Turimiil weaved through the brush of the forest bordering Tail’s End, eyes scanning the dirt for footprints. Since she split off from Ahn’rah and Caelmer, she spent a bit of time with an assortment of Thought-Bringers and Trove Divers at the party. The Thought-Bringers seemed to keep their distance and stick with one another, and the Divers didn’t seem to mind that one bit. The Divers were never known to have much interest in magical knowledge or philosophy.

  After a half hour or so of base level socializing, she decided to make her move and track down Hallath and Lady Vulluin. Their tracks were briefly lost in the dirt, but she could see them again now. Hallath’s prints were much larger and wider than Lady Vulluin’s, hers being more of a long and slender shape. Turimiil followed them closely, never straying too far from the trail.

  The two leaders had walked quite a ways into the forest, toward another edge of shore. Turimiil could feel the terrain angle downward and eventually the trail dipped down toward a more open area. She could now hear the sound of a heated conversation ahead, as well as a flickering of light in a small crack in the bottom of the hill. Turimiil slowly approached as quietly as she could until she could hear their conversation, positioning herself behind a large outcropping to listen in.

  “It’s just atrocious the things you and your group have done to these people, Hallath!” Vaya Vulluin’s voice. She very clearly wasn’t happy. “I have never approved of what you’ve done, but the escalation in the past few decades of dives is just awful! The violence of it all is repulsive!”

  Hallath made a noise to interject, but Lady Vulluin kept going. Turimiil could see the vague gestures of frustration in the fire-cast shadows on the wall of the small cavern they had hidden in.

  “Do you realize how horribly you’ve shifted our relations with The Courts? I’m not just talking about their relations with The Thought-Bringers, I mean with all of the Dragons! The Unders are struggling to uphold supplies for the ingredients they need, and The Brightened can barely open up communications! They think we’re all as vile and reprehensible as you!”

  “Reprehensible!?” Hallath roared, a growl deep in his throat. “You know the kind of power we have, Vaya!”

  “Power! You believe they don’t have power? Hallath, if we enter a war with them everyone will be sucked into it! It could cull both of our populations, the power all sides have could level planets if they collide! It could collapse the entire system!” Vaya scoffed and stuttered in shock at Hallath’s lack of foresight.

  “The only thing stopping us from taking their power and their planets is for all of the factions to join with me and take it!” Hallath growled. Turimiil could see the shadows move again, and she could only guess that one of them was now pacing.

  “If we all grouped together and attacked, we could take the system and subdue what’s left of them, keep them for our own needs,” Hallath continued, his voice quieting down to emphasise his point. “For the past two hundred years since I inherited the lead of The Trove Divers we’ve only lost about a dozen, and only two of those deaths were from a direct Fae attack. They have nothing to fight back against a massive force! A massive force which we would have if you and the others would join me!”

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  “Hallath Kirr, we don’t want to join you because we aren’t interested in such a meaningless endeavor! We aren’t interested in a catastrophic loss of life, on either side! Do you realise the destruction of progress and knowledge that such a push would cause!” Vaya huffed, her voice beginning to sound rough from how they had been yelling. “There would be no end to it if you started this war, Hallath! Not until something cataclysmic enough happened to shake the system itself. You’re too proud to stop when you’re ahead, and they’re too desperate to live to lay down and die!”

  “Cowards, all of you!” Hallath’s voice rang out of the cave, and Turimiil could hear birds cry out and scatter around her. “Don’t you see that there is a benefit here? Or are your lives all too cushy and comfortable for you to comprehend it? We don’t have to dull our claws and sit in on political talks to get what we want, we could just take it! Dragons were here before they even evolved! Our creator died and turned into the earth beneath us before they could even fully separate their Courts! They have no claim to anything in the system, not like we do!”

  Vaya yelled back with a venom Turimiil had doubted the woman could reach. “And just what would you do when you’ve taken what’s left from the war? When all that’s left is fire, ash, and defeated survivors, what would you do?”

  “They would do what we wanted, Vaya!” Hallath stepped out of the cave and Turimiil felt an icy cold chill down her spine at the smile on his face. “What’s left of the Fae would be made to do what we need of them, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing they could do to stop it! Besides, after keeping them quiet and disciplined for a few generations they wouldn’t know it was ever any other way.”

  “Have you gone mad, Kirr?” Vaya responded from the cave, not following him out.

  Hallath turned to look into the crevice at her, standing in the light despite his horribly dark words. “Of course not. I’m simply telling you what we could all have, if you all weren’t so scared of a bit of change.”

  Silence set in as the two simply stared at one another. Turimiil stood as still as she could, not wanting to make a sound and alert them to her presence. Her hearts pounded in her chest at the thought of being found. Lady Vulluin was the one to finally break the quiet and finally respond.

  “What good does it do you, these Dives? All of the pillaging, thieving and murder? The disruption and destruction of their lives? Blood-soaked gold isn’t worth the pain of it all. There’s no real benefit to any of this is there?”

  “No benefit?” Hallath laughed and stepped back into the cave to approach her. “You think there’s no gain for me? Sure, I have a love for the Dives, but it’s not like I just do it for the feeling of it.”

  “Then why do you do it, Hallath? Why?”

  “Why don’t I show you?”

  Turimiil couldn’t help the small gasp that left her, and she slowly began to back away from her hiding spot, getting ready to bolt.

  “Show me what?”

  “My Trove, Lady Valluin! My benefit that you’re so eager to see.”

  There was a beat of silence once more, before Vaya agreed. “Fine. But I shall first inform my group and leave my things with them. Then we’ll be off.”

  Turimiil turned and began weaving her way back through the brush with Hallath’s agreement growing quieter behind her. Once she could no longer hear them talking, she began to run, hurrying off toward the nearest clearing. When she broke out of the tree line she didn’t hesitate to spread her wings and take off into the air, eyes fixed on the black surface of the trove moon in orbit above them. Turimiil beat her wings as fast as she could, pushing herself to top speed. She’d be damned if she let Hallath catch Ahn’rah and Caelmer messing with his treasures, and the only way to warn them was to try and get to them first. She just hoped she could make it before Hallath and Vaya could catch sight of her.