"Yeah, we should probably not advertise this."

"I don't - actually know a way to get a message to Abadar without a lot of other people seeing it first. Though I still think it might be worth seeking His help. I - see why Nefreti thought He'd want to."

"I know a way to get a message to Abadar without anyone else seeing it first," he says tiredly. And then opens his mouth and closes it and doesn't manage any more sounds.

" - hmmm?"

Swallow. 

Fy squeezes him. 

"Pharaoh's my brother. I'm sorry. I know it was a shitty thing to do to you. Figured - can't really do shitty things to people that never have any observable effects on any of their experiences but actually I think you can, sometimes, and also there were probably some tail risks -"

"May I do a truth spell."

"Sure."

He reaches out and touches him, very delicately.

"The pharaoh of Osirion is my brother. Probably the one the stupid comment relates to, though I do have five others. I don't think he knows I'm here. I don't work for him and I never have. I met you before he was pharaoh and it seemed a bit more defensible not to mention that my grandfather was, he had hundreds of descendants by then -"

Fazil and Mahdi glance at each other and do not say anything.

This is enough to rouse Vanyel into rolling over and looking at them, though he doesn't comment. 

Leareth also says nothing. A very careful nothing. 

"Well, your grace, what do you want to do now."

"Get - back to what we were talking about."

Leareth takes a deep breath. Lets it out, slowly. (He wants to thank Hagan; wants to apologize; he wants this to make it less costly, somehow, but he isn't sure it's the kind of price that can be paid back by someone else.)

"I am not exactly happy, about presenting myself to a god's attention," he says. "That being said, if Aroden was truly another version of me, then he did - and Abadar was his ally, however disagreeable some of his country's current policies are to me. Aside from any concrete aid he might or might not offer, Abadar may know more of what went wrong, in this world's history, and that could help my world avoid those pitfalls. I am not sure I can afford to ignore potential allies simply out of fear." 

He turns to Hagan. "Do you trust him. Your brother. Separately from how you feel about Abadar himself." 

"Yes."

Nod. "I want to think on this further, but - I suspect our best gamble, here, is to go to him."

He glances at Vanyel. Switches to Mindspeech. :Speaking to Abadar is a prerequisite for attempting to resurrect his lifebonded, no? We need to know if your magic will work in Velgarth before you can risk traveling there: 

It's conceivable that we could do the resurrection here - if you die in the Elemental Plane of Fire or something it works fine to resurrect you in the Material one - but it ought to be first, I think, because Abadar will know whether resurrecting someone out of the jurisdiction of our gods poses any risks or has added complications or anything.

With the resources of the pharaoh we could do interplanar transit with arcane magic even if divine magic doesn't work there.

Glance at Hagan. :Is the pharaoh actually going to care about Vanyel's problem? Vanyel is not one of his citizens, or one of Abadar's people: 

One of his subjects, he corrects, a little bitterly. He will care about Vanyel because caring is - cheap, for him. He will be motivated to expend resources on Vanyel's behalf because access to another world is a useful kind of thing to have.

:Well. I suppose that is something: And it's a shape of alliance he knows how to have. :So I think that is our next action, but - is there anything else here we need to discuss...: 

He shakes his head. Switches back to speaking aloud. "I am confused about what she said. After she said she had not seen him - me? - in a long time. 'Oh, not this one. Our own, I loved, when I was a child. He is very clever, and he will not speak to me, here, he has turned his back on all the servants of all the gods.' Would she be old enough to remember Aroden at all...?" 

"Most humans don't live that long but there are ways, for powerful magic users. It would not astonish me to learn she was more than a hundred.

Doesn't really explain the present tense, though, unless she was eliding between Aroden and you clause-to-clause -"

Leareth nods. "It did seem a little as though she was doing that - she spoke about Abadar recognizing me, but of course I am not the one who has ever met him." 

"Something also feels confusing about 'he will not speak to me', you would have spoken to her if she'd wanted -"