The Tournament (5 page)

And then he hiked his robe up and began to fuck her.

She came instantly. And
hard
. Like nothing she'd ever felt before. Her whole body trembled, pleasure chasing on the heels of dread. Tears leaked down her cheeks and and she sobbed, scratching at the doctor's arms even as she twisted her hips to meet his thrusts.
 

"You're so good," she whimpered finally, all resistance gone. She clutched at the doctor. "Oh yes, oh please. Oh, I want you."

He came suddenly, grimacing as he pulled out of her. Ruby tried to sit up, but she was still trapped in the harness. She had to lie still and listen as the doctor shuffled back and forth. A clicking, metallic noise filled her with dread.
 

"You're not going to kill me, are you?"
 

"Of course not." The doctor appeared at her side, naked and lean and handsome. "I'm going to fuck you again, then send you back to your tent with my cum dripping down your thighs."
 

"So you believe me?"
 

"I don't need to believe you," he said gently. "I'm the King's doctor, Ruby. I'm a mage."

A mage. Ruby whimpered.

"The dildo was a lie detector. Magic." He smiled wryly. "There are other ways, of course, but I like mine. And the release charm has healing properties."

Ruby cupped her cunt protectively. He'd put magic inside of her. Just the thought made her feel sick.
 

"Come now." The doctor fingered his cock, soft now, but it stirred. "Was it so bad?"
 

"That
was
a good fuck," Ruby admitted.
 

The doctor released her feet from the stirrups. "I won't tell you any more secrets, though. It's too dangerous."

"I don't care about secrets," said Ruby. "I love your cock and I want to fuck it again."
 

"And my magic?"
 

"I don't know," said Ruby, remembering the lie detector. "It scares me."

"Turn over," said the doctor, grabbing her ass and pulling the cheeks apart when she obeyed. He poured oil over the crack and nudged the head of his cock, hard again, against the puckered hole. "I'll take your ass the old fashioned way, and you can imagine what it would be like with a phantom mouth milking your clit while I plow you."
 

"Mmm," said Ruby.

He pushed in shallowly, slow and careful. "You want that?"
 

"I do," Ruby admitted.

Something warm and tingling began to suck at her clit.

The doctor pressed deeper inside. "Feel good?"
 

"It feels amazing," said Ruby.
 

He buried himself to the root, deep inside of her ass. Ruby panted and widened her stance, accepting the intrusion, and the phantom mouth rewarded her with increased suction, sparkles of sensation that seemed to strike directly at her nerves.

"Oh, yes," said Ruby. "Oh, yes."

"Are you ready?" asked the doctor. "I'm going to fuck your ass."

"Fuck it," hissed Ruby. "Fuck my ass."

The fit was tight, but that made it so much more intense. She felt vulnerable, at the doctor's mercy in a way that never happened when a man fucked her cunt. He fondled her breasts and rolled her nipples between his fingers as he thrust, his dark eyes narrowed to slits.
 

He liked to be careful, she thought. And he liked taking risks.

She came twice before he did, milked to orgasm by the doctor's magic, clenching her empty cunt around nothing while the doctor filled her ass with his cock.

"Don't be so scared of mages," were his parting words to her, and Ruby didn't suspect a hidden meaning until the Third Trial started.
 

"The King once again asks for your service," said the Steward, when they met him in front of a large, windowless edifice on the Palace grounds. "We are introducing you, step by step, to the people most valuable to this Kingdom. The King is generous to those who serve him well, and the gift of your service is the greatest that he can offer."
 

Ruby only recognized one woman from the Second Trial. Aspirants progressed when they were ready, not according to a set schedule. Every night, new aspirants arrived in the Pavilion with their first bead. Every day, some of the aspirants left—by choice, or because they had not been invited to continue. One of the aspirants who'd gone with Ruby to the Guild Hall had received a proposal of marriage in an alcove. She had left to arrange her own wedding.

