Arrow Lake infidus

what penalty might he subject himself to now?

the travel with @Akavir and the woman, called wren, was mostly silent on his part. germanicus chose a directly western path that carried them into the large shadow cast by sunspire, and into the first crags of the alpine lake.

"shall we rest for a while?" there was little doubt in him that akavir might desire to travel nightly, but the mountainous terrain was harsh upon those unused to it.

germanicus had not asked why akavir wanted with the palace. and he had shared only necessary words with wren.

the familiarity of this place so struck the eagle that he felt overcome, and feigned searching for a game-trail to hide the fall of his stoic features.

Even with @Wren traveling with them now, Akavir had remained notably quiet on the journey. His thoughts adrift—one scenario to the next. The last he had passed these mountains had been with the reluctant acceptance that he could no longer linger in the area of where his wife had died and hade tried to make peace with that.

Peace had never come, and only when Germanicus mentioned they take a bit to rest did the man pull himself from his thoughts—a nod given before he slunk away amongst the crags of the lake’s stone walls.

His return would see a piglet in his grasp—to which he dropped at the paws of Wren—allowing her first selection should she wish it.

He remained near her—it wasn’t that he did not trust Germanicus—at least, not fully—but when his pale eyes drifted to the soldier, he found his jaw tighten—and at the behest of the setting sun, so did he choose his words carefully as he slowly reclined to a seat.

“Admittedly, I don’t consider myself a man of in depth strategy or calculation, Germanicus,” he offered, his voice hushed between the three of them. “But when Silvertongue speaks of a place with absolute contempt… and when she refers to you in the same manner, it’s not lost upon me that you seem to know so much of this Akashingo.”

A questioning gaze given, the brush of his paw to Wren’s own. “It would be nice if you could speak plainly of this place.”

The path they'd chosen was familiar enough. She knew this lake, to a degree, a roaring mouth that sat snugly between the soapstone crags of the Sunspires. She'd gone this way the last she travelled, and silently, she hoped Akavir would not make note of it. 
She is mostly quiet as well, feeling it wrong to break such a heavy silence, and remains so until a prize is dropped at her feet. A sheepish grin is cast in the Mayfair's direction along with a hum of thanks before her teeth are sunken into flesh. She is careful to ration, taking very little from the kill; for she was not the one who needed to be kept strong and energized here. 
And she is mostly tuned out of what little conversation there was until Silvertongue's name is mentioned. At that, ashen ears swivel forward. 
Silvertongue? she repeats, eyebrows narrowed; not angry, but rather curious, as chestnut gaze falls upon Germanicus. What's she got to do with Aka-shito? 

blood hung sweet in the air.

and germanicus walked upon the sword's edge of akavir's question. the yellowpaint eyes had remained implacable.

"i was there as a general beneath the rule of ramesses. he dealt in flesh and in slaves, and i brought mercenaries into the kingdom as spies. any woman who passed through that cursed place belonged to him. i headed the investigation when his queen was poisoned. and i helped to deliver akashingo into the hands of his daughter when she came to me in treason."

silvertongue. it would not be an untruth to say she and germanicus both loved crowfeather, but he had brought enough disrespect to each of them.

"a mercenary i stationed in akashingo fell in love with one of the queen's slave women. as payment he asked i end her contract with the palace."

arsenio's name, also, smeared with this mud, but arsenio had become a man of family and strong places, his loyalty eternal. and so the roman would not speak his name in this.

"i brought silvertongue to pharaoh, and he allowed the slave woman to go in return." and what had happened thereafter, germanicus too had not stopped, for he had left akashingo.

A fight perhaps—he had expected. An emotional battle for the affections of the three-legged Crowfeather, perhaps—

— What Germanicus revealed was a ticking bomb of emotion, and Akavir could feel himself begin to choke on it.

There was a buzzing in his ears—a faint hum and he felt as if he was drowning all over again. Lilitu, within the ranks of a man who pulled women in purely for his pleasure.

And Germanicus… “You placed her into slavery as if she were a toy?”

Deadpan. He could not even begin to think—suddenly, though, he found himself standing next to Wren, that knot of worry he held when leaving the creek worming it’s way to his chest. “Is the Pharaoh alive? Have you heard of a girl named Lilitu?”

The unraveling of Silvertongue was no more—and like bitter acid, he felt a disgust for the man before him. Does your lover know what you did to her? But he could not press it--not yet.

It was with this reveal that Wren felt a burning. A searing, soot-colored pain that scorched her insides. Silvertongue had been a slave, and she could only imagine with horrifically vivid imagery what that man must have put her through. 
And then her thoughts go to Lilitu, who she could only assume was the daughter Akavir searches for. 
Her sour, ugly gaze is burned into Germanicus, who is stone cold himself, frostbitten and unmoving. It takes all of her might to bite back the snarl, and for Akavir's sake, she does so, keeping her paw gently against his own. Had they both hands, she would have held his. 
I hope you're sorry, she scoffs under bitter breath, a coldness to it. She made a mental note to never tell Silvertongue she knew of this. 

