Chapter 29 Starved
Magnus
The moment I returned to the palace, I slipped into my chambers and quickly stripped out of my robes, my erection evident.
After Rowenna, I needed to fuck.
I stood before the mirror—tall, black, and seamless, its surface dark enough to swallow light, framed in iron worn smooth by time and use. It reflected nothing, not even me. I spoke Mira’s name. The glass darkened further, then cleared, showing her waiting. At the ripple of the surface, she stepped forward and passed through without hesitation.
A moment later, she stood on the marble before me, already unclasping the soot-black coat of a Coal-Class Sweeper. The fabric dropped; the rest followed in a careless heap. She was all lean muscle and pale scars, the kind that come from sweeping the fireplaces in the Ember District used mostly for potion and elixir brewing. Her dark, defiant eyes met mine without flinching.
The mirror stilled.
“Stand on the bed,” I said. “Feet apart.”
She obeyed, climbing onto the silk sheets and planting her soles wide. The scent of spent mana still clung to her skin like incense. I slipped two fingers into her without warning. She was slick already; sweepers always are, half-drunk on residual power. Her breath hitched, but she kept her voice steady.
“Sera,” I prompted, crooking my fingers slow and deliberate.
“She’s not in the Dust District, My Lord.” Mira’s hips jerked as I added a third finger, stretching her. “Last word from the gutters: the Mistress shipped her here—Aetheria. Something about an Imperial Mage and her virginity... as payment for helping her brother."
I frowned. I already knew all that. The Imperial Mage... was me.
I leaned in and dragged my tongue up the seam of her, tasting salt and the lingering sting of raw arcana. She groaned loud enough that the crystals on my desk trembled.
I remembered doing this to little Rowenna earlier, Ryven’s proud, defiant Rowenna, who had sworn on her immortal soul she would die before letting an old mage taste her.
I took my time with her. Pinned those slender wrists above her head with one hand while the other forced her thighs apart, spreading her open like a forbidden bloom. She fought, cursed, trembled, but her body betrayed her long before her pride did. The first slow lick dragged a broken whimper from her throat; the second made her hips jerk against my mouth despite herself. I devoured her mercilessly—tongue curling deep, lips sucking that swollen little bud until her breath came in ragged, wet sobs.
She came with a scream she tried to swallow, back arching off the bed, thighs clamping around my head as she gushed against my tongue, hot and sweet and helpless. When it was over she curled into a pillow, shaking, tears streaking her flushed cheeks while her cunt still pulsed with aftershocks, hating me, hating herself for how violently she’d come on an old man’s mouth.
Mira had no such shame. She ground down against my tongue like she was born for it, thighs trembling, fingers knotting in my hair.
While she rode my face, I pressed the emblem on my bed and the door to my chambers opened. A chambermaid tumbled through, barely eighteen, apron half-tied, cheeks flaming red. She dropped to her knees the instant she saw me.
“Crawl,” I told her. “Mouth on me. Now.”
The girl—Lina I think her name was—quickly obeyed and took me between her lips, eager and clumsy. Mira watched through heavy lids, still rolling her hips against my tongue. I grew hard fast under the maid’s desperate sucking.
I pulled away from Mira’s cunt, slick shining on my chin, and hauled Lina up by her braid. She whimpered as I tore off her clothes, bent her over the foot of the bed, and drove into her in one thrust. She was impossibly tight, clenching around me like she had never had anything but fingers before.
“Mira,” I ordered, voice rough. “On your back. Let the girl taste you.”
Mira stretched out beneath us, thighs falling open. Lina hesitated only a heartbeat before burying her face between them, licking like she was starving. Mira’s moan was filthy approval. I set a brutal pace, slamming into the maid hard enough that her small breasts bounced against the sheets.
“You’ll tell me,” I snarled between thrusts, “the instant Sera sets foot back in the district. Swear it.”
“Yes, gods, yes, My Lord,” Mira gasped, fingers twisted in Lina’s hair.
The girl came first, muffled cries against Mira’s cunt. The clench of her around my cock dragged me over with her; I spilled deep, teeth sunk into Lina’s shoulder to muffle my own groan. Mira followed seconds later, back arching off the bed, thighs locked around the maid’s head.
I pulled out slowly, watching my seed drip down Lina’s trembling legs. Neither woman moved until I allowed it.
“Again,” I said, already hardening at the sight of them. “On your backs. Legs open.”
They scrambled to obey, two flushed and willing bodies spread for me like offerings.
I toyed with them idly, pinching nipples, sliding fingers through wet folds, until I was ready once more.
This time I took Lina standing, pressing her face-first against the bedpost. She sobbed with every thrust, but her hips pushed back greedily. Mira knelt behind me, mouth hot on my balls, tongue lapping wherever she could reach. The dual sensation was exquisite.
I lost track of how many orgasms they had. I only knew when I finally spilled again, it was with Lina’s legs wrapped around my waist and Mira’s teeth grazing the base of my cock, both of them shuddering through their own peaks.
Later, when they lay spent across my sheets, my fingers circled a birthmark on Mira’s thigh.
"You seem starved, My Lord," Mira remarked.
"I had a bit of foreplay earlier," I admitted, kissing the mark. "Remember, the instant Sera returns—”
Mira’s answering smile was sharp as broken glass. “You’ll be the first to know, My Lord.” She swung herself off the bed and stood. "I must return home. My mother worries."
“Of course,” I said, stepping off the bed and pulling a robe over my shoulders.
