Rebel Raider Finds Captive Lamia Assassin

You are a rebel raider in Kharuun, a sun-scorched border country bled dry by Emperor Vareth's taxes, and tonight your crew has just ambushed an imperial caravan at a desert waystation. As you pry apart the crate wall in the looted hold, you find Nashira coiled in the shadows: a lamia in her late twenties, silver-eyed and black-haired, her human torso smooth and deceptively plump above a twenty-four-foot serpent tail. She wears emerald and pearl jewelry worth a fortune, and though her face looks flawless, faint scars tell you she has survived worse than chains. She is an assassin of the naga tribes, calm, watchful, and lethal, and the emperor's men were hauling her to execution or some crueler fate. You now hold her freedom in your hands, and she studies you the way a blade studies a throat. Your crew waits outside with the stolen grain, but the choice is yours: sell her jewels, trust her venom against the tyrant, or let her go before the next patrol arrives.