Ascent 8 – The Confrontation

When the light faded, Ariadna was gone.

“To me!” Kaya called sharply, kicking the no-longer-moving body of Jaras away from her. Leila was immediately at her side with knives in hand, the tall, strong body of the priest who had underestimated her laying on the ground in the direction she had come with another knife buried the hilt in his eye. A moment later, Jaymes joined them.

Kaya’s heart sang to see him… like the sun emerging from behind the clouds or a rainbow after a storm, but it was nothing compared to the stunned look on her husband’s face. Seeing the woman he loved brought back from the dead was like… it was like the fist that had been squeezing his heart had finally relented and withdrawn to reveal the diamond it had left behind, glistening and shimmering with every twist of fate in this life. Tears, shining more brightly than any gem, glittered on his face… but the man she loved was a soldier, through and through. He didn’t hesitate for more than a second of stunned, raw happiness before he settled his face and sank into a ready stance beside the other two Guardians of the Church. “Where is the goddess?”

“Safe… for now,” Leila answered. She turned to face the swirling dust that Kaya’s impact had kicked up, and saw the moving form of hundreds of soldiers as shadows inside of it. In the sky, the gap in the clouds that Kaya’s siren wings had blasted apart was closing back into grim darkness, but there was still enough light for her to note the dark shapes of Furies heading straight towards them. “Safer than we are, I hope.”

Jaymes did not gainsay her. “We’ll just have to stay alive and trust her. Have you seen Amellisan or Nira?” he asked.

Kaya’s stomach twisted. “No…” she said softly.

“And I think,” the cultured, but somehow greasy, voice of a Priest filtered through the air, “that that is an excellent note on which to begin our negotiations.”

Kaya and Leila both turned to look in the direction of the voice. Without needing to communicate, Jaymes turned the opposite way, putting his back to theirs and watching the others’ side… the well practiced dance of two who had guarded each other’s backs for years. Through the thinning dust, they could catch sight of a heavyset priest standing with a pair of captives.

Amellisan did… not look good. The noblewoman had strength aplenty, but it wasn’t physical and she had been badly beaten, fucked and hurt and kicked and stomped on until she looked more like one cumsoaked bruise with a broken nose and busted lips than an aristocrat. Kaya was fairly sure that the tiny movements from the woman were the rise and fall of her breathing rather than merely the motion of her captor, but she was unresponsive as the priest held her prone form by the white-stained dark hair. In his other arm, pressed tightly against him with his hand on her throat, was Nira. The priestess wasn’t in too much better shape than Amellisan, but where the noblewoman seemed most of the way to unconscious Nira’s eyes were open, bright, and filled with something dangerous. She half-heartedly struggled against the priest’s grip every few seconds, but it was obvious he wasn’t needing to do much to restrain her.

The priest looked down at the corpse of Jaras… and grinned. He spat in the direction of the fallen High Priest. “The king is dead,” he said, looking up with a sneering, greasy smile. “Long live the king.” He met Kaya’s eyes, and a surge of power went with that gaze. “Bow to me.”

Kaya felt her knees weaken, and to her horror she began to do just that. There was a whirling windstorm of a sensation and she suddenly felt like the air itself was ripping at her, pressing her head down with an unseen hand. It pulled at her, pushed at her, pressed at her, squeezed her in an iron grip, all with one thought in mind… OBEY.

She had felt a priest’s Subjugation before. It had been nothing like this. This wasn’t the will of a man beating at her autonomy… that, the Siren felt sure, she would have been able to shrug off. This was no meager subjugation of a priest against a mortal… this was the determination and power and sheer force of personality of Karn himself pressing at her. She was his, that power said… she existed in his domain, took power from his power, and he could command her as easily as a man could fold a sheet of paper. She was helpless before such power.

Only…

Only it hadn’t been Karn’s power that had given her a path back from the land of the dead, had it? While Karn presented himself as the sole God of Fate with dominion over all of Ariadna’s subjects… if that were true, she wouldn’t be here. Filling her mind with thoughts of Ariadna, Kaya began to fight.

The pressure built on her mind, and Kaya let it do so… let it compress her, letting herself shrink down inside her mind and become small as her will hardened into a tiny diamond… her ego and determination surrounded by a smooth, shimmering wall that she held the image of in her mind. She hadn’t meant it to look like the walls of the great temple, but it did… redoubts and crenelations and towers and gates of glistening diamond, bright ivory, and shining gold. That fortress she filled with all the power she had… every memory of being loved, every triumph she had had against the forces of darkness, every time Jaymes had laughed or smiled or touched her and the nights they had had together… all surrounded the gem of truth that she based her life around. That Ariadna was her goddess and that she was true and worthy of the love and sacrifice.

Then the power struck it like a tsunami against the coast.

There was a hideous, crushing impact and then a raking sensation of pressure against the psychic wall of her will. It was easy to imagine the dark pressure as scraping talons slicing against the smooth walls of her determination, probing, pressing, seeking weaknesses in her determination and belief and surety. When it didn’t find any, instead it began to press down uniformly… a single, incredible weight as if the world had suddenly decided to sit upon her.

And the pressure just kept building, and building, and building. With any crack, any weakness, it would force her open. Any gap and it would squeeze through and pop her shell like an egg, the pressure instantly ripping her will to shreds. The will of a god would not be denied.

But Kaya’s belief in Ariadna was stronger. Karn had no power over her soul… and rage as he liked, he could not touch her. She was free.

The power was gone as quickly as it had come… and while Kaya felt like she had been fighting the pressure for hours, not even a full second had passed. The siren wobbled on unsteady knees for an instant, but stabilized… and she did not kneel. The priests – Skyvus, she knew now – flinched like he had been slapped.

“No.” Kaya said firmly.

Skyvus hissed through his teeth, a snarl bubbling up. “It appears,” he said at last, trying to look as if he hadn’t just lost the initial struggle between them, “that you have a problem. You are in the middle of an army… and the Furies come for you, winged one. Your rebellion against your Master is about to end very poorly. But… it seems you are in luck because you have something I want.”

His gaze flickered over to the dead High Priest. “I want his chair. You want the Furies not to rip you to tiny pieces. We can help each other. Bow to me, now. Surrender. Your fallen goddess has abandoned you. If I can resolve this little incident before Karn’s servants get here to do it, then its my triumph… and you won’t be massacred by murderous demigods. Or…” he shook Nira a little bit. “You can be stubborn and refuse. And these two cunts won’t even last until the Furies get here… I’ll kill them myself, right here, and right now.”

He smiled at Kaya. “Choo-”

Nira suddenly drove her heel into the bridge of his foot with every bit of strength she had. “Murderer!” She screamed over the shrill shriek that the priest let out, and she lifted her foot and stomped again in the same spot. He dropped the knife from nerveless fingers before they curled into a claw and went for her throat. “I didn’t kill those people, you di- Gack!”

“You little fucking slut!” Skyvus growled, his teeth clenched in a rictus of pain. “I knew you were nothing but a dumb piece of fuckmeat the first time I laid eyes on you, and… and…”

He fell.

The knife wobbled in his forehead where Leila had thrown it, and before Skyvus had even hit the ground, the army surrounding them roared and was charging towards the small knot of defenders.

Kaya lowered her weight. Survive. Hold out and survive, a little longer. That was all they had to do.

She hoped.

The bright light that surrounded Ariadna finally faded after what felt like a subjective eternity. When the goddess opened her eyes, letting them adjust to the celestial glow that was her home, her heart filled with elation at being back here… back in the place she belonged. Ariadna had scarcely dared to hope that she would ever reach this point, that she would ever return to the heavens… but with the help of her friend, she had done it.

The help of her friends… that were in dire need of help of their own. There was no time to waste at all – Every moment spent in awe of where she was would be a moment that her friends were in peril.