"every day."

the utterance of this horrendous thing lifted nothing from germanicus. he felt keenly their anger and the righteous tearing of it. "i did. she and crowfeather both eventually fled akashingo and made their way to mereo where they stayed for a time."

"pharaoh is dead. his daughter makono rules now. lilitu was made a princess when she arrived from brecheliant, betrothed to one ramesses had chosen. she was insistent to discover her sister who once ran with a bear cult in the rising sun valley. I have not seen her since i granted directions to ursus."

voice unmoving. and tauris had sought to forgive him.

he was still.

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He knew Lilitu.

That ringing in his ears remained. Louder. More piercing. The mention of a sister in a bear cult—Arielle.

Brecheliant. Did Ibis know that one day, the pack she had helped rule would place her daughter in yet another empire, even darker than the one which she had been born to?

Did Crowfeather realize the devil which slept in his bed?

Tongue tracing along his teeth—he could only stare at the man. ‘Sorry’ was such a far cry from what should be spoken and abruptly, he stood. “I need a fucking minute,” he seethed, the venom in his voice surprising even himself as he spun, pacing away, knowing that if he stayed there, in that moment, the only gratification he would feel would be the crushing of Germanicus’ windpipe beneath his forceful jaws.

Instead, he moved away swiftly—a lope becoming a run—until the stars began to paint the sky. And there, a broken record in his mind, as sharp aqua eyes regarded him, and her whispered words were remembered from their first intimate moment together.

"Do you know what a courtesan is, Akavir? I can show you." She had whispered the words and wrapped around him. Beneath him.

... And there, Akavir would stop his fleeing and dry heave until he could no longer stand.

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making so many assumptions here, can edit if needed!

He needed a minute. Akavir needed a minute, and in that minute it felt as though the devil himself had crawled up Wren's spine and sunk talons into the back of her head. 
A thousand things flood into her mind at once. Akavir's daughter — daughters; slavery, sex, marriages, cults, betrayal, lies, honesty. 
Silvertongue.
Silvertongue.
Silvertongue.
The windswept riverwoman who held a diamond gaze, who arched beneath Wren as if she had never been touched before, who trembled as she spoke of Crowfeather. Who's laughter felt all-encompassing, who was the first person to look the Gamma in the eyes and say she thought she was beautiful. Layers and layers of thick skin that all protected a history of anguish, of lustful men, of shame. Of love she sought in men that which would never be returned to her, and it was then that she realized what it boiled down to, who had planted the first seed of those thoughts in her mind. 

And Wren was staring right at him.
And! As if it could not possibly be any worse, as if she could not hate this man with any more unbending furiosity, in Akavir she saw what must have been hellfire. In that moment, he was not her Alpha, her boss, her superior; but a broken man, a friend, who knew unspeakable grief. 
All it took to break the levee of restraint was his minute. 

Rising to a stand, the power of her step feels as if it shakes the earth; or maybe it was the fact that she herself was shaking, ripple after ripple of tremors. Full-body heat that bleeds into every move she makes, and it is not long before she is in Germanicus's stony face, staring with damn near crazed eyes that dig into the depth of his body. 
There is so much to say; so much, and she could yell. She could scream every insult in the book, tarnish his name, give him night terrors for the rest of his pathetic life. And yet all that comes from her mouth is one sentence. If I find out you are anywhere near Silvertongue again, you will be fucking lucky if Satan is merciful enough to take the soul of your rotten, mangled corpse into Hell. 

And that was it. Immediately, she trails after Akavir. 

there was weakness in their revulsion and the same in his assessment of that. akashingo stood as testaments to a thousand hungers. germanicus had no doubt that makono would have abolished such practices, but it did not matter now, for he had participated in them.

akavir's disgust was swift; his wrath worse. wren descended upon him with a paganic fury to rival a battlefield. greatest rage; the eagle knew if they meant to tear him asunder he would not fight.

but it was scorching words, it was the isolation of a fetid desert. they left him behind, sisyphus to the burden of his own cold machinations, in which life became currency and he himself walled to the miseries he continued to cause.

fennec's second garden. germanicus wondered, glancing toward the high trails above the lake which led to the canyon. from that shadowed place she had taken the substance which laid ramesses to rest. 

he remembered its leaves, and committed their details to proverbial parchment slipped into the joint of a breastplate. 

in the place where @Wren and @Akavir had departed the eagle, they would find three stones laid in the direction of mereo. he would range ahead and meet them at its edge.