'ᴡᴇ ꜱʜᴀʀᴇ ᴀ ꜱᴇɴᴛɪᴍᴇɴᴛ. ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ʙᴇ ʙᴏᴜɢʜᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇᴠᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇ.'
Only one month has passed in Daliah Viper's life trying to reintegrate at court and follow the uneasy trails her eyes have caught.
One month filled with blood, tribulations, and l...
- fine dust, smoke, or light vapor causing lack of transparency of the air
- something suggesting atmospheric haze especially : vagueness of mind or mental perception
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The next days are preparation and exaltation of force. I and the rest of my motley unit stand by in attention. I haven't been this frequently around Maven Calore since the early spider days of being bought to distract the Irals, and I don't cherish the closeness. It isn't because I cannot see his strengths. He is smart. It is his redeeming quality.
But he is more or less a puzzle that I am still missing a few pieces to solve. Every pattern gets stuck together, but yet it feels incomplete. Like my head feels after a blown-up headache when Samson has rummaged inside, I am weary.
The dogs don't like him much either. They stay by my side, but the way he moves and smells rubs them the wrong way, and they push back in some sort of mistrust.
It is never easy to get answers from him. He is too good with words, and he is too good at dissuading tension or maneuvering around it. I usually sit or stand somewhere in a tenure, a distance, at watch, with my own plans.
Samson has given me things to chew on now that I don't hunt someone that obviously is able to change their face, fly, shoot lightning, or barrel in jumping leaps away.
Catching rebels has become second station after the lists and the new bloods that I have caught.
"Who wrote that list?" I dare to implore again. "Who knew about this? This must have taken quite a time?"
I almost don't expect an answer. It is just my stubborness of not giving in.
I scoff softly over the maps and letters and everything else safely tugged in so I cannot catch a glimpse at it. "They're dead, aren't they?"
"About to be executed," he answers, with one look down, as if he wants to make sure the schedule is correct.
"They are in Corros?" The tract for traitors breaks off a mean memory of Ara in my brain, then I force myself to shake that off and think greater. "Imprisoned?"
"Many people are imprisoned. You were too."
Ah, there is the nonchalance again, the indifferent blank smoothness I want to wipe off his face with my fist. The dogs snarl behind me.
"Samson already told me about the plan to reconditon and train a new blood army."
"He did."
"I know we push together to travel there. It was in the wavers and orders I received. Just spit it out. If they are about to be executed, you have nothing to lose."
It is a gamble, and I don't take Maven for much of an addicted gambler. Unlike people like Loren he misses a certain factotum of being too thrilled by risk that is too unreasonable. He knows too well he can loose all and then will be eaten alive. His eyes are thoughtful. "Do you remember the day you were about to tell Ara Iral everything you thought you knew?"
