Mazari looked down at Commander Vargos’s leather-clad gauntlet wrapped around her sleeve, then slowly raised her gaze to his brooding brow. “Why did I let you go?” she repeated, her tone ringing like coin striking granite. “Commander, you receive an annual stipend of four thousand imperial ducats. After deducting your regiment’s parade polish and your mother’s seaside villa maintenance, your net liquid capital is roughly equal to the price of an imported turnip.” Vargos blinked, his grip faltering. “I offered you honour. A hero’s name. A steady shield in the empire—” “A shield doesn’t pay compound interest,” Mazari interrupted cheerfully, peeling his grip off her wrist knuckle by knuckle. “My current husband, pathetic though his posture remains, is a fountain of proprietary luxury patents. You are a public servant with bad knees and a pension that vests in thirty years. Sulea didn’t steal my prize, Vargos. She intercepted my garbage pickup. Now run along. Your bride is presently screaming at a registrar, and she sounds like she needs a wealthy soldier to foot her legal fees.” She turned on her heel, leaving the great war hero standing paralyzed in the colonnade, his mouth half-open as if he had just been struck by a broadside cannonade disguised as an audit. Behind a marbled pillar, Zilar stood holding his newly stamped patent scroll as though it were live ordnance. His collar was damp with nervous sweat. “Was that necessary?” he muttered, scurrying to match her brisk stride toward their carriage. “The man has killed mountain drakes with his bare hands.” “Mountain drakes do not yield dividends, darling. Now hush. We have three hours before sundown to turn you from a feral attic rat into the visage of an untouchable luxury magnate.” Back within the drafty, crumbling east wing of the estate, Mazari dumped three armfuls of tailored silk onto Zilar’s alchemy table, nearly knocking over a cluster of glass alembics. “Strip,” she ordered. Zilar grabbed a bronze beaker like a buckler. “I will certainly not! Mazari, this is a workspace of delicate thermal balances—” “And you are currently dressed in a burlap sack that smells of sulfur and crushed hopes.” She stepped forward, seizing his lapels. With practiced efficiency, she peeled off his stained gray coat. Zilar froze entirely, his arms pinned to his sides. His breath caught high in his throat as she shook out a doublet of midnight samite, embroidered with silver laurels. She dragged it over his shoulders, smoothing the fabric against his chest. He was broader than his slouch suggested. Underneath the perpetual cringing posture lay the lean, taut frame of a prince who had spent years hauling heavy iron caldrons in secret. Mazari reached up to adjust his cravat, her fingertips brushing the warm skin beneath his ear. She paused, tilting her head. A smudge of ground iris root darkened his cheekbone. Without thinking, she brought her thumb up, firmly dragging it across his skin to wipe the pigment away, her touch tracing the sharp, aristocratic line of his jaw. Zilar shuddered as if struck by lightning. His amber gaze locked onto hers, pupils dilated wide with an agonizing, naked longing he had evidently buried beneath five years of floorboards. A flush crept from his collar to the tips of his ears. He looked utterly terrified, not of physical danger, but of the fact that she was breathing against his collarbones. “You are shaking,” Mazari murmured, her touch lingering against his pulse point for one beat longer than strictly commercial prudence dictated. “Are the silks too tight?” “You... you are touching my face,” Zilar squeaked, his voice cracking down the middle. He pressed his heels into the floorboards as if trying to merge with the timber. “Nobles do not touch their partners like that unless they intend to extract marrow or launch a coup.” “I am adjusting inventory display,” she said smoothly, stepping back with a dazzling, predatory smirk that completely masked the erratic rhythm in her own ribs. “A master perfumer cannot look like he sleeps under an overturned cart. Now, uncork the vials. Tonight, we introduce Opheris to the concept of manufactured rest.” By dusk, the grand courtyard of the Azure Conservatoire’s lower tier was swarming with exhausted minor nobles—tax collectors, mid-level magistrates, and third-born sons run ragged by court intrigue. Mazari stood atop an upturned velvet-draped crate, holding aloft a crystal flacon filled with a pale, opalescent liquid. “Gentlemen and ladies of the ledger!” she called out, her voice cutting through the evening murmur. “You haven’t slept properly since the Autumn Solstice! Your dark circles have their own postal codes! Allow House Qen to present: *Dormio Imperialis*. One mist across the temple mimics eight hours of deep, unbothered slumber, restoring the skin and banishing the existential dread of fiscal ruin!” A skeptical magistrate snorted. “A sleeping draft? We have herbs for that, Lady Mazari.” “Does your herbal tea leave you smelling like white lotus and unearned wealth?” Mazari demanded. “Try it, Councilor.” She signaled Zilar, who hovered timidly behind her in his crisp silver-trimmed silks. With a flick of his wrist, the prince activated an atomizing pump, dispersing a cool, shimmering mist across the front row of the assembly. The effect was instantaneous. The councilor’s slumping shoulders dropped two inches. The perpetual twitch under his left eye smoothed into placid calm. His posture relaxed, his graying face taking on the fresh, luminous glow of a man who had just vacationed on an untouched southern island for three uninterrupted weeks. “By the gods,” someone whispered. “Fifty gold sovereigns per vial!” Mazari bellowed. “Only forty batches available tonight! Form an orderly line or be trampled by your colleagues!” The courtyard erupted into chaos. Silk purses were thrust forward. Nobles practically scaled the crate, screaming for allocations. Zilar was caught in a blur of clinking coin and frantic hands, his pale cheeks flushed as he mechanically accepted velvet pouches of bullion and handed over tiny crystal bottles. In twenty-four minutes flat, the crates were empty. Back in the manor’s dilapidated sitting room, the dining table was completely buried beneath stacks of solid gold sovereign coins. Mazari was practically bathing her forearms in them, letting the heavy metal clink through her fingers like warm water. “Look at this,” she purred, eyes glittering with unvarnished avarice. “Pure, non-taxable margin. Zilar, we are going to own the southern docks by midsummer. We will buy a private barge plated in platinum.” Zilar didn't answer. She looked up from her mountain of wealth. The prince was standing by the bookshelf, frozen in the dim candlelight. In his left hand, he held a bound leather ledger that Mazari had tucked behind a loose brick near the hearth—the journal penned by her past self. It was open to the central spread. Mazari’s smile went rigid. “‘Subject: Prince Zilar,’” Zilar read aloud. His voice was horribly steady, devoid of his usual nervous flutter. “‘Formulaic yields suggest his suppressed olfactory aptitude exceeds imperial standards by three hundred percent. With calculated manipulation and simulated marital intimacy, projected net profit margins reach forty thousand gold sovereigns by Quarter Three.’” He slowly looked up. The flush from earlier was gone, replaced by an ashen pallor that made his eyes seem like bruised hollows. “Simulated marital intimacy,” he quoted softly. He closed the book with a hollow, dry thud. “The touch on my neck. The way you straightened my collar. The promises about making us rich together.” Mazari stood up from the gold, her heart lodging in her throat, but her tongue instinctively reached for her armor of brass and mockery. “Zilar, don't be sentimental. It’s an operations forecast. Every good enterprise requires an aggressive business plan—” “Am I an enterprise to you, Mazari?” He stepped toward her, stopping just before the edge of the gold-laden table. His fists were clenched tight at his sides, his chest heaving, his amber eyes shining with hot, unshed tears that threatened to spill down his perfectly tailored lapels. “Look at me,” Zilar demanded, his voice cracking beneath five years of quiet, hopeless devotion. “Tell me now, before we earn another copper. Will I ever be anything more to you than a financial instrument?”

Financial Instruments of Affection