The conversation began innocently enough. They were sitting around the big round table in the Targon—Ren and his loyal subordinates—reflecting on how long they had been in Ith. While Kazra and Virn were sitting at the bar, Renado had brought drinks over for the rest of his men. Even Captain Urro and his First Mate were there, though the rest of the crew stayed at a less pricey inn some distance away. As they sat about the table, their words turned toward what to do next.
“We haven’t heard from Domeran since,” Woodro pointed out. It had been over two weeks, without word. It seemed the crime boss had had no need of the assistance Renado had offered. “How long are we going to stay in Ith now that the Mage Kings are dead?”
“Where would we go?” Bran asked. The bearded smuggler had made the arduous voyage with the rest of Urro’s crew, only to arrive after the action was done. “We lost Sheld and we lost the Isle of—”
Ren was surprised the man had managed to speak as much as that phrase as he did. The cursed magic that stilled his voice made him blink his surprised teary eyes. “We’ve lost it all,” Ren agreed. “What do each of you want to do? Stay in Ith?”
Asar shook his head almost as quickly as Woodro did. The former leaned forward. “It used to be that the Family was respected. Now we are lied to?”
“We should strike back,” Woodro added, tapping the table aggressively. “For Lerran, for all the lies we have been told.”
Ren closed his eyes. He had feared this.
“Attacking Gravagan directly would be foolish,” Karsef said. “But he has wronged us. We are not bound by his deal anymore. We promised a year for the safe haven of Lerran and Tassina—safety that was not kept to the completion of that year.”
The cider Renado drank smoothed the dryness in his throat. “I want Lerran back more than any of you. Fighting Gravagan’s Conclave would be the easiest way to lose our only connection to him,” he explained to them. The hubbub of the tavern kept his words from reaching the Circle warriors at the bar, he hoped. Though they had only been friendly to him, Kazra and Virn were not part of his kin.
“What would you have us do?” Omma asked. “Are we to abandon this opportunity in Ith and continue working for these lying, treacherous magicians?”
Ren shook his head. “Not permanently. I suggest we make a new deal. One more job in exchange for Lerran’s whereabouts.”
Karsef whistled through his teeth. “That is a risky, risky plan,” he breathed.
“I know.”
“Gravagan will only lie to us again,” Asar declared. “What reward would we get out of that deal if he did? We barely made it through this job. The Mage Kings could have killed you twice or-or Karsef a dozen times over!”
“Because the other half of the deal will also be our reward,” Ren said. He pushed his palms forward on the varnished wooden table. “Listen closely. The Grey Brethren wronged us first. They took Sheld from us. They killed my sisters, my aunt, my friends…. Even recalling it builds the fire within me. If we want to remind this wretched world who my Family is, we start with the Brethren.
“But why now, and what do I mean about the deal with Gravagan?” Ren posed the question, raising his eyebrows. “Before our mission against the Mage Kings, we learned that the Grey Brethren had blackmailed a magician—Axar—into betraying his order. Then, Gravagan convinced the Circle to send two warriors to assist with eliminating the Mage Kings in exchange for helping the Circle bring down the Grey Brethren. If we report to him after our success here against Ith’s Kings, he’ll next ask us to fight the Grey Brethren, with his backing.”
For a moment, everyone looked at him thoughtfully. They were trying to follow the convoluted web that had become their lives. Woodro repeated Ren’s plan: “So we demand Lerran’s whereabouts in exchange for eliminating the Grey Brethren. If Gravagan keeps his word, we resolve two issues at once. If he lies, we’ve still avenged the fall of Lerran’s Family… I like it.”
“I like it a lot,” added Karsef. “But Gravagan is our second enemy. When all is said and done, we will ultimately have to do something about him.”
Ren sighed. “Orchestrating the downfall of a major religion is going to be a lot more difficult than a single day ambush on the Mage Kings. We’ll deal with what comes after when we get there.”
Nods from around the table led to murmured agreement. Then Omma leaned in. “What about Rado?” he asked. Prata had the babe, likely up in her quarters.
“He’ll need to be safe. He’s certainly not coming to Saanazar or wherever the Conclave sends us, but I don’t even think he should come to Vagren. Gravagan may not agree to our deal…” Ren trailed off. Confronting Gravagan would almost certainly be dangerous as it would require Ren and his friends to reveal they knew Lerran was no longer on the Isle of Dusk. He pulled out his map as he muttered, “Ith is no place for safety either. Not right now.”
Asar tapped the tabletop and leaned across to look at the map. “What about that village we passed through…? Oldon or something like that.”
“Olston,” Ren said, pointing to the dot. It was a hilltop town between Ith and Vagren. It was one of many, but a few thousand lived there—and many were refugees from the revolutions in Ith and Elpan before it. And the eruption of Mount Lukar. “If we leave Rado and his caretakers—guards too—in Olston on the way, there would be no way for the Conclave to notice. I assume we are being watched here all the time. But if we all leave Ith and march straight to Vagren, no one could determine where Rado had gone.”
“That’s a good plan,” Woodro said. “But who will stay?”
“Give me some time to think about it,” Renado said. He finished his cider with a large gulp and pushed the mug into the middle of the table. “Now it’s time for another conversation.”
Kazra smirked when she saw Ren crossing the common room. She pushed one elbow across the bar to lean back and regard Ren with her sarcastic humour. Virn, slumped at the bar behind her, barely stirred. The warrior woman gestured to the round table in the corner of the room. “Are you done all your scheming for the evening?”
“We are,” Ren said. He tapped the shoulder of man sitting next to Kazra. The fellow glanced at her before standing up, then started as though noticing her for the first time. Kazra’s skin was course in many spots and her muscular arms bulged from her sleeveless tunic. Ren gave him a coin for his seat, and shoved in next to the burly woman. “You’re in a better mood.”
Kazra nodded. She had been in a fierce temper earlier today. She had ripped a door off its hinges upstairs, but Ren had Asar quickly repair it before anyone noticed. Her frame of mind changed like the weather. “A good glass of whiskey will do that,” she muttered. “What did you and your band of merry misfits decide to do next?”
“We’re going to report in Vagren,” he said. “We’ll probably leave in a few days. I want to tell Domeran so first—he could have made an alliance work if he had offered us anything in a reasonable amount of time. But we have been sitting around this city for too long already.”
“Good,” Kazra said. She turned to Virn. “Just like I said, right?”
The other warrior looked up quietly. “I’m not drunk enough. I told you that was a waste of time. We should just head home—like we’re going to do as soon as the meet in Vagren is over.”
“Our orders are to report first,” Kazra replied. She turned back to Renado. “So that’s what we’ll do. Just tell us when, my friend.”
Ren nodded. He tapped the bar with another coin. The return to Vagren seemed more daunting than ever. But then he remembered those memories so recently drudged up—of his sisters hanging over the wall of their estate, and of the smoke hanging over the city of Sheld. Somewhere out there, Ren’s brother was slumped over a bar like Virn, just trying to drown himself. The Grey Brethren had to pay—with or without Gravagan’s aid. And Rado needed his father when all of this was over.