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The timing of the Earl of Tabiner’s call was rather inconvenient, considering the ghoul’s teeth were still embedded in the meat of Dell’s good sword-arm. Under ordinary circumstances, Dell would readily greet him with every ounce of her good St. Catherine’s manners, but in this particular instance, her formidable self-possession was occupied with biting back a string of deeply unladylike language. With a great feat of strength, Dell set her feet in a square, sturdy position and wrenched the deuced ghoul’s jaws apart with her bare hands, arms trembling as she did so. The great lout of a lord stood with fastidious, scowling displeasure as she slammed the ghoul down into the open grave she had prepared for it, driving the sainted blade down through its heart to pin it there. It would be very polite of the ghoul to stop squirming so much when it was clearly downed, but, as with most ghouls, this one had no sense of decorum.
Nothing for it but to climb out of the grave and finish the job, and Dell gritted her teeth as she put weight on the injured arm, hauling herself and her sword up and out. The ghoul stayed put for the moment, which would be, hopefully, long enough. The lord’s foot tapped fretfully, his nose wrinkled in disgust. There was no avoiding him any further, it seemed.
“Good evening, my lord. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Dell inquired through gritted teeth, and wished for a bath and a change of clothes. Perhaps even a decent supper.
“I am in need of your… services,” said Lord Tabiner, with a frustrating lack of elaboration. I had assumed, Dell carefully did not say. She dusted a half-inch of soil off her thick, gray trousers, and unhooked a flint and steel from her belt.
“By all means, sir, make your request,” she said, and struck a few sparks into the grave. The corpse inside keened as it went up in a blaze far faster than any corpse should, crackling and moaning in the flames. Lord Tabiner’s face drained of color, acquiring the texture of sealing wax. This seemed like an appropriate admonishment for his unfortunate timing, so it was difficult to pity him.
“It is a delicate matter,” Lord Tabiner hedged. “One that must be handled… discreetly.”
“Well, if you’ll give me a moment, sir, I will gladly meet you in private to discuss.”
There had been a time when Dell had insisted upon a chaperone for these sorts of meetings, but she was twenty-eight, and had been working at this sort of thing for twelve years. She was clad in trousers and blood, for heavens’ sake, and a holy blade was sheathed at her hip. Eventually, the damage to one’s reputation was irreparable. And with Dell’s mannish shoulders, broad stature, pronounced nose and close-cropped hair, the unwanted attention of men had not been a concern for many years.
Lord Tabiner stood back as Dell finished with the ghoul, reburying it so that, when the ghoul’s poor widow came to see what had become of her husband, she would find him peacefully lain to rest at last. Another few coins toward Dell’s freedom.
And perhaps a few more, yet. Dell joined Lord Tabiner in his stuffy carriage, raising an eyebrow as he shut the door and drew the curtain like a man hunted.
“I have reason to believe,” said the whey-faced lord, “that a daemon has placed a spell of wantonness and seduction upon my wife. She pines for the daemon, and seems to dream of her. She has confessed the temptress visits as often as fortnightly.”
“St. Catherine’s will happily send someone to your estate to invoke a blessing against daemons, I am sure,” Dell said, and thought, rather uncharitably, that this was not something she particularly needed to be bothered for, nor was it urgent enough to preempt a chance to treat the wound that pained her at present. A daemon was a powerful creature, but their primary harm was in seducing good, God-fearing people into sin. Really more of a religious matter than one that Dell’s particular brand of violent intervention was suited for.
“I want you to deal with the daemon directly!” Lord Tabiner exclaimed, loudly enough that Dell’s eyes flashed in warning, fist tightening on the hilt of the blade laying across her lap. “I have had blessings placed left and right, and yet I am continually cuckolded in my own home by this unholy creature. If this gets out, my reputation will be in shambles.”
“I see,” said Dell, though if she had been frank with the man, daemon-slaying was somewhat beyond her ordinary purview. Dell considered herself a fairly straightforward woman, suited to the battling of ghouls and wyverns. “Straightforward” was the one thing daemons consistently were not.
