Completed Reconcile

"Even if I could, I am loath to attempt touching the foul thing."

Kristen sat back up in her chair. Her shoulders were slumped, brow narrowed in worried consideration.

And her eyes by chance settled back upon the note. The note which still rested on the table, near the point where the chain's binding loop was bolted.

"Reconcile," she said. Puzzled, she looked back up to Delaney. "Haven't we? Isn't that what they—whoever they are—wanted?"

Or...was there more? Something they had missed?

Or glossed over.

Delaney Lennox
 
Delaney followed Kristen in sitting back up properly in the chair. Her purple eyes studied the note and she frowned as she thought. Kristen had a point. They had reconciled but it seemed like it was more than that.

"How did whoever took us know we had something to reconcile?"

A small amount of dread pooled in the pit of her stomach.

What is they were supposed to reconcile with death...

Kristen Pirian
 
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And it was this that gave Kristen pause. Someone had known, or had been told. Someone who wished ill onto her, Delaney, or the both of them.

She couldn't help but think of the ordeal in the desert, where Edric suspected that it had all been a set-up to have Kristen killed. She'd come to agree there. Here? Was it the same people?

"It seems there are many ears and purchasable tongues within the Academy walls."

Kristen thought again on the twisted game that had been set before them. Of reconciling. What could they missed? But of course, the answer was clear, even if Kristen was trying to think around it.

Drastus.

Delaney Lennox
 
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"Too many," Delaney agreed.

She had no idea what else they were supposed to reconcile. They had talked through everything that was on her mind.

"How would they know if we reconciled everything anyways?" She mused. "They cannot read our minds."

Delaney hoped not at least.

Kristen Pirian
 
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The thought was arresting, and Kristen's face portrayed this clearly. Yes, how would they know (whoever they truly was)? If this was part of the twisted game, reconcile or wait until that foul alchemical device erupted into an inferno, then there had to be some way they knew for it to even be a game. Or were they merely guessing?

Whatever it was, Kristen couldn't say. And she said as much: "I don't know."

A brief diversion from the inevitable topic of Drastus, then.

"Were...did things like this happen in the old way, Delaney? Would something like this be a tool the Proctors used?"

Delaney Lennox
 
Delaney shook her head with more confidence than she thought she could feel in defense of the Proctors.

"No, this is not something they would do. They play games but they want us to know that they are behind them and enjoying it. This is someone else..."

She would be lying if she said that the device was not growing hotter by the minute. She could really feel the heat now and as the heat grew so did her worry.

Were they going to die?

Kristen Pirian
 
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"Then it's someone else."

She trusted in Delaney's judgment on the matter. Things Kristen could only imagine, things Kristen could only have nightmares about, Delaney had lived through under the merciless care of the old way. If she said that this wasn't something the Proctors would do, then it was the truth that no one on Arethil stood fit to deny.

A further delay of the inevitable topic of Drastus, but the spirit of the moment deemed bringing this next one up to be apropos.

"Delaney, you might remember that Edric and I had a mission some time ago that sent us west into the Amol-Kalit desert. The one that went, um...poorly."

The memory of being beaten nearly to death. The memory of waking after being shot by a crossbow to the sight of a bloodied monster of a man dragging her through the streets of Salesia by her feet. But these were not what was important right now.

"Edric postulated that the failure of our mission was a set-up to kill me. And, on this, I believe him to be correct."

* * * * *​

Garron's face scrunched up in highly quizzical surprise. Surprise that happened to have a swirl of both delight and jealousy.

Well...this was interesting. Someone had outright attempted to kill the Darling Daughter of House Pirian?

Yes. Very interesting. Why, it wasn't everyday you discovered that you had friends you weren't even aware of.

Delaney Lennox
 
Delaney remembered the mission. She remembered wanting to murder Edric for not watching after Kristen when the Initiates had returned. She had thought seriously about doing for quite some time before she finally calmed down.

"Hmmm," she let out.

It was definitely not unusual for nobles to have people who wanted them dead but why Kristen in particular? She was not heir to House Pirian or anything. She was no one of great importance to the world as a whole. To Delaney she was, of course.

"Who do you think would want you dead?"

Kristen Pirian
 
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Kristen let out a short sigh. "I do not know. The old Alliance of Houses all have grievances with House Pirian." She shrugged in an exasperated manner, her unchained arm flying up in the motion before settling back down to her side. "For all I know, anyone with the last name of Urahil, Luana, Banick, or Sirl might have some malevolent reason for wishing me dead."

She considered everything further.

"But...the desert was different. It was more direct. This, I feel, is more akin to some manner of...of...game."

Could it be different perpetrators between these two incidents? Mayhap. For in the peril of the desert, they weren't left some note, no "reconcile" nor any other clue writ upon it, nothing at all. It could be too soon to say, of course, for they were still bound and that contraption underneath the table grew warmer with each passing minute.

