It began with the death of one man.

Azzam izr Yosef, an old priest of Sangi temple, a man highly respected by his peers and much beloved by the people of Rasharwi for his contributions to the poor, was found dead on his bed one morning. The cause had first been declared unknown, until someone suggested it might have been a heart attack from old age. The late priest's steward argued, however, that his master's health had been too excellent for such an ailment to have taken his life. Other speculations then spread through the temple, most agreeing with the steward's claim. It was murder, then, someone concluded.

The conclusion, by protocol, led to an investigation and an autopsy done by a physician sent from the Black Tower. The verdict had, indeed, been murder and by way of poison. The administration of this poison was then traced to a special drink Azzam had always taken before bed, one usually prepared for him by a Shakshi slave girl who had been working in the temple for the past two years.

It had to be her, one of the priests concluded. The accusation, being promptly backed by other priests, spread quickly through the streets of Rasharwi. By the next morning, the slave girl was brought to city's main square in front of the public, strapped to a post above a large pyre. Burning was the proper form of punishment for bringing death to a priest of Rashar. The approval of such sacrifice had been obtained some time during the night from the High Priest of Sangi, who, of course, had authority to decide on religious ceremonies and rites in the area. It was to be done at sunrise, said Yakim the High Priest, under the eyes of the god himself.

But this was Azzam izr Yosef, someone in the crowd argued just before the burning. This was a priest who had given aid and homes to hundreds of Rashawi's orphans and unfortunate souls. A sacrifice of one Shakshi slave wasn't enough, by far, to justify the murder of the Rashar's most esteemed servant.

More sacrifices then, an elderly woman suggested, followed by a few nods from the crowd that quickly grew into a discussion. One hundred Shakshi slaves was a good number, they all agreed afterward. It would send the right message, prevent such things from ever happening again. The Shakshis needed to be taught a lesson, put in their places.

The problem, of course, was whose slaves would be burned. Someone suggested a draw, others argued that contributions were to be made by those who owned the most slaves. The clever man who had suggested more burning in the first place came up with an idea. "There are," he said, pitching his voice to carry, "unclaimed slaves in the thousands in the salar's Shakshi quarter, are there not? Surely, as Rashar's anointed ruler, his lordship could spare some for justice."

The citizens of Rasharwi in that square came to the conclusion that ninety-nine more slaves were to be taken from the Shakshi quarter. Two-hundred men and women then marched from the city square toward the gate of the salar's closed off area, home to the original eight thousand slaves taken from the Vilarhiti—now numbering close to ten thousand—to make demands for sacrifices.

By the time the news reached the Tower, a riot had broken out in front of the gate. The original group was then joined by more men and women who had heard of the commotion. By mid-afternoon, the Shakshi quarter was on fire, set ablaze by a mob of more than five hundred Rashais.

The salar, watching the plume of smoke from his balcony in a quiet rage, wasted no time to dispatch a thousand royal guards to crush the mob. By sunset, a little over one hundred citizens of Rasharwi were killed and hundreds more were injured. The fire in the Shakshi quarter was contained a few hours later and soldiers lined up on the streets leading to its gate to protect the area from another attack.

At the top of the Tower, watching the rise and fall of strong, broad shoulders from behind, Jarem knew how close his salar's control was to breaking. The last time he had seen the same heavy, barely contained breathing was when they were pushed back by the Shakshi army in the Vilarhiti. What followed was a massacre on both sides those who survived still had nightmares over. The unrest may have been contained and the fire put out, but the salar knew, as well as Jarem did, that this would not be the end of it, not by far. You could kill a person for silence, not people.

Something needed to be done—and done delicately—before real hell broke loose. It just so happened, that the one man who might have known best how to deal with it was a week away and deep in the lair of the Rishi. It was during these hours, that Jarem was willing to admit the usefulness of Deo di Amarra. Fighting a war was the salar's specialty, keeping the city and the provinces under control was di Amarra's talent.

A wrong move, that—to have sent him to Sarasef at this time. Too late now to do anything about it.

"The men who'd suggested the burning," said the salar without turning around. "Find them and bring them here. Alive. Discreetly."

"You wish to interrogate these men, my lord?"

The salar sipped the wine in his cup, drew a breath before he responded. "Someone is trying to stir up unrest in the city. See if they have recently been paid. I want the man behind this, Jarem. Find him."

