by Chele Cooke
Dhiren’s nostrils flared as he set off. Edtroka grabbed him by the elbow.
“Whatever it is, Olless, I trust Dhiren implicitly.”
Olless frowned but didn’t say a word against this. Dhiren yanked his arm from Edtroka’s grasp and, once he had his attention, nodded in Georgianna’s direction. Georgianna’s eyes widened as Edtroka glanced at her, but he gave a small shake of his head and turned his attention onto Olless.
“Well?”
Olless shifted her weight from foot to foot and wrung her hands before her. She gazed down at the table and, when Edtroka urged her to continue, didn’t meet his gaze. Georgianna frowned. She’d never seen Olless be anything less than blunt. Even though she knew Edtroka and Beck were angry that she’d not been sharing all information, she’d never truly hidden it before.
“The First Colvohan ordered that I contact him immediately.”
“And?” said Edtroka.
“And when I did, he told me that a truce has been offered by the Volsonnar.”
“A truce?” Dhiren hissed a laugh. “You’re kidding?”
Olless shook her head. Her long hair fluttered down her back, catching the light. She looked pale behind its curtain.
“They want a meeting once the Second Colvohan arrives.”
Edtroka stepped closer and scratched his neck. He chuckled.
“Congratulations to them,” he said with a sneer. “Why would the Cahlven even consider a meeting? You said it already: your troops have knocked out the majority of their bases. You’ve already taken out their defences.”
“A truce could end this without more losses,” she said.
Olless turned away from them, her gaze sweeping over the room. She watched Jacob and Lacie for a moment, and Georgianna was sure to close her eyes just enough to feign sleep. She didn’t dare move or even breathe until she saw the swish of hair through her eyelashes as Olless turned to stare at the table.
“Are they considering it?” Dhiren asked.
“The Adveni will come to the table and Os-Veruh will be decided over without violence. Once a decision is made, all Mykahnols will be disabled and removed. But the meeting depends on one thing.”
“You really think my father will sit down and discuss terms? Land ownership?” Edtroka gave a bitter laugh and shook his head. “The Veniche will never agree to this.”
Olless nodded absently and gave a heavy sigh. Edtroka made a full circuit of the table.
“Which is why you came to tell me about it and not them, right?”
“No!” Olless screeched. “That has nothing to do with it.”
Edtroka chuckled and rolled his eyes. He perched himself on the edge of the table again, accidentally sitting on the side of a mountain. He didn’t even notice.
“What’s the catch?” Dhiren asked.
When Olless looked at him in surprise, Dhiren raised an eyebrow.
“You said that the meeting depended on something. What is it?”
Edtroka froze and stared at Olless. She looked away from both and ran her fingers through the metal powder. She took a moment to compose herself, her chest heaving in steadying breaths, before lifting her head. Edtroka pushed himself upright again.
“The Adveni will come to the table to discuss a truce if the Cahlven comply with their demands within five days.”
Dhiren’s eyes narrowed as he stepped forwards. Edtroka reached to stop him but seemed to think better of it, dropping his hand. Shuffling a little higher in her seat, Georgianna held her breath.
“What are they demanding?”
Olless gulped but she didn’t look at Dhiren. She stared at Edtroka as her jaw trembled. But when she found her voice, it was with the same cool authority that she’d displayed upon the Cahlven’s arrival to Os-Veruh.
“They demand that you be handed over to stand trial for treason.”
The sun was rising as Georgianna jumped down from the transport steps, more surefooted than before. Bolts of peach light pierced the clouds and struck the sides of the mountains, brightening the dull rocks to copper and gold. The beams sliced into the lake, leaving swirls of indigo and teal in their wake. She jogged along the rocky shore, chewing on her bottom lip and brushing the wrinkles from her clothes. He’d not spoken to her in days and it had been over a week since she’d last seen him crawl into a tent. It would take hours to search the camp beneath the Cahlven shield and she didn’t have hours to spare.
