"All kowtow in the presence of Senior Severen Raher Zakin!" The guard loudly announced as an elderly man stormed inside the courtroom through a side door in the far wall.

Muquadas's 256th Court of Justice was known as the death trap among the prison inmates of the ten city districts it could randomly preside over. The nickname came from the following statistic: ten times out of ten, the sentence would be a swift death, whatever the crime committed.

To be judged in this Court made you a dead man walking.

The courtroom itself was a non-descript building in the shape of a big barn, with only the Senior Severen's chambers at the back and the courtroom connected by a single-paned side door. The Severen used the chambers to meditate and relax between trials. It came equipped with all the modern amenities one would expect of a mid-ranking administrator in the city, most notably a large meditation array to help the Cultivator densify his Mana when sitting on the mat.

Most importantly, the building shared a wall with District 256's jailhouse.

The jailhouse held all the unlucky offenders picked up by the Muquadas Police during their various day and night patrols. The Fravashi Clan had zero tolerance for criminals being caught in the act. It was almost as if the hidden message was that if you were not clever enough to commit crimes and get away with it, you didn't have any rights being a criminal in the Clan's worlds.

The inside of the courtroom was an elevated dais where the Severen would sit in front of a large tiled floor with one single lectern in the middle. A few metres behind were two rows of benches where the accused would kneel, kowtow, grovel–choose your pick– and wait their turn to stand before the Severen to plead their cases. Four guards stood in each corner to secure the room against any and all intrusions.

Raher Zakin looked deceptively old but was, in fact, a young peak stage Rank 4 Initiate, aged 201. Early in his life, he had chosen to let his long, oily hair and finely cut arrow beard turn white-grey, thinking it would make him look serene and wise. He had neglected to consider his long, pointed nose and sharp, angular jaw. Instead of wise and serene, Senior Severen Raher Zakin looked like a Grey Ashen Shrike, a tiny scavenging bird reputed for being skittish to the point of cowardice.

This partially explained why this particular Court had the highest death sentence pronounced in all the Easternmost gates of Muquadas. An urban myth even insisted that the Senior Severen had beaten a Court guard to death because he heard him whistle in his presence. Raher Zakin was an irritated and petty Cultivator, which made for the worst combination possible if you were an offender in his Court.

"What do we have today, registrar Farug?" The Senior Severen asked with a shrill voice.

"Case 14354: Harbani Unnamed, accused of bread thievery in the Farral bakery three mornings ago." Farug enunciated slowly. "Offender, do you have a speaker?"

"No, I don't, honourable guard." A wiry, malnourished man wearing simple brown clothes just better than rags stood up and moved to the lectern.

"Who gave you the right to stand before me?" The Senior Severen asked with cold fury in his voice. "Harbani Unnamed, you are found guilty of all charges," Raher Zakin continued. "Your sentence is death."

A stunned Harbani just looked at the Severen, uncomprehension clearly written all over his face. The courtroom stayed silent as one of the guards knocked him unconscious with the butt of his spear and dragged him to the courtyard behind.

"Next!" The Senior Severen's indifferent voice resonated in the courtroom.

Nobody dared make a noise while Farug checked his pad for the next case. By the Elder's Council decree, all the capital's courtrooms were open to the public. Anyone could sit in the back row benches and watch high justice delivered upon society's dregs. Understandably, though, no one in his right mind risked appearing in Senior Severen Zakin's courthouse if he absolutely didn't have to. The place was empty except for the five offenders of the day remaining.

"Case 17856: Ayna Airkokem, accused of unauthorised prostitution at the Luja Marketplace two nights ago," Farug stated. "Offender, do you have a speaker?"

Wisely, the red-haired, plump woman dressed in flimsy, stained red clothes that didn't leave much to the imagination waited for the Severen to release her before answering.

"Stand and come before me, woman!" The Severen ordered after three long minutes had passed.

Ayna awkwardly stood up and tried to hide the fact she was half naked, as if suddenly ashamed of her wares and self-conscious. She came to stand before the lectern and hung her head low before answering.

"I do not have a speaker, honourable Senior Severen."

"Very well," Zakin answered sharply. "You heard the charge, woman. What do you have to say for your defence?"

"Well, honourable Senior Severen, I believe this was a misunderstanding between the police officer and me," Ayna explained with a deep, sensual voice. "You see..."

