Chapter 100

Mere hours later, Lady Vemlynn and Lady Ayla came into the House of Suns, the congregation place of Light Elves of lesser royal standing, where matters of the realm were discussed and then brought to the king.
The duo passed under hanging golden discs and statues of glowing amber, depicting heroes of sieges past and murals of titanic conflict with the Dark Elves. The voices of bickering Elf lords boomed from behind giant doors, made of marble and latticed with interweaving patterns of light, they were a formidable barrier for any attacker wishing to use brute force.
But the servants of Kromoth had no use for such methods.
While the men raged at each other, undoubtedly screaming over the finer and smaller points of the peace process, the duo ambled their way into the White Gardens, where their expected... shipment... had been delivered.
The White Gardens did not always match their name, at times the light hitting the various ivory plants shone out with such resplendence that the entire oasis was like a rainbow of clashing and vivid luminescence.
Here the ladies to the various lords mingled, courting intrigue and deception among a thousand compliments and a thousand smiles. Princess Hara had invited all of them to the Gardens, assuring them of a special presentation that day. All eagerly awaited for it, but secretly hoped the Princess's gathering would ring hollow, anything to bring her down to their level.
Princess Hara watched from the shadows, her dark eyes glinting like polished mirrors, and met Ayla's gaze with a knowing look.
"In the spirit of peace and change..." said Ayla before the assembled women, "it is my pleasure to present a gift from the Dark Elves." She gestured to Vemlynn and the voluptuous emissary pulled down the silk covering, showcasing rows upon rows of gem encrusted eggs on top of one of the garden's many decorative pedestals.
All the women cooed in delight, and for most it eluded their notice that the light held within the pedestal had dimmed until the stone looked like ordinary marble. The ovoid objects in turn pulsed faintly, motes of unnatural light swirled across their surfaces.
The dark life within sensed light to darken and flesh to inhabit.
"Come come ladies, take one and cherish it forever, a remembrance of this fateful time when we waved farewell to war and embraced..." Ayla handed an egg to the woman closest to her whose tight strung corset pushed her bosom up into heaving swells of soft temptation, "peace."
The rest of the precious eggs were doled out and Vemlynn looked on with vile fervor as the women brought their faces close to their gifts, entranced by their peculiar shine and how they reflected their faces... almost the same as their own, but not, visions of what would be.
Ayla only waited, knowing their downfall was only moments away, so unsuspecting, so unknowing. Just as she was. Her pussy moistened at the remembrance of Vemlynn's treachery. She knew she should have been vengeful with the Dark Elf, but the pleasure of Kromoth had over-ridden any such thought... only the feeling remained, just as it would be with all the assembled noblewomen.
She caught a motion from the corner of her eye. One woman in the back had silently been taken unawares, already slumping down a wall as the glistening beast from the egg hugged her face, pumping relaxants that would let her corruption proceed apace.
Ayla could hear the little sounds she made, struggling to be noticed, her hands twitching faintly, doing their all to make any sort of commotion. She grinned as nothing came to pass, the woman's frenzied breaths a lusty accompaniment to her shuddering; the creature had pumped so much elixir down her throat that it had begun to overflow, runnels of lustrous black stickiness running along the smooth slopes of her breasts and into her milky white cleavage.
Ayla's pointed ears twitched as she picked up more and more women in the crowd gasp and moan from the outer edges of the crowd, collapsing to the ground as the creatures had their way with them. The rest were so inured by the eggs that they could not notice their dwindling companions, their own moment drawing ever nearer as the crowd grew ever smaller.
One woman who Ayla knew to be as Lady Lialla, had enough presence of mind to pull her gaze away from the egg. She saw the shivering and moaning forms of the women all around, many half-naked, their porcelain curves draped in sheens of cosmic black. Her dull eyes widened at the sickening glimpses of writhing shapes just beneath their bellies.
Lialla turned her slack jawed face to Ayla, a string of saliva hanging from the corner of her full lips. "What... what is happening Ayla?"
Ayla's attention was drawn to one woman in the back. When her egg hatched, what emerged was not the bizarre creature she expected... but a slug the size of a cat and as quick as a viper. The thing emerged with a temper, strangling the woman into unconsciousness before slithering between her breasts and biting a hole through her bodice as it burrowed into her belly. Her arms jerked up as its tail wriggled in, a low moan emerging from her throat.
Ayla's eyes fell back on Lialla and she walked down the steps from the pedestal, stopping before the dumbfounded woman. "What is happening, you say?" She drew close to Lialla, close enough for a kiss, their breaths touching each other's lips. Ayla's cold hands settled on Lialla's wrists and pulled them down, making the egg level with her pubic mound. It cracked open with a shadowy hiss "Only the..." A thick and muscular slug rushed from the opening and thrust itself past Lialla's garments, slithering up into her pussy. "Inevitable."
Lialla sighed and slumped forward against Ayla, fingers quivering. Her breath quickened and her eyes rolled back into her head. Ayla felt the woman's legs hump and thighs grind against her own, her body shuddering as a moaning staccato slipped from mouth. Already she could see black veins reaching up Lialla's neck. When she pushed the woman back, her whited out eyes had turned solid jet. Lialla crumpled to the floor and her transformation continued, the rest of the room in various states of conversion, a tangled mass of sweaty limbs and sticky corruption.
Vemlynn watched the scene with unrestrained lust and pride.
The Fall of Alfheim had begun.
***
Queen Eosina sat in her prayer chambers in utter silence. Her face narrowed in concentration. Small eddies of light rose around her, dallying with her long blonde hair as much as they did her breasts, ample but not to the degree of that harlot Vemlynn.
