Describing the silence that Naila-al-Ydaz and Aloe Ayad shared as they walked across the palace of Asina was complex. There was a desire to talk, but there was also a desire to not exist with an undertone of hostility. It was even more complex to classify what Ayad was doing. Her eyes seemed to gorge on the beauty of the palace, but she didn't bother to move the eyeballs as if she didn't need to. Or maybe she didn't want to. As said, it was a complex description and classification.

  The Calipha had left the guards behind guards behind, and no one was following them, but the palace of Asina was still a populated place so they had to cross people to get to their destination, an occurrence that the former scribe didn't seem to enjoy at all.

  Then something happened.

  The biggest misplay of all.

  Naila-al-Ydaz's blood froze as Aloe Ayad stopped in her tracks.

  They had walked before the office of the Calipha, which had once been the office of the Sultanah, the office of Aaliyah-al-Ydaz.

  There were no words to describe the many thoughts and emotions that blossomed and withered on the bicentennial sultanzade at that moment. She was well aware that in that room the woman next to her had not only been violated but also had her ability to walk stolen. It had been so long that her mind hadn't just realized it until it was too late.

  Aloe Ayad slightly moved – an infinitesimally small movement that could only be detected with preternatural senses – and Naila-al-Ydaz wielded the defense stance.

  "Two hundred years," the goddess said in a weak tone, one that wasn't lingering in this era. "It has been two centuries yet the rage and the pain don't fade. It's a plague that gnaws on your being, it's a splinter stuck to your heart making you bleed every so often. It's… repulsive."

  The Calipha was petrified out of fear. Before her lay more vitality than she had ever seen – until today she had thought herself the biggest cumulus of vitality in Khaffat – and it was unstable. It was a time bomb. She was well aware that moving disaster, that moving singularity of vitality was going to explode. And it was her actions that dictated how much time she would have to prepare before it went off.

  It was a delicate balance.

  And, unfortunately, she wasn't a delicate woman.

  "There's no reason to linger here," the Calipha did her best to deviate the focus from her office. "We can just relax on the tearoom."

  "No," Aloe Ayad said calmly, yet it felt awfully like an order. "This room is fine."

  Until today, Naila-al-Ydaz wouldn't have tolerated to be ordered around like that, but right now, pride was useless. The stakes were too high.

  "If my windowless office is good enough for you, then so be it." The Calipha accepted the buxom woman's terms.

  Without thinking of the possible connotations of the gestures, Aloe Ayad opened the door of the office and barged right in. Like always, it was a musky room with poor ventilation and overwhelmed with the smell of incense, though this time it wasn't to mask the odor of sex.

  And the waltzing vitality noticed that.

  "You did a great job with this place," Ayad said with a wry smile.

  The office hadn't changed at all.

  Well, it obviously had after two centuries, but the essence was still the same. There were many collections of seats lingering around – even more now that Ydaz had expanded to cover the whole old world – that weren't even those from Aaliyah-al-Ydaz, but the fact that they lingered made the office stand out as unchanging. From all the things a ruler could collect, seats made the most sense to Naila-al-Ydaz.

  The only change was the aforementioned, the lack of the reek of sex, but that was also the most important.

  It also had to be mentioned that the room was in complete darkness, but it wasn't like that was a problem for the two bicentennial women. Either way, Naila-al-Ydaz flicked the switch next to the door to turn on the lights.

  "I am amazed what you have managed to do with the Myriads." The gorgeous dark-skinned woman commented as she snaked through the many seats, carefully preventing her dress from getting stuck without even trying.

  But there was an important detail in those words. Maybe not the syntax of the sentence itself, but the tone. How she had decided to voice out those words. Aloe Ayad was very familiar with the Myriad plant, and it was a question that had lingered for ages now on the mind of the Calipha.

  "Centuries ago we discovered a glow on the oasis inside of your property," Naila-al-Ydaz started. "At first it was thought that it was moonlight perfectly hitting the water, but then one of the people sent to explore the place decided to take a bath, only to find something at the bottom of the water. A piece of glass that shone with the power of the sun."

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Aloe Ayad didn't answer, but she smiled at that monologue. That smile was no longer a wry and painful one, but an amused expression. And it was beautiful. The incarnation of charm let the Calipha continue speaking as she let herself explore more of the seats coming from every culture and age.

  "Researchers were confounded, especially when they noticed that the plant only needed sand and light to grow. No need for water whatsoever. By all metrics, it was magic. But not of the kind we knew. It was as if the glass was a… monster. But in a vegetable manner." That comment got another smile out of Ayad and Naila-al-Ydaz, the woman of the world's desire, almost skipped a heartbeat. The Calipha continued speaking with a regal expression. "That made scholars ask the question: if we have monsters in the fauna, why not the flora? But those were the types of scholars that only ask questions. I like the type that just gets things done more. And those quickly realized that the glass could be turned into cheap and powerful lighting. We have had this monster glass for centuries, yet it was only decades – relatively speaking – that we knew that it was called Myriad. Yet you, Aloe Ayad, seem to be more familiar with that term than me. How is that?"

  "Simple," she turned to face her with her smiling emerald eyes. "I created them."