As the prostitute tried to explain how she ended up soliciting an off-duty Muquadas Police officer, the last offender being judged today let her thoughts drift away to more important matters. She was a mature woman with tan skin and a loose-fitting dark green dress made of wool. Her black hair was tied in a severe bun, and her plain face stayed blank as her mind worked frantically to find a story that would give her a chance to avoid being sentenced to death today. Fat chances she would, still she had to try.

As she watched the poor prostitute woman trying to charm the Severen into leniency, she realised two things: she was not attractive enough to do the same thing if she was honest with herself, and the Severen didn't seem to care about women's charms anyway.

For the hundredth time in the last two days, she cursed herself to all hells for agreeing to repay a small debt as old as time by doing a favour to a man she hadn't seen in ages.

They had bumped into each other in one of the seediest dive bars in the outer districts of Muquadas. Now that she had time to think about it, she firmly believed that encounter hadn't been Lady Luck at play but something the acquaintance had set up. He was in the middle of preparing a scam involving some tenth or twelfth daughter of a somewhat important family residing in the Aigul District, a low-end neighbourhood of the Easternmost part of Muquadas. According to Supay, the name of her cursed friend, it was a quick job of selling a fake jewellery item and disappearing before the daughter found out she had been duped. And even then, Supay believed the daughter wouldn't say a word for fear of losing face in front of her family.

On paper, it sounded like an easy mark.

All Supay had needed was a forgery that would pass the daughter's Spirit Sense check before she would hand over the Reps. This was the reason her meeting with him had been fortuitous and a sign from the Gods themselves since, if he remembered well, she used to dabble in forgery of that kind back when she was young, didn't she?

He remembered right, and after hours of talking and drinking cheap vodka, she had relented and agreed to help him. She told herself she was in between jobs, she could use the Reps, and this one seemed pretty straightforward. Also, as he reminded her many times during their conversation, they had grown up together in the same backwater world, and he had seen the inside of a jail for her once. As Supay eloquently put it, she owed him.

Fast forward three days later, and he owed her big this time. If she ever managed to walk out of this courtroom alive.

Nothing had gone according to plan once the daughter handed the Reps. First, Supay had missed their follow-up meeting, where he was supposed to give her her share of the con. Second, when she realised she had been tricked into buying a fake, the daughter complained to her parents, and they immediately alerted the MP. No fear of loss of face or anything. She had just told her parents right away.

Finally, another strange coincidence had struck.

Instead of looking for Supay as the main culprit, the MP showed up at her apartment door to arrest her and pin everything on her. Since it had been a rush job, she had left faint traces of her Mana in the fake. It was an unusual mistake for her, but it shouldn't have mattered at all. None of this should have been enough to find her in a capital city housing close to four billion people. When the MP broke her door, she knew she had been sold out by her so-called childhood friend. Curse the bastard to all hells. The worst part was that she had no idea why.

Supay and her had been pretty close way back when. They had helped each other out to find food and shelter. They had grown up together in the slums and had looked over each other's backs. He had gone to jail because of a theft they had committed, but he hadn't ratted her out then. So why would he call on her to exact revenge now?

It made no sense, and it infuriated her to have been blindsided like this by nostalgia.

She also didn't understand how an offender from the 312th district would end up in the Death Trap before Severen Zakin. Her alleged crime had been committed in a region of the city that had nothing to do with this jailhouse and courthouse. Incomprehension and a throng of unhelpful emotions clouded her thinking, and she fumed in silence as all the offenders before her tried to explain their crimes to be met with the same sentence: death.

When she was the last sweating offender kowtowing in the courtroom, something bizarre happened.

"It will be all for today, registrar Farug," Senior Severen Zakin announced offhandedly. "Let's take care of the condemned and return the last one to jail."

Two guards manhandled her up, and they marched back to her tiny cell inside the massive jailhouse. Once out of her stupor at walking out alive, her guts and her brain had held a meeting whose conclusion had been that something was afoot.

Senior Severen Zakin didn't get tired.

He saw all his cases through till they were finished. He never called for a recess. The man was a narcissistic sociopath of the highest order who enjoyed killing the men and women passing through his courtroom. Only the fact he was a gods-blessed Cultivator explained why he didn't share a cell with the worst offenders in the capital city. For him to spare her meant someone higher on the food chain had given the order.

Who could it be, and why? Those two questions whirled in her mind all night as she tried to remember all the people she had helped or wronged in her short but active life. When morning came, she still didn't know if she had been indeed spared or if this had been a clever ploy designed to torture her by delaying her execution.

