Imprisoned in the Orinovan priori labs, Ainreth undergoes torturous treatments daily in an attempt to crack the code to lightweaver creation. Things seem hopeless, until unlikely allies join his side to help him.
Meanwhile back home in Lys-Akkaria...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Mhalyn knew something was wrong. She hadn't figured out what yet, but something was horribly, horribly wrong. She'd met the Arbiter just now, and they had acted odd—far too unfocused, and claiming that there was something very important they needed to do.
It wouldn't have been that concerning on its own. After all, the Arbiter could have simply had too much on their mind, or they could have not slept well, or had perhaps not slept at all, as they'd done before.
But no. This was chillingly familiar. They were acting the same way Fennrin had been. Which meant that Daryan was somehow influencing the Arbiter. And that couldn't be good.
After this encounter, Mhalyn was already planning on setting off for one of the rebel safehouses in Kyr-Toryl. She had been giving information to Petre concerning the situation at the court lately, especially about Fennrin.
But she needed to find out more first. Otherwise what could she possibly be able to tell Petre? That she had a bad feeling about something? That would be horribly useless.
So instead of going to them immediately, she tried to find another Courtier. Mhalyn walked the corridors, finding their offices empty, so instead she started asking the guards and servants if they'd seen the Courtiers. And they apparently had.
"They'd gone into the main meeting room to discuss something important," a servant named Etrith told her quietly, shrugging. "They looked a bit...off?"
Dread squeezed Mhalyn's insides. "Off?"
Etrith nodded, grimacing. "You won't tell them I said that, will you?"
Mhalyn shook her head, smiling a bit despite her heartbeat increasing. "No, of course not. Thank you."
Etrith nodded at her, smiling back before walking off to tend to his duties.
Mhalyn bit her lip as she headed for the meeting room, hoping to listen in on what had been going on here. She had the feeling this was going to be something terrible, but she wouldn't let herself give in to despair before even knowing what she should be in despair of.
As she walked, she couldn't help but think back about how everything had changed so quickly. It felt as though the Daryan she'd known had been replaced with an evil impostor. But the longer she had to think back to what she'd thought about him, the more certain moments stood out to her.
What she'd thought was clever diplomacy had often borderlined manipulation. What she'd thought of as a kindness, such as being nice to her and accepting her despite her tic, now seemed more as a calculated effort to get her to do things for Daryan.
Mhalyn had done extra work for him frequently because she'd felt indebted to him when he needed it, sometimes twice as much as she should have been dealing with. It had simply made sense to her as a way of returning that kindness. But with what Daryan had been doing, Mhalyn couldn't help but think that he'd taken her on because she'd been vulnerable and easy to use.
