Charisma 100: My Academy Life As A Heartbreaking Commoner-Chapter 199: One More Showcase

{Aegis}

Rosalie’s workshop smelled like burnt herbs that Aegis couldn’t identify. Probably best not to ask.

Aegis leaned against one of the workbenches, watching Rosalie dart between cauldrons and ingredient shelves. Her green hair was messier than usual, sticking up at odd angles, and her glasses had slipped down her nose for the third time in the last minute. She pushed them back up without breaking stride, already reaching for another vial.

"So," Aegis said. "The Consortium."

"The Consortium!" Rosalie spun around, her yellow eyes going wide. "Aegis, do you have any idea how big this is? The Valdrian Trade Consortium doesn’t just invite anyone. They’ve got representatives from every major trading house in the kingdom. Every single one! If we impress them—"

"We could secure contracts that would make House Starcaller a permanent fixture in Valdrian commerce."

"Exactly!" Rosalie grabbed a vial from a nearby rack and held it up to the light. The liquid inside glowed a soft, mildly radioactive-looking orange. "So we need to bring our best. Fire Resistance is obvious. That’s one of our signatures, the formula’s solid, the demand is high, and we’ve already proven we can produce it at scale."

"What else?"

"The advanced aether restoration potions." She set the orange vial down and picked up a blue one. "These are better than anything else on the market. Faster absorption, longer duration, no crash afterward. Any combat-focused house would kill for a steady supply."

Aegis nodded slowly. Fire Resistance and Mana potions were safe choices. Proven products with established demand. But safe wasn’t going to cut it. Not if she wanted to make the kind of impression that would finally, firmly, put House Starcaller on the map.

"What about something more... experimental?"

Rosalie’s hands stilled on the vial.

"Experimental?"

"Something new. Something nobody’s seen before." Aegis pushed off from the workbench and walked closer. "We’re not just trying to make sales here, Rosalie. We’re trying to make a statement. I want people walking out of that meeting talking about House Starcaller for weeks."

[Which they probably will anyway, after what goes down at the engagement the day after, hehe.]

Rosalie chewed her lip, and her cheeks had gone a little pink. Which, cute.

"I... there is one thing I’ve been working on." She moved to a locked cabinet in the corner of the workshop and pulled out a small chest. Inside, nestled in velvet padding, were three vials filled with liquid that shifted between gold and silver as she tilted the chest. "I call it an Aether Surge potion."

"Fancy name. What does it do?"

"Temporarily amplifies magical output by about forty percent. Maybe fifty, depending on the user’s baseline." Rosalie’s voice had taken on that excited, nerdy quality it always got when she was talking about alchemy. "Uh, k-keyword being ’temporary’. The effect only lasts about a minute. But, during that window? A mid-tier mage could cast as many spells as a master! The applications for combat, for emergency situations, for—"

"For impressing a room full of merchants who want to sell things to people who fight monsters for a living."

"Yes. That."

Aegis picked up one of the vials and turned it over in her hand. The liquid was pretty, she had to admit.

[So, it gives you more MP to work with? I wouldn’t mind a few of these for myself, actually.]

"Any side effects?"

"Fatigue afterward. Pretty severe, actually. You’d be useless for about an hour once it wears off." Rosalie adjusted her glasses again, a nervous habit. "And I’ve only tested it a few times. On myself, mostly. I don’t know how it would interact with different magical affinities or—"

"Eh, whatever. It’s perfect."

"It’s risky!"

"It’s exactly what we need." Aegis set the vial back in its velvet nest and closed the chest. "Fire resistance and aether-restoring potions prove we can compete with established suppliers. This? This proves we can innovate. That’s the story we’re telling: House Starcaller isn’t just another potion shop. We’re the future of alchemical commerce."

Rosalie stared at her for a long moment. Then she laughed, shaking her head.

"You’re insane."

"I prefer ’visionary.’"

"You’re an insane visionary."

"Now you’re getting it."

Aegis grinned, and Rosalie’s blush deepened from pink to red. She looked away quickly, fussing with some bottles on a nearby shelf that definitely didn’t need fussing with.

"I’ll, um. I’ll prepare the samples. How many of each should I bring?"

"Enough to demonstrate, not enough to give away for free. We want them hungry." Aegis reached out and tucked a strand of green hair behind Rosalie’s ear, letting her fingers linger just a moment longer than necessary. "You’re brilliant, you know that?"

Rosalie made a noise somewhere between a squeak and a cough.

"I’m just doing my job."

"You’re doing way more than that." Aegis let her hand drop and stepped back. "I’ll see you tomorrow morning. We’ll head to the Consortium together."

She left Rosalie standing in the middle of her workshop, her face red, her glasses crooked, looking like someone who’d just been told she’d won the lottery and also had to give a speech about it in front of a thousand people.

Adorable.

---

The manor was quiet by the time evening rolled around.

Aegis was in her study, going over the guest list for the Consortium meeting for the dozenth time, when she heard footsteps in the hallway. Familiar footsteps. The kind that tried to be quiet but couldn’t quite manage it because their owner was too wound up to move normally.

She didn’t look up when the door opened.

"You know," she said, still reading, "for someone whose mother is trying to marry her off to another person, you spend an awful lot of time sneaking into my bedroom."

