Consorting with Enemies

[Natalie Grey]

Nythadri

Nythadri was quiet while she listened; no wry smiles, no softening of her tight expression into irreverence. She held herself utterly still in a way that meant she was bracing internally. The moment Jai spoke Lythia’s name she tried to reconcile it, but everything suddenly constricted in a painfully silent way. The betrayal wounded deeply, and buried deeper.

“No,” she said simply. “Not Kekura. Lythia.”

Her suspicions came without fanfare. The name was not delivered with shock or revelation, just with a rawness she didn’t choose to conceal from him. Her eyes burned when she closed them, the only outward sign she gave of pain: that the betrayal was personal. But it was all she allowed herself. Reliving the experience had been difficult and cruel for him; she saw as well as felt it. Jai weathered in solidarity, but she’d needed to hear it plain, not surmised from the webs in her head. Mention of Moridrosin was not lost on her either: a reminder of all they could not pause to mourn like ordinary people. Her forehead leaned to press light against his. An apology. Comfort drawn both ways.

When she sat back, Nythadri’s countenance was simply weary. Unguardedly human. Yet beneath it, her unerringly resolute core remained. “Whoever set the Compulsion knew about us. If you were able to ask about the money, it’s because you were directed to consider my protection as part of the instruction.

“The Aes Sedai you met in Caemlyn’s Royal library, Ellomai, she’s Green – part of Lythia’s information network. Lythia confronted me about what you did – she thought I had used you to engineer revenge on my behalf, and offered to protect my interests in exchange for a pledge to her Ajah. I accepted. She thought I meant my family. But I meant you. That’s why she knows. I trusted her, Jai.”

She stood on the heels of the confession. The emotion crested suddenly: anger, guilt, humiliation, too catastrophic to remain still any longer. The trust had been real. Not a bargain, not a convenience, but the beginnings of roots Nythadri had spent years refusing. It burned now, and in that despair she still didn’t want it to be true. Not because she hated being wrong, but because it was Lythia. “Arikan just “decides” to renounce his oaths, and now this? Shadow al’Mere will be turning in his light-forsaken grave!”

Her hands raked her hair. She glanced towards the window, and for the briefest moment considered a confrontation. To what end she did not know. To unpluck the real reasons for Arikan’s new motivation from his skull? She’d seen him shake Talin – had seen his strange reaction afterwards too. The catharsis of being so indiscreet might soothe her for a second, presuming he allowed her that long. But it would not gain them anything beyond wearing thin his patience. And it didn’t change the reality which remained:

“If Lythia is Black, the Green Ajah is fallen. That’s why I must go back a last time,” she said. Firmer now the imperative settled in her bones. “One of our Sitters is a wolfsister. If anyone at the Tower has suspicions of her own, it will be Caia’li. And if she doesn’t yet, then someone there has to know.”

Someone has to stop her.

She sat back down; made a second attempt at lacing her boots, tight and vicious in movement. Her thoughts steadied into planning now, though there was nothing calm in it. Just grim determination.