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This Used to be About Dungeons, ch 147, Making Moves
🕑 Added 2022-11-14 20:27:16 +0000 UTC~~~~
Five days passed. It felt like an eternity. They were too cooped up, and in a way, Mizuki felt like she was the most cooped of all of them. She was supposed to be going to wizard school to learn how to throw wizard fireballs, which they did through a complicated system of magical bulbs and valves. Instead, she was mostly spending her time in the extradimensional space, stepping out only occasionally to talk with other people, and enduring the fights — she couldn’t call them anything else — between the other members of the party. No one was raising their voice, but they were getting less polite about it all, running in circles, talking too much. Mizuki liked talking, but not this kind of talking.
There was, at least, Ria, who had a good claim to being one of the coolest people in the world, though not, per her own accounting, one of the most powerful. They spent a lot of time chatting, often with wine.
“Entads are funny things,” said Ria. “My sword is amazing, it’s killed millions — no joke, millions of creatures. But I’m a dungeoneer, or set up as one, with a kit that’s meant for handling any kind of problem I run into in a dungeon. Most of the time, the sword does the trick, but my standard loadout is mostly about adapting, not sheer killing power, which is usually what people mean when they say ‘power’.”
“But it is still killing, right?” asked Mizuki.
“It is,” replied Ria. “It’s just multifaceted.” She shrugged. “I might be in the top ten most powerful people when it comes to dungeoneering. But when it comes to killing another person, I think at full strength I’m possibly only in the top one hundred. I don’t know though, because it’s not as though there are competitions for that sort of thing, not like there are leaderboards for the dungeons.”
“You could set something up though, right?” asked Mizuki. “Something something undone days?”
“I could, technically,” she replied. She’d taken a sip of her wine. “And I think I’d place in the bottom, because I have only my own entads, and what I occasionally borrow from the family vault. Despite what people may tell you, the vault in no way compares to what Inter is able to field.”
“War preparedness stuff?” asked Mizuki.
“That, and the Knives,” said Ria. “Also, people don’t like to say ‘war preparedness’ because at the highest levels of government, ‘war’ is a dirty word. Saying that you’re preparing for war would be even worse, because Kiromo and Tarbin are our neighbors, who we trade with. War is not just unthinkable but bad for business. Even worse would be talking about a civil war.” She gave a little laugh. “So Inter does its best to arm people, to arm properly trained people with incredibly powered entads, and then they have to say ‘oh, just in case, you know, possibly something might escape from the dungeons, or we might run into something, you never know’.”
This struck Mizuki as quite cynical, but also with an edge to it that she couldn’t help but like. She could imagine herself saying something similar, admitting that she really did like having a fireball on hand just in case, with the implication that if someone did try to mess with her, she would explode then.
Time spent in the demiplane was always less entertaining, in part because they weren’t allowed to go to the palace. Mizuki was practically aching to go, as she’d seen the lights of it from the village in the night. There was a tram that people rode up and down the slope, and there were parties there almost every other night. Since the village was comparatively close, the village didn’t really have any parties of its own. People would come home from the palace, looking exhausted and happy, and Mizuki could only look at them with envy.
Going up to the palace wasn’t something that happened on purpose. She’d been told to stay away by Ria, told by Alfric that it was too much of a risk, but she’d been with a few people from the village and they had all encouraged her to come to a palace party. She’s said no, of course, but they’d insisted in the kind of joking way that people did that always got to her, and eventually she’d relented, since that seemed like the easiest thing to do in the situation. If she hadn’t, then maybe they would talk about her, and that wouldn’t be good either, would it?
The whole friend-making enterprise had mostly been what she was supposed to be doing anyway, though they seemed to have transitioned into a different phase of the whole disorganized thing. Ria was gathering combat information in undone days and dipping into the real world to marshal forces there, while Verity was trying her best to cozy up. Alfric was off in the Wildlands while Hannah was on a back-channel with one of Cate’s non-human advisors, which had revealed little (and which Hannah was cagey about). That left Mizuki and Isra, who should have been together, but Isra had a druid friend with a wispy mustache, and was spending a lot of time with him.
“Like … in a friendly way?” asked Mizuki. “Or a different way?”
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” said Isra.
“Er, in a way that you think he might end up being your boyfriend, or in a way that it isn’t even on the horizon?” asked Mizuki.
“No, I knew what you meant,” said Isra with a sigh. “I was trying to do that thing, where I say that I don’t know, feigning innocence, which is a way of showing that it’s probably not innocent.”
