5. The Princess Jezebel
The Princess Jezebel
P rincess Jezebel strode with the speed and determination of a woman possessed. She all but dragged Mila behind her into a carriage that carried them a little distance away from the Grand Cathedral to a far smaller, but still ornate, tall, white building. Mila soon realised this must be the princess’s own personal apartments.
Together, they marched up the winding, white-tiled staircase and did not stop until they reached the very top and entered an opulent bedchamber.
Thick, towering, sandstone walls rose to meet the roof that, like the tunnel in the cathedral, was a stained-glass mosaic. This one was a rainbow of colours, interrupted only by five dark, exposed wooden beams that spanned the width of the room. Huge windows had been carved into the stone walls, each a various-sized crescent, except for the one in the middle, which was perfectly circular. Mila stared at the design for a moment before realising she was looking at carvings that depicted the waxing and waning phases of the moon .
The centre window was large enough to fit two plush, red seats inside it, and Mila could see a tiny, black-wire fence balcony jutting out on the other side. Each of the other windows were lit from beneath with small, elaborately twisted jars that expelled a soft golden glow. On closer inspection, Mila realised with horror that the jars were filled with Midas’s sand. She swiftly averted her attention away from them, praying she would not feel the death energy that she knew they held.
The western side of the room was dominated by an intricately painted wooden wardrobe that spanned the entire length of the wall. It was accompanied by a number of freestanding mirrors and dressing curtains that were made up of all manner of materials, such as feathers and woven reeds and giraffe skins.
On the eastern wall lay an enormous, black, four-poster bed. It was adorned with spider-web thin fabric that draped from the supporting beams of the ceiling and trailed down, across the mound of pillows that lay on and around it. Each was a different colour and stitched with an assortment of tessellating patterns, desert flowers and hypnotic swirls. The entire room was an explosion of colours, textures and shapes. It was gorgeous and awful at the same time.
Mila finally stopped gawking and turned back to Jezebel, who had dismissed all attendants save the one guard. Now alone, she drew Mila towards the bed and then proceeded to undress in front of both Mila and the guard without ceremony.
Mila’s instinct to breathe completely abandoned her at the sight of Jezebel’s perfect naked body.
“Men have been so… unsatisfying recently,” the princess said as she peeled off the last of the gorgeous black fabric from her skin and discarded it in a pile on the floor. “And I’m getting quite sick of having them killed for finding their moment of pleasure before I find mine.”
She sighed and tilted her head gently, exposing her neck in a display that, for the briefest of moments, was the perfect portrayal of heartfelt consideration.
Then she suddenly snapped back to a more exacting stance. “It’s a selfishness I cannot abide. I’m the daughter of the God-King. If I can’t even have good sex, then I shudder to think what the other women of Artor endure.” She tittered a little at her own joke and then looked over Mila’s shoulder and spoke directly to the guard.
“And as always, Jahan, you’re free to watch, but do not interrupt,” she said in a voice that had abruptly changed again, this time from the whinging girlish tone to one that was deep and sultry and mocking.
“Highness,” was all the guard replied, his face impassive. His energy matched his words, stoic and professional.
“Unfortunately – ” she turned back to Mila and sighed theatrically, “ – he’s handsome, but he's also boring. If I wasn’t so certain he’d be equally as boring in bed, I’d have tried him on years ago.”
Mila could tell that she enjoyed talking about the guard as though he were simply an object that she could choose to use on a whim. Perhaps, to her, he was. Perhaps now Mila was too.
That realisation unsettled her even more.
Jezebel’s dark eyes were hard, shiny beetles as they studied her, and Mila’s stomach plummeted at her next words.
“I’ve been with women before too. However, against my better judgement and much to my own misfortune, I always seem to be drawn back to men. Have you been with women before?”
Mila answered honestly, although it drew bile to her mouth to do so. “Yes.” A brief flash of memory threatened to interrupt but Mila pushed the images away. Now would be a dangerous time to indulge in nostalgia and she wanted the taint of this situation nowhere near those memories. She needed to focus on the moment if she wanted to survive this encounter.
“Excellent.” Jezebel’s eyes flashed with glee. “Perhaps you’ll be skilled enough to keep my attention for longer than a single tumble. And if you truly can feel my energy with your power, then I expect you to use it and read my desires. I don’t want to have to tell you what I want. I just want you to do it.” She clapped her hands in delight, thrilled by the cleverness of her idea and her certainty that she’d determined exactly how Mila’s powers worked. “This has potential to be extremely entertaining. Let’s begin.”
