The Sacrifice Ch. 01

Her two middle fingers slid in and out of me, the other fingers sliding between my outer and inner lips as she moved, the heel of her hand brushing too lightly over my clit. She brought her head down to blow gently across my stiff nipples, and as she wet each one with the tip of her tongue I cried out into the gag. When she bit down on one everything dissolved into stars as I came screaming into the thick fur, shaking under her grasp.

As I lay shaking in the aftereffects of the orgasm, she released my wrists and tugged the fur out of my mouth, pulling me into a long, hungry kiss as she stroked my shoulders, her other hand gently tracing my sopping folds, teasing out a smaller, gentler spasm. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled myself tighter against her.

i missed you, shining star

i can tell, sweet shadow

A rippling trill of laughter sang through our link as she gently broke our kiss, my lower lip still held between her teeth. Her eyes met mine, shining silver in the dark.

but what kind of welcome home greeting is this? you've gotten my hand all wet and sticky. here, smell yourself

Releasing my lip she finally pulled her hand out of my sex and brought it up beneath my nose. I inhaled deeply, savoring the smell of my juices mixed in with the rough outdoor scent of her.

"I'm so terribly sorry, Leli. Please, may I clean it off for you?" I whispered.

"Oh, I suppose so. You did say please."

She rolled off of me, holding her wet hand primly above my mouth. I curled my own hands around her wrist and brought her hand down, slowly and oh so very carefully sucking my juices off each finger, brushing soft kisses against her callouses. The smell of my arousal made my nostrils flare as I lovingly cleaned her hand. When I was satisfied that I was done, I gently kissed her hand all over, pressing my lips to the back of each knuckle, then softly dried her hand with one of the bed furs.

I smiled up at her in the dark and with a wave of my hand created a small orb of silver light, which drifted up to hang just below the ceiling of our small tent. I lay there on my side staring at her, thinking again how lucky I was to have her.

I'd chased her since we both first grew breasts and learned what grown-ups did with each other. Most of the girls in our clan had a series of romances with each other, but I only cared for Leli and Leli seemed to care for no one. She finally gave in nine months ago, just after her eighteenth birthday and a few weeks before my nineteenth. I might have been older and taller, I might have chased her, but she had always been in charge between us ever since we were kids, and that didn't change when we started sharing furs. Not that I wanted it to.

We had similar bodies – lean, tightly muscled from our training as warriors. We both had small, pert breasts, flat stomachs, and runner's thighs, but there the similarities ended. While I was dark, with the traditional olive complexion of the Ao bloodline, Leli was shockingly fair, her skin white as a pearl and her long, delicately pointed ears signifying her Cloudfolk heritage. Only her silver eyes told that she was just as much an Ao as I or anyone else in Owl Clan.

She kept her platinum blonde hair very short, a practical fighter's cut. My own black curls were a touch longer, tumbling over my ears and just barely short enough to stay out of my eyes. She grinned back at me and sent her own light up to dance around mine. Then she slid into a crouch and nudged my hip with her boot, tipping me onto my back. I pulled my hands behind my head and arched my back, hardened nipples thrusting proudly into the air, enjoying displaying my nudity to my heart and soul. Hearth-sisters since she joined the Ao at age seven, lovers for nine months, mind-linked blood-sisters for three months. As long as she was willing to keep me, I would happily be hers until we died.

mm, that's a pretty show, sweet shadow. feeling you coming through our link has gotten me pretty wet myself. i think it's time you repay my favor

Leli tugged at the laces of her leathers, then kicked her boots off and shoved her smallclothes and leathers down. She was right, she was wet, her pale lower lips swollen and pink, faintly glistening in the light of our orbs. She backed over the collapsible bench we maintained our weapons on and sat down, spreading her pale legs wide and leaning her shoulders against our armor rack.

She smiled again and beckoned me to work. I smiled back and pulled myself to my hands and knees, then crawled toward her through the furs as sensually as I could, swaying my hips. When I arrived at her legs, I kissed each of her feet then began to work my way up, alternating between each leg as I kissed my way up her strong calves, tasting the salt of her dried sweat from the road.

