After a long beat of silence, Tran interrupts. "And then what?" 

"....She told me that I needed to go talk to Vanyel. I - I swear - I didn't, I didn't know - that, that it would be, anything more than, than talking..." 

"I don't believe you." 

(The blue halo of the Truth Spell has never faltered.) 

Savil is so incredibly tired of gods, and everything being about Their will. 

"Karis, did you mean to kill Vanyel." 

"What?" Almost without meaning, Karis laughs. "No! He - we've barely met - but he, I–" 

"He is your enemy." 

".....Yes." 

Gah. 

Keiran, after staring at everyone for a long moment, stomps her foot on the floor. 

"Princess Karis. Tell me what happened after Sola told you to talk to Vanyel." 

"I went to his chambers." 

"I - I...." 

"I didn't mean to! I thought– I didn't think– I, I swear, I tried to stop -" 

Taver is in Herald Tantras' mind. 

None of it makes sense. 

His Herald - his - is asking questions, desperately but silently, and he should have the answers but he doesn't -

But Tantras had another Companion, once. 

Delian paces through Companions' Field. He doesn't know what's happening; he hasn't known in a long time. Usually Taver gives him updates, but Taver, too, is distressed by recent occurrences, and distracted...

He breaks into a trot, then a gallop, following the old paths by the river - and he doesn't leak his feelings deliberately, to the rest of the herd, but he doesn't check his shields either. 

One of the younger unbonded Companions falls into a matching gallop just because running is fun, and eavesdrops because eavesdropping is fun, and says, :Oh wow, you've missed kind of everything, haven't you!:

Delian is not used to being the one who's been missing everything. Usually Taver keeps him up to date, but Taver has been distracted for a while, now, and - well, if he still had a Chosen to protect, then maybe he would care, maybe he could manage some curiosity - 

- but, in fact, he doesn't. And he can't– or at least doesn't want to. 

Except apparently he's curious anyway. :Oh? What's happening?: 

:There's a WEIRD PERSON around and the WEIRD PERSON is like a human except he can fly, and make artifacts that fly, and also make an entire wall between us and Karse, and also do some kind of Healing, and, I don't know what else, probably a lot of other things, he's a very WEIRD PERSON:

:I heard about the wall: That's one of the few elements that Delian paid any attention to. :Why? Why did he care about our, our stupid war?: 

(Delian didn't mean to include 'stupid' in there, but it's hard to avoid showing one's true feelings in Mindspeech.) 

:Probably because he isn't too weird to know that invasions are bad! You'd have to be VERY weird not to know that, right?:

:....I guess: 

(Taver never told Delian about Leareth's lucid dreams with Vanyel, or about any of his previous conversations with his former, now-dead Chosen. Delian has wondered anyway, even at two removes.) 

:But what's happening right now?: 

:Oh, RIGHT now apparently Karis, the princess from Karse who came over to try to team up with us against the priesthood, tried to ASSASSINATE VANYEL. She was caught right away and she's getting questioned now! Vanyel will be fine, I hear:

:She WHAT? .....I - but - why would she do that? That doesn't make any sense!:

:Yeah it's SO WEIRD. Apparently she might have been POSSESSED!:

:By - by who. - by what..?: 

(Delian already knows the answer to this question. He doesn't want to know it but he does.) 

:I'm not sure! What kinds of things can possess people? Can demons do it?:

Delian has no idea either!

Though his former Chosen did have some conversations with Vanyel, and he does have a vague sense that Abyssal demons, even if they were capable of possessing humans - which it seems unlikely they'd be smart enough for - wouldn't take the actions that Karis, apparently, did...

:I think it must have been a god: 

And then he hesitates. 

For a long time. 

:....Her god: 

:Vkandis Sunlord: 

:Why would a GOD try to ASSASSINATE VANYEL, Delian, that's silly: