She nods.  "I'll keep that in mind.  My thanks, Archon Ashe.  Is there anything we should speak of remaining?  If not...I should prepare a letter to Tunon, in case of my unexpected demise, with what is known so far."

"Barik knows of what happened with Brennix, as do most of the Iron Walkers and all the Iron Guard. ...Maybe not Radix, he's been isolated. Beyond that, I don't believe so. I'll contemplate what things my honor might allow, for the parley tomorrow; I will support you as much as I feel I can. Good fortune."

"May fortune be with you, as well."

That...went very well.

(She's expecting something to explode any minute now, really.)

When she is reunited with her retinue, the first words she speaks are "That was...surprisingly informative.  Some of it, I can't or sha'n't disclose, but...Nerat has most certainly been doing verifiable crimes, if Ashe's word is honest - and I believe it would be.  Verse and Lantry, a moment?"

"Color me unsurprised. In the tent?"

"Seems reasonable.  Actually, Lantry, hold a moment, there's something I want to discuss with Verse privately."

"The only surprising part is the 'verifiable'. Call for me when you need me, then."

"Of course."

And when they are in private, and warded - "...I would like to read Lantry in on the subject of what happened to you, in the hope that two heads are better than one in figuring out what about the nature of your nature is - extensible to Nerat.  Because at this point he's definitely going to die; the question is more 'who of Bleden Mark, Graven Ashe, Tunon, Kyros, or myself will kill him'."

"Can you trust him? I trust that he's a genuine coward, and I doubt he'd lie to your face. But I'd bet iron he knows a lot more than he pretends. And he's kind of a know-it-all, so that's saying something."

"I'll raise you that he has as much of a grudge against Nerat as you do - and for similar reasons of the Voices being a bad boss to have.  I can't make sense of why he ended up where he did otherwise, or why Fifth Eye disregarded him so, given - well.  His being an obvious know-it-all - unless, of course, Nerat already knew he knew everything Lantry did, and was keeping him somewhere he couldn't cause trouble, for potential later use.

"...That could be evidence either way on his being a spy, though.  I suppose it depends on how good of a read Nerat has on me, to determine whether I'd bite to begin with, and whether he's trying to be thorough."

"...Okay, you're better at this twisty thinking shit than me. You want to trust him, sure, your choice."

She nods.  "...Really, part of the reason I am - less worried about this risk than I would be if it was Barik who'd come to me with surprise mystical powers - is that I'm having trouble thinking of how else you could have been given powers like the Archon of Secrets except through the actions of the Archon of Secrets.  That - role doesn't fit you.  You don't have that sort of mythos about you, naturally - if I was going to extrapolate the way you are to the sort of - shape of an Archon - I'd expect you to be an Archon of Blood, or an heir of Shadows - not heir to Secrets."

"Yeah, I don't know either. If I was going to give the whole... feeling a name, I'd say it feels hungry. Has there been an Archon of Hunger? Maybe some Beastwoman."

"I can't think of one."

She beckons Lantry in.

"Well, maybe that's what Nerat would be if he got to choose, under the act. But probably not."

Lantry ducks under the flap and enters. "What did you want to ask me about, Fatebinder?" For once, he's left his quill still, and his parchment in his pack.

"Your past experience with the Archon of Secrets."

He sighs. "There's probably no point dissembling about it, is there? I never met him in person, and I passed precious little information out - beyond the Chronicle, and that's public to anyone who asks for it. But one of his more secret Eyes recruited me, oh, five decades ago. He knew this Conquest was coming, which was obvious, and in my lifetime, which wasn't - think he got lucky on that part, actually - and that the Sages would be stubborn motherless cusses about acceding to the law on forbidden knowledge. Wanted to fund influence who would argue that we couldn't withstand Kyros, or that's what the Eye said. Probably he wanted access to the deeper secrets, and still does, but I never got access to many of them and he never actually asked. I'd already read histories of Kyros's conquests, not just our neighbors in my grandfather's time, and was happy to argue for it - it seemed like the truth to me anyway. I got word to run before the Edict of Fire, and seeing who else fled that day was the first time I had more than inklings who else was on Nerat's take. But I'm not anymore, and the more I learned about him the worse idea it seemed - if I could go back and do it again but with Kyros as paymaster, sure, but with the one I actually worked for, I'm not so sure. Hmm... yeah, I think that covers it. I'm pretty much the cowardly historian I act like, it's just... footnotes. Maybe a lot of footnotes, but they all say the same thing."

"It's good that you've not been in Nerat's presence; less chance he's seeing through your eyes.  ...I'm still vaguely annoyed at Rhogalus for not taking nominal custody of the School, really - it would have avoided the necessity of the Edict - but not all of us can creatively interpret the law off the top of our head.  Regardless."  She fuzzes the next bit from Verse's perception, just in case.  "We're trying to figure out how to meaningfully - kill, usurp, subvert - the Voices, and I think that -" she defuzzes - "there's possibly something relevant to the way Nerat's powers work, in a thing that happened to Verse.  We're - keeping that matter to ourselves, right now, thus the privacy.  I want to read you in, though, because you'll have thoughts and knowledge I might well not.  So...Verse, do you want to tell him what happened, or should I explain what you told me?"

"Yes, I'm rather thankful for that as well. ...I'll contribute what I can."

"My sisters - my squad - died, in a fight. And it was like their minds were the other end of a rope and it snapped back into mine. I can fight like any of them, though not quite as well as they could. Also, and by all means give him shit about this, Barik is my half-brother and I can sense him in a fight, like I used to with my sisters. Like most Furies can with their squads."

"Well, other than the snapping back, that sounds more like Ashe than Nerat. It doesn't seem useful to Nerat like his Eyes are... have you ever heard of Eyes being fielded as one of a tight-knit squad? Even before they're made Eyes? If this happens more broadly you'd think he'd exploit it. I'm no expert on the organization of the Chorus, maybe he does, but..."

"...Lantry, really, think bigger than that.  Yes, this expresses more like Ashe's Oathbound, the way Verse experiences it, but if Nerat could - tie himself to arbitrary persons, the way Verse bonded to Barik despite barely knowing him - that explains the Eyes existing."

"Oh, it could explain that, it absolutely could. But... Nerat is tricky but does he strike you as patient when he doesn't need to be? Willing to hide, but also mostly give up, a potentially massive edge that could get him a coterie of elite followers, each with the skills of a half-dozen people, for the sake of hiding some details of how Eyes work? I've only observed from a distance, but his historical record is... not short. And I don't think he would do that. So, unless Verse sees signs of that, I have an alternate theory."

"I...don't think I have? Fifth Eye went straight from being a Wild Wrather to being a leader of the Crimson Spears - Nerat was yelling 'Redundancies! Redundancies!' and blood was spattering onto the tent walls - and then he was an Eye, and he never got close enough to anyone to bond to a squad. Some of the other Spears were Furies, but I don't remember any of them ever getting new skills out of nowhere, and definitely not when they lost sisters, or the occasional brothers. No one knows who the other Eyes are... though most people say Jagged Remedy, and they're probably right. He's lost a lot of 'patients', but not a squad - his gang are there to learn from him and risk the vivisection to do it, not for him to 'learn' from."

"...So what's your other theory?"

She would also quite like to know, though she thinks something about what she meant got lost in transmission, earlier.