Chapter 1 - Royal Jelly

The evening was passing. In a canopied bed, one occupant stirred restlessly underneath the sheets. Gossamer curtains billowed from the sharp wind outside an open window. The air was sharp with the scent of rain sheeting down; a sudden summer storm. A flash of lightning and a near simultaneous crack of thunder brought the sleeper awake with a shocked gasp. Female, elven. Luminescent green eyes blinked in the darkness as she struggled to catch her breath.

She had struggled with the same nightmare for several days, but the details eluded her upon awakening.

Her name, at least the one many called her by, was Arisa. Her full name was much longer, more formal and enduring, just as the small villa she now occupied. It was a small triumph in the large battle to reclaim her family's missing fortunes. Only days ago, she had paid the last of the renovators and moved in. Friends had warned her that it was pointless to try and reclaim the old; to instead place her fortune in the future of Silvermoon. Not the obscure properties of her family's past.

Arisa took several calming breaths, once more assuring herself that the nightmares were simply a reaction to her friends' nay-saying. She had renewed the furnishings and paint and structure and she had refreshed the old protections. It was a lovely view of the mornings, focused on the sea in one direction and overlooking the autumnal glades of Eversong in the other. The storm would pass by morning, as it often did. And with it any nagging doubts and ridiculous omens.

But for the moment there would be no sleep. The elven lady rose from her bed, covering the thin gown with a silken robe. A wave of her hand brought faint light to the room and crossing to close the window against the storm's fury added further calm to the chamber. Lightning arced through the sky a second time as she watched and listened. This time, the rumble of thunder was muted and far more distant.

The smile that touched her lips briefly faltered as she turned away from the window and caught sight of a shadow at the entrance to her room.

For a moment, Arisa's heart raced, the last trace of her nightmare adding fuel to fear. But memory and recognition quickly returned and she addressed the shadow in her native tongue. "Idariel! Make some noise!"

The figure moved silently into the room, revealing the elven man whom she had addressed. Though his footsteps defied her sharp demand, his chuckle fulfilled Arisa's requirement, even though it was at her expense. She scowled up at him, brushing the blonde locks of her bed-mussed hair behind one slender ear.  He was a full head taller than her, his hair a deep crimson red that flowed over his broad shoulders, his features pale and handsome. His relative height had often vexed her, particularly when Idariel insisted on calling her 'little sister'.

It was not blood that tied them together, but marriage. Arisa's eldest sister and Idariel had married, had planned a family together. Then the Scourge attacked and ravaged the land, breaking the family's wealth and numbers through death and war and the division of Quel'thalas' remaining population between those who stayed loyal to the Prince and those who turned their back on their people and kept to their agreements with the Alliance.

But the Prince had proven a betrayer as well. That had been enough to prevent Arisa from reconciling with her sister when they met on the battlefields of Northrend years later. There was no other chance; word arrived that Sarisa had fallen in battle. Since regret would not bring back the dead, Arisa moved on, only vowing that another opportunity would not be left to waste should it come. Idariel had appeared in the wake of the returning forces. His eyes were clear of the fel-energy that afflicted the Sindorei and that would have been enough to cast him out as an exile. Yet he wished only to speak to Arisa for a while and she had invited him to stay. The villa was proving a timely restoration, free of prying eyes.

Yet her brother-in-law was strangely distant, almost cold. For the most part, she had chalked it up to the loss of his wife and the changes they had all gone through.  This was the first time she had heard him amused since his arrival. Even though she was irritated with him, it was not without a sense of relief that some part of the man she remembered might still remain.

"I thought I heard you cry out, little sister," he answered. His eyes fixed on Arisa with an intensity that caused an involuntary shiver. For a moment, she felt as though a predator's eyes were upon her. The relief she felt began to recede, but she chuckled reluctantly and began to walk toward her dressing table.

"Just a dream. It's nothing... I'm sorry I woke you." The answer seemed to amuse him even more. She heard him chuckle again as she settled down and reached for her brush. She nearly jumped as she felt his hands close on her shoulders and stifled a shriek. He was in her mirror now behind her, where she would have sworn he wasn't standing moments before. The mirror's angle made it possible that she would not have caught his reflection, but it was frightening how silent he could move when he wished. Had Idariel been that quiet all those years ago?

Arisa set the brush down and turned her head to look up at him, masking a lingering trace of fear well. "What--" Her words were cut short by his finger pressed to her lips.

"Sssh. Relax, my dear little sister." Idariel soothed. Was it only her imagination that the words seemed to hold a mocking note? Arisa was finding it hard not to relax, however. Particularly when his hands dropped to her shoulders again and began to massage in slow circles. His fingers felt cold through the thin layers of gown and robe, but the pressure was a welcome attack against the knots he found and worked away.

"Thank you, Idariel. That.... I've needed this," she admitted to him. The brush was set aside for the time being and she watched him in the mirror. A cat-like smile had curved his lips in response to her willingness to relax her guard. It was a far cry from the strange aloofness she had sensed before. His fingers slipped down her back, changing their focus to the muscles on either side of her spine. Arisa resisted the urge to arch her body as a particularly painful bundle was soothed. The elven woman settled for closing her eyes instead.  She missed the way her trust him him caused Idariel's expression to become one of mild triumph.

"Tell me about your dream, Arisa?" he asked of her. She stirred a bit and at first was silent. His hands had nearly traced the length of her spine before she answered.

"I remember betrayal. Death," she shuddered under his cold hands. "...And power."

"Power?" he repeated as a question. Idariel let his fingers tease her ribs. Arisa shivered, but she didn't pull away, half lost in a trance. "Tell me about the power," the elven man encouraged. His voice took on a deeper timbre, compelling.

The woman's eyes fluttered but did not open. She felt her heart quicken, but it was a distant concern. Idariel's fingers felt so good on her body, though their chill seemed to make her flesh feverish in comparison. "Power," she murmured. "Power given to me. Power I could possess." Power a part of Arisa wished for, though her voice takes on a pained note as she admits the rest. "But I wake up and never remember how to hold on to it. What I must achieve."

His caress crossed out of the realm of experimentation. Idariel rested his hands upon Arisa's hips only long enough to encourage her to rise to her feet. She stood before the mirrored dressing stand, her chest rising and falling with quickened breath, a pace which increased as he slid his hands upward and cupped the undersides of her breast. The taller figure bent his head low, drawing in her scent. It was savored, though there was no pause in the methodical action of his hands. The thin fabric of Arisa's gown was drawn taut and caused the mirror to reflect the outline of puckered nipples, each easily caught in his thumb and forefinger. She gasped, the heat of her flesh rising, the flow of blood increasing.

As she trembled in his arms, Idariel continued his litany. "We have watched you restore your family's fortune. Through your own strength and determination... admirable traits." He was content to leave her clothed, though the robe had long since fallen open, half off her shoulders. Her blonde curls, haphazard before, were now mussed against his chest. He held her close, yet the embrace lacked a return of passion. His touch, nothing more than rote memory. What he desired was not sparked by the flame that burned within Arisa's smaller frame.

"As a commoner cannot truly become nobility, true power cannot be wielded by those unsuited for it." Idariel let his right hand slip down her stomach. The mind must be strong. The body... transformed." His smile broadened as he cupped his hand around Arisa's thigh and felt her climax. "The body becomes eternal... powerful. A vessel of power worthy of a true queen." This he was impassioned for. Power. Immortality. The desire which rose and brought with it his thirst.

"Open your eyes, Arisa," he hissed into her ear. Idariel's fingers clutched at her body with a grip that bordered on painful. "Tell me that you are willing to change everything you know for power and immortality."

She slowly opened her eyes at his behest and looked into the mirror at herself. She saw the bedraggled woman, panting and skin still slightly flushed with quickly fading arousal, full of life, marked with the hardships she had challenged and overcome. Physical and mental; they both seemed to be laid out before her. For all there was a part of her that craved power, she had ever been a creature who had claimed it through her own actions, her own sense of self. Idariel's offer was utterly compelling and no less a difficult journey.

"No," Arisa whispered. She looked at her brother in law and caught a glimpse of the cold, undead creature he'd become in Northrend, powerful and malevolent, never dying but never sated. Something that had been hidden behind a glamour now stripped away. It should have frightened her and perhaps she shuddered once, but she felt an odd peace with herself. Security in the certainty of her choice. "Even for power," she murmered, eyes clear, strength returning to her limbs. "I would not change who I am."

She knew she would probably die for her refusal. He held her too close with unholy strength and had slipped under her guard and caught her at her most vulnerable. The twist to his withered lips seemed to back up the elven woman's thoughts. But it was the cruel triumph in Idariel's gaze that caught her breath and made her uncertain. He was far from angered at her choice.

