Chapter 3 - The Queen in Hiding
It wasn’t her intention to but Solene found herself losing consciousness. She just felt dog-tired, and it probably stemmed from the battle she just went through with that monster. As far as she remembered, using spells and summoning her familiar technically shouldn’t put her in a fatigued state, but it did.
‘Probably another one of this fucked up place’s disadvantages,’ she complained to herself.
By the time she woke up, she couldn’t quite figure out how long she slept, but the sky had grown duller and darker, and her familiar was nowhere to be seen.
The fact that she was still untouched and undisturbed told her the three hoodlums still maintained a safe distance away from her, but she could sense them; feel their negative presence somewhere behind the dunes.
Cold air
Chapter 4 - The Queen without a VoiceSolene blinked once, twice, many times just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.Past the hulking man’s presence, a function room stood with tables and chairs and customers in them. But customer — was a limited word to describe them.These people were a variety. There were half-man skeletons, zombie-like men, and men that looked like pterodactyls, boars, and vipers. There were also demonic-looking aliens with gigantic eyes and serrated teeth, demons that glow like humans on fire, demonic women with busty chests and red-shaded skins with less to no garments.Medium-sized monsters were everywhere too, but they weren’t thrashing. They were drinking. Partying. And Solene furrowed her brows, confused.Is this Gehenna? She thought. Is this the same place she had been tossed to but in a different t
Chapter 5 - The Queen of the DesertSolene wished the cloth still covered her face. It would have been a perfect deterrent against the rotting smell of flesh around her as she padded onwards, together with her captors.After the whole fiasco in the tavern, not to mention Zaraat and Lilith’s second round of live show dog-style fucking, they finally left the area and traveled west, passing a red-light district with more debauchery on the streets and murderous glares on the alleyways and roofs of dilapidated buildings, until they reached the border where another desert greeted them.As opposed to black and golden sand like the ones Solene encountered in her first two days in Gehenna, this desert here had a red shade. And it damn smelled ghastly.Solene retched multiple times, but refused to expel fully her digested food. Zaraat said so himself. Their journey would be
Chapter 6 - The Queen Slowly Remembers‘I want to take this moment to learn more about you.’Solene found herself in the beginning of a dream—a first since she arrived in Gehenna.There were no pictures on it. Just a voice. A male voice. And it affected her in ways she couldn’t explain, but it surely brought some tingly feeling in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t put a name yet to this voice, but she knew she had conversed with him many times before.Darkness continued to fill her mind until she heard a new sound from a woman.‘Hadn’t you already run me in your database? Or at least, I assume you have one. We were basically betrothed when we were kids.’This time, Solene could recognize it as hers. It was full of confidence and wrapped with cautiousness, and with this, she hope
Chapter 7 - The Queen UnchainedSolene grunted the eighth time as she felt another tug on her chains. Gardon had been doing this for the past four hours of their trek from the bunker down to a snowy hill. She was sure it was deliberate and not because of his difficulty managing the walk too. All of them were, but he specifically took his sweet time bullying her.Twice or thrice did she end up falling face flat on the snow. No one laughed about her misfortune, save from Gardon himself, throwing a mischievous grin on her way.In reply to this, she threw him multiple sharp glares and in the back of her mind; she was going to make this man pay once she gets her voice and spells back.Gehenna’s weather and topography sure were unlike Earth. From a crimson desert earlier, they passed by an area with a bubbling lake and sulfuric steam. Then, they entered a tunnel of some sort minus th
Chapter 8 - The Queen Finds HopeThe longer her feet dug into the snow, the longer it numbed her skin. Solene already acquired blisters from her earlier trek with her captors. With her situation now, her blisters would easily worsen, and her legs would soon give out. She dreaded that from happening. Her increasing fever and dizziness were already a hindrance. She couldn’t afford to have more.Her aim was to cover a great distance from her captors as much as possible, but with this limitations, she couldn’t be sure to fulfill it anymore.Still though, Solene persisted. She shivered and her lips shuddered a great deal as she advanced into the snowy forest. Embracing herself and rubbing her hands together were the actions she could do to cut the cold even for just a little.So far, there were no monsters in sight—at least none within her line of vision. Under the soft
Chapter 9 – The Queen ListensNot to hurt her? Solene’s mind scrutinized the words.It was a big promise, especially from a stranger who lived in Gehenna. Solene couldn’t immediately believe it. She could never be sure it was this land’s way of messing up with her mind. Fooling her. Playing with her. Making her believe there was hope when, in reality, there was none.Maybe the woman was just acting? Maybe this was just a dream? But Solene figured this wasn’t judging from the very pain she was feeling inside her bones now, the continued fever she felt and the stinging pain of her superficial wounds.The woman, Hope, had an unusual name. It definitely didn’t fit with the place they were in, but she had no less been tremendously helpful with her poor, fragile situation. She had placed her inside this suitable bedroom. She had kept her warm. S
Author's Note: Trigger warning. Some of you might not be comfortable reading this kind of relationship so please skip it if you must. Thank you.Chapter 10 – The Queen MoansFor two more days, Solene slept and slept. Her body was just too weak, too aching for a rest that she couldn’t fight it off. She knew she wasn’t supposed to stay unproductive, unguarded like this, but the memory of the woman—Hope’s words filled her with comfort. Made her feel safe for the first time since she arrived in Gehenna.When she did briefly wake, she saw blurry pictures of Hope tending to her, giving her a sponge bath, putting ointment on her blisters, and even sometimes sleeping next to her, on the edge of the bed when she could have slept on the couch nearby where it had a larger, comfortable space to sleep in.In these peaceful times, Solene
Chapter 11 - The Queen Laid BareSolene was sure this was what Hope meant. A kiss. Lilith did it to her to take away her voice, and it was only reasonable to undergo the same in order to retrieve it.But Solene couldn’t deny it was a heavy request. One that weighed far heavier than a boulder, and this made her shoulders slump. Without thinking, she retracted her hands from Hope’s touch and rerouted her eyes on the floor. A deep blush painted her cheeks then, much to the latter’s chagrin.“I’m sorry!” Hope quickly exclaimed; her face a picture of deep concern. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. What was I thinking...fuck. We are both females, after all. I’ll put that in my head again and again.”Solene didn’t understand her words. It was as if her newfound friend didn’t know which gender orientation she was