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It was difficult image to reconcile. The man who had seemed so helpless when she found him in Nokron, barely able to speak, stood tall over Fia’s corpse. He held his bloodied sword aloft, jeering at the Prince and his felled companion. Against any sense of better judgement or self-preservation, the Tarnished still found herself drawn toward the grim scene.
“Ah, hello.” Devin said softly. “The rotten witch is dead. The Golden Order, unsullied.”
Whatever else followed the Tarnished didn’t care to hear, as she knelt down beside Fia’s lifeless frame. While she had not considered the woman a friend, the Companion had been a rare source of comfort in a ceaselessly cruel world, and that was enough to be thought dear, in spite of the harm caused.
His speaking stopped, and he finally, really looked at her. “I remember you…in Nokron.” The man removed his helm. D’s brother had developed a bit more color to him - a healthy flush had risen in his cheeks, eyes clear and alert as they swept over her. She wished she could have found this observation more pleasing. “You cared enough for Darian to deliver his armor to me, yet you appear quite distressed to see his killer dead.”
The Tarnished smoothed her hand over Fia’s hair, brushing away the strands of hair clinging to her dampened forehead. Corhyn and Diallos gone. Rogier, D, and Fia all dead. At this rate, the Roundtable Hold would soon be empty. So much for a team. A family.
“I’m sorry.” She couldn’t have known that giving D the dagger had marked him for death, but she didn’t have the words to explain herself at the present.
“Oh, she’s sorry.” He said mockingly. The Tarnished watched his sword came into view, Fia’s blood glistening over its razored edge. Her hand itched to retrieve her staff, tucked away and useless in the band of her sash.
“I am.” She maintained. While D had been indifferent toward her at best, she appreciated his transparency - how his aid never came at hidden expense or consequence. The Tarnished didn’t think he had deserved to die. Not like that.
“To think...I would gone back to my brother so unfulfilled.” Devin laughed again, a mirthless, empty sound. “It would seem his death has not yet achieved true justice.”
“You mean vengeance.” She corrected sharply.
Devin smiled, shaking his head. “I speak of restitution. A life, for a life.”
The Tarnished gathered her hair over her shoulder, exposing a swath of vulnerable skin. “Get on with it then.” Granting him the illusion of victory cost nothing. She would be brought back. She always was.
“No, no. The witches’ death set that wrong to rights.” He crouched down to look her in the eye, balancing on his haunches. Silver fingers closed around her jaw to keep her in place. “Still blessed with the sight of Grace, are we? The Greater Will’s most auspicious gift, fleeting for most...Rather fitting, I think.”
His smile grew wider as he spoke, his increasingly crazed expression giving the Tarnished a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She tried to jerk her head out from his hand.
“Did the witch ever instruct you, little mage, of the proper way to create life?” His laughter was cruel, the grip on her unyielding. “Fear not - I will be your teacher.”
The Tarnished’s head quickly met the earth, pinned down by her throat, while his other hand pushed up the snowy white skirts. Her staff crackled against her side, sensing the need for protection. Thrashing was met with a firm squeeze, filling the edges of her vision with darkness, her limbs growing heavy. When he allowed the flow of air to return, her body jerked around like ripples on a pond. Devin settled between her thighs, admiring her sex through the slit in her smallclothes.
“Pretty little twat for a pretty little Tarnished.” He taunted, his thumb sliding partway up her slit, to peel back the petal of her lip and expose her waiting core. The loose plates sheltering his groin clinked together as the offending hand retreated to unlace his leathers, before pausing to consider the limitations of his unique armor, the tassets already digging uncomfortably into his thighs. After straddling the Tarnished’s hips, he expertly unfastened the straps, laying his breastplate down with care alongside his sword. The pale gold tunic beneath was a near match to his sallow skin and hair, the monochrome broken by a set of intense blue eyes. They regarded her with chilling contempt, as the silver hand caged her throat once more, the impulse to crush her windpipe crossed his face for a brief moment. He seemed to think better of it, shifting back between her legs.
“What would your mistress think of you now, I wonder? Spread wide for the likes of me?” The thought appeared quite amusing to him, chucking as he dragged the head of his cock up and down her slit, watching the way her hips jumped slightly each time it made contact with her clit. “Would she find you revolting? Would she pity you?”
Tears burned along the rims of her eyes when he gave her throat another firm squeeze, the repeated pattern of loss and gain of air in her lungs made her feel dizzy and weak, every point of contact he made with her body burned in overstimulation despite the fact that he had barely begun.
