A flock of masked kids scurried across the floor of the lobby, scrubbing blood and lathering off the toxic residues. Morning poured in through the tall windows, and I felt rather exposed in the open of the gallery. The chief intendant demonstrated no unease, sipping his breakfast-surrogate of a honeydew-saturated brew.

"Do we have any idea, who the attackers were?" I asked.

"Some band of mercenaries and bandits. They all died, before being able to divulge their employer."

"Convenient. You can assign blame as suits your needs."

"Indeed."

"Shall you raid the Urnat compound?"

"No. It's all too probable that they anticipate such an attack. All that we can find there is an ambush, at least if I was their strategist. We'll proceed with the assumption that the enemy is not an imbecile."

"Who you think is this 'enemy'? All of the locals?"

"Of course not. Neru, I do take your suggestions seriously, but contacting these slaves of your Vad lady might compromise us. Better to let them fight between each other, and assume all savages who hamper us as terminally untameable. Now tell me about the leader of this Urnit faction."

"I don't think Teuna is their leader. She's just... a disposable mouthpiece, if I understood her own words correctly."

"Be that as it may, through her we can get to the means to control the Plague."

"And you desire that, to what end exactly?"

Motsa's smirk turned unusually threatening. "To make sure it can't be used against us."

"Alright. I still think we should at least contact the legion."

"The auxiliaries? Their true allegiance is impossible to ascertain, and that is exactly why all of the garrison has been called on a logistically inconvenient but otherwise inconsequential campaign."

While I processed the fact that Motsa apparently had enough pull to use the August Motherland Army for his schemes, I nodded slowly and continued on with my herbal infusion. The open sight-lines through the windows and to us weighed on my mind. Worried glances kept my eyes from remaining still. My cousin must have noticed the ceaseless involuntary flicker of my eyes, as he maintained a level and unperturbed gaze himself.

"Might I expect you to tell me, why you seem so heedless of any danger to us?" I asked.

"You might." Motsa placed his cup on its petite plate, pushed himself away from the table with his boot and stood up. "Finish up at your leisure, and join me in my room."

The death of two men had left nary a stain on the polish of the floor. My shout had been what lead to their demise. Maybe they had meant only to capture us, though regardless, Motsa would never have gone down without a fight. Last night, someone was bound to die. Better them than us.

Inside his room, Motsa stood still, his arms slightly wide and eyes closed shut towards the window. He didn't pause his meditation at my entrance, so I dropped on an armchair. He wasn't going to have me wait on him like some servant.

After a moment, he dropped his arms. "You shouldn't guzzle so fast, Neru. It's not good for your digestion."

I hadn't eaten most of the ridiculously overburdened morning meal. In any case, my dietary habits didn't concern Motsa. "Why do you call me 'Neru' instead of Lu?"

"Why do you call yourself Nerutaara?" He turned to smile at me. Dawn drew a circle of silver light around the silhouette of his head. I frowned at the thought he had planned the impression.

"It can't be a difficult question", he continued.

"What? Oh. Never mind. You know, Motsa, you haven't fooled me with this charade of affection. I know you too well for that."

The man walked to me, still smiling without a hint of irritation. "Be kind enough and stand up."

"Why?" I asked as I obeyed.

A disposable syringe glinted in Motsa's hand.

"What's that?"

"An antidote for the Vad plague."

"There's no such thing!"

"Oh, that's what we want them to believe. Now stay still." Motsa took my hand and pressed the syringe into my wrist.

Tingling fire slithered up my nerves, boring through muscle and bone. My vision dimmed, as if I had tried to lift something too heavy, and my ears rang with the tones of maternal reproach.

"There. Be grateful now; plenty of Narshurian prisoners were executed for each dose."

Too stunned by pain and surprise, my mouth hung wordlessly open.

The man only grinned. "Don't worry. They deserved it, I promise. We didn't kidnap anyone. Though if it had been up to me..."

I rubbed the stinging spot spreading across my forearm. "That's what's wrong with our kind. We don't have enough humanity for ourselves in order to afford any to others."

"You are so theatrical, Neru. Caring only for one's own kind is exactly the most human way to act. Better you than them, yes?"

He had once again violated my trust with the immoral injection. Yet no guilt weighed my mind, which in itself should have forced me into a bout of intense contrition. I muttered: "For my own peace of mind, I shall believe those inmates had it coming."

"Oh, dear Nerutaara. I shan't fault you for your sensitive heart. After all, it is a particularly charming quality in a born killer."

Even though it took great effort, I denied him the pleasure of seeing me frown. "How was the antidote discovered?"

"Trial and plenty of error. Unfortunately, we don't exactly know, how immunity works, or if it even works outside laboratory conditions. The Plague lacks a simple strain to experiment on. Nonetheless, there shouldn't be any side effects, as me and some of my men have had the treatment for more than a dozen weeks."

