Solution tossed the last of the bones into a bin and closed it up. She heard him coming before she saw him. ‘I knew it wouldn’t be long.’ She thought and put on her most twisted smile when she turned to face her visitor.

“Did you miss me that much, Prince of Chains?” She asked with a pleasant sweet smile on her face that quickly became inhuman.

His neutral face did not change when she made her inhumanity obvious, ‘Brave.’ She thought with indifference, though she made a mental note of it as he went down to his knees.

“Help me, Lady Solution.” He said, clasping his hands together in front of himself in an act of supplication.

“Help you what, slave?” Solution pretended ignorance and pulled up a chair, she sat down and crossed one leg over the other, then folded her hands together and sat them over her knee.

Sado’s eyes took on a haunted, distant quality that kept him from meeting the eyes that looked down at him still. “I have seen men beaten before, I have seen torture before. I have ordered both before, it goes with the role of a Prince. However I have never seen what I have seen since the day I met her, and I want… I do not even know how to say this. To understand? To help? To…”

“To make her love you, maybe?” Solution giggled a little.

“No.” Sado said definitively. “She’s beautiful, strong, bold, brave, intelligent…”

“That all sounds like a ‘yes’ to me, slave.” Solution laughed unabashedly until the sound of it made the slave prince blush.

When she stopped, she looked down at him, “You want to mean something to her, slave, then accomplish something for her. You asked to know the ways of a death worshipper like her?” Solution reached to her breast, and to Sado’s dismay, she reached within the flesh and drew from it a book. She cast it toward him, he caught it clumsily and stared down at what had fallen unwittingly in his grip.

“The Black Book of Justice. The will of her god, his guide to pleasing him. Authored for him by the first Black Paladin, the world’s greatest death worshipper. Study that book, and you will begin to understand her.”

Sado looked down at it, then up at Solution after he flipped through a few pages. “I can’t read this language.” He said flatly.

“Then translating it for her might be a start, wouldn’t it, dense Prince.” Solution drizzled the sarcasm out over him thickly enough to make him blush again.

“How am I to do that with nothing to learn by, Lady Solution?” He groused, but held the book with the reverence he believed a sacred text was due.

The monster considered him in quiet contemplation for a moment, then drew from her body another text. She tossed it to his feet. “That is a children’s primer, use it in your free hours to learn her words, then work. The other thing you can do, is this.”

Before Sado could ask what, he saw the thigh of Solution come out, and her foot cracked across his hard head, sending him flying back, bouncing over the floor until he hit the wall with a thud. “I pulled my strike, Prince of Chains, so that I wouldn’t kill you just then. I taught that girl everything. She’s my student, if there’s a better living assassin or knife fighter outside of my home, I can’t think of any. You want to stand beside her? For yourself? For your people? Or just so you no longer have to kneel? Be useful beside her and she’ll see you as more than a pawn in a game you don’t know you’re playing yet.”

Sado brought his hand to his head and rubbed it slowly, ‘That will ache for quite some time.’ He managed to think, and stared emptily up at the ceiling.

“Is that… an offer to teach me?” Sado asked with a smirk he didn’t think she saw.

“Let’s just say that if you want to be more than a pawn, you’ll be very sore and very tired for quite some time, before you even have a chance.” Solution approached and stood over the fallen man, bending at the waist, she flashed a sharp toothed smile down at him, leaving him feeling like a wounded deer a ravenous wolf had come upon by chance.

“I understand. Now… ah why would you… help me, Lady Solution?” He asked without trying to rise from his back.

“Boredom, curiosity, and I get to hurt you a lot, do I need another reason?” The inhuman smile returned, “Now get out, slave, you know when to come see me.”

Sado rose slowly, painfully, and managed to keep the presence of mind to snatch up the children’s primer before he left Solution alone again.

Freyjin bowed her head deeply from down on her knees, snapping her head sharply toward her mistress so that the long blonde hair she had in common with her owner whipped about. ‘In another life, she might have been a sister. A neighbor… now though… an owner? A savior? I don’t know what to even think… but she gives me my baby back from whoever has her… how do I repay that?!’

She was still wondering that when she heard the faint click of her collar being unlocked from behind, her mistress’s feet were below her eyes, and the heavy iron slid off and fell away, into the waiting hands of the slave they had helped to rescue.

For a moment, her throat was bare. “Do you need a moment, Freyjin?” Nua asked with a more gentle voice than she expected. The brutal thrashing returned to her mind for a moment, then vanished under the weight of the announcement of her coming reward.

