Exile Page 14

  In a way, he felt worse for Selena. She would have to watch them succumb to it, he realized. She had already seen one of her friends lose it, and she’d have to watch Cyril, Aless, even him succumb to the spirits….

  “You okay…?” Piers asked.

  Tears began flowing down Selena’s cheeks freely. “No,” she replied. “Yours are going to break too, Piers, don’t you know that? Can we stop it? No.”

  She stayed in his arms for a few minutes, attempting to calm her down. Selena suddenly sat back, staring at him with a determined expression on her face, eyes still swollen from tears. “I… I don’t want to wait any more,” she declared, moving her fingers to the top of her dress, slowly popping open the first button.

  Piers stared at her in disbelief. “A-are you sure?” he asked. “You’ll go feral if we do, won’t you?”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “I removed the podium off just in case,” she answered, pulling her dress away from her shoulders, leaving her in only her undergarments. “I don’t want to wait until we no longer have the chance…. Please, Piers?”

  It should have been more romantic, Piers felt as he reached forward and grabbed the end of Selena’s chest binding, tugging it and allowing the bandages to fall to the floor, exposing her small breasts fully. It should have been romantic as he began to move his hands down her chest, resting one on her hip and the other on her back, trying to pull her body as close to his as he could. It should have been romantic, but Piers could feel tears falling onto Selena’s cheeks with every move she made, and the guardian had to wonder if he was really doing the right thing.

  She moved a hand slowly to his chest, unlacing the front of his shirt, pushing it open and revealing the hard, tanned surface. She moved her hands inside, feeling his pectoral muscles, experimentally running her thumbs over his nipples.

  Piers shuddered, pulling away from the kiss. He moved a thumb to Selena’s face, trying to wipe some of her tears away. He sat back and shrugged his coat off. Selena moved forward, hesitantly gripping the bottom of his shirt and pulling it up, tugging it over his head and throwing it to the side.

  Selena shut her eyes again, but Piers didn’t take that personally. He could see the tears cascading down her cheeks, and he once again wondered if he should go through with this. He had seen her naked before on numerous occasions, but this time was different to him. She was most vulnerable like this, with her emotions at the surface. Piers smiled at the thought that he really was the only man she showed this side of herself to. This was the side he’d earned, and no one, not Corin nor Selena’s old master, had this pleasure besides him.

  Piers slowly pushed her back against the grating. He was tempted to ask if she was all right on the uncomfortable surface, but he didn’t want to pressure her into speaking before she was ready. Selena was a proud person, and despite how close the two guardians were, Piers didn’t want to force her to talk before she was ready. He was certain if she wanted to, she would speak up.

  Piers moved his hand to the top of her undergarment, playing with the waistband idly. He smiled, leaning over and kissing her again. He propped himself up on one arm, not wanting to crush the small woman under his weight. Piers flicked his thumb over her nipple. She shuddered and touched Piers’s arm restraint.

  “Fuck her.”Corona commanded. Piers grunted, pulling back from Selena, moving his hand back down to the waistband on her undergarments, staring down at her.

  “Are you sure you want to do this…?” Piers asked. “We can stop, you know.”

  Selena sat up slowly.“Who knows if we’ll get another chance?” she asked, moving her hands to the top of his pants and unlacing them, tugging them down his thighs. “I’d rather do this before we lose our chance.”

  “Zephyr isn’t bugging you?” he asked, finally beginning to tug Selena’s panties down her legs.

  “He’s being quiet.”She lay back, gesturing for Piers to join her again.

  Piers smiled and began kissing a line down her neck. Piers smiled, brushing her hair off her shoulder and following it with his lips. He trailed kisses down her stomach, eventually reaching her bellybutton. He moved a hand to her thigh, slowly spread her legs. Selena’s hand suddenly shot out, trapping his arm in a viselike grip.

  “Selena?” Piers asked, looking up curiously. “We can stop.”

  Selena took a moment to compose herself, chest heaving. “No, it’s fine. I just need a second.”

  Piers crawled back up, giving her a small peck on the lips.

  “Okay,” Selena said, loosening her grip. “I’m fine.”

  Piers descended again. He pulled her legs over his shoulders and looked down at her most intimate area.He leaned forward and gave her a tentative lick. Selena grasped at Piers’s hair, letting a soft moan escape her throat. She could feel her mana beginning to flare, mixing with Piers’s. It felt incredible, and unlike anything she had ever experienced. Selena arched her back, trying to drive her hips closer to Piers’s talented tongue.

  Piers focused on the task at hand, exploring Selena’s folds as delicately as possible. Corona continued berating him mentally, screaming at him to light her on fire or flip her over and just force himself inside her and other equally horrifying suggestions. He was desperately repressing these thoughts, and keeping himself focused on Selena alone was the best way to keep a clear head. He moved a hand between his legs, tugging at the hard flesh to ensure he’d be ready to take Selena. The only benefit Piers could think of to Corona in this situation was that the spirit effectively made him sterile, preventing pregnancy from being an issue.

  Though, when he thought about it, moving a finger to help stimulate Selena, he really wouldn’t have minded with her, at least in the future. He really did love the younger woman, as strange as it was from him, and having a child with her? It wouldn’t be his worst-case scenario, especially if Corona wasn’t inside him.

  He pulled away from Selena, feeling her shudder beneath him, letting out a loud sigh. She moved her head up, tilting it curiously. “Why did you stop…?”

  Piers lowered her legs to his waist, and lying on top of her, positioned himself properly. “We…. Corona’s being loud. We should move it along….” He panted, leaning over and pressing a gentle kiss against her mouth.

  Selena’s eyes widened with concern. “D-do you want me to do anything for you?”

  Piers smiled, trailing his hand up Selena’s inner thigh. “Not today… I’d be too worried of Corona taking control if you did that.”

  Selena grunted, taking a deep breath to relax as she felt Piers’s erection pushing against her. Selena winced, digging her nails into Piers’s shoulders. The pain was indescribable; it felt as though she was being split in two. Selena opened her eyes, looking up toward Piers. She pulled the tie out of his ponytail and allowed his long red hair to cover his back. Piers finished easing his way in, looking down at Selena with a smile.

  Corona went nuts.

  Piers tried to focus on Selena’s little actions, determining whether it would be all right for him to move, or if she was still in extreme pain, but Corona was so loud. By the spirits, she was tight—it felt immensely good to Piers, and apparently Corona, too. The demon was thrilled by the sensations, and from what Piers could hear, the spirit wanted more.

  “Are you okay?” Selena asked, brushing a lock of hair off his face.

  Piers could’ve laughed at the irony of the situation; she was concerned about him while he had just broken her hymen. Though, he noted with a frown, her concern was probably justified. Corona was trying to push his way out; Piers could feel it, and it was causing a throbbing headache.

  “H-He’s—” Piers ground out, suddenly moving a hand to grip his head. Corona screamed even louder, somehow, and suddenly Piers heard a loud crack.

  Selena’s eyes widened in panic as the last restraints on Piers crumbled, powder spilling on top of her breasts.

  “Well, aren’t you pretty?” Corona hissed. He flipped her onto her stomach and re-entered h
er roughly.

  SELENA screamed. It hadn’t hurt this much when Piers penetrated her, but he had been much slower than Corona was, and he had made a point of making sure she wasn’t in too much pain. Corona set a brutal pace, earning a sob from the guardian. She closed her eyes, trying to focus her energy into a paralysis spell, but the grating was a terrible surface to pass a spell through. By the spirits, it hurt—it hurt so much. Tears freely fell from her eyes; Corona was pressing her tight against the grating, causing the design to imprint on her skin.

  Selena finally managed to focus enough to begin sending the paralyzing infection through Piers’s skin, the contact allowing her to use her body in lieu of a ground. She bit her lip, trying to focus through the pain. Her mana being already active helped her, but only slightly. It was hard to maintain enough focus for such a strong spell.

