Six Months Earlier--Beneath the Mountain

She had not been captured without a fight. A fight that left her broken and bloody. A fight that tore her techniques from this mortal shell and crushed her will to pieces.

When Blackstar’s deviant soldiers known as the Black Suns had captured her, she had fought. She had imploded with power and she had fought, hurling fireballs and daggers of lightning, a rain of death metal and streams of ta’lien at them.

And she was winning. She was winning until she felt something in her mind snap–as inconsequential as a broken twig and as vital as the breath in her body. It was only later she was told that Blackstar had manipulated the electromagnetic waves in her brain to order her to stop fighting.

When she awoke, it was dark.

She blinked rapidly, her eyes adjusting to her surroundings as she realized she was in a dark room lit with two braziers and a dying fire in the hearth. A pair of tongs were heating above it, glowing red-hot to the touch.

“I wish I could lie and say this will not hurt…” a crooning voice told her. “But I am not a liar.”

She barely had time to form a thought when she saw the orange firelight reflecting the malevolent gleam in Kieran Shadowfire’s eyes as he lifted the tongs–

And then plunged them into her bare back.

Grandmaster screamed just once. Searing pain blinded her vision; it was agony like she had never known. She clutched her shackled arms across her naked abdomen and her mouth was open, but no screams had come forth. Fire ripped through every muscle and bone and organ in her body, choking her in convulsing agony. Blackstar’s power was crushing her. She could not imagine that this level of pain existed; now she could not imagine it ever leaving.

She felt her sanity stripping away. In her mind, she begged for death.

Just when she thought Blackstar was slowly killing her, there was a loud sizzle as Kieran lifted the tongs away, and pressed a pack of ice to the wound. He stepped back to admire his handiwork.

“There,” he said. “Look at how beautiful you are.”

Grandmaster shifted around, the manacles clanking as she twisted her head around to stare at a reflection of her back, and gasped.

The tongs had literally stripped away the skin from her flesh, revealing the pink layer of muscle underneath. Blackstar had carved out the shape of a phoenix dragon in her back, a mighty beaked serpent spreading four songs from the base of her spine to touch the nape of her neck. Grandmaster breathed in horror, her eyes round and wide.

“What did…what did you do to me?” she whispered. “What have you done?

Blackstar tilted his head at her, an innocent smile curling his lips. “Why, Grandmaster, I have simply reminded you of what you are. What you always will be.” He ran a slender finger down her back, and Grandmaster could not stop herself from crying out in pain.

“Now everyone shall know you are the Aetherstorm, you are the phoenix dragon, the mother of creation. That you are mine.”

“I am not yours,” Grandmaster said, and every word was like a peal of thunder. “I’m not the phoenix dragon. I’m my own woman…and before I’m done with you…you’ll wish I was the mother of creation.”

Blackstar’s smile simply grew and he dipped a paintbrush in a pot of black ink. He began to paint over her flesh, still unbearably hot. “This ink is sealed with sea salt, so that you shall never be able to escape what you are. You shall be marked for the rest of your days.”

Grandmaster bit down on her tongue so hard it bled.

Blackstar finished brushing her and snapped another set of shackles around her wrists. She hated the trembling that had begun to coil around her bones.

Kieran Shadowfire stalked to the small pile of logs by one brazier and fed a few to the dying fire. The flames swirled and crackled, leaping up to feast on the wood with an insatiable hunger.

Grandmaster focused on her power, but her deviation did not so much flicker in answer. Everything she had eaten and drank in the last few days had been laced with Queen’s Tongue, a numbing drug.

She had refused it at first. She had tasted the poison and spat it out. She had gone to the brink of dying from lack of water when the guards forced it down her throat. Then they had let her starve–starve until she finally cracked and devoured whatever they put in front of her, drugged or not.

The man before her, a trained warrior in everything but honor and dignity, surveyed her body. “How shall we play tonight, Your Eminence?”

Grandmaster hated the sound of her name on his tongue. She hissed at him, her lip curling back from her teeth. Fast as an asp, Blackstar gripped her throat hard enough to bruise.

“Such rage, even now. Even when you are my mercy,” he breathed.

She would never let go of it. She would never let go of that rage. Even when she sank into the burning sea of flame within her, even when she burned until there was nothing left but a field of ashes, that rage would guide her.

Blackstar’s fingers dug into her throat, and she could not stop the choking noise that gasped from her mouth. “This can all be over with a few little words, Your Eminence,” he purred, dropping low enough that his breath brushed over her mouth. “A few little words about your friends, and you and I can part ways forever.”

She would never say those words. She would never tell Blackstar anything about the Star Legion. If she did, if she handed over everything she knew, everything she was, she would be a slave for eternity. And she would usher in the doom of the world.

