“Sea Sprite’s captain is a true hero of the people,” Kensidan replied. “Perhaps the only hero for the people of Luskan, who have no one to speak for them in the halls of power.”

Suljack smirked at the insult, reminding himself that if it were a barb aimed at him then logic aimed it at Kensidan’s own father as well.

“Deudermont is unbending in principle, and therein lies our opportunity,” Kensidan explained. “He is no friend of the brotherhood, surely.”

“The best war is a proxy war, I suppose,” said Suljack.

“No,” Kensidan corrected, “the best war is a proxy war when no one knows the true power behind it.”

Suljack chuckled at that, and wasn’t about to disagree. His laughter remained tempered, however, by the reality that was Kensidan the Crow. His partner, his ally…a man he dared not trust.

A man from whom he could not, could never, escape.

* * * * *

“Suljack knows enough, but not too much?” Rethnor asked when Kensidan joined him a short while later.

Kensidan spent a few moments studying his father before nodding his assent. How old Rethnor looked these days, with his pallid skin sagging below his eyes and down his cheeks, leaving great flopping jowls. He had thinned considerably in the last year or so, and his skin, so leathery from years at sea, had little resilience left. He walked stiff-legged and bolt upright, for his back had locked securely in place. And when he talked, he sounded as if he had his mouth stuffed with fabric, his voice muffled and weak.

“Enough to throw himself on my sword,” Kensidan replied, “but he will not.”

“You trust him?”

Kensidan nodded. “He and I want the same thing. We have no desire to serve under the thumb of Arklem Greeth.”

“As I have, you mean,” Rethnor retorted, but Kensidan was shaking his head even as the old man spoke the words.