The weary travelers hear music drifting through the forest they stumble towards sound until the forest opens up into a wide clearing well-lit by moonlight. The stream broadened out, forming a bright pool.

The five of us stood frozen for a moment. The slow rippling of the pool reflected onto the fair form of Felurian. Naked in the moonlight, she sang:

cae-lanion luhial

di mari felanua

kreata tu ciar

tu alaran di.

dirella. amauen.

loesi an delian

tu nia vor ruhlan

Felurian thae.

The sound of her voice was strange. It was soft and gentle, far too quiet for us to hear across the entire length of the clearing. Far too faint for us to hear over the sound of moving water and stirring leaves. Despite this, I could hear it. Her words were clear and sweet as the rising and falling notes of a distant flute. It reminded me of something I could not press my finger to.

I did not understand a word of it save the name in the final line. Nevertheless I felt the draw of it, inexplicable and insistent. As if an unseen hand had reached into my chest and tried to pull me into the clearing by my heart.

I resisted. I looked away and set one hand against a nearby tree to steady myself.

Behind me I heard Marten murmuring, “No no no,” in a low voice as if he were trying to convince himself. “No no no no no. Not for all the money in the world.”

I looked over my shoulder. The tracker’s eyes were fixed feverishly on the clearing in front of him, but he seemed more afraid than aroused. Tempi stood, surprise plain on his normally impassive face. Dedan stood rigidly to one side, his face drawn while Hespe’s eyes darted back and forth between him and the clearing.

Then Felurian began to sing again. It felt like the promise of a warm hearth on a cold night. It was like a young girl’s smile. I found myself thinking of Losi the cute maid at the last tavern our party had stopped at, the Pennysworth, her red curls like a tumble of fire. I remembered the swell of her breasts and the way her hand had felt running through my hair.

Felurian sang, and I felt the pull of it. It was strong, but not so strong that I couldn’t hold myself back. I looked into the clearing again and saw her, skin silver-white under the evening sky. She bent to dip one hand in the water of the pool, more graceful than a dancer.

A sudden clarity of thought came over me. What was I afraid of? A faerie story? There was magic here, real magic. What’s more, it was a magic of singing. If I missed this opportunity I would never forgive myself.

I looked back again at my companions. Marten was shaking visibly. Tempi was backing slowly away. Dedan’s hands made fists at his sides. Was I going to be like them, superstitious and afraid? No. Never. I was of the Arcanum the university where mastery of magic was expected.What could this fay have that could possibly hurt me.

I felt wild laughter boil up in me. “I will meet you at the Pennysworth in three days’ time,” I said, and stepped into the clearing.

I felt Felurian’s pull more strongly now. Her skin was bright in the moonlight. Her long hair fell like a shadow all around her.

“Sod this,” I heard Dedan say behind me. “If he’s going, then I’m g—” There was a short scuffle ending with the sound of something hitting the ground. I glanced behind me and saw him facedown on the low grass. Hespe had her knee on the small of his back and one of his arms pulled up tight behind him. He was struggling weakly and cursing strongly.

Tempi watched them impassively, as if scoring a wrestling bout. Marten was gesturing frantically in my direction. “Kid,” he hissed urgently. “Get back here! Kid! Come back!”

I turned back to the stream. Felurian was watching me. Even from a hundred feet away, I could see her eyes, dark and curious. Her mouth spread into a wide, dangerous smile. She laughed a wild laugh. It was bright and delighted. It was no human sound.

Then she darted across the clearing, swift as a sparrow, graceful as a deer. I leapt to the chase, and despite the weight of my travelsack and the sword at my hip, I moved so quickly my cloak flared like a flag behind me. Never have I run like that before, and never since. It was the way a child runs, light and quick, without the least fear of falling.