Lord Tabiner coughed uncomfortably into his hand. “As it is so sensitive a request, I would appreciate your discretion, and would be willing, of course, to compensate you for the trouble of anonymity.”
“And what would be my compensation?” Dell inquired, intrigued. Perhaps she would come out of this with a tidy sum after all.
“How much is the remainder of your debt to St. Catherine’s?”
Dell blinked like she’d received a blow. “Come again?”
It was not an insignificant sum - she owed nearly two hundred pounds for the cost of her upbringing and training, still, which would be three years of income for even a well-to-do lady’s maid, and the income from doing battle against the cursed creatures riddling the country was largely eaten up by St. Catherine’s charges for maintaining the blessing on her blade, with sundry other costs.
“However much is still owed on your life, I will gladly pay it. In return for your utmost secrecy and your swift and effective action, of course.”
“I am not certain you know what you are saying, sir,” Dell said, weakly. “I still carry a debt of nearly two hundred pounds.”
Lord Tabiner sneered, emanating a miasma of condescension. “Is that all?” he asked. “My wife has gowns more costly. I will sign the contract here and now, if I will be rid of this nuisance.”
Dell’s traitorous heart was lifting already, thinking of her freedom - yes, she was a spinster already, and would never have a husband, but that was not a hardship. The unhappy visages of the women who had married to escape St. Catherine’s had thoroughly cemented in Dell’s mind that husbands seemed more trouble than they were worth. But to be able to make her own money and live in her own home and choose her own work - that was worth having to deal with a daemon.
“It will take me a day or two to acquire a contract through the proper channels, and I will need to speak to Lady Tabiner about her predicament, I’m afraid, but that is quite the offer, my lord.”
“Call upon my estate once you have the contract. I will ensure you receive the information you need.”
“Yes, sir,” Dell said, and was dismissed to go about her business.
Dell arrived at the Tabiner estate on that following Tuesday, as promised, with a St. Catherine’s signed contract in hand, dressed as respectably as was manageable. There was not much to be done about her hair or the scars or her unsightly complexion, but she had scraped herself into impeccable tidiness and a dress that had fit perfectly well when she was eighteen, but not so much anymore. It strained uncomfortably at the muscle of her arms, irritating the bandaged wound.
Immediately upon being admitted to the small, informal sitting room, it was clear that Lady Tabiner was beautiful, but her posture next to her husband was arched slightly away from him, collapsed into herself like a cowering dog. She looked for all the world like a terrified, scolded child, and the helpless anger that struck Dell was an old and familiar one. Dell had not assumed that a man like Lord Tabiner would be very forgiving of such rampant infidelity, but regardless of the poor gentlewoman’s sins, it was difficult for Dell to see a woman suffer and not long to come to her aid.
"Sir," Dell said, quietly, a greeting less polite than originally intended, and proffered the contract to Lord Tabiner. He signed it with barely a scan of the contents, which would be almost insulting, if it were not for the sheer amount of money. Dell was hardly going to complain if a wealthy man was less careful of his money than he should be. She almost wished she were planning to scam him, the wretched man.
“Thank you, sir,” Dell said, retrieving the contract. “Now, if I may speak to your wife in private, please?”
“Absolutely not,” Lord Tabiner puffed, chest swelling. He was a tall man, but Dell was a tall woman, and she did not flinch. She waited for him to finish, and then repeated herself.
“If I may speak to your wife in private, please?” she asked in the same neutral intonation. “Sensitive matters, you understand, of a feminine persuasion.”
Eventually, Lord Tabiner was convinced to vacate the premises, and left with a grumbling sense of simmering anger that left Lady Tabiner still and cold; Dell maneuvered to put her broad form between the lord and his wife until he was safely away. Only then did she sit down across from Lady Tabiner and fold her hands in her lap, sitting in polite silence to allow Lady Tabiner time to collect herself.
“You’re here about her, ” Lady Tabiner said, finally. Her hands clenched in her skirt, her voice sharp with unguarded vulnerability. Dell found herself looking away from the raw intimacy of her expression.