Wrench groaned and rolled over when she shook his shoulders. He was sprawled across the tent, one foot sticking out of the opening. He grumbled into his pillow and tried to shake her off, but Georgianna slotted her hand in underneath his face, covered his mouth and nose, and held on until he spluttered and sat up.
“It’s not even light, George.”
“Where’s Keiran?”
“Hell if I know.”
Wrench flopped back down onto his pillow, groping for his blanket. Georgianna reached over his shoulder, searching for his nose again.
“Alright, alright! Gerroff! He’s been sleeping on the ship. Comes down to eat and walk. If he’s not up there, he’s probably on the shoreline.”
“Thank you, Wrench,” Georgianna said sweetly, bending over and kissing his cheek. He was still grumbling curses even after she’d left the tent.
Georgianna ran back along the shoreline. The vast Densaii ship cast a wide shadow over half of the black and bottomless lake. Two men sat on rocks next to the water’s edge, gutting fish, while six more waded up to their waists, each carrying a large net. One of them waved and Georgianna gave a nod in return, slowing to a walk.
He was sitting on a tall rock at the base of a slope where the land began to climb towards the mountains. In the shadow of the ship he seemed to have been carved from the same stone he sat on. As Georgianna came closer, she could see his fingers working through a rope, twisting and turning it with small, delicate movements. She stopped at the foot of the rock and watched him.
“And who wants a meeting now?” he said, not looking up. “First they send Cartwright, now you? Anyone would think Olless didn’t actually want me to attend.”
“I was looking for you.”
The rock was slippery. There were no crevices to get a decent footing and it was too tall for her to haul herself up by her arms. Keiran sat, eyes fixed on his rope. She circled, and found a lower rock on the other side. Climbing precariously across the gap, she fell with a thump next to him. Keiran huffed.
“So, you finally decided I was worthy of your time?”
“Worthy of my time?”
He drew his knee up to his chest and dug his heel into a crack in the rock. A half-finished net hung down towards the water, the rest of the rope coiled beside his hip.
“How long has it been since you said two words to me?”
“You could easily have spoken to me, Keiran! I’m not the one who went off to sleep on the Cahlven ship to avoid everyone.”
“Because you needed time!”
“Time?” Her voice was becoming shrill and squeaky as she turned to look closer at him. “What time did I need?”
“To figure things out. I told you I couldn’t forgive Cartwright for that mark and you… you blamed me. I know you did. What happened to him was my fault.”
“I…”
Georgianna stopped. She wanted to tell him that she didn’t blame him. She wanted to say that it didn’t matter whether he forgave Alec. There were a thousand things she wanted to tell him, but his silence—the way he’d avoided her—all crept up until she couldn’t find the words. Instead, she sighed.
“The Adveni have offered a truce if the Cahlven hand over Edtroka.”
“Truce?” he asked. “Is that possible?”
“They say the Volsonnar will meet with the Colvohan to discuss terms without violence and…” She shook her head. “That isn’t the point, Keiran. They want Edtroka to be given to them so they can put him on trial for treason.”
“Technically, he is a traitor.”
“He’ll be killed before anyone hears a single thing he says.”
Keiran stared at the rope. He wound it around his fingers into knots, fitting them into the net with perfect precision. Georgianna snarled and took hold of the rope, pulling it sharply and undoing his most recent knot with a yank. He hissed and rubbed his fingers where the rope had pulled on his skin.
“What?”
“I just told you that the Adveni will kill Edtroka if he’s handed over and you don’t say anything?”
“What am I supposed to say? I don’t know why you’re even telling me.”
He extracted the rope from her grasp and began fitting it back into place.
“I thought you might—”
“You’ve not spoken to me in weeks, Georgianna. And now you come and tell me this. Why? I would have found out from Olless or Beck. Why are you coming to me?”
Georgianna picked up the coil of rope and laid it in her lap. He watched her warily but she didn’t try to tug the net from his grasp again. Instead, she fixed the rope into small neat coils that would be easy to draw from.
