Chapter 2: Abyss
Time had lost its shape.
It might have been two days. It could have been three. The solitary candle on a rough shelf flickered, its wax pooling and hardening, a slow, silent measure of the hours Saber spent in the dim, unchanging gloom. She no longer hung from the wall. Caster had provided a thin pallet of musty straw and a coarse wool blanket, small mercies that felt like parts of a larger, more sinister design. The chains on the walls remained, silent witnesses.
She was sitting on the pallet, knees drawn to her chest, staring at the wavering reflection of the candle in the shallow water on the floor. Her body ached with a deep, pervasive soreness, a map of her violations. But it was a distant ache, like a remembered pain. A more immediate, humiliating truth thrummed just beneath her skin: a lingering, low-grade warmth, a physical memory that refused to fade. Her own responses haunted her more than Caster’s touch.
Footsteps. Not the slow, theatrical approach of before, but a light, almost casual tread. Caster entered the cell, holding two wooden cups. Steam curled from one. She placed the steaming cup on the floor by Saber’s pallet. “Broth. You need to keep your strength up.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, as if she were a caretaker.
Saber didn’t look at her. She stared at the broth. The smell of simple vegetables and herbs was unnaturally vivid, a reminder of a world outside this damp stone.
Caster took a sip from her own cup, then set it aside. She didn’t speak for a long moment, just observed Saber with those unsettling, knowing eyes. Then she untied her robe.
It slid from her shoulders, pooling at her feet. The pale skin, the curves, the undeniable, formidable length already stirring between her thighs—it was a statement. Not of desire, but of power. Of normalcy. This was simply the state of things now.
“Come here,” Caster said, her voice quiet.
Saber didn’t move. The command was a stone dropped into the numb pool of her mind. Ripples of old defiance stirred, but they were sluggish, weak.
“I said come here.” The air in the cell thickened, grew heavy. The magical pressure returned, not pinning her, but pushing, a relentless, psychic shove against her will.
Her body moved before her mind could fortify its crumbling walls. She uncurled, the coarse blanket falling away, and stood on unsteady legs. The cold stone bit her feet. She took the three steps to where Caster stood, her gaze fixed on the water-stained stone between them.
Caster’s hand came up, not to strike, but to cradle her cheek. Her thumb stroked the high bone. “You learn. That’s good.”
The touch was worse than a blow. Saber flinched.
Caster guided her down, not onto the pallet, but onto her knees on the wet stone. The chill and grit pressed into her skin. Caster stood before her, the heat of her body, the musk of their previous encounters, the intimidating presence of her erect flesh all overwhelming Saber’s senses. She kept her eyes shut, a child’s defense against a monster.
“Look at me, Artoria.”
The use of her true name was a calculated barb. Saber’s eyes opened, blazing with a last spark of fury.
Caster smiled. “There’s my king.” She took Saber’s hand, her fingers surprisingly gentle, and placed it on her own hip, guiding her to lean forward. “Now, show me what you’ve learned.”
The next hours were a blur of sensation and shame. Caster took her on the stone floor, the rough surface scraping Saber’s back and knees. There was no conversation, only gasped commands and the brutal, rhythmic sound of flesh meeting flesh. Caster’s earlier taunts were gone, replaced by a focused, almost artistic dedication to Saber’s unraveling. She found angles and rhythms that made Saber’s breath catch, that made traitorous muscles clench, that dragged unwilling, shuddering peaks from her over and over until Saber lost count. The fourth climax Caster wrung from her felt less like a wave and more like a systemic failure, a complete short-circuit of her nervous system. She lay boneless, gasping, tears of pure physical overload leaking from the corners of her eyes.
Caster knelt over her, breathing heavily, slick with sweat. She was still hard, untouched, a monument to her own relentless energy. She brushed the damp hair from Saber’s forehead. “Good,” she murmured, a teacher praising a diligent student. “Very good.”
She shifted back, sitting on her heels. She looked down at Saber’s spent form, then at her own arousal. A contemplative silence fell, broken only by the drip of water and their slowing breaths.
“We could continue just like this,” Caster said, her voice conversational. “I’m far from finished."
“But,” Caster continued, her head tilting as if proposing a change in the weather, “I’ll offer you a choice.” Her fingers traced idle patterns on her own thigh. “You could finish this for us.”
Saber stared, her mind gummy with exhaustion, unable to parse the meaning.
“Your mouth,” Caster clarified, her voice light. “Just your mouth, no hands allowed.” She leaned forward, her shadow swallowing Saber. “I won’t lift a finger to help you, and you do all the work, of your own free will. Get me off with that noble little mouth of yours, and we’re done for the day.” The casual cruelty of the offer hung in the damp air, more binding than any chain. It was a calculus of degradation, a trade of one violation for a respite from others.
The silence stretched, filled only by the wet drip of distant water.
Every instinct screamed to refuse, to meet this fresh absurdity with stony defiance.
But the memory of the last few hours, the endless cycle, the soreness deep in her bones, was louder.
Her voice, when it came, was a ragged scrape of sound. “You… swear it?”
“On my magic,” Caster said, a smile playing on her lips. “A binding oath. You serve me like this, properly, and you get to rest. Alone.”
Saber’s gaze fell from Caster’s knowing eyes to the formidable reality of the task presented. A cold, greasy shame settled in her stomach. She gave a single, stiff nod. “I… agree.”
The words tasted like ash, but they were out.
