“You’re going to have to convince me, you know,” Carina told him. “You’ve been getting mighty close to the Princess. Which is why you’re here.”

“Not because you’re necessarily interested in recruiting me,” Zar acknowledged. “Because I came out of nowhere, and I’m a new factor you have to consider.”

Carina faltered.

“I’ll admit that,” Zar carried on. “But if you think about it, that actually means we have enough in common to work together. What does it look like I want? It looks like I’m interested in steering the Princess’ political power, doesn’t it?” There was little in the way of magical heat in this courtyard; fleetingly he wondered if there was another type of magic practised in the house that might be draining the power.

All the same, this situation was one of the few with many people present where only being able to affect one person might not be too bad, might even be a blessing in disguise. All the power in this room was, after all, concentrated in Carina.

Zar kindled a flame of interest in her, blew gently on it to shroud her suspicions in smoke. Everything he needed to intrigue her while lowering her defences at the same time. “If I get a say in how your man wields the power, I’ll stand by your side. Why not? You’re the one who lured me into a trap, not her. I’d wager you’re better organised. Smarter.”

Carina preened and smiled, and Zar smiled back. So far, he thought, so good.

*

Two days later, at court, Zar paused in a doorway and hissed “Carina,” a word difficult to hiss with so little sibilance.

Irritated at his presumption, she looked over, then glanced back around the room she was in. Not too many people were there, and certainly not too many were showing that they’d noticed - she had that going for her, at least.

She detached herself from the man she’d been talking to - Hauda, a ridiculous ego who fancied himself the big cheese in court - and made her way over to the doorway where Zar waited, but he had already fallen back and was walking rapidly down a corridor. She watched as he paused outside another door, looking back at her and waiting, visibly impatient.

“Alright, alright,” she muttered just before she drew level with him. “What’s the big deal?”

Zar opened the door and ushered her through. Carina stepped across the threshold, irked, and only when he was stepping into the room behind her did she look up and realise what - or rather, who - lay before her.

Princess Aelina was staring at her, eyes wide, as she heard Zar close the door. A chill ran down her spine. Zar had betrayed her. Zar had…

She shook her head, a heated blush rising to her cheers. Zar had betrayed her? No… that wasn’t the case, she told herself. That idea seemed quite literally unthinkable. In fact, as she tried to think it again, there was a sudden flush of heat in her cheeks and the thought seemed to bubble away into steam.

"Highness,” Zar was saying, and it occurred to Carina that his voice was very different as he addressed Aelina, “may I recommend that this woman be frozen into place?”

The Silver Princess seemed to recover from her shock at Carina’s entrance much faster than Carina had recovered from her shock at Aelina. As Carina turned to try to push past Zar a strange chill arrived, hitting her joints first. Her legs straightened back out, her arms unfolded and became rigid by her side, and suddenly she found herself unable to move.

The Princess, meanwhile, was smiling now.

“This is her?”

“Yes, Highness,” Zar said. “But I can’t claim any great credit for finding that out. Ah… consequently, I wonder if I might offer you a better solution?”

“And what would that be?”

“I think it’s best that I demonstrate,” Carina heard Zar say. “If I have your permission?”

After a moment, Aelina nodded. She was near a camp stool, one that was worn and faded by the sun, obviously one that she used while campaigning; it must be one she kept close by to remind herself of her battlefield exploits, Carina thought bitterly.

Zar put his hand under Carina’s chin, his fingertips on her cheeks, and she had a sudden sensation of warmth to him, of warmth toward the Princess who had conquered her land. She gasped, but only quietly; her mouth wouldn’t part enough to be louder.

How could his touch do so much, she wondered, but moments later the answer was with her. The same way the Princess’ mastery of ice had frozen her efforts to leave.

Aelina had come to the same conclusion. “Magic,” she said. “You’re a sorceror.”

Zar chuckled. “I have that honour, Highness, yes. Watch closely.”