Aspirants didn't have to taste the King's cock to change their lives at the Tournament. Everyone knew that.
 

Ruby was learning to judge how far an aspirant had progressed in the Tournament not by counting her beads, but by looking at her. The aspirants waiting with Ruby to begin their Third Trial had smooth, dewy skin and bright, shining hair. Their fingertips and toenails gleamed with lacquer. They had transformed from citizens into aspirants. Glossy and fresh, luxurious and desirable.

Ruby had never felt so healthy or looked so good. And she couldn't give the good doctor, or his excellent cock, all the credit. Fine food and leisure, ample sport and deep rest had changed her. Even the air of the Pavilion seemed to taste better.

"Today you will meet our mages," said the Steward.

Ruby's heart sank.
 

"No," said one of the girls. "No. I don't need a third bead."

"Then go, and take the King's gratitude with you." The Steward gestured a waiting servant forward. "You have honored us with your participation in the Tournament."

The servant led the aspirant away.

"The mages will not gather in honor of your arrival," warned the Steward. "Our mages are not always friendly with one another. You may enter the Mage Hall and wander where you will."
 

"Be cautious," he advised. "Though we place no impediment on your movements, I would not myself have the temerity to open a closed door and interrupt a mage's work."

"Empty cunt," whispered one of the girls.
 

The Steward pinned the speaker with his steady, compassionate gaze. "Do not proceed if you cannot do so with a generous spirit," he said. "The only reward for your success, if you finish today's service, is a more difficult challenge."

Another girl, a sloe-eyed beauty with skin the color of copper, asked, "When do we meet the King?"
 

"A Queen does not want," replied the Steward. "A Queen gives."

"The Queen has to service all the mages…forever?" asked a curvaceous blonde.
 

"The Queen serves her country and her King in whatever way she sees fit," said the Steward. "I'm going to open the doors to the Mage Hall. Those who wish to undertake this service may enter. Those who have questions may linger a moment and speak to me privately. It is my honor to be of help."
 

Ruby went inside. She'd worry about winning a third bead, and leave the others to ask about a Queen's duties.

Bright magelight lit the windowless foyer in a warm, even glow but not the corridors that stretched in either direction. Dozens of doors pierced the stone walls along the corridors, all closed, and looking at them made Ruby shiver.

Don't be so scared of mages
, the doctor had said, but Ruby was terrified. They were not all like him.
 

She turned left, because the girl next to her had turned right, and started walking. The air cooled. Every door looked the same, and Ruby didn't dare knock.
 

The hallway ended at a stairwell that, like the corridor, stretched both up and down. Ruby looked behind her, looked at the stairwell, and decided to climb to the next floor up. Maybe she'd find something—a great room, a dining hall. A place where people gathered, and she could find some purpose in her presence here.
 

But the next floor up was the same as the first, an endless row of closed doors.

She turned on her heel to climb again, when the shrieking of iron hinges filled the corridor and one of the massive wooden doors scraped open.

Ruby paused and waited.

A pleasant-faced woman looked out. She wore a shapeless, high-necked gown that covered everything but her hands and her head, but but both of those seemed normal enough. She wore her pale brown hair in a bun at her nape. Only the spectacles perched on her nose seemed out of place. Did mages really need spectacles?

"Aspirant?"
 

Ruby nodded.

"Care to give me a hand?"
 

"I would be glad to," said Ruby.

A bit of light caught on the woman's spectacles and flared like a spark. "Just the magelight," she said, stepping aside so Ruby could enter. "Why don't you come in?"
 

The mage's workshop was cluttered and dusty, every level surface a jumble of arcane instruments. Ruby couldn't make anything of the mess, but the window unnerved her terribly. Blue skies and bright light poured into the the workshop, but Ruby had seen the exterior of the Mage Hall. It had no windows.

"Just sit there," said the mage, pointing to a cushioned armchair.

Ruby sat. The chair was worn and comfortable, just like something she'd find in her family's home.
 

