It has to be Nevesh. There's no one else that matches the description I can think of, unless one of the traitors in Polarion finally decided to reveal themselves directly, I sent back with a mental sigh.
Bernar took my answer into consideration for a few moments. With a click of his tongue, he sighed and put his weapon away. "Go. All of you. Tell whatever's left of your clan what happened here, and what will happen again if you decide to try some shit like this in the future," he said with a scowl.
The three of them looked at each other with visible confusion, but didn't stick around long enough to find out if Bernar had meant what he said. They scurried off and waded through the puddles of their former clanmates.
"Ah, fuck. Do you think keeping three of them alive was a good idea?" he asked as they made their way around the nearest curve in the ravine. "Only one is needed to deliver a message, two to confirm it, but it takes three to spread fear," I said with a shrug, earning me a look of surprise.
"Kalia?" he asked flatly. "Yep," I replied similarly with a nod. "Yiiikes. She's more cold-hearted than I thought," he said, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth. "Well, our job here is done. We should get back to Caegwen to see what the others have figured out about our situation. Care to do the honors?" he continued, giving me a pat on the shoulder.
"Yeah, I need a shower after this absolute shitstorm," I said with a quick gesture around me, promptly pulling the token out of my pouch and imbuing it with mana. The scarlet portal opened before us quickly, but as we walked through it, there was something I hadn't taken into consideration.
The entire main hall looked like it had been through a major battle, as the golden rays of the late afternoon sun bounced throughout the main hall. The floor was still upended from what I could only assume was an attack like Ysevel's during our final exam.
To my right, the wall had an enormous crack that nearly split it from its base to the ceiling, and a few remaining splashes of dried blood reaching out of the smaller ones. At the far end of the hall, I could see that the platform where Elhael and Aurae would usually sit in their thrones had also suffered a decent amount of damage, but it was still mostly intact.
"Well, shit," I muttered as the entrance to Myrdin Palace quickly began to flood with blood and gore from the ravine, causing me to splash in it momentarily. I pulled Bernar away from it and quickly shut the portal, but there was enough blood that poured through to leave us with a twenty-meter-wide puddle.
"T-Thoma? Bernar? Is that you?" I heard Lisai's voice come from somewhere off to my right. "Hello there," I said with a short wave, accidentally flicking blood from my gauntlets onto the floor just outside the puddle. "Ah," I said, tightening my lips and scrunching them together.
The look of absolute horror on poor Lisai's face nearly made Bernar chuckle, but thankfully, he knew better than to do that. "D-Do I even want to know what happened?" she hardly managed to ask.
"Probably not, though we could use a shower and a change of clothes before we go find Her Majesty," he replied in my stead as I tried to gather the puddle of blood with mana. "R-Right. Yes, of course, Bernar. Follow me, as you'll have to use the guardsmen's bathing area to clean that off," she said with a broad gesture before putting the back of her hand to the base of her nostrils as she led us away.
Within the hour, we were showered, changed, and on our way to the infirmary, where Anwill and Elhael were still receiving treatment. I found Ysevel, Mom, and Aurae sitting at Anwill and Elhael's bedsides.
"Thoma," Ysevel said, quickly getting up and rushing over to me. I wrapped her in a tight embrace, but she looked at me with a strong mixture of anger and sadness the moment she pulled away.
"You still smell like death, even after a shower," she said with a wrinkled nose. "Sorry about that. I don't know that there's any amount of herbs or lotions that will mask the smell of a million dead Thran," I sighed, earning me a look of shock from the others.
Anwill, in particular, accidentally triggered a coughing fit when I said the amount.
"W-What? A million?" Ysevel asked, unable to hide the shock on her face or through our connection. "I helped him, so it's really only half a million each. Although I'd argue he might have gotten a few more than I did at the beginning," Bernar said with a raised index finger from behind me. "Eh, he's got a point," I said, but the shrug I gave them didn't manage to help the situation at all.
"I-I see. So Kanarin's reports on Vareluth were well-founded. Thank you for going to help them, love," she said, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek so she could back away from the smell. "Of course, but how are things here? Is your father going to be alright?" I asked, earning me a slow, solemn nod.
"If it hadn't been for Mother immediately tending to his wounds with Wraith mana, he…" she trailed off, lowering her head before tears began to well again. "I am still alive, daughter. I am also in the best hands I could be, right now," Elhael said weakly from behind her as Aurae helped him to sit up.
He winced a little, but allowed a thin-lipped smile to show on his face when he laid eyes on Bernar and I. "I'm glad to see you're healing quickly, Your Majesty," I said with a bow. "After everything that's happened, you are still calling me that? What am I going to do with you two?" Elhael sighed, breaking the mental image of his composed nature that I'd always held in my head in a heartbeat.
