Chapter 7 - Sorcerers' Duel:

Royal Palace, Throneroom: 

The brilliant blast of green energy lanced straight for Osira, only to bifurcate around her as she held up her other hand, drawing it together into the form of a spear and then slammed the spear into the ground. Her lips peeled back into a smile as she said "Opala, Opala, Opala." Shaking her head. "You really don't get it, do you? You've played right into my hands as I wished you would." 

Opala growled then and unleashed a stream of fire that Osira again caught and transformed into ice and tossed against the wall where it shattered. 

"Remember when I told you you didn't want me to get creative, Opala?" 

Osira then raised her hands as the scorching heat of the power of Set blazed through the room and then Opala looked around to see the entire court frozen in time. 

"Not entirely the whole of the court, but everywhere the Gods' writ runs, for a time, is frozen." 

Then Farah rose from her throne. 

"If you beat me, Osira, I'll come back again and again. Like you did." 

Osira laughed, the maniacal laughter that echoed in the throneroom the louder in silence. 

"No," she said, "you won't. First, you're not me. Second, when I'm done showing you the benefits of being...." 

By this time Farah had caught up to her and both of them were soon right next to Opala, as Osira ran her hand along her sister's belly and grinned when the babies reacted to her touch and Opala shivered at that, "creative, you'll be a dutiful, loyal sister who knows her place. For the rest of our lives, however long they prove to be." 

She moved her right hand and then that blazing heat was matched by the red light of a dying star and Osira and Farah felt a sense of weightlessness. 

------

Opala's Mindscape: 

Opala stared at the realization that something had changed when she knelt in darkness, the kind behind people's eyelids. She was not pregnant, here, and she felt her sorcerous power flowing through her and waited. Footsteps in the dark and then she rose in flight and the fullness of her strength only to be caught by a hand and then slammed against the ground. 

"Months of study will never beat years, Opala. Even if I had not taken this power and still had my own, you would never have beaten me. Let alone now." 

Opala struggled beneath her as Osira's hand on her chest held her down as if her strength had increased to colossal proportions.

"This is your first lesson. We are in your mind, Opala, where you shall break and mom and I shall watch you break. I promised her an end to all this." 

Opala kept grabbing her sister's arm and trying to push her away but Osira knelt beside her, her nude body as soft and curvy as it was in life. 

"There is no air here, there is no strength in a physical sense. It's not muscles that are holding you down. It's your limited grasp of these principles." 

Opala's fingers curled into fists and she repeatedly beat them against Osira's arm as Farah finally found them, striding in wearing only her sandals and collar. 

Her mother looked at them both with disapproval and Osira turned to her. 

"I promise you, no more fighting after this. Not beyond what siblings do anyhow." 

Farah raised an eyebrow. 

"All right." 

Osira's arm lifted from Opala and then Osira levitated and spoke three Words and time and space seemed to shift. 

-------

The Royal Palace, a year before Osira's first attack on Opala 

Osira watched with a fond smile the sight of her past self rocking against her father's body, the old man's arms behind her, clutching her ass as the two shared a tender kiss. Farah stood, her emotions visible. A blend of anger and distaste warring with an erotic charge, the memory of Nasir's broad chest and stout but strong body against Osira's curvy lithe form. The sound of sex was palpable and Opala, who was forced to her knees by Osira looked at her sister. 

"Why are you showing me this?" 

"You'll see," Osira said. 

Their father's cock slid in and out of her, a gigantic thing that had caused him no little amount of trouble with prior partners and which had led to a rather limited sex life until he'd met the bellydancer. Nasir's sense of amazement that Osira took him with such little difficulty in what was, ultimately, her first time was as palpable as the heat that flooded through him and added to his kisses shared with his daughter. 

In and out, Osira's cum slickening their father's cock and leaving it to shine with a brilliant light. Osira's moans matching his grunts and the two of them lost in their own world. 

"How," he groaned, "are you so good at this?" 

Osira grinned and shrugged as she licked along his neck and then as his hands squeezed even more tightly on her ass her eyes rolled in her head and her third ever orgasm combined with her father's cum inside her to make for a moment that lingered in her memories for all time. She reclined against him and then felt the surge of Power and of Sorcery, a more subtle thing that brought a golden glow to her hands. 

It was then that her father realized what he'd done, who was on his lap, and she saw the stricken shame on his face. 

"Farah will kill me," he rasped. 

Osira shook his head. 