When I got to her thighs she let out a low growl, tired of the tease, and buried her hand in my hair, yanking my face into her crotch. Bracing myself with one hand, I brought the other up underneath her as I licked her. I bathed my finger in her juices, slid it underneath her and circled the tight rose behind her. I loved the taste of her, rich and deep, her smell filling my nostrils as her juices slid into my mouth and smeared over my cheeks and chin. Bringing pleasure to my shining star was the only thing on my mind.

We didn't have to worry about noise as I drove my tongue deep into her inner passageway; as loud as I was, Leli was that quiet. The only noises she ever made were the occasional soft grunt or deep breath, but I knew each one of those little noises and what they meant, the same as I knew the track of every animal in our woods. Guided by them, I knew just when to slide my slick finger into her back channel up to the second knuckle, at the same time that I pulled my tongue out of her and sucked down hard on the little bud in front.

Her muscles spasmed, locking my head almost painfully between her legs as her fist tightened in my hair, and I felt the glowing light of her in the back of my head burst as she came, the reverberation setting off a tingling sensation in my own aroused body.

After a long moment she loosened her grip and then slid limply off the bench to lie next to me in the furs. I cuddled into her, feeling the warm slickness of her juices coating my lips and cheeks. After a minute she made an annoyed noise then sat up and began tugging at her leather chest plate. I helped her unlace it and store it on the rack, along with her leggings and boots, and then she tugged off her tunic and tossed it in the corner. I unwound her breast binding, and then she was as naked as me, white all over except for the bright pink of her nipples.

She pulled me back down into the nest of furs and curled up behind me, her nipples pressed into my shoulder blades, her still damp sex tight against my buttocks. She tugged the bear fur from my name-day hunt down over us, and I was a ball of safety and contentment, happily wrung out from our predawn romp and back where I belonged, within my lover's embrace.

I gave a happy sigh as she idly traced one hand up my side, then curled it around my breast and began to gently play with my nipple. I let my orb of light wink out and began to drift back to sleep, the terrible dream almost completely forgotten, when I heard her voice softly in my mind, barely a whisper.

i'm sorry i woke you up like that Sar. i just saw you twitching and moaning in your sleep when i came in and suddenly i had to have you. i didn't mean to scare you, i'd just been thinking about you the whole ride in on the night patrol and i couldn't stop myself.

I opened my mouth to reassure her, but she gave me a quick bite on the shoulder and continued.

don't say anything yet, just let me finish. i'm not sure i can say this if you interrupt me. just stay quiet until i say i'm done and give you permission to talk, okay?

The fear was back. This wasn't going to be a good conversation if she was starting it like this. She couldn't be leaving me, could she? I froze, waiting for her to continue, and then I realized she was waiting for me. I whispered back to her through our link, even though I didn't want to.

okay Leli. i promise i won't say anything until you say that you're done.

thanks. i don't really know where to start, but i guess there's no point in circling around things. i had the Calling Dream two nights ago during the middle of the patrol. i'm going to announce it at the clan gathering tonight.

I moaned deep in my throat but I couldn't say anything. She hadn't given me permission to speak yet.

i know it was the Calling Dream; it couldn't have been anything else. i was floating over a mountain pass, watching a city burn below me, and there were Ao and Cloudfolk standing together amidst all these dead bodies. then a great shadow poured out of the city and circled all around them, and I felt pure despair.

i was just crying and hoping to wake up, but then a silver light pierced the shadow, centering around one of the Ao girls, and she walked into the shadow. it closed about her and went back down into the valley, and the sun came out again and I knew we were safe. it had to be her, blessed Sahi herself. The dream was clearer than any dream i've ever had and it didn't go away when i woke, the memory stayed.

i don't want to risk leaving you, sweet shadow, but i think this is why i was made an Ao. no one remembers the last time one of the Cloudfolk became an Ao as young as i did. as soon as i heard the stories i promised myself that i wouldn't love anyone until i was too old to be the Sacrifice. i didn't want to leave anyone behind if i was the one, that's why i held you off for so long, but i wasn't strong enough in the end. i wanted to have you, even if it would just be for nine months.

i know it's just the Calling, but now that i've had the dream i'm surer than ever. i'm going to win the lottery, i'm going to be the Sacrifice, i'm going to be the Promised One and redeem both sides of my heritage, and i'm going to lose you.

