Donovan had now entered the forest. Whoosh...cluunk!...Whooosh...Clooonk!... he heard the chimes ring from above as they were knocked about in the boughs of a stormy breeze. Cluuunk-a-cluuunk-a-cluunk! he heard further as he continued down the path. The marten, pausing to see where this last noise came from, looked up and saw a rather large collection of wooden chimes hanging right above him. A collection of three chimes, with feathers hanging off for decoration and what looked to be a name carved in the language of Musteladonian, Donovan could scarcely make out the etchings as he tried to translate this name written on the chime.
"D-Derik..." he murmured. "D-Dashes-for-the- Raft?"
He shivered, as there suddenly was a harsh and fearsome breeze, at the utterance of the name. The wind was not wicked or anything like that. It was just...what Donovan would describe as something with a power to it. The marten, after trying to shake it off, then turned expecting to simply be able to be on his way, and not to come face to face with another marten, who he was positive, had not been standing on the road behind him before."
"What the...!?" Donovan exclaimed as he jumped backward, nearly scrambling to the tree behind him. "Who...what...Who are you? What do you want? Where the dells...where did you come from?" A thousand questions shooting from the marten's mouth at once. All of which, this other marten responded to in kind, with a light chuckle and a roll of his eyes as he replied. "Ah, the path of the Deicide. How I love being the first one that the young initiates must encounter." The marten, with a sigh, then told Donovan, "Please, my descendant. I must ask that you calm yourself. We have much to do, and not much to do it in. I am only the first of twelve that you must learn of. So if you will collect yourself, I will introduce myself, and then we will get started. Agreed?"
Donovan nodded; his faculties slowly having returned to him. "A-Agreed..." he replied, knees still shaking from the fact that the marten showed up out of nowhere. "Just...who...how?"
The other marten chuckled. "You are experiencing a shar'mem," he stated, as if that clarified everything. "A shared memory, in the basic tongue of most Mintarans. It is a state only we martens can enter. Usually by being made comatose or entering a meditative state. It allows us not only to share the memories of those who have passed but to interact with them as well."
Donovan raised a brow. "So you...this..." he motioned to the forest around him, "My mother..." this is all some comatose induced dream?"
"Not exactly."
This other marten, who wore his blonde locks down to his shoulders, and who wore a few colorful beaded braids clipped in along with a single gold coin around his neck and robes which looked similar to what nobles might wear, motioned Donovan to follow him. "This," he exclaimed, "is the forest of the Chimes. Every marten that has ever lived, their soul rings on forever here. Resonating from the chimes, they are free to forever be part of the forest. A part of soft breeze, the sweet water, this place where light and dark, ever intermingle..."
This marten sighed as he looked to the sky. "Well...on most days, it's like that anyway," he murmured in a soft tone. "This place...spirit and physical, they maintain a link, most are not aware of. That ermine, Dylan...Her actions are making alterations that were never supposed to occur. Forces that were never supposed to get out...they're finding their way through cracks that she's opening. It's making things much more unstable on this end. And soon, will be felt on the physical end as well."
"I see..." Donovan nodded solemnly, as he followed this strange second marten. "And...you know all of this how?"
"Oh..." the second marten paused. "I still haven't introduced myself, have I?" he exclaimed, with a bit of an embarrassed chuckle. "Please, forgive me. It's only proper you know my name. Especially since I'm to be your guide for the next little while. The name is Derik. Derik Dashes-for-the-Raft, if you wish the formal title. I know it's rather lengthy. I myself, have actually never been that surprised that my descendants decided to abridge it the way they did. Changing it from Dashes-for-the-Raft to..."
"...Dashraft. You're the first patriarch of the Dashraft Clan?"
Derik nodded.
"Aye," he replied, raising the necklace he wore, on which hung a single golden coin. "First Patriarch, First keeper of the family coins, and first Deicide. A point which reminds me, it's the last of those which is the real reason you're here, isn't it my blessed descendant?"
"It is."
