IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS:
A Messenger of Night, an evil entity evoked by the spells of the Night Lord has appeared to Queen Artemis of Troygrove and turned her into a slave for the forces of Darkness.
During the night, Artemis has been heavily indoctrinated and instructed by her new Master about His vision for the future and about the commands and the plan that the Queen of Troygrove will have to execute...and that will lead to the ultimate goal of the Night Lord: the enslavement of Hailey Val Lumenar, Queen of Syfall and Daughter of the Sun.
And now, not having revealed such plans to anyone, Artemis is preparing to turn them into a reality....
https://literotica.com/s/daughter-of-the-sun-ch-03
***
The gentle blow of the breeze, coming from the open window, delicately roused the young woman from her deep sleep. Shaking her head, feeling her mind still slowed down and dazed by the depths of her recent unconsciousness, Alanor blinked confusingly while looking around the room. She was still sitting at her desk, in her private chambers inside of the Royal Palace of Troygrove, in the same identical place in which she had so suddenly fallen asleep the night before.
Filtered by the curtains at the windows, the light of the morning dimly illuminated her apartment, revealing all around a huge mess of books and of other diverse stuff; hundredths of scattered parchments, piles of dusty and crumbling scrolls, an indefinite number of mystical amulets of different metals and shapes, crystal pendants and many other bizarre trinkets were chaotically sparse throughout the whole environment, submerging shelves, tables, chairs, as well as a significant portion of the floor. All of such items constituted her tools of study and work, as it was appropriate for a sorceress like her.
At the young age of twenty-four, Alanor already held a prominent position at the court of Troygrove. Not only she was the personal sorceress of the Queen but, being the younger sister of Queen Alexandra Rosendhal of Heat Hill, she was also invested of the role of official ambassador of her home city's in the court of Artemis. In this double role, Princess Alanor was therefore a permanent member of the Queen's councils, alongside to the other two most strict advisors of Artemis: the Lord Commander Bardas, leader of the land army, and the Grand Admiral Nyphoros, supervisor of the military and mercantile fleet.
Alanor was a petite girl, her thin and slim build giving her the ethereal and graceful appearance of a lovely fairy, with long, reddish-brown hair which she was used to wear divided into two braids which were left falling freely on her chest, over her small, tiny, exquisite breast. Her eyes, of the same light silver-gray as the ones of her older sister Alexandra, where live with acumen and intelligence.
Since her arrival in Troygrove, three years earlier, after her sister had decided to send her as a replacement for the old ambassador, Alanor's delicate beauty had aroused the attention of more than one of the men of the court. Even the two most trusted advisors of Queen Artemis couldn't remain indifferent to her charm. The Lord Commander Bardas, in particular, seemed to be literally obsessed with her, and had repeatedly and insistently tried to woo her without success. While Alanor did not disdain the company and attentions of males, she greatly preferred those of much younger men and, with his fifty-six years of age, the old Lord Commander could not have any chance to win the heart of the beautiful Princess of Heath Hill.
Feeling utterly stunned, as if she had been remained asleep for days, Alanor turned her gaze down at her desk; the Treatise on Aquatic Evocations, the old ponderous tome she was studying the night before, was still open at the same page she was reading where she had been caught by surprise by an irresistible sleep.
Gently, Alanor ran her small hand over a page, caressing it almost with reverence. It was an incredibly complex and fascinating text; written centuries ago by an enchantress of old times named Amarezen, it contained the secrets and the arcane formulas to summon and control the powerful creatures and the mysterious inhabitants of the abyssal depths. The skilled hand of an unknown artist had adorned those ancient pages so filled with minute calligraphy with precious friezes and detailed illustrations, further embellishing the book.
A subtle yet evident aura of alluring eroticism exuded from those images, as if the author had taken an unusual, perverted pleasure in imagining and depicting such scenes on the parchment pages. Two naked women, sitting on the rocks by the sea, embracing each other as if they have been caught in the middle of an intercourse, seemed to be on the verge of an overwhelming orgasm, as they were portrayed in the process of being enchanted and enraptured by the charming voice of a voluptuous mermaid, who was emerging from the waist up from the water at their feet. Their eyes were wide open, their expressions completely fascinated, their body muscles tense with the desire to throw themselves into the water in order to join that wonderful creature of the seas. On another page, a group of nude male figures were displaying powerful erections while struggling for freedom against the monstrous tentacles of an abyssal gigantic octopus-like creature, their coils wrapped around their waists, wrists and ankles, capturing them and bringing them down to the depths of the ocean.
Alanor shivered, feeling uneasy. The Cultists of the Abyss were a sect whose origins dated back to very ancient times, when Troygrove was still only one of the numerous small fishing villages along the ocean coast. They used to worship the creatures of the sea depths as divinities, and voluntarily sacrificed their most beautiful sons and daughters to them, hoping to obtain protection, prosperity and power in this way. Amarezen herself had been a prominent follower of that aberrant cult, and she had offered in first person countless sacrifices of boys and girls to the abyssal creatures.