“I’m gonna kill him,” Nadia said, squeezing her fist as she imagined her brother’s head popping off in her grip. The little puppet had it coming anyway.

“Who, Calvin?” the muscle-bound idiot beside her asked with a wry grin as they walked down the street.

“No, not him,” Nadia said, glancing over and up at the towering archer. Although Calvin’s lack of reaction to her provocations was infuriating, it wasn’t enough for her to kill herself over. The casual disregard for her safety and her behavior was nice, but it didn’t quite scratch the itch.

Why she’d been paired with the simpleton was beyond her. Perhaps Calvin felt Baroke provided some much-needed perspective into the dimly lit minds of the rabble.

“Who then?”

“My brother.” Nadia said, eyes narrowed. “He’s an insufferable cunt.” The prince had been engineered from birth to be as charming as possible, and as a result, the little ambassador was as fake as they came. Sycophantism in the flesh.

“Just him?” Baroke asked, earning himself a cold look.

“I remember a certain meat-headed lug who couldn’t force his way out of a control spell if the lives of his countrymen depended on it.” Nadia snapped, intent on hurting him back.

Baroke caught her under the throat and slammed her skull against the nearby glass building, making her see stars. A rush of disgust at being touched by such a warm-blooded simpleton flooded her body, and she couldn’t resist kicking him in the ribs.

His side felt like it was made of hardwood. He acted like he didn’t feel anything, and she glared at him through the lights.

“You’re not a princess anymore,” Baroke growled, “And you don’t have the Bent to back up those words, either. Don’t speak to me of Ilethan sorcery, ever.”

“Touched a nerve, did I? What are you going to do if I don’t stop, kill this body and make Calvin summon a new one? Oh, maybe you can ask your friend to stop everything he’s doing and punish me for you?”

That actually doesn’t sound half bad.

“Two weeks without existing. Two weeks being a passenger in Calvin’s mind, unable to do anything.”

Nadia’s heart sank. Two weeks with nothing to do but listen to the man in Calvin’s head drone on was a fate worse than being strung up and humiliated in the public square.

“He didn’t give you permission to do that,” Nadia said.

“He did, actually. If I say the word when we get back,” He snapped his sausage fingers for emphasis. “It’s back in the bottle for you. And before you get any bright ideas, if I don’t come back at all, you’re back in the bottle until I’m found alive and well. If not…” He let the idea hang in the air between them.

Nadia thought about it for a moment, and smirked.

“Even if I killed you, he’d be forced to use me again within a couple years. Your threats are hollow. Sooner or later, your death would be nothing but the faint memory of a teen, while I would continue on, unaging, immortal…and very, very convenient,” She slid her hand down his chest for emphasis.

“You really wanna risk that?” Baroke asked, slamming her back against the house again. “For little old me?”

“You’re right,” She said with a groan. “Your life isn’t worth a couple years of my time.”

“I’m glad we could come to an understanding,” Baroke said, dropping her back on her feet. “Let’s go visit your brother. And remember: you’re not to kill him.”

Gross, Nadia thought as she rubbed her neck where the soft-willed fool had put his meat-paws, continuing on toward the palace. She didn’t ask to be so picky about men, it was just the way she’d turned out. She knew plenty of other Ilethan noblewomen who’d gladly worship the archer’s body, but he was lacking some…Je ne sais quoi.

Probably killing intent. She hadn’t sensed cold will to end her existence, simply anger and frustration. The man wasn’t a killer. Not by birth, anyway.

The only people she’d ever been deeply attracted to had been the Red-Light Ripper, and Calvin Gadsint.

Lucky me, Nadia rolled her eyes as they came to the entrance of the Palace grounds.

I wonder if the Ripper is still alive? I only left him enough food for a couple months, after all… He’s probably fine.

The pale blue glass of the palace’s twisted towers faded into the sky, nearly invisible against the clear vista. Toward the base of the palace, the glass turned purple where it was slowly expanding, gaining rooms and repairing damage over the last eight hundred years, pushing the dead blue glass up into the sky like fingernails or hair.

