Hernah, already naked and her nipples perked up, was busy trying to get under Kaden's urk and provide him with the same problem she having. A severe case of horniness.

In the exact moment when she was about to succeed, Princess Lyla, in her royal silks, interrupted them. "Hernah? Please leave us."

Frustrated and startled, the slave froze immediately, but quickly thawed herself and left. Even though she'd been deprived of his cock for several days while he was off in the Abyss on the wedding hunt, Hernah obeyed.

Kaden was thankful. He was having a hard time getting an erection. The mundaneness of his relationship with Hernah weighed on his ability to call his manhood to attention. Coupled with the stress of having to fight the King's messenger weighing on him, the problem was compounded. Outside of sparring, he'd never fought another person. Only demons.

And never with the intent of such a battle being to the death.

The princess recognized the Karo Shar's impotence and lack of arousal. "Does Hernah not amuse you anymore?" she asked.

"I have a lot on my mind." Kaden avoided the topic with his snide remark.

"You mean the ritual fight that you have been called to partake in?"

"Yes." Kaden smoothed his urk. "Killing demons is one thing. Killing men, men who could help kill demons, is another."

"Ah, you question the morality of our ways and the waste of life that it brings." Princess Lyla smirked and shrugged. "You are not the first. Some would say that men testing each other and weeding out the week only increases our strength."

"And what does Princess Lyla think?" Kaden stripped out of his chest plate, removing the tube and the mole skin plug from the chasm in his chest. The latter bearing the hint of puss and mucus from his body being irritated by it.

The air freely caressing his wound and his heart inside tickled slightly.

He mounted the armor on a stand next to his bed and stretched his muscles. The last bits of the previous does of Courage and Rage he'd taken while in the Abyss were finally working their way out of his system.

As Kaden retreated from the armor, Lyla moved to observe it and the mechanism of tubing underneath. "Remarkable what you have created," she said. "No one but the son of an alchemist could have conceived of such."

"Why are you avoiding my question?" Kaden pressed her.

"About what I think?" Lyla's lips pursed and her one eyebrow raised slightly. "I am just a woman. What does it matter?"

"You are a princess. And a Sava Warrioress. Don't play coy. Others might not care about your opinion, but I do."

Once he'd said those words, the princess didn't hesitate any longer. "I tend to agree with you about the waste of life and strength that comes from these overwrought displays of honor among warriors."

Kaden looked towards a desk and the book Lyla had recently delivered to him and requested he read. The book on sexual pleasure, and a book he hadn't had much time to consider.

"Our wedding is in four days," the princess said, breaking him from his thoughts. "The King will arrive in two. I highly suggest that you, between now and then, figure out how to get your head straight. If you don't, you'll lose. And you'll die."

"There's no way around this, is there?" Kaden asked, hoping she would tell him there was.

"Fighting Lar you mean?"

"Yes."

"No." Lyla stood stoic as she delivered the obvious and only answer. "The only way you get out of this without killing him is to drop your weapon, kneel before him, and allow him to take your head without a fight."

"Not an option."

"No. It isn't. The only other option is if someone were to kill him before you two were to fight."

Kaden folded his arms across his lean and bare chest. "Are you volunteering?"

"No," she said the slightest laugh. "I could easily take him. But, no. I could send Sakhar Bul as well. But still, no. While it would show that you have people loyal to you who would do anything to protect you, and that is a sense of power, it would also project weakness. A weakness that you were afraid to face him yourself."

"I seem to keep running into these double-edged swords."

"Do not," the princess chastised, "forget what your greatest strengths are, Kaden. You we once a puny alchemist. A mere brewer of emotional essences. Since then, you've become a warrior. But, you became a great warrior because of what you once were. Because of how you see things with your mind. You've begun to lose that which you were."

"I don't understand."

The princess approached him. Upon reaching where he stood, she unceremoniously grabbed what hung limp between his legs, urging it to instant life and dismissing his impotence with ease. "There are many lessons you never learned about fighting," she said, while Kaden couldn't resist her. "Because you weren't trained the way others were."

Her hand stroked him in an increasingly vigorous manner. And while Kaden struggled to suppress what was happening, the princess continued talking.

"Chief among these unlearned lessons are that battles are won and lost before you even take the field."

She played with him, her fingers like magic made him as hard as he could get. Kaden found it impossible to concentrate on anything else as he approached ecstasy with stifled moans.

Lyla continued to work him over.

"You see?" she said. "I'm winning, right now, and I won before I ever came here to see you tonight. Hernah couldn't bring this out of you. Only I could. Because I've already planted the seed of desire for me within you."

The princess changed her stroke, and it drove Kaden wild. He couldn't help himself. Within seconds he exploded in her grip. Lyla smiled as she released him and he hunched over searching for breath.

Wiping his seed from her hand on his urk rather than her own silks, she displayed satisfaction.

Kaden looked up at her. "I should find what I'm good at, and exploit it to my advantage," he said in a moment of clarity now that the stress of worry was miraculously gone from him.

"Yes. In addition to being Karo Shar, you are the Chief Alchemist of Ison. You will produce the essence that will be consumed by the both of you in your battle to the death. What do you think might happen to Lar if you were to give him a standard sized dose of the Rage and Courage mix you use?"

Kaden thought for a moment. "Well, everyone reacts slightly differently to essence. But, because of its increased potency, it's likely his body would not be able to handle a normal sized dose."

"And how would his body not be able to handle it?"

Kaden collected his thoughts. "On the minor end of possibilities, it would confuse him. His body would react differently than he would expect. Making him sloppy perhaps, and not as effective in battle."

"And on the severe end?"

Kaden's face ticked as he envisioned that. "Rage poisoning. Could cause his heart to explode. That's why we limit the dose to one stone of extract."

"And what are the odds he could handle it with no ill effects?"

"There's always a chance," Kaden replied. "But from what I know? From what I've experienced? It's not likely. Not even for a trained warrior."

"Then you have your answer," Lyla told him.

Kaden frowned at the suggestion. "It's deceptive. It would go against the Decrees."

"You still worry about those Decrees?" Lyla scolded him. "The Decrees are a mockery of justice. And you know that, Kaden. How many times have the Decrees been used to keep you in chains?"

"Too many."

"Yes. The Decrees are only words. The men behind them are the power. Even if someone were to accuse you of acting contrary to them, my brother would protect you. And knowing our father, I don't think the king would hinder him from doing so. Our father wants to see if Prince Relastin has what it takes to be king when what he sees as the inevitable comes."

"I don't see your father being the sort who would willingly give up his power."

"You are correct." Princess Lyla wiped her hands on Kaden's urk again, removing a missed bit of his bodily fluid from her. "He won't do so willingly. It will have to be taken from him. Whether that taking is bloody or not, remains to be seen. Our recent history, since men started rewriting it, omits the high number of times a successor had to kill his own father to seize what the Decrees state should be rightfully his."

"Is everything a lie?" Kaden asked of his future wife.

"Not all of it," she said. "But most. Now, I'll leave you to explain to Hernah why you're no longer able to please her at this time." The princess chucked a finger at the wetness on Kaden's urk and left him to break the bad news.