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Laaqueel had seen no miracles on the horizon.

Then, this morning, he'd stepped back through one of the dimensional doors he kept in his sahuagin palace and commanded her to come with him. He'd given no explanation of where he'd been or what he'd been doing. Having no choice, Laaqueel had stepped through the dimensional door and ended up in this city only an hour ago.

"We're in Skaug," he replied.

The malenti knew of the city from her travels above the sea, but she couldn't imagine what would bring them there. "The pirate capital of the Nelanther Isles?" she asked.

The mainlanders along the Sword Coast feared the place, and merchant ships lived in dread of the pirates who found a home port in Skaug. Only the most vicious and fearsome claimed the city as home, and the Skaug Corsairs protected the shores viciously from even those who pursued the pirates for crimes committed at sea and in their own countries. The Skaug Corsairs turned them all back, charging fees to those who stayed there.

"Yes," Iakhovas said, turned, and grinned. "Little malenti, you've never known a time when you kept pace with any and all of my plans and machinations, but you're going to learn more now. I'm feeling generous." He grinned again broadly, full of self-confidence and purpose. "You're not to know everything, but more than you have been allowed to know in the past."

She refused to react to his statement because it was true. Of late, she'd been constantly reminded of how true that was. A newborn hatchling still trapped in its nursery with its voracious siblings had more control over its future.

"What are we doing here?" she asked.

"I, little malenti," he rebuked her in a voice that sounded as gentle as steel encased in silk. "What am I doing here?"

She bowed her head, breaking eye contact in true sahuagin fashion. "Of course," she said. "Forgive me."

"Now you may ask me your question more properly."

Anger flooded through the malenti priestess, but it wasn't enough to quench her fear, or to make her forget that she'd have nothing without him. "What are you doing here, most honored one?"

"Marshaling the forces of yet another army I direct," he told her expansively. "The sahuagin aren't the only ones who follow me, nor only the creatures of the seas. There are dark cults spread around this world, among the surface dwellers, that know aspects of me. I've spoken with them of late, given notice to those as well to help me recover all that was taken from me. My war is escalating, my little malenti, and I shall break and shatter the surface dwellers."

Laaqueel recognized it as the truth even as he spoke the words. She knew he'd had dealings with the druids of the Vilhon Reach, gathering more information in his dark quest and striking bargains. He also had an agent of sorts in the Sea of Fallen Stars, a pirate called Vurgrom. She had seen Iakhovas talking to the blustering pirate a handful of times through a crystal ball kept at the sahuagin palace. Most of the conversations had revolved around another pirate captain, a half-elf woman called Azla, who seemed determined to work at cross purposes to Vurgrom. Laaqueel had never been part of those conversations, though. Vurgrom had also delivered some of the items Iakhovas searched for by way of dimensional doors.