The Lotus Ascension (27 page)

“
What do you want from
me?” Soren
asked,
sweat dripping onto her forehead
from the end of his nose.

Merieke reached up and tweaked his
nipples. “I want
your
cum.”

Was that all? She had
misinterpreted the question, but Soren gave her what she wanted. He stopped
mid-thrust, groaned, and emptied his seed into her. He noticed Nathen still
stood in the corner, jacking off.

“
Get out,” Soren said,
his voice low and dangerous.

Nathen dropped his skirt over his
erection and fled.

Chapter
Seventeen

Konas rose from bed and dressed
while Sillara still slept. She had stayed up much later than he, for at one
point when he turned over and awoke for a moment, he heard Sillara moaning
through her closed lips. The bed shook slightly as she masturbated. Konas had
fucked her thoroughly, collapsing his sweaty body atop hers. She had been
panting, and when she looked up at him, her eyes had glowed with satisfaction.
So Konas had bathed and fallen into bed, ready for sleep. He thought Sillara had
been ready, too, and she acted as if she would go to sleep. But she was
insatiable—she was searching for something. As an orgy master, Konas had seen
plenty of couples with problems, but with a little help from him, they had
gotten on just fine. He had helped many customers realize what they liked, and
they left his parties as better lovers. Sillara ached for something more,
something different, and Konas thought he had discovered it with their close
fucking and their intimate face time with whispers of love in her ear. She had
come multiple times, and she had hugged him against her breasts as she squeezed
his sides with her thighs. Konas had never felt closer to anyone, and he had
nearly wept with the joy of knowing he could give his wife such pleasure. But
now he was not so sure. Some need within Sillara still went unsatisfied.

Konas sat on the edge of the bed
and sighed. He ran his fingers through his hair, pulling strands from his
branching horns. Sillara lay like a vision, her black hair splayed out like a
dark sunrise on her pillow, her golden horns crowning her dark beauty with an
exotic touch. There were no black Ausir, yet another thing that Konas loved
about her distinctiveness. Not as distinct as he thought, however, for Soren
looked just like her. There was one other in Gilalion who shared the graces of
her birth.

Standing and stretching, Konas was
determined to put Soren from his mind. He would not let that young sailor
poison another of his days. He seemed to be dwelling on Soren recently, a subject
that upset him as much as any he knew. He looked back; Sillara's eyes were
still closed against the morning light that weakly streamed through the heavy
curtains. The shower was against the far wall, and Konas availed himself of the
running water, a luxury Arinport did not have. Konas took a proprietary pride
in Tambril's City, for it was built on Ausir principles of design and
engineering. It was a nice prison, but a prison nonetheless.

Konas let Sillara sleep. He had
business in town, and he thought it best to see Vaelus away from Sillara. So
far these people did not realize that Konas and Sillara were married. Maybe
they thought he was her steward or her escort. Maybe they thought he was her
father. After all, she was not as dark as a full-blooded Sunjaa, so she had to
have one light-skinned parent. And she was half Ausir. Whatever the
Desertmasters thought, Konas was not about to disabuse them of their mistaken
notions. They displayed an uncomfortable possessiveness of Sillara, so Konas
did not want to awaken their jealousy. Who knew what they might do?

A bright, hot morning greeted Konas
when he stepped into the street. Two guards stood on his doorstep. They wore
the typical loincloth and cloak combination, which Konas rolled his eyes at.
All this Ausir technology, and they wore animal skins. Tambril dying without
issue was the worst thing that could have happened to the Desertmasters, for
they worshiped the idea of the Ausir, benefited from their technology, but knew
nothing about them or how to care for what was left behind. Without Sillara's
help, they would have still been drinking poisoned water.

The guards bowed to Konas, showing
him the same respect he received all over the city. Though he was a pure-blood,
the fact that he was Ausir went far with the Desertmasters. Had he been of
mixed blood and yet still Ausir, doubtless they would fawn and scrape before
him they way they did with Sillara. They were a most unfortunate people, for
they had retained their ideas of racial purity which they had inherited from
their Sunjaa ancestors, yet they had perverted it to apply to those of mixed
blood.

“
I wish to speak to
Vaelus,” Konas said, squinting against the morning glare.

The guards cocked their heads in
confusion. Konas wished he had the mastery of tongues that Sillara had, or at
the very least had studied ancient Sunjaa.

“
Vaelus.”
Konas pointed at his chest and then made walking fingers.

The guards smiled and nodded. They
led the way. Every street Konas walked down was filled with people who stared
at him, his high horns,
his
pale skin. Some bowed
before him as he passed, but mostly people just gawked. Konas was used to the
attention, being as he was one of only a few Ausir in Arinport, but this
attention was somehow different. It was not hostile, but it was not
disinterested like the onlookers of Arinport.

Konas was escorted to the town
square where the well stood within a ring of palm trees. He had been here two
weeks, but he still could not get used to an unused well. In Arinport, wells
were places where people loitered, spoke, did business, or just relaxed,
because people always came to the wells to draw water. But here in Tambril's
City, water was pumped directly to everyone's homes, so the well was nothing
more than a large, subterranean container. Vaelus stood over the well lowering
a chain into it. He was checking the depth, something he did every day.

Konas cleared his throat. His
vocabulary was limited, but he had to try to get his point across to Vaelus.
“Good morning.”

Vaelus looked up. When he saw
Konas, he held up his hand. Konas waited until the depth of the well was
ascertained.

Vaelus handed off the chain to a
nearby helper, sprang off the well which he straddled, and walked over to
Konas. He said something long and complicated, but the only words Konas could
understand were “city”, “Queen”, and “sleep”.

“
Yes, Queen.” Konas
turned his head and put his hands flat against the side of his face. He closed
his eyes.

