in sweat and saliva, the druid's cum trickling from between her legs. The forest had dulled, its colors not as vibrant, its sounds muffled. She would not cry. She was a druidess. No, she corrected herself. I am a wilding witch now. An apostate. It didn't matter any longer, whatever happened next, she would live and she would grow and so would the magic inside of her.