"When did you last have sex?" asked the mage, clearing a bit of countertop by stacking the objects in front of her on top of the adjacent piles.

"What?"

"It's just a question. If you don't want to answer, I'll find someone else."
 

"That's all right, I don't mind," Ruby said quickly. "Last night."
 

"Before or after midnight?"
 

"After." She'd taken Lily to bed with her, and they'd stayed up late.
 

"Really? That's excellent." The mage rummaged around until she'd found a small, empty vial, which she filled with a clear fluid. She chanted over it in a language that Ruby had never heard before.

Ruby bit her lips. She wanted, very badly, to run.

The mage finished her chanting and light flared around the vial. When it faded, the clear fluid inside had turned a pale gold, the color of sugar syrup.
 

"Would you hold this?" The mage held out the vial.

Gingerly, Ruby took it.

"I appreciate your help," said the mage, sitting down opposite Ruby. She picked up a bit of knitting from a small sidetable and shook it loose. "Now, I'm just going to sit here and mind my own business while you hold that jar underneath your cunt and masturbate until your juices drip down into it."
 

"While I…."
 

"You heard me." The mage flicked her needles. "And let me tell you, right now there's a girl who's wandered right into Ren's clutches and wishing she could win her third bead so cheap."

Ruby had donned a light shift before she left the Pavilion that morning, and she hadn't taken it off before entering the Mage Hall. She wondered, as she rucked the fine linen skirt up around her waist, if that would be the criteria by which the aspirants passed or failed this Trial. A true Queen would not cling to false comforts.
 

The mage's needles clacked in a soothing rhythm. She seemed to be making a stocking. What sort of Palace mage knit her own stockings?
 

Ruby parted the folds of her cunt, seeking out her clit. She was dry as a bone, of course. She needed to get herself into the mood. Think of something more arousing than knitting. Her gaze bounced off of the mage's weathered grimoires, the bizarre instruments that littered her counter, the impossible window.
 

Flick flick flick went her finger, but her nerves would not sing and her cunt would not moisten.
 

"Do you need some help?" asked the mage, peering up over the rim of her spectacles. "I can assist."

"Oh. No. I'm fine," said Ruby.
 

"I don't have all day," said the mage.
 

"I'll try to hurry." Ruby worked her clit, trying to bring it to life. She felt terrible.
 

The mage's needles began clicking again.

The workshop was a little bit like Ruby's home, and a little bit like her worst nightmare. She associated knitting with her grandmother, who had, in fact, made wonderfully fine stockings. Ruby still had a pair that she kept wrapped in paper, in a cedar box. She'd never wear them, now that her grandmother had passed.
 

Oh, holy fuck. She'd never get herself off like this. But she'd once—there. That was the memory. She'd once sat down at table with her family and made herself come while they all ate supper. She'd rocked back and forth on a slender dildo until she was close, then ducked her hand under the tablecloth to finish herself off.
 

That had been after the proclamation of peace with Odesh, but before the reality of it. More than a year ago. The King and his army remained far away, but an air of celebration had reached the capital. Some toasted the safe return of soldiers, others spent the coin they'd set aside for heavy war taxes, and Ruby had stuck a dildo up her cunt.
 

She'd been born in a no-bead household. She would not die in one.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather marry?" her mother had asked, after the Tournament was announced. Married women could not enter the Tournament, because they could not win. "Plenty of girls your age have gotten married since the war began. There's no shame in it."
 

Ruby had been terrified. So frightened that her only rebellion had been secret, hidden from view. She'd clenched that dildo inside of her while walking to the table, and she'd humped it steadily. She'd made herself come in front of people guaranteed to find her actions abhorrent, and she'd gotten away with it.
 

Nobody had noticed.

"The jar," said the mage sharply. "That fluid is too precious to waste on my armchair."
 

Ruby held the jar underneath her cunt and met the mage's eyes squarely. She breathed deeply, open and vulnerable, the orgasm welling up inside of her.