Another string of words.

Konas did not have the patience. He
found it infuriating that he had to deal with these savages at all. “Queen, I,
go.” He pointed east.

“
Go?” Vaelus shook his
head.

The guards grumbled.

“
Go,” Konas repeated.
“Others come, east.” He pointed again.
“Big swords.
Queen
family
.”

A one-word
interrogative.
Konas did not understand.

“
Mean?” Konas asked.

Vaelus repeated the word and ran
his finger across his neck.

Konas repeated the word. “Kill?”

Vaelus nodded.

“
Yes.
Queen
family.
Angry.
Kill. Queen, I, go.”

“
No!” Vaelus shouted.
Konas then pieced together that Vaelus did not care if Konas left, but he would
not let Sillara go.

“
Why?”

She was the Queen. To the
Desertmasters, that explanation was clear and as unassailable as the blazing
sun. Konas wished a fleet of Ausir balloons would sail in and annihilate these
people.

Through another bout of hand waving
and new vocabulary, Konas was shocked to learn that the Desertmasters would
fight to keep her here and would kill her themselves rather than let her go.
And Konas learned a new word: daughter. Konas's suspicions were confirmed; they
did not know Sillara and Konas were married, instead believing he was her
father. Though this mistake pleased Konas on one hand, on the other, it
saddened him to realize that her wifely love was not clear enough for a
stranger to see. She was affectionate, but those feelings had been
misinterpreted as the love of a daughter for her father.

Konas loved Sillara with a passion
he could not hide. Why could she not love him the same? But what could he say
to her? How could he upbraid the goddess of his idolatry? She was everything he
wanted, and the mere affection she showed him could sustain him through the
long centuries of life like an ever-flowing fountain in the desert. Sillara was
life to him.

Konas tried one last tack.
“Queen angry.”

Vaelus shrugged.

Konas clenched his fists by his
side. He so wanted to punch Vaelus in the face. Instead he stormed off back to
the house the Desertmasters had given them.

When he reached home, he found
Sillara singing in the shower. Konas stripped off his clothes and joined her,
taking the soap from her and lathering up her body himself. Her skin glowed
darkly in the dusty light of the room; the curve of her ass was perfect; her
wet lips were made for kissing.

Konas hugged her from behind,
pressing her wet, soapy body against his. His cock rose against her buttocks.
She smelled like ginger, and the water was warm. The hypocaust beneath the
floor that regulated the temperature of the water was not of Ausir design, and
Konas decided he would later crawl underneath and see how it worked.

“
Where did you go?”
Sillara asked, pressing back into him. She reached back and stroked his hair.

“
To see Vaelus.
I thought I might prevail upon his good sense to let us go. I
should've remembered that he doesn't have any.” Konas did not mention that he
was already allowed to leave anytime he wanted.

Sillara did not laugh at the joke.
She said nothing but cupped water in her hands to splash on her face.

Konas turned her around and held
her in his arms. “It's possible they'll never let us go.”

Sillara's eyes were already red.
She had been crying. At this news, her tears flowed from her eyes, joining with
the water already standing in beads on her skin. She fell against Konas's
chest, and he rubbed his hands up and down her soapy back.

Konas sensed why she cried: she
would never see Soren again, and she missed him more than she was saying. He
wrapped his arms around her and hugged her as tightly as he could, bending even
his shoulders over her to envelop her. He wished he could hug her until she
disappeared, and then he, too, could go to that secret place where it was only
her and him forever. Sillara was not in love with Soren the way Soren was in
love with her—of that Konas was sure. But if Soren asked Sillara, she would
fall in love with him, and Konas would know only despair. That he feared above
all things, even being trapped in this city for the rest of his life.

“
Don't
cry,
my wife.” Konas titled her face up to his and kissed her lips. “I will make you
forget your captivity.” He stepped off the flat, cemented stones and dried off.
“Finish your shower, my love. I'll set things up for a day you won't forget.”

Sillara smiled through her tears
and turned back to face the showerhead, a circular depression in the wall from
which thin jets of warm water sprayed. She sang a wordless melody that nearly
broke Konas's heart, but Konas rallied and went to fetch the centerpiece of his
plan.

A few moments later, he wheeled in
his traveling statue of Abrexa, flanked by her lovers Kiltarin and Faloth. He
set a brazier before it and filled it with shards and splinters of dry wood.
Once the fire burned low in the copper basin of the brazier, Konas crushed
shalar
blossoms in his hand and sprinkled them in the fire. Their scent would fill the
room soon, and once Sillara breathed deep of their fragrance, she would forget
her sadness. She would forget Soren.

Konas's scalp tingled, and he waved
Sillara over to him. She came to him dripping, and he pulled her warm body
against him. She nibbled at his neck and rubbed his buttocks. Suddenly her
shoulders stiffened as she took a deep breath. Then her entire body relaxed
into his, and she let out a long, low moan. The
shalar
flower was
working. Konas felt its influence coursing through his body, too. He wanted to
stretch; he wanted to touch every part of Sillara. Colors were brighter and in
greater contrast, so Sillara's dark eyes had never been more beautiful. Her
horns had never shone so brightly against the black, wet masses of her hair. As
he hugged her, he rubbed her back up and down. She did the same, and they fell
to kissing. Not just on the mouth, but around the mouth, down the chin and
neck, across each other's shoulders and chests.

Sillara led Konas by the hand to
the bed, where she pushed him down onto the plush pillows. Konas rolled across
the blankets, luxuriating in the feel of the bed. He pulled Sillara down with
him and flipped her over on her back. He spread her legs and slid down to rest
his face near her navel. She smelled delicious, and her tits rose like mounds.
Sillara leaned her head back on the bed and thrust Konas down with her thighs
on his shoulders.