Derik smirked. "Good," he replied in a more somber tone. "I like a marten who knows how to get right down to business. Follow me then, if you would?" The marten patriarch thus led the way for Donovan, as the forest began to melt away and shift into a far more urban and industrial appearance. A sight of stone walls and of city markets quickly rising up around him, Donovan was getting a bit used to the strangeness of the mindscape by now. He wasn't as put off as when he'd first woken up to find himself back on the shores of Jutfaang. And was admittedly, slowly starting to expect strange things to happen as he realized this was a world within his subconscious. That the physical laws of reality did not necessarily apply here. And if a city needed to crop up in place of a forest to teach him his lesson, then so be it. All he could think to do, was follow his ancestor as the elder marten led the way down an ancient cobblestone path. One which felt hard and uneven under Donovan's paws, and which was surrounded on all sides by an environment of scents and voices that seemed so real and so vivid, they made it hard for Donovan to keep in mind that this was all the result of a blending between Darik's memories and his own senses.
"Gah," Donovan snarled, as he shook his head. "I...I never thought a Shar'mem..."
"Could be this intense?"
Darik chuckled. "Just let it happen," he said. "Don't try to think. Don't try to distinguish one thought from another. It's not a matter of 'this is Donovan and this is Darik.' It's not like you have someone who's in control. Just...watch. Watch like you would a lazy river on a summer afternoon, and let the scene play out, okay?"
"Okay."
Donovan relaxed and did as he was told. As he stopped trying to fight and to organize his thoughts and as he just let things go on their course, the voices and the scene around him became more solid and more substantial.
Donovan started hearing the voices of merchants call out, their loud barking calling prices, discounts and how fresh and wonderful their wares were, in a most musical tone, as he and Darik continued down the street. Darik, who navigated these streets as if he knew them like the back of his paw, then motioned for Donovan to stop, once they reached the edge of a small town square. "Stop," Darik spoke softly to Donovan. "This is it."
"This is what?"
"Where it began. And where it begins for all Deicides," Darik stated cryptically, as he motioned for Donovan to peer through the crowd. A guard at the center of the attention chastising two figures. One, a marten. The other, an ermine.
Derik sighed, as Donovan turned back to face him, a confused look on his face. "What does..."
"What does two youngsters getting chastised have to do with any of this?" Derik smirked, and chuckled. "That marten, was me." he stated. "A young Derik Dashes-For-The-Raft. Son of Damirius Dashes-for-the-Raft. The greatest philosopher, historian, and astronomer which Musteladonia would ever know. Everyone thought I would be the same. They expected great things of me, you see. I was always expected to get the best marks from my tutors. I was expected to excel and be perfect in every way. And I got so tired of the pressure, I decided I would rather be off spending time with my best friend than meeting people's expectations."
"And who was your best friend?"
Derik nodded back to the ermine. "Dhalia Frostwood," he replied. "Her mother was the owner of the Dusty Daisy. A bar located in one of the border regions of the city where the poor and lower-class citizens that included the ermines, were housed."
"So how..."
"How did a well-to-do marten meet an ermine from the borders?" Derik chuckled. "Funny story that," he said. "See, one day I got so bored with the well-to-do life, I wandered down to the borders to see if things were really as bad as people claimed they were. Well, not only did I find conditions there worse than what I braced myself for, I may have also put my foot quite literally into the middle of a dice game during one person's quite lucrative lucky streak. Needless to say, the fact that I was the cause of him losing everything on that singular roll, as you can imagine, did not sit well with him. So, he gathered his friends, and they came charging after me seeking vengeance for my clumsy and ill-sighted interruption."
"And Dhalia saved you?"
"Mmm-hmm. I mean...sure. She almost pulled my arm from my socket, as fast and as hard as she pulled me into that alley. Still, I'd rather have had that, then have been killed at the hands of some rather vengeful gamblers."
"I see..." Donovan chuckled. "And you became friends after that?"
"For a time. I mean... She was just what I needed, to escape my pristine prison where perfection was expected everywhere I looked. With Dhalia, I could be myself. She encouraged me to be open. She encouraged me to express myself, and to follow my own ambitions. To not worry about what others thought. All that should matter, she told me, is what I wanted out of life. I should always go for my goals, she told me, and not let the opinions of society stifle me. An opinion I at the time, agreed with. I...I even thought I loved her for awhile, I'll admit that."
"But...?"
"But that all changed as we grew older. Dhalia, her ambitions went from something healthy to something that started to consume her. She became more jaded, angrier. She began to focus in a way like I had never seen before, when it came to uplifting her people's status in the social system. I mean...I had always been for helping her on that. But this...it was too much. She was no longer the friend I knew. She was becoming radical. Venomous. Corrosive, even."
"So did you confront her?"
Darik nodded. "I did," he replied, as the scene around them shifted to what looked like the inside of a ruin or catacomb. A memory which Darik described in further detail, as he explained to Donovan what this scene was about.
