Chương 31: Mana thirst

Ch 31: Mana thirst Felix stood awkwardly as Isa, Cici, and Cara lined up and stared at him in his underwear.

"Well. This is hardly fair," he said.

"The rest of you should take your clothes off." Cici grinned. Isa blushed. Cara stared.

"Does he prefer a focus? And I'm happy to go first. But…" Cici trailed off as she met his eyes, and her confidence seemed to shrink.

"I don't think I'll succeed on my own."" He doesn't need anything," Felix said, getting annoyed at the whole situation.

"I can channel fire mana fine on my own now. And if you remember, it's not great for everyone else when I do. Cara should get far back with the priestesses and Hasha. Like out of the corridor entirely. Are those stupid wards set up again?" Isa nodded, gesturing Cara away with a few silent eye-conversations until her bodyguard went.

"Fine. But if I think it's going wrong, I'm putting a dart in his neck." Cara held up what looked like the kind of 'blowgun' sometimes used by goblins. Felix gave her a brow raise.

"Thanks Cara. Really glad you're here, Cara." She glared one last time before she walked off. Then Felix was totally alone with Cici and Isa, and very conscious of being mostly naked.

"Better if you strip entirely," said Cici with what could only be called a devilish stare. Isa rolled her eyes.

"You're fine, Felix." She looked like she wanted to get closer and say more, fiddling with her hands and curling some hair behind an ear. She eventually met his eyes and smiled.

"Are you ready?" Was he? To get 'scourged'? Sure, why not. He'd been whipped for insubordination before. He nodded, and Cici stepped closer, running a hand gently around his bandages.

"I watched you in the square," she said quietly, looking up at him with an expression more like the one she'd had when she'd called him a 'Keeper'.

"I've never seen anything like that. And you've hardly tapped your potential."

"Next time consider helping instead of watching. To apologize, we could, uh, search each other's souls again before we do this. In private. A man usually gets a last meal before execution." Cici grinned, those thick lips sucking in his eyes." I'm the one who got the meal. And it's not an execution. We'll get you through."

"Still." He grinned.

"There's a chance. Best not risk it." Cici fought a laugh, but she looked thoughtful, like it wasn't actually a bad idea. She turned back to a pink faced Isa. The princess looked at them both like naughty children.

"I can hear you. And no one is doing any soul searching in the holy temple."

"We could get a chair," Cici said.

"Draining some of his mana really worked very well last time. Might save us a lot of trouble. That soul is wonderfully wild. But I'm not sure we can handle it." Isa glared at her friend, looking torn between jealous and curious. And like she was going to get caught with her hand in a cookie jar. She glanced back at the now empty corridor and blew some hair away from her face.

"They are right there, don't even think about it. Anyway I thought they'd send someone else. They must be struggling to find any pool willing to help. Let's just start. Not start like that. I mean do this properly. You know what I mean!" Cici was wiggling her eyebrows as Isa struggled. She eventually shook her head and shrugged.

"You mainlanders really are prudes. Well, if we aren't going to go the physical route, let's not waste any more time." She flicked the fabric off her shoulders, and her dress slipped to the stone in a red pool. Just like that, she was almost naked. Her incredible body was on full display again, nothing but a small layer of silk-like underwear covering her sex. Isa stared at her with wide eyes.

"What? The more contact the better. And he's going to burn it all anyway." This time Isa eventually nodded like it was so. Though she didn't look happy about it. Before Felix could really ask any questions, Cici stepped forward and pushed herself against him. Her smooth, soft skin pressed tight to his from her waist up. It sent a full length shiver through his body, and he went half-mast. He tried not to focus on any particular body part, taking a deep breath to keep calm.

Except he got a nose full of her scent and almost groaned at how good it was. The fire inside him perked up like an animal, straining in its cave with obvious excitement.

"I don't actually know what I'm doing," he said. Cici's hands stroked his back. She pressed her cheek against his chest.

"Don't worry. I'll teach you. Now you need to find my soul again. Do you remember it exactly?" He certainly did. Just like he remembered the feel of her lips sliding down his shaft, and her tongue swirling over his tip… He closed his eyes and imagined the same bonfire on the beach. The cool breeze and salt of the sea. Warmth poured through his skin, flowing inside him and growing as if from the ground itself in his fortress.

"OK. What do I do now?" he said, realizing there wasn't much to burn.

"Do I direct it somewhere?"

