The sunlight of the waning noon beamed into the room, disparate flotsam caught glittering in the rays. There was one occupant. She was sitting in a chair, one of four set round a low-slung table; each elegantly carved, painted, and cushioned. Leaning forward, she lifted a piece of porcelain off of a folded hand-towel and poured its contents into her cup. It was rosey, the gentle smell of flowers belying its nature as a delicate tea. Scant dust motes fell onto its surface, their effulgence not yet submerged beneath the flux of its surface. Setting the pot back down, Princess Renner brought the cup to her mouth, and drank.

This tastes better, though not by much. The steep time is as pointed as I’m going to get it. Any refinements beyond that are incremental, ascents not worth the time nor effort. Only a better tea, then.

Despite her regal bearing, she insisted on doing some things herself. This was one of those, and in the making of tea, she was a practiced master. This tea was from the south, imported on request she had made in party talk with the last visiting delegation of the Holy Kingdom. She had long ago grown tired of the mistakes made by her maidstaff, and had given serious consideration to doing the same for the cooking she ate.

Such a thing would mark me as a laughing stock, one deserving only of derision and diaphony, or perhaps “from”. It would be a discordant bevy of voices, even the Royals would find their snickers behind closed doors. Still, the practice ought not to be too hard. Just knife-work and timing, no?

To the common people of Re-Estize, she was a symbol of national pride, a prime beauty whose hand in marriage was a genuine reserve of national strength. To the feuding highbloods Renner was counted among, she was a source of comic relief. Twisting jabs found their way to her ears, in conversations hurriedly and conspicuously quieted when she approached. The idea of the Third Princess cooking for herself would become another seed for riotous laughter, afield even the wildest musings that the nobility dared to indulge. She took another sip and sighed, confirming her disappointment in its flavor.

Shame, I was looking forward to this. Too bitter for me, though, perhaps not for him.

She let her mind drift, a slow smile building across her face. His dusty blond hair, the precious smile he gave when embarrassed. Standing half a span above her height, his verdant blue eyes gave him a striking look. Well fed by the standards of the Kingdom, he had built muscle and a healthy figure. He was toned, and his hands had calloused from his prodigious sword training. He was ostensibly her adjutant bodyguard, though this title was reductive in the extreme. Climb was Renner’s favorite thing in the world.

I’ll need to let him try this, this should definitely be to his taste. He seems to have a preference for the bitter. This should work to that end.

Her affections for him, when noticed by her keen-eyed contemporaries, were constructed as a teenage fancy; a teenage girl attracted to a teenage boy. It was a rote conclusion, but one that missed the mark entirely in its scope, scale, and character. Climb was not some base flit of a girl in the spring of her life and the summer of her adolescence. Physical appeal was certainly a component - the court doctor estimating that he was at most a year younger than her - but Renner held deeper interest in him. He was loyal, training himself not for his own ends, but for hers. Her feelings were not just holistic, but of an intensity far greater than most; an intensity that sharpened her. He was her obsession; all that she did, she did so a future with him could be guaranteed to her. This made it all the worse that he was not in the room with her.

Others seem to make the strangest conclusions about him, see him as just an urchin I plucked from the street. At least father understands, or at more so than the rest.

To the nobility of the Re-Estize Kingdom, the third daughter of King Ramposa III, Renner Theiere Chardelon Ryle Vaiself, was nothing more than a pretty face. Though she held a title for her actions against the slave trade, the Golden Princess, it often meant little for her treatment or perception. Her affection was dismissed without a care. She was dismissed in general; to all but her closest confidants, she was known as a dullard, and as a witless princess. She had long since grown accustomed to such reductions, and for the most part, given up on trying to convince others to the contrary. Try as she might, she was still unable to extend the same feeling of detachment when he was insulted.

I need to see him.

A sudden sense of mid-afternoon malaise gripped her, and she broke herself from her thoughts before she let herself become too embroiled in well-worn ires.

I’ll summon him soon.

Eventually, she settled on the make of her chair. Its textiles were not local, but due to soil conditions from the southern portions of the kingdom. The logistic accomplishment of the chair’s existence, between acquisition of materials, training of carpentry talent, and the studious upcharges that brokers levied every step of the way had meant that the cost levied in its acquisition exceeded the monthly salary of most residents of the kingdom. This room was furnished with six.