"It was here, in the Musteladonia catacombs," he stated. "that Dhalia and I had our final encounter as friends. Here all things came to an end for us," Darik stated, "when I caught her making a pact with the Omnifarious. She claimed she'd finally realized there was only one way to raise her people out of their dire straits, and that it involved using the power which would be granted to her, to totally abolish the systems as they currently stood."
"And this is when you saw the Talons for the first time?"
Derik nodded. "Horrific devices," he replied. "Like a perverse and twisted version of the Gauntlets, they know only how to unleash complete and utter destruction. An activity Dhalia gladly partook in, as the first wielder of corrosion magic. Her power now absolute, it did not take long for my former friend to be warped by the power she wielded. Every blast of venom unleashed. Every otter or marten she subjugated. Every eager revolutionary she trained and conscripted...it all served one purpose in the end."
"Which was?"
"To push her into believing that she was the savior of weasel-kind. To believe that the power she'd been gifted was hers for a reason, and that only by destroying the cornerstones of weasel society and then rebuilding it, could things be done right."
"So she went mad."
"Pretty much."
"Is that then, why the gauntlets were constructed?"
Derik nodded softly, and gave a wave of his hand, the scene changing once more. "I was originally opposed, after what I'd seen with the Talons," he stated. "However, I was eventually persuaded by the Empire's leaders that the only way to fight a weapon such as the one that Dhalia wielded, was to have our own set of Gauntlets. One imbued not with the destructive power of the Omnifarious, but with his counterpart, the Great Hart Balan. Lord of Creation. A being known to us martens as 'The Originator.'
"And thus, the Great Marten-Ermine War ensued?"
Derik nodded. "Yes," he replied, as he removed the necklace he wore and hung the singular coin around Donovan's neck. "And a mighty and horrible war it was. Though the winds tell me, that part of the tale, is not mine to tell. For that," he urged with a nod, while the forest again appeared before Donovan. "You must go speak with the ones who are more familiar with that time of bloodshed and terror than I. Only they can tell you what happened next as Dylan became ever the more consumed by her own darkness. By her own hate, her own ambitions...Ah. Well, I suppose I shouldn't spoil it. Just know lad, you will learn everything when you meet with the two lovely ladies who are awaiting your company just up the path."
"Wait...two?"
Donovan squinted as he looked up the path, trying to see the two women that Derik mentioned. "Hey, I don't see anyone," he said as he turned back to address his ancestor. Derik, now having vanished into thin air, left his marten descendant more than a bit taken aback. As the marten saw he was addressing nothing but the mist-laden forest which went on endlessly.
"Dells," Donovan cursed with a smirk, in response to his ancestor's sudden disappearance. "Are they all going to do that?" The red-furred weasel who then carried on his way down the path, couldn't help but feel both a sense of irritation and awe at the way these deicides were able to present themselves. The way they were able to appear and disappear like a gust of wind. The way they were able to intrude and to teach lessons that would aid him and prepare him for future events. All while, apparently, he was in some comatose state...it just...it seemed as if being a deicide provided one with abilities above normal mortal comprehension. Abilities, Donovan also comprehended, which could not be used lightly. He recognized such powers must come with responsibility. If not imposed by a higher power, than at least it must fall to the individual themselves, to ensure that they did not wield such forces in a frivolous and self-consuming manner.
"Not the way Dylan does...Or the way Dahlia did," Donovan muttered, reflecting on how there seemed to be a pattern within the Frostwood lineage. An almost inescapable, unseen sickness for all of them, where darkness was like a parasite that latched on to them. Dahlia, Dylan. It latched onto their ambitions. Their anger, their hatred. It twisted not only their goals and dreams, but in the end changed who they were.
Donovan clenched his fists. He hated the darkness of those talons. He realized indeed, that Dylan had sought them out. But only because, her ancestor had made the pact which tied their family to the dark entity Omnos in the first place. He wondered, if in the same way that his ancestor had first used the Genesis gauntlets, did it work the same for the Talons? Had indeed, the Talons and Gauntlets been buried for a reason? To keep the forces of light and darkness passive and dormant. And had perhaps they only woken up, after the Gauntlets had been unearthed five years ago? Donovan thought, it might explain, why Dylan would've chosen that time to start pursuing the Talons and why she seemed to have changed so radically since the last time he saw her. Had the Talons awoken the same time the Gauntlets were unearthed? Had they sensed from so far away, that a Dashraft had awoken the power of their light counterpart and had started whispering to an ambitious Frostwood, to come free them as well?