“Well, look upon your mistress, Tarnished.” His thumb curved around the edge of her jaw and forced her head to turn. “Tell me, which it is?”
Dull, glassy eyes stared back at her, emotionless yet haunting, while Devin’s cock wormed its way inside. He sighed contentedly, expression softening in bliss. Pain blossomed in her core the deeper he went, her walls clamping down against the intrusion all the way, aching when he was fully sheathed. Not caring if she adjusted, he was all too happy to immediately withdraw his cock, shoving it back in again, hard. The Tarnished grit her teeth.
“Are you taking notes, little mage?” Devin asked, a groan escaping his ill-tongued mouth as her cunt rewarded his rough movements with a tight clench. “This is the only sacred way to create life. The movement of flesh.” He brought her hand to his lips, kissing it with a tenderness that did not fit the violation he was performing, before pressing her palm to his chest, laying his free hand flat against her rib cage. “Your heart, beating in time with mine.” His fingers skimmed downward, stopping below her naval. “I am prepared to teach you this lesson as many times as it takes.”
The thought of even one repeat performance was enough to make her vow to run her own self through. “Your teachings are vile.” She spat.
“Perhaps, but who are any of us to argue with the Greater Will? Did the guidance of its Grace not lead you here, to me?” He spoke feverantly, hitching her leg over his hip. “You pulled my mind from the brink of madness.”
“This is madness.” The Tarnished rasped, each word having to claw its way from her abused throat. “It won’t be him. You know it won’t.”
“This is order.” D finally released her throat to steady himself. “It is Balance. Atonement. Fate.” Deeper thrusts punctuated his musings, causing the Tarnished to whimper. “Darian and I were wrought from the very same seed, nourished in the same womb, side by side. We shared a soul.” He leaned down, and pressed his lips to her ear. “This child will be as much his as mine.”
A single finger found her clit, the cool metal of his gauntlet against the swollen nub a pleasure and relief at once. “You are…very pleasant to look at, at least.” He admitted bitterly, lips pursed against the Tarnished’s shoulder, feeling her insides flutter around him in release, her gasps sounding strangled at first as she attempted to muffle them.
“That’s it, little mage.” Devin’s finger did not relent, her walls continuing to pulse tightly every time he rubbed over the slick bud. The Tarnished convulsed beneath him, trying to rid herself of his persistent touch, loud whimpers drowning out the prayer he murmured to himself. A flash of unbearable heat spread through her belly, before his hips slowed to a stop. After peeling himself off her, he took a moment to admire his handiwork, a satisfied hum sounding from his throat.
“What now?” The Tarnish said flatly, eyes glazed over and looking ahead at nothing. “I drop a basket off on a doorstep sometime next year?”
He laughed again, a sound she had grown to despise. “Why should I have such faith in you?” Devin shook his head and finally got up, offering his hand out for her to take, which she ignored.
Her cloak had saved her clothing from the mud, but hadn’t done much to spare the discomfort of being pummeled into the ground. Seed oozed down her thigh, another sensory nightmare to add to this ordeal, but she was nothing if not a hardy sort. Noticing he was not moving to retrieve his things - including his weapon - the Tarnished reached for her staff, only to find herself grasping at air.
“Missing something?” She watched him pull the staff out from behind him, twirling it around between his fingers tauntingly, before snapping it over his knee and tossing the pieces aside, the glintstone flickering wanly in a puddle of grime. The space between then disappeared once again. His hands reached up, settling on either side of her face, cradling it almost like a lover might.
It was the only part of him displaying any sense of gentility, his body was otherwise poised in defense, his face displaying an usual sneer: a combination of exuberance and disgust.
“If you are willing to accept the sin you committed, and the debt you owe because of it, then this needn’t be difficult.” No amount of softness he put into his voice could hide the threat behind his offer, which, to his credit, he did not bother hiding for long. “I will keep you shackled in a cellar if I must, but I do not wish it.”
The Tarnished was never good at discerning when it would be best to keep clever retorts to herself. “Yeah, it’s dreadful on the back.” She mumbled.
A huff of a giggle bubbled through Devin’s lips, and for a flickering moment, he almost looked happy, in a soft and genuine way, like only children ever seem to be capable of looking. It was the last thing the Tarnished saw before his fist came down hard on the top of her head. He caught her body as it crumpled, holding her fast to his chest for a time.
“You’re a strange one, little mage,” Devin said to one in particular, hoisting the Tarnished over his shoulder, “but I think I quite like it.”