Iletha would kill to know how the Uleisians had accomplished such a feat, but Nadia was fairly certain that even if they knew the technique, there was simply no way to reproduce it outside of the desert.

“Hold. What is your purpose?” the sharply dressed royal guard said, stopping Nadia and The talking Guar in front of the entrance, eyeing the two of them suspiciously.

True, they weren’t exactly discreet. Baroke was nearly seven feet tall, and Nadia’s foreign features stood out like a Bracchus Pine in the scrublands to the south.

“Nadia Ilestar, I’m here to see my brother, Thomas Ilestar. This is my mute manservant, Baroke.” Nadia said. “He’s a little slow.”

Baroke scowled at her, but didn’t say anything that might raise the guard’s suspicions. Dumb people scowled a lot. Because they were confused.

“I’ve got no word of anyone visiting the ambassador today. I’ll need to check this with Scheduling.

“Don’t bother. We’re not on the schedule. This is a surprise inspection from his little sister. He’ll be thrilled to hear I’m here.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you in if you’re not scheduled to visit.”

“What’s your name?” Nadia asked with her cutest smile. The one she’d spent years practicing in the mirror.

“Kantor, why?”

“I just wanted to know the name of the guard who’s been so helpful to the Ilethan family, and simply brilliant in following his duties to the letter. I’m going to talk you up to your superiors, for sure.”

From Nadia’s tone, it could be inferred that she would be doing the exact opposite, but She left it just vague enough that if the man was wired differently, he would hear the kotto fruit rather than the stick.

Let people pick the truth they want. One of the most basic lessons she’d ever learned from home.

The guard was perceptive enough to start faintly sweating, shifting nervously.

“I ah, suppose I could have a missive delivered.”

“Would you?” She asked sweetly. “I’m sure Thomas will be thrilled to hear from me.”

***Thomas Ilestar***

“Oh gods, she’s going to kill me,” Thomas said, crawling around the floor, trying to pick his stomach off the ground. “That crazy bitch is going to replace my blood with salt and feed me to her pets under the castle, I just know it.”

“You wish for us to turn her away?”

“No!” Thomas shrieked before clearing his throat and picking himself up off the floor. He deepened his voice and took a firm stance, addressing his page.

“No, that would be disastrous, tell them to let her in. We’ll deal with this head-on. Preferably in public, where she can’t gut either of us.”

“Are you sure this is credible?” Sam said, eyeing the note with a cocked brow. “Didn’t you say yourself she was MIA in Gadvera?” The kid was pretty sharp for his age, and technically Thomas’s cousin, which made him ideal for the remote assignment in Uleis, but he hadn’t had firsthand contact with Nadia, which made him underestimate her crazy.

“I know what I said!” Thomas snapped, holding a hand over his stomach as the stress started working its way through his bowels. “Look at it this way, either she’s real and we avoid pissing her off, or it’s a fake and we find out immediately, rather than letting it affect our work.”

“Speaking of work, you’ve got a dinner party at old man Asabei’s later this evening.”

Asabei was one of the moderates who Thomas was most desperate to influence. The deaf old man ran a solid third of the merchants in the city, either directly or indirectly, in a system so streamlined that money flowed into the old man’s purse in a manner likened to the flow of water from the condensers, passive and consistent.

If they could convince him to throw his weight behind the Ilethan war effort, they could easily divert the flow of goods flowing through Uleis northerly, where Iletha would ship them en masse, furthering their stranglehold on Gadvera.

“We’re still going,” Thomas said, pulling a comb out of his pocket and running it through his thick black hair, warming a dash of pomade between his hands and applying it between strokes to give it that lusterous shine.

“I’ll deal with the she-devil,” Thomas said, checking on his appearance before he went off to battle the beast. “I want you to stay out of her sight. I don’t want her to even know you’re here. I’m relying on you to bail me out if she stops me from leaving my room. Send a runner with an urgent message if I haven’t dislodged her after half an hour.”

“What will the message say?”

“That I have an urgent summons from the duke of excuses. Make something up.” Thomas said, sending the page a glance. It wasn’t his job to come up with the urgent message he would need an hour from now. A lot could happen in an hour.

“I’ll figure something out,” Sam said, nodding.

