Swiftcurrent Creek but anything is preferable to the pain

She failed, chirped Aventus' mind, which he shut away behind sealed lips. He was beginning to suspect that Merrick did not see Avicus for her faults and disloyalty the way that Aventus did, and if he wasn't doing a particularly great job at figuring out what he wanted in his life, he was learning how to read his parents.

No point mentioning any of that to his sire. It would be overlooked, or he would be chastised again for seeing his sister's pointless pursuit of Nyra as abandonment.

Donovan. Aventus did not like that man. Never had, and likely never would. There was something rotting in the way he spoke, below the veneer of honey. Even if not for Nyra showing up on their borders after disrespecting his mother, Aventus would not have liked the Saints. He couldn't claim he was sorry for the dissolution of that ill-fated alliance.

But how to deal with him? That, he didn't know. Donovan was as slippery as an eel, and probably twice as vile as one. The boy had no idea, but he nevertheless suggested, lure him. Get him into the valley and he would die. Assuming he came alone, which would never happen. That was the part he didn't really know how to deal with.