"She'll be disappointed but mom won't kill you. She needs other lovers, daddy, just like you do." 

Nasir laughed uneasily. 

"You don't know Farah that well." 

Osira shrugged as her tits jiggled and his eyes were drawn to them. 

"Well if you don't want her to find out, here's a simple thing for you to do, daddy," her voice took on a slightly resonant tone as she booped his nose. "You know exactly why this happened." 

He grimaced. "Yes, I do." 

"This is all Opala's fault. My little sister wants the throne." 

Nasir sighed at a different note and brushed his hand through Osira's sweaty hair, kissing her gently. 

"There's more to it than that." 

Osira shook her head. 

"Not really, I am your firstborn. The throne is mine. Opala wanting it is a threat to all of us. If she didn't want the throne, I would never have seduced you." 

His cock began to rise against her as she ground against him unconsciously while speaking and she hissed as she caught her breath at that. 

Osira muttered to herself "Wonder if I'd still do that now knowing what I've done since?" but otherwise said little. 

"If you want to be angry at anyone, or to blame anyone, blame Opala." 

His cock soon slid back into her and he let himself push her down on the bed, his weight on top of her. 

"If I help you kill her...." 

The young Osira's eyes widened, and so did Farah's, as did Opala's. 

"I didn't"-he put his finger on her lips and soon she was sucking on it as if it were a cock. 

"As I said, if I help you kill her, that will end this. Permanently. She could find aid in Canaan or Achaea or other places. If you want me to remove Opala as a threat, I will ensure she dies." 

Young Osira looked at her father as if she'd never seen him before. 

"Is this one of your altered memories?" Opala's voice was shaky. 

"No," Osira said, with a strange set of emotional tones to her voice. Sadness threaded with amusement and anger and even regret. "This is the original world that I altered. My first time. All I wanted was for you to never be in a chance to take the throne." 

Nasir's cock began to rut inside of her as she wrapped her legs around him. The shame and self-loathing on his face gave his thrusts a more powerful fuel and he didn't care nearly as much as he could for the consequences of it. He'd already crossed that line, he'd already fucked his daughter. He didn't want to do this again and as long as Opala lived he had a fear that Osira might find more excuses for it. 

These were the words that made sense to him and in ultimately agreeing to them as he fucked her through nine more orgasms Osira found herself taking the very first steps down the path that all else followed. Opala was on her knees, shivering. 

"I....I....." she took a deep breath. "I always thought you wanted that." 

Osira turned to her and brushed her hand through her hair and scratched her behind the ear.

"I did. It didn't take much to convince me and by the time that year lapsed, I'd forgotten that initial reluctance and what I'd originally wanted." 

She gave her a cold grin. 

"I told you, Opala," she said with an unkind tone to her voice, "this is going to break you and see the end of all this. All the memories you will see here are from the original world. You wanted a sorcerers' duel against someone who can alter perceptions and even reality itself. There is no fighting such a person unless we want to be fought." 

-------

From there they found themselves a half-year later. Osira was standing in the room in her black slit-thigh dress, smirking as Opala and her father were talking. Opala wore her own outfit, one that left a very deep window beneath her tits to nearly at the edge of her hips and was likewise exposed behind her. At least partially consciously she was posing in front of her father in that manner that was a marker of her beauty and her attractiveness and her awareness of both.

Nasir gave her a stony look that tilted into an increasingly murderous gaze behind her. 

Opala leaned forward, hips back, stretching. Nasir sighed in a manner his daughter was too engrossed in her own exercises to notice. 

Osira watched as Nasir strode to her with that look in his eyes only for the panther behind Opala to raise his head and bare his teeth without, admittedly, making an audible sound. Nasir stood then and stepped back to the throne, until Opala was done and then he cleared his throat. 

"Yes, Father?" 

Opala squatted down to caress Sebastillion's head, the panther still a kitten but capable even then of a kind of intimidation that spoke of his unusual power and intelligence. 

"I have decided that you are too lavish with with the gifts of the Gods, Opala." Her father's tone was cold and contemptuous as Osira looked at him. 

"You take them for granted, you show neither respect nor due honor to the Gods that gave Egypt the gift of the Nile and all that we have possessed since time immemorial. Until such time as I deem you properly reverent," he gestured and then Opala stared with that broader understanding as she saw the men who would not quite claim her virginity but would be her second, third, fourth, and fifth lovers, "you will be under the strictest oversight subject to my will." 

