Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ulbert didn’t really know how much time he spent with the Queen, all he knew was that it had been a blissful copulation that he embraced fully. Even he was under no illusion that the Queen was enamored with him. ‘She wants the power of a demon to protect her country from the beastmen. I want power, status, a place to call my own… it’s a simple exchange of commodities, and this is us sealing a bargain.’

  He was breathing harder than he should have been, even a woman with dragon’s blood couldn’t have exhausted him as much as that, but excitement was exercise all on its own. He lay there with his arm over his forehead and continued his private pondering. ‘Was I really that cold before now? Or… was I not? Is my demonic brain starting to take over? Contracts suddenly seem very important to me… the contract we just made… I never thought the word even once except in contempt. But now keeping to a bargain seems as vital as the pursuit of power, another thing I hated about people before. Am I just a hypocrite? And whether I am or not, can this work?’

  He turned his head to look at the Queen, who seemed lost in her own thoughts.

  She didn’t seem upset, she didn’t pull away from him, nor look away. Then again according to Torald, she was a powerful magic caster in her own right, it was simply that the magic she needed would have cost her the very thing she was trying to save.

  ‘So I did it. I saved my country and saved myself from that vile wretch, Cerebrate. A demon in my bed was a thousand times better than ‘that’. Surprisingly, this one seemed to want to please me…’ Draudillon was no innocent, she was far beyond that stage in her life, though she’d taken lovers rarely in her life, they weren’t unheard of, and she knew enough about the ways of men and women alone to know that the degree to which one wished to please the other said a great deal about their character. ‘A selfish lover in the bed is never a generous person away from it.’ She had more than a fair bit of relief from that thought.

  “How soon will you invade the Beastman Kingdom?” Draudillon asked after the silence stretched out.

  “Are you already eager to be rid of me?” Ulbert asked, though he surprised himself in asking, not because of insecurity, but rather he was able to speak with candid humor, a confidence he once lacked. ‘My character’s flavor text was high confidence and self-effacing humor… maybe I’m losing part of myself to that. I’m not sure quite how to think about it, if that’s the case…’

  His thoughts were interrupted by the Draconic Queen’s answer. She rolled onto her side, doing nothing to conceal her bosom, she put a hand on his chest. “No, actually. To my surprise, I think I’d actually like you to come back sooner, rather than later.” She raised an eyebrow and asked, “May I ask you something…” She hesitated, then finished, “Ulbert?”

  “Go ahead.” He prompted and turned his head toward her.

  “Are demons capable of affection? Not that anything changes if that isn’t the case.” She hastened to add, “But I would like to know.”

  “I don’t really know how to answer that… Draudillon.” Ulbert replied, “I would call Torald a friend. And I had friends before, whom I remember very well, and I still think of them as friends today. But I really have no idea how far that can go.”

  “I see.” She answered, it was a more honest answer than she expected, so she answered him in turn with the same honesty. “It’s just curiosity on my part. Marriages among nobles serve a purpose. They don’t have to have flowers and rainbows and storybook romances. They have to be productive, protect the household, and secure the country. Most of those nobles I know of are as business-like in their marriages as any merchant with his goods. But it would be good for us I think, if we get along.”

  “That is true.” Ulbert retorted. The meaning of ‘productive’ wasn’t lost on him. The Queen would have heirs to pass on her Kingdom, he of course was meant to provide those heirs. ‘A father? Me? Then again, all the reasons I hated the idea, definitely no longer apply. I am strong, inevitably rich, even if I had to leave this Kingdom tomorrow for some reason, I could sell my services or even just ‘take’ a new land for myself.’ The demonic nature of that thought wasn’t lost on him.

  But it felt so good, that he just didn’t care what it was like or the meaning behind it.

  “We can prepare a proper wedding when you return.” The Queen said and slid herself on top of Ulbert. Her hand grasped his manhood and she gasped a little as she settled in over him one last time. “But for now,” she put her hands on his chest and arched her back as his hands went to her breasts, “this consummates our union… more than any stuffy priest’s pronouncements ever could…”

  He had no words to argue or agree, she’d taken those away quite thoroughly.

  But that was their final coupling, when they were done, and he got to watch the sight of the Queen shuddering over him before resting herself on top of his body, they panted from their shared exertions. Ulbert wasn’t sure quite what to say, or even if there should be anything said at all.

  There was only shared breath that slowed down together until they were in sync.

  Only after an extended time did the Queen say with an almost taunting smile, “I’ve worked up quite an appetite, thanks to you. Come with me.” She said and slipped out of the bed, “I have a private bath to clean up in, it’s good to be the Queen, sometimes.” She gave him a flirtatious wink and took his hand, walking with him to a door on the far side of her room, she opened it, and they stepped through.

  It was more or less what one would expect of a bath adjacent to a Queen’s quarters. A round stone tub with a pump that had a faint blue glow to it. Adding yet another surprise to his time with her, Draudillon approached the pump and began to work it herself, rather than tugging on the rope that would have summoned a servant.

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  “You do it yourself?” He asked, and as she moved her hand easily up and down, she replied to him.

  “Yes. I admit, I don’t do much in the way of manual labor, but if you want any privacy in this castle, some things you’ve just got to do yourself. Besides,” she tapped the top of the hand pump as the steaming water gushed into the tub, “it’s easy, this is enchanted, it provides hot water from nowhere, it’s not hard. Even a pampered Queen can manage this much.”

  She wasn’t wrong, the flow was powerful and each motion of her hand filled the tub more and more until it was well over half full.

