Rank has some privileges in Valdemar. Savil normally eats at the Heralds' dining hall except if she's having supper with company, but she can summon a servant - quietly shooing Blai back to the guest room first - and call for a generous breakfast. Bread and butter, eggs, cheese, some fruit on the side. 

She leaves him there and heads out. 

It's nice that there's plenty since they forgot to give him dinner and he blew his Create Food so he couldn't make it himself. He eats up.

—-

Leareth receives the report shortly before midnight the night before. Many candlemarks after the major events, of course, but this is how long it takes his spy on the Palace laundry staff to follow up on every rumor and local information source she can - including a number of other agents with varying degrees of awareness of who they worked for - conclude that this calls for an urgent in-person report, and then get herself safely out of Haven to a cache location, burn a one-time communication artifact usable without mage-gift on signaling for urgent pickup, via a Gate from a shielded underground room. Any mage-energy signature that leaks through should be disguised by the small forest fire she sets first. 

She's only been in place for around a year, but she has quite a few advantages; she's unsuspicious, convincingly giving the impression of a gossipy middle-aged washerwoman because for most of her life she's been exactly that. She also has a very weak Gift of Touchreading, rare enough that Valdemar doesn't currently know how to test for or recognize it. It's best understood as a specialized form of Foresight; she can touch objects and, if something emotionally significant enough happened recently enough, catch a glimpse of events surrounding the person previously in possession of said item. 

She's touched a lot of objects today, most of which told her nothing or only almost-certainly-irrelevant snippets, but they included a desk and some books from a clerk's office, and also Herald-Mage Savil Ashkevron's Whites, which she finagled to pick up from the House of Healing for laundering. 

Her report contains a small number of hard facts known with high confidence – there was definitely an attack on the Queen of Karse and her daughter at the Ice Festival, it was definitely a Changecreature – and quite a lot of word-of-mouth tidbits of less trustworthy accuracy, like the claim that a man miraculously Healed over a dozen badly wounded soldiers at once without touching them. Then there are the very large number of confusing observations that may or may not be possible to piece together into a picture. The spy has no idea what most of it means, but diligently recorded everything that could possibly be relevant.

Leareth can put together a picture. 

He doesn't like it. 

One: an exceptionally powerful and dangerous Changecreature showed up and specifically attacked the Queen of Karse and her heir???? That's - well, he knows he didn't do it, and is able to confirm to his satisfaction within half a candlemark that it wasn't a misfired plan by any of the less-entirely-reliable contractors who work for him - which leaves "godplot", but...what...why...he was not expecting that. 

Two: it's well corroborated that an armed and armored man dressed in a foreign style was seen accompanying various Heralds at various points, including rushing to the scene of the attack. Second- and third-hand eyewitness accounts are a difficult source of information to work with, a lot of people were very sure they had seen something very specific that didn't quite match anyone else's recounting, but Leareth thinks he had enough evidence to conclude that the man went into the water with Vanyel's assistance and emerged a few minutes later with Savil, who later hauled out a dead Changecreature, and probably this means he was helping with the fight. 

Three: some of the rumors of large-scale miraculous Healing came via actual Healers, who probably didn't make that up from whole cloth. There are also rumors - including one overheard among the Herald-trainees - that the man was a priest of a foreign god. (No one seemed to know which god.)  

Four: at some point after some closed meetings of the Senior Circle - which Leareth knows nothing about the contents of - Herald-Mage Savil was seen accompanying the man to the core Palace wing. Some servants reported being shooed from the permanent Gate-terminus. ...Some clerks complained later about being evicted from their office by Herald-Mage Savil, looking "very unwell" and still accompanied by the foreign-dressed man. Touchreading on some of the contents of that room showed the King's lifebonded and Vanyel joining them, Shavri appearing to work some Healing, and emotional hints of stress and also grief. 

Five: Touchreading on Savil's clothes picked up a very strong impression of...something, something violent...that the spy reported left her with a headache. Also surprise and panic, and (Leareth is able to infer from her description) the impression of this happening in the Gate-terminus room. 

Six: multiple Gates were reported happening later at the Heralds' chapel outside. Not the Gate-terminus room. 

Seven: there are rumors that a Tayledras youngster was seen with Savil at the House of Healing. Their conversation if they had one was in Mindspeech, its contents private, but he apparently left very distressed and angry. 

And what story fits those pieces together? 