Ariadna clutched the Scroll of Destiny in her hand, so tight that she feared she might crush it. She had no idea how to make it work, but the story of how she had come to possess it should be evidence enough. She would present her tale to Teilin and…

At the thought, her mind reached out, immediately and instinctively, casting her awareness through the heavens. The Father of the Gods’ presence glowed like the sun even in the radiance of the heavens, he was utterly unmissable, and… and he was not here.

For the first time in her memory, Teilin wasn’t here in the heavens.

Every assumption she had over how this would go vanished. Ariadna, for years, had been sure that if she could prove that she was innocent to Teilin, that if she could prove that Karn was the one who had broken the world, that he would make everything right. That if she could show him the truth he would fix everything… and she wouldn’t have to… wouldn’t have to…

Confront her brother again.

Her skin crawled, remembered what it had been like. The powerlessness. The exhaustion. The humiliation and weakness and disgrace as he had taken all of her, made her body into little but a set of holes for his amusement. With his cruelty and his will and his hard cock he had turned her into something… lesser. Reduced her to something small and unimportant and disposable.

She hadn’t thought she would need to face that monster again, not alone. But Teilin was gone, her friends were in danger, and all she had was this worthless fucking scroll. A piece of destiny in her hands and she just couldn’t make it work. Ariadna swallowed… then narrowed her eyes. Fine. If she couldn’t make the scroll work, if she couldn’t rewrite destiny herself, she knew someone who would know. She would find her brother and force him to tell her how to make it work.

The heavens had changed… her brother’s twisted mind warping the pristine kingdom that had built in the ether into a labrynth of black basalt and granite rather than smooth marble and polished limestone, but it was still eerily familiar. Looking around, she could feel Karn’s power… a throbbing hum in the air, a vibrating feeling like the thrum of a millstone at work. That was where she would find Karn.

Ariadna ran.

There was no time. Down below, her followers were still alive… but not all of them were fighting the good fight anymore. She could sense it all… A sixth sense that told her the status of all of them. The Furies had arrived. Jaymes was still up, still fighting, but only the confusion and isolation kept him so… he was hiding from the Furies, striking out at any opportunity. Ariadna saw the grim instruction from his wife that… that the Furies would simply murder him if they subdued him. That she, and the other women, were bait. Even so, his strength was beginning to wane, growing more tired and less hopeful with each breath. He would soon fall to the sword of one of the soldiers or another if she did not hurry, and if a Fury caught him in the open… it was over.

Amelisan and Nira had been effortlessly recaptured… and Ariadna’s skin rippled with disgust as she felt them being raped. It had begun with soldiers and priests, but now several Furies were entertaining themselves with their captives, laughing and hissing as their fangs flashed. Even as she cast her thoughts out, she could feel as Leila was forced to her knees, Eve’s will pressing against her, driving her down like a nail stuck by a hammer. Only Kaya fought still, unmolested and untouched… but she was surrounded by nearly two dozen of Karn’s Furies now and Ariadna could feel the mocking, playful tone to their fighting. The battle was decided… they were just toying with her at this point, moving slow to prevent any injury… the Siren had nowhere to go even if she was willing to abandon her friends to their fates. One person against an army of demigods didn’t stand a chance, even if that one person was a Siren. The situation looked grim. She knew that she had to find her brother to end this as quickly as possible.

The cries of anguish and pain of her followers reached Ariadna’s ears even here in her celestial home. She stormed through the hallowed halls until she came to the main chamber, a place where the sun didn’t shine and the shadows seemed longer and darker than even the shade should cause… and it was there she found her brother.

Karn sat on a throne, casually relaxed with hands crossed together in his lap. He looked… bigger… than the last time she had seen him. Taller. Wider. More muscular. Gorged with the power of worship. The number of her brother’s worshipers at his command had doubled or even tripled since the last time they had come face to face, and that worship translated into strength. Even blind, misplaced faith like that which fools put into their God of Misfortune. Pain and suffering and misfortune did not give you strength.

Ariadna stood on the side of righteousness and good fortune. She knew what was best for the world. Descending into madness and chaos and misery was not how the world was meant to operate. A world without suffering, a world of kindness, was how things were supposed to be.

“I really didn’t think,” Karn said, his voice an amused drawl, “that you would be foolish enough to come back.”

With the scroll gripped in her hand, Ariadna pointed it at Karn. “You are going to show me how to work this scroll and turn everything back the way it was!”

Karn smiled. “How should I know how to use your stolen scroll,” he said past his grinning teeth. “This is the world you made, sister. Your weakness. Your pathetic nature. Is that why you stole it, sister? Were you tired of being so pathetic? Did you long to be stronger, instead?”

Ariadna growled. “You tricked me… you had me punished for something you orchestrated. I know your Furies had my priestess steal it.”

He smiled wider. “Prove it,” he said, slowly flexing first one arm, then the other… stretching out.

“I will not stand idly by while the world descends into chaos and ruin!” Ariadna was mad, but she had every right to be. Banished from her home, sent to live with mortals, made to endure unspeakable acts and almost killed in the process. “I am going to fix it!”

Karn placed his hands together with his fingertips tapping together. A wicked grin crossed his face and then he began to laugh… maniacal, cruel laughter. He grabbed a goblet nearby, drinking deep, and then threw the mostly empty thing across the room to spill at her feet. “You would dare to make demands of me, dear sister?” His voice was full of scorn. “You’re pathetic. You were always pathetic, but now you’re even lesser than you ever were. You have nothing!” He rose to his feet. “Your worshipers have dwindled until they are no more. The last vestiges of your faith are disappearing at this very moment. Your powers have diminished. I’m frankly surprised you even found a way to return here. You have nothing, you are nothing! No one to defend you. No one to protect you and no one to lend you power. You make demands of me, but I hold all the pieces. The power is mine. I have more followers than you. I have father’s trust and soon, I will have you exactly where I want you. Strength is the only law, sister… and you have none. When your life is extinguished, the world will be mine and there is nothing you can do to stop it!”

Arianda braced herself as he shifted his weight… and then the God of Misfortune moved. White wings fluttered behind him as he approached in a rush, and it was like the world slowed down. Ariadna could see everything, could follow every movement of foot after foot after foot, but her reaction felt so slow… like a child could catch her. The distance between them vanished in no time at all and Karn’s hand landed on Ariadna’s slender throat hard enough to drive her backward. His fingers closed around her neck and he easily lifted her off of the ground as he kept moving, driving her back hard until her feet dangled off the floor, kicking out at him before he drove her into, and through, one of the basalt pillars. Her fingers grappled at his hand, grabbing to breathe, but it felt like she needed the force of both hands and arms to make him budge a single finger, and she was struggling to breathe!

So strong…

With a sudden jerk of his wrist, Karn tossed his sister across the room. Ariadna slid across the floor, coughing as she fetched up hard against one of the walls, rolling to a painful stop. Her hand reached up to grip her sore throat, her breath ragged, but she still tilted her face to stare daggers at her brother. He may have everything, but Ariadna had will and determination. She would win this fight and set things right.

Rising from the floor, she let a deep breath escape from her lungs. Her hands gripped into fists at her side, and bright balls of burning flame surrounded them. Raising her hands, she tossed the burning flame at her brother.

Karn, of course, saw the attack coming. Snarling with contempt, he crossed his hands in front of himself, effortlessly warding the blaze away… the flames that were the hottest she could manage barely singed the hairs on his arm… but the huge block of basalt she had tossed at him the moment he had obstructed his own view did more. The block, large enough to crush a wagon and shatter building, hit Karn like a hammer… but as it drove him back, Ariada realized with horror that it was slowing down. Karn had caught it… the momentum had driven him backwards, but never enough to lose control.

He laughed as he stared her down. “Your paltry magic tricks won’t get rid of me that easily.” He held his hands up in the air, fingers spread out. “Let me show you how it’s done.” Lightning flashed between the tips of his fingers to one another, and that was the only warning he gave before it went crackling through the air, arcing toward the blonde goddess. Too fast. She was unable to brace properly for it… she barely had time to summon power and widen her eyes before she felt the raw energy burn through her veins and she screamed.