“Your inflection was wrong,” said Mizuki. “You have to be more snooty, like you’re almost offended that anyone would so much as suggest it. ‘I don’t know what you mean by that’.”
“Ah,” said Isra. “The voice you use when you talk about Alfric.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” said Mizuki, in her most snooty voice, which got a gratifying giggle from Isra.
“Putting that on pause until this is all done?” asked Isra.
“I choose not to answer that,” said Mizuki. “Though this is making me rethink my life.”
“Oh?” asked Isra.
“We’re around all these people who have just thrown a bunch of babies out with the bathwater, in my opinion,” said Mizuki. “They got enticed, they went in, and they got what they wanted, or something like it. I guess I’ve been thinking about what I want in life. What could Cate have offered me? And if I can figure that out, then I can just go get it for myself.”
Isra had taken that as something wise and important, even though it had just been something that Mizuki had said in the moment. Mizuki did give it some thought though, and decided that there really wasn’t much that she wanted from life aside from a spouse and a family, which weren’t things that Cate could offer.
It was one of the things that Mizuki thought about as she rode the tram up with her new friends, all of whom had been plucked up by Cate, either escaping some bad situation or brought to the demiplane with a promise of paradise. They were high achievers, mostly people who had demonstrable skills, and Mizuki felt out of place among them, especially when she was fitting in.
“I think you’ll love it,” said Sarang, a tall, slender girl who tended to wear far more makeup than Mizuki ever would. She had a sense of style, so Mizuki thought that it was probably stylish, but she also wondered what the girl looked like under it all. Sarang had run away from a failed marriage. “It’s hard to imagine that you haven’t. You were in the palace when you first came here, right?”
“I was,” Mizuki lied. “The village seemed like a better place for me. More like home. Will Cate be at the party?”
“She wasn’t last night,” said Thom. Mizuki had met him on the first day, and he was too much of a joker, too unserious. She didn’t know his story, and didn’t really care to, but he was tolerable in a group, funny in a way that one-on-one got to be a little much. He was sweet on her, she was pretty sure. “Nor the night before. I think most of this place was built to her tastes, and a lot of that taste is more calm, less merriment. She likes people to pretend that they’ve got something to get up for in the morning.” He laughed a little.
“He talks about rocking the boat,” said Grace, rolling her eyes. “Yet it’s all gossip from that mouth.”
Grace was Mizuki’s favorite, sardonic and aloof, also Kiromon, but an immigrant to Inter rather than the descendants of immigrants. Grace had been disappointed that Mizuki’s command of the language was poor, but after that, they’d gotten along well.
It was a nice group of friends, and they chatted as the tram climbed the hill, but Mizuki was very aware that they weren’t real friends, that in fact, she was a spy, though not really spying on them. Still, it was nice to know that she could make friends anywhere, that her dungeon party wasn’t just a fluke. If they ever got out of the demiplane, she would be able to make friends at the wizard college too, friends in Plenarch or wherever else she’d ended up. She hadn’t realized how afraid she’d been of not making friends until she’d actually made some friends and proved that it had been nothing to worry about. These friends were temporary, but there was no reason that they would have to be, if they weren’t living somewhere that Mizuki didn’t want to live.
If Mizuki could avoid Cate, there might be something to be learned from the party, and if Mizuki couldn’t avoid Cate, then the day would almost certainly be undone. That wasn’t a good reason to do risky things without any real benefit, and Alfric would be mad at Mizuki for thinking that way, but she hoped that it wouldn’t come up.
The palace was everything that Mizuki had dreamed it would be, grand and imposing, with all kinds of strange hallways and promising rooms to go down. The place reeked of magic, with entads at every turn, and if not for the cover story — which was that she’d actually lived at the palace for a few days before her move to the village — Mizuki would have spent the entire night going from thing to thing and seeing how it worked. She did want a new outfit, if those were on offer.
The ‘party’ took place across a dozen rooms, one of them a large ballroom that had at least a hundred people in it. The caldera courtyard was another major location, this one with as much food as anyone could possibly want. Mizuki moved between them, keeping her eye out for Cate, or for anyone who looked like they might report to Cate. As far as Verity had said, there wasn’t all that much in the way of hierarchies, and surveillance wasn’t necessarily non-existent, but the demiplane was mostly expected to run itself. That arrangement was something that Mizuki had heard people comment on, both positively and negatively.
