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Elegy arrived at the Church of Bane unannounced, and she swept inside as if she belonged there.
The Banite at the door had tried to deny her entry. Their Chosen was praying, communing with their lord, he explained. Not even the highest ranked among them could interrupt. The man’s lip had curled, and it was unclear whether he saw her as the Chosen of Bhaal, inherently inferior because she did not lick the boots of their insufferable dark lord, or if he believed her to be a frivolous young woman, perhaps his master’s most recent mark, stumbling upon something she did not understand.
She had given him one opportunity to correct himself, ordering him to stand aside. He failed to take it.
A simple curling of her fingers was all it took to wrap the Weave around his neck. She watched his face carefully as she squeezed, first pressing into the arteries carrying blood to his brain and then slowly crushing his windpipe while he gasped and sputtered. A wild panic entered the Banite’s eyes as he realized the pressure was unrelenting.
Any sensible prey animal—a horse, a deer, a rabbit—would kick and flail in its desperation. This one merely clawed at his neck for a hand that wasn’t there.
She squeezed until his body went limp, his eyes glassy. Even without her hands on his neck, she felt the moment his pulse stopped. Her hand flexed, and the body crumpled to the ground. Enver would complain; he had implored her to spare his lackeys, citing the time and expense to train them, the inconvenience of recruitment, and the deleterious effects on morale.
If he truly wanted her to spare them, he would have to teach them better manners.
Elegy stepped over the body, pushed through the double doors, and entered the sanctuary with all of the grace and confidence befitting her divine blood.
The chamber was steeped in shadow. Even here, in the domain of her Father’s erstwhile enemy and current ally, the darkness seemed to wrap around her like armor, caressing and shielding her skin at once. Alcoves filled with clusters of black candles lined the walls, making an orderly progression towards the stone altar. Behind the altar, on a dais flanked by iron braziers of low-burning embers, loomed a large, obsidian throne.
The man she sought faced it, his arms braced against the altar. The doors thudded shut behind her as she stalked towards him, footfalls silent against the polished stone.
“Ah,” he said. “It’s you. Come to pay your respects?”
Elegy arched one eyebrow. Her eyes cut through the gloom as easily as a sunlit day, and everything that greeted her was a familiar sight: the golden-brown skin at the nape of his neck; the dark, disheveled hair that looked like it had been combed back with his fingers; the unnecessarily extravagant embroidery on his dinner jacket; the breadth of his shoulders; the many rings that caught what little light there was.
Something about his voice, however, was strange.
She kept her thoughts hidden, even though he had not turned to look at her. Continuing forward, she approached one of the stone pedestals set out to collect tithes and divide the space between the congregants and the clergy, or so she assumed; each invitation to join his faithful in prayer had earned Enver nothing but scorn.
She brushed her fur-lined cloak off of her arms and reached for its clasp with gloved hands. “Your lord already has my respect—that which is owed to a valued ally,” she said coolly. “You and I have business to discuss.”
Business, among other things. She had begun the night with impatience, and a fresh kill only fed it.
Enver chuckled, and the sound echoed oddly. “I have been looking forward to speaking with you, Elegy.”
His hands withdrew from the altar, and he spun to face her. As she had thought, his raven-dark hair had been raked back from his face, which was so clean-shaven that it must have been freshly done before he arrived to pray. He held himself perfectly upright, almost stiffly, and looked down his nose at her.
Still strange, her instincts whispered.
She met his gaze anyway, staring flatly as if his theatrics bored her, and allowed only the slightest lift of the corner of her mouth. Slowly, she drew her cloak off her shoulders and draped it over a pedestal.
“Have you been pining for me all day?” she taunted. “How sad for you.”
Black eyes swept over her, seeming to study every detail of her appearance, from the deep violet of her gown and the way it left her shoulders bare, to the jeweled brooch she wore on a ribbon around her neck and the silver comb set into her brown hair.