"No. Just let it loose. Destroy this temple." Cici said it as if the idea pleased her.

"Evaporate the water. Take down all the wards. Melt the stone. Show these people what a powerful fire soul can do."

"Uhh…" He shook his head.

"Are you forgetting something? It'll burn you. And Isa. I can't control it. If I…"

"You're not supposed to control it. Your magic won't try to burn me while we're connected. It'll be like I'm a part of you. And Isa is Isa. Not even you can hurt her with fire mana." She rolled her eyes like this was just a known impossible thing.

"And behind that wall is High Mage Hasha and probably a dozen of his gathered minions by now, all ready to stop you. Stop fighting it and let go. The point is to drain it all." If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Let go, she said. Sure. Like that was easy. A lifetime of holding back, of walling his spirit off with discipline and logic and imagination and everything. Even when she'd pleasured him he'd held back. He wasn't sure he could ever truly 'let go'.

But he tried. He reached out with that same warmth, feeling the cold power all around him. He stepped back in his fortress, moving out to look at the cave and the walls and the river of magma from a distance.

"Go on," he shouted from the outer walls, holding out his arms.

"You want out? Show me. Show me what you'd do if I didn't stop you." The inferno pulsed and flared with recognition. It felt petulant, dismissive, like it refused to dance like a monkey just because he called. But it got bolder. It couldn't refuse the chance. The seconds ticked by, then the fire inside Felix's soul glowed. A wind blew across his face, roaring as it touched the flame. Cici gasped and clutched his chest. He could feel her heat, too, could pull that bonfire from her soul and add it to his own.

For the moment he barely saw any point. He just closed his eyes and cooked. Water wards popped like corn. Moisture turned to steam, filling the hall like a bathhouse. He could sense the testing equipment on fire, turning to ash in seconds. It wasn't enough. Not nearly. He reached further, projecting the heat away from the blue-black sphere that was Isa, doing his best to avoid her. Magic twisted from somewhere ahead—more cold, more water, plunging into the growing flame to douse it.

Felix felt his lip curl in anger, though he had no idea why. He shivered as the fire ripped through the channels in his cave. As the pool of magma burned deep and turned into an underground river seeking another exit. Orange flames crackled and hissed as the water magic tested it for weakness. They found none. Felix wanted more power now. He wanted to punish those little insects that thought they could stop him.

He grabbed the bonfire like he was lifting a burning stick, running his spirit down the hall as he laughed. A voice gasped. The soft flesh touching his trembled. He heard the pleasure, the submission, giving him what he wanted. There was a woman touching him and she was his to consume. Just like everything else would be. He remembered she was covered by some annoying little strip of cloth and burned it, grabbing her how he'd wanted.

"Felix…" she shook in his arms.

"It's enough. I can't give… much more." Can't? Enough? These weren't words that mattered to Felix of the Flame. He roared his magic through the stone halls searching for his enemy. For whatever was trying to hold him back. Magic flashed blue on the stone and washed against him, pitiful and weak but grouped with enough enemies to resist. He growled and pulled more. And then more. His inferno cracked the cave walls as it spread itself like wings of fire, spraying out with lines like a dragon's breath. And…

it was glorious. Felix held out his arms in his soul and closed his eyes as it loomed before him.

"Isa!" The fire-girl touching him was crying out.

"Help me!" Felix saw a blue-black sphere of power near him in the hall and couldn't remember why he'd avoided it. It rushed at him in the form of more beautiful flesh covering even more beautiful mana. He wanted it. He wanted all of it. Cold rammed into his side, but warmed so quickly he almost laughed. Did it think it could smother him? Him?

"Take me," said a familiar, wonderful voice.

"I'm yours. Take me." He couldn't have resisted if he'd wanted to. Which he didn't. He grabbed the beautiful flesh and pulled it closer, trying to burn everything between them away. The little bonfire was almost out so he discarded it. But somewhere deep in this new source was a well of power so deep he could almost taste it.

"An ocean," whispered the voice.

"A red sunset rising over the horizon. Endless and calm." There. He found it. Vast power that was almost worthy of him. He floated out over the water of that delicious soul, rippling the water everywhere he went. He looked down and saw himself in pale reflection—a man covered in fire, eyes like burning coal. He laughed as he swirled the water into waves around him, spinning it into a cyclone that matched the fire in his own soul.

"Stop him, Cara!" screamed some far-away voice.

