Beatrice

Between the cackling laughter, naked bodies and her fourth cup of Coven-brewed, mushroom-infused Tereriane wine, Beatrice couldn’t tell her left foot from her right. Staggering through the field, she marvelled at how her vision turned into spiralling triplets, expanding out in luminous rays.

The beat of drums rolled through the forest glade where the Witches of Tereriane danced beneath the trees, sweat-slicked bodies swaying in time with the music. Wild cries and heady sighs greeted Beatrice amongst the throngs gathered to revel in her impending doom.

Sheltered beneath an elm tree on the edge of the revelry, Olivia, her younger sister, watched the chaotic beauty of a Tereriane Witch revel unfold with dark eyes far older than her years. An orgy was in full swing scarcely ten paces away, though her sister regarded the spectacle with all the interest one might grant a slime-covered toad.

Stepping over naked limbs and writhing bodies, Beatrice slumped beside Olivia and passed over a flagon of wine. Without so much as a glance, her sister took it in her tiny hands.

Their enchantments were perpetually in place. Glamours that concealed their true faces since they both learned how to write, enchantments crafted so thoroughly that they both had forgotten what they genuinely looked like, after enough years spent hidden behind another skin. Between the two of them, only Beatrice and Olivia had ever seen one another’s real faces, save for the doomed men welcomed briefly in between their thighs before being sent into their bloody graves.

The High Priestesses had deemed such precautions necessary to hide the two sisters from the world.

Olivia drank deeply before handing the flagon back. Though two Summers younger than Beatrice, she carried the weariness of someone thrice her age. Too many deaths behind those eyes, caused by her hands. Both intentionally, but mostly by accident. Soon, Beatrice would have many more deaths on her hands, than the whole of Tereriane combined, when she took the lives of the other competitors at the Emperor’s Games.

Taking a swig of the flagon, Olivia passed it to Beatrice. “Shouldn’t be too hard, nabbing the Winter Fae. You look the part at least.” A long silence ensued between them. She looked the part… Her enchanted face sculpted to look more Fae than Witch, not that she needed to change it that much.

Needing courage, more than she cared to admit, Beatrice took a long swallow of wine rich with blackberries, cloves, and bitter roots. “One would think so,” she said, “still, lust has a way of complicating matters. I’m not entirely certain how I’m supposed to convince a Winter Fae to marry me without first fucking him senseless.”

A rare laugh slipped from Olivia’s mouth. Brief though it was, the sound softened something in her face. Raising one hand, she mimed their mother striking Beatrice’s knuckles with a switchback cane for cursing.

“Oh, forgive me,” Beatrice replied dryly, “I forgot myself.”

The pair were the only people in their coven who were not allowed to make lewd gestures or comments. It had something to do with them blending in with the other people’s of the Emperor’s realm. Although, Olivia got away with far more than Beatrice, considering it would be Beatrice who had been chosen as the one to woo the Winter Fae at the Emperor’s ridiculous Games.

Olivia had a terrible temper that often ended with mass graves being dug. Handy if your end goal was a genocide, not so handy when the task required seducing a Fae. It had taken every trick she knew to convince the covens that the plague Olivia unleashed some years back was a natural occurrence. There were no survivors bar the two of them, so there was nobody to say it ended differently.

Still, the High Priestess had urged caution and decided then and there that it would be Beatrice who would be sent as a competitor to the Emperor’s Games. A deadly contest where the lands of the realm were forced to marry their enemies to ensure the continued peace of the realm. If they failed, their lands would be sunk under the seas.

The time was fast arriving when Beatrice would offer herself to the enemy so the rest of the Witches might one day live free, and without the fear of their lands being sunk when they rose up and reclaimed their power.

Jumping to her feet and taking a long draft of wine, Beatrice held out her hand for Olivia. “Come. Let’s dance. It might help us ignore the pain of our enchantments.”

Enchantments held for as long as theirs did things to people. For Beatrice, it meant writhing pain constantly surging through her veins. It was the same for Olivia, except Beatrice had a constant barrage of whispers scraping against the inside her skull. When she’d asked Olivia if she suffered any other side effects, her sister had shaken her head and said she only felt devastation. So Beatrice kept the voices to herself and kept them under control as well as she could, under the circumstances. But every now and then, she slipped and a deluge of words flooded her mind. It was worse when she let her enchantment down in full, not that she did that very often.

Weaving through the throngs, Beatrice led Olivia to the central bonfire and began waving her hands around wildly while kicking her feet up like a bird. Shaking her head, Olivia started pretending to be a Mime, placing her hands in the air, her face morphed into a look of surprise. Beatrice couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in her chest at the sight. It wasn’t often Olivia let loose. The other Witches kept their distance, knowing all too well the pair weren’t allowed to participate in any orgies, but it didn’t stop some of them from joining in their dance.