But why this trouble for a game?

Delaney Lennox
 
Delaney thought about the names she had said. If this was a game, it was a noble house for sure. Nobles played games, assassins killed without anyone knowing.

Kristen was right. This was a game.

"So out of those families, who do you think hates you the most?"

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Kristen pondered the question. She called to mind all that her father said over the years (Mother didn't speak so much on matters such as these). The weighing of all the evidence didn't take long.

"Banick," she said, and after a little pause nodded in affirmation, reinforcing her answer and casting away any second thoughts.

"Yes. House Banick. Long have our Houses held a special rivalry. Both of our Houses value the opinion of the commonfolk, yet we both acquire their good favor through differing means and for differing ends."

* * * * *​

Elsewhere, Garron Banick smiled at this in a way that was greatly triumphant.

Delaney Lennox
 
A fair question. Kristen's sole source of renown came from the name bestowed upon her, the Darling Daughter of House Pirian. Amelia, being older, had more station than her, and Val was the heir to the whole House as Delaney had said.

Kristen massaged her temple with her free hand. "I wish I could understand the mind of villainy."

Regardless of her lamenting, she forwarded a hypothesis.

"Mayhap...they wish to do symbolic damage to House Pirian? I have been touted as the beating heart of Pirian, the embodiment of my House's values. There are, um...many of the commonfolk who believe I am wholly pure and innocent, even angelic." It was a strange thing indeed to hear of those whose adoration ascended to lofty heights of idealistic exaggeration.

Kristen, of course, didn't have a good look in the mirror on this particular note, with her own lofty, idealistic regard of Selene Avar and Zana Vjollca.

Delaney Lennox
 
"There are, um...many of the commonfolk who believe I am wholly pure and innocent, even angelic."

Despite the situation they were in, Delaney laughed. It was a real laugh and it was the only way she could properly convey how idiotic that sounded.

"They know you are a human weapon, right? A killer? At least you know your idols are not put and innocent," Delaney finally said once she was done laughing.

It was like she could read the expression that had crossed Kristen's face as she examined her own feelings about some of the former Dreadlords.

"Alright, alright," she started with a more serious tone. "Banick. Who are our options? Obviously not Ralene because she would rather fall on a sword than be associated with them. That one in the Guard up North that we have worked with before. He was nice and doesn't seem to hate everyone. Thoughts?"

Kristen Pirian
 
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Kristen smiled bashfully, demurely, when Delaney laughed. A soft, thin smile, and a small flush of embarrassment accompanied it.

"I do...ponder, sometimes, what these selfsame commonfolk will think of me once I am graduated."

A weapon. A killer. There were many ways to describe it, disparaging or no. The way Kristen preferred?

That she was a protector. That she was would be Aionus's shield upon Arethil, the aegis behind which the powerless could find sanctuary. And, yes, the bulwark which would crush those who threatened them. A weapon, a killer...but one who acted in the service of a good and righteous pursuit.

Then they contemplated together and aloud.

"Logan Banick, yes, I remember." She sighed, rubbing her forehead. "There's Walter Banick, with whom I have worked during the campaign of the Canal. Yet to me he seemed more concerned with matters of state and military affairs than anything else. Other than this, I am unfamiliar with much of House Banick—for obvious reasons. And even if I were, still it could be that a Luana, a Sirl, or a Urahil is responsible."

And responsible for which woeful incident, specifically? The Battle of the Blades? The set-up in the desert? This game of Reconciling here and now?

"There are times I wish my family name was more akin to yours, Delaney—unladen by a twisted web of intergenerational hostilities."

Delaney Lennox
 
So they were no closer to figuring out who was behind this. It was no surprise there.

"There are times I wish my family name was more akin to yours, Delaney—unladen by a twisted web of intergenerational hostilities."

Delaney flinched at Kristen's words. She knew that her friend did not mean anything by it but it just reminded Delaney that she had no family. No one cared if she lived or died. They probably would not even notice or care that she was missing right now except for the fact that she was with the great Kristen Pirian.

She did not dwell on those thoughts. There was no time for that.

"So what else are we supposed to reconcile?"

Kristen Pirian
 
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Back to the game. What choice did they have?

Kristen took in a breath. Let it out. Said simply, "Drastus."

And despite their efforts to keep their relationship a secret, Delaney had found out. Or, at least, highly suspected. What she knew for certain was that that Kristen and Drastus were closer in the past month than they had been before. Mayhap that was cause enough for jealousy.

"You say that he will turn on me. Why do you speak so?"

Delaney Lennox
 
Delaney let our a long suffering sigh at Kristen's question. Yes, she supposed he was the one thing they had not reconciled yet.

"I see the darkness around him. He cannot be trusted, Kristen. He commands the dead and those dead will take over his soul..."

