Juliet clutched her cloak tightly about her shoulders, trying to protect her body from the cold night wind. The fact that all she had on beneath it was her nightgown wasn't helping at all- but then, she was lucky she'd been given enough time to grab a cloak at all. When the strange, crystalline soldiers of the Vivimancer had come for her, they told her that she had to come immediately if she wanted to save her brother's life, and they hadn't been at all receptive to her please for time to get dressed. She had known that nothing good would come of her brother seeking a sorcerer's aid for his illness, she'd told him so right from the start! Once she had saved his life, Juliet thought, she was going to kill him.
The shining, inhuman beings took no notice of her discomfort or fear as they led her into the Vivimancer's night-blooming garden. All around, beds of white, luminescent flowers shone, and filled the air with sweet perfume. The bright white flower beds lined the path down the garden, until they led her to a circular clearing in the middle. There, at last, was some genuine light, although there were no lamps or torches to be found. Rather, dancing lights floated through the air, soft white and yellow and pink and blue, and even in such bizarre circumstances, Juliet gasped at the beauty of it all.
"Juliet! You came!"
Poor sickly Harold stood amid the light by the side of a stone table. Juliet ran over and embraced him, muttering all the while about how worried she'd been. "What have you gotten yourself into?" She asked. "They said I needed to come to save your life!"
"And you've done it already. I'm going to be cured, Juliet! I'm going to live, and you've saved me!" Harold stepped away from the embrace then, and despite what he had just said, the expression on his face was more solemn than joyful. He turned his head to the side, and Juliet looked with him, to see a man who could only be the Vivimancer.
When she'd heard of a blasphemous magician with powers beyond anything man was meant to know, she had pictured a wizened old man from a folk tale, or else something so twisted as to be unrecognizably human. What she saw before her instead was a handsome, broad-shouldered man perhaps twenty years her senior, with a kind face and warm golden hair. Nevertheless, there was no mistaking him for anything but a sorcerer. Even if she hadn't been close enough to get a look at the amulets he wore around his neck and on his fingers, there was something dangerous in the air around him; Juliet felt just on the verge of a shock running through her body, and the way his eyes shone could only be compared to lightning.
"You must be Juliet," he said, in a gentle voice that soothed her nerves somewhat. "I am Aelric, though most know me as the Vivimancer. I am impressed by your virtue in rushing to your brother's aid. He told me of your white hair and flesh and your lovely pink eyes, but he did not say quite how beautiful you were." Before Juliet could demand to know what this was all about, he shocked her silent by reaching out and casually opening her cloak. She brought her hands up to cover her nightgown, but Aelric caught her hands firmly and held them so that he could take a leisurely look at her.
"Take your hands off of me!" Juliet exclaimed. "Harold, help me!"
"I'm sorry, Juliet," said her brother, and at those words she felt her heart drop into her stomach. "Will she do?" He asked, over her head.
"Yes," said the golden-haired sorcerer, "I think she'll do very well. Take up the book now, and read as I told you."
With that, he bent Juliet down over the stone table- not a table, she realized. An altar. She started to thrash, but there was very little she could do to dislodge a man twice her size. He wasn't brutal or crushing, but she simply could not escape from under him. The sound of her brother reading latin words in the background taunted her just as much as Aelric's sweet, soothing smile. The sorcerer groped her trembling body, and the crackle of lightning ran through his touch.
"I'm no sacrifice!" She shouted, although neither man stopped what he was doing to listen to her. "Whatever horrid bargain you've made, I don't agree to it!"
"Stop fussing," said the sorcerer as if correcting a child throwing a tantrum. "This is no blood sacrifice, I would never do that to a poor girl like you. The devil only wants your innocence." This didn't reassure Juliet at all, but when she tried to protest, he placed his hand over her mouth. "It's all to save your brother's life, of course. I must say", he laughed as he slipped his hands beneath her nightgown, "if I were him, I'd have asked a much higher price for such rare and precious girl flesh."
Juliet tried to drive a knee into her assailant's stomach, but couldn't quite make it. All her efforts earned her was a stern look from Aelric. She met his eyes with a glare of her own, but her indignation only overrode her fear momentarily. As she looked at his face, there was a ripple across it, like a pond's surface being disrupted by a pebble. The shadows framing him changed their shape and length, and when they settled, she started screaming. The head of an enormous black goat looked down upon her, but when it opened its mouth, the teeth within were not those of any natural beast, and it let out a roar that drowned out her cries. Juliet was whimpering when his face resumed its previous look, and he gave her a slight smile.
