“Healing potions, three of them.” Nua said and held her hand up.

They found their way to her quickly enough, and she dumped them on the two young girls, and on the Prince himself.

While she waited for them to regain consciousness after their wounds faded away, she glanced up to see how her soldiers were doing. Skeletons stood around idle, and a clever thought occurred to her. “Soldiers, take your rest. Skeletons, pick up the dead bodies and pile them together.”

Her slaves were quick to scramble away from the undead laborers, and stood well back from the half dozen of them that remained after the fight had ended. “Sit.” Nua ordered brusquely, and her slaves obeyed, still staring mistrustfully at the dead that trudged from body to body, taking several at a time, more than any unassisted and unenhanced human could have managed. In short order, the task was done, with the remaining unanimated villagers and bandits piled in a large heap at the center.

Nua then addressed the skeletons again. “Gather all the arrows in the area together and pile them there.” She pointed to a space about twenty feet from where her slaves sat with furrowed brows or frightened faces.

The skeletons however, didn’t care about being disliked or distrusted. They only did as instructed as her soldiers had their rest.

Nua looked over to Solution with a cocky smile, “I promised you a feast, didn’t I, Teacher?”

“You did. It appears you were not understating your intent.” Solution answered passively.

“No, I wasn’t.” Nua replied a bit smugly, before the body of the Prince began to stir.

He rolled onto his back, and found himself looking up into cold blue eyes set within a beautiful elven face.

“You would be Prince Sado, I assume?” Nua asked with a pleasant, toothy smile that was far more friendly than her eyes.

“I am. But… who are you exactly? Another set of bandits hoping to sell me off to the Tlalmok?” He sounded somewhat resigned and looked away with a weary sigh.

“No, actually.” Nua said, drawing out her knife. “Hold still, otherwise this’ll hurt, and if I have to use another healing potion, I’ll be cross.”

Wary of the blade, he lay still as Nua sliced the ropes open, leaving him in only his chains.

“Oh, naked, hmm… you could have said something.” Nua grumbled, stood and took off her cloak. She then flung it over his body with a loud flourish and then sat back down. “Better.” She nodded. “Hard to speak civilly when there’s three eyes looking at me instead of two.” She managed a bit of a laugh, but the Prince did not.

‘Nobody gets my jokes…’ She swore under her breath and shook it off.

“Thank you…” He said sincerely.

Nua shrugged, “I hope you’d do that for any captive or rescue, rather than leer at them.” She said with a more gentle voice than he expected, but gave a small nod implying he would.

Nua’s eyes wavered at his answer, and her pulse quickened a bit as she came to the important part. “Now… let me speak seriously. You were being traded for one hundred lives. That deal is about to come to an end, because of course, Bracer got you. By now they’ve definitely found the wreckage, worked out that you were taken, reported it to the Tlalmok… and had to ransom a hundred, perhaps more, lives to sate that Empire’s anger. I can write up a report when we get back stating what happened, given what kind of man Bracer seemed to be, I’m guessing he already told you, right?”

“Yes.” The Prince said concisely.

“Good, then the good news is, I killed his contact as well. I can explain everything when we return to Pas’en. But that leaves me with something else to consider. Something very important.” Nua lowered her head so that she was closer to him, so that her bright wide blue eyes shone like the moon.

“And that is…?” The Prince asked.

“Just how useful you can be to me. Which leaves ‘you’ with an important question to answer.” Nua placed two fingers over his lips, and answered the question before he could ask it.

“Do you want to see your former subjects be nothing but beasts of burden for the rest of their lives, and Komestra a ruin… or would you rather work for me, oh Prince of Chains?” Nua put on her most charming expression as she spoke, but all Sado did in answer was to stare at her.

“You know, Prince of Chains… it’s very rude to just stare at people when they ask you questions.” Nua said with a hint of annoyance. She folded her arms in front of herself and sat cross legged on the ground.

“How would you change any of that? Who do you work for, what do you want?” He fired off the questions in rapid succession, and free of the ropes, he sat up, wrapped the cloak around himself, and faced her.

