FIC: The Ice Palace (Part 1/2) for shopfront
Title: The Ice Palace OR In Which I Negate Most of the Premise of the Show and Also Do Not Mention Merlin Once
Author/Artist: ???
Pairing(s): Morgause/Nimueh
Rating:: NC-17
Warnings: sex toys
Summary: Morgause will go to the frozen end of the world to get what she wants.
A/N: For you, shopfront! You gave me a lot of awesome ideas to work with, but I finally settled on backstory on Morgause and Nimueh in a what-if AU. ♥ In terms of parentage, I’m assuming that Morgause and Morgana were the two daughters born to Gorlois and Vivienne, and that Morgause has no reason to think that Morgana may or may not be her full sister. Finally, I have so much thanks, hugs, cupcakes, and love for my two betas of win, yllenk and netgirl_y2k. A huge thanks also goes to H. for audiencing, and to misswonderfreak for giving my opening scene an initial read through. All remaining mistakes are my own.
Words: ~15 000
The sheath of heat that enveloped Morgause, glimmering between her and the relentless storm, flickered and died. As though it were just another puff of mist from her mouth, the last of her magic disintegrated in the frozen air. Like her food supplies, her reserves of power had finally gone: been eaten up, drained out, emptied.
She ground her teeth, tensed her jaw, and braced herself against the onslaught.
The snow hurled itself at her in fits and starts, whiting out her vision as she slogged up the jagged incline. The wind sank its teeth into her cheeks and lips; the air she gulped at froze her raw throat and constricted her lungs; the fingers of her gloved left hand trailed against a solid wall of rock. As long as she clung to her left, she would not stumble into the void that yawned on the other side of the ledge.
It couldn’t be much farther now. It couldn’t. She stomped up the path, refusing to think of the drop-off inches to her right.
As she plodded forward, the cold slapped at her face, at the shawl wrapped tightly over her head, piercing the inner depths of her ears, popping and prodding.
Under her three layers of tunics, she could feel the steel iciness of her chainmail. The muscles in her back, neck, and shoulders clenched hard, tensing into rock. She shook her head, trying to loosen her neck, rolling her stiff shoulders. A chilled blast smacked across her cheek, punctured her chest. A wave of nausea pounded through her, and she paused, head bent down, gripping the rock to her left. It passed and she wiped her chapped lips with the back of her glove. Her lashes felt spiky, stiff against her eyelids, caked with snow and the frozen bits of water tearing from her eyes. She had lost track of her fingers and her toes.
Convulsing and clutching at her churning stomach, she halted against the black crag, as shudder after violent shudder wracked her body. The roaring blood in her ears drowned out the silence of the storm.
She had to keep going. She would not be beaten.
The toe of her boot snagged on something and she sprawled forward, shaking in the snow, looking down at her knee. Where the fabric had ripped open, blood oozed onto the white ground, steaming as it landed, freezing into a dark splotch. She dabbed at the cut, feeling nothing there.
She pushed up again, shoving against the over-whelming desire to stop, to curl against the side of the mountain and let herself be rocked to sleep by the driving snow.
Had it been days, or weeks since she had tethered her horse and begun the climb up this mountain of ice, grit, and snow? Her feet were becoming as solid as the mountain underneath her. The mountain would overtake her, transform her into another piece of itself.
She had forgotten why she was here; there was something she had to do. Someone she had to find. Her mind mirrored the snow swirling around her. She should sleep now; sleep now and become the mountain.
She stumbled forward another step when she heard it: a singsong voice calling to her. How could she have forgotten how close to home she was?
A fire blazed in the distance. She lurched towards it, only a few more steps. A tall blonde figure in white robes stood in the shadows of the fire, smiling as Morgause returned to camp.
At last, at long last, blissful warmth returned, flooding out to her fingertips, shooting through the back of her neck, racing down her thighs, curling into her toes.
But it was too much. The flames of the campfire licked up her billowing cape, burned into her. Unbearable heat, like she had never experienced, pulsed through her; she batted at the burning ties of her cloak, ripping at her laces, tugging it off. She couldn’t get it off fast enough. Her gloves were next, her boots, the wrap cradling her head, her chainmail, two layers of trousers, the heavy wool tunics, her thin cotton undershirt.
Still she burned. The fire had slipped inside her, consuming her from within.
She stood naked beside the pile of discarded clothes, blinking against the wind that could not touch the heat throbbing through her.
The white-robed woman was there now, brushing the hair out of her eyes, cradling her against her chest, humming softly.
Morgause braced herself against the rock and moved to kneel, to sprawl herself out on the ground at the woman’s feet and let herself be lulled to sleep. But her bare foot skidded, unable to grip the ground under her, undone by a slick patch of ice; the woman’s tall body disintegrated into flakes of whirling snow. As Morgause’s hand pawed uselessly against the rock, and her fingers crunched against the stone, she realized with aching clarity there were no clothes left on her feeble body, there was no woman, no fire, no warm camp to return to, and there never would be again. She tumbled down, her feet slipping out from under her, her knees then her pubic bone colliding into the ice with a resounding smack. Sliding downwards, away from the rock that had guided her, away from the clothing that had warmed her, she felt her belly pressed hard to the ground.
Time slowed and she commanded her magic to return and help. She pleaded with it. She cursed it.
With a jolt, the ground dropped away. Her stomach lurched high in her chest as she soared into the air. Careening into nothingness, she opened her throat to scream in frustration, but the storm swallowed her raw howl.
And then it stopped.
A thin cord of living gold snaked down from the heavens and, looping tight around her right wrist, jerked hard, popping her shoulder from its socket, halting her fall. Her feet kicked out against nothing and she hung there for long moments, suspended, buffeted back and forth by the wind.
She felt her hand being tugged, being hauled up and she was lifted, pulled endlessly higher. Trying to look up, she saw nothing but snowflakes tumbling down, felt nothing but the harsh sting of snow against her open eyes. She closed her eyelids and bowed her head, felt her heartbeat, slow and sluggish, in her chest.
After what could have been minutes or hours, her ascension halted. The rope around her wrist tugged her over a sharp cliff, dragged her face down across an icy plateau and then disintegrated into gold sparks that scattered and faded. The whiteness blurring her vision had receded, the snow and winds pelting her body had ceased, and she found herself alone on a frozen expanse of ice.
Someone was approaching. She willed herself to stumble to her feet, but she remained unmoving, naked and helpless as the woman approached. She looked down at her own hands, blue and puffy against the clear ice. She blinked and the world swam around her, the woman walking towards her blurred into a swirling blot of maroon.
“You little fool. Can’t you tell I don’t want to be found?” Her voice, high and mocking, sank into Morgause’s mind and the memory of what she had come for teased at its edges.
But I did find you, she thought with thin triumph as she rolled her eyes to peer up at the woman walking closer. Blue eyes framed by thick ropes of dark curls searched her face.
“You are very very stupid,” the woman laughed lowly.
The woman’s crimson lips curled into a mocking smile and the world faded to black.
+++
Morgause drifted in the blackness between the snowy mountaintop and the ground below. She was still falling.
“You will never find her. And she will not lead you to your sister.”
Now something warm was slithering down her throat, tapping and poking at the layer of ice casing her stomach.
Then the blackness engulfed her again.
Soft heat pulsed at the edges of her skin, but nothing could melt the block of ice lodged where her heart had been. Words of magic that her mind clutched at, trying futilely to understand, washed over her like waves rolling over cold, wet sand.
Morgause started awake to find herself locked in bare arms, her back pressed against smooth fabric covering full breasts and a soft stomach. Deep exhales danced across her neck. Pins and needles skittered across the surface of her skin-on the inside of her thighs, the edges of her arms, the flat of her stomach. A thick blanket had been wrapped tightly around her; it pressed against her chest. She shuddered, shivered against the heat pushing at her back.
I was away, she thought. Across the room, a fire burned in a glass fireplace.
She willed herself to turn in the woman’s arms to see her face, but her muscles just twitched and refused to comply. The block of ice inside her began to chip. She dropped back down into warmth.
Morgause awoke warm and full. She lay sprawled on top of the woman, softly breathing stomach to stomach, groin to groin, her lips buried in the skin of a bony shoulder. Heat seeped through the thin shift covering the woman’s torso into Morgause’s bruised skin.
She exerted all her strength to lift her head, wincing as her muscles screamed; she found deep blue eyes staring back at her.
“You’re alive then,” the woman said. “I thought body heat would be the safest way to warm you. My heating magic might have been too much of a shock to your system.”
Morgause just stared at her.
“No one’s ever been able to find me before,” the woman gloated.
Morgause’s lips cracked painfully as she tried to smile. “Until me.”
“You stupid, stupid girl. Why are you here?” The woman snaked a leg around Morgause’s ankle, running her warm foot up and down her calf.
“I had . . . to find you.” Her memories felt murky and heavy inside her mind. “What happened?”
“I pulled you naked out of the snow. I guess you decided you weren’t cold enough.”
“I was . . . By the fire. I was on fire. . . . Then, you? Then . . .” The edge of darkness.
Unable to hold her head up, Morgause sank down onto the woman’s shoulder. The woman turned her head to mouth a line of wet kisses up Morgause’s sore neck.
“Do you know who I am?” She asked into Morgause’s throat.
“Nimueh.” The name floated up to her from the depth of her memories. Morgause shuddered as a spike of heat trailed down her spine. She ground her groin against Nimueh.
“Shh,” Nimueh soothed her, running her hands gently down Morgause’s back. They lay there quietly, bodies pressing into each other, breathing into each other’s skin.
As feeling seeped in more deeply, the pinpricks of pain aching down her chest, belly, and thighs morphed into something deep and raw, scarring the surface of her skin. Her right wrist burned, her knee felt sliced open, pain bloomed across her pelvis, her shoulder throbbed, her fingers seemed too large where they rested, tangled in Nimueh’s hair.
Finally, long after Morgause had catalogued all the aches in her body, after she had touched the weak flame of magic inside her, after she had closed her eyes and drifted into dreams and then woken to the many points of pain pulsing in her skin, Nimueh spoke again.
“Why were you looking for me?” She breathed against Morgause’s ear; the breath warm and teasing, sending goosebumps down Morgause’s aching arm.
She thought for a minute. “You have what I need,” she choked out.
“What is that?”
Morgause thought of that day-possibly only a week ago, though it felt like another lifetime-the day she had come to the base of the mountain, slapped her horse’s rump, whispered that he should come back for her in two weeks’ time, shouldered her pack and begun her trek.
“Knowledge of Camelot. Share it with me.”
Nimueh shifted under Morgause and laughed, her voice skittering high across the room. “And why on earth would I do that?”
Morgause swallowed and spoke into the woman’s shoulder. “Because I will give you whatever you want in return. My body, my magic, my service, my riches.”
Nimueh laughed again. “I could already claim those things in return for saving your wretched life.” Her hand traced down over Morgause’s ribs; her fingers dug into her buttocks, kneading lightly.
“You could.” Morgause admitted lowly.
“Who sent you?”
“No one.”
“How did you know I was here?” Nimueh’s hand inched higher, rubbing at the aching ropes of muscle knotted in her back. Morgause arched into it.
“I’ve searched for you for the past two years. As soon as I turned sixteen, I left the priestesses and set out to find you. It was a hunch that brought me to this mountain. I guessed that you were behind the villagers’ rumours of the mysterious sorceress who lived in the ice palace atop the mountain.”
“You must be mad to risk your life on a hunch. Did it occur to you that I don’t want to be found? That I don’t want to share my knowledge of Camelot? No one was supposed to find me. Especially not you, Morgause.”
Morgause managed to lift her head, meeting Nimueh’s gaze. “How did you know my name?”
“I watch. I see.” Nimueh shrugged. “What I want to know is why a woman raised by the people who scorned me would come looking for me.”
Nimueh surged up, flipping Morgause in her arms so her back landed against the soft mattress. The delicate fabric of Nimueh’s shift bunched between them, high around their thighs. Twining one leg between Morgause’s, Nimueh braced her own weight above her, searching her face. The light from the fire outlined her cheekbones, flickered over her black hair.
