...This is, in fact, also the first Vanyel is learning of the 'outer planes' where people GO TO LIVE FOREVER when they die and he has emotions. It's the worst possible time to be having emotions. He is nonetheless having a very difficult time concentrating on anything else right now. 

...he can't help trying to picture Leareth's face, when he receives this message. It - changes everything - and whatever else he thinks about the man, Vanyel has a hard time imagining that Leareth doesn't genuinely and deeply want people to stop dying. Or - well, this is almost better in a way than universal immortality, which has all sorts of complications, the sorting system is bizarre but...

He doesn't actually feel like he can guess how Leareth is going to react. Just that it's going to be - a big deal. 

(He might in fact kidnap Iomedae. It's got to be his first instinct to something this new and outside his known context, to get in control...) 

Randi eventually clears his throat. 

"Er. I...honestly don't have the slightest idea what Leareth is going to do with this. Whether or not he's the one who tried to kill her, actually." 

"There's absolutely no way he's going to believe any of it, right? I mean. I don't really trust - any of this - and that's with Van having been there in person with a Truth Spell." 

"I mean, no, not without more evidence. But - if it's true then it's the single most important thing that's happened in - possibly ever, or at least since the Cataclysm? He's going to at least check. - might try to check by kidnapping her but she thinks her god's miracles mean she can survive a Final Strike at close-up range, he almost certainly can't kill her and may not even be able to badly hurt her, and he probably can't compulsion her either. And if he does - act adversarially - then I think that mostly just confirms to her that he's in the wrong and Valdemar needs defending from him?" 

...Which feels, in itself, like a reason to predict that Leareth won't open with kidnapping, because Leareth isn't an idiot and it - holds together, that he genuinely doesn't want a war, which will be costly and destructive and mean it takes even longer to repair and get the thing he really wanted all along. Which Iomedae doesn't want him to have even via peaceful means, but - there might still be common ground there. 

Treven is biting his lip. "What's the risk of sending the letter on Iomedae's behalf? What options does it lose us?" 

"- Anything that would lean on him not knowing about Iomedae or her capabilities, I guess? But - if it was him who blew up k'Treva then he has to know already, right." 

If it was Leareth who– 

Vanyel's mind is still bouncing away from looking at it directly. It hurts, and he's so confused and - what does this even accomplish, from Leareth's point of view, losing Savil (quiet internal screaming, but he can, at this point, make himself think her name) weakened Valdemar meaningfully. But k'Treva isn't even Valdemaran territory. It has to have been insanely costly even for Leareth to operate there. You would think he would find something better to do with an agent in a Tayledras Vale - and it feels like an even thinner excuse that it was an impulse panic reaction to Iomedae's sudden arrival, one because Leareth does not at all seem like the impulse panic reaction sort of person, and two, because he would have had so little time to react, surely not even long enough to receive a spy-report from an agent and respond to it... 

Maybe someone in k'Treva was Leareth's agent and acted unilaterally? That - would be horrifyingly sad, mostly. And still doesn't feel like a story that leaves Vanyel less rather than more confused. 

But if it wasn't Leareth, then - no, he's still failing to think of literally any alternative. 

Treven clears his throat. "Is there any way it could have been an accident? Whatever happened in k'Treva, I mean. It would have to be a huge coincidence, but - it is in the Pelagirs, there's a lot of dangerous magic there...?" 

It would have to be an absurd level of coincidence, Vanyel thinks grumpily - not just that it happened at all, when he's never heard of anything like this, but the exact timing - unless maybe there was a magical interaction, that some of Iomedae's otherworldly powerful magical artifacts or some of her glued-on persistent godmiracle powers interfered with the functioning of the Vale's magic, destabilized some critical infrastructure...? 

The insane conspiracy theory, of course, is that it was Aroden's doing. Or - indirectly, maybe, if the sudden presence and influence of a completely unknown god spooked the Star-Eyed into something that– 

....something that - if not for Iomedae's determined insistence on diplomacy, and maybe even with it, will inevitably result in a war. 

Which (horrified recognition) might, actually, be rather in the Star-Eyed's interests. 

Except that the entire theory is also completely insane. They were Her people. It would surely have cost Her even more than it gained her - it was already pretty determined that Valdemar would go to war, after Savil - 

- the fish came from the Pelagirs - 

- this is an agonizing and stupid thread of thought to be chasing in the middle of an urgent meeting. Vanyel drags his attention back to the room. 