He smiled slowly, and it was not one of Enver’s smiles. Her ally smiled easily and often, with the practiced charm of a rake or the sharper grin of a schemer. Sometimes, his expression softened into something adoring, and even her iciest insults could not dislodge it from his face.
No, this smile was different: it curved with the assuredness of someone secure in their power and a distance that would almost pass for disinterest if his attention had not lingered on her skin. It told her that, despite his form, Enver Gortash did not stand in front of her.
“I have desired to speak with you for some time now, daughter of Bhaal.”
She considered him silently, carefully, as her heart beat faster, becoming the steady thrum she felt when a hunt began.
Finally, Elegy extended her arms to her sides, barely lifting her skirts with the slightest pinch of her fingers, and inclined her head. She dipped her head precisely at the angle Baldurian society used to acknowledge a peer of equivalent rank, yet more senior and more powerful than oneself.
“Lord Bane, I presume,” she said. So acknowledged, she resumed a neutral posture. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
His smile widened, and she was struck by the impression of a lazy tyrant entertained by a pretty bird.
Bane, the Lord of Darkness, the Black Hand. One of the three once-mortal men who ascended to godhood, dividing the power and domains of Jergal among them. Elegy’s mind flew through all she knew about him: all she had read, all she had absorbed in her youth from the teachings of her nanny and her butler, all that she gleaned from her Father’s commands. Everything her closest ally had told her. And Enver loved to talk: about the politics of his church, about their plans and ambitions, about his lord’s instructions. He spoke at length about the strict structure of ranks among the Banites, and she had seen him exert command over those below him in their hierarchy.
She had watched him pray. On the occasions when their late-night discussions devolved into something more primal, he sometimes uttered oaths. He called out to the Black Hand when his face went slack and his eyes clouded with pleasure; or at least he had, until Elegy made her dissatisfaction known. After that, he was chastened enough to only utter such oaths to her.
She knew a great deal about being a Banite, more than most beyond their ranks. She knew considerably less about Bane himself.
Even so, she knew enough to play his game. A small thrill coursed through her at the thought.
“You are observant,” he said. “Good. I expected you would be.” It was Enver’s voice speaking, with its timbre and warmth in its tone, yet the cadence contained subtle differences. “After all, I have heard so much about you. I thought it high time for us to meet, face-to-face… in a manner of speaking.”
His eyes were fixed on her, still studying her every move. She merely raised her eyebrows. “I see. And your Chosen…?”
Bane laughed and waved a hand, gesturing at his—at Enver’s—body. “Fret not. Gortash is here, aware, unharmed. I know how fond of each other you are.”
His smiled turned into a leer, and his eyes glittered with malice as he watched for her reaction. Elegy made the slightest shrug and said, “Hmm.”
“Or perhaps he is fonder of you than you are of him,” Bane said. The thought amused him greatly.
Elegy slowly pulled off one glove and tossed it on top of her cloak, and he followed the movement with his eyes. “Can you blame him?”
He barked a laugh; that one did sound like Enver, and she wondered if he was silently watching, as Bane claimed. She was moderately certain that he would survive the experience; only a foolish master would willingly discard a useful tool, and she did not think Bane was that much of a fool.
Not yet, at least; he might yet prove her wrong.
She removed her other glove, and he watched with too much interest.
“I could,” he mused. “If his judgment was poor and his fondness too great, if he proved unloyal, I could. But, as you said yourself, you are a valued ally. You, and your father.”
“Our alliance serves us all well,” she said, smoothing her gown as she stepped forward. One step; two; three. He watched her all the while, lips twisted in a permanent smirk.
“Look at you. A human woman, perfectly ordinary. A pretty little doll, waiting to be posed,” Bane said. She felt the weight of his gaze drifting up and down her body. “Those eyes, however, reveal you for what you are. A cold, calculating killer.”
Anger swelled within her, deep and inexorable as the tide. He was right, of course; her eyes had been compared to gray sapphires, the morning fog that strangled the city, the sheen of a knife. People were as brainless as sheep, however, and they rarely realized what she was.
