Chapter 1: and so it begins
Chapter Text
Darkness.
Beautiful, silent darkness.
Shadows twist and twirl around her like elegant dancers. They caress her cheeks, kiss her brow, thread her fingers in lithe strands that pull her along in a gentle current of nothingness. It’s warm. It’s cold. It’s perfect. She is weightless, drifting in and endless sea of black that cradles her like a loving mother.
She doesn’t remember how she got here. Or does she? She was…she was driving. There was a deer. Everyone knows you’re not supposed to swerve, but it was late at night, and she panicked.
She remembers the flash of the deer’s eyes in the headlights of her car.
She remembers slamming into the poor creature so hard for a moment she thought it would burst into a mist of red on impact.
She remembers the screaming of tires, the wheel spinning in her sweating hands, the way her throat began to close just as—
Pain.
Ah, that’s right. The pain. Like she was being severed by some great sharp blade, only it was everywhere. Thousands of razors slicing into her skin, gouging into her eyes, burrowing their way into her flesh like eager little ants.
The glass of the windshield shattered, and so did she.
But now there’s no pain. She can’t help but muse on how relatively quick the end was. She barely had time to reflect on her life, to see the faces of her loved ones flash in her mind.
…she can’t even do that right now, floating in this abyss. Everything is muddled. Mixed up. Torn and shredded and thrown about like paper maché. Why had she been driving in the dark? Where had she been going? What…
What was her name?
“Hello, little one.”
A voice.
A voice calls out in the darkness. Instinctively she finds herself reaching for it, but maybe it’s the shadows threaded around her fingers that are urging her formless essence forward. She can’t tell. Where does the darkness begin and where does she end? They are one and the same now.
She is shadow. She is the night. She is dead, gone, dead and dead and dead. Sweet, blessed silence. No more pain. No more fear. No more waking up in the mornings, unable to stand looking at her reflection in the mirror, as the words Are you happy? bounce in her empty skull over and over again.
No, she wasn’t happy. She could never be happy in that world, with that life. But she can be happy here. Safe and content in this womb of darkness, where everything that she was will fade away into oblivion.
A hand slips into hers. Soft skin, cool to the touch and uncalloused, grips her with a thrumming strength and pulls.
She feels her soul shiver.
A face comes into view amongst the shadows. An expressionless mask of pure white, like porcelain. A painted black line for the mouth. Two carved holes for eyes that carry nothing but more darkness.
Shadows drift in silken tendrils, becoming long and luscious hair as black as midnight. A woman, slender and clad in a plain yet alluring dark dress with a cloak of black feathers perched elegantly over her shoulders. There is a flash of silver in the eye holes of the mask and she feels herself becoming…
More.
Whole.
Unbroken.
Alive?
“Do you want this to be your ending?” the woman in the white mask asks as she holds her hand. The woman’s voice is gentle and soft, like the whisper of wind through the forest when the moon is at its fullest. A lullaby time forgot. A dream from which one never wants to wake but ultimately, knows they must.
She can’t answer. Not in words—her throat doesn’t work, her tongue is a bloody mess in her mouth. Isn’t it? No, she was nothing just a moment ago. She didn’t have a tongue, didn’t have a mouth, didn’t…
Didn’t…
“…no.”
Her voice comes out in a hoarse, aching rasp.
Has she always sounded like that?
The woman in the white mask smiles. Somehow, she can sense the slow curling of lips, feel the quiet amusement in her fingers as she gives her hand a reassuring squeeze.
“Then let this be a beginning instead.”
She is enfolded in an embrace. The feathery tips of the cloak brush against her nose, and she smells pine and snow and night sky. Heady smoke from incense. Lilies. Fresh, just bloomed this morning lilies.
The woman holds her to her breast, so tightly she knows she could hear a heart thundering away, but there is nothing. Not even a shuddering inhale of breath. For some reason, it doesn’t bother her, even though she knows deep down it probably should.
But a lot of things stopped bothering her the moment the glass went through her skull and buried itself in her brain, sliced her throat, and impaled her tongue with a crown of daggers.
She looks up at the woman clad in darkness, seeing that flash of silver through the sockets of the mask again. In a ragged whisper, she asks, “Who am I?”
“Who do you want to be?” the woman asks back, the barest hint of mirth lurking in her words.
She thinks for a few moments.
That other life is beginning to come back to her in bits and pieces. Flashes of thoughts and emotions, memories of things that happened and desires of things she had wished happened. And always waking up, wanting to smash the mirror she was looking into, wanting to scream until the whole world could hear the agony locked away in her heart.
She doesn’t want to live like that again.
Her name—it had never felt like hers, not really. It wasn’t that she loathed it the way she loathed herself, but it just…never fit. It was like trying to put a glove on your foot. You could make it work, but wouldn’t a sock be easier?
“Rowan,” she decides after some time in the dark silence. “My name is Rowan.”
The woman steps away from her. She doesn’t want to admit how lonely she suddenly feels without her arms around her. The cloak on her shoulders gives a shudder, as if the shadows around them have given it a shake, and one of the feathers slips out from between its brethren.
It floats towards her. She reaches out and lets it fall upon her palm, gazing at the inky blackness. It’s heavier than she expected, until she realizes that there is suddenly a silver chain hanging from her fingers, and the feather is attached to it.
Unbidden, she slips the chain around her neck, her skin warm at the base of her throat where the feather now politely rests.
“And who,” the woman cocks her head, strangely birdlike and not at all human, “does Rowan want to be?”
Another pause.
Another eternity lost in her thoughts.
“I don’t know,” she finally answers after eons, giving a shrug and glancing at the woman with a shameful smile. “But I’d like to find out, if you’ll let me.”
“Oh, my dear,” the woman raises her arms above her head, the cloak of feathers rustling softly as multitudes of shadows waltz around her like dying stars. “I am merely the door. You are the key.”
She speaks in a language with no words. The shadows grow stronger. Her body loses its buoyancy. Her limbs ache, her skin feels tight, and she is becoming once again.
But she does not feel fear. No, the painful tug in her chest is not trepidation or worry, panic or contempt.
It is hope.
She opens her mouth to tell the woman thank you, to ask for her name, to wonder aloud why she chose to pull her from that dying world, but it’s too late.
The darkness sings around Rowan, and then suddenly she is in the light.
The day was going swimmingly for Gale, all things considered.
Tara practically kicked him out of his own tower, begging—no, commanding him to bask in the sunlight, if only for an hour or so. Her voice, cajoling and concerned all at once, rings in his ears every five feet or so: Being cooped up inside for the third week in a row is just downright neurotic, Mr. Dekarios.
She’s right, of course. She’s always right. And Gale supposes he can admit that the fresh, sea salt tinged air does feel wonderful to breathe in. The midday sun does is particularly refreshing after days of hushed candlelight and drawn curtains, fingers trembling as he pours over tome upon tome for some kind of answer.
He could do without the commentary from the neighbors, however. The raised eyebrows, conspiratory shocked glances thrown in his direction as he saunters down the streets. The not-so-quiet whispers, the questions of, “What has he been doing these last few months in that tower of his?”
It would be easier to ignore the barbs if Gale knew the answer himself.
Nevertheless, with his head held high, the Wizard of Waterdeep strolls through the streets of his beloved city with nary a destination in mind. His pocket jingles with coin. His mouth waters as he imagines the taste of Quaggoth burning his tongue for the first time in, well. Forever, it seems. Fine wine and brandy is a delight until it’s not, and despite the way his chest tightens oddly at the thought of thrusting himself into a crowd, he is eager. Excited.
He’s missed people. Missed going out into Waterdeep, if only for the sake of wandering through the city to see what mischief its denizens are up to. Gods, when was the last time he ventured out beyond the marketplace? The last time he concerned himself with something other than basic necessities and a new shipment of books promising wonders but yielding nothing but disappointment?
Six months, Gale reminds himself bitterly. Six months since you made a fool of yourself and though locking yourself in your tower would fix everything.
His chest tightens again, and it’s not the unsteady awakening of a panic attack gripping his heart.
Gale chances a glance behind him. His tower, illustrious and bold as it rises into the sky and overlooks the docks and the sea, is both a beacon and a curse. A mockery and a monument to his success. What else must everyone think when they meander by and see the windows shaded by thick curtains he has refused to open for months? What else do they whisper to one another when they feel a surge of magic as he desperately tries to plunge himself into the Weave with the same tenacity as he did once before?
Would they pity him, if they knew the truth? Or would they raise pitchforks and light the torches, demanding he leave the city before he becomes their ruin?
“Enough with the doom and gloom,” he berates himself out loud, shaking his head as if to free it from the dark thoughts parading around in his sequestered mind.
Today is going to be a good day. He is going to go to the tavern, get a drink, and listen to all the stories he can bear. And afterwards, he is going to take a page from Tara’s book and find some unattended garden to simply lay down in and soak up the sunlight as if it were a cure all. Maybe he will even find that new bakery he vaguely remembers hearing rumors about (though considering it’s been six months, it is not so new anymore) and see if they truly do sell chocolate that can Polymorph the eater. Oh, and perhaps he will—
There is a shudder in the Weave.
Gale’s skin grows cold and clammy as he is rounding the corner of a street he does not usually take, one that seemingly ends in a shadowed alley blocked off by a wall. In his musings he has stopped focusing where he is going. The magic within him grows as taut as chain tugs on that empty, sickly ache inside his chest. He hears something whisper. It does not speak in any language he knows, and considering his education, those unknown words send a spike of fear like ice rushing through his veins.
The shadows in the alley grow thicker. They…coalesce. Gale watches with wide eyes as they form into something. No, someone .
He has felt the Shadow Weave before. He has studied it in passing, only because a wizard as talented as himself craves knowing all he can about every school of arcana there is to know. But this—
He has never felt this before. It’s not heavy and oppressive as he remembers. It doesn’t fill him with a sense of abject terror and unease. There is a strange lightness to it, like a sigh of relief after the end of a very long journey.
The hairs on his arms stand up. Gale swallows thickly as he feels her brushing against him, as brief and unimpressed as it has been for the last six months. Mystra’s eyes have wandered to this unassuming alleyway but for a moment, not even bothering to give him a second glance before deciding whatever magic is at play here is none of her concern.
He wants to beg her to stay. He wants to fall to his knees and press his forehead into the mud, his breath becoming ragged and strained as the thing inside his chest burns.
But no.
Gale does nothing but stand there in stunned silence as his goddess abandons him, and the darkness in the alley slowly disintegrates into the air like ash.
There is a person sprawled out on the ground. A woman, younger than him at first glance—late twenties, barely thirty? She’s dressed in odd attire; dark blue trousers of some thick material he’s never seen before, a black sleeveless tunic with a golden imprint of a cat sitting on a crescent moon emblazoned in the front, and dark purple sandals that expose practically all the skin of her feet. He doesn’t recognize the symbol on the tunic and wonders briefly what it could possibly mean.
But that’s not important.
She’s pale. Almost deathly pale. A tousled, curly mess of dark auburn hair reaching a couple inches past her shoulders fans out beneath her head like a pillow, sinking into the muck. A constellation of freckles paints across her nose and parts of her cheeks. At the base of her throat lay a single black feather, hooked on a silver chain around her neck, and even with Gale’s senses burdened by the thing inside him he can feel the magic it emanates.
It’s the source of the Shadow Weave. The thing that created the darkness and brought her out into the light.
The warped magic, the antithesis of all that Mystra stands for, settles around the woman like a kiss. Gale can feel the way it seeps into her skin; it’s almost palpable, touchable.
It should feel wrong.
It does not.
Gale Dekarios is utterly lost in confusion as he surveys the woman before him.
And then something snaps inside him, some affronted voice that hisses, What in the hells is wrong with you? Make sure she’s alive, you idiot!
(The voice sounds like his mother and Tara combined. A frightening prospect indeed.)
Gale stumbles forward, closing the gap between himself and the woman on the ground in an instant. He crouches down, not caring if the edges of his robes get sullied in the mud. The ground this close to the docks is never dry, not even when it hasn’t rained in weeks.
He places two fingers against the woman’s throat.
A pulse. A flutter of life. Slow and steady, she is breathing and her heart still beats. The Shadow Weave trembles at his touch, burying itself further inside her, as if it fears him. It’s more akin to a stray animal cowering beneath a bench on a rainy day than anything malevolent.
Well, he has always been of the mind that magic is but a tool. A conduit, doing nothing but the bidding of its user. Despite the inherent mistrust and misinformation regarding the Shadow Weave, it would be rude of him to peg its magic as inherently evil.
The woman stirs then. A soft, quiet groan escapes her lips as her eyes flutter open. Gray-blue eyes meet his, the color of the high seas during a storm, and they stare at him in disorientated weariness. His fingers are still at her throat; he feels the muscles and skin working beneath him as she swallows, blinking rapidly.
Gale knows he should back away. Gale knows he should give her some space, let her come to a little more before he bombards her with questions.
But he just stares down at her. Both because he has an aching need to know what spell she had cast with such mastery over the Shadow Weave, and also because, well. She’s rather…lovely. The kind of face he would definitely pause and do a double take if he saw her in a crowd. The kind of face that would have gotten him in trouble during his Academy days, he thinks with a silent inward chuckle.
The woman on the ground gives another groan, and he is wrested from his train of thought as she lifts her head up. Gale winces as the squelching sound of her body wrenching itself free from the mud echoes in the alley, and he pulls his hand away at last as she fully sits up. Her hair drips with grime, and he imagines her back is absolutely covered, but that seems to be the least of her concerns.
Her gaze flicks wildly to the alleyway around them. Gale watches as she seems to take in everything ; the crying of the gulls at the docks, the quiet lapping of the waves a few streets away, the scent of brine in the air. Her bewildered, dazed expression flits through about a dozen more in the span of ten seconds. He catches panic and fear among them. Delight, almost to the point of elation as well. One hand raises itself in front of her face and she looks at it as if she can’t believe it’s attached to her.
Gale would rather not be boorish and crude upon first meeting, but the unknown shrieks at him as loudly as the gulls at the docks. The thing in his chest shudders; a gnawing, inescapable hunger settles inside him, weighing on his shoulders and threatening to drag him down. He sits at the edge of a precipice, feet dangling haphazardly in the abyss.
It senses the magic inside her. It wants the magic, wants to sink its fangs into that darkness and tear into it like a starving beast.
Gale will not let it. He has lived with this burden for six months now. He has some form of control over the arcane hunger. A ring on his finger burns like the embers of a dying fire as the enchantment within it is devoured in a matter of moments. It was a bauble, a near useless thing, imbued with a mere cantrip.
The aching agony in his chest rumbles and snarls before settling down to a dull roar. His veins alight with the Art, magic spreading through his very being before diving into the gaping maw inside him. It is a harrowing, unwelcome sensation, and he resists the urge to shudder violently. The abyss beneath him closes and he is safe on solid ground once more. Well, as safe as one can be with his condition.
The thing inside him is sated for now. Its attention will no longer be on the dark magic within the woman, who hasn’t noticed his struggle at all as her eyes continue to wander the alleyway.
He clears his throat as politely as he can, ignoring the way his knees are starting to ache from bending down for so long.
Her head whips back to him as she remembers his presence. The woman’s other hand goes to the feather at her throat and grips it so hard her knuckles turn white. Stormy eyes boring into him, she opens her mouth and says in a groggy, hoarse tone, “Where the fuck am I?”
Now it’s his turn to blink in bewilderment, taken aback by the harsh language.
“You’re in Waterdeep, City of Splendors,” Gale answers slowly as he rises to his full height, offering a hand towards her. “Let me guess—a rogue Teleportation that didn’t go quite as planned? You are rather lucky I was close by, since any other wizard may be a tad offended by an unannounced Teleportation spell being cast so close to their tower.”
A subtle nudge, if anything. A question without really asking.