“Important questions.” Nua answered, and thought for a moment. “Fine, simply put, I am Captain Nua Calen Aiwenor of the Breakers. I’m a foreign woman from an empire West of the Triumvirate. I’ve settled here because… nothing that I desire can be attained in the West. Here though… there is opportunity.” Nua gave him a savage smile. “You must know that, you’ve seen it yourself, one war lost… and a whole city becomes a land grab. One war lost, and living people become chattel that are convinced that is just their fate. One victory, and everything changes. I intend to win victories, Prince of Chains. And I believe that you can help me to do so. For the sake of your people, who will become ‘my’ people, will you do that?”

“Do I have a choice?” Prince Sado asked sarcastically. “I’m in a slave collar, a golden one, yes, but a collar nonetheless. As I was sent to the Tlalmok, and delivery failed, and they were compensated, legally that makes me ‘unclaimed property’. By rights, Captain Aiwenor, you’re my Mistress.”

Nua’s eyes went alight, “Well that ‘is’ convenient. But I’m not stupid, I know that it is better for you to work with me by choice than begrudgingly. The other Princes might not accept you by yourself ascending the throne of a renewed Komestra. And the Komestrans likely, even bought, wouldn’t be happy accepting a foreign woman as their Prince. It isn’t lost on me that there are only two woman Princes out of the fifty great cities of the east.”

“Are you serious about helping my people?” Prince Sado asked with a deep frown and serious doubt etched on his face in his hard, dark eyes.

“I am. Your people will benefit from what I do. By the way, if it helps, I bought someone you might know. Are you familiar with a demon-elf woman named ‘Kaiji’?” Nua asked with a sly smile as she watched the change come over his face, the almost boyish excitement and the way he had to restrain himself from jumping to his feet.

“Kaiji lives!” He shouted with happiness.

“She does. She’s one of two slaves I bought to personally attend to me when I arrived in Pas’en. It cost me several platinum coins. Oh, that reminds me, as near as I can tell, I seem to be the richest woman in Pas’en, and probably a number of other cities as well. But the point is, I bought her, she belongs to me, and she will be assisting me with my endeavors. If you do the same, I’ll let you meet with her, and work with her again. What do you say, Prince of Chains?” Nua demanded again, more forcefully this time, and on the second asking, she extended her right hand with her palm up.

Sado looked at her for a full minute, then looked down at her waiting hand, then back to her. Finally he answered, “I will give you my submission. I will be the tool… the figurehead you need, to help the people I failed. I am offering my life along with my trust that you mean what you say. Slave or not, I was a Prince, a true Prince before. Even fallen, that means something to me. If you betray your promise, I consider myself absolved of my oath. Do you still want me to make it?”

Nua kept her palm out and said nothing else.

“I hope I don’t regret this, like so much else.” He said sadly, and taking her hand, cradling it his own rough fingers, he lowered his lips to kiss the palm of the giving hand. “I submit myself to Mistress Aiwenor, I will obey you in all things, as the stars have decreed for my fate. You are my mistress, I am your slave.”

“I accept your submission, and as a token of that trust… extend your arms and legs.” She ordered shortly as she drew her knife.

He did, and her blade cut through both in a single slash. The chains fell open with a sound clink, and Nua stood up as she gave her orders. “We’ll have them removed more ‘professionally’ when we get back to Pas’en. For now, at least you can move freely. So go through the ruined homes here, find something you can wear, and then go meet with your people. They think very highly of you. I look forward to seeing why.”

She approached Solution after leaving the Prince of Chains to find clothing, she was looking down at the unconscious Bracer. Nua joined her in her watching, then said, “He mentioned something interesting during the fight, he said he came all this way to escape us. When he wakes up, I’d like to ask him more, let me know, alright, Teacher?”

“Of course, but… can I ‘have’ any of him?” Solution licked her lips.

“Well getting this far cost me an arm and a leg, so… I guess he can pay you with his. Just one though. He’s got to go back mostly intact. And wait until ‘after’ we’ve questioned him, can you wait that long, Teacher?” Nua’s warm and affectionate expression was not lost on her sadistic teacher, who bowed politely to her student.

Solution gave a martyred sigh that was contradicted by her eager expression, to which Nua could only throw up her hands in faux exasperation before she went to check on the twin girls that had been found on the ground near Bracer’s dead horse.

