The Poison Princess (20 page)

“Whatever I want,” Ruby replied, wiping her
hands clean on the silky fabric.

She pulled the web from Scarlett’s
midsection, tossing the hardened material to the cave floor. Her
hand then drifted down to the hem of Scarlett’s skirt. She hiked
the fabric up, and her fingers glided against the demon’s soft
skin. Sliding her finger inside, she began to pleasure Scarlett,
with the corpse of the spider lady, Lorelai, mere feet away.

“Mmm. My princess…” her demon moaned
softly.

Continuing her efforts with her fingers, Ruby
grabbed Scarlett and kissed her. With every flutter of her fingers
on Scarlett’s body and every passing moment they were embraced, she
could feel her bond with the demon grow and strengthen. Scarlett
had spoken once before of a pleasure loop, whereby everything one
felt, so did the other. As she pleasured her demon, she found that
she was gratifying herself as well. Everything felt so good that
the world around her faded. She lost track of time. She forgot her
efforts to save her sister. She forgot about her lost decade. She
forgot that she was now the poison princess. Nothing mattered but
her own satisfaction.

Her fingers were quite wet from pleasuring
her horned demon, and something inside her stirred. She dropped to
her knees, kneeling on the soft webbing left behind by the spider
woman and hiked Scarlett’s skirt further up with both hands.
Compelled, she placed her tongue where her fingers had previously
been. Her demon continued to moan above her, and she looked up past
her navel and breasts to see Scarlett’s eyes clamped tightly shut
and that she was softly biting her lower lip. Ruby realized that
this demon truly had been made just to suit her. Even the taste
between her legs was of strawberries. The princess indulged her
desire for some time before finally standing back up and wiping her
lips and chin.

Strengthened by the spider’s venom, Ruby
wrapped her arms around Scarlett and wrenched her free from the
webbing. Continuing their embrace, each of the women removed the
clothing of the other, until they were naked in that cavern. In
their nakedness, they embraced once more, and Scarlett slowly
kissed her way down the princess’ body. Soon, she was on her knees
with her tongue feeling inside Ruby. The princess placed her hand
on the back of her demon’s head, feeling such a sense of power and
pleasure mixed in one. Through heavy breaths, she loudly moaned
from Scarlett’s efforts. Ruby’s lust had finally overcome her.

The
women had ended their intimate acts and were dressing themselves
once more. Scarlett had worried that when this moment would
inevitably come, the princess would feel regret or guilt in the act
of lying with the demon. She was not finding that to be the case.
Ruby openly embraced this new piece of herself, and it became a
part of her larger personality. This was just one more fragment to
be added to the poison princess persona that now inhabited her. The
demon felt the bond had strengthened a great deal. She thought she
could now perform a greater range of sorcerous spells through that
connection and was quite eager to see where that led. Such an
opportunity presented itself, as you can imagine.

“We need to dispose of the eggs in here,”
Ruby told her.

“How do you suggest we go about that, my
princess?”

A wicked smile covered her face. “Silk burns,
doesn’t it?”

“It does indeed.” Scarlett returned the
smile.

She had been thinking along the same line as
her demon, so Ruby asked, “Has your power increased enough that you
could do that?”

“I believe it has, my princess. Allow me to
try.”

Scarlett ushered Ruby behind her and held out
her hands, extending her palms toward the nearby webbing. The power
was new, and she had to locate it within her. There was a little
ball of heat somewhere behind her navel. It had grown bigger with
her recent activities with Ruby. She nursed the heat coming from
it, breathing deeply and letting its energy flow through her body.
The warmth slowly began to roil and spiral down through her arms
toward her open palms. Then, an explosion erupted out from her skin
toward the sticky, silk material lining the walls.

The flames illuminated a gleeful smile on her
face. She’d been looking forward to such power since her arrival in
Nabiria. The alchemist back in Gloomport was hoping for this kind
of magical strength when she tried to make a deal. There was a
beauty in the sorcerous power that flowed through her. In truth, it
wasn’t hers, but rather Ruby’s and she was borrowing it through
their connection. Their bond made them both stronger than they
could ever be on their own, and Scarlett knew that their strength
would only grow with time and more intimate acts.

