"After Alexios-" Ven began, then stopped, unable to go on. If Anubisa had compromised his brother's soul, then the royal family really was doomed. She would have made good, finally, on a five-thousand-year-old promise.

Because Ven would walk into the gates of hell itself to shove his daggers up her bloodsucking ass. And he was honest enough to know he'd never come out of that confrontation alive.

Alaric drew a deep breath. "He is whole."

Ven's entire body sagged in a relief so fierce his vision literally went funky; he blinked away little gray spots that floated in front of his eyes. "Thank Poseidon!"

Alaric remained silent, which raised Ven's suspicion. Just a tiny doubt. "Alaric? Is there something you're not telling me? Is it simply coincidence that he gets back here just a few hours after Reisen blasted his way into the Temple and ripped off the Trident?"

The priest clenched his jaw, but said nothing for another minute. He finally spoke. "As to Reisen, I cannot tell. He is yet impossible to scry. For Conlan-"

Alaric hesitated, then seemed to reach a decision, nodding. "The prince is whole. Somehow, in spite of seven years of torture, he is whole. She was unable to compromise his mind or capture his soul to her use. But-"

Ven grasped Alaric's arm in a steel grip. "But? But what?"

Alaric said nothing, merely looked down at Ven's hand clenched around his arm. The knowledge that Alaric could incinerate Ven's hand with a single surge of elemental power lay between them.

Right at that moment, Ven didn't give a rat's ass.

But he sighed and released Alaric's arm. "But what? He's my brother. I have a right to know."

Nodding imperceptibly, Alaric glanced back down at Conlan's still form. "But simply because she was unable to suborn his soul to her own use does not mean that Conlan retained full possession. No one can survive that duration of torture with his soul intact."