Page 3 of Shadow's Heart

“Aren’t they inventive little perverts?” He chuckled as if charmed. “They’re always up for a Lore-gy. Puns intended.”

Then she realized the nymphs had become one with the trees, fading just below the surface of the trunks to allow the satyrs to mate them like this.

Such a place is not for me.Mina gaped in blushing bewilderment, her heart racing. Once she’d recovered speech, she said, “I-I was hasty to leave Dacia. Logic says I will enjoy only a poor outcome in this realm.”

Of course Lothaire heard her thundering heart. Just before he abandoned her, he said, “You fear this world? You’re a Daciano, girl. All the worlds should fear you.”

And then she was alone.

Fine sentiment,she mused as the nymphs and satyrs finished with a crescendo that shook acorns from the branches.

Scandalized, Mina hastened away toward the Tree of Delight, her eyes going even wider at the scenes there. A menagerie of species partook in raw debauchery.

Yes, a fine sentiment, Lothaire.But how could Mina maintain her protective mist if she fainted from embarrassment?

She’d just had that thought when she beheld her first centaur at “full tilt,” and the satyr appendages became a distant memory. . . .

Two

Poly, the Plane of Lost Years (Maybe)

Silt’s bed—normally filled with soft concubines—felt cold and hard. And his arms hurt.

He dimly heard two voices. Males? In his lair?

Not possible.

He wanted to wake. Couldn’t. His head swam. So he inwardly shrugged and relaxed into opium’s embrace once more—float away, Silt—to return to his dream of an oasis.

Waves of sand crested in front of the sun, a golden backdrop to a pool of azure water. This wasn’t merely a dream, but a memory. And over his thousands of years of life, he’d ached to return to that one idyllic moment in time.

Yet here he was, trapped within his lair, a pyramidal fortress that was both his pride and his exile. As a fugitive from the Gaolers, he could never leave this place.

Outside, a sandstorm raged, while the monsters guarding his keep slithered and skulked along the exterior walls. Inside Silt’s bedchamber, a dozen concubines slept all around him, while his giant scorpion Sequara curled up beside the hearth. Firelightglinted off the shelves of Silt’s revenge trophies: everything from stolen crowns to sacred treasures. The smoke of opium—his beloveddragon’s breath—hung heavy in the air.

He assumed all these details of his home were true. His senses were so blunted he wasn’t aware of his surroundings. Except this bed.Cold? Hard?

No,float.

Anything outside of floating brought pain. Earlier, when he’d drifted away from reality, hadn’t he vaguely heard his concubines discussing him?

“He smoked enough to incapacitate a troll.”Easily.

“No wonder he can’t stay hard.”His face had flushed even in his daze.

“It’s like he’s imbibing to avoid us.”A truer statement had never been spoken.“Oh well. So sad.”

Laughter had pealed all around.

Revenge, his true mistress, had bade him to wake and deal with these females, throwing them all out into the sandstorm.

No slight unpunished. No affront unreturned.Over the millennia of his life, he’d meted retribution so savagely that humans had considered him a vengeance god.

Revenge and sand had become intertwined, deserts emblematic of how unforgiving and lethal he’d been.

Yet now he remained sprawled naked on the bed, his godhood a distant memory. Maybe it was time to back off his habit.

Smoke whispered,You belong to me.

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