Blackstar’s grip on her neck loosened, and she inhaled deeply before jerking her head away and baring her teeth again.

Kieran struck her.

Not her face, but her unprotected stomach.

The breath slammed from her throat, and iron clanked as she tried and failed to curl onto her side. Blackstar raised his hand and the braziers flickered out, the metal swirling together to form a hammer.

“This will have to do, I suppose.” He ran his other hand down the length of her torso, and she jerked against the chains at the proprietary touch. He smiled. “So responsive. So eager.” He gripped her bare knee and squeezed gently. “Let me go higher this time, Your Eminence.”

Grandmaster braced herself and took a plunging breath that would bring her far away from here, from this world.

She would never let him break her. Never reveal anything about the Star Legion.

For the Star Legion, for deviantdom, whom she had left to endure their own torment for fifty long years. She owed them this much.

Deep, deep, deep. She went deeper and darker, burying in that sea of flame and shadow, as if she could outrun what he would do, as if she could hide from it.

The hammer glinted in the firelight as it rose over her knee, Blackstar’s breath sucking in with anticipation and delight.

And then the hammer fell.

And she screamed as the bone shattered.

…

She had been shackled to a stone wall in the dungeons, when the screaming went on day and night. From that point on, after her bones had been shattered, a healer had come to repair them. Each morning and evening, a fresh hot meal appeared in her cell. She wolfed it down but cursed Blackstar’s name anyway. Stuck in her cell, she had nothing to do but tend to her wounds as best she could, sleep, and ponder an escape plan. She planned for days and days, but to no avail.

It felt like an eternity passed. She had no idea if her friends had infiltrated the Mountain safely, and she didn’t see that backstabbing teacher. Blackstar never came to taunt her, but he sent his acolytes to hurt her. again. She was alone. Utterly alone, locked in silence–though the screaming in the dungeons continued day and night.

When the screaming became too unbearable and she could not shut it out, she would stare at the dripping pool of water that collected on the floor of her cell to see the phoenix dragon tattooed on her back, and sank within the sea of flame within her. She told them the story, and when the darkness and flame whispered it to her, she sang it back. Locked away in this cell hidden within a world of ice and darkness, the queen recited her story over and over again, and let them unleash eons of pain upon her body.

Once upon a time, in a land long since burned by flames, there lived a young queen who loved her kingdom…very, very much…

She wondered if Blackstar had tattooed her–branded her–to quietly remind her of her power, so close but so far away. A cruel, petty slap on the face, indicating that perhaps she was well on her way to belonging to him completely.

On the second night, one of the servants snapped a collar around her neck and spread her limbs out until her arms broke.

On the third night, they had held her iron-cuffed hands over an open fire and she screamed as the metal fused to her fists.

On the fourth night, they wielded knives and cut her open.

She did not break. She did not tell them what they wanted to know.

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On the fifth night, two deviant slaves appeared in her cell.

They were not from the Black Suns, but she could tell they were slaves because of the twin marks on their neck. They appeared from the slivers of darkness in the corridor beyond, mostly made of shadow, their features barely discernible, save for their loose gowns. They remained silent when they reached for her.

The Grandmaster did not fight them. The days of physical torture and malnourishment had left her greatly weakened, and there was nothing to fight them with and nowhere to run.

To her surprise, they reached out and unlocked her shackles. Grandmaster rubbed her chafed wrists and weakly stood to her feet in shock. What was going on?

“My lady,” one of the deviants whispered, their eyes wide with shame. “Forgive us. This was the only way we could stop your pain.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked hoarsely, but they did not say anything else. Instead, they gently clasped their hands around her arms and led her out of the cell. The two deviant servants brought her up through dusty stairwells and dark hallways until they reached a bathing room.

“Please, Your Eminence. Please undress and step into the bath,” the second deviant whispered. Grandmaster shook her head.

“If you do not do this, he will hurt you even more,” the first deviant told her. “We cannot stand to see you in such pain. Blackstar is a tyrant, the great Deceiver. He claims this place is a paradise for our kind, but once we enter, we can never leave. He marks all of us as his. Please. We do not wish to see you hurt.”

Grandmaster did not want to be hurt, either–and she did not want these deviants to be hurt. Wordlessly, she stripped off her thin shift and climbed into the bath.

The hot water was bliss. She closed her eyes and floated for several minutes, letting the heat soak into her bones, easing the aches and pains for the last several days. She must have dozed off, for when she dreamed, she had disturbing nightmares of black flames consuming her alive, covering her with sticky webs as though she were a giant fly. When she awoke, shuddering and itchy, she was lying on a bed, covered in fluffy towels.