Felurian ahead of me. Into the scrub. I dimly remember trees, the smell of earth, the grey of moonlit stone. She laughs. She dodges, dances, pulls ahead. She waits till I am almost close enough to touch, then skips away. She shines in the light of the moon. There are clutching branches, a spray of water, a warm wind …

And I have hold of her. Her hands are tangled in my hair, pulling me close. Her mouth eager. Her tongue shy and darting. Her breath in my mouth, filling my head. The hot tips of her breasts brush my chest. The smell of her like clover, like musk, like ripe apples fallen to the ground …

And there is no hesitation. No doubt. I know exactly what to do. My hands are on the back of her neck. Brushing her face. Tangled in her hair. Sliding along the smooth length of her thigh. Grabbing her hard by the flank. Circling her narrow waist. Lifting her. Laying her down …

And she writhes beneath me, lithe and languorous. Slow and sighing. Her legs around me. Her back arches. Her hot hands clutch my shoulders, my arms, pressing the small of my back I thrust deeply into her the movements assured and confident but my mind hazy like a dream there seems to be no definite sequence of events, one moment I’m on top in charge and looking down on her exquisite figure, her luxurious breast bouncing with each thrust into her inviting my mouth to latch onto those nipples, to flick and lick them my tongue seeming to know her desires better than I knew my own. But she is also astride me. Her movements wild. Her long hair trails across my skin. She tosses her head, trembling and shaking, crying out in a language I do not know. Her sharp nails digging into the flat muscles of my chest. my hands roam over her exploring her body that I already seem to know in exquisite detail yet still experience the thrill of discovery at every feature down to the individual hairs.

And there is music to it. The wordless cries she makes, rising and falling. Her soft lips slightly ajar letting out a soundless whisper of pure ecstasy at every move I make. Her sigh. her hot breath passin over my skin as we combine together. My racing heart. Her motion slows. I clutch her hips in frantic counterpoint. Our rhythm is like a silent song. Like sudden thunder. Like the half-heard thrumming of a distant drum everything stops. All of me arches. I am taut as a lute string. Trembling. Aching. I am tuned too tight, and I am breaking. I don’t even notice her above me eyes closed moth slightly open hips jerking onto me in time to an internal rhythm, gasping for air as waves pleasure pounds through her body. I break a pure moment of clarity as I unload into the soft warmth of the daemons womb. Again and again I shot cum deep inside her pulsing for what seem like an eternity. I don’t remember it stopping I think I eventually blacked out the human body is not made to take such stimulation.

I WOKE WITH SOMETHING BRUSHING at the edges of my memory. I opened my eyes and saw trees stretched against a twilight sky. There were silken pillows all around me, while a few feet away Felurian lay, her naked body loosely splayed in sleep.

She looked smooth and perfect as a sculpture. She sighed in her sleep, and I chided myself for the thought. I knew she was nothing like cold stone. She was warm and supple, the smoothest marble grindstone by comparison.

My hand reached out to touch her, but I stopped myself, not wanting to disturb the perfect scene before me. A distant thought began to nag at me, but I brushed it away like an irritating fly.

Felurian’s lips parted and sighed, making a sound like a dove. I remembered the touch of those lips. I ached, and forced myself to look away from her soft, flower-petal mouth.

Her closed eyelids were patterned like a butterfly’s wings, swept in whorls of deep purple and black with traceries of pale gold that blended to the color of her skin. As her eyes moved gently in sleep, the pattern shifted, as if the butterfly fanned its wings. That sight alone was probably worth the price all men must pay for seeing it. I tore myself away from her face, a face that I could have spent a lifetime studying and still found new features of it to amaze me, and allowed my gaze to travel over the rest of her body down the soft curve of her neck to her supple breast capped in the center with areolas that it took all of my will power to not immediately touch them. Instead I continued on her stomach smooth and beguiling seeming to direct my gaze with its subtle contours. her legs were closed the top leg dropping down in front of the other obscuring both that leg and allowing only the small amount of hair to hint at the treasure that lay between her legs.

I ate her with my eyes, knowing all the songs and stories I had heard were nothing. She is what men dream of. All the places I have been, all the women I have seen, I have not met her equal.

Something in my mind screamed at me, but I was bemused by the motion of her eyes beneath her lids, the shape her mouth made, as if she would kiss me even while she slept. I swatted the thought away again, irritated.

I was going to go mad, or die.

The idea finally fought its way through to my conscious mind, and I felt every hair on my body stand suddenly on end. I had a moment of perfect, clear lucidity that resembled coming up for air and quickly closed my eyes, trying to lower myself into the Heart of Stone, a state of consciousnesses where emotions do not cloud the mind.