The answer came when a voice interrupted her thinking.

"You know what I appreciate the most in this ever-struggling world of growth, power and domination that is the Empire, dear Ixtlianje Corsonitlan?"

Ixtlianje, Anje for her friends, recognised the voice and instantly realised the trouble she was in. She hung her head and fought back the tears of despair. Why him?

"No answer?" The voice continued, filling up the silence in the jail. "I can't say I am surprised there... The answer is criminals. I love criminals because they never change. For the entirety of their more-often-than-not short lives, they stay true to their greedy, short-sighted nature. It makes them predictable in a world full of variables and simplifies my job immensely."

As he delivered the last words, the talking man entered Anje's vision field. Bored was the first adjective that came to mind when she saw his face.

Everything else about the old man facing her screamed average. He was of average height and weight with the tanned skin expected of a born and raised Fahkur inhabitant. He dressed averagely in loose-fitting wool, cotton, and leather clothes of drab colours. He had grey, short hair and a clean-shaven, nondescript face. The kind you would always overlook when walking in the streets or standing in a busy room. He was the kind of man you never noticed and even forgot he had been there in the first place. Which was a boon in his line of work since this dull, old man might be the second most dangerous person on Fahkur after the crazy, lunatic Clan's War Prophet.

Ixtlianje had crossed paths with him many years ago on an independent planet neighbouring a cluster of Fravashi planets.

At the time, she worked for a local criminal society that specialised in smuggling and stealing. It was right after she had left her home planet, and she was still honing her skills as a forger. The society was small, and they took her in and cared for her like the family she never had. They gave her the material she needed to rank her skills, and in return, she created for them the #Displays they needed to fool customs and border patrols. She was happy. She felt wanted and protected. Life was great.

Until one morning, a man had accosted her as she was eating her breakfast in a small diner a few streets down from the society's seat.

Even now, she couldn't remember what he looked like. He had sat with her and told her calmly and quietly that he had been watching her and that she was talented. The man knew her name, who her close friends were in the society, and what illegal business the society was doing. He explained that her society was no more and that she had been spared because of her growing talent in forgery that he could use to push the Clan's political agenda in the Empire.

On that distant day, Anje had become an asset for the Fravashi intelligence apparatus. She had served for 30 long years before she could buy her freedom from the man now standing before her, Khadim Alshujae, the Fravashi Clan's spymaster.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Do you remember what I told you last time we saw each other, Anje?" Khadim asked coldly.

"I do, Khadim," the woman said as she pushed her clenched fists against her eyes to prevent tears from flowing.

"I gave you a chance to get away from all of this," Khadim swept the air before him with one arm. "Yet, you couldn't help your nature and challenged the fates. You lost, and now, you have to decide your future. Stay in this cell and die a free woman before the suns are out. Or, follow me out and become my willing thrall for the rest of your life. You have until I reach the end of this corridor, Ixtlianje Corsonitlan."

Old man Khadim unlocked her cell door with one touch of his palm and, without another word, glided back to where he came from.

Anje didn't ponder the choice long. She stood and followed him to her new life of servitude. He was right. She didn't want to die, and she would stop at nothing to keep breathing one more day. It was and always would be her nature to do anything to survive. Things had turned for the worst, but she would find a way out. There would be a silver lining somewhere.

She clung to that hope as a lost woman to her water canteen in the desert.

***

Hours later, the old spymaster took her to a run-down warehouse in the 51st business district of Maquadas. The building was packed with rows upon rows of wooden crates and clay jars reaching the ceiling. Khadim went straight to the back, where a windowed office was partially hidden by a wall of smaller boxes.

Inside, seven people waited under the lofty glare of Senior Severen Zakin. She recognised the guards from the courtroom. There was also Fagur, the court registrar and, to her great pleasure, her good friend Supay with his stupid ponytail that made him even more handsome than usual. Zakin was pacing the room when they entered. The man was on the verge of exploding and did as soon as he saw them.

"FINALLY!" The Severen roared. "I demand an explanation for this outrage! Do you know who I am, old man?!"

The Severen's body thrummed with fury as he scowled daggers at Khadim. Thanks to her Mana Sapience skill, she could feel Zakin rotating his Cultivation Base as if to strike the old spymaster with a Technique. The fool didn't know he was trying to take on someone too dangerous for him. This ought to be good.

"You will stop rotating your Cultivation Base, Senior Severen, or I will do it for you." Khadim simply answered.

