After the Princess spoke, Lady Desdemona stared daggers while a few of the demons around the table chuckled. The side of the table with the military leadership seemed most amused. The Dark Lord himself, however, only sighed.
“High Queen, you say?” the Dark Lord asked. “What is the meaning of that title?”
He was asking about a meaningless title, in fact—she’d invented it during this very conversation. It pleased her that he was eager to know more, despite his spoken reluctance.
“As I will be your first wife, descending from a royal bloodline, being the heir to a significant domain, I require a title reflecting my unique status and position among your wives.”
The Dark Lord’s eyes widened at this, and he seemed a bit surprised, but the Princess hadn’t said anything particularly unexpected, or so she thought. Why had he decided to be so stubborn? If he intended to reform the Pact, she would be his first wife of many. And it shouldn’t have surprised the demons that she expected to receive special consideration for hopping on board so quickly.
“I see. You’ve given us much to discuss,” he said. “Minister Ilen plans to leave tomorrow. How long will you stay?”
“Until I receive my answer,” the Princess said hesitantly. In truth, she had expected to stay here forever. After making her offer, she had expected the Dark Lord to disrobe her, possibly still within the council chamber but ideally in a smaller, private room, in order to examine her body for sickness or other defects.
Afterward, they would head for the temple gardens or another large area so that the Princess could demonstrate the power of her true form. And when she had revealed herself to him at last, in all her terrifying power and beauty, he was supposed to tell her, “Nymphyra, you are a Princess no more. From this day forward, you are bound to my soul and body as my Queen.” And then she’d imagined him pulling out his cock, probably. Well, maybe not right away.
All things in due time.
Her daydreams now appeared to be entirely dashed, however. Things were not going according to plan, and for a brief, panicked moment, she wondered if all of this was the Master working up to declining her offer.
“Hypothetically, what if we do not wed immediately but instead were to, uh—”
“Ah, I see,” the Princess said. “What a shame. In the tower hall this morning, I overheard one of your servants gossiping of your thick and veiny cock, Dark Lord, and I had hoped to one day see it for myself. But if you wish to reject my gift, then I suppose—”
“They said what?” the Master asked. Nymphyra felt her face grow hot. That is hardly the point of this conversation, you maddening titan! Didn’t he know how deeply he’d just insulted her? Didn’t he realize she had all but thrown herself at his feet, and to be denied was a wound from which her pride might never recover?
“I’ll—I’ll find out who it was and discipline them, Master!” a demon with giant horns called from the corner of the room. She hadn’t even noticed him until that point. In truth, it was hard to keep track of the many drones under the Dark Lord’s command. It spoke well of his administrative capabilities. Despite his infuriating resistance to her charms, he was the perfect match.
“Discipline?” the Princess asked, entirely confused now. “Would I discipline a drone for spreading the good word of my spermathecae’s delightful humidity? Or my epigyne’s flawless symmetry and hardness? Why would you not reward them for praising their betters, as they should?”
The Dark Lord chuckled and then shook his head. The Princess was mystified—what about this was at all funny? “Princess Nymphyra, I’m afraid there are some cultural differences between our peoples.”
“In Dreadthorn, servants are forbidden from speaking around their superiors,” the demon in the corner said gravely, “regardless of the profound veracity of their claims.”
“That’s not exactly…” the Master said before his voice trailed off again, and he shrugged. She wondered how he’d managed the meeting with the snake, because he seemed to be struggling with the direction their exchange had taken. “Yes, let’s go with that.”
“I am beginning to see these cultural differences you spoke of,” Nymphyra said. Once again, she’d made a diplomatic error, provoking the peevishness of demonkind. She sighed and awkwardly stepped backward a few paces, the twin claws at the ends of her legs clacking against the floor. They had quite noisy floors here in Dreadthorn, didn’t they? Hadn’t these boors ever heard of a fucking carpet?
Perhaps it was for the best that the Master seemed allergic to her, maybe even bigoted against Arachnians in general, which was the only reasonable explanation for his poor reaction to her overture. Would he have accepted her if she had come to him on two legs instead of eight? Such shallowness did not speak well of the Dark Lord’s character.
The more she thought about it, the more Dreadthorn Tower seemed like a, well, dreadful place to live. She imagined how wonderful it would feel to have a dozen Arachnian silk rugs delivered to the tower as a parting gift. Her mother would chastise her for her pettiness, but it felt almost worth it to imagine the look on the Dark Lord’s face as he wondered whether she would have forgiven his reluctance if only he’d set out a nice carpet for her to walk on.
Sadly, neither of them would ever know what might have been. Their auspicious power couple relationship had ended before it even began. Before the Master could dash her hopes any further, it seemed prudent to take matters into her own hands and thereby salvage what little of her dignity yet remained.
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“Dark Lord, it appears as if you do not appreciate the offer that has been made to you in my mother’s unlimited beneficence and grace. So I’m afraid I must rescind said offer and take my leave.”
“Wait, Princess, please. It’s a significant decision. I need time to consider it at length and consult my advisers. Are you sure we can’t—” the Dark Lord began, and she rolled her eyes.
The Princess turned away from the table. She left one of her gloved hands upon it, feeling the touch of the cool stone for one last moment. She had imagined spending much time in these illustrious halls.