She reached up and touched her fingers to the parts she had not been able to reach for weeks. The flesh felt soft last time she’d touched it, but the collar that had rubbed her flesh raw before, had left it now calloused and tough. ‘Could a sword cut through my neck now?’ She managed a mocking jest at herself, and lowered her hands. Her head remained bowed and neck bared. ‘For my chi-children.’ She thought quietly, imagining trying to make a living now without that around her neck. ‘Who would hire a free Komestran? Where would I go, how would I feed them… there’s no place for us out there…’ The work available to her if she were not where she now knelt, filled her with dread, the same work she might have come to if the deadly hands coming down to her throat had not pointed at her and said, ‘I will buy that one.’ and now, hope rampaged through her for a better life. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the smooth, softer feel of bronze slipping around her throat. The click at the back told her it was locked, and a fourth bronze was added to the house of Aiwenor.

Nua extended her hand for supplication, and it was with reverence that Freyjin kissed it.

“Now rise, and prepare to work.” Nua stated flatly and went behind her desk as the other two helped their newest addition to her shaky feet.

As their mistress sat, they stood at attention, waiting for instruction. “Ceremony is best when brief, especially when there is work to be done. Now, here are your tasks. Freyjin, you are to head to the common auctions, buy up Komestrans. You are my new Steward, you will be in charge of this house’s affairs. I need butlers, maids, cooks, everything a manor requires. Specialists are better, but if they’re capable of working, they can be trained. Do not deliberately break apart a family if you needn’t. Do you understand?”

“Mistress.” Freyjin bowed deeply.

“Ensure they have the supplies they need, and have proper uniforms made for them. If there’s nothing else, wait at the front door, when I send Kaiji down to you, then you may go.” Nua added, and tapped the desk sharply.

Freyjin whirled on her heel and departed with eager purpose in her mind. ‘I can save hundreds of my people in a day!’

“Priceless, you will go and acquire Freyjin’s daughter and Vargas’s wife, given who they were, they were likely not sold for much. But when you go, go with this to ensure compliance.” Nua said and reaching into her desk drawer, she removed a purple tag and held it aloft.

Priceless stared at it with open eyed wonder, and Nua handed it over to Kaiji. “You should be the one to put that on your property.”

Kaiji took the little oval purple tag, stepped intimately close to her lover, raised the catch, and slipped it neatly into place, after having secured it, she kissed Priceless’s forehead lovingly. “I’m proud of you…” She whispered, and stepped back into place.

“After you’re done buying those two, visit the Lur’gin company offices and tell them that the House of Aiwenor wants the list of specialists they’ve sold in metal working, mining, farming, and more. You’ve had many jobs, you will go through their details and find out which are most useful to me. Don’t forget to cross reference family relations as well. You’ll have a great deal of work ahead of you, don’t disappoint me.” Nua said it with a very firm stare, which Priceless responded to by bending sharply forward.

“Y-Yes, of course! I-I mean no, of course!” She yelped a bit as she spoke, and Nua gestured to the door.

“Go wait with Freyjin.” Nua ordered, and Priceless responded with several rapid bows before she scurried from the room.

“Kaiji, you are now my Majordomo. You will attend to all matters external to the house. Have Onimeus accept delivery of the horses when they arrive, then kill them and have them defleshed, use the meat and sell the hides the soldiers or craftsmen we buy don’t have a use for. He should then greet instructors when they arrive, put them up in their own quarters. Oh, and send Sado to the auctions as well, let him look for Komestran soldiers. Questions so far?” Nua asked, writing down the tasks as she rattled them off.

Kaiji watched with almost disbelief the way her mistress’s quill flew over the page. ‘Any noble can write, but few other than a secretary can write so quickly or act with such efficiency… with Sado I often felt like a babysitter ordering his day. Before my goddess, I fear I must… what was it Onimeus said of soldiers in competition…? Yes, the ‘game must be upped’.’

“Just one, mistress… ah, why send him to the market for that? Wouldn’t Onimeus be a better choice?” Kaiji asked the question with her head bowed and so did not see the look in her eyes, but she felt the chill coming off the Duchessa.

“He may recognize someone Onimeus may not, he was a soldier’s soldier, or so my advisor told me. If you’re wondering, I don’t expect him to run off, not with a gold collar around his neck. Though now that you say it… perhaps send an armed escort with him in case a thug thinks that collar might be worth something and takes his head off to get it.” Nua mocked and then tapped the tip of her quill on the paper reflexively, “But that isn’t what you meant, but make sure that’s done as well. I’m doing this because I want to pound reality into that bull headed twit. He challenged my actions in front of Teacher. He won’t do so again, but as bad as he thinks things are, it hasn’t somehow become real to him. He sees me more as a woman than as his mistress.”

