Sovereign of Wrath Interlude: Unlikely Allies

“Are you certain?” the demon in disguise asked.

“I am,” Aretan replied, pausing at the entrance to the cave. Tool markings and foot-worn stone hinted at a long history. “And were your mistress uncertain, she would not have sent you along.”

reneth frowned, the expression looking out of place to Aretan, almost pout-like on the young Navanaean face she wore.

The ex noble, ex soldier, ex rcenary took a deep breath and steadied himself, offering a small prayer to the Eight.

“If what Isidore and I uncovered and what your mistress was able to corroborate are correct, then much of the history of Navanaea as I know it is untrue. Or at least incomplete. We owe it to the Formid to try to restore that cooperation.” He stepped inside, feeling the sun on his back recede as he stepped into darkness.

“What will you tell them?” reneth asked, following, eyes moving from side to side, glowing briefly in the darkness. “That you’re sorry your ancestors drove them from their holand to the edge of the mountains?”

Aretan winced. “There is no apology that is sufficient. I will continue as I have in my letters, earnestly and with the interest of the greater whole.”

“And you can’t tell what that plan is?”

Aretan shook his head. “No. But you will know soon.”

reneth side-eyed him as they ca to the first bend in the narrow cave. “Because you can’t trust ?”

“No, because they are already listening, and it is best the plan is heard by only those whose need is certain.”

The demon in disguise sighed and rolled her eyes. “You could have told on the way over.”

“Correct.”

Up ahead, the passage brightened, several side tunnels branching off into the shadows. The pair headed for the light, erging into a shaded chamber, open to the sky and surrounded by cliffs. A few gnarled trees took root by a small, muddy spring in the center, the water flowing off underground to one side.

Winter flowers were blooming, pink and white against the dark orange-brown of the rocks. Several large, flat stones sat in a circle on hard-packed dirt above the spring, looking like the stools of an audience chamber.

Which, in a ti long past, they probably were. And they would fulfill such a purpose again here today. Standing above those stones, tall and unreadable, were two Formid. The taller one had reddish-black chitin, while the smaller was closer to a sand color. They each stood seemingly stiffly on long legs, with the taller’s lower pair of arms held back near the base of a giant hamr and the shorter’s arms crossed gently around the narrow pinch of their waist.

The smaller wore a red-orange sash, the larger a mantle. And both of them were staring at Aretan and reneth with solid black eyes—two main ones and four smaller above and below. With mandibles in place of jaws, Aretan looked to their antennae for lack of a facial expression, but he couldn’t get any sort of read.

However, from the letters sent back and forth these past weeks, Aretan guessed the smaller of the two to be Scribe, whom he had been the longest in contact with. The other then, the one whose solid eyes seed to shift between him and reneth, would be Hamr. The one who had t Zarenna and who had asked to be present.

More were doubtless waiting in hidden places, and from the way reneth tensed, Aretan could guess there were more than a few. After all, who would not be wary when an exiled descendent of the people who so viciously betrayed your kind offered an olive branch?

“Stop,” Scribe commanded in uncannily perfect Turquoiser. There was no accompanying raised hand, no step forward, no shift in posture. Just a slight turn of their head toward reneth.

Aretan stopped. He replied with the coded phrase, the real one not the decoy. If the pair relaxed, they didn’t show it. Hamr’s lower hands kept near the base of the large hamr on their back. reneth looked as calm as a sheltered oasis, sohow.

“Who is the other?” Scribe asked.

“reneth. She is a representative of Lust, allied with Zarenna, Sovereign of Wrath.”

Scribe took a single step forward, though Hamr did not move. “You an for us to follow the sa as your vile elite?”

“I am not bound,” reneth said simply. Her clothes were light, loose, and showed her neck and collarbone in full.

Scribe inclined their head toward the demon, antennae twitching. A few tense monts later, they spoke again. “So you are not. You wish then to free your kind?”

“So,” reneth answered with a too-wide smile. “Others should die.”

“So your letters spoke truth.”

Aretan nodded.

“But we find it difficult to believe your sincerity.”

“I understand.” He bowed, formally.

“We know that you had forsaken your title, however. Long before this war. And you have brought no army to this place.”

Aretan did not move, letting Scribe continue.

“And this one vouches for your friend Zarenna, though they only t briefly. As such, we will hear your plan that ‘could not be risked through a letter.’”

Aretan blinked at the unexpected sarcasm. For a voice so uncanny to… no, now was not the ti. He stood up straight and looked at the pair in front of him. To co closer to whisper, to ask for privacy now would cast into doubt his sincerity. He needed to be made vulnerable, to tie Lillith and her ilk to this conflict they had largely stayed out of.

The thought twisted his stomach. This was not the responsibility he had for his rcenary company, this was more akin to his family’s actions and he struggled to keep painful mories from forming, from thinking of their awful demise.

Before he could convince himself otherwise, Aretan spoke. “I believe it necessary to remove the ruling family of Navanaea, and to end the practice of demon summoning and binding by any ans necessary.”

A faint hiss emanated from Scribe, though Hamr stayed silent. “You an to betray.” Their words ended with a click.

“I an to make right.” Aretan clenched his hands, hard enough to hurt. “I never supported binding demons; I never supported our expansion to drive your kind out.”

“You would see your kind subjugated under ours.” Another click.

Aretan looked up—Scribe had moved closer, and the only sign of emotion ca from their quivering antennae. “No,” he said firmly. “I would see an end to the war and the first step toward a future of cooperation.”

“Hopeless.” Click. “Idealism.” Click.

“This one disagrees,” Hamr said in a hissing voice, speaking for the first ti. “This one believes that we should judge the now, not the past.”

Scribe froze, then jerked their head toward Hamr so sharply that Aretan could barely follow the motion. “And forget their horrid cris?” Click.

Hamr stepped forward, and Aretan realized just how tall they were when they towered over Scribe from not half an arm’s length away. “And not beco what we hate.”

Aretan and reneth shared a glance as the two faced off, antennae twitching. Whether it was a silent contest of wills or a conversation neither could understand, the shadows had moved down the walls by the ti the pair backed down and Scribe turned back to face Aretan and reneth.

“We will hear the how of your plan.” They gestured at the stone seats, hiss and lick gone from their unreadable voice. “If you dare entrap us, you will not leave this place alive, demon ally or no.”

Aretan nodded and stepped forward. “Should I do such a thing, death would indeed be a fitting punishnt.”