"You’ll see," Daimen said with a grin. "Things are going to change a lot in the future, I think. Who knows, maybe even your family business might profit out of this."
Thankfully, this was sufficiently interesting that it distracted Mother and Father from further questioning. He knew that sooner or later, Mother would realize that Zorian had already started teaching Kirielle magic behind her back and that her beloved daughter had been literally attacked by assassins during the invasion – if nothing else because Kirielle was sure to blurt it out at some point – and that once she did, there would be hell to pay. For now, though, the crisis had been aver-
"Zorian! Hey! Zorian!"
Daimen looked at the person calling out to his brother and saw a chubby boy with a happy smile on his face hurrying over. An older, well-dressed man with a mustache followed behind him at a more sedate pace. Probably the boy’s father.
The funny thing about this was that the boy clearly acted like he was Zorian’s friend, but Daimen himself had never seen Zorian interact with him at all. That was interesting to say the least.
"Hey Zorian! I see you already got back, too!" the boy said once he got closer.
"I never left, Ben," Zorian said politely.
Oh, so they did know each other. By this point the boy’s father also arrived, though he stayed silent behind the boy. He simply gave a small nod and quiet greeting to the gathered Kazinskis before waiting for his son to calm down.
"You never left? Man, you work too hard," the chubby boy said. "I heard you got roped into being an ambassador for some giant spiders. You got to introduce me to them someday, man. Sounds like one hell of an experience."
There was a long silence as all the Kazinski siblings looked incredibly uncomfortable.
"What?" the boy said, realizing he made some kind of mistake. "What did I say?"
"Giant… spiders?" Mother repeated.
Daimen couldn’t help it. He sighed audibly this time.
So much for averting disaster.
As he walked through the streets of the city and observed the reconstruction efforts around him, Zorian couldn’t help but feel satisfied with how things had been going lately. There were a few complications here and there, but the city was slowly beginning to recover, and neither Zach nor Zorian had been implicated into what had happened. The thanks for that partially went to Alanic, due to him running interference on their behalf in exchange for helping him clean up Eldemar of various threats, as well as Eldemar having its hands full with all kinds of problems these days, but mostly it was because they were currently complete unknowns to most people, so nobody even suspected they could have been involved. Zorian sincerely hoped that by the time they were forced to reveal some of their real skills, too much time will have passed, and people would not connect the dots linking them to the events that had taken place during the invasion.
Sadly, his quiet enjoyment of the city was marred by the fact people kept giving him curious and occasionally fearful glances as he passed them, the crowds parting in front of him like he was diseased.
Well, they probably weren’t doing that because of him, specifically. Rather, it was because of the giant telepathic spider strutting around the city beside him. Spear of Resolve seemed completely unperturbed by the reception, however, and gave no indication this sort of behavior bothered her. If anything, she seemed immensely pleased with herself that she could walk through the city of Cyoria in broad daylight without being immediately attacked, or met with screams and calls for help. This was already a victory for her and her web.
The aranea hadn’t been entirely accepted by the city authorities yet. Legally, they were still considered monsters that had no rights, and there was a portion of Eldemarian leadership that really wanted to just wipe them out or drive them out of the city. However, the aranea had quietly gathered a considerable amount of support in the city over the years, so there was also no shortage of people willing to argue on their behalf. More importantly, even the critics that considered them dangerous telepathic parasites had to admit they were instrumental in preventing the various threats from the lower reaches of the dungeon from menacing the city. Considering the amount of destruction and suffering Cyoria had suffered recently, the last thing it needed was to go through a monster invasion too because some general couldn’t tolerate the aranea living beneath the city.
The opinion of regular citizens was, from what Zorian could understand, somewhat mixed. The aranea were said to have helped fight the invaders, which won them some good will, but they were also monsters, spiders, and mind mages. None of those three sounded good to the average citizen. Accordingly, when people saw Spear of Resolve walking down the street like she always belonged there, their reactions were… mixed, to say the least.
Thankfully both Zorian and Tinami were accompanying her on this stroll to make sure no incident occurred. Zorian was certain the Spear of Resolve was resourceful enough to evade any real conflict with frightened citizens, but it was best not to risk things.
"So how are the negotiations going?" Zorian asked Spear of Resolve, not bothering to use telepathy for Tinami’s sake. The Aope had managed to secure a magic exchange with the aranea, and Tinami was a part of that, but she wasn’t psychic, and her advancement was slow. She wasn’t good enough for casual telepathy yet.
"Somewhat disappointingly," Spear of Resolve admitted, using sound magic to speak out loud as well. "We have managed to block any initiative to have us driven out of our homes, but it’s unlikely we will get legal recognition any time soon."
"That was always a little naïve of you to expect," Tinami told her. The Aope usually preferred to employ older and more experienced people for these kind of meetings, but Tinami was the designated heir of the House, and she was throwing her weight around to get personally involved in something that very much interested her. "You’re still too much of an unknown for people to trust you, regardless of your help with the invasion."
"Oh, I know that," Spear of Resolve assured her. "I didn’t expect a better outcome, so much as hope for it. I have already made the necessary preparations. The colony can retreat from Cyoria on a moment’s notice, if it becomes necessary."
"Where would you go, though?" Tinami asked. "I can’t imagine there are that many places suitable for your kind."
"We would simply assault once of the smaller webs around the area and steal their home for ourselves," Spear of Resolve said blandly. "The aranean world is a rather brutal place, I’m afraid."
"Oh," Tinami lamely responded.
"I heard your academy is about to reopen soon," Spear of Resolve said, turning slightly towards Zorian before resuming her walk.
"So I’m told," Zorian said. He spotted Taiven and her team in the distance, trailing after a large group of other mages, and gave her a small wave. She waved back, but didn’t linger or tried to talk to him, simply following after her group so she wouldn’t slow them down. She looked happy, though. In the wake of the invasion, there was an urgent demand for combat mages, so she had plenty of job offers and opportunities to prove herself. "If it doesn’t start again soon, the parents that didn’t get frightened by the attack will start pulling their children out of the academy out of concern they’re not getting taught anything."
He looked at Tinami, somewhat curious as to how she was handling that. She had never expressed any desire to join their study group, or any study group for that matter. Was she so focused on this aranean business that she had no problems putting her education on hold for a month, or did she have some kind of alternate arrangements?