And the warmth Carina felt grew and grew, an attachment and a closeness to them both that made no sense whatsoever but that couldn’t be ignored. Sometimes in life you met someone, and in that first instant you knew that you would forever trust them, they would always be in your heart, and that you would be their devoted friend for ever more.

Carina knew how often she had seen this woman before, knew the rage she had held, the cold anger that she had kept stoked and fed at all times since Aelina’s armies had starved open the gates to her city and marched in. And it was known that this kind of immediate connection could not happen with someone to whom you were already well acquainted.

These are all historical facts, well attested to in her diaries. The diaries also confirm that this was the moment where Carina discovered a great flame of admiration and devotion for Princess Aelina in her heart.

Zar spoke again. “Carina, dearest, look at the woman in front of you. What do you see?”

“I see…” Carina’s voice was quiet, her jaw barely moving, and she had to push to project. She swallowed. “I see the best of us.” The more she talked, the more she felt the warmth of Zar’s hand as it held her.

“Your rightful monarch?” Zar asked, and Carina would have nodded if she could.

“Yesss…”

“Yet you plotted against her.” Carina discovered that though her body could not move, she could weep, and the truth of Zar’s accusation brought that home to her.

“I… I did. Highness, I am so sorry-“

“You’d do anything to make it up to her, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, yes.” And she meant it. In a heartbeat and with no hesitation. But Zar was still talking.

“And the people you conspired with, what do you think of them?”

“Monsters” she declared devoutly. “Except you, Zar. This enlightenment you’ve brought me to…” She was still crying, but the tears were not hot on her cheeks. Instead, with the Princess’ magic still upon her, the trails were starting to freeze, little pinpoints of delectable, delicious pain as the ice formed on her cheeks. A suitable, appetising punishment, she thought.

“I know,” Zar said softly. “We both know, don’t we, Highness?”

Aelina nodded. Her smile had grown wide, and a little cruel, and Carina’s heart ached with joy that the Princess was smiling at her.

“I want to know everyone in your little conspiracy,” she said, and there was a greedy delight in her voice that should have chilled Carina’s spine, if not for the warmth that flowed into her through Zar.

“Yes, Highness. Of course. Rhyfelwr Dewr, Cynlluniwr of the elves, Etwila-“

As she continued to list them, her tongue falling compulsively over itself to get the names out, Zar’s other hand pushed in between her thighs from behind. A handful of her dress skirts padded against her crotch as his hand settled in there and a new kind of heat poured out of his palm to join her devotion.

Aelina’s eyes crossed as the arousal flooded through her and combined with everything else she was thinking. “She’s quite incapacitated now, Highness,” Zar was saying. “You can withdraw your enchantment if you wish.”

Aelina did so and Carina could feel all of the rigidity of her body dropping away. With the emotion and the desire flooding her, she couldn’t stand; her knees buckled, her arms flopped, and only Zar’s hands kept her upright, prevented her from collapsing straight to the floor. Still her mouth was constantly spilling out the names of anyone connected with the plot she’d built.

When finally she had no more names to give, Zar said “Of course, you realise this isn’t the last of what you owe the Princess.”

“Of… of course…” Her vision was swimming. The words the other people in the room were saying were important, but she was so close to cumming that it was near impossible to concentrate. Only her devotion pulled her through.

Zar brushed away the icy trails of her tears. “Highness, with your permission, I need to work on this young traitoress.”

Aelina came closer, looking from Carina to him, with a curious half-smile on her face. Her eyes, Carina noted, rarely flicked up to read Zar’s expression; she looked down, almost deferentially.

In her devotion Carina couldn’t understand that. The Silver Princess was the best of all, was their true leader, worthy of worship and adoration. That she could be nervous around another made no sense. Surely Zar should be nervous, wishing to please her, the way he’d looked so uncomfortable and so uncertain when he was first called up to sit beside her in court.

He sounded a lot more confident now.

“Alright, Zar,” Aelina said, and she smiled up at him, and Carina saw in her eyes two tiny glowing flames of love and desire, and she understood why the Silver Princess, the picture of courage, was nervous but only around this man. “I trust you. Impress me.”