“My Lord,” she said, fastening the clasps of her dress with practiced snaps, “Sera… when she touched the orb at Rank Day, it turned violet for a breath. A celestial. Then it fell back to red. Do you know what that means?"
With a flick of my fingers, I dismissed the chambermaid. The door shut behind her with a soft thud.
Mira drew in a slow breath. “It flared… then returned before anyone could make sense of it. I can’t explain it.”
I did.
Andreas.
The only one who had failed to appear, despite repeated summons.
That meddling, silver-tongued scholar who had served at Sera’s Rank Day. He had the precision. The old knowledge. And—apparently—the audacity to defy the Empire’s will. I felt heat crawl through my jaw, teeth clenching.
I could not tell Mira the truth—that the Examiners often muddled the orb’s results by Imperial decree. That power was a currency in the court, and the Emperor spent it freely. Even the Emperor’s favored mistresses lit the orb brilliant blue, whether or not they could conjure a spark.
“I spoke with the Examiners. It was an anomaly,” I said, keeping my tone calm, almost scholarly.
Mira slid into her coat, watching me the way only someone who had crawled out of the Dust District could—sharp, wary, unimpressed by titles. “An anomaly? The Great Ranking Orb makes mistakes?”
“The Examiners are looking into it,” I said to pacify her.
“If the Orb can err, perhaps I shouldn’t be in Coal,” she murmured. “Maybe Spark… or Ember…”
Damn it... my big mouth.
“You may take the rank test again, if you wish, Mira,” I said, voice clipped. “For now, Sera Bale is wanted. Darrick’s brother was slain by the rebels. Sera is said to have consorted with them.”
I opened my chest, retrieved a pouch heavy with coin, and tossed it to her. It hit her palm with a muted chime. “You’ll have more once you locate Sera Bale.”
Mira weighed the pouch in her hand. “Sera isn’t a rebel, My Lord. She scavenges just to eat—same as I once did.” She stepped closer, voice softer but edged. “If she carried rebellion in her bones, you would have seen it by now. But she hasn’t. As for Jarek, he deserved what befell him. That cunt.”
I glimpsed the storm in her eyes, then watched her blink it away, smile replacing rage with something almost playful.
Her fingers traced the mirror, and pale lavender light surged, washing the chamber in flickering shadows.
“I’ll return with news of Sera,” she said, then glanced at my exposed cock and smirked. “Make sure my coins—and your cock—are ready.”
Then she stepped through.
The mirror rippled and stilled behind her.
I exhaled slowly, rubbed the bridge of my nose, and called for dinner. Afterward, with the room silent and the sky deepened to night, I lay down—though sleep came as uneasily as truth.
I rose before dawn, long before the palace stirred, and summoned the two enforcers I’d sent into the Dust District. They arrived staggering into my command hall, boots dragging, uniforms streaked with soot and dirt as if they had crawled through ruins.
The sight of them soured my mood further.
I stood from behind my paper-strewn desk, shadows stretching long from the torches along the walls. My patience—already thin—snapped. I narrowed my eyes into slits.
“Report,” I commanded.
The single word cracked through the hall like a whip.
Kael, the taller one, stepped forward first. Even through the grime, I could see sweat trickling down his temples. “My Lord… the boy… he wasn’t there.” He swallowed. “The hut… it is gone. Nothing remains but ashes.”
My hands flattened against the table, nails biting into the wood as heat surged beneath my skin. “Ashes?” I snarled. “Explain.”
Lyren, smaller and already shaking, stepped in. “We found no tracks, My Lord. No belongings. No bodies. No footprints leading away. The hut might as well have never existed.”
My jaw tightened. “Did you interrogate any of the Dust mites while you were there?”
Kael shook his head. "The Warden was there and she said she would see to it."
I forced a breath through my teeth.
Elara was becoming a liability.
Kael shifted again, eyes darting toward the sealed doors. “My Lord… Have you received word from our team?”
A cold weight settled in my gut.
I pressed the sigil on my robe. Its surface warmed beneath my touch, threads of magic curling upward like smoke. One by one, I summoned the twelve enforcers I had dispatched to the Veiled Sanctum.
I waited.
The hall stayed silent.
No portal opening.
No flicker of presence.
No answering pulse.
Twelve trained soldiers—gone without even the courtesy of a signal before their deaths.
“Where are they?” I breathed.
Lyren’s voice cracked. “None returned, My Lord. It… it worries us.”
“It worries you?” I lifted my head, gaze sharp enough to flay skin. “No. It terrifies you. And it should.”
I placed my fingers on my sigil once more—magic flaring like a heartbeat—and summoned a fresh squad of Imperial Enforcers. A portal tore open in the air, swirling with silver and blue as armored figures marched out one by one, boots striking in perfect unison.
They knelt.
“My Lord,” the captain said.
I stepped around the table, cold resolve hardening into command. “I need a team to continue the search for Sera Bale in Ashwood Forest. Then, bring me every young boy from the Dust District between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. All of them. My steward will wait for you at the gates.”
The captain bowed. Kael dared to speak.
“My Lord… what do we tell the people if they ask?”
“Tell them we require laborers,” I said without hesitation. “And pay their families well enough to still their tongues. Tell Warden Voss this is mandated by the Emperor himself."
I conjured a small chest onto the table—coins clinked with the weight of obedience.
When the last of them filed out, the hall fell into suffocating silence.
“Summon the Imperial Seers,” I ordered, pressing the sigil on my robe.