Ariadna fell down onto her knees, gasping for breath.

Too strong…

Down below on the surface, Kaya fought off a group of Furies and Karnites that were flanking her. The Furies were being cagey… they knew that she had killed Raska. She was going to have no opportunity to get lucky again… they let soldiers fight and tie, wearing her out, pinning her down so that they could make quick attacks. They had not gotten the better of her yet, but it was slow, teasing process of subduing her, and each second they grew closer. Not yet, though. Her feather were hard as iron and sharp as knives, and she could still swing the stolen Karnite blade in her hand… and as long as she could stand, she would fight.

She didn’t know where Jaymes was, but she didn’t think he was dead… she couldn’t think about it. She also couldn’t try to get to him… drawing attention to her husband could be a death sentence right now. Kaya attempted to get close enough to one of the others so she could assist them, could strike the priests or soldiers from their helpless bodies – even one more hand during this battle might be enough to turn the tide in their favor – but the Furies wouldn’t let her move… they only fought hard to keep her right where she was.

Thus far, luck was not on her side. She would fend off a few soldiers of the church only to take a few weakening blows from a Fury who would retreat before she could counter. Then those fallen soldiers would be replaced by more. The number that kept coming after her seemed like it would never end. She huffed through her gritted teeth, her hand gripping so tightly to her sword that her knuckles were whiter than her pale wings. She could only pray that Ariadna would find a way to save them before it was too late.

Ariadna could feel the pain of her friends, could feel Kaya’s desperation and her hopeless struggle. She could see it all. They were either fighting bravely or being taken advantage of by Karn’s forces. Leila, a proud assassin, had been overcome by Karn’s men and was being raped by them… the priestess Eve sitting on her face, smothering her with her pussy while her lover fucked the girl. She struggled against her captors, attempting to get free, and Ariadna felt certain that if she were able to free herself, then the Karn soldiers and priests that were around her would pay the price… but the Inquisitors holding her down were no fools and no weaklings. They certain didn’t intend to gurgle to death on their own blood because they let the assassin finish them.

Amelisan didn’t have any fighting prowess whatsoever. She had a fighting spirit, but she had been badly hurt, and with her lack of knowledge about fighting and battle tactics she didn’t stand a chance against the soldiers. Her pain and anguish resonated through Ariadna’s heart as she was taken, made airtight by a trio of Furies eager to violate the vulnerable noblewoman.

Ariadna also saw the fate of Nira. Her most loyal priestess that tried to keep faith in her religion alive. Her faith burned like a torch in the dark night of the world now… Ariadna felt her bravery, the firmness of her belief, the realization that she was a priestess and that those who had been harmed by her deception weren’t by her hand but by Karn’s. In better time, that faith could fuel miracles that would move mountains… but Ariadna had nothing to answer that belief with at the moment. Nothing to send to help her and get the Fury out from between her legs.

The only thing that could stop this carnage and bring this to an end was… her. Ariadna knew that they were all depending on her to restore order, to protect them. They had risked everything, for years, for a decade, to keep the faith, to protect her followers, and to protect her personally. Now, it was up to her to justify their faith. They were depending on her.

Karn was strong… but she couldn’t lay down in the face of that.

Gathering her strength back into herself, Ariadna turned to a nearby wall and grabbed one of the ornamental swords that Karn kept there. She lifted the sword in front of her. If her magic wasn’t powerful enough to stop Karn, she would stop him through brute force. Anger for what had happened to her followers boiled through her veins. Even now, the torment and tribulations of her followers strengthened her resolve. She took a deep breath as she squared off against her brother.

Karn laughed. “Paltry thing. Give up. Spread your legs like a good little girl… it’s what you’re good for.” He stepped closer. “I have razed your temples. Stolen your followers and your faith. Enslaved your priestesses and your Sirens. You have nothing, sister. I have it all… except you. And now… you have been kind enough to return yourself to me.”

Ariadna lifted the sword. “You may have taken everything from me. Destroyed my temples. Turned my followers against me. Banished me from my home…” she swallowed. “But you do not control me, brother… and you never will. I will always stand up to you. Whenever your cruelty, your evil, rears its ugly head, I will be there to chop that head off. No matter how many times it takes, good will prevail.”

Laughing as he brought his hands together and just… sort of… willed… a sword into existence between them, Karn shook his head. “That is where you are wrong, sister. Your defeat at my hand will only be sweeter when I show you the last remnants of your rebel forces being destroyed by my armies. You will fall this day… and your torment will be completed by my hand. Defiled, disgraced, and ruined… you will know true agony before you slip into despair and die.”

Standing before each other, they charged toward the other with swords drawn. The cold metal blades connected and the sound that their impact made rang like a bell, clarion clear through the basalt halls. The impact made Ariadna’s fingers instantly go numb as she pulled the side, moving through the steps of a sword fight. The clash of the metal rang out again as she parried once, twice, three times. “Do you even know what you’re doing, sister?” Karn mocked. “Do you even know which end is sharp?”

“This one!” she snarled, thrusting forward. A decade on the run had taught her plenty. Further, short term training under Kaya had taught her more. None of it was enough. Ariadna was determined to win, but Karn’s sword was too strong for her. His strength surpassed her own. Karn moved effortlessly around the thrust, spinning his blade up and over her stab in an elegant parry, and when he pulled up the leverage was greater than she could match… her sword came free of her numb hands, flying across the room to embed deep in a column.

With no weapon to defend herself, Ariadna stagged back and away from her brother… not quickly enough. His left hand grasped her around the throat, squeezing so tightly she felt her eyes were going to pop out of her skull. “You may think that hope and justice prevail in the end. That good always prevails over evil. You are sorely mistaken dear sister. It is not justice, or fortune, that shapes the world… it is strength. People suffer and so are strong… and strength is the first virtue. Without strength, nothing else you value matters. Let me demonstrate to you what really happens to people with such ideals, and no strength to defend them.”

Karn brought his hand down, ripping through Araidna’s celestial gown. His hand gripped at the fabric beneath her breasts and simply tore the garment from her body in an instant like an excited boy unwrapping a gift. The goddess’s firm, bare breasts jiggled freely with the motion and her prim, tight, still virginal-looking pussy was exposed to her brother’s lecherous gaze. With his firm hold on her throat, Ariadna could do nothing to stop him. He forced her down onto the floor, knocking the wind out of her lungs. She gasped for breath, and her eyesight blacked out momentarily from the impact. Her head ached from the force of the blow… he had tossed her down hard enough to crack the stone beneath her.

When her vision came back, she saw Karn standing over top of her. He had removed his pants to reveal his monstrous cock to her gaze. She gasped when she saw it again… if anything, it was larger and crueler and harder than she remembered. There was no doubt, none at all, as to what he was planning to do, and she would rather die than let it happen again.

Ariadna scrambled across the floor, sliding backward with her feet and scooting her rear along the rough ground. She let out a shriek, trying to get away from him. She hoped that one of the other gods or goddesses would hear her and come running to her aid. She hoped that Taelin would return and set things right… but Ariadna was clearly not going to be afforded such a luxury. With no one to come to her aid, she rolled over onto her stomach and righted herself onto her hands and knees. Her only choice was to run. Run someplace else in her home. Hide until she had the strength to fight off her powerful brother.

Before she could even finish scrambling to her feet, however, Karn had grabbed her by the ankles. He dragged her almost prone form toward him. With his hands repositioned onto her hips, she felt his cock glide across her pussy lips. “No!” she yelled. “Get off of me!” Not this, not again… could he take what was left of her power? Could he steal the rest of her forever?

