Karlo felt the strangely ‘soft’ grip on his throat, but the shock became terror as it clenched tight. He tried to look, only to find himself flung against a wall and held there, kicking, scratching at what should have been an arm. A powerful arm, but an arm.

Instead he felt his fingers pass through a jelly like substance and out the bottom, his eyes popped out of his head with horror, his feet flailed and kicked at the wall.

He looked down, what should have been an ordinary arm, was a turquoise shade of blue that in any other circumstances, he would have found to be beautiful, worse, was the twisted monster smile that spread out to take up most of her face.

Priceless closed her eyes and covered her ears to hide the sight, but kept her jaw closed by biting her lip. ‘I must not give them reason to punish me.’ She ran the thought on a loop and waited for him to meet his end.

“Nua, do it.” Solution uttered. She didn’t have to say it twice, true to her word, Nua drew her knife.

“I give you my trust…” Nua whispered as his gasps began to fade, “and you try to steal from me?”

Karlo was rapidly shaking his head, grabbing hopelessly at a body that he couldn’t grab onto, kicking frantically, he struggled to deny, to speak. He pleaded with desperate eyes for mercy, and found none.

‘Poor damned idiot.’ Nua mentally sighed as she drew her knife. ‘Can’t believe I’ve got to do this. Well Raymond, Solution, Neia, His Majesty… none of them ever shrank from necessity, so I can’t either. Still, he’s so… young.’ Her conscience clawed at her, but it could not keep the knife from coming out of the sheathe.

Kaiji stared at the horrific blade, it bore numerous jagged metal teeth on its edge, flecks of silver sprinkled throughout the dark blade made it glint like stars in the light of the room, and the white hilt could only have been made from solid bone. ‘It’s like… like if someone took the spirit of revenge and gave it to a blacksmith to make into a weapon.’ She swallowed as her mistress approached the boy.

‘Got to be something, got to be something… I… got to be, something…’ She felt her eyes popping out of her head as her owner went to kill the poor deluded fool.

A desperate thought came to her mind. She shouted it out as the knife came down, “He can be useful!” She cried out, and the blade stopped.

“What?” Nua turned her head to look over her shoulder, her ears twitched.

Kaiji prostrated herself and put her forehead to the surface of Nua’s boot as fast as she could bring herself to it. “Mistress… I said he could be useful. He wasn’t going to steal me, I swear… he did… did want me to escape. But… but it wasn’t out of some misguided love or greed. He was repaying a debt!”

Nua and Solution traded a look, and Solution loosened her grip slightly, he sucked in air with a deep, loud, greedy inhale.

But Solution did not set him down.

“Explain how a thief is useful to me? No matter what his reason, a thief is still a thief, come on advisor… ‘advise me’ on how sparing him is in my best interest. How does this benefit my goals?” Nua asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Mistress…” Kaiji raised her head slightly from the floor, “He… well he works here full time, he knows all the other men and women who work here. He and those like him have access to the rooms of every guest, the servants here, they hear everything.”

Nua pulled her knife further away.

“So… what you’re saying then, is that he could make for a useful intelligence source. But why do ‘I’ need an intelligence source?” Nua asked with greater intensity.

Words spilled out like water through a dam freshly broken.“Because you’re raising soldiers, you’re not from here, I know you’re not!”

“I’d remember hearing about you… I’m sure of that.” She said in a hushed voice. “That means you’re going to need a constant source of knowledge, intelligence, on contracts, threats, plans, the internal politics of the great… and he… he could be that source.”

Nua stepped away from the boy, ‘Oh thanks to god, I don’t know if I could have slept at night if I’d killed him.’ She relaxed her body and crouched near Kaiji’s face, the knife relaxed in her hand, she put the tip beneath the chin of the demon-elf and raised her head further, keeping her eyes on Karlo’s face as she did so.

His struggles intensified. ‘Well she was telling the truth at least about that much, this wasn’t a… ‘theft’, she mentally spat the word, ‘but I can’t just let him go either, that intelligence idea isn’t a bad one. And Kaiji seems like perfect… motivation.’

