The Knight and the Acolyte Book 10, Chapter 10: Lies

The Knight and the Acolyte
Book Ten: The Flaming Woman
Chapter Ten: Lies
By mypenname3000
Copyright 2017

Thrak – Dominari’s Lair, Despeir Mountains

The vision ended.

Rage exploded through me. The vision of my brother, Bruk, raping and murdering my first wife Serisia burned through my thoughts. My brother. My las-damned brother. My fists clenched as I fell to my knees. It built inside me. This dark, angry. Bloody storm. It howled in me.

He had to die.

I slammed my fist into the hard rock of the cave floor. Pain flared up my arm as I howled my fury. I seized my rage. The blood-dimmed tide swirled across my vision as I saw him! Bruk! I would kill him! I would find him and rip off every finger, every limb, I would peel off every ligament and sinew of his flesh. He would howl in agony for what he did to her.

He killed my beautiful Serisia.

He brutalized her.

“BRUK!”

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Acolyte Sophia

A great bellow echoed through the room as I blinked in shock. The High Virgin had sent me to my death. She knew Angela would receive the Quest to kill Dominari. She set her up. Me up. She wanted to get rid of me. That useless, whining acolyte. The one she couldn’t discipline out of fear of offending my powerful mother.

I groaned, the pain in my side burning. The milky potion coated the insides of my mouth. I shuddered, glancing at my bloody robes. The sword had almost cut me in half. I lay in a huge puddle of blood. My hand shook as I fished out another healing potion.

Despite the pain burning in my side, half-healed by the first potion, all I could think about was the betrayal to my Goddess. High Virgin Vivian was Saphique’s temporal representative, the highest-ranked member of her church. And she had betrayed the Goddess for a tax break.

For money.

I downed the potion, the creamy, sweet taste of my breast milk electrifying through my body, settling into my side, healing my wound. Oh, Angela and I would set everything right. When she was High Queen, Vivian and—

A bloodcurdling roar echoed through the cave.

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Chaun

I shook my head as I came out of Slata’s vision, confusion wracking my thoughts. Learning of Princess Adelaide’s betrayal hardly stung at all. I had realized she didn’t love me before, that I was just a possession to her, something to be claimed, to be jealously held onto.

So why had Slata shown it to me? I looked around at my companions. They were all staring in shock, weeping, shaking their heads, beating the ground in frustration. They were distracted. They were off-balanced. Affected. The Goddess had taken one last chance to weaken us, to stop Angela from embarrassing her destiny.

Even Lady Delilah looked enraged. A bloodcurdling scream burst from her lips, one of pure rage.

And then my eyes fell on my wife. Aurora stared at me in betrayed horror. There was so much pain in her eyes. She trembled, shaking her head in disbelief. My stomach twisted. What had Slata shown her to make her look at me that way?

“Aurora?” I asked, my voice cracking. I reached for her.

She flinched back.

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Minx

“That Las-damned bitch,” I snarled, my hands gripping my daggers. The image of Spray comforting me after my sister’s execution when she was responsible for Fox’s death blazed in my mind. She was the one who betrayed us, sold us out. My sister was dead because of that cunt.

“I’ll gut you,” I fumed, gaining my feet. I spun around, staring at the cave’s entrance. Fox was the only family I had. She had watched out for me when we were kids. She taught me everything I knew about thievery. We had been partners. It was because of her that we escaped Baraconia before we were arrested.

And she was going to set us up for life, make us rich, get us out of the Spray’s harem and away from the slums of Raratha. She gave me hope. Always so positive. Always so kind and loving. And Spray took her away from me all while professing that she loved her.

That she loved me.

Tears fell down my cheeks. I opened my mouth to scream when the ground shook and massive, snarling roar of anger echoed through the cave. I turned, my eyes widening.

Dominari towered over us, flames belching from her mouth and washing across the cave ceiling.

“Yeah,” I snarled. “Yeah, let’s go kill Spray!”

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Warlock Faoril

I tried to shake off the vision from my thoughts. All these months thinking I had failed. That I had messed up the most basic spell a mage knows: how to preserve sexual fluids for later use. All lie. That cunt Saoria betrayed me.

But that wasn’t important. I had to focus. I had to gather myself. I glanced at my companions. They were all shaken up. Thrak beat the cave floor, snarling in anger. He had raged, not caring about the blood falling from his torn knuckles. Angela stood stunned, Chaun stared in shock at his wife who recoiled from him, and Minx screamed at the cave entrance, clutching two knives.

And Lady Delilah…

Rage mottled her face. She stared at Angela with such anger. Her fingers clutched together, looking like sharp claws. She let out a bloodcurdling shout and then she changed. Her body swelled. Pale skin became hard scales, plated segments of dark reds. Her neck grew longer, stretching long and sinuous. Mighty wings sprouted from her shoulders. The ground shook as she fell forward onto all four of her legs, her sharp claws scratching at the dark stone of the cave floor. She lifted her head, snarling, flamings bursting from her gullet, splashing across the ceiling.

