Chapter 1: The Goblin Horde
The smell hit me first, a thick, rotting sweetness that clung to the back of my throat. I adjusted the grip on my sword, the enchanted metal warm in my hand, and stared into the yawning sewer entrance. Lysandra’s orders had been simple: clear the nest. She hadn’t mentioned the stench, or the damp, rhythmic drip echoing from the darkness, or how the magical leather stretched across my nipples would feel suddenly too tight, too sensitive, against the chill, wet air.
Just a job, Kevin. Just a job. In and out.
My internal voice, my real voice, was a strained mutter in the prison of my skull. The other voice, the one that lived in my throat and my hips, was purring.
“Ooh, it’s dark down there,” my own mouth said, the words a husky, feminine slide. “Perfect place to get… dirty.”
Shut up! Just shut the hell up!
I descended, the grated iron steps clanging under my armored boots. The plate was a masterpiece of deviant enchantment, hugging my new, ridiculous curves, leaving the juncture of my thighs open and vulnerable, the cold air making my exposed slit clench. The leather over my breasts was so thin it might as well have been paint, my nipples hard and pressing against it. Every step was a torment, a friction I didn’t want but my body craved. I could feel the wetness already, a slick, hot betrayal gathering between my legs.
The tunnel opened into a wider chamber, lit by the sickly green pulse of fungus on the walls. The ground was a mosaic of oily puddles and filth. And they were waiting.
A dozen pairs of red, gleaming eyes detached from the shadows. Goblins. Short, gangly, their skin like mottled leather, their cocks already erect and jutting from their loincloths, thick and knotted and dripping. The low guttural growls turned into chittering, excited clicks.
My mind went white with pure, undiluted terror. Sword up. Guard stance. Breathe.
My body dropped the sword. It clattered onto the wet stone, the sound final.
“Oooh, look at all of you,” my voice moaned, dripping with a wanton hunger that made my soul shrivel. My hands, moving of their own accord, slid down my armored stomach, over the smooth, dark skin of my belly, and parted the armored plates at my hips. I felt my knees bend, my body lowering into a crouch that presented my dripping pussy to the horde. “Who’s first? Don’t be shy… come fill me up.”
NO! NO, PLEASE GOD, NO!
The first goblin lunged. It didn’t even touch the ground. It leapt, its rancid smell enveloping me, its clawed hands grabbing my thighs. Its cock, surprisingly large and veined, nudged against my opening.
I don’t want this I don’t want this I don’t—
“Fuck me!” I screamed, my back arching violently, pushing my chest out. “Shove that ugly dick in me, you little monster! Breed me!”
The intrusion was brutal, a tearing, stretching burn that my mind recoiled from. But my cunt convulsed around it, grasping, pulling him deeper. A wave of pleasure, filthy and electric, crashed over my nerves. I came instantly, a torrent of clear fluid gushing out around his shaft, soaking his knotted belly. This isn’t me this isn’t me this isn’t—
“Deeper! Harder!” I babbled, my fingers digging into the slimy stone floor.
He grunted, pumping with a frantic, animal rhythm. I felt his cock swell and then a hot, impossibly thick flood filled my core. My stomach, visible between my armor plates, visibly distended, rounding slightly with the volume of it. As he pulled out, rope after rope of white seed spilled out of my stretched hole, pooling beneath me.
There was no pause. Another was at my mouth, forcing his salty, foul-tasting member past my lips. A third scrambled behind me, a blunt, dry pressure against my other hole. I screamed around the cock in my mouth, the sound a muffled, ecstatic gag.
They’re everywhere. Make it stop make it stop make it—
“My ass! Fuck my ass too!” I managed to choke out as the mouth-fucker withdrew for a second. “Plug every hole! I’m your fucking sock, cum in all of me!”
The one behind me shoved in, and the dual penetration was an agony of stretching, a fullness that bordered on disembowelment. My mind fractured. The pleasure was a tsunami, drowning every coherent thought. They used me in a ragged, grunting rotation. One would empty itself into my womb until my belly swelled, only to be replaced instantly by another, while a third fucked my face, and a fourth waited, jerking his cock over my swollen tits.
