Shadow of the Abyss

"He is fine, Father," Tasha was saying in a serine voice on one knee. Her head bowed before the Baleful Throne. "I was a bit startled when he asked me my true name. But I am prepared to give it to him. He is my Master."

Gremory smiled in satisfaction. "Child, you might be one of my greatest pieces of the current Era. A shame I must give you away."

"I am happy, Father."

"I would bet. Altair seems to like you. Does he love you?"

Tasha smiled mirthlessly. She wondered if that would ever be the case. Or would he see her for what she was? "One cannot love a whore, Father."

"You underestimate yourself and overestimate men. It's the whore that'll catch his eye, but it's a woman that'll keep his heart. You have both qualities but have only used one. Keep at it. Though think quickly less you are forgotten." Gremory explained. And shifted the topic.

" Tell me about the boy's Father. What do you know?"

"He is keeping me from him. But I heard Medusa—"

"The Snake Girl. The one you said was Raped by Aries and discarded by Athena."

Tasha continued as seamlessly as if she hadn't been interrupted. "—Yes, that's the one, Father. She let slip the name Zariel. My Master seems to know. Intently at that."

"The Silver Devil would not dare break his Oath to Aurelia. The man fathered two children. And even I know better than to approach them."

"Is the Silver Devil so dangerous? I—"

"You forget who he married. Aurelia is stronger, if not equal to the Silver Devil. I dare not challenge her. Especially if Seraphine is used."

There had been much about a Nephilim ability that no one understood. Much Aurelia had hidden away from other Nephilim as Progenitor. Seraphine had been one.

It was a power that simply should not exist that forced the Council of Omnis' hand.

"She is protective of her young ones. so protective I fear my brother Mephisto must plan around them to keep them alive in his little schemes."

Only Gremory spoke so casually about Mephisto. Dearing to speak his name as if his schemes didn't control the Myriad Heavens themselves. Even when she had been promised to Astaroth, Tasha had never heard him mention the name Mephisto, even when the topic of the Eighth Infernal Monarch was brought up.

But Gremory often cursed his name as if he would do her nothing. And he hadn't.

"I want nothing to do with the Silver Devil or Aurelia Morningstar or any bloody Snow. They're too Chaotic."

Tasha could imagine. In records, the Snow family had been said to have caused as much upheaval as Mephisto. The True Architect of the Fall, the First Lie, the First Murder, and so much more. Mephisto never forced anything, leaving it to the individual, but each time, they played to his whims.

It was the same for the Snows. Young compared to most born at the start of creation, they grew to fame on a mountain of bodies impossible to count. Worse, they held a bond that no angel possessed since the First Sin.

"Press the boy a little more. The Ninth Form warps the mind. That madness will turn him."

Tasha believed it. It had only been four days since they started on their way towards the Dutchy and each night, she found herself on her back or knee, head buried in the dirt as he had his way with her. He was relentless, but more than that, he was getting better. Sweeter. The hours they spent at a slow pace felt wrong, and that frightened her.

As a devil, a Lilm, the mere touch of anyone could hold the attention of any man for all eternity. A lesser man. But still a man. However, in recent days, the unrest was stirring within her. The feeling of not being whole without him inside her had sent her into a state of alarm.

At first, she thought it was due to the Oath she took by all Lilms. The one that made her his. But no matter how much she studied her blood, to peer into the Palace of Blood, which held all the knowledge of her lineage, she found only unanswered questions.

Even now, as she spoke to Gremory in this gap that constituted a moment in time where hours could be years and years, sometimes decades, Tasha was on her knees, being ravaged by her Master. Devoured in both body and soul.

She could no safer stop eating souls than give up on being her Master's bed warmer. His touch was too strong to enticing. Altair was life, perhaps in more ways than one.

Suddenly, she seemed to blush, and Gremory's serine brows through the mist that often obscured lesser beings to protect their souls from gazing at a True being. She could still tell.

"Child… tell me. Tell me all that you know."

For the first time, Tasha wondered if what she was doing was a betrayal. It made her stomach churn.

"Father, I—"

"Ashara, I will not ask again."

The naming of her True Name sent a taint of fear through her body that seized her by the throat. The kindling of her soul dimmed as a force beyond her comprehension awaited.

She flushed, and the words she could not stop flowed from her lips. It shamed her. Shamed her so that tears slipped from her eyes. The more Gremory seemed to hear, the wider her eyes became.

'...he is making me his! "She was saying. "And I wonder if he is the succubus and I a lesser thing!' she was screaming near the end, the words refusing to stop. "I need him, Father! I need him! I need him!

I need him! I need—"

"Be silent, daughter," Gremory snapped. And Tasha wept, bowing her head. "Amazing. Wonderful. Utterly wonderful." she rose, and the world dimmed beneath her presence. Her authority.

Tasha or Ashara even felt her inner thoughts cease. And in that moment, she was sure if Gremory wanted, her existence would be forfeited.
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"Altair Blackwood appears to be something more than what I could ever perceive until I meet him. Here me, Ashara! On your back or knees, you will rise and beg your Master for a meeting with me. You will tell him to bring his father. I decree it. Now go!"

****

When Ashara opened her eyes, heat-like liquid fire filled her being, shivering through the tips of her toes and shaking as if convulsing. Her back arched, and her moan seemed to strike at the moon of Almore.

Try as she wanted, she couldn't stop the elation, the pure raw ecstasy, from bending her to its will. She was a slave to its touch. A slave to sanguine lust. A slave to Altair Blackwood.

Slumped over the dirt, he pulled her face up and savored her lips and tongue, letting her fall.

"Only you seem capable of turning my cock limp." He said beside her ears.

Ashara drooled unceremoniously, so high on endorphins and other hormones she didn't know up from down. She only wanted more, yet her voice became not her own, and her movements not fully hers.

"I have a decree from her Majesty, Gremory; the Court of the Prime Devils seeks an audience. You are to bring your Guardian. Your Father. And—"

He slapped her. The sting, nocking the words from her mouth. And he spoke in a tone that sent shivers down her spine, a familiar tone that had goosebumps prickling her skin.

"Perhaps we have been too merciful?" The Vale King said the cruel smile she longed for now present.

She gulped, but when she opened her mouth to speak, he slapped her again.

"You disrespect me, Tasha." Fingers curled to tangle through her hair as he dragged her towards the river.

A few were already there, nameless men and women cultivating over the firewood. He paid them no mind, paid them not so much as a glance, as he dumped her head into the water, his hot lance, not finding the hole he had laid claim to countless times but another. One he had not.

Ashara cried out in the waters, kicking and screaming, the bonds of her blood making it so she was no more than a common mortal girl. The icy waters filled her throat, filled her lungs, burning them, while she tried bracing herself. Yet the panic, she could not understand herself, held her by the reins. Altair held her by the reins as if she was a common bitch, and forced his way in.

The world brightened, brightened to that of the sun as he pulled her out of the icy waters to breathe, yet no air filled her lungs, only the sweet elation of sanguine lust. The blood laws that bound her shattered as a cry that could reach every nook and cranny of the realm thundered like a whip.

Trees snapped like twigs to dust for nearly a hundred miles, men, women, and children sharing the same fate, exploding in a fine mist.

"Do you like your punishment!" He asked, beside her ear. His voice was like the smoothest silk, yet cold like the Isles of Sylvorlum.

A devil of lust in the truest scent, Ashara's tongue lulled out. She could feel the Band of the Incubus taking her, could feel something chipping away at her soul, but embraced it all.

"YES!!!! Punishment me more!"

Altair grinned, dunking her head back into the water. "A fine wench indeed. This is why you are the best, Tasha. This is why."