This was all speculation based on her own darkness but she knew how the darkness worked. How it consumed. How it destroyed. Drastus Tal'deneshaar would not be spared because he was from a noble family.

"How do you not see that?"

Kristen Pirian
 
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Kristen did not speak immediately. She knew that if she spoke with a hasty tongue, what would come forth would be only bile. Things might well get physical again, and with that contraption beneath the table still simmering, they hadn't the time to devolve into pettiness.

"Do you speak from genuine concern?"

She tilted her head.

"Or jealousy?"

Delaney Lennox
 
Delaney narrowed her eyes at Kristen. This bitch actually had the audacity to ask that question...

"I have accepted that you will never love me in the same way I love you because I am missing certain parts. What I will never accept is for someone to hurt you and the fact that you would even suggest that I have anything but your best intentions on my mind is insulting."

She just shook her head and looked disgusted at Kristen.

"Do not come crying to me when he does exactly what I said he would," Delaney spit out at Kristen.

Kristen Pirian
 
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It was intensely difficult to keep her nerves in check. Had it been anyone else saying this, anger in some form would have flowed. But this was Delaney, her best friend, the one person who had extended an amicable hand to her at a time when everyone else was either apathetic of her or outright despised her for being the latecomer, the Darling Daughter who'd come to the Academy only after it had become relatively gentle.

Despite the promise Kristen had made to herself, her nerves, her anxiety, were creeping back. Delaney was at war with Drastus and it hurt. It hurt Kristen's heart so hard to hear.

"I love him."

She swallowed. Blinked a few times. Held her composure.

"Delaney...you seek to gain control of your own magic. You have said so yourself."

A ragged sigh.

"I pray for you. And, if must needs, I will pray for him. I want..."

She stopped and closed her eyes and the lashes felt wet.

"...I want what is best for you both."

Delaney Lennox
 
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"Fucking Kress, Kris," Delaney said as she rubbed her forehead with her fingers.

She remembered the time in the catacombs when she and Drastus had tried to kill each other as they fought for Kristen. She remembered everything from that encounter and she wanted to tell Kristen what had happened between them but she didn't. She was not cruel. She was not petty. At least not to Kristen. It would hurt her so much and so Delaney just shook her head.

"I cannot tell you who you can or cannot love but I will tell you that I told you so when he hurts you."

Perhaps it was cruel but it was true. Kristen did not want to heed her warnings and she would regret it. Delaney would wash her hands of it.

"CAN WE GO NOW?!" She yelled into the silence of their prison.

Kristen Pirian
 
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CLANG!

Seemingly at Delaney's yell into the dimness of the near featureless room, the shackles binding both her wrist and Kristen's wrist simply...popped open. The metal fell to the table with two dull and flat thuds.

And Kristen, having opened her eyes at the sound, stared at her now liberated wrist. Incredulous.

"What...?"

No. No! They...but they weren't done! If she had guessed right about all this, wasn't that the point of the sick game? Reconcile or die? Still she and Delaney had not yet come to any amicable resolution on Drastus. Still she was terribly hurt, terribly conflicted. So why...? Why?

Kristen sat in her chair. Dazed.

Thicker wisps of steam rose now from underneath the table.

* * * * *​

A stroke of genius, really.

His friends who were enjoying the show might have been a little disappointed, but Garron knew the chance for a masterstroke when he saw one. He hadn't thought of doing this at the outset, no, but...my, how delightful was it to send the Pirian girl and her pale friend on their way with all things resolved?

All...except one. A wound that could be allowed to fester.

House Sirl were narrow-minded and unimaginative. Yes, there was a time and place for simply killing certain troublesome persons and enemies, but Garron and House Banick (some of them, anyway) knew what was better.

Breaking them.

Delaney Lennox
 
Delaney rubbed her wrist and looked at Kristen with confusion.

"So...can we just...leave?"

She leaned down to look under the table at the weird device that was now smoking like crazy.

"Kristen...see if the door is unlocked..."

Every word seemed tentative. She did not want to get her hopes up.

Kristen Pirian
 
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Kristen flexed her hands into fists. Untensed and tensed again. Something, anything, to get a rein on her nerves. Not again. She couldn't allow herself to backslide, to break her promise, to allow her nerves to win.

In a strange way, she didn't want to leave this room until some manner of harmony had been achieved. But that was foolish. Naïve and foolish. And so Kristen swallowed it, the hurt and the stress and the clinging need for everything to be better. Maybe that day would come. But it wasn't today.

There were more pressing things at hand.

Kristen stood and found the door lurking in the dimness at the periphery of the lantern's glow. She found the handle. Tried it.

"It's...open?" Much like Delaney, she hardly believed it herself. What was going on?

Still, what awaited them on the other side of that door could be Vel Yuna, could be some locale deep in the middle of some unknown wood. But they certainly couldn't stay here.

Delaney Lennox
 
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