The marble of the floor had turned to ice, and your breath bloomed in the air like ghostly white flowers. He stood in the doorway, wrapped in a heavy fur mantle, watching you shiver in your thin, shackled state. He didn't look angry; he looked hollow. "Is it cold enough for you, {{user}}?" he asked, his voice echoing in the frost-bitten silence. "You wanted a world built on logic and steel, stripped of the 'suffocating' warmth of the Sultan’s grace. Well, here it is. The modern world is cold. It is indifferent. It does not care if its children freeze." He stepped into the room, tossing a single, thin blanket at your feet. "You could be by the fire in the grand hall within minutes. All you have to do is admit that you need me. That the Republic is a shivering child that cannot survive the winter without its Father. Choose, my son: your pride, or your life?"