"Father?" Her tone was simple bemusement. 

"It has also come to my attention that you have been making undue claims above your station" and now his gaze did briefly flicker to Osira, not that Opala noticed it then. "Our family cannot last as long as we scheme against each other. The throne is the guarantor that all around us exists in prosperity and power. Be it by wealth or by your mother's...." he took a deep breath. "Diplomatic expertise." 

"I will not have my children at war with each other, Opala. Being over-indulgent to you and to your ambitions risks too many things." 

He folded his arms in front of his chest. 

"You are my daughter by blood and as long as you abide by the rules I lay down for you, you will remain so in heart." 

Opala did notice the way Osira was smiling at her then and something of understanding began to dawn in her and with her. 

------

"I know you're doing this, Osira." 

Her big sister looked up at her when she stepped in, six months later. Opala's clothes had become rougher, more shapeless even as her beauty had grown. She was denied the makeup that her sister and her mother used to tastefully augment their existing beauty and to create their style, though the women of their family had such a natural beauty that its absence was mostly notable by comparison to her later indigo-lipped golden-cheeked self. 

"Doing what?" 

Her sister's question was taunting. 

"You turned Father against me. That's why I'm living like this...." she took a deep breath and hissed, "servant in our own Palace." 

Osira shrugged. 

"Have you tried going to mommy?" The question was taunting and the way she was smiling and the flickering in her eyes made the insult plain. Opala scowled. 

"Mother," she said slowly, "thinks I'm exaggerating." 

Osira raised an eyebrow but otherwise said nothing. 

"I got a little irritated at her showing herself off and I told her. She's older than we are, Osira. She doesn't need to dress like she's our age, let alone look at the guards the way she does. We had a fight." 

Osira shrugged. 

"Not my problem." 

Opala scowled again. 

"You can't get away with this forever. I'm a Princess, too. Mom promised me I'd be Queen. Father won't hate me forever, either." 

Osira just smiled at that with a cynical cryptic grin and that was the point that infuriated Opala who shouted with anger and threw herself at her sister, tackling her from the bed. 

"What in Apep's na-" 

Her sister's fist crashed against her and Opala drew her fist back, yelping in pain. 

"Oh you little bitch!" Osira's tone was as angry as she was but then Opala took her other fist and punched her lower down, as the fight deteriorated into the two writhing on top of each other, clawing at each other and tearing each other's dresses. Heat flowed through them for the first time as they were in such intimate proximity to each other and there were points where each was on top of the other, flushed and panting and with an arousal flooding through them to a point that they were almost at the edge of fucking each other for the first time. 

It was then that their Father, drawn by the clamor, arrived to find Opala on top of Osira. 

"Get off of her," his tone was cold. 

Opala would find that as much as her life had been restricted before, now it was restricted still moreso, to a point that she felt an oversized child again or a prisoner in her own home. Less than a month later as things took that tension furthest, Osira would take her blade and her first dabblings in magic and prepared to strike her in the back as the now-adolescent Sebastillion's claws lunged for her face and life began to take its later course. 

--------

"Osira's gone, daddy." Opala said to him, her garments restored to what they had been. The finest silk and the most revealing. She had been gangbanged by the guards around her for every single day for the entire expanse leading to the attempt, though her father did not need to know any of that. 

"You're free of her, now." 

Her father's gaze finally met hers and it was a harsh, cruel thing. 

Opala stared as Osira tilted her head, never seeing this particular moment before and seeing the way Opala trembled she knew that it would be a good next step on that path. 

"Osira," he said in an unkind voice, "didn't make me want you removed, Opala. She wanted you removed from a claim to the throne." 

Now it was her father who took out his khopesh. 

"And in the end she was right, allowing you to live is no solution. It'll just create a cycle that won't stop." 

He rose to his feet and the blade was in his hand. 

"Father?" Opala's question was soft and horrified. 

She knew what Osira had done with their father and seeing him advancing on her and that her life was in danger she let herself hike up her skirts as her father stopped. 

"If this will...." 

He stared at her and snarled and then raised the blade and Opala watched as her father gasped for a moment and his hand went to his chest. It was not when he died but it was the start of the decline. Seeing it, Opala vowed to herself then that this was Osira's doing. 

Her sister met her gaze and she looked down and sighed when she realized her mental self was pregnant now, too. An assertion of her own thoughts and the pregnancy vanished. 

