Nimueh pulls back with a jolt. "The Old Ones?"

Her breath seems difficult to her for a moment. "Are things truly that dire that we must grovel to them?"

"Every soldier we send against the Dread Wolf is a chance to for him to gain one. We need an army that will not turn, and will instead turn on him."

"I would not turn, and I would raze his compound to the ground," Nimueh says fiercely. Believably.

Elgar'nan chuckles. "I do not doubt that, child, but he is powerful and has powerful protection. Not even your past would change that. We need the most powerful beings to defeat someone so adept at changing hearts."

"You doubt my heart is hardened against him?"

"Yes. You were his wife, after all. You bore his child."

Nimueh's hand goes to her stomach.

"I would not trust the killing blow to someone not ready to follow through. There is vengeance, and fury, in your heart. But you would falter, my child."

Elgar'nan stands again, and walks to the view across the city. "The Old Ones will have no such qualm."

Nimueh is silent for a long time, her hand resting on the ghost of her protruding belly, remembering all the lost hope she carried in that child.

"You think a mother could not complete this task? That a mother, with her child ripped away from her, could not kill the man who did that?"

"How old would your child be now, Nimueh?"

Nimueh starts at the use of her name, that she fumbles the answer.

"A fe- few...nearly three hundred years old, hahren."

Elgar'nan tuts. "Still a child, and one that could have chosen to side with his father. If I required it off you, could you kill him as well?"

"If he has chosen Pride, then he is no longer my son."

"Are you sure of that?" Elgar'nan looks behind him to Nimueh.

Nimueh summons an image of the boy on the nearest wall. Then, without breaking eye contact with Elgar'nan, she cuts a vein open with a fingernail, and then lets loose a thin, sharp blade of blood through the throat of the image.

Elgar'nan laughs broadly. "Well done!"

Nimueh grins savagely.

(She tucks her shaking hands out of view.)

"Then perhaps you can lead a charge to his stronghold. I would still send you with the most powerful we know."

"And what would be my reward, should I fetch the Old Ones and deliver the Dread Wolf's head on a platter?"

"A piece of my soul."

Nimueh's entire world stops moving. 

A piece, even a small one, would grant her power unimaginable. What little tricks she could perform with blood, she could transform into world-altering powers. 

"Yes. I'll do it."

Elgar'nan grinned, baring his teeth. 

"I knew you would." 

He walks to her, and cups the back of her head, to taste her mouth once more.

Nimueh found she liked the copper taste she found in his.

A while later, she descends from the tower, body smarting with bruises and bites, scratches and scars, but with a goal and a catlike grin on her face. 

She had the God right where she wanted him, and his soul would be hers.

She wrapped a cloak around her, and started down the road out from Arlathan, into the Wilds, to find an Old One-

-and bend them to her will.