Chapter 13: The Witch's Welcome
The air inside the tower was cold and still, smelling of ozone and old blood. Lyra’s bare feet made no sound on the polished obsidian floor as she stepped into the vast chamber. Her eyes went first to Aurora, and something hot and violent twisted in her chest.
Aurora was sprawled on a low dais, naked, her skin sheened with sweat. An invisible force held her wrists and ankles apart, contorting her body into a vulnerable arch. Her head thrashed from side to side, a silent scream trapped behind clenched teeth as invisible currents of magic played over her, forcing wave after wave of agonizing pleasure. Her muscles were taut cords, her nipples hard peaks, and between her legs she was glistening, swollen, utterly exposed.
On a throne fashioned from interlocked bones and shadow, Malcorra lounged. She was a study in contrast to the vibrant forest witch; skin like carved marble, hair black as a starless night, eyes the unsettling violet of a deep bruise. A thin smile touched her lips.
“Ah,” Malcorra’s voice was a smooth, cold ribbon in the silence. “The little forest witch comes to collect her broken toy.”
She didn’t move, but the invisible force tormenting Aurora intensified. Aurora’s back bowed off the stone, a raw, shattered sound finally escaping her throat as another climax was ruthlessly ripped from her. Malcorra watched Lyra’s face, drinking in the fury.
“Look at her,” Malcorra cooed, a lazy gesture of her hand making the phantom energy focus, spreading Aurora’s legs even wider, putting her completely on display. “See how wet she is for her torment. She’s been so very… responsive. All that paladin discipline, melted into this. A sobbing, coming mess. And all I had to do was mention your name.”
Lyra’s knuckles were white. The playful light in her emerald eyes had hardened into something deadly. “You didn’t have to draw me out, Malcorra. You could have just sent a note. I’d have come to wipe that smug look off your face anytime.”
Malcorra’s laugh was a soft, chilling thing. “From your protected grove? Where every root and leaf fights for you? No. This was better. Lure the righteous little knight into my web, and let her beacon of distress do the work.” She leaned forward, her gaze predatory. “For years, Lyra. You’ve huddled in your verdant sanctuary, a thorn I couldn’t pluck. But every creature has a weakness. Even you. Hers is you. And yours… is her.”
Lyra didn’t wait for another taunt. She moved.
Her power wasn’t the cold, disciplined streams of Malcorra’s; it was the forest itself—sudden, wild, and overwhelming. Vines of pure emerald energy erupted from the seams in the obsidian floor, lashing towards the throne. The air hummed with the scent of crushed pine and damp earth.
Malcorra stood, unimpressed. A flick of her wrist and a wall of violet-black force shattered the vines into dissipating motes of light. “Still relying on parlor tricks,” she sighed. “Let’s elevate this.”
The real fight began.
Bolts of amethyst energy, sharp as broken glass, screamed towards Lyra. She deflected them with a shield of woven sunlight, the impact ringing through the chamber like struck bells. She returned fire with whips of tangled thorn-lightning. They danced a deadly ballet, the room filling with the crackle and roar of conflicting magics.
Lyra’s focus was split, and that was her disadvantage. Every time Aurora gasped or whimpered, Lyra’s eyes flickered. Malcorra saw it, exploited it. A misdirection, a feint at Aurora, and Lyra overcorrected, leaving an opening.
A searing lance of pure force clipped Lyra’s shoulder. It didn’t just burn; it unraveled. The light green robe, woven from living sylvan thread, began to dissolve from the point of impact. The fabric grayed, frayed, and fell away into dust.
Lyra hissed, staggering back. Another bolt, aimed low, sheared through the air. She dodged, but the energy washed over her, and the rest of her robe simply ceased to be. One moment she was clothed, the next she stood naked, her skin glowing with a faint, protective verdant light, her autumn-hair swirling around her in the magical backdraft. She was exposed, but unbowed, her body taut with power and fury.
“Better,” Malcorra purred, her eyes raking over Lyra’s form. “Now we see each other truly.”
The bombardment intensified. Lyra was on the defensive, weaving, dodging, her own magic now primarily shields and counters. But with each movement, each blast she deflected, she was also doing something else. She wasn’t trying to win. Not yet.
As a particularly violent concussion of violet energy shattered against her chest, knocking the wind from her and making her skin flare with heat, Lyra let her magic seep into the floor, not towards Malcorra, but towards the dais. It was a subtle, whispering thread, a secret shared with the stone itself. It carried no destructive power, only a pattern, a memory—the unlocking knot she’d taught Aurora one afternoon by a sun-dappled stream, a puzzle for idle hands. She imprinted the feeling, the solution, onto the very air around Aurora’s bonds.
Aurora, lost in a haze of forced sensation, felt it. A cool, familiar clarity brushing her mind amidst the hot, violating static. Lyra. The knowledge was instinctual, a lifeline. Her paladin focus, shattered by hours of torment, rallied around this one, simple task. Her fingers, trapped in invisible manacles, stopped straining against them and instead began to trace the pattern Lyra’s magic had sketched in her mind. A twist of intent, a counter-pressure here.
Malcorra, sensing a shift in Lyra’s strategy but misreading its target, launched her final gambit. “Enough playing.”
She clenched both fists. The very shadows in the room coalesced, forming thick, tangible binds that wrapped around Lyra’s ankles, wrists, and throat, yanking her off her feet. She landed hard on the cold obsidian, pinned. At the same moment, Malcorra intensified the forces on Aurora, wanting to break her completely in front of her captured lover.
Aurora screamed, her body bowing again—but this time, her hands were free. The invisible shackles on her wrists popped with a sound like cracking ice. She didn’t hesitate. With the strength of sheer, desperate fury, she tore her ankles loose from the failing bindings and rolled off the dais.
Malcorra spun, her icy composure finally cracking with surprise. “You little—”
Aurora was moving, nude, slick with her own sweat and arousal, a vengeful phantom. She couldn’t reach Malcorra, not directly, but she didn’t need to. She lunged for the bone throne instead, throwing her full weight against its spine.
Lyra saw her chance. As Malcorra’s attention split, Lyra drew in every ounce of power her forest heart contained. The verdant light around her blazed. She didn’t break the shadow bonds; she made them grow. Thorns, real and vicious and sprouting from her skin, erupted from the binds, shooting back along their length towards Malcorra.
Malcorra snarled, batting away the thorny retaliation with a burst of force, but she was forced back a step.
The chamber fell into a panting, strained silence. Lyra, naked and bound in dissolving shadows, pushed herself up to her knees. Aurora, also nude, stood panting by the toppled throne, her body trembling from exertion and residual magic, but her eyes were clear and blazing with fight.
They were both exposed, vulnerable, but together.
Malcorra straightened her robes, her violet eyes glinting with a new, cold respect. “It seems I underestimated the depth of your… connection.” Her smile returned, sharper now. “This is more interesting. Let’s see how you fare when the real game begins.”