“Have they wronged you, Lady Iris?” Zici said. “I came as soon as possible, but it still took too long.”

  “Because of your timing, I gained something unexpected. You were exactly where you needed to be, Zici.”

  Zici looked away. “I’m just doing my job. Her Highness recognised my worth and allowed me to serve you.”

  “Your effort will not go unrewarded.”

  Iris leaned closer to her attendant. Zici’s breath quickened. She took in Iris’s scent, the cool, fruity air that tickled her chest. She tensed her arms and straightened her back. Her eyes begged to close, but her desire to see everything persisted.

  Iris touched her trembling Zici’s cheeks. Nothing she did within would leak out, not even a hint of shameful moans or burning gasps. Her Zici would become her accomplice, an accomplice that would come back to her again and again. She only needed to ignite the first spark.

  “Where should we go, Lady Iris?” Words rolled out of Zici against her will. “I … weren’t you busy?”

  “I am flexible, especially when it comes to these kinds of moments.”

  “Then … please take good care of me.” Those words shouldn’t have left her heart. “I’m yours, Lady Iris.”

  Those lovely words, those trembling lips, how could Iris resist them?

  Iris held Zici’s hands, glided her fingers up those slim arms, squeezed lightly those slender shoulders, and moved to hold the puffy cheeks. She leaned in for a taste, pressing herself against the softest thing in the world.

  The moment her lips touched Zici’s, before she could indulge herself in the forbidden affair, she trembled. Her hands drew back, and her attention snapped away from her flooding desires.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Honey.” A lovely scent of love filled the carriage. “Please forgive me for breaking our promise.”

  Iris fell onto Zici, who hastily helped her mistress to rest. She looked around for the source of distress but found nothing, nothing but absolute silence, the supreme stillness cutting the world from its timeline.

  Iris’s body rose from unconsciousness. She opened her eyes, now radiant pink, her irises taking the shape of a heart-shaped jewel. She smiled at Zici and dragged her into the warmest embrace. She planted a deep-seated kiss into her little prey’s lips, giving her warm breaths and sugary saliva, enough to drown her lungs and muddle her soul.

  Zici wished to stop her mistress, but her spirit could no longer muster any strength. The strawberry flavour overcame her, permeated her, and enveloped her with an intense fragrance she could never shake off.

  “Leave everything to me, Little One,” Nupian said. “Becoming your mistress’s, is that not your desire?”

  The lips parted for a chance to answer, to plead her eternal loyalty. Zici’s eyes reddened, trembling. She could barely see her mistress’s expression through her tears.

  Whenever her mistress’s fingers stroked her, grazed her, and pinched her, she let out unbecoming cries. Her body twisted in postures unrefined, and her soul sank into paradise. Her duty as a library, her honour as a faithful attendant, her shame as a noble birth, they melted into a sea of black pleasure, a tide of unrelenting fervour threatening to consume her.

  She closed her eyes and, quietly, looked deep within her. Her gaze met a weak light source, a flickering candle. It whispered to her its good intentions, hoping that she would contemplate her choice, considering what her morals would suggest.

  Her mistress stopped. She hovered above her little lamb, smiling, swaying, staring into the pair of bright pinkened eyes, in which a vague shape of love began to take hold. Whatever the choice, she would not disobey.

  Zici had the power to decide her fate—to decide how deep she would fall.

  She couldn’t stop smiling. Her hands snuffed out the last light within her, and she opened her eyes to face her loveliest lady.

  “Please don’t stop, Mistress,” she whispered. “Please touch me more.”

  Nupian licked her lips. Whatever spilt out of her, her little Zici would gladly drink it, lick every droplet clean, and rub her places against her mistress, begging for more.

  Those useless clothes and accessories came undone for her mistress, by her own hands. Only her naked body was worthy of those heavenly touches.

  When she was panting, heaving for a moment of respite, her mistress leaned close to her right ear.

