After calculating her expenses, buying new under garnts, she'd pocketed a tidy twelve silver coins in pure profit.
Enough to justify a rare indulgence.
She'd stopped by the market on her way ho, her expression as stoic as ever, and purchased a small luxury: a cut of smoked venison, rich and fragrant, and a loaf of honey-glazed bread from the baker who rarely sold to anyone without a noble's purse.
Tonight's dinner would be special, a quiet reward for her efficiency.
She stepped out of the tub, water sluicing off her body, her toned legs and arms gleaming in the candlelight.
Her breasts, full and firm, bounced slightly as she reached for a towel, drying herself with the sa chanical precision she applied to everything.
From a small wooden box on the counter, she pulled out her new purchases: a black lace bra and matching panties, delicate but sturdy, bought with Lor's share which he bartered for her undergarnts.
She slipped them on, the lace cool against her skin, hugging her curves snugly, the panties clinging to the subtle mound between her thighs.
She didn't linger to admire herself—vanity was a waste of ti—but the new garnts felt like a quiet assertion of her control, her ability to turn even Lor's perversion into profit.
Dressed in a simple gray tunic and loose trousers, she moved to the small kitchen of her modest ho, the floorboards creaking faintly under her bare feet.
The venison sizzled in a pan, filling the air with a savory aroma, while the bread sat sliced on a wooden board, its golden crust catching the light.
Ath prepared her al with the sa efficiency she brought to her axe swings, her face blank, her movents exact.
She sat at the small table, eating slowly, the rich at tender on her tongue, the honeyed bread sweet and soft.
Her expression didn't change—no smile, no sigh of pleasure.
But a flicker of satisfaction and just the steady rhythm of chewing, her hazel eyes distant.
Knock Knock
A knock at the door broke the silence, sharp and unexpected.
Ath paused, her fork halfway to her mouth, her brow furrowing slightly—the closest she ca to surprise.
She set the fork down, wiped her hands on a cloth, and rose, her steps silent as she crossed to the door.
The night outside was dark, the single lantern by her doorstep casting a weak glow across the stone path.
She opened the door, expecting nothing but the empty street.
Instead, a folded piece of parchnt lay on her doorstep, its edges crisp, sealed with a wax sigil she recognized instantly: the crest of the kingdom's Princess, a stylized hound's head.
Ath's lips pressed into a thin line.
She glanced around—no one in sight like always, the street silent except for the distant hum of a tavern—then bent to pick it up, her fingers brushing the paper's smooth surface.
She unfolded it under the lantern's light, and her breath caught, a rare crack in her stoic facade.
The parchnt bore a sketch of Lor's face, unmistakable—his ssy hair, that infuriating smirk, those hazel eyes.
Below the drawing, in elegant script, was a single line: Bring him to the Hound's Den.
10 gold coins.
Ath's grip tightened on the paper, the edges crinkling slightly.
She worked for the Princess—had for years, a shadow in her employ, handling the dirty tasks no noble would touch.
Deliver this package, retrieve that artifact, bring him in to silence his loose tongue—whatever the Princess demanded, Ath provided, no questions asked, her paynt collected in cold coin.
It was clean, transactional, the only kind of loyalty she trusted.
But this?
This was Lor.
The boy who'd bartered for her underwear with a grin, who'd matched her ice with his own, who'd helped improve her business, who was the reasons she was eating venison steak.
Her icy blue eyes narrowed, the parchnt crumpling slightly in her hand.
She didn't know why the Princess wanted him—she shouldn't care, in truth.
Her job was to deliver, nothing more.
Yet sothing stirred in her chest, a faint flicker she didn't recognize, not quite anger, not quite hesitation.
She folded the paper carefully, tucking it into her tunic, and returned to her dinner, her expression blank once more.
The venison was still warm, the bread still sweet, but as she ate, her mind churned, calculating.
Ten gold coins was a fortune—more than she'd make in a month normally.
She sat down and once again chewed slowly, her hazel eyes fixed on the flickering candle fla across the room, its steady dance casting wavering shadows on the walls.