"For that long? Why didn't you give it to me earlier?"

"You do remember that your target was an expert of medical archaeotechnology. No doubt he could have noticed the treatment, if he happened to be examining samples of your tissue."

"So the risk of me catching the Plague was an acceptable one?"

"Come now." Motsa grabbed my wrist to rub the oddly numbing bruise. "You had the best medical aid this wretched continent can provide."

"That's true." I sighed. "What now?"

"Wooing you with expensive gifts. Or outfitting you with equipment suitable for an elite shootist. Take whichever option you consider more earnest."

"Our time together has taught me to dread your gifts."

"You shall love this one." He kneeled to pull a large ossified case from underneath the bed and heaved it on top. "Open it."

The warmth of the bone ––dark ochre with age–– and the curves on its surface invited my fingers to open the casket. The instant I touched the clasp, the lid popped open. Inside was a neatly folded pile of slippery smooth skin.

"An armour suit?"

"No." Motsa gestured me to take the garment out. "A gown, one of the grandest available. My grandmother's. There's nobody to have it, now that my first cousins declined the honour."

"By inheritance rights you should give it to my mother, then."

"Oh, please. Don't pretend you don't want it."

I lifted the gown with surprising ease considering its fleshy sturdiness. The skirt hung as pillowy membrane, almost paper thin, yet otherwise the suit was corded muscle and plates grown from fibrous strands of undoubtedly spectacular toughness.

"We'd end up censored, or even prosecuted, should I wear this in the capital."

"Good thing then that this isn't the capital." Motsa placed his hands on my hips and spoke in my ear: "Don it."

My hands moved to unlatch my clothes, before I had the good sense to hesitate. "May I have privacy?"

"Why do you need that now, but not at any of those public baths or steam houses?"

"I'm sure you didn't pay much attention to my bare skin back then."

"In that you are correct. But you undoubtedly wished that I might have."

I spun around, tilted my head to meet Motsa's cocksure amusement with dispassionate pleasure of my own. "Perhaps." That hope had always been tinged with unease. In a moment of distinct self-awareness, my cheeks flared with warmth. "You are terribly unperturbed about... all this. About me."

The males kept his grip of my lower half. "You, out of anyone, should know, that a prick like myself feeds on the insecurities of others."

My lips lingered open, as I struggled to process such a remark, before they pursed in a coy smirk. "Yes. You are a vicious scoundrel, if I've ever met one, and a pompous wastrel to boot."

His hand rose up to my chin, to hold it gently yet very close to the throat. "You can't insult me with facts."

I had seen Motsa's confidence shatter, once, but with his arrogance saturating the room, any lapse of certainty seemed impossible. His scent invaded my nostrils as a whiff of posh yet unyielding perfume. No matter what he claimed, a man such as him had no business of being interested in me.

The heirloom gown awaited, and with that thought the spell shackling my mind broke.

"Stay put." I wrenched myself free of the covetous grasp and brought the gown into a far corner of the room. My back towards the man, I opened my dress and let it fall on the ground. "These suits are worn against bare skin, yes?"

"Indeed." A seat groaned softly on the other side of the room. "Take your time with the underwear. Your rump is much firmer than I expected for the size."

If he ever revealed that this voyeurism was merely another joke, the shame would set me ablaze. Under his gaze, my skin already felt incandescent.

I didn't have my corset, so rest of my journey to nudity took only a moment. My only relief was that I hadn't heard Motsa move. At least I was safe from his maddening touch.

Like a proper gown of its primordial type, this one was made from one piece; gloves, bodice, boots, petticoat, skirt and all. Of course, if one looked carefully, they'd see the faint seams where the modules had been grown together. Still, the gown was beyond elegant. A pleased shudder crawled up my bare skin, giving the impression that my flesh prepared to welcome the tight embrace of the suit my ancestors had worn.

I put my feet in the open boots. They snapped shut like toothless jaws, snug and comfortable. Rest of the garment was similarly easy to slide into, as though weak from long hibernation, the suit helped with every required movement. The tissue clung to me like tongue up to the palate, and I had to remind myself that the slimy secretion wasn't saliva to start the digestion but a necessary element to make sure that wearing the suit remained comfortable and hygienic.

"Alright." I took a deep breath and turned to face Motsa.

On the armchair, he slouched cross-legged. "Connect the suit and adjust it properly."

"Eh..." I had seen my mother wear the heirloom gown in a private family gathering, so I knew what to do. Through my hesitation, surfaced a morbid eagerness to experience the full embrace of a true combat suit, the closest companion of any true Jaan. I pushed my mind into the sharpshooter's ecstasy and pressed the correct spot at the back of my neck.

