Say again that this is not a staged trial, tailored to fit the renegade criminal roped in for summary judgement! I find the role that you've scripted too pat. Your string-puppet accused will not dance for the question!' Quick as the turn of a leaf in a storm, the Sorcerer spun on his heel. He strode towards the doorway with a fierce glance back, talking fast to jam Luhaine silent. 'You don't need my presence to bandy conjecture. Carry on, by all means. Enjoy your salacious dissection of character without the bother of my protestations.
Sethvir's fraught cry for restraint went unheard. His tenure as Warden was too recent, yet, for his colleagues to grasp the full significance. Or perhaps Davien sensed the overshadowing gravity. In his wild rage, he might have left the warning suicidally disregarded. The heated moment had fanned Fellowship tempers too high for clear sight: that Althain Tower's Paravian defences had stirred active by their raw dissension.
The warding seal at the doorway had never been meant for restraint. Sethvir's token binding was symbolic, a sincere gesture to confront wounded trust and reforge a confidence torn by the pressures of Desh-thiere's invasion.
Davien approached the drawn line and stepped out. Brilliant as autumn, he vanished into the stairwell, without second thought crossing the focused will of the appointed Warden of Althain Tower.
Asandir was alone, as he leaped in response to the unforeseen crisis. Chair slammed over backwards, the field Sorcerer vaulted the ebony table and launched off in desperate pursuit.
He might have overtaken Davien in time. Intervention, at speed, perhaps could have checked wounded pride and stopped his colleague's incensed departure.
But Kharadmon slammed the door in Asandir's path. 'Let the betrayer go his own way!'
[Luhaine contributes an irrelevant tirade, then....]
'Shehane Althain's aroused!' Sethvir's shout at last broke the clamour.
But the fortunate moment was already lost. Davien encountered the raised might of the tower's gaurdian centaur, and the vigorous reflex for self-preservation entrapped him, past any recourse save one: the ceremonial dissolution his colleagues enacted to spare him, that stripped the spirit out of living flesh...
