Page 77 of The Sundered Realms

“Do you think neutrality means we allow people to set up ambushes here?” Neroth inquired coolly. “Our guarantee would mean nothing, and that, I can’t allow.”

Shry sneered, her hands clenching on her knives. “Of course you can’t. You’d rather create safe passage for demon servants than take responsibility for what that means and help people—“

“Shry, he’s right,” Vhannor cut her off through clenched teeth.

“Vhannor, you can’t—“

Neroth said mildly, “Shit on the Forgotten temples when it’s convenient and expect we’ll forget later? No, he can’t. Though of course I’m happy to oblige you if you’re in the mood for a theological discussion on the value of our work—“

Shry threw one of her knives directly at the tip of Neroth’s sword.

It bounced off.

But her deadly aim spoke for itself.

Shry and Neroth held each other’s gaze for a long moment.

Only when Shry lowered her remaining knife did Liris breathe.

The priest glanced down at where Liris was still poised to take him down in a move, and his lips quirked. “Thank you for your faith.”

Liris rolled off the block and tugged one of the altar’s side curtains aside. There was the sword rack.

“Thank you for the gentle reminder,” Liris said.

Because if he’d wanted to make an issue of it with the first person to breach that neutrality, Shry might be dead.

“Who says that we’re done?” Neroth asked, facing Shry with a glint in his eye.

“Shry saw that I was trapped and chose to do something about it when others stood by,” Liris said. Vhannor looked at her sharply. “So I can hardly fault her. But of course we’re not done—now that we’ve taken the edge off of posturing, I was hoping to ask some questions. I believe I mentioned I’m new?”

The priest smiled over his shoulder at her, and with a sword in one hand it was even more devastating. Impressive.

“You are good, aren’t you?” Neroth murmured, reaching his empty hand to her. Liris took it, and hopped up—only for his strength to take over halfway as he lifted her one-armed the rest of the way.

“Not done posturing?” she murmured.

The priest grinned, and hand in hand they jumped off the block together. Now even on the same floor as Vhannor and Shry, Liris retrieved her hand.

“It all begins to make sense,” the priest said, looking from Liris to Vhannor.

“About that,” Liris said, raising her eyebrows at Vhannor, who broke his gaze with the priest to meet hers. “I haven’t studied much corporeal spellcraft, but I believe since you just used your fancy magic sword, its magic will need to be replenished, correct?”

Vhannor closed his eyes; took a breath. Like preparing for a spell battle, he took the cue she fed him and said, “I would of course be happy to reinfuse the sword to its full capacity with magic if you would answer questions for us.”

“Why, of course, Vhannor,” the priest said in that mild voice again. “You know I’m always happy to help friends.”

Vhannor closed his eyes again and then sighed. “My apologies. I should not have expected otherwise.”

Liris was close enough to see Neroth’s fingers twitch—although he inclined his head graciously, she didn’t think, deep down, he took that as an apology rather than an accusation.

Shry made a sound of disgust and stalked across the temple when Vhannor stepped forward to see to the sword. Liris had trained with her enough to note she never prowled so far that she couldn’t reach them with an attack in instants if necessary.

Oddly comforting.

“This buys you two questions,” the priest warned.

Vhannor nodded, eyes on his work. Liris could ask him about the sword later, which, now that she was up-close and could read the copious intricate spellwork, was very obviously not an ordinary sword, even if she hadn’t seen what it could do. But for now her role was clearly keeping these people working together.

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