A/N: So I have family over this week and it's been utter chaos. Getting to the computer at all has been something along the lines of a herculean trial. Getting on and actually having the concentration to write for one of my ongoing stories (where I'd have to not say things that directly contradict what I'd already written or make mistakes that would tank the plot) just wasn't happening. So instead I decided to indulge in a long standing fantasy.
It's a two-shot and besides some editing it's done. I'll post the first chapter now and the last probably Monday since the weekend is going to be spent dashing to and from the airport to drop people off and pick other people up.
I would classify this as a dark Cedfia. Everyone is crazy OC but there's nothing non-consensual happening here.
Oh and Sofia is an adult, all grown up, as always!
Disclaimer: We all know who owns them, it ain't me!
.o~O*O~o.
In the end he didn't need the amulet.
Sitting on his throne, looking down at the four pathetic creatures cowering before him, King Cedric felt his power coursing through him. He felt it, alive in his veins, sensed it humming alongside the beat of his heart, watched it dribble off the ends of his fingers and his wand creating a charged cloud of green fog around his feet.
"You'll pay for this Cedric! You sniveling, scheming traitor! No matter what you do to us, the other monarchs, their sorcerers, they'll hunt you down and tear you to pieces!" It was Rolland bellowing hot air in his best 'angry king' voice.
The sorcerer just sneered at his former master.
He had no doubt the man was correct. But never again would he stoop before his supposed betters, cower in fear he was impotent or incapable. He was Cedric the Sensational, and now he was King Cedric the Great, the first sorcerer monarch in history. He had nothing to fear from anyone. But they would have much to fear from him.
Instead of bothering to answer such obvious blustering the new king drank in the sounds of the former royal women weeping, of the former king and his heir trying to console them in desperate whispers. The melody of it was a balm to his battered black soul. They would never belittle him, ridicule him, or ignore him again. No one would!
The door to the throne room opened abruptly and the guards brought in two more figures.
He watched silent and viciously pleased as Baileywick was pushed towards the royal family. Tripping from the force of the momentum he fell at Rolland's feet with a hard smack against the marble floor. But when he heard her cry out, his head snapped back to the doors. An overzealous guard was gripping her arm too tightly even after he'd been explicit in his instructions.
An angry bolt of light shot out of his wand, sizzling through the air to land squarely against the guard's chest, penetrating his breast plate. The man cried out in agony as his insides lit with unbearable heat and his hand released the arm of his prisoner.
"Listen well," Cedric roared out, turning in a semicircle, his purple robes billowing with the force of his movement, his eyes connecting with each of the now quaking guards. "She is not to be harmed! If any of you so much as frighten her your heads will adorn the castle gate!"
"Are you hurt?" He asked, his voice suddenly soft, the entirety of his attention focused on her.
Unlike her family, who'd all been dragged out of their beds at sword point, she was an early riser, dressed and shining like the morning sun.
Her lavender gown with its puffy, short sleeves looked pristine. Her white gold tiara with its amethyst and diamond accents sat atop hair so meticulously brushed it gleamed where it caught the light from the stain glass window, curling perfectly down her back. Her amulet glowed softly, perfectly centered in the dip of her throat.
In eleven years her attire had changed very little, even as she grew from childhood, into adolescence, and finally into womanhood. He knew she cared nothing for the trappings of royalty. That wealth and power were as worthless to her as wings would be to a fish.
They were polar opposites in that regard, yet they had been friends. It was why she stood before him without an array of swords at her throat.
"I'm fine, just…startled." She finally answered him after a long moment of taking in the scene before her.
"Understandable," He answered evenly.
Clearing his throat, Cedric leveled her with what he hoped was an imperious gaze. The power had stopped rolling off him the moment she'd entered the room and he felt its absence acutely. He wanted to appear strong, barely contained, now more than ever.
"Enchancia is mine now." He declared, the sound of his voice harsher than he'd meant it to be. "They cannot be allowed to remain and threaten my rule." He pointed to her family and watched as her gaze darted briefly to them. "I intended to kill them, but I won't start my rule beholden to anyone."
She looked at him questioningly, a slight bit of fear at the edges of her expression. But with the inexplicable wisdom she'd always possessed, she remained utterly still, silent. A sharp contrast to the sounds of weeping and hysterics which her sister let loose a fresh.
"I would clear my debt to you by giving you their lives. I will remove their memories and send them somewhere far from here if that is what you wish."
Again she looked at him with that quizzical quirk of her eyebrow, but this time she spoke.