“I’m honoured by your trust, Highness,” Zar answered, and Carina opened her mouth to tell her ruler she had been enchanted herself, but the heat coming from the hand under her crotch blazed up and instead Carina cried out in ecstasy, then collapsed backward, exhausted, and knew no more.

*

Aelina watched Zar lower Carina’s passed-out body to the floor. “You have… hidden depths,” she said. It was the most she was confident she could say without the arousal she was feeling showing in her voice.

She wasn’t sure even where it had come from; her desire for the man had remained unchanged since she’d first allowed herself to fantasise about him and had been frustrated by her inability to cum. The fact she hadn’t cum since made that all the more frustrating.

But this wasn’t the usual level of infatuation she felt. When he had grasped the traitor with both hands, rather than just one, she had understood what he meant to do, and a thrill had coursed through her at the realisation.

It was the only explanation that made sense. She was so much more excited, so much more aroused, that she could hardly cope. It wasn’t about wanting him anymore. It felt like a need.

“I try to be who I am needed to be, Highness,” Zar said, and his eyes met hers and she could see he already knew exactly how she felt. Her breath caught in her throat.

He stepped over the unmoving form of Carina to come closer to her, standing directly above her. She looked up, fleetingly, her gaze touching his, and then she looked down again, not understanding why, staring at the parting of his loose overshirt rather than his face. Somehow this felt more appropriate, more proper.

“And now,” he said, “I see you need something else.”

He took her chin in his hand, lifting her face to his, and their gazes met. A spark seemed to jump from his eyes into her soul, igniting her pent-up lust. In the sudden rush of heat, it was very hard to think.

“Don’t you?” Zar asked, and she could do nothing but nod. She wasn’t even sure the nodding was her own doing and not him moving her head from where he held her chin.

She was a ruler. A conqueror. A warrior. A sorceress. She was power in all things in her life. Someone acting as this man was acting should be a source of outrage; she could have him killed, or perhaps strike him down herself. She had all the power in this situation.

And yet she felt powerless, helpless, a weak little thing that needed the protection of a wiser and more powerful being. The way he was treating her sent a shiver down her spine and lit a fire in her loins that would not easily be quenched.

“Then let me take care of it,” Zar said, “as I have taken care of your worries.”

He wasn’t calling her Highness anymore, she thought fleetingly; did that mean something? Did it mean anything for her?

Aelina knew that she should do something right then, say something right then, before Zar did something else that would sweep her away. She had that strange dizzying sense of urgency, the feeling that if she didn’t act she would lose the chance; but she wasn’t sure what do do, and she hesitated, and in so doing she was lost.

Zar’s other hand found her crotch, and heat spread from her cunt through her thighs, her breasts, her nipples, her hands, and her lips, all of them aching to use or be used in turn.

The Silver Princess’ mouth opened in a low moan, her eyes rolling back in her head, the woman who had plotted against her sprawled senseless on the floor, as the power of fire magic rolled through the body of a woman attuned and acclimatised to a much colder form of ensorcelment.

Zar did something, and her thoughts vanished as surely as water vanishes when it becomes steam.

*

“You can hear me. But you imagine these are your own thoughts. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes…”

“Good girl. You’re doing very well for me, Aelina. You understand why I say that? Doing well for me?”

“Yes.”

“You want to make me proud. Don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, Zar.”

“Yes, Sir? I like that. In private, at least, call me Sir from now on.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Do you remember your secret spell now, Aelina?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“It’s time to release it, my pretty girl.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“It’s time for such a good fucking you’ll put off going back to campaign.”

“Yes, Sir.”

*

Aelina stood in the shadowed part by the window to her balcony, hands braced against the pillar, her gown hiked up above her hips and secured out of the way with the same decorative rope that usually drew back the curtains, her feet spread, the bodice of her gown swept open. She could hear the troops drilling outside.

