Before Emet-Selch can get the bottle in Vaeka's mouth, he will feel a knife slash across his fingers and another slide against his throat, jerking him away from her. The bottle will drop to the ground, smashing on the stone floor. It's wriggling black contents spread in a puddle of inky void, slowly dissipating in the light of the room.

Xishen has materialized behind him... or has she simply been watching all along, and waited until now to make herself known? Her teeth are grit with a sound of genuine frustration.

"You dumb piece of shit," she hisses, pressing the blade closer, on the verge of breaking skin. "Did you miss the public part of 'public execution'?"