"It will be done." Jarem nodded. Riots, protests, revolutions and all things alike were almost always fueled by someone with power. Until they cut the hand that fed or started the fire, it would never stop. 'All fires,' Deo di Amarra had once said, 'are ignited by one man.'

"And the Shakshis, my lord? More than half the quarter has been burned down. Yakim and the others are still demanding a hundred sacrifices."

"You can tell that entitled, self-absorbed, sick son of a pig to burn his own priests before he comes to me with that fucking demand."

Those shoulders, Jarem saw, were trembling now. Not a great sign, though not surprising, given past encounters of the salar and Yakim izr Zahat, High Priest of Sangi. The only reason the old priest still lived was because Deo di Amarra had advised it so.

'Religion, my lord, is the best and most dangerous tool a ruler can use to make or break an empire,' had been di Amarra's counsel. 'Yakim may not have much use alive, but for too many people, he is their access to power and gold. Kill him, and we may be dealing with worse than idiotic religious practices and ten more enemies, if we're lucky.' Those words had been taken into consideration and deemed sensible. Salar Muradi of Rasharwi may have been a vicious, unforgiving man, but never one without sense.

"Perhaps an offering of some sacrifices, as opposed to a full hundred, could be negotiated to quiet the situation, my lord?" Jarem said carefully. "As with moving the Shakshi quarters outside the city?"

Overpopulation had been an issue for years in Rasharwi, while the Shakshi prisoners taken from the Vilarhiti had been kept safe and adequately fed. They were put to work, of course, in exchange for food and other necessities. Their services, however, were offered solely to the salar who then utilized them to improve the Salasar's infrastructure and to strengthen its army. It was a great arrangement and one that had been working splendidly, only the view was not shared by the citizens of Rasharwi.

It never will be, Jarem thought. You couldn't count on people who barely had enough to eat to sacrifice for the greater good. You managed them, filled their purses with coins, sacrifice a few goats—or people—to keep them happy. Cruel, yes, then again, the survival of all living things had always relied on the ability to be cruel, did it not? You hunt to eat, fight to protect your territory, kill innocents to protect your children if you believe it would. Alternatives, like kindness and good fortunes, were not always offered by the gods.

"There will be no burning of those prisoners," the salar pronounced. "Why do you think I've kept them here, given them jobs, made sure their needs are met? When I take the White Desert, the Shakshis will be here, working for us, with us. We must integrate them into our society, learn to live among them, offer them rights, or there will be bigger problems than what we are facing now.

That balance is not going to be achieved by burning a hundred of their people as a sacrifice to a god they don't worship. Yakim can burn the woman, but no more. The Shakshi quarter will be rebuilt. Give Azzam a funeral worthy of kings, offer the people free food, lower their taxes, pay Yakim to shut his hole, do whatever needs to be done." He turned then from the balcony, eyes blazing a murderous gleam. "But make it clear, that if they touch my prisoners without permission, a priest will burn for every Shakshi they kill."

And he would burn them, Jarem knew, if it would set an example and make sure his decisions would not be challenged again. Such things were important for a ruler to rule. Salar Muradi of Rasharwi was a practical man, not a religious one. The kind of man who wouldn't think twice to send a thousand men to their deaths if it meant saving twice that number. He would burn priests, men, women, or children if need be, Shakshis or Rashais, but it would always be for a reason, never satisfaction.

Those reasons, however, would not always be understood by men and women without his visions. Despite all the raids and wars he'd initiated, the salar didn't hate the Shakshis, he never had. His ambition was to unite the peninsula, take their lands to open up a better route to Makena, establish better trades, more sufficient distribution of resources, improve lives under his rule—all lives, not just Rashai's. Such legacy sometimes required bloodshed and sacrifices, and he would sacrifice some Rashai lives now to save the Shakshis, in preparation for the integration soon to come. It was his way of ending the centuries-long war, of creating peace and prosperity.

Jarem could understand it, and he had, all this time, followed that dream. But something about this incident didn't feel right. It hadn't felt right from the moment the salar offered a prince of Shakshi blood a spotted eagle. Di Amarra had made a good point about that. There were limits to how much one could treat people as equals. The citizens of Rasharwi weren't going to be happy with the Shakshi's new status in the Salasar. The peninsula could be united, but priorities must be given to Rashais.

They needed to let some Shakshis burn to bring peace to the community. A hundred Rashais had died today during the dispersing of the mob. More would die if Yakim decided to ignite such an unrest again. And this time it would be a bigger, angrier mob, not to mention the anger would now be directed at the salar for choosing Shakshi lives over his own people.