Zar’s cock was in her from behind, his steady rhythm giving a beat to the bliss that rolled in waves through the smouldering embers of her mind, his hands on her tits. Nobody could see her from the balcony but it added something, somehow, if she imagined that possibly they could. That they were watching.

There was something about Zar’s hands that seemed to leave an achingly blissful fire running across her skin as his fingers moved, so that her whole body was one bonfire of desire.

Zar was fucking her; they weren’t making love and she wasn’t fucking him, one of the two of them was in complete control and it wasn’t her, she was just giving in to his attentions, to his hands, just enjoying his touch and his cock and the way she felt and how much his presence let her simply not think at all.

She could hear one of the sergeants call her troops to attention. In another two days, they would be mustered ready to march forth with her at the head of the column.

Except she was cumming now, finally, ecstatically cumming after so long without release, cumming around his cock, and it felt magical; it felt like the perfect place for her, and while she wasn’t sure whether her soldiers heard her cries, she knew she wasn’t ready to be confined to tents at the end of a day’s march when she could have this man with her in silk sheets and all the comforts of the Palace.

She sagged back against him, panting, and smiled, reaching up a hand to caress his cheek. Feeling the sweat on his brow, she raised the gentlest, lightest level of her magic, giving her a cooling touch for his heat. He made a garbled, startled noise that she was sure was pleasure.

“Thank you, Sir,” she said, not noticing she wasn’t using his name. “What did I ever do without you?”

She could feel him smile. “I’m sure there are many things we can improve, Highness.”

*

Her soldiers came for the conspirators in the dead of night, because even if she wasn’t going to war, she still thought of herself as a soldier. She slept in, all the same. There was no excitement to be had in rising early, she’d decided, if she wasn’t getting ready to march her troops out.

They didn’t march out on the day they were meant to, and nobody mentioned the names of those she’d arrested. Not to her face, anyway. Zar told her that a few people had asked him, and Camila reported (as Aelina had known she would) that the rest had sounded her out. Camila had been cautious herself, but it had been a way to get out the warning that the arrests should stand as, anyway; the Princess’ crown belonged to her, and nobody should get any ideas above their station.

She wasn’t convinced that Zar would pay any attention to that message, but if she were honest with herself, she would concede that she didn’t really want him to. She got a lot more satisfaction from their time together when his ideas were far above his station.

A day or two later he sent word through the Duchess Khaja that he wanted to meet with Aelina privately. She sent Camila back to inform him of when they could meet, though Camila was not at all happy about it.

That evening, under cover of nightfall, Zar entered the palace accompanied by another woman, who came in robed and hooded. The captain of the guard met Zar’s eye and smiled, grateful for the man’s help in exposing a criminal in court. They met the Princess in the anteroom to her chambers, with no disapproving gaze as Camila was not allowed to be present.

“Well, Zar,” Aelina began, “why have you been away from court? And why the secrecy?”

“As I’m sure you already surmised, Highness,” Zar answered, “the answers to both questions are intertwined. I should like, if I may, to introduce someone to you. A great admirer of yours, who wishes to serve you better.” Zar was smiling. “She hopes you will hear her plea.”

The Silver Princess’ head tilted to one side as she studied Zar. “What’s on your mind, hm?” she asked, and Zar merely continued to smile.

Aelina considered, just for one moment, that Zar was presuming too much, and yet - well, his advice had helped her identify the plot. His confidence reassured her when she took political decisions, something she didn’t need when it came to the army but which she’d already found useful at court.

She was inclined, all things considered, to permit him to presume, if it increased the value of his insight. “Very well,” she said with a sigh. “Explain.”

“Highness, may I present Rina?” So saying, Zar swept the hood back from the woman’s face, and Aelina looked on Carina’s face, but with eyes she didn’t recognise.

The face was the same, yet the expression was not; the hard edges of her glower had softened into a dreamy docility. She was indisputably the same woman, but Aelina couldn’t help thinking she wasn’t.