"You dare threaten me, old man?" Zakin growled, seconds away from unleashing an offensive Technique.

In response, many things happened at the same time.

First, Zakin's Cultivation Base disappeared from Anje's Mana Sapience. The enlightened source of Mana had been dampened by one of Khadim's skills: Engulfing Ostracism.

Zakin tried to open his mouth and speak but quickly found out he couldn't. He looked like a fish out of water, and his ire was instantly replaced by uncomprehension and fear. He put his hands around his neck as if it could help him get his voice back.

His loss of breathing and speaking capacity was the result of another of Khadim's skills: Body Crippling. Anje had seen that skill in action more than once, and it never failed to impress her. With it, the old spymaster could paralyse anyone he focused on for an unknown length of time.

Anje didn't know the ranking of those skills, but she would have bet her life they were at least Rare, if not higher. She knew the names because Khadim had told her under oath of mutual destruction. Since then, they both knew everything about their skills and stats. If one of them broke the oath, the System would erase them. That was the power of an oath of mutual destruction.

All the present stayed quiet as Khadim calmly made his way toward a paralysed Zakin.

"This is the only warning you will get," the old spymaster said in a quiet voice. "As of today, everybody present in this room belongs to me, Body, Spirit and Soul. Do not forget that. Ever."

To punctuate this chilling statement, Khadim materialised in his hand a dull-looking shiv and stabbed the Severen in the guts. Zakin could only watch in horror the old spymaster turning and twisting the knife in the wound.

"You are mine, Raher Zakin," Khadim whispered softly in the other man's ear before releasing him and vanishing the pristine shiv.

Anje had seen this weapon before and suspected it to be more than what it looked like. No matter how much blood its victim lost, the blade never seemed to get dirty. It always ended immaculate, like today. Her Mana Sapience also noticed a sort of dark taint spreading from the wound, eating away tissues and muscles and, more importantly, dissolving the Mana flowing inside the Severen's body.

Zakin fell to the ground, gasping. He put both his hands on the wound, trying to stop the Mana infection from spreading further into his body and eventually his Cultivation Base. Anger had been replaced with anguish and fear on his sweaty face. He grunted and groaned as the foul infection kept spreading along the Meridians in his body. Anje watched in fascination as the dark energy ate away every little speck of Mana it could find. When it couldn't, it ate everything else, bones included. The gasps turned to cries and tears of agony as Zakin writhed on the dusty floor. Khadim just watched the other man slowly disintegrating and dying on the floor. The cocky fool tried to rotate his Cultivation Base to fend off the darkness. All it did was speed up the process.

Moments after being stabbed, Senior Severen Raher Zakin had utterly vanished from the face of Muquadas. Everyone in the room was stunned when Khadim spoke again.

"Let the fate of this arrogant be a lesson to you all," he declared stoically. "When I tell you to do something, you do it. I don't give second chances, nor do I tolerate insubordination. Is that understood?"

***

"We are three minutes away from entering AD279-972 atmosphere. I suggest you all brace yourself. It will get bumpy before it gets better." Announced the slurring voice of the ship's pilot, Aisultan, in the intercom.

Anje did as she was told and hurriedly found the first folding seat in the ship's cargo hold. She secured herself and waited for the man to do his job and bring them safely down to the surface. Either he would, or they would die in a fiery explosion of metal and Mana. She didn't care about the outcome because, as Khadim had said back in the cell, her life was not hers anymore. She would live and die by the old spymaster's whims. Deep inside her heart, she even hoped the pilot would not be as good as he claimed and would crash them into oblivion.

This would be the end of their suffering.

They had spent the last three months travelling in and out of space gates and wormholes to reach their destination, planet AD279-972. Space gates were artificial, floating stone and metal constructs fueled by Mana, who maintained a permanent space-time continuum tear between planetary systems in the vastness of the Empire. The massive inconvenience with those was that all passages were recorded by the Gatekeepers, the Imperial Order tasked with guarding the gates and managing space travels. A thing any spy worth their salt would try to avoid as much as he could. Khadim, being one of the best in the Empire, was no exception. Their cover was the best Fravashi intelligence could buy, but Khadim didn't like to leave any kind of trail behind him.

This explained why their last four jumps had been through naturally occurring, unsupervised wormholes. It had extended their journey by at least five weeks since they had to travel at subliminal speeds between each wormhole, using a rare map of this space region Khadim had obtained before leaving. Because the ship was initially designed for a crew of three, the entire journey had been rather unpleasant, if not extremely musty and sweaty. The interior of the ship smelled like something had died and be brought back to life many times over. All this discomfort to die on landing would be ironic.

