(Kaelen)
Neutral ground turns out to be a clearing nobody owns.
Forty minutes east of Silver Crescent, off the main road onto a track that barely qualifies as one, through a stand of old pines that smell like winter even in spring. The kind of place that exists in the gaps between territories — not claimed, not protected, just existing by the mutual agreement of everyone around it to leave it alone.
We arrive first. Theron insisted on that — arriving second is a tactical disadvantage he wasn't willing to accept, and we had a brief conversation about whether this qualified as negotiating with someone who has tried to kill us three times, and the conversation ended when he pointed out that finding out what Dorian thinks he has is worth forty minutes in a pine clearing.
I didn't disagree.