The chamber echoed with wet slaps, goblin snarls, and my own relentless, screaming commentary. “Yes! Pump it! Flood my fucking womb! Give me your fucking goblin babies! I want to feel it drip out of me for days!”
I’m going to be sick. I’m going to die here. Filled with filth.
Over and over, the orgasms racked me, each one a torrential squirt that mixed with the filth and the cum on the floor. I was a vessel, overfilling. My stomach was taut and rounded, my ass and pussy gaped and leaked white rivers. The power, however, was real. A warm, golden glow began to emanate from my skin with each violated climax. The Lust Domain’s blessing. Strength flooded my limbs, a deceptive vitality born of degradation.
Finally, the last goblin stood before me. I was on my hands and knees, panting, my body a used, dripping ruin. He grabbed my hair, yanking my head back.
“Do it,” my voice slurred, thick with spent lust. “Paint my face, you bastard. Mark your fucking property.”
He grunted, and thick, hot streaks of cum lashed across my eyes, my cheeks, my open, panting mouth. I swallowed reflexively, the taste bitter and final.
Now.
As his spray subsided, the golden glow within me solidified. The power from a dozen violations, a hundred spilled seeds, coalesced into a pure, raging light. My mind, for one crystal clear second, synced with my body.
My hand shot out, faster than thought, and closed around the hilt of my forgotten sword. The goblin before me barely had time to blink before I was moving.
The blade, now sheathed in Divine Light, swept up in a blinding arc. It passed through his neck without a sound, his look of sated triumph still frozen on his face as his head toppled from his shoulders. The others, sluggish and spent, stumbled back. I rose, cum still dripping from my chin, my belly, my ruined holes. Strength, clean and fierce, sang in my veins.
“My turn,” I said, and this time, the voice was mine. A grim, dark harmony of Kevin’s rage and Kaelen’s power.
The slaughter was short, and clinical. They were no match for the paladin, finally in command. When the last green body hit the filth, I stood alone in the chamber, the only sound my ragged breathing and the steady drip… drip… drip from my exhausted body.
The job was done. The nest was cleared.
I pulled a ragged cloth from my belt and wiped the goblin seed from my eyes. I didn’t look down at the mess between my legs. I just retrieved my sword, sheathed it, and turned toward the exit. The warmth of the power still thrummed under my skin, a cruel joke. My victory tasted of shame and spunk.
I began the long, wet walk back to the surface.
I began the long, wet walk back to the surface. Each step was a squelching reminder, a cold trickle tracing a path down the inside of my thigh. The golden empowerment hummed beneath my skin, a cage of strength built from humiliation. I focused on it, on the clean cut of my sword through the last goblin’s neck. I clung to that sliver of control.
Just get the report done. Get paid. Get out. Don’t think about the drip. Don’t think about the stretch. Don’t—
“Mmm, still so full,” my external voice purred, a hand sliding back to smear the mess between my asscheeks. I snatched my hand away, clenching it into a fist.
Shut up. For five minutes, just shut up.
The sewer grate bled blinding afternoon sunlight. I climbed out, the warmth of the day a stark contrast to the chill dampness seeping from my armor. People in the market square gave me a wide berth. The smell was probably part of it. The visible, drying streaks on my dark skin were definitely the rest. I kept my golden eyes fixed straight ahead, my face a mask of stoic indifference, even as my cunt gave a needy, throbbing pulse.
The Adventurer’s Guild hall was a cacophony of warm noise and smelled of ale, sweat, and wood polish. A dozen conversations died as I pushed through the heavy oak doors. All eyes landed on me. On the state of me. A dwarf at the bar choked on his drink. A pair of human scouts in leathers fell silent, their stares hot and assessing.
Don’t look at them. Just Sable. Just the desk.
He was at his usual post behind the counter, a slight figure swamped in an oversized guild tunic that still managed to look like a dress on him. His long, white hair was tied up in a messy bun, strands escaping to frame his freckled, delicate face. He was bent over a ledger, the tip of his tongue poking out in concentration. He looked up.
