The air in the prospector's camp was thin and cold, smelling of sharp pine smoke and the damp, metallic earth that promised a bitter night. Joric, a brute of a man with a beard like a tangle of roots and shoulders like boulders, didn't look up as Veridia approached. The rhythmic *scrape-scrape-scrape* of a knife against his pickaxe head was the only sound besides the wind. Every line of his body was coiled suspicion.
Veridia forced a veneer of confidence over the tremor in her hands. The curse was a gnawing acid in her core, a frantic ticking clock of her own decay. Each step felt like wading through setting concrete, the grit of the trail an abrasive reminder of her grime-caked skin. Her thoughts were frayed, splintered by the desperate need for a fix.
Joric's head finally snapped up, his eyes narrowing to slits. His hand didn't move in greeting; it settled possessively on the handle of a heavy smithing hammer resting beside him. He saw a threat, not a woman.
"Oh, look at you," a voice purred from beside the fire, sharp and clear as shattered glass. Seraphine's illusion shimmered into view, a perfect, mocking counterpoint to Veridia's grimy reality. "Reduced to peddling your wares to a dirt-digger. Is this what passes for a 'high-value target' now, sister? The Patrons are yawning. Lord Kasian just placed a wager on you being eaten by a badger."
Veridia ignored her, her focus a desperate, burning point on the mortal. She couldn't conjure a glamour, but she could still tap into the ancient, instinctual knowledge of her kind. She let her posture soften, her shoulders slump just so, her voice a low, husky thing designed to slip past a man's defenses. "It gets lonely in these mountains," she said, letting a calculated weariness bleed into her tone. "I thought you might want some company for the night."
Joric grunted, a sound of pure skepticism. His gaze swept over her, assessing her torn clothes, her too-fine features beneath the dirt. He was lonely, that much was plain in the hard set of his eyes, but he wasn't a fool. The Slag Crown was full of tricks, and a beautiful woman appearing from nowhere was the oldest one. "Company has a price," he said, his voice low gravel. "And I'm not talking about coin." He gestured with his chin to the goblin-made dagger at her belt. "I want your weapon. On the ground. Then we'll talk."
A hot spike of pure, unadulterated rage shot through Veridia. A princess. A daughter of House Vex, being bartered with over a worthless piece of scrap by a mortal whose only accomplishment was digging in the mud. Her pride, the very spine of her being, screamed at her to refuse, to spit in his face and let the curse take her in a final, defiant blaze.
But the curse was screaming louder. A sharp, violent pang in her gut doubled her over for a split second, a brutal reminder of the alternative. Death by inches. Dissolution into static. Her mind flashed with the dilemma: die with her honor intact, or swallow this burning coal of shame to survive another day? The actress in her head took control, cold and pragmatic. This was not a surrender. It was a transaction.
She straightened, her face a blank mask of compliance. With a flick of her wrist, she unbuckled the sheath and tossed the dagger onto the dirt between them. The soft thud of it landing was the sound of a choice being made. The bargain was struck.
***
The tent was a cramped, suffocating space that smelled of unwashed canvas, stale rations, and raw male sweat. A single lantern threw long, dancing shadows against the walls, turning the small enclosure into a stage for her degradation. Veridia felt a distant, cold detachment settle over her as Joric pushed her onto a bedroll of rough-spun wool that scratched at her bare skin. This was a performance. Nothing more.
"Such passion," Seraphine's voice echoed from a corner of the tent, laced with venomous amusement. "The Patrons are on the edge of their seats. Matron Vesperia is composing an ode to your tragic, muddy knees."
Veridia's mind became a fortress, her focus narrowed to a single, mechanical purpose: the intake of Essence. His hands were rough, calloused, his movements clumsy and artless. It was a purely physical act, devoid of the passion or terror that made for a quality vintage. As he moved above her, she felt the life force begin to flow—a thin, gritty trickle of crude, unrefined energy. Sustenance, not a delicacy.
"He probably hasn't bathed in a week," Seraphine commented, her voice a little tighter now. "Does his Essence taste of desperation and poor hygiene, darling? Do give us a full review."
Veridia closed her eyes, focusing on the slow, steady pull. She cataloged the sensory input with clinical distance: the texture of the blanket, the way the lantern light caught the dust motes dancing in the close air. He grunted, pushing her onto her hands and knees, the wool a rough chafe against her skin. He didn't wait. His calloused hand parted her buttocks, fingers delving into her slick heat before he lined his hard, thick cock up with her weeping entrance. He pushed in slowly, inch by torturous inch, letting her feel every part of his length stretching her wide. The wet slap of their skin became a percussive beat in the oppressive quiet.
Then she noticed it. The silence.
Seraphine had stopped talking.
Veridia's eyes snapped open. In the flickering gloom, her sister's illusion stood rigid, arms crossed tight against her chest. The smug, witty mask was gone, replaced by a rictus of pure, undiluted disgust. Seraphine was being forced to witness it all—the raw, unglamorous mechanics of the act, the guttural sounds, the musky scent of arousal. She was a trapped voyeur in a show she could no longer narrate. A flicker of grim, cold satisfaction sparked in Veridia's chest. Her humiliation was now a weapon. The thought gave her strength, allowing her to endure as her body's automatic response built toward a climax that was, for her, nothing more than the final, necessary transfer of fuel.
***
The act was over. The fleeting relief of the Essence transfer washed through Veridia, pushing back the gnawing emptiness of the curse. It was a weak, temporary fix, but it was life. Joric was already asleep beside her, his snores a brutish rumble in the quiet tent.
Then, a jolt. Sharp, alien, and utterly violating. It wasn't hers.
Across the tent, Seraphine's illusory form convulsed as if struck by lightning. Her eyes flew wide with a look of profound shock and defilement. A faint, ghostly flush, an echo of a pleasure she had not earned and did not want, spread across her perfect cheeks. The psychic feedback from the climax had surged through their life-link, bypassing Veridia's numb detachment and slamming directly into her sister's consciousness.
"What—?" Seraphine gasped, a strangled sound of pure outrage. "No!"
It was not a performance. It was a raw, involuntary cry of metaphysical violation. She vanished from the tent, reappearing an instant later in the moonlit clearing outside. Her form flickered violently, unstable. With a scream of incandescent rage, she drove her fist into the thick trunk of a pine tree.
Her hand, normally an intangible projection of light and spite, connected with the bark with a solid, sickening *CRUNCH*.
Bark splintered. For a split second, her fist had become real, given a moment of unwanted tangibility by the backlash. She stared at her now-flickering hand in horror and fury, the violation absolute.
Watching from the tent flap, a slow, cold smile—the first genuine smile in weeks—spread across Veridia's face. She had found it. A new way to play the game. A way to reach through the screen and finally, truly, hurt her sister.