"You don't owe me anything Mr. Cedric." Her voice was quiet, her eyes downcast. And then she was bending down, kneeling at the foot of the steps which led up to his throne. "But if his majesty is willing to spare my family than I thank you with all my heart."
He wasn't sure what he'd expected, but this quiet acceptance unnerved him. She'd been a fixture in his world for over a decade and in that time he'd known her as a pesty thorn, a precocious interloper, a loving, giving friend, a brilliant and gifted apprentice, and a fierce competitor. There wasn't a wilting, acquiescing, helpless bone in her body. And yet here she knelt.
"I'm sure there is a village far away that could use a baker." He sneered, falling back on the familiarity of callousness only to be shocked when he heard a small laugh in return.
"Perhaps your Majesty could find a place in need of a shoemaker?" She countered, raising her eyes to him even as she remained kneeling.
One of his eyebrows quirked in surprise to see her smiling. It was small and unsure, but definitely there.
"They are my family, majesty, I wouldn't want them to starve."
"Very well," he nodded raising his wand.
Before he could speak the spell which would wipe their memories and send them far, far from Enchancia, Sofia's voice echoed through the room once more.
"What do you intend to do with me?" This time there was a tremble in the sweetness of her soprano and he turned to see real fear paint her face.
He had no idea what exactly she feared. Surely she knew he would never end her! He'd threatened the guards with certain, horrid death for even looking at her threateningly. He'd even found a way to make his ambition reality without stealing her precious amulet. She couldn't fear that.
So then what?
Another possibility struck him and he felt a combination of emotions so intense, so distasteful, it made his stomach turn.
Conquerors took what they pleased…whom they pleased.
Innocent and good as she was, she must know the fate of captured women. And despite her inherent humbleness she wasn't blind. Sofia couldn't help but be aware of how breathtaking she was, how the men around her desired her.
He'd watched them, from the lowliest of stable boys to the most noble of princes. They all lusted for her, dreamed of making her their own.
Did she know he was no better than the lot of them? Had she finally realized his regard for her no longer remained within the proper bounds of friendship and mentorship? Was that why she'd shied away from him these last months?
She must be riddled with disgust and terror to think he would now take what he wanted without regard for her feelings.
But black and evil as he was, twisted and malevolent as his soul had always been, it was the one crime he could never bring himself to commit. To take her, to defile what he'd so secretly worshipped…. He might have her body if he did so, but he'd never have her heart or her soul. And without those it would be a bitter, hollow conquest, agonizing instead of satisfying.
He lusted for power and control, but not over her.
No, there would no doubt be other women perfectly willing to garner the new monarch's good will with their charms. He would have his fill of them…and try to ignore the aching emptiness of it.
"Take what you want, money, jewels, whatever you desire and leave."
Sofia's face lost all color. Her mouth opened and closed several times before she finally found her voice.
"What?" It was barely a squeak.
"I told you, I will be beholden to no one. I have given you your family's life as payment for your many kindnesses to me. Now I give you your freedom in payment for the friendship we shared. I have no intention of ever repeating such acts of benevolence, so take them now child before they expire!"
There was an edge to his voice, which sounded very much like anger. He hoped, despite their many years of closeness, she would mistake it for that and not see it for what it truly was: desperation.
"I don't want to leave." She whispered, her beautiful blue eyes growing wide with some vast emotion.
He felt his gut twist.
"You wish to go with them? To forget…?"
Somehow it was worse to know she would rather remember nothing than that she was out there somewhere, biding her time, planning her revenge against him. Knowing she hated him would be better than knowing he mattered so little she didn't care to remember him at all.
But why should he have expected more? He'd never been important to anyone. She had been his only friend. For her he was merely one among a hundred.
Sofia looked at her family for a brief moment before her eyes fell to the floor.
"No, I don't want to go with them." Her voice was soft again, but it seemed to reverberate with new found strength as it bounced off the marble walls.
Sofia rose, standing to her full height, her chin coming up regally so she could stare at him boldly.
Cedric laughed, a harsh bark somewhere between disdain and acceptance.
"You wish to fight me, little sorceress? To take back what belongs to your family?"
Sofia's face took on a strange expression as her wand materialized in her hand, the very one he'd given her but a year ago for her birthday.
Cedric held out his hand and his too appeared as if out of thin air.
He didn't want to hurt her. He wasn't even sure if he could. But if he were to survive the day, if he were to hold this throne long enough to fight the hoards that would come for him as Rolland predicted, he couldn't let anyone think he was cowed by a girl half his age.
