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."But you didn't.Don't you see that?""No," Jherek answered."No, I don't.You took a fool's chance with your life.""I trusted your skill so that you could trust it too.Your eye and your arm, Jherek.I'll teach you to believe, but we'll begin there.""I could have killed you."The image of the knight with his chest and belly split open filled Jherek's head and made him sick.Nausea boiled up inside him and Glawinn helped him over to the railing.Later, when he was finished and there was nothing else to give up, Glawinn pulled him back.Jherek's mouth was filled with the sour taste."And what if you had killed me, young warrior?" the knight asked in a ragged whisper."Would it have mattered?""Aye""If you're so empty of caring, it shouldn't have.You may think your heart's empty, but it's not." Glawinn held him at arm's length, both of them breathing hard and covered with sweat."It's not completely empty.Trust what's within your reach and the rest will come." Tears ran down the knight's face as he held the young sailor's face between his callused hands."I give you my promise."Jherek wished desperately that he could believe, but he couldn't.There'd been too many lies.XXIX2 Flamerule, the Year of the GauntletTarjana cleaved steadily through the water, deep into the territory of Aleaxtis.Vahaxtyl, the sahuagin capital, lay in ruins less than five hundred yards away, riven by the volcano's explosion the day before.Standing on the enchanted mudship's prow, Laaqueel stared out at the destruction scattered over the bed of the Alamber Sea.It was worse than she had expected.For a time she'd feared none of the sahuagin community had lived through the fiery blast.Huge, jagged rocks lay strewn across the blasted terrain.Dead fish floated in the dappled turquoise water and glinted silver where the weak sun's rays touched them.Small scavengers that had finally returned to the area worried frantically at the unexpected feast, concerned that larger predators would come at any moment.More rubble covered the skeletal remains of ships that had fallen to sahuagin savagery, battles, and deadly storms.Dozens of sahuagin bodies floated in the currents as well, prey to the flesh-eaters also.The malenti priestess knew that those weren't all that had been killed.Many more corpses had surely remained trapped inside their dwellings when they caved in.Other bodies had been swept away by time and tide.The living sahuagin worked among their dead, sharp claws and huge teeth stripping meat from the corpses for meals.The scent and taste of scalded blood and boiled meat hung in the water, constantly touching Laaqueel's nostrils."You are troubled, priestess?"Slowly, not knowing how to properly broach the subject, Laaqueel turned to face Iakhovas.Her eyes met his even though she still wanted to show him deference.No matter what, she knew she couldn't lie.He would know and she didn't want that between them."Yes," she said simply.Iakhovas walked to the railing and closed his hands over it.His face remained stern and hard."Why?""So many lives of We Who Eat have been forfeited." She gestured out at the seabed."They have lost their homes."In the distance, the Ship of the Gods still simmered.White, foamy bubbles from superheated water spiraled to the surface.The currents threaded hot waves in with the cool ones that coiled around Laaqueel.Still, the volcano appeared to be in little danger of spewing deadly lava again."Ah, little malenti, your perception of things is off and you don't even know it."A sudden flush of anger flooded Laaqueel.She turned to him."You forget, my priestess," Iakhovas continued before she could speak, "they didn't choose to make their lives here." He gestured at the heaps of rubble."That's no home, no village lying out there strewn about and destroyed.This parcel of unwanted land is what the sea elves and mermen grudgingly gave this tribe of We Who Eat after the First Seros War over ten thousand years ago.They drove them here, then penned them in, and they've kept them here ever since." He held her eyes with his solitary one."This was no home, priestess.This was a prison."In her heart, Laaqueel knew he spoke the truth.Everything around her, including the Alamber Sea, was a cage.The Serosian sahuagin had lived very small lives."I had not intended for so many to die," Iakhovas stated quietly."In truth, I didn't know that our arrival here would cause such an upheaval."Despite his flat tone and the fact that she knew he wouldn't have wanted her to know much of his private thoughts, Laaqueel believed the note of regret she heard in Iakhovas's voice was genuine
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