[This post is from Thordin’s point of view.]
“You said you’d tell me about her,” Thom said, apparently picking up the dropped thread of conversation, one interrupted by Thordin’s approach.
“I did,” the leader agreed. “Though I hope what I am about to impart to you will not be in vain. I would hope that you will help us find her—if what you claim is true and you don’t already know her location. If you do know where she lays hidden, I would hope that by the time I am done, you would hand her over to us as I’ve requested.”
The tone was mild enough, but the words left Thordin uncomfortable and uncertain. Who the bloody hell was he talking—
“Rest assured that I haven’t the foggiest clue where the Hecate’s gone,” Thom said, his expression impassive. It certainly wasn’t a lie—they didn’t know where she was, though their search hadn’t taken them too far afield of home.
Still, I have to wonder how far she really might have gone. Thordin took a slow, silent breath. But if Olympium wants her, Christus, we can’t just decide to hand her over without knowing why we’re doing it.
He stared at Thom for a brief moment and decided that wasn’t something the other man would do, regardless of how he actually felt about the woman. He’d know the reason and make the choice from there.
At least, that was Thordin’s hope—for even he, as much as he disliked the Hecate, for as much trouble as she’d always seemed to bring, he didn’t like the idea of just handing her over—especially if she was no longer with them.
In the old days, she always was—or at least appeared to be. She never seemed to be working at cross-purposes to them. Did something change? It must have. If it hadn’t, they would have found her by now—or she would have sought them.
In these things, there was safety in numbers.
“As my…companion…has indicated, she was once his consort,” the leader said. “Though I must mention that they have been estranged from each other for quite some time.”
“Wrongfully—”
The leader cast the flag-bearer a warning look and the other man fell silent, swallowing his commentary but glaring at his leader’s back once he’d turned back to Thom and Thordin.
Another chill crept down Thordin’s spine.
“She was young when we took her in, a orphan of war, if you will,” the leader continued. “She was not the only one, of course, but she was among the most powerful. Her power was manifesting then, though some was still nascent, still…undeveloped. We helped her to realize her full potential.”
“Her full potential,” Thom echoed.
Thordin felt a growl rising in his throat, felt his hackles starting to rise. He tried to tamp down the reaction, though something flickered in the woman’s gaze—she, at least, had noticed some faint sign of his discomfort, of his reaction.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
