Chapter 25: Chapter 24

A bead of sweat rolled down my back as I stood frozen in time. 

“I take it you’re awake then,” Camilla said, as her eyes began to trail down my naked body. Goosebumps flowed up my skin, tingling in the spots where her gaze lingered – the smooth curve of my neck, my small growing breasts, and the soft belly beneath. Her eyes stopped on the sheer wet panties, hugging my hips yet failing to hide anything, and I shivered in place. “And have been for a bit now,” she continued slyly. 

If my cheeks could get any redder, I was certain they had. Camilla’s hungry eyes lingered for a long moment, and I took a step forward and then back, spluttering out syllables that didn’t manage to form coherent words. 

Gradually, her eyes trailed back up, until she was looking me in the face again. I noticed a slightly darkened blush on her own cheeks as she said, “I suppose I’ll give you a moment to clean yourself up.” She opened her mouth to say something else but paused as though an idea had just occurred to her. “Unless you’d rather stay dressed like this?” A mischievous smile crossed her face, and she took a nonchalant step forward into the room. 

I panicked and shot forward, gripping onto the door as I tried to shoo her out of it. “N-n-no. I n-need to ch-ange.” 

With several insistent pushes, she relented, and I managed to corral her out of the room. As the door shut behind me, my body nearly wilted to the floor, and I took in a large breath of air. 

“Do come out when you’re ready!” Camilla's muffled voice exclaimed through the door. “Though I’ll understand if you need a few minutes to finish up,” she faux-whispered. I could just imagine her giving me a wink from the other side. 

After catching my breath and with a grumbly huff, I moved to the mirror, letting out a sigh of relief when it was clear that my horns were hidden in my messy hair. It seemed she really hadn't noticed. I trudged over to the pan of water in the room to clean myself up, stripping out of the sticky-wet underwear and wiping down my body. It was a quick and dirty job, as the fear that she would find an excuse to come back in lingered over my shoulder. When I was mostly clean and dry once more, I squeezed into a nice maid’s dress, tightened the strings along my back, and found another matching wide headband to cover my head. 

When I was fully ready once more, I stood hesitantly facing the door, wondering how long I could get away with hiding in the room. Biting my lip, I took a nervous step forward, my balance wobbling. Then, with a few quick encouraging huffs of air, I opened the door and marched out. 

Camilla glanced up from the book in her hand, the devious smile coming back as she looked me over once again. “I believe I enjoyed the other look more, but I’ll admit that you look quite captivating in everything I’ve seen you wear.”

My attempt at confidence faltered as my cheeks reddened once more, and I looked down at the simple dress that brushed my toes. 

“Umm,” I muttered. “Was there something you needed?” Once more, I wondered why she was up so early in the morning without my needing to wake her. Was it to do with the Praevus?

“Hmm, something I need?” She tapped a finger to her chin, a suspiciously sweet smile on her face. “I could think of a few things. Though, I believe we should get back to the conversation we weren’t able to fully discuss yesterday while we have time. I expect it’s going to be a busy day.” She stood from her seat, taking a moment to stretch out her arms. 

I was certain she could think of quite a number of ‘needs’ that she’d like met. My mind trailed momentarily back to the dream I’d woken from, and the way my hands pressed and kneaded into her skin during it. 

Unable to meet her eyes, I nodded. “Right. I’m honestly surprised that you’re up so early.”

She waved a hand through the air and moved from behind her desk. “Waking right at dawn used to be a normal habit for me, something I need to get back into practice with.” 

She paused as she eyed me once more, mulling over something. “I think it’s time we had another discussion about our… arrangement. I’ve mentioned before that I need something a bit more than the work of an ordinary maid.” The sorceress began a slow walk forward in my direction.

I nodded, and gulped, doing my best to stand my ground. 

“I want to emphasize that your consent here is paramount. It’s important to me that we don’t do anything you aren’t comfortable with, and the same for myself. I don’t want you to feel pressured into anything, as I can always find other girls to play with. Don’t think that you’re required to be intimate with me in order to be my maid. I’ve come to realize that while I told you at the very beginning what it was specifically that I wanted, we haven’t really taken the time to truly discuss it and what you might want. So let’s start with that, what you want in this — relationship.” A few feet from me, she stopped, casually crossing her arms as she waited, and awkwardly rubbing her hands against them. Rather than the confident posture that I expected, her pose felt like one born of nervousness and anxiety, as though she were trying to somehow physically cover up her emotional vulnerability. 