Even he did not fully understand. She was far from ordinary—she was no one’s doll—but Elegy kept her face carefully calm as she stepped forward again.
“I am flattered by your attention, my lord,” she said dryly.
“You are not as mad as your kin,” he continued, “though you are still young. You may yet follow your predecessors’ path.”
She advanced further. She would tell no one, certainly not this grasping god, of her dreams. Dreams of red, where the sky was indistinguishable from still-warm flesh and the viscera smeared across her mouth. It was a promise of punishment and a prophecy of the glorious world to come, all at once. Those dreams always brought the waking urge to kill and tear with her bare hands, forsaking steel and spellwork. She indulged it, and afterwards washed it all away, but she could feel the crimson seeping deeper into her mind each time.
Outwardly, she hummed and shrugged as if it mattered not. Bane appeared delighted by her approach; as dark as Enver’s eyes were, they seemed to gleam with an otherworldly light. When she stopped within arms’ reach, he looked like she had presented him with a gift. And how could he not?
He should be delighted to be in her presence, and she had the measure of him already.
She mirrored his simpering smile and moved to slap him across the face.
He caught her wrist before the blow hit, squeezing mercilessly, as she thought he would. Quicker than light, she lifted her left hand, and the shadow blade materialized just in time for her to jab its point underneath his chin.
The Dark Lord grinned as she drew blood.
“What would happen if I drove this blade into his neck, now, while you possess him?” she asked calmly. “Would you feel him die?”
“I would find myself in need of a new Chosen,” he said, still grinning. His free hand found her waist and traveled downwards to roughly paw at her hip, her rear. “And, as I have invested so much in his growth, I can think of only one way you could compensate me for such a loss.”
He pulled her flush against him, bringing their bodies together and inviting the knife to cut deeper into his skin.
“Your talents are wasted on Bhaal, Elegy,” he drawled. “Your intelligence, your elegance, your masterful manipulation. Your restraint. You deserve to worship a god who can lavish you with his power, who appreciates your abilities.” He smiled. “Unlike your father.”
She allowed no emotion to cross her face as warring sensations surged within her. The impatient thrum of her heart and the call, ever-present but growing stronger, to plunge her blade deeper until Enver’s blood coated her fist. Pride, as his assessment of her was correct. Revulsion, to be sure, at his crude attempts to rile her.
Unending anger.
Curiosity.
A small knot of fear burrowing in her stomach: the fear that somehow, Bhaal would hear and punish her for it, although she had not failed him, not once.
Underneath it all lay hunger. She wanted. It made her dangerous, and it endangered her, because weapons did not want. Wanting more had led her to consider Enver’s offer of alliance in the first place; another kind of wanting had led her here tonight. Right now, she wanted to grind Bane’s smug face into the ground, to make him cower, to make him beg. To make him promise her the world.
She could do much with a god in a mortal body.
“My,” she said after a pause. “What an offer. Whatever would Enver say?”
“He is far from my only Chosen.” He found the slit in the skirt of her gown, and the pointed tip of one of Enver’s clawed rings drew a line down the silk stocking she wore underneath. “And he’s hardly your only lover, is he?”
Returning to her waist, he then pressed upwards, groping her breasts through the fabric of her bodice. She glanced down to watch his fingers skim across her neckline and over her décolletage before grabbing her again, hard enough that his rings left a mark on her creamy skin. The surge of heat she felt fueled both her anger and desire together.
“Are we speaking of lovers?” she said pointedly. “We were speaking of Chosen, were we not, my lord?”
A turn of her wrist and a mere fragment of her will had her conjured blade dissolving in her hand, intangible darkness twisting away from her to spread and stretch towards his shoulders, pouring down his arms. When his smug expression did not falter, she snapped her fingers. Her shadows twined around his arms and wrenched them back, dragging his wrists to the altar.
“Is it so different?” His new restraints did not bother him in the least. “Take what you want, Elegy. Taste true power.”
Tempting. It became more tempting to say yes with each heartbeat. But he was still too smug, too composed, even for a god.