This is horribly inefficient. First off, with better domestication and interbreeding, the Kingdom probably could have grown cottons further north. Bypassing traders' fees and the taxes people paid to enter and exit the domains of nobles would at least cut the price in half. Paving the roads could have cut down the transport costs further, or at least helped to shatter the monopolies of local crews. Further, had the carpenters been furnished with enchanted tools - not to mention machinery - the time to assemble could be cut down precipitously.

Renner understood these realities, and although she had long since grown accustomed to the shortsightedness of her fellow noble blood, it was made all the more unbearable by her contemporary beyond the eastern border. The Baharuth Empire, the main rival of the Kingdom, was headed by superb statesman Emperor El-Nix, the Bloody Emperor. Though he earned his degrading moniker through rapid purges of the less capable nobleman of his country when he seized power, he had proven to be more than an empty-headed pike wielder. In the course of a decade, he had renovated the aging imperial bureaucracy and led a revolution in all walks of Imperial life. Technologic leaps across many separate fields, manufacturing techniques, the magical arts of enchantment; more advanced battlefield tactics, better soldiers and training techniques, strategic meritocracy; mass entertainment, paved roads, and ever more strides into the future.

To see him so drive that country forward stings. I wonder how much longer he’ll content himself with token excursions into the borderlands.

She knew that he would lead that nation into a golden age, precisely because much of this was what she had proposed. Unlike El-Nix, who held near unilateral command over the engines of his state, she was shot down with complete regularity. At every turn, her suggestions for cobbled highways, stronger relations with the monster hunting “adventurers”, and a true embrace of magic development had been met with nothing but laughter from her contemporaries. This, for the grim reality that she was not an Emperor who had fiercely consolidated his reign, but a spare Princess.

The lot of them hold perhaps a half-wit between them. Every time my words make it to El Nix’s ears he listens. Still, he never seems to do much besides copy, or find some new house to relieve of their property. Nothing he’s come up with on his own has any special brilliance. Still, to think he’s greater than average is disconcerting.

To call Renner intelligent would be foolish; she possessed terrifying abilities of cognition. Genius was a serviceable description, but even that did not fully encompass her nature. Renner was peerless. Despite that, she did have a few friends - or at least, relationships that approached friendship.

Lakyus and her fellows will be coming in a few days. It will be nice to see her. Prod her for heroic tales and other such things.

The world was not a domain of just mankind, but a deluge of intelligent species; humanoids, demihumanoids, heteromorphs, demons, angels, undead, spirits, dragon-kin, aberrations, and beings weirder and more dangerous than those. Thus, there were those who rose above the average human - and rarely, elf or dwarf - and fought those monsters, in service to the people and their own wallets. Some sought the limits of their species, be they physical strength, dexterity and speed, focus and battle perception, the arcane arts and the depths of magic, or martial technique. Some were stronger than others, and the Blue Roses, an all female group, were one of two highest ranked teams of the Kingdom's. Renner found them excellent company, and their curtness befitting of those who had fought in battle was always refreshing. Her mind broke adrift again, but it did not settle on a new topic prior to a knock on the door.

“Enter.”

After the assent of the Princess, a maid stepped in.

“Your Highness, His Majesty bid me to inform you that he would like your attendance in the throne room in two hours, His Highness the Crown Prince has returned from E-Rantel”

“Thank you, Laina, I will be in my boudoir. Oh, and do summon Climb for me. I want his help in selecting an outfit for today.”

Renner watched a small twitch on Laina’s face, before the maid smiled and bowed, exiting the room.

Even though she’s new, it seems she also harbors a hatred for him. Unsurprising. I’ll need to manage her eventually. That makes four of the recently hired maid staff here that have slipped so blatantly like that in front of me: Juvlia, Illurin, El’ya, and now her too. Laxity was expected, but they appear to be building resentments quicker than anticipated. It’s been two weeks for both of them, which means the existing members have already brought them into the fold. That’s the shorter end of the predicted time frame. I think she’s working for Marquis Raevan, though I don’t believe that to be of any special significance for her behavior. Its base dislike.

Although the Blue Roses knew her intelligence, the depth of her being was hidden.

A new plan of action, then. I’ll have Laina reassigned closer to me. I’ll talk about Climb, his recent jousting laurel. If her aversion to him runs that deep, it shouldn’t take long to drive her practically mad. From there, any reassignment is possible. Things would be so much simpler if only they tolerated my Climb.

Renner was far more than simply a genius.

Failing that, if only I could have the whole lot slung over the gallows.

She was rotten to the core.