Confess

::: subchapter The drake felt death breathing down his neck. He laughed. "I cannot imagine killing me will end well for you⁠ ⁠---⁠ or accomplish your goals, for that matter," he said, peering down at nothing. He smelt the holly. "One day I'll find the will, you know." "What has it been? Ten, fifteen gyras?" He fluttered his tongue. "I don't glimpse you doing this out of any lingering hate." Something sharp slid into a sheath. "I still don't like you." A smile she couldn't see. "Understandable. But as long as you do this, I can't help but still see the knee high little moltling who couldn't hold a knife steady, or even pronounce 'kill' correctly." Quietly, he knew she wouldn't do it, knew she wasn't like him. Not Mlaen's little flower. She said, "I've come a long way." "You have. And some things never change." The larger wiver moved, and the smaller drake turned round. "Quite the day we've had, Cynfe." Adwyn found his usual smirk. The bluegreen wiver tossed her head and slinked past him, down the twisting ramp. That ramp saw one into the town hall's interstitial lobby. One could only move forward through it: up the left corridor one followed the smell of pyrite and electrum; down the middle a ramp lead to the officialities of Mlaen's throne room, and on the right corridor there lingered the dust from feet of all the foreign advisers. Adwyn's too. The high secretary started into the lobby, and the military adviser came at her heels. She still wore the scaleconcealing cloak from earlier, and he still wore his schizon armor. Scrolls rested here on shelves. Many were clawed in foreign tongues, in foreign scripts, and some were made illegible by time; no one had noticed. Some of the rugs or banners here were woven of a curiously fine silk; no one could place it. Paintings touched all the walls, tempting the gaze of all who came down here. They all had the same name clawed in the corners; no one had complimented her. She didn't even glance at the paintings as she high-walked past; but with the frustration working through her frills, it could just be other things drawing her mind. "A day spent cleaning up your messes," the secretary replied at last. "I have a stack full of untranscribed reports lingering because of this moil. Every day I wonder why Sofrani bothers keep you around." Who else was there? Instead of saying it, the adviser overtook the secretary, aiming toward the dusty corridor, toward his office. His orange tail waved her to follow, or dismissed her. "I haven't drafted my report either. It's the last remaining task, today." "Knowing you, there's still some way you'll find to mess it up." Adwyn popped his tongue. "I wouldn't look past the fact that we've uncovered no less than three traitors because of my detour, and I alone persuaded one of them to our side. A potential alliance with those humans, three guards revealed to be ineffective, and---" "You can stop bragging," said the secretary, trailing beside him. "Unless you'll also own up to the unprecedented mess you created, blocking all movement out of the market, and the three dead guards." "Trivialities," he replied. "My success speaks for itself." Wordless, the bluegreen wiver followed him to the mouth of the dusty corridor. "...How lucky, that you didn't know them," she said. "That you can call them trivialities." Adwyn whisked out a wing, and trailed it along the wall. "Rhyfel's spent enough time entertaining the pink drake. There isn't all that much to him, in the depths," he said. "Wasn't, rather." "Have you ever lost anyone, Adwyn?" A question which merited no answer⁠ ⁠---⁠ a question he did not answer. The wiver had her frills fluttering smugly as though he had, though. With a tossed head he looked down the hall. Their leisurely pace would bring them to his office after another quick exchange. The orange drake glanced at the wiver. He asked, "What is your opinion of Kinri?" The high secretary flicked her tongue. "Who?" "The exile, the sky-dweller." The embarrassing puzzle of a wiver. The tongue disappeared, but no other reaction came across her bluegreen face. "She's useless." "It would seem that way, wouldn't it?" She would like it to seem that way. The secretary peered. "I know that look. You're thinking the precise opposite of what you're saying." "You cloud me. I mean exactly what I say. There are, perhaps, elements I have omitted." There was only a hisslaugh, and her saying, "Transparent." "Is that a bad thing? After all, they say a cliff drake should be like glass: cool and trans---" "Cool, and transparent, and brilliant. I know the saying. I've lived here longer than you." They slipped into the corridor. The light came dimmer here, and now the murmur of phatic conversation was rearing up in their frills. "Irregardless," the military adviser started, "it's an odd thing to maintain, when Kinri did matter in the resolution of today's⁠ ⁠---⁠ incident." A hum. "No surprise you'd be one