“Mistress he w…” Kaiji shut her mouth before completing the protest as her mistress interrupted her.

“No, I don’t think he’s the sort to try assaulting me, even if he thought he could win.” Nua dismissed the notion with a vigorous shaking of her head. “But he dared call me beautiful on the march back, and put his hand on my thigh, and I feel his eyes on me, not like yours…” Nua waited until Kaiji raised her head, “If I were the sort to order you to my bed… and I am not, you would come as a supplicant, never seeing yourself as a partner, but as a tool.” Nua blinked several times, and kept her eyes shut lightly, pausing for a moment, setting the quill down, she folded one hand over the other and held them still.

“But given half a chance, he would see me as a partner, a mate, maybe more. He looks at me with the eyes of a man with desire, I’m sure when he was a free Prince, he had ample experience with women. He says the words to me, “Mistress, My Lady” but he doesn’t feel them. I won’t have a contest for authority in my manor. Buying his people for me will be… illustrative.” Nua bit the words off like they were stale day old lumps on a long loaf of bread, and chewed on them with the same lack of relish.

It was answer enough, “As you say, Mistress. My Sado was… is, a good man as Princes go, but very… very male. Never lacking for long for womanly company, and he is a Prince. You see the way he carries himself, he is proud, strong, accustomed to giving orders. Please believe me when I say he means no disrespect to my goddess… but you…”

“I… ‘what’ slave?” Nua’s voice went low and a glare fixed on Kaiji. A bitter memory returned and bearing its anger with it, finding its way through her glare, her servant tensed at the change, the air had been chilly, and became like ice.

“You bear a noble air… it’s natural for him to be drawn to you… I'm like an aunt to him, he could never see me that way. The slaves and servants, they bear that status around them like clothing. But he looks at you and sees a noble lady, the sort… the sort he used to enjoy the company of, best. He sees common ground… that’s all…” Kaiji hung her head again, and felt the ice around her mistress begin to melt.

“I see… no, I shouldn’t have spoken harshly to you then, I thought you had intended words that were very, very different.” Nua replied calming somewhat, she picked up her quill again and resumed writing out the requirements of the day, “He’d better get over that, then. It takes more than a bit of gold and some confidence to impress me. I’ve seen the best in action, and he’s not there yet.” Nua’s hand flew across the paper with a flourish and she delicately laid her quill back in the inkwell, then blowing on the paper, she picked it up in both hands and held it out.

“See to the rest of these tasks as well, I don’t care what order you do them in, but see to it all, finish what you can today, but some of these will take time. There is no budget limitation on your needs, but a vital must for today is that you call for the banker in charge of Pas’en to join me today for dinner. Have him bring some counting servants, tell him he’ll be getting a lot of deposits from the Duchessa. I’m sure he’ll be pleased.”

‘And so it begins. Before the year is out, Komestra will be mine, the Komestrans will be mine, and Pas’en… might as well be. I really hope I don’t have to kill Prince Rasgen… he’s going through enough, and there aren’t many people I’m so drawn to just ‘liking’ that way.’ She suppressed the derisive and self critical snort until her slave bowed and left the room, and when she was alone, she flopped herself back into her chair, slumping heavily, she stared up at the high ceiling of her office and then looked around at the bare walls.

As she did so, she thought about how her manor would be looking within the week. A bustling of leather, iron, and silver clad throats, books, furniture, art, the trappings of nobility and power. She closed her eyes as the vision of it passed before her. She recalled the way Raymond had someone educating the child slaves he’d bought to save. The way they were ‘free’ within his house.

“I accuse myself in my heart of the evil that I do. And the judge in my heart has found me guilty. Will he even look at me the same when he knows what I’ve done to bring him back? Don’t be stupid, Nua. You’re doing this to give him life, not to get something for yourself, besides, my slaves here are better off with me than someone else. I’ll be a good mistress, and some of them… some of them at least will find their way. Maybe even all…?” The derisive snort returned.

“Not Kaiji, she’s an eager servant now, but Freyjin, maybe? Vargas? Others?” Nua asked the question to nobody in particular, and cast her prayer to the god of death and liberating change. ‘My lord, grant your servant wisdom in the days ahead, that she may work your will and spread your sacred name so far and wide that the stars these people worship are reduced to nothing but jewels to bedeck the majesty of your world…’ She spoke the prayer in the quietness of her guilty heart, and took out a blank sheet of paper, embraced her guilt, and began to write out a requisition to be dispatched to the Lur’gin company, asking for ‘well educated bodies.’