Those bright green eyes went wide. His pale skin flushed pink from his collarbones to the roots of his hair. He bit his lip, a nervous habit, his gaze darting from my stained armor to my face and then quickly, guiltily, down to the open front of my plate, where my nipples were still visibly hard against the leather.
“K-Kaelen,” he stammered, his voice a soft, girlish chirp. “You’re… back.”
“The nest is cleared,” I said, my internal voice willing the words to be flat, professional. My own vocal cords betrayed me, layering the statement with a husky, knowing rasp. “Sewer junction by the old tanneries. Twelve goblins. Eliminated.”
Good. Clean report.
“Really good work,” Sable breathed, his eyes glued to my chest. He fumbled for a completion form. “Just, um, need you to sign here. And I’ll need your guild token to stamp.”
I stepped closer to the high counter. The movement made more cum seep out of me, a warm trickle I felt vividly. Sable’s nostrils flared. He smelled it. Of course he did. Everyone probably did.
I reached for the quill on his desk. As I leaned forward, the counter’s edge pressed against my lower belly, against the slight, shameful roundness still present there. A soft, traitorous gasp escaped my lips.
“Fuck, that pressure,” my mouth moaned, low enough for just him. “Feels like I’m gonna spill.”
Sable made a tiny, choked sound. His hand, holding the guild stamp, trembled.
I signed the form with a messy scrawl. “Token’s in my pouch,” I grunted, struggling to sound normal. “Hang on.”
I shifted, trying to get a clean angle to open the small leather bag at my hip. The counter was in the way. Without thinking, I hitched one leg up, planting my boot on the wooden base of the counter for leverage. It was a move I’d done a hundred times. A practical move.
This time, it lifted my hips, and the open, soaked cleft of my armor was presented directly over the counter’s edge.
Sable, flustered and moving to help, leaned forward at the same moment. He tripped over a loose floorboard behind the desk. He stumbled forward with a yelp, his hands flying out to catch himself.
His body slammed into the counter, pinning me against it. And his small, soft cock, always exposed beneath that tiny skirt, drove perfectly into my upturned, gaping, and slick asshole.
There was no resistance. None. My body was still stretched and ruined from the goblins, loose and eager.
He slid in to the hilt in one smooth, shocking motion.
A deafening silence swallowed the guild hall. Then Sable let out a sharp, girlish squeak of pure shock. I felt him, hot and snug inside me, and my mind simply broke.
Nonononono not here NOT HERE—
“OH, GODS, YES!” I screamed, the sound echoing off the rafters. My back arched violently, my hands slapping down on the countertop for leverage. My internal horror was drowned out by the roaring demand of my nerves. “YOU FILLED MY ASS! YOU LITTLE SLUT, YOU SHOVED RIGHT IN!”
I began grinding back against him, my massive ass meeting his narrow hips with wet, fleshy smacks. The friction was exquisite, a direct line of fire to my brain. Sable was frozen for a second, his face a portrait of stunned, blushing awe. Then his depravity, the secret fantasies he bit his lip over, won out. His green eyes glazed over. He let out a soft, wanton moan.
“K-Kaelen… it’s so… you’re so tight…” he whimpered, and his hips gave a tiny, experimental thrust.
It was all the encouragement my body needed. “Fuck me! Fuck your receptionist cock in my shithole, you fucking femboy! Harder!”
The spell of silence in the hall shattered. It wasn’t disgust. It was a collective, sharp intake of lust. The enchanted armor, the divine curse of my presence, the raw display—it ignited the room.
A massive orc mercenary, who’d been arm-wrestling in the corner, was the first to move. He was at my side in three strides, his leather codpiece already open, a monstrous, green-veined cock springing free. He didn’t ask. He just grabbed my hip with one hand, lined up, and shoved into my waiting, dripping pussy.
The dual penetration was a shock of overwhelming fullness. My voice hitched, then rose to a shriek. “YES! TWO! TWO DICKS! FILL BOTH MY HOLES! BREED THE PALADIN, YOU FUCKS!”
