Page 26 of The Kingdom of Flames

The First Taste of Summer

That week, Lord Encarmine courted Celestine in touch.

Scalehall was a fortress. Celestine walked through the halls and battlements, seeing the towns and cities of his realm in fiery paintings. Rosendall, Scalehall, Firekeep. She toured them with him.

The land was not the richest for its soil, but its people were industrious and steadfast. Each buttress of his estate was bold and proud stone, daring an invader to break themselves upon it. His banners flew proudly wherever they went.

While there was a luxury she saw in his castle, there was a utilitarianism to everything. Windows were angled to give an archer a better angle at defense. His gardens around the keep were a thick bristle of thorn and delicious red berries that cleaned wounds when boiled.

In the mornings, Celestine woke in his arms. She sought to kiss him, but he always said the same thing.

“I have not earned your taste yet, Final Bride.” His eyes were brown without his circlet, but even without it he was intimidating. She felt like a slight thing in his arms.

Lord Encarmine showed her the castle. The gardens, the halls, and walls of weapons, trophies, the tapestries that illustrated his own victories against other Lords of Season. The sun was bright, high in the sky, and would darken any skin. His people were a myriad of tones, pale, dark, mixed. It did not seem to matter. When she asked him about this, he simply stated. “I belong to all men, though they wish it were not so. I am neither jealousy nor greed, but the rage of injustice or those coveting.”

On his high tower, she surveyed his realm. Encarmine’s hands explored her constantly: her hand, her arm, her legs. In the evenings, he would enter their chamber with his circlet on, a Lord of Summer, and he would take her in touch.

Celestine was spanked, gripped, touched. Encarmine slid her body all across his and would touch her until she begged for more, then command her to ride his hand, his fingers, his arms. Always outside, always the point of friction between them. He would never enter her. He would oil her entire body, holding her legs together, and slide his fierce cock between her thighs, stirring and torturing her quim with his firm ridges.

In the span of a week, she learned the fire of his touch. Celestine was coated with his seed. It drenched her belly, her thighs, her cunt. Once, an edge of his seed entered her opened mouth. Immediately, her vision reddened, and she sought to hold him down, take what had been denied, and challenge him.

Encarmine noticed and nodded. He had pinned her easily against the bed.

“I will seek your token of Taste beginning on the morrow.”

They lay together that night, she on his nude form. His strength came from determination, the ability to exert, and to push. He was not a man, but he was all men. A demigod, made from war, or the creator of it, she did not know.

A demigod she knew she could marry.

They rode that week among his towns.

“It's important you know the land you would rule over, as well as myself.” Encarmine brought her a horse.

She saw the scholas where his men and women trained, even children donning shields and swords. Celestine saw gatherings of women who learned not the sewing of embroidery and linen but of flesh split, bones reset. These women would drag men from the battlefield or conduct gruesome surgeries to save their lives with grim faces. Many carried a dagger like a long spike.

“For mercy,” Encarmine explained. Celestine nodded at the macabre realization. They turned towards the edge of the town. Celestine watched him as they sauntered slowly. His face was stoic and set—but with an underlying sadness.

“You wish something else for your people?” she asked.

Encarmine stared at the town. “If I did, I wouldn’t know what to wish for.” He looked upon her now as if she were some strange creature of legend coming to his world.

Maybe I am, in his eyes.

“But you might,” he said.

Celestine held the reins of her mount. No women rode side-saddle here. They were fighters, workers, healers, and builders. Everything was practical. Everything had an edge, a killing purpose.

Like him.

Life in the Red Realm was a life of honest labor, with bouts of pride and challenge.

“Come,” Encarmine nodded to the edge of town. “It begins.”

Celestine followed him, taking in the long line of his back. The red ribbon that had been his banner was always tight around his wrist. Everything with him in his world was bought and paid for with honor and effort. She shuddered to think about her first month with the other Lords of Season. Nights of tears and screams, of rent or ravaged flesh.

He is deadlier than them all, perhaps? What Lord tried to best him and won? All were vanquished. I feel safe with him, safer than any time I’ve ever known. He could choose the seasons wisely.

At the edge of town, she saw a small arena where the townsfolk shouted. It was the ferocious cheer of the mob as two men warred in armor with maces in their hand.

---