It didn’t come. For the first time in my life, that cool taciturn state escaped me. Behind my eyes, Felurian distracted me. The sweet breath. The soft breast. The urgent half-despairing sighs that slipped through hungry, petal-tender lips….

Stone. I kept my eyes closed and wrapped the calm rationality of Heart of Stone around me like a mantle before I dared even think of her again.

What did I know? I brought to mind a hundred stories of Felurian and plucked out the recurring themes. Felurian was beautiful. She charmed mortal men. They followed her into the Fae and died in her embrace.

How did they die? It was fairly simple to guess: extreme physical stress. Things had been rather rigorous, and the sedentary or frail might not have fared so well as I. Now that I stopped to notice, my entire body felt like a well-wrung rag. My shoulders ached, my knees burned, and my neck bore the sweet bruising of love bites from my right ear, down my chest, and….

My body flushed and I struggled deeper into the Heart of Stone until my pulse slowed and I could force the thought of her from the front of my mind.

I could remember four stories where men had come back from the Fae alive, all of them cracked as the potter’s cobbles. What manner of madness did they exhibit? Obsessive behavior, accidental death due to separation from reality, and wasting away from extreme melancholy. Three died within a span of days. The fourth story told of the man lasting nearly half a year.

But something didn’t make sense. Admittedly, Felurian was lovely. Skilled? Without a doubt. But to the extent that every man died or went insane? No. It simply wasn’t likely.

I don’t mean to belittle the experience. I don’t doubt for a second that it had, quite naturally, deprived men of their faculties in the past. I, however, knew myself to be quite sane.

I briefly entertained the notion that I was insane and didn’t know it. Then I considered the possibility that I had always been insane, acknowledged it as more likely than the former, then pushed both thoughts from my mind.

Eyes still closed, I lay there, enjoying a quiet languor of a sort I’d never felt before. I savored the moment, then opened my eyes and prepared to make my escape.

I looked around the pavilion at silken draperies and scattered cushions. These were only ornaments for Felurian. She lay in the middle of it all, all rounded hip and slender leg and lithe muscle shifting underneath her skin.

She was watching me.

If she was beautiful at rest she was doubly so awake. Asleep she was a painting of a fire. Awake she was the fire itself.

It may seem strange to you that at this point I felt fear. It may seem strange that only an arm’s length from the most attractive woman in the world, I was suddenly reminded of my own mortality.

She smiled like a knife in velvet and stretched like a cat in the sun.

Her body was built to stretch, the arch of her back, the smooth expanse of her belly going taut. The round fullness of her breasts was lifted by the motion of her arms, and suddenly I felt like a stag in rut. My body reacted to her, and I felt as if someone were hammering at the cool impassivity of Heart of Stone with a hot poker. My control slipped for a moment, and a less disciplined piece of my mind started composing a song to her.

I couldn’t spare the attention to rein that piece of myself back in. So I focused on staying safe in the Heart of Stone, ignoring both her body and that nattering part of my mind forming rhyming couplets somewhere in the back of my head.

It wasn’t the easiest thing to do. If not for the training I’d received at the University, I would have been a broken, pitiful thing, only able to concentrate on my own captivation.

Felurian slowly relaxed out of her stretch and looked at me with ancient eyes. Eyes unlike anything I had ever seen. They were a striking color …

The summer dusk was in her eyes

… a sort of twilight blue. They were fascinating. In fact …

With lids of winged butterflies

… there wasn’t any white to them at all….

Her lips the shade of sunset skies

I clenched my jaw, split that chattering piece of myself away, and walled it off in a distant corner of my mind, letting it sing to itself.

Felurian tilted her head to one side. Her eyes were as intent and expressionless as a bird’s. “why are you so quiet, flame lover? have I quenched you?”

Her voice was odd to my ear. It had no rough edges to it at all. It was all quiet smoothness, like a piece of perfectly polished glass. Despite its odd softness, Felurian’s voice ran down my spine, making me feel like a cat that’s just been stroked down to the tip of its tail.