"What are you smiling at, sister?!" Shrieked Supay, sitting across from her, holding for dear life to his shoulder straps.

"Nothing, you traitorous scum." She answered, widening her smile before his fear. "If we die, I want you to remember this is all your fault!"

She couldn't resist tormenting him. She hadn't let go of her resentment towards Supay. Because of his cowardice and avarice, she had been pulled back into this world of cloaks and daggers where one could die not for Reps or personal power but to gain political advantage for someone she would never meet, like the Fravashi War Prophet. She hated being a pawn on somebody else's board.

Being a criminal was so much easier and less dangerous.

She scoffed, replaying the events in her head for the thousandth time. Her blind trust in sweet-talking, charming Supay had been the clinching moment where she had lost control of her fate. She swore again that she wouldn't let that happen again. If the occasion presented itself, she would hang him out to dry without hesitation.

Vengeance was a plate best served cold, after all.

"When we land, we will need new #Displays," Khadim interrupted her thoughts as he took the seat next to her. "Talk to Fagur; he will provide whatever you need. Do it quick, too, because I will only be able to veil us from the Mavens for two days. I'm counting on you, Ixtlianje."

***

"Good work, Ixtlianje, as always," Khadim complimented her as he was using another of his skills to slightly alter his appearance and make him look younger than he was.

It made a lot of sense since AD279-972 was still in the Seeding process, and most of the older population on the planet would have been killed by predators, be they humans or beasts. Anje thought that this younger version of Khadim was strangely good-looking.

"Might as well call me Ange, Khalid," she retorted, still feeling nauseous from the intense usage of her skills and the Mana consumption involved in creating the seven fake #Displays they needed.

"You are right, Ange." Khadim acquiesced with a nod. "We all need to get used to these new identities fast. Our very lives depend on it."

The six of them stood in a small clearing they had found hidden within the vast woodlands that occupied the central region of the only continent on AD279-972.

According to the report compiled by one of the Fravashi scouting teams, they were in a country that used to be called Turkey. The lush woodlands, rivers and snowy mountain ranges were a nice change of scenery compared to Muquadas' volcanos, deserts and seas of magma. She could envision herself getting accustomed to humidity.

Many animals of significant levels for such a young planet roamed the area, too. They didn't pose an immediate threat because their weak Minds couldn't pierce Khadim's veiling array since it was built to resist the Mavens' perception skills and Techniques. One day on this planet had already taught them that animals were not the real threat to watch out for, anyway.

Humans were.

Five had gone out to forage and find the parts she needed to forge new #Displays, three only had come back. Farug, now Furkan, the registrar, and two courtroom guards, Nehir and Miray, were the ones who had survived the first encounter with the locals. The group of wandering humans they had ambushed not far from the ship's hiding spot had fought back with a level of fierceness and strength rarely seen on a newly-seeded planet. Getting the parts to craft the #Displays that would protect them for the foreseeable future had come at the cost of two of their own. It had been a rather violent wake-up call. AD279-972 was a dangerous planet. Khadim was the only one who hadn't shown any surprise when he heard the news as if he had expected this level of resistance from their would-be victims.

Something was definitely fishy in this mission. The smell rose above the musk and the tang of her fellow agents.

"You all have your objectives for the next lustrum," Khadim explained gravely. "Furkan, Alparslan and Dilara will come with me as I establish contact with the various Terran political factions. Ange and the others, you will find your way to the trading city we have selected in the France region and start building a network as planned." Khadim paused to look at her. "Ange's talent allows Alparslan to fly his ship under a native bird's #Display. We will drop you off at the nearest city, Istambul. From there, you will make your own way. The locals's growing technology is far away from flight. I trust in Alparslan's skills and Ange's skills to keep us undetected, still, I don't want to attract undue attention from wandering bystanders or from the usual stupid flying beasts these worlds sprout out. We will limit flying to the minimum. Once you are in position, you will arrange for our own travel, and we will go silent on coms."

"What if we must contact you?" Supay-Kaan asked.

"You have me mistaken for someone who cares about your needs and wants, boy," the old spymaster replied menacingly. "I will be the one contacting you once the initial phase of my plan is over. When I do, you better be ready to help or dead already. Count your blessings that Ange already worked with me. She is your only shot at surviving the coming months."