“What about them?” Solution said as she licked her lips again. “Remember what I said about sob stories and burdens?”

Nua thought it over for a moment. ‘They’re a pitiable sight, even compared to the Komestran child slaves. Who knows just how badly he hurt them.’ She noticed the collars around their necks, ‘Are they Komestran? No, probably not out this far this fast. I guess I’ll have to ask them when they wake up.’ That brought her up short. ‘When they wake up? Oh, so you’ve already decided not to give them to Solution, have you?’

‘That’s what it sounds like to me.’ Yersin interjected in her thoughts.

‘Yersin, if you’re going to ask me to give them to you… it’s going to be the same answer.’ Nua replied with some annoyance in her thoughts.

‘What then, will you do with them?’ Yersin asked with a hint of curiosity.

Nua crouched down between the two, and brushed the white hair of one twin aside, her breathing was slow and steady, still asleep. Nua took her knife, and cut open the bag that held her. When it was cut from top to bottom, a faint instinct tugged at the back of Nua’s mind for reasons she wasn’t entirely sure of. With trepidation, she reached down to the limp body, and taking the girl’s small hand in her own, she turned the palm up so that she could see it.

There, only barely visible, even to her keen elven eyes, were the faint beginnings of callouses. Callouses that Nua knew as intimately as a lover’s touch. She put her knife away and laid her right hand beside that of the nameless little girl. Nua’s were thick, hard, ready, and in all the places that would come from the use of a blade. Those of the child at her feet were barely there at all. ‘Probably the result of some twisted game of torment for the girls, I’ll bet he made them fight for each other… or maybe just fight each other. Either way they were done for. But… this one at least, she tried anyway.’ And Nua had her answer.

‘Simple.’ Nua thought, and said out loud, “I will give their souls to the god of justice. I’m going to keep them.”

She stood up from where they lay, and pointed to one of her soldiers. “Go through the ruins here and see if you can find any clothes fit for children their size.” As he rushed to obey, Nua pointed to the elven woman.

“Come here.” She demanded, and the woman did the same, but came to Nua and went to her knees. “You have a daughter, don’t you?”

The woman’s eyes welled up, and she nodded sadly. “Were you a good mother?” Nua demanded. ‘Cruel question, Nua. You’re still angry at her over her religion. To think a mother could just stand idly by as their child… stop being so hard on her.’ Nua ordered herself as the woman tried to answer.

“I… I tried to be, Mistress.” She said with her eyes downcast.

“Good. Then try to be, with these two as well, you’re in charge of them until I say otherwise. Now, what was your name, slave?” Nua said it more harshly than she meant it, and mentally upbraided herself again, but unable to correct herself in their eyes, she went with it.

“Freyjin. That… is what I was named. If this displeases you…” The elven woman bit her lower lip and ceased to speak.

Nua spoke authoritatively in return, her blue eyes narrow with lingering displeasure that she tried desperately to remind herself wasn’t entirely fair, and wasn’t entirely successful in the reminding. “It’s fine, Freyjin,” She thrust her hand down in the direction of the two unconscious girls, “you will treat these two as if they were your child. Fail them, and you’ve failed me.”

“Don’t do that.” Nua added concisely.

“We move in two hours, rest up, eat what you want, then we go break down camp and bring our prize home. When we return, I will have a promise to keep.” She said it cryptically, but it wasn’t hard to know what she meant. Freyjin looked up at her owner with a wild, desperate hope in her eyes.

Nua felt her heart break in two. ‘She’d do anything to see her child again… absolutely anything except the easiest thing of all. Still, I wish… I wish I could just tell her it’ll be alright in the end. I wonder if any of my former owners, the ones who were… kind, sometimes, ever felt like I do now?’ She cursed the question and spun on her heel to walk away, putting the desperate hope at her back, and ignoring the weeping that followed behind her.

‘I suppose I should have a little talk with Yersin about how that went.’ Nua thought, and sat herself down with her back against a ruined home.

She entered Yersin’s little realm of the death loving gem, and found in front of her, a comfortable looking cabin. Outside of it, the trees were dead, the grass was dead, nothing lived about the landscape, but the cabin actually looked cosy, a plume of black smoke came from the chimney, implying he was ‘present’ and she had a sense that she was being ‘invited in’.

