9. Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine:
~Melrose~
“Please be safe, and no falling asleep in the warm pools! Make sure to apply sunscreen, your face still burns around your horns, Papa!” I called out, waving to my father as he clamored into his carriage.
He stuck his head out the window, chancing embarrassment with his horns just to stick his tongue out at me.
“I’ll be fine, Rosebud. Please, be good for Keida and don’t get up to any mischief! I know how you young maidens like to plot!” He chortled all the way back into the carriage, careful of his horn tips.
I stood still, clutching my hands to my chest as the carriage rattled away from the front of the cathedral.
People stopped to wish the horses a safe passage or wave to Leonardo as he passed.
My gaze followed the pod of children who raced after him with their Wintersdark cloaks whipping in the stiff morning wind.
I don’t know why he still lies to me. Papa hated the hot pools, same as me.
The steam is too dense, and they always pump the air full of lavender.
He used to say the stench made him gag, like they’d poked soap into his mouth mercilessly.
Plus, Papa never took sabbaticals. Maybe a day or two off if the wine was particularly strong or like yesterday, the hoof was sharply cracked.
It's another vision. Our Lady Avaris bestowed a vision on him, and he was bound to his duty, to our goddess. However, since Mother died…he stopped letting me go with him. Granted, most of them were a day or two long quests that didn’t require he leave Keida behind for safe keeping of the church.
He’s expecting to be gone a while this time.
And it’s not something he can delegate, as he should.
My gaze rose up to the sky, studying its heavy grey clouds. They darkened with each passing moment, threatening the kingdom with its first official snow fall. It was still too hot; the ground would not keep covered for long. But the thought of flurries dancing over my head gave me little joy.
Please, don’t take him too, was the only thing I prayed last night as I laid in bed. Avaris already took my mother, it would be cruel to take him too.
“Your face is grim. What’s on your mind?” Keida’s soft but monotoned words curled up around my ears. She stepped closer to me on the cathedral steps. The air was significantly colder than yesterday, but I couldn’t tell if that was the snow…or the frosty cleric looming over me.
“He’s not going to the pools,” I confessed, not seeing any reason to also lie.
“Caught that,” she hummed with a quick jump of her brows. Was that…were you impressed I could read Papa? I twisted more to squint at her, but her gaze was on the disappearing carriage. She exhaled slowly, “He worries for you.”
“Well, I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself,” I grumbled, twisting back to face the streets of the kingdom.
“Mmm, can you now?” I felt it first before I saw it.
She stepped past me and at the same time the pressure from last night returned.
Something thick and filling spread through me like she’d injected me with a fast-acting poison.
My eyes fluttered for a second as it gave a quick kick to my sweet spot.
I choked on my tongue. You cuntwaffle. I caught her fingers twirling beside her, little icy blue tendrils of magic coming off her fingers, and the blessing returned ten-fold to my core.
Like she’d stuffed four fingers up into my cunt and pressed them as far as they could go, I saw stars.
I stumbled down the last step toward the street and fell into an arm placed specifically to catch me.
My hooves scratched against the cobblestone. “Naughty girl.”
“Wha-what!” I gasped, head snapping up to glare at her. I spoke in a low, sharp hiss, “I’m not the one using magic to—”
Keida forced the magic fucking to stop, jilting me up straight.
My knees knocked together hard. A gloved palm caught me by the chin, turning my face one way then the other.
Despite her marble statue expression, there was a twinkle in her eye that told me everything.
She’s playing with me. “That blessing would have been more muffled if you were wearing appropriate clothing, trouble.”
My lips split into a shit-eating grin as she dropped my chin. “Did you truly think that I learned my lesson when you just sweetened the consequence?”
With a single quirked brow, she inspected my face.
I breathlessly waited for a response. Please, play with me.
Something changed since the ceremony. The liar, the coward who told me none of this mattered in those woods?
She was gone. Replaced by an ironfisted woman who made my spine tingle with that one arched brow.
