White Tower Saga

Chapter 8 –

I was lying in a bed, the covers and pillows dyed in the colors of the spring forest. Even if I didn’t know who’s room it was from the surroundings, I would have been able to tell. The bed smelled of sweet flowers, vanilla and raw sensuality. It smelled like her... ‘her’ being the coquette in green who now haunted my dreams. I hugged one of the plush pillows to my body, feeling the warm pressure along my contours. If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend it was someone who would drive away my loneliness.

I sighed at my foolish feelings, yet they persisted. I opened my eyes and looked at the down-filled sack, feeling empty as sin. I shoved it away and slowly rolled out of bed, the Power-wrought torches in the room sensed my movement and smoldered to a low orange. My toes sunk into the carpet as I padded across the room. I was definitely alone, so I took in my surroundings with absent curiosity.

There was a cup of Domani tea on the table which sat between two chairs, where we conducted our lessons. A quick touch told me it was room temperature… she hadn’t been here in a while. Quickly becoming restless, I walked over to her desk. There were stacks of papers, and my cursory glances told me they were mostly in languages I didn’t know. I felt guilty looking through her things, but I needed something to distract me. Half buried under one stack was a metallic form, and I drew it out of the mess. I held a fine golden chain, the individual links so thin they were nearly a mesh… and attached was a beautiful inset emerald, cut to be multifaceted with eight edges meeting at a square at the outer face. Cased in gold and surrounded by smaller stones… I held it tenderly in unrepentant awe. It was colder than ice to the touch, almost painfully so, and the traces of water in very air around it seemed to turn to frost. With my newfound treasure in hand, I lay back in Rena’s massive, warm bed, holding it by the top of the chain and watching it swing lazily back and forth... this bauble of wonder had me so enraptured I forgot my woes. Though I longed to wear it, there was no doubt that this jewel was Power wrought. The unnatural temperature aside, it simply felt alive in my hand. It was probably dangerous but...

On a whim, I clasped it around my neck. At once, my entire body spasmed and jerked, and I clutched at my heart. For a moment, it had felt as though all the blood in my body was sucked from my veins and siphoned into the jewel, leaving only a crushing pressure under my skin. An excruciating experience, yet I didn’t even have time to cry out before the pain had ceased. I fell back upon the soft covers with a soft whimper, stunned. It felt as though I had just been tested, and found acceptable. The icy weight on my chest was now warm, sending gentle crests of heat through my bosom as it lay upon me. My finger traced the edge of the jewel carefully. I felt the Power on the edge of my mind… there for me to take if I wanted it. It had never felt so close like this… I sighed easily and relaxed as I embraced the Source. At once, all my senses were amplified a hundredfold. Time itself dilated, as I could feel the pouring warmth in the air from the heated pipes in the walls, the fuzzy blanket beneath me against my legs and neck, the texture of my bangs lying gently against my forehead. The texture of my dress rubbed against my sensitive skin all across my body, as though an invisible lover’s hands were caressing my every part at once. Excruciating desire flooded me, an overwhelming need for contact with someone. In a daze, I looked about the room, though I knew it was devoid of life. I felt the mental barriers I had erected only a short time ago, shielding myself from my own torrid cravings during the test, collapse before the warmth pouring from my chest through me. I cupped myself through the thin material of the Accepted dress, caressing. My breathing became ragged, breaths coming short and quick. My one hand slipped under the fabric, feeling the slick moisture of my arousal… I was losing my mind. I raised myself off the bed to scoop the skirt entirely from under me, leaving it laying on my torso, feeling my world narrow to only my pleasure. A pair of fingers spread my lips as the fingers of my other hand indulged my needs. The emerald throbbed rapid red waves throughout me in counterpoint to my fluttering heartbeat, a tumult of wracking spasms washing over me. This wasn’t like anything I had experienced… there was no evolution to my pleasure… no anticipation, no foreplay, no climax, no reprieve… only unrelenting, mind crushing ecstasy. My fingers were feverish in their movements, desperately seeking a release which would not come.

Footsteps coming down the hallway echoed in my enhanced perception. Fear tore through me then, terror probably the only emotion capable of restoring an iota of sanity to my psyche. Through a crimson haze, I agonized over being caught. I tore my dress back down over my lower half just as the door opened, Rena Sedai stepping through.

“So… you’re awake. Good to see. Congratulations, by the way.” I was terribly lightheaded, chest heaving, struggling for breath. My face was covered with a light sheen of sweat, deeply blushed with exertion. I sucked in a breath and let it out in a vein attempt of collecting myself. The jewel on my chest still throbbed with painfully repressed desire, and I glowed strongly with the Power. I managed a quiet, perfunctory greeting, a smile on my face. She sat at the side of the bed, leaning over me, brushing the back of her hand from my cheek down to the gem nestled between my breasts. I shivered at her touch, shaking with desire. “Didn’t I tell you not to hold the Power while you were like this?” She clucked her tongue at me. “This isn’t yours, you know…” Her fingers brushed the jewel.