Donovan shrugged.
Who could say. He was still learning this Deicide business. Maybe if he learned more history about the past Deicides, it would give him a better understanding about what was going on now, like Darik had said.
The marten stopped beneath a tree with two wooden chimes, much larger than any others in this part of the forest. Like Derik's, they each had feathers and beads hanging from them as well as a name carved into the wood. These, which were written in proto-Martenjavic. The language following Musteladonian, and proceeding modern Martenjavic, the traditional marten language. So it was easier for Donovan to read and translate, than the name on the chime before. "Stiletto...and Baretta...Dashraft." He read cautiously. The wind then picked up same as before, and as Donovan turned around, he saw two beautiful weasel women. "Someone rang the chimes?" the one on the right stated. A marten who could've been the spitting image of Valorisa, except for the fact that she had remarkable violet eyes and that she had short wavy black hair. A trait Donovan had never seen in the family before, he could not take his eyes from the female who also wore a beret, jodhpurs, and a red blouse with a black leather vest. This ancestor of Donovan's then chuckled, at the attention. "You okay?" she asked, as he gulped and found his words.
"Yeah..." he stammered. "Sorry. You just...remind me of someone. That, and when Darik said I would be meeting with two lovely ladies...he-he understated what he meant by 'lovely.'"
"Hah!"
This marten with the black hair laughed, her eyes sparkling like small purple flames, as she turned to her companion. "You hear that Stil?" she said. "We're going to be guiding a gentleman this time around! This might actually make the journey more pleasant."
The other weasel, an ermine with blonde hair and blue eyes, traits Donovan was more accustomed to within his family tree, turned to the female marten. The sun glistened off the well-fitting armor she wore, as she tried to cling to the shadows. "Don't fool yourself, sister," she said formally. "You may think all it takes is the company of a gentleman to make these memories softer and easier. But I am not so easily persuaded. Even if we are but spirits guiding our living descendant. Do not think for a moment, that even the knowledge that we are doing a good deed for our living family, is anything that can make the memories of what we are about to endure lighter or easier. To do so...to act as if there is no gravity to such a thing... Let's just say it would dishonor far too many."
Donovan looked over to the ermine somberly, then back to the marten. "What...is she talking about?" he said. "A-And who are you two ladies, actually? I read your names on the chimes. Stiletto and Baretta. But...I don't actually know who you are."
Baretta smirked. "Nor would we expect you to, Descendant." she replied. "For we are the forgotten twins. Baretta and Stilleto Dashraft. Terrors on the battlefield who fought in the name of the martens and under the proud gleaming banner of Musteladonia, we were written out of marten history through no fault of our own, simply for our half-blooded heritage."
"Half-blooded?"
Stiletto nodded and spoke up, in her taciturn manner. "We were the secret children of Derik Dashes-for-the-Raft and Dhalia Frostwood," she murmured. "An event which happened long before Dhalia became consumed by her need to uplift the ermines and to have them surpass other races, or even before she made her pact with the Omnifarious."
"Our father Derik," Baretta, the female marten with the beret stated, "likely told you how he was of means and status, and how he eventually decided to follow his own path, while balancing the lifestyle that was expected of him as well. We were part of that. It was decided, we would not be talked about, for fear of what it could mean for our father. Instead, we were sent to live with a brother of our father who ran a somewhat respected mercenary guild."
"Which is where you learned to be fighters?"
Baretta nodded. "The best." she said. "Not even the Chieftains of the Hoarfrost Troll tribes could face Stilleto and me, when we were together. She with her broadsword, I with my daggers. We were destructive and swift. Stealthy and swift. Agility and powerful. Two sides of the same coin, fused into one swift motion."
"I see. So what happened? How did you get involved in the war with Dhalia?"
"You mean Black Dhalia?"
Stiletto snorted. "That's what mother had started calling herself," she murmured, "when we received word, that the Empire needed aid from all corners of Mintara, no matter the source. Well...Musteladonia was home. It didn't matter at that time, what our history with our mother and our father was. It didn't matter if we'd been kept a secret, for the preservation of father's reputation. We still had friends in the middle and lower classes. People we cared about, and we were not going to let mother's dark ambitions destroy the empire we loved."
