Vague T/d setup thing
The first - and only - warning she had was a faint tremor in the base magic of the bubble. That was fast followed by a compulsion to proceed to the lawn in front of the town hall - the biggest open stretch that DauphinMare had.
The sight that greeted her did not exactly fill her with pleasure, hope, or anything good.
All around her, she was aware of the other residents swarming out of the dorms, up off the beach, out of the labs and the residences. And in the center of that, stood roughly two dozen people, very few of whom she was familiar with.
The one front and center she recognized, as well as the one beside him. Ice's lips pulled into a grim line. "What is this, Damion?"
"It's war, Icetenari," he replied.
There was a very, very faint echoy quality to his voice, and something coiled too tightly inside of her relaxed, very slightly. They weren't actually here. Or rather, they were, but they had limits imposed on them. "So what bit of war is this?"
"We thought we'd play a little game," Damion murmured, but he was slightly distracted as he watched the people gathering on the lawn. He could tell, easily enough from how they were arranging themselves, a lot of what he wanted to know. Several of them had coupled up, but which couples were the most fragile? Disrupting which ones would generate the most chaos? Dark eyes picked out the ones from the maze, and he smiled. His eyes shifted slowly, and while he was displeased to find that DauphinMare seemed to outnumber him he was pleased to see that most of them were simply children.
"We've got a few questions," Damion murmured. "Perhaps a few ... dares, as it were." He smiled coldly, and his eyes settled on his family, clustered in a knot. There was one he didn't recognize, and that threw him slightly. Still, she possessed the hair and eyes that marked the Cohens, and Belle was standing protectively in front of her. A baby sister then? Or one who had been raised in the palace and opted to remain rather than come to DauphinMare?
It hardly mattered.
Turning to the residents of Riverfell, he smiled. "Leave those few alone," he said as he gestured toward the place Jan, Belle, Tristan, and Libra stood together. "I know them, and I know what they can do. It's the others we're here to play with."
His lips pulled into a slow smile. "Pandora, if you'd care to get us started?"
He turned to regard his mother, a look of triumph on his face.
Ice said nothing, and her expression didn't shift at all. She reached out to rest a hand on Laurel's shoulder, drawing the girl close so there was no mistake that she was still her second. Inside, she was seething. Furious. Of course this was war, and of course it had something to do with him winning the maze. Why else would they get a surprise attack so soon after the task? She reasoned Order was likely kicking itself for giving so much power to the first item chosen - but surely they'd expected to win at their own task.
Grey gaze shifted to the woman that Damion had addressed ... and she waited.
Because there was nothing else she could do.