Radeon knew the moment was inevitable. He had no patience for the mummers farces found in songs, where maidens and heroes hid in secret glades, trading coy glances before tearful confessions.

Better to address this need than let her pin him down later, or worse, have her seek comfort in the arms of some common flea-bottom wretch.

He glanced at tasks waiting outside. The logs, the frogs, the matter of Humphrey.

Meaningless scrawls. He shook his head.

Fay grabbed his forearm, her grip desperate.

"Master, just forget it. Please," she said.

Radeon did not listen. He moved with the sudden, tossing her onto the bed.

The mattress was soft, stuffed with air that bounced under her weight.

"I will teach you the way of it," Radeon said, his voice rough. "Watch. Learn. Then you shall tend to your own fires."

He produced a silencing talisman from his sleeve, and slapped it to the wall.

The world outside the leather tent vanished. He stripped away her robes, not with the tenderness of a lover, but with the efficiency of a doctor tending a wound.

She lay bare against the coarse leather.

Radeon's fingers found the part of her that set the flames racing. She was slick as oil, hot as a fever.

His fingers brushed the forbidden lips, lingering there a moment before moving. At first, it was a gentle caress, a ghost of a touch.

Fay gritted her teeth, a sound like grinding stones. This was a sensation alien to her, a foreign invader breaching the gates.

His finger did not enter, merely circled, firm and relentless. A dampness leaked from her, staining the sheets.

Fay flushed with shame, the red creeping up her neck, but the traitorous heat in her blood rose to meet him. A moan escaped her lips, unbidden.

Radeon increased his pace. He moved with the vigor of a warrior and the cold precision of an assassin.

Fay grunted, her hips bucking. The pressure built within her, a dam straining against a flood.

"Enough," she gasped, clutching at his arm

Her nails dug into his flesh, drawing beads of blood that looked black in the dim light.

Radeon did not stop. Her defenses shattered. She cried out, calling on gods old and new. Immortals, Heavens it mattered not.

Her body convulsed, a violent shuddering that racked her from heel to crown.

A fountain of release gushed over his hand, warm and musky, splashing his robe.

The temptation whispered to Radeon. The pink, tender flesh, the vulnerability of her sprawl.

Take it, the devil on his shoulder murmured. Right here. Right now.

But he was a creature of discipline. He ignored the whisper. Instead, his hand moved to her neck, her navel, the tender skin beneath her ribs.

He played her body like a harp, wringing every note of exhaustion from her until her eyes dulled and could no longer focus.

She moaned until the candles burned low and guttered out, finally collapsing into a sleep deep as death.

Radeon looked down at her. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead. Fay's scent of wild winter flowers filled his tent.

He tried to close her legs together, but she shivered at his touch. He covered her with her cloak. Her own qi made the cloth recover.

He stood and patted his side, his fingers searching for a pipe that was not there. He let out a dry chuckle. Old habits, dying hard.

Walking to the window, he looked up at the starless sky. He let his Qi flow, drying the dampness from his skin in an instant.

But the scent of her seemed to cling to his very pores, a memory he could not wash away.

Radeon sat outside the tent, behind the canvas where the miners could not see him, and flipped through his notes fast.

Names. Faces. Threads. Claims. After a while he frowned. Only four individuals truly clicked into place.

Each had a talent too unique for a mine, too strange to be explained by common upbringing.

Not because he doubted the world could birth such gifts. It could. It did, every day. The problem was means.

People like this did not get the chance to hone it, not without a patron, not without time, not without education.

He wrote them down cleanly.

Tabulae. Female. Age thirteen. A mind for calculations, estimates, the kind that could smell a collapse before stone remembered to fall.

Gauge Point. Male. Age nineteen. A nose for luck, the ability to sense where the best ore would be, a talent that made him dangerous to keep as a mere laborer.

Good Chip. Male. Age twelve. Hands too fast. He could cut and mine at a pace that shamed a dozen adults.

Spice Cure. Female. Age fifteen. A knack for medicine, pulling remedies from common plants like she was remembering instead of inventing.

The solution was simple. Buy them out. Pull them from the churn before someone else noticed their worth and decided to use it cruelly.

Would they agree? It was a stupid question. Who did not want to cultivate?

But before he did any of that, he needed to prepare.

He had observed the miners long enough to know who held the real reins. Those tents, however thick, did not hide anything from him.

Challah always drew a hard bargain. She did not give away value unless she believed she was taking more in return.

That meant Radeon would have to arrive with leverage already in his hands.

He beckoned Campion over. The bison came fast, head lowered, a loyal beast.

Humphrey grew curious and waddled close, snout working.

Campion nudged it aside without looking, a casual shove that said mine.

The boar snorted and pulled a face, the same rude expression children make when they are joking around.

Campion did not understand the expression, only the intent. Its ears pinned back.

"Alright. Stop, you two," Radeon said.

He split them with a pulse of strength, a clean pressure that made both beasts yield.

He reached into his stores and took out dried herbs he had prepared earlier, back at the Ossuary Necropolis and again at the bandit camp.

He sorted them by scent and texture, already calculating what they would become when brewed and pressed.

He was going to make an offer no woman could refuse.

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