37. Seldarin

Iwent and got a tray from the Palace kitchen and the three of us ate and talked strategy for the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon. I was curious to see how strong Princess Lilliana's powers were and I wanted to test her.

The true power of Blood Magic lies in its wielder's ability to draw Power from others when she drinks their blood. I say "she" because only females who are true descendants of Lolth can wield Blood Magic. Males have tried in the past—tried and failed. Some say it has to do with the fact that women deal with blood so much more than men. They have their monthly courses for years and they bleed in childbearing—it puts them closer to the power of the life-force that flows through all our veins.

The Princess seemed to be doing well, though she was still in the early stages of a new magic user. She couldn't quite manage to recreate the shock she'd given me when she'd woken up and had seen me whipping Krynn, but she could feel both our emotions when she touched us and I speculated that she'd be able to feel the emotions of others too, in time.

Krynn went out for a while and came back with a ceramic pot filled with dirt and several different kinds of seeds. He wanted to see if she'd absorbed his Growing Power along with his Sin Eater abilities when she'd healed his back and tasted his blood.

To Princess Lilliana's delight, she was able to cause several of the seeds to germinate and to shoot up thin, thread-like sprouts. It was nothing to what Krynn could do—I had seen him grow a whole tree in a matter of minutes before. But I was certain that she would get stronger and her magic would become more powerful as she matured.

"But I am mature!" she exclaimed, sounding exasperated when I told her this. "I'm telling you, I've been mature for over thirty years now! You two are acting like I'm a teenager again."

"In Fae years, you are," Krynn told her gently. "Be patient, my Lady. I know you feel grown and mature because you've already lived most of one human lifetime. But the life of a Fae spans centuries, not mere decades. You must give yourself time to grow into your magic and to increase your power."

"How long is it going to take, though?" she asked, frowning. "And will I only be able to draw Power from people I, uh, drink from?"

She was still a bit uncomfortable with her new Thirst, I thought—it showed in her lovely Royal Purple eyes.

"Unfortunately, yes," I told her. "There are some limits to the Blood Magic—though it can be extremely powerful if you feed your Thirst strategically and drink from the right people."

"Actually, there was one Queen who didn't need to drink from people to use their powers," Krynn said, looking thoughtful. "I came across the story in an ancient text in the Royal Records once. It was Queen Yolanth—the daughter of Lolth," he went on. "It was said that she was able to draw power from people just by touching them—she didn't even have to drink their blood."

"That would be nice," Princess Lilliana remarked.

"Yes, it would but unfortunately we can't count on anything like that," I pointed out. "You're going to have to be extremely careful until you ascend to the Throne—and twice as careful afterwards. Mordren's greed for power won't get any less. The only thing you can do is to stay safe as your own magic grows until you can strike him down if you have to."

"Ascending the Silver Throne and wearing the Midnight Crown will help with that," Krynn assured her. "But it will still be some years before your magic matures completely."

"Why does it take so long?" she demanded. She had the impatience of a human, though I supposed I couldn't blame her. The Mortals live such short, desperate lives, it's natural that they should be impatient and want to hurry things along. Otherwise they'd never get to do anything before they died.

"It's because you spent your first half century among the humans, who have no magic at all," Krynn explained. "If you'd been living here in the Palace, your magic would have been nurtured and it would have grown along with you. Instead, it stayed dormant—like one of these seeds," he added, holding out the handful she hadn't managed to sprout. "If I plant a seed in fertile soil and give it sun and rain, it will grow and mature. But if I keep it in a dark drawer with no light or water or nourishment, it will remain dormant."

"So…my magic is like a seed kept in a dark drawer?" the Princess asked, frowning. "I guess that makes sense." She sighed. "I just wish we could get rid of Mordren altogether!"

"Even if you could, another would take his place. Possibly lady Elgiana," I pointed out. "The lust for power is universal."

"Not in me!" she protested. "I don't really want to rule all these people. I mean, I'll do the best I can and I'm certainly going to make some changes around here—especially for the Lesser Fae," she added, frowning. "But it's not a responsibility I would ever ask for."

"Which is why you're going to be such a good ruler—a wise and fair Queen," Krynn told her, smiling. "It's because you don't want the power that you will wield it well."

He rose from the table where the three of us had been sitting and paced briefly, fluttering his wings. I frowned as I watched him. I knew what the pacing meant—he hadn't gotten enough pain to truly take the edge off his Needing.

I wasn't surprised, actually. Often I had to whip him for hours—until my arm was tired—to satiate the magical parasite inside him. We had just been at the beginning of our whipping session when the Princess had stopped us.

It made me worried to see my oldest friend like this. I wished at times that I could give him what he truly craved—that I could fuck him. But besides the fact that my shaft was much too large for him to take, I simply couldn't feel that way for him. Krynn was a lover of both males and females but for myself, only females would do. Despite his beauty, my shaft didn't rise for him and never would.

Besides, fucking can fuck up a friendship faster than almost anything else. So we were stuck with the whip and the pain it caused. Though I knew my friend would rather submit sexually, the whippings I had been giving him kept the Needing at bay. Which meant that he didn't have to go crawling back to that bitch, Lady Elgiana, who had infected him in the first place.

I thought of asking him if he wanted to go someplace private so I could whip him again, but I knew it shamed him when I brought the subject up first. He would come to me when he was ready—he always did. And then we would deal with his Needing the only way we could—with pain.