"This is your study."

"Same building. Close enough."

Talia closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She looked annoyed. Well, more annoyed than usual. Which was saying something, because Talia’s resting state was already "mildly homicidal."

"Betrothal preparations?" Aegis guessed.

"Dress fittings." Talia spat the words out. "My mother has opinions about lace. Many, many opinions about lace. I now know more about lace than any person should ever have to know about lace. And it’s not even for the wedding, it’s just for the betrothal ceremony. Can you imagine what the actual wedding planning will be like? I’ll gouge my own eyes out."

"Sounds brutal."

"You have no idea."

Aegis finally set down the guest list and gave Talia her full attention. The princess had changed out of whatever formal torture device she’d been stuffed into earlier and into something simpler. Dark pants, loose shirt, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail.

The shirt was slightly too big for her. It kept slipping off one shoulder.

[Nice.]

"Come here."

Talia pushed off the door and crossed the room. She didn’t sit down so much as throw herself into the chair across from Aegis’s desk, slumping back with an irritated huff.

"Two days," she said.

"I know."

"Two days, Aegis. And then I’m officially betrothed to Darius Goldspire. Once that ceremony happens, breaking it off would be a diplomatic catastrophe." Her yellow eyes narrowed. "I refuse to let that happen. I’m not spending the rest of my life pretending to enjoy poetry about my ’moon eyes’ while some pretty boy fumbles around trying to find my clit."

"To be fair, it’s really not that hard to find."

"You’d be surprised how many people struggle with basic anatomy."

"Their loss. I’ve got a map memorized."

Talia’s lips twitched.

"Smug little peasant."

"Always."

"So." Talia crossed her arms, which did interesting things to her chest under that loose shirt. "What’s your plan to get me out of this? Because I’m running out of fake illnesses and my mother has started checking if I actually have fevers."

"Well, for starters, I just got invited to the Valdrian Trade Consortium’s bi-annual meeting." Aegis leaned back in her chair, letting herself look as smug as she felt. "Tomorrow, actually."

Talia sat up straighter.

"The Consortium? How did you—" She stopped herself and shook her head. "Never mind. Of course you did. You probably charmed someone into it. House Stone will be there," Talia said slowly, her brain clearly switching into political mode. "We always send a representative to Consortium meetings. Trade policy affects the crown directly."

"I figured as much."

"So what’s your plan? Schmooze some merchants, make a few deals, and somehow convince my mother that a minor noble house with a title that isn’t even a year old is worth considering before she locks me into an engagement with the heir to House Goldspire?" Talia raised an eyebrow.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"That’s a tall order, Starcaller."

Aegis grinned.

"I’ve got one more big move lined up. Something that’ll make some noise."

"Care to share?"

"Nope. You’ll see."

"I hate when you do that."

"No you don’t. You think it’s hot."

Talia opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. "...I’m not dignifying that with a response."

[That’s a yes.]

Aegis stood, walked around the desk, and pulled Talia up from her chair. They stood close, close enough that Aegis could smell whatever fancy soap Talia used, close enough to see the way her pupils dilated slightly.

"The betrothal isn’t happening," Aegis said. "I’ve got this."

"You’d better, Starcaller." Talia’s hands found Aegis’s hips, fingers digging in slightly. "Because if I have to marry Darius Goldspire, I’m going to be very, very frustrated. And I’m going to blame you."

"Can’t have that."

"No. You can’t."

Talia kissed her.

It was hungry and aggressive, the kind of kiss that was less "I need comfort" and more "I’m pissed off and you’re going to help me work through it." Aegis was extremely okay with this. She kissed back just as hard, one hand tangled in that messy ponytail, the other sliding down to grab Talia’s ass because it was right there and she wasn’t made of stone.

Talia made a sound against her mouth that went straight to Aegis’s cock.

Then Talia pulled back, breathing a little heavier than before. Her cheeks were flushed. Her lips were slightly swollen. She looked like she wanted to throw Aegis onto the desk and have her way with her.

Unfortunately.

"I have to go," Talia said, and she sounded annoyed about it. "Mother will notice if I’m gone too long."

"Quickie?"

"Aegis."

"Worth a shot."

Talia straightened her shirt, fixed her hair, and composed herself. By the time she reached the door, she looked like a proper princess again instead of someone who’d just been making out with a former commoner in said former commoner’s study.

She glanced back once, and there was heat in those yellow eyes.

"Two days. Don’t fuck this up."

---

Aegis lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling.

Sleep wasn’t coming, but that was fine. Her brain was too busy running through everything she’d managed to pull together over the past few weeks. The weapons from the Stormrend Vaults. The trade connections from Lady Roseheart’s salon. The political allies she’d been cultivating one dinner party at a time. The retainers, the property, the business contracts. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

It was a lot. Way more than she’d had any right to expect when she’d started this whole insane venture.

And tomorrow, she was going to add even more to the pile.

She grinned in the dark.

[Two days. One more power play. And then, in three days, Duchess Evangeline Stone is going to learn that her daughter’s peasant girlfriend isn’t someone she can ignore.]

She closed her eyes.

Tomorrow was going to be fun.