  “My Dear, there will be no return,” Nupian said. “I … am a Corrupted One, a monster of lust. You, too, will become like me.”

  Iris’s disguise fell. Her clothes dissolved to translucent membranes, filled with bluish slime, within which a singular core was suspended. Her liquid dripped on her Zici, coating her like a seal.

  Zici did not push away her mistress. She carefully scooped a handful of slime, felt it writhing in her palms, and happily drank the honey. It stuck to her mouth before sliding down her throat. A bout of cough came out of her, yet she remained smiling.

  “Mistress … you’re inside me now,” Zici said. “Please allow me to taint you as well.”

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  She wrapped her arms around her mistress and pulled herself up. Giving her mistress the widest grin, she bit hard, sinking her teeth through the membrane and leaving her saliva and blood inside her mistress.

  “And now, you’re hers.”

  Nupian held Zici’s head and pushed it deeper inside her. Zici struggled to breathe; slime flooded her nose and mouth, filling her inside with inertia that halted her. Her thoughts became sluggish, and her flailing lessened. Bubbles escaped her throat, taking with them the light in her sunken, whitened eyes.

  An intensity seized her. She convulsed inside her mistress, though she did not drag herself away from the suffocating pleasure. Her spirit twisted itself into a smirking knot while she slipped into the warm darkness.

  From the moment of her death, dark green serpents leaked out of her heart. Ghostly cries of the dormant poison burst forth. They gushed out of her orifices but failed to dissipate into the all-confining slime.

  Once Zici was completely inside her, Nupian let her instinct take her. Dark purple mists emanated from Iris’s core, forming countless tendrils which penetrated Zici’s body, coiling around her soul, violating her essence.

  Their thrashing gesture measured her unsculpted shell. Their quivering length draped her bare flesh. Their tips invaded her skin, unravelling the fragility which chained her. They merged with her, lifting her fading soul to a worse height.

  They moulded her in her new image, and as a celebration they dragged back the poison and made it hers.

  Zici twitched. Her slumbering soul stirred; Her flesh and bones dissolved, morphed into a layer of blurriness, of dark green vapours. Black silhouettes of snakes roamed inside her. Her hair lengthened, glowing with the brightness of an ever-changing scheme.

  Nupian pulled her new friend out of her body. Zici broke out of her filmy cocoon, landing gently on the cushion. She pried open her shivering eyelids. Her pitch-black eyes glimmered deadly green.

  She leaned against the pillows, observing the world with unprecedented clarity. Her misted lips parted, but only hoarse winds came out. She touched her neck, her newly formed fingernails cutting her intangible body. A drop of her fluid fell on the pillow, dissolving it, leaving an ashen, burnt mark.

  Shaking, she looked for her mistress. She clenched her throat to force pain to take her, to force her body to scream. Nothing came out of her unformed vocal cord. Only the serpents under her obsidian skin let out their muffled screeches.

  “Your mistress will never abandon you,” Nupian said.

  She snapped her fingers. Drowsiness overcame Zici. She let out a gasp before falling on her mistress’s lap. A swipe of Nupian’s hand returned Zici to her human appearance.

  “Unfortunately, she’s not here,” Nupian said. “There would be no reason to linger around. Isn’t that right, Master?”

  A crimson lady was seated beside Nupian. She laughed while smiling. Something squirmed under her cloak. She patted herself until the beings beneath her calmed themselves.

  “How amusing,” Devoria said. “My proud successor, you’ve finally bested me.”

  “Then please grant me a request.”

  “Shall I bless you, once more?”

  Nupian shuddered. Her figure struggled to maintain its shape. The dark purple tendrils playing within her retreated into the Shadow Heart Core. No matter where, when, or in which body, Nupian would never forget the terrible sensation of that all-devouring kiss.

  It took her and her best friend to the greatest height but left only her there, forcing her to stare into the abyss of her actions.

  “This body isn’t mine,” Nupian said. “Would you grant me the permission to make it mine?”