“Tell me,” Nimueh hissed, “what do they say about me? What do the high priests and priestesses say about me?”
“That you started the War against Magic. That the Great Purge began because of you.”
Nimueh quirked an eyebrow and brushed her fingertips over the underside of Morgause’s breast.
Morgause winced at the fleeting touch, warm and sure over the rawness of her bare skin. Something was stirring deep in her, no longer cold-addled, hollering for more touch.
“Is that all?” Nimueh asked breathily, her hand resting loosely against Morgause’s breast.
“You fell in love with a woman, Uther’s queen. They say your magic killed her.”
“They’re not wrong.” She shrugged a shoulder and Morgause tracked the movement with her eyes. “You were a fool to come here.”
“You’ve said that already, Nimueh. If I was such a fool, then why did you save me?” Morgause shifted her hands-too big, too clumsy-to grip at Nimueh’s back, latch onto her shoulder blades.
Nimueh’s icy gaze narrowed.
“Maybe you get lonely up here?” Morgause taunted. “Or maybe you’ve got more good in you than you let on.” Morgause clutched at the upper edge of Nimueh’s shift where it cut low under her shoulders.
“And maybe little girls shouldn’t go looking for trouble.” Nimueh’s voice was high, sharp. She grinned, her lips dark and full against porcelain skin.
Still smiling, she bowed her head to hover above Morgause’s breast; she exhaled slowly over the raw skin there. The light smarting pain tangled into tendrils of neediness-Morgause wanted more. She shifted restlessly under Nimueh, feeling against her own breasts the hardening of Nimueh’s nipples through sheer fabric. Every movement hurt, but it didn’t matter, she realized with a grimace, nothing mattered but that she was alive. The energy deep within her woke up. It was life. She was life. She was alive, she was warm, she had come back from the wide, engulfing cold, come back to this small body, this small body that needed, needed more than anything to exert its fragile existence.
She twisted her thick, unfeeling fingers into Nimueh’s dark hair and pushed Nimueh’s head farther down onto her breast.
Nimueh chuckled softly before closing the hot, wet heat of her mouth over Morgause’s nipple, pulling insistently at it with teeth and tongue.
“Gods, yes.” The words were a rasping exhale that hung in the space between them-the only other sound in the room the crackle of the fire and the wet sounds of Nimueh’s lips on Morgause’s skin.
But it wasn’t enough, wasn’t nearly enough to match the life throbbing inside Morgause, between her legs, up her spine, across the surface of her skin. She tugged at Nimueh’s head, feeling the burn in her arm muscles as she unlatched her and drew her head up so their eyes met. “Show me,” she searched for the words, “show me I’m alive.”
The laughter in Nimueh’s blue eyes hardened and she nodded curtly. Then her hand was raking down Morgause’s body, pinching at her hips, shoving her thighs wide apart. Nimueh slipped her fingers into the space between her own thigh and Morgause’s groin, fisting a handful of her curls there, sending a jolt of pain, of pleasure through Morgause.
And then all at once Nimueh was inside her, her blunt fingers plunging, twisting into her slippery core. Morgause threw back her head and growled with the life inside her. The pain that had wracked her body gone, she lifted her hips and shoved down onto Nimueh’s relentless fingers, once, twice, again into a swift rhythm. And then Nimueh was biting her way down Morgause’s torso, nipping at her stomach, scraping her teeth across her scratched skin, settling her face between her legs to trail the flat of her tongue over Morgause’s clit, sending sparks of heat and need flaring low in Morgause’s gut.
The insistent pressure of her tongue combined with the forceful thrusts of her hand-how many fingers did she have buried in her-were unravelling her quickly, bringing her back to life. So close, she reached out to ground her fingers in Nimueh’s thick braids, holding on there, thinking nothing, feeling nothing but the building pressure clenching in on itself inside her. Nimueh pressed her tongue, lips, and teeth harder into Morgause, and then her tongue darted lower, pushing unrelentingly into her, joining Nimueh’s fingers as she fucked her with mouth, lips, teeth, and hand.
And then she was drowning as wave after wave of heat burned up her thighs, under her skin, out into her fingertips, flooding her senses and mind. Morgause’s whole body vibrated as a strangled sob tore through her; she was riding the crest endlessly over the edge until she finally collapsed back against the bed and gave herself up to the warm darkness pulsing in on her from the edges of her awareness.
+++
Morgause was soaking up soft sunrays. Lying belly in the grass, ear turned to listen to the dirt, she basked in the sun’s caress on her naked back.
She had been waiting a long time for summer.
She blinked and woke up, alone in the large bed, swaddled under blankets, and what felt like the coarse, yet soft fur of a bear pelt. She snuggled deeper into the cocoon of warmth, content to doze in the empty, dim room, on whose clear glass walls the shadows from the dying fire danced.
She’d found Nimueh. If her body didn’t feel like it had been trampled, stung, and dragged at high-speed over frozen rocks, she would have crowed with the smug elation of triumph.
For two long years, she had listened to drunken rumours, campside ghost stories, hushed tales old women whispered behind their hands, any scrap of report she could find that told of a raven-haired sorceress, of a spurned lover of Uther’s dead queen, of a recluse lady magician. Most of her leads ended in the dust of a deserted cottage, in the dampness of an empty cave tucked under a waterfall, in echoing castle ruins open to the sky. Sometimes she encountered other dark-haired women-angry crones, powerful young healers, inarticulate children of the woods. But none had been Nimueh. None had the eyes as blue and deep as the sky, the smile as smug, nor the voice as sharp as the woman she’d heard described. None until now.
Morgause shifted onto her side and curled her fingers into the heavy covers. For the first time, she looked at her hands, noticed the thick, large blisters puffing up her finger pads. Curious to see the other ways the cold had marked her body, she shoved off the layers of blankets, pushing herself to sit upright despite the pain that shot up her ribs and down her forearms. She looked down at her chest, at the thin scratches and dark welts that covered her breasts and streaked down her belly. She remembered sliding naked on her stomach down the icy mountainside, but as she fingered and poked at the tender flesh, trying to recall if she had felt any pain as she had tumbled down, all she could remember was the sluggish panic, the clumsy attempts to catch herself.
There were other marks, too, she saw. Red blotches where Nimueh had taken her skin between her teeth. Heat curled in her stomach as Morgause thought of the way Nimueh had moved over her, the way she had sunk into her so assuredly. Morgause thought of the first time she had seen Nimueh, a conjured image in the night air, a gorgeous woman sketched in red and black lines. She had kept that picture tucked under her heart for the past two years. And now that she had found her, it paled in comparison to the real thing.
She scrubbed a hand over her face and returned her attention to her fragile body. She swung her legs over the bed, noticing the long horizontal gash on her knee. The wound looked barely closed; angry red welts and a trickle of dried blood surrounded it. Her thighs and shins were peppered with thin scratches and bruises.
Morgause braced herself against the mattress and pushed up to stand, only to yelp and fall back as soon as she put her weight onto her feet. It had felt as though she were standing on thin bags of sand and needles. She picked up her bruised foot and saw thick watery blisters on her pads and toes. For an instant, she considered using magic to drain them, but there was no guarantee that would allow her actually to walk.
Fisting her hands in the sheets, feet uselessly resting on the floor, she examined her surroundings. The wide room with its smooth walls and high arched ceiling-she realized with a start-wasn’t built of glass, as she had originally thought, but of ice. Everything in it was hewn from it: the mantle carved with images of fairies and trees, the massive bed frame big enough to sleep four comfortably, the table and ornate chairs in the corner. The ice looked as solid and unyielding as hardened glass. Even though a fire crackled heartily in it, the fireplace remained frozen, nowhere could she see evidence of dripping or pools of water.
Despite the chiselled ice that enclosed her, Morgause felt no chill; the soft rugs on the floor, the smooth tapestry hanging on a far wall, the white velvet curtains draping the windows, the warm air from the fireplace, the fat candles burning on the table, all lent the room a cosiness and welcoming warmth. Morgause wanted to open her senses and sort through all the magic that kept the room intact, the spells that held the ice apart from the heat, that kept the two warring worlds of hot and cold in perfect balance.
But her own body and mind were too bruised to attempt to trace the magic pulsing around her. She ran a hand through her knotted hair and sighed. The long trek up the mountain had burned up her magic. She had brought enough food for eight days of hiking, and had run out of food halfway up the mountain. With her food reserves gone, she had run on pure magic, expending the last of her power to keep herself warm, to strengthen her muscles and lungs, until there was none of that left either. She needed to sleep and eat to build back her magic, so she could start the long process of healing herself.
Morgause had just lain back down on the bed when the giant ice door to her room swung open and Nimueh glided through followed by a floating tray. Nimueh was dressed in a tight black dress shot through with streaks of red. Strapless, it hugged her breasts and hips, and then flared around her thighs and cascaded in red and black ribbons to her feet. Morgause felt her throat go dry.
Nimueh smiled as she approached, just a smug sideways crook of her lips, and a slight lowering of her lashes. “I see you’re awake now. I wasn’t sure if I had worn you out for good before. It would have been so gauche of me to have saved you from hypothermia and then killed you with sex,” she purred as she leaned towards Morgause.
At the sight of Nimueh’s deep red lips coming closer, Morgause thought of how they had felt tracing over her body, planted between her legs. She wondered what tastes lingered in Nimueh’s mouth.
“Sit forward,” Nimueh commanded as she reached behind Morgause to arrange her cushions. Morgause felt the trail of Nimueh’s long twists of hair against her shoulder as Nimueh propped pillows up behind her naked back. She shivered involuntarily at the brush of her hair.
“Cold?”
“No.”
Nimueh pulled away and Morgause reached down to tug the blankets high over her breasts.
“I’m not much of a healer,” Nimueh explained archly as she handed a steaming goblet to Morgause. “But I’ll do my best with you. I might as well.”
“You mean, you’ve got nothing better to do up here all by yourself?” Morgause asked mockingly as she accepted the goblet and sipped cautiously. The liquid stung on its way down, but it was not unpleasant.
“Precisely.”
Nimueh sat at the side of the bed, waiting quietly as Morgause finished the drink.
“Here, give me your hands.” Nimueh plucked a jar of ointment from the tray beside her and began rubbing it into Morgause’s fingertips. “This should help the blisters go down. If it doesn’t, your fingers will turn black and I’ll have to remove your hands before it spreads up your arms.”
“That’s comforting.” Morgause let out a bark of laughter. There was so much she needed to ask Nimueh, now that she’d found her, so much she needed to know. But just as Nimueh earlier had been intent on questioning Morgause despite her near-death state, now she seemed satisfied to focus on treating Morgause’s body. She rubbed the ointment into her hands, then her feet and toes, whispering soft words of magic over them.
Then she stood, brushing her hands together. “I’ll conjure a bath for you later if you want. After the ointment’s soaked in.” Before Morgause could respond, Nimueh had snapped her fingers for the tray to follow her, and whisked out of the room.
Stomach full, fingers and toes stinging slightly, Morgause drifted into sleep, dreaming of lakes heated in the summer sun and mermaids whose black hair caught the warm daylight as they dozed by the lakeside.
+++
The next few days floated by as a bubble of warmth and touch. Under Nimueh’s ministrations, and despite her protests that she was no healer, Morgause flourished. Her magic flared inside her once again; her muscles loosened, stretched, and healed; the puffy blisters on her hands and feet hardened and receded.
Finally, one morning, as sunlight painted blocks of warmth on the bed and rug, Morgause, grown restless with her newfound energy, ventured outside her room.
The white robe she had conjured trailing behind her, Morgause picked her way down the steep steps outside her door. The stairs wound endlessly down in a square tower, with only narrow windows breaking the sheer ice walls. The bottom of the staircase opened onto a large hall, whose high vaulted ceilings sparkled with icicles; thick, round ice columns reflected the sunlight pouring in through stained glass windows-or was it coloured ice? Morgause caught her breath at the grandeur of it all; it felt like a place of sanctuary, a seat of power, the heart of the placid castle. Listening to the soft echoes of her footsteps, she approached the far end of the room, where a towering throne, hewn out of ice and large enough to seat a giantess, cast a long shadow. Next to the throne stood a tall basin, a scrying font, Morgause presumed.