“I am.”
“Does he- ” She said the word in the exact opposite of the tone she had said her in, bitter and curdled, “-expect me to fall in line merely at the threat of a St. Catherine’s hunter of sin? You cannot hurt her. She is too strong, and I - I refuse to allow you.”
“Has she done something to deserve being hurt?” Dell asked, meeting her eyes. Lady Tabiner was the first to look away.
“No. Perhaps- No. She is not at fault. It was I who did the wrong, and perhaps I would have done it without her to ask me to.”
“Tell me,” Dell said, and Lady Tabiner heaved in a breath so deep her stays creaked. She was a tiny woman, but swollen with suffering. Dell leaned forward in an attempt to project understanding and gentleness - she was hardly a charismatic woman, strong and unbeautiful and often lacking tact, but she had found that other women tended to gravitate toward her. She had been told she made them feel safe.
Lady Tabiner’s fine mouth trembled, and then she began to speak: rapidly and tripping over herself, her voice raw and choked. Dell let her speak, silent out of shock as much as respect.
“I never meant to betray my husband - I am not that kind of woman. I obey my vows, madam, it is important that you know. I would have remained a respectable wife and mother, it matters not how much I - how much he- I ought never have let any of this happen. I knew not what she was, at first. I met her in the gardens while on a promenade and all I knew then was that she was kind to me. She told me I was beautiful. She spoke to me like I was important, and I felt a kinship with her as is only possible to feel with another woman. And she was so lovely. She was perfect, with roses in her hair, and I felt as though the sun were out for the first time since- In the beginning, all I wanted was to see her again, to speak with her, to attain the sort of romantic friendship that women have in novels.
“And then a few nights later, I woke up and she was there. In my room. It had been a… difficult evening, with my lord Tabiner, and I was so glad to see her that I did not question as I ought. I assumed it was a dream, and I reached for her-” Lady Tabiner’s hand rose slightly, mimicking the motion, and her eyes were distant.
“She said my name. Her voice was like a concerto, and her eyes shone in the dark, and I realized what she was, and I did not care. I didn’t care. Not then.”
“What was she?” Dell asked, barely above a whisper. She was drawn in despite herself, could see the tragic circumstances and the beautiful seeming-salvation of the daemon offering comfort as vividly as if she had lived it.
“You know what she is,” Lady Tabiner spat, and pressed her trembling lips together, staring hard at Dell’s shoulder, where she could not avoid her bandages showing above the collar of her dress. “A daemon. She called herself Uxorious. Perhaps she did bewitch me, because when I looked at her that night, I could not bear to look away. I am… ashamed of what I did that night. Of what I do, when she comes. But I can’t say I regret it. She makes me feel precious, and beloved, and beautiful. And- and safe. Just for a night, now and again. Perhaps that is the spell speaking.”
Dell felt herself react at learning of a name, though she did her best not to interrupt or startle her. The name itself was interesting - Uxorious, to love one’s wife overmuch, an ironic name for a daemon that seduced married women into adultery. It was also useful, as was a location where the daemon could presumably be found - either in the promenade gardens, or in Lady Tabiner’s bedroom at uncertain intervals. Best to check the gardens first, however, so as not to intrude upon a lady’s privacy.
It was difficult to blame the poor woman for seeking solace from the brute whose children she was forced to bear. It was equally difficult to ask the question that must be asked. “How did your husband find out?”
Lady Tabiner’s complexion turned a cold, washed-out grey.
“I was unwise. Lovestruck, one could say. I called her name in my sleep, I tried to draw her portrait, I wrote her name over and over. I was besotted with her, and I rejoiced too visibly in the mornings after her visits. My husband thought I was betraying him with a man of our acquaintance, at first, but he dragged the story out of me, eventually. He was… displeased, with my weakness, but better that it be a daemon than an ordinary man, for at least I was victim to a devilish temptation, and not an earthly one. A daemon’s bewitchment would mean it wasn’t entirely my fault. I… I do not know if I believe that Uxorious has treated me so cruelly as to bewitch me so, body and soul, or if I merely fell prey to ordinary temptation. I would… I would like to know. My husband certainly believes I have been bewitched - I suppose that is why he summoned you here.”