She tsked, then brought a cloak out from under her arm and draped it across my shoulders.
“I will simply have to teach that lesson to you harder.”
Then she whipped around on her boots and motioned for me to follow.
I considered going inside, ignoring her all together to get a rise out of her.
Only the first step I made in the wrong direction caused the fucking to begin again.
I stumbled backward out of sheer bewilderment.
It was so sharp. So sudden and deep. The feeling of her magic, shaped like a tentacle that stretched and filled my core to the very edge, thrusting into me with no mercy.
I slapped a palm to my mouth. Eyes darting to her, I found her standing still, watching me expectantly.
With a twirl of a singular finger, the fucking ceased.
“This way; we’ve got a day of chores to attend to, plus your studies.”
“My studies?” I blurted out, blinking rapidly. “But it’s the day after Wintersdark?”
Papa never makes me go the day after festivals.
I pouted as she beckoned me with a curl of her fingers.
I harrumphed, stomping to Keida’s side. Her arms were folded behind her back so I couldn’t see when her fingers activated the ‘blessing’ again.
I have a feeling she’ll activate it every time I misbehave.
Which was only a class in futility for her but…
I also hoped she might activate it and let it run its course as a reward.
Instead of teasing me, would she allow her magic to bring me over the brink of ecstasy?
Keida nodded toward the streets that were full of others, weaving in and out of clumps to get about their day.
While the frosty cleric was in charge, the clerics didn’t dilly-dally.
They respected my father but tended to get away with shenanigans—much like myself—the morning after festivals.
He wanted the kingdom to see clerics like neighbors, wanted those inside the castle walls to feel a kinship with the Order.
It made it easier when the Order was needed, for the people to trust a mage they felt was their friend with their sickly child than an unfeeling patron of a goddess they didn’t pray too.
Keida, however, didn’t allow any excessive drinking or staying out to all hours of the night.
Every cleric was in their bunk by midnight, and every paladin was at breakfast in their armor, ready to resume their duties.
“Your father entrusted me with your care while he is away. He might let you off easy, but I will not have such mercy for you. Especially as I know you are not suffering from anything but the consequences to your own actions.” She spoke like it wasn’t her magic stuffed deep in my cunt, or her fingers that put it there.
Like she didn’t taste like citrus syrup poured over freshly shaven ice.
I went to bed thinking about how much I enjoyed going down on her and prayed she’d let me do it again.
“And if I behave?” I murmured, curling my fingers into a fist at my side to keep them from grabbing her.
Keida smirked, chuckling to herself as she turned away from me.
I scoffed but she didn’t say a word. I rushed after her, her smug laughter falling away.
Keida didn’t speak about my behavior. She doesn’t think I can?
Or maybe she actually wants me to misbehave?
Who is this Keida and where did she come from?
I studied her from the side as we turned into one of the many courtyards of the castle.
A cobblestone circle with a massive well for drawing up water.
Long clotheslines with damp linen decorated the opening as people pinned their laundry.
“You are staring?” She whispered
“I’m just wondering who you are and where the fun-hating cleric who begrudgingly let me drag her all over the kingdom yesterday went.” I arched a brow.
Keida cleared her throat, bending over the top of the well. “I do not hate fun.”
“Yes you do!” I huffed, throwing my arms out to my side.
She proceeded to ignore my outburst while drawing runes into the inside of the well with the sharp edge of a crystal.
It dug deep into the stone over last year’s magic, and the year before that.
Because magic, especially blessings like this, do better over the bones of older magic.
A warming charm, to ensure the deep belly of the mountain didn’t cool down too much under Avaris’ embrace.
Papa preferred to summon water above the ice cap, giving us water to draw from even in the dead of winter.
But that was just how the two most important people in my life differed.
Leonardo was bountiful and overtly generous. Keida was sensible and grounded.
“Every year you loathe going out to the festival with me,” I grumbled.
I folded my arms under my chest for extra emphasis.