Perhaps I screamed. At that moment my ears registered no sound, and grey scintillations claimed my vision. I didn't feel my throat constrict, or lungs tighten. All I sensed was pin-pricks of pain in every spot ––inside and out–– of my body.

It was a brief moment, that interfacing, but the pattern of its exquisite agony seared into my brain. Next time would be easier, I convinced myself. A gentle tuck of the veins in my arms told the suit had reached into me to sustain itself. Soon it would generate plasma to share with me. With each gulp of my blood, the strand-like thews slithered and coiled with renewed energy, constricting where the suit had been loose and loosening where absolutely necessary but not an micron more. In a moment, that ancient gown was as if grown for me alone.

No stray thought escaped to change the skin over the plates from the fresh ivory of cold hard focus. Yet I allowed the veins and muscle throb with the carmine of my beating life. My mother had preferred that look the few times she had had the opportunity to dress according to her lost station, and I found myself enjoying it also.

With my thinly gloved hands, I pressed the bodice to crush my waist like the best of corsets, and opened the cleavage to bare my own skin. I struggled to contain a grin, as I adjusted the support of my bosom. The ancients had known how to accommodate to ladies' needs.

Motsa shook his head. "You are leaving your organs exposed."

"I shall make sure to keep you close enough to draw the first shots." As odd as that was, I didn't need to consider how to control the gown. A layer of my own tissue I hadn't noticed before, that it was. With little more than a notion, the cartilage that served as the crinoline popped open to spread the skirt. "How do I look?"

The man stood in the weightless manner of a dancer and sauntered to me. The exposed blood red parts of my gown pulsed with increasing heart rate. When his palm touched mine, our suits greeted each other and prepared to connect. Apparently our humours were compatible, though that was no surprise considering our heritage.

"Like the woman of my dreams." Coming from Motsa, that claim was as unreal as the subject. My hand slipped off from his, and a tired frown relaxed the muscles of my face.

"Here I thought even you might not go to such lengths just to toy with me."

He let no sign of annoyance slip into his demeanour, but pressed forward and grabbed a firm hold of my waist and shoulder. "Should this be a mere game, could you resist?"

"Yes." That was surprisingly easy to say. "If I've learned anything from you, it's that men may create misery from the brightest of joys."

"Things have changed, Nerutaara. You certainly have, and I admit that I might have also."

"And yet, you never seemed interested in my sisters." To my horror, my voice brimmed with jealous disdain, though my overworked brain couldn't quite piece the rationale behind such emotion.

"Both were smart enough to stay away." He leaned in closer. "I want to tell you a secret."

The only response I could muster was a nod.

"I was at that premier to 'Tainted Honeydew'. While the establishment was a seedy two-chip venue with only cramped excuse for seating, the sets showed surprising competence, and so did the supposedly amateur actors, masked under those obvious pseudonyms and overt makeup."

My mouth was dry no matter how I tried to swallow.

Motsa's voice rumbled low, a deep whisper meant only for my gratification. "I fully admit my motive for attending wasn't to expand my tastes into foreign theatre. As the lead pranced on the stage, emoting in that tonic-enhanced falsetto... well, I wasn't sure how I felt."

The hushed tone of his voice, the mellowing expression on his face and the wavering cadence of his breath projected an amalgam of his emotions into my imagination. Righteous anger from that something beautiful had been hidden from the world. Uncomfortable lust... Perhaps even the small inklings of regret.

"Anyhow, I concentrated on enjoying the play."

"Did you?"

"Such melodrama isn't to my taste. And I have hard time separating characters from their actors, so I was rather envious of the hero."

"You never said anything of this."

"Before I could sort out my mind, the rumours had started, and you were gone."

"Did you come to Narshur after me?"

He laughed, mocking but not quite malicious. "Of course not. That sort of things is all too romantic for this reality. Nevertheless, I was well-pleased to see you walk into my office in your 'disguise'. Alas, we had work to do, and I couldn't take my time to relish our reintroduction."

My eyes dropped away from his. What left my mouth was barely more than a fragile mutter. "I wish I could believe you."

"Then do so. This is frankly getting all too awkward, Nerutaara. Aren't you a bit old to require this much seduction?"

I lifted my chin and steeled my nerves. "It's... Kiss me. Make me fee––"

He obeyed, with such ferocity that no command from me could have caused it. Should my suit not have kept my knees rigid, my weight would have fallen for him to hold up.

"There." His lips hovered just in front of mine. "Do you presume I might pretend all through this?"

"Yes... I need more experimentation before I can evaluate your newfound honesty."

The man withdrew to arms reach. "We might get to that later."

My gown shimmered with the dusky specks of disappointment, before returning to austere ivory. Motsa pretended not to notice.