Nua let her cold blue eyes pass from one to the other, then sprang to her feet and stowed the knife back in her sheath. “Solution, release him.” She ordered perfunctorily.

“As you wish, My Lady.” The monster released her hold and her arm returned to its formerly disguised state.

Karlo fell hard to the floor, landing on his ass with his back against the smooth dark wooden wall.

Nua didn’t waste a moment, she came to his right side, leaned forward, grabbed the collar of his tunic, twisted, and pulled him forward.

Karlo was still coughing when she pulled him at an angle towards her, forcing him to lurch with his head beneath her winter gaze.

Nua snarled her words out to him, “You’re mine, boy. You want to repay some debt to her, you do it through ensuring her good service to me. If she fails, you fail. I’ll keep quiet about your stupid talk about stealing from me, but now you owe her another debt, and me one as well.”

Karlo felt his courage fly from his bowels, and several noses wrinkled at the sudden unpleasant odor.

“I… yes. I won’t fail you… Lady Nua.” He stammered out as the shock of his near death caused his body to shake.

“Captain Aiwenor.” Nua corrected him. “Call me that from now on. Oh, and one more small thing.”

He drew his head back against the wall as she released him and reached into her purse. “Serve well, and you won’t just repay her, you’ll pay for her.” Nua added, holding up a platinum coin to emphasize her point.

“Is our ‘understanding’ complete now, boy?” Nua asked as his eyes stared at the coin as it moved back and forth before his eyes, the pupils following more money in one coin than he’d ever seen gathered together at once.

“Yes, Captain Aiwenor. To repay my debts to her, and my… crime, to you, as well as your mercy for it… everything I learn of any worth, will find its way into your hands.” He said, lowering his eyes afterward, and with shaking limbs aquiver with the aftermath of fresh fear from his proximity to death, he managed to prostrate himself in submission.

“Good.” Nua said, and raising her foot, she placed it over his upper back, “I will have you remember that. Now, other than laying the groundwork to steal from me, what are you doing here? I set you to a great many tasks. Are you done already?”

“My- ah, Captain Aiwenor, no, I went to the blacksmith, the mages guild, the alchemists, everything, the only thing I returned for was money for the Headmen you wanted. They require money up front and… I didn’t have enough so…” Karlo paused as another coughing fit hit him.

‘By the stars that took so much out of me… what’s that monster she’s got with her, that’s not a human, not a chance, what have I done? What have I gotten myself into? What has Lady Kaiji gotten herself into…?’ The foot on his back put only the lightest pressure on him, it didn’t need to, the pressure he felt was from its presence, not the weight placed on it, and what that presence meant.

“But I got the order forms! For everything you asked for. I got the names and records of the most powerful adventurers available, ordered kits and armor and weapons and everything!” He rushed the words out desperately, and struggled to get his racing heart to slow down.

The stink of his own excrement was far to close, and mixed with sweat expelled by the same fear that had evacuated his bowels, “I just want to run and hide in a hole… but I can’t…’ He swallowed again as he explained everything that happened, and made to draw out the documents and hold them up without trying to look. The papers in hand made small shuffling noises as his hand made them batter one another with it’s shaking.

Nua snatched them away and removed her foot, then paced away as if she’d forgotten him as she started to review what he’d brought her.

Kaiji watched as her mistress went from nearly ready to kill the boy, to listening to her, to staying her hand, to employing him, all in mere minute’s time or less. ‘Is this… good? I saved his life… I think. But then, she did something Prince Sado never seemed to do. She listened to me, gave me a chance to speak my mind, considered my words, and acted on them in pursuit of her best interests. That’s all good but still… stupid boy…’

Her thoughts didn’t leave her alone, and she was caught between wanting to look at the would be hero turned agent. Her conflict resolved itself by simply prostrating herself in the direction of her mistress and keeping her head facing to the ground and waiting till the woman made to address someone. She heard the sound of a quill scratching on paper as selections were made, and the documents were stacked up next to where the coins rested.

The marks were quick and not at all delayed, ‘Is she hasty, or did she think about it before and is just following through, being decisive? No good way to ask that… not now at least.’ Kaiji wondered, but did not feel the same agonizing hesitancy that she had with her rash young Prince in Komestra.