Her face remained impassive, a blank canvas of stoicism—no smile, no sigh of indulgence, just the precise rhythm of eating, as chanical as swinging her axe through wood.
But beneath that frozen exterior, her mind began to churn, thoughts uncoiling like frost creeping inexorably across a windowpane, turning clarity into a web of icy patterns.
What could the Princess possibly want with Lor?
The question lodged in her thoughts like a splinter, small but insistent, refusing to be ignored.
The Princess's requests were always precise, impersonal—artifacts to retrieve from shadowed vaults, rivals to intimidate with veiled threats, loose ends to tie off with cold, efficient finality.
n her age?
That was rarely her domain.
Ath had handled deliveries of information or trinkets, but never soone her own age, let alone a boy like Lor.
Her orders ca through sealed missives or whispered couriers, always detached, always about power plays in the court's intricate gas.
This felt... different.
Personal.
She paused mid-bite, the fork hovering inches from her lips, a faint chill running down her spine despite the warmth of the room.
Was the Princess dipping into her mother's infamous appetites?
The Queen had a notorious reputation, whispered about in the taverns and back alleys where Ath gathered her intel.
Her "appetite" for young n was legendary—a voracious hunger that lured handso, virile lads into her opulent chambers for days on end.
Ath had heard the tales from palace servants, their voices hushed with a mix of awe and disgust: the Queen, draped in silks and jewels, toying with her playthings like a cat with mice, drawing out their stamina until they erged—if they erged at all—hollow-eyed, trembling, marked by exhaustion and sothing darker, more possessive.
Sessions that stretched into marathons of pleasure and dominance, leaving the n spent, their bodies used and discarded, or worse, bound in subtle magical leashes to serve her whims again.
The Princess had always seed above such indulgences, her commands focused on strategy and control rather than carnal whims.
But blood ran true, and if she was awakening to that side of her heritage...
Why Lor?
Why now?
Ath set the fork down with a soft clink, her appetite waning as the thought took deeper root, branching into uncomfortable possibilities.
He wasn't the type to turn heads in a crowd of suitors.
Lor's features were ordinary at best—ssy black hair that fell into his eyes, a smirk that teetered on irritating rather than seductive, a lean build but lacking the sculpted perfection of palace guards or noble heirs.
There were hotter n in the kingdom, ones with chiseled jaws, broad shoulders, and eyes that could lt steel—knights who paraded through the markets, rchants' sons with silken charm, even academy prodigies with faces like carved marble.
Ath had seen them all, delivering packages or shadowing targets, and none had stirred even her indifferent gaze for more than a second.
Lor was... unremarkable.
Functional, like a tool she might use for a job.
His appeal, if any, lay in that hidden edge she'd glimpsed in the forest—the surge of mana, the casual power he masked behind laziness.
But sex?
It didn't fit her.
Unless the Princess had a taste for the unassuming, the kind of boy who could be broken without resistance.
Or wait—maybe it wasn't about sex at all.
Ath leaned back in her chair, the wood creaking faintly under her weight, her fingers drumming once on the table before stilling.
She'd seen the truth of him that day: the way his ice spear had shattered hers mid-air, thicker and faster, a raw display of strength he buried under a facade of diocrity.
He hid it well from the world—fooling classmates, teachers, maybe even his parents—but not her.
His mana leaked in subtle tells.
She hadn't cared enough to ask about it then; questions were entanglents, and entanglents were weaknesses.
But now?
Perhaps that's why the Princess wanted him.
Lor was stronger—much stronger—than he let on, a hidden asset or threat in the kingdom's underbelly.
Knowledgeable in ways that could unravel secrets, with a shady past lurking behind that grin?
Does he?
Ath's mind flashed to rumors she'd overheard during her deliveries: whispers of rogue mages, forbidden rituals, unaware boys like him vanishing into the night after crossing the wrong noble.
Maybe the Princess had finally caught wind of him, piecing together his deceptions?
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