“Ever since you arrived, the waters have been murky.” Nimueh’s voice sparked over Morgause’s skin, making the hairs on her arm stand on end.
“What does that mean?” she asked, turning to see Nimueh clothed in a silver and red dress that draped around her neck, barely covered her breasts, and flowed loosely down to her ankles. Nimueh crowded close to Morgause to peer into the basin, and Morgause watched the supple curve of her naked back.
“It means that you’re stupidly trying to disrupt fate.”
“I don’t believe in fate or destiny. I believe in choices,” Morgause challenged, meeting Nimueh’s steady gaze.
“You are so young,” Nimueh said flatly, and then, more softly. “What did the high priestesses teach you about tempting destiny?”
Morgause shrugged and grinned. “If I had listened to everything they told me, I wouldn’t have gone looking for you, would I?” She reached out because she could no longer keep her hands to herself, and wrapped her fingers around Nimueh’s upper arm.
For a moment, neither spoke as they looked at each other, and Morgause leaned in fractionally to close the distance between them and snag Nimueh’s full lips.
Nimueh shook her head, almost impatiently, and backed away, out of Morgause’s grasp. “So young. Fate is not something to be trifled with.” She gestured forcefully at the basin of water. “Morgause, we were not fated to meet. You’ve changed the future in ways none of us can know. You’re toying with something larger than you or me, something you are too young to understand.”
Morgause dropped her hand to her side, and fisted it in the fine fabric of her own robe. “I’m tired of everyone telling me what not to do,” she said lowly. “You don’t even know me. Everyone told me to stay away from you. They said you were a recluse who had gone underground after Ygraine’s death. They said after they revoked your title as high priestess . . .”
Nimueh snorted ungracefully and interrupted. “As if anyone could revoke my title. The Old Religion chose me, not the other priests and priestesses.”
“. . . you fled to the hills with your tail between your legs, taking your knowledge of magic, and Camelot with you.”
“No.” Nimueh’s voice sank deeply into Morgause. “When Uther drove me from the court, when my own kind rejected me and blamed me for his ire, I removed myself to keep a promise to someone else. Something I doubt you could understand, with all your wilfulness and blind young individualism. The world is larger than you, Morgause, and some of have commitments that are more important than our own petty wants.”
“Petty? You think that my goal to take down Camelot and end Uther’s folly is petty? I’m working for the greater good of all magic users.”
Nimueh’s lips curled into a dark sneer. “You have no idea how,” she scoffed.
“You’re right,” Morgause admitted simply. “That’s why I had to find you. They say no one knows the secret entrances and passageways, the weaknesses in Camelot’s defences like you, that you carry a map of the castle in your head, that you know every entrance to Uther’s chambers,” Morgause implored.
Watching the cold, intractable stare that met her gaze, Morgause’s heart began to sink.
“I won’t accept that you won’t help me,” she said firmly. “I won’t accept that I came all this way, that I searched for two years, that you rescued me only to send me back into the cold with nothing.”
Nimueh reached out a hand and smoothed it lightly over Morgause’s hair. “How old are you, Morgause? Eighteen? Nineteen? You were, what, eight when the Great Purge began? You’ve seen nothing.”
“I was seven when it began. I’m eighteen now. I’ve seen enough. Unlike you, who’s been hiding from the world in your own personal kingdom of ice, I’ve been living a life on the run. I’ve seen more magic users killed in my lifetime than I’ve seen survive. How many raids have we suffered at the hands of Uther’s men? How many times have we gone days out of our way to skirt the borders of Albion, to avoid the risk of Uther’s blind rage against magic? It has to stop. Yet no one in my camp is willing to go on the offensive. They prefer to hide, and avoid, and retreat. So I have to be the one to try.” She jutted her chin out.
“And you will fail.”
Morgause crossed her arms in front of her chest. “How do you know that?”
“Long before you showed up naked, bleeding, and frozen on my doorstep, I’d already seen your failure,” Nimueh said matter-of-factly. “You will try to save your sister. Yes, I know about her, too, the Lady Morgana. You care about her; you’ve cared for her ever since your mother put her in your arms as a child and told you to watch over her. You haven’t seen her since you held her as a tiny baby. You and your sister will try to destroy Uther together. And you will fail, both of you. You will fail and you will be killed. It is not your destiny to kill Uther nor is it your destiny to kill his son, Arthur. You will die trying, Morgause.” Nimueh shrugged. “I’m sorry.” And it almost sounded like she meant it.
Nimueh spun on her heel and stalked off, leaving Morgause with the empty gigantic throne, the small bowl of water that only promised defeat, and a bitter taste of confusion in her mouth.
As Nimueh reached the doorway, Morgause cried after her, “Then why save me? Why bring me back if I’m doomed to fail?”
Resting a hand on the doorframe, Nimueh sighed, “Because I couldn’t watch another good magic user die.” Without turning to face her, she commanded, “Leave, Morgause. You’ve healed now. Conjure yourself your tunics, and your familiar chainmail, and transport yourself somewhere else, anywhere else.”
Then she was gone.
+++
Morgause paced up and down the neat rows of the herb garden in the greenhouse of ice she’d discovered at the end of a narrow hallway. The heat and the heady mixture of loam, greenery, and pungent herbs calmed her pounding heart as she trailed the pathways.
She had not come this far to go home empty handed. She couldn’t go back and admit to her camp that they had been right all along: that Nimueh would have nothing to do with other magic users, that Nimueh was a scorned recluse who still mourned her lost lover, that Nimueh had spent too long peering at the future to believe in her own agency, that Nimueh was not her only hope for finding her sister.
Morgause kicked out at the dirt under her feet. Nimueh may be stubborn, but Morgause could be stubborn, too. She would just choose not to leave. Go on and make me leave, Nimueh, she thought.
+++
For five days, the women didn’t talk.
Morgause needed time to think, time to plan. She first needed to clear her mind. She conjured chainmail, a hefty sword, a large axe, and a handful of throwing knifes, and spent her afternoons sweating as she practiced her footwork, her parries, her attacks in the great hall.
Her muscles had recovered, but they were weak; so she pushed them further, envisioning Uther’s head under her axe, his face at the point of her knife. She had been young when the Great Purge began, but she would never forget standing up in the crowd, staring at Uther’s face twisted in wrath, watching how he cradled his young son in one arm and ordered executions with a wave of the other.
At first it had been the adults, her mother’s friends, the magicians who had worked for Uther, the druids passing through, the dragonlords. She remembered the snatches of her parents’ shrill fighting that would drift up to her through the floorboards at night.
”I won’t stay and watch him kill more people. When is he going to turn on me? Or our daughters?”
“I’m his most trusted advisor, Vivienne. And you, I’ve seen the affection he has for you. He cares for us deeply. We are not the enemy and he knows that. He would never single you out or our daughters. People who dine privately with the king every week will not be executed.”
“And the Lady Nimueh? Surely she dined with him every night. He’s a man of cruel whims.”
When the purge first began, Uther had disbanded the school of magic where Morgause had spent her days. Three months after it had begun, Uther decided that disbanding the school was not enough. His men hunted down the children, brought them to the castle.
”He’s drowning them, Gorlois, I know he is.”
“No. Even Uther wouldn’t go that far. He’s teaching them not to use magic, just like he said.”
“How long before he comes after Morgause? Will you let him drag her off to the castle? Would you give her up? Because I won’t.”
Morgause swung out with her axe, banishing childhood memories.
Clearing her mind to nothing but her own sinew and focus, she waited and waited for an answer from within, for a plan that would seduce Nimueh away from her rigidity, for a way to break the silence between them.
In the end, it was Nimueh who spoke up first. Dressed in a thin dress in which a thousand different shades of blue sparkled, Nimueh marched into the hall as Morgause was hurling knives at a moving wooden target that she had enchanted.
“Enough,” Nimueh called out harshly. “I have to scry and I can’t concentrate with you mucking about.” She gestured emphatically towards Morgause.
Tucking her knives into her boots, Morgause strode over to where Nimueh stood; the blood still rushed through her limber muscles, the heat of exercise rippled through her. “Mucking about?” she raised an eyebrow and then nodded towards the basin. “I thought you said that the waters had been murky since I arrived. Since I haven’t left yet, they’re probably still murky. No need to scry now, Nimueh.” She shrugged and turned to walk away.
“This is my palace. And I can make you regret invading my territory. Don’t ever forget who is in charge,” Nimueh threatened coldly.
Morgause grinned, but schooled her face to an impassive stare before turning back to Nimueh. “I’m not so sure that you’re as in charge as you think are. Actually, I think you’re not in charge at all. You let your life be run by the whims of fate and destiny. I think that bowl over there,” she pointed toward the scrying font, “is in charge.”
“Tread carefully, my dear,” Nimueh hissed. “I’ve tolerated you for the past few days because your naïve determination amuses me. Don’t forget that I could spill you out onto the unforgiving mountain any moment I choose.”
Morgause grinned and stepped closer. “Empty threats, Nimueh. Empty threats from a woman who enjoyed having her mouth between my legs.” It was a dare, it was a risk, and Morgause knew it. It was a hunch, but hunches had brought her here in the first place. She took a deep breath, trying to make her voice as even as possible, trying not to waver as she continued speaking. “See, the way I figure it, ten years by yourself in an ice palace is a lonely existence. The way I figure it, you’re regretting our encounter because it made you feel something, it made you feel something you haven’t felt in a long time, maybe since your lover died. The way I figure it, despite your protestations about fate and destiny and my imminent failure, you can’t bear to send me away. Because you want more of me. And you hate that you do.” She stalked towards Nimueh as she spoke until she was practically treading on her toes.
Nimueh laughed quickly, and the sound flitted up into the vaulted ceiling. “A girl of eighteen, do you really think you tempt me that much?” Her voice was too loud, as though she were working hard to talk over whatever else Morgause might say, as though she were striving to convince herself.
“Yes, I do think so.”
Nimueh frowned, biting her lips together and still not meeting Morgause’s eyes. “I’m done asking you nicely. Leave before I throw you out.”
“Oh? You think you could take me?” Morgause taunted, leaning forward to ghost a breath down the column of Nimueh’s neck.
“I know I could take you.” But Nimueh’s voice shook ever so slightly.
“I think, actually,” Morgause traced a finger down Nimueh’s bare arm, “that you want me to take you.”
Nimueh shuddered-just a small movement of her neck and shoulders-but it was enough to signal to Morgause that she was on the right track. She leaned forward and bit down hard on the pulse in Nimueh’s neck. Nimueh gasped, reaching out to wrap her fingers around Morgause’s upper arm, bracing herself there for a fraction of a moment before shoving hard, sending Morgause stumbling backwards.
Morgause laughed lowly as she caught herself and managed to stay upright. “Well, come on then,” she gestured widely with her arms.
Nimueh chuckled. “Oh, now you’re asking for it.” Chanting lowly, she lifted her palm and sent a blast of warm air at Morgause that knocked her back a few more feet.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Morgause paced slowly towards Nimueh, keeping her arms open, her smile inviting.
“I just don’t want to hurt you after wasting so much time healing you,” Nimueh said acidly.
“You’re just afraid of letting me get too close.” Morgause stepped in so she could reach out to touch Nimueh again. Just as she was about to, Nimueh lashed out with another gust of wind, this one stronger, sending Morgause lurching backwards across the room, barely able to keep her feet under her.
Recovering quickly, Morgause just grinned and advanced towards her again.
“Stop, just stop, alright?” Nimueh ordered, raising her hand.
Morgause ignored the command and took another slow step towards her, enjoying the anticipation throbbing through her veins.
Then Nimueh was whispering a spell that Morgause couldn’t make out. Another blast of wind charged into her, but instead of sending her tumbling backwards, it locked her in place, rooting her feet to the ground, forcing her widespread arms to stiffen in that position.
Morgause growled and shook her head-the only part of her body she could move.
Nimueh shot her a sly grin. “What no witty retort?” She turned her back and headed towards the room’s exit.
“Now that you’ve got me exactly where you want me Nimueh, why don’t you come over here and show me who’s in charge?” Morgause called out after her.
