Herald of Steel

"..."

As Lady Inayah finished listening to the chilling recount of her friend’s first murder, her throat went parched, and her mouth turned dry as a desert.

She wanted to speak but the words simply wouldn’t come. Her heart felt that cold and icy.

However this reaction was not from shock over what her friend was capable of- the ebony lady had gotten that lesson long, long ago. She was much more stunned at the fact how vicious her friend was from such a young age- long before she met her.

Lady Inayah had always believed the Queen Mother’s mischief began much later- most likely after she had been bullied by the much older and stronger imperial concubines. So it had seemed like a simple case of tit for tat.

But now... it appeared the black noblewoman would need to revise her timeline.

"You... you killed her over a stolen dress?" Lady Inayah finally found her voice after struggling for some time, though it still emerged as little more than a whisper- slow, disbelieving, and heavy with incredulity.

"No," The Queen Mother denied her at once, her tone crisp and unbothered, "I never stole anything. I bought it off her for some food. She was a gift to His Majesty from Lord Nebriz, but he did not like her. So she was left forgotten. I... helped her."

At this point, Seelima strategically paused, giving Lady Inayah time to fill in the blanks. Because everyone knew what happened to a pleasure slave who was forgotten by the mad king.

Then after a while, seeing the black lady still stay silent, the Queen Mother finished with a small shrug of her shoulder, "I only got into His Majesty’s bed because of that dress. So I could never risk him finding out it was not mine. She had to go."

There was an ’age old truth’ wisdom to the tone of her voice.

Now, it was unknown whether Seelima meant to assure or intimidate Lady Inayah with her explanation.

".....:" But whichever it was, in response, Lady Inayah only pursed her lips and clamped her mouth shut with a stony exterior- showing neither joy at Seelima’s success, nor displeasure at the macabre act. It was like she did not even care.

However inside, her heart did feel unnaturally cold- like an extremely chilly northerly wind had swept across it. And as she stared at that faint, almost wistful smile touching the thick, gorgeous lips of her friend, her eyes became dimmed and lidded,

"*Sigh*... I am glad I did not know the real you when we first met, Seeli. I do not think we would have ever gotten along."

Lady Inayah let out this small lampoon with a rueful shake of her head, knowing if she had taken the time to look into the clues of that murder and tried to rigorously connect the dots, she would have certainly thought twice about allying with such a black bellied, ambitious girl.

And perhaps the Queen Mother knew this too, which was why she intentionally showed herself to Lady Inayah as a meek, weak, and submissive girl- a naive, poor street urchin who had absolutely no idea how the world worked and only somehow managed to climb onto Alozmer’s bed by absolute dumb luck.

This led the black noblewoman to develop a false sense of security as she believed she could easily manipulate the foolish, commoner girl like a pliable little puppet. To her, Seelima possessed the king’s favor but was not that smart... i.e. the perfect specimen.

’Perfumed fool’, ’More ambition than skill’, ’A useful whore’.... These were a few of the unkind ways the noble lady initially described her partner in crime.

Words that now Lady Inayah made chuckle to herself in self depreciation, and think perhaps it would have been more accurate to describe herself with.

Similarly, Lady Inayah found it rather amusing in hindsight, how little faith she had had in their alliance lasting any meaningful length of time. Back then, she had sworn to herself that Alozmer would quickly grow bored of his new toy and move on to the next shiny ’thing.’

Once that happened, Seelima would quietly fade back into the obscurity she came from.

Thus at the time, Lady Inayah had only one plan, and it was simple: toss Seelima into Alozmer’s bed and have her whisper whatever script they handed her and extract whatever they could from the mad king before the redhead’s usefulness ran out.

And by doing so, the black noblewoman hoped to keep that hateful man as far away from herself and her daughters as possible. It really spoke to just how deeply she despised the king- spending even a moment in his presence made her feel nauseated.

So from all this, we can clearly see the two girls’ first meeting was far from innocent. Neither saw the other as a friend- only a means to an end.

As for who ultimately came out on top of this game and how accurate those first impressions turned out to be... well, we all know the answer to that.

The Queen Mother was certainly no naïve girl. Rather she was a masterful actor- extremely skilled in the art of manipulation. She wore masks as easily as she changed gowns and could keenly detect how to behave in front of others just as they expected her to. This was how she led many to subconsciously lower their guard, many times to their ultimate doom.

However at the same time, it should also not be assumed that the Queen Mother got this power magically without any practice or effort.

Absolutely not!

She had to pour immense amounts of blood, sweat and soul to perfect this art.

For instance, during their first few years, Seelima would always act subservient to Lady Inayah, both in public and private.

She would address her with reverence whenever they met, pretend to take heed of every word of hers very seriously, and even passionately serve her during those infamous parties whenever the chance presented itself, doing the same when they secretly got intimate in private.

And as proud and ambitious as the Queen Mother was, she was never shy to down and pleasure her ’sponsor’, joyfully licking her sensual places clean and eagerly drinking her sweet nectar whenever presented.

It would not even that unusual to find the red head dedicating a portion of the night just for this- everyday Lady Inayah would sit spread legged on a luxurious central couch while Seelima kneeled in front her, diligently working her tongue into that hot cave, sucking on the beautiful pink pearl and kissing the fruitly bud beneath until she got her mistress to release multiple times.

There were even a couple of times when Lady Inayah took undue advantage of this power imbalance, bullying Seelima into quite a few difficult situations.

For example, once Lady Inayah hosted an ’all girls party’ with three of her noble close friends, and Seelima was made to serve all of them by herself.

Of course, that was extremely hard for the single girl to accomplish.

And whenever she inevitably failed one of her tasks, the others would giggle as they took her to one of many prepared punishments. They might tie her up in various embarrassing postures, letting her totally exposr her pink privates to the whole world. They might spank and pinch her sensitive spots, turning her ass, pussy and breasts bright red and inflamed. Or they might tease her endlessly without letting her release, causing her pristine flower to cry needlessly.

"Ahh... mistress.. No... please... Ahhh.. yes... move your finger faster. Ahh... yes, yes... cumming... cumm... no.. why... please... ahhh...not again... no..."

"Naughty girl! How dare you want to cum before your mistress! Here, put your mouth back in here. Make sure to use your tongue well! Ahhh... yes...not bad...mmm... remember, you need to get all four of us off before we let you cum!"

However no matter what was thrown her way, Seelima ultimately endured it all without a single complaint, playing the part of the loyal servant to Lady Inayah with flawless devotion.

Given all that, it is hard to blame the black noblewoman for letting her guard down. She was a young teenager at the time too, naïve and lacking many of life’s lessons.

While Seelima was completely different. Though she was of a similar age, she came from a world that Lady Inayah would have easily described as hell. And so she had truly learnt the meaning of the word struggle.

The Queen Mother knew she had to do anything to keep on living.

Of course, this did not mean the regal lady was completely devoid of any humanity. For instance, when she killed that girl in cold blood, it was not like she did not feel any emotion.

That would have made her a psychopath.

And while Seelima might be a lot of things- ambitious, greedy and even immoral, she was definitely not a psychopath.

She still had a basic sense of right or wrong.... whether she chose to follow that natural inclination or habitually go against it, well that was a matter for discussion another time.

But at the same time, she was certainly much more driven than Lady Inayah. This was perhaps the greatest reason she managed to ultimately get ahead of her.

She one day took a giant leap of faith using that ’go getter’ attitude and boldly asked Alozmer to be conferred the divine ritual. And the madman actually agreed... much to her own surprise!

Needless to say, this caused no little commotion at court.

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