She glanced away, cowed. He had inspected himself for missing scales when he’d returned home and knew that she would have found none there. “No. There was nothing.”
“And you found no human bodies, no human blood?” he pressed, though his chest constricted painfully as he said it.
“I… There was human blood,” she muttered, still not meeting his gaze. Adrissu spat, contempt roiling off him.
“Then it seems to me your precious twin put up a fight, but the humans won out eventually,” he said. Atillath hissed—the shame of being killed by mortal hands was more than enough to send her grasping at whatever straws she could find, and he knew it. “Don’t pin this on me. If he’s dead, he won’t care about his reputation. If it embarrasses you so much, I’d suggest you burn his bones and never speak of him again. But trying to put the blame on me to save face is nearly as shameful.”
“Shut up,” Atillath replied. “It was a dragon that did it, I know it is! I saw his body, I saw the burns and bite marks. No humans touched him.”
But already Mithantos was looking at her dubiously. Adrissu’s words had been enough to make him doubt the truth of her account, and that was all that mattered. A single dragon’s accusations weren’t enough to warrant some kind of investigation; and if his own father doubted his involvement, as Adrissu’s reputation reflected on his parentage, then it was unlikely anyone else would raise the issue, either.
“I had nothing to do with this,” Adrissu spat, turning away from them. “Unless you have more inane accusations to throw at my feet, leave my home.” He turned his gaze to Mithantos, ignoring how Atillath seethed, and lowered his head respectfully. “I am sorry you had to get involved in this, Father.”
“It is no trouble,” Mithantos replied, sighing. “My condolences for your loss, Atillath, but if Zamnes says he was not involved, I believe him. There is nothing linking him to this other than proximity.”
“I know you did it!” Atillath snapped, taking a step closer to him. “Iknowyou did!”
“I’m telling you to leave,” Adrissu hissed, answering by stepping closer in turn. “If I have to tell you once more, you won’t live to regret it. You know our custom as well as I do, unless your parents failed in impartingthatknowledge to their children, too.”
“Zamnes,” Mithantos said, his voice still even. His father’s posture changed subtly in response to the mounting aggression, turning more toward Atillath, so he could leap into action if she lost her wits and attacked him. “Atillath, this has gone far enough.”
She snarled, but slowly her posture lowered until her belly touched the ground again—though her tail lashed back and forth angrily behind her.
“Fine,” she hissed. “Fine! I’ll go. I know you did it. There has to be proof, and once I find it—”
“You’re threatening me in my own home?” Adrissu snapped, and she snarled up at him.
“I’m leaving!” she countered furiously. Without waiting for an answer, she lifted into the air and flew north, away from him and Polimnos.
“Thank you for speaking with us,” Mithantos said mildly, as if he had not been about to witness a fight. “She was quite upset when she came to me. I thought it sounded out of character for you, but, well… She was convinced you were involved.”
“I suppose she thought it would be easy to blame me,” Adrissu scowled. “As if our scales don’t vilify us enough.”
Mithantos sighed, turning away.
“I know how you feel about our kind, Zamnes,” he replied, a forced calm now in his voice. “I apologize for bothering you with this. Hopefully, it will not happen again. Goodbye.”
“Wait,” Adrissu said quickly, and Mithantos paused, looking at him expectantly. “Do you know where Atillath’s lair is, so I can be sure to avoid her entirely when I do travel?”
Mithantos chuckled. “A good thought. She mentioned she took up residence in a swamp a few hours north of her brother’s lair. I have not seen it for myself.”
“I see,” Adrissu replied, trying to map out where that could be. He did not know of any swamp in that area, though it was not a part of Autreth he often visited, so he supposed he would have to look at an actual map to narrow it down. He would avoid the territory as much as he could—or, eventually, hunt her down and get rid of her if she continued to bother him. “Thank you.”
“Goodbye, then,” Mithantos repeated, turning away once more.
“Goodbye,” Adrissu sighed, then watched as his father took flight, heading northeast. He watched the sky until his awareness of them both faded from his mind, and only then did he make his way back to his lair. With that taken care of, he hoped no one and nothing would bother him again for a year, or maybe a century.
When he arrived in his hoard chamber, Vesper peeked out from beneath a pile of gold to look at him questioningly. He only grumbled, not answering her, and settled back down to sleep again.
Adrissu had originally told Eris he would take a month-long leave of absence, but after a month, he still couldn’t bear the thought of sitting in his office and dealing with the school; so he officially took an extended sabbatical, not quite resigning, but not committing to return, either. In his place, he assigned an interim headmaster: Nethendriel, who was the head of enchantment and had already been serving in Adrissu’s absence. He gathered them both to discuss the matter, and when they took their seats across from him in his office, he reached forward to grasp each of their wrists, his magic flooding them.
“What are you—?!” Ned stammered as they both tried to pull away, but Adrissu was already rifling through their memories. They went slack-jawed, their eyes becoming vacant.
Changing memory was time-consuming and tricky, but luckily he could, at least, make them forget this as well. He had decided to do this when he resolved not to return to the school—he would have needed to alter Ned’s memories of him eventually anyway, since he would likely live long enough as a half-elf to notice that Adrissu did not age.
For his purposes, though, Adrissu only needed to change a few key memories; namely, that he and Braern had a son, and that with this death in the family, Adrissu was going to Aefraya to be with him. In the false memories, Eris only knew of his son in passing, while Ned would remember meeting him once or twice when he was young, in the years before Braern died. He made this fictitious Adrissu the younger look very much like himself, with only a hint of Braern in his face.
Eventually, Adrissu would return to Polimnos in the guise of his son and take his place back at the Academy, without having to worry about his immortality becoming apparent. But for now, he needed to get away, and this was likely the best opportunity that he would ever have to sow the seeds of his next identity.