I retreated further into the Heart of Stone, felt it cool and reassuring around me. However, while the majority of my attention was focused on self-control, the small, mad, lyric part of my mind leapt to the fore and said: “Never quenched. Though I am doused in you, I burn. The motion of your turning head is like a song. Is like a spark. Is like a breath that billows me and fans to flame a fire that cannot help but spread and roar your name.”

Felurian’s face lit up. “a poet! I should have known you for a poet by how your body moved.”

The gentle hush of her voice caught me unprepared again. It wasn’t that her words were breathy, or husky, or sultry. It was nothing so tawdry or affected as that. But when she spoke, I couldn’t help but be aware of the fact that her breath was pressed from her breast, past the soft sweetness of her throat, then shaped by the careful play of lips and teeth and tongue.

She came closer, moving on her hands and knees through the pillows. “you looked like a poet, fiery and fair.” Her voice was no louder than a breath as she cupped my face with her hands. “poets are gentler. they say nice things.”

There was only one person I’d ever heard whose voice was similar to this. Elodin a master at the university. On rare occasions his voice would fill the air as if the world itself were listening.

Felurian’s voice was not resonant. It did not fill the forest glade. Hers was the hush before a sudden summer storm. It was soft as a brushing feather. It made my heart step sideways in my chest.

Speaking thus, when she called me a poet, it did not raise my hackles or make me grit my teeth. From her, it sounded like the sweetest thing a man was ever called. Such was the power of her voice.

Felurian brushed her fingertips across my lips. “poet kisses are best. you kiss me like a candle flame.” She brought one of her hands back to touch her mouth, her eyes bright at the memory.

I took her hand and pressed it tenderly. My hands have always seemed graceful, but next to hers, they looked brutish and crude. I breathed against her palm as I spoke. “Your kisses are like sunlight on my lips.”

She lowered her eyes, butterfly wings dancing. I felt my mindless need for her slacken and began to understand. This was magic, but nothing like what I knew. Not sympathy or sygaldry. Felurian made men mad with desire the same way I gave off body heat. It was natural for her, but she could control it.

Her gaze wandered over my tangle of clothes and belongings strewn messily at one corner of the glade. They looked oddly out of place amid the silks and soft colors. I saw her eyes settle on my lute case. She froze.

“is my flame a sweet poet? does he sing?” Her voice trembled and I could feel a tenseness in her body as she waited for an answer. She looked back at me. I smiled.

Felurian scampered off and brought back my lute case like a child with a new toy. As I took it, I saw her eyes were wide and … wet?

I looked into her eyes, and in a flash of understanding I realized what her life must be like. A thousand years old, and lonely from time to time. If she wanted companionship she had to seduce and lure. And for what? An evening of company? An hour? How long could an average man last before his will broke and he became as mindless as a fawning dog? Not long.

And who would she meet in the forest? Farmers and hunters? What entertainment could they provide, slaved to her passions? I felt a moment of pity for her. I know what loneliness is like.

I took the lute from its case and began to tune it. I struck an experimental chord and carefully tuned it again. What to play for the most beautiful woman in the world?

It wasn’t hard to decide, actually. My father had taught me to judge an audience. I struck up “Sisters Flin.” If you’ve never heard of it, I’m not surprised. It’s a bright and lively song about two sisters gossiping while they argue over the price of butter.

Most people want to hear stories of legendary adventure and romance. But what do you play for someone out of legend? What do you sing for a woman who has been the object of romance for a mortal age? You play her songs of ordinary people. So I hoped.

She clapped delightedly at the end of it. “more! more?” She smiled hopefully, cocking her head to make it a request. Her eyes were wide and eager and adoring.

I played her “Larm and His Alepot.” I played her “Blacksmith’s Daughters.” I played her a ridiculous song about a priest chasing a cow that I’d written when I was ten and never even named.

Felurian laughed and applauded. She covered her mouth in shock and her eyes in embarrassment. The more I played, the more she reminded me of a young country wife attending her first fair, full of pure joy, face shining with innocent delight, eyes wide in amazement at everything she sees.

And lovely, of course. I concentrated on my fingering so as not to think about it.