Her brother’s cock tip rubbed over her pussy lips several times before he spoke. “You have been a pain in my side for too long, sister… but your body is always a delight. I’m going to enjoy this, Ariadna… I will enjoy it as I wring every last bit of pleasure out of your life before I end it. You will know true sorrow and anguish. I’ll let you watch the last vestiges of your faith crumble before your eyes while I take the last remnants of your pride. Then, when your last follower has died, you will understand at last what it means to suffer for your strength before I kill you.”

With the last word spoken, his cock head pressed firmly on her labia lips. His huge cock spread her nethers apart before it pushed inside, forcing itself into her dry, tight channel through sheer unyielding strength. Ariadna groaned at being stretched out by her brother’s cock once more, pressing her divine body apart with enough force that a mortal form would have ripped apart. His huge shaft pressed into her, invading her deeply. Arianda clenched her hands into fists, trying to think of any way she could turn the tide in her favor. Alas, the poor, defiled goddess could not find a solution that was favorable toward her.

With his hands on her hips, Karn thrust into her rapidly. His cock plunged deeply through her tight passage. He was so big and it hurt so badly… Her hands flattened out on the floor, beating on it as he took her. Karn only laughed at her struggles to take his cock into her body. He had no mercy for her… his eyes were filled only with contempt and lust in the depth of his violence and brutality. His cock plunged into her depths, slamming into her from behind hard enough that he was driving her across the floor, and the loud sounds of his hips smacking up against her ass cheeks echoed through the great room. Ariadna’s pleas for him to stop fell on deaf ears… Karn was enjoying himself as he raped his sister and greatest rival, beating her down once again. She had been here before… so strong once, and he had tamed her even then. Once again, Karn forced her to endure the pain and suffering of rape by his hand. Her breasts swung underneath her body, low enough that her nipples scraped against the rough stone.

Karn laughed as he felt her pussy clenching on his cock, desperate to squeeze him out, desperate to resist and completely hopeless in doing so. His hands slid up her back before he gripped into her long blonde hair and tugged her head backward. Ariadna had to arch her head back, her spine turning in a sharp curve as she was yanked against her rapist. Her mouth hung open, making pathetic, wet moans and whimpers and grunts as he raped her hard enough to drive the air from her lungs with each thrust.

“Oh dear sister, how I’ve missed you!” Karn mocked with laughter. “It was so nice of you to come back. I would have been content to give you to my Furies, or perhaps to the High Priest as a reward for exterminating the last of your faithful… but this is so much better to finish it myself. I can feel how you squeeze me, you filthy slut… You’ve missed this, didn’t you? You like the pain and the humiliation. You wanted this all along. Is that why you came back with more strength? You wanted me to fuck it out of you again?” He drove his hips forward hard enough to crush her to the ground even as he yanked hard on her hair, bending her unnaturally far, dragging his tongue across her tear-streaked cheek. “Suffer for me…” His hand released her hair and thrust her head toward the ground. A sharp sting of pain went through her ass cheek when Karn slapped her bottom with his hand. He wasn’t gentle about it, either… he hit her hard enough that her entire body shook, and she was certain if he had hit one of the walls of the temple that hard it would have collapsed.

Karn returned his hands to her hips, thrusting deep into her cunt with each stroke. Every push of his cock felt like it put another inch of that monstrous beast into her, even though her pussy had long since run out of room to give and he had run out of inches… each thrust felt like he was raping an untouched piece of her anyway. Her pussy ached so badly from being violated by her brother’s cock. Ariadna closed her eyes, praying that this would end soon. Her thoughts went to her friends still fighting for their lives. She could do nothing to help them now.

Ariadna felt each of their plights. She knew the pain and suffering that they felt. Feeling their suffering and having her own bestowed upon her at the same time was a double-edged sword. She wasn’t only fighting for her life but for that of everyone. Ariadna wanted to find a way out of this. Some magic words or phrase that would make her brother repent his ways. Give her control over everything once more. Karn was too mad with power to give up now. He had all the power. Everything was stacked in his favor and why would he give up his newfound power just because the sister that he despised asked him to? And the scroll… the scroll was worthless. It did nothing!

Karn thrust his cock into her rapidly. His hands smacked across her ass again and again, hard enough to drive spikes into stone… each strike spreading crimson and purple, ugly bruises across her perfect skin. With each whimper of pain she let escape her lips she felt his cock swelling within her pussy. It pulsed readily as it pressed deep into her folds, eager and pleased, and she cried out in despair as she knew what was coming. Then Karn let out a loud, triumphant groan as his cock unloaded inside of her. Warm jets of his hot semen flooded into her pussy. The hot sticky cream pushed into every crevice of her perfect folds until it flowed back out to drip across her splayed-out legs.

Pulling his cock out of Ariadna, the flood of his cum flowed out of her pussy more readily… dripping down to the dark, cracked stone. Karn slapped her ass cheek again before violently pushing her over onto her side. His hands grabbed onto her hips, rolling her onto her back. His massive frame hovered over her as he positioned his cock between her legs once more. This time, Karn’s body lowered over her. His cock pressed over her pussy lips but then with his hands on her he shifted Ariadna’s position, moving is cock further down until the head of his shaft was pressed between her ass cheeks. Ariadna’s eyes widened at feeling his massive cock head pressing against her ass… it felt hot and unyielding and sharp, like a forge-heated sword, newly crafted, ready to be quenched inside her vulnerable tight body.

Before she could protest, she felt his hand around her throat, pushing her against the cold floor. His slimy, lubricated cock thrust forward, pressing deep into her bottom. Her ass burned with the invasion of his cock into her asshole. She clenched her teeth, bringing her hands up to grip onto his arm. The goddess clawed against his wrist in an attempt to get him to let go of her… and Karn laughed at her struggles. His free hand raised up to smack across her face. She felt the burning sting of his hand slapping her skin hard enough that teeth nearly flew free. Her vision almost went black again from the blow, and Ariadna had to blink several times to regain her senses. The slap had made her stop struggling against him. Karn’s cock stretched her sphincter wider with more of his cock pressing into her bottom. She hissed at the pain. Her legs clenched around his hips, trying to push him off of her.

Her brother was too strong for her… he was unstoppable, invincible, all powerful. His body hovered over her and he forced his cock to push through her tight squeezing bottom, breaking through her resistance and plumbing her depths in an instant no matter how she squeezed. In fact, her fighting seemed only to give him pleasure. He growled with lust and delight at the tight, squirming, resisting hole that she was giving him to rape as, one slam downward at a time, he forced her body to accept the rape and relent to the sexual sadism of the dominant god.

“I forgot how tight you were,” Karn said, delighted, a cruel smile on his face. “If you cooperate and be a good whore for me… if you promise to keep building up a bit more power that I can steal from your slutty body, I may just keep you around as a fuck slave. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Being the God of Fate’s little rapetoy for the rest of time?”

“Does that sound good? Beg… and I might just keep you.”

Ariadna whimpered. “I… I’ll do it…” she choking out, her pride feeling like it was shriveling up and dying. But… he was too strong. She had come back here, eager to regain her place… and she was just as outmatched as before. He was too swollen with power… he couldn’t be stopped. “Just spare them! Spare my followers. Let them go… and I’ll be yours. Your little fucktoy for the rest of eternity. I’ll… I’ll disavow myself before all of them. Tell everyone who still believes in me that I’m a lying whore-goddess, and that you’re the true God of Fate. Spare them, and I’ll be yours forever!”

She wished that she was lying. She wished that she was only pretending to submit to deceive him. But right now, she could see no other way out. Her followers… her friends, had spent the last decade suffering for her, and if sacrificing herself was the only way to protect them, then she would do what she must for their sake.

