The Cotanaku meeting room was in a unique state when Kaldalis arrived. Many of the usual council members were absent, especially those whose jobs were related to construction and maintenance. Kaldalis wasn’t sure if they were just the lower-profile people who Garyung was willing to exclude to make room for the visiting councils, or if they were just going to be busy with the repair efforts in the wake of the attack.

Either way, a few of the chairs had been replaced, setting up three additional larger, better-padded seats near the foot of the table. Kaldalis appreciated the move. Unlike when they’d gone to meet with Cerh, Garyung was extending courtesy and respect towards the visitors.

It was a smart move.

The overall goal of these meetings was to bring an end to the unnecessary hostilities. Garyung was making a very unsubtle show of being the bigger man at every turn. Eventually, Cerh and Jetmorpan would see how much easier things could be if they were allies instead of enemies.

At Garyung’s direction, Kaldalis reluctantly took up Gavinkim’s vacant seat beside him. His instinct was to leave it open as a show of respect - and to avoid accepting a job he had not been formally offered nor accepted - but now wasn’t the time to get into an argument. He took his assigned seat for now.

The groups of councilors arrived together, with Filomena making a show of leading them in. She asked them to take their seats in the most obvious fake customer-service voice Kaldalis had ever heard in his life. She was still obviously torn between being happy to have been given a task like the rest of the group and agitated that it had been to make her a glorified hostess. Kaldalis hoped that it made up for the indignity that she still had a seat at the table for the meeting.

Jetmorpan had the same group of attendance as he’d brought along to Panbu, only this time, Garyung had made sure there were seats for all of them - though his guards elected to stand instead. Behind him came the Contender. Kaldalis had been hoping the man would not be present. It would have been so much easier to manage control of the situation without him here. But this would have to do. Despite the extra seats, the self-important Talsar made a gesture, and his retinue - including Brother Gnider - remained standing while only he sat, as it had been at the meeting in Panbu.

Cerh’s group was another story.

The Panbu leader was accompanied by an unfamiliar Human woman who looked haggard to the point of near-collapse. On his other side was, surprisingly, Big Mike, Panbu’s naval advisor, and someone that Kaldalis considered a friend.

Cerh and the captain didn’t look quite so run-down as the Human woman, but they didn’t look to be in good shape. In fact, Cerh looked somewhere between rage and depression at the same time; his slit-pupiled eyes were bloodshot as if from tears, but his jaw was visibly clenched tight.

At his side, Big Mike had one of the sleeves of his long coat ripped entirely away, with bandages visible around the tear on his bicep. The look in his eyes could only be described as haunted.

Kaldalis wanted to ask. It was shocking enough that Cerh hadn’t just delayed the meeting until such time as it could be held literally anywhere else on the whole archipelago, but that he arrived without Captain Kensah?

Something had happened.

But he knew better than to open his mouth.

“Let me open the meeting,” Garyung began once they were all seated - or in the case of the Contender’s retinue, when it became obvious that they had no intent to sit, “with a moment of silence. There are no words that could adequately express my sorrow for the losses we’ve endured at the hands of these latest attacks. So, instead, let us honor them as best we can. A moment of remembrance and reflection.”

Garyung fell silent and bowed his head, as if in prayer. The Contender appeared to be about to say something, but when Cerh bowed his head without complaint, Jetmorpan followed his lead.

Kaldalis and the Contender locked eyes across the table for a moment, and he could see the man calculating.

Garyung had made a brilliant opening gambit, and it had landed flawlessly. Extending condolences despite Cotanaku suffering no losses could have been seen as a boast, or an attempt to rub it in that they had tried to warn the other towns, and that the Contender had blocked their attempt to protect people. If the Contender had been able to cut in and protest on those points, it could have primed Cerh and Jetmorpan to oppose whatever Garyung suggested next.

But instead, the window had shut way too fast. Cerh had followed Garyung’s lead without hesitation, destroying the Contender’s opportunity to punish Garyung for the risk.

And with all other heads bowed in honor of those lost, only Kaldalis and the Contender were thinking of it as anything more than Garyung once more being the most mature person in the room.