Just what magic were you using?
The woman stares at his outstretched hand in a very similar way she did her own only moments before.
And then she bursts out laughing.
It lasts so long Gale fears she’s gone mad. Tears leak out of the corners of her eyes and she practically hugs herself as she chokes on giggles and guffaws, voice growing higher in pitch.
“Wizards? Spells? Magic? ” She looks utterly ecstatic, as if he’s just handed her the personal journal of Karsus himself. Though to be frank, that would be his idea of ecstasy. He very much doubts it’s hers.
“Er. Yes?” Gale isn’t sure how to answer. He isn’t sure how long to keep his hand held out, until she suddenly grasps it with a strength he wasn’t expecting and pulls herself forward.
Any harder and he would lose his footing, planting his face in the mud. At least they’d be a somewhat matching pair then.
“Sorry, sorry,” the woman says as she wipes away stray tears with the back of her hand.
She gives him a grin, the cheeky sort that immediately makes him want to smile back. He does, somewhat timidly, if only because of how odd this whole scene has become.
“I promise I’m not laughing at you,” she continues. “It’s just, well. This is insane. Batshit insane. I’m…I’m not…”
The storms in her eyes grow smaller. Distant. Unseeing.
And then the brightness returns, unclouded by doubt or worry, and the grin she wears grows even wider as she gives a little twirl. Indeed, her entire backside is caked with wet, sticky mud, and Gale is already internally wincing at how hard it’s going to be to clean it while preserving the integrity of her clothing.
He does not miss the little swirl of darkness that rises from her form when she’s finished her clumsy pirouette and is facing him once more. A blanket of shadow, barely discernible, but Gale is still a wizard of the highest renown despite his fall. He senses the dark arcana more than he sees it, and when he pushes his own magic out towards it for a better analysis, he almost recoils out of shock than anything else.
The Shadowfell.
This woman was in the Shadowfell very recently.
But…
Again, the magic within her is not evil. It is not preordained to chaos and destruction. Hells, to Gale, the magic within her is almost protective. Clingy. Like a child hiding behind its mothers skirts, or perhaps even the mother stepping in front of her babe to hide them from prying eyes.
Curious. Most curious indeed.
“I’m Rowan,” the woman says blithely, once again jolting Gale from his turbulent thoughts. “And I think I just died.”
…well.
The day was going swimmingly indeed.
The wizard’s name is Gale and Rowan likes him immediately.
It isn’t just because he’s handsome, though that does help. He’s built thick as a tree trunk, with a pleasantly round belly and curves that are barely concealed by his flowing robes. She bets he gives amazing hugs with those robust, plump arms of his. She wouldn’t mind being swept up in one right now, actually.
And his eyes! She’s never seen someone with such brown eyes! Not to mention how his well-groomed stubble clings to his square jawline rather perfectly. He’s older than her, she guesses, judging by the years of weathered lines etched into his face. Laughter and sorrow both seem to dance at the edges of his eyes, at the corners of his mouth. She wants to run her fingers through his mousy brown hair, streaked with distinguished strands of gray every now and then. She wants to ruin the impeccable, feathery way he has styled it, slicked back and long enough that it meets his shoulders.
Not that she would listen to such an intrusive thought, especially within ten minutes of first meeting someone, but still.
No, Rowan likes Gale of Waterdeep immediately—despite the obtuse way he introduces himself with a flourish bordering on arrogance—because the first thing he does after giving his name is use magic on her.
“This should only take a moment,” the wizard informs her as he holds his hand out, the fingers splayed and spread in a wide fan. He wears quite a bit of jewelry. Rings don almost every finger, and she notices an earring dangling from his left ear. A silver starburst, framed by a perfect circle. Pretty.
Rowan watches as Gale’s fingers alight with a soft purple glow. He murmurs something softly, words she can’t hear, and suddenly her entire backside is warm. A rush of something wells up within her. She doesn’t know how to describe it. But for one moment, one precious and new moment, she becomes overwhelmed by what can only be magic.
It feels like she’s breathing for the first time.
Colors seem brighter. She’s never felt so alive, so free, so at ease. The spell caresses her the same way the shadows in that dark place did, with affection and a kindness that nearly brings tears to her eyes.
And then the moment is gone, fleeting and forgotten as the purple glow fades from Gale’s outstretched hand.
“Just a little Prestidigitation,” he says offhandedly. “I recommend an actual bath, but the mud and whatnot has been vanquished most valiantly by yours truly.”
She glances behind her and sees an indent in the ground that is most definitely Rowan-shaped. How long was she laying in the muck, she wonders? She hasn’t noticed it at first, too focused on the fact that she was alive and not dead and most definitely in a place that didn’t exist in her old world.
Rowan resists the urge to check the back of her head. She believes the wizard when he says he took care of it. With magic.
Magic.
“I’m alive,” Rowan whispers in awe, more to herself than to the man standing in front of her. “I’m alive. Magic is real. And so am I.”
A hand rests upon her shoulder. Rowan meets Gale’s gaze, those soulful brown eyes swirling with concern and courtesy both. “I hate to be blunt,” he says gently, “but there are some questions I would very much like to ask you. Would you be so kind as to accompany me back to my tower?”
There are many things unvoiced in that question. Silent, cautiously curious things. Rowan can’t blame him—one of the first things she told him was that she had just died. A wary, realistic part of her tells her that she should politely decline his offer. He’s a stranger, and he’s just done magic, and she’s obviously in a brand new world with a whole new set of rules.
But she ignores that part of herself. A need to know , a desire to learn all she can grips her so tightly she can barely breathe.
This man can tell her about where she is now. He can tell her about magic. The woman in the darkness had asked her who she wanted to become. Rowan knows without a doubt, as she stands here in an alley in some faraway place with a man who calls himself a wizard, that the person she will become is going to revolve around magic first and foremost.
So she nods. Giving him an eager smile, Rowan says, “Since you’re offering, sure!”
Gale returns her smile. It comes much easier than before, and her heart flutters like a bird at how lovely his face is when he smiles. Shit, she’s in trouble.
“It’s not too far from here,” he says as he turns around, gesturing for her to follow.
She does, dutifully. His brilliant purple robes swish as he steps out of the alleyway with an elegant poise and purposeful gait. He certainly looks the part of a wizard; all he needs is a pointy hat and gnarled staff with some kind of crystal at the top.
As Rowan shuffles behind Gale, rounding the corner of the alleyway, a gasp gets caught in her throat.
Waterdeep is…beautiful.
She’s stepped into a fantasy. It’s like something out of a movie, a storybook. Throngs of people wander the streets, dressed in typical medieval fantasy attire that makes her feel like she’s at a ren fair. The buildings are clustered together, quaint and cozy and exactly as she imagined a world of magic to look like. The streets are paved with cobblestone, and as she steps out into the main thoroughfare, the scent of salt gets even stronger.
The sea.
For the first time in Rowan’s life, she’s seeing the sea.
It stretches out far beyond the horizon before her. She is facing a massive expanse of wooden docks, with boats of all shapes and sizes resting upon the gentle waves. The water glitters like diamonds as it reflects the brilliance of the sun, almost blinding in its brightness.
And directly in front of her, perched on the edge of the coast like a sentinel, is a tower.
It, too, is straight out of a fantastic dream. Its sides are of pristine white stone, vines of flowering ivy stretching up and down the surface. She can make out at least four latticed windows in the front, but all of them are darkened as if by a curtain or blinds. It reminds her of a lighthouse as it spirals into the sky, a beacon for all to see. Rowan half-expects a serpentine dragon to suddenly curl around the tower and hiss fire and brimstone at her, but nothing of the sort occurs as they get closer.
Something almost as strange does, however.
The people are staring at them. At first Rowan thinks their eyes are on her, which wouldn’t be all too surprising considering her state of dress. A t-shirt, jeans, and flip flops is probably not the standard of fashion in Waterdeep. She imagines her hair is a frizzy mess, despite Gale having removed the mud; the air here is heavy and humid, and while the temperature isn’t hot it’s still wreaking havoc on her curls.
But no.
They’re focused on Gale. Exchanging glances with one another, hushed whispers to and fro. Rowan has known him for all of ten minutes but even she can see the way his shoulders stiffen as he marches toward the tower. The way his gait falters ever so slightly as he passes the busy crowds who have all but paused in their daily routine to spare him a glance tells her all she needs to know.
“Of Waterdeep” was more than just an indication of where he’s from. Gale has a reputation with these people. From the inquisitive stares, Rowan can’t tell where that reputation falls between the positive and negative.
When they’ve at last reached the tower, Rowan is pleasantly surprised to see a bit of landscaping around the entrance. She’s even more delighted when she notices the dozens of irises blooming, all healthy shades of purple. They have a distinct sheen to them, a shimmer in their luscious petals that reminds her of the sensation of magic she had felt minutes before. They’re enchanted. To help them grow, perhaps?
Either way, seeing them is a wonder. An omen of good things to come.
Even in a brand new world, her favorite flowers still exist, and the wizard who found her in an alleyway is the one cultivating them.
Gale turns to her just as she finishes making her way up the little path to the tower. The smile he wears is more strained than it was before, and there is no mistaking the shadows crossing his eyes. But he clears his throat and bows his head to her, the picture of chivalry as he announces, “My fair lady, I welcome you to the humble abode of one Gale of Waterdeep!”
The heavy oak door swings open with a will of its own. Gale steps inside, and Rowan follows, and as she enters the tower ‘humble’ is the furthest thing from her mind.
She’s in heaven.
She really did die and now she finds herself in paradise.
Books. Hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of books line shelves upon shelves. They go up so high that Rowan nearly falls back trying to look, her eyes never finding a ceiling of any kind. The interior is far larger than the exterior, which absolutely delights her.
Candles float in the air, lazy and lethargic. No smoke rises from their burning wicks; no ash obscures the delicate, intricate book spines. The flooring is covered with thick, plush rugs of all sorts of colors and design. Desks are everywhere—small desks, large desks, of varying levels of ostentatiousness, all piled high with more books and quills and inkwells.
The unending shelves lining the walls also hold a veritable treasure trove of knickknacks, some things she’s never seen before and has absolutely no frame of reference for. The air is thick with magic. Her skin tingles just standing there. The feather at her throat grows warm, comforting, as a tidal wave of emotions wells up within her.
She was meant to be here.
This is where she was supposed to be all along. The woman in the white mask has given her a gift she will never be able to repay.
Rowan’s throat is starting to close as she fights a sudden onslaught of tears threatening to escape her eyes. She takes a deep, shuddering breath as she surveys the rest of the tower, finding a set of stairs barely hidden between two of the larger book shelves. If this is what the main floor looks like, she can’t imagine what the rest of the interior has in store for her. How many other rooms are there? How big is the full interior?
She hopes she has the chance to see it all.
Rowan then realizes that, despite the splendor and academic wonder around her, the tower feels a little…dismayed. Dim. The only light inside is coming from the dozens of enchanted candles—the windows she spied on the outside are all covered up by thick, beautiful silk drapes that look more like they belong on the body of a queen than anything else.
And the scent in here…
Cinnamon and sandalwood. Parchment and patchouli. But it’s somewhat stale, as if the place hasn’t been properly aired out in weeks, and is in dire need of a fresh sea breeze drifting on by.
It’s then she notices other things. Little things. Half-eaten slabs of bread and dried apple cores on silver plates scattered about the desks and tables. Empty bottles of what were clearly wine lining the shelves in accompaniment to the baubles and trinkets. Crumpled up balls of parchment lying alone and forgotten on the rugs, dogeared books splayed open to pages stained with ink…
Oh, Rowan understands Gale of Waterdeep very well at this moment. She knows. She has seen this before, this similar haphazard disarray of a life lived with a heavy heart and a hatred for the reflection in the mirror.
She’s lived it, but she will never live it again.
Gale seems to realize where her focus has shifted. His eyes dart around, a slow horror dawning on his face. It must have been quite some time for him to entertain visitors if he hadn't realized the erratic state of his tower. Not that she minds, or cares, or will bring any attention to it.
The gold veneer of magic and a brand new world before her more than makes up for the glimpse of his seemingly disordered life. She’s pinching herself before she realizes it, flinching when indeed her cheeks sting briefly. This is really real. This is really happening.
“Can I stay here forever?” Rowan breathes, speaking before thinking as she is so wont to do. “I’ve never seen something so beautiful!”
Whatever Gale was expecting her to say, clearly that was not it. The horror on his face morphs into something more like confusion and he rubs at the back of his neck, cheeks flushing dark and ruddy. “You’re too kind,” he clears his throat bashfully. “I…apologize for the mess. It’s not usually this chaotic.”
“Oh, please, this is nothing compared to my bedroom back…home.”
Rowan falters ever so slightly. She’s never going back to that bedroom, is she? She’s never going back to that apartment. There had been dishes in the sink still—laundry on the living room floor that needed folding.
And Freya…
She hadn’t fed Freya before she left.
Would someone have found her body by now? Did someone see the wreckage of her car, pull her corpse out, and try in vain to pluck the glass shards out of her skin? Did someone tell her parents? They would feed Freya. They would take her back home, put her bed next to Loki’s, add her toys to the little bin underneath the coffee table. They would remember to brush her twice in the morning and once before bedtime. They would make sure they tell her goodbye every time they leave the house and that they love her to the moon and back. Rowan knows they will.
But what will her cat do without her? What will Rowan do without Freya?
No, stop thinking about that. STOP. THINKING.
Miraculously, the sudden wave of melancholy and unsettling anxiety inside Rowan doesn’t bubble up. It doesn’t make itself known. She just stands there in petrified silence as Gale goes on about the inner workings of his tower, blissfully unaware of how clenched her jaw is and how hard she’s gripping the feather at her throat.
“Every inch of this place is warded. No one can get in without my explicit permission, I assure you. I’d go so far as to say my tower is one of the safest places in all of Waterdeep. You needn’t worry about—”
“Goodness gracious, Mr. Dekarios, you weren’t even gone for an hour! Must I drag you out with my own claws?”
An imperious voice rings out through the tower, cutting Gale off. Rowan’s head turns towards the sound and sees something even more peculiar than a man claiming to be a wizard and the floating candles in his magical book castle.
There is a cat sauntering down the stairs. A fluffy calico, long-haired and groomed most exquisitely. A delicate collar coils around its neck, so dainty and extravagant it could probably pay off her student loans three times over. Its tail swishes to and fro as it leaps off of the third to last step and pounces to the floor, freezing when it catches sight of Rowan.
Rowan is frozen as well.
Because there is a pair of feathery wings on the cat’s back. Wings it used to propel itself off of the stairs and safely to the floor with all the grace one would expect of the feline persuasion.
“Ah, Tara!” Gale exclaims, sounding relieved. “As you can see, I have been waylaid by a most curious distraction and promptly returned home. This is Rowan. She graciously accompanied me so that I may…pick her brain on certain matters arcane.”
The cat shifts into a sitting position. Some of the tenseness in its body is gone, though the fur on the scruff of its neck stands up ever so slightly. The cat peers at Rowan with scrupulous golden eyes—eyes that harbor a startling intelligence and wisdom to them.
Rowan feels like she’s drowning as she gazes into those eyes.
Then the cat opens its mouth and says, “Why, sir, haven’t I taught you better? You haven’t even offered your guest any tea!”
Oh.
The voice from earlier came from the cat.
The cat with wings.
The cat has wings and it talks.
…Rowan wonders for a brief, painful moment what Freya would be like if she had wings and could talk, and the dam inside her finally breaks.
“F-fuck,” she hisses through gritted teeth, eyes burning as fat tears start to roll down her cheeks. “I-I’m never going to see her again. F-Freya…”
Her cat. Her wonderful, shy, silly beast. The only thing that kept her from giving into the darkness that has crept inside her for so long, and not the beautiful darkness that cradled her as she was born anew not even an hour ago.