She reached out to the small iron like handle, and noticed that… she had a body of her own. And she could see all of it. ‘Yersin… why am I naked? Are you a pervert?’

‘Hey now, you don’t get to walk up to my home naked and then claim ‘I’ am the pervert because ‘you’ forgot to put anything on. You’ll wear whatever you want, it’s not my fault you chose to approach me like an overeager lover.’ Yersin answered from within, and Nua had the grace to blush.

A moment later, she was wearing what she imagined… the clothing she actually wore.

“Better.” She opened the door, and found within a man, he was not exceptionally large, only slightly taller than herself, shirtless, but wearing a comfortable looking red silk robe. He had short, curly, golden hair atop his head, and soft blue eyes that sparkled with happiness. He was standing at a table pouring tea.

‘Welcome to my favorite home, my wielder.’ he said politely and gestured to a simple chair of wood.

‘It’s a nice home you have here.’ Nua said courteously as she tried to cope with the bizarreness of her situation.

‘Thank you, but it isn’t really complete. When you kill more, I’ll have a nice dead lake behind here, a dead forest to the left, and some mountains made of the bones of giant creatures, and a wonderful black sun in the sky.’ Yersin replied formally as he took his seat.

‘Wait, favorite home? Do you have other realms?’ Nua asked with greater curiosity in her thoughts than she intended to give away.

Yersin shook his head, the pale skin of his body seemed not quite white, but like he hadn’t seen the sun in forever.

‘No, but when you use the mana stored up inside here, the things I create disappear. I’ve created other homes, great castles, palaces, things of that nature. Usually whatever I think will make my wielder at home. Luckily for me, this time the tastes of my wielder and myself align… mostly. I’m a simple jewel of death. I love my nature, my realm, my purpose. I don’t require marvelous things. Just a few pieces of furniture, some tea, and a place to roam.’ Yersin’s thoughts sounded quite sincere, the way he held the teapot as he poured, and the presence of a handful of little biscuits, said he’d performed this ritual many times.

‘I see. Well this is… very nice. Still it’s strange that I’m about to drink death formed tea. And while we’re on the subject of strange, why am I still thinking, why can’t I speak? I can hear the crackling of the flames, the sound of the tea filling the cup, and I even heard the creak of the door. But I have no voice?’ Nua inquired with interest and raised an eyebrow to him.

‘This realm has no voices. I don’t entirely understand it myself. But it is what it is. Personally, I think I like it better this way. Now, the little fight out there.’ Yersin sat down after pouring the tea, and both he and Nua picked up their cups at the same moment.

‘Yes, thank you, that little stunt with Bracer was marvelous. Frankly he might have gotten me without your assistance. We made it a two on one fight, forgive my presumption but… we make a good team.’ Nua said pleasantly as she sipped the tea.

‘Agreed. I am disappointed that you don’t plan to give me those two girls, with their lives I might be able to add a little creek nearby.’ Yersin grumbled with some displeasure, but Nua shook her head in sharp denial.

‘This is excellent tea… but it is nowhere near good enough to get me to do that. I believe I’ll have a use for them. But don’t worry, since the Prince appears to be cooperating, you can expect a lot more death to come your way before the end of all this. Just continue to lend me your aid, and we’ll have a fine time together.’ Nua gave her ‘companion’ a charming smile as she set down her cup.

He did the same, and extended his hand. ‘Agreed. Partners, and I can’t wait for the day that your signature… gives me nations.’

Nua stood, and then was gone from his realm.

She looked at the sun overhead, ‘I wonder what that would look like, black. Might be nice.’ She thought to herself, and stretched out, more time had passed than she thought. A few feet away, the young girls were dressed, awake, and crying into the arms of Freyjin. Prince Sado was speaking with his people, who were practically worshipping him with their praise and eagerness to touch him, and Solution was eyeing the pile of bodies impatiently.

“Alright, everybody move! It’ll take us about a week if we take our time about it, and you know what… I’d say you’ve earned a little ease on the journey back. First village we reach, drinks are on your Captain, with one day’s rest to go with it!” Nua shouted out with a broad smile stretching out over her face, and her words were met with cheers and eagerness by those who thought they’d never have a beer again.