Chapter 216: Exchange of Prisoners

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Olfred Warend

The Grand Mountains deserved their name. The greatest of them surged miles into the sky like outstretched fingers seeking to touch the clouds, caressing the soft underbelly of the atmosphere.

But today, they cast a shadow nearly as long as they were tall.

I stood on a large platform of raised earth along the border of Darv, the west-blowing winds whipping sand at me like a million biting flies. My magic kept me safe from the sting of the irritable weather, my mana barrier and innate sense for earth mana warding of the hornet swarm of pebbles that sought to weather me to dust.

This was a rather mild Darvish wind. As close as we were to the Grand Mountains, most of the strength of the weather–the strength that forced the dwarves to build their homes in the deep caverns and expansive rock of the earth–was weakened by distance and time.

But even if the hate of Darvish air couldn't break through my magic, I still felt a simmering dread. Perhaps the Grand Mountains' shadow may have chilled my bones, but the claw of ice around my soul was from an entirely different source.

Scythe Seris Vritra lounged comfortably behind me, a separate pillar supporting the monster as she crossed her legs. The way her aura quietly suffused the air made the hairs on my arms stand on end.

I grit my teeth, forcing the witch from my mind. I had more pressing concerns. Even if my every action was monitored by this monster, that didn't change the objective.

Not long ago, I'd used some of my old contacts to send a message to the Triunion Council demanding parlay. They'd accepted, of course. They couldn't afford not to; not after the recent capture of Burim and Toren's clash with Lance Arthur.

I was dressed to impress. My attire, while rugged, was of the Darvish military style, accentuating the width of my body. The symbol of the rebellion–a cracked geode that bled sand–stood prominently on my shoulders.

I'd taken command of the rebellion in the wake of my freedom, recognizing that only I could spare my father from the grip of the Triunion. Despite the aftermath and the boggling circumstances of the event, I would never be able to fully repay Toren Daen for granting me freedom.

And it all came down to this.

I sensed as the representatives of the Council neared well before I could see them. The ambient mana warped and twisted as another massive pillar of earth slowly rose into the sky, familiar figures staring out from the center.

Commander Virion was at the forefront, of course. It was only his iron leadership that kept the Dicathians from fracturing into a million pieces and bickering among themselves. The old elf bore a determined expression in the wizened lines of his face, his martial robes neat and tidy in a way that told me he was prepared for war.

Not far behind the commander, Blaine Glayder stood tall. The middle-aged former king was a large man, even by the standards of mages, and he might have appeared impressive if not for the angry exhaustion that seemed to radiate from his very pores. His eyes still flashed with fire as they saw me, though, quietly accusing. Assuming.

Lance Varay stood ramrod straight at Councilman Glayder's left, the picture of icy poise as she maintained protocol. The buffeting winds that reached her visibly crystallized and condensed, slowed and stopped by her aura alone.

She only spared me a single, apathetic glance before focusing solely on the Scythe behind me, already dismissing me as a threat.

Bairon Wykes' eyes mocked me, belittled me. In his face I saw disdain and arrogance that only made my mana core churn faster. The human Lance had always been a stain on what it meant to be loyal.

But the last person to appear… They finally made my resolve waver, my emotions disrupted by a wave of quiet guilt.

Mica Earthborn glared at me, her eyes hotter than any magma I could create. It was her magic that had raised the Council's platform, and it was her magic that made it rise higher than my own in an act of quiet defiance. 

There was a tense, overwhelming silence as the howling Darvish winds carried their chips of stone and angry sand, screaming with mute fury. 

"I knew a meeting was coming," Virion Eralith finally said, his voice traveling unnaturally far through the winds, "but I think we both agree that this is a very poor location for it."

I disagreed. The air above Darv was rough and uncomfortable, and too long had the Council been content to sit pretty in their chairs and dictate the war. I felt a pinch of satisfaction at Blaine Glayder's struggle to stay upright against the buffeting winds. "Considering what territory we hold, Commander Virion, there was no other place that would work," I said in a grunting reply. "And getting out of your stuffy castle is good for you now and again," I added, unable to resist the jab.

Virion, of course, shrugged off my words without effect. "We are here to parlay, as demanded," he said, stepping forward. "But before us, I see both a former Lance and a Scythe. It is unclear to us who we are parlaying with. Seris Vritra, I presume?" the elder elf said, his eyes sharp as a knife.

