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[volkarin]

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@hightower — after alina’s post.

[unapparent]

Nick, Ash, Armand.
Those are three who paid the blood price for your research, though I know there were more who perished. Those are the bodies I saw with mine own eyes, as I tried to keep us safe. A boy, no older than my sons. A husband, beloved by his partner. And a man who has surely suffered enough in his long life.

Will you offer your services to them as Alina has aided her Paul?

[ because it isn’t alina’s job to fix all who have been broken. she exhausted herself in the game. she risks herself now by coming forward. this is supposedly a necromancer’s specialty, is it not? ]

[volkarin]

[ Not too long after the message is sent: ]

Of course.

[ Then, a beat. He thinks, again, of Alina's message. The daily offering of blood. He can't ask that of them, not when he's responsible for how much they've given up already. Formless, shadowy thoughts begin to coalesce as he reads over Alicent's message once more. ]

It ought not to be their burden to bear.

[unapparent]

Tis already their burden.

[ You fool of a maester. She rubs her temples. ]

I expect to hear you’ve made inroads with them in due course.

[volkarin]

[ He's learned, already, the futility of clarifying — that he knows, that he means it in sum — the evidence of it plain to see in the last time he'd really engaged with the network, painting him as cold rather than caring. Still, he reads over her messages again, guilt sitting like a stone in his chest (which he supposes is the point). ]

Of course, Your Majesty.

[unapparent]

Then we’ve an accord, for the moment.

[ a beat. ]

Tell me if I can assist you. I am no necromancer or maester, but I am well known in this place, and my son is deft with a blade, as you well know.

I cannot bear to see my fellows suffer any longer.

[ though she knows that she will. she always does. a woman marked for sorrow. ]