The party had too many people, really. There were hundreds, at a guess, a substantial fraction of the entire demiplane. Mizuki normally liked functions like this in Pucklechurch, though Pucklechurch reserved gatherings of that size for special holidays or occasions. In Pucklechurch, she knew everyone, or near enough, and there was no awkwardness of introductions and uncertainty about whether people were nice or not. If they weren’t nice, you knew it. She had some worry that it wouldn’t be like that here, that she’d run into people who would only reveal themselves to be mean later.
Mizuki was scarfing down a plate of tiny pies beneath a willow tree when a small woman came up to her.
“Mizuki?” she asked.
“Erm, yeah?” Mizuki asked back.
“I’m a friend of Hannah’s,” she said, placing her hand on her chest. “Liana. Can you come with me?”
“The tailor?” asked Mizuki. Mizuki had no description of the girl, but she was small with green eyes and clothes that had a subdued beauty to them, which ran in contrast to some of what people were wearing to the party.
“Clothier,” the girl replied. “But yes. Shall we?” She extended her arm. Mizuki took it, reluctant, still holding her plate of mini-pies.
“Am I in trouble?” Mizuki asked.
“No, not at all,” replied the girl. “We can talk once we have some privacy.”
Mizuki let herself be led, trying not to be frightened. Ria would reset the day if Mizuki wasn’t back in the house before the witching hour, that was the arrangement she had with all of them. There had already been a decent chance that the day would be undone, Mizuki had gone up to the palace with that in mind, but this virtually guaranteed it.
They came to a small room, which seemed like a library but wasn’t the library, since it was too small. Alfric would surely have memorized their map of the palace, but Mizuki wasn’t even sure that she’d be able to find her way out. It was a satellite library, she decided, a place where you could go if you wanted to be surrounded by books and not disturbed.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the girl said.
“Yeah,” said Mizuki. “Sorry. Some friends invited me and it felt rude to say no.”
“I can keep things that happen in the village within the village,” said Liana. “If you’re blithely wandering around the palace grounds, I can’t. How much has Hannah told you?”
“Er,” said Mizuki. “I don’t know how much she’s told you, but apparently you know my name, so … you’re a friend, or an employee, or just someone who keeps secrets,” said Mizuki. “And you’re on our side.”
“I’m on Cate’s side,” said Liana. “I happen to think that’s the side of peaceful resolution, and that Cate can be made to see the light, but it’s not going to happen if she discovers the four of you because you were sloppy, and not if you’re wandering around the palace like you live here. She wouldn’t handle being made the fool.”
Mizuki looked around the room. “Do we need to worry about being heard?”
“Not particularly,” replied Liana. “I know the people who would be doing the listening. They’re in the loop.”
“But … I’m not in the loop,” said Mizuki. “I don’t even know what the loop is.”
“Verity has Cate’s ear,” said Liana. “That’s going well. The course of action that’s going to work best for everyone is if Cate opens up to the outside world. It would help to keep things stable in here, especially among those who left for the wrong reasons.”
“The wrong reasons being … what?” asked Mizuki.
“Reasons that left them with regrets,” said Liana. “There are too many people here with trauma of some kind, stress or anxiety, and they’ve dealt with it by simply leaving everything behind. It’s one of the reasons this experiment is most likely to fail. As brilliant as she is, Cate is an amateur when it comes to crafting communities, but there’s no particular way to practice that, especially when you insist on secrecy.”
Mizuki listened, but she had a sense that Liana was watching her. “Hannah has been pretty tight-lipped about you.”
“She hasn’t come by that often,” said Liana. “And I understand you have your own concerns. You people came here to make sure that everyone was taken care of, and you’ve seen that to your satisfaction, which means you have only Verity’s attempt at changing Cate’s mind left.”
“I guess,” said Mizuki. “I mean … if Cate says ‘no, I’ll tell people I’m a dragon, but I’m not changing anything, people aren’t allowed to leave, I need them’, then I feel like we’re out of options.”
“Out of options?” asked Liana, quirking an eyebrow.
“I mean, at that point we’d leave,” said Mizuki. She really wasn’t sure what Hannah had said, but confessing that force was on the table was probably not a topic of discussion. The existence of Ria, a high-powered chrononaut, might also not have been something the two of them talked about. But there had to be a reason that Hannah had kept quiet. Hannah was hiding something, and knowing Hannah, it couldn’t be all that bad, but there was something.
