CHAPTER SEVEN
CAMBION
Mortal Plane
We begin our journey toward the Fae Realm in mixed moods.
The demoness trails behind me, her arms bound together in front of her.
The road is empty, not a sound to be heard or a person to be seen. On our way out, we pass the graveyard where Baron resurrected the dead. Several of the plots are still upturned, the soil forming small mounds beside their respective gravestones. The bodies aren’t far away; they can’t travel any real distance without the control of their animator.
Baron doesn’t seem to notice the abandoned plots; he’s still sulking from the destruction of the stone. I’ve seen and heard of similar reactions. For some, the lure of the stone becomes a poison. The solace of a past, even a bad past, can feel like a blanket to those who have long craved the comforting arms of history. I should have known Baron would be drawn to the stone more than most.
A Transmutation Stone that cracks and breaks in half, however? That’s something I’ve never heard of. I can’t imagine how the Succubus witch could have accomplished it. Perhaps it was simply that the stone couldn’t handle being touched by two life sources at once? Transmutation Stone s carry massive amounts of energy. Enough to transform and mutate physical objects, to recreate memories of a long-distant past, and to weave a web that keeps the seer prisoner. There’s no way a simple touch would be capable of breaking such an artifact. If anything, it would break the person who touched it, rather than the other way around. Yet, the witch remains completely unscathed.
The more I ponder the subject, the more I realize there wouldn’t be a benefit for the demoness in sabotaging the stone. Furthermore, if I believe her story about her own lost memory, it would make even less sense for her to sabotage herself by destroying the stone. Perhaps she was simply attempting to free Baron from the stone’s hold, as she said? For as powerful as we’ve witnessed her to be, I think her surprise at her abilities is genuine.
Perhaps.
Regardless, I won’t be the king who goes down in history as the one who lost a war due to a Succubus. Dragan can continue to wear that title.
The stone’s breaking isn’t the only way it surprised me. Once Baron was freed from the object’s hold, we were able to whittle out from him a few of the details he’d witnessed while under the stone’s thrall. And those details surprised me.
Historically, the stone reveals a narrow window into the life of the user. It may choose certain moments for their relevance or spiritual significance, but the material from which it draws comes from the users’ own mind. Baron was somehow able to travel outside his personal history, and I find this quite baffling.
He admitted to seeing a vision of the Succubus standing beside the Midnight Queen, a vision I now believe reflects the future. Baron also saw the realms as the currently stand—Variant’s increasingly frequent edicts confining people to their homes. Furthermore, it’s now official—Dragan and I are the most wanted men in the three realms.
Making it to Earlann without detection will be a bigger miracle than the stone cracking, or an angel-Succubus hybrid with two sets of wings.
Dragan’s voice interrupts my reverie. “So, if Revenant really did see the future, and that future is one with Eilish and Morrigan together, shouldn’t it follow that we can trust Eilish?”
I glare at the barbarian. “I haven’t seen the Midnight Queen in over a century, have you?”
“No,” Dragan concurs in a deep and low voice.
“So what makes you think she’s even on our side anymore?”
“I don’t,” he responds.
“You were the one who said Morrigan turned her back on us,” I continue. “I am likely to agree with you. I don’t trust Morrigan almost as much as I don’t trust that Succubus.”
“You seem to forget that Succubus is still half angel,” returns Dragan.
“She could simply be artful with her demon magic,” I spit back. “For all we know, she magicked the angel wings.”
“You know that’s bullshit,” Dragan scoffs. “We’ve subjected her to enough of our magic, as well as Thoradin’s, when he was alive, to force that option out.”
I shrug. “I don’t have answers for you. The fact she’s Succubus is enough for me. It should be enough for you.”
“I didn’t say I trusted her,” he responds staunchly.
“You’re biased, regardless,” I continue.
“What the hell are you going on about? I just told you I don’t trust her.”
“True but you’re also the only one of us who’s fucked her, and you remember what that did to you the last time,” I finish.
He glares at me. “This is entirely different. Eilish doesn’t have the same level of power Lamia did.”
“And, how in the bloody hell do you know that?” I rifle back at him. “You saw her destroy the bone devil back in Grimreap. That wasn’t weak magic.”
Dragan nods. “All I can tell you is I learned my lesson with Lamia, and I won’t let the same situation ever repeat itself.”
“I believe you,” I assure him, and it’s the truth. I remember the hell Dragan went through at the hands of Lamia and her daughters. No, I didn’t witness it firsthand because by then, both Dragan and I were already in our banishment. But Variant wanted me to know what Dragan was suffering all the same, so he sent a Divination Mirror and forced me to watch, in morbid detail, every day of Dragan’s suffering.
And the fucking icing on the cake? Variant enlisted my brother, Theren, the King of the Unseelie, to ensure I didn’t miss a second. Meanwhile, Theren and his men would laugh and taunt me for having believed in Dragan in the first place. All of this while I watched Dragan mindlessly fuck Lamia and her daughters as they sucked his life essence away with every thrust of his cock.
“Is it necessary to keep her hands bound?” Dragan continues as he glances back at the Succubus with a frown.
“Her hands stay tied,” I tell him forcefully, careful that my tone doesn’t open the door for further argument.
Baron still holds the two pieces of the stone, muttering incantations under his breath. I highly doubt there’s a spell he knows which I don’t, but I don’t stop him from attempting to salvage the broken answer to his questions. The less chefs in the kitchen, the better.
It feels good to be the leader.
I’m sick of taking orders from Dragan and being treated like I’m a lesser king. I was born a leader, and it’s time the members of our troupe realized as much. There was a time, over one hundred years ago, when Dragan and I weren’t out for one another’s blood, such as we are now. Granted, we also had Variant and Baron to balance us.
Now, though, we’ve managed to accomplish next to nothing. For all our trials and tribulations, we’re no closer to our goal than we were when Dragan first came to see me in Geldingstock. It seems an awfully big payment for absolutely no reward.
But with me at the helm of the ship, things will change. We were in need of a focused leader—and I am just that.
***
EILISH
Once night settles over the forest, we stop moving and prepare camp for the evening. Of course, as with all things between Dragan and Cambion, there’s much arguing. Dragan feels we should continue forward and take advantage of the cover of darkness but Cambion insists we all need our rest. Flumph is quick to agree with Cambion, and Baron says nothing. He’s said maybe five sentences since the stone broke. The rest of the time, he’s been morbidly quiet. I’m worried about him.
Once we set up camp in a wooded area beside a spring, each of the men separates himself from the group. Cambion finds a spot beside the water and sits down with his legs crossed. As an elf, he doesn’t sleep but meditates. His form of meditation is deep though and it’s not easy to wake him. Before going into his meditative trance, Cambion informs Dragan I’m now Dragan’s responsibility and he needs to keep an eye on me. Dragan grumbles something indecipherable in response but Cambion’s already in his trance. Baron disappears into the woods, saying he’s going to collect pinecones and kindling for a fire, and no one seems to care. Flumph stays beside me.
It’s difficult to sit down with my hands bound, but I find a pine tree that’s a good distance from the others yet still in eyeshot. Pushing my back against it, I use it for support as I guide myself down to the ground. Flumph makes himself comfortable in my lap.
As I look down at the rotund sprite, I smile as I think about how I’ll miss him. Of course, I’ll miss Dragan the most, but I mourned the passing of that relationship when it ended the moment he saw the black Succubae wings escape my back.
After another few hours, Baron returns. He makes his camp within a dense section of the forest, maybe twenty feet away from the rest of us. Dragan’s taken a spot beneath a tree ten feet from me. Once he gets up to tend to the fire and his back is towards me, I glance down at Flumph.
“Flumph,” I whisper in a voice so low, Dragan doesn’t hear me.
“Yeah?” the little creature asks as he looks up at me from my lap.
“I need you to untie my ropes,” I say.
Of course, he looks apprehensive. “I ain’t thinkin’ that’s a good idea, Angelbus,” he says.
“Please. The ropes are cutting into my wrists and my arms feel like they’re pulling out of their sockets,” I say persuasively as I make sure Dragan’s back is still facing me. “I won’t be able to sleep like this, and Cambion wants us all to rest for the walk tomorrow.”
“But Cambion gonna be real pissed-like if he find out I let ya loose.”
“He won’t find out,” I answer quickly. “I’ll have you retie me first thing in the morning, before he wakes up.”
Flumph hesitates and I realize I’ve got him.
Yes, I feel sorry for the little guy because Cambion will be annoyed with him once the morning comes and he realizes I’m gone and Flumph untied me. But ultimately, my leaving them will be better for everyone concerned.
“Okay,” Flumph says as he pushes off my lap and jumps to the ground before starting around to my back where my hands are tied. “But you be sure to wake up real early.”
“I will,” I assure him.
Once he frees my wrists, I pull my arms forward and flex my hands, trying to get the feeling back into them. Then I lean against the tree and drop my arms behind me, so Dragan won’t notice they’re unbound.
After another hour, Flumph is snoring in my lap and Dragan’s eyes are closed as he leans against the tree with his long legs extended out before him. Cambion’s eyes are wide open but only the whites of them show—it’s part and parcel of his meditative trance. Baron is nowhere to be seen.
The moment for me to make my escape has come.
I carefully shift Flumph and place him on a bed of pine needles. Then, watching Dragan, I move as stealthily as I’m able, tip-toeing away from the perimeter of our camp. It’s maybe a few more seconds and I’m bathed in the darkness of the trees. I don’t hear anything from the camp that would hint to the fact that I’ve been discovered missing.
With a new sense of determination mixed with even more worry and fear, I start making my way through the dark forest. There’s an overall sense of foreboding and heaviness weighing me down, but I try to shake the feelings off. There’s no point in wishing things could be different—they aren’t.
As I travel deeper into the forest, sounds distract my ears. I hear the calling of a lone owl off in the distance, and the shifting of the foliage as woodland animals scamper through it. The moon lights my way in milky rays of blue, but there’s no path to follow. Only miles and miles of endless pine trees and forest scrub.
I notice a spring bisecting my path so I decide to follow it, hoping it will lead to a town. Once there, I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I’ll be sure to hide the fact that I’m an angel. As long as I can keep my back covered, I should be able to pass as something else. Granted, I don’t have the ears of the fae and I don’t look like I’m demon, much though I am one.
You’ll figure it out when you get wherever you’re going, Eilish, I tell myself. The good news is that I’m no longer an addict, so at least I have that going for me. Maybe I’ll be able to find a respectable job and earn a wage, meager though it may be. Beggars can’t be choosers and I’ll be happy doing anything as long as it doesn’t involve selling my body.
But what about the Succubus within you? I wonder. What about the fact that you’re going to need a man sexually in order to feed yourself?
I’ll worry about that later, I answer staunchly. And finding a man for sex will be the least of my worries.
But then I begin to wonder what it will mean to have sex with a man again. Immediately, my thoughts return to Dragan and the memories of our lovemaking. I’m overcome with a deep sadness as I remember the expression on his face as he pushed inside me. The idea of having sex with anyone else leaves me cold. I don’t want another man. I want…
It doesn’t matter what you want! I rail at myself. Dragan is your past, and this moment marks the start of a new life for you, Eilish.
I notice Morrigan’s voice is conspicuously silent. I wonder what she thinks of the fact that I’ve gone off on my own. I figure she doesn’t approve, or else I would have heard from her? Of course, the more I think about it, the more I realize I haven’t heard from her much at all lately. Usually, though, I only hear from her in times of crisis when I’m physically threatened by something, so maybe this silence isn’t so odd?
I immediately envision the man, Silvanus, who visited me. Although my memories of him are sketchy at most, and seem to grow sketchier as more time passes, I remember his distrust of Morrigan. I wonder if he has something to do with the fact that I haven’t heard from the Midnight Queen?
I don’t have an answer for myself so I return to thoughts regarding what it means to be Succubus. I have so many questions about this part of me. Not that I ever had any real answers about the angel side of me, but of this demon side, I know even less.
If I’m forced to have sex with another man in order to feed the Succubus, will I drain him of his life essence and kill him, similar to what a vampire can do? Will my sexual needs be the same as Baron’s bloodlust? Will I be overcome with… lust? Such that it consumes me and I can’t control myself?