“Peace...at the front of
your mind, eh? I’ll believe it when I see it,” Akari delicately teased her lover. “And as for what kind of negotiations will happen and how...well, you were wise to leave that to me.”
“And you speak for the Banished Queen, do you, Miss Takahashi?”
Rihaab el-Salman asked authoritatively as she stepped from the shadows and into the clearer, but still darkened view the woods provided, while also surrounding herself with grim, determined, beautiful,
mostly female warriors of all different nationalities that waited to strike should either guest make a wrong move.
“I do,” Akari said as she knelt respectfully before the Rabal’Qayud- Master and Commander of the Shadow Accord.
“You claimed she’s changed, that she warrants our trust...how?”
“Because she loves something more than power now. She- somehow, I can’t pretend to explain- has fallen in love with me. Me, a wretched thief cast out from the Thieves Guild, of all people,” Akari replied with a sigh, figuring (correctly) that Rihaab was too busy fighting elvish oppression to oppress that which was instinctual in her own people. “If she can pour her heart out for one such as myself, then she has clearly put aside at least some of her hatred and bloodlust that made her such a feared creature and justified your cursing her.”
“How do you know it isn’t an elaborate trick designed to make you her thrall?”
“I...do not.”
“Then why should we help her now? How do we know she won’t stab us in the back later?”
“I will let my Queen speak on that.”