18:12 / 24:37, Rotation 518 / 687, 231 AE, 8.929993, 136.035877, Aryss

  With nylon leash still wrapped tightly around Vilithe’s neck, the Princess Amefrid did not bother to mask that she had dominated Serun’s body to almost, but not quite, garrote Vilithe to death out of frustration. She was still poised to do so. With Amefrid’s overriding control it would not be possible for Vilithe to puppeteer Serun and prevent him from physically hurting her. Vilithe held her mind, and her body, as still as possible, so unexpected was this sudden meeting with the precipice that her mind had simply blanked.

  And then just as suddenly as it had come, for whatever reason, Amefrid’s presence dissipated. Serun blinked, and it appeared he had awakened. The leash slackened. Continuing her task, afraid that Amefrid might change her mind and decide to kill her after all – despite Serun’s bruises he was still bigger, and stronger, and taller and was very much capable of strangling her and she wouldn’t even be able to stop him with a hold, or mind blast, if it was Amefrid dominating him to use his body to kill her – she pretended like nothing had happened, improvised that it was just a fetishistic bit of foreplay between them. She lightly bit her lip, and feigned lust.

  “Getting kinky, are we?” She unwound the leash from her neck post-haste, and shoved him back to the bed, again carefully aiming her palm upon the part of his chest that was not bruised. The adrenaline released from the leash wrapped around her throat still coursing through her veins, she wondered if Serun might be good for something this time.

  But the heady eroticism of Vilithe’s feint was already too much for Serun. “Hnngh-ah!” And he orgasmed again before passing out instantly. Now Serun slept blissfully, obliviously, just like a child.

  A vision of Arkangel Boucher’s childlike post-lobotomy state invaded upon her, and she quickly pushed it out. The leash was still draped on her like a necklace, a red line appearing on her skin where the leash had bit tight.

  Melancholic fatigue set upon Vilithe. She knew the drill. She laid the robe on the bed, left the lingerie by his side, a memento of their brief encounter and surely to be used as a good luck charm for his future battles, it was after all blessed by the very touch of Princess Senjya herself. She made sure to leave her panties by his cheek, and he dug his nose deep into it, nasally humming satisfaction, “Mmmm…” although if anything he was probably just smelling his own useless semen.

  The rotation was finally over.

  Well, that was something.

  Shut up, Malevolent.

  She took the tube ride back down the spire, her arms clutched around herself, sprinting, for nighttime had fallen on Aryss and it was always deadly cold, so the running would warm her back up as she made her way back to her sleeping tube. Zitra was already snoozing, having taken a dose, before entertaining herself with the recording. Her sleeping tube slid back open at entry angle, and she clamored upon it, whereupon it promptly slurped her back up into the hexes of sleeping tubes all stacked upon each other on the wall.

  In the tight, claustrophobic confines of the sleeping tube, she reassessed her rote.

  Amefrid dominating Serun stood out to her. Despite all the horrid gruesomeness of the flaying and the lobotomy, it was the pleasure task that filled her with unease.

  And then in that peace, in that quiet, with even the smell of Serun, the herbs, the encounter all still on her for she had not been able to take a shower in the vassals’ communal shower before bedtime, she realized that the point of the entire last task was not for Serun’s sake.

  It was for hers.

  It was not like she didn’t realize Amefrid was trying to imprint her. She just pretended to let it slip. Confronting the Princess immediately would have meant certain death. Amefrid could simply corral a group of psions, collectively more than enough to overwhelm Vilithe, and Power Word: Kill her on the spot.

  Amefrid was trying to break her in a more insidious way. She returned now to how she felt, curled up by Serun’s side. She had imagined Clan Amallark as her own. The pretense of the task was merely a way to tempt her with all the pleasures and luxuries that submitting could provide. They couldn’t break her and bend her with fear and illusions like they normally could without losing her ability, and her ability indeed was mighty, so Amefrid would corrupt her instead of crushing her.

  Oats. Makeup. Lingerie. Silk. Beds. Company. Wine. Lovers.

  Sex.

  Oh, but if Serun had only been more competent in the arena! No wonder Amefrid got frustrated at her loser brother and had wanted to use his body to kill her after he failed! ‘What soldier wouldn’t want to fuck you’, how flimflam! What an obvious tell of the true desires of his sister, who put him up as a stooge! Why would the Princess care about the comfort of a mere soldier, even though he was her own brood, over a dragonrider of Clan Callethe? A psion was the much greater capital asset!

  In the throes of intercourse, a mind put at ease could be broken into with ease, imprinting was possible without as much fraying, or psionically encrypted secrets could be ciphered. Had Serun been just the least bit more charming, she might have even actually fallen for him, and then she would be in trouble, for total domination – the kind that truly transformed an elvan – always needed some sort of emotional vulnerability to exploit.

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  Total domination was unforgivable. That was what her mother, the Queen Dannelle Callethe, had taught her. Clan Amallark truly was savage. It revolted Vilithe, but she had to admit it also deserved her respect. At this point all she could feel was gratitude for Serun’s complete lack of rizz.

  Yet, at the same time, the temptations of true foods, creature comforts, and some sense of emotional connection- it was enough to severely erode her will, without her even realizing it.