Kaldalis didn’t even smirk at the Contender as he lowered his own head to join the others in honor of those lost.

The moment of silence went on just long enough to become uncomfortable. Kaldalis wasn’t sure if Garyung was keeping count or if he was actually engaged with the political mind game the Contender thought he was pulling and he was playing chicken with the priest to get him to break first.

But after about ninety seconds, Garyung gently cleared his throat and raised his head.

“When last we met, we discussed the possibility of this happening,” Garyung said at last, when everyone had looked up again. “Now that it has, I think we need to discuss our next steps. I can appreciate some trepidation in making huge investments in defense, but I think it’s obvious now that it’s not an optional move if we intend to stay-”

“Are we going to discuss where these monsters are coming from?” the Contender interrupted. “And how you knew when they would come?”

Garyung let a long moment of silence drag out.

“We discussed the matter last time we met,” Garyung said with the patience of someone talking to a very young child. “Do you need to be reminded?”

“I just think it’s been a very long day,” the Contender said. “Perhaps we should refresh everyone’s mind on where that conversation led?”

“What’s the point of this discussion?” Garyung asked sharply. “Did you think of a good comeback once you’d left the last meeting and want to try and use it this time, Mr. Costanza?”

Kaldalis managed not to let out a bark of a laugh at that. It would have been unprofessional. But he was pretty sure that Contender was just as agitated by Kaldalis’s smirk as he would have been at a laugh.

“I only want to make sure that we’re going into this discussion with all the facts,” the Contender said firmly. He shot a glance between Jetmorpan and Cerh, looking for their support. “I don’t want this to be monopolized by a single lucky guess without scrutiny on the source.”

“I’d be glad to catch us back up,” Kaldalis cut in. Garyung gave him a warning look, but Kaldalis tried to give him a reassuring wink. “I think it’s very important that we all have the same information.”

“I thought I advised you to leave your pet out of these meetings,” the Contender said firmly. “If you’re going to be wasting our time-”

SLAM.

Big Mike’s hands hit the table with so much force they rattled the whole room. The injured captain was suddenly on his feet. Kaldalis had gotten so used to overlooking the man to keep track of his political opponents he didn’t even notice that his face had turned bright red with fury.

“Kensah is dead!” he roared. “Gone down in a blaze of glory like this world has never seen. She died on her feet with a grin on her face making sure our sorry hides got out before we lost the town hall in Panbu.” He pointed a finger at Kaldalis. “All because of something this man warned us about, and you told us to ignore.” His finger jabbed, accusatory, at the Contender. “I am done sitting on my hands and hoping that someone else speaks up for the good of the brave souls actually at risk.”

Kaldalis wanted to jump in on that moment to start talking, but the shock hit him so hard his head was spinning. Captain Kensah was dead? Kaldalis had seen her in action. If it weren’t for Big Mike’s fury and the sad look on Cerh’s face, he wouldn’t have believed it. And Kaldalis wasn’t alone. The Contender must have been elsewhere during the attack, because his eyes went wide with surprise. Jetmorpan’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“You’ve gone to great lengths to keep this man quiet,” Big Mike said quietly into the stunned silence, his roaring fury chilling down to seething rage, “and now we’ve seen the cost of that. Let’s hear him speak openly now, and if you interrupt him this time, I will only warn you once. The only person who could hold me back from diving across the table and choking the life out of you is in the ground and not at this table.”

The Contender was about to snap some admonishment at Cerh, but the other Talsar didn’t move to stop Big Mike.

There was a despondency about Cerh, but underneath it, there was fire. He might have once been a puppet, eager to dance to the Contender’s tune for the greater glory of Zara, but this was a cost he had not been prepared to pay.

The loss had primed Cerh to hear the other side of the argument that he’d been ignoring all this time.

Kaldalis stood up slowly - still not trusting his spinning head at the news of Kensah’s death - and as he did, Big Mike returned to his seat with similar slowness. His glare only left the Contender for a second so that he could murmur a quick warning to Garyung.

“You’re gonna want to shut off your stream for this,” Kaldalis whispered. “Before Monsoon does it for you.”

The Contender had fucked around.

Now it was time for him to find out.