A priest of a foreign god arrives in Haven for the Ice Festival, with perfect timing to be present for an attack on the Queen and her daughter. One that must have been nudged to look as convincingly as possible like something Leareth ordered; Vanyel knows he can create living mage-construct animals, and likely isn't ready to believe that the Star-Eyed Goddess could or would do something so hostile. 

The priest selflessly and heroically jumps into the fight. His god - whichever god it is, the Healing is most reminiscent of Anathei's style but Anathei's order doesn't have martial priests, and Leareth thinks the rumors would probably have included it if the man served Vkandis - works a flashy miracle through him, saving dozens of people.

The Heralds are of course grateful, and inclined to trust the man, and at the conclusion of some unknown conversation, they offer to bring him to k'Treva. For protection, maybe, if they're expecting an imminent invasion, but there could be all sorts of nudging involved.

His guesswork is shakier here, but: something catastrophic happens to the Vale. Savil and the priest make it back, but barely and with serious injuries, and the Gate-terminus is damaged during their frantic escape. The Heralds, of course, aren't at all inclined to be suspicious that maybe the foreign priest and an intervention from his god had something to do with it – though that's only one possible explanation, it's also possible that the Star-Eyed Goddess was directly responsible. 

Primed by the Changecreature's attack, the Heralds are ready to jump to assuming that Leareth was also responsible for whatever happened to k'Treva. 

(Leareth is reminding himself that he doesn't know the truth of what's happening in Haven. The information he has is compatible with a lot of worlds, including ones where it's not what it looks like.) 

But what it looks like is a shockingly blatant multi-part godplot to convince Vanyel that their negotiations have irreparably broken down, and drive Valdemar to war. 

Leareth really does not want that priest in Haven, given what he's apparently willing to do on his god's orders (or, being maximally sympathetic to him, his god is willing to work through him). If this isn't enough to push Vanyel over the edge, who knows what else could still go wrong in the most suspicious possible way. 

However. It's possible that it's not too late, and Leareth should give Vanyel credit for being able to notice the ways that the situation makes no sense. (The other Heralds are likely easy to convince that Leareth was lying about not being able to operate in the Pelagirs, but Vanyel can probably notice that he has more information than just words – that Leareth's plans would have looked different if he had the ability to take down a Tayledras Vale on demand.) 

Vanyel may not have decided to block the Foresight dream again. It hasn't happened in a while, but - this is new information, for both of them, if anything is. 

He can wait one night. Get some sleep, in hopes that Vanyel will also manage to get some sleep despite the emergency. And also because it's generally a good idea to be well-rested before making significant decisions, and he's learned over the centuries that emergencies are rarely so urgent that he needs to make a decision immediately. 

Well. Either Vanyel is blocking the dream, or the gods are. Either way, it seems like they aren't going to have that opportunity to talk. 

Leareth is taking more active risks than he usually would, trying to get up-to-date information on what's happening in Haven, and so he learns shortly after waking up that the Heralds are ordering a Council meeting, and there are rumors that they're sending or maybe already sent delegations to Rethwellan and Iftel. 

...Leareth doesn't want to escalate in return. It's likely to do even more to confirm Vanyel's worst fears, if he acts to get the god-agent out of Haven. But at this point it doesn't seem like inaction will go any better. 

He already delegated to Nayoki to come up with a plan. He spends ten minutes considering whether he can think of anything better, concludes that no, and settles on writing a letter for Vanyel before giving Nayoki the final go-ahead. 

It's actually pretty nontrivial to figure out where the Heralds are keeping the foreign priest! They're being very inconveniently cautious and already moved him out of the guest wing! 

Getting more information without prematurely triggering a Web-alarm and putting the Heralds on high alert is seriously inconvenient, but overnight was long enough to get a Mindspeaker into the city. They can't risk having him skulking around the Palace, Companions can often tell at a glance when someone is Gifted, but he has the range to reach the handful of other un-Gifted agents still in place, and also to reach a mage twenty miles away who they were able to Gate in using a different shielded underground room to blur the Gate-signature and another diversion to cover the ripples in the local ley-lines. (They're benefiting from the emergency; at another time one of the Herald-Mages might have been following up more thoroughly on Web-alarms.) 

Nayoki rules out a number of places where they're pretty sure the priest isn't, and presents Leareth with some guesses for remaining options, though if they've stashed him in a randomly selected Work Room it's going to be very inconvenient to narrow down which one. 