Ruby was amazed by the magic that her demon
was now able to produce. She’d seen enough sorcerous spells cast by
the wizards of her father’s court to realize how impressive the
things Scarlett was doing really were. The knowledge that only the
bond between the two women was powering her spells served to make
it all the more mesmerizing.

Flames covered the webbing on the walls,
spreading by the spindly fibers that ran throughout the entire
structure. Scarlett walked forward, finding the eggs that Lorelai
had produced. She aimed her torrent of flames at the sacs, until
they were a blazing heap. They popped and exploded, as the heat
intensified, snuffing out the lives of the hundreds of strange
spiders growing inside their web coated shells.

The demon backed up, toward Ruby and the
exit, but made a special stop first. She swung her hands and flames
toward Lorelai’s corpse and burned it as well. Scarlett didn’t want
anything of the spider woman to survive after the embarrassment of
her capture, and so she kneeled and laid her palms down on the skin
of Lorelai’s body, nearly melting through it at her touch. The fire
spread over her own body as well, coating her entire form in
crackling, biting flames that brought her no pain or discomfort.
Satisfied, Scarlett stood back up and joined her princess,
extinguishing her sorcerous blaze.

“Does that work?” she coyly asked Ruby.

“I think that will do, yes,” her princess
replied. “Come on. Let’s keep moving.”

The pair of women walked back out through the
tunnel, past the webbed animals and people that Lorelai had
captured, not bothering to torch any of them on their way. The
light outside was very dim, lit only by the numerous stars of the
evening. Ruby looked up at them, trying to determine where they
were and which way they should be heading. Their next destination
was supposed to be Elythine, where they hoped to find a magical
source of knowledge to help her with her situation. Scarlett could
feel that there was something off in those woods though, and she
was right.

“Wait,” she whispered to her princess.

“What is it?” Ruby whispered back.

“Someone is out here.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, but whatever or whoever it is,
they’re through there.” The demon raised her hand and pointed a
finger toward a thick area of trees.

“Let’s go see,” Ruby said with a devilish
smile.

“Mmm,” Scarlett kind of groaned. She was less
enthusiastic to find what lay behind the growth. Having acquired a
greater magical prowess, Scarlett was now able to sniff out other
sources. What hid in those woods was strong, and though her powers
were weaker the first time she wandered those woods, there was no
way she would have missed something like that. This was new. This
had appeared since she walked through the forest in search of
poison. That worried her.

Her princess, however, was overcome with
curiosity and rushed forward, while Scarlett trudged along behind.
Moving through the dark woods, there was a sweet smell mixed with
something burning. The fire wasn’t out of control, but it was
noticeable to the demon’s heightened senses, and once they got
close enough, the princess detected it as well. There was also a
light that they could both now make out. Ruby cleared the brush,
and the demon was right behind her. The view was not what either
woman would have expected.

There, in a decent sized clearing, stood a
hut made of straw and flimsy looking wood. A thin cloth covered a
doorway that was clearly not intended to keep people out. The whole
area and structure seemed out of place, and according to Scarlett’s
senses, it shouldn’t have even been there. Put quite simply, it
wasn’t right. The hut and its inhabitant didn’t belong there, but
there it stood in defiance to proper order and sense. The clearing
looked artificially constructed, like it wasn’t actually in the
forest. The demon wondered if they’d stepped through a portal to
some carved out dimension placed there just for them. The air was
different. The smell was different. She wasn’t yet as familiar with
her senses as she could be, but she recognized that all the little
things were different there while still retaining a similarity.

“What is this place?” Ruby asked
rhetorically.

Scarlett answered anyway. “Wrong. We
shouldn’t be here.”

That didn’t bother the princess. “I’m going
inside.”

“What?” the demon asked. “You shouldn’t do
that.”

“It’s fine. Come on, Scarlett.” Her princess
held her hand out for her to take.

Reluctantly, the horned demon took Ruby’s
hand, and together, they brushed through the hanging cloth and into
the hut. Inside, an old woman sat in front of a fire, waiting for
them to arrive. She was wearing a simple blue robe with a hood that
was hung over her head, disguising her face completely. She leaned
over the small fire, where some rare herbs were burning, causing
the smoke to rise directly toward her face. She took in heavy
breaths of the smoke, and eventually looked up to face the pair of
women. Scarlett thought she was younger looking than she would have
expected based on her aura. The magic sense she’d recently acquired
suggested that the woman was centuries old, yet she only looked
like that of a simple elderly woman. Her insight wasn’t wrong.
Wrinkles covered her face, and after long years, her eyes were dull
and listless. Tiny blond curls extended out from the top of the
hood, covering her forehead.

“You may call me Thea,” she said, her voice
crackling almost like the fire in front of her. “But I suspect you
know me simply as the Oracle.”

The Oracle was a common story told in Ruby’s
kingdom; one that even a demon such as Scarlett had heard. As the
tale went, the Oracle tapped into the magical nexus, where all of
the sorcerous power met in an uncontrollable amalgamation of
unknowable, unseeable, and unthinkable chaos. Yet somehow, the
Oracle had found a way to tap into that uncontrollable source of
knowledge and power. The experience, you could plainly see in her
appearance, had left her more than addled. She was jittery and
moved about wildly at times.

Before either woman could respond to the
introduction, she continued, “Yes, let’s skip the formalities. I
know your names. Ruby and Scarlett. I’ve been watching you both for
some time.” She paused to look at the demon for a moment. “And I
know your true name, demon,” the Oracle threatened with dead eyes.
Ruby didn’t truly give much thought to this mention of true name,
but she probably should have. “Though, I suppose Scarlett will do
for the time, won’t it? Both of you. Sit. Sit.”

Ruby and Scarlett looked to one another, and
then they ultimately did as instructed.

“Now then,” she continued. “You have much to
see, Ruby, but you must ask the questions. That’s the way this
works. Ask. Ask.”

The princess frowned, thinking about the
woman and what she offered. She ultimately agreed to see if there
was any value in her words. “Where do I go from here?”

“Mmmhmm,” she droned far too long in
response. The threads of the reality that she saw were sprawling
and complex, and even for a being of her power, they proved
difficult to track. She pulled more herbs from her pocket and
tossed it into the fire. The smoke grew, and she sucked it into
herself with another heavy breath. “There are five stages of your
immediate path. Magic. Knowledge. Hope. Redemption. Death. Your
journey will be perilous and will always end in death. Always.
Always.”

Irritation washed over Ruby’s face, and she
cleared away the smoke with her hand. “Magic? Knowledge? Hope?
Redemption? Death? Must you speak in such riddles? What does any of
that even mean?”

“I don’t decipher the visions,” she replied
with a cracked smile. “I just see them. What they mean is for you
to decide.” It was a half truth. This Oracle certainly knew their
meaning, but she thought that to supply everything would ruin the
course of events.

“Fine, then,” Ruby replied. “Let’s focus on
this magic stage you mentioned. Who is the greatest sorcerer in our
realm?”

The Oracle jerked her head and shifted her
eyes side to side. “Those would be Hendrik.”

Ruby knew a man by that name, but she
recognized the Oracle’s word choice as awkward. “Those?”

“He’s no longer singular. There are five now,
though they no longer call each other by that name.”

“Where will I find Hendrik? Is he still in
Elythine?”

Thea nodded. “They are close. They spend all
their time in Elythine. There is a tower, which they sequester
themselves in.”

Ruby turned to Scarlett. “I suppose that’s
enough for magic. What about knowledge?”

“Knowledge on what?” the demon replied. “You
were thinking of going to the Cloister to learn of the nether
realm. Perhaps that is it.”

The princess turned back to face the woman.
“Will I find knowledge in the Cloister?”

The smoke was beginning to die down, so Thea
retrieved more of a white powder from another pocket, tossing it
into the fire. After breathing in another large dose of the smoke,
she replied. “There is immense knowledge to be gained in such a
place, yes. Yes.”