“I banished him,” Soren says bluntly. “He has not been welcome in Hylios—in any part of Llyr—in the hundred years since.”
“You should have killed him,” Penn puts in, face twisting with wrath. “Then, we would not be here now, discussing how best to dispatch him.”
“I wanted to rip his head from his shoulders, trust me.” Soren bares his teeth in a bitter grin. “I was convinced to spare him by some of our other siblings—”
“Bloodysirens,” Vaughn hisses.
“—whose pleas for mercy momentarily stayed my hand.” Soren’s jaw is tight as he goes on. “A mistake I have taken pains to rectify many times over the years, all without success. Most recently, following the events at Fyremas, after which I spent two months giving fruitless chase across blood-soaked stretches of mortal territory, only to be brought up short again and again by an impenetrable barrier of black sand.” His eyes shift to Penn. “Which effectively brings us to the present. Your grand plans for revenge.”
Penn’s lip curls in distaste. “Do not patronize me, nymph.”
“Tell me, fire salamander,” he shoots back, the barb makingboth his siblings smirk. “Do you think I have been merely sitting on my hands these past decades, too lazy to seek out someone who attempted to hurt my sister? Do you think he still breathes because I have been too busy to bother strangling the air from his lungs?”
Penn does not respond except to take a sip of his gin.
“No,” Soren answers for him, leaning back in his seat. “I have tried many times to infiltrate that dark desert. It cannot be done.”
“I do not accept that.”
“Whether or not you accept reality does nothing to alter it.”
“And what would you have me do?” Penn’s words thrum with rage. “Allow another century to pass, hoping the matter resolves itself?”
“No. I would counsel temperance,” Soren counters. “Do not rush into the Husk Desert on a fool’s mission with visions of victory clouding your sense of reason. Instead, wait for Efnysien to poke his head out from the sand again. When he does, we will be ready to hack it off.”
“That could take another decade.” Penn’s outrage is thick. “Just because you are too cowardly to try again—”
“Call me a coward all you like. You think your idiocy makes you brave? It doesn’t. It makes youdead.Fodder for the black sands, where you will stumble into an abyss pit or be picked clean by the arachnidae or consumed by the wraiths long before you even glimpse the gothic spires of the Symmetria Keep.”
The candles on the table burn brighter as Penn’s fury erupts. His jaw is clenched tight, attempting to lock down his anger. It flows down the bond despite his efforts. I wonder if Soren can sense it, too; if he realizes just how close this discussion is to igniting.
“I will march south with or without your aid,” Penn says,nostrils flaring on a harsh exhale. “With it, we remain as we are now. Allies. Without it…”
“You would risk the treaty between Llyr and Dyved over this half-baked quest for vengeance?” Soren’s tone drips with derision. “If you do that, you weaken the united front of the Northlands. You open us all up to attacks from more than Frostlanders and Reavers and Cimmerian monsters. The mortal kings are ever grasping. Their invasion will be swift and brutal.”
A ripple of unease moves around the table.
“How long do you think we will last against another uprising from the Midlands?” Soren asks, head shaking. “How do you think your citizens will fare, facing a second Cull?”
Penn’s breaths are labored with the effort to remain in control. “There is no threat of that if you make the right choice. If you march with me to the south, a united front.”
Soren’s eyes edge with silver as they narrow on Penn. “And if you fail? What then? What of Caeldera when your corpse desiccates beneath the gray sun of the Southlands?”
“Then I suppose it will not matter our alliance is broken, for I will no longer be around to enforce it,” Penn says coldly. His gaze flickers to me for a heartbeat, simmering with flames. “I wonder if that is not the outcome you are hoping for regardless. It seems you move with haste to fill whatever roles I vacate.”
Absolute silence descends.
Soren shatters it after what seems a lifetime. “If you are fool enough to let treasure slip through your fingers, you cannot blame another for picking it up, brushing it off, and making it shine again.”
The conversation has somehow skewed off course. The air has grown even more tense than when they were discussing their precarious treaty.
“Maybe we should retire for the night,” Alaric puts in, amuch-needed voice of reason. “It’s getting late and we seem to have reached a momentary impasse. We will all have another chance to speak again after tomorrow’s wedding festivities.”
“It wouldn’t be a proper party without some discussion of bloodshed.” Vaughn chuckles at the prospect.
“So long as there is noactualbloodshed,” I murmur.
Mabon cracks a smile—his first since his arrival in Hylios.