Tale of a Hedonistic wizard

Kyra seemed to pick up on the calculated shift in his manner almost instantly. Leaning back minutely, she replied in a measured tone. "That is...not so easily done. But allow me to hear your terms first."

Jaegar's head tilted as a hint of a smirk played across his lips. "Very well, Princess. Then let me start with a rather...personal query." He let the words hang for a tantalizing moment before continuing. "Do you have a lover?"

The question dropped like a lead weight, with even the ever-unflappable Kaeso's eyes widening in astonished disbelief. From behind Kyra, one of the attendant maids gasped out a scandalous "Insolence!"

Kyra, however, merely raised a single hand to silence the outburst before it could swell further.

Her own expression remained almost supernaturally composed as she turned back to Jaegar.

"You test the boundaries of propriety, Mister," she stated in a tone that somehow managed to convey both mild rebuke and grudging respect. "But I shall humour your...audacious line of inquiry for the moment."

Kaeso looked as if he might be suffering from apoplexy. "Jaegar!" he sputtered in a fierce whisper. "You cannot simply ask the princess in such a salacious manner!"

Jaegar's only response was to lean back further, settling one booted ankle over the opposite knee in a posture of studied nonchalance. "She is no princess to me."

If the words stung, Kyra showed no outward sign as one shaped eyebrow arched infinitesimally.

"An intriguing perspective...but one I cannot abide by, given our present circumstances."

Her steely gaze bore into Jaegar. "However, if you can indeed make a substantive impact on the campaign, I may be persuaded to...indulge your impertinence to a certain degree. Though the extent of any such 'rewards' shall be dictated by your performance."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Jaegar scoffed lightly at her rejoinder, even as his eyes danced with the faintest hints of amusement. "And what, precisely, do you want me to do?"

Leaning forward, Kyra allowed the barest hint of a smirk to quirk her full lips. "That, I shall leave for you to demonstrate on the field of battle. Join my personal company on the morrow. Impress me, and we can...renegotiate terms for any extended service."

A sly smile played across Jaegar's lips at Kyra's proposed challenge. Rising fluidly to his feet, he stepped in close, leaning down to bring his mouth beside her ear.

"Don't worry, Princess," he whispered, his breath stirring the fine hairs at her nape. "You are going to win this war. But be ready for what's to come after."

The blatantly audacious innuendo hung in the air as Jaegar pulled back, his expression a mask of inscrutable confidence.

Kyra, clearly startled by his brazen proximity, recoiled instinctively to the side as her maidservants clustered protectively around her.

Jaegar's eyes glinted with amusement as he straightened up, his gaze never leaving Kyra's face. "I look forward to that day, Princess," he said with a smirk before turning to leave, leaving Kyra to ponder his cryptic words.

Kyra quickly composed herself and was about to say something.

But Jaegar had already turned on his heel, striding from the tent without a backward glance. A flustered Kaeso could only bow hurriedly and stammer out hasty apologies.

Once he had departed, Kyra finally found her voice again, any veneer of regal poise utterly shattered.

"Lord Kaeso, where in the seven hells did you find this...this brat?" she seethed, struggling to regain her composure. "How dare he treat me with such insulting familiarity! Does he truly think his skills alone can win us this war?"

Her anger and frustration at having been so baldly taunted by a man decades her junior tinged her cheeks with furious colour. Nearby, Kaeso seemed to shrink in on himself, rendered practically insensate by the force of the princess's outrage.

Kyra had no need to give voice to any specific recriminations or punitive orders. The look of blazing fury in her eyes said it all as she fought to master her churning emotions.

"I shall permit him one more day to prove his worth on the field of battle," she bit out at last through clenched jaws. "Otherwise, I'll have his impudent head on a spike, abilities be damned!"

With that, she whirled and stormed from the tent, leaving a shaken Kaeso to trail meekly in her wake, his mind already awhirl with panicked strategies to keep his temperamental new ally's incendiary persona in check.

*

The following day saw Kyra once again girded for war, her lithe form encased in gleaming plate armour as she addressed her mustered company. At her side stood the seemingly imperturbable forms of Kaeso and Jaegar, the latter's expression betraying not a flicker of the conflagration he had sparked the night before.

From across the ordered lines of troops and materiel, Lord Drasus's baleful glare bore into the scene, his eyes narrowing with unconcealed loathing as they fell upon Jaegar's figure. The mere sight of the enigmatic warrior in such apparent favour with his counterpart was objectionable enough.

But having witnessed first-hand the sheer, earth-shattering scope of the outsider's abilities on the previous day's battlefield, Drasus's barely-restrained hatred curdled into outright murderous fury.

To think that Kaeso would so willingly leash such a force on his own cohort rather than eliminating the threat it represented...

It was intolerable. And the wizened commander's impatience with the situation grew more strained with each passing moment. Something would need to be given soon, he could feel it in his very bones. And he intended to ensure that Jaegar's tenuous existence was ultimately broken upon the relentless wheel of his wrathful ambition.

But for now, with the day's great reckoning looming before them all, even Drasus could not afford the singular distraction that taking his vengeance would entail. No, he would bide his time and await the opportune moment to eliminate Kaeso's elemental wildcard from this conflict once and for all.