Rina bowed her head immediately. “Highness, it is an honour,” she said softly. “Zar has told me that you may be looking for a new ladies’ maid, and I understand I have a debt to pay this realm.”

The phrasing had obviously been coached, but that wasn’t the main thing that stood out. “You understand you have a debt?”

Rina looked up and met her eyes. “Yes, Highness. Zar has told me. I… don’t remember.” She blushed very prettily, Aelina noted. “I don’t remember much. Zar tells me this is for the better.”

She looked to Zar, who smiled and unfastened the clasp of Rina’s cloak. It fell away from her shoulders, almost immediately.

Rina wasn’t like Aelina; she didn’t have a soldier’s body. There was no muscle to her arms, her thighs were softly appetising but didn’t mark her as particularly athletic, and both facts were plain now Rina was revealed as wearing only a small black shift, the neckline cut low, the hemline raised high, and the skirt split up either side to reveal the smooth, soft curve of her hips.

Zar had taken note of what the Palace servants wore, and had asked himself how it might be amended to be more revealing.

“She doesn’t remember a thing,” Zar said. “I had been considering having her make a public statement, but since her collaborators simply disappeared…” He shrugged. “Few will see her soon, and by the time more people do, the lady Carina will be forgotten.”

“And in any case,” Aelina smiled, “If anyone does realise, they’ll see it as a warning.” She stepped forward and kissed him. “Zar, you’re a marvel. She’s been enchanted, I take it?”

“Enthralled, Highness,” he smiled in return.

“What clever tricks you know.” She smiled. “If you’re not careful, Zar, I shall have to keep you.”

“Well, Highness, I had some thoughts on that.”

“Oh yes?”

Zar’s hand found her crotch, and heat spread from her cunt through her thighs, her breasts, her nipples, her hands, and her lips, all of them aching to use or be used in turn.

The Silver Princess’ mouth opened in a low moan, her eyes rolling back in her head, as the power of fire magic rolled through the body of a woman attuned and acclimatised to a much colder form of ensorcelment.

Zar did something, and her thoughts vanished as surely as water vanishes when it becomes steam.

*

“You can hear me. But you imagine these are your own thoughts. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good girl. You’re doing very well for me, Aelina. You understand why I say that? Doing well for me?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Aelina, it’s time for things to change,” he said. “The armies shall not march out this year. You will have your generals arrange for them to patrol and defend instead, tomorrow. Won’t you?”

“I will, Sir.”

“Erithnis cannot grow much larger without tending to itself,” he said. “You have been a warrior, my dear, but it is time for them to take you seriously. Your armour doesn’t belong in court, does it?”

“No, Sir.”

“Good. Now…”

*

Princess Aelina announced her betrothal to Zar at midsummer, on the hottest day in Erethnis, without a hint of chill to the air.

There had been rumours for some time that Zar had, perhaps, bitten off more than he could chew, had in getting her attention doomed himself to forever have to put her needs and desires first. For the next two generations, “Zar’s mistake” was used by Erethnians to mean a mismatch of power in a marriage, and it was frequently written in the memoirs or reports of those who visited the city that Consort Zar had less influence on the Princess than anyone else at court.

The Silver Princess had abandoned her armour, much to the approval of the local aristocracy. Instead she wore loose, flowing, low-cut gowns and covered her shoulders in wraps made of silvery wolf fur, or long coats in the winter months.

Her close friend Camila was, until shortly before the birth of the royal couple’s first child, staunchly opposed to their relationship, for reasons that gave rise to much speculation at the time.

But that, my honourable listeners, is a tale we might explore when we meet again, along with the reforms Zar persuaded Aelina (yes, whatever the people may have thought, his influence remained) to the way magic was taught, which would eventually lead to the court wizards Erethnis boasts today.

Perhaps my friend there, of the orange robes, would be able to shed more light on the matter; for the orange order is said to have been Zar’s particular project.

For now, I see our host preparing to kick us out for the night; let us go, then, and ruminate on the lessons Zar has to offer.