"How does the suit feel?" he asked. "Any lingering aches?"

"Nothing unpleasant. It's like a numb layer of skin on top of mine, though some parts are a bit more snug than I'd prefer."

His spreading smirk indicated he had understood my meaning. "That particular problem should be corrected, if we succeed."

My insides floated against their fleshy tethers, yet I frowned. "Are you in truth serious about that plan of yours?"

"Excessively serious. I shan't be old for quite some time, but I'm not getting any younger. Familial duties have started to press on my mind."

"Why me?"

"You know I don't enjoy having to explain myself."

"Humour me."

"I like you more than I expect to love some arranged bride."

"Fair enough. It's not like there is a huge surplus of unmarried damsels of our class."

"Especially those still connected to our roots. Actual roots, not the lukewarm charade pretenders affect for the insipid sense of notoriety in 'high society'." Motsa failed to suppress the genuine disdain in his voice. "You are the opposite, the mirror reflection, of that faux-predator stalking only for the tepid gossip of grand salons."

He touched the tip of my chin with two fingers and smiled rather affectionately. "You can kill me. An upstart magnate's delicate daughter, who never held a real blade let alone a needler... There'd be no sport in teasing––"

"Tormenting."

"––her." Motsa sighed through his smirk. His hand fell to my bare shoulder, where he rubbed a spot I hadn't known to be so sore. At my faint moan, he stepped around me to handle the massage with all of his long-reaching dexterity. The man had never touched me so tenderly. Moisture threatened to fill my closed eyes. Maybe he ––or at least the circumstances–– had changed. Perhaps I had been brought low enough to believe his obvious lies out of desperation.

The manly arms slithered across my torso to claim all of me. I leaned backwards inviting him to kiss my extended neck, which he did.

"Oh, Motsa", I whispered. "Say you are sorry, and I shall believe it."

"No." He slapped my shoulder and strode away, as if the sensuous touching and tempting words had been nothing more intimate than a handshake. I know what he was doing, yet still I fumed inside.

On the top of a wide cabinet, Motsa had arranged his weapons ––the overlong needle rifle, an array of pistols, a pair of alloy daggers and a curved sword of horn too elaborately carved to serve in actual combat. His fingers lingered on the barrel of the rifle, and I found myself capable of envying a gun.

He beckoned me closer with a gesture and offered me one of the pistols, still in its silk holster. As I pulled the weapon out, my acerbic frown blossomed into a gasp.

Distinct pattern of a Koramsh alloy-weave spiralled across the ceramic surface of the overlong barrel. If that pistol had been handed to be by anyone else, I'd known it to be an expert forgery. Of course, the moment you shot a fake Koramsh, the distinct lack of boneshattering recoil would alert you of the fraud.

Truth be told, the exact operating mechanism of these primal tools of slaughter escaped me. As far as I understood, inside the intricate guts of the gun, carefully bred strains of microbiota turned their mundane provender into lightning, which blasted the propellant into a geyser of precisely channelled wrath.

A ridiculously impractical weapon. Not only did it require saboted heavy alloy needles, the ravenous machinery required a steady stream of specially filtered honeydew or similarly energy rich carbohydrates, while the housing of the small weapon could hold enough charged microbes for perhaps one shot, if that.

Of course, I happened to be wearing the exact support equipment designed to utilise such a weapon. The moment I gripped the handle of the pistol, my suit's glove snatched the feeding vent and prepared to push my processed blood into the gun. Gentle pressure crept across my arm, as the thin layer of bladders filled with nutrient broth and microbes.

"Why do I need something this powerful?"

"So you don't have to let anyone close enough in order to shoot around their armour."

I sighed. "Do you expect us to invade a ballroom?"

"Perhaps in the future."

The folds of the gown readily welcomed my pistol into their concealed embrace. I picked my knife and pushed its sheath into the sleeve of my off-hand. Tendrils of the suit grabbed the hilt, and with a flick of nerves, drew the blade back into my grip.

"Where did you get such a nice toothpick?" Motsa asked.

"A souvenir shop." I let the knife return to its sheath. "Alright. I reckon I'm ready for whatever you have planned."

"Yes, you should make the impression I sought for."

"And that is?"

"A reminder that one shouldn't wish the Jaan as their enemy. We are going to meet the peacemakers of the Tower of Seven Corners."

"You said you didn't plan on having allies."

"That remains true, but I'd prefer if my enemies didn't know that." Motsa's hand twined around mine. "The only people we Jaan can trust is each other."

"I don't trust you", I claimed, as I squeezed his palm.

"Yet you came to me."

Any witty remarks full of vile derision died on my lips. I hid my downcast expression by turning to the door. "Let us go."