“Where’s Drey?” Fenn asked suddenly, making Seph’s stomach pitch again.

“Drey?” he inquired in return in order to buy some time for Seph was not heartened by this change of subject.

“Drey. G’Drey. The priest I sent to you from the gilded city to assist with The Rising. The one whose arse you whipped to the point there was no healthy skin left,” Fenn explained.

Oh, but he would find the soldier who had shared so freely, and they would learn his way how not to betray your command.

“I do not know,” Seph spat. “The last I heard was that he met an accident on the way to the school.”

“Did you know he’s my chosen one?” Fenn queried.

By Bedi.

This simply got worse and worse.

“No,” Seph forced out his lie.

“He sends no birds. No messages,” Fenn shared. “It’s most peculiar. Handsome, but so needy, my Drey. His father took being Dellish to rather an extreme. And thus Drey…” He shook his head. “So misunderstood. This is a lesson for you, Seph. For it took not much effort before I had but to look upon Drey with the expression I’d trained him to read, and he’d be down on his knees, sucking my cock precisely as I enjoy it most. He did this knowing I’d then fuck him precisely how he enjoyed it most. The carrot, Seph. Almost always, it leads to satisfactory results. Sadly, it got to the point where Drey was so eager to please, I’d become weary from it and needed some distance. Therefore, I sent him to you. However, I did so knowing eventually I’d want him back.”

Seph swallowed and took a step away.

Fenn took that step with him.

As did the others.

Yes, this simply got worse and worse.

“And he did not participate in the mass exodus you perpetrated with the ignorance of your command,” Fenn continued. “He was gone before you failed so spectacularly after being given such a golden opportunity. Having every important personage in Triton under one roof and hundreds of men trained and at the ready to strike a blow for The Rising that would have been felt throughout all Triton.”

Seph kept moving, as did Fenn and the others, and he did it snapping, “I did not fail. It was not me who scaled the palace walls.”

Fenn shook his head even as he replied, “I’m now seeing the problem. You give the command to sally into battle, success is not yours, it’s your men’s. But failure, G’Seph, if the men find failure, that is always the providence of the general.”

He did not have to take a lecture from the likes of Fenn.

Seph was practically there that day so many years ago that The Rising was conceived.

Fenn was but a boy back then, not a priest, not Go’Doan.

He was nothing then.