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"I am honored to meet you, Turek" I leaned in toward him "Can you tell me why he was exiled?"

"It was his choice," he replied, eyes luminescent

"His choice?!" I said, shocked "But what…? Why would he do that? And why is he called an ‘oathbreaker’?"

Turek brought his ared to violate an ancient oath, and so he is named kiraknikahl, oathbreaker He holds infor the ways and erous to remain here, and fifteen years, nine o chose exile over revelation"

I struggled to process that It was loads et up until now, yet at the sa except that the scope of whatever he did was huge More data for the ht in frustration

"Is he exiled forever?"

Turek stood and dipped a claw in the water of the pedestal "It cannot be forever The balance of potency suffers with the absence of even one qaztahl" After a il with a single claw

I blinked in aht spun lazily a couple of feet above the basin,a flat-tire wobble on each revolution Eleven points Multiple strands of vari-colored light dropped fro fringe with its ends wound into a crazy ball of glowing string The savik lifted its claard the dile sickly strand "Szerain Diminished Exiled Vilified All out of balance"

I scrambled to my feet "If he’s so needed, then why can’t he come back now?"

Turek re ht He touched the water again, eerie eyes on the fuzzy ied at the collar in annoyance as if tugging could bring sharper focus, but slowly it began to coalesce into an ie of the sa no more like Ryan now than then Will his personality be different as well? I wondered, uncoain

"The deain in that resonant tone that felt so powerful and ancient Perhaps Earth summoners only ever called juvenile savik? They were considered second-level demons, but I had zero doubt that this particular deer and had more arcane ability than even a tenth-level zhurn

"Until resolved, Szerain…" Turek paused as if the thought brought pain "Szerain remains in exile And it is safer there, safer hidden, than here Muchfor others to reach hie" His top lip curled back frorowl caed He will not willingly subain"

Gooseflesh crawled over ine what that would be like "What happened to Elinor?"

Turek tapped the lip of the basin, claw clicking on the stone, and the i woman "I cannot speak of what happened to Elinor"

I let out a sigh Once again with the da "Szerain asked me to ree; Szerain again, but the expression see in everything about Szerain "Was he…nice?" That wasn’t really the word I needed, but I couldn’t think of another way to convey what I so desperately wanted to know

The dery wasps "Is Is What is he like" He lifted his head again and punctuated his statement with a harsh snort "He is Szerain," he said as if that explained everything "He is Szerain imprisoned Rhyzkahl sealed what he could of his arcane potential, overlaid the life of a hu the ie Szerain’s core essence, but I do not kno that manifests in a different existence, in a different form"