“Thank you for telling me that,” Dell said, with a tenderness and a sympathy she could not hide. Lady Tabiner’s dark eyes were wide and wet. “I will investigate whether or not there is a spell involved, and inform you of my findings.”
“Thank you,” Lady Tabiner said, and then slumped back in her seat and burst into tears.
Privately, Dell felt dread begin to brew. It seemed more and more likely there was no bewitchment, and that meant that when Dell did battle with the daemon and stopped her from visiting Lady Tabiner, there would be no breaking of the curse, no return to normal. Lady Tabiner would be forced to feel every ounce of misery in her right mind. It was cruel of the daemon to play such havoc with the woman’s tender feelings merely to feed on her eternal soul.
It would be easier for Dell to battle the daemon if she could ask around for more information, perhaps find others who had made Uxorious’ acquaintance, so to speak. In this particular instance, however, there was absolutely no way to inquire after that information without causing great offense. Nothing for it but to parade around a garden chanting a daemon’s name under her breath like a fool until the daemon got either intrigued or irritated enough to come and see what was happening. What a dignified excursion this would be.
It was hardly like Dell had any gowns fine enough to show off around the gardens anyway, so she did not bother with a gown at all. As a hunter of unholy creatures, she had some leeway when it came to crossdressing, and she took full advantage of it. Dressing in men’s garb gave Dell a queer feeling of comfort. She felt calmer and more confident, able to act with a man’s brashness and dispense with thoughts of beauty. While she appreciated the look of skirts on other women - there were gowns which truly took Dell’s breath away, on others - she felt only discomfort when wearing them herself.
She dressed in sturdy trousers, armed herself thoroughly, and strolled in the garden with the calm austere severity of a true woman of St. Catherine’s. None would publically call a St. Catherine’s hunter anything but respectable, however improper the manner of their garb and their work, so she gathered many odd looks but no comments as she wove between the finely adorned women and their gentlemen suitors, through the spiraling rose paths. Dell was not entirely certain what she was looking for, but she hoped she would know it when she saw it.
And, in the end, she did know the daemon when she saw her. The sunlight touched Uxorious’s braided hair like a lover, and her smile shone across her small, impish face. Her eyes were a brilliant green as she touched a woman’s arm, smiled up at her; her dress, green and brown and white in a confusion of embroidery and gems, was cut just barely within the restraints of modesty. All these could have been merely the mark of a beautiful woman, but the dazed, enraptured look on Uxorious’ companion’s face was difficult to mistake.
“Uxorious,” Dell murmured, too softly and distantly for a human woman to hear. Uxorious’ pretty head snapped up, and she turned to look with eager alacrity. Dell was expecting her to look nervous at the sight of a woman clearly demarcated as a hunter with cross and sword and trousers, but instead the daemon lit up with unholy glee. She whispered something to the woman she was speaking to that made her blush and smile, and abandoned her companion to glide over to Dell with a slinking grace. A single dark ringlet fell softly over her freckled cheek as she smiled up at Dell.
“Did you call for me, ma’am?”
Lady Tabiner’s description of Uxorious’ voice as reminiscent of a concerto was barely an exaggeration - it was truly musical, in the way of harps and cellos. The daemon was more diminutive than expected, however, barely reaching Dell's ribcage. She looked as delicate as a porcelain doll, and Dell felt an uncomfortable twinge of protectiveness that she knew was intentional on the daemon’s part, and yet seemed unavoidable.
“Lord Tabiner hired me to come and speak with you,” Dell said, stiffly, fighting the urge to soften. It was hardly as though Dell had never met a monster disguised as a beautiful woman before. She knew better than to give in to her weaknesses.
“Did he? Lord Tabiner? Whyever for?” the daemon asked, round-eyed.
