She raised her head, looking at me with surprise. Then she stood up, a promise in her smile, and stepped toward me, smothering me with the aura of her perfume: forest and strawberries and a woman's hot body.

She shook her hands, flicking eight purple sparks from the tips of her fingers. They darted aside, burying themselves in the small heaps of incense that were piled up in golden bowls. Smoke swirled toward the ceiling. That was something I could relate to—hadn't I doubled up as an incense maker? I quickly scanned the stats,

Submission Potion... the Powder of Bliss... Ecstasy Mix... the Brew of Desire...

Ruata's soft hand lay on my cheek, forcing my head away from the bowls and toward her own eyes, dragging me into their purple vortex. Her eyes locked with mine, she rose on tiptoe, her lips reaching for me. The taste of wild strawberries and mint, of absinth, of cannabis...

Repeat mental attack!

You've been exposed to mind-altering substances!

Pheromone attack!

An unidentified alchemy attack!

We are taking measures to completely block and purge your organism of them.

My taste buds shut down. It felt akin to a dentist's anesthetic shot, the layers of smells replaced by a long-forgotten high school memory of a gas mask on my face: rubber and coal dust. My eyesight glitched, blinked and switched to black and white mode. Thank you, Macaria, thank you.

Gently I prized her off me. "Another manipulation attempt, Princess, and we'll part enemies."

"I'm so sorry, my Lord. I only wanted to be desirable for you..." she cast me a confused glance, lowering her head in guilt.

My eyesight blinked again. The picture glitched and switched back to color. The magic of her lavender eyes didn't oppress me any more.

Only now could I finally see her in a true light which instantly made me want to revert back to monochrome. The Princess looked, er, quite seductive. The torch flames behind her back shone through the thin silk, outlining her perfect shape. The dress's left chest pockmarked with hundreds of holes did little to conceal the perfect hemisphere of her breast. I gulped again. Even without using her mental magic, Ruata exuded the very essence of femininity, an unrestrained hurricane of passion. Wait a bit. What was that for a dress style? Covered in hundreds of cuts and spotted with rusty red from neck to its hem? Blood. It was everywhere: on the fine silk, on her hands and the floor, covering the altar and the plain steel dagger that had been thrown nonchalantly onto its black polished stone.

"You... you sacrificed herself to Llos?"

She gave me a tired smile. "It's not about Llos, really. I needed to do something to become equal in strength with the man I liked. He wasn't in a hurry to gain power. And tomorrow... tomorrow the Council of Elders was going to force their own choice of husband onto me."

There was just a hint of reproach in her stare, but it was enough to make me want to apologize. "I'm sorry. I had too many things on my plate. The castle, the clan, that wretched Temple..."

Stop! I shook my head forcing myself to shut up. It looked like even Divine Immunity wasn't able to completely block out her pressure. Still, I'd never been a henpecked doormat and wasn't going to become one any time soon. This kind of behavior just wasn't typical for me. Which meant it had been forced onto me. Another reason to stay away from this femme fatale. I braced myself as if about to take an ice dip, and spoke,

"Ruata. This is about Llos. How could you summon-"

She raised her hand to stop me. A spider the size of a dog crawled out of the shadows and scurried toward her. Ruata lovingly scratched its bristly back, making the creature roll two of its side eyes with delight. Still, it didn't prevent the thing from watching me with the seven remaining eyes, a drop of toxic spittle forming on its jaws.

She gave the spider a good scratch calming it down. "You should never mention the Goddess' name in her own temple. This way you address her directly, attracting her gaze. She is not particularly fond of men. And as for the Temple... Please do not be cross with me, my lord. For centuries have the Drow been guarding these walls. Thousands of our warriors have died defending its sanctuary. Other gods have no place here! This is our altar. But I don't want you to be ridden by anxiety, so I'm going to tell you about a place where you can find an untouched altar of a Dark god. Take it to any temple, then summon a god of your choice.".

I nodded. Her offer made sense. The deal with the Dwarves might just go though, after all. Very well. Time to take a deep breath and move to the main subject.

"Thank you, Ruata. I'll be more than happy to take you up on your kind offer. But there's another thing. I'm sorry, but I really can't marry you. I already have a girlfriend and I'm happy with her."

And she makes me feel like a man and not a doormat, I added mentally before going on, "Consequently, I can't be a Prince, either. And I don't think I could be one even if I tried. Look at me! I'm struggling to control my clan, its castle and the First Temple. It really sounds very tempting what you're saying but I'm afraid I have to say no to both counts."

Large tears welled in her eyes, then spattered on the flagstones. Ruata sank to her knees, plea in her stare. "Prince! Please don't give me to the Elders! If you reject the throne, the Elder's son Ulgul will take it. A dumb, fat, lecherous pig that can't wait to lay his greedy hands on the title and my body! I shudder when I think of him groping me..."

She grabbed at her virtually bare breast and squeezed it tight mimicking Ulgul's greedy hands. I gulped again, perfectly sympathetic to some Elder's son urges, and registered a surprising pang of jealousy.

The Princess raised her tearful eyes to me and pointed at the blood spots, the dagger and her lacerated chest, disrupting my concentration,

"Have I done all this for nothing? I have died two hundred and seventeen times today, hoping that the late Prince's throne would go to one who's worthy of it..."

She broke down, dissolving in tears. I sat next to her and stroked her hair. What was wrong with her today? Never before had she been so tearful—she used to be a true iron lady. Were things really so grim?

"Try to see it my way," I said. "I have a girlfriend. She would never understand this."

"Very well," Ruata snapped. "I agree. We can perform the divorce ritual now in front of Llos while we're still in the Temple. It's possible. We'd have had to go to her anyway to seal our marriage... or our divorce. But Laith, I beg you! Give me one year! Take the Prince's place while I find another worthy suitor. You won't have to do anything. Everything will go as it does now. I'll occupy myself with my clan's needs and you can continue doing your own thing. You will have full access to the treasury and the artifact vault. You will also be able to take command of my cutthroats whom you like so much. I just hope," she forced a sad smile, "that you'll be fair and just and you won't leave the clan without money or warriors. The House of Night will never forget your help. We'll forever remain your friends and allies of your clan. Please. I beg of you..."

Again she buried her tear-strewn face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. I stared around me helplessly. This was a very generous proposition. In essence, she was offering me to bear the Prince's title for a year with full control of their troops and finances. What could you not do, having five hundred elite Drow warriors under your command? Just by sending them on an Inferno raid, you could get hundreds of thousands in gold worth of loot on a daily basis.