Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

“…what?”

“He was in Elvardia at dawn. He burned two of my cities before breakfast. He has not touched a single elven settlement today. Not one. Why?”

The dwarven king took a step toward Black Fang.

“You elves voted to kill him the same as we did. You should be craters next to my craters. Why am I the only one bleeding?”

Aelindra’s eyes narrowed. The implication landed one beat after he’d spoken it.

She opened her mouth to say her piece, but Black Fang’s chuckle arrived first.

It was low and wet and it did not leave her throat cleanly. Blood had settled in her lungs somewhere in the last few sessions and the laugh tasted of it, but it was amused all the same.

“Women.”

Aelindra’s hand went still.

Ragnar’s single eye snapped to her.

“What.”

“Elven lovers.” Black Fang tilted her face a lazy fraction against the wall. “He does not particularly wish to watch them weep over their forests.”

Myrasyn’s remaining eye had widened all the way.

Ragnar’s breath hissed out between his teeth.

“Is that it?” The dwarven king’s voice climbed. “He fucks a few elves, and so he does not commit genocide on them? That is his reasoning? That is the logic that the Primordial Villain uses? Pussy?”

Black Fang’s shoulders moved in something that might have been a laugh and might have been a cough.

“And his mother’s happiness.”

The cell went still.

Ragnar’s bandaged hand cracked across Black Fang’s face.

Her head snapped sideways. A thin rope of blood ran from the corner of her mouth and hung there for the half-second it took her chin to lift, and when it lifted she was smiling.

“PURE NONSENSE!” the dwarven king roared. “HIS MOTHER?!”

Her smile widened, turning truly unhinged.

“Oh dear…”

The laugh left Myrasyn in pieces. Each piece cost her, and each piece was genuine.

Her good eye crinkled. “Scandalized… that a son loves his mother and doesn’t want to disappoint her. Couldn’t be you two, could it?”

Just then, boots echoed down the corridor.

Fast boots. Too fast for a rotation.

Aelindra faced the door. Ragnar breathed through his teeth beside Black Fang with his bandaged fist raised. The door swung inward and a scout in Alliance livery half-collapsed against the frame.

“Captain-”

“Speak.”

The scout’s eyes went to the two prisoners and back to Aelindra.

“The Primordial Villain has appeared in Sylvaenor.”

Aelindra’s gauntlet opened.

“He descended on the root-plaza of the heart-tree in full view of the city.” The scout swallowed. “He declared himself the son of the First Elf Luminara.”

Myrasyn’s head snapped toward Black Fang.

The chain at her wrist rattled with the motion. Her one open eye had fixed on the Venomborn assassin chained beside her before the rest of her body caught up.

“Wait, you meant *that* mother?!”

The name landed in her skull and would not move. The First Elf. The mother every elven shrine on the continent had prayed toward.

Black Fang opened her eyes and through her half-lidded purple gaze the Venomborn assassin began to laugh at the pair.

She had been punched, cracked, broken, and collared for ten hours to arrive at this moment, and she was going to take every second of it she wanted.

A thin thread of fresh blood had run between her teeth and stopped at her chin.

She ignored it and just kept looking at the duo.

And laughing.

Myrasyn broke.

Her laugh had edges. A split lip, broken ribs, a second of vision that would not stop swimming.

Tears poured down her cheeks.

“…me…” she murmured, wet and wondering. “…I spoke to her son…”

Her voice broke with joy.

“…what an honor…”

“Oh, sister…”

Her voice was small and musical, and cracked on the last word.

“…what have you done…”

“ENOUGH!”

Aelindra’s gauntlet slammed the wall beside Myrasyn’s head. Stone split. Myrasyn did not so much as flinch.

“STOP LAUGHING!”

Myrasyn laughed harder.

Ragnar had finally turned toward Black Fang. Whatever he had been about to say died in his throat. The Venomborn assassin’s gaze was still on him. Her laugh had not risen. The thread of fresh blood at her chin had not stopped, and her mouth had widened a fraction to show him teeth.

Inside her, [Eternal Hunger] woke all the way up.

The spell had been snarling in her channels since Ragnar’s boots came through the door. The sight of him within arm’s reach had fed it on anticipation. His fear was fresh fuel on a fire that had been starving all day, and her laughter had thinned her grip on it by a full degree, and now it was moving.

It surged.

For a full second, Black Fang was not sure she was going to hold it.

She clamped down on the hunger so hard her vision whited at the edges. The spell snarled once against her discipline and settled, coiled and furious, waiting to consume her own flesh if nothing else was given to it.

None of this reached her face, however. She just kept grinning at him with blood on her teeth.

He took half a step back before he understood his feet had moved.

…

The scout had not left the frame of the door. His hand was bracing him against the wood.

“…Captain,” he said, because someone had to. “There is more.”

“SPEAK.”

The scout drew a short breath.

“He told the city that Queen Myrasyn’s crime was befriending him and saving his life in the final battle. He told them the Council voted her traitor because of it. He told them the collar is on her neck because she refuses to name a successor not chosen by the people.”

Behind him, the laughter continued.

“Sylvaenor is on its knees, Captain. Every matriarch is in the plaza. The magistrates have pledged swords to him and are asking for the hour to march on the traitors.”

Aelindra froze. A weak gasp left her. “What…?”

“Runners left Sylvaenor within the hour. Aelmarith, Velastrinne… Every major city. The houses of rank in each of them have been called to hear him speak. They will hear him, Captain. There is no one who can stop them hearing him.”

Aelindra’s face emptied.

Every line she had ever practiced for the moments she had prepared all her life went out of her at once. A captain could rehearse for war. A captain could rehearse for the quiet politics of the throne. No captain could rehearse for her own people being turned against her by a religious figure walking out of legend into their capital square.

Across the space between the two chains, the sovereign of four thousand years and the Venomborn terror of four hundred met eyes.

Myrasyn’s laugh was unhinged and tear-soaked. Despite the long hours of cruel beatings, she was the happiest woman on the continent.

Black Fang’s laugh was quiet and unbroken, serpent-patient with fresh blood on her teeth and a cell full of unfinished business in her half-lidded eyes.

…

Boots again.

These came at a dead sprint and did not slow at the turn. A second runner hit the frame of the door so fast her salute was half-finished when she started speaking.

“Captain. A human has arrived.”

Aelindra’s head lifted a degree.

“…what?”

The runner swallowed.

“She is requesting an audience.”