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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shayuri" data-source="post: 6967090" data-attributes="member: 4936">Amina listened, hands folded and head down, to the others deliberate. She had not yet taken food or drink, and participated in the salt ceremony simply by pressing a fingertip to the salt and then putting it to her lips for a moment. Her attention was on the map.It was not honor the raiders were looking for, of course. The question posed was rhetorical, to encapsulate the Sheikh's outrage. But it did pose an interesting corollary question. If not honor, what were they after? Because he was right, after a fashion. These were not normal targets for bandit raids.Tribal antiquities. Magical beasts. Personal possessions to be buried with the dead.Ankabut was not a woman with great formal training or scholastics. She had a very particular set of skills, perfected over a long career. Outside concerns were things she rarely had time for. But to stalk intelligent prey one had to get into their heads. One had to see patterns of behavior. There was a pattern here, though she did not see the connections yet.It didn't help that there was a ghostly desire, buzzing in the back of her head, to ask about the sea mages. Were they still in Tajar? It was a vanity, Ankabut knew. An echo of a life she'd ended. Would they know though? If she asked, would they be able to tell?Ugh. Focus. Discipline. She was not a novice any longer, struggling to keep the initiate vows. Ankabut brought up her list in her mind, visualizing it precisely as it had been the moment before it was burned. There was the focus she'd sought.She looked up at Akilah then. The other Vizier had not yet spoken, even to acknowledge her assignment. The sort of person she was would have a great impact on Ankabut's ability to work. It was a little frustrating to not have a read on her yet. A little more time, she decided, before she had to try to provoke some kind of reaction to gauge her by.</blockquote>

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