Malika sat atop the highest tower of the Defiled Temple looking over the surrounding hills and wastelands. The cult of the demoness Lagria had taken this place long ago and sacrificed the old Priestesses Of The Light to their foul mistress during the temple's ravaging. Like all the denizens of the temple, Malika had been stolen from her family as a child and raised in the ways of the demoness. She had studied the infernal rites of her cult and revelled in the intoxicating dark magics of the sisters. Today was the first day of her twentieth year and at sunset she would take the final step into becoming a sorceress.
The ritual was known as The Tempting for she would lure a demon from deep within the dark realms and bind its soul to hers. In doing so she would command all of its magic and might allowing her to weave her own magika for the first time and take her promised place amongst her sisters.
Needless to say, Malika was terrified. Her time atop the tower was meant to give her space to clear her mind yet it served only to heighten her fear of what was to come. If a demon was raised and she could not hold it in thrall there were horrid stories told of sorceresses whose demonic companions turned upon them. What's more, although she had studied far more of the ancient tomes than the sisters she lacked their appetite for cruelty and destruction that was crucial to luring the infernals.
She had always hidden it away deep inside herself but the sisters had always seemed to guess her weakness. They laughed and mocked her hesitation to sacrifice her first human to Lagria. It had been a farmer, older than her, who had the deepest green eyes. They were eyes that had been filled with fear and as he told her of his wife and child. Malika's hand had stayed for a few telling moments before she had plunged it into his chest and that deep green light in his gaze faded to nothingness.
Afterwards her sisters chilled her by informing her they had torn apart his family when they had taken him. Malika had nodded and told them she was at ease before retiring to her room where she had wept for the life she had taken. It was not the last sacrifice she would have to endure. Yet if she had refused, if she had again hesitated then her sisters would have burned her alive for her weakness. Malika did not wish to die.
The sun was low on the horizon and Malika saw the two moons rise out of the deep blue sky signalling that dusk was upon them. She lifted herself to stand and walked slowly from the tower down to the summoning chamber where her sisters awaited her. The temple was oddly quiet as she made her way through its dark marble corridors upon bare feet.
As was the custom she stopped outside the bath house where she would be prepared by a chosen apprentice. The baths themselves had been added after the defilement at the insistence of the sisters and were carved out of the stone by the claws of the demons in thrall to them. Malika entered to see the dark tarnished marble surfaces and old crumbling pillars. The room had once been a sanctified place to the Priestesses Of The Light until the demons had clawed apart the ground and released an underground spring into the aperture they had created. The water was always near to freezing for no fires were allowed to heat the bathing pool for the apprentices. To warm the water required magic and they had none of their own, only what the sisters allowed them to practice their dark arts with under their supervision.
Malika recalled a visit here where all the apprentices had been subject to a cruel whim of the High Sorceress. Each had been stripped and cast into the pool before the sisters magically froze it around them. They were left like that for a whole day until finally after two had died, they were released and healed. Such torments were common amongst the chosen of Lagria.
Malika looked around for the apprentice that would prepare her and did not need to search for long. She found Shanti already stripped and stood in the centre of the pool awaiting her.
Shanti was an apprentice currently in her nineteenth year and was the closest thing to a friend Malika knew. Though, the word friend carries with it certain connotations that are unspeakable to the sorceresses of Lagria. Finding solace in the company of another was considered foolish, only the power of the individual mattered. Yet to further individual power it was sometimes necessary to test yourself against another and take in a different perspective of matters to your own. Shanti was the one she had studied alongside and now she was the one who would prepare her for The Tempting.
Malika let her black silken robe fall to pool around her feet as she approached the deep water. She wore no garments beneath her apprentice's robe and the large room felt chilly against her bare alabaster flesh. Looking over to Shanti she saw her polar opposite in appearance. Malika's midnight hair was speckled with golden strands due to her exposure to magic. Shanti had short cropped platinum blonde hair that was pure of taint for her studies had not yet allowed her to wield any serious amount of magika.
As Malika placed an ivory skinned foot in the water she felt a shiver run through her. She could not help but gasp and goosebumps arose on her fair skin as she descended into the pool. Without saying a word, Shanti waded toward her and Malika felt the girl's dark flesh press against her own. The sisters had always cast cruel comments at Malika in regards to her large breasts that now pressed against Shanti's smaller and firmer globes. She felt her own hardened pink nipples brush against the dark little nubs that peaked Shanti's breasts.
It was difficult to resist the urge to put her arms around the younger apprentice, if only for the warmth her body extruded. Yet it was forbidden for she herself was still only an apprentice and such fraternising was punished severely. As Shanti lifted her hands she began to caress Malika, cleaning her for the ritual. The feel of those long fingers brushing across the most sensitive parts of her body made Malika bite her lip to hold back a gasp.
Shanti saw the effect she was having on the woman she had so often secretly admired and she quickly slipped her arms about that pale womanly figure, maintaining the façade of cleaning by rubbing her hands across Malika's back. A soft moan finally escaped the raven haired woman's full lips and Shanti suppressed a smile at her small victory. The risk she was taking was immense, if one of the sisters should enter then they would both be sorely punished for the intimate embrace.
So it came as a shock to Shanti when she felt Malika's fingertips beneath the water timidly slide over her hips. There was a moments hesitation as the fear that Shanti was playing some kind of game almost drew her hands away. Malika's closed eyes were unreadable and she couldn't see the expression on Shanti's face practically begging for her embrace to be returned. Then Malika's pale blue eyes opened and she slipped her hands forward and grabbed her training partner's firm bottom to pull her closer.
They stared into each others gaze for what seemed like hours, so close and yet so impossibly far from what each knew they both desired. Occasionally the tips of their noses would touch and a jolt of forbidden excitement would pass through them both. Shanti's hands stopped her false attempts at cleaning Malika's back and settled her palms below the slender shoulders she had long desired to trail her lips over.
The dark magic that filled the temple like some sort of putrescent miasma seemed to lift for a moment in the space between them and that was when Malika's lips found Shanti's. Their eyes closed once more as they shared a moment of sweet defiance to all they knew and found that a fire far more intense than those of the dark realms burned in each of their bodies. Shanti lifted a leg to wrap about Malika's waist as their tongues found each other and began a sweet dance that whispered of hope in that dark place.
Suddenly a noise disturbed them and they jumped out of their tight embrace to find it was only a rock that had come loose from the wall. Shanti looked back to Malika with hopeful eyes but saw immediately that the moment had passed. The poor woman looked terrified and confused and Shanti stepped back closer to her to tilt her head to the side and whisper.
"I have broken all my vows to Lagria for the hope of your touch Malika. Tonight you shall become a sorceress like no other before you and I will be yours to punish as you see fit." Though the whisper was spoken as an apology there was a tone of promise within Shanti's words that made that heat burn in Malika once again.