"- good point, that the worst-case scenario here is that Leareth is responsible for k'Treva," Randi is saying. "In which case Iomedae wanting to try diplomacy first doesn't give much away. - that she survived, I suppose, but he would notice her defending Valdemar, and - I mean, I'd want him to realize he can't kill her and his best option is to try leaving us alone." 

"I don't like it. What if k'Treva wasn't him?" 

Randi closes his eyes. Pinches the bridge of his nose again. "Then - I have no idea what. Except that - if it wasn't an accident - we might have an even worse problem than Leareth."

Gods can nudge for convenient accidents  Vanyel is going to NOT THINK ABOUT THIS right now. 

"I think the considerations are in favor of trying it," he says quietly. "And, I mean, I did tell Iomedae I would - didn't promise, but - we want her on our side." 

They really do. 

If they can trust her. 

Vanyel...isn't sure it matters whether or not it's a good idea to trust her. They don't have a choice. She can demonstrably do whatever she decides to do, and if Leareth can't stop her then certainly Valdemar doesn't stand a chance. 

"I'm guessing I'm going to need to handle the Gate again," he says wearily. 

"I'm sorry. I think so. Jisa's exhausted, and she's already helping Brightstar with pastwatching, we're running out of time on that window. I, I just - I really don't want to put anything else on him, after..." He trails off. 

He should be there for his children. It hurts, somehow almost more sharply and cleanly than the rest, that he can't because things won't stop happening. 

He can raise a Gate to the message-drop location that he and Leareth agreed on, months ago. Which might turn out to be redundant as soon as he goes to sleep, this is new information if anything is, but - 

- but so was Savil (pain, grief, anger), and the dream didn't come for that. Hasn't come for months, come to think of it. He...should probably at some point try to consider possible reasons why. 

Later. He's too tired for anything more than Gating and then collapsing into bed. 

None of them are thinking. 

Stef can half-sense the pattern of the mistake they're making, and yet he can't step out of it either, any more than he can fly. He is, as usual, hovering and making himself forgettable as he sings away the King's pain, which takes quite a lot of effort these days and leaves little room for thought, and Vanyel's exhausted grief is sucking at him through the lifebond, and - they're making a mistake, it has the quality of itchy frustration that comes with listening to a ballad where the main characters are walking into their doom, looking only straight ahead and not sideways... 

He needs to talk to Van about the afterlives, he didn't miss that flinch, but it feels impossible right now. There's too much weight over both of them. 

Van is tense and miserable enough to hurt himself badly if he tries to Gate right now. Stef will walk with him and the letter to a Work Room, and sing safety and relaxation and nothingcanhurt until the Gate is up and then down and the letter is on the other side. At which point Stef, too, is almost too tired to walk in a straight line. 

They can go to bed. It's not even that late, and tomorrow won't even be any better, but maybe things will just stop happening at least long enough to rest, long enough for Van to find the strength to keep going. 

Night falls early, in the north. It's been dark for candlemarks, and Leareth's initial scry of the message-drop site, in response to the Gate-signature triggering his wards, doesn't show anything except darkness. 

He dispatches one of his Adepts to Gate there immediately. It might be a trap - if anything could prompt Vanyel to use their previously-negotiated neutral channel of communications for an attack, it would be the death of his aunt - but he cannot, at this point, afford to turn down any overtures. And it would be more characteristic of Vanyel to start with a furious message demanding an explanation. He's not going in person, of course, but with reasonable precautions, he places low odds on even a hostile move being irreparably damaging.

Within three minutes he has confirmation that it is, indeed, a letter. Several copies of it, in fact, in separate envelopes and padded boxes around the lonely forest clearing, obviously intended to offer as much redundancy as possible while not actually requiring the chronically personnel-strapped Heralds to raise multiple Gates. 

Ten minutes after that, a clean copy of the letter - he did ask his people to confirm that the letters were all the same one - is on his desk. 

This letter was written with Vanyel's assistance, but I, Iomedae, Knight-Commander of the Knights of Ozem, am the primary author. 

Not, apparently, a letter from Vanyel. Though written and delivered with his assistance, if its claims are to be believed. One line in and he's already so painfully confused. 

I arrived in K'Treva Vale shortly before the explosion, and I think it may have been a response to me, though I don't know how or why.

- what? 

Leareth goes very still, and then reaches out in Mindspeech. :Nayoki. I will have more for you soon, but - there are claims there was an explosion in k'Treva Vale. You have full authorization to use any resources that would help to verify this.: