17. Enthralling Dance

In the encampment,

Lily carefully parted the tent flap, holding her breath as she peered inside.

She expected to find Lady Rose asleep—but instead saw her mother's silhouette framed against the moonlight, her figure outlined by the silver glow as dark clouds drifted across the night sky.

"Lily..." Lady Rose's voice was soft, knowing.

"I'm awake. Come."

Lily startled.

"Mother, I thought you were sleeping."

A quiet, weary laugh.

"How could I sleep through such disturbances?"

Lily moved to stand beside her, the night air cool against her skin.

After a moment, she whispered,

"Mother... Hound is gone."

Lady Rose turned just enough to meet her gaze from the corner of her eye—and smiled.

"It's alright. He'll be fine. He'll come back to us."

A beat.

Then, gently:

"And Kalix is with him. So there's no need for you to worry."

The name "Kalix" struck Lily like a thunderclap.

Her breath caught—he had been with them this entire time?

She knew nothing of his true nature, only whispers that slithered through the ranks: A master assassin. A shadow given form. A hunter from whom no target had ever escaped.

Kalix had walked beside Lady Rose long before her own adoption.

Not just a guardian, but her mother's most trusted blade in the dark.

And now that same lethal shadow was watching over Hound.

"Mother... the slaves have escaped too," Lily whispered, her fingers tightening on the tent fabric.

A knowing smile touched Lady Rose's lips.

"I'm aware."

Lily hesitated.

"Will... will the Bone Orchards be safe for us tomorrow?"

Lady Rose turned, her gaze softening as she studied her daughter.

The girl's concern warmed her in ways few things could these days. With a voice like velvet, she reassured,

"Don't trouble yourself, my sweet Lily. Some fools offered themselves as an alternative."

Extending her hand, she added,

"Come. Let me show you the Enthralling Dance of a Lady of Desire."

As they stepped into the night, the air thrummed with endless battle—the metallic song of clashing blades, the deadly whisper of arrows finding their marks.

The battle raged on and never ending.

The moon's pale light struggled through thickening clouds, casting the battlefield in ghostly luminescence.

Then—

—as if the night itself held its breath—the silver rays found Lady Rose.

Moonlight caressed the intricate tattoos winding across her skin, making the ink shimmer like living shadows.

The encampment raged around her—the clash of steel, the snarls of Hungers, the death-cries of Raiders—yet she walked through the chaos with the grace of a panther strolling through tall grass.

A hush fell.

Blades hesitated mid-swing.

Hungers froze, their maws dripping.

Even the wind seemed to still as the Lady of Desire stepped into their midst, her bare feet leaving no prints in the bloodied earth.

For this moment, fight meant nothing.

There was only her.

Lady Rose lifted her hands as if to cradle the moonlight itself.

The intricate tattoos along her arms pulsed with a deep, wine-dark glow, matching the smoldering embers of her crimson gaze.

With the first deliberate sway of her hips, time itself seemed to hesitate.

The battlefield's horrors—the splattered blood, the scattered gore, the roaring flames—became mere accents to her performance.

Her arms traced languid arcs through the air, her body moving with the hypnotic undulation of a serpent.

Every motion was deliberate, every shift of her weight a whisper of temptation.

The Raiders and Hungers alike froze, their violence forgotten.

The clash of steel died mid-swing.

Even the wind held its breath.

She danced like wildfire given form—untouchable, mesmerizing.

And one by one, those who watched found their limbs heavy, their minds clouded, their will unraveling beneath the weight of her allure.

The Lady of Desire owned this moment.

And no force in the chaos could break her spell.

Lady Rose turned her gaze to Lily, who stood transfixed, still lost in the lingering haze of her mother's performance.

With a soft snap of her fingers, the spell shattered—

Raiders jolted awake, their mouths wet with hunger, their minds still tangled in lewd fantasies.

But as reality crashed back, so did terror.

Their bodies trembled, their breaths shallow, as Lady Rose's smirk promised something far worse than desire.

"Chain them," she commanded, voice like silk over steel.

"Gag them. They will take the place of our escaped slaves."

A beat of silence. Then—

"Mad Dog."

The warrior dropped to his knees before her, his freshly healed body bowed in submission.

Sweat beaded on his brow despite the cool night air.

"You know what must be done, don't you?"

A swallow.

A shaky breath.

"Y-Yes, my Lady..."

Lily fell into step beside Lady Rose, her eyes wide with a childlike plea.

"Mother… when will I become a Lady of Desire?"

A slow, knowing smile curled Lady Rose's lips.

"Soon. The deeper you surrender to Desire, the more it will remake you—until one day, you wake up a Demon Lady, Lust itself flowing through your veins."

As they approached the tent, Lily's fingers slipped into her mother's grasp, small and uncertain.

Her voice trembled.

"Must I… lie with men to understand Lust?"

Her voice carried the weight of unhealed wounds, trembling with the cruel irony of her power.

Though now ascended as a Greater Demon—a Shaman of Desire who commanded the very essence of Lust—her body remained untouched.

The trauma still lived in her bones: memories of a crumbling eastern kingdom, of grasping hands in the dark that had never quite claimed her, yet had birthed this dark awakening.

Lady Rose's eyes softened as she studied her daughter—really studied her.

She heard the fragility beneath Lily's words, saw the way her hands trembled despite the demonic power thrumming in her veins.

This child of hers, a Shaman of Desire, wielded lust like a weapon yet flinched at the memory of touch.

With a voice like velvet over steel, Lady Rose cradled Lily's chin.

"Lust is merely a word, my sweet Lily. To know its true nature? That requires something deeper."

Her thumb traced Lily's jawline, grounding her.

"At its essence, it is craving—an ache that demands to be fed. Men are but one morsel on the feast table... the simplest, yes, but we are no common demons."

A pause, deliberate.

The night itself seemed to lean closer.

"You are my daughter. So carve your own path. Let your desire take a shape that terrifies them. Make your Lust so uniquely yours that it rewrites the very definition."