Northstar Vale aranea

I have not always thought so little of you.

A small shrug lowered his shoulders. Arsenio glanced to the right, brows raised in apathy.

I have watched you from the side, though. I have seen how you are just as politically crafty as the Pharaoh is. I have seen you stand firmly in your beliefs, damning the voices around you if you did not agree with them. I have seen you play every role that you must.

It had been different, when they had stood side-by-side. It had been different when Germanicus had felt like a brother and less like a man who might turn on you at any moment. Arsenio had seen him go from Akashingo to Mereo and the wolves that he had tossed aside without care in his wake. All the while, the Imperator marched on, head held stoically above the rabble.

You do not do anything to risk angering even the worst men. You remain the same, detached, stony, immovable mountain of a man who’s greatest strengths are in deals and ranks, but not the heart. Am I to believe that you told the Pharaoh that Mereo is not his outpost, that you will not answer to him? I know it cannot be so.

To claim otherwise was bold and angered Arsenio.

For your soldier Reyson was stationed there, serving his time to the Pharaoh. It is the reason Meadow went to him, no? So, please… drop this cool-faced façade. You and I have both seen each other’s true colors.

A wicked smile turned his lips and scrunched his snout.

But I do not carry guilt for the choice that I made. I will tell you the same thing that I told Tamar. I would trade twenty girls for her life, without question. There is no cost too great. There never would be.

I have seen you slight others. You have slighted me, already. When their word was their bond and Germanicus had not upheld his end of their discussions, what trust was to be given? How could Arsenio put his faith in such a fickle thing?


I do not say these things to you because I wish to fight you. I say these things to you so that you know, without question – if the time comes and you decide to uphold your ties to the Pharaoh, you will have made yourself my enemy. And that is all there is to that.