“Or stay,” said Liana. She was watching Mizuki closely.
Mizuki didn’t know what to say, so she kept her mouth shut, which was its own way of saying something. She was worried, intensely worried, that Liana would simply say ‘I see’ or something like that, but instead Liana only moved past and opened the door.
“Go,” she said. “I can keep things from Cate, but if you’re wandering around the palace, that’s more than I can handle, and if she finds you on her own, Cate won’t be happy.” She paused. “Talk to Hannah.”
“I will,” said Mizuki.
She left the small library and did eventually find her way out of the palace, mostly through retracing her steps. It was rude to leave her friends behind, especially when she’d hardly gotten a chance to spend much time with them, but she needed to have a conversation with Hannah. She rode the tram back down the mountain, alone, back into a village that was already growing quiet.
Hannah was in the deepest of the extradimensional spaces, Lutopia One, reading from a book of prayers. She and Ria were the only ones there, Ria cleaning weapons.
“How was your day?” asked Ria, looking up.
“Fine,” said Mizuki. “Boring.” This wasn’t quite true, but had been said not as a lie, but because it felt like what she was meant to say. “Hannah, can I speak with you?”
“Ay,” said Hannah, placing a forefinger at her spot in the book.
“Privately?” asked Mizuki.
“Ay,” Hannah said again, putting her book to the side.
They went into a separate extradimensional space, this one down a level and then back up a different level, a room that was nothing more than a set of two chairs. Mizuki had called it the Interrogatorium, since it was pretty much only good for two people having a conversation with literally no other distractions.
“Alright,” said Hannah. “I’m ready to listen.”
“I went up to the palace,” said Mizuki.
“Oh,” said Hannah. She seemed genuinely surprised by that. Whatever she’d been prepared to listen to, it hadn’t been that. “That doesn’t seem like a good idea. Not spotted, I hope?”
“I was,” said Mizuki. “But by your clothier friend from the village, who told me to scram.”
“And why did you go to the palace?” asked Hannah.
“Some friends asked me to,” said Mizuki. “And I did say ‘no’, but then they said ‘yes’, and it seemed like it would have been more suspicious not to go — but that’s not the point, the point is that I talked with Liara, and she seemed to be probing —”
“You didn’t tell her about Ria?” asked Hannah, looking anxious.
“Well I didn’t know whether you had told her about Ria,” said Mizuki. “She knew my name, so I guess you’d told her about me. But no, I didn’t tell her about Ria.”
“It’s a piece of information I’ve left out,” said Hannah. “So far, she thinks we’re bumblin’ around, maybe agents of the state, but those in over their heads, ay? Every time Ria comes out of the nest, Cate tracks her down and kills her, and I have to imagine that Liara’s reaction to knowin’ about Ria wouldn’t be to hide it from her master. We’re on a mission of peace, so far as Liara knows, and raw power wouldn’t be a solution, so far as Liara sees it.”
“Right,” said Mizuki. “Okay. But … I had kind of understood that you weren’t getting much from her, just vague answers, mostly because she was trying to protect Cate. And she made it seem like there was something more.”
Hannah sighed. “And now you’re talkin’ to me without the others — which I do appreciate — but that probably means that I should just talk to the others, have it all out at once.”
“Are you hiding something?” asked Mizuki.
“I’ve been tryin’ to get around Ria,” said Hannah. “Not that I don’t trust her, but everythin’ we do or say on undone days has to go through her, and she’s got her own views on matters. I don’t think she’s malicious or ill-intentioned, but she’s seein’ the whole thing in terms of power, and I’m seein’ it a different way.”
“Okay,” Mizuki said slowly. “But there are things that Liara has said that you haven’t shared?”
Hannah sighed. “There was an offer of amnesty,” said Hannah. “We’re stowaways, and practically speakin’, we’ve been livin’ here a week. More, dependin’ on how you count. Verity is fittin’ in, Alfric has spent so much time in the Wildlands I’m not sure he’s ever goin’ to want to leave, and while you and I have no interest in stayin’ here, I think that the two of them might.”
“Amnesty,” said Mizuki. “Meaning we’re just ‘allowed’ to live here?”
“Ay,” said Hannah. “We step out of the shadows and just become normal citizens, or whatever they’ve got here. Subjects, I s’pose. I don’t favor it, but it’s better than hidin’ out, waitin’ on the other shoe to drop.”
