"Done," Stare grunted, her bag beneath her arm. She was coming back into the room, a dull discomfort in her eyes as she saw Vitruvion and Merla together. But she did not remark - he had already made that clear that he was not in the mood when it came to talking about the princess born out of wedlock. Instead she placed her things, including the chainmail that she had already taken off, and her helmet she had never worn, by the door into the bedroom. Then she stood, her eyes fixed to look around her, scanning the general room.
"Hmm," Vitruvion took a moment to regard the kenku, then nodded. "I need to prepare transport for Lady Merla. Go to the kitchens and inform them of our third guest."
Stare rolled her eyes but left, clear agitation in her feet.
"You ... You really are rude to her," Merla murmured.
"As much as she is rude to me," was Vitruvion's conclusion, moving to shed his jacket, and then took up a small round stone from within a folded cloth from deep in his personal pocket. Merla saw the corners of many folded papers as he searched. Vitruvion held the perfectly spherical stone between thumb and forefinger and began to gaze into its depths.
"She is, however, Stare. And I know enough about her to know her extreme usefulness and her loyalty to me." He looked at Merla. "If I might ask one thing, lady. You said that it was your greatest secret, you being the child of Lady General Nalith ... Do you wish for that to be the same?"
Merla observed him for a while, before breathing in and clasping her hands before her bruised, recently freed, dressed in rags body. And she pursed her lips and held herself like an aristocrat. "I started being abused from childhood, ever since my affinity with goldsmithing was revealed. Though it does require very precise metals that are rare in themselves to process, people wanted to gain my favour or force me to work for them until I was eighteen. From then, my royal connection has brought me nothing but bad luck. On my nineteenth birthday I fell in with a member of rhe small council, a general of the Tel Algarim," said she speaking first of the lower governmental council under that of the high council (of which Lady Nalith was the only current present member), and second of the core army of Raiaera. "He had a reputation for deception and abuse with his men, which I did not know until it was too late. Perhaps all he wanted was my gold-smithing but ... After I had succumbed to his charm and his ways were publicly revealed, our relationship became something of a rumour storm and I fell also." She fixed Vitruvion with a firm eye. "My name, my mother, was used against me, horrifically, and my life was threatened by various half siblings I have, and so I made the decision to hide the truth of my inheritance. I moved from city to city before I settled in Mirdan Timbreth."
"Arguably the last surviving city of the Corpse War," the god commented, watching her with interest as the stone in his fingers began to blossom with light.
Merla shrugged slightly. "Yes. And then ... I lived there until someone apparently somehow recongised me and then I was running again, racing away from the scandal, and what people assumed I was involved in. I came to Corone in a desperate attempt, found nothing but hatred and contempt here and ..."
"Got captured anyway."
She nodded. "Probably for someone who wanted revenge on my general lover." After a sigh, she went on. "Look, If you are the sort of person I think you might be, Sir Elssmith, if you truly have the power that you suggest, then you may be my liberation after all. I am willing to offer all my skills, all my abilities at your disposal. I don't want to have any connection to royalty anymore, I don't want to risk the few friends I left there any further than I need to. But I know from what little I have seen so far that you are one of the strongest mages I have ever seen, and clearly own a vast amount of power." She looked at him with large, desperate eyes. "I don't need a few days to consider. I am yours."
Slowly Vitruvion lowered the globe in his hand and twisted to stare at the elf for some time. Observing with care, he looked at the rags she wore that barely covered her ruined body, the way she still held herself that screamed nobility. Her back story also spoke of strife, and he had a partial suspicion that what she spoke wasn't true - that she really had known some of the atrocities her lover did. That, though, made her of attractive qualities that Vitruvion liked. He himself was not a perfect specimen by any means. Merla had not battered an eyelid at the sight of so many bodies and the pain he had inflicted with his captured demon mage. In fact she had seen comfortable with it, he noticed from Stare's memories. That made her all the more reasonable as a close employ of himself.
He paused and folded his arms, still though holding out the marble at an angle. "I will accept on one condition, Lady Merla," he told her, his lips twitching into a smile, "That you tell me the full truth of something I suspect. I am not accusing you of any connection to your lover's acts, not directly, but, people say I am good at reading people. And what I believe is that you are no stranger to the death and violence that I am capable of. If you were disturbed by it you would not be asking me to employ you so desperately," he paused. "Two things - I think you knew of your lover's acts, and perhaps even saw a few, but did likely not take part. Secondly, I want to know if you find them ... Seductive?"
Merla flashed him with the darkest, deadliest look that any woman could, eyes full of anger, frustration and disbelief. There was so much fury that it could feed a fire for a lifetime, and it was the same sort of intensity that Vitruvion often saw within Stare that he respected so much. That he found so attractive, so powerful. That he forged into his 'guests' at the Hollow simply for the fact that it was what he wanted to see. That he basically tricked the other brothers into creating for him - an army of powerful, furious individuals that, were it to come to it, he could reign to his side and use them to create a most fearsome army ...
Merla then suddenly, before him stepped forwards and hissed in his face. "His name was Jakar Olina. He was the love of my life and it was only when I was forced to by my mother that I left him. Otherwise I would be as he is. Dead. And the family name in ruins." She paused. "No I never took part in his atrocities but I saw them well enough - his beatings to within an inch of life, his rape of male and female subordinates. His violence towards prisoners, his obsession with pain, for pain's sake ... For two years I watched, said nothing. Two whole years. Even sometimes funded him." She glared at Vitruvion. "Is that what you wanted, Sir Elssmith? An admission? I was in love with the man, and yes, I found him more attractive covered in sweat, knowing his power ... I don't know what it was. But-" she took a long breath and stepped away. Then she sighed again, her eyes clearly partly of their anger.
"You keep secrets, clearly. And in exchange for my loyalty I ask that you keep mine. The publisher story is the one I have fought to keep the truth."
Vitruvion nodded slowly, his heart racing, his lips curling into a smile. His eyes gleamed. "And it will stay between us. The only people who will ever know, if the need arises, are Raevin and Stare. You know her slavery status, and the same applies to that." He took a moment to hold out his spare hand to her. "I can provide you new papers with which to start a new life, and a starting salary of one thousand crowns per quarter. Your position will be in my house as general manager of the businesses I run and the house, directly under Stare herself. I will not even inquire about your power unless you willingly talk to me about it, or I can think of a way that you might be able to use it other than gaining riches. I do not need it. If this is acceptable-"
Merla reached and siezed his hand. She shook it once, powerfully. "My lord," she intoned.
And he grinned. Devilishly. "My lady."
