Sera
Sera looked at the general as if the last bit of his sanity had just gone up in smoke. When he had told her the plan, he had completely failed to mention the part where she would be used as collateral. She continued her hard stare, which had no effect on Tennech, as Djozen Yelto licked his lips.
“Now, that is interesting,” said the fat man. He raised an eyebrow as he looked Sera up and down. “The next Shaper, you say? Tell me how.”
Tennech stepped toward the gaudy throne. “As you can see from her eyes, this woman is Athrani,” he said, to which Yelto nodded. “But one thing you do not know, one thing that I will tell you right now, is that the Shaper passes on her blood to any children she bears. And this one carries the blood of the Shaper inside of her.”
Sera’s hard stare intensified.
“But this one is not the Shaper,” Yelto said. It was more of a statement and less of a question.
“Correct, O Great One,” Tennech said with a flourish.
If Sera’s gaze weren’t so firmly locked on him, she thought her eyes would have rolled straight back into her skull.
“But her daughter will be.”
“Will be?” Yelto echoed. “You are certain of this?”
“Without a doubt,” Tennech said. “Seralith Edos can trace her heritage back all the way to the first Athrani. Her bloodline is ancient and powerful, and any children she bears will be the strongest to walk the earth.”
“But how does that bring about the next Shaper?”
“By this one simple reason,” Tennech answered as he held up a finger. “The Shaper’s spirit has gone back into the Otherworld, meaning that the next daughter to be born to an Athrani mother of her blood will be her spirit reincarnated.” He paused, no doubt for effect. “And, as a consequence, will possess her power.”
Yelto blinked a few times from his throne, as though he were mentally chewing on the words and trying to digest their meaning. From his throne, he looked calmly at Sera, working his gaze over her like a paintbrush: up and down, head to toe. He inhaled sharply through his nostrils. Finally, he spoke.
“Yet one does not give away something so powerful for free.” His eyes flicked back to Tennech. “So what is it that you are after, General Tennech?”
Aldis Tennech, once the general of all the armies of Gal’dorok, crossed his arms and smiled.
“I want an army,” he said.
Once a general, Sera thought wryly, always a general.