The old Rowan is dead, and will never get to stroke her cat’s back ever again.
A sob rattles in her chest, chokes her throat, twists her tongue. She lowers herself to the floor, sitting on Gale’s perfectly plush carpet, and wraps her arms around herself. This is stupid, she thinks harshly as she buries her head between her knees, shoulders shuddering as she cries and cries and cries. I have a whole new start. I shouldn’t be having a breakdown because of a cat.
But Freya was not just any cat.
For almost three years, she’s been the light to Rowan’s shadow. And without her…Rowan has no idea what she’s going to do. She should have asked the woman in the mask if she could have her cat. She should have asked for a lot more than what she did.
She had just been so thankful to be gone from that world. The consequences of what she was leaving behind never crossed her mind, until now.
And now she’s full on sobbing in a wizard’s tower, making a fool out of herself before the very nice man and his talking cat.
“O-oh dear. I, uh—what can I—Tara, please help me.”
Gale sounds flustered and panicked over the pathetic, shuddering sounds of Rowan’s crying. Something warm and soft and fluffy brushes against her leg. She forces herself to lift her head slightly, seeing a very blurry Tara through a waterfall of tears. The winged cat is leaning against her, gazing at her in what Rowan can only describe as sympathy, her head bowed slightly.
“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you, dear?” the cat asks softly. Motherly, almost. It reminds Rowan of the woman in the shadows.
She nods, wiping at her eyes uselessly, hating how her nose is burning and how scratchy her face feels. She doesn’t trust herself to speak right now. She just sniffles and chokes on another round of sobs, feeling weightless and empty and alone.
“Mr. Dekarios, fetch some tea and biscuits from upstairs. The ones Sir Aumar sent last week. I shall keep Miss Rowan company.”
Rowan sees a flash of purple rush by as Gale strides towards the stairs, vanishing up them. Tara remains leaning against her side, a faint purr vibrating in the cat’s chest. Calming. Soothing. Familiar.
She would love nothing more than to scoop the cat into her arms and hold her, but considering Tara can talk, that would probably be rude.
“Let’s get you something a bit more comfortable than the floor to sit, yes?” Tara nudges her leg as Rowan wipes away another round of tears, her vision a little more clearer now that the sobs wracking her shoulders are starting to lessen. She watches as Tara’s golden eyes glow; her skin suddenly feels tight, and the air around her almost shivers. It’s akin to how she felt when Gale cleaned the mud from her. When he used magic.
And then suddenly Rowan is sitting in a very soft, very lovely armchair inlaid with emerald velvet and propped with a handful of pillows. It’s almost like she’s on top of a cloud. Tara rests on one of the arms, fluffing out her wings with a sense of pride as she starts to groom herself far too casually.
Rowan stares down at the cat, tears halted at last, though she knows her face is an absolute mess. “Did you just cast a spell?” she asks slowly, letting herself sink further into the plushness of the chair’s cushions. She could fall asleep if she allowed herself to close her eyes.
“Of course,” Tara answers coolly, though Rowan detects a hint of amusement in her tone. “What kind of tressym would I be if I could not use the simplest of conjuration spells? A poor companion for a wizard as capable as Mr. Dekarios, that’s for certain.”
Tressym? Must be the name for magical talking cats with wings in this world.
And Mr. Dekarios must be Gale. Gale Dekarios. Why the hell didn’t he just introduce himself like that, instead of that “of Waterdeep” nonsense?
Despite everything, Rowan snorts. He’s been nothing but kind and cordial since stumbling on her in that alleyway, but there’s no doubt in her mind that Gale has an ego the size of a fucking mountain. Humility doesn’t usually lend itself to ridiculous titles and fancy purple robes.
Well, as long as his hubris doesn’t rear its ugly head too much, Rowan doesn’t really care what Gale calls himself. He’s the first person she’s met in this world and as such, he is her only real lifeline as everything that’s happened sinks in. She doesn’t know what passes as a “capable wizard” considering that just yesterday, magic was a myth, but if it means he lives in a place as wonderful as this…kudos to him.
(She wonders where she’s going to live now. She has no place to stay, no means of supporting herself. She hadn’t been joking when she asked if she could stay here forever. She’s been inside the tower for fifteen minutes and it already feels more like home than her apartment ever did.)
By the time Gale returns, carefully making his way down the stairs with a silver tray balanced in his steady hands, Rowan is far more calmer than she was when he last saw her. Her eyes feel raw and her face burns, but the tears are drying slowly on her cheeks. Just the occasional sniffle escapes her parched throat rather than a string of weeping that would make a banshee cringe.
Gale eyes the chair she’s curled up in, his gaze flickering to Tara. The tressym—Gale’s familiar, as Tara informed Rowan once she stopped crying—is now settled across the backside of the armchair. Her tail brushes against Rowan’s hair, and one paw is barely touching the back of her head. Freya used to sit on her gaming chair with her just like this. It is taking everything inside Rowan not to break down once more at the comparison.
“You two certainly have made fast friends,” he muses as he holds out a porcelain cup on a dainty little plate out towards Rowan. It’s so picturesque and the endearing of a stereotypical fantasy tea party that she can’t help but smile as she takes it from him. He certainly has good taste.
Tara’s tail swishes a little harder. “Is that a hint of envy I detect, sir?”
“Come now, Tara, there’s no need for cruelty. I’m merely making an observation.”
“Yes, well, observe all you like. Perhaps Miss Rowan is in need of a familiar; perhaps she is more inclined to listen to a familiar’s advice, unlike a certain wizard I know.”
As Gale sputters indignantly at Tara’s affectionate teasing, Rowan brings the cup to her lips and takes in a deep breath. It smells heavenly. Peppermint and lemongrass, a touch of honey, and other herbs form an enticing aroma. One sip immediately has her feeling warm from the tips of her fingers to her toes. She lets out a quiet sigh and leans further back into the chair, staring down at the steaming cup in her hands. Gale and Tara have grown silent, no doubt watching her. The latter did not ask her who Freya was or what prompted Rowan’s sudden emotional onslaught but somehow, she thinks the tressym knows.
She’s grateful Tara hasn’t pressed the issue, or her whole deal in general but she and Gale deserve to know. Maybe it’s foolish and naive to suddenly blurt out what most people would think of as an insane acid trip, but this is a new world. A different world. Rowan has witnessed this man and his talking cat do magic. Surely admitting she died in her old life and a mysterious lady swimming in darkness decided she was getting a second chance isn’t too far fetched.
But still…
If they react poorly and throw her out, Rowan will be at a total loss. And that frightens her more than knowing she was dying in that moment in her car.
As if sensing her sudden nerves, Gale clears his throat. “Would you like a biscuit?” he asks gingerly, grabbing a plate from the platter and holding it out towards her. It is piled high with little cookies and tea pastries of every shape and size. Her stomach churns slightly, and she doesn’t know when she last ate.
A biscuit sounds fucking delightful right now. Or two. Or three. Or maybe the whole plate, considering how loud the buzzing in her head is becoming from the sudden urge of anxiety she feels.
She doesn’t eat the whole plate, but Rowan doesn’t say a word until she’s devoured six of the biscuits. And drank half the tea.
But when she finally does speak, Tara and Gale listen, both equally rapt with patient interest.
Rowan leaves some things out. She doesn’t tell them it was a car accident, because then she’d have to explain cars and gasoline and the whole Industrial Revolution, so she just says it was an accident that killed her. She tells them that she comes from a world without magic—she tells them her world has nothing but stories and dreams buried so deep in the graveyards of every person’s childhood. She tells them of her blurry memories and how she can recall certain things, like her love for books and history and her penchant for breaking into song at the littlest things. But others, such as her parents’ names and faces, or the town she grew up in, or the color of her favorite shirt…those are buried in a graveyard of their own. Rowan isn’t sure if she wants to find a shovel for them just yet.
She doesn’t tell them about Freya. It’s too hard. Not yet. She can’t talk about Freya just yet.
And finally, Rowan tells them about the darkness. How she felt so loved, so safe as she drifted through the sea of shadows. When she gets to the part about the woman in the white mask and the feathered cloak, Gale nearly jumps out of his chair as if he’s been electrocuted.
(Because yes, he made a magical armchair for himself so he wouldn’t have to just stand there awkwardly. “Evocation is my specialty,” he had told her after summoning the furniture out of thin air, “but my dabbles in conjuration are nothing to scoff at. Nor are my forays into abjuration. I’m quite adept at illusion, transmutation, and enchantment magic as well. My interest in divination and necromancy is more esoteric than anything else, but I am certain I can—”
Tara made him stop talking with just a single polite “ahem,” and Rowan had a feeling he could have continued on if the tressym hadn’t intervened.
His devotion to his craft is commendable. Rowan can’t help but admire it, and Gale himself. Plus he had looked so cute, chest puffed up and eyes blazing brightly as he bragged about his accomplishments.)
“A woman in a white mask? And she gave you the feather you wear around your neck?” He turns towards a particular bookshelf behind him, snapping his fingers once. A thick, hefty tome becomes alight with soft purples and pastel blues. The book groans as it wiggles out from between its brethren with some difficulty, gliding sluggishly through the air and into Gale’s open arms.
He sits back in the chair and cracks the book open. The spine groans. The pages rustle as his skilled fingertips brush by words and pictures he clearly knows by heart. When he’s found the page he wants, Gale holds it up for Rowan to see.
“Did she look like this?”
The woman in the shadows gazes at her from the vellum. The illustration is gorgeous and ethereal; her long black tresses drape around her like a veil, her expressionless mask somehow conveying absolute wisdom. The feathered cloak is longer in this depiction than Rowan recalls upon her encounter with the woman, and the dark dress she wore in the shadows was a little less austere than the one on the page.
But it’s undoubtedly the same. Some minor differences here and there, but Rowan would know that’s who brought her here even if she were blind.
She nods at Gale. A glimmer of excitement flashes across his face, the corners of his mouth curling into a grin. “Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. That was the Raven Queen—a goddess of death and memories. She calls the Shadowfell her home, and I am willing to bet a hefty sum of gold that’s the darkness you woke up in. However did she bring your soul to Toril, if your previous world did not have magic?”
Gale’s taking this a lot better than Rowan thought he would. He hasn’t even blinked at the prospect of another world, though she thinks the idea of one without magic does give him pause.
Wait—
“Did you say a goddess? ” she exclaims, peering closer at the illustration in the book as if it was hiding a clearer answer.
“Toril is presided over by many goddesses and gods. The Raven Queen is only one such deity in a larger pool of divine might.”
Gale snaps his fingers again and instead of a book hovering to him, a large scroll of sorts frees itself from the confines of a shelf and makes its way to his lap. He puts the book on the arm of the chair and unfurls the scroll, revealing a colorful and detailed map that makes her head spin. He points to a large landmass on the northern portion of the map, his finger hovering over a specific spot.
“This is where we are, in Waterdeep. It is a city in Faerûn, a continent on the planet of Toril. We are but specks in the cosmic scheme of things, truly! There are many other realms, other places of existence that go beyond our petty material plane. The Hells, the Feywilds, the Elemental Planes…and let us not forget the Astral Sea, home to many gods both living and dead.”
Gale is vibrating in his enthusiasm. Rowan once again enjoys how adorable he looks when he gets excited.
“Many academics and scholars alike have theorized that there are more realms beyond the ones we are aware of. Perhaps yours is one of them; if it is truly bereft of magic, one can assume it would be difficult to discover through arcane means.” He rolls the map back up and flicks his wrist, sending it and the book he had summoned previously back to their respective spots. He levels her with a steady gaze, suddenly falling silent as he seems to be contemplating something.
It’s difficult to tear herself away from the fire in his gorgeous eyes, especially when she’s starting to feel a similar burning in her chest. Or maybe it’s just heartburn from all the crying and sugar intake.
“Your nebulous origins aside, I simply can’t fathom how—or why—the Raven Queen managed to find you and bring you here.” The fire in his eyes dies somewhat and he frowns, as if being unable to discern this truth is frustrating him to no end. “She’s had Chosen before, yes, but never from a world without magic. At least, none that I’m aware of.”
Rowan doesn’t know what he means by ‘chosen,’ but judging by the emphasis he put on the title, she imagines it’s something important. She just shrugs, suddenly drained and exhausted and in dire need of a nap. There’s still an underlying sense that maybe this is all a dream, and she’s going to wake up in her bed in her apartment at three in the morning as usual to get ready for work.
…what was it that she did for a living again? She can’t remember. It probably doesn’t mean shit if not one of the things her bruised brain didn’t catch in its memory sieve.
“Whatever her reasoning and however she did it, I’m glad.” Her voice comes out soft and shaky, with no attempts to hide her fatigue.
“Perhaps it's high time I finally respond to Elminster’s missives,” Gale says quietly in response, more to himself than Rowan. “There is a small chance he may know something about your situation. Ah, I almost forgot!”
He nearly jumps out of the chair again and leans forward, so close that Rowan is very glad she has set aside her cup of tea. Otherwise, it would have ended up in her lap at the sudden way he lunged towards her.
“I do apologize if this comes off as presumptuous,” Gale at least has the decency to sound somewhat ashamed, but there is no hiding the sharp and eager inquisitiveness lacing his every syllable. “Would you mind if I tried something? When I found you in the alley, I sensed a great deal of magic within you, Miss Rowan. If I have your permission, I would like to dig a little deeper.”
“Rowan. Just Rowan is fine.” Rowan pauses for a moment, and then adds, “Tara may still use ‘Miss’ if she wants. Tara can do no wrong in my eyes.”
The tressym sitting at her head lets out a pleased purr at that. As a (former now, she supposes) cat mom, Rowan knows without a doubt that letting cats do as they please makes life easier for all involved. That goes double for a magical talking cat with wings.
Gale just rolls his eyes, silently awaiting her answer.
She pushes down her creeping unease and gives him what she hopes is a stern nod. “Pardon me,” he murmurs as he reaches his hands out and carefully holds onto her own, his touch light as a feather. They have a soothing warmth to them, like the tea. The skin of his palms have a roughness to them. She guesses it’s from years of handling parchment and books. It’s not unpleasant. Quite the opposite, really.
Gale says something under his breath. The cadence of the words is similar to what he uttered when he cleaned the mud off of her, but even though she can’t understand them she knows they have a different meaning. His lovely brown eyes suddenly glow a soft, inviting lavender, and she catches a glimpse of a darker purple light hidden just beneath the collar of his robe.
Weird.
The soft pastel hues in his eyes travel to his hands and the soothing warmth of his skin against hers grows deeper. Something stirs within her very essence. The feather at her neck grows hot, almost uncomfortably so, and she watches with widening eyes as a cloak of inky blackness forms wordlessly over the skin of her hands. The purple coating Gale’s hands and fingers shivers imperceptibly, so subtle and swift she almost misses it.
Rowan chances a glance up at Gale. His throat bobs as he gives a nervous swallow, glowing eyes locked onto the darkness of her hands, lost in whatever he’s doing. Sweat is forming on his brow. The purple light beneath his collar gets a little brighter. He doesn’t seem to notice.
And then suddenly that purple light is gone, and the strange trepidation he wore gives way to satisfaction. He releases her hands and the shadows swirling about them disappear just as the glow fades from his person. He leans back, adjusting his collar with fastidiousness bordering on far too casual.
Whatever that was about, Rowan will have to figure it out later, because before she can say anything Gale exclaims, “It seems my suspicions were correct!”
She looks briefly at her hands, a little lost and forlorn that the shadows are gone. Not because his hands are no longer holding hers. Nope, not at all.
“And what were your suspicions, oh magic man?”
Gale claps his hands together in unrestrained glee. He beams at her, the picture of a cat that got the cream. “You, my dear lady, have been touched by the Shadow Weave. The Shadowfell’s influence—whatever the Raven Queen did to bring you to Toril—has changed you indefinitely. You have an innate magic within you, one that will let you call on the Shadow Weave and channel it however you see fit.”