“Oh, you are perfectly aware,” Dell snapped. The daemon looked innocuously uncomprehending, small, soft lips parting slightly. Dell fumbled for words that were not entirely inappropriate for a public setting. “You know, ” she said again, and the daemon’s innocent face cracked into the most self-aggrandizing smirk that Dell had ever seen. Lord above, this would be an uncomfortable conversation.
“Are you here to kill me, ma’am?” Uxorious asked, easy and smiling. “Or do you prefer sir? I suppose you may make the attempt, though I must warn you, it is unwise.”
“No, not to kill you,” Dell said. “Not unless I have to. But what you’ve done to poor Lady Tabiner - I am here to make you undo it.”
“I’m afraid Aurelia has been quite thoroughly done , so to speak,” Uxorious said, and seems to feel the opposite of remorse. “Is it my fault, when women cannot resist my charms?”
“She is miserable,” Dell said, quietly.
Uxorious stilled. Her voice seemed a decade older when she spoke next. “Perhaps this would be better suited as a private conversation?”
Dell became aware of the curious passersby, never quite rude enough to eavesdrop, but certainly wondering what sort of scandal was brewing when a well-armed St. Catherine’s hunter was conversing with a beautiful stranger.
“And where would you prefer to have it?” Dell asked.
“I have a place,” Uxorious said, and proffered a small, elegant hand.
Dell narrowed her eyes. “You want me to enter a circle of Hell of my own volition?”
Uxorious smiled. More than ever, her beautiful form seemed like the lure disguising a hook, and Dell did not care to bite like an unwitting trout. “On my blood and power, you will come to no harm within my domain, and you will be freed into the world before the sun sets tonight.”
Dell thought over the wording, and then said, “Freed specifically back into these gardens, and I will have your word that no more time shall pass inside your domain than outside it.”
“Freed into the Promenade Gardens, right where I found you, and you will experience no more time than is truly passing,” Uxorious confirmed.
This seemed acceptable, and Dell hardly wanted to have this conversation in the middle of a public garden, so she inclined her head and offered Uxorious her arm. Uxorious slipped a hand into the crook of Dell’s elbow as though they were intimate friends, and pulled her through an archway. The effect was odd - she did not reappear on the other side of the archway, but went through it into emptiness, as though the garden on the other side were an illusion. There was little time to puzzle over it, however, before Dell was through the archway as well, and into Hell.
Hell did not look like Dell expected. Of course it did not, this was a daemon’s domain, not the torment-chambers of sinners. Yet Dell had expected some reminder of its location. Instead, she found herself in another garden, this one forest-like and untamed. The trees were enormous, some bearing fruit and others blossoms, a heady mix of scents filling the air. Blackberry thickets cluttered the undergrowth, and the floor of the forest-garden bore plants that Dell recognized as poisons side by side with strawberries and sunflowers.
It was all so wild and earthy and green that Dell could not help but look around in awed admiration. It suited Uxorious, who reclined in the crook of a low, sturdy apple-branch with the comfort of one who sat there often.
“Now. What was it you wished to speak to me about?” Uxorious asked.
“About Lady Tabiner,” Dell said.
At the reminder of Lady Tabiner, Dell felt her soft, sun-warmed awe harden back into cool resolve, and her shoulders straighten, hard and cold. She clasped her hands behind her back, drawing herself up to every inch of her full stature. Yes. She was here on behalf of the sorely wounded Lady Tabiner, and she could do battle for the lady, even if the spirit quailed at the thought of battling a woman on behalf of the lord. Uxorious’ only response was to languidly lay a cheek against the trunk of the apple tree and casually kick off her shoes, one, two, letting them hit the clover beneath with a thump.
Now her feet and calves were bare, dirt-smudged and scandalous. She should have had a petticoat, stockings, should not have had so much sun-gold skin on display and such a casual air. It was hardly as if Uxorious were not aware of what she was doing. Of what she had done to Lady Tabiner.
