Chapter Text
"We'll have to get back to court." Rennfri said, batting charcoal off her blackened leather garb, "I'm guessing Tunon won't be too happy about us breaking from the Chorus like this."
'Us,' she said, as if the matter had involved so much as a discussion between traveling companions before her unceremonious betrayal. Lantry scrawled down her wording precisely, committing it to both record and memory.
"Before we go," He said, glancing cautiously up from the page, "It may be worthwhile for you to think carefully about what might become of the Silent Archive. That is, if your plans are to deliver it into the Adjudicator's hands - "
"Why would I do that?"
Lantry paused. It had become obvious, in their short time together, that the fatebinder had very little in common with her Archon. By all accounts, she'd have fared better as a member of the Chorus. That wasn't to say that she had disobeyed Kyros's laws. Not yet. But it was a near thing.
Hoarding forbidden knowledge was hardly as negotiable a charge as accepting a few bribes, or killing a few soldiers in the midst of civil war.
"Well. Then, ah, do you intend to keep the Archive for yourself?" His quill-hand stilled. A dark blot of cerulean ink bled onto the page.
"Nah, I'm not much of a reader. You hold onto it for now."
She tossed the scroll case - tossed! As if it were scrap paper rather than a priceless relic - in the sage's direction, and in the single moment of panic that followed, he dropped both quill and parchment to cradle the Archive in his hands. It did not surprise him, not exactly, that one of the Overlord's servants would show such callous disrespect for an artifact of the Tiers. It did, however, surprise him that this particularly poor vassal had suddenly adopted the sort of flippant disregard he might have expected from a Disfavored soldier.
"Is that wise, my lord binder?" The actual Disfavored soldier spoke at last, shifting in a way that made his iron carapace creak. There had certainly been no 'my lords' before they betrayed the Chorus, Lantry noted, and would have further noted down if his hands weren't otherwise occupied.
Rennfri glanced askance at Lantry, meeting his eyes in a purposeful way. He could not be sure of her meaning.
"'Course it is. If we announce we've got the archive in the middle of Tunon's court, it might force his hand. I'll send a missive ahead of us to ask what's to be done with it."
Lantry's heart sunk. So many centuries of knowledge, either to be sentenced to destruction or consigned to Kyros's eyes and ears alone. For the remainder of Terratus - his former colleagues included - either fate would yield the same result.
But Rennfri met his eyes again and, almost imperceptibly, gave a small shake of her head. Barik had already begun to move forward, his line of sight limited to the path ahead. Lantry stowed the Archive carefully away.
They never did pen that missive, after all. Barik safely assumed that they had.