[b]Piripiri![/b]

Now comes the wait. The message will have to be relayed to the Red Wolf, after all, and perhaps she will not be available immediately: after all, you have used the white lotus. What is more interesting, however, is how Azazuka watches you carry out this rite.

“You’re sending a signal, aren’t you?” She’s clever, but not sharp or clued in enough to know [i]who.[/i] You may want to give yourself plausible deniability, to obfuscate the connection between you and the Red Wolf, the handsome face of the Dominion.

Or did you choose to do this beside her on purpose? Were you, perhaps, whether you knew or not, intending to show off a little? Certainly she seems more interested, leaning closer; is it not enough for you to be a duelist and a merchant, but also a daughter of dragons, a worker of little miracles?

How exciting you must be, heroine! How better to win a girl’s heart?

Oh, perhaps you will argue: I needed to make sure she is not in trouble. Or perhaps you will say: it is not right for the weak to fend for themselves. Maybe even: she is my gift to the Red Wolf, and I do not want to misplace her.

But she is looking at you, daughter of Hymair, and perhaps you do not recognize the danger that you are in: the danger of being entirely too winning for your own good. For when has Azazuka ever seen a thing and been denied it, save for that which was deemed too dangerous for her? And how could she ever think of you, her savior, as dangerous?

***

[b]Giriel![/b]

The leaves resolve, for a moment, into the form of a high tower, caught as it crumbles. Disaster. Ruin. Woe. Everything about this is going to go wrong— even for Ven.

Another sign: now the tower is a banner. War. Soldiers. The Dominion, possibly— but you know that it is much more likely to be the General.

A third sign: the petals of the red dahlia mixed with the snapdragon: in its darker meaning, then. Deception, lies, betrayal. What else do you expect from the Broken King? The way the stems lie together, there in the center: cross-purposes.

Put them all together: Ven, herself, is doomed to betrayal, or means to betray. The General— ah. You remember, now. He knows Ven has a prize (the daughter of a revolutionary, some god of the Flower Kingdoms) and means to seize it, seize her, whether Ven offers or no. Perhaps Ven knows and means to betray her Hellish master over the matter of a simple priestess, but it is more likely that Ven simply hopes to keep the priestess away from Hell for her own reasons— and will not succeed.

If you do not save Melody of Silver Bells, Melody will find herself one way or another trapped beneath that sea of war’s flotsam and jetsam to suffer. But Ven does not want to give Melody up, does not intend for Melody’s veil to join that twisted blue rope wrung between the General’s fingers. That might save her from the worst of Han’s fury, then.