Nimueh’s laughter trilled back to her. “That, my dear, is what you want.”
It was hours before the spell wore off, before Morgause could stretch her stiff limbs and shoulders and hobble upstairs.
The games had begun.
One point to Nimueh.
+++
A week later, they still hadn’t spoken, and Morgause had the distinct impression that Nimueh was going out of her way to avoid her. She searched the castle for her, drifting through empty rooms, wondering how Nimueh had spent all this time up here alone in these echoing hallways.
Morgause wasn’t sleeping well anymore. Her newly strengthened body was too restless, too needy, too maddeningly close to answers that weren’t coming, too aware of the elusive presence of the woman she’d hungered after for years, the woman who had burst into her life by chasing out the storm, by soothing over her marred survivor’s skin.
Wrapped in nothing more than her flimsy night robe, Morgause took to pacing the castle halls at night, as well as during the day. It was in the middle of the night when she finally happened upon Nimueh again.
She found her in the great hall, bent over the basin and staring intently into it. A circle of candelabras had been lit around the basin and the great throne, reflecting as still points of light on the smooth ice walls and floor. Leaning against the wall, Morgause watched in the dim light as she mumbled to herself, concentrating. Her shoulders were taut, her jaw set. Nimueh wore the silver and red dress that left her back naked; Morgause followed the curve of her spine hungrily as she waited and observed. After minutes of muttering and staring, Nimueh straightened abruptly, slapping her hand at the surface of the basin, sending water splashing over the floor.
“Show me, damn it. Show me,” she rasped.
Moving soundlessly, Morgause crept up behind her, and ever so slowly wrapped her arms around Nimueh’s midsection, pulled her body close, and perched her chin on her shoulder. Nimueh started almost imperceptibly at the first touch to her waist. Morgause felt a subtle tremble of Nimueh’s frame in her arms. She sensed the frustration humming through her, steaming in the air around her, but also the tension in her shoulders; her body felt tight with everything she kept locked inside.
Yet Nimueh didn’t shrug her off. Melded together, neither moved.
With one hand, Morgause began tracing her fingers in slow circles in the fabric bunched over Nimueh’s stomach. With the other, she pressed her palm high on Nimueh’s chest, in the bare space in the neckline of her dress, between her breasts, feeling the swift rise and fall of her breathing.
They stood like that in the darkness; the only sound the quick intake of breath.
And then, ever so slightly, so slightly that it was barely noticeable, Nimueh leaned back. Morgause felt the shift in her weight, the release as she let her shoulders rest against Morgause, her naked back press against the quick beat of Morgause’s heart.
She dipped her head down and traced a slow line up Nimueh’s exposed neck with her tongue; Nimueh tilted her head, granting her better access. Morgause nibbled gently on her earlobe, sweeping her tongue carefully into her ear, relishing the sigh of Nimueh’s shuddering exhale. Shifting her palm to cup Nimueh’s left breast, Morgause felt the heavy fullness there. Underneath it, Nimueh’s heart was beating out the rhythm of her existence.
A wave of craving flooded through her, draining the stiffness from her body, filling her with wanting, so much wanting. “This is . . .” she whispered around the lump in her own throat, “everything I’ve ever wanted.”
And then she spun Nimueh around forcefully and descended on her lips, biting, licking, pressing down on them. With a satisfied groan, Nimueh opened her mouth, and grabbed hold of Morgause’s upper arms. Then they were duelling, tangling their tongues together, trying fiercely to get more of each other.
Nimueh’s fingers were digging hard enough into the flesh of Morgause’s arms to bruise, her thigh trapped tightly between Morgause’s legs, and Morgause moved her hands to twist in Nimueh’s thick ropes of hair. Leaning into each other, locked together, they kissed like they were sharing the last breath of air in a drowning room.
Panting, Nimueh broke away to yank at the ties to Morgause’s robes, and then it was a war to get each other undressed. Nimueh’s hands were everywhere, skimming over Morgause’s stomach, sinking into the flesh at her hips, tugging at her nipples, kneading at her shoulders as she pushed off her robe, so it slithered over her skin, down her arms, and pooled around her feet. In spite of her fumbling fingers, Morgause managed to make quick work of the cloth around Nimueh’s neck that held up her dress. It fell forward, bunching around her waist, leaving her torso bare. Greedily, she roamed her hands over Nimueh’s smooth skin, teasing lightly over her nipples.
And then she crouched down and bent her head to take her breast into her mouth, roll her nipple gently with her tongue. Nimueh let out a moan and Morgause braced herself against Nimueh’s hips as she dropped to her knees, tugging Nimueh’s dress completely off on her way down. Kneeling naked on the sheer fabric of her own robe, she tilted her head to look up at Nimueh. Nimueh met her gaze with such intensity in her eyes and openness on her face that Morgause felt heat rising in her cheeks.
Wasting no time, she leaned forward, propping Nimueh’s left leg on her shoulder before crushing her face to her groin. At first, she just inhaled deeply. This, this is Nimueh she thought as the warm sharp scent filled her. This is what I’ve been looking for. Reaching up with her left hand, she ran her fingers through the wetness there, parting her tender folds before tilting forward and flicking her tongue just over the tip of her clit. Underneath her hovering mouth, Nimueh trembled, gave a deep full-body shudder. Morgause dove forward then, working her over in earnest, licking her in hard long strokes, shifting down so she could push her tongue up into her, tasting the tangy sweetness there, feeling the heady thickness mixing with her own spit as it dribbled down her chin.
Nimueh’s standing leg began to spasm where Morgause’s right hand drew small circles up and down the back of her thigh. Gently she disengaged herself, making soft soothing noises to Nimueh when she grabbed the back of her head and tried to manoeuvre her back between her legs.
“C’mon,” Morgause said lowly. “There’s something I want to do.” She lifted Nimueh’s other leg from her shoulder, pushed herself up to standing, locked her wet fingers over Nimueh’s, and led her to the massive ice throne a few feet away.
Nimueh grinned wickedly when Morgause inclined her head towards the throne. She threw herself onto the surface with enthusiasm, sprawling on the throne, positioning herself on the edge of the seat, parting her legs invitingly. Morgause knelt before her and hesitated before glancing up at her, wondering if she should try to keep the worshipful glow out of her eyes.
This time when Morgause leaned forward to plunge into her, Nimueh latched her fingers into her hair and forced her face hard into her softness. Morgause chuckled against her wetness, lapping at it like she would never get enough. It didn’t take Morgause long to figure out the code that Nimueh’s fingers were signalling; she rubbed at Morgause’s scalp and moaned lowly when she liked what Morgause was doing, yanked at her curls and chanted incomprehensibly when she wanted her to go faster, tugged her away and exhaled loudly when she needed a respite. Morgause wondered what it would take to make Nimueh beg. Touch by touch, she took her apart, diving into her core, playfully pulling away and pausing just to breathe over her, teasing her with the lightest touches possible, encouraging her moans with relentless caresses.
Morgause’s jaw was aching, her face was dripping, her tongue was starting to flag, her knees were tightening, she’d lost feeling in the lower half of her legs, but she’d never felt such excitement pulsing through her, such wonder.
Something shifted and Nimueh’s hands were suddenly everywhere, tracing over Morgause’s brow and cheekbones, splaying wide over her face and jaw, and holding her firmly in place as she ground hard into Morgause’s mouth and keened long and loud. Morgause grinned stupidly when she felt the shuddering spasms under her lips; she licked her through her release, enjoying the stuttering sharp inhales Nimueh made every time Morgause’s tongue moved.
Finally, Nimueh lifted Morgause’s face up and away and met her eyes with a satisfied smirk. “My turn,” she said in an eager voice. She leaned down, took a hold of Morgause by the shoulders, pulled her to her feet, and then, while kissing her soundly, raised a hand and transported them to Morgause’s room.
She snapped her fingers; the fireplace and the candles dotted throughout the room sprang to life, brightening the room and casting long shadows.
Dizzy from the sudden move, the blood rushing out of her head, and Nimueh’s quick transportation, Morgause steadied herself against the bed, enjoying the buzz of Nimueh’s magic in the room. Apparently satisfied with the state of the room, Nimueh whirled on her and pointed towards the bed. “I thought we’d want a bed for this one. Get on it.”
Morgause didn’t have to be told twice. Excitement, apprehension beating through her veins, she hopped onto the bed and scrambled backwards as Nimueh stalked towards her.
Nimueh looked at her long and hard as she halted her approach at the edge of the bed; she reached out and took Morgause’s foot in her hand, running her fingertips over the top of it and under the arch, trailing up her calf, rubbing there.
“Roll over,” Nimueh commanded gently.
And then her hands, her short nails were everywhere, digging, prying, soothing, massaging. Nimueh lingered when Morgause’s breathing quickened, her fingers danced away just when Morgause wanted more. Slowly, deliberately, she was learning her body.
Then, suddenly, her hands were gone, replaced by her tongue. She swiped up her calves, sucking bruises into the skin above her ankle, the tender sides of her muscle. And then she discovered the backs of Morgause’s knees; every sweep of her tongue, every press of her lips shot straight to Morgause’s groin. In seconds, she turned her into a quivering, dripping, incoherent mass of need.
Morgause bit out Nimueh’s name, threatening, craving. Nimueh continued to lick at and torture the backs of her knees. Finally, just when Morgause thought she could come just from that sensation alone, Nimueh pulled off and manhandled Morgause to turn her over onto her back.
Kneeling between Morgause’s spread legs, Nimueh waved her hand over her own body, grinning wickedly. When she pulled her hand away, a thick, clear shaft rested below her pubic bone, strapped onto Nimueh’s body with an intricate web of red silk ties and leather.
Morgause smiled in appreciation and pushed herself up on her elbows, so she could reach out to trace her fingers over the rod jutting from Nimueh’s hips. It was quite warm to the touch, hard and smooth as solid glass, and clear as crystal except for swirls of red trapped inside like frozen energy.
Nimueh trailed her fingers down to trace over the slight cleft in Morgause’s chin. “You gorgeous, gorgeous woman you,” she said on an exhale before sliding down so she could lower herself over Morgause, her mouth directly above Morgause’s. Supporting herself on her forearms, she dove down for a ferocious kiss and Morgause met her tongue stroke for stroke, claiming her just as fiercely as she was being claimed. And then Morgause lifted her hips as Nimueh planted a hand firmly between her legs and rippled into her. The shaft slid slickly into her wet heat; she stuttered and cried out as she felt her walls stretch around the impossibly hard warmth radiating into her, permeating deep inside. Above her, Nimueh’s crimson lips curved into a luminous smile, and Morgause wondered how she could live framed by ice, when she deserved warm gardens buzzing with life and sunshine tanning her skin.
The insistent warmth pushed farther inside; she felt Nimueh’s pelvis grinding against her and then she was pulling out and crashing into her again and again, shuddering above her every time she bottomed out, every time her clit brushed against Morgause. As she rocked into her, the tips of Nimueh’s hair tormented her, trailing over Morgause’s shoulders and breasts. Pressure built up agonizingly through her muscles, contracted low in her abdomen; Morgause felt herself swaying over the brink, ready to fall into nothingness, and she exhaled loudly, forced herself to unclench so she could hover here forever, poised to tumble, staring into Nimueh’s open eyes. Then, starting in her toes, throbbing upward, overwhelming her, her orgasm uncoiled, and she shuddered and screamed, suspended endlessly in it.
When she came back to herself, Nimueh was still rocking gently above her, smiling at her, sending tremors of sensation through her. Morgause reached down to snake a hand forcefully between their bodies. She clutched at the hardness planted between her legs, then grazed her fingers lower over Nimueh’s wet folds, claiming her, owning her as she brought her to a quick, trembling release.
Pulling out, Nimueh waved the shaft and its rigging away and crawled up Morgause’s body.
“That was ice, wasn’t it?” Morgause asked when she could speak again.
“Of course it was,” Nimueh murmured, nipping at her neck.
“Gods, you’re amazing. How do you make it so warm?”
“Now you want all my secrets, do you?” Nimueh chuckled.
Feeling more satiated and spent then she had in weeks, Morgause exhaled and pulled Nimueh close. She kissed her long and hard before pressing their foreheads together and slipping into sleep.
