He chuckled. “It’s a courtship of a sort. Call it whatever you like.”

“I didn’t think you were interested in wives, Namok.” Imeria gave him a wry smile, although his choice of words caught her by surprise.

“No wives,” he said, shaking his head. “But I would like to present myself as a partner for whatever endeavor it is you’re planning.”

Gulod’s frankness made Imeria take pause. “And what makes you think I’m planning something?” she asked in a level tone.

Before he could answer, Imeria’s maid returned to the receiving room with a bottle of palm wine. She poured them each a glass and asked, “Will you be requiring anything else, my lady?”

“That will be all.” Imeria took a sip of the wine, staring at Gulod over the rim of her glass. They sat in tactful silence until the maid retreated into the kitchens.

“Precioso,” he said, “is a peculiar drug. Did you know the industrialists out west force their workers to take it? I’ve heard that some of those slaves stay at the assembly line for five days straight without sleep.”

“Horrible, isn’t it?” she replied tonelessly. Imeria knew all about precioso and its horrifying uses. She’d heard how barons in the west used it to bring their subjects to heel. They pumped their colonies full of it until the people living there fell victim to precioso’s addictive effects. It was an ingenious way to hollow out a native population, swifter and more lucrative than the plagues of yore. The westerners would simply count the days until the natives were too weak, too dependent on precioso, to fight back. And then, they’d shove the drug further down their throats.

Precioso not only enriched the westerners who trafficked it through every far-flung port. It also numbed fatigue so their victims could work long, arduous hours without once stopping to rest. Around the world, precioso kept thousands of workers chained to their overlords’ factories, mines, and farmlands. It was a dreadful practice⁠—enslavement by any other name. But that’s not why she had asked Gulod to procure it for her.

“I’ve also heard rumors of a certain . . . resurgence. The return of a power long vanquished from the earth,” he said. His eyes shot up to meet hers. “The Kulaws were once wielders of mind and flesh⁠—the only enemies the Gatdulas truly feared.”

“Once,” she said in a soft voice. “Before Thu-ki fell and my ancestors bent the knee.”

For her entire life, Imeria dreamed of Thu-ki, her family’s fallen kingdom once carved into the southern tip of Maynara, and their magnificent powers now lost to history. She filled her son’s head with these dreams, convinced him that one day, soon, his birthright would be within reach.

Gulod clicked his tongue. “Ah, but your father seemed to think that the power hadn’t disappeared. That the Kulaws would rise again.”