  Devoria clicked her tongue. “None of us owns her, my Nupian. Not me, not Fate, not Lilith.”

  “Then I’ll make her mine.”

  “Are you going to risk it all again?”

  “My life in exchange for theirs, is it not sensible?”

  “How about hers in exchange for theirs?”

  Devoria pointed at Iris’s core. When her sleeves swayed, tens of blood-soaked limbs reached out under her slender arm. They rushed forth for Nupian, for Zici, for every frozen passerby in the neighbourhood. Their split fingers and gaping wounds gushed forth black bile that consumed every speck of dust it touched.

  There was not a single command. Only Devoria’s eyes darkened, and the tortured monsters beneath her got absorbed back to her cloak. A few black stains tainted the carriage, but they harmed no one.

  Nupian stopped circulating her power. She stared at the bile, from which she could see traces of screaming faces, of crying eyes, of pleading mouths. While her castle housed unfortunate souls she salvaged, her master’s prison trapped an endless number of beings unfortunate enough to meet her.

  None of her brides would agree to give Iris to her master, not when she promised to take care of Iris, not when they adored Iris so much.

  “Salvation can only be attained by my own effort,” Nupian said. “She must’ve been important to you too, Master.”

  “We’re so alike, my pupil. We wander the same, we love the same, and we desire the same.”

  “I’ll never become you. My brides will make sure of it.”

  “My little feast will also ensure my demise, if they ever get a chance.”

  Nupian didn’t argue further. She noticed her master looking over Zici, whose sleeping expression gradually twisted from peace to anxiety. She carefully stroked the girl’s hair while lowering herself to meet her master’s gaze. Her eyes burned, pricked by invisible parasites slipping into her soul. Yet she did not retreat or let out any groan.

  “Your Aconite would be jealous, if she were to see this.”

  “Master, you have no right to mention her.”

  “Was it not her own foolishness that doomed her, doomed you?”

  Zici clutched her chest. The heavy air pressed upon her mind, suffocating her dream. Nupian took a deep breath. Whispers of her brides calmed her. She merely smiled at her master, without taking another step forward or backward.

  “You used to be so innocent and lovable. But the cunning you is also fascinating.” Devoria stared westward. “Consider your request granted. She ruined my amusement, but she also peeked into Innumeral’s scheme.”

  “Please let this little one go too.” Nupian hugged Zici, whose happy smile had already returned. “She’s also a victim of Fate, isn’t she?”

  “Nothing is more tragic than now, my Dear.” Devoria leaned back. “No one is crueller than your Dark Lady.”

  Nupian frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Devoria pressed her index finger on Nupian’s lips. “That’s all I can say. She is always listening, always watching. Especially when it comes to our fragile Iris.”

  “Lady Lilith…”

  “Consider it a reward for your effort. You broke her promise, and then you broke her heart. You deserve at least this much.”

  Before Nupian could speak, a series of powerful waves swept past her. The divine senses flattened her spirits, locking her in her place. The frozen spacetime began to move once more as the separated dimension rejoined seamlessly.

  Anticipating this, Devoria faked a regretful expression. She reached to pat Zici and, giggling to herself, lightly pecked Nupian’s cheek. Her insignificant kiss pierced through Iris’s body and landed directly on Nupian's soul, caressing its pulsating spirit.

  “Unfortunately, the Divine Pantheon doesn’t welcome my presence,” Devoria said. “We will meet again, Dear. I hope you’ll have already marked her heart by then. It’s getting difficult to resist such purity.”

  The carriage’s wheels rolled. Devoria was no longer there. The pedestrians walked and chatted, returning background noises to the carriage’s interior. Only Nupian was aware of what had transpired, and she leaned down to hug Zici, feeling the coldness of a nonhuman body. Her arms tightened, not enough to hurt, but enough to confirm the Zici’s nonexistent pulse.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice was hoarse.

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