“Good girl,” Caster purred, her smile widening. She settled back against the damp stone wall, a picture of casual command. “Well? Get to it.”
Saber pushed herself up onto her knees, every muscle protesting. The cold seeped back into her awareness, sharpening the humiliation. She shuffled forward, the rough stone biting her skin, until her face was level with Caster’s waist.
The sheer size of her was daunting, a blunt, inhuman fact. Saber’s breath hitched.
“You’ll need to do better than that,” Caster murmured, her tone almost bored. “I’m not moving an inch, remember?”
Saber closed her eyes, seeking a final refuge, but all she found was the phantom scent of vegetable broth and straw. She opened them again, forced her head forward. The first touch of her lips was tentative, clinical. It was just a task, a battlefield maneuver. She repeated this to herself, a silent mantra.
Caster let out a soft, amused sigh. “That’s not how you serve your king, is it?”
The taunt, laced with that specific truth, broke something. A helpless, grating sound escaped Saber’s throat. She opened her mouth wider, taking more, trying to find a rhythm in the awkward, straining angle. Her hands, clenched into white-knuckled fists, stayed rigidly at her sides.
It was clumsy, undignified, a miserable parody of service. She focused on the mechanics, the objective, the promised end.
Caster watched her struggle, not with hunger, but with profound, analytical satisfaction. “There,” she said softly, as Saber found a marginally better angle. “You can learn new tricks.”
Saber worked, her jaw aching with the unfamiliar strain. The minutes stretched, measured only by the laborious, repetitive motion of her head. Caster’s earlier amusement had melted into a patient, watchful silence that felt even more degrading.
Then a soft, disappointed sigh came from above.
“You’re just… moving it,” Caster said, her voice flat. “This is boring.” She tapped a finger on Saber’s scalp. “Put some feeling into it. Your lips should seal. Apply some suction.”
The clinical instruction made Saber’s stomach turn. She complied, forcing her mouth to tighten, to pull.
“Better,” Caster acknowledged, but the word held no warmth. “Now stop teasing. Take it deeper.”
Saber froze, her muscles locking.
“You heard me. Take me into your throat.” The command was delivered with cool impatience. “Or we revert to my original terms, and your rest is forfeit.”
The threat of resuming the endless cycle was a tangible dread in the damp air. Saber fought against her own gag reflex, a primal rebellion. She pushed forward, the intrusion breaching a new, impossible depth. Her body convulsed in protest, a harsh, choking sound tearing from her. Tears sprang to her eyes, blurring the sight of Caster’s pale stomach. The taste was overwhelming, salt and musk and something irrevocably alien. She stayed there, impaled, trembling violently, every muscle screaming to retreat.
“There,” Caster whispered, her breath catching for the first time. “Now you’re serving.”
Caster’s hand rested on the back of Saber’s head, not pushing, just a firm, inescapable weight. “Breathe through your nose,” she instructed, her voice conversational, as if discussing the broth. Saber’s vision swam with black spots, her throat a tight, burning channel of protest.
She managed a ragged, wet inhalation, the air whistling past the obstruction. The sensation was hideously intimate, a total violation of her body’s own architecture.
“See? You can take it.” Caster’s fingers gently carded through golden hair. “Now move.”
Saber began a slow, agonizing retreat, then a stifled advance, building a rhythm as forced and mechanical as a rusted piston. Each withdrawal was a gasp of dank air; each return was a surrender to that suffocating fullness. Tears and saliva dripped freely onto the stone, a pathetic puddle beneath them.
“You look almost peaceful like this,” Caster mused, her breath hitching slightly. “All that famous resolve, funneled into one simple, wet task.”
A raw, guttural sound vibrated up from Saber’s chest, muffled against pale skin.
Caster chuckled. “Was that a complaint? Or are you finally finding a tongue for something other than noble vows?” Her hips gave the faintest, slightest upward tilt, a minute adjustment that seated her deeper. Saber’s body jolted, a full-body flinch of overwhelmed nerves.
“There we go,” Caster whispered, her composure beginning to fracture into something warmer, heavier. “Just like that. Keep going.”
The rhythm became everything—the scrape of knees on stone, the choked, rhythmic gasps, the low, approving sounds from above that were somehow worse than scorn. Saber’s world narrowed to the burning ache in her jaw, the stretch of her lips, the desperate, animal focus on drawing one more breath and then another.
Caster’s stillness broke. A tremor ran through her, a silent warning. Her fingers tightened in Saber’s hair, not painfully, but possessively. “Don’t you dare stop,” she commanded, her voice thick and unfamiliar.
Saber didn’t. She couldn’t. She was locked in the pace she’d built, a prisoner of her own agreement. The final, convulsive pulse down her throat was a hot, silent claim. Caster sighed, a long, satisfied exhalation that seemed to melt the tension from the damp air itself.
Slowly, she guided Saber back, the separation a slick, embarrassing sound. Saber collapsed forward onto her hands, coughing, her body wracked with spasms as she fought for clean air. She wiped her mouth with the back of a trembling hand, refusing to look up.
“You kept your end,” Caster said, standing and adjusting her robe. Her voice had returned to its normal, light melody. “So I’ll keep mine.” She walked to the cell door, her steps unhurried. “Enjoy your rest, King of Knights. We’ll build on this tomorrow.” The door clicked shut, leaving Saber alone with the taste of salt and the hollow victory of her endured bargain.