Baretta smiled softly. "That is of course," she whispered, "What we thought until the moment we got there." The marten with a wave of her paw, then caused the forest around them to shift into a memory of what it was like, the day they had fought fervently against Black Dhalia's forces.
"I still remember the flames," Baretta whispered nodding all around. "The way it danced with the acrid, curling smoke, it was almost unnatural. Like it was alive, and like it took joy in destroying everything in sight. Everything it thought was opulent, and over-indulgent. Everything it thought stood as an example of stratification of class, and of things that needed to be destroyed and rebuilt."
Baretta shook her head. "This...was a terrible day." she whispered. "Stiletto and I...we fought with everything we had. We fought with more ferocity than we ever had before. Every daemun she summoned; we struck down. Every Rizyn she sent our way, we put back in the grave. All to the point, that we realized that we had to take down Black Dhalia herself. Otherwise, the assault would never end until she held all of Musteladonia, nay all of Mintara, in her cold, dark claws."
"So what did you do?"
"The only thing we could do," Stilleto said in her soft, frosty voice. "We lured Black Dhalia into a final confrontation in the Oblique Talon. Her tower, and central sanctum, where she commanded her forces and performed whatever rituals were used to steepen her powers of darkness and to summon even greater wicked forces to the front lines."
"There, we used an ancient ritual of our own," Baretta stated, "to trap her and her entire armies, in shells of pure obsidian. Her Dragyns, her Rizyn, her daemuns and even the help she received from the outside, her scorpions and her spiders and her harvestmen, all were frozen for the perpetual future, in what would later come to be known as 'The Garden of Black Stone.'"
"I see...and shortly after that, Musteladonia collapsed?"
Baretta and Stilleto looked to each other, and chuckled. "That's how the bards and historians tell it," they replied. "You want the truth? We abandoned it. We realized, it just was not safe, with the slight chance that Dhalia and her forces might break free one day. So everyone packed up and left, neither seeing any value in rebuilding after that much damage had been done to the infrastructure, nor wanting to risk living that close to such a dangerous, albeit imprisoned, sorceress."
"And they developed their own societies over time after that?"
Baretta nodded. "This legend about a mysteriously lost empire was all fabricated by bards and minstrels, and people like that," she said. "They figured it made for a good story, since no one of the Musteladonian era recorded its location. A fact they just assumed, must've been the result of bad record-keeping or that it was lost in some catastrophic event, or something like that. No one has ever assumed, that it's possible no map was ever made in the first place. Or that all maps to the Empire's capitol were destroyed, after it was abandoned."
"Because they didn't want anyone stumbling upon the Garden of Black Stone?"
"Mmm-hmm. And it's worked for ages. Even during the war between Jutfaang and Ourobouros Isle, no Frostwood has ever been able to find the city. Why? Because you need a map to get there."
"Uh...not necessarily."
"Huh?"
Baretta turned to her sister. "What do you mean, not necessarily? What are you on about, Stil? How else would one get there, without a map?"
"The compass."
"Oh."
Baretta face paled. "Yes, that would present a problem, if Dylan ever got that, wouldn't it?" she murmured rubbing her chin. Donovan now looked between both sisters, wanting to know what this was about a compass.
"Compass?" he asked. "What are you two talking about? What Compass? What...What's a compass got to do with anything? Please tell me." Stiletto then clarified for Donovan, "It's the King's Compass, love. An old artifact, that was forged in the era of the Musteladonian Empire, crafted by the hands of our father, Derik Dashes-for-the-Raft himself. It's comprised of three parts. The wood base..."
"The iron needle..." Baretta added.
"And a stone lynchpin," Stiletto concluded. "Infused with a drop of blood from Derik Dashes-for-the-Raft, himself."
"Only a Dashraft can use it," Baretta stated. "Or one who is descended from that same line." She nodded to her sister, who stated. "Dylan is tied to the Dashraft family, by Derik's relations with Dhalia. She may or may not know this. But all the same, believe me when I say there is at least one entity out there who does, and who would take full advantage of that knowledge to persuade Dylan into using the Compass, so that she could free Dhalia from her prison."
"Oh, Baretta. Please, you don't mean..."
"Lunastra Summersbane? Envoy to the Father of Serpents? The trickster? The deceiver? You and I both know how ancient and powerful she is. And we both know she was never accounted for, after all was said and done that day when we imprisoned Dhalia and her forces in the oblique talon."