“Alright, how do I look?” Thomas asked, doing a spin.

“Stately,” the page said, nodding in appreciation. “I’ll never know how you get the back of your head so well groomed without a mirror.”

“It’s a Skill,” Thomas said with a grin.

“Really?”

“Accidentally got it during the second Tark offensive, when I fixed up my coiffure the morning after. Hairdressing, it’s called.”

“Wow…umm… that’s nice.”

“My father didn’t give me too much shit in the aftermath, since it’s a Stability skill, and it makes me look damn good.”

Volumizer.

18/25 Bent remaining.

With a deft flick of his brush and the proper application of Bent, Thomas’s hair turned from passable to a work of art.

“Alright, what’s the plan? Give it back to me.”

“You distract her. I stay hidden. Bail you out in half an hour.”

“Well done. Go tell the sand-breathers to let her in, and then get out of sight.”

“Yessir,” Sam said, giving him an Ilethan salute before ducking out of the room.

Thomas took one last look at himself in the mirror, taking a deep breath. He looked a little pale.

I could use some blush, so I don’t look quite so nervous, he thought, picking up the sponge and adding a little color to his cheeks.

Maybe raise my brows a bit and take focus away from my eyes. I don’t want to look nervous…

***Baroke***

“The ambassador will see you.” The guard said after the runner whispered in his ear. “Please put your hands up for an inspection.”

The guards checked the two of them for weapons before leading them through the labyrinthine halls of the Uleis palace, a cold glass castle with expensive imported rugs covering the halls and rooms to offset the chill of the walls and floor.

Even in the desert, with the burning sun overhead, the palace was a little too cold. Baroke had no idea how they’d accomplished that, but it was a welcome relief from the stifling air outside.

Their guide stopped outside a decorative wooden door, an outrageous luxury in the sandy country. The guard was about to raise his hand to knock when Nadia shoved him aside, ignoring the knocker in favor of her fist, making a booming noise that shook the door on its hinges.

“Thomas! Open the door you fop!” Nadia screamed into the rich hardwood, nearly making Baroke flinch. It was only thanks to his high Endurance that the shout didn’t cause physical pain.

On the other side of the door was a choked scream and the sound of clattering metal on a stone floor. A litany of hushed curses and further banging sounded before the door was flung open, revealing a man.

Man is a generous word, Baroke thought, looking down at the Ilethan diplomat. He was short and slender like Calvin, but had none of the lean muscle, or lightness in his step. He was wearing tight silk pants below a vest with intricate patterns emblazoned on the sides. Below his neck was a big…puffy thing, and his hair somehow stood impressively high above his head in a big, shiny, fluffy arch.

Shouldn’t he be…tougher?

Baroke had been under the impression that nobility were generally trained from birth to be superior in every way, but this man blew that impression away. He almost felt sorry for him.

“Thomas, nice to see you,” Nadia said, stalking past her brother.

The man cast Baroke a helpless gaze that conveyed a sense of futility and understanding in an instant. They were both just as fed up with the princess’s antics.

This guy gets me, Baroke thought, warming the tiniest bit to the effeminate ilethan.

“Hey!” Nadia said, snapping a finger in front of Thomas’s face, making him flinch.

“No working the help.” She glanced over at Baroke and shook her head with a scoff. “Never should have brought you along if you’re gonna be falling for Thomas’s binkle eyes.”

Baroke blinked. Work? ME? Did the little bastard use a Skill on me?

“And there he goes,” Thomas said with a sigh as he sat in the chair across from Nadia, glancing reproachfully between the two of them. “He doesn’t seem like your type.”

“Only the gods and I know what my type is.” Nadia said, folding her hands delicately in her lap as she faced down the extravagantly dressed older man. “Baroke, sit on your hands and focus on hating Thomas as much as you can, and maybe you’ll get out of here without getting matching tattoos.”

Baroke focused on resisting the urge to feed the man the goblet swishing back and forth in his limp wrist, sitting beside Nadia instead. He deliberately kept his hands on his knees in case something went down.

“So, sister, how has the last two months treated you? Last I heard you were missing in action during the siege of Mujenan. A siege which you were in charge of, and failed disastrously, if I recall correctly.”

