Duties of a Royal Mage.

I awoke covered in sweat. This time, the dreams had taken another turn. The images were still full of screaming women, but all of them were sexual, erotic displays of male dominance and female ecstasy. I had to admit I was more than a little aroused as I shed my nightgown and rinsed my entire body with cold water from my pitcher. This was beginning to be a bit of a problem.

I selected a red dress in a style similar to my favorite green, but that covered my chest a bit more and left my neck and shoulders bare. The seal of the Royal Mage featured a dip in the pattern at the front of my throat, almost like a small pendant. The patterns of the seal, by chance, worked well with the embroidery of the bodice. I wore the same tights and heels that I always wore.

I wanted to make a strong impression on my first full day in my new position, so I brushed out my hair and worked it up onto my head in a stylish design, the whole thing held together with an impressive array of slender wooden rods in a spiraling formation. I added a touch of paint to my lips and some jewels to my ears and decided that would do nicely.

I felt powerful. The red theme of my outfit fit my mood more than the green would have, anyway. Taking a deep breath, I left my quarters. I wasn't going to hide in my room all day, Hero or not.

I was immediately greeted by a well-dressed clerk from the king's council. A man in his mid-to-late forties. "Good morning, Lady Mage." He bowed respectfully.

I recalled that Anfony would receive daily reports from the castle directly, and I suppressed the Hero-related paranoia that crept up when I'd seen someone waiting for me. "Good morning. Who are you?"

He introduced himself as Gofin and explained that he was the clerk assigned to me as Royal Mage. If I needed anything I could reach out to him and that he would be responsible for delivering orders and reports to me from the other masters of the castle.

"Charmed." I said dryly. I didn't want to offend him, but I wasn't in any mood to deal with such things as orders and reports. I took the small bundle of papers he offered me and he bowed politely before leaving me alone in the hall.

I waved down a maid in the halls and gave her a breakfast order, telling her I wanted to eat in the Library Arcana. She wasn't one I had ever seen before but the runes glittering runes at my throat announced my station to her the instant she turned to look. "Yes, Lady Mage." she said with a deep curtsey. I could get used to this kind of authority.

As soon as I entered the library, my eyes darted to the dark tome the Hero had thrust into my arms the day before. Of course it had been undisturbed. The only other person who may have had a reason to peruse the shelves would have been Anfony. I felt a pang of loss at the thought. Anfony had been a sliver of hope that I'd be able to defeat the Hero, or at least send him home before he could do more harm. Now I was on my own.

From the bookshelf, my eyes slid to the table where I'd been deflowered. The books there were scattered recklessly, some of them lying open on the floor. My pussy still ached, though less badly than yesterday. The Hero had not been gentle. He'd made sure I felt him and would continue to feel him after he'd gone. And I did feel him. In my body, in my mind, in my soul. He was everywhere. Even the air here smelled vaguely of his seed.

I formed a simple spell to ventilate the room a little but again my magic failed me. What had he said? "These and these only. Nothing else will work." Had he meant spells? I set down my bundle of royal reports and pulled the dark tome from the shelf to review the list.

One of the items on the list was a poison. The Hero wanted me to brew him a magical poison? I flipped through the book and found a description of a spell that could be used to form the base of such a potion and tentatively formed it in my mind. I felt a tug of mana. It was familiar, definitely my mana, but the sensation was different than I was used to. I immediately released the would-be spell before it took shape. That confirmed it. I hadn't lost all my magic after all. I was just forbidden to use it except to serve the Hero. But how? Why? What manner of control did he have over me? I couldn't begin to understand the magic he'd used; it was as alien as he was. Despite the infuriating efficacy of whatever he'd done to me, my academic mind was fascinated by it.

With a sigh, I carried the book back to my desk and set it aside for later. First things first, I needed to read these reports.

The reports were blissfully short. A kitchen maid arrived and delivered a warm breakfast at some point, but I barely acknowledged her. I didn't want any conversation. The way it worked, as I understood it, was that the reports came from a bunch of different masters and went directly to the king's clerks. The clerks then copied down the bits that each master would find relevant to their work and re-distributed those bits to the latter. As Royal Mage, I was technically the master of the castle's entire magic division. Of course, that division was down to just me, now.

My report today was all about the state of enchantments, wards, and spells that served a variety of functions in and around the castle. There was always some kind of magical maintenance that needed to be done. As apprentice, I had often been given several smaller tasks to do, and had assisted with a handful of the more critical ones. Now it would be just me doing all the work. It occurred to me that I should probably find my own apprentice before long, in case something were to happen to me.

There was a cheery thought.

There was nothing in the reports that required my immediate attention, although there would be a proper funeral for Anfony later that evening and I would be required to attend. I was not looking forward to that. So with nothing else to occupy my mind, I reached for the book of dark essays. If I wanted to stay alive, I figured I should get into the habit of pleasing my real master. My eyes flitted to the messy table again and I swallowed. It was the first time I'd thought of the Hero as my master and meant it. I wondered if I'd see him again today. I wondered if that was something I wanted, or wanted to avoid.

I imagined what that meeting would look like, and how it might be different if I did or did not have his list of tasks completed. The Hero was certainly the kind of man who would punish someone for displeasing him. That thought chilled my blood enough to spur me into action and I set about learning how to discretely end a life using magic, a clear violation of several kingdom laws and an oath I'd taken as an Academy Novice.