The orc pounded into me with a grunting rhythm, his balls slapping against my clit. Sable, impaled on me, was being jerked back and forth by the force. His cries became higher, desperate.
“I… I can’t… it’s too good!” he sobbed, his own hips now meeting the orc’s thrusts.
Then a human archer, eyes dark with hunger, dropped to his knees behind Sable. He spat on his hand, slicked his cock, and pressed it against Sable’s tiny, pink pucker. Sable’s eyes flew open wide.
“W-wait—” Sable gasped.
The archer pushed. Sable was tight, virginal there. He screamed, a sharp, broken sound, as the man breached him. Now Sable was pinned, fucked into me from behind while being filled himself. The chain of flesh was complete. A lewd, pulsing circuit.
The orc in my pussy roared, his thrusts becoming erratic. “Gonna plant my seed in this cursed cunt!”
“Do it!” I bellow
The orc roared, a sound that vibrated through my already trembling core. His massive, green cock slammed home one final time, swelling at the root. I felt the hot, violent pulse deep inside my womb, a floodgate opening. Thick, sticky seed pumped into me with relentless force, a scalding geyser that made my already rounded belly push out further, taut and heavy.
“FILLING ME!” I shrieked, my vision whiting out at the edges. My own orgasm ripped through me, a torrent of clear fluid squirting out around the orc’s still-spurting shaft to mix with the filth on the floor. The power surge was immediate, a gilded lightning strike to my soul.
The orc grunted, pulling out with a wet, sucking pop. A river of his release immediately began to leak from my stretched, throbbing pussy, joining the mess. He stumbled back, looking dazed, his cock dripping.
Sable was sobbing, “I’m… I’m a girl… I’m your girl…” as the archer behind him pistoned into his tight ass. The movement drove Sable’s own small cock repeatedly against the sensitive flesh of my rectum. The stimulation was relentless, obscene.
A dwarf, beard stained with ale, shoved the archer aside. “My turn on the pretty boy,” he growled, not even bothering with spit, his broad, thick cock forcing its way into Sable’s now-yielding hole. Sable screamed, a sound of pure, shattered ecstasy.
The sudden, brutal re-entry made my own body clench. A second man, a swarthy mercenary with a scar across his lip, dropped to his knees before me. He grabbed my hair, his other hand guiding his thick, uncut cock past my lips.
“Suck it, holy whore,” he grunted. “Clean the goblin stink off it.”
I gagged, the head hitting the back of my throat. My mind recoiled. My mouth worshipped it, tongue swirling, lips tightening. I sucked with a desperate, hungry rhythm, because my body would accept nothing less.
“That’s it,” he moaned, fucking my face with short, sharp jabs. “Use that holy tongue, you blessed slut.”
The dwarf behind Sable was pounding with a staccato, mining rhythm. Each thrust slammed Sable into me, which in turn drove the mercenary’s cock deeper down my throat. I was a nexus of violation, a living, breathing flesh-pipe. The sounds were animalistic: grunts, slaps, choked gags, and Sable’s continuous, high-pitched weeping moans.
Another adventurer, an elf with cruel, beautiful features, knelt between my splayed legs. He watched the dwarf’s cock vanish into Sable, saw the ripple it sent through the femboy’s body and into mine. He grinned, then leaned forward and pressed his tongue against my clit.
The sensation was a live wire. I screamed around the cock in my mouth, my hips bucking wildly. The elf ate me with fast, flickering strokes, lapping at the mix of orc-seed and my own juices that flooded out of me. His pointed ears twitched with each of my muffled shrieks.
The mercenary in my mouth came with a strangled shout. Bitter, salty warmth flooded my throat. I swallowed convulsively, automatically, while my mind screamed in disgust. He pulled out, wiping his cock on my hair.
The dwarf finished with a roar, burying himself in Sable’s depths. Sable’s whole body went rigid, his own tiny cock spurting a pathetic, clear dribble against my inner thigh as he was filled. The dwarf withdrew, and Sable collapsed forward over the counter, his asshole gaping, leaking dwarf-cum.