“I’m not the reason she’s miserable,” Uxorious said, sharply. Dell’s eyes jerked guiltily back up from her hemline to meet her eyes. The green of Uxorious’ eyes seemed to have deepened unnaturally, and her jaw was set in a cold rage. Dell could not blame her. The brute of a man that Lady Tabiner - and now Dell herself - were beholden to for their livelihoods was prone to inspiring such emotion.
“And yet she is,” Dell said, “She thinks you bewitched her. She begged me not to kill you, and she wept.”
“Is it bewitchment to provide a miserable woman with a moment of light?” Uxorious said, and began to let down her hair, neatly picking out dark pins and combing it out with her fingers, strand by strand. Dell looked away. It felt like a sin of some indefinable sort to watch. “If she must be with him, is it not a gift to allow her some affection now and again, at least?”
“But did you bewitch her? Or do you linger simply because you are so memorable ?”
“I think you underestimate how memorable I am.” Uxorious laughed. Her teeth were blinding white, and oddly sharp behind her rose-petal lips. Dell scowled at her, folding her arms tighter, but a blush tipped her ears with heat that she couldn’t suppress.
“She betrayed her marriage vows,” Dell snapped. “That is not behavior for her to take pride in, and you ought not take pride in tricking her into it. She is ashamed.”
“A sham of a marriage, and sham-vows.” Uxorious shrugged, elegantly. Dark hair fell around her face in a curtain of curls, all of her pins vanished. “He vowed to love and to cherish, and he has done none of that.”
“Would it stop you, if he had?” Dell asked, disgusted.
“Who knows?” The daemon seemed unconcerned. “The promises of humans to deny themselves their indulgences has never meant much to me. Why shouldn’t a woman be allowed to take pleasure in the arms of whomever she likes? I am happy to bestow my gifts upon the unhappy married and unmarried alike.”
“Gifts?” Dell frowned. “I thought you just seduced them.”
She realized how hopelessly naive she sounded when Uxorious started, and then tossed her head back to laugh in a gleeful, uproarious peal. Her teeth have changed, two long incisors jutting out like fangs, and her laughing mouth opened wider than it should. Dell flushed, dully.
“Oh, my dear,” Uxorious said, when she finished laughing. “Am I not a gift in myself?”
Dell said nothing, flustered and guarded. She felt herself a fool, and Uxorious’ beautiful, vulnerable delicacy concealed a razor wit that set Dell quite at odds. The sinuous line of Uxorious’ body and the glittering sharp of her eyes and teeth made Dell think of a serpent, jewel-bright and venomous. For the first time, she put a hand on the hilt of her sainted blade.
“Don’t draw that blade, hunter, not in my place,” Uxorious said, with the same lilting, careless tone. Dell neither drew the sword nor removed her hand from the hilt, challenging.
“You speak of your attentions as gifts, but I doubt there is any charity involved,” Dell said. Uxorious drew her knees up under her skirt, shifting to reclining sideways on the apple branch.
“Of course I get something from them,” she said. “But it is a more than fair exchange, I feel.”
“You feed on their immortal souls and call that a fair exchange?”
“No need to be so dramatic.” The ‘s’ in ‘so’ is sibilant, hissing. “I take nothing they cannot regenerate with time, and I make very sure there is no pain. They all agree to it, in the end.”
“Because you trick them and seduce them,” Dell argued, but the smell of the garden was heady and Uxorious’s half-hooded eyes were heavy on her, and she suddenly found it quite easy to understand how someone could lose all track of their vows and the integrity of their soul under such a look. Uxorious’s dress seemed to be getting tighter, conforming to the shape of her, and the shape was odd. Not quite a woman’s, and then very much not a woman’s at all.
“Why are you here, Dell?” Uxorious asked, instead of answering the accusation. By now she was a serpent in the apple tree, her skirted legs melded into a sinuous length that looped and coiled. Her dress was melted into her skin, birch bark and leaves and scales covering her elegant form, a mix of plant and serpent. Beautiful and terrible, strange and lovely.
After too long a look, much too long a pause, Dell said, “I am here to make sure you don’t bother the Tabiners anymore.”
“And if I say no?”
“No?”