They stood staring at each other for what felt like a small eternity.
Her family, the guards, no one moved as all eyes darted between the usurper king and his former apprentice.
Cedric used the moments to run through his options, to figure out the best way of subduing Sofia without killing her. He racked his mind to find a spell that would make her look as though she were dead, without actually harming her.
They might all loathe him for 'murdering' her, but they would also fear him all the more and he wouldn't have to worry about being slaughtered by his own men once they'd pegged him for a weakling.
Finally, when the silent standoff between them had become almost unbearable she spoke.
"If I am a sorceress, than I have you to thank for that." Her voice was steady, sure as she began to climb the steps to his throne slowly, one by one. "Do you know what I learned during those years you gave me the gift of your magic?"
In answer Cedric remained silent, wand at the ready, the spell he wanted on the tip of his tongue.
When she saw he would make no answer she continued unperturbed.
"I learned that you draw your strength from my devotion." She let that little bit of truth hang in the air for several steps and though he wanted to refute it, he couldn't.
It was a definitude so elemental Cedric had accepted its unsettling reality long ago.
"I make you strong Cedric." She was halfway up the steps now. "So strong having this," her empty hand went up to clasp the amulet around her neck, "no longer mattered to you."
Cedric cursed himself. He had assumed simply because he would never hurt her that she would feel the same. That sentimentality would prevent her from even entertaining the idea. And he now found himself open to an assault by her amulet, unsure if he could win. Which was why he gasped so audibly, along with everyone else, when she ripped the jewel from her neck and tossed it down the steps like so much garbage.
"I make you strong Cedric," she repeated, uncaring of the blood that bloomed from the place where the necklace had torn her skin and trickled down her throat to disappear between the swells of her breasts. "As you do me. A master and his apprentice belong together, not apart."
She pointed her wand at him then, but instead of attacking, her spell ribboned out around him warmly, like an enchanted caress, causing his clothes to shimmer. The color seemed to bleed out of them as they began to change.
When her magic dissipated he was no longer wearing the purple robes and yellow bow that had been practically a uniform for him all the time they'd known each other. Instead he stood all in black. His robe a midnight silk brocade with a train long enough to trail behind him and sleeves that swooped almost to the floor. His vest was gone as was his tie, and his shirt lay open at the throat.
On his head Rolland's crown had disappeared to be replaced by a circlet. Cedric suspected it was black inlaid with rubies. A match to magnificent chain she'd conjured to lie across his shoulders.
"What are you saying?" He asked, his shock causing him to drop the façade of power and surety.
She'd reached the top of the steps now and was a mere foot from him, when she lifted her wand again and pointed it at herself.
Her clothes lit just as his had and when her spell faded her princess attire was gone, replaced by an outfit he would have never dared to imagine her in, not even in his most fevered fantasies.
She too wore black, a high, stiff collared open robe with long, flowing sleeves, encrusted with black gems from neck to foot. The dress she wore under it was made of a gossamer material that clung to her form provocatively till it flared just below her waist. The 'v' shape of the neckline plunged dangerously. The gems that adorned it were more strategic, covering her most intimate areas in clusters and leaving the rest of her visible. A dangerous slit split the middle of the dress exposing her legs and thighs till a nearly indecent height.
Her hair twisted around a circlet which matched his own before cascading free down her back, past her waist now it was left to fall unencumbered by the flair of voluminous petticoats.
She watched his reaction to the splendor she'd conjured, taking in the way his eyes raked over her slowly, heatedly.
"Alone you will be King only for your lifetime and when you die, they'll find James and put him back on the throne. You'll be forgotten within a few generations, as if you'd never existed."
They both turned to her family, still huddled below them, eyes wide as they took in their precious little princess and all she'd just wrought.
She closed the distance between them then, standing so close to him he could feel the warmth from her body and smell the scent of lilacs that always clung to her.
"But together we could begin a dynasty of sorcerer kings and queens to rule Enchancia for the rest of time."
Her words hung between them as he stared, stunned.
Was he dreaming? Had he lost his mind? Could she truly be offering him what he thought she was?
"Why? Why would you want to stay with me? To…be with me?"
Small, soft hands cupped his face, applying the barest of pressure to make him look down. Petite, voluptuous curves molded themselves to his tall, angular frame, and piercing blue eyes, more magnificent than any jewel, real or conjured, captured his gaze.
"Don't you know?"