On to Part Two
Author/Artist: ???
Pairing(s): Morgause/Nimueh
Rating:: NC-17
Warnings: sex toys
Summary: Morgause will go to the frozen end of the world to get what she wants.
A/N: For you, shopfront! You gave me a lot of awesome ideas to work with, but I finally settled on backstory on Morgause and Nimueh in a what-if AU. ♥ In terms of parentage, I’m assuming that Morgause and Morgana were the two daughters born to Gorlois and Vivienne, and that Morgause has no reason to think that Morgana may or may not be her full sister. Finally, I have so much thanks, hugs, cupcakes, and love for my two betas of win, yllenk and netgirl_y2k. A huge thanks also goes to H. for audiencing, and to misswonderfreak for giving my opening scene an initial read through. All remaining mistakes are my own.
Words: ~15 000
The sheath of heat that enveloped Morgause, glimmering between her and the relentless storm, flickered and died. As though it were just another puff of mist from her mouth, the last of her magic disintegrated in the frozen air. Like her food supplies, her reserves of power had finally gone: been eaten up, drained out, emptied.
She ground her teeth, tensed her jaw, and braced herself against the onslaught.
The snow hurled itself at her in fits and starts, whiting out her vision as she slogged up the jagged incline. The wind sank its teeth into her cheeks and lips; the air she gulped at froze her raw throat and constricted her lungs; the fingers of her gloved left hand trailed against a solid wall of rock. As long as she clung to her left, she would not stumble into the void that yawned on the other side of the ledge.
It couldn’t be much farther now. It couldn’t. She stomped up the path, refusing to think of the drop-off inches to her right.
As she plodded forward, the cold slapped at her face, at the shawl wrapped tightly over her head, piercing the inner depths of her ears, popping and prodding.
Under her three layers of tunics, she could feel the steel iciness of her chainmail. The muscles in her back, neck, and shoulders clenched hard, tensing into rock. She shook her head, trying to loosen her neck, rolling her stiff shoulders. A chilled blast smacked across her cheek, punctured her chest. A wave of nausea pounded through her, and she paused, head bent down, gripping the rock to her left. It passed and she wiped her chapped lips with the back of her glove. Her lashes felt spiky, stiff against her eyelids, caked with snow and the frozen bits of water tearing from her eyes. She had lost track of her fingers and her toes.
Convulsing and clutching at her churning stomach, she halted against the black crag, as shudder after violent shudder wracked her body. The roaring blood in her ears drowned out the silence of the storm.
She had to keep going. She would not be beaten.
The toe of her boot snagged on something and she sprawled forward, shaking in the snow, looking down at her knee. Where the fabric had ripped open, blood oozed onto the white ground, steaming as it landed, freezing into a dark splotch. She dabbed at the cut, feeling nothing there.
She pushed up again, shoving against the over-whelming desire to stop, to curl against the side of the mountain and let herself be rocked to sleep by the driving snow.
Had it been days, or weeks since she had tethered her horse and begun the climb up this mountain of ice, grit, and snow? Her feet were becoming as solid as the mountain underneath her. The mountain would overtake her, transform her into another piece of itself.
She had forgotten why she was here; there was something she had to do. Someone she had to find. Her mind mirrored the snow swirling around her. She should sleep now; sleep now and become the mountain.
She stumbled forward another step when she heard it: a singsong voice calling to her. How could she have forgotten how close to home she was?
A fire blazed in the distance. She lurched towards it, only a few more steps. A tall blonde figure in white robes stood in the shadows of the fire, smiling as Morgause returned to camp.
At last, at long last, blissful warmth returned, flooding out to her fingertips, shooting through the back of her neck, racing down her thighs, curling into her toes.
But it was too much. The flames of the campfire licked up her billowing cape, burned into her. Unbearable heat, like she had never experienced, pulsed through her; she batted at the burning ties of her cloak, ripping at her laces, tugging it off. She couldn’t get it off fast enough. Her gloves were next, her boots, the wrap cradling her head, her chainmail, two layers of trousers, the heavy wool tunics, her thin cotton undershirt.
Still she burned. The fire had slipped inside her, consuming her from within.
She stood naked beside the pile of discarded clothes, blinking against the wind that could not touch the heat throbbing through her.
The white-robed woman was there now, brushing the hair out of her eyes, cradling her against her chest, humming softly.
Morgause braced herself against the rock and moved to kneel, to sprawl herself out on the ground at the woman’s feet and let herself be lulled to sleep. But her bare foot skidded, unable to grip the ground under her, undone by a slick patch of ice; the woman’s tall body disintegrated into flakes of whirling snow. As Morgause’s hand pawed uselessly against the rock, and her fingers crunched against the stone, she realized with aching clarity there were no clothes left on her feeble body, there was no woman, no fire, no warm camp to return to, and there never would be again. She tumbled down, her feet slipping out from under her, her knees then her pubic bone colliding into the ice with a resounding smack. Sliding downwards, away from the rock that had guided her, away from the clothing that had warmed her, she felt her belly pressed hard to the ground.
Time slowed and she commanded her magic to return and help. She pleaded with it. She cursed it.
With a jolt, the ground dropped away. Her stomach lurched high in her chest as she soared into the air. Careening into nothingness, she opened her throat to scream in frustration, but the storm swallowed her raw howl.
And then it stopped.
A thin cord of living gold snaked down from the heavens and, looping tight around her right wrist, jerked hard, popping her shoulder from its socket, halting her fall. Her feet kicked out against nothing and she hung there for long moments, suspended, buffeted back and forth by the wind.
She felt her hand being tugged, being hauled up and she was lifted, pulled endlessly higher. Trying to look up, she saw nothing but snowflakes tumbling down, felt nothing but the harsh sting of snow against her open eyes. She closed her eyelids and bowed her head, felt her heartbeat, slow and sluggish, in her chest.
After what could have been minutes or hours, her ascension halted. The rope around her wrist tugged her over a sharp cliff, dragged her face down across an icy plateau and then disintegrated into gold sparks that scattered and faded. The whiteness blurring her vision had receded, the snow and winds pelting her body had ceased, and she found herself alone on a frozen expanse of ice.
Someone was approaching. She willed herself to stumble to her feet, but she remained unmoving, naked and helpless as the woman approached. She looked down at her own hands, blue and puffy against the clear ice. She blinked and the world swam around her, the woman walking towards her blurred into a swirling blot of maroon.
“You little fool. Can’t you tell I don’t want to be found?” Her voice, high and mocking, sank into Morgause’s mind and the memory of what she had come for teased at its edges.
But I did find you, she thought with thin triumph as she rolled her eyes to peer up at the woman walking closer. Blue eyes framed by thick ropes of dark curls searched her face.
“You are very very stupid,” the woman laughed lowly.
The woman’s crimson lips curled into a mocking smile and the world faded to black.
+++
Morgause drifted in the blackness between the snowy mountaintop and the ground below. She was still falling.
“You will never find her. And she will not lead you to your sister.”
Now something warm was slithering down her throat, tapping and poking at the layer of ice casing her stomach.
Then the blackness engulfed her again.
Soft heat pulsed at the edges of her skin, but nothing could melt the block of ice lodged where her heart had been. Words of magic that her mind clutched at, trying futilely to understand, washed over her like waves rolling over cold, wet sand.
Morgause started awake to find herself locked in bare arms, her back pressed against smooth fabric covering full breasts and a soft stomach. Deep exhales danced across her neck. Pins and needles skittered across the surface of her skin-on the inside of her thighs, the edges of her arms, the flat of her stomach. A thick blanket had been wrapped tightly around her; it pressed against her chest. She shuddered, shivered against the heat pushing at her back.
I was away, she thought. Across the room, a fire burned in a glass fireplace.
She willed herself to turn in the woman’s arms to see her face, but her muscles just twitched and refused to comply. The block of ice inside her began to chip. She dropped back down into warmth.
Morgause awoke warm and full. She lay sprawled on top of the woman, softly breathing stomach to stomach, groin to groin, her lips buried in the skin of a bony shoulder. Heat seeped through the thin shift covering the woman’s torso into Morgause’s bruised skin.
She exerted all her strength to lift her head, wincing as her muscles screamed; she found deep blue eyes staring back at her.
“You’re alive then,” the woman said. “I thought body heat would be the safest way to warm you. My heating magic might have been too much of a shock to your system.”
Morgause just stared at her.
“No one’s ever been able to find me before,” the woman gloated.
Morgause’s lips cracked painfully as she tried to smile. “Until me.”
“You stupid, stupid girl. Why are you here?” The woman snaked a leg around Morgause’s ankle, running her warm foot up and down her calf.
“I had . . . to find you.” Her memories felt murky and heavy inside her mind. “What happened?”
“I pulled you naked out of the snow. I guess you decided you weren’t cold enough.”
“I was . . . By the fire. I was on fire. . . . Then, you? Then . . .” The edge of darkness.
Unable to hold her head up, Morgause sank down onto the woman’s shoulder. The woman turned her head to mouth a line of wet kisses up Morgause’s sore neck.
“Do you know who I am?” She asked into Morgause’s throat.
“Nimueh.” The name floated up to her from the depth of her memories. Morgause shuddered as a spike of heat trailed down her spine. She ground her groin against Nimueh.
“Shh,” Nimueh soothed her, running her hands gently down Morgause’s back. They lay there quietly, bodies pressing into each other, breathing into each other’s skin.
As feeling seeped in more deeply, the pinpricks of pain aching down her chest, belly, and thighs morphed into something deep and raw, scarring the surface of her skin. Her right wrist burned, her knee felt sliced open, pain bloomed across her pelvis, her shoulder throbbed, her fingers seemed too large where they rested, tangled in Nimueh’s hair.
Finally, long after Morgause had catalogued all the aches in her body, after she had touched the weak flame of magic inside her, after she had closed her eyes and drifted into dreams and then woken to the many points of pain pulsing in her skin, Nimueh spoke again.
“Why were you looking for me?” She breathed against Morgause’s ear; the breath warm and teasing, sending goosebumps down Morgause’s aching arm.
She thought for a minute. “You have what I need,” she choked out.
“What is that?”
Morgause thought of that day-possibly only a week ago, though it felt like another lifetime-the day she had come to the base of the mountain, slapped her horse’s rump, whispered that he should come back for her in two weeks’ time, shouldered her pack and begun her trek.
“Knowledge of Camelot. Share it with me.”
Nimueh shifted under Morgause and laughed, her voice skittering high across the room. “And why on earth would I do that?”
Morgause swallowed and spoke into the woman’s shoulder. “Because I will give you whatever you want in return. My body, my magic, my service, my riches.”
Nimueh laughed again. “I could already claim those things in return for saving your wretched life.” Her hand traced down over Morgause’s ribs; her fingers dug into her buttocks, kneading lightly.
“You could.” Morgause admitted lowly.
“Who sent you?”
“No one.”
“How did you know I was here?” Nimueh’s hand inched higher, rubbing at the aching ropes of muscle knotted in her back. Morgause arched into it.
“I’ve searched for you for the past two years. As soon as I turned sixteen, I left the priestesses and set out to find you. It was a hunch that brought me to this mountain. I guessed that you were behind the villagers’ rumours of the mysterious sorceress who lived in the ice palace atop the mountain.”
“You must be mad to risk your life on a hunch. Did it occur to you that I don’t want to be found? That I don’t want to share my knowledge of Camelot? No one was supposed to find me. Especially not you, Morgause.”
Morgause managed to lift her head, meeting Nimueh’s gaze. “How did you know my name?”
“I watch. I see.” Nimueh shrugged. “What I want to know is why a woman raised by the people who scorned me would come looking for me.”
Nimueh surged up, flipping Morgause in her arms so her back landed against the soft mattress. The delicate fabric of Nimueh’s shift bunched between them, high around their thighs. Twining one leg between Morgause’s, Nimueh braced her own weight above her, searching her face. The light from the fire outlined her cheekbones, flickered over her black hair.
“Tell me,” Nimueh hissed, “what do they say about me? What do the high priests and priestesses say about me?”