“Huh. Neat. I don’t know what any of that means.”
“Most users of magic draw their spells from the Weave,” Gale explains. “It is the source of all magic. The Weave is governed by Mystra. She is…the goddess of all magic. The Lady of Mysteries. The One True Spell.”
There is such a palpable, terrible ache in the way Gale utters Mystra’s name. A longing. A yearning that makes Rowan’s heart clench.
But then that inexplicable and sudden sadness is gone, lost in the shadows that form in Gale’s eyes and hide whatever else he evoked. “The Shadow Weave exists in tandem with the Weave,” he continues. “It is a force of magic that runs in the patterns between reality. It’s my understanding that followers of the dark goddess Shar are the ones who can typically harness its power. Clearly, the Raven Queen can also access the Shadow Weave, and has seen fit to make you a sorcerer of its shadowy might.”
Rowan scrunches her face up. “A sorcerer? Not a wizard? Is there a difference?”
She has never seen someone who fits the phrase “feathers ruffled” so succinctly. The way Gale visibly grows irritated, the slight twitch in one eye as his smile drops into a grimace—she feels as though she’s personally insulted him and his entire bloodline.
“Wizards are scholars of the arcane,” he says in a voice that makes it perfectly clear how hard he is struggling to maintain his civility. “We go through years of extensive training and research, learning how to harness the Weave on the merits of our own talent and success. Sorcerers , on the other hand, have the innate ability to call upon magic. They require no study, no trial and error. They know not the meaning of self-restraint and at times can do more harm than—”
“Mr. Dekarios,” Tara warns from her perch behind Rowan’s head. She had totally forgotten the tressym was still there.
Gale leans back in the chair, whatever pent up exasperation he was exhibiting fading into chagrined shame. “That was untoward of me,” he mumbles, face flaming as he avoids Rowan’s gaze. “I do apologize. That was not directed towards you. I have simply met many sorcerers over the years who have thought themselves exempt from the limitations wizards impose on themselves. You are undeserving of my ire, considering your unique circumstances.”
She could tell him that his apology is accepted. She could ask more on what he means on the apparent magical, ethical differences between wizards and sorcerers. She could even allow herself to get upset, to let a flash of anger out at his ridiculously uptight and unstable notion that wizards are seemingly better than sorcerers.
But, instead, Rowan blurts out, “Can you teach me magic?”
Whatever remnants of frustration—at both himself and the multitudes of unnamed sorcerers he just bitched about—disappears from Gale’s face.
His eyes light up once more. His body language, his tone, his entire being shifts completely. The scowl he wore transforms once more into an ecstatic smile, and he nods his head with such a vigor she’s afraid he’s going to give himself whiplash.
“ Yes ,” Gale answers, exclaims, practically shouts as he claps his hands together in unrestrained delight. “It would be an honor, nay, a privilege to be your guide on your journey through the arcane. Yes, Rowan. I would love to teach you magic.”
She deflates with relief. If he had said no…
But he had said yes. She doesn’t need to dwell on the uncertainties of a future that never had the chance to come.
“We can start right now,” Gale continues, his smile widening to the point that his eyes crinkle and faint dimples appear on his cheeks. God, he’s so fucking cute . “Cantrips are simple spells, more for utility than anything else. Let me show you one!”
To be honest, Rowan would rather crawl into a dark corner somewhere and let herself pass out than start learning magic immediately. The events of the past day (if it really has been a day since she died; who knows how time works when you’re a soul floating in a sea of shadow) weigh heavily, and she’s so tired. So damn tired.
But Gale has been so kind to her. So willing and eager to make her feel welcome and ease the shock of this brand new world she finds herself in. He could have turned away and left her in that alley. Instead, he invited her into his home, made her tea, and listened to her tale without ridicule. How can she say no?
So, again, Rowan nods in consent.
Gale reaches his arms out once more but this time he doesn’t take her hands. She has to push down an ache of disappointment. Instead he has his hands in her full view, spreading the fingers out in a specific pattern.
“Mimic my movements,” he instructs. Heart beating wildly, she does, stretching her hands before her and doing her best to follow the pattern he’s making in the air as precisely as possible. It’s not difficult but it does feel a little childish and silly.
“Good, exactly like that.” His fingers are dancing in the air, elegant and graceful. It’s hypnotic. “Focus on the magic within you. Call it forward, but not with aggression. Be respectful; courteous. The Weave should be your partner, never your unwilling servant.”
There’s something about the way Gale says it that makes Rowan think this was a lesson hard learned for him.
She doesn’t know how to begin ‘calling the magic forward’ however. It’s like trying to train a muscle that five seconds ago never existed for you. Until the feather at her throat vibrates ever so slightly, and she feels a tether pulling inside of her, filling her veins with an indescribable sense of something. A sense of peace. Tranquility. Contentment.
The freedom to make her own choices.
And she chooses this. To connect to the Shadow Weave and bask in its gentle darkness, borrowing its strength and becoming someone new.
“I-I think I have it,” she stammers, seeing a flicker of darkness emerge at the end of her fingertips.
“Excellent. Repeat the incantation I’m about to say, and we shall see just how quick of a study you are.”
Gale speaks in that lyrical, swirling language he used when he cast the prior spells. Like his hand movements, the words aren’t terribly hard to mimic. She thinks she’s repeating the specific inflections in his tone, the rise and fall of his syllables as the words fly from her tongue with an eagerness that takes her aback.
The candles in Gale’s tower all suddenly go dark at once.
Rowan shivers as the Shadow Weave wraps around her, kisses her cheek, and gives her hands a reassuring squeeze.
And then from her fingertips arise…orbs. Tiny flecks of brilliant silver light, dancing in the air, multiplying until there’s at least two dozen or so surrounding her hands in a blinding crown. They cast the immediate area in a dreamy glow, shining off of the tray Gale had carried her tea down with.
Gale’s eyes are shining just as brightly as the magic lights floating about her hands. His skin glows with an almost ethereal sheen as he watches the lights, and for the hundredth time since meeting him she just can’t help but appreciate how much she enjoys looking at his face. And then when he smiles at her, it’s with such intensity and pride that she forgets how to breathe for a moment.
He stretches a hand out and strokes one of the little orbs with his finger. Reverent, devout. Like she’s just shown him the meaning of life.
When he speaks, his voice is just barely above a whisper, gazing at those dancing lights in delight.
“Welcome to Toril, Rowan. I’ll make a wizard out of you yet.”
Chapter 2: roots planted; seeds sewn
Notes:
i am incapable of writing chapters under 10k words. i am so sorry.
Chapter Text
Gale names Rowan his apprentice and promptly ushers her up the stairs to the room that now, apparently, belongs to her.
She can’t even protest. The man insists it’s customary for apprentices to live with their teachers, and he has ample space for it. Besides, where else would she be so lucky as to get room and board in addition to honing her skills in the arcane? No, Rowan would be a fool to snub his magnanimity. She doesn’t know how Gale benefits from the arrangement, but she’s not going to argue and turn it down.
Especially when Gale opens the door to her chambers and ushers her inside.
There are three levels to his tower, he explains. The main floor is his library and archive; the second floor houses his living quarters, the spare room he has offered, and a kitchen. The very top of his tower consists of a storage space for arcane artifacts and magical objects he hasn’t found a place for in the library just yet.
The second floor is decorated just as lush and tastefully as the main one. Rowan doesn’t know why she thought the room she is now stepping in would be any different.
It’s utterly perfect.
It’s bigger than the bedroom in her apartment by a long shot. A four poster bed is pressed up against the wall facing the door, made up with pristine and crisp sheets that look as soft as a cloud. There is a single window on the east side of the room, covered by drapes similar to the style of the ones downstairs. Beneath the window is a lovely wooden desk, a chair tucked in and the surface shiny without a speck of dust.
On the western side of the room is a door cradled between two mid-sized bookshelves. There is nothing on them, save for two pairs of bookends in the shape of a winged cat that looks suspiciously like a clone of Tara. A large ornate chest sits at the foot of the bed and the wooden floors are covered with a few rugs of matching design to the ones in the library.
Rowan’s heart skips a beat as she steps inside. That sense of ‘home’ she was feeling downstairs is amplified in this room. She was meant to be here. She was meant to stay with Gale and learn and make this space her own. She just knows it.
“There are some spare clothes in that chest,” Gale says, gesturing to it. “My mother occasionally visits; she’s left some things of hers over the years. I believe you’re both about the same size. And that door there,” he nods to the door between the empty shelves, “leads to a bathroom. It’s enchanted to keep itself fully stocked and I promise, the water runs as hot as you’d like it to.” He winces visibly. “Sometimes too hot.”
“I don’t know how to begin thanking you,” Rowan admits as she slowly does a complete 360 around the room, letting the cozy atmosphere sink into her bones. “You’re too kind, Gale. Truly. Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to let strangers sleep in your house after knowing them for three hours?”
Gale lets out a laugh, hearty and full of mirth. “On the contrary! She’s always pressed the importance of being a good host.”
“Well, you’d certainly make her proud on that account.” Rowan doesn’t know why it’s so hard to meet his eyes all of a sudden. She feels a rush of blood creeping up her neck, her cheeks growing hot. Her hands wring themselves into a tangled nervous mess. “Just…thank you. I wish I could say it a little more eloquently, but thank you. You don’t know how life changing today has been. Dying and coming back to life aside.”
“While your gratitude is appreciated, no thanks is necessary.”
She takes the chance and looks at him once more. His eyes are so gentle, so full of compassion, but there is also a relentless gleam in them that says more about his feelings than he probably realizes. “Your connection to the Shadow Weave fascinates me. Guiding you through the Art will allow me to study that connection. You are a mystery, Rowan. One I intend to discover in its entirety.”
If that line came out of anyone else’s mouth, Rowan would assume that person was making a poor attempt at flirting.
Coming from Gale, she instinctively knows he means it in a less perverse meaning, but it doesn’t stop her face from getting even warmer.
“Now,” Gale gives her a polite bow of the head and begins to back out of the room. “I shall leave you to get some rest. If you need anything, my quarters are at the other end of the hall.”
She nods in thanks and watches as he steps over the threshold, gently pulls the door shut behind him, and remains staring at the closed door until she hears the sound of his steps fading away. Once the hallway is silent, Rowan sprints to the bathroom door and throws it open, gasping at the interior.
A beautiful clawfoot tub greets her. The flooring is marbled and a large mirror hangs on the wall opposite of the tub, the golden edge decorated with starry patterns not unlike the earring Gale wears. There is a sink under the mirror, the flat surface full of various colorful bottles she assumes is soap. Fluffy towels hang from a rack next to the tub and are embroidered with more of that star motif. Shit, even the toilet is fancy! She sends a silent prayer to whatever might be listening, thanking them for the fact that this new world has some kind of magical plumbing system.
Rowan knows she should rummage around in the chest to see what goodies she can find, but as much as she appreciates the offer, it’s a little strange to wear his mother’s clothes. She strips off her clothes, tosses them unceremoniously on the bathroom floor, and turns the faucet of the tub on. A stream of warm, steaming water erupts, loudly starting to fill the basin.
A few experimental sniffs later and the water is full of vanilla-scented suds. Once she’s certain her entire body will be underwater save her neck and head, Rowan sinks into the warmth of the tub and groans as the day’s stress slowly begins to melt away.
She still can’t quite believe it. She died. She died, and was brought back by a goddess. Now she’s in a wizard’s tower with the promise of learning how to use the apparent inherent magic within her. It’s like the plot of a bad fantasy novel. One that she knows she would have shamelessly read in her old life, had she come across it.
Rowan glances over at the mirror opposite of the tub and studies her reflection. It’s her face staring back at her, but also…not.
Her eyes have more blue in them in this world. She’s used to them mostly being gray and accompanied by dark, bruised exhausted shadows underneath. Those are nowhere to be found. But her freckles are back—they had faded by the time she graduated college in her previous life. Her hair is a little longer than she remembers, though just as curly and full of kinks that she doesn’t even want to think about brushing through.
Rowan looks down at her naked body. She’s still heavyset, though a little less than before, as if death sucked the marrow from her bones. She still has the rolls of her stomach, the thickness of her thighs and the dark stretch marks across them. Her left knee still has the scar from when she fell and tore it open on the pavement in middle school.
She can’t find the scars on her ankle from when she accidentally cut it open shaving. Her hands and fingers don’t ache like they once did from years of typing and gripping a computer mouse like it was a lifeline. Her skin is smoother, softer. Like someone slathered her body in lotion and let her marinate in the fridge for three days.
She is both old and new. She is Rowan; the Rowan she always wanted to become. The Raven Queen’s doing, maybe? Well, the goddess missed the memo on her cleavage, because Rowan would have really loved for her chest to be a little smaller in this new life. Easier to manage and a lot less strain on her back, though her spine doesn’t twinge with a hint of pain like she remembers.
Big boobs aside, she is grateful. This is the first time in a long time she’s looked at herself and not hated what she saw.
Something pulls her attention back to the mirror and once again, she faces her reflection. It is gazing at her with wistful eyes, a presence that is both here and not here. She swears she hears a croaking birdlike call echoing in the back of her mind.
“Are you happy?” the Rowan in the mirror asks.
She contemplates. She goes over the day’s events slowly, methodically, turning the memories over in her hands and analyzing every second since her first life exploded in a storm of bloody glass.
“I think I have the chance to be happy,” she answers truthfully, giving her reflection a shrug. “I want to be happy. I think this world will make it a little easier than the last.”
Her reflection smiles. The Rowan in the mirror says nothing else, and the ringing caws in her ears go silent.
Rowan loses track of how long she stays in the tub, submerged and relaxed to the point where her limbs feel like jelly. The water never gets cold and the scent of vanilla never fades. She sinks further into the water, letting her hair get soaked, enjoying the peace and quiet.
By the time her skin is as wrinkly as a prune, Rowan decides at least to vacate the tranquility of the tub. She dries herself off just enough that she can wiggle back into her underwear and bra, but keeps her jeans and t-shirt abandoned on the bathroom floor.
The bed calls to her with a siren song she can no longer ignore, but there is one thing she needs to do first.
Rowan goes to the window, draws back the curtains, and winces as a blinding ray of sunlight stabs her in the eyes. Heedless of whether or not there may be an unsuspecting bystander outside who will glimpse her in her underwear, she finds the latch, pushes the panes to the window open, and looks out.
The only thing she sees is the sea. The salty aroma of its brine assaults her senses and a warm, gentle breeze winds its way through the window and into the room. It chases away the stuffiness, the clinging feeling that no one has been in the chambers for some time.
It’s beautiful. She’s always wanted to see the ocean. She never got the chance to. Now here she is, living in a tower right next to it.
Rowan keeps the window open. She doesn’t care that the midday sun has now suffused the room with light. Sunset won’t come for another couple hours, she surmises, but she’s never had trouble falling asleep. Especially not when she’s as overwhelmed and exhausted as she is now.
She crawls into the bed at last. The mattress is blissfully soft and the blankets are as smooth as silk. She is very aware that Gale is most likely a filthy rich bastard and just like Tara’s collar, these sheets probably cost enough for a down payment on a house.
But those are musings for another day. Rowan could care less about what Gale throws his money at. He’s treated her like a dear friend in dire need of assistance and as such, she will do everything she can to pay him back.
Rowan pulls the covers over her and snuggles into the pillows. The scent of the sea and the warm sunlight seeping into every inch of the room are like a forgotten lullaby. She gives in to the blissful embrace of slumber, her mind bursting with eagerness for what tomorrow will bring.
Gale’s chest feels like it’s going to explode and he can’t tell if it’s from the orb or the way his heart is beating with a ferocity bordering on madness. He stands on the balcony outside his chambers, gazing out towards the docks and the sea beyond them, hands worrying at the ends of his robes as he ponders silently.