After each song she rewarded me with a kiss that made it difficult to decide what to play next. Not that I minded horribly. I’d come to realize rather quickly that I preferred kisses to coins.

I played her “Tinker Tanner.” Let me tell you, the image of Felurian, her quiet, fluting voice singing the chorus of my favorite drinking song is something that will never, never leave me. Not until I die.

All the while I felt the charm she had on me slacken, bit by bit. It gave me room to breathe. I relaxed and let myself slide a little farther out of the Heart of Stone. Dispassionate calm can be a useful frame of mind, but it does not make for a compelling performance.

I played for hours, and by the end of it I felt like myself again. By which I mean I could look at Felurian with no more reaction than you might normally feel, looking at the most beautiful woman in the world.

I can still remember her, sitting naked among the cushions, twilight-colored butterflies dancing in the air between us. I wouldn’t have been alive had I not been aroused. But my mind seemed to be my own again, and I was grateful for that.

She made a disappointed noise of protest as I set the lute back into its case. “are you weary?” she asked with a hint of a smile. “I would not have tired you, sweet poet, had I known.”

I gave my best apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, but it seems to be getting late.” Actually, the sky still showed the same purple hint of twilight it had since I first woke, but I pushed on. “I’ll need to be moving quickly if I’m to meet …”

My mind went numb as quickly as if I’d been struck a blow to the back of my head. I felt the passion, fierce and insatiable. I felt the need to have her, to crush her body to mine, to taste the savage sweetness of her mouth.

Only because of my arcane training did I hold onto any concept of my own identity at all. Even so, I only held it with my barest fingertips.

Felurian sat cross-legged on the cushions across from me, her face angry and terrible, her eyes cold and hard as distant stars. With a deliberate calm she brushed a slowly fanning butterfly from her shoulder. There was such a weight of fury in her simple gesture that my stomach clenched and I realized this fact:

No one ever left Felurian. Ever. She kept men until their bodies and minds broke beneath the strain of loving her. She kept them until she tired of them, and when she sent them away it was the leaving that drove men mad.

I was powerless. I was a novelty. I was a toy, favorite because it was newest. It might be a long while before she tired of me, but the time would come. And when she finally set me free my mind would tear itself apart with wanting her.

AS I SAT AMONG the silks with my control slipping away, I felt a wave of cold sweat sweep over my body. I clenched my jaw and felt a small anger flare up. Over the course of my life my mind has been the only thing I’ve always been able to rely on, the only thing that has always been entirely mine.

I could feel my resolve melting as my natural desires were replaced by some animal thing unable to think beyond its own lust.

The part of me that was still Kvothe raged, but I felt my body respond to her presence. With a horrible fascination I felt myself crawl through the cushions toward her. One arm found her slender waist, and I bent to kiss her with a terrible hunger.

I howled inside my own mind. I have been beaten and whipped, starved and stabbed. But my mind is my own, no matter what becomes of this body or the world around. I threw myself against the bars of an intangible cage made of moonlight and desire.

And, somehow, I held myself away from her. My breath tore out of my throat as if racing to escape.

Felurian reclined on the cushions, her head tilted up toward me. Her lips were pale and perfect. Her eyes half-lidded and hungry.

I forced myself to look away from her face, but there was nowhere safe to look. Her throat was smooth and delicate, trembling with her rapid pulse. One breast stood round and full, while the other angled slightly to one side, following the downward slope of her body. They rose and fell with her breath, moving gently, making candle-cast shadows on her skin. I glimpsed the perfect whiteness of her teeth behind the pale pink of her parted lips….

I closed my eyes, but somehow that only made it worse. The heat of her body was like standing near a fire. The skin of her waist was soft beneath my hand. She moved beneath me, and her breast brushed softly against my chest. I felt her breath against my neck. I shivered and began to sweat.

I opened my eyes again and saw her staring at me. Her expression was innocent, almost hurt, as if she couldn’t understand being refused. I nursed my small flame of anger. No one did this to me. No one. I held myself away from her. A slight line of a frown touched her forehead, as if she were annoyed, or angry, or concentrating.