“That you started the War against Magic. That the Great Purge began because of you.”
Nimueh quirked an eyebrow and brushed her fingertips over the underside of Morgause’s breast.
Morgause winced at the fleeting touch, warm and sure over the rawness of her bare skin. Something was stirring deep in her, no longer cold-addled, hollering for more touch.
“Is that all?” Nimueh asked breathily, her hand resting loosely against Morgause’s breast.
“You fell in love with a woman, Uther’s queen. They say your magic killed her.”
“They’re not wrong.” She shrugged a shoulder and Morgause tracked the movement with her eyes. “You were a fool to come here.”
“You’ve said that already, Nimueh. If I was such a fool, then why did you save me?” Morgause shifted her hands-too big, too clumsy-to grip at Nimueh’s back, latch onto her shoulder blades.
Nimueh’s icy gaze narrowed.
“Maybe you get lonely up here?” Morgause taunted. “Or maybe you’ve got more good in you than you let on.” Morgause clutched at the upper edge of Nimueh’s shift where it cut low under her shoulders.
“And maybe little girls shouldn’t go looking for trouble.” Nimueh’s voice was high, sharp. She grinned, her lips dark and full against porcelain skin.
Still smiling, she bowed her head to hover above Morgause’s breast; she exhaled slowly over the raw skin there. The light smarting pain tangled into tendrils of neediness-Morgause wanted more. She shifted restlessly under Nimueh, feeling against her own breasts the hardening of Nimueh’s nipples through sheer fabric. Every movement hurt, but it didn’t matter, she realized with a grimace, nothing mattered but that she was alive. The energy deep within her woke up. It was life. She was life. She was alive, she was warm, she had come back from the wide, engulfing cold, come back to this small body, this small body that needed, needed more than anything to exert its fragile existence.
She twisted her thick, unfeeling fingers into Nimueh’s dark hair and pushed Nimueh’s head farther down onto her breast.
Nimueh chuckled softly before closing the hot, wet heat of her mouth over Morgause’s nipple, pulling insistently at it with teeth and tongue.
“Gods, yes.” The words were a rasping exhale that hung in the space between them-the only other sound in the room the crackle of the fire and the wet sounds of Nimueh’s lips on Morgause’s skin.
But it wasn’t enough, wasn’t nearly enough to match the life throbbing inside Morgause, between her legs, up her spine, across the surface of her skin. She tugged at Nimueh’s head, feeling the burn in her arm muscles as she unlatched her and drew her head up so their eyes met. “Show me,” she searched for the words, “show me I’m alive.”
The laughter in Nimueh’s blue eyes hardened and she nodded curtly. Then her hand was raking down Morgause’s body, pinching at her hips, shoving her thighs wide apart. Nimueh slipped her fingers into the space between her own thigh and Morgause’s groin, fisting a handful of her curls there, sending a jolt of pain, of pleasure through Morgause.
And then all at once Nimueh was inside her, her blunt fingers plunging, twisting into her slippery core. Morgause threw back her head and growled with the life inside her. The pain that had wracked her body gone, she lifted her hips and shoved down onto Nimueh’s relentless fingers, once, twice, again into a swift rhythm. And then Nimueh was biting her way down Morgause’s torso, nipping at her stomach, scraping her teeth across her scratched skin, settling her face between her legs to trail the flat of her tongue over Morgause’s clit, sending sparks of heat and need flaring low in Morgause’s gut.
The insistent pressure of her tongue combined with the forceful thrusts of her hand-how many fingers did she have buried in her-were unravelling her quickly, bringing her back to life. So close, she reached out to ground her fingers in Nimueh’s thick braids, holding on there, thinking nothing, feeling nothing but the building pressure clenching in on itself inside her. Nimueh pressed her tongue, lips, and teeth harder into Morgause, and then her tongue darted lower, pushing unrelentingly into her, joining Nimueh’s fingers as she fucked her with mouth, lips, teeth, and hand.
And then she was drowning as wave after wave of heat burned up her thighs, under her skin, out into her fingertips, flooding her senses and mind. Morgause’s whole body vibrated as a strangled sob tore through her; she was riding the crest endlessly over the edge until she finally collapsed back against the bed and gave herself up to the warm darkness pulsing in on her from the edges of her awareness.
+++
Morgause was soaking up soft sunrays. Lying belly in the grass, ear turned to listen to the dirt, she basked in the sun’s caress on her naked back.
She had been waiting a long time for summer.
She blinked and woke up, alone in the large bed, swaddled under blankets, and what felt like the coarse, yet soft fur of a bear pelt. She snuggled deeper into the cocoon of warmth, content to doze in the empty, dim room, on whose clear glass walls the shadows from the dying fire danced.
She’d found Nimueh. If her body didn’t feel like it had been trampled, stung, and dragged at high-speed over frozen rocks, she would have crowed with the smug elation of triumph.
For two long years, she had listened to drunken rumours, campside ghost stories, hushed tales old women whispered behind their hands, any scrap of report she could find that told of a raven-haired sorceress, of a spurned lover of Uther’s dead queen, of a recluse lady magician. Most of her leads ended in the dust of a deserted cottage, in the dampness of an empty cave tucked under a waterfall, in echoing castle ruins open to the sky. Sometimes she encountered other dark-haired women-angry crones, powerful young healers, inarticulate children of the woods. But none had been Nimueh. None had the eyes as blue and deep as the sky, the smile as smug, nor the voice as sharp as the woman she’d heard described. None until now.
Morgause shifted onto her side and curled her fingers into the heavy covers. For the first time, she looked at her hands, noticed the thick, large blisters puffing up her finger pads. Curious to see the other ways the cold had marked her body, she shoved off the layers of blankets, pushing herself to sit upright despite the pain that shot up her ribs and down her forearms. She looked down at her chest, at the thin scratches and dark welts that covered her breasts and streaked down her belly. She remembered sliding naked on her stomach down the icy mountainside, but as she fingered and poked at the tender flesh, trying to recall if she had felt any pain as she had tumbled down, all she could remember was the sluggish panic, the clumsy attempts to catch herself.
There were other marks, too, she saw. Red blotches where Nimueh had taken her skin between her teeth. Heat curled in her stomach as Morgause thought of the way Nimueh had moved over her, the way she had sunk into her so assuredly. Morgause thought of the first time she had seen Nimueh, a conjured image in the night air, a gorgeous woman sketched in red and black lines. She had kept that picture tucked under her heart for the past two years. And now that she had found her, it paled in comparison to the real thing.
She scrubbed a hand over her face and returned her attention to her fragile body. She swung her legs over the bed, noticing the long horizontal gash on her knee. The wound looked barely closed; angry red welts and a trickle of dried blood surrounded it. Her thighs and shins were peppered with thin scratches and bruises.
Morgause braced herself against the mattress and pushed up to stand, only to yelp and fall back as soon as she put her weight onto her feet. It had felt as though she were standing on thin bags of sand and needles. She picked up her bruised foot and saw thick watery blisters on her pads and toes. For an instant, she considered using magic to drain them, but there was no guarantee that would allow her actually to walk.
Fisting her hands in the sheets, feet uselessly resting on the floor, she examined her surroundings. The wide room with its smooth walls and high arched ceiling-she realized with a start-wasn’t built of glass, as she had originally thought, but of ice. Everything in it was hewn from it: the mantle carved with images of fairies and trees, the massive bed frame big enough to sleep four comfortably, the table and ornate chairs in the corner. The ice looked as solid and unyielding as hardened glass. Even though a fire crackled heartily in it, the fireplace remained frozen, nowhere could she see evidence of dripping or pools of water.
Despite the chiselled ice that enclosed her, Morgause felt no chill; the soft rugs on the floor, the smooth tapestry hanging on a far wall, the white velvet curtains draping the windows, the warm air from the fireplace, the fat candles burning on the table, all lent the room a cosiness and welcoming warmth. Morgause wanted to open her senses and sort through all the magic that kept the room intact, the spells that held the ice apart from the heat, that kept the two warring worlds of hot and cold in perfect balance.
But her own body and mind were too bruised to attempt to trace the magic pulsing around her. She ran a hand through her knotted hair and sighed. The long trek up the mountain had burned up her magic. She had brought enough food for eight days of hiking, and had run out of food halfway up the mountain. With her food reserves gone, she had run on pure magic, expending the last of her power to keep herself warm, to strengthen her muscles and lungs, until there was none of that left either. She needed to sleep and eat to build back her magic, so she could start the long process of healing herself.
Morgause had just lain back down on the bed when the giant ice door to her room swung open and Nimueh glided through followed by a floating tray. Nimueh was dressed in a tight black dress shot through with streaks of red. Strapless, it hugged her breasts and hips, and then flared around her thighs and cascaded in red and black ribbons to her feet. Morgause felt her throat go dry.
Nimueh smiled as she approached, just a smug sideways crook of her lips, and a slight lowering of her lashes. “I see you’re awake now. I wasn’t sure if I had worn you out for good before. It would have been so gauche of me to have saved you from hypothermia and then killed you with sex,” she purred as she leaned towards Morgause.
At the sight of Nimueh’s deep red lips coming closer, Morgause thought of how they had felt tracing over her body, planted between her legs. She wondered what tastes lingered in Nimueh’s mouth.
“Sit forward,” Nimueh commanded as she reached behind Morgause to arrange her cushions. Morgause felt the trail of Nimueh’s long twists of hair against her shoulder as Nimueh propped pillows up behind her naked back. She shivered involuntarily at the brush of her hair.
“Cold?”
“No.”
Nimueh pulled away and Morgause reached down to tug the blankets high over her breasts.
“I’m not much of a healer,” Nimueh explained archly as she handed a steaming goblet to Morgause. “But I’ll do my best with you. I might as well.”
“You mean, you’ve got nothing better to do up here all by yourself?” Morgause asked mockingly as she accepted the goblet and sipped cautiously. The liquid stung on its way down, but it was not unpleasant.
“Precisely.”
Nimueh sat at the side of the bed, waiting quietly as Morgause finished the drink.
“Here, give me your hands.” Nimueh plucked a jar of ointment from the tray beside her and began rubbing it into Morgause’s fingertips. “This should help the blisters go down. If it doesn’t, your fingers will turn black and I’ll have to remove your hands before it spreads up your arms.”
“That’s comforting.” Morgause let out a bark of laughter. There was so much she needed to ask Nimueh, now that she’d found her, so much she needed to know. But just as Nimueh earlier had been intent on questioning Morgause despite her near-death state, now she seemed satisfied to focus on treating Morgause’s body. She rubbed the ointment into her hands, then her feet and toes, whispering soft words of magic over them.
Then she stood, brushing her hands together. “I’ll conjure a bath for you later if you want. After the ointment’s soaked in.” Before Morgause could respond, Nimueh had snapped her fingers for the tray to follow her, and whisked out of the room.
Stomach full, fingers and toes stinging slightly, Morgause drifted into sleep, dreaming of lakes heated in the summer sun and mermaids whose black hair caught the warm daylight as they dozed by the lakeside.
+++
The next few days floated by as a bubble of warmth and touch. Under Nimueh’s ministrations, and despite her protests that she was no healer, Morgause flourished. Her magic flared inside her once again; her muscles loosened, stretched, and healed; the puffy blisters on her hands and feet hardened and receded.
Finally, one morning, as sunlight painted blocks of warmth on the bed and rug, Morgause, grown restless with her newfound energy, ventured outside her room.
The white robe she had conjured trailing behind her, Morgause picked her way down the steep steps outside her door. The stairs wound endlessly down in a square tower, with only narrow windows breaking the sheer ice walls. The bottom of the staircase opened onto a large hall, whose high vaulted ceilings sparkled with icicles; thick, round ice columns reflected the sunlight pouring in through stained glass windows-or was it coloured ice? Morgause caught her breath at the grandeur of it all; it felt like a place of sanctuary, a seat of power, the heart of the placid castle. Listening to the soft echoes of her footsteps, she approached the far end of the room, where a towering throne, hewn out of ice and large enough to seat a giantess, cast a long shadow. Next to the throne stood a tall basin, a scrying font, Morgause presumed.