The attention of Virion and his cohorts shifted to the demure Scythe behind me, who was making a show of nonchalantly clicking her nails together as she inspected them with a casual air. Even as the winds of the southern country tried to break her down, not a single silver strand of hair shifted on her head. Her dress did not flutter; her eyes did not squint to protect from the wind. It was as if the weather simply stopped when it reached her.

The Scythe let the uncomfortable silence stretch like a man being pulled in too many directions, his arms and legs twisting and being wrenched from their sockets. Only when the proverbial man's limbs were at risk of being torn from him did she finally speak.

"You presume correct, Virion Eralith," she said in a smooth, cool voice. "I am Seris Vritra, Scythe of Sehz-Clar and leader of Alacryan forces in this war. But that is not why I am here today."

For the first time, the Scythe graced the opposing party with her attention. Bairon shifted his stance, appearing ready to lash out at her already as lightning popped around his hands. Varay's eyes narrowed only slightly, and though I could see no ice appear around her, I knew for fact that it would in record time if she sensed a threat.

Yet Mica's glare remained focused on me.

"I'm an observer, Commander Virion, here to ensure that all protocols are met and respected. Do not mind me. Olfred Warend has more than enough to say without my interjection," the Scythe finished, tilting her head in a way that made her seem almost regal.

"An observer," Blaine spat, surging upward like a world lion provoked with a stick, "You mean to say that you haven't co-opted this dwarven rebellion for your own covert plans, Scythe? Come up with a better lie than that. You should start taking us seriously, witch."

I summoned my mana, calling it around me the moment the foolish human king uttered the last word. I braced like a man in a hurricane as the eye wall loomed, readying myself for hell and high water. My teeth ground together like cracking boulders. I clenched my fists at my sides as I prepared for what was coming.

Only a single thought managed to course through my head. He shouldn't have called that monster a witch.

And then the Scythe's aura expanded. She had kept it impossibly contained earlier, to a point where I couldn't even make out a trace of it. Her mana was coiled tight deep within her core, leaving only her falsely attractive exterior.

But this was a Scythe. This was one of Agrona Vritra's trained killers, born of horrid inbreeding and dark experimentation.

When the aura rushed past me, I was prepared. My muscles locked up and my teeth creaked from how they gnashed together, but I didn't fall. I didn't break.

Blaine stumbled backward, his eyes bugging out of his sockets as the tidal wave struck. Bairon nearly tripped as well, muttering a curse as his face drained of color. And though Varay Aurae showed barely a twitch in her expression, the way her mouth parted and her fingers trembled might as well have been a scream of terror.

Virion seemed impossibly unfazed by the wave, and it took a moment for me to realize why. As a man hunkers in the eye of a storm, he had been spared the brutish force of the Scythe's uncontained mana. Yet he didn't act, his eyes narrowing and his fists clenching as he waited for the woman to speak.

But Mica had been watching me. As I'd braced, so too did the dwarven Lance. Still, her eyes bored holes into my chest as she waited out the storm.

"I take you precisely as seriously as is necessary," she said coolly, her eyes pinning Blaine to the ground like a bug. "Ask your Lances, Councilman Glayder, if they believe they have the slightest chance of disrupting the rules of negotiation today."

Varay simply set a single hand on Blaine's shoulder, conveying a silent message.

Scythe Seris' aura winked out as if it had never existed, retreating back into her body. "If I am needed, I will speak. But this is Olfred Warend's negotiation, not mine. Speak with him if you wish to make progress," she said simply, as if she hadn't just made Bairon and Varay's lives flash before their eyes with a bare flex of her power.

Then she went back to inspecting her nails as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world.

It took a surge of effort to rein my adrenaline back under control. I was no political mind, and I knew there was some sort of significance–some sort of planned action–in what the Scythe had just done, but it was beyond me to pick it apart.

"You will relinquish Elder Rahdeas to me," I said, my voice strong despite my inner fears. "That is what I demand today."

Virion's eyes narrowed with an emotion I couldn't pinpoint across the gap between our earthen pillars. "That is what you called this meeting to demand?" he questioned. "That is all?"

I opened my mouth to speak, opened it to say that yes, it was the exact reason I'd pushed for a meeting in the first place.

But someone else spoke first. Mica's childlike voice echoed out, but the anger and enmity radiating from her was anything but that of an innocent girl.

"Of course, it's all he wants," she said, still glaring at me. "Mica knows this, after all. Oldfred has only ever wanted Elder Rahdeas, regardless of the cost to Darv. Regardless of the lives it takes."

I should have ignored her. Should have pushed her goading words from my mind. But as they registered with me, I felt my anger grow and surge at her accusation, the use of her old nickname clawing at my mind.

