Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

I go back to the chair.

The pressure left by the cane still lingers in the room. Rahul Sharma lifts the glass tip from the floor and rests the cane in his lap.

I sit without hurry. "My apologies, Mr. Sharma. I misread the reason for the meeting."

Rahul accepts it with a discreet motion of his head. "No need to turn a small error into ceremony, Mr. Sands. You received information you already held and reacted accordingly. I’d have found it strange if a man like you faked gratitude just to keep up appearances."

Rae settles back in his chair. His expression stays controlled, though it no longer carries the satisfaction it held when I walked in.

Rahul runs his fingertips along the cane’s handle. "I spoke a little with Dean before coming to this room. I also heard Rae explain the complicated history between the two of you. I believe I understand both sides."

"And which side looks less bad?"

"I don’t make a habit of picking sides before I know the price." A brief smile appears on his face. "But I’ll admit I enjoy doing business with you."

The way I ran the fights at the Oathring, keeping him under control, probably caught some strange interest in Rahul.

I look at Rae. He doesn’t react.

"That must irritate some people."

"Almost every good deal irritates someone."

Rahul says it without humor, a fact he settled long ago. His assistant stays near the wall, the tablet resting on her forearm. She isn’t typing. Maybe she’s learned to hold a whole conversation before recording anything.

I brace my arms over my legs. "So how can I help? We’ve already covered the wager. There’s nothing left within my reach that would look useful to a man in your position."

Rahul tilts his face slightly. "That assessment is modest."

"But practical too, don’t you think?"

"Better still."

He lets a few seconds pass before continuing. Rae waits as well. For the first time since I came in, both of them seem to know exactly what comes next, and I’m the only one seated outside the deal.

"Sometime soon," Rahul says, "security at the Deep Asylum will drop."

My body stays still. Inside, several pieces of my plan begin to move at once.

Rahul goes on. "The drop will be brief. Part of the surveillance will go dark, and the available response in Sector 4 will be thin. Not long enough to turn the place into an empty shell, but long enough to create an opportunity."

"For what?"

"For anything you wish to attempt."

The answer comes calm.

I look at the cane resting beside the chair. Then at the assistant. Then at Rae. The math is instant. Months. That offer might cut months down to a few days. I’d still need to gather information, prepare a way in and out, choose who to bring, and learn what lies between the corridors of the Deep Asylum and Alden’s cell. But the hardest part was always going to be making an opening.

Rahul is offering one.

My urge is to ask the date before he finishes the sentence. I keep my breathing at the same pace. "It sounds like a trap."

Rae moves his eyes to me, but Rahul only nods. "It does. Indeed."

"And is it?"

"No."

"One word from you doesn’t settle it."

"I know. But if I wanted you dead, I’d do it right now."

Rahul extends his hand. The assistant steps closer, opens a small case fixed to the back of the chair, and takes out a thin blade of translucent crystal. She sets it on the desk, next to a small metal base marked with runes.

Rahul touches the crystal with his thumb. A mark rises under the surface, clear lines crossing until they form the symbol of his Diver Mark.

"I place my Diver Mark as guarantee," he says. "The opportunity will exist. The information I provide will be correct, and there will be no ambush organized by me."

I watch the mark grow inside the crystal. Putting up a Diver Mark as collateral is like laying your own neck on the block. Fail, and it isn’t only OXI bleeding; it’s severe system penalties, often a rank reduction.

"Opportunity organized by you."

"I don’t make a habit of promising control over men who don’t belong to me."

Fair.

The guarantee didn’t make the Deep Asylum safe. It only took Rahul off the list of people preparing a knife behind the door. That still left the Deepwarden itself, its guards, its systems, and whatever they kept locked in that place.

"What’s the price?"

Rahul lifts his finger off the crystal. "None, at this moment."

"Then there’s another."

"Possibly."

"You don’t do this out of curiosity."

"I do many things out of curiosity, Mr. Sands. I just don’t usually admit it. When you climb high enough, there isn’t much left to do."

The answer comes naturally. Without a smile, he runs a hand through his hair before going on. "I want to know how far you can go when you’re handed a real opportunity. I also want to know what you’ll do with it."

"And you tried something similar?"

Rahul looks at the window. The change in him is small. His voice stays elegant, but it loses part of the distance he uses for almost everything.

"When I lost my father, there was no information, no opening, no man willing to move a piece for me. I hadn’t built anything I own today. There were only questions and time passing."

He rests his hands in his lap. "After a while, questions stop looking for an answer. They become foundation."

There was pride in the way he said it. Rahul’s empire had grown on an absence, and he felt no shame about the result.

There was disappointment too. Not with the power he won. Maybe with what he had to erase to keep winning.

"And you want to see if I do it better?"

Rahul turns his eyes back to me. "I want to see if you can do what I couldn’t."

The sentence sits between us for a few seconds.

I could use that. An old wound is still a wound, even under wealth, influence, and a glass cane. Rahul had shown me where to press.

But I decide not to press yet. First I need to understand the whole proposal.

I look at Rae. "And him?"

Rae arches an eyebrow. Rahul answers for him.

"Rae reached out to me. He explained your request, presented what he’d found, and suggested there might be room for a more useful conversation. Without him, this meeting wouldn’t have happened."

"So he’s in the deal."

"He’s in its origin."

Rae folds his hands on the desk. "I told you I’d get something about your father."

"You’re still a sly one."

Rahul lifts his eyes to Rae, and he stops there. No other answer.

"If you accept the proposal," Rahul says, "you’ll have to acknowledge that Rae held up his end. What you do with that afterward stays between the two of you."

There it was. That was the payment.

Rae hadn’t only found an address I already knew. He’d put Rahul Sharma into the equation and brought me an opportunity I couldn’t ignore. The favor had been fulfilled.

I didn’t like it. "When’s the window?"

"I haven’t decided yet."

"You just said it would exist."

"And it will." Rahul takes back the crystal blade and returns it to the assistant. "But you don’t have to answer today."

"Why?"

"Because the day after tomorrow, there’s a team battle."

My gaze hardens. Rahul notices. "You look surprised."

"You’ve mapped my whole schedule."

"I invest money in events that deserve attention. It would be careless not to know the participants, their plans, and their possible futures."

"What surprises are you preparing?"

Rahul rests the glass cane across his legs. "Some I know about. Others are still being negotiated. Enough to advise you not to treat this battle like another Academy exercise."

Rae stays silent, watching my reaction.

"So your proposal depends on me winning."

"No." Rahul answers calmly. "It depends on you staying alive."

The room seems smaller.

He adjusts his sleeve before finishing. "Survive the battle, Mr. Sands. Then we’ll talk about dates, conditions, and what you intend to do with the window I’m offering."

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