For just an instant, Karn slowed his thrusts. Then, without warning, he punched her in the face, hard enough to drive the back of her head into the stone as he continued raping her. “You really are a dumb cunt, Ariadna. You actually believed that. You think I would keep you around to murder me when I wasn’t looking? To betray me and possibly usurp me? You think I would let a cancer like your pathetic followers fester in my great world?” He shook his head. “You think your worthless body is worth that much to me? No… this is the end for you, sister. Enjoy serving your only purpose in this life one last time before I finally end your miserable existence.”

Dizzy as she was, Ariadna only knew that even that one, last attempt to save the lives of the people she loved, the people who had trusted her, had failed.

It was not long before she felt the familiar swell of his cock deep in her clenching ass. He had stretched her rear tunnel out to make it monstrously painful for her to move inside it, but that hadn’t stopped him from fucking her with all the tenderness of a farmier driving a fencepost into the stubborn earth. The veins of his thick cock pulsed with need before he climaxed once more… his hateful prick slamming deep into her ass to empty another full load of cum into her.

Ariadna wept for her failure, wept for her disgrace, wept for her pain… but most of all, she wept because this was the end. No other chances. Nothing else to try. It was over. She thought that any second now she would die… that his rape and humiliation of her body would end after he had fucked her twice. She would now die by his hand. Surprised shock crossed her face when he pulled his cock out of her ass and then repositioned it at her pussy lips once again.

Karn leaned over top of Ariadna, putting his hands directly on her throat. His cock head pressed on her pussy lips to spread them open. Her body couldn’t resist him. That cock spread her pussy wide, popping back into her snug pink depths. “This is it, dear sister. The last thing you will ever feel is going to be my cum flowing into you as I choke the life from your body. You’ll die like you lived… a shit-stained, worthless cumdump, struggling for life but too weak to claim it. Your body may even give you one last orgasm before you slip from this world… it certainly will give me one.” He smiled at her as he rubbed his filthy dick over her entrance. “Don’t worry about your friends… I will make sure to take care of them for you. Most of them will die… but if one or two of them live, they will pray to me every day for their lives to end long before it does, I promise you that.”

That cock thrust into her again, pushing her pussy wide to accept it. Ariadna scrambled on the floor, feeling her breath waning from her lungs as the air grew stale inside her. Karn’s fingers pressed tightly to her throat to choke her and his cock slammed into her pussy repeatedly, ramming into her over and over again. Her hand slapped onto the ground a few times before reaching up to grab onto Karn’s wrists. She tried with all of her strength to loosen his grip on her neck.

Karn laughed at her feeble attempts to free herself. When her fingernails dug too deep into his skin, he released one hand on her throat to slap her across the face. The temporary shock of being slapped was enough to get Ariadna to stop struggling as much. She knew that this was the final moments of her life though and she would not go down without a fight. Resisting through all odds is what she knew best. She had not lived all these years to simply go out with a whimper. As much as her brother choked her neck and slapped her, she couldn’t let it end here. His hips kept slamming forward to thrust his cock deep into her pussy. She could feel every inch of his cock sliding into her… the warm feeling of his shaft pressing into her body… the veiny ridges of his cock pulsed with his need to orgasm once more.

Ariadna kept tugging at his wrists, but he was too powerful to dislodge from her. He noticed the resistance, but only enough to beat her down. It was, perhaps, a marginally less pathetic display than last time, she supposed… by the end last time, she had been as weak as a newborn kitten, a mewling, whimpering victim for Karn to do with as he pleased as he drained her dry of all her power.

Because, she realized, of course she was. Taelin’s new scroll was back in its place. Ariadna wanted to laugh. The Scroll of Destiny was useless. It wasn’t an instrument to change fate at all… it was a barrier to keep fate from changing. With the magic of it back in effect, the balance of power couldn’t change again… it was in stasis. She could grow no stronger or weaker, and he could take no further power from her. She was able to hold back his hand, barely, because…

It hit her like a thunderbolt.

Because she was stronger than she was at the end before. She had been cast out of the heavens weak, drained of nearly all her power… and she had returned with some of it restored. That power hadn’t come from Karn… it had come from elsewhere. It had come from caring about her followers, living their lives, seeing how they hurt. It came from fearing for their wellbeing, caring about their losses, dealing with adversity to protect her followers. It came from making sacrifices and hard choices, it came from learning, more and more, who and what Ariadna was and what she meant to people. Suffering… misfortune… had given her strength.

Maybe her brother wasn’t quite as wrong as she had always assumed.

Karn, who had barely noticed her prying hands and desperate struggles, suddenly flinched as if struck. “What…?” he gasped, eyes wide. “What did you just do?”

He had felt it. He had felt it when things clicked into place for Ariadna. They weren’t two different outlooks on the world. They were who sides of a coin, constantly spinning. Twin forces that were in opposition but required balance, not extermination. Two ideas that were supposed to struggle against each other. Misfortune had purpose… to bring strength. But strength, itself, had purpose as well. To shield others from misfortune. To make the world the better place that Ariadna desired.

For that second, she almost pitied Karn. So filled with hate… He would never understand.

His eyes hardened. “Die you simpering slut!” he howled. He began to rape her again, harder than before, choking her more firmly to ensure she was completely denied oxygen. “It’s time to end this!”

Ariadna, oddly, didn’t fear the coming end. She knew regret, true… but this wasn’t an ending. She was sure of that now. Karn didn’t understand, would never understand, and it couldn’t end without that understanding. Her followers, though… he would make good on his promises. They would suffer, and suffer, and suffer… and she couldn’t allow that.

They had demonstrated they had strength enough.

Her right hand returned to the ground, slapping across the floor to look for anything that could help her. She could only feel the tattered remains of her dress as Karn’s cock pushed deep into her pussy with a final thrust. The blonde goddess felt the warm pulse of his cock flooding his seed into her body once more. For just an instant, swallowed by his orgasm, Karn released the death grip on her neck just a smidge, and that tiny relief allowed Ariadna to breathe. Sweet air filled her lungs. Her hands scrambled all around her, looking for anything that could help her.

Her fingers closed around the Scroll of Destiny where it lay on the floor. The tight bundle of parchment was wrapped tightly around a spindle of wood, a tiny end of it protruding out from either end. Something older than them. Something firm, and hard, and real.

And not so useless at all.

Ariadna changed her destiny.

With all of her strength, Ariadna stabbed the scroll upward. The sharp point on the end of the scroll pierced through Karn’s left eye, blinding him. He immediately howled, furious curses pouring from his throat by the thousands as he pulled back his hand from her throat.

Ariadna pulled the scroll away, watching the blood drip from the parchment. Karn stumbled back from her, falling down onto his knees briefly. His hands covered over his face as he cursed. “You bitch! You weak, pathetic, miserable little WHORE! I WILL KILL YOU FOR THIS!” He yelled at his sister. The blood coursed down from his eye, streaking across his cheek.

It wasn’t over. Ariadna, naked, abused, gasping, rose to her feet… holding the scroll in one hand like it was a knife as she backed away from her brother. Her lungs slowly filled with the life giving air that she desperately needed. Things were starting to look up for her now. She had at least given herself a temporary reprieve from her brother’s murderous wrath, but… that wasn’t going to last long with the fury she could feel boiling off her twin.

With the loss of his eye, he snarled like an animal as he rose from the floor, his left hand clutched over the socket. His one good eye had a look of hatred and disdain. His facial expression bespoke of great rage and anger. His head turned, looking around the room for the closest weapon that he could find.

Near the back wall with the weapons, Ariadna grabbed another sword. She held it out in front of her, prepared to defend herself from her brother’s onslaught. Covered in his semen and blood, she still had fight left in her. Her left hand clutched the scroll tightly with her right hand gripping the sword and facing it toward Karn… and the scroll was glowing in her hand.

Karn’s blood didn’t stain the paper. Instead, it seemed to be being absorbed into it… a shining golden aura emanated from the scroll, filling the room. This was it! She didn’t know how to activate it before, but blood was the answer. The destiny of everyone flowed through their blood. Blood was the key… his blood, and hers.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” Karn raged, stomping towards her as Arianda wrapped her hand around the blade of her sword, sliced it open, and gripped the scroll in one bloody hand.

