"Well, it's people you're actually interacting with, so at least the mountain you want to paint purple is one you have to see out your bedroom window. And it does seem more efficient to not kill people if you can accomplish your goals without killing them, and if you predictably won't kill people then they are probably more inclined to surrender to you and so on. And you don't make enemies out of their distant estranged adventurer sons or whatever."

"- Yes, I agree on the inefficiency of killing people. And the...aspect of precedent." 

Leareth stops there, and doesn't say anything for a long time. 

He's thinking about the fact that, yes, he's killed a lot of people's children - or parents, or friends - and, yes, that was a direct cost drawn from his future resources-in-expectation. One he's tried to take into account. Though he wasn't very skilled at making that tradeoff, early on - and then later, after the Cataclysm that nearly destroyed all of civilization, he was forced to make it over and over out of sheer desperation. 

(Leareth is pretty sure that he saved tens of thousands of lives at the time, as a direct effect of his interventions. And hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, with later downstream effects - when he was solely responsible for preserving knowledge of mage-techniques or medicine or building, that would otherwise have been lost... He's done the math on it. Both at the time, hastily, and over and over afterward. It doesn't hurt, thinking about it now - that would be stupid, it wouldn't help - but he can still look back and notice that he would have preferred, if circumstances had been different, if he could have somehow saved everyone...) 

A mountain far away, versus one outside your bedroom window... It's an interesting thought experiment, he notes distantly. He wonders what Vanyel would think. Vanyel now, and also Vanyel as he was when they first met, over a decade ago - haggard and silver-haired, in the dream set in both of their futures which is always the same, but with a boy's eyes... 

Several hundred miles to the southwest: 

Vanyel pauses just outside the meeting-room. It's the middle of the night. After waking from the dream, spending a minute in quiet panic, waking Yfandes, and frantically taking notes for a half-candlemark, he called an emergency meeting of the Senior Circle. Everyone except Tran, who had a particularly bad day yesterday and needs his sleep. 

His hands are shaking. Vanyel wills them to stop. They don't. 

Yfandes' mind brushes his. :Chosen - are you sure about this?: 

Vanyel isn't sure he's ever been less sure of anything. 

:I'm not looking forward to it, love, but - I don't see that we've got a choice:

And he forges into the meeting-room. 

A semicircle of tired, cranky faces greet him. Savil scowls. "Van, this had better be worth it." 

"You're going to want to hear this. And I think you'll be glad I didn't wait until morning." 

Vanyel takes his own seat, heavily, glancing around at the faces. Keiran, eyes puffy but alert, fingers already poised on her pen to take notes. Joshel, looking even younger and more overwhelmed than he usually does. Katha, quiet and contained. 

Randi's skin looks even more tightly-stretched over his cheekbones when he's been dragged out of bed in the early hours of the morning. Shavri sits beside him, her face unreadable. 

"Who are we still waiting for?" the King says, looking around. 

"Just Kilchas, I think." Savil covers her mouth against a yawn. "He'll be here soon." 

Kilchas is there within thirty seconds, surprisingly bright-eyed. He sits down, props his chin on his hands. "Van, boy, this had better be good." 

It's kind of the opposite of good, really. 

Vanyel takes a deep breath. "I...have news about the situation in Iftel. But, er, there's some - background, to explain first - I guess I have a confession to make." 

He looks over at the King, his friend. "...Randi, I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. Taver knew, 'Fandes and I went to him right away - twelve years ago - and he ordered us to keep it secret. From everyone, including Elspeth - he didn't say why, I think it was some sort of, er, cryptic Groveborn reason. Lancir knew, though. I - should maybe have reconsidered once both of them were dead, but..."

He shrugs helplessly. "There was a lot going on." 

Randi blinks, then nods. "Van, I understand. If Taver wanted it kept quiet... I can't be angry with you about that." 

Is that going to last past the first three sentences he says? Vanyel has no idea. 

He reaches across the table to brush his hand against Randi's. It makes Mindspeech easier; Randi barely has the Gift at all. 

:It's about Leareth. So, er, I think we have to brief everyone here on - that, first: 

Randi's eyes widen a little. Confusion and worry. Not alarm, exactly - not yet.

:- Of course: 

It's odd, Vanyel finds himself thinking. Right before entering this room, he was terrified, but now most of what he's feeling is...relief? 

He never asked to keep such vast secrets. It feels like setting down a heavy weight that he's been carrying for years. 

"So - not everyone here knows this, but - you do know I have the Gift of Foresight. I've only ever had one vision, though. Of - of how I die. Fighting a mage in the north -" 

He describes the original Foresight dream, as succinctly as he can manage. 

Keiran looks faintly nauseated, as she takes notes, and there's a trace of - pity, or something like it, in her eyes as they flash to Vanyel.

Katha's face is a study in quiet concentration. 

Kilchas, though, mostly looks intently curious. 

And Savil, without saying anything, reaches across the table to squeeze Vanyel's hand. 

The room waits in silence. 

He takes a deep breath. 

"That's not the part Taver wanted kept secret, obviously. Elspeth knew, and after her death I briefed Randi. But... About a year after I first saw that in a Foresight dream, it - changed." He swallows hard. "It - I was practicing lucid dreaming, I don't know if that's why, I think something else must've been going on. It changed and - he was there too, it was a shared dream for both of us. And we could talk. Have been talking. For almost twelve years, now." 

Shavri is the first to find her voice. "That's– oh, gods, Van. You've been dealing with that alone?"

Since he was seventeen years old. She knew him at seventeen. So did Randi, technically, but - not really, not the same way. He wasn't there on a storm-lashed riverbank, at the start of it all... 

"- Not completely alone." Vanyel blinks hard. He - wasn't expecting that response - he's not sure what he was expecting. For everyone to be looking at him the way Keiran is, maybe, with sick horror at the implications. "Not alone - I had Yfandes the whole time. And Lancir advised me until his, er, death." 

Randi takes a deep breath, and visibly tries to collect himself. "So. Shared lucid Foresight dream, you and Leareth were talking. Go on - how is this related to Iftel and what's going on there?" 

Vanyel had expected a lot more questions. ...Probably they're still coming, once everyone absorbs the first shock. But for now it's convenient, that he can just forge ahead, skimming over the more - complicated - aspects of his quasi-friendship with his destined enemy. 

"Leareth, er, noticed the situation over there as well. He started investigating it."