Verita - The Guardian of Darkness

10

"You're not in danger here. Not from me nor anyone else."

She stared at him bewildered.

"I'm not sure what you were expecting when you came to meet me but ..." Aetrian broke off and cleared his throat. "I might have written my proposition letter a bit too ambiguously. Ves is always telling me off for my haste in writing."

Elanthin wavered in her conviction of how their meeting would end, while she was scrutinizing his solemn expression. It was hard to tell from his erratic behavior if he was telling the truth but she couldn't come up with a logical reason for him to lie. How would he benefit from tricking her?

If he wasn't lying to her, however, she would stay alive. Long enough to see her people thrive on this side of the Eternal Barrier. Long enough to enjoy some of the continent's comforts herself. It wasn't a bad future to consider but it was a dangerous one. The desire to live resurfaced and washed over her like a spring flood of burning acid. Although she had properly buried it on the Plains, there was nothing she could do against human survival instinct. But she couldn't let herself catch hope yet, because even if the Gratian king wasn't intending to lie to her, he might be lying to himself.

"Won't you have to?"

"Won't I have to do what?"

Elanthin purposely didn't lower her voice or shy away from her next words but she could see Aetrian flinch at them. "Kill me, I mean."

The king's eyes had gotten serious as he leaned forward. The shadow which fell over his face darkened them, until they were closer to burnt wood than amber in color.

"Let me be absolutely clear: I ask for your loyalty, not your life. That's the one thing I'll do my best to protect if you follow the treaty."

#

An hour had passed since they'd arrived in the salon. Although neither one of them had asked for it, servants were starting to bring in bowls of fruit and tablets of pastry until their surroundings resembled a pantry.

While Elanthin had trouble taking in the sight of some unknown sort of round bread with cream in it and tiny pastel-colored cookies, Aetrian ignored the snacks. Instead, he grasped the documents, which were presented by Stellan.

"Let's discuss the final treaty once more before retiring. I want there to be no other misunderstandings."

Elanthin tore her eyes away from the pastries to nod at him. After he had explained about his unwillingness to cut off her head and hang it over the fireplace – safe for a situation in which she were to harm Gratia – she'd had to shamefacedly admit her misinterpretation of the letter. There was no reason to act like a victim now; after all, she'd agreed to this meeting and the treaty on her own accord.

"I'm aware that I'm in no position to pose conditions but it would be better if the migration of my people were completed quickly", she propositioned him calmly. It was worth a try at least; for some reason the king was trying to gain her favor instead of simply killing her off, which meant she could make use of that.

Aetrian scrunched his light eyebrows together, which made him look a little more stern – and a little more kingly, Elanthin decided silently.

"No, I can't promise that", he deflected after some thought. "After all, we're still going to merge two hostile kingdoms. I expect to meet considerable resistance, especially if we try to go too fast."

"I wouldn't ask you without reason. If you're worried, we could keep the Veritans' arrival to ourselves and let them camp right behind the barrier for now."

Aetrian's frown worsened as he scrutinized her state – from the tightened jaw down to the hands, which hovered nervously over the two swords. "What's behind your request?"

When she didn't reply immediately, he added: "You're not forgetting that you've signed the treaty? You need to share even the tiniest piece of information with me if it could impact the unification."

Whatever, thought Elanthin frustrated. It wasn't like she'd wanted to hide it for a specific purpose other than her not wanting to tell him for free.

She let out a long sigh. "In fact, the Deep has been behaving strangely this past year. The number of monsters rising from the abyss keeps going up and we haven't been able to discern the reason."

Unconsciously, her fingers started to play with the hilt of her swords as she continued: "We've been struggling to keep the settlements safe, even the ones farthest from the Deep. I've only agreed to your treaty because I want to save my people from becoming monster food."

"So, you're telling me that the Plains are becoming inhabitable?"

He frowned. "Don't misunderstand my words as mockery again, but haven't you devised some sort of passive protection against the Deep's creatures in the past millennia? A wall or some sort of magical construct?"

"We don't have a fancy mage tower", responded Elanthin brusquely. Her parents had told her the stories passed down by their ancestors about the continent's magic institutions – and about the mages who had abused their power to aid Gratia in exiling the Veritans. "So we've had to do with manpower. And to be honest, we're running low on capable soldiers after a bad year."

In the encroaching silence, she eyed the pastries which were as foreign to her as everything else in this room. Although provisions had been provided for on the journey, they hadn't looked nearly as delicious as the snacks in front of her. What reason would they have to poison them when a public beheading was much more effective?

Against better judgement, Elanthin had started to extend a hand towards one of the round-bread-with-cream lookalikes, when Aetrian raised his voice all of a sudden. His amber eyes were fixated on his conversation partner but he wasn't seeing her. He seemed to be looking at something much more abstract.

"Just hypothetically: What would happen if I sent the Gratian army down to the Deep?"