Rowan could be the key to his salvation.
In the six months since his folly—since he had so woefully, foolishly thought himself better than Mystra and sought to prove as such—no arcane practice has given him the solution to curing his affliction. He has poured over thousands of manuscripts, read hundreds of books until his eyes burned, experimented with so many spells that to list them all would make him dizzy.
None of them have worked. Day by day, week by week, the orb has grown stronger. Hungrier. Gale has never been so thankful for his penchant for hoarding magical items, regardless of how mundane their enchantments may be. Yet, every artifact consumed by that endless void inside of him was just a bandage on a gaping wound.
Gale was running out of time.
The only thing he had never considered was the Shadow Weave. That dark counterpart to his goddess’s power…wizards (and anyone with a formal education, he supposes) are taught from the very beginning to never harness its shadows. Gale, ever the pragmatist, has always thought that to be a silly demand.
Magic does not fall upon the binary of good and evil. Magic simply is . Yes, the Shadow Weave is a power that focuses on darker, more frowned upon arcane arts, but that doesn’t make it bad. It’s ultimately the user’s influence and direction that shapes the Weave’s intent and Rowan is the furthest thing from evil.
When he had detected the magic within her, the sheer voracity from the orb in his chest nearly made him fall to his knees in agony.
The orb does not see Rowan as a person. Gale felt that hunger stretch out towards her with greedy, spindly fingers, and it had taken everything in him to push it back and hold it at bay. The shadows woven into that woman’s soul so keenly by none other than whom he assumes is the Raven Queen…the thing in his chest thinks she’s an artifact. It sees her as prey. Even now, mollified by the ring it consumed earlier, it still growls and snarls with hunger, its fangs wanting nothing more than to sink themselves into the magic Rowan holds.
Gale will not let that happen. He would rather consume the Blackstaff itself before harming Rowan.
Which is why he was so bloody overjoyed when she asked him to be her teacher in the arcane arts. Helping her hone her magic will keep her safe from the thing consuming him—and, gods willing, perhaps be the very thing that will free him from this curse.
At least, Gale hopes. At this point he’s run out of options. Not even Elminster will lend his wisdom and might, no doubt instructed by Mystra to let Gale flail wildly in the consequences of his own hubris.
But there’s no reason for Elminster not to answer an inquiry regarding strange worlds without magic, and the possibility of a person being pulled from one to Toril, right?
He’ll write a letter to his former mentor tomorrow. He isn’t so naive that he expects Elminster not to say a word to Mystra; hells, his goddess is most likely already aware of Rowan’s origins. She’d looked into that alleyway briefly, feeling the pull of the Shadow Weave. The fact that she had not lingered is a blessing, Gale hopes desperately.
He is so lost in his thoughts that the sharp agony in his chest almost makes him cry out in pain.
His knees buckle. A hand gropes uselessly at the fabric of his robes. He feels his face grow hot, sweaty. The pain is worse than it’s ever been through these last six months. It’s a burning agony, slicing into his very soul as the orb shrieks with hunger.
“No,” Gale groans, voice shaking with effort. His eyes squeeze shut and he fully collapses, body jerking in pain. It’s never required two items in one day, even if the ring was a paltry thing meant for a child’s first cantrip. Is this because it had scented Rowan’s magic?
Oh, gods, he’s made a mistake. His insolence truly knows no end.
He is the modern Karsus and Rowan will be the first victim of his folly.
But suddenly something smooth and round presses into his hand. “Quickly, sir,” Tara urges, the tressym’s voice a beacon in a storm of chaos and agony.
Gale doesn’t even bother opening his eyes to see what she’s given him, immediately bringing the object to his chest and pressing it against the orb’s prison with trembling fingers.
The abyss inside him gnaws and devours. The emptiness fades. The pain gives way to the usual dull ache he has forced himself to get used to since that fateful day. His limbs stop feeling as if he has been strung up on the gallows. The sickly heat clinging to his skin evaporates.
Gale opens his eyes and groans, the magic pulsating in his chest and flowing through his veins. His affliction grows silent. It does not even beg for a taste of the shadows it was craving moments before. Whatever Tara had given him shall last quite a long time, he thinks.
(He hopes.)
He remains on the ground, too weak to get up just yet. He lifts his head somewhat to meet Tara’s golden gaze, her eyes swimming with such worry that the guilt he feels is more painful than the orb eating away at him.
Wizard and tressym just stare at one another in tense, concerned silence, until eventually Gale finds the strength to speak.
“…do I even want to know what I just consumed?”
“Let us just say that if you attempt a scry anytime soon, you shan’t find the usual crystal you use to attune the spell.”
“That was a gift from my mother!”
“One you shall thank her profusely for, as it just saved your life. Such an expensive pet you are, Mr. Dekarios.”
Despite the cavalier tone she’s using, Gale is fully aware of how distressed Tara is over his predicament. A cunning magical beast she may be, the tressym can only do so much as watch the orb consume him. Oh, she tries; she tries so hard, organizing his trove of artifacts and enchanted items by level of how effective she believes they will be at staving off the arcane hunger. Gale doesn’t recall his scrying crystal being part of that collection. It just goes to show how bad this particular lapse had been if Tara was desperate enough to force it into his hand.
He doesn’t deserve a companion as loyal and loving as she. Not after his foolhardy, reckless gamble to give back Mystra the power she’s been missing since the fall of Netheril.
Who does he think he is? Why would the Shadow Weave prove to be his saving grace when no other magic has stopped the orb?
Tomorrow he should apologize to Rowan, tell her his offer of apprenticeship was made in haste, and find her a place to live. Another teacher to guide her through the Art, safe and far away from him. Hells, he isn’t above using his connections at the Blackstaff Academy. He knows she would be in good hands there.
But…
No.
The expression she had made when casting Dancing Lights, a cantrip so simple even a toddler could do it, had awoken something in him. To see a person’s first experience with magic was, well. Magical .
Damn the danger he poses to her. Damn the danger she may pose to him . Gale is going to teach that woman magic and cure himself of this affliction, and not even Mystra can stop him.
Gale forces down the rancor and self-hatred. He gets up, dusts himself off, and cranes his neck at an awkward angle as he cautiously pries apart the collar of his robe.
And winces in resigned horror.
The mark has grown. The scarring etched into his skin now stretches further up his neck, tendrils of purple slithering up his throat maliciously. The overall circular mark seems deeper, too. When he presses his hand against it, the grooves of his skin twitch and burn hot.
Gale remembers when the mark was barely a pinprick just above his heart. Now it’s a brand large enough for all to see and know his sin.
“I don’t suppose you have any cosmetic suggestions,” Gale asks Tara, careful to keep his tone as light and airy as possible.
His beloved familiar shakes her furry head. “I’m afraid not, sir. I doubt even glamor cast by a high fey would hide that wretched thing.”
“And I don’t doubt your conviction.”
He sighs. Rowan will be sure to notice the marks on his skin. He’ll have to come up with some kind of excuse. Even though he knows he should tell her everything, confess what he did six months ago, especially after she was so forthcoming regarding her spellbinding origins.
That’s a problem for future Gale. Right now, the Gale of the present has a debilitating craving for soup, and he intends to act upon it.
Cooking has always been a release for him, second only to magic. Cooking is a magic in its own merit. Spellcraft relies on verbal, somatic, and material components that fit together and make sense in a way that allows the Weave to dance and sing for its user. In the same vein, a fine meal embodies the best ingredients and preparation, coming together only by the chef’s skill and patience.
And, dare he say, love?
Because Gale truly loves losing himself in his kitchen. He loves vanishing into the pages of recipe books almost as much as grimoires and ancient tomes written by wizards lost to time. Before he locked himself in his tower, before he was ashamed of having to face his friends and family, Gale never missed a chance to cook for them. He loved hearing their praise as much as he loved the simple act of sharing his feelings towards them in delicious food.
He wonders if those halcyon days will ever return. Will he ever sing songs off-key with his mother again as they knead dough side-by-side? Will he ever see the way his father’s eyes gleam with eagerness as he brings a plate of roasted meat out on a silver platter? Will he ever argue with his brother again over how adding additional spices is a grave insult upon the chef’s integrity?
Gods, he doesn’t know.
Gale clears his mind of those cloudy thoughts as he shuffles into the kitchen. Over these six months he’s never stopped cooking. The meals have just gotten…smaller. Less extravagant. More focus on necessity and nutrition rather than flair and flavor.
Today that changes.
He should probably knock on Rowan’s door and ask if she has any preferences, but Gale knows what it’s like to simply need a moment alone to recollect one’s thoughts. Besides, everyone likes soup! It’s perhaps the most magical food of all—throwing everything together in a pot with some form of liquid for it to eventually come out utterly delicious.
A quick inventory of his cupboards informs him that Gale has the perfect makings for a rich, hearty vegetable soup.
A scathing gaze from Tara informs him that if he does not make said vegetable soup, she will rake her claws across his second favorite pair of robes.
So, Gale sets about making the vegetable soup, and hopes Rowan will appreciate his sacrifice.
It’s such a childish notion, refusing to like vegetables, but Gale can’t help it. They’re not so bad mixed in with other things, and he for sure will use a beef stock for that extra flavor, but even at thirty-five he just can’t seem to like them. His mother would be proud. His father would roll his eyes in exasperation.
Dorian would call him an idiot. His brother has always had a way with words.
He slices carrots, dices onions, chops up potatoes into reasonable cubes. Turnips, mushrooms, parsnips, and leeks become victims to his deft fingers and swift knife skills. He thinks he uses half of his spices on them, wanting to ensure they are dripping with flavor, and dumps everything into a pot that’s already boiling with a thickened beef stock and a dash of red wine.
The kitchen smells heavenly. He’s forgotten how liberating cooking for someone other than himself can be. Even Tara eyes the pot with expectant eyes, sharp tongue licking her chops as she perches gracefully atop his spice rack. He doesn’t have the heart to remind her that she could get fur and feathers everywhere. Maybe Rowan won’t notice a few stray tressym hairs swimming about in her soup.
Gale contemplates baking up a loaf of bread, something robust like sourdough, but ultimately decides against it. He doesn’t have a decent starter anymore, and the last thing he wants to do is brave the outside world again to pick up yeast to begin a new culture.
Tomorrow, he swears silently.
He’s making a lot of promises for tomorrow. Whether he will have the incentive to follow through on them has yet to be seen.
When the soup is finally finished, he pours a sizable portion into a bowl and sets it on his counter for Tara. “Please wait for it to cool off,” he instructs her, somewhat accusingly. “I’d rather not have to freeze your tongue the way I did when you shoved your face in that bowl of fish stew.”
“You mock me, sir. I am not a helpless kitten. I can be patient.” Tara flicks her tail rather impatient, feathery wings ruffling in annoyance. “If anything you should take my eagerness to devour your cooking as a compliment.”
Gale shoots her a grateful smile. “Oh, but I do, dear Tara. I truly do.”
He sets a bowl for himself aside and heads down the hall towards Rowan’s chambers, cradling her portion with a summoned pair of mage hands. He raps his knuckles against the door, calling out, “Rowan? I’ve made some soup if you’d like some?”
There is no immediate answer. Gale waits for a few moments and when nothing but silence greets him back after about a minute, he frowns. Did she not hear him?
He goes to twist the knob but hesitates, briefly considering the impropriety that is walking into the chambers he has gifted her without waiting for her permission. But what if there’s a reason she did not answer? What if she’s somehow hurt herself, or something strange has occurred considering the Shadow Weave inside of her?
Gale should have noticed something like that, what with all the wards and enchantments in his tower, but the woman from another world is an anomaly. He does not want to take any chances, just in case something is truly wrong.
He takes a deep breath and slowly, cautiously, opens the door. When he peeks his head in, he is surprised to see the curtains pulled back and the window wide open, filling the space with a cheerful light. The chamber smells like the sea; fresh air and sunshine have chased away the sad, stuffy atmosphere of a room abandoned and left to rot in lonely squalor.
His head swivels to the bathroom door. It, too, is open, and he sees a rumpled pile of what he assumes to be Rowan’s strange clothes on the floor in the middle of the doorway. There is no sign of Rowan herself and the room is totally silent.
Gale’s cheeks flush. He swallows, thick and strained, as he dares to peer at the bed.
Rowan is tucked beneath the sheets, body covered by the blankets and hair sprawled out against the pillows. Her eyes are shut. Her face has relaxed into a peaceful, serene expression. Her chest rises and falls slow and steady beneath the covers, and he can barely make out the sound of her even breathing.
No foul play, then. Just exhaustion. Gale can’t blame her. He can’t even begin to fathom the thoughts racing through her head—experiencing death and rebirth in a single day? It’s preposterous. He is quite aware that resurrections and revivals are very possible miracles, but to have one’s soul dragged to an unknown world…
His heart goes out to her. He had panicked when she began crying in his library. It’s not that her breakdown was a loathsome thing, no; the stress and shock would be enough of an emotional strain on anyone, Gale included. He just wished he had handled it better instead of freezing like a rabbit caught in a snare. Thank the gods for Tara, always the voice of reason.
And Tara…
Tara had been the thing that had ultimately set Rowan off. He wants to know, desperately, the reasoning behind that. Alas, ever the gentleman, Gale will keep his questions to himself. The two of them just met, for Mystra’s sake. He can’t expect her to regale him with her entire life story, the bits and pieces she had revealed aside.
It wouldn’t be fair, considering how he’s struggling with the thought of confessing his transgressions.
It’s then that he realizes he’s just been looming in her doorway, staring at her sleeping form and lost in his train of thought. Not wanting to intrude any further, Gale sends the mage hands over to the desk in front of the window. The conjured hands set the bowl down and through them, he casts a simple charm on the soup, ensuring it will remain fresh and warm until the next midday. He also has the hands write a little note next to the bowl, just so Rowan doesn’t think a mischievous imp or something snuck into the room and left a random bowl of soup.
Gale shuts the door quietly and returns to the kitchen. Tara is already halfway through her bowl, whiskers dripping with broth. She does not ask him how Rowan is—he has a feeling she’s already aware that their unexpected visitor is fast asleep. Tressyms are pragmatically perceptive that way, and Tara more so than most.
He forces himself to sit down and take a bite of the soup. It is tasty, despite the obscene amount of vegetables floating balefully in the broth. He’s just that excellent of a chef.
If all else fails and he can’t rid himself of the orb and its repercussions, Gale could make a living as a personal chef. Maybe. Probably. If the orb doesn’t kill him in the long run, and the thought of being unable to cast magic doesn’t throw him into an even darker hole than he already is.
“Ugh. Enough, Gale. No more malodorous thoughts. Enough with the pathetic displays of self-pity.”
He gets to his feet, pushing the empty bowl aside and shaking his head. Seeing the open window in Rowan’s room has ignited a sudden spark inside him. There’s plenty of time before the sun goes down, and Gale is an extraordinary wizard even with the orb negating much of his strength.
It’s time to clean up his act. Forget tomorrow; he’s a new man today .
Tara doesn’t follow him as he stomps out of the kitchen but he does catch the amused, elated shine in her eyes when she watches him leave. He marches down the stairs, footsteps carrying a lightness to them that he hasn’t felt for half a year. The chairs he and Tara conjured are still in the middle of the main floor. He dismisses them with a wave of his hand, waving away the glittering globules of arcana as they shatter into the aether. His candles, re-enchanted after Rowan’s casting of Dancing Lights put them out, shudder as they float around his head.
Gale gazes upon the main floor of his tower. He glowers at the half-eaten apples, scowls at the ink stained balls of parchment littering the carpet. He glares daggers at the layers of dust subtly clinging to shelves and books alike.
But most of all, he stares at the heavy curtains obscuring the windows. They mock him in silence, the velvet thicker than the iron bars of a prison.