Years of longing, ruthlessly repressed, blazed through his carefully erected barriers and before he was even aware of their movement Cedric's hands were grabbing for her. One arm went around Sofia's back, the hand holding his wand fusing to the column of her spine, pushing her harder against him. The other dove into the slit of her dress, slipping fast and sure around the curve of her thigh to cup her bottom.
Her hands, still at the sides of his face, pulled with more force and their faces met, a mere millimeter from each other.
Cedric's eyes took in the blush of her cheeks, the way her tongue darted out to wet her lips, the anticipation in her eyes, all while his heart pounded wildly in his chest.
"I never dared hope."
Her lips quirked teasingly.
"You dared to be King." Her tone was challenging and he felt a jolt of arousal shoot through him, followed by a painfully pleasurable tightening in his pants.
"I stick with things I believe are in the realm of possibility." He quipped, a dangerous sneer painting his face. A little of the relationship they'd shared in private peeking out before those who stood silently watching at the edges of their awareness.
She smiled up at him and Cedric could almost believe Sofia was lulling him into a false sense of security. It somehow seemed a more plausible possibility than that this beautiful, innocent girl had been harboring a darkness within her, born of years under his influence, that matched his own.
Sofia melted into their embrace, her arms winding around his neck as her they gazed at one another.
Beyond the world of her arms he heard James calling out, pleading with her not to do as she was doing. He heard Rolland threatening him with death and dismemberment, no matter how long it took, for corrupting his little girl, and he heard Miranda simply weeping.
Cedric tightened the grip of the hand under her dress as the one holding his wand moved to point at her family.
"Promise me you'll only make them forget and send them away!" She whispered, fear staining her voice.
He looked down on her again, his expression turning soft and indulgent.
"My Sofia hasn't disappeared entirely from the dark enchantress I see before me." Something deep inside him loosened and relaxed knowing she hadn't been completely corrupted by him.
"They're my family."
Cedric nodded, understanding.
A wave of his wand and the former royals and their steward fell into a deep sleep. Another and he had taken their memories of Sofia and their life in Enchancia and given them the lives of a humble cobbler and her family. A last flick and they disappeared to the far steps of Rudistan, to a village on the edge of the large desert which separated the southern border of that country from mountains of Wei-Ling.
"They'll wake in what they believe were always their beds, none the wiser. And no one will ever find them to take up their claim to my…our thrones."
"Thank you." She said, burying her head in his chest as her arms squeezed tightly about his neck.
"Will you really stay, Sofia? Or did you have them leave so they wouldn't see you try to kill me?"
Her head shot up then and there was a look of pain in her eyes.
"Do you really think I could ever hurt you? That I could ever use the magic you taught me against you?"
He sighed and let her go, stepping back.
"With all my heart I hope you cannot. But it's somehow easier to accept than that this," he gestured to the outfit she'd made for herself, "is who you really are. I know you too well to believe there is evil festering in your heart, Sofia."
"Why did you take the throne now? You haven't made a serious attempt since I was a child, so tell me."
Looking around he became angry at the eyes that took them in as though they were an engrossing book, the ears that strained to eavesdrop on their every word.
"Leave, all of you." He commanded, slashing his wand through the air.
When the guards were gone and they were alone he backed away from her until he felt the edge of Rolland's throne. Dropping unceremoniously into it he eyed her warily. He'd never realized she known what he was about all these years.
She'd been hiding a wealth of depth from him all this time.
"All these years I tried to let you lead me down the better path, Sofia, I did. I put aside this ambition to become the better me you encouraged. I did become better. And you made me stronger. I haven't embarrassed your father or failed in anything he's asked of me in nearly a decade. But he was going to get rid of me anyway. Replace me. Send me back to my father in disgrace.
I TRIED!" He slammed his fist down onto the arm of the throne, anger coursing through him, causing excess power to run out of him again.
"I tried but it was for naught. He was never going to see me as anything but a failure, a second rate carnival magician. And when I realized it, all your goodness, all your light couldn't keep the hate from eating at my heart. Your precious father has you and only you to thank for his miserable life. I wanted him dead. I only spared him because I lo…!"
He stopped short, expecting to see disappointment and disgust in her eyes, but there was nothing of the sort. He realized, looking at the powerful, darkly seductive woman in front of him, he shouldn't take for granted that he understood anything about her.
Surprising him again, she walked slowly forward, falling to her knees once more between his bent legs. Cedric's breath caught in his throat as her small hands lifted to rest on his thighs, long elegant fingers pressing lightly.
"Two months ago I went looking for a book in Rolland's study. Instead I found the papers that sealed my betrothal."