“If I say I will go back to the Tabiners as I wish, and draw Aurelia Tabiner into my bed whenever she consents to be taken? If I follow my own will and take my lovers without care for the constraints of your congregation?”
“Then I will do as I must.” Reluctantly, Dell drew her sainted blade.
Uxorious hissed as the blessing-inscribed steel was bared, and the sound struck a bolt of fear into Dell’s chest. Uxorious was so small, in her mortal disguise, so harmless and round-faced and big-eyed, and now as she approached her coils seemed to surround Dell entirely. The smell of apples and herbs and summer was strong enough to choke, the glimmering green of her eyes hypnotic and her mouth red enough that it hurt to look at. The world seemed to bend around her as her long, ophidian body curled and wove. The daemon was so beautiful, so much, that Dell felt tears stream from her eyes without her permission, that she wanted to kneel, but she locked her knees and her spine and held her blade firm.
“Put that away, Dell,” Uxorious ordered, softly.
“I have my orders,” Dell said, and her voice barely escaped her lips, rough and strangled. Her hands were strong, though her shoulder pained her at the strain, and she had killed more frightening things than this with her rough and bloodied hands. “I have no choice. Surrender, or do battle.”
“You always have a choice.”
Dell’s hands shook, arguments rising to her lips and then dying there. She struggled with the emotion for a long, furious moment, silent as the daemon watched.
“Well?” Uxorious prodded.
Dell’s voice rose to nearly a shout as the words escaped at last, different words than she had planned. “I am not free to make them! The nunnery owns me, and I must do as I am bid until I can purchase my freedom. Do you think I want this?”
Uxorious’ small, exquisite face was close enough to Dell that her warm breath brushed Dell’s cheek. Her eyes were bottomless pools of green, and up close, the scales on her body were revealed to be leaves and blossoms, bark and bone and small, glittering gemstones. There were delicate vines mingled with the waterfall of her dark hair. The myth of adders hypnotizing their prey came to mind, and Dell kept the blade up between them, the scant few inches of blade-width and the sharp of the edges all that separated them. Uxorious, languid, laid her cheek against the flat of it, and though the burning glow of the saint-markings must have hurt, she betrayed no sign of pain.
“You do not need to pay,” she murmured, “for the crime of being born. Children are owed care, and you ought to have incurred no debt for it.”
“The church disagrees,” Dell said, though Uxorious’ words hurt more than if she had dug her claws into Dell’s wound. The sword was pressed so close to the curve of Uxorious’ throat that the scattered petals there bent around the edge. The sword was not so sharp as to cut with just a touch, but if Dell moved to raise her blade, the friction would slash those white petals in twain. She did not allow it to move, even with Uxorious’ slight weight leaned against it.
“The church disagrees with me on nearly everything, and I am right about all of it,” Uxorious said, with a glittering smile. A strangled laugh burst from Dell’s throat, and hurt as it did.
“There,” Uxorious said, and her tone had dropped all malice or conceit, merely gentle now. She delicately touched a cheek Dell had not realized was wet. “There’s a smile, lovely.”
Dell froze at the touch, terrified and wanting to lean into it all at once. The steel between them was not enough of a barrier, and yet was far too much of one. Uxorious’ hand was warm, and felt less like skin than like new leaves. Thorn-claws prickled at Dell’s skin. She was so near.
“Free yourself,” Uxorious breathed, and rubbed her cheek along the steel flat of the sword in a way that made it even harder to think. “They will never let you repay the debt - they cannot afford to let a warrior like you leave. They will only find ever more reason to keep you. Come away, and make your own choices, freely, as your strong soul dictates.”
“They’ll find me, if I run,” Dell said, bleakly.
“Then run away with me.”
Dell flinched back, violently, and Uxorious let her go, though she felt herself come up against the sun-warmed wood of Uxorious’ thick tail. Her arms trembled, her shoulder aching so badly she could hardly move it, and she dropped the sword to one side to look at Uxorious better. A tiny cut on the curve of her jaw dripped liquid gold.
“What? ”
“You heard me.”
