Withdrawn from mortal perceptions, but still close to Ccidan where their chosen were currently recovering, Phyrn, Ponima, and Brightbrand gathered for the first time since before the severance.

“You’re certain?” Phyrn asked Brightbrand. “I’ve been trying to truly confirm it for some time now, but… I suppose some part of me just didn’t want to accept it, and knew all along.”

Brightbrand nodded. “I’m afraid so. Rajata, as you already knew, as well as Zur, Nativus, D’Gora, and Narva are all dead.”

“Of course you knew it all along,” Ponima sneered, “but this little pantheon of ours has hardly ever been good at accepting the truth, has it?”

“You didn’t mention Mirim,” Phyrn noted. “Where is she?”

“I felt her presence disappear as well,” Brightbrand explained, “but… I do not think she’s dead. I cannot draw on her power anymore, but… I did not sense her die. I think she managed to escape Berodyl just before Fyren enacted the severance.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Phyrn mumbled. “If anyone was going to be able to preempt Fyren, it’d be his own sister. Those two have been close for longer than the rest of us have been alive.”

“Clearly closer than she was with any of us,” Ponima sneered. “I’d still love to know why she didn’t warn any of us before running!”

“I suspect she did not have time,” Brightbrand said. “Fyren is not one to sit around when he has a job to do.”

“Which raises another question,” Phyrn said. “Why are we still alive?”

“Are you complaining?” Ponima scoffed.

“Of course not,” Phyrn sternly replied. “But Brightbrand is right; Fyren isn’t the type to wait around. So… where is he?”

“Perhaps it’s me,” Brightbrand tried to suggest as humbly as possible. “I still have both of you reinforcing my… already-distinct power. Maybe he knows he still can’t decisively take me until he’s dispatched both of you first. At best, he’d be looking at a mutual destruction scenario if we fought one-on-one.”

“Then it is absolutely vital we stick together,” Phyrn decided. “No more charging headlong at Fyren so recklessly,” she said to Brightbrand, “and no more disappearing to throw tantrums,” she said to Ponima. “If we’re going to beat him now, we have to take him together.”

“Wooow,” Ponima cheered sarcastically, “passive-aggression! That’s a new colour on you, Phyrn! It looks fucking horrible!”

I’m not even going to dignify that with a response, Phyrn thought to herself.

“Now, now,” Brightbrand said with downward, open palms held out, trying to keep the conversation from spilling over into a petty fight of taunts. “Let’s not bicker. It has been a… difficult time… for all of us. But this isn’t over. Fyren is probably amassing strength to the east, where the greatest concentration of Berodyl’s faithful reside: the Sisterhood of Communion. I suspect he is there, lurking just beyond mortal vision, silently syphoning power from their prayers as we speak, preparing himself for the battle that is to come. We must go to him first, and challenge him soon, or he may creep past us, as executioners usually try to do with their targets. I doubt I need to remind either of you of that, considering happened last time we crossed paths with one.”

“So long ago,” Phyrn mused, “ millennia and more, before Berodyl was even an idea in our heads, and yet I remember it clearly as I see you now.”

“I wonder if he remembers,” Ponima mumbled.

“It matters little,” Brightbrand shook his head. “He has made his true allegiances very clear, and it matters even less whether we begrudge him that or not. Now, it is simply a matter of him or us.”

“Agreed,” Phyrn nodded.

Ponima sighed… but then, too, nodded. “Fine. Him or us.”