"Markian Ulton, my lady."

Gianna's eyes flickered towards the open door of her receiving chamber, her voice carrying a commanding tone. "Am I expecting him?" she demanded of her secretary, a nervous who clung to his position in her office with a jealous grip.

Aintra licked his lips before answering. It never hurt to have access to a bit more moisture when dealing with his capricious mistress. "Not as such, my lady. But you have been pleased to welcome him without an appointment on a number of occasions of late, so I thought it prudent to . . ."

"Show him in."

Aintra scurried off to the spacious waiting area and beckoned for the young, ostentatiously dressed lord to follow him, "The High Priestess will see you now."

"Of course she will."

The sole remaining son of House Ulton was not a man given to self-effacement. His clothes cost more than most beings could hope to scrap together in a year, quite out of keeping with what may have been considered the typical expenditure for a sion of a relatively minor House. Indeed, considering the recent and public execution of his older brother, a period of quiet introspection might have been expected. Showboating at the door of Gravalk's High Priestess - the very lady who had carried out said execution - was, at best, ill-advised.

Gianna stared at Markian when he entered, and then, with a pulse of blistering heat, she dismissed the flunky, who was clearly staring down his nose at him. "That will be all, Aintra. Please feel free to leave for the day. I will lock up when I am finished with Lord Ulton."

Aintra opened his mouth to offer some sort of argument for the look of it but then gave the whole thing up as a bad lot. "As your Fiery Majesty commands." The old man turned to Markian, just about keeping the disdain off his face. "My lord. Enjoy your visit."

The door had barely closed before Gianna sent the temperature in the room to the stratosphere. Markian activated all of his defensive Skills immediately. As a Level 43 - all of House Ulton had a facility with the earth element. Markian had significantly outstripped his brother's progress from a young age, demonstrating a boundless ambition that was the surprise and sorrow of his parents - he was more capable than most at weathering the mild displeasure of a . Still, even he could not fail to notice the beads of sweat that broke out on his forehead.

Despite wanting to loosen his collar, he plastered on his most charming smile and dialled up Cold as the Grave to its highest intensity. "Why such a warm welcome, my dear?"

"How dare you call on me without an appointment!" The High Priestess' eyes glowed like the heat of some particularly unhappy supernova preparing to do something injudicious.

The flagstones under Markian's feet began to deliquesce into liquid. In response, he dialled up the wattage of his smile, hiding his growing panic beneath a brash show of confidence he no longer felt. 'Those that play with fire will get burned," his mother never ceased to remind him. Funnily enough, that was no longer feeling entirely so metaphorical. "You have not minded me dropping in expectedly before. I flatter myself, at times, you have seemed even to enjoy the surprise. And loudly, too."

"And then I was required to execute your brother to keep your misdeeds secret. I assumed even you would see that would bring our . . . liaisons to an end."

He could be wrong, but Markian thought his clothes were starting to smoke. And they had been treated with the best flame-retardant money - and spectacular blackmail - could buy. There was just the tiniest possibility he might have misjudged the situation. "I see no such thing, my dear. Was I grateful you were able to bring Trellen's suffering to a close? Of course. It would have been extremely unpolitic should he have been able to continue to spread his wild theories about the demise of Lord Falyn to a wider audience. The people I represent were extremely grateful that you acted so speedily to prevent the further dissemination of such distasteful lies."

If anything, his words appeared to inflame d'Avec's rage even further. "I did not act in this matter for any reason other than to keep your actions out of the public sphere."

"Doubtlessly so, my dear." The shell of cold air around him cracked as Cold as the Grave failed, and he had to scramble to reactivate the Skill before the heat rushed into flash fry him. The cost of this visit, in terms of his expenditure of mana, was becoming substantial. He would need to invoice for many times his usual fee for delivering this message. "If I may, could I request you decrease the temperature somewhat? I tend to be far more loquacious when not having to concentrate quite so hard on regulating my internal heat."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Gianna's eyes went slack, and all the heat leaked out of the chamber. It happened so quickly and with such little warning that Markian found his teeth chattering with the cold as his own Skill fought against nothing.

"Now," he continued as if he had not been moments from death, "as I noted, the people I represent would like to offer you a token of their appreciation for the speed of your thought. My poor, unfortunate brother had stumbled into waters far too deep and dangerous for one of his constitution. I had done my best to support him, but sometimes, what is needed is a quick, visceral demonstration. I doubt that anyone who witnessed his end in the Middle Court would be left in any doubt as to the benefits of holding their tongues."

