The fish Guardian's, who Grub would realize was named Splot, pale gaze drifted across the trio with an expression that carried several emotions at war with each other. Respect for the boy who had slain an anomaly. Begrudging tolerance for the pale spy who had proven useful despite his crimes. And for the third member of the group, something far uglier.
Wrighty glanced around as the room's attention settled on them. "Wait, are you talking about us?"
Splot nodded curtly. Grub finally looked up from his notebook. Beside him, Luthiel sat perfectly still, her blank gaze resting on the speaker, her hands folded neatly on the table.
"As many of you are aware," Splot began, resuming his measured pacing, "these three have been the most significant contributors to our defense. Grub's trap network proved instrumental during the initial engagement. The fortification design alone accounted for a substantial percentage of enemy casualties before our forces even engaged."
His dorsal fin caught the light as he turned.
"And despite only arriving today, the newcomer has already earned our full respect." He gestured toward Wrighty. "He is the one who intervened when the Chief fell then defeated the anomaly single-handedly. He preserved her life when no one else could reach her. For that we are ever grateful."
A murmur of genuine appreciation rippled through the Guardians. Several nodded toward Wrighty, who scratched the back of his head with an embarrassed grin. "Aw shucks."
Then Splot's gaze landed on Luthiel.
His tone shifted. The professional cadence thinned, replaced by casual and cutting disgust.
"And Luthiel, well..." A chuckle escaped through his gills. "The thing is playing its role as an object well, I suppose."
Several Guardians shifted uncomfortably. Others smirked.
Splot continued, his pale features arranging themselves into an expression of theatrical bewilderment. "Honestly, I'm still not entirely convinced it's alive. Not the way we are, at least. But it always follows the Chief around, and now it follows the Sky-Fallen boy too." He shrugged with exaggerated casualness. "So like any good tool, it found a new hand to hold it. Tool to tool. Owner to owner."
His gills flexed as he laughed at his own words.
"First it was the Chief's little instrument. Now it belongs to Grub and the Chief both." He gestured at the morning star strapped to Grub's back. "Honestly, I'd say she's no different from that fresh weapon of his. Both crafted by Urgor, both carried around by their owner, both incapable of doing anything without someone to swing them."
A few Guardians chuckled openly. Others kept their mouths shut but didn't intervene. Wrighty's smile slowly disappeared.
"Honestly, if the Chief didn't value the thing so highly, I'd have thrown it out with the garbage years ago." His expression hardened beneath the veneer of humor. "Because let's be honest. It would be strange to drag a household utensil into a war council and give it a seat, wouldn't it? "
He spread his hands. "If someone carried a broom into a meeting and gave it a seat at the table, we'd think they were insane."
Several snorts echoed around the room.
"Yet here we are." His smile widened.
"Giving an evil little creature a voice simply because the Chief says we should."
Upon hearing all of this, Grub's charcoal stopped moving. Something cold and sharp uncoiled inside his chest. The Nihil pulsed once, hard, and black residue crept across his knuckles beneath the table. His eyes locked onto Splot's exposed neck and gills. Three thin slits on each side, flexing with every breath. The tissue was quite soft and unarmored, utterly open for the taking.
How easy it would be.
The thought arrived with surgical clarity. One burst of Nihil-enhanced speed and a clean strike to the throat. The gills would tear before Splot even registered the movement. The surprise on his translucent face would last approximately half a second before the blood started flowing.
How easy.
The excitement that accompanied the thought made Grub's stomach twist. This wasn't righteous anger. Not entirely. The insults had lit a spark, yes, but the Nihil had caught it and was fanning it into something far more volatile. A hungry, giddy anticipation at having been given a justifiable reason to hurt someone. A reason that would feel satisfying in the execution regardless of whether it was proportional.
I could kill him and it would feel good.
He glanced sideways at Luthiel.
El sat perfectly still. Her hands hadn't moved. Her posture hadn't shifted. Her hidden eyes remained fixed on some middle distance that existed between the table's surface and whatever occupied her thoughts. The insults had landed on her the way rain landed on stone. She absorbed them without visible erosion.
Because she had heard them before. A thousand times. In a thousand variations. From a thousand different mouths. This was simply Tuesday for her.
That absence of reaction cut deeper than any scream would have, and the urge faded from Grub.
Orgack frowned from his oversized section of the table. "Come on, Splot. Let's just move on."