My mouth opened and closed several times as I tried to think of what to say. What did I want between us? I was certainly attracted to her, and I wasn’t exactly the same suspicious boy I’d been when I’d first stumbled into her room and subsequently agreed to be her maid. Not to mention, my body also had needs much like her own, needs I wasn’t sure I could resist for very long if what happened in Lena’s room was any indication. 

There was more to the question than that, however. Becoming romantically, or more specifically, physically intimate with Camilla would necessitate that I tell her everything, that I confess the breaking of her vial and becoming Marked. The vial incident was accidental, but there was no getting around the fact that I’d done it because I’d been sneaking into her room and searching for evidence of her malevolence. A continually growing part of me felt that admitting the truth was the right thing to do anyway. My spying had all felt so right and justified at the time, but now I was quite certain that I’d made the wrong choice. To fess up and accept the consequences seemed the right thing to do, regardless of what sort of relationship developed between us. As well, I couldn't justify to myself beginning something more intimate with her while keeping such a heavy secret and burden hidden. Yet the question from yesterday remained: could I trust her? 

I’d decided to believe in her, hadn’t I? Wasn’t this the moment to turn thoughts into action? 

My lips parted once more, Camilla still patiently standing across from me. “There’s something I should tell you, something that I’ve done…” I hesitated, struggling to form the words as I fiddled with my hands. “Something that you deserve to know. I–” Briefly closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I steadied myself for the big admission. 

“Pearl,” Camilla gave an exasperated sigh and shook her head. “I already know.” My eyes widened in both surprise and worry. 

“You know?” Again?! 

She gave me a flat look. “Of course,” she intoned. “I can sometimes miss these sorts of things, but even I’m not that oblivious.” I held back a wince, as I realized that perhaps I hadn’t been as good at hiding things as I’d thought. “I can put two and two here together, and I assure you that I don’t mind. Honestly, I should be the one telling you about my dalliances,” she sighed and brought a hand up to brush the hair from her face. 

I bit my lip, not really understanding why she was behaving so indifferent about this. This was important. I needed to talk about this with her, about how she felt about what I’d done. I had to decide what to do going forward, both with being Marked and with hiding it from the Praevus. 

My head shook and before she could say more, I gathered my confidence. “No, I need to know how you feel about all this – about what I did and with what I should do now.”

She gave me a confused look. “What you did?” She blinked. “You mean there in the room with…” 

I nodded. “It was wrong, terribly immoral of me, even.”

“Pearl,” Camilla chastised, cutting me off.

“No, let me finish,” I blurted before she could continue and shook my head once more. “I came into your room that day thinking that you were evil, that you were some horrid sorceress scheming up something terrible. And I used that to justify sneaking in and snooping through your things – a feeble excuse for breaking in and destroying some of the stuff that belonged to you when I truly knew nothing at all about you. Even though I hadn’t intended to drop your vial of stuff all over myself and become Marked, even though it was all truthfully an accident, it was my own hubris that ultimately caused it.” I stared firmly into her eyes as I said, “It was wrong of me, and–” 

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She stared at me, eyes wide and at a clear loss for words. 

“I’m sorry,” I said with as much sincerity as I could manage, before deciding it was a good idea to do a deep curtsying bow to emphasize it further. 

Looking back up, I watched her expression, trying to determine what she was thinking. Unfortunately, she gave me little to work with, standing there with such a stunned expression that I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong. I opened and closed my mouth, trying to decide whether it was wise to say more. Second after second continued to pass by, to the point that the silence became incredibly awkward. I fidgeted, uncertain of what to do. 

“Camilla?” I quietly prodded.

“You weren’t talking about your relationship with Lena,” came her hollow voice. 

“Huh?” Relationship with Lena? I stared at her, unsure of what she meant. After a few moments of confusion and thinking back over our conversation, I began to put together her meaning. We hadn’t been having the same conversation. “You… thought the thing I needed to tell you was that I had a –” I cleared my throat. “Umm, a thing with Lena?”

For a few seconds, silence awkwardly took the room once more. As my brain caught up to the fact that she didn’t already know about my curse, fear gripped my heart once more. How was she going to react, I worried?

“Show me,” she said, her blank eyes slowly focusing once more. “Show me the Mark.”