  Piers’s body suddenly becamestiff, and Selena took the only chance she had. She pried open the latch to the well, sparing a moment to pull Piers’s pants back up his thighs. As much as his body had hurt her, she felt he deserved to at least keep a bit of his modesty when he had the ability to push through.

  She used the remaining strength she had to push Piers’s body into the well, immediately covering it with the trapdoor, latching it shut.

  Selena crawled away, slowly gathering her clothing and pushing it to the side, feeling the grating below her begin to heat up. Corona had awakened again, she realized, giving a choked sob. She tried to ignore the pain throbbing between her legs, pushing the podium over top of the grating, ignoringCorona’s obscene shouts.She flopped onto her side, pulling her legs to her chest, and broke down sobbing.

  Chapter 20

  “I PROMISE, Corin, if you have been hiding something from us, we won’t be angry with you,” Cyril stated, pushing the document back toward the apprentice.

  Corin stared at the piece of paper. It had been two hours since they’d started this process, two long, grueling hours of reading the same piece of paper over and over again.

  There simply hadn’t been more to say. He had told them all the details of it, the peculiar blacked out sections, the change in the original tale… but they had come to the same conclusion he had. It was probably just a morbid telling of the old tale, or an original version that had become idealized with time. Whether it was significant was confusing.

  “I’m sorry, but this really is all it says,” Corin said.

  “Are you absolutely sure you couldn’t have missed anything? Maybe mistranslated something?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s my native tongue so I know what all of it means,” he answered. “I don’t know—maybe I’m using the wrong Common words.”

  “So this is a dead end?” Aless asked. “Do we have any other leads?”

  Corin frowned, feeling rather useless. He turned back toward the document on the table, finally noticing something odd in one of the corners. “Wait a second,” he muttered, reaching out and touching the paper, staring in pure amazement. “Something is happening!”

  The two guardians turned and faced the document. Corin watched as one of the black blobs seemed to simply form above the page as a powder. He leaned forward tentatively, blowing the ashes away from the page, staring as new words were uncovered.

  “What do those say?” Aless asked, leaning forward.

  Corin paused, taking a few minutes to translate. “It’s weird…. It says that before the woman went to… it’s a sixth temple?” he asked. “It said she made an offering to Llubla…?”

  “I’ve never heard of him,” Aless replied, turning to Cyril.

  “Neither have I, but it gives us marginally more to go off of. There are some old maps in the Forbidden Archive, I’m sure we can try and find one,” Cyril explained. “Does the document have a date on it at all?”

  Corin furrowed his brow, searching the bottom of the page for any indication. “I… I’m not sure.”

  “The book Kateline had you translate was from far earlier, I know at least that much,” Cyril stated, “but judging from the lore present in the tale, we can at least rule out any maps over a thousand years old.”

  “What I’m a little bit curious about,” Aless interrupted, staring at the text, “is how in Serac’s name did that blot manage to come to the surface. You all saw it, didn’t you? It just… rose to the surface as ashes.”

  “It is a mystery,” Cyril agreed, “but we must focus on what we can and work on that. Now, I want you to compare the book to the document while I…”

  They talked for several minutes longer, checking different texts, until suddenly the door swung open, effectively silencing their talkingand causing all in the room to stare. There stood Selena looking exhausted and bruised, dried tears still present on her face. Her eyes were red and slightly swollen, and Corin almost winced at the sight, unused to his master looking so beaten down.

  “Selena, what happened?” Cyril asked.

  Selena averted her eyes from the group. “Piers’s restraints broke,” she explained, “I… I sealed him in the Chaos Temple.”

  “Why were you in the Chaos Temple?” Aless asked, but was quickly silenced by glares from both men in the room. He turned back toward the document before a thought suddenly appeared. “Wait, Selena, when did Piers’s restraints break?”

  “I don’t know…thirty minutes ago? I came here as quickly as I could, but he’s trapped and—he can’t hurt anyone….”