When her mistress was finished, the response was quick.

“Alright Karlo, take them and the coins you need, and get going. If you need anything more, return, but otherwise I don’t expect to see you till morning.” Nua said with a more peaceful tone than he expected, she stood aside and extended her hand, gesturing to what she’d laid out for him, and he shot to his feet as fast as he could move. He all but ran to the coins and the documents, and as he passed her, Nua added, “Clean yourself up first, you won’t represent me stinking of fear and shit.”

“Yes, Captain Aiwenor.” He mumbled with a ruby red blush as he took what he needed and rushed from her quarters.

Nua pointed to Kaiji, and the demon-elf visibly flinched, “You and I will have words when I get back, but for now…” She looked to her bodyguard, “Solution, mind the stock, I need to wash up before dinner. Anyone tries to take these two, eat them…” She hesitated, “Wait, no, not ‘them’, eat the one who tries to take the stock.”

Solution went from a happy smile, to a false crestfallen face.

“Almost.” She said with a clipped snap of her fingers and a sadistic laugh. “Well done, my student, excellent form with your knife, you need a little work on your follow through but…” She shrugged and made herself laugh again, a laugh Nua managed to fake her way through.

“Priceless… good work on keeping a cool head.” Nua said, and the woman blushed so fully red that even though the top of her head was presented in prostration, the little bit of visible cheeks was clearly aglow.

Acknowledgements followed her instructions, and Nua exited her room.

Her trip to the baths was uneventful, and given the hour, she had it to herself alone. The steam still rose thick in the underground area, and an underwater bench allowed her to sit deep within the hot water. The ripples provided an almost hypnotic pleasure, their constant radiating out from where a little drop fell. The sound of it’s fall, the echo far larger than the drop itself could ever have hoped to be. “Learn to love it, huh?” She said softly, though the emptiness of the chamber and it’s great silence, carried her words to the walls and back to her from every direction, as if instructing her to do just that. ‘How does anyone love this? That poor boy… and, Kaiji… she’s terrified of me. Not that I blame her.’

Nua paused her thinking to dip the wooden bucket under the water, then poured it over her head so that her hair matted against her body, she reached out to take it, and wrapped it around herself the way she used to.

Her eyes shut slowly, and her thoughts carried her far away from where she sat…

The stairs of Raymond’s estate creaked a little, she loved the sound as much as it’s absence, her mutilated ears twitched and despite being severed to half their length, she could hear the voices overhead. ‘That’s the voice of my new owner… I wonder how long it’ll be…’ She reached behind her and touched the ugly scars, then reached up and unbound her hair, letting it fall free, and clutched it around like a blanket. ‘He hasn’t called me to his bed, he hasn’t made me do anything, not even an introductory whipping...but he smells like blood… what’s he waiting for…’

She opened her eyes at a sound outside the door, and was brought back to the present. She lowered herself a little further into the waters, savoring this last moment of privacy before she had to share space with someone else.

‘She’s like me, or like how I was, waiting for the other shoe to drop, nervous, new to the collar, not sure how to act or what will incur my wrath. If only I could…’ She slapped the water and aborted the thought, her furious blow splashed a wave that cascaded droplets everywhere, creating a loud clap like splash that shattered the brief calm. She started breathing hard as anger ripped through her and her fist clenched at the surface of the water, forcing the little puddle that had formed in her palm, to flee the sudden grip and return to the rest.

She calmed the beating pulse and rushing heart and murdered the pity growing in her breast as she forced herself to adopt the mindset she needed before the conversing voices came within. She managed to do so not a moment too soon, mostly, before two men entered and cast off the robes they’d come in.

Seeing her, they traded a glance, and in their eyes she saw a spark of recognition. Nua did not avert her eyes despite their nakedness, she treated it with the easy calm of someone accustomed to moving through the more ‘lascivious’ ranks of higher society. “May we sit?” They asked, gesturing to the bench opposite herself.

Nua gestured with her right hand, keeping her left hand behind her back. “Please.”