Unlike yesterday, I did give my current outfit more forethought.
A thick, cotton under blouse that ruffled up around my throat laid under one of my thicker gowns, the kind where the sleeves were wrapped around my arms to trap in heat.
It was a simple maroon dress with autumnal colored accents like the olive green embroidery, the gold lace, and black sash that looped my hips.
Not that anyone could see my perfect fall gown with Keida’s cloak around my shoulders.
“I do not loathe it. I feel the festival is a waste of our time. And every year without fault, you get into some sort of trouble. Just as you did this year.” She straightened, dusting off her gloves on the outside of her cloak.
“I wouldn’t call that trouble,” I snorted, leaning closer so only she could hear, “That was a lesson, remember?”
Her lip quirked up at the edge as she narrowed those blue orbs on me. “I was speaking about the fool I was forced to pummel on your behalf, Troublemaker.”
A hot blush burned across my face. For no reason except out of habit, I brushed my hair back from the sides of my face, tucking it behind my ears. Keida held still, observing me as I glanced away. The words fell out of my mouth, “Well, you didn’t have to break his nose.”
“Yes, I did.” She nodded once as if that was final. She stepped away from me swiftly, headed to the next well in the kingdom to bless it as well. “And I’ll do it again.”
“Ah,” I gasped, trying to get back any sense of control I had. “And you wanted to say that our kiss meant nothing,” I glared.
Her body lurched, boots clicking hard against the stone. My eyes darted to her in anticipation for some answer. An explanation—‘ah, my apologize Melrose, you surprised me with that ultimatum and I choked. I’ll make it up to you’. Anything that would make it make sense.
Keida glanced at me quickly before licking her lips. “Your father entrusted me with your care. You are unmarried and unprotected. He asked me to see to your well being.”
I rolled my eyes at the marriage conversation. Once again, people trying to pressure me to just marry a man like that ever kept any woman safe!
“Ah, so it’s my father’s fault your magic is currently curled up in my guts?” I retorted.
She chuckled, shaking her head. “No…no it’s not. He would behead me for that…will behead me for this.”
And that’s when it clicked. I hesitated to follow her out of the courtyard. My heart physically stopped mid-beat. I am such a fool. “You’re afraid of him.”
“Pardon?” Keida whirled around like I’d slapped her upside the head.
A befuddled laugh bubbled up through my chest and spilled out of my lips. “You’re afraid of my father…that’s why you don’t want to be with me. It’s not that you don’t care for me enough. You fear him more.”
“Wha—Melrose!” She glanced left and right before rushing up to grab me by the arm. I ripped both of them back and away from her.
“That’s it, isn’t it? That being with me will ruin your career?
I’m not worth risking your position in the order?
” I arched a brow. I did this to myself again.
I let myself hope, let myself pray and beg and plead, that she may feel for me what I felt for her.
And my heart was never going to be enough to sway her.
Once again, people feared him more than they loved me.
I could never escape his shadow or be my own person, for it would only ever be about him. In that moment, I loathed Papa. I couldn’t even get a girl to like me in fear of his retaliation. I will never marry…so long as any match would use it for power. For their gain. Instead of love for me.
“It’s more complicated than that,” she hissed through her teeth.
“What is it about me that makes it not worth the risk?” I blurted out, voice raised an octave and bouncing off all the building in its frenzy.
Snow trickled around us. It spun in the air and danced on the soft breeze that licked up the side of my face.
Keida turned to stone in front of me and for the first time, I used my actual magic.
I made sure she felt it too as I broke the blessing she bestowed on me.
Her gaze dropped to my skirts as I stomped a hoof against the cobblestone.
Little snowflakes fell out of my dress and melted around her boots as I dispelled her magic.
“You’re still a coward, Keida,” I snarled, shaking my head. “You’ll only be with me when he’s not here to take your title? Or are you still pretending this meant nothing?”
I didn’t wait to hear what she had to say. You want me to go to my lessons so bad? I’ll go early.