“I don’t trust the others.”
“Olless?”
“Any of them. I don’t trust them not to hand him over just to bring the Adveni to the table.”
“And what? You trust me because I’ve betrayed my people before so I’ll probably do it again?”
“If you’re a traitor, Keiran, then I’m just as guilty as you are,” Georgianna said, shoving the coil off her lap and into a mess on the rock between them. “I helped Edtroka ensure your safety even before I knew what you were doing. You knew you were helping bring the Cahlven here. I didn’t. I only wanted to save you.”
Keiran stared at his knot. Drawing in a slow breath, he finally met her eye. He looked tired and drawn, his stubble growing into a full beard, his hair messy. But none of it could hide the sunken hollows of his cheeks and the dead grey in his eyes.
“It doesn’t matter what we did, Keiran,” she said, reaching across the gap and taking his hand in both of hers. “We’re here. We’re in this. Edtroka is a good man. You know it as well as I do. We can’t let them hand him over like some bargaining chip.”
When he shook his head, Georgianna feared she had lost him entirely. She pulled back, burying her face in her hands. Her breath came as a desperate sob she couldn’t hold in any longer.
“I just… I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”
She peeked at him through her fingers. His eyes were beautiful, even dulled as they were in the shadow of the ship. They watched her from beneath his furrowed brow. Georgianna searched for the flecks of blue in the mass of grey, each one a reason to trust him with the fears that had been clawing at her.
“You were named one of the leaders of the Veniche,” she whispered.
He gave a bitter laugh and rolled his eyes, turning those reasons away from her. Dropping her hands into her lap, she leaned forwards, trying to catch his gaze again.
“You have a vote, Keiran. Call for a vote on how to proceed. Even if Beck and Olless vote yes, you and Edtroka will stalemate them. If the Cahlven want to keep up this story of collaboration, they’ll have no choice but to back down.”
Keiran nodded slowly and looked down at his rope. He didn’t move to make another knot; he simply stared at it.
Georgianna leaned closer to him. It felt like so long since they had talked to each other, since they had been close. The gap between them felt bigger than ever. Her pride had stopped her from closing it before, but clinging to pride was no longer an issue for either of them. She laid her hand on his knee.
“You are going to vote ‘no’, aren’t you?”
He didn’t answer and yet she still stared at him, waiting for him to tell her that he was friends with Edtroka, that he had worked with him for two years. Of course he would vote no. The silence stretched on, only broken by the water lapping at the base of the rock.
“Keiran?”
“George! Keiran!”
Keiran turned away first and she stared in disbelief at his cheek, at the curve of his ear and the slope of his nose. Tears gathered in her eyes and she brushed them away with the side of her hand.
“Dhiren, up here!” Keiran called down.
Dhiren jogged towards the rock. Stopping at the rock base, he put a hand to his waist, pressing hard against the own flesh. His jaw looked so tight that Georgianna thought he might shatter his teeth with the pressure. She moved backwards on the rock to get a better look at him. He was pale and sweating, eyes wide. He looked as scared as she had ever seen him.
“What is it?”
She slid across the top of the rock towards him. As he glanced around, she realised he was shaking.
“Dhiren, are you alright?”
“It’s E’Troke,” he said. His voice wasn’t as solid as usual. There was no humour, no mockery. His words cracked as he looked across the lake towards the mountains. “He’s gone.”
Keiran shoved the chair away.
“We didn’t get your help so you could bow down the moment the Adveni ask.”
“No one is saying—”
“The fact you’re even considering this truce says everything.”
Olless rolled her eyes and slid into one of the seats. She crossed her legs, her foot jiggling. She’d not been impressed that news of the offer had spread so quickly, which had only made Keiran and Beck angry that they’d not been informed in the first place.
“The offer came in and I told Grystch of its contents,” Olless said again. “As it directly affects him, I thought it best.”