Felurian reached up to touch my face, her eyes intent as if trying to read something written deep inside me. I tried to pull back, remembering her touch, but my body simply shook. Beads of sweat fell from my skin to patter gently on the silk cushions and the flat plane of her stomach below.

She touched my cheek softly. Softly, I bent to kiss her, and something broke in my mind.

I felt the snap as four years of my life slid away. Suddenly I was back on the streets of Tarbean. Three boys, bigger than me with greasy hair and piggish eyes had dragged me from the broken crate where I’d been sleeping. Two of them held me down, pinning my arms. I lay in a stagnant puddle that was bitterly cold. It was early in the morning and the stars were out.

One of them had his hand over my mouth. It didn’t matter. I had been in the city for months. I knew better than to yell for help. At best no one would come. At worst someone would, and then there would be more of them.

Two of them held me down. The third cut my clothes off my body. He cut me. They told me what they were going to do. Their breath was horribly warm against my face. They laughed.

There in Tarbean, half-naked and helpless, I felt something well up inside me. I bit two fingers off the hand over my mouth. I heard a scream and swearing as one of them staggered away. I strained and strained against the one who was still on top of me. I heard my own arm break, and his grip loosened. I started to howl.

I threw him off. Still screaming I stood, my clothes hanging in rags around me. I knocked one of them to the ground. My scrabbling hand found a loose cobblestone and I used it to break one of his legs. I remember the noise it made. I flailed until his arms were broken, then I broke his head.

When I looked up, I saw the one who had cut me was gone. The third huddled against a wall. He clutched his bloody hand to his chest. His eyes were white and wild. Then I heard footsteps approaching, and I dropped the stone and ran and ran and ran….

Suddenly, years later, I was that feral boy again. I jerked my head back and snarled inside my mind. I felt something deep inside myself. I reached for it.

A tense stillness settled inside of me, the sort of silence that comes before a thunderclap. I felt the air begin to crystallize around me.

I felt cold. Detachedly, I gathered up the pieces of my mind and fit them all together. I was Kvothe the trouper, Edema Ruh born. I was Kvothe the student, Re’lar under Elodin. I was Kvothe the musician. I was Kvothe.

I stood above Felurian.

I felt as if this was the only time in my life I had been fully awake. Everything looked clear and sharp, as if I was seeing with a new set of eyes. As if I wasn’t bothering with my eyes at all, and was looking at the world directly with my mind.

The sleeping mind, some piece of me realized faintly. No longer sleeping, I thought and smiled.

I looked at Felurian, and in that moment I understood her down to the bottoms of her feet. She was of the Fae. She did not worry over right or wrong. She was a creature of pure desire, much like a child. A child does not concern itself with consequence, neither does a sudden storm. Felurian resembled both, and neither. She was ancient and innocent and powerful and proud.

Was this the way Master Elodin saw the world? Was this the magic he spoke of? Not secrets or tricks, but Taborlin the Great magic. Always there, but beyond my seeing until now?

It was beautiful.

I met Felurian’s eyes and the world grew slow and sluggish. I felt as if I had been thrust underwater, as if my breath had been pressed from my body. For that tiny moment I was stunned and numb as if I had been struck by lightning.

The moment passed and things began to move again. But now, looking into Felurian’s twilight eyes, I understood her far beyond the bottoms of her feet. Now I knew her to the marrow of her bones. Her eyes were like four lines of music, clearly penned. My mind was filled with the sudden song of her. I drew a breath and sang it out in four hard notes.

Felurian sat upright. She passed her hand before her eyes and spoke a word as sharp as shattered glass. There was a pain like thunder in my head. Darkness flickered at the edges of my sight. I tasted blood and bitter rue.

The world snapped back into focus, and I caught myself before I fell.

Felurian frowned. Straightened. Stood. Her face intent, she took a step.

Standing, she was not tall or terrible. Her head was barely level with my chin. Her dark hair hung, a sheaf of shadow, straight as a knife until it brushed against her curving hip. She was slight, and pale, and perfect. Never have I seen a face so sweet, a mouth so made for kissing. She was no longer frowning. Not smiling either. Her lips were soft and slightly parted.

