AYLETH

"I call upon the power of the Goddess of love to light your flesh," her mother intoned. Ayleth wanted to struggle but found herself helpless. Her mother was an adept, a magic wielder, but she'd never used it on Ayleth.

"Mother, what—!" she hissed.

But her mother's gaze only intensified. "I call upon the Goddess to bring you to life," she said.

Ayleth shook as intense heat poured from the Queen's hand and, as if it entered her blood and flowed through her, flames and thrill soaked her entire being—but in the same moment a core of fire concentrated at the apex of her thighs. As Ayleth tried to struggle, to escape her mother's grip, those flames licked their way up her skin, and inside her, lighting new fires in her blood and bones as they went, crawling upwards towards the heat now pouring down from her head and heart.

The Queen's head dropped as if she were concentrating hard. Her lips moved, though Ayleth heard no other words, until the flames and the heat met and twisted together in her chest and she cried out, heart racing, her skin thrumming as they churned.

"Your heart will seek only a man of power and wealth to match your own," the Queen intoned. "You will yearn only for a man of power. You will find the Lion to your Lamb from any nation bar that of—"

Ayleth gasped as the door to her chamber opened and her father's voice rumbled, irritated at a servant that had tried to stop him entering.

The Queen immediately let Ayleth go and turned to face the slowly opening door, raised her chin and brushed the front of her dress as if she'd merely been speaking of nothing important.

Ayleth, however, burned. From the inside out. She could feel herself tremble and had to force herself to turn and not scream for help when her Father, the King, in full ceremonial robes, entered the room, looking back and forth between them suspiciously.

"I see why I was unable to find you in the garden, wife," he said, an edge in his voice.

The Queen raised her eyebrows in question. "We have been discussing the wiles of a woman—it wasn't a place for men." Then she smiled.

The King dropped his chin to regard the Queen from under his brows and something crackled between them. Ayleth's heart raced faster in response, a spiral of something hot and tingling beginning low in her belly. Something that made her want to… to… move. The very way she'd felt in Etan's presence last night only… even more demanding.

What had her mother done to her?

"You cannot do better than to listen to your mother when it comes to the cunning and power of women, Ayleth," her father said, then finally broke the eye-contact with the Queen. "But now I will speak with you."

"Y-yes, Father," Ayleth stammered, holding her stomach which continued to twist and thrill.

The Queen looked displeased. "I am her mother. She may not understand. I should stay to—"

"Alone," her father said, too quietly.

The Queen's lips pinched, but she nodded once and got up, starting gracefully for the door, only one quick stop at Ayleth's side as she reached to squeeze her hand and murmured, "As I have said, so it shall be," she whispered.

Ayleth opened her mouth to ask, but as her mother's words faded from the air, the churning fire seemed to explode out of Ayleth's every pore. She gasped, and blinked, but the Queen only smiled tightly and started walking again, closing the door to the chamber behind her softly.

Ayleth found herself turning to meet her Father's skeptical gaze, the burning sensation in her skin—and inside her—fading to be replaced by the yearning for Etan—an even deeper ache for him that stood up inside her and screamed for attention.

The King took a deep breath, staring at the door, then turned to Ayleth and smiled gently.

"Ayleth, I'm sure your mother has explained the ways and workings of women. But since you will soon be a wife—and likely to a powerful man—I thought the time had come."

"F-for what?" Ayleth asked faintly.

"For you to also understand the workings of a man."

Ayleth dropped her face into her hands. What was happening to her?

*****

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