At that she broke into incoherent sobs and clutched me to her so tightly it hurt.

I guess I should go back and explain what a Calling Dream and the lottery are, so that you understand why my heart was in my throat while she said all of that.

Over two centuries ago, the Ao stood with the allied armies of three nations outside the walls of Sil Hideen, capital of the mountainous Cloud Kingdom. Their enemies were the invading hordes of the north, led by the immortal demon-king Ravan, who titled himself Scourge of the World. The Ao were responsible for the alliance – the northern kingdoms had fought each other while they fought Ravan, and had fallen one at a time to his grasp over the last eighty years.

The Ao convinced the southern kingdoms closest to the mountains that Ravan would never stop of his own volition, and that their best chance was to stand together. The fact that the Cloud Kingdom's narrow passes meant they could pick the battle spot was the tipping point in persuading the other kings to commit their armies to the Cloud Queen's defense. After months of maneuvering and skirmishing, the allied armies finally committed to a final battle with the horde before the very gates of Sil Hideen. The Ao called upon their greatest magic to shield the allied armies, and they marched forward confident in the righteousness of their cause.

They were destroyed. Ravan had been holding back his magic, letting the Ao and the allied armies become overconfident. He wanted them to commit to one decisive battle, and once they did, he let loose lightning and fire upon them.

The Ao ward spells were shattered before him and an entire generation of southern military died. Nine out of ten southern warriors who went into the Cloud Kingdom never returned. The survivors rallied to the banner of Renhir, the chieftain of the Ao and our greatest wizard.

As Sil Hideen burned behind them, fourteen Ao and thirty-six Cloudfolk chose to make a suicide stand in the tightest part of the pass to give the rest of the survivors time to escape. The rest of the scene was, according to history, pretty much like my dream, though the stories didn't give as many lurid details as my dream had.

Sahi, Renhir's niece, had sacrificed herself to save the southern kingdoms and wrung a promise from Ravan that the Ao could repeat her sacrifice. Seven years later, Sahi's younger sister Amano announced that Sahi had spoken to her in a dream and it was her responsibility to make Sahi's Sacrifice again. Renhir tried to stop her, as she was the last of his bloodline, but the rest of the council knew that the south was still ruined from their losses at Sil Hideen and they took the sister to the pass.

Ravan was waiting, a silver circlet with a ruby on it dangling from his hand. Six weeks later, Renhir burned his books of magic and threw himself from the top of the Regnier falls, and the greatest and most powerful bloodline in Ao history came to an end.

Seven years after that, four young women came to the council of elders and said they had seen Sahi's Sacrifice in their dreams and they were prepared to give themselves to save the south. One of the four, Rachel, was a seer. She had a vision before the council, and announced that as long as the Ao stayed faithful to Sahi's pledge, Bright Mother would protect the south, and one day, she would send a promised one, who by fulfilling Sahi's pledge would bring down Ravan and free the north as well.

All we had to do was be faithful and continue to fulfil Sahi's Sacrifice. There was still the matter of choosing which of the four volunteers would be sent to torture and death. In the end, the elders decided that if multiple volunteers came, they would hold a lottery to determine who would be sacrificed. Rachel won the first lottery, and rode with the elders to the border of the Cloud Kingdom. Ravan was waiting for her.

Since that day, every seven years there has been a lottery, with the smallest on record being three volunteers and the largest fifty-two girls ready to be tortured to death for their people. Question not the courage of the Ao. After almost two and a half centuries with no threat from the north, the rest of the south may believe that the demon-king is just a story to frighten children with, and some southern kingdoms now believe that the Ao are a wicked folk who lured the bright kings of the south to their deaths in the Cloud Kingdom, but the Ao know the truth.