Splot exhaled through his gills and waved a dismissive hand. "Fine, fine. I suppose the wretched broom can continue occupying a seat at the meeting." His dorsal fin twitched. "Wouldn't want to upset her Great Owner."
That last part was genuine. For all his cruelty toward Luthiel, Splot's fear of Morrigan visibly outweighed his contempt. The old kappa's authority was the only shield standing between her daughter and the village's ugliest impulses.
Splot promptly cleared his throat and returned to the agenda.
Grub, however, had to physically shake the violent images from his head, flexing his fingers beneath the table until the black residue retreated back beneath his skin and the world settled back into its usual muted gray.
Wrighty, on the other hand, was staring at Luthiel with a deep frown. Confusion and discomfort warred across his features. He looked at Grub as if expecting an explanation, but Grub could only offer a slight shake of his head.
Not now.
The question of why everyone hated Luthiel pressed against Grub's mind again. Something she had refused to tell him during their talk. Something Morrigan had seemingly ordered her to keep secret. Whatever it was, Grub felt the answer lived at the root of every stare, every transferred squad assignment, and every casual cruelty disguised as humor.
Grub wanted that answer badly. It was in his nature to pursue hidden knowledge the way a dog pursues a scent. But he had also learned, slowly and reluctantly, that some answers belonged to the people who carried them. Luthiel would share when she was ready. Or she wouldn't. Either way, pushing her now would accomplish nothing productive.
He filed the curiosity away and forced his attention back to the meeting.
Splot had moved on to strategic analysis. The Simurgh bird Morrigan had killed was one communication line severed, but Cordylus had sent a separate message through unknown means. Given the speed at which trained Simurgh messengers traveled, Gavial would receive the truth about the deception within days if he hadn't already.
"Once the Colonel learns the intelligence was fabricated," Splot continued, his voice regaining its professional edge, "he will abandon whatever defensive posture he adopted against the phantom attack. The portion of the army he held back will march toward us. I would infer that they are likely the stronger portion."
He let that settle across the room.
"After all, they would only reserve their best fighters to face a force supposedly led by the Great Sage Equal to Heaven herself."
Uncomfortable silence gripped the hall. The implication was clear. The first assault had been the weaker half of Gavial's army, and it had nearly overwhelmed them even with Morrigan fighting at her full equalized strength. The second wave would bring the Colonel's elites.
Splot raised a scroll and read from it. "Our intelligence suggests Colonel Gavial is ranked at Cultivator, Tier Two."
Several Guardians audibly gulped. A few exchanged glances heavy with unspoken dread. Without Morrigan on her feet, nobody in the village came close to matching a Cultivator's strength. The highest-ranked Guardian was Pazuzu at Dormant Tier One, and Pazuzu was currently bedridden with burns covering half his body.
Without Morrigan, we're fighting uphill in the dark.
The thought circled the room without anyone voicing it.
The meeting continued through a series of contingencies and defensive adjustments. Formations were discussed. Approach routes were analyzed against the terrain maps Grub and Orobas had compiled. The possibility that Cordylus was still present, invisible beneath his stolen cloak, dominated a significant portion of the discussion. He could be anywhere, watching and listening. In fact, he could be in this very room.
That thought chilled the atmosphere.
New security protocols were established immediately. Morrigan's sickbed would have a constant rotation of Guardians stationed outside her door, every hour of every day. The village perimeter would be swept three times daily rather than once. Sensitive conversations would be held in rooms that had been physically searched beforehand.
The trap network would be rebuilt where possible. Grub noted that assignment mentally and began sketching preliminary replacement designs in his notebook.
All imprisoned Lacerts, both the original captured messenger and the newly surrendered soldiers from the battle, would undergo thorough interrogation. Splot turned to Grub for that task specifically.
"Your methods proved effective last time," the fish Guardian said, his tone carrying no warmth but grudging professional respect. "You'll handle it again."
Grub nodded without looking up from his notes.
The Guardians then turned to Wrighty. Splot addressed him directly.
"Will you be assisting us in the defense going forward?"
Wrighty shrugged his one shoulder and grinned broadly. "Yeah, of course! I'd love to help out."
Relief crossed several Guardian faces. Having the boy who had snapped an Anomaly's neck with one arm on their side was worth more than a dozen additional soldiers.
The meeting covered a handful of additional topics. Casualty reports, medical supply status, civilian morale assessments. Each item was handled with the brisk efficiency simply because they were too exhausted for lengthy deliberation.