She sat up and clutched the sheet to her chest before staring at her reflection in the mirror. A barely audible gasp escaped her lips as she saw the big, soft curls framing her face. The deviant servants had adorned her face with cosmetics: a smear of rouge on her lips, a thick paste of gold dust on her eyelids, and thick kohl lining her eyes. It was pinky neutrals that gave her skin a subtle flushed glow and sultry bedroom eyes. The soft matte lipstick made her lips look kissably full. While she had never thought of herself as bad-looking, she never considered herself to look like a bombshell. However, the vision before her made her look like she had just stepped out of an editorial magazine.

She noticed her old Star Legion uniform lying on the bed and she started toward it, before a hand gently pushed her back. It was the first of the deviants, and Grandmaster realized they were twins.

“What are your names?” Grandmaster asked them.

The deviant twins paused and stared at each other for a moment, as though weighing the question, deciding to answer or not.

“Blackstar never asked us for our names,” the first one whispered. “My name is Flourish, and this is my sister Carnation.”

Carnation folded Grandmaster’s uniform and tucked it into a satchel. “No more questions, my lady,” she begged softly. “It will make this harder than it already is.”

Carnation stood over her and waved her fingers, and the sheet Grandmaster was holding shifted into a brilliant silver dress that covered her, the material lighter than silk. It rippled like water at the slightest movement, lacy sleeves billowing out from her arms, barely touching her now-flawless skin.

However, the dress was little more than two long shafts of silk, barely wide enough to cover her breasts, pinned at each shoulder with a sapphire. The sections flowed down to a jeweled belt that slung low across her hips, where they joined together into a single piece of fabric that hung between her legs and fell to the floor. When she moved, you could see the most intimate part of her. From the cold tingle on her skin, she knew that her butt and her backside had been exposed.

“What are you doing?!” Grandmaster shouted, whirling around to face the twins. They did not meet her eyes, which were burning with humiliation; they did not flinch at her cold tone. “I am not wearing this. I will not allow myself to be debased like this. I demand to have my clothes back!”

She moved to rip the gown off, demanding to be clothed in something else, but while their impossibly shadowed faces were veiled from her, they held her hands firm.

“Please,” Flourish whispered, pleading with her. “Do not make this harder for yourself than it already is.”

“Just do what he wants,” Carnation begged. “Just drink the wine and do what he wants. It will make things easier.”

“Yes, listen to them, Your Eminence,” a deep, lilting voice tinged with amusement said from the doorway. Blackstar was dressed in an elegant suit, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest as he appraised her.

She should have known this was his doing.

“Make them give me my clothes back. Now,” Grandmaster demanded, trembling with rage. The instincts that told her to be quiet in the presence of the Black Suns had utterly failed when Blackstar was near.

The servants ignored her and placed a sapphire necklace, the size of a baby’s fist, around her neck, while a crown fashioned in two swirls, inlaid with rubies and exploding like twin stars, was placed on her head.

“Ah, but I need an escort for the party.” His russet eyes glittered with stars. “And when I thought of you squatting in that cell all night, alone…” He waved a hand and the deviant servants vanished through the door behind him.

He took a step forward, his eyes roving around her near-naked form. “You look just as I hoped you would,” he whispered.

“I am not dressing in this and going to a party,” Grandmaster said. “Starve me, torture me, beat me. I am not going to be your toy. I am not your property.”

“The tattoo on your back says otherwise, my dear. And this is necessary,” he replied coolly. “How else would I know if anyone touches you?”

Grandmaster braced herself as he ran a cold finger down her shoulder. “The dress will not ruin your lovely features, and neither will your movements,” he said, bringing his face close to hers. His teeth flashed, far too near her throat. “And I will remember precisely where my hands have been. But if anyone else touches you–I will know.” He flicked her nose. “And Grandmaster,” he added, his voice a caressing murmur, “I do not like my belongings tampered with.”

“I am not your property. I am not your belonging,” Grandmaster snarled, baring his teeth, wishing she had her powers so she could burn him alive. “And when I get out of here–when the Star Legion–”

“Oh no! Not the Star Legion!” he gasped dramatically, clutching his chest. He grabbed the mounds of her breasts and squeezed them together, and Grandmaster gasped in pain. “The Star Legion’s chances of finding you are like the chances of Kieran Shadowfire actually taking control of this body.”

The Grandmaster stared at him. “What did you say?” she whispered. “Kieran Shadowfire is not in control of this body?”

Blackstar laughed, his teeth gleaming. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out before now. Do you really think Blackstar would be capable of this? This torture? He bargained his mind away a long time ago, my dear. Blackstar suffers from ELDS. Eboltyan-linked Degenerative Sickness. He never asked to be hunted for what he is. But that is not how the world works. It does not ask before it inflicts its horrors on us. All he could do was survive to spite it, or die. As it turned out, there was a price for paradise. A diamond flaw in the system. I am that diamond. I am Selim.”