The Ao have not forgotten, and Ao have never failed to continue the Sacrifice. "You may be immortal, but so is the courage of the Ao" – that might not have been true when Sahi reputedly said it, but since then it has become scripture for us.

Over 245 years and thirty-five Sacrifices, a few things have become clear. Only girls get the calling dream – boy Ao may die gloriously and heroically in any number of fashions, but Sahi's Sacrifice is not one of their options.

Second, the girl is always between 18 and 25 years old, a seven year span centered on the age Sahi was when she made the first Sacrifice. That means we are all potentially the Sacrifice. There's no time you can be born when there won't be a lottery during your window.

Finally, forty-two years after Sahi's bargain, at the lottery for the seventh Sacrifice, we put together the last piece. Sahi had never known the love of a man when she gave herself for her people, and neither had her younger sister, 18 at the time she went to her death, or Rachel, or any of the other girls who had gotten the dream in the four decades of peace the Sacrifices had won for the south. Those three things didn't guarantee you'd get the Calling Dream, but no one ever got it without meeting those three criteria.

Ao being the stupidly brave types that we are, as soon as that became clear, a pretty serious taboo arose about girls having sex with boys before their Calling window came up. Young lust being what is, we ended up with a lot of girls seeking pleasure with girls, and boys with boys. That didn't help the Ao's reputation with the Southern Kingdoms.

There are two ways to become Ao. You either get born to Ao parents, like I did, and are raised on a steady diet of tales of glorious deaths fighting evil across the southern lands, with no death more glorious than the Sacrifice, or Bright Mother senses that you have the nature of an Ao and turns your eyes and your blood silver, which can happen any time from childhood to old age.

When that happens, if you're in the wrong part of the south, your village burns you as a demon or a changeling or whatever their local legend is. If you're in one of the parts of the south that remembers, your village sends a message to the Ao and we come and take you away from your life and teach you to be one of us. That's how Leli became an Ao.

Cloudfolk are almost as rare in the south these days as Ao are. Most of their civilians had taken shelter in the high valleys, planning to come back down after the horde was defeated. When Sahi's Sacrifice bound the demon's power in the north, they ended up on the wrong side of the line. No one knows what became of them, but it can't have been anything good.

The few thousand Cloudfolk who made it out with the retreating remnants of the southern armies didn't find a very warm welcome in the kingdoms that had sent their armies into the Cloud Kingdom to be destroyed. The survivors ended up becoming nomads, travelling horse traders and tinkers, staying only a little bit of time near each town to trade, leaving before the locals could decide the "Knife-ears" were responsible for any missing goods and come out with pitchforks and torches.

One thing they held fast though – however unreliable the memories of the rest of the south might be, the Cloudfolk remembered what happened at Sil Hideen. There had been seven of them who walked out of the mountains alive after being eye-witnesses to Sahi's Sacrifice, and they knew that she and the thirty-four girls who followed her were the only reason any of them roamed free in the south. The Cloudfolk honor the Ao and respect the Sacrifice.

Leli was a direct descendant of one of those last seven Skyguard from my dream, making her the closest thing the modern Cloudfolk had to a noble class, but when Leli's eyes turned silver on her seventh birthday, her parents sent a message to the Ao that same day to come and get her.

Given that history, I could imagine why Leli was so sure she would win the lottery. She had to feel like she had a good chance to be the Promised One. Ao who are made instead of born always tend to be a little bit nobler and even more crazily brave than the rest of us.

As a noble member of a rare people who had then been chosen even more rarely by a goddess, Leli felt like it was destiny, not blind chance guiding her. Given that she had a pretty high opinion of herself, it made sense that she thought she might be not only the Sacrifice for our time, but also the legendary Promised One, who bring down Ravan with her Sacrifice. Suddenly all the ways she had put me off and stalled our love for years before finally giving in started to make sense. In hindsight I was surprised I'd actually won her; she must have loved me more than she showed.

There was only one problem with Leli's narrative, but she didn't know it. The dream she described to me wasn't nearly as clear and vivid as the one she'd woken me up from. And it was the seventh night in a row I'd suffered through the exact same dream.