“Ever since you arrived, the waters have been murky.” Nimueh’s voice sparked over Morgause’s skin, making the hairs on her arm stand on end.
“What does that mean?” she asked, turning to see Nimueh clothed in a silver and red dress that draped around her neck, barely covered her breasts, and flowed loosely down to her ankles. Nimueh crowded close to Morgause to peer into the basin, and Morgause watched the supple curve of her naked back.
“It means that you’re stupidly trying to disrupt fate.”
“I don’t believe in fate or destiny. I believe in choices,” Morgause challenged, meeting Nimueh’s steady gaze.
“You are so young,” Nimueh said flatly, and then, more softly. “What did the high priestesses teach you about tempting destiny?”
Morgause shrugged and grinned. “If I had listened to everything they told me, I wouldn’t have gone looking for you, would I?” She reached out because she could no longer keep her hands to herself, and wrapped her fingers around Nimueh’s upper arm.
For a moment, neither spoke as they looked at each other, and Morgause leaned in fractionally to close the distance between them and snag Nimueh’s full lips.
Nimueh shook her head, almost impatiently, and backed away, out of Morgause’s grasp. “So young. Fate is not something to be trifled with.” She gestured forcefully at the basin of water. “Morgause, we were not fated to meet. You’ve changed the future in ways none of us can know. You’re toying with something larger than you or me, something you are too young to understand.”
Morgause dropped her hand to her side, and fisted it in the fine fabric of her own robe. “I’m tired of everyone telling me what not to do,” she said lowly. “You don’t even know me. Everyone told me to stay away from you. They said you were a recluse who had gone underground after Ygraine’s death. They said after they revoked your title as high priestess . . .”
Nimueh snorted ungracefully and interrupted. “As if anyone could revoke my title. The Old Religion chose me, not the other priests and priestesses.”
“. . . you fled to the hills with your tail between your legs, taking your knowledge of magic, and Camelot with you.”
“No.” Nimueh’s voice sank deeply into Morgause. “When Uther drove me from the court, when my own kind rejected me and blamed me for his ire, I removed myself to keep a promise to someone else. Something I doubt you could understand, with all your wilfulness and blind young individualism. The world is larger than you, Morgause, and some of have commitments that are more important than our own petty wants.”
“Petty? You think that my goal to take down Camelot and end Uther’s folly is petty? I’m working for the greater good of all magic users.”
Nimueh’s lips curled into a dark sneer. “You have no idea how,” she scoffed.
“You’re right,” Morgause admitted simply. “That’s why I had to find you. They say no one knows the secret entrances and passageways, the weaknesses in Camelot’s defences like you, that you carry a map of the castle in your head, that you know every entrance to Uther’s chambers,” Morgause implored.
Watching the cold, intractable stare that met her gaze, Morgause’s heart began to sink.
“I won’t accept that you won’t help me,” she said firmly. “I won’t accept that I came all this way, that I searched for two years, that you rescued me only to send me back into the cold with nothing.”
Nimueh reached out a hand and smoothed it lightly over Morgause’s hair. “How old are you, Morgause? Eighteen? Nineteen? You were, what, eight when the Great Purge began? You’ve seen nothing.”
“I was seven when it began. I’m eighteen now. I’ve seen enough. Unlike you, who’s been hiding from the world in your own personal kingdom of ice, I’ve been living a life on the run. I’ve seen more magic users killed in my lifetime than I’ve seen survive. How many raids have we suffered at the hands of Uther’s men? How many times have we gone days out of our way to skirt the borders of Albion, to avoid the risk of Uther’s blind rage against magic? It has to stop. Yet no one in my camp is willing to go on the offensive. They prefer to hide, and avoid, and retreat. So I have to be the one to try.” She jutted her chin out.
“And you will fail.”
Morgause crossed her arms in front of her chest. “How do you know that?”
“Long before you showed up naked, bleeding, and frozen on my doorstep, I’d already seen your failure,” Nimueh said matter-of-factly. “You will try to save your sister. Yes, I know about her, too, the Lady Morgana. You care about her; you’ve cared for her ever since your mother put her in your arms as a child and told you to watch over her. You haven’t seen her since you held her as a tiny baby. You and your sister will try to destroy Uther together. And you will fail, both of you. You will fail and you will be killed. It is not your destiny to kill Uther nor is it your destiny to kill his son, Arthur. You will die trying, Morgause.” Nimueh shrugged. “I’m sorry.” And it almost sounded like she meant it.
Nimueh spun on her heel and stalked off, leaving Morgause with the empty gigantic throne, the small bowl of water that only promised defeat, and a bitter taste of confusion in her mouth.
As Nimueh reached the doorway, Morgause cried after her, “Then why save me? Why bring me back if I’m doomed to fail?”
Resting a hand on the doorframe, Nimueh sighed, “Because I couldn’t watch another good magic user die.” Without turning to face her, she commanded, “Leave, Morgause. You’ve healed now. Conjure yourself your tunics, and your familiar chainmail, and transport yourself somewhere else, anywhere else.”
Then she was gone.
+++
Morgause paced up and down the neat rows of the herb garden in the greenhouse of ice she’d discovered at the end of a narrow hallway. The heat and the heady mixture of loam, greenery, and pungent herbs calmed her pounding heart as she trailed the pathways.
She had not come this far to go home empty handed. She couldn’t go back and admit to her camp that they had been right all along: that Nimueh would have nothing to do with other magic users, that Nimueh was a scorned recluse who still mourned her lost lover, that Nimueh had spent too long peering at the future to believe in her own agency, that Nimueh was not her only hope for finding her sister.
Morgause kicked out at the dirt under her feet. Nimueh may be stubborn, but Morgause could be stubborn, too. She would just choose not to leave. Go on and make me leave, Nimueh, she thought.
+++
For five days, the women didn’t talk.
Morgause needed time to think, time to plan. She first needed to clear her mind. She conjured chainmail, a hefty sword, a large axe, and a handful of throwing knifes, and spent her afternoons sweating as she practiced her footwork, her parries, her attacks in the great hall.
Her muscles had recovered, but they were weak; so she pushed them further, envisioning Uther’s head under her axe, his face at the point of her knife. She had been young when the Great Purge began, but she would never forget standing up in the crowd, staring at Uther’s face twisted in wrath, watching how he cradled his young son in one arm and ordered executions with a wave of the other.
At first it had been the adults, her mother’s friends, the magicians who had worked for Uther, the druids passing through, the dragonlords. She remembered the snatches of her parents’ shrill fighting that would drift up to her through the floorboards at night.
”I won’t stay and watch him kill more people. When is he going to turn on me? Or our daughters?”
“I’m his most trusted advisor, Vivienne. And you, I’ve seen the affection he has for you. He cares for us deeply. We are not the enemy and he knows that. He would never single you out or our daughters. People who dine privately with the king every week will not be executed.”
“And the Lady Nimueh? Surely she dined with him every night. He’s a man of cruel whims.”
When the purge first began, Uther had disbanded the school of magic where Morgause had spent her days. Three months after it had begun, Uther decided that disbanding the school was not enough. His men hunted down the children, brought them to the castle.
”He’s drowning them, Gorlois, I know he is.”
“No. Even Uther wouldn’t go that far. He’s teaching them not to use magic, just like he said.”
“How long before he comes after Morgause? Will you let him drag her off to the castle? Would you give her up? Because I won’t.”
Morgause swung out with her axe, banishing childhood memories.
Clearing her mind to nothing but her own sinew and focus, she waited and waited for an answer from within, for a plan that would seduce Nimueh away from her rigidity, for a way to break the silence between them.
In the end, it was Nimueh who spoke up first. Dressed in a thin dress in which a thousand different shades of blue sparkled, Nimueh marched into the hall as Morgause was hurling knives at a moving wooden target that she had enchanted.
“Enough,” Nimueh called out harshly. “I have to scry and I can’t concentrate with you mucking about.” She gestured emphatically towards Morgause.
Tucking her knives into her boots, Morgause strode over to where Nimueh stood; the blood still rushed through her limber muscles, the heat of exercise rippled through her. “Mucking about?” she raised an eyebrow and then nodded towards the basin. “I thought you said that the waters had been murky since I arrived. Since I haven’t left yet, they’re probably still murky. No need to scry now, Nimueh.” She shrugged and turned to walk away.
“This is my palace. And I can make you regret invading my territory. Don’t ever forget who is in charge,” Nimueh threatened coldly.
Morgause grinned, but schooled her face to an impassive stare before turning back to Nimueh. “I’m not so sure that you’re as in charge as you think are. Actually, I think you’re not in charge at all. You let your life be run by the whims of fate and destiny. I think that bowl over there,” she pointed toward the scrying font, “is in charge.”
“Tread carefully, my dear,” Nimueh hissed. “I’ve tolerated you for the past few days because your naïve determination amuses me. Don’t forget that I could spill you out onto the unforgiving mountain any moment I choose.”
Morgause grinned and stepped closer. “Empty threats, Nimueh. Empty threats from a woman who enjoyed having her mouth between my legs.” It was a dare, it was a risk, and Morgause knew it. It was a hunch, but hunches had brought her here in the first place. She took a deep breath, trying to make her voice as even as possible, trying not to waver as she continued speaking. “See, the way I figure it, ten years by yourself in an ice palace is a lonely existence. The way I figure it, you’re regretting our encounter because it made you feel something, it made you feel something you haven’t felt in a long time, maybe since your lover died. The way I figure it, despite your protestations about fate and destiny and my imminent failure, you can’t bear to send me away. Because you want more of me. And you hate that you do.” She stalked towards Nimueh as she spoke until she was practically treading on her toes.
Nimueh laughed quickly, and the sound flitted up into the vaulted ceiling. “A girl of eighteen, do you really think you tempt me that much?” Her voice was too loud, as though she were working hard to talk over whatever else Morgause might say, as though she were striving to convince herself.
“Yes, I do think so.”
Nimueh frowned, biting her lips together and still not meeting Morgause’s eyes. “I’m done asking you nicely. Leave before I throw you out.”
“Oh? You think you could take me?” Morgause taunted, leaning forward to ghost a breath down the column of Nimueh’s neck.
“I know I could take you.” But Nimueh’s voice shook ever so slightly.
“I think, actually,” Morgause traced a finger down Nimueh’s bare arm, “that you want me to take you.”
Nimueh shuddered-just a small movement of her neck and shoulders-but it was enough to signal to Morgause that she was on the right track. She leaned forward and bit down hard on the pulse in Nimueh’s neck. Nimueh gasped, reaching out to wrap her fingers around Morgause’s upper arm, bracing herself there for a fraction of a moment before shoving hard, sending Morgause stumbling backwards.
Morgause laughed lowly as she caught herself and managed to stay upright. “Well, come on then,” she gestured widely with her arms.
Nimueh chuckled. “Oh, now you’re asking for it.” Chanting lowly, she lifted her palm and sent a blast of warm air at Morgause that knocked her back a few more feet.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Morgause paced slowly towards Nimueh, keeping her arms open, her smile inviting.
“I just don’t want to hurt you after wasting so much time healing you,” Nimueh said acidly.
“You’re just afraid of letting me get too close.” Morgause stepped in so she could reach out to touch Nimueh again. Just as she was about to, Nimueh lashed out with another gust of wind, this one stronger, sending Morgause lurching backwards across the room, barely able to keep her feet under her.
Recovering quickly, Morgause just grinned and advanced towards her again.
“Stop, just stop, alright?” Nimueh ordered, raising her hand.
Morgause ignored the command and took another slow step towards her, enjoying the anticipation throbbing through her veins.
Then Nimueh was whispering a spell that Morgause couldn’t make out. Another blast of wind charged into her, but instead of sending her tumbling backwards, it locked her in place, rooting her feet to the ground, forcing her widespread arms to stiffen in that position.
Morgause growled and shook her head-the only part of her body she could move.
Nimueh shot her a sly grin. “What no witty retort?” She turned her back and headed towards the room’s exit.
“Now that you’ve got me exactly where you want me Nimueh, why don’t you come over here and show me who’s in charge?” Morgause called out after her.
Nimueh’s laughter trilled back to her. “That, my dear, is what you want.”