Grandmaster’s heart beat faster. “Kieran–if you can hear me–I’m going to get you out,” she promised. “I’m going to fix this. I am going to save you.”

“No, you will not. Kieran’s brother–my brother–bargained your life for the life of your friends. They will never find you, girl. Because you are going to be my life mate, and you will always know you are mine.”

He beckoned her forward and looped his arms through her. “Oh, and Grandmaster?” he whispered in her ear. “If you think about disobeying me, it will not be you I shall punish. Instead, I will take those two servants and cut them into pieces and make you watch.”

He led her through the halls. The sounds of merriment rose ahead of them, and Grandmaster’s face burned as she silently bemoaned the see-through fabric of her dress. Beneath it, her breasts were visible to everyone, the tattoo hardly leaving anything to the imagination, and the cold cave air raised goosebumps on her skin. With her legs, butt, and most of her stomach exposed, save for the slender shafts of fabric, she had to clench her teeth together to keep them from chattering. Her bare feet were half-frozen as she shuffled through the hall, trying to stall, trying to think of a plan.

Queer, off-kilter music rose through two stone doors that she immediately recognized. The throne room.

No, no, no. Not here. Anywhere but here, she thought, ice wrapping around her stomach.

Both human and deviant slaves gawked at her as they passed through the entrance. Some bowed to Blackstar–Selim–whoever he was, neither or both–while the others gaped. The smiles the Black Suns gave her were nothing short of vulpine.

Blackstar wrapped an arm around her shoulders and buried his face into the crook of her neck, walking close enough for it to be obvious that she was with him–that she belonged to him. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he had snapped a leash onto the inhibitor collar around her neck. Maybe he would at some point, now that she was bound to him. The tattoo of the phoenix dragon on her back was marked on her flesh forever.

Whispers snaked beneath the shouts of celebration, and even the music quieted as the crowd parted and made a path for them to Blackstar’s dais. Grandmaster lifted her head, the weight of the crown digging into her skull.

She had witnessed her entire family being devoured by a blaze of fire; she had been physically assaulted by a mob of insane humans. She had watched her caretaker and her only friend die, seen her friends swallowed whole by alien parasites, attacked by a cosmic group known as the Titans, and captured by a mad titan. She had survived those days in torture; she had survived when this posessed Blackstar carved into her back. She had beaten them all. She could hold her head up high.

Blackstar kissed a path up her neck to her ear and whispered into it, “He let go of me for a few moments. If you want to survive this, you must drink the wine. Drink the wine and you will survive. Please. I know you have no reason to, but you must trust me on this.”

The warm tone in his voice–that belonged to the real Blackstar, Grandmaster realized. That Selim had been telling the truth. Kieran Shadowfire had been a prisoner in his body since the fall of Eboltya.

“Happy Solstice, brother,” Selim-through-Blackstar said, bowing to the Teacher. Will Morgrant was here, dressed in robes of orange and lavender–surprisingly modest. Selim was a savage before the Teacher’s cultivated beauty, and she was a heathen god’s plaything.

“What have you done to my student?” he asked, but the smile did not reach his eyes. His face was like stone, save for the white knuckles of his clenched fists.

“Oh, she is mine now,” Blackstar said, and she flinched as he brushed a stray lock of her hair from her face. He ran his fingers down her neck–a gentle caress. The throne room was all too quiet as he spoke. “She is going to be my life mate.”

“Enjoy the party” was the Teacher’s only reply. Grandmaster wanted to break his face, shatter his bones until he screamed. Did he even know that his brother was being poisoned? Did he know Blackstar’s mind was not his own? Did he know what he had done to her?

Dismissed, Blackstar put a hand on her back to steer them away, to turn her away from the Teacher, who was still white-knuckled.

The crowd kept a good distance, and she could not acknowledge any of them, in fear that Blackstar would use them against her. But she kept her chin up. She would not let anyone notice the weakness–would not let them know how much it killed her to be exposed like this, to be seen as so debased.

Selim-through-Blackstar stopped at a table laden with exquisite foods. The deviants and humans around it quickly cleared away. If there were any of his allies present, they did not dare approach him. The music grew loud enough to suggest there was probably dancing somewhere in the room.

“Wine?” Blackstar said to her, offering her a goblet.

Grandmaster shook her head. Blackstar smiled and extended the goblet again. “Drink. You will need it.”

Drink, her mind echoed, and Grandmaster’s fingers stirred, moving toward that goblet. No, no, no. She would not drink, she would not allow herself to be drugged.

“No,” Grandmaster said, and some deviants who were watching her from a safe distance away chuckled.

“Drink,” Blackstar commanded, and her fingers latched onto the goblet.