Gale goes over to the windows, takes a deep breath, and yanks the curtains apart.
When he looks upon the dismal mess that has become his library, he cringes. It’s even worse in the damning light of the sun. Shame, hot and bitter, courses through him and tugs at the ever-present ache in his chest.
He ignores it. Pushes it down, throws it into an oubliette, and hides the key somewhere between his aspirations and his confidence.
Rolling up his sleeves, Gale Dekarios begins the first step to cleaning up his act: cleaning his fucking tower.
Rowan awakens to the sound of a seagull.
More specifically, the discordant cries of one suspiciously close, echoing throughout the room Gale has provided her. She rolls over towards the sound and cracks an eye open, immediately shooting up in the bed at the sight that greets her.
On the desk in front of the wide-open window, a seagull prances to and fro. Its head bobs up and down as it surveys a bowl of something dark, steam rising from the contents. Rowan smells something tantalizing and delicious. Her mouth starts to water as she realizes she hasn’t eaten anything besides some fancy little biscuits, and whatever’s in that bowl is making her stomach flip into impatient knots.
She obviously slept through the next day. The morning sun is faint and sleepy as it filters through the room. Beyond the window she can make out the blush of dawn, and it would be a lovely scene if not for the intruder hopping around on the desk like it owns the place. Gale had mentioned magical wards of some sort that kept this tower safe, but maybe he never thought to include pest control?
Granted, she did leave the window wide open, so this one was probably on her.
Rowan creeps out of the bed and stalks towards the desk. The sound of her movement alerts the bird, whose attention shifts from the bowl of what she assumes is some kind of stew and turns its head to her.
The seagull stares at her with beady black eyes.
She stares back, lips curling into a snarl.
The seagull shuffles a centimeter closer to the bowl. It cocks its head at her, the action somehow mocking. Rowan feels a surge of something rise up within her and her fingertips grow as cold as death. Wisps of black swirl around them and the salty air clinging to her crackles with what she instantly knows is magic. The shadows roil like black flames in the wind, interlaced with veins of sickly dark green like something out of a horror movie. She steps forward menacingly, holding the hand out that has been submerged in icy shadows and curling it into a claw.
“If you even so much as think about touching that, I’ll turn you into a throw pillow.”
The seagull squawks indignantly and hops back, wings fluttering. It launches itself out of the window with a cry far too loud this early in the morning and disappears somewhere beyond the horizon, no doubt alerting its flock of the threat stalking the tower.
Rowan smiles to herself and studies her hand. She doesn’t know how she made the ichorous shadows appear, but beyond the malicious chill sliding across her skin, it doesn’t hurt. It’s fascinating. She’ll have to ask Gale—surely he knows what it is.
A spark of panic blossoms in her throat. What if she can’t make the darkness go away? Is her hand going to be creepy forever?
As if senses her thoughts that rush of what she felt prior to her hand going all Call of Cthulhu wells up within her once again. The deathly shadows disperse from her hand and the chill fades. Rowan shakes her hand hard so she can be sure the blood is still circulating.
This must be the Shadow Weave , she realizes silently to herself. Gale was right. I really do have magic inside me .
It was one thing to follow his instructions and cast that spell with the floating orbs of light. It was another to react on instinct and call upon the power within her.
Excitement. Eagerness. A joy she hasn’t felt in quite some time. Rowan thinks back to her reflection in the mirror and the question it posed.
Are you happy?
Her answer remains the same. This world has the potential for it, but knowing she is truly attuned to whatever power granted to her by some benevolent goddess? Well, it helps. It helps a lot.
She doesn’t want to dwell on such complicated thoughts first thing in the morning. Not when there’s a delicious bowl of stew—soup?—waiting for her. Rowan notices a square piece of parchment next to the bowl, the stationary decorated with swirls of pretty nonsensical patterns. The writing on the paper is bold and graceful, the script brimming with an elegant flair bordering on garish.
Rowan,
Woefully, I was remiss and did not ask what your preferred palate was. I hope vegetable soup will be up to your standards. It has been enchanted to ensure it remains as fresh as the moment I made it.
Rest well. Meet me in the library come the morning. Your apprenticeship begins in full once the sun rises.
Warm regards,
Gale of Waterdeep
Rowan snorts back a laugh. How theatrical can someone be with just a goddamn letter? It oozes with pompous charm and for some reason, is weirdly endearing. She should have known the wizard would have his own fancy-ass stationary but really, was signing it as “Gale of Waterdeep” necessary?
After one bite of the soup, however, she finds herself leaning more towards yes in that regard. It’s fucking delicious . If he actually made this himself then he can have all the lavish stationary he wants.
Flavor bursts on her tongue; the vegetables have simmered down in the hearty broth to perfection. A culmination of spices marry together in a way that makes her feel like she’s dining at a five star restaurant.
A tower full of books, a magical talking cat, and a skill for the culinary arts that far surpasses anyone she’s ever known? Gale Dekarios needs to watch himself. Rowan might start to think he’s trying to flirt with her.
(Not that she would mind that. Nope, not at all.)
When her belly is full and pleasantly warm, Rowan at last decides to brave the trunk Gale mentioned that was full of his mother’s clothing. She hoists the lid open and starts to rummage through the contents, face growing hot with secondhand embarrassment with every article of clothing she uncovers.
Gale’s mother and her are indeed approximately the same sir but there is no way she’s wearing any of this. Flowing skirts, thick stockings, embroidered blouses…she feels like she’s raiding her grandma’s closet. It’s not her style at all, even though it does look comfy. Rowan would rather look like she’s twenty-eight than three times that age, however.
Which is why she tugs her jeans and t-shirt back on. They don’t smell and are just a little wrinkled. She does steal a pair of socks from the trunk, guessing it would probably be rude to walk around barefoot in Gale’s tower. She leaves her purple flip flops beneath the bed and wiggles into the socks, tugging the cuffs of her jeans over them and smoothing the fabric down. She’ll have to see if there’s a medieval fantasy equivalent of a thrift store in Waterdeep; she doesn’t plan on wearing the same thing over and over again, even if she really does like this shirt. It was a gift from someone, she thinks. She doesn’t remember who.
The design of the cat on the crescent moon reminds her too much of Freya all of a sudden. Rowan stands in the middle of the room for a very long time, breathing slowly out of her nose and squeezing her eyes shut.
Once she’s certain she has avoided another breakdown, Rowan steels herself and opens the door. She leaves the empty bowl of soup on the desk, assuming Gale just poofed it into the room with magic and that he can poof it away. …unless he snuck into the room when she was asleep and set it there.
Rowan supposes that’s possible. She doesn’t actually know him, but she really hopes her new magical mentor isn’t secretly a creep. She’s always struggled with reading people’s true intentions, but even so, she didn’t get overly weird vibes from him yesterday.
Gale just seems…troubled. Beneath the veneer of fancy magic and poetic speech, there’s a deep sadness in him she knows all too well.
It’s not her place to pry. She’s just grateful he’s given her a place to stay and offered his services.
Pushing those notions back to the dark corners they crawled out of, Rowan makes her way down the stairs and into the main floor of the tower. She does a very poor job of controlling the shock on her face when she is met with windows unshackled by drapes, the sun blazing through the glass and filling the room with a balmy warmth. The floating candles are nowhere to be seen. There’s no need for them in the light of day.
And she notices that the library is cleaner. More put together. Shelves are organized a little more neatly than they were the day before. She spies no trace of half-eaten meals and crumpled up papers. There is a freshness to the tower’s main floor, a new sense of life that wasn’t present yesterday.
Sitting at the largest desk in the chamber is Gale. His back is turned to her and she can make out the furious scratching of him scribbling away with a quill pen. Tara rests atop the desk, situated between a vase full of vibrant irises and a lovely figurine of what is most definitely a dragon.
Oh my god. If magic is real here, then dragons have to be too. Please let me meet a dragon. Please let me befriend a dragon. I’ll never ask for anything else.
Rowan isn’t sure if she’s beseeching the Raven Queen or not. She just really hopes someone is listening to her.
Tara notices her arrival and bobs her head in greeting. “Good morning, Miss Rowan. How are you feeling today?”
“Absolutely fantastic! Slept like I was dead.”
Death jokes might be in poor taste considering she, well, actually died. But hey, she’s never been one to shy away from making fun of herself. Even if Gale does swing his head around and blink at her in disbelief, mouth slightly ajar.
A snarl of curling lines like deep, gauged scratches slither up his neck. They’re a strange violet color and reminiscent of that light she saw flashing beneath his collar. He looks tired, the skin beneath his eyes sagging slightly, as if he forewent a decent night’s sleep.
Rowan can’t help but stare at the marks on his neck. They definitely weren’t there yesterday.
“You are…wearing your old clothes,” Gale says carefully, subtly tilting his head in a way that allows his hair to hide the marks somewhat.
“Oh, yeah, uh,” she self consciously smooths down the wrinkles of her shirt, giving him a painfully awkward grin. It would be easier just to be honest with him. “I’m sorry. The ones in the trunk would have fit, but…they’re not really my style.”
His face goes pink. She watches his expression morph between several different emotions before he returns her painfully awkward smile with one of his own, looking more contrite than humiliated or upset.
“Ah, well, shame on me for being so presumptuous. I’d be happy to loan you some gold for a new wardrobe. Think of it as an investment.”
She raises an eyebrow. “And how do you wish to be paid back for said investment, Gale of Waterdeep?”
The pink darkens into a lovely cherry red. It’s a very fetching color on him.
“All I ask is for your enterprising mind to be open and eager to my teachings,” the wizard answers, waggling his finger in the air for emphasis. “I intend to be quite strict, I’ll have you know! Fair, but strict.” He turns so that his back is to her once more, returning to scribbling madly away at the parchment on the desk. “Give me a few moments to finish this letter and then we will begin the first lesson. I’ve a list of some more cantrips I’d like you to try. Considering your shining success with Dancing Lights yesterday, I don’t believe you will have much trouble with them.”
Dancing Lights? That must be the name of the glowing orbs she summoned. She remembers him saying cantrips are basic, simple spells. It makes sense he’d like to start her with something like that. She can’t help but feel a little twinge of disappointment, however—Rowan had hoped that maybe she would be learning something a little…more.
The grotesque shadows from her confrontation with the seagull comes to mind and Rowan flexes her fingers as she recalls the creeping chill that came over them. It’s as though just the mere thought of it summons it because the moment she conjures the image in her head, her hand is suddenly engulfed by the dark, eerie magic.
She sticks her hand out like she’s holding something that smells foul away from her face. “So, is this a spell too, or…?”
Gale turns to face her, folding the letter up neatly as he does so. His eyes widen ever so slightly when he takes in her hand but the faintest ghost of a grin settles on his face. Almost like he cannot help being pleased by her fancy little parlor trick, despite it being far from his expectations.
“That would be a cantrip as well,” he says, handing the folded up letter to Tara. She takes it daintily into her mouth and, without so much as a word of warning, disappears in the blink of an eye. One moment the tressym is perched upon his desk; the next, there is absolutely no trace of her whatsoever.
Except for a faint tugging sensation against Rowan’s skin that she is beginning to realize is the calling card of magic. The sensation of the Weave being spun into the silken strands of spellcasting.
She opens her mouth to ask where Tara went but Gale continues to speak, his voice bubbling with excitement as he gets up from his desk and saunters over to her.
“What you are casting is called Bone Chill. It is magic that is conjured with necrotic energy, meant to incapacitate a person’s ability to heal momentarily. It’s not particularly strong, but can be advantageous in certain circumstances. How did you realize you could cast it?”
She grins. “A seagull tried to eat the soup you made for me. I needed a threat that it would understand. Did you really make that soup? It was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten!”
She doesn’t miss how his chest puffs out and his posture gets a little straighter. Gale nods, his eyes gleaming, but his voice somehow manages to maintain a tone of modesty and indifference. “Oh, yes! Dare I say it? Magic isn’t the only art I’ve a knack for. Cooking is like second nature to me. I’m pleased to hear you enjoyed it.”
“You’ll have to show me how you made it. I love learning new recipes. There’s no food I won’t try at least once.” Rowen pauses briefly, and then adds with visceral dislike, “Except brussels sprouts. Keep that shit away from me.”
Gale’s gaze softens. A strange sort of sadness drifts across his face, like clouds heralding a storm. It is gone before Rowan can even be sure it was there in the first place, the wizard letting out a quiet chuckle. “A woman after my own heart, it seems. I solemnly swear that no brussel sprouts shall ever be found in this tower.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
It’s easy to tease him. Fun, too. It goes beyond the fact that Rowan thinks he’s cute. Gale just sort of has a presence about him that makes her feel at ease. He’s disarming in the best way possible. Maybe that’s why this tower has felt so inviting despite it still being so new? It’s not just the tower, but Gale himself.
Rowan isn’t used to feeling a connection with someone so suddenly, so strongly. It should startle her. It should make her keep her guard up, her eyes wary and waiting for the moment his true colors show. But it doesn’t do any of that. She just…wants to get to know him, genuine and without a lick of anxiety.
Gale Dekarios really is a magic man. A magic man with a staggering talent for cooking soup fit for the gods.
“What do you mean by ‘necrotic energy’?” she asks, wheeling the conversation back to the magic clinging to her hand. She flexes her fingers and the cantrip—Bone Chill—slinks back beneath her skin. Another thought, another tug on the Shadow Weave within her, and the darkness spreads across her flesh on command. It’s almost like blinking with how natural it’s starting to feel.
“Spells that are more focused on combat draw power from specific aspects within the Weave. If a spell is categorized as necrotic, it's typically associated with the destruction of life. Radiant, thunder, lightning, fire, cold…” Gale snaps his fingers and there is suddenly a rotating sphere of pure energy floating between them. The colors shift and change like a kaleidoscope, mesmerizing and uncannily beautiful. “There are many types of energy, and thus many ways a spellcaster can deal damage. It is why constant vigilance is a necessity. One lisped incantation, a twitch as your hands are conducting the Weave, and you could end up harming yourself or those around you.”
Rowan extinguishes the creeping shadows on her hand and suppresses a shiver when she realizes the skin has grown icy cold and that the tendons are numb. Casting it over and over again was not the smartest choice.
Gale scrunches up his nose as he watches her dismiss the spell with ease. He crosses his arms and rests his cheek on his fist, voice pensive as he says, “At the risk of sounding blunt, you waking up with a new cantrip under your dominion pokes holes in what I was hoping to teach you today. I suppose I could up the ante a bit, hm?”
“Please tell me I’m going to learn how to destroy seagulls with a single thought.”
“I’m afraid not, but I think you’ll like what I have in mind just as much.”
He reaches his hands into the folds of his robes and Rowan realizes the damn thing has pockets galore. They’re sewn in a way that makes them seem like they’re part of the magnificent design, and very subtle to a non-discerning eye. He pulls out a nondescript leather pouch and tugs at the bindings keeping it shut. Gale sticks his hand into the pouch’s opening and what he starts to pull out of it should in no way fit in something that small.
A brazier bigger than his hand, shining with a brassy sheen. It’s stuffed with a mixture of black powder and dried herbs of some kind, with three sticks of incense jutting out in the middle. He holds it out to her expectantly, silently, urging her to take it with nothing but a keen gaze.
Rowan receives the brazier with a confused grunt. It’s heavier than she thought it would be. The surface is warm to the touch, like it has been basking in the sun for a few hours.
Or kept close to the chest of one very soft wizard, which is probably more accurate.
“I imagine you must be missing those you left behind,” Gale says quietly, and Rowan’s neck creaks from how hard she jerks her head up to stare at him. His eyes. His damn eyes are so soft and gentle that her heart squeezes and screams in a place where no one can hear it. “I can show you how to summon a familiar if you’d like. Having a companion whom you can share anything with…perhaps it will help.”