Jarem loved an admired his salar enough to die for him, but he could disagree with some decisions. And sometimes, helping one's master back on track when he wanders off the right path was also a job of an advisor, was it not?

He believed it was. Which was why he decided to not report on a visit someone made to di Amarra's cell before the man had been sent to the Black Desert. There was a simpler way out of this mess yet. The salar would appreciate it later on, he was certain of it.

***

"So," said Amelia, leaning back on her chair, "the mob has been contained?" It was difficult to tell if she was frowning over the news or the lack of cushioning on her back. The secret chamber above the prison cells of the Black Tower was sparingly furnished. It housed a dozen chairs, one round table, a modest fireplace, and two doors that opened to a maze of passages leading to many other chambers in the Tower.

"For now." Azram, who had been pacing back and forth in the room nervously walked over to fill his cup with wine for the third time. "I talked to Yakim earlier. He will continue to call for a hundred burning if we pay him what he wants. If father still says no, we should be looking at a bigger mob in few days." It has to work, Azram told himself for the fifteenth time. He was as good as dead if it didn't. They all would be.

"If we pay him what he wants," Amelia repeated sharply. "You mean if my father pays him what he wants. It is a large sum of money you are asking, Azram. You might at least give credit where it's due."

"If you want to be salahari, expect to pay for it, young lady." His mother, the current salahari, would know this, of course. She was lounging now on an identical, simple chair Amelia was in, but somehow managed to make it appear larger, more fitting for a queen. "Without my son, your father's money means nothing. You might also give that credit where it's due."

Amelia pursed her lips and looked away, ignoring the remark. His mother, for all her prowess in putting people in their places, was going to have a hard time dealing with his future wife. Azram might have grinned at that, if only he wasn't so damn nervous. The truth was, they were all neck deep in it. Him and his mother for having accommodated all this with their connection and power, and Amelia who had money to fund the operation without being noticed by Tower officials who would be monitoring the royal treasury. Given time, however, everything could all be traced back to one of them—if not all. They had to do this quickly, and the man who had come up with this plan, who could also advise how to speed things up, was a week away in the Black Desert.

It was a brilliant plan, one befitting Deo di Amarra, to stir up an unrest in the city using his father's blatant offering of privileges to the Shakshis. The hay was already there, waiting for someone to strike a flint, di Amarra had said. It wasn't difficult to accomplish—they only had to pay a handful of people to see it done. Things were going as planned, but still, there were things Azram wasn't so sure of.

"What if he doesn't deal with the mob himself?" He began pacing again at the thought. "We need him there when the time comes." The plan was to draw the salar out of the Tower into a chaos large enough for them to carry out an assassination—something they couldn't do in the Tower or during his journeys to other provinces due to the tight security around him.

"Oh sit down, Azram," said his mother, waving a hand at him. "You're making me dizzy. Your father is a military man with a bad temper. He has crushed almost every uprising himself in the past."

"This is not an uprising of the provinces, mother," Azram raised his voice to release some of the tension in his stomach. "It is merely a mob. He just had it contained within hours. Hours. Without even moving from his study!"

"You are underestimating the power of religion, my son." The salahari leaned back on her chair, admiring a ring on her finger. "There is a reason why Yakim is still alive to this day. Even your father wouldn't tread carelessly over people's faith. If he doesn't offer them the sacrifices, you can be sure the entire city would be outraged."

"And if he does?" Challenged Azram. "What then?"

"He wouldn't," Amelia who had been listening just as calmly as his mother spoke for the first time. It amazed him, how two women could be so calm, so sure over this.

"And how would you know that exactly?" He almost laughed at her confidence. The entire Tower would be supporting the sacrifice, including every one of his advisors. Perhaps if di Amarra had been here, he might have been able to influence some decisions.

Amelia smiled then, like she knew something they didn't. "Because I know someone who would be able to stop him, among other things."

"No one has that kind of influence on my father." He snickered at the very idea. "But try me. Who might that be, my lady?"

"You may call it a woman's intuition." She rose from the table with her cup and proceeded to the door on the opposite side from where they came. "But a woman's intuition, Azram, is always right."

The door opened, revealing a figure that seemed to have been there for some time, listening to their conversation. Azram's jaw dropped at the realization of who it was. A small hush came from his mother, who, by the looks of it, had had no knowledge of this.

"I have a plan," said the Lady Zaharra, the bharavi of the Black Tower, "and a deal to make with the new salar of Rasharwi."