Stiletto nodded. "It's true," she replied. "She wasn't. I just prefer...not to think that such a creature could ever be allowed to traipse across Mintara again."
"But if she did find a way..."
Stiletto nodded. "Of course," she replied in a conceding manner. "She'd go straight for the compass. After of course, finding an ambitious member of the Frostwood family like Dylan, whom she could manipulate. She's probably complying with Dylan right now, like a good servant. Just to play to Dylan's ego and to keep her unaware that she's nothing but a pawn, to her Omnosdai schemes."
"Excuse me," Donovan raised a finger. "Omnosdai?" he asked inquisitively. "What's that? Sorry, I've heard you use some unfamiliar words. "Daemuns? Rizyn?" he asked. "What...what are these things you keep talking about?" Baretta with a chuckle, then was the one to answer the question as she replied, "These Creatures, you've heard my sister and I mention, are from a realm known as Incarcera. They are from a realm parallel to this one. A place ruled by Omnifarious. Balan's dark counterpart, he is known to some as the Father of Serpents. The master of shadows, he is the bane of order and light and high lord of Chaos."
"And he cheats at Poker," Stiletto added. A smirk on her face, making it hard to know whether this was true or not. Donovan all the same, still thought it was funny, as he smirked back while Baretta rolled her eyes again and continued. She barely could contain a smirk as she elucidated, "Rizyn are creatures reanimated by the darkest of spells. Balan looks down on such magic with the greatest of disgust and disdain. Putting them in the grave, is considered a mercy. It...frees them from the chains of the spell. Allows them to pass back to their natural place in the order of things. Allows the natural cycle to continue."
"As for Daemuns," Stilleto interjected, "They are the servants of the Omnifarious, and they come in different classes. Thrawls, are what we fought most often. Low-class Imp like creatures that don't have a lot of magical ability, but which will bite and scratch up a storm, Black Dhalia loved to summon them in numbers. In fact, that was one of her favorite strategies. She'd overwhelm the enemy then finish them off with attacks from a more powerful Daemun like a dragyn."
"Not to be confused with the wise ancient beasts of Mintara, that keep to themselves and can be sought out for knowledge, known as a dragon." Baretta added. "The dragyn which my sister mentioned, is a creature of pure darkness. A child of the father of Serpents itself, it takes a very powerful master of dark magics to even summon one."
"And Black Dhalia proved to be such a master?"
"Did she?" Stiletto interrupted. "Honey, she summoned five!" Baretta then rolled her eyes, at her sister's uncharacteristically dramatic response.
"What my sister meant," Baretta replied. "Is yes. Dhalia was the most powerful dark sorceress ever to be produced by the Frostwood line. Even Dylan, who is incredibly proficient in her use with Caustic magic and with the talons, pales in comparison to what Dhalia could do. It's why my sister and I are so concerned about the return of the Talons."
"Because once the Gauntlets of Genesis were unearthed, that's what caused the Talons to wake up and what caused Dylan to start hearing its whispers?"
Baretta nodded. "You catch on quick," she replied. "Yes. That's exactly so. Though it's not exactly the Talons whispering to her, but an Omnosdai, known as Lunastra Summersbane."
"An...Omnosdai?"
"A right-hand adviser to the Omnifarious itself," Stiletto clarified. "A very powerful upper tier daemun. Lunastra is ancient. Like...you can't even count the years, ancient. She's been around since before Mintarans. Since before even the H'mun. The race who came before those who currently inhabit this world. She serves one purpose. To 'supposedly,' guide those who seek the power and promises offered by the Omnifarious."
Stiletto chuckled. "I of course," she added, "Say supposedly, because records show that Lunastra ends up betraying every single person she's given a contract with. Well, excluding Dhalia. Dhalia, she actually had respect for, and saw no reason to betray. But all the others? No. No, she'll act just as according as she did with the others. She'll act as if her goals are aligned with Dylan for awhile. Then..." the ermine ran two fingers across her throat to show she did not expect things to end well for her own cousin. Baretta at this dramatic behavior, again rolled her eyes.
"The point is," Baretta stated. "Lunastra Summersbane is very dangerous. In fact, due to how close she was to our mother, I'd assume she only has one intent for Dylan."
"Use her to get the compass, so she can find the Garden of Black Stone and free Dhalia?"
"Pretty much."
Donovan gulped. He had to get out of this Shar'mem. He had to wake up, so he could stop Dylan before it was too late. Why the dells couldn't he just wake up!?