Page 31 of The Sundered Blade

“I can be quite charming,” Vaniell murmured, remembering Karreya saying almost exactly the same thing. “Perhaps life at the Enclave never prepared her for meeting someone like me.”

“Her?”

But Vaniell was finished revealing his own secrets until Yvane acknowledged some of her own. Judging from the hints she’d dropped and the things she seemed to know…

“You say you served the empress, and you know a great deal about the Enclave, Yvane. You were one of her mage assassins, weren’t you?”

Vaniell was suddenly plucked out of his seat by a powerful hand. The chair flew across the floor as a muscular arm wrapped around his neck and began to squeeze, reducing his air to a pittance and bringing dark spots to his vision. He scrabbled at the arm with his fingers, but it was like trying to bend iron—he was simply not strong enough.

His coat… He could still reach the pockets and might be able to save himself with an enchantment. Not, however, without causing potentially irreparable harm, and this man did not deserve such a fate. Not for protecting someone he loved.

“Breven, stop!” Yvane jerked to her feet, eyes wide, hands outstretched. “You cannot kill him. Not for guessing the truth.”

The pressure did not immediately ease.

Kyrion had risen slowly and smoothly to his feet and was now watching Breven, eyes glowing slightly but his hands empty of weapons. Vaniell wondered with a distant sort of curiosity whether the night elf would intervene if Breven did not release him. Perhaps there was no love lost between them, but Kyrion seemed to think Abreia needed his former nemesis. Would he change his mind, given the opportunity to do away with Vaniell this easily, far from civilization where no one would ever find his body?

“Breven,please,” Yvane begged, appearing weary and defeated but not hostile, in contrast to the man who finally released his hold, dropping Vaniell to the floor with a painful jolt.

Vaniell took a quick, gasping breath and rubbed at his neck, trying to resist the urge to put more distance between himself and Breven. But it was Breven who stepped away, all the while responding to Yvane with swift, angry gestures.

“Yes, I know, love,” she answered aloud, “but it does not matter. Not anymore. They cannot hurt me now. It only remains to be decided what I am willing to do.”

Vaniell took in a few more deep breaths, keeping a wary eye on Breven and coughing a few times while waiting for the blood to fully return to his head. He was about to attempt rising to his feet when a hand suddenly appeared in front of him. Grey-skinned, scarred, and utterly steady—an offer of aid from the last person Vaniell would have expected.

Glancing up, he took a moment to search those still slightly glowing eyes. He found no hostility or condescension. Only acceptance. Perhaps a hint of curiosity. As if something over the past few days had brought about a shift in Kyrion’s perspective.

Vaniell could have stood without help—could have continued along this road alone. But his heart told him that this was one of those moments where the path of his life divided. In one direction lay the same solitary, joyless pursuit of justice he’d been living for the past decade. In the other? The future he’d caught a glimpse of in Iria.

That future was filled with friends. Allies. People he could depend on to have his back.

All it required… was trust.

Trust in a man who once would have plunged a dagger into Vaniell’s heart without hesitation… and been utterly justified in his actions.

One of Kyrion’s eyebrows quirked. “Do you require another moment to brood on the wrongs of your ancestors?”

A laugh escaped before Vaniell could think better of it. “I fear there is not enough time in this life for such an endeavor.”

“Nor is there time enough to live in your past sins, Princeling. Choose, or the present will move on without you.”

It was the one form of risk Vaniell had refused to take, ever since he was a small boy. To trust without certainty and open himself to hurt. To walk that razor edge between falling and flying with his heart in his hands. In all other areas of life, it was the elements of risk and uncertainty that made him feel most truly alive. So why not in friendship? Why not take the leap, when the only true risk was to remain as he was now?

Vaniell grasped Kyrion’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

Their eyes held, and Vaniell gave a single nod of recognition. Of thanks.

It was such a small thing, and yet, it felt as if the world had shifted beneath him.

“Are you well?” Yvane was regarding him warily, while Breven stood beside her, arms folded mutinously across his chest.

“Never better.” And somehow, Vaniell found himself smiling, because as bizarre as it seemed under the circumstances, even Karreya would find no fault with his honesty.

“I must ask,” Yvane said carefully, “how you became friends with a Zulleri assassin, and…”

“Whether I know where she is now?” Vaniell finished the question for her.

Yvane nodded.

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