With the confidence of a woman who had never been rejected or denied a thing in her life, she reached for Mila’s hand and forced it upon her left breast. “Here, tell me what you feel.”
Mila closed her eyes and tried to block out the pounding of her own heart, the near overwhelming adrenaline and panic, the feel of Jezebel’s cold skin and sharp nails on her hand. Her power whirled around the room uselessly and aimlessly. It wasn’t going to work as Jezebel thought it would. Mila couldn’t read minds with her power. She had no idea how she would do this thing the princess expected her to do.
Certain that she was going to be sent back to Abbott within the hour, she felt utterly helpless and overpowered, a tiny bird in a cyclone.
Stop, she told herself. Stay calm. Breathe. Think. Focus.
She pushed the constant pangs of her searing rubane headache away and took a deep breath in and out. She forced herself to extend her thin, black horns the full few inches that they could grow and urged them to enable the full sensitivity of her power.
You can do this. Just like you used to help those other women.
Years ago, before the effort of chasing rubane’s blocking effect had taken over her life, she’d been an accomplished midwife. She’d helped women in the village to deliver by secretly sensing their baby’s energy beneath their skin as she’d worked with them, her horns hidden beneath a hat.
Surely, she could use her power in a similar way now? She just had to try to remain calm.
She focused her full attention and power on the woman before her and breathed deeply again. She urged her power to go in.
There.
She could see Jezebel’s energy more clearly now that she was calmer, and it truly was chaotic: purple and black, swirling like an angry tempest within her. Mila probed further in, looking for more, looking for the answer that would save her.
There. The key to surviving the night.
Boredom.
Above all things, Jezebel was too powerful for her own good and so bored with it all. She was a woman who had spent a lifetime getting exactly what she wanted without any effort or risk on her part. No one denied her. No one chastised or surprised her. Jezebel might not even know it herself, but Mila’s power sensed that she craved the unexpected, the game, the risk.
Mila considered this new information carefully and then trusted her life to the skill of her power, risking it all with her next words.
“I am a demon,” she hissed into Jezebel’s ear. “Spawn of Mud and worms. I am soulless, evil. I have no morals or qualms. From this distance, I could easily kill you, and there’s nothing you or your guard could do to stop me.” She drew a short breath before delivering the final blow. “But I’d be satisfied tonight with hearing you scream.”
She was rewarded instantly by the deep, primal pulse of energy that emanated from within Jezebel’s core. When Mila opened her eyes, she noted the slightly feral excitement peeking out from behind Jezebel’s brown eyes.
Emboldened, Mila straightened her shoulders and did exactly what Jezebel’s silent energy was begging her to do.
She did not break eye contact when she stepped forward and invaded Jezebel’s space. She reached up and grabbed a fistful of the woman’s thick hair, roughly forcing her head up, as she moved in lockstep with her, back towards the bed.
Out of the corner of her eye, Mila saw the guard move to protect his princess, but he was stayed by a small flick of Jezebel’s hand.
She understood what Mila was doing and was allowing it to happen. For the first time in Jezebel’s life, someone was wresting control from her, demanding space and forcing her to yield it, and from the yearning look on her face, Mila knew that, at least for tonight, this was exactly what the princess had been craving.
* * *
Hours later, Mila lay listening to the soft, slow breaths that barely punctuated the night. She looked over at Jezebel, who now lay fast asleep beside her atop the terracotta silk sheets, limbs flung out in abandon. Her dark skin caught and held the first silver ripples of the rising moon in a way that made her seem almost more painting than human. She was beautiful, made more so now to Mila by the easy contentment and peace radiating from her.
In fact, Mila registered with sudden surprise, other than the horrible death pulse that emanated from the small jars of Midas’s sand, the energy of every being inside the room was peaceful, and this had not been the case for a single moment in the days since Mila had first arrived in Jeralusah. The absence of human stress or fear was as welcome to her as cold water is to a burn .
Unfortunately, her head still throbbed and she was beginning to feel a nauseating ache in her stomach from the continual lack of rubane. She fought to ignore it and, instead, considered her new situation.
She had transitioned from a condemned religious sacrifice to the nearly bald plaything of the God-King’s daughter within an extraordinarily short amount of time. She wondered what this would mean for her tomorrow.