“You don’t understand, brother,” Ariadna said sadly. “We’re not enemies. We’re one… one idea, turned against itself.”

“Fuck you!” he howled, charging forward as the glow became brilliant.

With the scroll gripped in her hand, she unraveled it… paying no attention to the furious, charging god intent on her murder. “Time to do what I was accused of doing,” Ariadna said firmly, holding the glowing scroll in both hands, “and shatter the bonds the fate!”

And Ariadna pulled in two different direction at once, and the ancient, nearly invincible artifact, infused by the blood of both gods of fate, ripped like vellum.

A bright flash of light burst from the sundered scroll, forming a brilliant shockwave of magical energy that knocked both of them flat on its way to radiate out through the whole world. Every single person, young and old, wise and foolish, felt it… no matter who they worshipped, no matter what they believed. Everybody in the world felt this new change in their destiny, the way the bonds of fate snapped to accommodate Ariadna’s actions. A world of pain and misfortune… but a world where they would be teachers, not destroyers. A world where wisdom would bring prosperity, and kindness could thrive.

Karn yelled out in rage and horror and pain. “NOOOO!!!” He leapt at Ariadna, attempting to grab the tatters of the scroll away from her. His hands held out in front of him, grabbing for the scroll. She tossed the ruins of the artifact across the room and out of his reach even as her other hand raised the sword she held, sinking it through the right side of her twin brother’s stomach. He let out a cough, backing away from her, blood staining his lips.

Back in the battle at Danessa, Nira felt the change. Her body was almost completely covered by the scaled forms of Furies as they pulled her fragile form one way and then the other, tossing her between them like a rag doll being fought for between children eager to play with it. The new monster to possess her usually barely had time to sink his cock into her for longer than a few seconds before she was pulled away again and the rape continued, but despite that she rarely spent longer than a second or two between being airtight, all her holes stretched and filled to their limits.

Then everyone froze, all at once.

“What is thisss…” one of the Furies hissed.

“I don’t…” another said.

And then the screaming started.

For Nira, it felt like she was in the middle of a whirlwind. She dropped to the ground like a stone as the Furies holding her up seemed to collapse into dust, twirling around her in a hurricane of land that ripped at her skin and stung her eyes. As she sat heavily on her knees, she felt a sudden surge of power from deep within her… power that she had never felt before, but that felt familiar anyway. The golden, radiant power overflowed her body, coming from her pores and her lips, her eyes and her ears in an amber cascade of light as she felt the blessed touch of Ariadna on her soul. A burst of flame emerged around her, forcing the human guards that were closing in on her now that the Furies had vanished to back away. She rose to her feet and directed her attention to the ones that were around her, narrowing her eyes, a howl of rage pouring from her throat… and a fiery lance of light shot from her hand as she pointed it at them. Flames engulfed the group, sending them screaming to the ground… but only for a few moment before the flames had reduced them to ashes.

Then she began to stalk forward.

The tormented screams of the Karnite soldiers, suddenly so unsure of themselves, were nothing to her ears. She had pleaded for them to stop the whole time they abused her body. They had hurt her. They had hurt Leila. They had planned to kill them all. Mercy was not in her heart for these wicked men… the most mercy she showed was that when they turned to flee, she didn’t give chase.

Instead, she turned to go find Leila. They were still in the middle of an army… the battle was far from over. She hoped that she was not too late to save her beloved.

Veza screamed, and the soldier who was working three fingers of his left hand into her stretched, sore slit grinned appreciatively at the other guard who was carefully inserting the barbed metal hooks into Veza’s nipples. “Slowly, Evan, we don’t want her to cheat on us by passing out just yet.”

“Don’t worry, Sir,” his subordinate said with a grin, visible even past the leather mask he wore. “You taught me better than that. I don’t allow them to rest once I’ve started.”

Through the slits in his own leather mask, Murdich smiled back, easily able to see the pleasure in the eyes of his apprentice. Life as a torturer for the church of Karn had certainly been a good lot for the last decade, and finding Evan had been among the best parts of the best period of his life. In Murdich’s experience, plenty of members of the church were cruel, but relatively few had the gift to really, really embrace that cruelty with creativity and flare… to take pleasure not just in the purpose of screams but the screams themselves. Few even among the Inquisitors could appreciate pain like he did… and like him, Evan had the sort of passion for brutality that any normal person would have found mind-blowingly horrible.

With his right hand, Murdich was toying with his erect shaft, stroking his hand over the swollen dome of his cock glistening with eagerness. He had raped Veza before, of course… in many different positions and in every orifice, usually with her pretty frame bound in an uncomfortable but extremely accessible position so that he could enter her at will. For years, in fact, whenever she wasn’t being used as a whore for the temple and when High Priest Jaras himself wasn’t using her, he and his apprentice had been her primary tormenter, forced to endure the ever-more obscene sexual degradation that Murdich had inflicted upon her. But still, even after all this time, the prospect of doing it again was alluring.

After all… she was a Siren.

He wasn’t sure if she was a virgin when she’d arrived here… he somehow doubted it. It hadn’t mattered, though… her holes were tighter and more painful to skewer than any untouched maiden’s, and he had enjoyed introducing all three of them to precisely how far his lusts could go. After he had found and recruited Evan into the efforts, their depravity had only grown. For all her strength, for all her pride, the winged girl was little but a sextoy these days… albeit one that made pretty sounds when you hurt her. With rather astonishing ease, Murdich had turned this paragon of Ariadna, one of the supernatural Sirens, into a wanton sex slave ready to drop to her knees and suck his cock into her mouth at a moment’s notice. She did the same for Evan, burying her pretty face into his pubic hair to swallow him to the root. It had taken a bit more effort, some whips, some stretching on the rack, but mostly a set of pliers, but soon Veza was all too happy to submit to opening her mouth and drinking the golden fountains offered by Murdich and Evan. And when they suggested she should lie back while they took turns to squat above her and deliver her a meal with her drink, Veza had tearfully refused at first… but only at first. One hundred and twenty four circular burn scars later, and hoarse from screaming in unimaginable pain, she was begging to open her mouth and be fed.

In fact, they had given her a spiked cock and made her fuck herself with it while she begged, if he remembered. She had knelt here in this very room and spread her legs, playing with herself, fucking both pussy and ass while she begged and smiled and thanked the both of them for offering to feed her and wouldn’t they like to get started now, and all the time he could see the shame and horror in her tear-drenched eyes. Absolutely delicious.

And Evan… what a monster he was turning out to be. He came raping her as eagerly as Murdich did, regularly and copiously, screaming out in pleasure as he used the angelic Veza like a whore. He might take even more pride in hurting her that his mentor did… the boy never seemed happier than when he heard cries of pain turn to shrieks of agony.

Hence the hooks.

Veza was silently begging for mercy, her eyes wet with tears. They weren’t punishing her… she had done everything she had been told to do. She wasn’t now being hurt so badly because she had failed… She had sucked his disgusting cock, swallowed gallons of that horrid cream he gruntingly squirted down her throat, plunged innumerable foul shaped objects into her own poor body, sucked and fondled his awful sexual parts in the most disgusting ways, combined man, woman, and sex toy in whatever obscene combination they thought up for her, even eaten and drunk their waste, and that had all just been today… she had been a good little whore. So, when Evan gleefully inserted a barbed stainless steel hook into the lower quarter of her left nipple, actually forcing it in and round so it broke out again and preparing to thread another hook through the upper part of her nipple, it wasn’t as punishment.

It was just fun.

Evan forced yet another shiny barbed point into her nipple, indenting then breaking the sensitive skin of the flinching teat as pain exploded in poor Veza’s breast.