It was hours before the spell wore off, before Morgause could stretch her stiff limbs and shoulders and hobble upstairs.
The games had begun.
One point to Nimueh.
+++
A week later, they still hadn’t spoken, and Morgause had the distinct impression that Nimueh was going out of her way to avoid her. She searched the castle for her, drifting through empty rooms, wondering how Nimueh had spent all this time up here alone in these echoing hallways.
Morgause wasn’t sleeping well anymore. Her newly strengthened body was too restless, too needy, too maddeningly close to answers that weren’t coming, too aware of the elusive presence of the woman she’d hungered after for years, the woman who had burst into her life by chasing out the storm, by soothing over her marred survivor’s skin.
Wrapped in nothing more than her flimsy night robe, Morgause took to pacing the castle halls at night, as well as during the day. It was in the middle of the night when she finally happened upon Nimueh again.
She found her in the great hall, bent over the basin and staring intently into it. A circle of candelabras had been lit around the basin and the great throne, reflecting as still points of light on the smooth ice walls and floor. Leaning against the wall, Morgause watched in the dim light as she mumbled to herself, concentrating. Her shoulders were taut, her jaw set. Nimueh wore the silver and red dress that left her back naked; Morgause followed the curve of her spine hungrily as she waited and observed. After minutes of muttering and staring, Nimueh straightened abruptly, slapping her hand at the surface of the basin, sending water splashing over the floor.
“Show me, damn it. Show me,” she rasped.
Moving soundlessly, Morgause crept up behind her, and ever so slowly wrapped her arms around Nimueh’s midsection, pulled her body close, and perched her chin on her shoulder. Nimueh started almost imperceptibly at the first touch to her waist. Morgause felt a subtle tremble of Nimueh’s frame in her arms. She sensed the frustration humming through her, steaming in the air around her, but also the tension in her shoulders; her body felt tight with everything she kept locked inside.
Yet Nimueh didn’t shrug her off. Melded together, neither moved.
With one hand, Morgause began tracing her fingers in slow circles in the fabric bunched over Nimueh’s stomach. With the other, she pressed her palm high on Nimueh’s chest, in the bare space in the neckline of her dress, between her breasts, feeling the swift rise and fall of her breathing.
They stood like that in the darkness; the only sound the quick intake of breath.
And then, ever so slightly, so slightly that it was barely noticeable, Nimueh leaned back. Morgause felt the shift in her weight, the release as she let her shoulders rest against Morgause, her naked back press against the quick beat of Morgause’s heart.
She dipped her head down and traced a slow line up Nimueh’s exposed neck with her tongue; Nimueh tilted her head, granting her better access. Morgause nibbled gently on her earlobe, sweeping her tongue carefully into her ear, relishing the sigh of Nimueh’s shuddering exhale. Shifting her palm to cup Nimueh’s left breast, Morgause felt the heavy fullness there. Underneath it, Nimueh’s heart was beating out the rhythm of her existence.
A wave of craving flooded through her, draining the stiffness from her body, filling her with wanting, so much wanting. “This is . . .” she whispered around the lump in her own throat, “everything I’ve ever wanted.”
And then she spun Nimueh around forcefully and descended on her lips, biting, licking, pressing down on them. With a satisfied groan, Nimueh opened her mouth, and grabbed hold of Morgause’s upper arms. Then they were duelling, tangling their tongues together, trying fiercely to get more of each other.
Nimueh’s fingers were digging hard enough into the flesh of Morgause’s arms to bruise, her thigh trapped tightly between Morgause’s legs, and Morgause moved her hands to twist in Nimueh’s thick ropes of hair. Leaning into each other, locked together, they kissed like they were sharing the last breath of air in a drowning room.
Panting, Nimueh broke away to yank at the ties to Morgause’s robes, and then it was a war to get each other undressed. Nimueh’s hands were everywhere, skimming over Morgause’s stomach, sinking into the flesh at her hips, tugging at her nipples, kneading at her shoulders as she pushed off her robe, so it slithered over her skin, down her arms, and pooled around her feet. In spite of her fumbling fingers, Morgause managed to make quick work of the cloth around Nimueh’s neck that held up her dress. It fell forward, bunching around her waist, leaving her torso bare. Greedily, she roamed her hands over Nimueh’s smooth skin, teasing lightly over her nipples.
And then she crouched down and bent her head to take her breast into her mouth, roll her nipple gently with her tongue. Nimueh let out a moan and Morgause braced herself against Nimueh’s hips as she dropped to her knees, tugging Nimueh’s dress completely off on her way down. Kneeling naked on the sheer fabric of her own robe, she tilted her head to look up at Nimueh. Nimueh met her gaze with such intensity in her eyes and openness on her face that Morgause felt heat rising in her cheeks.
Wasting no time, she leaned forward, propping Nimueh’s left leg on her shoulder before crushing her face to her groin. At first, she just inhaled deeply. This, this is Nimueh she thought as the warm sharp scent filled her. This is what I’ve been looking for. Reaching up with her left hand, she ran her fingers through the wetness there, parting her tender folds before tilting forward and flicking her tongue just over the tip of her clit. Underneath her hovering mouth, Nimueh trembled, gave a deep full-body shudder. Morgause dove forward then, working her over in earnest, licking her in hard long strokes, shifting down so she could push her tongue up into her, tasting the tangy sweetness there, feeling the heady thickness mixing with her own spit as it dribbled down her chin.
Nimueh’s standing leg began to spasm where Morgause’s right hand drew small circles up and down the back of her thigh. Gently she disengaged herself, making soft soothing noises to Nimueh when she grabbed the back of her head and tried to manoeuvre her back between her legs.
“C’mon,” Morgause said lowly. “There’s something I want to do.” She lifted Nimueh’s other leg from her shoulder, pushed herself up to standing, locked her wet fingers over Nimueh’s, and led her to the massive ice throne a few feet away.
Nimueh grinned wickedly when Morgause inclined her head towards the throne. She threw herself onto the surface with enthusiasm, sprawling on the throne, positioning herself on the edge of the seat, parting her legs invitingly. Morgause knelt before her and hesitated before glancing up at her, wondering if she should try to keep the worshipful glow out of her eyes.
This time when Morgause leaned forward to plunge into her, Nimueh latched her fingers into her hair and forced her face hard into her softness. Morgause chuckled against her wetness, lapping at it like she would never get enough. It didn’t take Morgause long to figure out the code that Nimueh’s fingers were signalling; she rubbed at Morgause’s scalp and moaned lowly when she liked what Morgause was doing, yanked at her curls and chanted incomprehensibly when she wanted her to go faster, tugged her away and exhaled loudly when she needed a respite. Morgause wondered what it would take to make Nimueh beg. Touch by touch, she took her apart, diving into her core, playfully pulling away and pausing just to breathe over her, teasing her with the lightest touches possible, encouraging her moans with relentless caresses.
Morgause’s jaw was aching, her face was dripping, her tongue was starting to flag, her knees were tightening, she’d lost feeling in the lower half of her legs, but she’d never felt such excitement pulsing through her, such wonder.
Something shifted and Nimueh’s hands were suddenly everywhere, tracing over Morgause’s brow and cheekbones, splaying wide over her face and jaw, and holding her firmly in place as she ground hard into Morgause’s mouth and keened long and loud. Morgause grinned stupidly when she felt the shuddering spasms under her lips; she licked her through her release, enjoying the stuttering sharp inhales Nimueh made every time Morgause’s tongue moved.
Finally, Nimueh lifted Morgause’s face up and away and met her eyes with a satisfied smirk. “My turn,” she said in an eager voice. She leaned down, took a hold of Morgause by the shoulders, pulled her to her feet, and then, while kissing her soundly, raised a hand and transported them to Morgause’s room.
She snapped her fingers; the fireplace and the candles dotted throughout the room sprang to life, brightening the room and casting long shadows.
Dizzy from the sudden move, the blood rushing out of her head, and Nimueh’s quick transportation, Morgause steadied herself against the bed, enjoying the buzz of Nimueh’s magic in the room. Apparently satisfied with the state of the room, Nimueh whirled on her and pointed towards the bed. “I thought we’d want a bed for this one. Get on it.”
Morgause didn’t have to be told twice. Excitement, apprehension beating through her veins, she hopped onto the bed and scrambled backwards as Nimueh stalked towards her.
Nimueh looked at her long and hard as she halted her approach at the edge of the bed; she reached out and took Morgause’s foot in her hand, running her fingertips over the top of it and under the arch, trailing up her calf, rubbing there.
“Roll over,” Nimueh commanded gently.
And then her hands, her short nails were everywhere, digging, prying, soothing, massaging. Nimueh lingered when Morgause’s breathing quickened, her fingers danced away just when Morgause wanted more. Slowly, deliberately, she was learning her body.
Then, suddenly, her hands were gone, replaced by her tongue. She swiped up her calves, sucking bruises into the skin above her ankle, the tender sides of her muscle. And then she discovered the backs of Morgause’s knees; every sweep of her tongue, every press of her lips shot straight to Morgause’s groin. In seconds, she turned her into a quivering, dripping, incoherent mass of need.
Morgause bit out Nimueh’s name, threatening, craving. Nimueh continued to lick at and torture the backs of her knees. Finally, just when Morgause thought she could come just from that sensation alone, Nimueh pulled off and manhandled Morgause to turn her over onto her back.
Kneeling between Morgause’s spread legs, Nimueh waved her hand over her own body, grinning wickedly. When she pulled her hand away, a thick, clear shaft rested below her pubic bone, strapped onto Nimueh’s body with an intricate web of red silk ties and leather.
Morgause smiled in appreciation and pushed herself up on her elbows, so she could reach out to trace her fingers over the rod jutting from Nimueh’s hips. It was quite warm to the touch, hard and smooth as solid glass, and clear as crystal except for swirls of red trapped inside like frozen energy.
Nimueh trailed her fingers down to trace over the slight cleft in Morgause’s chin. “You gorgeous, gorgeous woman you,” she said on an exhale before sliding down so she could lower herself over Morgause, her mouth directly above Morgause’s. Supporting herself on her forearms, she dove down for a ferocious kiss and Morgause met her tongue stroke for stroke, claiming her just as fiercely as she was being claimed. And then Morgause lifted her hips as Nimueh planted a hand firmly between her legs and rippled into her. The shaft slid slickly into her wet heat; she stuttered and cried out as she felt her walls stretch around the impossibly hard warmth radiating into her, permeating deep inside. Above her, Nimueh’s crimson lips curved into a luminous smile, and Morgause wondered how she could live framed by ice, when she deserved warm gardens buzzing with life and sunshine tanning her skin.
The insistent warmth pushed farther inside; she felt Nimueh’s pelvis grinding against her and then she was pulling out and crashing into her again and again, shuddering above her every time she bottomed out, every time her clit brushed against Morgause. As she rocked into her, the tips of Nimueh’s hair tormented her, trailing over Morgause’s shoulders and breasts. Pressure built up agonizingly through her muscles, contracted low in her abdomen; Morgause felt herself swaying over the brink, ready to fall into nothingness, and she exhaled loudly, forced herself to unclench so she could hover here forever, poised to tumble, staring into Nimueh’s open eyes. Then, starting in her toes, throbbing upward, overwhelming her, her orgasm uncoiled, and she shuddered and screamed, suspended endlessly in it.
When she came back to herself, Nimueh was still rocking gently above her, smiling at her, sending tremors of sensation through her. Morgause reached down to snake a hand forcefully between their bodies. She clutched at the hardness planted between her legs, then grazed her fingers lower over Nimueh’s wet folds, claiming her, owning her as she brought her to a quick, trembling release.
Pulling out, Nimueh waved the shaft and its rigging away and crawled up Morgause’s body.
“That was ice, wasn’t it?” Morgause asked when she could speak again.
“Of course it was,” Nimueh murmured, nipping at her neck.
“Gods, you’re amazing. How do you make it so warm?”
“Now you want all my secrets, do you?” Nimueh chuckled.
Feeling more satiated and spent then she had in weeks, Morgause exhaled and pulled Nimueh close. She kissed her long and hard before pressing their foreheads together and slipping into sleep.
On to Part Two