She stopped for a moment, swallowing thickly before she laughed, a hate filled sound.
"He wanted to marry me to Prince Hugo…or Prince Axel. He didn't bother to pick between them. That he left up to King Garrick. Either one would have been fine as long as he got the alliance and the wealth it would have brought. All those years I loved him as though he were really my father. I tried to fit into his world, to make him proud. And in the end he sold me off without even the curtsey of asking whether I'd like to lie with a man I hated or one I didn't even know." She paused when she saw him close his eyes.
Cedric couldn't bear to look at her while she said it. It brought back to many painful, half remembered dreams in which she was ripped from him. Taken away by some callow, selfish youth to serve Enchancia in his bed and bare his brats.
"When I confronted him he called me an ingrate. Told me it wasn't just my duty to marry one of Garricks' sons, but that I owed it to him for all he'd done for me, and when I tried to explain why I couldn't he only got angrier.
He knew! He'd always known. He just didn't care."
Cedric sat up. Not enough to jostle her from her position or dislodge her hands, but enough that he could lean forward and cup her cheek. They moved together, as though they'd done it a thousand times. Her back bowed as he came forward. Her head falling back so she was looking up into his eyes, her chest thrust forward making contact with his hips as they slid to the edge of the chair. And the hands on his thighs smoothed up to wind around his waist.
"Knew what Sofia?"
She looked at him with eyes that somehow managed to convey desperate hurt and frightening anger in quick succession.
"He knew how much I love you. That's why he was sending you away!"
The fingers that caressed her cheek slid back to tangle roughly in her hair, pulling her head back even more so his eyes could search her face, and his next words were spoken against her lips.
"You left the book of black spells for me to find. I thought it was my mother, but it wasn't. It was you!"
Sofia's eyes crinkled suddenly, an adoring smile lighting her face.
"I knew you could do it on your own. I've always known how powerful you are. You just needed inspiration, direction. I searched for a month for that book, every village charmacy, every carnival magician and fortune teller's tent from here to Caldoun! I found it on the rug of a blind seer in Tangu and I paid for it with every jewel the king had ever given me, save the amulet."
"Why keep the amulet just to throw it away as you did now?"
She smiled at him again and he held his breath as the innocent adoring girl he knew blended with the dark, manipulating sorceress he was just beginning to understand had been living deep within her for some time.
"I kept it in case it was needed. Always have a backup plan. My strategic thinking class at Royal Prep taught me that."
"Sofia this isn't you."
She laughed as her arms tightened around him.
"Are you worried I've been lying to you all these years?" She waited for an answer but he wouldn't give one. "I haven't. I'm still the Sofia you've always known."
"That can't be. The Sofia I know wouldn't forgive me for taking her father's throne, or banishing her family to a god forsaken desert. No less be the mastermind behind the whole thing."
Her face was still trapped in his hand, and so she shut him out the only way she could. She closed her eyes tightly.
"I hid that I knew you'd tried to steal the amulet because I saw you change… and because I love you." They opened again, sincerity shining from their depths. "As for what I'm capable of…. We're all capable of great good and terrible evil. You should know that better than anyone.
I wanted to be good. I tried to be everything everyone expected me to be. I wanted to do all the things a good girl should. Until I realized the price of my desire to please was my soul.
I won't be married to a man I neither love nor even like. I won't be parted from the man I do love to please anyone's ambitions. And as for what I really am, deep within me, free and uninfluenced by others. That I don't know yet.
But I want to find out. I want to find out who I am and I want to do it beside the only person I trust to let me be good or bad, right or wrong as I see fit."
"There's a dark road ahead Sofia. You're father wasn't making idol threats when he said there will be many who rise to try to take Enchancia back from us. You maneuvered events to free us, but are you willing to fight? Are you willing to kill to keep that freedom?"
"I will do anything I have to do to be free, to be with you Cedric."
He could resist no more. Slanting his mouth down against hers he ravaged every part of their softness, invading her lips with his tongue, taking what he'd dreamed of for so long.
She was even sweeter than he'd expected, submitting guilessly, pressing into him eagerly before surprising him by taking the lead. Raising up on her knees she changed the angle of her head, deepening their kiss, moaning into his mouth as her hands pulled at the hem of his shirt, desperate to find skin beneath his layers.
He pulled back only a moment, to suck in air, before diving back for another addictive taste of her. And then another and another, and between the heated explorations he swore to her.
"I love you, Sofia. I love you and I will fight beside you. If we live and conqueror, or fail and die, I will go where you lead."