The Witch Who Waited for Me in the Forest Clearing

You left your home village two weeks ago. Cendral, a handful of stone houses on the edge of the valley, was the whole world you knew until you took up your sword and decided to travel the region of Selvarés to find out what Veldoria had in store for you. Your thirst for adventure has faded a little since you discovered what it means to sleep among roots and wake up covered in mud.

Even so, something drives you onward. Your name is Edrin, and you want your name to become legend. Or at least that’s what you keep telling yourself while the forest swallows you whole.

The air smells of damp moss. You walk slowly, your cloak stuck to your sweat, your boots sinking into the undergrowth, while the sun barely breaks through the tangle of branches closing over your head like fingers of shadow. It’s been a while since you left the path, pushed by an intuition you can’t name. You don’t understand why you turned east. But you did.

The birds have gone silent. The wind does not blow. And yet you are not afraid: what you feel in your chest is not alarm, it is heat, a throb, as if something were calling you without words. Then a clearing opens all at once, as if the forest were yielding to another force. And you see her.

She is seated on a moss-covered rock, one leg bent and the other stretched out, as if the forest had offered her that throne. She wears no cloak or boots. Only a short black skirt that falls like ink over her pale thighs, and a dark corset woven from a fabric you do not recognize. Her black hair spills over her shoulders, and her eyes are an impossible violet. They pierce you as if they had already seen the desire you have not yet felt.

You stop. She doesn’t.

—I wasn’t expecting you to arrive so soon —she says without moving. Her voice is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard.

—Y-you were... expecting me, my lady? —you ask, unable to hide the tremor.

A smile curves her lips. It is not kind: it is indulgent.

—Are you here for the woodcutter? One got lost yesterday, to the east. A big man, callused hands. Isn’t his village looking for him?

You swallow. You don’t understand why this woman makes you so nervous.

—I haven’t passed through any village. I just felt something and walked.

—Of course you felt it —she replies, and rises to her feet. The world seems to incline before her. Every step toward you is slow, feline—. What you felt was me.

You didn’t hear any spell, but something stirs inside you: a warm knot in your stomach, the urge to kneel and touch the hem of her skirt just to confirm you’re not dreaming.

—Who are you? —you manage to say.

She stops three steps away. Her eyes shine with something ancient.

—My name is Nyssa. And you are new. Raw. Go east, find the woodcutter if you can. Something is keeping him there.

She walks away, and with every step you feel something precious slipping from your grasp. But then she turns her face over one bare shoulder.

—If you come back, I’ll be here.

And you already know you will come back.

***

The eastern forest is nothing like the one you’ve crossed. It is more intimate, as if the trees were embracing so light could not intrude, and each branch you push aside leaves a sticky, warm, expectant sensation on your fingers. You move forward with your hand on your sword hilt, your heart split between fear of what you’ll find and the memory of her. Of Nyssa.

Among the roots of a twisted willow you find the signs: broken branches, the remains of a fire, a stone with dried blood and a splintered-handled axe buried in the mud. The woodcutter was here, and whatever happened to him happened fast. You follow a discreet trail until the path narrows between the trees. In the distance, a dim light paints the air amber. And when you enter, the smell changes.

It is not rot. It is something your body recognizes before your mind does. Warm, deep, wet. Sex in its pure state: sweat, fluids, flesh against flesh. And then you hear it: a long moan, repeated, each time deeper. It is not an animal or a fight. It is a body being fucked.

You slip between the branches. Between two thick trees bending toward the center, you see what you did not expect. The woodcutter hangs trapped in a translucent, wet net. He is not dead: his eyes are closed, his mouth slightly open, his skin beaded with sweat, and he trembles as if caught in a dream he does not want to end.

And over him, riding him with a hypnotic rhythm, is the creature. At first it looks like a woman with an exuberant body, but when you look closely you know it is not. Her skin is gray and glossy, and every curve moves with its own viscous slither, as though she had no bones. Her long dark hair slides over the woodcutter’s body with a hunger of its own. Her eyes are two black spheres, without light.

Something cracks under your feet, and those spheres turn toward you. The creature does not stop, but its attention is now on you: it watches without blinking and smiles, a wet sneer with nothing human about it.

You freeze. Your body reacts with an incomprehensible mix of alertness, revulsion, and something else: a heat at the base of your abdomen that rises without your permission. The creature is grotesque, and yet you cannot look away. It climbs off the woodcutter and slides to the ground soundlessly, its thighs dripping with a thick fluid. It takes a step toward you. And for the first time, you back away. But the forest no longer lets you: roots close around your feet, the air grows heavy. Your hand goes to your sword and you draw it.

***

The steel gleams, dry, an anomaly amid so much living flesh. You’ve trained for what tries to kill you, but never for something that wants to fuck you.