-------

After their father's funeral when the two sisters had united again Osira and Opala were together in a room. 

"You tried to kill me," Opala said with a tone of angry hostility. 

Osira nodded, a bored look on her face. 

"Yes, I did. So did Father. It was his idea, not mine." 

Opala scowled. 

"Liar." 

"Many times, yes," Osira crooned as she focused on painting her toenails. "But not now. Not like this. I don't need to. The truth would hurt more than any lie here." 

She painted her last toenail while telling her "Long before he died Father stopped loving you, Opala. You went from his daughter to his arrogant uppity little threat." 

Opala's fists clenched. 

"LIAR!" 

Her sister gave her an unkind smile. 

"You're Queen because mommy helped you out." 

Her grin was razor sharp. 

"For some reason she didn't trust her little girl who found her way to the ValToras and to my new General and everything that went with that." 

She shrugged and gave Opala a vicious-seeming smile. "I can't imagine why that would be." 

"You-" 

Osira shrugged. 

"Vhazar is a good general," she said. "And a good man." 

"He's a monster," Opala snarled. 

Osira nodded. 

"Yes, and what said being a monster is a bad thing?" 

Opala growled at her, tapping her foot. 

Osira smirked at her and scratched her mind-self behind the ear as Farah watched in silence. 

--------

"Osira, Opala," their mother's voice said in exhaustion as she lay on her side, "meet your new brother." 

Farah's face was struck by a fond memory of the moment and the exhaustion, the horse's tail buttplug in her waggling just a little with her exhaustion. 

The two girls, after their second and third clashes had walked in and Opala's lips curled into the same sneer now that they had been then. 

"That's a foal, mother." 

"That's your brother," Farah corrected. 

Opala blinked. 

"Mom, that's a horse." 

"Opala," her mother said, "Your sister and I share a gift. We can bear offspring from anything that desires us to." 

Opala shook her head. 

"That's disgusting." 

"It was a gift of Hathor," Farah said, lying comfortably in her nudity, Osira's gaze focusing more on her as Opala's did on the little foal that was standing on his legs. 

"It is a gift of Hathor." Her hand danced on her belly, Osira's eyes tracing the motion.

"You can do this, too?" 

Farah gave her a look. 

"Yes, love, I can." 

Opala gave them both that look. 

"So you have the bastards of those demons as well as getting that evil magic of yours from them?" Her tone became shriller, angrier. 

Osira folded her arms in front of her chest. 

"So what? Do you care when mom does it?" 

Opala looked her mom squarely in the eyes. 

"Yes, it's a filthy, shameful thing that has no business happening in the first place. You're both monsters!" 

Opala turned to meet her mother's gaze, which was directed at her. 

"Do you wonder," Farah said with a strange tone in her voice of unreserved anger, cold and vicious, "why I love Osira more than you? She didn't call me a monster for a gift the Gods gave me before I was born. She didn't storm away from her little brother in a rage." 

Indeed, Opala had the chance to see how Osira reacted, taking a set of steps and then kneeling by the foal. 

She didn't say much of anything, merely spoke a Word that cleansed off the fluids on him, and then looked at her mom. 

"That said," Farah said with a weary exhaustion, "you don't have to limit yourself to those monsters from Achaea or the Red Sands." 

Osira shook her head. 

"The monsters don't judge me," and she sat, still, watching her brother in his first moments. 

------

Opala later found herself tied in her sister's palace, in the wake of her sixth attack. 

The first of her champions would rescue her soon, but for that time Queen Opala, in her third month of her reign stared in mute shock and horror at the sheer expanse of the vast fortress and the eerie green light. 

"The Serpent-God," Osira said as her fingers drummed on her sister's ass, "is very generous with his gifts. I have power in magic such that even the greatest of sorcerers would weep with envy. I have built armies, sister. Armies of my sons and my grandsons and on through the generations. Armies that greatly outnumber yours." 

"You're a monster," Opala's voice rasped and then she shivered and tried to buck away when Osira's hand slid from her ass cheek to her inner thighs. 

"I am simply seeking what was always rightfully mine." 

Opala gasped at the first time in their lifetime that Osira's hand slid inside her. 

"Osira, what are you-" 

Osira gave her that cold grin. 

"Putting you in your place, little sister." 

The accent on the last word led Opala to shout, "Hey, stop!" 

Osira's laughter was cold and then her other hand dipped for Opala's head. 

Opala gave her sister a look. 