"Elder Rahdeas is the reason I came here today," I bit out with gritted teeth, feeling my mana roil beneath my skin. "Lives are lost in war, Lance Mica. If you think that will never happen, then maybe you really are exactly how you look. A little girl."

Mica's nostrils flared as she shot to her feet, her face morphing into something utterly furious. "That makes it easier for you, doesn't it?!" she yelled. "Mica's already lost people, Olfred, because you killed them! Don't talk to Mica about lives lost when you're doing the killing!"

Of all the things I was expecting out of her mouth–more insults, maybe a boulder or increased gravity–it was not that.

"That cute little assault you led, Lance," Mica said, the word mocking and slicing through my skull like bile as she spoke, "my cousins died! Murdered for defending their home while you led the charge."

And as she said the words, I knew precisely who Mica spoke of. Skarn and Hornfels Earthborn, cousins to the sole remaining dwarven Lance.

They'd been slain by Toren, and they'd never stood a chance.

I took a single step backward as Mica's hate realigned itself in my head. The platform beneath me might have been of solid stone, but in that instant, I was certain I stood on a throne of sand instead.

"Enough," Virion said sharply, tearing me from my painful realization. "Regardless of what you want, Olfred Warend, we cannot simply release the traitor to you because you demand such. This is war, Warend, and Councilor Rahdeas committed treason. Don't think a single captured city will release him from our grasp."

I ground my teeth, staring at the old elf. I'd never found him personally terrifying, not as much as I did the Scythe behind me. But as his deep brown eyes simmered, I thought I saw what made the asura respect him so much. The calculating gleam of a man ready to face the hellfire of war and emerge with anything he could hold close.

And that did scare me.

"But you agreed to meet," I bit out, forcefully ignoring Mica's simmering fury. "There must be something that you would be willing to trade. We have hostages; prisoners of war. An exchange would–"

"Spellsong's removal from this war," Virion declared, cutting across my words like a whip. "That is our condition."

My jaw flexed. I couldn't complete that demand. If I wanted Rahdeas back, then I needed some other avenue. Something within my control.

"An amusing proposition," Seris Vritra said languidly, her smooth voice cutting through the silence like her station's namesake through wheat. "But you would never have reached your current station if you were so prone to making foolish deals."

"Spellsong is the greatest existential threat your little system of monarchy has ever faced," the Scythe continued casually. "For so many years you've been propped up by the Lances at your side, making any rebellion impossible."

There was a hint of venom in the underlying traces of her tone, her voice cloying at the air like a constricting serpent.

"In fact," the Vritra spawn said, flicking something from her nails into the wind, "it was only because Councilman Glayder managed to fool his father into passing control of the Lance artifacts down to him that his rebellion was successful in the first place."

Blaine's eyes shot open wider than Burim's caverns. "How did… What?" he blustered. "That's classified information of the highest order! How did you–"

"And Spellsong can just…" The Scythe raised two fingers, miming scissors biting shut. "Cut that all away, can't he?"

Even on the same pillar as the monster, I felt a chill run down my spine at the ease with which she said the words, with how she casually leveraged her power. And if the pale faces of Mica and Bairon were any indication, the words had settled somewhere deep in their cores.

And Varay? Varay looked away.

Seris locked eyes with Commander Virion, and I found myself astounded the old elf did not flinch from the liquid power in her stare. "Spellsong is mine to order, Commander of Dicathen. We both know that your previous offer was a prelude to your true desire. Tell me what it is, and maybe I'll consider it."

I blinked, feeling quietly surprised. Virion's original question wasn't his true goal?

The elf nodded slowly. "You see much, Scythe Seris," he grimly acknowledged. "Then I suppose I shouldn't disrespect what it took for you to reach your station," he returned, and I could not tell if his words were sincere.

"But while Spellsong is certainly a most valuable asset, we have our own counter to him," the elf said, his eyes flashing. "Remove Spellsong from this war, and Lance Godspell will be kept from battle as well."

Seris raised a hand to her chin, staring at Virion like he was some sort of interesting bird. "A single Lance unbound by artifacts set to face the Lancebreaker. It is almost poetic." She shook her head. "But no. This is no simple war, Virion Eralith. I act under the command of the Sovereigns, much as your Lances do their artifact holders, and I cannot forsake the advantage I hold over your continent for a measly dwarf."

"So be it," Virion said through clenched teeth. "Do not deploy Spellsong beyond the territory you hold, and in turn, Lance Arthur will not be sent into Darv. Is that a fair agreement?"