“Spent the last couple months as a POW, the usual stuff, getting dragged through the street, rotten fruit, stress positions, and every combination therof.”

“Is that what the Herculean archer is following you around for? Babysitting? I dare say he could handle you with one hand behind his back, let alone me. Me, I think he could snap between thumb and forefinger.”

“How do you know I’m an archer?”

“The callus on your string fingers, thicker than the sole of my shoe. You must be damn good.”

At least he knows where he stands, Baroke thought, relaxing.

“Stop the fucking brown-nosing, damnit!” Nadia said, leaning forward in her chair with a scowl. “You know Gadverans are horribly susceptible to flattery.”

“You’re too good for me,” Thomas said, raising his hands in defeat.

Nadia jabbed a finger at him, mouth set, eyebrows raised.

“Okay, I’ll stop. What do you want, a ride back to Iletha? I imagine the border was a no-go.” He glanced over at Baroke. “I suppose we’d have to give you a good reason to look the other way, too. Do you like money, archer?”

“What?”

“Money. Enough to set you up for life,” Thomas said. “All you have to do is let me take the both of you into custody. We ship her home, set you up with all the money and women you can eat, and you never have to see your commander again. We don’t want to get you killed for treason when you’re in your prime and obviously more valuable as a stud.”

Baroke didn’t really know what to say to that, his mouth hanging open.

“He accepts. How would you get me back to Iletha?” Nadia asked, leaning forward.

“So quick to trust, sister?”

“Doing my due diligence. Who says I wouldn’t be better off making the trip on my own. How would putting myself in your custody be any better?”

“Oh, the trip northwest is dangerous. Sand pirates and sand gulpers and sand shrews, sand storms…any bad thing you can think of with a sand prefix, really.”

“You think I can’t handle some bandits? Give me a few days and they’d be working for me. I want speed. I’ve got news to deliver, so what can get me across the dunes the fastest?”

“I suppose I can have Orson Haal do me a favor and ship you home in just a week, but that puts me down a favor. You would then owe me a favor.”

“And what would you want in return?”

Orson’s fingers tapped the goblet pensively.

“I remember you being half decent at working a crowd, and I could use a wing-woman tonight. If you help me get Asabei off the fence and on our side tonight at his ball, that would be more than worth the trip, to me.”

The Leather-clad princess seemed to consider it for a moment, her foot tapping against her knee.

Nadia jumped off the seat with a growl, leaping toward the diplomat, who floundered backward with a high-pitched yelp.

“What the -“

“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time!” Nadia shouted, tackling him to the ground and putting his head in a lock.

“Nadia, stop!” Baroke shouted, but the princess was too far gone, cackling maniacally as she whipped out a knife before sawing away at his hair.

She was halfway through shaving her brother’s head before the guards tore her away from him.

A fraction of a second later, Baroke was thrown to the ground by a multitude of Uleisian guardsmen piling on top of him.

***Calvin***

Calvin was making plans for Maya, Ella, and Grant in the corner of the mansion, figuring out exactly how much they could expect to spend on the raiding parties, and how to redistribute the wealth so it wasn’t traceable back to him.

He was tapping his pen on the corner of the paper, trying to figure out a way to have money change hands indirectly when Nadia, who was sitting at the desk where she kept track of the finances, began inexplicably chuckling, breaking into full-throated laughter.

“What’s funny?”

Nadia glanced at him, and cocked her head with a coy smile.

“Wanna go to a ball with me?”

“Oh yeah?” Calvin asked, whetting his pen. “Whose ball will we be attending?”

“Asabei, he’s one of the moderates. One of me just acquired an invitation. The Ilethan diplomat won’t be attending, either.”

“That sounds lovely.” Calvin said, putting his notes on pause. “Kala will be coming too.”

“Damnit,” Nadia muttered, then he felt a cunning undercurrent in her gaze. “But there’s only two invitiations.”

“Guess you won’t be going then.” Calvin said, returning to his work.

…

….

“Why do I like you!?” Nadia demanded.

Calvin shrugged, pen scratching against the paper.