บท 178: The Next Phase  

It wasn't easy being a puppeteer or a weaver of webs, but I had been around the Prophet long enough to be fairly adequate at both.

That was a lie. I was phenomenal at both, but it wasn't easy. There was an art to manipulating people who usually would never be manipulated. A whisper in Ba'dqeel's ear here, a whisper in Vu'tuip's ear there, and I could sit back and watch the world explode around me.

Both Vu'tuip and the Rein were salivating at the idea of getting their hands on me and breeding the next generation, utterly confident that it would piss the other one off.

The joke was on them, though, because I wasn't capable of being bred at the moment.

Tensions were at an all-time high, and the two factions had been subtly fighting one another. Little fights here and there that wouldn't bring much attention to them, but every time they clashed, it was a draw. And both sides were pissed off as a result.