"The territory I hold…" Seris said, appearing to consider the offer. "This can be arranged. But know this, Commander Eralith," she said, floating off her pedestal for the first time. "If I receive a single report that Lance Godspell is within the border of Darv, I'll personally escort Toren Daen into the heart of your flying castle."

She smiled, an expression almost sweet. "After all, you know you're far from safe even in your greatest stronghold."

—

I felt a strange sort of numbness as time dragged on, each present member watching the Scythe with either fear or wariness. It took nearly twenty minutes before I finally sensed a change in the mana, and I had to restrain myself from moving to the edge of the platform as I felt another rise.

My hands clenched at my sides as I sensed Rahdeas' weak mana signature rising. So, so weak.

I knew in the depths of my soul that whatever the outcome of his imprisonment, my father wouldn't have been treated gently. A traitor was a traitor, something lesser. I couldn't blame the Council for whatever they'd done. Both my father and I had understood the risks.

Yet as I laid eyes on the man who had raised me for the first time in months, I felt my anger rise in tune with the stone. His hair was matted and knotted, grease and grime caking every inch of his body. His single remaining eye was blank and listless, the nails on his fingers gone.

I might have thrown myself at the Council in that instant, precautions be damned. That warm eye of his was painfully dull. The old dwarf stumbled as he was prodded forward by his captor.

But even as my mana roiled and I snarled at the injustices done to my father, Mica's hard expression as she led the shackled man towards me–protecting him from the sandy wind and the howl of Darv–made any retaliatory action curdle in my stomach like moon ox milk left in the sun for a day.

"You traded one life for an entire race," Mica hissed quietly, barely audible over the howl of the wind. "Do you think the Vritra will let us dwarves be their equals? That Rahdeas' vision will come true?"

Mica stood not far from me, the diminutive child-like dwarf staring at me with an expression that could warp gravity itself.

"I've only ever worked for Rahdeas," I said in response, my voice gravelly as my father slumped nearby, exhausted from his torture. "His vision is not my own, but I take the steps he demands because he is my father."

"And do you think your father will survive this war?" Mica shot back. "You can't even see it, Oldfred. Throughout the entire meeting, that Scythe played you like a fiddle. She was the one calling the shots. Do you perhaps think that Rahdeas will be any different? The Council isn't perfect, but at least we treated Rahdeas as an adult. Mica might look like a child, but you were the infant here."

"Are you done?" I said back, hoping the tremor I felt in my chest didn't reverberate through my voice.

Mica scoffed. "Mica hopes you don't live to see the consequences. You would've died happier if Aya had succeeded in executing you months ago."

The dwarf didn't even spare Seris Vritra a glance as she floated off the rock, turning back toward her group of elves and humans. I barely noticed as Virion threw a set of keys toward the Scythe–no doubt for Rahdeas' shackles.

And for the first time, as I stared into Rahdeas' empty eyes, I felt a knot of uncertainty about my cause blossom like a creeping weed in my core.

Virion Eralith

The moment we crossed the border into Sapin and were free of the howling winds, Blaine Glayder unleashed his anger.

"That meeting was an utter failure," he snapped, his fists clenched at his sides. The maroon-haired man–now bearing more than a few streaks of gray in his once-fiery mane–visibly tensed like a wounded lion. "Tell me, Virion, just what was the point of all that? Maybe you managed to pull Spellsong away from most battles, but in turn, you gave away one of our only prisoners. And the way you did it essentially acknowledged the southern parts of Darv as autonomous land. We were both kings once. You know what it means to accede land to an enemy, even in spirit. What precedent it sets for future negotiations!"

I let out a tired sigh, of a sort that was becoming commonplace nowadays. I strode at the forefront of our returning delegation as we finally reached the armed party of elite soldiers kept on standby in case of conflict.

Not that they would have been much assistance, the poor fools, I thought, remembering as I stared into the dark abyss of Seris Vritra's power. Arthur had described it to me once, the feeling of staring down a leashed hurricane as a leaf in the air. And while I respected the boy immensely for his power, intellect, and everything else, part of me still hadn't wanted to believe we were so utterly outclassed.

But one of the first things I'd learned in war so many decades ago was that I couldn't let my thoughts linger on one piece of information for too long. That was how madness was born.

My son and his wife were currently tending to Tessia in our estate in Zestier, having elected to visit her often in the wake of her confrontation with Spellsong. I felt a knot of guilt manifest deep within my core as I thought of Tess' expression of betrayal as I'd let the Council's decision go through, but…

I shook my head, pushing those thoughts away. Regardless, the only other councilmember on hand that could accompany me to meet with the Scythe had been Blaine, as his wife, Priscilla, was tasked with maintaining regular operations in the castle while we were absent.