"I remember that," she said. "The aftermath of it." 

Osira nodded. 

"I'm sure you do. It was.....entertaining...to have you groveling for me and begging me to fuck you and to let you breed the generals that would take your kingdom down." 

She laughed, coldly. 

"That first champion of yours gave me a good fight," she shrugged, "which was worth it, in its own way." 

Opala could see herself with the glowing green eyes, on her back with her legs spread and her hands rubbing at her clit. 

"Please, Sira, please fuck me! I'm your slutty little whore, I belong to you!" 

Opala winced. 

"That's what happens every time the two of us face off. You've got a great amount of courage, Opa, never doubt that. But courage against magic is worthless, and you have no sense or strength, either." 

She laughed. 

Opala looked down and again her mental projection was pregnant and she found herself tattooed with markers around her wrists that were marks of Osira's rule. She tried to wish them away but they didn't leave. 

Farah watched the Opala with green eyes masturbating furiously and shouting "Come on Sira, please! I need it! I need you! Give me a monster baby like that damn horse!" Her eyes narrowed. 

-----

The last vision that Osira would give her sister was when they returned from memory lane to her own mind. 

Opala was shaken, looking at herself. 

"I won't break," she said to Osira. 

"You've already broken," Osira said as her finger pointed to her body and Opala's hands went to her bump. 

"I didn't choose this." 

Osira's grin was mirthless. 

"I didn't choose my first sons, either. It doesn't change my opinion about them." 

She went to Opala and then her hand was on the mental projection of her bump and then-

Opala found herself with her mother standing beside her and her sister's hands brushing along the great curve of her belly, her magic forgotten. 

"Coward," Osira said as Opala realized that time had resumed and she had left herself exposed to her. 

"All that hot air and here you are, and where's your magic now." 

Osira's hand looped along her bump and Opala stared at her in shock. 

"Let me show you another facet of that creativity, sister." 

Bright red light and the scorching desert wind- 

------

Farah found herself standing with her arms in front of her chest, cum dripping down her legs. She was still breathing heavily from the aftermath of her own time and her own fun while watching Opala strapped down by her sister, leaning forward with her legs spread wide. Osira loomed behind her, a toy taken from her time as a sorceress of the shadowy arts strapped between her legs. Farah was familiar with that strap-on from her own past. 

Opala looked at Osira and instead of the old anger there was a reverence that didn't quite feel right. 

"I'm yoursh empress, fuck meh." 

The Empress knelt between her sister's legs, the strap-on rubbing against her. Opala's toes curled as she hissed in pleasure, "Do it!" 

Osira slid inside of her and lay on top of her as Farah gave her children a warm smile. 

Opala's entire life was these moments, being strapped down and fucked and left to the hope that this time the Empress would let her breed her heir, that she would be worth it. 

-----

They were back in the Palace, Opala looking at her hands and feet as if she expected to be strapped and realizing that the her tied down there had been the real her. 

"How?" 

"I wasn't bluffing, Opa." Osira's response was simple as her hand dipped down from the curve and right above the edge of Opala's pussy. 

"You have all this power you've learned." 

Her fingers drummed and Opala found her breath becoming heavier as she wanted to incline into the touch, to spread her legs and that realization drove a heavy shame through her. 

"What good is it doing you?" 

And then the scorching heat and the howling gale returned with that same light a-

------

Opala found herself seated on the right as Farah was on the left, her belly swollen with a child. 

"Dark Empress," the envoy from the Kingdom of Troy bowed. 

"Cassandra," Osira nodded. 

"I see your wife looks well," the envoy's gaze went to Opala. 

Osira nodded. 

"She is." 

Opala's look to Osira was a devoted one, her hands roaming along her bump. 

"She will give birth to my heir in two months and the security of our dynasty will be marked." 

Cassandra bowed again. 

"Excellent news, Dark Empress. I have come here to bring you news and a request for aid." 

"Aid?" 

"My brother Purusha has found a woman of Hellas that he has taken for his own. This Helen of Sparta is the daughter of the Achaeans' chief God. They have taken offense and among their allies is Memnon of Cush. I ask the aid of Aegyptus, and of warriors from your great armies to our side." 

Osira tapped her fingers against her chin. 

"I could grant that aid." 

Cassandra bowed with a great relief. 

Opala didn't pay attention, her entire world rapt in being on display as her sister's queen, with the hope of her family's future secured and the breach h-

------

They were in the Palace, Osira's hand still poised just above Opala's mound as her children moved visibly within her and she felt that awareness. 

