Chapter 40
Sati stared into her friend's eyes, tears pricking at the corners of her own. Behind her, still seated in a seemingly relaxed pose, her father looked on with a small smile. It wasn't a cruel or sadistic smirk, that she could have handled more easily. Instead her father looked bemused, even kind, as though he sympathized with her fear and pain, even as he failed to understand it.
"Please, father." She pleaded, no begged, for for Rina's life. "There must be some other way. The fault is mine, my lack of understanding. I'm sorry daddy, please just let me make it up to you."
She didn't dare look into Ramana's eyes, scared of what she might find there. Instead, she met her handmaiden's gaze as awareness slowly returned to it. The god-king's sorcery had robbed her of reason, but not memory, and Rina paled in fear of her imminent death. Sati could smell the scent of the other woman's hair, and it brought back the memory. Of the taste of her lips, the feel of her encircling arms.
The two of them had grown up together. Rina was indentured as a palace servant from a young age, given as a gift in a bid for Ramana's favor, specifically to be the newborn Sati's handmaiden. The princess had never known life without her, and in a place where any act of uncalculated kindness was viewed as weakness, the other woman was her only source of unfettered affection.
They'd explored the palace corridors and gardens together, imagining what sights they might one day witness as the gazed over the walls that bounded their whole world. When Sati had received her lessons on courting and lovemaking, Rina had pleaded with her to share every detail. Their first kiss, only a month ago, had felt perfect, inevitable.
"Perhaps she might yet live," Ramana's reluctant words brought a sob to Sati's throat, and she forced herself to ignore the rising fear in Rina's eyes. "There is a lesson here that you might yet learn, if you are not too stubborn. And it would spare your servant's life."
"Of course father, thank you. What must I do?" Sati didn't, couldn't hesitate.
"You didn't finish your assignation, I spared you from the consequences. Use your mana on her, just as you would have, had I not interrupted. You will see how her mind fares in the face of your power."
Sati drew a slow, shuddering breath, not having thought about the potential consequences of their liason. But Rina relaxed, the fear fading from her eyes.
"It's alright," the handmaiden's voice was soft and affectionate as she whispered. "I already want to be with you, princess. We're meant to be together."
"Of course, daddy. I'll just take her back to my room and..."
"Here, Satiramana." The king's voice held a cold, hard edge. "You will use your mana on her here, and now, or she dies for her trespass."
Sati's head jerked in a nod, and her hands shook as she cupped her handmaiden's face.
"It will be fine. Trust in us." Rina continued to smile at her with warm eyes, and she whispered the encouraging words just before their lips met. The princess was lost for a moment, her friend's sweet scent and soft lips driving back to worry for a moment, driving away the entire world. Sati whimpered softly, momentarily forgetting her fear.
But then Ramana cleared his throat, bringing a wave of self-conscious anxiety to her. This wasn't a tender moment with her would-be lover, it was a punishment, and a spectacle. She let her presence out, let it curl like mist around Rina. Ramana had told her only to use her mana on her handmaiden, not how to use it, so she imbued it with her affection, with her love. She loved the other woman, as a friend and companion, even before they began exploring their potential as lovers. She loved Rina, just as she was, so surely her sorcery could help preserve what they already had.
For a moment Sati's spirit touched Rina's, and their souls were linked. Their hearts both skipped a beat, pausing long enough that their next contraction was in unison, beating as one. Their love surged together, on a foundation of shared history and understanding, a deep empathy for one another that their shared youth had built.
When Sati had cried at the isolation and loneliness of her absent mother and distant father, Rina had been there to chase away the shadows. When Rina had shaken in terror, threatened by some courtier with more power than sense, Sati had held her and vowed with a child's earnestness to protect her from any danger. They'd seen each other's pains and weaknesses, offered both criticisms and support. They weren't alike, but they were inseparable.
Before Sati's spiritual gaze, Rina's spirit drank up her presence. The other woman's anima shimmered with a wave of rainbow colors, and the two of them pulled back from their kiss to share an ecstatic smile. But then the world seemed to slip just a little to the left, and a cloud passed over the handmaiden's eyes.
"Rina?" Sati felt her voice quaver, but then her breath was stolen by her friend's lips. The momentary bond between them was masked, hazed over by a surge of mindless lust. Rina squealed in desperate, painful desire as she pressed her slender body against Sati's soft curves. Though her body was no match for that of a sorcerer, desperation lent the handmaid strength, and she bore Sati to the ground.
"Please!" The desperate whine was like a knife to Sati's heart, so unlike Rina's normal, confident but mellow tone. "I need you, my princess. I've loved you for so long and it's too much! You're too much!"
The apsara was momentarily stunned and unresponsive as her friend's eager hands pulled open her robe and squeezed her large breasts. Sati had always been sensitive, all over, and their weeks of mutual exploration meant that Rina knew exactly how to draw her response. Unsure, and feeling sick, the princess nevertheless couldn't suppress a gasp of pleasure, followed by a whimper as the handmaiden's eager tongue found her teat.
Curling her fingers, Sati scraped at the floor, feeling the rough texture of the dark stone scrape her fingertips bloody. Ramana had the nearly impervious rock quarried and shipped from the Black Waste, at enormous expense, and the princess tried to imagine what had possessed him to do so. She tried to distract herself from the pleasure assaulting her by tallying what the floor beneath her might have cost, in gold or in blood, even as soft lips trailed kisses down her belly. Her concentration was shattered when Rina's tongue probed her navel, the sudden rush of ticklish pleasure driving the thought away entirely.
"You know, little flower, that her bringing you pleasure will not settle her mind." Ramana sounded amused now, and still so horribly sympathetic. "If you wish for her to make it through this experience with her mind intact, you need to take a more proactive role."
Sati shuddered as her friend's moist lips grazed her mound, tickling the short, downy hairs there. But she had just enough presence of mind to heed her father's words. With her greater strength, she pushed Rina's head away, to the other woman's needy objection, an objection that was silenced by her own lips.
Groaning softly, the apsara was torn between distress for her friend, and the rise of her own urgent desires. Her divine heritage resonated with Rina's extreme lust, and their passions fed into one another. She mimicked her friend's earlier actions, parting her robes, trailing kisses down her front. The handmaiden's pleasured moans filling her with an intense, but guilty pleasure.
After teasing out her lover's desires to an even more torturous high, Sati dove between her thighs with a hungry mouth and questing fingers. Though light on practical experience, she had been trained by the most skilled courtesans Ramana could hire to teach her the skills of sexual bliss. Not that she needed those skills, as Rina reached immediate climax at her first real touch.
Swirling her tongue around Rina's pearl, and rubbing her sweet spot within with two crooked fingers, the princess drew out her handmaiden's climax for long seconds, which stretched out endlessly. Screaming in bliss, the willowy woman arched her back and thrashed on the floor so violently that Sati feared she would sustain a head injury. Still, she did not relent, knowing that she needed to exhaust the otherworldly lust that Rina had been subjected to.