“Liara can’t make that offer on her own,” said Mizuki. “I mean, she can make the offer, but she’d need to Cate, right?”
“She made the offer without Cate, ay,” said Hannah. “But the offer was confirmed in an undone day. So long as Cate thinks that she’s caught us out, she’ll let us stay. There’s some ego there that’s not too promising, but with Liara massagin’ things, it worked out.”
“Wait, so Alfric knows?” asked Mizuki.
“No,” sighed Hannah. “When I say undone day, I mean that I passed a message to myself. That was yesterday, I haven’t been sittin’ on it long.”
“Wow,” said Mizuki. “This seems like a lot to be doing behind someone’s back.”
“We’re doin’ this all behind someone’s back,” said Hannah. “I’m tryin’ to get around Ria, who’s on a war footin’, callin’ in favors and bringin’ the government to bear on the problem without so much as a word to Cate about it. All these undone days and we haven’t had a frank talk, mostly for fear of bein’ burned, outplayed, or whatever else. I’m tryin’ to get some of the truth out, that’s all, and I think when it comes down to it, Ria’s goin’ to exercise her veto.”
“You don’t trust her disclosure,” said Mizuki.
“I do, I said,” replied Hannah. “But it’s disclosure with a slant to it, her bias creepin’ in. Much of which is down to how things went with Lola.”
“Lola?” asked Mizuki. She hadn’t forgotten about Lola, exactly, but didn’t get the connection. That was a different chapter of her life.
“Listen to Ria the next time she talks about power, and the people who hold it, the people who need to be put down with more power, how we need to hold others accountable, need to make sure that we’re not just relyin’ on trust.” Hannah sighed. “She’s feelin’ guilty, and gone most of her life tryin’ to solve things through violence, so that’s how we end up here.”
“Except Cate is a dragon,” said Mizuki. “I mean, I understand you, but Cate’s a dragon? She’s a dragon.”
“Oh, is she?” asked Hannah. “Somehow I missed that.” She rubbed her chin. “Really changes things, that.”
“So you’re going to tell the others about this amnesty offer?” asked Mizuki.
“I was plannin’ to,” said Hannah. “Most of the confirmation was yesterday, makin’ sure that Liara knew what she was on about. She knows us, knows where we are, and if she meant to sell us out — it wouldn’t be sellin’ us out, her loyalty is to Cate — but if she meant to tell Cate where we were, she’d have done it by now. And I think it’s better all around for us to be on the level.”
“Makes it harder for Verity, right?” asked Mizuki. “And we’re not on the level, since we’re hiding Ria.”
“Ay, both true,” said Hannah. “Still a hypothetical, which is why it needs group discussion.”
Mizuki wasn’t looking forward to that. She was pretty sure that she knew how it would go, if not the outcome, then at least what the process would look like. She was strapping in for a fight.
~~~~
“We take the deal,” said Verity. “Become citizens, with a guarantee that we can leave, and stop all this cloak and dagger.”
“We can’t,” said Ria. “It gives up any leverage we have. I’ve come very close to killing her, but haven’t actually managed it yet, and that means that what she says goes. She’s a sovereign power. We give up our advantage if she knows we’re all here. If she knows that Alfric is here then she’ll already be thinking in terms of undone days. If she learns that Verity has been duplicitous, that undermines attempts to control her, and we won’t be able to sneak anything more in — and we don’t have the power we need right now.”
“I’ve talked to her about concessions,” said Verity. “Reparations. We talked today. She seemed not to like it, but also like maybe she would do it anyway.”
“Reparations for the island people?” asked Mizuki. “Or for all the sheep she killed seven hundred years ago or whatever, and the shepherds that might have gotten caught up in the crossfire?” Cate had killed people, according to Verity, a long time ago, but for a young dragon that wanted meat, people were far more trouble than they were worth.
“She has wealth,” said Verity. “She pulled back pretty much everything she had in Inter when she left, sold houses and land, but what she has here has enormous wealth, enough to pay back debts, to pay for things she stole, to pay families. Some of that depends on what Inter might decide about what’s owed. There’s the matter of other debts, the debts of people who are here, the legal status of those people, but … she’s open to it. To actually making it right.”
“You think,” said Ria.
“She’s in the best position to know,” said Alfric. “Everything we hear is filtered through Verity. We need to have some faith in what she says, what she knows.”