“For Tereriane! And all the whores!” Went up the shout. The Witches’ voices reverberated through the trees and around the bonfire, as one voice.

Their mother found them later on during the evening stumbling through the trees, dribbling drunken nonsense about the properties of Tereriane wine.

Giving them an admonishing look, their mother waved them over. “Here. A parting gift, my sweet devils. Don’t go too easy on them. Bea, you take the right thatching, Liv, you take the left. I’ll seal it off once you enter, and when you exit, the seal will break.”

Blinking at each other, they stared at their mother.

“Are they willing?” asked Olivia, her shoulders cringing back.

“They’re whoring sons. Of course they are willing. Just make sure the blindfolds stay on is all, and don’t let your enchantments slip. I’ve cordoned off the area, in case… We’re too close to the finish line for you to fuck up now. Hurry, the dawn will be going arse up shortly, and you’ll need to set sail.”

Making a lewd comment, Beatrice stumbled into the thatching, sidestepping a clip up the side of head from her mother. Waiting inside was a naked man, lounging on a blanket, sipping on Tereriane wine. He grinned at Beatrice and licked his lips.

All she could think of was this: would she have to kill this one too?

Turning her back to him, Beatrice took a step towards the exit.

“Leaving so soon? Should we not finally give in to our desires, on this last eve before you head to the Games?”

The man’s name was Pernicus. He had been trying to get under Beatrice’s skirts for an age. And she had been working hard on not falling victim to his good looks and charm for just as long.

Plonking down on the ground, Beatrice took another swig from the wine flagon.

Pleasure. Moaning. Coming. Shaking her head to clear it of the voices, she eyed Pernicus with suspicion. It wouldn’t be long now, until the voices would be silenced and Witches across the realm would revel around her funeral pier, their true faces on display.

Her drunken mind decided to hell with it and crawled towards him. He was indeed beautiful with a strong jawline, sandy hair, and a physique that would rival the Gladiators running around Tereriane. Licking her lips, she stilled. Normally the men were bound and gagged—willing—but contained, in case she slipped, and her enchantment fell. Her mind drifted, wondering what it might be like to have carnal knowledge with somebody who wasn’t bound and blindfolded, lest they see her true face and feel her true nature. Maybe this time she wouldn’t have to kill him?

“Use me however you want,” he groaned, when she dragged the blindfold over his eyes.

Feeling bold, Beatrice gripped his hand and guided it under her dress, leaving her dress on so only her enchanted scars were on display. Once she was ready, with a few swift strokes she ignited her blood, and settled down on his lap, letting him slide inside her with a few gentle thrusts. He let out a growling cry once she was settled on top of him, and more came when she rolled her hips, taking him deeper. Her enchantment began to slip when her own pleasure writhed through her, jolting her into the throes of the beyond. Her hearing became sharper, her eyes seeing more, and the pleasure that rolled through her as infinite as the starlight above. Letting out a guttural moan, Beatrice shuddered.

Pernicus gripped her hips and buried his face in her neck, loosening his seed within her. Resting his head on her chest, he twitched and shuddered until he became still. Stroking his back, Beatrice clung to him for a few more seconds.

“Sorry. If you give me a minute, I’ll be ready to go again.” His words came out a little jumbled, like he was drunk off her scent.

Which he probably was. Leaving her enchantment down for a few seconds more without searing pain coursing through her, Beatrice revelled in the feeling of it. At least until the voice echoed through her mind, clear as a bell.

If she wasn’t going to her doom, I’d ask to marry her and we’d have beautiful Witch babies. I wonder what I could get if I told the Emperor of the Witches plans?

Drawing back from him, she found him staring at her with wide, fanatical eyes.

“You’re F—” he stuttered. His lips were moving this time.

Shoving off him, Beatrice pulled out her sacrificial knife and slit the man’s throat. Her words at the beginning of their liaison coming back to haunt her. Slumping on the ground she wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked gently back and forth. He wasn’t the first person she had ever killed, and wouldn’t be the last, but despair still found her, even if she was admiring how striking he looked, with blood dripping down his chest and his sightless, amber eyes staring at the ground.

She waited a few more minutes to make sure her enchantment was back in place before she exited the thatching. Outside, she found Olivia, her dour face looking ever more morose. She had blood on her hands and dress too.

“Yours died too then?” asked Beatrice.

Staring at the bonfire in the distance, an accusation hidden within them, Olivia’s shoulders slumped. “They always do.”