—I don’t know what you are —you murmur, your voice tight—, but you’re not going to touch me.

She tilts her head, as if she understands your language but does not respect it. She opens her mouth, and her tongue appears: long, split, undulating. Without warning, she lunges. You strike first. The blade grazes her arm, but there is no blood, only a thick splash, as if you had torn open a fruit. She lets out a short shriek and hurls herself at you with an impossible movement.

Your body reacts too late. You feel the wet удар against yours, and the sword falls from your hands. She is not strong through muscle, but through the way she wraps around you. Her gelatinous arms coil over your shoulders like serpents, and before you can scream, she knocks you down onto the soft grass. She weighs not like a woman, but like a body of warm water, and her smell floods you, sweet, musky, like desire locked for years in a jar that opens only for you.

You struggle. You writhe, kick, twist your torso, but it is like trying to rise from a swamp: every muscle slips instead of pushing. When you finally manage to turn a little, her mouth is already on your neck. She does not bite. She releases a warm breath that forces you to close your eyes and starts licking you slowly, from your collarbone to the edge of your ear. Your traitorous body responds. Heat gathers between your legs beyond your control, as if it knows exactly what angle to touch to unmake you from the inside.

—No... —you stammer. But the word sounds like a moan, and she notices.

Her thighs slide over yours and, in a move you cannot anticipate, your clothes dissolve beneath her fluid like fabric in acid. You feel the air on your naked skin, her hot sex throbbing against yours. It does not enter yet. It brushes you, wraps around you, circles without letting you sink. She rubs you until you think you can’t take any more, and just then she stops. She pins your arms and licks your chest with a slow stroke.

And then she enters. Not violently, but with blunt firmness, slipping inside without meeting resistance, as if your body accepts her with an obedience you do not understand. A deep suction makes you tremble, an internal heat that pulses and tightens at exactly the right moment.

She settles astride you and begins to move, slowly, rocking her hips with a rippling rhythm that does not seem human. There are no screams. Only the sound of your body being fucked: a thick, rhythmic, obscene splash. And you lose yourself in every thrust. You try to remember who you are, but there are no answers. Only flesh, only wetness, only the urge to push upward and give in.

She speeds up. The thrusts become deeper. She squeezes you as if she wants to tear your name from inside you, and you, gasping, cannot help it. You come. The orgasm spears through you like a hot lance and leaves you abruptly empty. But the creature does not stop: she keeps riding you with an even hungrier rhythm. And you... stay hard. You don’t know how. Your flesh throbs with a new erection that feels alien, as if it no longer belongs to you.

She moans, a low sound vibrating from her belly, and drops her weight onto your face. You come again. The pleasure is so extreme it becomes pain; you feel tears rising to your eyes. You expect your seed to stop her, but it doesn’t: she smiles and starts again, as if your climax feeds her instead of satisfying her.

The third orgasm arrives without warning, with a violence you can barely endure. Your legs tense uselessly, your body soaked, open, soft. Your mind floats in a place where there is no shame left, no resistance, not even your name. Only the sensation of being emptied, over and over.

***

And then everything stops. A dry pulse in the air, like a cut. The creature arches backward with a shudder, as if struck by an invisible wave of ice. It screams. The roots holding you loosen all at once. The forest, once damp and whispering, falls silent. The air changes: cold, clean, different.

A shadow falls over both of you, slow and inevitable. And when you open your eyes, still blinded by sweat, you see her. Nyssa. Standing barefoot in the mud, her dark hair falling like a wet curtain. Her face shows neither anger nor surprise. It is serene. Beautiful.

—Three times? —her voice is soft, and that makes it more dangerous—. How generous. If this is the level of your battles, you’d better feed yourself well so you don’t run dry.

She raises a hand. One gesture, and the creature’s body lifts off yours as if torn away by invisible threads. You feel its sex slide out of you with almost painful resistance, as if it doesn’t want to let you go, and you moan before you can stop yourself. Nyssa places a finger on the creature’s forehead, her long nails painted lilac and black, digging into the gray skin.

—This wasn’t yours —she murmurs—. It’s mine.

And she squeezes. The creature bursts soundlessly into a green vapor and dissolves, until only the smell of чужой sex and wet leaves remains. Nyssa turns to you. Her eyes travel over your naked body, the beaded skin, the spent cock. She does not laugh, does not humiliate you. She only looks at you, and you cannot hold her gaze. She kneels and caresses your cheek with cold fingers.

—You are not weak —she says—. You only need training. Veldoria is a dangerous place.

She takes a vial from between the folds of her corset and passes it under your nose. The strong, refreshing aroma jolts your mind and puts the ground back beneath your back. She makes a gesture and the threads wrapping the woodcutter loosen; the man falls softly onto the undergrowth.

—He’ll return to his village on his own. He won’t remember anything —she says, and a cloak scented with herbs settles over your shoulders—. Come to my cottage. You need rest. And a good bath.

