Checkmate

Knight Fork

"What the hell was that?" Soriah asked quietly, sounding bewildered.

"Lichor at its best." Someone muttered darkly as they passed us. 

We had just emerged from the meeting with the Lichorians and there had been one surprise after another. To start with, it wasn't an ordinary delegation that had shown up, but the Clan leadership itself - their Clan Leader and several other senior members of their Council. It had been unexpected - as serious as the situation was, for their Clan Leader to come personally meant that this was bigger than we'd thought. 

And it was. 

It became perfectly obvious shortly after their arrival. There was a clear resemblance between the Clan Leader and our Cai. There could be no doubt that they were related. 

Was that why the Lichorians were after her, because she belonged to the Clan's alpha family? But if so, why abduct her, why not directly approach the Clan and be open about it?

If that weren't enough, there was a third surprise in store, the most unpleasant of all.

The Lichorians had completely denied any knowledge of the abduction, claiming that they'd sent Kai as a messenger, to make contact with us - they'd never given an order to abduct anyone, much less the mate of our Clan's Son. Kai and his group had gone Rogue, they claimed.

That part wasn't the surprise, frankly we'd expected this response. As Soriah had so succinctly put it, they were hardly going to admit to it, that would be cause for a Clan war.

No, the surprise was their complete repudiation of Kai. 

Declaring him Rogue was one thing. But they hadn't even tried to save him, hadn't petitioned for mercy or for imprisonment or exile as his punishment. On the contrary, they'd told us to deal with him as harshly as we saw fit, good riddance, he had forfeited his rights in their Clan. In essence, they'd abandoned him, thrown him to the wolves without a backward glance.

It hadn't sat well, not with me, and not with our Clan Leader and Council. No matter what crime a Clanmate committed, they were still one of the Clan. Exiling a Clan member was the usual punishment, not this complete disavowal. Not even in the most extreme circumstances did one's own Clan demand one's death. 

Yet here we were.

Once I'd left Soriah and Alen, I dropped by to see Ri to update her. She'd given her testimony earlier but had not stayed on during the discussions and I knew she'd want to know the outcome. She was shocked to hear about Lichor's treatment of Kai, and evidently disturbed at his ultimate fate. I tried to comfort her as best I could, but I was distracted and I left her as soon as I was able. As revealing as the morning's events had been, I had other things on my mind. 

I hadn't yet been to see Selin.

She was doing better, Ri had said, healing well and under the care of a senior Healer and his team, so she couldn't be in better hands.

But I had not been able to bring myself to visit her all this time. 

I hadn't seen her at all since that night. I'd been too afraid of what she might say. After all, we'd had that one night and then I'd disappeared, staying out of her path, partly due to work, partly by design. I didn't know whether she'd be annoyed, upset, angry or understanding - and I didn't know how she viewed what had happened, or what she might expect from me. After she'd been injured, I'd been torn - wanting to see the friend she had become, hesitant in case she saw me as more. In the end, I'd used work as an excuse, a way to avoid it. 

Such a coward and asshole, to two perfectly wonderful people.

It was time I set things right.