I will not cry in front of Gale again after knowing him for less than a day.
Yet, despite her conviction, her eyes still grow hot and itchy and her voice comes out in a shuddering warble as she whispers, “O-oh.”
Rowan knows the impossibility of somehow bringing Freya here. Oh, she knows, she knows, she knows . But hope, stubborn and gnawing with a dozen sharp teeth crawls beneath her skin, and she grips the brazier tight enough to draw blood.
She has never loved, and never been loved, the way she does Freya and Freya does (did) her.
“I can show you something else instead,” Gale hurries to say, making a move to take the brazier away from her. She wonders what her face looks like to him right now—are her eyes misty with the tears she refuses to shed once more? Are her lips drawn in a line that is neither scowl nor sob? Can he see the way her teeth are clenched, the twitching of the muscles in her cheeks as she bites back a wordless protest?
Rowan shakes her head and pulls the brazier close to her chest. “No!” she says quickly, too quickly, with a venom not meant for him. Never for him. Her shoulders slump as she shakes her head again, with less force and more resignation as she repeats, “No,” firm and unflinching.
He pulls his hand away, stepping back slightly as he gives her space. Rowan closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, willing her heart to calm and her emotions to stop tormenting her like she’s some caged beast. She’s left that life behind. She can’t keep focusing on the one thing that she didn’t want to leave.
“I was desperate for a pet when I was a boy, you know,” Gale suddenly says softly, a wistful aura dancing off his tongue. “My parents wouldn’t even allow me a kitten. They feared it would become a source of discontent between my brother and I. We already fought like rabid dogs, so I suppose I don’t blame them. Unfortunately for my family, young Gale was a bit of a firestarter. I refused to take no for an answer.”
Rowan opens her eyes. He’s smiling, true joy and affection blossoming in that smile as his eyes turn to a place somewhere in his distant past.
“It was my first true act of wizardry,” he proclaims, pride mixing with nostalgia. “I saved up every coin of my allowance for an entire year, marched to the markets, and purchased a scroll containing the spell. I didn’t even wait to get home to try casting it. Hells, I didn’t even have the proper components for it to work, but I’ve always been rather lucky when it comes to the arcane.”
Gale rubs at the markings on his neck. She wonders if he realizes he’s doing it.
“I spoke the incantation, beckoned the Weave to grant my wishes, and in a flash of magic that might have overcome anyone else…there she was. Dear old Tara. She’s been with me ever since. She is my better half, truly. She refuses to give up on me despite all my transgressions. I don’t deserve to have such a magnificent creature at my side.”
His hand envelopes his throat. As if he’s about to start choking himself, his nails digging into the veins of purple stark against his skin. And then he wrenches his hand away, his fingers shaking, his smile strained as his arm falls limply to his side.
Gale might look at her and wonder just what happened before she came here, but now all Rowan can do is look at Gale and wonder the same about him.
“So you were a little shit when you were a kid,” Rowan manages to say after a few moments of silence, loosening her hold on the brazier. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I was quite the devil,” he agrees. The gentle sadness that has enveloped him fades away as brusque as a storm at sea and he suddenly has a stern, almost overbearing atmosphere about him. “But enough of my sordid past. Let’s get on with making magic, yes?”
It’s perhaps not the most elegant change of subject but Rowan doesn’t object. Gale’s instructions are precise and meticulous as he guides her in sketching out a circle of runes on the library’s wooden floors, the sigils drawn in snowy white chalk. “It isn’t permanent, don’t fret,” he tells her when she eyes him with silent horror at the prospect of ruining such craftsmanship.
Minutes later, Rowan is seated in the middle of the circle. The brazier has been placed within a smaller circle inside of it, just a few inches in front of her. All it takes to light the wicks of the incense sticks is a snap of the fingers from Gale, sparks of flame flying out and sizzling on impact. A pleasant scent wafts through air as smoke billows up from the incense, filling Rowan’s senses with clove and bergamot.
“I’ll be right here if anything goes wrong,” Gale assures her, standing outside of the circle. “I have every confidence that you’ll be just fine, however.”
At least someone does. Rowan’s chest is tight and her throat is scorching and dry as she focuses her gaze on the smoke of the incense. The dried herbs and powdered charcoal are beginning to glow orange as embers tunnel through the mixture, devouring the spell components greedily. She knows the spell isn’t difficult or dangerous. She trusts Gale’s knowledge and expertise.
But what if she can’t do it? What if his confidence in her is unwarranted, and despite the magic inside her, the only thing she can do is cough up some fancy lights and scare off seagulls?
I know it won’t be Freya , Rowan thinks as she begins to say the incantation for the spell that Gale drilled into her head. Her words aren’t as halting or stammered as she feared. But I could really use a friend who will be there for me just as much as she was.
Rowan stretches her hand out towards the burning brazier and curls her fingers inward, flicking her wrist in what she hopes is a perfect copy of Gale’s demonstration minutes before. The last syllable of the incantation leaves her tongue, echoing oddly off of the ornate walls of the library, and suddenly everything goes black.
She is floating.
Floating in a sea of beautiful, silent, endless darkness.
Rowan recognizes her surroundings immediately. This is the Shadowfell, the place Gale said she had entered after dying in her first life. The home of the Raven Queen. The realm that graced her with the gift of magic.
She’s utterly confused. The spell for summoning a familiar is supposed to pull some kind of spirit from across the planes and bind them to the caster’s service. Why is she in the Shadowfell? She didn’t die again, did she?
“Hey, boss! You called?”
A gruff, thick voice rings out amongst the shadows. Rowan angles her head towards the sound and a formless, shapeless mass of darkness is suddenly before her. It’s lighter than the shadows around it, with two burning pinpricks of violet light in the middle of its bulk.
Rowan stares at it.
It stares back, unblinking.
Cautiously, she clears her throat and asks, “Are you…my familiar?”
The thing nods. She doesn’t know how she can tell, but it most certainly nods despite not having a definitive head or neck. “Yep, you got it! Heard ya loud and clear, boss. All ya gotta do is name me and I’m all yours.”
Gale was very clear in his explanation of the spell. The spirit of a celestial, fey, or fiend is supposed to be the presence that answers the call of the spell. He never mentioned shadow creatures, especially not ones who spoke like they’d stepped out of a documentary about the monsters of 1920’s America.
“Oi,” the thing says, sounding a little miffed at her sudden silence. “We doin’ this or not, boss? I don’t got all day!”
Their impatience makes Rowan grin. She likes this little shadow creature, whatever they are.
“I just have to name you and the pact between us is sealed, right?”
“Rightio. Name me, praise me, an’ I’ll never leave your side. Feed me an’ I promise I’ll be the most loyal little minion youse ever seen.”
Well, that seals the deal for her.
“Pip,” she says, the name leaving her lips before she has time to contemplate any other. “Your name is Pip. I knew someone named Pip in my other life. They were…a friend.”
“Hah! Now we’re gettin’ somewheres,” the familiar named Pip exclaims, their voice ringing with excitement. “So, whaddya want me to be? A rat? A bat? A hat? A pretty little kitty cat?”
Rowan flinches. Quietly, slowly, she whispers, “Not a cat, please. Not yet. I’m sorry.”
Maybe someday down the road, but not right now. It’s too soon. The gaping hole where Freya used to be is still too fresh, the blood seeping through despite everything she’s done to try and patch it up.
Rowan gazes out towards the sea of darkness around them. The feather at her throat has been warm and soothing ever since she was plunged back into these shadows. She rubs the smooth texture of it, rubbing it between her fingers. “A raven,” she decides, nodding to Pip adamantly. “I’d like you to be a raven, please.”
They scoff, but there’s not an ounce of derision behind it. “Wholly uninspired and unoriginal but hey, you’re the boss. One raven comin’ right up!”
The amorphous shadow blob is suddenly no more. In its place instead is a raven, its eyes glowing violet and sparkling with mischief. Pip flutters to Rowan and perches on her shoulder, their clawed fit digging into the fabric of her shirt. They poke her cheek with their beak and let out a throaty caw as the Shadowfell dissolves away from her. The cozy interior of Gale’s library returns and a sense of vertigo clings to her for just a moment. Rowan feels strange. As if she never actually left the tower, and the spell never found its purchase.
The weight of the raven on her shoulder tells her that yes, it did happen. She has a familiar now. The spell worked like a charm, and Rowan can’t help the rush of pride that burst through the dam in her heart, grinning wildly as she meets Gale’s expectant gaze.
He returns her grin with one of equal exuberance. “Aha, I knew you could do it,” he lauds, gesticulating with his hands excitedly. “Of course, a student is only as good as the teacher!”
“Shouldn’t it be a student’s duty to surpass their teacher?” Rowan points out, hauling herself to her feet. The brazier has ceased burning on its own though the scent of herbs and incense still linger in the air. “Careful, Mr. Dekarios. I can be pretty competitive when it comes to academics.”
It’s true. She remembers her college days being full of nothing but constant studying and the drive to be better than everyone in her major, caring very little for anything else. Rowan had been so proud of graduating summa cum laude. Her history degree had meant so much to her.
Not that it would do any good in this world. It hadn’t even done her any good in her old world.
“Hm, is that so? Should I start raising my expectations of you?” Gale offers his hand to her, grasping it with that calloused warmth and helping her step out of the circle of runes without messing up the symbols. “ You ought to be careful, Rowan. Next week I’ll be demanding that you call down a storm of meteors.”
She flashes her teeth at him, a challenge in her eyes. “I look forward to whatever you have in store for me, wizardboy.”
“ Wizardboy ? The least you could do is call me wizard man , instead of insinuating that I’m—”
“I’m hungry,” Pip interrupts with blatant disregard for whatever mock pissing match Rowan and Gale were throwing themselves into. The raven shuffles from Rowan’s shoulder and climbs onto her head instead, their little claws like pin pricks in her skull as they settle themselves in her curls. “Fancy joint like this has gotta have some good grub, yeah?”
Gale gawks at her familiar as if it has grown three heads. He looks utterly bewildered, opening his mouth and then closing it multiple times like a fish out of water. When he finally speaks, placing both of his forefingers against his temple and gazing at her and Pip with a dead eyed stare, his voice comes out in a toneless deadpan.
“Your familiar talks.”
Rowan frowns, taken aback by his reaction. “Yes, they do. Why are you so surprised? Tara is very well spoken.”
“Because she is a
tressym
,” he says a little sharply, gesturing to the raven perched atop of her head. “Tressyms are unique magical beasts—normal, run-of-the-mill familiars such as yours are typically incapable of speech.”
“I don’t think Pip can be considered normal. I found them in the Shadowfell.”
Now Gale is looking at her as if
she’s
grown three heads.
Rowan doesn’t know how to respond, giving him a lackadaisical shrug and “what can you do” smile. The raven nesting in her curls snickers to themselves quietly, as if enjoying Gale’s perplexity, but otherwise doesn’t throw out any quips like she was expecting.
“When I cast the spell, I was suddenly in the Shadowfell again,” she explains, shifting uncomfortably under Gale’s intense gaze. “And there was Pip. They said they were my familiar, so what was I supposed to do? Ignore them?”
He sighs, rubbing at his temples once more. This whole scene is beginning to play out exactly like when her old history professor found out the entire class had never once read
Frankenstein.
He hadn’t been mad, she remembers him insisting. Just disappointed.
Rowan thinks Gale is more baffled than anything else, but his expression right now and her former professor’s back then are perfect mirrors of one another.
“It’s always bloody sorcerers,” she hears him mutter incredulously under his breath before clearing his throat, his face morphing into a mask of calm indifference. “Forgive my disrespect, Ser Pip,” Gale says as he addresses her familiar with a surprising amount of sincerity to his words. “You are simply…unexpected. And you’re certain you were in the Shadowfell, Rowan? You never left the summoning circle. Your eyes were closed naught for a few seconds before the raven appeared on your shoulder.”
“Yup. Pretty fuckin’ positive on that.”
“The mysteries around you just keep multiplying,” Gale says, but there’s no mistaking the sudden rush of eagerness and excitement barely held at bay in his voice. He snaps his fingers and the brazier vanishes with an audible pop .The outline of the circle he’d helped Rowan draw disappears as if it had never been there in the first place.
It’s then that Rowan feels a shiver in the air.
The unmistakable ebb and flow of the Weave being manipulated and pulled taut.
Tara materializes back on the spot on the desk she had claimed before fading in a shimmer of magic, holding a different letter in her mouth. The only reason Tara knows this one is different is because it doesn’t have any of the swirling designs and unnecessary filigree of the stationary Gale used to write her a note. The parchment is plain and cream-colored, the only source of decoration coming from a red wax seal in the middle.
She deposits it gracefully onto the desk and wiggles her back haunches in a very catlike manner, launching herself off and gliding through the air briefly with her wings spread out. She lands on the floor with a dignity that befits a creature as glorious as she, padding over to Rowan and slinking in between her legs with a rumbling purr.
“I see we have a new addition to the tower,” she hums with interest.
Pip vacates the nest they’ve made in Rowan’s hair and flutters down to the floor. They bow to Tara, using one wing as if it’s a fancy little cape as they open it with a flourish, their sharp talons clacking on hardwood.
“A pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” they say with a tactful politeness that just sounds odd in their surly voice. “The name’s Pip. You’re the lady o’the tower, ain’tcha?”
Gale lets out a sound of protest but Tara cuts the wizard off with an airy laugh, sweet and sonorous as her eyes gleam in devious appreciation. Her purring grows louder, fluffy tail flicking back and forth as she appraises the raven with discerning eyes. Her fangs glint as she flashes a tressym equivalent of a smirk.
“Why, yes. That I am. How kind of you to notice.”
Gale is getting that look again—the one that reminds her of her old professor. Only this time it’s more pained and gives the allure of terrible indigestion as he watches the two familiars share shrewd, calculating gazes.
Rowan just reaches over and pats him on the shoulder in mock sympathy, unable to keep her own smirk off of her face. The wizard only has himself to blame for the chaos he has just inevitably unleashed. She hopes he’s prepared to deal with the consequences of his own actions.
Gale reads the letter Tara returned with and pockets it without a word, though a frustrated darkness unfurls across his face when he’s finished with it.
A couple bowls of soup, some very explicit explanations of the tower’s rules, and a couple hours later finds Rowan and Gale meandering through the streets of Waterdeep. It’s midmorning now, after the time spent summoning Pip and getting them accustomed to their new raven body. The streets don’t throng with people the way they did when Rowan first appeared in the alleyway yesterday.
It seems like a lifetime ago.
That isn’t to say there aren’t crowds. No, as Gale leads her further away from the docks and his tower, it is very clear that Waterdeep is a massive, populous city. There are people everywhere, hawking their wares and exchanging pleasantries. They rush about, no doubt heading off to their places of work for the day, yawning and rubbing sleep from their eyes.
The cobblestone streets are full of beautiful carriages being pulled by massive draft horses, with painted signs atop displaying what Rowan assumes is a specific location. Like taxis, she realizes when she sees a couple of well-dressed gentlemen step into a carriage proclaiming the words “North Ward” in bold, elegant letters. Individuals from all walks of life prowl the thoroughfare, some trussed up in silken dresses and suits that scream wealth and others more simple, practical styles.
As for the people themselves…
Rowan knows she’s not in her old world anymore for sure.
She spies people with horns. Horns and tails tipped with spades, like the classic artwork of devils from her old world. And there are people with long, sharp ears who walk with an ancient grace that she just knows means they’re of elven descent. Elves ! Rowan can barely believe it.
Occasionally, she catches glimpses of stout and sturdy folk who she assumes are dwarves. She sees other folk of a miniscule size, but she’s not certain if they’re of the dwarven persuasion at first glance. There are humans, too—humans like herself and Gale, though the intersperse of different people is fairly equal and diverse as far as she can tell.