Was the evening’s submission simply an itch the princess had desperately needed scratched? Would Mila be sent back to Midas when the sun rose? She had no way of knowing but had done her best tonight to use her power in a way she’d never done before and ensure the value of her life in the princess’s eyes.
She’d discovered that, with skin contact, her power was far less likely to dilute itself throughout the room, and she could more easily read the princess’s energy accurately, tailoring her touch to meet the internal, silent demands of the other woman.
It had worked. And now, for the first time since her capture, Mila felt a glimmer of hope – knowing that her powers could intimately provide Jezebel with an experience that just might be unique and satisfying enough to save her own life.
In a sudden flash of inspiration, Mila let her horns grow again and reached her hand out to gently touch the princess’s extended index finger. She sent her power running through that physical bond into the woman, curious to know if she could glean anything else that might be of use. Something that might only be apparent now in this moment of vulnerability, something that was usually hidden within the ever-whirling tempest of Jezebel’s conscious mind.
Sleeping Jezebel’s main energetic projection was that of peace and contentedness, but Mila pushed her power beneath the surface layer of Jezebel’s psyche and searched through the sea of energies she found there in a way she’d never done before, a way she hadn’t quite known was possible.
What was causing the peace? Surely, there was more here than the mere happiness of a pleasurable physical release?
She was surrounded by the colours and textures of Jezebel’s inner self, and carefully, not wanting to rouse the woman, she mentally sifted through them until she found one she could put a name to.
Seen . Jezebel had finally felt seen.
Like wriggling backwards out of a foxhole, Mila slowly extracted her power and drew it back into herself, feeling her horns slide back beneath her skin like a sword into a sheath.
How curious that Princess Jezebel could have all the power, control and wealth of the world, and yet the thing that brought her true peace was the experience of someone actually truly seeing her, even if it was only for a glimmer of a moment.
A bubble of hope began to form in Mila as she considered that seeing Jezebel’s authentic energy was exactly what her power made her capable of doing. Overuse of rubane may have weakened the control she’d once had over it, but skin-to-skin contact still seemed to be an effective way to hone it. Mila had faith that the control would return if she stayed alive long enough. And if she could just keep Jezebel in a perpetual state of peace and happiness, then perhaps this new situation might be survivable.
Or at the very least, it might allow her to survive long enough to find some way to escape before the season turned.
Overwhelmed by the small wave of relief that accompanied this realisation, Mila allowed herself a long exhale, and then turned her attention towards the guard, who still stood watch. She allowed her horns to grow slightly longer as she sent her power out towards him, practising her control and certain he wouldn’t be able to see them from where he stood.
He had not moved from his post since the halting flick of Jezebel’s wrist. As Mila studied him, she wondered what he’d thought of the whole affair. Mila’s unruly power flittered from him and began to scan aimlessly around the room, catching the calm of the many plants that hung from the boudoir and the sleeping waves of the birds on the windowsill before it finally found the guard again and settled on him. She felt nothing hostile emanating from him. By all accounts, the guard was currently contributing to the feeling of peace inside the room. The glimpses she could see of his energy were characterised only by professionalism and a small ounce of fatigue. It had evidently been a long day for him too, and he seemed happy it was nearly over.
As if he recognised that her thoughts had now turned to him, or perhaps because he had, indeed, somehow seen her horns grow and suspected himself to be the subject of her analysis, he broke from his position and approached the bed.
“Come,” he said quietly when he was close, not wanting to wake Jezebel. “I’ll have the maids clothe and feed you and show you to a nearby room you can claim. I suspect the princess will want to have you close by in the morning.”
“Thank you,” she replied, grateful for the small kindness on a day that had been filled with nothing else but fear and abuse.
She slipped from the bed and tried to follow him but stumbled. The guard’s arm found her and wrapped around her middle before she could hit the floor. She gripped him gratefully as she found her feet again.
“Thank you,” she murmured, but was too exhausted to read him more deeply. Too exhausted in that moment to contemplate seeking an opportunity to escape. Too exhausted even to be ashamed of her nakedness in his arms.
Just then, the idea of sleep, in a bed away from this room and this turbulent woman, was as irresistible to her as the shoreline is to a wave. When she saw the plain white sheets of a bed in a spare servant’s room before her, she crashed headlong into them without hesitation.