At the doorway, Dhiren snorted.
Beck stepped forwards.
“It directly affects all of us, Olless,” he said. “Any offer of peace with the race who forced ours into servitude… affects us.”
“You know that wasn’t what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” he asked, folding his arms. “Please, enlighten us.”
Olless took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her hair. She still didn’t look her immaculate self. Georgianna threaded her fingers through her own hair, self-consciously. If Olless didn’t look good then she could only imagine she was an absolute mess.
“The message offers truce in exchange for Grystch’s life. I meant that since he is named, he should be the first to know, whatever is decided.”
“So you admit that it’s his life?” Keiran asked. “We’d be handing him over to slaughter.”
“From the Adveni track record when it comes to traitors—”
“This is ridiculous! We’re not handing him over,” Dhiren said.
Georgianna wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. This wasn’t helping, and Edtroka was getting further away. She wondered if he’d truly believed they would hand him over; if he thought that he meant so little to them that his only option was to run. He probably hated all of them for this. He would hate her, too. It was only through her insistence that he’d revealed himself as a traitor to the Adveni before the Cahlven arrived. If she’d not lied to Beck and told him they were planning to destroy the compound, he’d probably still be in his home and at his job, fighting the quiet fight. He’d still be safe, instead of on the run with both sides hunting him.
“I cannot say where I would stand on Edtroka,” Beck said as he took a seat. “One life to save thousands.”
Dhiren pushed himself off the doorframe, eyes bulging.
“But the Adveni have done too much wrong here,” he continued before Dhiren could argue. “We cannot stand aside while you hold discussions about which lands they claim.”
Olless shook her head.
“It does not mean that. It means that their Volsonnar and our Colvohan will meet to discuss terms. Whether these are terms either side will accept is still in question.”
Georgianna hadn’t been able to truly see why Edtroka was so angry before. He and Beck were always talking about how frustrating it was to not get the proper information.
What did it matter if they were told that the Colvohan was on his way to Os-Veruh before he left or while he was making the journey? To her, there was little difference, not much to get so worked up over.
Now she could see it. She could hear it in the words Olless used, the way she placated each worry without proving their concerns unfounded. They weren’t discussing land, they were discussing terms. It was all just a word game that made little sense.
Dhiren punched the doorframe.
“Forget the fucking meeting!” he shouted. “What is being done to find E’Troke?”
Olless got to her feet and peered curiously at him.
“Why does that matter?”
Georgianna knew Dhiren’s history. She knew the brothers of the Compound had used him to intimidate prisoners into doing what they wanted. They’d done it to her, though in her case they had sent another prisoner to hurt her and, when Dhiren came to help her, his protection had been withheld in order to sway her to their side. She could see it in him, the way he stalked forwards. She could see the fury in the way his gaze fixed unwavering on Olless. She could see the name they’d given him: Coyote.
“Why does it matter?” His words were little more than a snarl, and Olless took a step away, rounding the chair to put it between them. The obstacle didn’t hinder Dhiren in the slightest. He crept towards her, pushing the chair away with a brush of his hand.
“He made his choice,” Olless said, taking another step away. “Whether he’s gone to Adlai or has run to hide, he made that choice. There is nothing to be done but wait and see.”
Georgianna uncoiled herself from the ball she’d curled into. She set her feet on the ground and immediately felt the sensation of once again being stuck to the floor. Olless was retreating from Dhiren, weaving her way around chairs to keep him at bay. Even though she wanted to avoid Dhiren’s anger, Georgianna grabbed him by the arm.
“Dhiren, leave her alone. She got the message—she didn’t write it.”
Dhiren turned to her. He looked truly feral, teeth bared. She’d never seen him so angry, so hateful. He brushed her off, his hands balled into fists.
“He saved you. He made sure Maarqyn Guinnyr didn’t get to you and use you the way he uses all his pretty little things,” Dhiren sneered. “And what have you done for him? You should be arguing against this with all your breath!”