As they came closer, she got a better look, one was older, with flecks of gray in his hair and a few extra pounds on a body that must have once been quite fit and strong, though he was clean of scars, he was far more tan than the average noble.

At his left hand… ‘holding’ his left hand, was a man a few years younger, but clearly on the same path. ‘Oh, that, right… the baths here have more than one use.’ She blinked slowly to force herself to respond politely, and before they could invite her participation, she introduced herself.

“Captain Nua Calen Aiwenor.” She said politely, and inclined her head.

The salt and pepper haired man spoke first, “Sir Ergramor, and this is Sir Lias.” He said in a deep voice that made her think ‘commanding officer’.

“Charmed.” She said formally, “Forgive my bluntness, but… it appeared to me that you recognized me when you came in but… forgive me, I don’t believe I recall meeting you, I feel terrible about that, so excuse me if I have introduced myself a second time for having forgotten you.”

He chuckled and shook his head, “No, no, we’ve never met, but you know how these things go. An exotic foreigner shows up who nobody knows, throws gold out like they were coppers, beats fear and obedience into a unit worth of enslaved warriors… well, and the rest.” He raised his hands out of the water enough to do a full arm shrug as he shook his head. “The rumor mill is what it is. Mystery and everything.”

Lias turned green eyes to her, “As my mate here says, it’s a mystery, a far off land nobody knows of, armor and coins nobody has seen, but which are clearly genuine… can I ask, what do you really want, nobody travels across the world on a mere lark?”

Nua laughed a golden laugh, she tilted her head back as she let it out, “You’re a bold one, Sir Lias, you’re a soldier, a knight, I assume?”

“Yes, yes I am.” He said proudly, thrusting his chest out as if daring her to challenge his profession.

Nua rolled her right hand above the water, “Oh no, it was no insult, Sir Lias, I like it when people get right to the point, there’s a time and a place for subtlety and deception, but I’ve never found that there’s any better place for the truth than when naked in the baths. One does ‘bare all’ here, doesn’t one?” She asked with a laugh that caused her breasts to move the waters as they rose and fell with the golden ring of her voice.

The two men opposite her shared in her amusement, and Sir Ergramor nodded enthusiastically. “It’s where I’ve found the… deepest truths to be exposed.”

“So in that spirit, I’ll answer honestly, I want opportunity, I want to excel, I want my god to look upon his servant and say to me, ‘Well done’ and offer me happiness. And for that, I will cut down armies.” For a moment, her face was a mask to them as a billowing of steam was forced aside by the opening and closing of the door, and she was obscured. Nua knew she had only a moment to decide what face to present, and only one would do. The mask she’d seen on the face of the Dark Savior in the Dead City of Wenmark. ‘I will kill you all…’ the words came unbidden to her mind as she recalled the ease with which the Dark Savior had promised elven deliverance by exterminating their captors to the last man. No other mask would do.

And so she twisted her face the same, ‘I can’t do her eyes of terror, but… a little madness will do in a pinch.’ She thought to herself, and her eyes narrowed and shone like gold, her lips turned up equidistant from one another so that their sharp corners were not far from her nose, and her mouth opened enough to bare her teeth.

And that was the face they saw, when the masking steam lazed onward, “That… gentlemen, is what I want. And one more thing.” She said, the expression faded away and her native blue restored, seeming again to be a more or less normal person.

“What’s that?” Sir Lias inquired, leaning forward with interest that bordered on fascination, fascination his mate did not seem to bear, as he leaned back instead.

“Dinner, I’m famished, will you excuse me, gentlemen?” She said, and stood up, casting water droplets abound her again, she inclined her head politely, and walked away, folding her left hand behind her back, and then bringing it to the fore when she passed them and they’d have had to look back to see.

Her ears twitched a bit, a few hushed words were uttered behind her, but the two clearly took more interest in one another after a moment, and by the time she exited the baths, the sound of flesh on flesh in water was all she heard. ‘Never till now, have I left the baths feeling ‘dirty’.’ She thought to herself as she made her way back to her room, keeping her left hand firmly in the pocket of her robe.