“Why?” Dell begged.
“You’re magnificent,” Uxorious said, and her coils tightened slightly, brushing against Dell’s calves, bringing her body a little closer. The sword was no longer between them, and Uxorious’ scaled chest brushed Dell’s. “The church would like to keep you because you serve them well and obediently. I would like to keep you because you are handsome, interesting, strong. You are the sort of woman who puts men to shame.”
“Do you make this offer to all of the women you seduce?” Dell said, almost laughing. The heat in her cheeks was unaccountable and embarrassing, and almost certainly obvious to Uxorious’ close, gleaming gaze.
“Some of them. Often they deny me.”
Dell was so warm, pinned against the daemon, sun and earth and sweetness. She could hardly move her sword hand, trapped in the daemon’s coils, and if this was a plot to disarm and destroy her, then it was remarkably effective.
“I refuse to make myself into anyone’s servant,” she warned.
“You are free to come and go as you please, and do as you wish,” Uxorious promised. “Only be strong and brave and kind, as you are, and allow me to admire you.”
“And where are the teeth in this trap?” Dell challenged. “It is a very pretty lure, but there must be a hook underneath.”
“No teeth. No hook. I am taking a gamble.” Uxorious’ body rippled, brushing up against Dell, and she swayed, intoxicated.
“What do you mean by gamble? ”
“You have a magnificent soul,” Uxorious said. “Strong and warm and sweet. The gamble I am making is this: I think you will let me taste it-” At this, her tongue flicked out, delicate and forked, scenting the air a hair’s breadth from Dell’s face. “-and that it will be even sweeter with the taste of freedom, and the space to grow to your full strength.”
“Lord above,” Dell said, faintly. “You’re very presumptuous.”
“Allow me to presume a little more?” Uxorious’ intention was clear, her mouth angled toward Dell’s, murmuring so quiet and close that their lips almost brushed with every word.
“Please,” Dell said, barely breathing.
Uxorious laughed, and kissed her. Thoroughly. Her mouth was soft, the kiss sharp and bright. It felt like Dell had never been touched before this moment, and she abruptly felt desperate for more of it, to be kissed and kissed and kissed. Dell fisted a hand into the daemon’s long hair, careful not to crush the fine stems entwined there, and kissed back, at first with more fervor than skill, but learning how to kiss more gently as the movements of Uxorious’ mouth taught her.
This was a remarkably persuasive argument as to the goodness of Uxorious’ ideas, and Dell lost her objections for a considerable amount of time, dazed and adoring. But eventually she pulled away for long enough to have thoughts again, her mouth feeling odd as she looked into Uxorious’ half-hooded eyes.
“Well,” Dell said, with a sense of almost hysterical humor. “If I am to run away and let the church go hang, something needs to be done about Lady Tabiner.”
“I bring her happiness, when I can, but she will not ever leave the Tabiner estate when her child and her family will be left behind with it,” Uxorious said, and her body rippled in a way that made the wood of it clatter and rattle.
“Then something must be done about Lord Tabiner.”
Uxorious smiled a slow, ophidian smile. “I am no warrior, but do you have any ideas, my strong knight?”
“A few,” Dell said, darkly. Uxorious laid her head against Dell’s chest, a soft weight, and Dell daringly petted her hair, momentarily distracted from her anger. “But my thoughts are not the most important to consider, I believe.”
“Agreed. Perhaps we ought to ask the lady herself?”
“Perhaps we ought.”
The door did not open, that night, onto sunset in the Promenade Gardens. It opened, instead, into a darkened bedroom. The conversation was brief, and Lady Tabiner’s desires were clear.
The Earl of Tabiner, the rumors said, had fled in the night, to parts unknown. He left behind his fortune, his only son, and his wife. It was agreed by all that his wife was to be pitied, so noble and brave in the face of the loss, and that the Earl was quite the cad. There were no rumors about the St. Catherine’s hunter who had vanished from the ranks - casualties were not uncommon, and the church disliked gossip.
Lady Tabiner’s smile, these days, was remarked upon as brilliant.