to appreciate spineless diplomacy. We had those apes at their throats." "If not for peace, appreciate that this will leave us glimpsing the face of whatever conspiracy festers in Gwymr/Frina." "We already have a thief captured." "A thief who only admits to getting orders from some blighter claiming to be the shadow of the night." Who could trust that testimony? "Give them time. The inquirers know how to get confessions." So they walked wordlessly on till Adwyn turned the doorway to the office of the Dyfnderi advisers, where a light orange wiver had another, darker orange drake up against the wall, snouts pressed together. He turned back around, and they continued walking. "What about Hinte?" Adwyn asked. The secretary found a smile. "Her. She's cute. I do wonder what'll come of her as an adult." Adwyn hummed without response. He said, "She worries me. One of the suspects was found by her admission. And emotionally⁠ ⁠---⁠ she's cryptic." "She's lonely. You would be too, if your only friend was that Specter." "There is the halfbreed, Digrif. She seems to tolerate him." "Oh? Good for her." The secretary licked her brilles and smiled a different sort of smile. She was adding, "Gyras ago, Gronte was telling me how melancholy the wiver was." Her voice dropped to a murmur. "I didn't have the time to spend with her, then, and... that still hasn't changed," she said. It had the whispered quality of a confession, and the wiver was watching the rocky floor shift as she walked. Adwyn's low walk gained some stiffness. At length he said, "You keep Gwymr/Frina running. Don't think you weren't serving her anyway." Cynfe threw out a foot and shoved the orange drake to the side. His wing folded against the wall. She said, "I didn't ask for your glassblown words. I can manage myself. I'd rather." The adviser always walked with a baton, strapped to a foreleg. Now a wing brushed the hilt. Lingered for just a moment. Adwyn, the black ascendant, had sworn a vow of pacifism; he reminded himself. Violence wasn't proscribed; but it was discouraged. They continued walking like that, strides more distance between them. This corridor didn't end. As it wound along, it curved. By now, the pair had looped around and were walked up the other hallway. "What was the point of dragging me along?" asked Cynfe. You chose to follow me. He didn't say it. He licked a brille, tongue nimbly curving around his eyepaint. He chose to say, "A nice walk and talk with a friend?" "I recall more of your sifting for opinions than proper talk." He nodded some acquiescence. "Fair enough. But the pair is becoming a quantity of interest. Surely it's worthwhile that we read each other's pages on the matter?" They padded back into the lobby like this. Without answering, Cynfe strode over to the mouth of the ramp downward. There was no bridge. She simply informed him, "Mlaen-sofran is expecting you." He clouded his brilles, thought of the pair of Dyfnderi advisers, frowned at the unwritten report that would for now remain so, and said, "I suppose I'll see her now." She let the drake follow her down the ramp to Mlaen's officialities. Under her breath, she muttered, "I still don't like you." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "You fucked up, Adwyn." It wasn't the throne room, but standing on her dillerskin rest, wearing those vermilliondyed robes, staring down at the orange drake with her eyes strangely intense, that seemed a detail. The red wiver had moiled in the dim of a single lamp, and now Cynfe darted around to light a few others. The reality that was limned in full light contrasted without contradicting: the faer's posture hung taut and rigid, as if she were wrung up; her makeup had been washed away yet an acidic smell hung around; the two lamps were shining behind her, and the swelling shadows under her eyes weren't just the lighting. This was the faer of Gwymr/Frina. Perhaps the one truly exceptional player on their side of the board, barring Adwyn himself. With Bariaeth being... difficult⁠ ⁠---⁠ crytic behind his beatific smile⁠ ⁠---⁠ the faer stood the last remaining beacon for reaching the mystery at the depth of this mess. And he had disappointed her. Adwyn watched the red wiver settle back on her dark, dillerskin rest and watched her gesture for him to sit himself on a rough pycnofiber mat laying small before her desk. "I know," he said. The secretary stood herself at the faer's right side, inkwell and fernpaper in wing, her scowl turned blank and receptive. Idly she was brushing her robes. As ever, Mlaen-sofran watched. Contemplative, analyzing, regarding, peering, looking: all of these, but there was something more, something hidden. As ever, her brilles remained clouded. Beneath her eyes a snout extended until its sharp end, where red lipscales wavered between an almost smile and an almost frown. A wing scratched her cheek; she yawned. Then at last, she looked down. The slab of Mlaen's desk w