Drops of molten stone rained down around her, splashing on her hide and rolling off her scales as she poured out her anguish. The heat rippled from her. I swallowed, my stomach twisting. What had Slata shown Lady Delilah?

Her head lowered, yellow eyes fixed on Angela.

My stomach sank. We had to fight, and we were all distracted.

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Aurora Xandra

Tears fell down my cheeks as I stared at my husband in disbelief. I recoiled from his hand, clutching my totems in sweaty grips. I shook my head, my stomach twisting. I wanted to throw up. I couldn’t get the images out of my head of him fucking my mother. Of putting on my father’s flesh and cuckolding him.

He violated their marriage. He trampled all over their sacred bond.

Anger surged next. How could he do that to my parents? To my mother? He made her cum like a whore! He reveled in it. He plotted with Sophia to get me out of the way so he could satiate his terrible lusts.

“Aurora,” he said, his words low, hurt. “What did she—”

“You fucked her!” I screeched, launching myself at him. I raised my arms over my head. “You fucked my mother!”

He flinched. I saw it in his violet eyes. The truth. He had fucked my mother. The guilt burned across his obsidian face. His pointed ears twitched. The anger surged. I swung my arm down, cracking my totem into the side of his head. He grunted, his head snapping around. Skin torn. Blood poured down the side of his face.

“My mother, Chaun!” I screeched again. “How could you!”

The ground shook.

“How could you fuck my mother!” I raised my totem again.

Heat washed over me as Chaun flinched, raising his arms, such pain in his eyes. He looked away from me. He had nothing to say. No excuses to make. He fucked her. He violated her marriage. What if she conceived? What if she laid an egg and in fourteen years learned the truth—that a changeling had fucked her.

Had made her violate her sacred oaths.

I raised my totem to brain my husband again.

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Xerathalasia

I clutched my belly, tears pouring down my face. For six months, I’d hoped and dreamed of coming home to my wife and meeting our daughter.

And she wasn’t my child.

I fell forward, pressing my face into the cold stone of the cave, my entire body shaking. My wife cheated on me. She let my sister breed her. She let my sister fuck her pussy. No crime was greater for an elf. We could have all the fun we wanted, so long as no child could result from our couplings. I always thought she loved me. Why else had she married me? Why else had she parted her thighs and let me slid my cock into her pussy that night of drunken passion?

I could remember it so well. Coming back from my first successful hunt, the dangerous troll who had killed three elves was slain by my arrows. There was such a celebration. Elf-maids danced around me, all vying to marry the hunter who felled the troll single-handily. I was in heat that night, my cock throbbing so hard. I so wanted to make love to an elf properly. I was tired of jerking off, of using assholes and mouths. I wanted pussy.

And Atharilesia wanted me.

I had flirted with her in the past. I had wooed her, ached her, and that night she came to me… The world spun around us as we kissed and made love. How she had moaned when I slid into her pussy for the first time, marrying her, claiming her with my cum. I was so happy. She was always waiting for me at home when I headed out into danger.

And she regretted it. She hated me. She wanted me to die on this quest so she could marry my sister, the true mother of her child.

Heat washed over me. The ground shook. The dragon roared.

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Knight Angela

I stood stunned. My mind replayed over and over what I witnessed. Lady Delilah had arranged for my quest. She had suggested it to the man whose blood stained the High King’s sword gripped in my hand. His corpse lay at my feet.

Lady Delilah never mentioned that. She said King Edward wanted to help me. Not kill me.

I felt like the floor had been kicked out from beneath me. Everything I thought I knew. Everything I thought I understood. It was wrong. I was manipulated from the start by Lady Delilah. She arranged everything, bringing me to this place so she could recreate her dead husband’s empire. I just wanted to protect the world. I just wanted to be a knight. I would have had a normal Quest. I wouldn’t be a fugitive. I wouldn’t have been declared a knave.

“Why!” I demanded of Lady Delilah as she let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Her body changed, shifting, growing into the dragon form, her red hair vanishing, dark horns curling from her head. She swelled over me, towering. Heat radiated from her body. I didn’t care. I wanted answers.

“Tell me! Why did you lie to me? Why did you manipulate me? Why couldn’t you have been honest? Warned me? Sophia almost died because of King Edward. Fireeyes almost killed her. His spells and magics assaulted us because you conspired with King Edward. You knew he wanted me dead, and you gave him the means to watch over me. You sent us on a hopeless quest. Why? So the High Kingdom could be restored? Did you even care that I might die? That Sophia or my other friends my be killed?”

Fire breathed from the dragon.

“Why!” I screamed, pointing my sword at her.

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Lady Delilah/Dominari

It was all a lie. A thousand years devoted to my husband’s dream. An impossible dream. I had kept myself in check. I had suppressed my desires for so long.