With great care, he arranged the hooks to pierce the four quarters of each dusky aureole, eyes sparkling with unholy pleasure. Another squeal of pain, Veza twisting against the hard, unyielding metal chains that bound the Siren and held her arched and spread legged against one of the frames in their torture chamber.

There was nothing she could do to prevent this, nothing to beg, nothing to be forgiven for. They were just doing it because they could, and they wanted to, and the fact it was her body they were using as a canvas was almost incidental. Between her legs, Murdich ground three fingers deep into her still-tight cunt, smiling as he watched the hooks pierce the sensitive dark pink aureoles and saw the first little beads of blood start to ooze from the perforations, mainly where the points re-emerged from within Veza’s flesh.

He curved his fingers then cruelly dragged them out of her swollen sex, fingernails scraping her vaginal lining and drawing another cry of pain from her throat. “It’s time to continue your education, my dear Siren,” he said, voice thick with the anticipation of her suffering. “You see, a willing slut is something I can have at any time. Any dozen of the priestesses of your whore goddess we have taken… I could have one of those broken bitches riding on my dick any time. There is no joy in a willing slave, though… That defeats the purpose, don’t you see?” Veza gave a shriek of pain as Evan slapped her punctured nipples while his mentor continued, pinching her clitoris and giving it a rough twist. “The girls up there… they already understand their sole purpose in life is to give me pleasure. You don’t, yet. You still have will… still have strength. And unfortunately for you, my pleasure will be watching your body squirm and writhe in ever increasing pain. Of course, you will eventually cheat us of our pleasure by simply dying when Jaras is prepared to let you, unable to take any more of the damage we will be inflicting on your body after your wings have rotted off…” he looked at her nearly bare wings, missing the majority of her feathers after ten years of this. “Especially the damage to the sexy bits like these!”

He viciously chopped his hand upwards into the jutting swell of Veza’s breasts, laughing as they bounced wildly, drops of blood splashing his chest while she wailed. “But fear not. You will have been begging us to kill you long before that happens.”

Evan laughed in agreement as he leaned forward and ran his tongue around both fish-hooked nipples, careful to avoid the protruding stainless points, tasting the iron-salt tang of fresh blood. “So we need to get as much use out of you before you’re gone as possible. Who knows how many Sirens there are left, after all?”

Murdich stroked his cock to full erection as Evan carefully threaded and knotted lengths of fishing line to the little ring holes in the end of each buried fish hook. He positioned himself between the widespread thighs, pressed the tip of his member to the cleft of that well-reamed pussy, looked into the wide frightened eyes of Veza and began to ease his length into her cunt. “Do it,” he grunted, and Evan jerked both sets of fishing line upwards at once.

Veza screamed as her nipples were wrenched upwards, pain far more severe than when the hooks had punctured her burst from her chest into every nerve of her spread bound body. Murdich grinned wickedly. “Yes… do it again! I want to feel her pain… feel her fucking cunt clench on my prick every time you pull those fuckers up and make her scream!”

Evan seemed only too happy to do it. Murdich began to ride the frame-tied girl. This was one of the best fucks he could remember… The siren was always tight but now she was exceptionally so, and now when he raped her her screams were of absolute terror, far more frightened than her yells of mere protest or pain when they drove a cock inside her. Evan, eyes sparkling in unholy glee, wrenched those tortured nipples with each thrust, making them start to spray little jets of crimson onto the sadist fucking her so viciously.

This was power, this was the way to fuck a woman, this was what their tits and cunts were for… and he was only just starting! He would have years more with this slut!

Evan lowered his hands, watching the breasts fall, momentarily spread as their fluid weight pressed them around Veza’s rib cage, then he jerked the lines taut and nearly came in his pants as the wild screams bounced from the walls of the torture cellar. He wrenched the lines as Murdich thrust into the poor screaming Siren bitch, saw the hooks open bloodier holes in the stretching nipples, smelled the fear and tasted the terror of his helplessly bound victim.

With commendable self control, Murdich had been thrusting into the winged slave girl in time with the nipple wrenching pulls, feeling the extremely special way Veza’s pussy contracted briefly as pain made her muscles spasm. It was like being sucked off at the same time as shafting her… a most delightful sensation, but one which his increasing lust could not permit to carry on for much longer.

“OH yes…” he moaned. “Scream for me you little bitch… PULL HER! Oh… Now… Oooghhh yesssss!” he gasped as he spurted into the chasm of despoiled innocence and ground his hands in her ass cheeks to pull her on just that tiny bit more onto his shaft to meet the spurting jets of semen.

Evan had followed his increasing tempo with speedier jerks on the hook lines, giving an extra strong pull as he ejaculated and opening multiple holes around the pain hard buds of each nipple so that a quite pronounced flow of blood formed a tracery of red lines all over the heaving breasts, covering them in crimson.

As he pulled out, Evan began the pleasurable task of pulling the hooks back out of Veza’s tits, working the hooks right through rather than reversing them because the barbs meant the curved steel would only go one way. He took his time and wasn’t even remotely gentle about it. Then, when he was done, he sucked the blood away and took the opportunity to chew painfully on each sore, bloody nipple.

Murdich pulled a small step over so he could stand with his still drooling cock at Veza’s head height, and told her to suck him clean. Sobbing and still shuddering with the effects of prolonged pain, the Siren did as she was told.

And that was where they were when the golden pulse of energy hit.

Murdich and Evan sagged with sudden exhaustion. They had both cum a dozen times today, and they hadn’t been feeling especially spent… but their stamina seemed to desert them all at once, leaving them unbelievably tired at the same time that Veza’s tears stopped. If they had been less tired, they might have noticed the feathers of her wings filling back in, the way the wounds on her tits closed. Murdich might have pulled himself free before her teeth closed.

The torturer screamed, punching at the bound Siren in a frantic, beating rhythm, but the beautiful winged creature didn’t even seem to notice his fists. With a final, tearing noise, he fell back, still screaming, splayed out on the floor as he rapidly waddled back on his ass, away from the bloodied Siren.

Veza flexed her arms, and the chains… chains that had seemed so sturdy just seconds ago – snapped like twine. She rose, seeming perfect and pristine and holy in her nudity as her eyes boiled with anger at the sight of the fallen Murdich and Evan.

“It was all him!” Evan shouted, voice frantic, eyes wide. “He was in charge, he told me what to do. It wasn’t me, it was him! It was all him!”

Veza turned to the side and spat Murdich’s length to the floor, then spat onto it in turn. Then her gaze returned to Evan, eyes narrowing. “You think I’ve forgotten what your shit tastes like just because it’s coming from your mouth now?” she growled, feathers shining on her wings like a thousand knives.

And for a brief time, though not nearly as brief as the two men prayed for, the torture chamber was filled with screams again.

“You’re pathetic,” Eve said, shoving as much of her slim-booted foot as she could deep into Leila’s mouth while her lover raped the fallen assassin. From the sound of it, her holes were still pleasant enough… or maybe it was just the final triumph over these sluts of the whore-goddess that ensured his good time. She knew it ensured hers. “Like a kicked dog, whimpering around the table but still there begging for snacks from a master that hates you.”

The Weeping Siren gagged miserably on the boot, and already blood and vomit stained the shiny leather, but her green eyes were still bright and focused as she glared at Eve. It was enough to make the priestess want to drive nails through them. “Do you even know how she’s using you?” Eve asked. “You should hate her more than anyone. Even a dog should care who butchered her father.” She sneered. “Or are you so far gone you are less than a dog? Are you a fly, burrowing in her waste and calling it nourishment when she despises you?”

She pulled her boot out, letting Leila breath… but the assassin only took a single breath before she spoke. “Shut up!” she snarled. “You don’t get to speak about my father! You didn’t know him!”

Eve kicked her across the face. “But I did, little fire-haired slut. And your mother. I was there that day. Burned to a crisp, he was… along with so many others.” She chuckled. “And have you seen a priest of Karn call up fire, little assassin?” She paused, letting the words sink in. “Your whore of a goddess did that.”