"You would not choose to transform. But it doesn't matter, my dear little sister," The words were cold and lacked even the pretense of compassion, though they held a note of respect. "In fact, I'm glad you refused. Your strength will be useful."

Arisa's heart fluttered once and then her world exploded in a starburst of pain as sharp fangs pierced her throat and neck. The creature that was once her brother drank deeply of blood and life. For her, there was nothing but ripples of agony and the sense of a powerful void which Idariel seemed determined to fill with her very soul. For him, it was the taste of her life and past, from the recent fear and even the blush of pleasure she felt briefly; such was the only means he had of experiencing any of these things.

He struggled against the desire to consume her entirely and won that battle, lifting bloodstained lips away from the pain-wracked frame of his sister-in-law and letting her fall in an unceremonious heap to the ground. Idariel allowed time to let the bloodlust settle, to savor what he had tasted from Arisa's very being. She had screamed and it had pleased him. With the villa empty and distant from settlement, he hardly worried about rescue. The wards designed to keep intruders out were as much keyed to alert him as they were to her.

The pain was numb but persistent. Arisa heard the soft rustle of cloth as Idariel knelt beside her and helped her to raise her head. The elven woman's body was chilled and not just from his touch. She still lived. Nightmares of death and betrayal and power. Was that all this was? She drank reflexively as a vial was pressed to her lips and then all but gagged as a cloying liquid slid across her tongue and trickled down her throat until no more came.

Arisa thought it was like fire at first, though her mind quickly turned to thoughts of a chill so cold that it burned. From the pit of her stomach, the fluid began to remove all that was living, all that was warm to be replaced by something dark and potent. 'Power', Idariel had called it, but with a horrible price. She let out a wail that would have humbled a banshee as the ice-cold flames reached deeper than flesh and blood and began to lick at her soul.

Idariel watched as the transformation began to consume Arisa, recapping the now-empty vial and setting it aside. His strength made light work of lifting her writhing frame and carrying her to the bed. Devoid as the action was of what pity he may have taken on Arisa in his living years for her pain, there was still respect for the woman whom he lay on the mattress. Drying blood stained bedclothes and torn gown. It was a stark contrast to horribly white flesh which had begun to gray as the last vestige of life within struggled to fight against death.

The play of lightning through the window had stopped; the summer storm passed on though thunder still occasionally rolled in the distance. Wind blew outside, wailing screams, the crack of bones filled the rooms within. Wet sounds, of newly torn, newly formed flesh. The magic globes dimmed of their own accord. Still Idariel waited and witnessed.

It was near the light of dawn when all grew silent again. The watcher took one look at the newly formed creature in the bed and nodded once before turning to step out of the room. One person stood at the door, but there was no surprise in evidence on Idariel's features. Only one person was likely to have slipped through the wards so easily much less stood and waited on seeing the horrors the villa truly held. "Sarisa. Don't you look lovely as ever?"

"Save your flattery, Idariel." The figure that came into the room held similar poise and build to her sister, but none of the warmth of life that once was. Not even toward her husband. She was agitated and cast a glance at the prone form on the bed, recuperating from the transition through a state of hibernation. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprise that she made it through the transformation intact."

"Jealous, my love?" Idariel asked, expressing dim amusement through an old endearment. He moved closer. "It doesn't become you. We both have our places. Our purpose."

"Of her? No." There was a thin smile in return. "Of you getting to taste her, maybe." Sarisa's eyes gleamed with the same cold hunger still present in her husband's own expression. He laughed sharply. "Both of us couldn't feast. And your fall was much more publicly known than mine."

Idariel reached out and brushed a hand across the other san'layn's cheek and bleached, brittle hair.  "Find something else to satisfy your tastes if you have in mind some elven fare. We leave when our fledgling princess awakens."

Sarisa licked her lips, the idea of her next meal appealing. Her eyes shifted to the still form on the bed. "Will she succeed?"

"It doesn't matter," he dismissed. "Her strength will assure her victory or it will feed the power of another. Either way, the San'layn will have their new Queen." Idariel's lips curved briefly as he shooed Sarisa on her way. "By Power or Blood or both, we will be one family again."

The laughter of the woman as she left the room to find a feast was her only answer to the twisted joke.