Vol II, Ch 74 – Who knew that moths could be kinda spooky? I certainly didn’t.

“I want out of here.”

Those were the first words to leave my mouth when I strode into what was apparently Hetkala’s office. Seni agreed to take me to her only after I’d repeated her name several times. She seemed under the impression that a drink of blood would help calm my temper. It took some amount of effort on my part not to scream at her.

At first, I’d planned to just leave the Sanctum on my own. But after parading around, with no idea where I was going and Seni chasing after, I’d eventually relented to this as an alternative. I was sure she’d guessed what I wanted, but refused to help. Besides, there was no telling what other nonsense I was likely to stumble upon in this place once I got lost. The “lounge” may well only be the beginning.

“Already?” The tall moth high priestess raised an eyebrow and glanced over at Seni, who was staring sheepishly down at the floor.

“Yes,” I growled, barely managing to hold my anger in. “In fact, right now, if you would be so kind.”

She hummed, and then in Rhuyi, asked, “What happened?”

Seni fidgeted. “Well, we went to the lounge after I took her to the bath over in the private section of the gardens, and then she, umm, she got really upset and stormed out.”

“‘Upset’ isn’t exactly the word I would use,” I added, glowering at the supposed high priestess.

“I see.” Hetkala tapped her fingers against the desk. “Why the lounge?”

Was she just going to ignore me?

“I-It was Saryn’s idea,” Seni stuttered.

The high priestess sighed. “Ah, yes, one of our troublemakers.”

“I’m right here, you know,” I inserted, leaning over her desk. “You can just ask me. I’m very happy to tell you about it myself.”

“Very well, Aqua. Please tell me what happened from your perspective,” she continued in Rhuyi. Which was ironically appreciated, given what the flower did to my own language. It seemed to not just be my words that it butchered into nonsense but the language itself.

“What happened was that I was kindly led into that whorehouse you’ve very generously dubbed a ‘lounge.’”

“It is not a ‘whorehouse,’” the high priestess insisted, her words making Seni jolt in place. “It’s—”

“I don’t care what you want to call it,” I interrupted. “It was quite clear what was happening in there, and I want no part of it. I’m. Leaving.”

It would prove easier for me if she agreed to let me go, but now that I was here, I was feeling like coming to her office had been a mistake. Telling the high priestess all of this might only make getting out of here more difficult. Not that I would let that stop me.

Plus, it would still feel good to give her a piece of my mind.

She pressed two of her hands together. “I believe I see the issue.”

My expression turned flat.

“You do, do you?” I deadpanned.

“Yes, being from somewhere quite different than here, it makes sense that you might see some things in a rather foreign way.” Hetkala held up another hand to forestall my next protest. “Aqua, what all do you know about the vyxa in our realm?”

I fumed in silence for a long moment, staring daggers at her.

“You must think I’m really stupid, don’t you?” I said in a low voice, before placing a hand against my chest and enacting, “‘Oh, what a poor, dumb little thing. Let me just explain her new place here with the other brainless sluts.’”

“Aqua.” Her words held an underlying threat, expression now twisted into a scowl. I didn’t give her a chance to continue.

“What’s next? You’ll tell me that this is all actually for vyxas’ sexual needs? That all the guests are actually just here for them—for us—or are you going to claim it’s about how we need to drink blood and that all the sex is purely incidental?”

I let out a dark laugh and sneered. “I wonder, is it considered more polite to bite them before or after they’ve shoved a cock up my ass? Or do I need to wait for them to be finished with me first?”

“You aren’t—”

“No. Fuck you!” My hand slammed against the desk. “I don’t want to hear whatever nonsense excuse you’ve got. The other vyxa here might be a bunch of desperate whores ready to suck on the first cock someone…”

Hetkala’s other two eyes opened.

“waves in their…”

And my words trailed off as her wings opened.

Four black pools stared down at me, stretching into wide oceans of darkness. Around us, the room appeared to expand, and her presence shifted to fill it. Despite not moving an inch from her chair, her form towered over me, like a deepening void slowly eating away at reality around us.

My neck bent back, glued to the widening vortex of her eyes that threatened to swallow me. Yet the rest of my body stood frozen, completely locked in place. I couldn’t even blink.

When she spoke, her voice was like a rolling storm that extended far past the horizon.

“I will allow you to think poorly of me and the Sanctum. I’ll even overlook how exceptionally rude you’ve been. But you will NOT talk about your fellow vyxa that way. Am I understood?”

I trembled as the world shook and somehow managed a nod.

Then the pressure faded, and her looming presence shrunk at a leisurely pace, flowing back into her. Reality seemed to reassert itself as her office returned to normal. I sucked in and released a deep breath. Seni steadied me with an arm.

My eyes glanced over to find the girl looking a little shaken, but not nearly as much as I might have expected. Whatever the high priestess did, it seemed to be targeted solely at me.

With great hesitance, I looked back at Hetkala, her four eyes back to normal but not leaving me. I gulped, trying to regain my courage.

“You—you can’t intimidate me into accepting this,” I said, still shaking. “I’m not—I’m not going to become some… some…” I struggled to say the word, still reeling from what she’d done when I’d called all the other vyxa whores.

“I’m not asking you to do anything,” she stated in a voice so pleasant and calm that it felt jarring. “Though I do owe you an explanation of how things work here at the Sanctum.”

I opened my mouth to protest, only for Seni to pull on my robe.

