“No.”
“You don’t approve of my accouterments,” Isabelle said, and that damnable amusement was still there, the faint tug at the corners of her mouth and the sparkle in her eye. “The little luxuries I’m afforded as an officer of Endeavor.”
“Oh, yes, you live in grand style for someone at the front line of the greatest war Arkaria has seen in centuries,” Vara said, brusque. “Very fine, indeed.”
“This bothers you … why?” If Isabelle was annoyed by her sister’s attitude, she showed it little or none, and Vara was quite used to the subtlety of her older sister’s emotions. Glacier-cool, she is. Which is why she is so annoying.
“I care not at all how you live while at war,” Vara said, “only that you continue to do so.”
“Concern, sister dear?” Isabelle picked the apple off the top of the pile and took a bite, a long, satisfying crunch. “Has the loss of our parents mellowed you at last?”
Vara bristled. “I have always cared for my family.”
“And always been exceptionally poor at showing it,” Isabelle said around a mouthful of apple. “Not that I haven’t appreciated the years of scorn through my attempts to cultivate a relationship with you.”
Well, I’m here now, you spotted cow, Vara thought, but did not say. Instead, she said, “I appreciate your forbearance during my more difficult periods of interaction.”
“That would be your whole life, dear,” Isabelle said gently, “but nevermind that, I suppose. What brings you to me now? Not a sense of familial loneliness, I suspect.”
“The war,” Vara said.
“Of course.” There was a flicker in Isabelle’s eyes, tired, and the smile faded as she held the apple in her hand then gave it a look as though it had lost its appeal. “This war consumes everything, and the attention of all. So what of it? What do you need?”
“News more than anything,” Vara said and let herself take a step closer to Isabelle. “How goes the front here? Is the Sovereign pushing his troops forward?”
Isabelle surveyed her sister with a demeanor almost more stoic than Vara herself could manage. “No. Not at present. Why do you ask?”
Vara considered for just the briefest space of time lying. To say something other than the truth might be preferable to letting Isabelle know, after all. But for Isabelle, it mattered little because-she always knew anyway. “We’ve been besieged. They surrounded our walls and threw an army at us-”
“The one that sacked Aloakna,” Isabelle said wisely. All two-hundred-plus years of her sister’s sageness were on display now, and Vara felt more than a rush of irritation. “Yes, that makes sense, revenge for Termina.”
“Thank you for your insightful analysis,” Vara said. “We broke them, of course-”
“Of course,” Isabelle said with the trace of a smile.
“Oh, stop going on about it as though it were some sort of foregone conclusion,” Vara said. “There were some fifty thousand of them, and our number is much reduced of late-”
“Why?” Isabelle asked, and took a walk sideways, eyes facing on a perpendicular line, as though she didn’t even care to look at Vara. “Why are your numbers reduced while your star is on the rise? Even here, the talk is of Sanctuary, and your slaughter of Mortus. Killing a god?” She cocked her head at Vara, and smiled slyly. “No one even thought it was possible, let alone that you would be strong enough to attempt it and crazy enough to try.”
“This is irrelevant,” Vara said, stubborn irritation clawing at her. “Yes, our recruiting numbers were up, until the blockade a week ago, and yes, people had been streaming to us in record number for protection and to join us, but-”
“But Cyrus Davidon left,” Isabelle said, stopping at a fold in the tent and pulling aside the fabric to look out, “taking an army with him, and vanishing over the Endless Bridge with both a strong corps of your best veterans and possibly your heart, should such an object exist.”
There was a quiet in the tent, a silence and chill unadmitted by the opening of the side to the air. “You bitch,” Vara said.
Isabelle let the fabric fold back on itself and fall free of her hands, letting the side of the tent close. “You have a quite the grasp of the human language, sister. There was a time when you were content to swear at me in elvish.”
“I’m expanding my horizons,” Vara said.
“You’re in love with a human,” Isabelle replied. “And you are not even willing to admit it to yourself.”
“This is all off the table for discussion,” Vara said. “Yes, Cyrus Davidon went on a mission to aid one of our guildmates across the Sea of Carmas. Yes, he’s been gone for several months. I need to know if the Sovereign is moving because he-Cyrus, I mean-is in need of aid in Luukessia and we can’t strip anything from Sanctuary’s defense unless we’re certain that the Sovereign’s armies are fully engaged elsewhere-”
“They’re not,” Isabelle said quietly. “This front has been quiet for nigh on a month and not from any stinging defeats we’ve dealt to the dark elves, that I can assure you. Our contacts with the Elven Kingdom-on a daily basis, in case you wonder-indicate no serious offensives along the Perda, either, not at Termina or anywhere else. The Sovereign waits and has removed some of his forces from both of these fronts, reshuffling them elsewhere.” She gave a little shrug. “Perhaps he directs them to the east, toward the Riverlands.” Her face darkened in the shadow of the tent. “But I would suspect not.”
Vara waited, just for a beat, before she asked the question that tore at her. “What do you suspect?”
“That the vek’tag herds in Saekaj that have supplied the meat that has filled the bellies of the dark elven army are running thin enough that they may not be viable if the herds continue to be killed at this aggressive pace,” Isabelle said, without a trace of care, “and that the mushrooms and roots and other crops that grow in the gardens of those caves are insufficient to feed the war machine that the Sovereign is grinding out at present. That the supply lines run thin and he has turned an eye toward an easy, almost-undefended prize to remedy that problem-and its name is the Plains of Perdamun.” She didn’t smile, exactly, but gave her sister an almost-cringe, as though the knowledge caused her pain. “It is the opinion of the Confederation’s government-and the Elven Kingdom’s as well-that the Sovereign is moving troops into place to take the southern plains, to destroy anything that stands between him and the rich crop lands that could feed his empire and his armies, as we move now closer to the harvest.”
“And Sanctuary is what stands between him and that resource?” Vara let the air hiss out of her, not really surprised but neither pleased.
“The fact that he can claim revenge for the action in Termina will be no small bonus,” Isabelle said, “and there are countless dark knights in his army who had allegiance to Mortus, which might motivate them in some measure.”
Vara tried to think through the swirl of new information filling her mind. “I have not nearly enough available-Sanctuary has not nearly enough available to counter this threat to the Plains. But you-” She took a step toward her sister. “If you and the Human Confederation attacked now, struck back at the Sovereignty’s army here, it would force them to-”
“A good stratagem,” Isabelle cut her off. “A worthy idea. Were I in charge, I would pursue that strategy, though not just to try and help my sister but to deny the Sovereignty something they need to continue the war.” She drew up short. “However, I am not in charge of the war effort. Indeed, I am not even consulted. My guild remains at the mercy of the Council of Twelve, though,” she drew a short smile, “thanks to other events, that power wanes by the day.”
Vara felt the air go out of her, all her energy in one giant exhalation. “You tell me the Sovereign is marshalling his forces, pulling them away from the fronts he has pressed since the beginning. Well, they do not go north and they do not go west, nor do they appear to be heading east. My guild is south, is all that remains in the south. What am I to do, Isabelle? They hold the majority of the Plains already, uncontested because we lack the power to project our forces north to drive them back, and because no other army exists that could or would do so. I sit in the middle of the territory that he wants, this Sovereign, this gutless bastard who sits on the throne in Saekaj,” she watched Isabelle’s eye lashes bat a little at that, “and you tell me he’s coming, and what am I to do?”