  It was at that moment that his transformation died, and he was returned to his demonic self. The Queen didn’t bat an eye.

  But it did beg for questions. As she slipped into the tub and the hot water engulfed her she asked, “When I touched you, I felt only what I would expect out of a human. When I kissed you, your mouth was human… is that really an illusion or…?”

  “Yes and no.” Ulbert replied when he joined and the water engulfed him.

  “A high enough skill makes the unreal, real. A person with level one hundred illusion piercing skill wouldn’t be fooled. But in the world I once lived in, that skill was rare in the extreme. My friends and I, most of us had this ability or something like it. In short, it’s powerful enough that what you lay with earlier was as real as what you see before you now.”

  For the Queen, a woman who by her own reckoning knew magic as well as Fluder Paradyne in theory if not in practice, this reveal did two things. It reassured her, and it shocked her. ‘That kind of magic power is definitely on par with the gods… then again, his magic already drove out whole armies… why shouldn’t he have the ability to fool every scrap of human senses…’

  It was the sort of thing to keep her busy thinking, all the way up to the moment they finished dressing again.

  Cerebrate was used to blowing off the hatred others felt toward him. But that’s all he was doing. ‘Blowing it off’. That didn’t mean it never frustrated him, never got to him. Usually though, it just made him angry.

  ‘I risk my life, my neck, defending my country, all I ask for is pleasure in compensation, and people treat me like a wretch! The Queen couldn’t save her own ass, let alone the country, and still she looked at me like I was dirt beneath her feet… even you…’ He groused and cast stealthy looks behind himself toward his team.

  ‘Because you’re scum… remember the first time… you’ve been lying to yourself all this time. And you know you have. None of them want you. Nobody wants you… how could they… even you don’t want you…’ His nagging thoughts were like an eagle’s claws in a defenseless rodent, piercing and unshakable.

  Only one thing really made that feeling go away… “Change of plans.” Cerebrate said, “We’ll head for the border, the bounties are better there, it’s a detour, but we might get lucky and find a few more brigands along the way.”

  The lie had the added benefit of being true. With the dependence on the Slane Theocracy for trade and military support, keeping that corridor of land trade open and safe was paramount, and bounties there were nearly double what they were in other places. Additionally, brigands tended to operate outside those areas in the hopes of catching people away from the more fortified places.

  In all respects, it was the most financially prudent choice, and his party didn’t object.

  But that wasn’t the true reason for Cerebrate’s desire to change course. In the border region where authority was often dubious and profit could easily be made from smuggling, all kinds of trades were possible, if you knew the right people, you could get anything.

  It had been a long time since he’d been that way, at least a year, ‘Then again, times have been hard lately, I shouldn’t have used all my beastmen bounties so recklessly… my team members have more money than I do, and I’m the one in charge…’ Cerebrate’s bitter thought caused him to clench the gold coin tighter in his palm. So much so he opened his hand just to confirm he hadn’t damaged it.

  He sighed with relief, ‘It’s still intact… good… good… if it’s not enough for the lamb special of the Black House… I suppose I can always find a little extra gold somewhere…’

  He licked his lips and panted in heady anticipation, even though it would take time to reach the border… he didn’t mind too much, there was something to be said for waiting after all…

  “I’ll see for myself what’s going on over there.” Cardinal Dominic snapped at the others around the table, his fiery temper was already rising. “People are always throwing around stories of gods and demons, the appearance of a new hero doesn’t mean we’re looking at a new advent. Besides, with the Sorcerous Kingdom being so busy, how do we know this isn’t some new plot?!” The Cardinal held out his hands with palms upturned as if begging for the alms of their reason and darted his eyes around the table.

  “Dominic, I’m not saying they’re an actual demon, you know how these stories go.” Berenice replied as gently as she could, “I’m just saying that we can’t act in ignorance. The reality is that every report we receive says that the beastmen have withdrawn, and the Draconic Kingdom has stopped begging us for military aid. That’s just a fact, we don’t know what’s really happened yet.”

  “Exactly.” Raymond chimed in and leaned back in his chair as if to spite Dominic’s standing up, “We just don’t know. We’re not saying ignore it, but we can’t act rashly.”

  “You’re all too cautious.” Dominic swept his hand out in front of him as if to banish them from his sight, “We did nothing to help the Holy Kingdom, and now a faceless evangelist is running around telling people that the Sorcerer King is a god… and people believe it. We didn’t offer aid, and now they’re under the influence of a kingdom run by an undead. We can’t lead from the back foot!” He cried out, and both Yvon and Maximillion gave their own nods of agreement.

  “It is as our colleague says. And more importantly, I say he’s right, we should go. If not all of us, Dominic alone, let him see for himself… If Thousand League Astrologer were recovered, we could ask her for help, but she is…” Maximilian trailed off.

  They all knew that she was still in no shape to be of use to anyone. Her scrying at the Katze Plains was bad enough. But the things she saw in the Holy Kingdom now had her slightly better than catatonic. The elves and half elves who attended to her estate were the only ones she allowed in to see her. And those said she spent most of her waking hours sobbing and shaking, comforted only by the one or two servants that had helped to raise her.

  Asking her to scry a demon’s rampage, even against beastmen… ‘We might very well lose her.’ The thought was shared by all, and so they voted, much to Dominic’s personal relief.

  “I’ll take a bodyguard with me, of course. One of the Black Scripture, just in case, and when I come back, I’ll report everything I find.” Dominic promised, relieved that at least one thing went his way that day.