"Want more demonstrations?" 

Osira's tone was cold. 

Opala shook her head frenetically. 

"And so you know," as she looked around the Palace, "what they saw," as she flexed her power over perception with a slight demonstration to speak the unfiltered truth, "did not include my seduction of my father but it did include all else." 

She withdrew her hand and Opala's went to her mouth with mortification when she made a disappointed whimper that Osira's hands hadn't gone lower as the Palace laughed. 

"So," Osira said as she stepped back. 

"I will offer you this chance, Opala. Yield, and end the feud between us. Swear an oath of loyalty that the Gods will strike you down and feed your soul to the monster at the weighing on the scales to do so, and you know as I do that for our family it is an even more direct oath than most. Surrender," and then her power clouded perception for a moment, "knowing that when in the same kind of situation and mentality that led me to the embrace of magic and treason that you were incapable of success in either. You always claimed yourself the good sister and me the evil one. When you faced adversity, did you remain good?" 

Opala flushed and went to her knees. 

"Well?" 

Her children moved within her and her fingers clenched into fists. 

"I yield, and I will swear the oath." 

The words tasted like ashes in her mouth as the Queen Mother gave them both a warm smile and one of genuine relief. 

She spoke the oath on her knees as Osira ritually held her hair and raised  a khopesh in imitation of the imagery upon the sacred tombs, emphasizing her submission further, but it didn't matter. The deed was done. 

When it was done Osira stepped back and then put her arm around her mother's shoulder. 

"We will talk, Opala," she said with an accent on the disrespect in her tone, "in my office." 

-------

As they sat down Farah hummed contentedly. 

"It's over," she said. 

Osira nodded and Opala did so too with bitterness. 

"It is. No more fighting between us. Now my reign truly begins." 

She sprawled with one of her legs on top of the other. 

"Opala," she patted her mother's belly, "our mother's pregnant again." 

Farah smiled. 

"By Sebastillion, I believe." 

Opala froze and her fingers clenched into fists again. 

"Not that you can care anymore," Osira said as she twirled her fingers. 

"I could remove any memories you ever had of being with or in love with Sebastillion." 

Opala gasped. 

"No," she pleaded. "Don't." 

Osira's grin was razors as her eyes sparkled with malice. 

"But I won't. You'll spend the rest of your life knowing that Sebastillion will devote his love and attention to mother and I, and we will occasionally take pity on you and allow you to be with him again. And as far as Mother's concerned...." 

Her hand dipped lower. 

"I make it official here" and then her hands sparked as light gleamed in the eyes of Farah and Opala, their pupils turning a crimson red. 

"Mother as ever shall be generous with her affections and the gift of her body, and all that goes with it. To everyone and anyone she sees fit to give that gift to." 

Her lips peeled back in that unpleasant grin. 

"Except Opala." 

Her gaze turned to Opala. 

"You shall bear many children as mom and I have, and not a single one of them will ever be human until you learn to love the gift we all share." 

And then she snapped her fingers as light pervaded the room. 

"And we shall all age slowly. Not immortality, for that is a gift due to the Gods and mortals shall not step above their stations, and it is death that is the gift to us all." 

Then she stood up and spread her arms. 

"The game is done, I've won, I've won." 

She went to Opala first and kissed her slowly and deeply, the kiss enshrining in her sister's mind her new attitudes and the reality that she would be forever aware she had been Queen and that so much of what was Osira's now was originally hers, while simultaneously loving and hating Osira at the same time and with equal intensity. 

Then she went to kiss her mother, straddling her. 

Another finger-snap and all the power and the manipulation done in the twenty-one days that had lurked at the shadows at last came due, as Farah would leave her trance a microsecond before Opala did. 

"And now that we are here," she turned. 

"Mother shall take a husband, one that I have prepared for her for some time." 

Both her mother and her sister nodded. 

"And so will you, Opala." Her grin was a malevolent one, the old Osira never truthfully gone, only buried beneath the levels of duty and fidelity to her kingdom and finding her outlets in the treatment of her old allies and enemies alike. 

Speaking of the latter, Osira decided it had been quite some time since she'd left the Namarians to the none too tender mercy of the barracks soldiers. 

Out of all of them Laquadia and Gabrielle had done the most to personally antagonize her and with her family broken to her will at last, it was time to savor the spoils of victory. 

END OF PART I 