She let the silence become pointed before responding.
“Ah, I understand what this is now,” she said. “I have never seen a god jealous of their own Chosen before.”
His eyes narrowed, his smile thinned. “No. You are mistaken.”
“No? You came all this way to teach him a lesson, then? Show him that, if he’s naughty, you can take all of his playthings away?”
He scoffed, and she summoned every ounce of imperiousness in her arsenal, looking down at him despite her smaller frame.
“You picked the wrong one, lordling. I see your desperation, your envy, your pathetic desire.”
His haughtiness gave way to indignation as he absorbed her words. “No mortal speaks to me thus, as if you were my equal!”
Elegy bared her teeth in a smile and leaned closer, fully pressing her body against him.
“That’s a shame,” she purred, “because you clearly like it.”
Enver’s body reacted to her; it always did. The intake of breath, the noticeable hardness she could feel through her gown. Bane was stunned into silence, staring.
She waited.
Finally, the Dark Lord stirred. He lowered his head and began to lift his arms, as if the shadows were nothing, when Elegy took a decisive step back.
“Sit down,” she commanded. With a dismissive flick of her fingers, the shadows dispelled.
He followed the line of her gaze over his shoulder to rest on the obsidian throne.
His lips curled into a faint smile, his irritation fading as quickly as it had arrived. Stepping away from the altar, he glanced at her once more before slowly striding towards the throne.
“You see it, Elegy,” he said. “I know you do. You take pleasure in cruelty; you relish power. Join me, and it will be yours.”
She rolled her eyes while his back was turned. His ego was easily bruised and easily soothed. Most men, even those that became gods, were easily maneuvered.
Bane climbed the shallow steps of the dais and claimed his throne. Reclining, he looked at her expectantly. For a moment, she considered leaving, solely to see the outrage on his face.
Instead, she approached with the deliberativeness of a predator, though her prey watched her just as closely. The strangeness of it was almost surreal. He was Enver, but he wasn’t; he was a god, but he was a mortal; he was familiar, but he was unknown. A glance told her who he was: Enver, for all of his posturing and bravado, could never completely conceal that tiny kernel of desperation that lay at the heart of all his ambitions, not from her. Bane, however, lounged on his throne almost as effortlessly as someone who was born into power, unquestionably certain of their right to wield it.
Almost. He would be forever grasping for that last fragment of entitlement that came to her as easily as breathing.
“You are so eager to convince me,” she mocked, her voice as smooth as the black marble beneath her feet. “You want me so badly; you must surround yourself with sycophants and fools.”
Stepping onto the dais, the air surrounding her felt different: heavier, somehow, and it sent a delicious shiver down her spine. She ascended gracefully and stood just in front of him, the skirt of her gown brushing against his legs. If he expected her to kneel, he would be disappointed.
Bane said nothing, but Enver’s chest rose and fell faster. Elegy placed her hand on the armrest of the throne, and the obsidian was surprisingly warm to the touch.
She leaned forward at the same time that he reached for her. Their mouths collided, and she knew without a doubt that she was in the presence of a god.
The kiss was hungry and heady, intoxicating unlike anything she had ever known, cruel and sweet at once. A metal gauntlet gripped her throat, and for a moment she witnessed the majesty of a towering black fortress and heard the roar of armies a million souls strong. A taste of power, and it was more than a metaphor. They kissed fiercely, tongues warring for dominance, each press of their lips followed by a bite.
Darkness enveloped her. The magic living in her blood and the marrow of her bones rejoiced, effortlessly shifting and shaping the space around them. She gasped for air, and shadow poured from her mouth when she exhaled, twining in the air like smoke.
She found herself halfway on his lap. Without hesitation, Elegy moved to straddle him, lifting her skirts and letting them fall as she settled. Her entire body buzzed with violent, pulsing need.
She seized his hands, pulling them where she wanted: one through the slit in her skirt to her thigh, just above the ribbon garter she wore, and the other to her breasts. They locked eyes, and she rolled her hips, dragging her core against him, relishing the friction and the slickness of her smallclothes.