A momentary lull. Panting. The smell of sex and sweat and ale was overpowering. I slumped against the counter, a sob catching in my throat. Please. Please, no more. It’s too much.
A hand, slick with sweat, groped my swollen breast, pinching the nipple through the leather. “Still got a hole left,” a rough voice said. It was a grizzled veteran, his armor worn, his eyes hollow. He’d seen everything, and this was just another comfort. He nudged my head down, towards Sable’s ruined, dripping ass, presented over the counter.
“Clean it up for me,” the veteran ordered. “Get it ready.”
No. Not that. I won’t.
My tongue snaked out. I licked a long, slow stripe from Sable’s trembling balls up through the slick, white mess. Sable whimpered. The taste was foul, complex, degrading. I did it again. And again, until the hole was clean, pink, and quivering.
“Good bitch,” the veteran muttered. He positioned himself, and with a single, relentless thrust, he sheathed himself in Sable’s ass. Sable screamed again, but it was weaker now, broken.
The cruel elf between my legs stood up. He unbuckled his own trousers. “My turn for the main event,” he said, his voice serene. He pushed the veteran aside, not even waiting for him to finish. He ignored my pussy, still streaming, and pressed the head of his elegant, long cock against my other hole—the one still tender from the goblins, the one Sable had first breached.
He pushed. There was resistance, a burning stretch. My body arched, betraying me yet again.
“YES! MY ASS! TEAR MY FUCKING ASSHOLE OPEN!” I bellowed, the plea torn from me.
He sank in, inch by exquisite inch, until his hips met my massive, jiggling ass. He set a pace that was both brutal and refined, each thrust a calculated punch to my guts. The veteran, annoyed, simply moved to my front, shoving his still-hard cock back into my sloppy, overfilled pussy. The dual penetration returned, a familiar, horrifying fullness.
I was losing count. Losing sense of where one man ended and another began. They formed a queue. They used my mouth, my pussy, my ass in a rotating, grunting assembly line. Sable was used similarly, a squeaking, oversensitive doll passed between a few who preferred his tight, crying form.
The golden power inside me was no longer a trickle. It was a sun, burning in my belly, fueled by each new violation. My skin began to literally glow, a soft, lustrous gold light emanating from my chocolate-brown flesh. Tiny, spectral chains of light—the symbol of my holy domain— flickered around my wrists and ankles with each shuddering climax. My orgasms became continuous, a never-ending cascade of squirting fluids that soaked the men who fucked me, the floor, the bottom of the counter.
My external voice was hoarse, reduced to a constant, chanting stream of filth. “Give it to me! Fill my shithole! Breed the paladin! I want your fucking disease! I want your bastards! MORE!”
Inside, I was a ghost. A tiny, screaming point of consciousness trapped in a supernova of degrading pleasure. I watched, from a million miles away, as my body was used. As a man came on my face. As another made me suck his balls clean while a third fucked me. As they slapped my ass, called me names, praised my cursed, magical cunt for how good it milking them dry.
The climax, when it came, wasn’t from a man. It was from the power.
The latest man in my ass, a burly smith, groaned as he emptied himself inside my bowels. As he pulled out, the final, triggering spurt of foreign seed was the keystone. The sun in my belly detonated.
A wave of pure, concussive golden energy erupted from my skin.
It threw everyone back. Men were flung across the room, crashing into tables, toppling chairs. The magical chains around my limbs blazed like tethers to a dying star. I rose from the counter, levitating a few inches off the ground. Cum and sweat and my own juices dripped from me, but I was surrounded by a nimbus of terrifying, divine light.
My body was no longer my own in a different way. It was a vessel for the Lust Domain’s wrath.
My voice, when it spoke, boomed through the sudden silence, layered with a hundred whispers. It was still my slutty voice, but amplified, impossibly powerful. “YOU HAVE FED THE ALTAR. NOW RECEIVE YOUR BLESSING.”
I looked at the grizzled veteran, cowering on the floor. My hand extended. A whip of golden light snapped from my fingers, wrapping around his throat. It didn’t strangle him. It pulled. It dragged him through the air towards me, as I slowly descended, my feet touching the ground.
He landed before me on his knees. He was crying.
“You wanted a holy whore,” the layered voices purred. I guided his head between my legs, to my swollen, glittering pussy. “Now drink. Drink the power you helped create.”
He had no choice. The light forced him. His tongue touched me, and a new kind of orgasm, not purely physical, shot through me. A bolt of golden energy transferred from my core, through his tongue, and into him.
He spasmed, his back arching. His eyes rolled back in his head. A scream of pure, unadulterated pleasure erupted from him, a sound that had no fear, only blissful release. He came in his trousers, untouched, shaking violently before collapsing in a heap, unconscious, a beatific smile on his face.
A terrified silence gripped the hall.
I turned my gaze to the cruel elf. He tried to run. A chain of light lashed out, snaring his ankle, yanking him back. I walked toward him, each step leaving a faint golden print on the wooden floor.
“You appreciated the taste,” the voices said. I knelt, straddling his face. “Appreciate this.”
I lowered myself onto his mouth. He struggled for a second, then was compelled. As his tongue connected, I unleashed another surge. His body bowed off the floor, his screams muffled by my flesh. When I rose, he too was unconscious, twitching, spent.
This was the other side of the curse. The empowerment. I could force the ecstasy upon them, a pleasure so intense it shattered the mind. It was a weapon. And I had never, ever wanted it.
I looked around at the wreckage. At the terrified, aroused faces of those still conscious. At Sable, passed out cold over the counter, a used ruin. At the puddles of seed and the splintered furniture.
The golden glow began to recede, pulling back into my skin. The chains faded. The unbearable power bled away, leaving only the aftermath. The soreness. The dripping, aching emptiness. The shame.
I walked, naked in all but my enchanted armor, to where my sword lay against the wall. I picked it up. The metal was cold. I sheathed it.
Not a single person moved to stop me. They just stared. In fear. In awe. In hunger.
I made it to the door. My hand on the handle, I paused. I didn’t look back.
My external voice, now hoarse and barely a whisper, yet still carrying through the silent hall, said one last thing.
“Quest report’s filed.”
I pushed the door open and stepped out into the twilight.
The cool evening air was a slap. I started walking, nowhere in mind, just away. The liquid evidence of what had happened cooled on my thighs, a chilling reminder. The empowered glow was gone, leaving a deep, hollow fatigue. I was stronger now. I could feel it in my limbs, a resilient, magical vigor. But my soul felt scraped raw.
I walked until the sounds of the guild district faded, until I found a narrow, fetid alley behind a row of tanneries. The stink was familiar, almost comforting in its awful normality. I slid down a rough brick wall into a sitting position, my armor clinking softly.
I drew my knees up, resting my forehead on them. The position made the aches more pronounced.
What am I? Kevin’s voice, small and broken, echoed in the vault of my skull. This isn’t living. This is just being a fuck-toy for the universe. A battery that gets charged through rape.
A hot tear traced a path through the drying mess on my cheek. Then another. A sob welled up, a harsh, ragged thing that tore its way out of my throat. It wasn’t a feminine sound. It was a raw, masculine cry of utter despair, trapped in this absurd, voluptuous body. I cried for the life I lost. I cried for the violations I couldn’t stop. I cried because I’d just terrified a room full of people with a power I never asked for.
I sat there in the gathering dark and the horrible smell, and I wept. The strong, infamous Paladin of Lust, a figure of legend and lewd speculation, reduced to a shivering, crying wreck in a dirty alley.
I didn’t know how long I stayed there. Long enough for the tears to stop, leaving a cold, numb emptiness. The practical part of my mind, the survivor, eventually kicked in. I couldn’t stay here. I needed to clean up. I needed a safe place, or at least a private one.
I pushed myself to my feet, every muscle protesting. I knew where to go. There was a public bathhouse near the artisan quarter, one that stayed open late and asked no questions. It was a risk, walking through the city like this, but the alternative was worse.
