Consorting with Enemies

[Jay Carpenter]

Jai

Not Kekura? Lythia.

Lythia?

At first, he just peered at her, waiting for the other shoe to drop from the bond, her mask to be flung off, and the riotous laughter of a joke well played to be told. Instead, his sly smile faded, but it wasn’t shock or fear that ran up the tab in his head. It was the misunderstanding of an unbalanced equation that didn’t sort itself out.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. 

He followed the logic, mostly. He knew nothing about compulsion other than what it was like to wake up from one. Nythadri spoke like there were rules and parameters building in the walls of what could be. Reverse engineering the problem said that whoever laid the compulsion understood the rules around its operation, but it still didn’t settle right in his head. Didn’t everyone know about them? He’d pounded down the doors of the White Tower, not once, but twice! People saw him. Nythadri had been in Bandar Eban. Fate knew. Didn't everyone?

But the longer Nythadri pulled at that thread, the more pattern gave way. Bringing up Caemlyn was a rip in his soul he didn’t want to unravel; loosely sewn up as it was. Caemlyn was the site of Ellis’ betrayal, the stalker in the dark, the dead body he shoved into the void, and the confrontation at House Winther. Dirty memories he'd rather avoid kicking up again. 

Yet, his eyes slid low and with the shade returned the shock of what the M’Hael was about to do to Asad's sword. The desperation in his soul to do anything to avoid the fate that was coming. The aftermath of emptiness; of abject failure. 

There was a warmth in his eyes that sealed lids could not hide from the bond. He barely heard anything else after, though he felt Nythadri's betrayal as surely as it wound through his own skin. The consequences of Lythia being Black Ajah was more than any of them could fathom. 

The only thing he could think to do was finish getting dressed. It was ritualistic and measured - as opposite as Nythadri’s intense action upon her laces. But a thousand thoughts slogged through his mind with every button that he slipped closed. A trajectory of very option that might come to pass. The risks, the possibilities, the fallout. It was a grim and unsatisfactory path through a dark wood that his head walked. 

When he was done, he turned to help her to her feet.

“Well, obviously we’re the only ones who can save the day. Let’s go.”