“Once we give up leverage, there’s no way to claw it back,” said Ria. She had her arms folded, which made her look more stern, and she was doing things with her voice that Mizuki didn’t quite like, punctuating what she said with an unpleasant sharpness. Mizuki was on her side, really, but it didn’t feel like it was a good side.
“I don’t like the idea of her giving up only the things she’s prepared to give up,” said Isra. “She’ll feel no consequence for her actions. There’s no question of whether she’s free.”
“You understand putting a sword to her throat is just going to enrage her, right?” asked Verity. “The more pressure you put on her, the more she’s going to react to it, and that’s going to result in this entire demiplane going away, maybe for a hundred years before she tries again.”
“And she would try again,” said Hannah. “It’s clear that she needs this, in some manner of speakin’, given all the time she’s spent on it, all the money and effort that went into the demiplane. But raw power … I don’t think it’s the way.” She turned to Ria. “You’re the one speakin’ with Inter, who speaks for their position on this.”
“She’s a criminal, a thief, a killer, a liar, and a threat,” said Ria. Her arms were still folded. Mizuki wished that she’d stop doing that. “She abused a position of power and gave the government a black eye, doing herself no favors by spilling everything as she left. They’re willing to forgive and forget, to move on if there’s some compensation for her crimes, and some reliable method of keeping her under control.”
“That’s not a good basis for a relationship,” said Hannah.
“No,” Ria agreed. “It’s not.” Mizuki felt some relief at that. “They’re willing to give you time to try other options, to have Cate come to the table on her own, but what they’d like is for there to be some backup strategy in case that goes sour.”
“Which comes back to force,” said Verity. Her face was stuck in a frown.
“Which comes back to not giving up leverage,” said Ria.
“I’d rather be known,” said Mizuki. “Even if that does give up ‘leverage’ or means that no one will be able to sneak in a battalion or whatever. I want to be nice.”
“I feel the same,” said Alfric. “Disclosure would be a relief.” He had been looking tense, even though he was spending his time in the Wildlands, mostly away from people.
“We test it then,” said Ria. “In an undone day. We make sure that it’s safe, that she won’t roast you alive, and we talk about the results in the morning before deciding whether to go through with it.”
“We would need to disclose the test,” said Alfric. “On our second meeting, we would need to tell her that we’d gone through it once before, that I had memories or at least a secondhand report.”
Ria frowned. “Or I tell you nothing, so you need to say nothing.”
“Nothing, as in no information?” asked Alfric. “That’s — I guess.”
“Then it’s what we’ll do,” said Ria. “Tomorrow.” She looked at Hannah. “Arrange it with your contact, please.”
Hannah gave a wary nod.
~~~~
“It failed,” Ria said the next morning. “She didn’t lash out, but she insisted that she take our wizardly exit from us. That’s a failure state. It’s not just giving up leverage, it’s trapping us here.”
“So we try again,” said Alfric.
“We did try again,” said Ria. “We tried three times. I’m low on days. It’s not working.”
“Kell can build us a way out,” said Mizuki. “He said he could, anyway. It would take a few weeks, maybe, but … we wouldn’t be entirely stuck here.” She didn’t want to be asking Kell any favors, but they could.
“It’s time for the other plan,” said Ria. “We’re not living here for weeks, hoping that a novice wizard can replicate something he’s read about in books.”
“He’s actually really talented,” said Mizuki.
“What’s the other plan then?” asked Alfric. “We were supposed to be here for a day, maybe two, not this long. We’ve got cover, but our cover is someone who wants us to take an amnesty. Personally, I’m willing to give up our exit.”
“I am too,” said Verity. “I think she would let us out, she just doesn’t want us going around with an exit, free to leave without a discussion. I’d need to know her reasoning, her wording. And we can just continue on as we were, can’t we?”
“I still want to hear the other plan,” said Alfric. “You can leave on undone days, you want to keep that, I understand, but … how do we proceed?”
“I’m not helping to sneak in a battalion,” said Verity. “I’m not helping to put a boot on her throat, whatever she’s done, however much I agree she needs to drop the veil.”
“I did it without you,” said Ria, looking for a moment, like she felt some regret. “The battalion is here. We will try to talk, to come to an arrangement, but if that doesn’t work … You’ve got some time, a day for the staging to be complete, and then we’re going in with every day we can muster.”
Comments
Keifru
I think our protag party is going to break from govt and help Cate which will actually help in getting her to not be sneaksy. I feel next pov will be Alfric and he is *not* gonna be happy about what his mom did.