“Just hear her out. Please?” She sounded desperate for the antagonism between us to stop, her eyes pleading.

For a moment, I scowled at her. Seni had been kind to me, but that didn’t mean I wanted to listen to someone spew this nonsense. Still, if it made her happy, perhaps I could indulge whatever explanation the high priestess had before telling Hetkala just how full of shit she was. “Fine. Let’s hear out your ridiculous drivel.”

Hetkala swirled one of her hands. A wisp of color formed over her palm, turning into a miniature red figure that looked suspiciously like me.

“The situation for vyxa in this realm has always been quite precarious.” As she began, the small Ruby looked back and forth nervously while shadows loomed over her from behind. “Your reliance on blood and difficulties in using magic tends to place your kind at the mercy of others. And I’ll be honest, as much as things have changed, they still aren’t great, even here in the Havkh capital. Outside the Sanctum, vyxa are often sold and traded, with little or no say over what happens to them.”

The illusion reformed into a Ruby with white robes. She shyly held her hands together in front of her. “Here within the Sanctum’s protective walls, we do what we can to give you choices. Potential suitors are inquired about before they are allowed in. And yes, while they do pay to come here, they are not paying for sex. They’re paying for the opportunity to court and bond with the vyxa who reside here.”

I frowned as my illusion formed a puffy dress. Then a tall, white moth demon offered her a hand. Tiny Ruby shyly took it, and they began to dance, twirling and skipping around above the high priestess’s palm.

My scowl moved up to Hetkala, eyes narrowing in a lack of amusement at the large bark-colored moth woman. She sighed, and with a wave through it, the illusion disappeared.

“Ah yes.” I scoffed, my voice thick with sarcasm. “It’s so much better here than elsewhere in the city, isn’t it? You have such a wonderful veneer of luxury, after all. I bet the embroidered table cloths do quite well at hiding the vyxa underneath them.” Much as I’d expected, her explanation seemed very much like an excuse, and not a particularly good one. “But why should vyxa have to “court” others in order to get blood? I see no reason why other demons can’t simply donate or sell their blood to the Sanctum instead of this nonsense.” I shook my head, already tiring at entertaining this. “What’s so important about this ‘bond’ and courting hogwash that you’d need to invite others in at all?”

Whatever explanation she gave, I doubted it would be the truth. Because I could already guess at the real answer: money and power.

Her four eyes blinked and then widened. “That makes so much sense. Oh, that explains so much! Of course you wouldn’t know much about bonding. Though, I’m not sure that I am the best person to teach something like this. It’s probably better if one of the vyxa does so.”

Hetkala turned to Seni, causing the girl to jump.

“M-me? But I’m—I don’t think I’m the best one to talk about this.”

The high priestess shook her head, offering her a comforting smile. “On the contrary. I think your unique perspective may be exactly what little Aqua needs in this case.”

“But, I can’t even understand what she’s saying!” Seni argued.

“I’ve got a simple spell that should help with that actually. It doesn’t work nearly as well as the olia flower and only lasts for a few minutes, but it should do for this. The only downside is that it may make you quite nauseous afterward, and you’ll probably need a long nap.”

I’d never heard of a spell that could translate languages. Though I’d never heard of the weird flower in my ear either. I supposed it made sense that demons would have different spells from humans, though.

Then the high priestess paused before adding, “Only if you want to of course. There are plenty of others who would be glad to give her the talk, as it were. And I’ll have to cast it on both of you.”

Seni bit her lip, her eyes flickering between the two of us.

“Well, I suppose I could,” she mumbled and turned to me. “So long as it’s alright with you?”

I shrugged. “Sure. As long as I’m getting some actual answers, I don’t see an issue.”

That was very much a lie. I was more than reluctant to have a spell cast on me, especially by someone like Hetkala. At the same time, I had to assume that if she wanted to afflict me with something against my will, she could just as easily do it without my permission. I also really wanted to learn what all this “bonding” stuff was about.

In fact, so long as Seni didn’t believe in a bunch of nonsense, I trusted her far more than the high priestess to give me the truth.

“Excellent!” Hetkala said with a clap of two hands, while pulling her chair away with another and standing to her feet.

She swirled around the table in a few large steps, and then placed a hand over Seni’s head. I flinched, nearly moving back as another hand rose above me as well. It was one of the annoying things about all these overly large demons—they were far too quick on their feet at times.

Seni brushed some of the long strands of hair over her shoulder before looking up at Hetkala nervously. The vyxa’s small and stubby red horns nearly poked against her hand.

“You’ll probably feel dizzy for a moment, Seni,” the high priestess explained. “Aqua has the flower, which does all the translating on her side of things already. Though let me know if either of you feel anything else strange and I’ll stop, alright? It’s a rather complicated spell, so it will take me a moment or so.”

Seni nodded and Hetkala closed her eyes.

Then the three of us just stood there, and I wouldn’t have thought anything was happening if not for the faces Seni made or the way she had to catch herself from falling over. No chants or flashes of light or anything of that nature. And I didn’t feel a thing except perhaps the slightest flow of mana.

It still made me miss being able to cast things myself.

“And it’s done!” Hetkala exclaimed, breaking the silence.

I started and shot her a glare.

The annoying priestess patted my head. “I’ll not waste any time and just let you two get to it. Feel free to sit down and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll let you both have some privacy and will be back in just a few minutes.”

Then she strode out, leaving the two of us alone. Seni and I turned to each other, our eyes meeting.