***

"Keep an eye on that foolish boy, Supay," Khadim told her quietly once they were back onboard and airborne, hidden inside monumental cumulonimbus clouds.

"You mean Kaan, I'm sure?" She replied innocently to annoy the old man. "Also, calling him a boy is gratuitous and inaccurate. He is more of a moody teenager if you ask me..."

"Stop bantering and focus," Khadim replied sternly. "Pay attention to what I'm saying. Use and abuse him to the core, but keep in check that boy's foolish ego, lest he drops the wrong word in the wrong ear and get you into trouble. Where we go, I won't be there to save you if you get caught. You will be on your own."

"Stop trying to scare me, Khalid," Ange replied with a snort and a smile. "It can't be that dangerous so soon. Those Terrans only came through their first lustrum. I'll be surprised if they have any kind of organisation big enough to compete with what I'm going to build. You will see."

"I admire the confidence, and I will hold you to those words next time we meet," Khadim warned her.

Ange kept the smile on her face out of sheer bravado.

She was going in blind since none of the intel in the Clan reports mentioned the criminal underworld. Criminal elements were not readily traceable, so most scouting teams tended to skip investigating them because, in the end, they were not worth the effort. Most factions dealt with them when the Harvesting started. You either recruited them or emptied them dry of their Mana. A simple solution to a tiny problem. What was an easy note in a report for the scout was a constant headache for her, though. It meant they truly had no idea what the local competition might be. This little aspect of the plan bothered her nonetheless. Ignorance got you killed.

"When you reach Massalia, find a way to contact a human called Tertullian," the old man continued. "According to my sources, your skills will give him the edge he desperately needs to better serve his masters. In exchange, he will gladly help you get situated in the Holy Nation of the Lord's territory. With this foothold gained, I believe growing your network will be child's play."

"From what I read in the brief, this Tertullian fellow is their spymaster, isn't he?" Ange countered. "What makes you think that he won't try to capture me instead? My skills tend to frighten the less enlightened. You know that better than everyone."

"It is a risk, I agree. Still, the intel suggests that Terrans are naturally devious and morally ambiguous. They don't share any of the stigmas we do regarding enlightened beings, death, the System and its edicts. They have a saying I like: Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Because of that state of mind, I'm sure the only thing this man will insist on is exclusivity and secrecy. Easier to buy skills than coerce them, in my experience. You will make sure to phrase your oath with enough wriggle room for when I send business your way from their competitors. Be inspired and creative. I will be counting on you."

"I understand the stakes, Khadim or Khadil or whatever names you want me to use," Ange replied testily. She had had this conversation a hundred times. The spymaster liked to repeat himself, a habit he had picked up while she was gone, apparently. "I know what I have to do. I understand a part of your plan hinges on my success. I don't need to be told again and again that we must make it through the next five years without the Mavens picking up on us. I just hope you would tell me more about what we aim to achieve here, you know? Because building a criminal empire from the ground up is all nice and good, but to what end? Why can't you just bring in Clan agents like you did with us? Wouldn't it be simpler for everyone involved? Your average spies and assassins would do a better job than two guards, a registrar, a spaceship pilot and two convicts turned slaves, wouldn't they? Your plan just doesn't make any sense!"

By the end of her tirade, Ange was flushed and out of breath. She hadn't realised how worked up she was getting and the words flew out of her mouth before she could think them all through. When she realised that she had scolded one of the most dangerous beings in the Clan, maybe even in the Empire, she looked down and tried to find a hole to disappear. What was wrong with her? Why did she behave so recklessly?

"You make valid remarks, Ixtlianje," Khadim answered with a warm smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, patting her arm lightly like a grandfather would. "I could, and maybe should, have done all the things you mentioned, and it would have obviously been simpler, as you said. However..."

The spymaster paused. The calm answer made Anje assume Khadim hadn't taken umbrage over her harsh words. She released the breath she was holding and looked up at him to confirm that everything was okay.

She shouldn't have.

She had been so wrong in her assumption.

So, so wrong.

A shiver ran down her back as the warm smile turned malicious, and the soft touch on her wrist became a cold, vicious grip.

"My advice is to stop overthinking it. You are a worthless pawn on a board you can not see nor even comprehend. Don't forget your station, be the little cog in the machine I need you to be. Focus on your present task, and if the insatiable urge to question me again takes you, just remember this simple fact: death is not the worst punishment I can do to you..."