[b]Nahla![/b]

The Grand Vizier is meticulous. Exacting. Precise. And you, as you have presented yourself, are none of these things. You are careless, clumsy, broad.

And it is this that makes you an irresistible delicacy to her, here in her lair, where she has ordered the world to be just so.

What will pass between you, as Ruz succumbs to her desire to have something of her Sultan’s prize for herself… the Almighty alone will know.

Will you tell Grace-of-Heaven? Or will you hide Ruz’s desire from her?

[hr]

[b]Silsila Om![/b]

Hai Lin duels naked to the waist. Practical, given the risk of infection from cuts with the tip of a blade. She is pert, trim, lean, like the sword she expertly handles; she wears a long glove on one hand, a dueling affectation you haven’t seen before.

“To surrender,” she says. She has not offered you her own terms; she seems confident that she will be able to force any terms she pleases when she is victorious. She will not hold back; if fortune turns against you, she will press her advantage without remorse.

[hr]

[b]Birsi![/b]

The 78 Heavens are sleeping fitfully. The world is nocturnal here; at night, everything comes to life. So it is that Jekkan is able to find you a very private booth in a nearly-empty diner. The sizzling sound of eggs comes from the kitchen on the ground floor as Jekkan presses herself close, your seats overlooking an empty (and oddly stained) stage.

“What do you think of that palace?” Jekkan’s hand is exploratory, drifting lightly over your skin. “Do you think they will be able to control the city for long, your sisters?”

Ostensibly, the Fire Wheels are occupying the palace so that they can suppress unrest. If she’s hinting at what you think she’s hinting at, Jekkan might be a revolutionary, an anti-Vulenid, someone who wants to see the Sultan toppled from her throne.

Does that sober you up, Birsi? Or does the heat of her, the scent of her, in the dark, do these things turn your head like wine?

[hr]

[b]Soot![/b]

[i]”jheb At! jhen Ask! jhev Sha!”[/i]

The Host springs to life, unfolding from her gaudy necklace, wrapping itself around Rosethal as a second skin. She shoves the low table into your shins, hard, and then vaults over it, knocking you down from your seat, sending you sprawling.

She’s not supposed to have done that. The shins, that is. That’s not necessary correction, that’s needless cruelty. But it might be difficult to tell her that, because she’s picking you up by the throat.

“Where do you even get off speaking like that, you miserable little worm? You wriggling [i]snake?[/i] You want to know why I’m better than you?” She lifts her other hand, and her Host-gauntlet splits apart, spins her around her fingers with a murmured command, and then locks around her once more. “Because I was born to [i]command.[/i] I am [i]never[/i] going to be a servant like you, because I command the Host themselves. [i]abh Vekh![/i]”

Metal writhes across your body, seeking to encase you, to clamp over your limbs, to leave you helpless, and you can feel a dull heat, an intelligence, inside, but she doesn’t let her Host come out to play like that towering Silsila Om, does she?

And then one of the Fire Wheels speaks up. “She’s [i]playing,[/i] right?” The other players are glaring at her; she’s broken the unwritten rules of the game by attacking another player. She’s about to be in a lot of trouble, especially if you were to, say, kick her, or otherwise distract her. This whole room would explode into chaos.

And if Rosethal still wins, you will be in so, so much trouble. You’re going to be in trouble either way— Ruz dotes on her daughter— but if Rosethal wins a fight here, you’re going to be disappearing to her chambers for punishment…