His groan and the unmistakable haze of lust in his eyes nearly made her giddy. A god was groaning beneath her and soon would be calling her name.
This was no time for patience or gentleness, if there ever was one. While his hands squeezed and pinched her flesh, she reached for the laces of his trousers.
Elegy watched his face as she freed his cock, wrapping her hand around the shaft.
She knew this face well, from the crook of his nose to his full lips. It was nearly the same; his mouth parted in the same way as she stroked him, but it was simple enough to see that someone else wielded those black eyes.
She tightened her grip. “Does Enver feel this, too?”
Bane exhaled in a laugh, an indolent smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “You are the only one who calls him that name, you know.”
“I know.” Elegy smirked at him as she reached underneath her skirts. “Are you feeling left out? Want to tell me what they called you, before?”
He didn’t answer. A blankness stole over his face, his lips parting and eyes unfocused, as she lifted her hips, pulled her smallclothes to the side, and positioned the head of his cock against the wet heat between her legs.
She laughed under her breath and only waited a few heartbeats before pushing herself down.
She took him into her cunt quickly, abruptly, the stinging stretch mixing with satisfaction. Bane moaned. The sound was indistinguishable from Enver’s, but the scheming, assessing gaze of the god of tyranny still lingered underneath the haze.
Elegy wound her fingers through his dark hair and seized the collar of his jacket as she began to move.
She set a rapid pace. Neither of them softened their movements; while she raised herself up and anchored herself with her hold on him, he fondled her roughly, slipping under her gown to grab at the curves of her hips and ass and tugging on the neckline of her bodice to bare more of her full breasts. He ducked his head to bite at them, sucking a bruise into her skin. She moaned low in her throat.
Each time she slammed herself down, making his cock connect with the deepest part of her cunt, she did not see stars. She saw endless black granite underneath crimson skies, lightning leaving scars as it hurtled towards a river of blood, wave after wave of figures kneeling in tribute. She saw a throne infinitely larger than its mortal, material counterpart. She saw herself in a crown.
Bane knew; he intended it. He grabbed her by the hair, wrenching her head towards him.
“I could make you a queen,” he offered, his stolen voice deep and rich.
She smiled in between breaths and reached for his face. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Her fingers danced across his lips, one lacquered nail catching and digging into his lower lip, until he took them into his mouth. The sight and sensation of his tongue lapping against them made the pressure building in her core coil even tighter.
Uttering a curse, she brought her other hand beneath her skirts again, sliding underneath fabric. She found her clit with practiced ease.
Looking at him, a thousand possibilities flashed through her mind. Cool silk and colder iron against her naked body. Her hand closing around the handle of a whip, drawing lines of red and purple with each strike. A black gauntlet caressing her neck while she looked down at Enver, kneeling at her feet.
“Yes,” she sighed, throwing her head back and working her clit in circles. Her other hand, slick with his saliva, drifted down to his neck.
She switched her hips to a rolling motion, finding a rhythm that relentlessly rubbed the right part of her cunt, bringing her closer, closer. Her moans made him squeeze her harder.
“Louder,” Bane demanded, smiling cruelly. “Louder, Elegy. Don’t worry; Daddy can’t hear us here.”
She laughed, throwing her head back and tightening her grip on his throat as she let her climax wash over her.
This time, she seized hold of the magic lingering in the air and the power of his presence to push thoughts into his mind: all the ways she could take pleasure from him, all the ways she could make him beg and squirm. He gasped for breath underneath her as she cried out and her cunt clenched around him.
When the waves subsided, she slowed her pace and enjoyed watching his brow furrow.
“I think I know what you want, Lord Bane,” she breathed. A taunting smile lit her face. “Why you came here.”
Her hand looked almost delicate against Enver’s throat. As she squeezed, the shadows joined her, wrapping around him like a noose. Bane looked back at her through heavy-lidded eyes, his hands still greedily grabbing at her flesh.
