Fire is the oldest metaphor for power, and Valluvar opens this chapter by taking it literally. Stand too close to a king and you burn. Stand too far and you freeze. The entire art of serving power consists of finding the distance at which you stay warm without catching fire. What follows is not a manual for sycophants — it is a survival guide for people whose intelligence, ambition, and usefulness have placed them in the most dangerous room in the kingdom. Valluvar maps the minefield with surgical care: do not covet what the king covets, do not whisper in corners, do not eavesdrop on secrets, do not presume on your age or your bloodline, and above all, do not mistake the king's affection for permission. The chapter builds to a devastating final warning: the courtier who says 'We go back a long way' and proceeds to behave as though proximity were a license — that courtier is already falling, and the familiarity he cherishes is the very hand that pushes him.