"Put him down!" A little piece of weak flesh came running down the hall. But no… not quite. She was… hollow. Utterly without mana. He couldn't draw from her at all. But she would still burn. Felix sucked up the power of the new pool's sea and moaned as he washed away the resistance ahead. Where his flame had failed, he now struck with a tidal wave of combined force. He smiled as men screamed. The little hollow thing ran through his flames and spit.

He flicked the pitiful weapon with a wave of his hand, burning it long before it arrived. He turned to burn everything, burn it all—all barrier between him and the world, between him and some endless heat beneath the earth, or the heat from the sun. He could join them, he thought, and it would be like home. Where he truly belonged. His fortress was in flames. He walked forward to stand inside until he saw a woman coming towards him.

She was naked and beautiful, with dark brown eyes that looked at him and smiled with her lips.

"Stay with me," she said, coming closer.

"Forget them. Stay with me." Felix blinked and saw himself in two places. A world of fire, and a world of water. And in both of them her. She was in his fortress without burning. How could that be? She pushed herself against him and kissed his lips with a coolness that made him groan. He forgot what he'd been doing and why. He felt the cyclone shrinking, the inferno trying to burn this girl and failing, yet with a happy smile. It couldn't help itself, just like him. But it didn't want her to burn.

"I'm not afraid," she said, looking into his eyes.

"I know you won't hurt me." Oh she was wrong. He would have. He just couldn't. He touched her face and smiled. The cyclone he'd made in the sea shrunk and vanished until he floated above calm waters and watched the sunrise.

"Isa?" He blinked and forgot where he was, and what he was doing. Cici was sagging in his arms, both she and Isa naked and pressed against him, the tattered ruins of their clothes in ashes on the stone. The temple. He'd been in the temple. The 'sewer' testing hall glowed like the embers of the night's fire. Everywhere there was mist and heat waves blurring his vision.

"Cara," he said, suddenly panicking as he remembered trying to burn her alive.

"She's alright," Isa said, putting her hands to his face.

"She's alright. No one is hurt." She winced.

"Well… nothing that can't be healed." He let out a breath and sighed. The truth was, he felt… wonderful. His mind and body were drained in a way he wasn't sure he'd ever felt. It was like the satisfied fatigue after a hard day's labor. Except he was also hard as a rock. The naked flesh of both women against him was like a cool drink on a hot day. Without thinking or caring about rules he grabbed Isa and kissed her first. She flinched, but didn't fight him.

Her lips were soft and somehow icy when her tongue was warm, and it sent a shiver down his body. She moaned against him, no resistance at all as she took his tongue. Then he pulled Cici to her full height and kissed her next as he groped both their exposed bodies. He could still see their souls somehow, and was even standing there in both, like he existed in three places at once. He floated like a ship on the calm sea that was Isa, listening to the waves he'd made, as if he'd become a moon inside her.

And he sat on the beach and watched the flickering bonfire that was a near exhausted Cici, seeing a cart full of coal he hadn't remembered before. His fortress was… well, fucked. Melted and broken like a burned out husk of an old building. The inferno was calm, at least. A volcano that just finished erupting. But everywhere there were what he now recognized as 'channels'—paths of power it had carved outwards into his soul.

Towards some distant horizon he now realized was there, and always been, like the borders of a dream. Footsteps were echoing down the hall. Felix looked up and sighed, still clutching both women to his body and running his hands over their skin. But he winced when he saw Cara holding robes. She was pink-skinned, limping, some of her hair charred, eyes red and veined.

"Take these," she said, grabbing Isa and pulling her back. The water princess clung to him and clearly didn't want to let go. But she closed her eyes and swallowed and took the robe, handing the other to Cici.

"The wizards are coming," Cara said with a raspy voice, looking back.

"Put them on." Isa blinked and seemed like she was getting control of herself, throat swallowing as she dressed and helped a less clear Cici.

"I'll do the talking," she said, looking at the floor.

"Felix—they're going to try and use their magic on you now. But it won't work. There's still too much. I don't think we can possibly drain it safely. I don't… I mean there's no precedent for something like this. I don't know what we'll… I'll think of something." Felix hardly cared. He'd never been completely drunk, but he suspected this was close. His mind was blank, his only thoughts left of food and taking Isa and Cici right there on the stone floor in every way he could imagine.

The embers were still glowing inside him, still hot, still ready to burn. Let them come, he thought, without a shred of concern. The fire inside him hissed like they finally agreed. He didn't bother to cover himself.