"Rahdeas held practically zero worth as a prisoner after the Darvish rebellion erupted in earnest," I admitted reluctantly. "Maybe he could serve as a solid figurehead to the rebellion, but it's clear that the fighting would continue with or without him. And any knowledge our information extractors would've managed to draw from his lips was pointless as well once it was clear to the rest of the continent we had him in our clutches."

Rahdeas wasn't nearly as critical to the dwarven rebellion as we'd at first assumed, and that was likely by the crafty dwarf's own design. He no doubt expected to be caught eventually, and had severed most ties to the rebellion outside minor contacts. He purposefully avoided being a cornerstone of the cause.

"But the true gain we made was witnessing Seris Vritra firsthand," I said. "We have the Scythe's word that Toren Daen won't participate in battle, yes, but seeing how the Vritra acted today was crucial."

Blaine looked at me sideways, his brows furrowing in slight irritation. "Why was this so important, Virion? All it did was confirm what we already guessed: that Olfred–the traitor–is nothing but a puppet for that… that witch." The way he said it, his eyes darting backward for the barest instant, made it seem he was afraid that the Scythe would follow him back here, bend him over, and spank him for daring to say the word again.

I snorted, feeling a bit of dry humor in the king's anxiety. I could understand it. "Stop staring back at where the Scythe is," I said, conjuring a wind barrier around us as our large group began making our way back toward Blackbend. "You'll make her think you want to be taken too if you keep staring back longingly like that."

Blaine pointedly snapped his gaze back toward the forefront, but not without giving me a covert glare.

But in truth, speaking with Seris Vritra really had been the most important interaction so far in this war.

One just needed perspective.

Arthur had told me in confidence how Scythe Seris had spared him from Uto, leaving the Retainer's horns for him to use to grow stronger. Afterward, Spellsong–or as his true name was, Toren Daen–had left Aya Grephin alive when he'd held her very life in his hands, claiming that the true war was between asura.

I'd had an inkling, then, that perhaps this Scythe's motivations weren't as simple as those of a rote conqueror. Those suspicions had been further scrambled by the revelation that Seris Vritra bore a personal vendetta against Uto, as Arthur's visions revealed–which called her act of sparing Arthur into question.

But then… Then, the boy I'd raised for several years with my granddaughter had nearly died in battle. Apparently, Toren Daen had infiltrated Tessia's squad, intent on something, but Arthur–somehow–had known of this, intercepting the Asclepius hybrid and engaging him in combat.

And it was only Toren's healing magic–healing from the very man whom Arthur had nearly killed–that had allowed him to survive at all. That information wasn't even known within the Council, only shared with me.

To add onto it all, when I'd tried to push Tess for the reason why Spellsong had infiltrated, it was Sylvie Indrath–heir to the greatest deities in this world–who had told me to hold my tongue, only granting that Spellsong's motivations were virtuous.

I never thought I'd witness a dragon express fear in my short two hundred and fifty years.

But if I took all this information and just… shifted my perspective by the slightest margin, then every single word the Scythe uttered seemed to carry a second meaning. Her mocking words of how the Lance artifacts halted rebellion against monarchs, pinning the powerful in place. Add on her comparison of herself as a Lance and Agrona Vritra as an artifact holder, and it started to paint a very different picture of her motivations and goals.

If I dared to take this understanding, then Seris' words no longer served as a goading prod at Blaine's weak ego: they were a subtle message about the chains that bound and drove her actions. No longer were her words on the flying castle's weaknesses an ominous threat, but a dire warning.

My mind shifted darkly as I remembered Olivia Goodsky, my long-time friend and rival. Even through the years of the human-elf war so long ago, she'd been a woman I respected.

And then she'd died from a curse on the mind as she forced herself to reveal Alacryan secrets, right in the heart of Dicathen's flying castle.

I couldn't be certain, of course. Nothing in war was ever certain. If there truly was some sort of restriction placed on Seris Vritra akin to the Lance artifacts, then I might never receive a direct answer. But as I allowed myself to cycle over her words again and again, I realized that this continental divide became even more difficult.

And if this Seris was truly just a pawn to her Sovereigns, as she might have implied, then that made Toren Daen's statement to Aya churn in my stomach like festering rot.

A war between asura indeed, I thought darkly as Blackbend City appeared on the horizon, and we are but cattle for them to butcher.