  Cyril stood up, walking over and placing a hand on Selena’s shoulder, whispering a few assuring words to her. Corin bit his lip, unsure of how to contribute to the situation. Something terrible had obviously happened. He cared for Master Selena, he really did, but he had no idea how appropriate it would be to approach her.

  Aless looked between Cyril and Corin. “The ashes… they appeared about thirtyminutes ago, didn’t they?”

  “Maybe we should wait a bit before discussing this,” Corin suggested, biting his lip nervously.

  “No, listen to what I’m saying!” Aless insisted, pointing toward the text. “The words emerged about thirty minutes ago, and Piers’s restraints crumbled about thirty minutes ago. There has to be some connection!”

  Cyril turned away from Selena. “Are you suggesting that the words are revealed when the restraints crumble?”

  “Well, yeah,” Aless replied, sitting back as soon as he realized how silly it sounded.

  Selena stared into space, eyes watering.

  “You can leave if you like,” Cyril offered.

  “Please tell me if you find anything… I need to lie down,” she answered, wobbling slightly as she exited.

  “Will she be okay?” Corin asked, turning to Cyril.

  “As terrible as this is, I believe we need to focus on the restraints right now. If Selena truly needs any comfort from us, she will be the one to approach us,” he said.

  Corin turned to the door. “I should go after her.”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” Cyril countered, returning to his seat. “You were saying, Aless?”

  Aless coughed, sparing a glance in Corin’s direction. “Well, it’s kind of a stretch, but if Piers’s restraints crumbled at the same time the blot turned to ash… maybe they’re connected?”

  “There’s definitely a chance that’s the case, especially given the nature of the text,” he answered, pausing, “though the way we test it isn’t exactly a good idea.”

  Aless shrugged. “So… one of us breaks a restraint and we see what happens?”

  “That’s unsafe, though,” Corin muttered. “One of you would have to go feral… and what if this also is a dead end?”

  “At this point it’s a chance we have to take.” Cyril replied. “I’m not fond of it… not at all, but it’s the only thing we really can do.”

  “Should we get Master Selena?” Corin asked, looking nervously between the two guardians. “She can hold back feral guardians really well….”

  “No,” Cyril insisted. “Selena needs some time to recover. I have experience in th
is matter… I’ll be able to capture Aless.”

  “Hey, wait, since when did I agree to be the one to go feral?” he asked.

  “You have the least knowledge on the topic as a whole,” Cyril insisted. “You are the obvious choice. Aless, this really is one of our last shots.”

  Aless sighed, exchanging glances with both Cyril and Corin. He let his gaze linger on the younger man, who had been looking at him with concerned eyes. So much for tonight, he figured. There’d be plenty of time for that after the whole situation had been remedied, he figured, looking Corin in the eyes. “I’ll do it,” he replied.

  “Wait!” Corin suddenly exclaimed, worry flooding through his face. “Master Cyril, please think about this. We don’t even know if this will work. We can’t let him go feral before we have tried all the options.”

  “What are you suggesting instead?” Cyril asked.

  “I don’t think we should destroy any more restraints today. We should take a look at any maps we can find, see if there’s anything else we can do.”

  “This is our last hope, Corin. I thought you had realized this,” Cyril scolded.

  “No, it isn’t. We… we still have some things we should do, before we go on,” he insisted. “If that tale is right, and it seems to be connected to this, then there was an old temple here that was lost, somehow. We should look for that first! If it’s there then maybe we don’t need to destroy the restraints.”

  Cyril sighed, looking at Corin with tired eyes. “Things will only get more severe as days progress. Tomorrow my restraints may give in; we have to get as much done as possible,” he countered.

  “That’s another reason to put off breaking someone’s,” Corin pointed out. “The fewer people we have who can help us, the less likely we are to find a solution in time. If Aless’s and your restraints both gave in, we’d be stuck.”

  Cyril stood up. “You have a point,” he admitted, looking between the two. “I’ll see what I can do about the map. In the meantime, please give the texts another look and tell me if you figure out anything else.”