Drevash’s common room had been transford by the ti the expedition finished settling the unconscious mbers upstairs and ca back down to find the village headman, Durvan, had sohow produced a al that was both more substantial and more varied than anything they had eaten in three days of canyon-adjacent terrain.
There was roasted at, the kind of dish that people often forget they crave until the enticing aroma fills the air. There was also bread, still warm from the oven, and a clay pot containing a dense, dark stew made of mushrooms and grains, rich in flavor and clearly the result of several hours of careful preparation.
Durvan stood at the far end of the room, wearing a satisfied expression that suggested he understood the importance of providing nourishnt to those who had just endured difficult circumstances, prioritizing their need to eat before engaging in conversation.
Rex sat at the table’s center with Talyra on his left and Aisella on his right and Nerith two seats down, and he ate with the straightforward attention of soone who was hungry and had no imdiate purpose competing with the act of eating.
The ring rested in his pocket. The docunt lay tucked in his jacket. The na "Celestina Von Starlight" lingered in his mind, where it had been since Kregg ntioned it, occupying the part of his thoughts reserved for matters he wasn’t finished with yet.
He had perhaps ten minutes before the al’s noise level dropped low enough that quiet conversations beca audible across the table, and he used them.
"I need the three of you to understand sothing," he said to Talyra and Aisella, his voice low enough that it carried no further than the imdiate seats.
He looked at Nerith as well, who had heard him and was looking back with the leaves in their warm, attentive motion.
"Mireya is going to keep talking about what she saw in the canyon," he said. "She’s already said it once on the walk back, and... she’ll probably fucking say it again here with a larger audience."
"I can’t believe after all I’ve been through there... she’s trying to make a downfall out of ." Rex clenched his fists. "I don’t know what she’s planning, but still... she believes that she saw sothing she needs to report."
"She did see sothing, right?" Aisella said, quietly. "Just to make sure."
"Yeah," Rex said. "She did."
"The question is what happens with it... If it stays in circulation as a credible account, it creates a problem for every plan I have in Aethelgard for the next several months."
"The people I need to trust need to continue trusting ." Rex said it without a problem because he knew that three of them were going to be fully devoted to him and would follow all orders that he gave.
Talyra looked at him with the direct, unvarnished attention she used when she was deciding whether she agreed with the framing of sothing. "Hmm... I want to be clear first."
"You’re not asking us to lie," she said. "But if yes, then it’s fine as well for ."
"No," Rex said. "I’m asking you to say what you actually believe."
"Which I think is different from what Mireya is describing."
Talyra was quiet for a mont. She set down her cup and looked at Rex with the expression she used when she was going to say sothing she’d already fully decided on.
"Then let tell you what I actually believe," she said. "I believe that you went into that canyon knowing you had ten Legion mbers, no backup, and three people being held under a suppression field."
"I also believe you evaluated the situation, made a decision, and acted on it, resulting in the survival of the right people who erged from that canyon."
"That’s a clean summary," Rex said.
"I’m not being clean," Talyra said. "I’m being accurate... and there is a difference between accuracy and cleanliness."
She picked up her cup again. "Kregg ran an organization that spent fourteen years removing reincarnators from this world."
"He wasn’t a bystander who got caught in sothing, but he was the architect of it..." She paused just to drink. "Whatever you did to him in that canyon is the sa thing that would have eventually been done to Apollo, and to Veylor, and to us if the Legion’s operation had continued."
She set her cup down again. "And of course, I’m not confused about that."
Everyone in the group already knew all the information about the Legion from Rex and Elizabeth when they were talking in the carriage, and now everything is settled except Rex still wants to make Mireya shut her mouth about him killing because it was the right thing to do anyway.
"Mireya is confused about it," Aisella said. "She’s a princess, after all, and her morals are held to a higher standard."
"She doesn’t kill, but let them all live just to be punished until they can change for the greater good."
"Mireya wasn’t in the categories they remove," Talyra said. "That’s part of it."
Aisella nodded, slowly. "When she talks about the system, process, and network," she said, "she’s talking from a position where those systems are things that protect her."
"She trusts them because she’s never had a reason not to." She looked at Rex. "You went into that canyon with ten people who had designed their entire operation specifically to bypass every system Mireya is describing."
"The ring on Kregg’s finger was specifically built to suppress Apollo’s designation, which is the network’s most significant active asset in this region." She paused. "The system she wants you to trust is the system that failed to protect Apollo in the first place."
"I know," Rex said.
"I’m not saying it for your benefit," Aisella said. "I’m saying it because it’s what I’m going to say tonight when she starts."
"I want you to know the argunt I’m making."
Rex looked at her. "That’s more than I asked for."
"I know," Aisella said. "But you should know what’s coming from our side of the table, not just what to expect from hers."
Nerith had been listening without looking up. The amber leaves were still in the way they went still when she was deciding sothing rather than processing sothing.
She looked at Rex. "Mm."
"He could have left," she said. "When Kregg took Apollo and told everyone that Legion mbers were already collecting the others above, he could have calculated that the group wasn’t his problem and walked away, but he didn’t."
"That’s also what I believe," she said. "I’ll say that if it’s useful."
Rex looked at the three of them. "It is," he said.
Aisella lifted her cup. "Then we’ll say it," she said. "But Rex."
Rex looked at her.
"What you did in that canyon," she said, carefully, "is still sothing I think about."
"I’m not going to pretend I don’t think about it. But I also know that the people who are dead were the ones who had decided that Talyra and I were categories to be removed from this world."
"So when I express my beliefs, I’m conveying sothing that is genuinely true—not rely sothing that serves a practical purpose."
"I know," Rex said.
Talyra looked at her briefly, then at Rex. "Sa," she said.
Then she added, after a mont, "And for what it’s worth, I’ve thought about it from every angle I can find."
"The scenario in which you let them go and provided Mireya with the version of events she desired is the one where the Balance Keeper possesses new information, has a three-hour head start, and the Legion remains intact and operational when we return to Aethelgard." She paused. "I can’t find the version of that where the outco is better."
"You looked for it," Rex said.
"Of course I looked for it," Talyra said. "I’m not going to defend sothing I haven’t examined."
She said it without apology. "I examined it."
"The conclusion I arrived at was that you made the call that needed to be made, and the reason it’s uncomfortable is that it was a call that needed to be made rather than one that was easy to make." She looked at the table briefly. "Mireya is reacting to the discomfort. Well, yeah, I understand that, but I just don’t think the discomfort ans the call was wrong."
Nerith said, from her two-seat distance, still quietly, "The gorge... when he caught the arrow that was coming for ."
She was not looking at Rex when she said this. She was looking at her plate.
"He had no reason to do that... By any calculation I can apply, that was not a decision he needed to make..."
"I wasn’t a priority, and I wasn’t in his direct line, but still... he did it before I knew it was happening."
"I know," Aisella said. "I saw it."
User Comments
0 comments from readers