I felt like my body was on fire, and I couldn’t think. “I’m sorry… just… I found it and…”

A wry smile played over her features… that face that made my heart melt. “Curiosity killed the kitten?”

I certainly didn’t need the enhanced senses granted by the Power to detect the smell of female arousal in the air. Was it just mine? I hated myself for wondering, for letting myself hope. But why was I even trying to hide what was going on? It was idiotic, really. Rena was a far cry from naïve, and I was being wildly unsuccessful in trying to hide something she didn’t disapprove of anyway. Damning the consequences, I spilled out a torrent of words. “I put it on… I mean I know it was yours but I hoped that you wouldn’t mind because I wanted to know what it was… it’s really beautiful… like… like you… and… I wanted it and... I want... you, Rena Sedai. I want…” I trailed off, the horror of what I finally admitted striking me. The vulnerability of confession.

She smiled at me lopsidedly. “I can tell.” Her hand returned to her side, but not before lightly brushing against my hardened nipple, forcing a small gasp from my lips.

I tensely awaited a response that didn’t come. Finally I prodded. “Then you…”

“Release the Power, kitten. Release it, and we can talk.”

I felt chided, so I submitted, shivering at the loss of the Power as I let it finally slip away. I pouted mildly at her, feeling my hands stray under the fabric of my dress of their own accord, before I caught them and pulled them up, clasping my hands over my chest to keep them still. “Sorry for taking your necklace.”

She gently scooted me over and lay down on the bed next to me, looking up at her ceiling. “It’s a sa’angreal, or a device to amplify a woman’s strength in the Power. I’m very impressed that you’re able to wear it without it killing you.”

I snuggled up against her shoulder, feeling her warm skin through the sheer satin, and tried again. “I’m glad that I can be the student you want me to be. I was so afraid… afraid you’d make me go.”

She gently extracted herself from my grasp, moving so that she could look at my face. “Jessara… is this truly the path you wish to walk?”

I frowned at her. “Why... do you disapprove?”

“Not at all. I want you to make sure this is truly what\'s in your heart and not the traces of mindless voracity brought on by sai\'dar.”

I looked at her consideringly. On one hand, she was scholarly and matronly. She had become a guiding figure in the short time I had been here in a way my parents never had. I looked up to her, wanted to emulate her as a child towards a guardian... or possibly a much older sister. She was also my teacher, reinforcing that gap of a generation between us. And yet...

She wore a gown of satin which seemed ready to slide off her frame, hugging her hips and barely traveling far enough down her legs to cover her loins. Her long drapes of hazel hair, normally falling to her waist, instead spilling over her reclined body and pooled on the bed. To lie in a soft bed next to her, drinking in her presence, she inspired a genuine longing in me that I couldn\'t ignore. I clenched my hands together, restraining my instincts to reach out and stroke her creamy skin. Judging by the way she was biting her lip with a girlish smile, she could hadn\'t been ignorant of my pondering and admiration of her body, but contented herself to return my gaze with a coy expression of innocent in those blue eyes.

“My mind is crystal clear, Rena Sedai. My desires remain unchanged.” I refused to let my vocabulary to fall to the baser instincts like the rest of my mind... If I was going to be an Aes Sedai, I better start sounding like one.

She continued to regard me for a few moments in which I remained breathless, then she rolled to her back and looked at the ceiling. “Then you\'ll need be become an Initiate of the Green.”

I looked at her balefully. “But... you said there were no rules against us...”

“Not rules, but regulations.” Her voice sounded mockingly distant.

“I\'ve been here two days. Do you really think I can...”

Again she cut me off. “The first challenge is simple. Learn to share a male with another woman.”

I blinked at her. “No.”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

“Because... it goes against everything I believe in. If I\'m going to be in a relationship with Gar...” I clammed up. Why had his name come to my head unbidden? I gritted my teeth in frustration.

“Well don\'t let me try and dictate your morality. What you do after you become an Initiate is your business. But the conditions of the challenge remain the same. It wouldn\'t be a challenge if it weren\'t difficult.”

“Does it matter with whom?”

“The people you consort with are your own business.”

“How will you know when I do... succeed?”

“I will know. Such things have an effect on people.” She smiled.

I bit my lip so hard I broke the skin, tasting blood. It was so damnably frustrating that she could be so alluring and so close... yet right now she might as well be across an infinite gulf. “I just want...” I felt myself close to tears, my eyes closing and my voice choked. “I just want to be with you.”

I suffered in a private agony behind the privacy of closed eyes. After a stretch of silence, I could feel her close proximity... I could smell her more poignantly, the consuming musky smell of feminine arousal I now knew wasn\'t only from me. My eyes opened to see her beautiful visage taking up everything I could see as she leaned over me. Her moist lips traced the contours of mine, managing to impart a phantom of a kiss without ever truly coming in contact. “You had better try your best, then.”