Then Splot raised the final subject. His dorsal fin flattened slightly as he spoke, a physical tell that suggested even he found this topic uncomfortable.
"The Dundun Ile."
Silence fell so completely that Grub could hear the lanterns hissing above.
"We must discuss the possibility, however remote, that our defenses fail entirely." Splot's pale hands gripped the edge of the table. "If the second assault breaches all three walls, if our fighters are overwhelmed, if the worst comes to worst, we need a final option."
His gills flexed as he took a steadying breath.
"Someone would need to retrieve the weapon from its current location and attempt to wield it."
The word "attempt" hung in the air with visible weight. Every Guardian in the room understood the limitation. The Dundun Ile chose its wielder. You didn't pick up the weapon and use it. The weapon picked up YOU. If it rejected the person who reached for it, the most powerful armament in the village would be nothing more than dead weight at the moment they needed it most.
"We will discuss the specifics and candidates at the next meeting," Splot concluded. "For now, consider it and come prepared with thoughts."
A few more formalities were exchanged, the next meeting was scheduled, and Splot dismissed the hall. The Guardians filed out in ones and twos, their movements slow and heavy. The battle had lasted less than a day, but the weight of what came next pressed down on all of them. It it had been a brutal day. Too many seats remained empty. And there were only more harrowing days to come.
The trio was among the last to leave.
Wrighty let out a long, dramatic sigh as they stepped into the cool night air. "Man, that was boring. Just got here and I'm already beat from sitting in a chair."
Grub rolled his eyes.
"I'm glad they gave me a room for free though," Wrighty added cheerfully. "That's pretty nice of them."
Grub said nothing. Wrighty's free accommodations had almost certainly come from the same source that covered Grub's lodging. Luthiel would be footing the bill again without complaint, and Wrighty would remain blissfully unaware of it.
El had been silent throughout the meeting's final stretch. She walked between them now with her hands folded behind her back, her bangs swaying gently with each measured step. At the intersection where their paths split, she stopped and turned. "We must prepare for what comes next. The battle ahead will be far worse than today's." Her hidden gaze moved between Grub and Wrighty. "But before the training and the next meetings consume us, it would be beneficial to spend some time together. Simply existing with each other."
She looked at Wrighty.
"We could also begin Hero's anima training during that time."
Wrighty's expression flickered with something unreadable. Discomfort, maybe. Or uncertainty. Whatever it was, he said nothing about it and simply nodded.
Grub adjusted the morning star on his back. "Sounds good. See you tomorrow, Luthiel."
El offered no farewell. She turned and walked toward Morrigan's house without a word, her small figure disappearing around a corner as the blue streaks in her hair caught the last of the lantern light.
Grub and Wrighty headed for the inn.
The streets were quiet now. Most of the village had retreated indoors, the post-battle energy finally giving way to the heavy pull of sleep. Wrighty walked beside Grub with his usual relaxed stride, his dark eyes scanning the unfamiliar architecture with idle curiosity.
His expression, as always, defaulted to a smile. The grin sat on his face as naturally as breathing, undimmed by the meeting's grim content or the injured Guardians or the looming threat of a second invasion. He was seemingly content simply to have found his friend again.
Grub's face carried something very different.
Behind the blank mask he wore, his thoughts churned with a darkness that had nothing to do with strategy. Colonel Gavial was a Cultivator Tier Two. The grey-scaled bastard who had strapped a death device to his wrist and sent him to spy on innocent people. The same commander who had tried to chain him, use him, and discard him.
The upcoming battle meant they would share a battlefield. The thought made the Nihil in Grub's chest pulse with an eagerness that felt less like determination and more like hunger.
Cultivator Tier Two. The gap between us is massive.
But I don't seem to care.
I'll figure it out.
And I'll make him pay.
The urge frightened him somewhere beneath the gray. But the gray was thick tonight, and the fear was muffled, and the hunger felt so much louder.
Wrighty glanced at him as they reached the inn door.
"You good, Doc?"
Grub blinked. Then nodded.
"Yeah. Just thinking."
Wrighty studied him for a moment with those perceptive dark eyes that most people underestimated. Then he smiled and clapped Grub on the shoulder.
"Don't think too hard. That's my job."
"That is literally the opposite of your job."
Wrighty laughed and pushed the door open.
The two entered into the inn with two different thoughts. One thinking about friendship. The other thinking about revenge.
Both preparing for the same battle.