Gianna walked over to the Scarlet Throne - which stood in the middle of the receiving chamber - and sat down. Markian followed her and knelt a short distance from her feet. Not for the first time, he was struck by her astonishing beauty. It was so easy - when considering the raw, unstoppable power of the High Priestess - to overlook the woman underneath. She was tall, with her long red hair braided into a complex pattern to hang at her thin waist. As fitted the child of two parents kissed by fire, she had cornflower blue eyes with a pale face filled with freckles. The severe black kohl at her eyes and the dark red lipstick added much to the visual impact of her appearance. "Gravalk does not act because it pleases some pathetic conspiracy. Do not, even for a moment, think that I executed your brother for any other reason than it pleased the Fire Demon for me to do so. Should he require your ashes, I would do the same."

Markian looked down at the flagstones, which were still less than solid since Gianna had turned them into a puddle and - with a careless gesture - transformed them into a stone chair to plonk himself down on. He crossed one leg over the other and fixed a flat stare upon the High Priestess.

"So be it. It appears we are to be plain with each other. I enjoyed our dalliance, Gianna. What is more, those I serve have been pleased to view our time together as a path through which they can advance various plans they have in motion. Rightly or wrongly, they have determined that a problem which had arisen was crushed because of our association. It pleases me to allow them to see things in such a way. I have had my rewards for what has occurred, and now, they would seek to recompense you."

Gianna shook her head. "I am the avatar of Gravalk. I am situated on the Third Floor of the Celestial Temple and anticipate reaching the Second Floor before the season is out. What possible 'recompense' can your 'associates' offer me to compare to that?"

"To be clear," Markian brushed down his trousers, which had become sweat-stained in the earlier heat, "your recent rise up the Temple has been . . . shall we say 'smoothed' by those I represent. When they speak of 'recompense', they would, rather, note that you have met the expectations they had of you."

Gianna's mouth opened and closed a few times. "You dare suggest my rise is due to the machinations of you and your ilk?!"

But Markian was standing, allowing the chair to sink back into flagstones. "No harm, no foul, my dear. A speculative interest has been held in you, and in your actions this fourteenday, you have more than demonstrated you were a sound investment. All my masters wish for you to be aware is that they are pleased you have proved yourself to be as capable as they had suspected. They trust you will continue to remember who your friends are when you are in possession of an even more spectacular view of Soar than you do presently."

Those words, touching so closely on her parents' oft-repeated words, sparked something atavistic in Gianna's soul.

Her mother had been desperate for her to 'remember who your friends are' when she had been growing up. Whenever she let her temper get the better of her or when she sought revenge for some minor slight, her mother's kind face and her soft voice implored her to be different than she was. And always with those same damn words.

As if that phrase alone would cool the fire of her rage. Sometimes it did. But oftentimes, it achieved precisely the opposite.

With a rolling wave of Cleansing Fire, she stripped Markian of all his finery, enjoying the burst of astonishment on his face. Then she directed that Skill to remove his eyebrows, which robbed him of his ability to give such an expression.

"I am the avatar of Gravalk. I act entirely in His fiery interests at all times. And any suggestion that I can be bought, persuaded or bribed to the contrary is so far from the reality that I can only pity you for your failure of imagination."

"My dear, I could just . . ." Markian was trying to cover his modesty whilst backing away from the High Priestess' inflammatory wrath.

"No, you may not." The temperature in the room went as high as the chamber could possibly bear. "I now see that our time together was nothing more than a tawdry effort to influence the decisions of my god." Gianna made a fist, and a lick of fire shot out to burn the hair from Markian's scalp. He shrieked and raced to the door. "Please tell those that you 'represent' that any influence you may ever have had over Gravalk's High Priestess is now at an end. I shall rise - or fall - by my own talents, and any 'smoothing' that might ever have been achieved is now at an end."

Gianna opened her arms wide and let a second wave of Cleansing Fire sweep across the floor to bathe Markian in flame, removing all the rest of his body hair with a sizzle and a pop.

"Are we clear?!"

Markian was scrabbling at the door, bald as a coot. "I will doubtless pass on the message, but I must once again stress the powerful nature of -"

"Begone!"

With a little squeal, Markian fled through the door and activated the portal stone to reach the Ground Floor and the safety of Reception. He ignored the titters and giggles that greeted his appearance and quickly shoved his way through to the cool air of Soar's early evening.

Even naked as he was, he made his way straight to the home of the figure who had given him his instruction that day. He needed to share how poorly the High Priestess had received their overtures.

As the sun slowly waddled below the horizon, leaving Soar to sit in darkness, the last night of the life was about to begin.