Book 5: Chapter 42
“What?” Alahna recoiled from Eleniah’s glare. “I had no idea there would be an attack last night!”
“Bullshit!” Eleniah shouted. “You literally mocked that idiot Karmondur about how you knew all about his plans!” Her scowl deepened as she continued to stare down her cousin. “You dragged us here and put Kay in danger for one of your stupid schemes. What was the plan? Use the excuse of the replacements appearing to get Kay to come so you could force Karmondur to launch his play early? No, that’s too simple for you, isn’t it?”
Alahna watched Eleniah as she ranted, the expression on her facing slowly changing from shock to understanding. She closed her eyes when Eleniah trailed off and took a long, deep breath. “We really should have had that conversation sooner than this.”
“That’s what you have to-“
Kay grabbed Eleniah’s shoulder, cutting her off mid yell. She resisted for a moment, but let him draw he back down to the couch she’d angrily sprung up from.
Alahna appeared vulnerable as she watched Eleniah silently fume, but that went away as she firmed up her posture and looked at Kay. “Do we have time for this? Don’t get me wrong,” She added hastily, “I’m not trying to get out of talking about this, but if there’s a critical emergency right now…”
“I don’t know of anything that needs an immediate response.” Kay replied. He paused for a moment, then shrugged. “I have news about the enemy that I think you need to know, and something could happen at any moment, but I don’t know about anything right now.”
“Good.” Alahna straightened herself out as she turned back to Eleniah. “Eleniah. I had absolutely no idea that Karmondur was going to pull anything last night, let alone go for a full blown coup. He was one of the people that we were planning to look into regarding the people who weren’t replaced by whatever those black monsters are that were still acting strangely, but we hadn’t discovered any connections before the dance started. I thought that Karmondur was at least smart enough to not try anything when a guest as high ranking as Kay is was present, because then I’d have an excuse to crack down on him hard, but even in my least charitable estimations of him I wasn’t expecting a terribly planned attempt on my life.”
“Then what was all that about after the first attack?” Eleniah demanded. “What was the line? ‘I’ve known about what you’ve been planning for years’, or something like that.”