“You call yourself a god of death, but you don’t know it like I do,” she said, punctuating her words with a lazy roll of her hips. “How intimate it can be. You play with your armies and your rules and executions, but it’s not enough, is it?”
Red bloomed in his cheeks, and the muscles in his throat moved, searching for air, but he only pushed down on her hips as he thrusted upwards. Elegy drew her shadows even tighter.
She kept her voice low and sultry like a lover. “You needed to be reminded what it is to breathe, and bleed, and how quickly that can be taken away.” She watched the color begin to drain from his face and leaned close enough to brush her lips against his. “How quickly I can take it away.”
He continued to thrust into her even as his throat gurgled and eyelids drooped, and still she squeezed. She waited until intoxication gave way to instinct, until he raised his hands to pull at her own. Until, finally, she saw the faint flicker of fear in his eyes.
She let go, laughing as he sputtered and coughed. Laughing as he came with a low, strangled groan, clinging to her hips in desperation.
Father would be furious if he knew.
The thought made her preen until unease pricked at the back of her mind. For one instant, her face fell, and she hurriedly locked the thought away.
Bane, however, remained as distracted and dazed as any mortal. Summoning one final smirk, Elegy lifted her hips, ignoring the mess that spilled down her thighs and onto his lap, and stepped away from the throne.
She turned her back as she descended from the dais. A simple gesture and a muttered word cleaned herself instantaneously, and she straightened her skirts and adjusted her bodice. He had, of course, ruined her hair, so she pulled the comb free and let it fall loose.
“Do come back to visit,” she called as she walked.
Her words were met with silence.
She smiled to herself and began to rake the comb through the ends of her hair until a voice rasped, “Elegy.”
She paused, stilling mid-step. Only a moment passed before she pivoted, smoothly lowering her hands as she turned.
The man sprawled across the throne was disheveled from head to toe: black hair mussed, jacket askew, trousers undone. The skin of his neck was discolored, although bruises had not yet risen to the surface, and rage and resentment were banked in his dark eyes.
“Ah,” she said. “Welcome back.”
Enver—for it was Enver, returned to her once more—scowled. He coughed as he sat up and swallowed, feeling the muscles she had damaged.
“Spare me the lecture,” she said when he opened his mouth. “As if you would not have done the same.”
“The same?” he snapped. His voice, normally so melodic, was hoarse and cracked. “Were Bhaal to come to me in your body, you would expect me to seduce him?”
Elegy rolled her eyes, letting her disdain mask the way her stomach twisted at the thought. Her Father would have different designs, different intentions, ones she did not wish to think about.
“Don’t be cross with me,” she shot back.
He only glared at her. Looking at him, she pursed her lips and cast the prestidigitation spell once more.
Enver sullenly glanced at himself before beginning to right his clothing.
She sighed and walked to the stone altar. Bracing her arms against it, she lifted herself up to sit on its edge, arranging her skirts around her and smoothing her hair. The bruise Bane had left on the swell of her breast was nearly as violet as her gown.
She didn’t regret it, couldn’t regret it. A part of her remained exhilarated. Even so, she hated the way Enver looked at her.
“Come here,” she said when the silence had lingered for too long. “We should speak. I’ll even fix your hair. It looks terrible.” She raised her silver comb to catch the dim light.
Come here and forgive me, she thought. Come here and worship me on your god’s altar.
His jaw clenched and unclenched, his hands balling into fists and then relaxing. She waited patiently, her gray eyes never leaving his face.
Finally, Enver stood. His anger remained, but he was reassessing, recalculating with each step he took towards her. He approached the altar warily, but he approached it all the same.
Lord Bane, she called in her thoughts. Your Chosen belongs to me.
It was either reckless or meaningless, but she suspected something of his presence lingered. Another moment passed before Enver reached her. He studied her appearance carefully, his gaze catching on her bruise.
Then the chill of a gauntlet settled on the back of her neck, the tips of its clawed fingers digging into her skin and tracing a path down her spine.
Elegy smiled.