"I-I, uh… I don't know what else to call you," I said nervously, rubbing the back of my neck. He scoffed through his nostrils softly and shook his head. "As I have heard you and Bernar say a number of times: That's fair," he said with a weak smile, causing me to return one of my own.
"What about you, Taaffy?" Bernar asked, taking a few steps forward. "Oh, now you seem to care about my well-being. That's lovely, Bernar. Truly," Anwill said sarcastically with a heavy sigh. "I will live, but there are matters we need to discuss once Ryfon and Erumon return," he continued. "What sort of matters?" Bernar asked, raising an eyebrow.
The others looked at each other with dour expressions. I sensed, through my connection to Aurae and Ysevel, that there was something major about to happen, though I couldn't tell what through the cacophony of their thoughts.
The Cry of the Voiceless, the word stuck out to me through our connection, causing my eyes to widen.
"It seems you have already understood much of the problem, but we must wait for their return," Aurae said, giving me a look that told me we didn't have a say in the matter. "I understand," I nodded, feeling the gravity of the situation without needing to ask more questions.
"What of the Thran you killed? Did you get any information from them?" Elhael asked, his tone suggesting he required a full explanation. "Of course, but before that: what happened here?" I asked with no small amount of worry on my face.
At a silent command from Aurae, Lisai pulled some chairs for Bernar and I to sit down, while Ysevel returned to the far side of Elhael's bed. He told us about everything that happened during the attack, but left out much of their discussion with Ryfon beforehand.
I felt my fist tighten a little as I listened to the full story that was supplemented by Aurae's memories, and a handful of technical details provided by Anwill to help me understand Nevesh's abilities better. There was a slight pause after their retelling of the events, which I allowed to breathe for a moment.
They had just come out of a nasty fight, after all.
"Thank you for the details, but I don't think this is over yet. In fact, I think we're about to get started on the real fight soon enough," I said with a heavy sigh. "What do you mean?" Anwill asked with a hint of worry.
"According to the Thran we interrogated, it seems like Nevesh was the one who'd given them the order," I replied, earning me a few sets of widened eyes. "Y-You can't be serious! She was just bleeding out in the main hall, hardly even a day ago. How could she possibly have given them that command?" Anwill asked, but Aurae seemed to know the answer.
"By using Leech mana. Much like Mideia when he made his move in Narin, she likely had some sort of proxy who was under her influence, though I don't think she's become that powerful with it yet," she replied, setting another set of fears into our minds.
"So it was meant to be a two-pronged attack? One on you and Myrdin as a whole, as well as another to keep Kalia occupied and prevent reinforcements from coming to help?" I asked, hoping I'd understood everything correctly.
"Precisely, though I do not believe she'd accounted for you two being there, or the fact that the Thran were likely running late," she replied with a nod, but there was an underlying problem I couldn't shake from my thoughts.
"Never mind that right now. You two have done extremely well and have earned some rest. Anwill and my father should be cleared from the medical ward tomorrow, so we'll meet back up with them, then," Ysevel said, nearly ushering me out of the room before I asked any further questions. I turned to look at Elhael and Anwill, and with a tired, yet approving nod, she led me out of the room.
"I'll stay here with them. Someone's got to look after Taaffy," Bernar said with a grin, getting a tired groan from Anwill as he rolled back over in bed. "See you tomorrow, then," I said, trying my best not to laugh at Anwill's almost childish reaction.
You read where my mind was going earlier, didn't you? I asked Ysevel as I took her arm in mine. Yes, and as my mother mentioned earlier, we cannot speak of that until Ryfon and Erumon return, she replied with a slow nod, continuing to walk with me down the halls.
That's fair, but if you need to talk about what happened, I'm right here, I said, pulling her head toward me so I could kiss the top of her head while we walked. I know, love. Thank you, she said with a thin smile, but the feeling I was getting from her core told me she was still worried about her father.
There wasn't much to be done other than hope Aurae's healing would be enough in the meantime. By the time dawn came, our meeting with Erumon and Ryfon was about to take place, and I noticed Ysevel was feeling much better than the previous day.
"Any updates on your father?" I asked, though I could tell by the way she was smiling that there must have been some positive news. "Yes. He actually told my mother that he wants to learn the ways of Wraith mana as well," she said, which caught me by surprise. "I didn't know he couldn't use it," I said without hiding my expression.
"Eh, he was trained by druids; most of them are purists and will stick to Ethereal mana, after all. I think this encounter with Nevesh may have opened his eyes to other possibilities," she replied with a shrug, giving me an idea. "Should we send him down to Kalia, too?" I asked half-jokingly, earning me a quick smack on the shoulder.