Consorting with Enemies

[Jay Carpenter]

Jai

If he had a weak stomach, he’d have bowed out years ago. As it was, Jai licked his fingers as he rifled through Talin’s notes. Prior to that he had been listening carefully as a soldier might fixate on complex orders, but now his mind shifted to the gruesome scene spread out on paper. Every once in a while, he would nod to himself or brows would raise in recognition of what he saw. He even looked closer once or twice to really get a good bead on what he was examining. He mumbled noises of disgust then casually popped an olive in his mouth, and on it went until he had a good picture in his head of exactly what happened to the person she described. Nythadri would find Jai’s feelings walking the tight-rope of genuinely disturbed verging on bloody impressed. This rhythm continued until the victim’s identity on the papers kindled a slow, simmering anger within him.

Memories of that fateful night – the attack, the chaos of smoke and blood, screams in the distance and tears in the next room – flashed vividly in his mind. His determination to take Asad’s sword and plunge into the night like some bloody hero briefly resurfaced before he thought better and suppressed it. Best not to think about the heirloom now.

He listened to the rest of her information, gaze flat, and feelings even flatter, placing all he now knew into the context of the story that unfolded these past few minutes. The idea of Nythadri, desperate enough to pursue the aid of a dreadlord, let alone this dreadlord added to the flatness of his empty horizon within. He didn’t know it, but he was funneling those emotions straight into the heart of the void rather than deal with them. So when his gaze moved toward the door, as if his eyes peered through the wood, traversed the hall and found the Dreadlord’s back, he imagined filling it with fiery arrows. Then a low sigh revealed he knew Arikan would outmatch him in a confrontation, though perhaps… perhaps with Nythadri? And if they caught him by surprise?

Then he looked back to her, deciphering what she said from what the bond felt and found them disjointed. She didn’t want him dead? Jai wasn’t above saying the means justified the end, but damn. Nythadri, an Aes-bloody-Sedai, wanted to use a Dreadlord as just another tool? The awareness filled him with an appreciation for her that he had never been privy to before. A fleeting smile, as telling as it was brief, crossed his lips before he rose from their bed.

Wearing only pants, bare-chested and barefoot, he effortlessly lifted the ward securing their haven and stepped into the dim hallway, the cool air brushing against his skin, a stark contrast to the heat of his smoldering resolve.

“I’ll be right back,” was all he said.

Nythadri

She’d seen him rash and reckless and shielded in desperate rage. But if anger sparked now it was banked under deep coals and utterly contained. This wasn't the heat of reaction. This was calculation, and when Jai wrapped himself up in so much blankness, it was usually the harbinger of self-demise.

She pulled the robe back up around her shoulders, still securing the tie at her waist when she followed him out into the hallway. The flagstones were cold underfoot; the fort was not a place built for comfort.

“You know, you spend an awful lot of time trying to shake me off.” Her lips flickered humour, though the gaze she shot up at him was deadpan. She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, much as she had when he’d marched right past her back in the Tower halls. If he stopped this time more the better, but if not she only curled her fingers comfortably and relented to keep pace. “I’m not particularly enamoured of you running off in the middle of the night given present circumstances.”

Jai pushed on because he knew no other way to go, and it was for that reason alone that her urge for him to stop was only a suggestion. She would not force him, especially not to dance to a tune she was making up as she went along. The slim smile suggested he'd drawn his own conclusion, and on a night where he'd been tested to his core and stripped of almost all he knew, she knew it would be a soldier’s conclusion. Asha’man were weapons and tools of both the Dragon and the Light. Their lives were spent in service. Jai didn't even know all the details yet, but he heard enough to assume his part in it. A soldier didn't need to ask questions. But he did need to report.

“This is not an alliance, Jai; it’s a responsibility we can’t walk away from. We share a cause with him now, but I could not say that he will not make an enemy of himself in the future. If all of this is a mistake, it’s not one I’ll allow loose on the world. I will pay that price.” Nythadri spoke softly for all the dire nature of the whisper. She trusted Arikan would forge on relentlessly, but not that they wouldn’t eventually end up as collateral in the process. She hadn't wanted Jai tangled up in any of this, but now that he was she accepted it. Light knew that in a very selfish way it made things easier on her, albeit it also made the stakes all the more personal. Nythadri didn't want them in the same light-forsaken room if she could help it. Arikan was clever and deceitful and ruthless, and Jai was the one thing Nythadri wouldn't risk.

“This a far darker path than I would have liked to lead us down. But we're on it together. Where are you going?”

Not so much as a tendril of saidin wound his being because he didn’t want to be sensed and he didn’t want the dreadlord to find him a threat — if their roles were reversed, Jai would be wary of Power-wielding men marching straight toward him.

Nythadri’s explanations were met with nods of acknowledgement. He heard what she said, but he had no response other than to answer her final question. “I have something to say to him.” By their route, it was obvious who he was.

The library was dim, almost too dim to read by, but sure enough, the dreadlord was seated at the desk, papers strewn around him. A hand-held book of notes was center-most under his focus. Arikan looked up to lock him eye-to-eye, and the two men studied one another. His gaze flickered briefly to Nythadri as well as if he read them as surely as he read that book.

Arikan smirked at their dishevelment, but he said something completely unrelated, “Glad you’re here, Asha’man. Tell me what you know of the Black Tower messages and codes.” He brought the book forward for examination, but Jai punched him straight in the face. Arikan reeled, though the blow did not do much more than to push him off balance a little. Upon straightening, he gently touched his face. A trickle of blood dripped from his nose.

Shockingly, he smiled. “She told you who I am.”

Nythadri didn’t much approve, but she didn’t spend time arguing either. Whatever she made of his answer or the way he felt then, she internalised it, and in the quiet she instead considered ramifications. Stillness fell like a shutter over her expression, and she followed onwards in trust. Which wasn’t to say she was best impressed by the circumstance and the state of her own undress. Modesty did not count high on her list of priorities, nor did she feel shame to be seen so, but Arikan’s gaze cut like glass at the best of times, and she did not relish the sense of her own vulnerability in such a situation.

Back in the shadow-strewn library Nythadri watched them stare and posture across the desk. The fold of her arms was perhaps the only indication of any discomfort she felt, for otherwise the pale burn of her gaze was unblinking at them across the room. If Arikan was spending his night pouring over papers grasped in pure opportunity, and potentially worthless, then it didn’t speak much to the state of his current intelligence. He did not know where the Forsaken were hiding if he must avail of every possible resource personally. But he did not address her, and she did not speak.

Light the smirk irritated her.

When Jai’s fist suddenly snapped his head back Nythadri didn’t flinch, though she’d had no warning of the intent. It was the least of what Arikan deserved, but Jai was the only one privy to the glimmer of satisfaction she felt at its witness. She didn’t move. Saidar beckoned but she didn’t embrace either, despite the violent race of her heart. The dreadlord could toss them about the room like ragdolls if he wished, but she wagered he was too thin on resources to retaliate fully. That seemed a woefully thin defence, but it was about all they had. He needed them.



[with Nythadri]