Rashta, and even the Emperor, are annoying garbage to me, but more so in a very poorly written kind of way. In Rashta’s case, her “motivations” aren’t cohesive. If her main concern was to getaway from being a slave and just survive, then she she would have been content with just being a concubine. However, she starts to be written in a way that makes her a greedy, conniving, b*tch. She starts to want more and at one point even says that being at the center of attention is where she belongs...But then every so often, the author throws in her monologues of just wanting to survive. It doesn’t make sense! If all she wanted was to survive, she wouldn’t have started to target people like she did (some of those times she was persuaded by Duke but sometimes she wasn’t). The Emperor is poorly written because at the beginning, it seemed like he didn’t care about Navier at all, only Rashta. He even told her she could get a lover. Then out of nowhere he started to be very, very jealous of who she would interact with. He would always put Rashta first, publicly and behind closed doors, but then in the very same breathe demonize her for talking to a guy. However, it started to become very obvious that he doesn’t even love Rashta, and personally I don’t think he ever did love her. I said this before, but it is just completely ridiculous that he did all of this for a woman he never even loved, just to make Navier jealous....when all he had to do was sit down and have a conversation with her. And he’s supposed to be an Emperor?? His reasoning for some of the dumb things he does don’t make any sense! I know the author was trying to make us hate them, but they did it in a way that made them so one dimensional, with nothing to add or no redeemable qualities. The only character I really, really like is Duke Elgy and it’s only because he seems to be the only character that has some complexity.