Hers were teardrop shaped handfuls, glowing with the light of her people, not absurd moon like globes to smother one's face in.
She breathed deeply and forced away the thought of the Dark Elf tart.
She focused on what mattered. Something was happening to the Light Elves. She had been able to turn down her husband's advances as of late, still furious over his shameless ogling of Vemlynn's outrageous curves. Outside of his wants for her, he seemed cold... distant... as did her precious daughter.
The last handful of times the good king held court, he was almost blank faced, many of the nobles seemingly in a daze.
She knew she was not as intuitive as High Priestess Rahut in matters of light and divination, but still felt as if she was on the cusp of discovery, the cause of all strangeness cloaked in shadow because it was shadow-
Violent commotion stirred her from her trance. There was the sound of swords clashing from down the hall. And screams. But the screams were not all of terror.
If she strained her ear enough it almost sounded like there was a tinge of excitement in the screams... pleasure, even. Eosina shivered. And then she stood up, grabbing her ceremonial longsword by the door.
It was an ancient thing, never meant for combat, but it was better than nothing.
When she emerged from the chambers and into the hall, it was a scene of utter chaos. Guards lay slaughtered across the carpet, their blood stains streaking the walls. Women, nobles and commoners alike, were either comatose or writhing along the floor, eyes whited out and mouths foaming as dumb animal sounds of pleasure seeped from their throats.
Eosina recognized one serving girl at the very end of the hall. More than that, the serving girl recognized her too, though her face was contorted in some mixture of arousal and fear. The queen ran to the woman's side.
"My queen!" moaned the girl, Eosina noticed one of her hands was down between her legs, rubbing furiously. "You... must..." she arched her back and Eosina noticed black veins pulse along her slim thighs, "stop... Vemlynn... Saphise... trai-ohhhh..." she slumped back down and her legs straightened out, her breathing turning heavy, almost into gasps, "...it's in me... us... calling, to change..." her head rolled to the side, a pleasurable sigh leaving her glistening lips as her eyes closed.
Rage and terror boiled up within Eosina. The poor woman did not have to finish for her to know what was at hand here. She knew Queen Saphise's offer of peace was too good to be true, but ever were her charms too enthralling for common sense to prevail over her husband.
She clutched her blade once more and made her way down to the throne room, where the commotion continued. She ran along coiling red stairs lined with marble balustrades, the white stone stained with the blood of her kin, the resplendent golden armored corpses of palace honor guard sprawled across the steps.
The throne room itself was the very image of chaos. Guardsmen dueled guardsmen, nobles tore at each other like beasts, and upon the silver throne itself, King Aroch ravished some noblewoman. Eosina shuddered as she beheld the corrupted aspect of her beloved, his legs more shadow than not, his eyes as red as molten blood.
The woman's alabaster legs swung high and low to his thrusts, her moans muffled beneath his hand... muffles that soon turned to disturbed gurgling. When her husband removed his hand from her mouth, Eosina saw the tail of a slug slither in between her lips.
Her writhing turned wild once her husband ejaculated, and Eosina saw multiple shadows pass from her twisted soulmate and into his prey. When he pulled away from her, the woman slid right out of the throne, her thighs soaked with her own arousal, the king callously leaving her to shake and twitch along the steps as darkness dimmed her soul.
When he saw Eosina, a smile spread across his face that chilled the queen's very soul. "Welcome to the end, my love..." he said, his voice heavy with the voices of uncountable thousands. He stepped over a shuddering a woman, a slug slipping through her fingers as it burrowed rapidly through her belly button.
Eosina tried to ignore the woman's excited moans as the thing began to convert her. "What have you done!? Why!?"
More of the illumination in the throne room dimmed, flames and pearls of light guttered into pitch darkness.
"I have been chosen, Eosina. Just as I have chosen you..." he paused and drew his sword, eying Eosina's own with a mocking glint, "to be changed. Do not resist."
Eosina fought back her tears. "You are not my husband. Not anymore. I am sorry."
He laughed. "Do not be sorry. Soon... soon there will be nothing apologize for." he paused when he saw a slight glow in Eosina's hand. "What do you think you're doing? I hope you don't think a little flash will stop me."
Teardrops ran down Eosina's cheeks. "You forget, my love. You forgot what you carry in your hand, just as you have forgotten what you are now." Light jumped from her hand and into his sacred sword, old runes igniting with fresh illumination. "A dark shadow with a bright blade."
Eosina closed her fist.
The entire blade caught fire, bathing the king in holy light. Aroch wailed in agony, his shadows fled his flesh, high into the air, but could no more escape fate than his charred bones. Others chosen by Kromoth were vaporized into ash. Even the woman the king had stepped over recoiled at the blast of pure light, the slug inside her fading to nothing before it could execute its vile purpose.
All screams and moans had withdrawn into silence. Ashes clung to the armor and robes of warrior and noble alike.
Eosina, wet eyed and holding back sobs of sadness and fear, lifted the king's blade from his ashes. All around, guardsmen and noble alike breathed a sigh of relief, igniting sconces and casting spells of light upon wherever darkness lingered.
It had been so long since the Light Elves had to master the primordial dark.
The queen addressed the survivors. "We are under assault by the treacherous Queen Saphise of the Night Lands. We need only hold the palace until dawn..." she rose the king's sword high, "and then I will point this into the sun, and bathe the entire kingdom in light, cleansing our peoples of this shadow plague!"
All the elves looked at her solemnly, nodding their approval.
Queen Eosina looked to the guardsman closest to her. "Jethelhred. Captain Ocassaer is dead. You are in command now. See to it that shadows do not gather and the light does not gutter." She smiled. "We will make it to morning if we can manage the small things."
The newly minted captain's eyes brightened. "Yes, my queen."