With a stiff nod, I turned to the side and reached down to grab the bottom of my dress. Pulling it up, I exposed my backside and the circular Mark on the upper-left side of my butt, sitting just above my underwear line. Camilla’s eyes fixated intently onto it, and I found myself feeling somehow both embarrassed and pale. A hand of her's absently reached out as though to touch it before pulling back.

“I think I need to sit down,” she breathed out with a haunted expression and blinked. Rubbing her face before moving to the couch, she collapsed down into it. The misty shadows of her dress seemed like they were beginning to fade, revealing the outline of naked skin for a moment before gradually reforming. As she leaned forward and massaged her face some more, I moved a little closer, stopping several feet away and continuing to fidget in place. 

“I, umm, understand if you’re angry. In retrospect, it was a ridiculous stunt that I’m very regretful over. I let my biases and misconceptions cloud my actions, something that many a hero has suffered from in some of the stories I’ve read.” I bit my lip, wondering briefly whether this was the right time to bring up the actions of fictional characters. “Umm, I need to take responsibility for what I’ve done, and discussing it with you is, I think, the first step in that?” I was uncertain of what else to say, and could only hesitantly stand and wait to see how she would ultimately respond. 

“Dear gods, I can’t believe this,” Camilla muttered a few seconds later, finally raising her head. Instead of looking toward me, as I had expected her to, she instead glanced in the direction of the door. She took a deep breath, and as though the words physically pained her to voice them, asked, “Does the Praevus know?” Her expression was one of pale terror.

I opened my mouth to respond but she spoke over me. “No, no, of course he doesn’t,” she muttered. In a sudden movement, she shot to her feet and began pacing back and forth, conversing with herself almost as though I wasn’t there. 

“If he knew, you’d be dead. Unless he’s playing some kind of game. Difficult to say. But what could he possibly gain from it?” She shook her head. “No, it seems unlikely. I hadn’t put it together, and I doubt the sentinels would have.” She stopped and let out a big sigh. “He doesn’t know… Probably. He wouldn’t just let you go.” She stood still, tapping her foot as she stared toward the door once more. Finally, she said, “No one ever suspects the ignorant maid.” For a long moment, she whispered to herself, too low for me to make it out.

Then she turned to me. 

I gulped as the sorceress's dark scowl bore down on me. “So to summarize,” came the sharp piercing words as she slowly made her way over to me. The shadowy mist of her dress flooded outward and onto the floor, rolling in anger. Her incensed words stabbed into me. “You came into my room, snooped through my private things, destroyed the shelves in the closet, and then broke the lezun vial, spilling its contents onto yourself?” Stopping in front of me, her fiery red eyes narrowed as she stared me down. 

“Y-yes?”

Ever so slightly, she bent forward bringing her face closer to my own. Too terrified to move, I could do nothing but stare into her flaming eyes, inches from my own. 

“And no one prompted you to do this – suggested it, or requested you to search my things? This was all of your own thoughts and doing?”

“Yes,” I admitted, shamefully. If only I had such a good excuse. Gradually, I was beginning to accept that she wasn’t likely to forgive me, that she was far too furious at what I’d done, the boundaries that I’d broken, and the crimes I’d committed. It was probably the right choice. How could she ever trust me again after doing such a thing?

For several long seconds, she continued to stare, as though she could see straight through me into the corrupted pit of my soul. Finally, she leaned back up, and let out a long sigh. 

“Well, that’s somewhat of a relief, I suppose.” 

Confused, I tilted my head. “Huh?” 

“It means you’re not connected to anyone attempting to use you for their own purposes, namely the smugglers hiding within the town. It makes things simpler.” She tapped her chin.

There were smugglers here? Why would there be– No, no, that wasn’t important right now. I needed to focus. 

“That doesn’t mean I’m not mad with you, not by a long shot.” Camilla shot me another glare before beginning to pace once again. “If you weren’t so – so – you,” she waved her hands at me for emphasis, “So damned cute and innocent and well-meaning, I’d hand you over to the Praevus and be done with it.” With another sigh, she plopped down onto the couch. 

“S-so, what are you going to do?” I asked. 

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, staring toward me. “I… I need time to think,” she muttered and then breathed out, “Alone.” 

I felt divided. The scared part of me wished desperately to flee. My more reasonable side wanted to stay and talk this out, however. I needed to know where we stood now, to know what was next. But, if she needed time to think, then the decent thing to do would be to give it to her. Biting my lip and nodding, I left back to my room, hoping that whatever decision she came to, it would be a good one. 

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