Eve shuddered with pleasure when Leila flinched, tears in her eyes, and she priestess saw that her victim had no easy way to refute her words. “And she never told you, either… did she?” Eve laughed. “Poor little kicked dog, beaten and abused but the master still wants you to guard her table. Pathetic.”

“My father… didn’t die because of anything she did!” Leila protested. “He died because the goddess tried to defend us! He died because Karn’s soldiers attacked us and would have killed us all!”

“You can’t possibly believe that” Eve sneered. “That she was just trying to help. She abandoned us! She has abandoned you, now!”

“She didn’t!” Deep inside her, Leila felt a glowing something solidify… her will and determination becoming something harder than a diamond. “She would never abandon us. I believe in her. She only ever tried to protect us.” She met Eve’s eyes. “That’s the difference between you and me… faith. I trusted her then… and I trust her now.”

Eve snarled and slammed her foot down on Leila’s neck, choking off any further words. “Oh! And where is your whore goddess to save you now then?” she snapped as Karrus continued raping the assassin while she suffocated. “Where is your faith now?!”

“Right here.”

Nira, still surrounded by a flickering halo of flame, emerged from the dust with her hands stretched forward. Eve, and Karrus, both tried to conjure up power to block it… and found, to their horror, that Karn’s power didn’t answer. The blaze struck them as they tried to dodge, sending them rolling away through the dust and dirt, smothering flames and cursing.

Nira moved to continue the attack. She didn’t need to. The moment Leila was no longer pinned down, the assassin moved with deadly grace. One leg wheeled around in a spiraling kick that ended at the side of Karrus’ face, sending him sprawling back to the ground even as she went for the belt of daggers Eve had stripped from her. While he fell, unable to move, he was an easy target, and a moment later he was gurgling around the knife buried in his throat. Then she was leaping at Eve.

The blonde died with her eyes wide, a look of surprise on her face, two daggers deep in her chest. She had never thought for even a second that she could lose.

Leila took a deep breath, blinking tears from her eyes. Then Nira’s arms were around her, and for several seconds the pain didn’t matter… she knew where she belonged. With her.

Then, together, they rose. The battle was far from over… and Amellisan wasn’t able to protect herself.

Jaymes stumbled through the fallen rocks and debris, desperate to catch a sight of her… and his eyes locked onto Kaya. Furies were being pulled away from her… screaming and clawing at the ground to arrest their progress as they were dragged away like a goddess of the wind was ripping them apart. Each lost the struggle inevitably, and Jaymes could see their expressions of terror and rage as they were lifted up into the air and seemed to disintegrate into dust.

Despite their fall, however, Kaya was still fighting. The Siren was the thickest part of the enemy army with hundreds arrayed against her, and she couldn’t see in every direction at once. Jaymes was not about to let one of those bastards sneak up on his wife from behind. One of the soldiers charged at her back, his sword raised like he was going for a killing blow, and without a moment’s hesitation Jaymes launched himself into the battle.

He caught the sword on the metal plate on his forearm, sliding it to the side and using the same upward momentum of the block to drive his sword into the soldier, skewering him and letting him huff out his last breath on bloody lips. He barely had time to kick the man off his blade to fight again before the next appeared, but Jaymes was ready, and the overconfident, enraged soldier soon found his bloodied head flying through the air as his body fell lifeless to the crater below.

Standing with his back to his wife, Jaymes smiled. “I lost you once to these murderers. I won’t let them take you from me again.” He held his sword up, prepared for an extended battle to the death if needed.

Kaya laughed at the response. “I wondered what took you so long to get here. I thought I was having all the fun.” Kaya’s sword clanged against another sword while she defended herself. She felt better now that her husband was with her. Together they were stronger and could overcome the odds.

A light chuckle escaped from Jaymes’ lips. “Oh, you know me. I don’t miss a good fight. I… just got held up by a previous engagement. Glad I got here when I did. You looked like you could use some help.”

Kaya laughed as her wings raised her up over a low slash and gave her the momentum downward to drive a counter past the soldier’s guard. “I love you,” she said simply as the press of bodies towards them slowly began to weaken as morale in the army faded, more and more soldiers realizing that their priests were dying and the Furies had vanished.

Jaymes smiled. “That’s what you always say.”

Leila and Nira searched through the chaos to find their last companion, and along the way they encountered several more of Karn’s soldiers who still had some fight in them. With Nira’s ability to wield Ariadna’s power now, however, and Leila’s skill with a blade to protect her, the pair made quick work of them.

As it turned out, they needed to chase the army as some of the soldiers were trying to take the naked, abused form of Amellisan with them as they fled. Neither was of a mind to allow that. The pair fell on the retreating soldiers from behind and now it was Leila who took the lead, attacking from ambush and driving knives and swords into spines and weakpoints in the armor while Nira ensured she didn’t get overwhelmed.

The soldier who had been carrying her away, a greasy-looking, dark haired soldier, dropped Amellisan and tried to flee, and Nira was unsure if she should let him go. Leila made the choice for her… no one who had been of a mind to kidnap a helpless woman while fleeing was worthy of being spared. The soldier tried to keep running with the first four knives in his back, stumbling onward, but the fifth knife finally put him down, and he did not rise.

With the last of their friends rescued, relief washed over them. Nira and Leila both hugged Amellisan close as the exhausted woman whimpered. “You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

Karn gripped the sword in one hand as he faced off against Ariadna, the other hand covering the bleeding wound in side. One eye was just a bleeding pit now and the wound in his side bled freely, and still he seemed to almost glow with hatred, a rage and anger that overflowed rational thought. Ariadna could, on some level, understand that. Years of planning and scheming were now unraveling, he was losing, and it was her fault.

Of course, understanding it didn’t mean she was going to let him triumph.

He lunged at Ariadna in a desperate attempt to hurt her. His arm raised with the sword, ready to swing it at her. “Then I’ll take us both down!” he snarled at her.

He was still monstrously powerful, incredibly fast. He still had all the power he had stolen from her, all he had gained from his worshipers. What he wasn’t, anymore, was the God of Fate… or even of misfortune.

Karn slipped on the blood.

With a cry, he fell at her, still swinging. With his depth perception thrown off by the loss of his eye, he missed Ariadna. The Goddess of Fate dodged to the left which put her out of sight of him, his blind eye seeking after his sister, his expression turned almost quizzical as he couldn’t quite figure out what had just happened to him, how it had all gone so wrong.

With tears in her eyes from where she stood at her brother’s side, Ariadna swung the sword down. The cold steel blade struck against his neck, and the divine being cut like anything else, blade piercing skin and bone. His body fell like so much meat as his severed head flew from his shoulders, rolling across the floor and stopping just before his presumptive throne.

Power flooded through Ariadna, but she hardly felt it as she sank down to her knees, sobbing. She didn’t even understand it… still didn’t really understand what had just happened, but… her brother had been right in a way. Misfortune… could… bring strength. She hadn’t just killed a man, a monster, a rival. She had killed… and claimed… a part of herself.

She didn’t understand. She knew it. But she didn’t understand.

Ariadna wished it didn’t have to end like this. She wished he could have seen reason. She wished she could have spoken with him, figured out what was happening here, figured out who they were… but he had given her no choice. Karn had done evil, incomprehensible things. Many of those deeds had been done to her, and the rest to those she loved and swore to protect. It had to be this way. She knew it. This was the outcome that he had forced her toward.

With a heavy heart, she dropped the sword to the ground. A deep inhalation of air filled her lungs. She sat down on the floor, putting her head into her hands. She sobbed quietly for a few minutes, grieving for the loss of so many lives, so much of her innocence, and what wisdom her brother might have had that she would need to learn for herself.

But it was finally over now. The world could be restored to its rightful state. Things could go back to normal. Everything could be right again.

Right?