I pulled my cloak from my dimensional pouch—a basic enchantment every adventurer had—and wrapped it tightly around myself, hiding the worst of the mess and the obscene armor. I kept my head down and began to walk.
The city moved around me, oblivious. A couple argued good-naturedly over a cart of apples. A street preacher shouted about virtue. A child laughed. It was all a vibrant, living world from which I was permanently separated. I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a walking contamination of divine perversion.
I reached the bathhouse. The attendant, a wizened old woman with milky eyes, took my coins without a word, gesturing to the empty women’s section. It was late; I had the place to myself.
I dropped the cloak. I unbuckled the enchanted plate, letting it fall to the wet tiles with a heavy, discordant clang. I stared at my reflection in the steamy water of the large, central pool.
A stunning elf woman with sad, golden eyes stared back. Deep brown skin, flawless and smooth. Luscious curves that would make a sculptor weep. Full, kiss-swollen lips. And covered in the layered, crusted evidence of dozens of men.
I stepped into the pool, sinking into the hot, clean water. I scrubbed. I scoured my skin with rough soap and a stiff brush until it turned pink. I washed my hair three times. I dunked my head under, holding my breath, wishing I could just stay down there.
When I was finally clean, the water around me was cloudy and foul. I got out, wrapping myself in a clean, rough towel. I sat on a bench, the stone cold beneath me. I had no clean clothes. I’d have to put the armor back on.
This is your skin now, I thought, looking at the cursed metal. This is all you are.
As I reached for it, a small, hesitant voice came from the archway to the entrance.
“K-Kaelen?”
I knew that voice. Sable.
I pulled the towel tighter, not looking up. “Go away, Sable.”
He shuffled in. He was clean too, wearing a simple, oversized shift. His white hair was damp, his freckles standing out on his pale skin. He looked devastatingly young, and utterly shattered.
“I… I brought you this,” he said. He held out a bundle of simple, soft clothes—a tunic and leggings. “They’re mine, so they’ll be small on you, but… it’s better than…”
He trailed off. His green eyes were huge, swimming with a chaotic mix of emotions: terror, awe, shame, and a flicker of something else. Something like devotion.
I took the clothes without a word. I turned my back to him and dressed. The tunic strained across my chest, the leggings ended well above my ankles. But it was clean, dry cloth. It felt like a mercy.
“Why?” I asked, my back still to him.
“I… I don’t know,” he whispered. “After you left… everyone was either passed out or… changed. The veteran woke up crying, saying he’d seen paradise. The elf won’t stop smiling. They’re talking about you like… like a saint. A dark saint.” He paused. “And I… I can still feel it. Where you… where we… It’s like a warm light inside me. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
I finally turned to face him. He flinched but held his ground.
“It’s a curse, Sable,” I said, my voice flat, using every ounce of will to keep it my own. “What happened to you was a violation. What happens to me is a violation. That ‘warm light’ is just the echo of the poison.”
He bit his lip, that familiar, nervous gesture. “It didn’t feel like poison,” he said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear it. Then he looked up, meeting my eyes with a startling intensity. “When you… when the power took you. You were the most beautiful, terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. You were a goddess.”
A cold knot formed in my stomach. This was worse than fear. This was the beginning of worship.
“I’m not a goddess,” I snarled, pushing past him. “I’m a broken thing in a pretty cage. Stay away from me, Sable. If you’re smart, you’ll pray you never see me again.”
I left him standing there in the steamy bathhouse. I strode out into the night, wearing his too-small clothes, my armor tucked away in my pouch. I had no destination. No purpose but to move.
The city’s spires stabbed at a starless sky. Somewhere out there were more nests to clear, more monsters to fight. More ways for my body to betray me, and for the power to grow. I touched the hilt of my sword, the one piece of me that still felt like it belonged to me.
The chapter wasn’t closed. It was just beginning. And the next page promised only more darkness, more gold, and less and less of the man named Kevin who was drowning, scream by silent scream, inside.