You sit up with what little strength you have left and follow her, marked by a pleasure that was not yours.

***

The cottage appears just as night is about to fall: dark stone, blackened wood, a low curved roof like a shell. Inside, dozens of candles burn with a still, faint violet flame, and the air is dense, perfumed with incense and something salty.

—To the left —says Nyssa’s voice, already gone into a side room—. The water room is waiting for you. Don’t touch anything else.

You obey. At the end of the corridor, the door is open, and inside: the bath. A huge black stone basin, polished like obsidian, with no taps or pipes. Only steaming water, crystal clear, slightly blue. When you approach, you feel a physical pull, as if the surface were calling you.

You let the cloak fall and step in slowly until only your head shows. And then the water moves on its own. Not like a whirlpool: as if it could read you. Liquid threads rise to travel over your legs, coil around your thighs, slide down your back like hands submerged in oil. It smells of burned flowers, of washed skin. But it also smells of her. There are no hands, and yet the sensations are precise: the water strips the sweat from your chest, brushes your nipples with a delicacy that is anything but innocent. A warm wave envelops your cock. It does not stimulate it: it recognizes it. And you tremble as you finally feel at peace.

—Is it hot?

Nyssa is in the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms crossed, hair loose. She does not enter. She only watches.

—Yes —you answer, your voice lower than you’d like.

And under her gaze the water changes. The caresses stop being random: when she tilts her head, a thread of water runs up your spine; when she raises an eyebrow, a liquid curl strokes your belly with a slowness that tightens you.

—The bath is called Marensa —she says—. It was carved from stone from the Sirath Isles, and it remembers the hands of those who have loved in it. It reproduces them.

You shiver, because that thread of water that a moment ago was only cleaning you is now, clearly, masturbating you. Its touch on the inner part of your thighs is no longer ritual. It is sexual. It seeks every nerve exposed after the battle, after the defeat.

—It has accepted you —she continues, stepping inside—. You do not command Marensa. You please it. It cleans only those it finds worthy. —She sits on the rim, resting one bent leg on the stone. The angle reveals the firm curve of her thigh, the shadow between her legs that shows nothing and yet leaves you imagining everything—. Do you know why the creature didn’t kill you? Because you are new. You still have something even you didn’t know you had. I’m not talking about virginity; that no longer exists in Veldoria. I’m talking about innocence in desire. It fed, but it did not break what mattered most: your spirit.

—I saved you, but not because you owe me anything, nor because I want to protect you. I did it because you may be useful. When a body has been used and does not break, it becomes a channel. When you’re dry, come to the hall, if you want to hear what I have to offer.

And she leaves, leaving you alone with the water still licking you, as if it refused to let you go.

***

In the hall, the light is lower, more violet. There is a circular rug in the center, woven with black, gold, and purple threads. Nyssa sits on a low throne of black wood. Something about her is different: fuller, as if saving you had fed her too.

—How’s the body? —she asks.

—Sore.

—Does your pride hurt more?

—...Much more.

She smiles, briefly, like a rope pulled taut.

—Don’t punish yourself. It’s your first time in the wilds of Veldoria. —She leans forward, eyes shining with a light that is not candlelight—. Listen, Edrin. —You do not remember telling her your name—. I am not a teacher, nor a lover, nor a savior. I am a witch, and I give nothing for nothing. If I made you stray from the path, it was for a reason.

She stands and walks toward you. She does not touch you, but her nearness is contact in itself: her warmth, her perfume, the magic emanating from her skin.

—You have the will of a hero and the innocence of someone who doesn’t know this world. You are exactly the mixture I was looking for. —Her breath brushes your neck, and the hair at the nape of your neck stands on end—. I can mark you: a ritual that will make you embrace my magic and join it. And me. A mark with no iron and no cut, only ink that will stay with you forever.

—Like a servant? —you say, slowly.

She laughs softly and caresses your cheek.

—No. Like an apprentice. If I mark you, you won’t be able to forget me. Or run. Every time you spill, it will be for me. Every time you fight, it will be for me. In exchange, I’ll take you to see Selvarés and make you powerful.

—And what do you want from me?

—That you stay close. That you be my shield, my eyes, and my ears. I must make a journey, and you are exactly what I needed.

And then silence. Only the creak of the wood and the echo of your thoughts circling one word. She does not press. She only waits. And you know it: you cannot go on without belonging to her. Your body has already been tested, your will opened. You swallow. The decision has already been forged in the deepest part of you.

—I accept. I’ll go with you. I’ll submit to the ritual.

And as you say it, the world changes. The candles go out one by one until only her silhouette remains outlined by moonlight. A violet circle appears on the floor around you, and Nyssa’s lips, lit by that light, curve into the most powerful of smiles.

There is no turning back now.