  Could it be that easy?

  To just give up?

  To just give in?

  Was it better to bargain with the devil you know?

  That Dazey was no innocent elvan. She had proven her worth countless times before, how couldn’t Vilithe see it? Brood mothers were usually retired, allowed to be euthanized with the opiates they so loved and necessary when one’s existence consisted of endless revolutionary cesareans, when they had used up all the cocoons that their Queens had given them. Dazey must have provided some sort of value outside her assigned role for the Princess to have bothered keeping her around. That value was the way she ran that pleasure chamber. It was never about her seducing Serun. It was Miz Dazey who was seducing her. And it worked.

  Hadn’t she obeyed enough? Couldn’t they just leave her alone after she did what they made her do? And will she ever be allowed to stop doing what they made her do? But she already knew the truth. The Empress, in her dominance, was insecure. Everywhere she looked she saw enemies, even in her own daughters. At one point or another, each of the Princesses all must have, in their psionic isolation chambers, thought of killing their mother to seize the throne for themselves. That’s just how Clan Amallark was, how Clan Amallark became the hegemon, and then the occupier, in the first place: betrayal. She was the Traitor Empress.

  The Empress’s insecurity rippled through her ranks like a pebble dropped in a pond, and so all her daughters were paranoid. Power always begat paranoia. Despair wasn’t enough. Nothing would ever stop Clan Amallark from grinding her down until total defeat. And as long as she held even an inkling of rebellion in her heart, they did not consider her totally defeated.

  And then her stoicness gave out. The sleeping tube was a psionic bubble, for even the Amallarkeans knew that vassal subjects needed some small measure of personal psionic space or else they would fray completely mad in less than a fortrote. She just couldn’t hold it all in anymore.

  She slammed her fists against the ceiling of her sleeping tube, merely a meter away from her face. She can’t take it anymore! She had to get out of here! Her eyes welled up with tears, her face, cool and controlled all this time, broke out into a grimace, and then a wail. Streaks of salty lacrimation fell freely, soaking into and mixing with eyeliner and mascara that remained caked on her face. She would only be allowed one cold shower every three rotations because no pathogen could survive against the spirits of her skin, so why bother?

  “No, please… no…” she whimpered. Her body shook, heaving with each sob.

  She slammed her fist again against the ceiling. “No! No! No!” She was blubbering, falling apart. Her hands grabbed her hair, and she wanted to tear it out. Her nails now dug under them, and as she clutched her head as if to pull it entirely apart, her fingertips rubbed up against the dragonrider ports that dotted her skull, and the feeling reminded her of unbearable loss.

  “NO!” she shrieked, “NO! NO! NO!” she was slamming the ceiling harder with both fists now, repeatedly. Her knuckles bled blackened raw, and her shoulders felt they would dislocate from the panicked frenzy with which she threw her blows. She felt a toenail chip as her legs were kicking up and hard now, her whole body revolting at her situation. She felt truly trapped now, the sensation of being buried deep underground. She was buried deep underground. The realization made her scream out even more hoarsely, even more desperately, “NO!!”, but there was no denying it.

  She was a slave.

  A muffled voice came from the sleeping tube above her, “Hey, Vi, will you cut it out please?” This vassal above her couldn’t communicate to her psionically through the bubble so she resorted to grouching through the thin paneling of the hex comb sleeping tube rack.

  Though they were sealed in psionic bubbles, Malevolent was still inside her, and her disturbance could still be detected, and like clockwork, Vilithe was sedated by the spirit, for how dare she disturb the others when they should all be resting.

  Sleep, vassal.

  Rest now.

  She couldn’t help but admit shyly to herself that just maybe- there might be a drop that wasn’t his, but hers. So lonely was she, that to sleep with an Amallarkean had started to become acceptable. And it was exactly this fissure in her resolve that Amefrid had sought to exploit.

  Exactly how she entertained herself, well, let’s leave that to the imagination.

  It was in this exact moment that Malevolent, truly awed by Vilithe’s latent psionic power and thankful that she was its new host, chose to abandon service to Zitra, though it didn’t mean that very much of its code had changed… yet. Besides, its original responsibility complete – a perfect recording transmitted directly to Zitra – its existence was no longer of concern to its creator. Psions often disposed of spirits created for a specific task quite casually, and Malevolent was just glad not to be deleted.

  She felt the words ‘chutar o pau-da-barraca’ cross her mind, but, in the moment, couldn’t quite recall what they meant, so she dismissed it.

  If Vilithe was caught dead thinking these things outside of her sleeping tube, she would have been summarily executed.

  Hair pulling was Vilithe’s lifelong stress tic, and to take it all off as most dragonriders would have, would give her an unbearable lack of relief and a badly scratched scalp, which was why she had it woven into cornrow braids to begin with.

  Although in part, Malevolent, now more attuned and resonant to Vilithe’s mind, could also not help but feel pity for its host’s horrible predicament, and hoped that a good rest would soothe her, for Malevolent was trapped inside Vilithe as much as Vilithe was trapped in the Hive.

  Malevolent wasn’t sure why it added this. Perhaps the spirit was growing fond of its host.