“Ah, it is too late for that now, Dark Lord,” she said. “The look in your eyes, your reluctance, was all the answer I truly needed. Your heedless words were only the salt in my wound. But I know one thing for certain—in the end, you will rue the day you lost me.” She smirked at him, a bemused look on her face, hoping her words were true.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can—”
“There is one thing you may do for me.” While she’d appreciated his groveling, it was hardly becoming of a god. Some of the other demons, even the lowly one in the corner, were beginning to look discomfited by it.
“Oh?” he said. “And what is that?” The demons around the table were all staring at her, their faces a mixture of shock or indignity. She paid them little mind. No, the only person she spoke to was the Great Devourer himself.
“You may tell the Ophidians they will not get a penny from us. Tell them Princess Nymphyra Aran is coming for their heads.” And then, with a practiced swish of her dress, she turned and walked away, her handmaidens trailing close behind her, all twenty-four of their feet saying—thank you very much, and goodbye.
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Her Handmaidens already had her things packed and ready, in case of such an eventuality, so that no time was wasted. Soon they had boarded their spider carriage and were away from the tower, outside the temple walls. The road took them down through the walled city, across the bridge that crossed the great chasm, and then back onto the road towards the Zephyr mountains and, eventually, the Queendom of Arachnia.
Nymphyra sighed from where she sat in the large carriage car, which had been mounted on the back of a sturdy Arachnian drone. He was a furry black spider, as long as a tree in his true spider form, and his feet scampered quickly over the rough terrain.
Riding by spider carriage gave far smoother movement than could be achieved by any four-legged beast, the Princess thought to herself, feeling smug as they passed a pair of demons trying to coax a cloven-hooved pack animal to step out of a pothole.
They didn’t maintain their roads in Dreadthorn, did they? Such slovenliness, she supposed, was to be expected from demons. The farther she got from the tower, the less she regretted leaving. She thought of the robust drone she and her handmaidens were riding on and admired his flawless movement. She realized she didn’t know his name, or perhaps had forgotten it, but there was no way she could ask him now.
That wasn’t the point, however. The point was that Arachnia was a superior civilization, regardless of what the other Void-touched thought. No matter that she repulsed the Dark Lord—he’d only made a fool of himself.
She spaced out until they had finally emerged from the city and were rolling past fields of purple moss dotted by occasional shacks and farmhouses.
Satisfied by her remoteness from the city of demons, she motioned to one of her Handmaidens, who rummaged through the luggage before handing the Princess a light blue semi-transparent crystal carved with ornate runes. Nymphyra clasped the crystal between her human hands and focused her Will upon it, tuning herself to its resonance, allowing her energy to flow through its lattice.
A moment later, words filled her mind. Daughter, it said, a cold and distant voice that felt like it was echoing inside her skull. How are you, darling?
By which Mother meant, of course, what had happened?
“He didn’t accept. Well, perhaps I was a little impatient, but he didn’t seem at all—”
It’s all right, Nymphyra. We’ll find you a good breeding mate among the other noble families. A political marriage with a demon was never my original plan for you.
“Pardon me, Mother, that I dared ask for a little more from my life than eating a succession of worthless husbands while secreting their eggs until I die.”
Did you tell him it was a political arrangement? That he didn’t have to bed you?
“Mother!” she snapped. Her eyes looked to her handmaidens, but they couldn’t hear the Queen, of course, only Nymphyra’s replies. “That’s not… We didn’t get to that particular detail and I did not want to talk about it in front of a bunch of demon brutes. He didn’t even ask to see my true form, so I assumed he just wasn’t interested.”
And what of our other plan? her mother asked.
“Oh, that?” Nymphyra smiled, now. “That part was easy.” Wrapped in a small bundle of cloth, placed gently at the bottom of her luggage, was a small vial containing an eerie, yellow gas.
The previous night it had been almost too simple to steal the weapon after that idiotic dog-kin had drawn her sword and attacked the Dark Lord in his own temple. That diversion couldn’t have worked better if Nym had planned it herself. During all the commotion, a few of her smallest drones, barely the size of her hand, had climbed through a window almost ten floors up the tower, crept into a laboratory, and retrieved a sample of the demons’ newest weapon.
What was it called, anyway? The vial wasn’t labeled.
So our intelligence was correct, her mother said.
“Yes, Mother.”
I will tell the Weavers their readings were accurate. I shall have to reward them for their prescience. Is it something we can synthesize more of?
“With some time in the lab? I believe so, or a close approximation.”
Very good, Daughter. Hurry home.
“I already am.” Nym released the crystal, which ceased glowing as her Will returned to homeostasis. One of her Handmaidens—she didn’t know their names either, and had taken to calling them Left and Right, named for the side of her they stood on when holding her train—took the crystal and carefully returned it to a silk-padded wooden box.
The demons seemed to believe that Arachnia didn’t know those bastards were selling weapons to the Principality of Ophidium. Those fiends thought they’d gotten away with it—that they could keep tipping the scales in a conflict that needn’t have concerned them in the first place. Well, they hadn’t been as circumspect as they’d believed.
Now it’s fair, she thought. You sold weapons to our enemies, and now I’ve taken an even better one from you.
As the spider carriage began to crest the last hill outside the city, before the road began to curve towards the mountains, with the Dark Lord’s mighty tower still looming above the horizon, Princess Nymphyra took one last look behind her.
Oh, darling, she thought. To think of what might have been…
With a frown, she tried to banish the Dark Lord and his crusade from her mind. The time for such fantasies was over. Now she had a war to win. Still, she could not resist a final thought for him and for what might have passed between them in some alternate time and place.
What a pity…