Page 8 of Up from the Earth

“Well done, Cerri. Only a little further now.” My skin hummed with each syllable uttered by the unseen woman. “Come, little seed.”

I dropped my head, my chin nearly hitting my chest, and sighed. What was happening? This…this was all much more than a simple girl like myself could handle. But there was scarcely any choice. I had to proceed. When a goddess, a demon, or whatever ancient being of power this was asked something of you, it was unwise to refuse them.

Lifting my foot, I put it back down again on the next bit of stone to greet me. As I turned to the left, ready to follow this path wherever it led, I noticed the designs forged into the iron of the window. The intricate work of stained glass was painstaking and involved, and the images created here in a castle outside of the mortal realm were…exquisite.

And unnerving.

Swirling lines and angles painted out the pictures of gnashing jaws, claws, and torn flesh. The wolf was there, hunting through the story told through black and red shapes. But there was more. A woman, a Queen, stalked across the panes, her lengthy hair trailing off to the edges of the window frame. Sumptuous curves graced her form, along with a set of large horns protruding from her head.

Deer? No, no. Antelope. How strange.

Something about seeing her there made my blood warm, a feeling of unprovoked excitement winding through my veins. That was who spoke, the woman whose voice rang through the gargantuan hall, and a part of me…knew her.

“Of course, you know me. Now, come, little seed. I grow impatient.”

A yanking sensation dragged me forward, twisting me around the curve in the hall and pulling me into the depths of this foreboding castle. I could not fight against the momentum that propelled my legs onward, and before I knew I was in a new chamber, the unseen throne of before now present in the center of a massive pool.

The water of the fountain ahead of me, the throne, was glass-still, wholly unmoving, with not so much as a single ripple. There were stained glass windows here as well, dozens of them stacked one on top of the other, reaching up into the stratosphere. In the center of the massive circle—the liquid reflecting the ruby light still omnipresent in this new chamber—sat a throne of black iron and obsidian.

Upon the seat, I could just make out a humanoid shape, though the details were impossible to discern. What I could tell was that the long black locks that had been illustrated in the glass frescos extended out from their head.

It was Her.

“Don’t just stand there. Come close, pet.” Her voice knifed into my brain, compelling me to step up to the very edge of the pool.

It was then that I realized the liquid did not reflect the red light. Itwasred.

Blood.

Before my eyes, the woman appeared to solidify, black tendrils of substance coagulating into the throne until she rose from the chair and stepped down onto the central platform. The trails of her black hair twisted in upon themselves, weaving into two thick braids that dragged behind her as she continued to walk forward. Their ends were still impossible to determine, but still more of her came into focus as I watched, utterly enraptured.

She was nude, each inch of her glowing skin revealed. It was a deep yet pale gray, and the contrast of highlight and shadow was woefully stark. Sensuous curves created the shape of an hourglass, and she was inches taller than I was.

And those horns were even more striking in reality. They stretched at least two feet up from her head, and yet she carried herself like they weighed nothing.

It felt somehow wrong to look upon her like this, and my pulse fluttered against my neck as I fought to avert my eyes from her full breasts, the soft V created by the juncture of her legs. I didn’t want to confront the way her very presence elicited ravenous thoughts in my mind, forbidden inklings of what she might taste like against my tongue making my core clench.

This woman, this Queen, moved achingly slow as she approached me, and I was unable to do anything more than just stand there, hungry for her to reach me and unsure why. My eyes began to roam the space, looking for something to distract myself from the need firing up through my blood.

“And what do you see, little seed?” That deep purr of her voice forced me to answer, and the words tumbled from my mouth like stolen confessions as I described the scenes portrayed in the stained glass.

“Shapes, intimate and raw. They are…” I swallowed, my throat suddenly parched. “...entwined in each other. I can make out your form, imperfectly shown in the black curves of iron running through glass: your breasts, your hips. You are savoring another, unclear and indistinct. They are…erotic.”

Echoing chuckles filled the room, from shining marble floors up to the rafters meters and meters above my head. I shivered, too much sensation pounding in my chest. I couldfeelThe Queen right next to me even as I looked at her, still a handful of feet away. She crossed the slick pool, walking on the surface as if she weighed less than a feather. Only her toes showed the effect of trodding through the red liquid, and my eyes burned for how I had yet to blink.

“And what do you think of them, sweetness?” My stare was fixed to her swaying hips, the way the full curves of them moved as she approached me. “Tell me what I can already see in your mind.”

She still stood at the edge of the pool, but somehow, The Queen’s hands were touching me, tracing lines down the sides of my neck, my arms, across my chest. The touches were like icy tendrils that lingered in my skin like a subtle burn. My breath came in shuddering attempts to get air, and I trembled, goosebumps rippling over my flesh.

“You…How are you…” My words were lost on me, the enormity of these strange reactions overtaking me. “You are beautiful.”

It was the truth, and it was all I could manage to say. The Queen laughed once more, and then she was behind me, leaving me to stare across the crimson pool at the empty seat of obsidian. A massive arch sat behind it, a glowing red light creating the backdrop to her throne.

Soft lips hovered over the crook of my neck, sliding upward until I felt them brush over the shell of my ear. My nerves flared at the intimate touch, my mind calling out for more even as I could not understand why I should want such a thing from someone who could surely kill me with a flick of her wrist.

“Flattery,” every syllable she uttered was perfumed with raw sensuality, “will get you everywhere, little seed. Unfortunately…”

The Queen let the word hang there in the air. I could see it, sense it with every fiber of my being. I was so wholly on the edge of sanity, waiting for her next utterance, literally hanging on her words as I leaned backward into the feeling of her breath on my skin.

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