That would be the smart thing to do, but Leareth's instinct is that the Heralds - even Vanyel - would feel like it was a rude way to treat a guest. Nayoki should try to find out if there are any rumors among the servants of being asked to set up comfortable furnishings somewhere, but - these are the other locations he thinks are plausible - it's honestly possible they would have put him in the Heralds' wing, somewhere where Vanyel had already set up a lot of wards... 

Nayoki narrows it down to half a dozen locations and puts nine in ten odds that he's in one of them.

Unfortunately all of them are properly shielded. The fastest way to check is to send half a dozen strike teams simultaneously. 

If they do that, it's very likely that the Heralds will respond fast enough for someone to get seriously injured or killed trying to hold them off. Which might happen anyway, but Leareth would rather do this as neatly as possible. 

Leareth can target a scrying-spell from a detailed enough map and knows a wide variety of scrying techniques that can get around many types of shield. It's going to take a candlemark and be intensely exhausting and he can probably only get 'is there a person in this room who isn't expected to be' - this is not a tractable method to spy on Haven in general - but he thinks he can check half a dozen known locations and tell them which one to target. 

He thinks it's worth waiting a candlemark to make this operation somewhat less likely to cause collateral damage.

Okay. 

Someone is in Savil's suite. All the other rooms expected to be empty are in fact empty. 

(Leareth can't get any more than that; he got a second or so of a very blurry impression through the shields and dropped it before the total magical signature would have exceeded the threshold to set off a Web-alarm.) 

It's going to be really awkward if the priest is set up in a Work Room somewhere or they got him out of Haven entirely and they're about to kidnap Savil's boyfriend, but oh well. 

Nayoki gives the order. 

One of Leareth's elite mages can target a Gate from a scry on the hallway. They'll have a team of specialist mages dismantle any active countermeasures – which will trigger a Web-alarm, but it's possible it won't forewarn the man inside, if he doesn't have mage-sight. Once any traps for unauthorized visitors are down, which should take a few seconds, another mage can drop a blind Gate two yards in front of the door and the strike team will go in. 

Total time to be in the room: less than ten seconds. Still long enough for one of the Heralds to Gate in if they're sharp, but probably not if they're interrupted in the middle of something. 

And Nayoki is going to go herself, because a set-command is more reliably, incapacitating and also faster than a compulsion – and in principle more likely to also block direct god-possession. Not that she's ever had a chance to test that theory. 

This is definitely one of the more dangerous things that Nayoki has done for Leareth in her years of work for him. She's tense, but not exactly scared, even though there's a higher chance than she would like that they're going to end up confronting Vanyel directly. 

The first Gate goes up. 

(Three seconds ahead of that Gate, a much bigger Gate goes up in the middle of Companions' Field. Not for long, but just enough to ensure that that Web-alarm reaches the Herald-Mages' attention first.) 

:What the - SAVIL–:

Vanyel is just getting up Farsight coverage on the Gate in Companions' Field, and being befuddled because that sure is a Gate but it's not...doing...anything...? - there's another Web-alarm but it takes a moment to shift his focus and figure out where it's coming from... 

Savil is faster, and already has her attention there when she feels the attack on - her own???? - wards. 

She's outside, unfortunately, headed from one meeting to another. She has to sprint for the nearest door-shaped thing before she can raise a Gate. 

:BLAI LOOK OUT–: 

Half the wards come crashing down.

Maybe two seconds after that, dozen mages and Nayoki blast their way in through Savil's door. 

The warning is enough that it's not a surprise round. He doesn't have his mail on - he was sitting in a warded room eating eggs and toast! - but he has the mace, and he has spells. He upends the breakfast table for cover and casts Prayer.

Nayoki does not recognize whatever he just cast at all but it's apparently not immediately incapacitating and it doesn't prevent her Othersenses from zeroing in on his mind.  

She slams a set-command to NOT DO ANYTHING at him. It takes her longer because she's trying to aim rather than hit everyone in the area including her own team, but she's very practiced at this and it's not a lot longer. 

He freezes in place, hand clamped around the sword-and-sun. Does this enchantment let him report to the Heralds by Mindspeech -?

He can't actively try to get their attention, but Savil is trying to reach him again a moment later, and the set-command doesn't stop him from having surface thoughts where she can see them. 

Also Vanyel has concluded that the huge (freestanding??? not on a doorway??????!!!) Gate in Companions' Field is a distraction, concluded that he doesn't have time to Gate in but is keyed to the shields and can Farsee into the room just fine, and is now trying to target a levinbolt via the Web at the attackers without hitting Blai.