James Wyatt - Storm dragon

Holy Host, Gaven thought, he could have me arrested in no time. What are we doing here?

“Rienne.” A rich tenor voice came from the staircase that curved upward along the opposite wall. Rienne wrenched her eyes from Gaven’s face and looked up at Thordren.

“Thordren, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know-”

“Of course,” Thordren said. “It’s good to see you anyway, though of course I wish the circumstances could be other than they are. But do I know your companion?”

Gaven had his back to the stairs, but now he turned to face his brother.

“Gaven,” Thordren said, his raised eyebrows the only indication of his surprise. “This is unexpected.”

“Hello, Thordren.”

Gaven watched a series of emotions work themselves out on his brother’s face, surprise and rage and grief and regret prominent among them. The silence stretched until it was awkward, with Rienne looking back and forth between them as if waiting for one of them to spring at the other.

“I’m sorry,” Rienne sobbed at last, when the silence had become unbearable. “We shouldn’t have come.”

“No,” Thordren said. He started down the stairs again. “It’s good that you’re here. I apologize for being ungracious.”

Thordren had reached the bottom of the stairs and crossed the room to stand by them. He threw his arms around Gaven, clinging to him with desperate fierceness. Gaven stood awkwardly for a moment, then returned his brother’s embrace. When Thordren finally pulled away, his face was wet with tears, and he gave an embarrassed laugh.

“You will always be my brother,” Thordren said.

Gaven pulled him close again.

The Aundairian ambassador looked as though he had been dragged from bed and brought before the Cardinals-which, Vauren supposed, was not far from the truth.

Silver Flame, he thought, I feel much the same way.

Vauren’s path away from the Whisper Woods had led him to the border of Thrane, Aundair’s neighbor to the east and south. He’d been far enough ahead of Haldren’s marching armies that he had little trouble slipping across the border without papers. Within three weeks of leaving Haldren’s camp, he’d found his way to the city of Thaliost, where he managed to secure identification and traveling papers for his new identity. He had also used a contact in Thaliost to get a message back to Fairhaven, though he didn’t expect any kind of response.

Armed with a letter of introduction provided by the same contact, he had made his way to Flamekeep and found his way into the livery of a Knight of the Flame, which made him distinctly uncomfortable. On the one hand, he knew he was by no means the first foreign spy to infiltrate this chamber and this supposedly holy order. On the other hand, it shaped Vauren’s personality in unfamiliar ways. He wasn’t accustomed to piety, but he was becoming pious. He had even started cursing like a Thrane. He feared it would interfere with his work.

He stood, stony-faced, at the great chamber’s edge, as the ambassador hurried forward and bowed before the Diet of Cardinals. Vauren could see the man trying to compose himself as he held the bow a little longer than strictly necessary.

“Revered Lords,” the ambassador said, absently straightening the folds of his robe, “to what do I owe this honor?”

One of the cardinals seated near an end of the crescent-shaped table got to his feet. “Ambassador,” he said, “we have received some very disturbing reports from the north, and we hoped you could shed light on their significance for us.”

“Reports from the north?” the ambassador repeated. Vauren pitied him. He was an aging diplomat, his hair thinning and his waist spreading, and he clearly had no idea what he was in for at this meeting.

“I will not waste your time weaving shadows, ambassador. Aundairian troops are marching north of Thaliost. What is their purpose?”

The ambassador was obviously stunned, and he stammered a reply. “I–I have not been informed of any troop movements.”

“Are you quite certain, ambassador?”

“Yes, of course! I am sure it’s nothing, just training exercises or war games.”

“War games,” the cardinal said gravely. “Tell me, ambassador, what kind of war game involves large numbers of dragons?”

“Dragons?” For the first time, the ambassador smiled, if nervously. “Revered Lords, someone is playing a terrible joke-”

“This is no joke, ambassador. We have not heard anything from you to suggest an explanation other than the one that seems obvious: Aundair is planning an imminent violation of the Treaty of Thronehold, in an attempt to reclaim the lands of Thaliost.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“I might be inclined to agree with you, ambassador, were it not for the dragons. I wouldn’t presume to guess what damning bargain your queen has made to secure the assistance of dragons, but I assure you that Thrane takes this threat very seriously. We have already notified our ambassadors in Breland, Karrnath, and the Eldeen Reaches in order to secure the assistance of those nations in protecting ourselves from this violation of the Thronehold accords. Aundair’s arrogance will not be ignored. We hope you will urge your queen to reconsider this brash move before all Khorvaire is once again engulfed in war.”

“I assure you, Revered Lords, Aundair is not planning an invasion. They would have notified me, recalled me. Unless…”

The ambassador fell silent. No one needed to finish his sentence for him-Vauren knew that everyone in the room could think of one very good reason for Aundair not to recall its ambassadors. A sudden departure of diplomatic personnel would alert Thrane to the imminent invasion. If a handful of aging diplomats had to be sacrificed-well, that was the smallest price Aundair would pay in a renewed war.

Vauren stared blankly at the ambassador, careful not to let any of his thoughts register on his face with even the slightest twitch of muscle. Some part of him-the Knight of Thrane part, he supposed-wished he could help the poor man, leap to his defense and Aundair’s, explain the whole situation. He wished he could put a stop to Haldren’s madness before it cost any more lives. But he knew that was not an option.

I’m as much a slave to my orders as Cart is, he thought.

He was surprised to realize that the thought of the warforged brought a twinge of sadness. Would Cart’s be one of the lives lost in Haldren’s scheme? What about Jenns? Had he survived alone in the wilderness, or starved to death, or perhaps been rounded up again by Haldren’s marching armies? And Gaven? Had the Sentinel Marshals tracked him down yet and dragged him back to

Dreadhold? Or killed him?

Vauren suddenly felt light headed. In his min d, the grand chamber became the center of a swirling vortex of history-events unfolding inexorably around him, dragging him and everyone whose life he had touched into annihilation. Haldren and his armies marched in the north, dragons winging overhead. He’d last seen Gaven far to the south, but he imagined Gaven and Senya making their way northward, drawn by some unalterable destiny to reunite with Haldren on the same terrible battlefield. The fate of Khorvaire seemed bound up in the strands of these people’s lives-caught in the maelstrom.

A pair of knights led the ambassador out of the room. Vauren assumed they were not escorting him back to the embassy. He’d be a hostage in the upcoming conflict, another life dragged under by the storm.

Vauren tried to relax. He was no longer dressed in the uniform of a Knight of Thrane, but he still felt the role constricting him. He leaned on the counter at a busy Flamekeep tavern, keeping an eye on the people coming and going without appearing to do anything but study his drink. He let the laughter and curses of the other patrons wash over him, hoping to absorb some of their freedom and coarseness. He felt altogether too clean and pure after his time in the Cathedral of the Silver Flame, and in danger of becoming a prig. Self-righteous morality didn’t sit well alongside a career built on duplicity.