  Naila-al-Ydaz wondered how three words so simple could be this powerful. Creation was already a powerful word, but when applied to this context it gained a greater, celestial sense. It was hard not to be captivated by this goddess of flowing long hair.

  "You… created them?" The Calipha reiterated at a loss of words.

  "Indeed," Ayad's eyes shone brighter than the Myriad's as she tapped the ground with her folded parasol.

  "I… would need more information."

  "I don't know why it surprises you this much," the even-more-a-goddess commented placidly. "You have seen many of my creations already."

  Many alarms rang at the same time as thoughts flourished in Naila-al-Ydaz's mind. Memories of decades, precognitions set in stone centuries ago. When someone lived as long as her, some things became matter of fact and were no longer questioned, but now… Now she questioned them.

  "What would those be?" The Calipha asked the woman of the light-green dress. Her eyes sparkled with intelligence and recognition. Both of them knew what they were speaking and thinking of.

  For a moment, they shared a shallow connection. A twisted link. One common point that wasn't just their mutual hatred for Naila-al-Ydaz.

  And then it was gone.

  "Let me see," Aloe Ayad put a finger on her next to her lips deep in thought. "The Flourishing Spring, the Thousand Cuts, the Myriad, the Cottonpull, the Dryads, the World Tree, and some more that you may have or have not seen."

  The nonchalance which Aloe spoke with astonished Naila.

  The Calipha sat down to recover her composure. It wasn't hard to find a seat amongst her collection.

  "We all thought it was some sort of monster discovery…" She mused lightly. "That monster plants had made themselves visible like how the monsters do at night."

  "In a way, you weren't wrong." The emerald eyes approached them, looking even more like twin stars now. Aloe Ayad alone was a constellation of her own. "The plants you have seen are indeed 'monsters' in the sense of the word that we know of. But unlike those that we have seen in the wild, these are of my creation."

  Whilst it worried the Calipha that the woman before her had created monsters that had a death toll like the Thousand Cuts, another question blossomed in her mind. A far more important one.

  "I can understand the rest, somewhat. But what about the World Tree? It is massive, and there is only one."

  "I understand your need for questions, but I didn't come here to be interrogated." The office's temperature decreased by a handful of degrees after that last word was spoken. "Unless we have that promised tea, I fear my presence here is unneeded."

  As amber and emerald met, both women knew that this wasn't about tea. It was never about tea, but what happened around it.

  "Feel free to take a seat," Naila-al-Ydaz smiled at the progenitor of the monstrous plants and extended a palm to her. Then she tolled a small silver bell. "We will have our tea soon."

  Aloe Ayad nodded and complied, choosing a seat of her liking. In her case, it was a Sevirean chochodare, a type of throne made of marble from the frozen peaks of the south. The wooden parts of the chochodare slightly groaned as the woman sat down, and now that her dress was pressed to her body, the Calipha couldn't help but notice how thick those thighs were. Thick. Round. Delicious. Surely that bottom is more so. She was saddened that she couldn't see it from her position. Then she snapped out of her trance. Do not fall to the charm. Do not fall to the charm. The sultanzade repeated herself in a mantra. Ayad didn't even need to focus her stance to enthrall her, and that was problematic.

  "What do you want to hear?" The Calipha asked to break the silence.

  "Excuse me?" The ravishing woman said with a smile.

  "You have decided to follow me for tea, that much is clear."

  "You have come a long way to catch those clues, Naila." Ayad smiled with her eyes closed, maybe reminiscing about the past. She was always smiling; it was always those nince-damned smiles. "Diplomacy was never your suit."

  "You only knew me for less than a year," the Calipha protested, barely holding onto a scoff.

  "A year where we interacted daily, dear."

  Dear. Dear. Dear… The word almost made her go crazy. Aloe Ayad was so beautiful, and those words didn't help. It took all her might to keep her heartbeat in check, but her nether lips were itching regardless.

  Scratch keeping her heartbeat in check, it was hard to keep her body controlled. A primal part of her wanted to lunge at the woman, tear her dress, and bury herself on those airships she had for breasts. But she was not a mindless beast, so she didn't do it. And if she were to do so, at least she would be mindful enough to share her own bosom. Ebony and bronze meeting… it was a pleasurable and exciting proposal, but Naila-al-Ydaz held herself.

  "I guess you are right…" The Calipha let herself be defeated in the parley. She didn't have enough mental capacity to spare between controlling her body and her words.

  As she was about to continue speaking, a maid appeared in the doorway. She had knocked even if they had forgotten to close the door of the office. The maid didn't have a chance to speak before her eyes turned glossy. Naila-al-Ydaz recognized that expression. The young servant was bewildered, enthralled, charmed. Amber and emerald were refracted on her eyes. The Calipha rang the bell again, and that seemed to bring some sense back to the girl.

  "I will enjoy teatime here in the office with my guest here." That was enough information for the maid who then bowed and left the office without uttering a word.

  "Now," Ayad talked back to her. "I have given you courtesy and information enough. Don't you think it's your time to give me the information I desire?" The goddess wielded gemstones, and the Calipha was compelled to answer. Both her mind and her survival instincts.