She took another step. The simple motion of her moving leg was like a dance, the unexaggerated shifting of her hip entrancing as a fire. The arch of her bare foot said more of sex than anything I’d seen in my young life.

Another step. Her smile was fierce and full. She was as lovely as the moon. Her power hung about her like a mantle. It shook the air. It spread behind her like a pair of vast and unseen wings.

Close enough to touch, I felt her power thrumming in the air. Desire rose around me like the sea in storm. She raised her hand. She touched my chest. I shook.

She met my eyes, and in the twilight written there I saw again the four clear lines of song.

I sang them out. They burst from me like birds into the open air.

Suddenly my mind was clear again. I drew a breath and held her eyes in mine. I sang again, and this time I was full of rage. I shouted out the four hard notes of song. I sang them tight and white and hard as iron. And at the sound of them, I felt her power shake then shatter, leaving nothing in the empty air but ache and anger.

Felurian gave a startled cry and sat so suddenly that it was almost like a fall. She curled her knees toward herself and huddled, watching me with wide and frightened eyes.

Looking around, I saw the wind. Not the way you might see smoke or fog, I saw the ever-changing wind itself. It was familiar as the face of a forgotten friend. I laughed and spread my arms, marveling at its shifting shape.

I cupped my hands and breathed a sigh into the hollow space within. I spoke a name. I moved my hands and wove my breath gossamer-thin. It billowed out, engulfing her, then burst into a silver flame that trapped her tight inside its changing name.

I held her there above the ground. She watched me with an air of fear and disbelief, her dark hair dancing like a second flame inside the first.

I knew then that I could kill her. It would be as simple as throwing a sheet of paper to the wind. But the thought sickened me, and I was reminded of ripping the wings from a butterfly. Killing her would be destroying something strange and wonderful. A world without Felurian was a poorer world. A world I would like a little less. It would be like breaking Illien’s lute. It would be like burning down a library in addition to ending a life.

On the other hand, my safety and sanity were at stake. I believed the world was more interesting with Kvothe in it as well.

But I couldn’t kill her. Not like this. Not wielding my newfound magic like a dissecting knife.

I spoke again, and the wind brought her down among the pillows. I made a tearing motion and the silver flame that once had been my breath became three notes of broken song and went to play among the trees.

I sat. She reclined. We looked each other over for several long minutes. Her eyes flashed from fear to caution to curiosity. I saw myself reflected in her eyes, naked among the cushions.

Then I began to feel a fading. A forgetting. I realized the name of the wind no longer filled my mouth, and when I looked around I saw nothing but empty air. I tried to remain outwardly calm, but as these things left me I felt like a lute whose strings were being cut. My heart clenched with a loss I hadn’t felt since my parents died.

I could see a slight shimmer in the air around Felurian, some shred of her power returning. I ignored it as I struggled frantically to keep some part of what I had learned. But it was like trying to hold a handful of sand. If you have ever dreamed of flying, then come awake, dismayed to realize you had lost the trick of it, you have some inkling how I felt.

Piece by piece it faded until there was nothing left. I felt hollow inside and ached as badly as if I’d discovered my family never loved me. I swallowed against the lump in my throat.

Felurian looked at me curiously. I could still see myself reflected in her eyes. Then even the perfect vision of my sleeping mind began to fade. I looked desperately at the world around me. I tried to memorize the sight of it, unblinking.

Then it was gone.

Felurian looked at me there was no rush of power as I had been expecting no sudden retribution for deifying her. instead she moved towards me slowly, sultry, this time it was her eyes full of desire. I understood. She had never been challenged, I had challenged her and she respected me for it, she wanted me now but didn’t want to force it like she had before see that it had met with resistance she now gave me a choice in the matter. To me this was more enticing than any of her magic.

I moved towards her and met her lip. They’re soft like silk and they entwine with mine her soft darting tongue brushed against my lips pressing gently, I opened them allowing our tongues to meet her taste was exquisite,it was indescribable, think of the taste of twilight and the passion of a bonfire and you may start to understand. we fell back onto the bed and it was like being swallowed by a cloud, I was fully supported but free to move in any way I pleased. I wrapped around her the heat from her skin soaking into me flooding me with intense passion. I left her lips kissing down her neck down to her breasts, spending time on each nipple switching between them listening to her body and responding with firmer or gentler pressure until without warning I left her breasts eliciting a moan of disappointment from her which quickly turned into a purr of pleasure as she realized where I was headed as my kisses trailed past her navel.

As I approached her crotch I diverted instead tasting her thighs and kissing inwards but switching to the other thigh just before I reached the final target I put two fingers either side of her slit pressing in gently. She purred in pleasure, this purring intensified as I moved to rubbing between the inner and outer lips. The purr finally turned into a full moan as my tongue touched her clit. I flicked and rubbed varying the pressure and reducing it to almost nothing any time I thought she was too close to peaking and letting her cool of a tiny bit keeping her hovering jut before the edge of the cliff. I kept my breathing light and regular letting her feel it against her.

Her moans were climbing once again as she started to peak, I backed off slightly letting her think I was denying her satisfaction once again but the suddenly pressed back on moving with determination. her response was dramatic, her moans turning into gasps her legs wrapping round the back of my head as her supple back arched I felt the muscles beneath my hands constrict and her pussy filled with juice that tasted like nectar from heaven I lapped it up greedily my tongue pressing against her sensitive flesh sending shivers through her body.

She glided down beneath me until I was once again face to face with her. She seemed insistent with her kissing, as if she couldn’t get enough as if her desire fro me was too strong to resist. I pressed my erect shaft against her so the tip was pressed against her clit and the rest was enveloped by the outer lips. She ground her hips into me with relentless intensity. a slight shift and suddenly I slid into her her lips enveloping my tip and enveloping it in their tight silky smooth embrace. My tip quested deeper inside of her follow by the rest of my shaft until I was fully buried inside her I pulled back until I was almost completely out then slid smoothly back in I kissed and bit her neck. she wrapped her legs around my legs.

I slowly increased my pace getting the reaction I wanted from her, eyes closed and moaning in pleasure as I looked back down at her body beneath me. She threaded her hands into my hair entwining them then pulling my head back towards hers, our lips once again locking in a passionate embrace, from her kiss it was like we hadn’t kissed in months. I felt myself nearing my peak I sped up pounding into her over and over again until finally I felt the release shudder through my body each wave of gut wrenching pleasure causing my shaft to spew out my juices into her. It kept coming, I felt pure euphoria as I ravished the being beneath me.

This time I did not pass out but pulled out as I eventual stopped cumming, the mixture of our juices slowly dripped our of her pussy, she gave a grin and I saw her abdomen clench as she cupped her hand under her pussy, the juices flowed out and she brought her hand to her mouth drinking it with clear enjoyment. the remainder of the fluids ran down her leg.

Her hand reached down to my shaft that was slightly deflating. As her hand wrapped round it and glided along its length I felt a rush of new vigor. My cock hardened itching once again to be inside her I moved forward and straddled one of her legs pulling the other one over my shoulder and sliding myself into her. this time felt much deeper as I thrust in. she writhed and spasmed in pleasure beneath me. I started to rub her clit with my thumb while the other hand rubbed and massaged her flawless ass. with every thrust she moaned and clenched her pussy tightly around my shaft, so tightly that I could barley pull it out. she started bucking her hips back onto me her moans intensifying as she approach her climax.

It was spectacular to watch this lithe virile creature seeming lose control of her body yet each movement seemed to scream sexuality and desire. with a final pound back onto my cock she quivered grabbing my hands and holding on as her body spasmed uncontrollably. Her pussy was constricting and relaxing with her waves of pleasure milking my cock and I couldn’t hold on any longer exploding into her like a fountain for the second time. as our orgasms combined they seemed to intensify each other building and building. I clutched at her I felt as if I were drowning in ecstasy and the pleasure kept building.

Then there was blackness. soft enveloping satin black that enveloped the world as I drifted down into the sea of ecstasy deeper and deeper into the swirling waves of pleasure.

A soft brushing against my lips. A gentle stroke of my arm. I opened my eyes to see the vision that was Felurian bending over me a slight smile on her face as she brought me back gently from the dark. I had thought it was over. It was really only just beginning.

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