It’s amazing. It’s every fantasy novel come to life. Rowan is absolutely thriving, even though the massive swells of people are a tad bit overwhelming and makes it hard to breathe at times.
A furtive glance towards Gale tells her he feels similar. His face is wan and tight as he weaves through the morning crowds at her side, eyes clouded with a slight unease. True to his word, he had insisted on bringing her to his personal seamstress for a wardrobe update. The fact that he even has a personal seamstress is not terribly surprising.
But what makes a man self-proclaimed as an accomplished wizard of magical society so nervous in crowds? Rowan remembers the way his neighbors had stared and whispered yesterday and curiosity rakes its claws into her mind, desperate to know.
It’s Gale’s business, not hers. She understands anxiety all too well. He isn’t required to explain his behavior by any means but she wishes she could do something to help.
She suspects it would be worse without Tara. The tressym is perched on his shoulder much like Pip is at home on her head, making a mess of the curls she had attempted to tame somewhat before leaving the relative safety of the tower. Tara occasionally nuzzles against Gale’s head, saying something Rowan can’t hear above the din and laughter of the crowds, but it seems to relax him and cause his posture to not be so tense.
By the time they reach their destination the crowds have thinned out somewhat. People have made their way to their respective harbors, though there are still countless groups clustered around market stalls and enchanted streetlamps that flicker with a fascinating glow. Waterdeep is a city that never fully stops, Rowan thinks as Gale opens the door to a building with a charming exterior painted in deep blues and creamy whites.
A glossy golden plaque hangs on the door. Embossed in its pristine surface is a single word. In a big, swirling font it proclaims simply, “Syl’s.”
The door jingles with a soft, bell-like tone as it swings open on well-oiled hinges. Gale steps inside and Rowan follows him obediently. She is immediately surrounded by an impressive tailor’s shop, the walls lined with racks of silks and fabrics of all styles and colors. Mannequins display what she assumes are the latest fashions, from flowing gowns to extravagant robes not unlike what Gale currently wears. Boots, gloves, fancy hats, shawls and capelets…apparel that reaches every niche possible can be found hanging from shelves or proudly presented on wooden pedestals.
At the very back of the shop is a long table, bits and bobs of thread and various sewing accouterments placed in neat piles clearly meant to be used soon. There is a figure standing behind the table, their back turned away from them, but when they hear the soft jingle of the door they immediately spin around.
She’s an older woman, her tanned face lined with the beginnings of wrinkles and bright eyes as blue as the sky. Her hair is swept in an elegant coif, the black hue fading with hints of silver, and her ears are slightly pointed. Pearl earrings dangle from them, a wonderful complement to the stylish blouse and skirt she wears. When her eyes settle on Gale her face lights up like a thousand suns, her crimson lips curling into a wide smile.
“Why, Gale Dekarios! My darling boy, where have you been?”
The woman rushes out from behind the table and sweeps Gale into a tight embrace. He laughs, a sound free of restless unease, enfolding her into his arms with the same amount of joy. “It’s wonderful to see you, Sylvia!” he exclaims when they pull away from one another. “I do apologize about my absence. I have…I have had many things to attend to,” he finishes lamely in a way that isn’t terribly convincing, but the woman pays it no mind.
“Nonsense. No one is ever too busy for the likes of high fashion.” Sylvia sniffs, mock hurt as she reaches out and flicks Gale on the forehead lightly. She notices Rowan hanging behind him then and if possible, her smile gets even wider and her eyes even brighter. “Oh? Who might this be?”
“Hi,” Rowan waves nervously, not sure if she should bow or curtsy or do something more at home in a world of magic and fantastic things. “I’m Rowan. Gale’s new apprentice.”
“An apprentice? My word, I had no idea. Your mother hasn’t said anything.” Sylvia narrows her eyes at Gale. “Your family does know, yes?”
He clears his throat, shrinking underneath her scrutinizing gaze. “Considering this is a recent development as of yesterday,” he says slowly, “I have not had the chance to notify them yet.”
Sylvia clucks her tongue and continues to peer at Gale’s face as if she can discern his innermost thoughts with but a glance. When the wizard remains tightlipped and headstrong, she just sighs and shakes her head. The cheery, upbeat smile returns once more and she claps her hands together as she gesticulates to the interior they stand in, a surge of pride in her voice.
“Welcome to my shop, Miss Rowan! I am Sylvia, proprietress and seamstress extraordinaire. You may call me Syl, if you so wish. I assume you two are here for, er…”
She trails off and just points at Rowan’s shirt and jeans, blatant and accusingly. Rowan feels like she’s offended the woman and her entire bloodline as she stares at her clothes. She’s taken the socks off before leaving the tower, because socks and flip flops are a fashion crime in any world, but she supposes she still looks painfully out of place compared to what everyone else wears in Waterdeep.
Rowan holds her arms out and gives a dramatic twirl, as nimble as a tree falling. “Make me into the prettiest princess of them all,” she proclaims theatrically and Pip, for good measure, lets out a series of warbling squawks bordering on a victorious war cry.
Gale practically had to bribe them to not speak in public, promising a lifetime supply of the finest of cheese for their silence. To the world at large, the raven is just a normal familiar.
Sylvia—Syl—looks like Christmas has come early. If they even have Christmas in Toril. Rowan makes a mental note to learn the holidays and overall calendar of this world.
“Gale, you have brought me a gift. You wonderful, wonderful boy.” She nods enthusiastically, rushing forward and clasping her hands around Rowan’s wrists with a strength somewhat startling considering her spindly arms and thin frame. “I shall transform you not into a mere princess, dear girl, but a queen . All shall bow before your beauty and tremble before the glory of the finest silks.”
“Hear that, Gale?” Rowan waggles her eyebrows at him. “It’s time to start calling me ‘your majesty’.”
“Oh, for the love of…”
He’s rolling his eyes, but Rowan can see the flashes of amusement and affection in them. She assumes the latter is for Syl and not her because as foolish as Rowan is, she isn’t so unwise to think he harbors anything like that after knowing her for less than a day. But still. She can dream, and dream she will.
“I’ve some other errands to take care of,” Gale continues as he pulls out a pouch from his robes that jingle with the telltale metallic rhythm of coins. “Could I trouble you to accommodate Rowan with a wardrobe befitting a wizard’s apprentice, Sylvia?”
“But of course,” Syl insists, squeezing Rowan’s forearms with a zealous fervor. “Leave your darling apprentice in my very capable hands!”
Gale bids them farewell with an airy wave and shuffles out of the shop before Rowan can ask what else he’s doing. As thrilling as it is to have the chance at an all expenses paid shopping spree, she was hoping to explore Waterdeep more with Gale in tow. Hopefully there will be time for such wanderings later, when she’s dressed appropriately for this world and not like an eccentric vagabond.
(Rowan forces back a surge of bitter unease. Will the seamstress actually adorn her in attire befitting a queen, or was she just matching Rowan’s melodramatic flair?
It has been a long time since Rowan has felt beautiful. It has been a long time since Rowan has felt anything positive about her appearance.)
“Come, this way,” Syl insists, though with how she tugs Rowan along the command can’t help but be followed. The seamstress leads her to a door off to the side of the work table, one she hadn’t noticed when she first entered the shop.
She practically bursts through it, kicking it open with her foot as she drags Rowan behind her. Her voice, shrill and imperious, rings out loudly as she exclaims, “Jeri, we’ve a special request from Morena’s boy! Let us work our special kind of magic, yes?”
The room Syl has hauled her into is about the same size as the front of the shop. It’s far less put together, with fabrics and bundles scattered in haphazard piles everywhere, and the handful of mannequins are garbed in outfits clearly in process of being completed.
Rowan feels the Weave in this room. It’s subtle and more of a whisper than the roar it is in Gale’s tower, but it’s here nonetheless. Scissors float through the air on an unseen current, strands of thread and rolls of fabric following close behind. There is another work table, larger than the one out front, and the person conducting the symphony of floating objects is fucking gorgeous.
She’s tall and curvaceous, with long white hair tied back in a lovely braid. Baubles and filigree have been woven through the braid and decoration of similar make curls around two ebony horns that jut out from her forehead. Her skin is a light blue, somewhere between periwinkle and cornflower, and her eyes blaze with a silver fire nestled within a night sky. Her lips are full, painted with a glossy black, and expertly applied eyeshadow highlights the silver burn of her otherworldly eyes. A barbed tail peeks out from her tight, form fitting dress.
She has her hands raised, her nails thick as predatory claws, and a soft blue glow encases them as she flicks her wrists. The sewing equipment hovering in the air glides over to one of the mannequins in the corner; one displaying a gown straight out of a Venetian masquerade. The scissors begin to snip away at frayed fabric, and a needle and thread disappears somewhere within the folds of the magnificent gown.
The horned woman barely acknowledges Syl—or Rowan—as she manipulates the strands of the Weave enchanting the tools. She squints at the mannequin, head tilted as she seems to contemplate her next moves, and doesn’t respond for a few moments. Syl clears her throat expectantly after a minute, tapping her foot on the floor. The woman lets out a snort of disgust and lowers her hands, the blue glow fading from them. The scissors and needle still go to work on the dress, however. Fascinating.
“Gale? What does he want after pretending like we don’t exist for half a bloody year?”
Her voice is rich and deep, as endless as an ocean. Rowan wouldn’t mind drowning in it.
“He’s entrusted his apprentice to us,” Syl explains as she thrusts Rowan forward, beaming like a mother sending her child off to their first day of school.
The other seamstress finally takes a glance at Rowan. She does not miss the double take the horned beauty does, those burning silver eyes flickering over her clothes with intrigue. “Gale Dekarios has an apprentice now? The wonders never cease. Hm…”
She steps away from the workstation and approaches Rowan, sizing her up with a keen professionalism that Rowan knows isn’t untoward but still makes her slightly twitchy. “You've got a lovely round face,” she says after a few moments of deliberation. “Your skin tone and hair…yes, I can definitely work with this. Though your taste in haberdashery is a little unorthodox.”
Pip crows from their nest on top of her head as if to say “thank you.” Rowan puts her arm out and the familiar obediently hops from her head to her waiting wrist, giving both Syl and the other woman a bow with a bob of their avian head.
“This is Pip, my familiar,” she explains, warmth blossoming in her chest. It just feels…right to say those words. Special. There’s a certain tenderness to them, one she knows the raven can feel in the bond they inherently share. “Would you be willing to do something for them too? Like…a little hat?”
Eagerness tugs on the bond between her and Pip. They like the sound of that very, very much.
“Not the strangest request we’ve gotten, but I’m sure wecan do something.” The woman with horns graces her with a small, dazzling smile that sends her heart a flutter. “I’m Jericho, Mistress Syl’s assistant.”
“She was a year behind Gale at the Blackstaff Academy,” Syl brags, starting to rush around the room and gather bits and bobs into her arms.
“Yes, but I only attended for a couple years. I decided that high wizard society had enough puffed out chests and inflated egos to make one sick, especially when you’re a tiefling.” Jericho scoffs, an expression of pure disgruntlement twisting her beautiful features. “My magical talents lie more in simple enchantments, and my interests in outfitting always captured me more than the Art itself.”
Tiefling? That’s not a phrase Rowan is familiar with at all. She’ll have to remember to ask Gale what it means, but she has a fairly good idea: it revolves around the glittering horns jutting out from her forehead.
An influx of information suddenly swells within her mind. It feels as if someone has plugged her brain into a database, the neurons firing away wildly as she rushes to download it all.
Tieflings are a people with infernal blood running through their veins. That infernal touch is the result of a pact with a fiend or being a direct descendant of one. And half-elves—half-elves are a people in Toril as well, living longer than other races but not as long as a full-blooded elf.
Sylvia must be a half-elf. The curve of her ears and the finesse she sways with say as much.
Pip crows out from their perch on Rowan’s arm and she subtly glances at them, meeting their violet eyes. She swears she can hear their voice in her mind, loud and proud as they gloat, Don’t worry, boss. I gotchu!
She gives them an appreciative wink. If her familiar can double as a mental search engine, she’ll get the lay of the land in no time.
The next hour goes by in a blurry, chaotic storm. Jericho and Syl measure every inch of her, poke and prod her, hold up swathes of cloth and fabric against her body as they study it with the most analytical of eyes. They ask her what colors she likes and what styles she prefers out of polite professionalism only—Rowan knows they don’t think too highly of her current ensemble, so all she can do is insist they do as they see fit.
She learns a little more about Gale as she stands with her arms wrapped in measuring tape and rolls of soft velvet draped over her shoulder. The seamstresses provide the information entirely out of their own accord without any prompting on her part. Rowan was going to try and subtly ask what they knew about him anyway; she finds herself hanging on to every word, listening intently.
“I’ve known him since he was a wee babe,” Syl tells Rowan, eyes sparkling conspiratorially. “I looked after his mother, Morena, when she was a girl. She and I remained very close as she got older. I even designed her wedding dress! Ah, never has a finer piece of art been wrought to life by these old hands of mine.” She clasps her hands to her chest, lost in memories as she sighs wistfully. “I’ll shan’t ever forget the look in Evander’s eyes when he first saw her on their wedding day. That’s Gale’s father, mind you!”
“What was he like as a kid?” Rowan asks. She already has a vague idea from the story he told her about summoning Tara, but she suspects Syl can tell her a lot more.
“Oh, much like he is now! Curious, persistent, and quite the little scholar. He was always getting into trouble for asking too many questions and arguing like a politician when he didn’t like the answer. Why, I remember a time when—”
“He was a sniveling bastard in school,” Jericho interrupts, scowling. “Always thought he was better than everyone else. I tried turning his hair green once with magic, just to make him look like an idiot.”
She pauses, the scowl deepening.
“…he Counterspelled it.”
Syl laughs, a rather girlish giggle erupting from her throat. “As I said, a troublemaker! He and his brother Dorian would drive their parents to utter madness with all their fighting and arguing.”
“Dorian was an ass too,” Jericho mutters, and if her scowl said everything about how she feels towards Gale, the way her silver eyes flare with actual flames tells Rowan just how much she despises his brother. “He’s a year older than Gale and was a downright bully when we attended the Academy. If Gale thought he was a king amongst men, Dorian fancied himself a god amongst kings.” She nearly snarls, a feral sound born of the distant past and the resenting it’s bringing to the surface. “Bloody sorcerers.”
Gale had briefly mentioned a brother in his story about summoning Tara. He was a sorcerer?
Oh. Well, that explained his visceral reaction when he discovered that she was one as well.
The rivalry between wizards and sorcerers seems ridiculously petty and childish, and she’s probably going to regret saying this, but…
Rowan coughs politely, avoiding looking at either seamstress. Her voice comes out in a sickly squeak like an ailing Victorian child.
“I…happen to be a sorcerer, actually.”
The poking and prodding, fussing and furrowing immediately halt.
She feels the burning gazes of both Syl and Jericho as acutely as if they had plunged an iron poker into a fire and branded the back of her neck with it. Rowan attempts to shrink in on herself, suddenly feeling very much like she said the wrong thing, until Jericho lets out a peal of raucous laughter. She clutches at her stomach as she stumbles away, her cheeks darkening with amusement as she laughs and laughs and laughs.
“Mystra’s tits! Gale Dekarios, mentoring a sorcerer ? This is the best day of my life!”
“My dear, sweet Rowan. How did this happen?”
Syl grasps her by the shoulders with such ferocity that the fabrics and tapes the seamstress has spun her in like a spiderweb slide off of her and fall to the ground with a soft thunk. She looks her deep in the eyes, years of wisdom and poise giving way to one thing and one thing only:
Sheer desperation for the juiciest of gossip.
Rowan falters. Freezes. Fear creeps up her spine, a dozen rats gnawing at the pit of her stomach. How well will “I died in my old world and a goddess shunted me off to this one out of pity and then Gale found me in an alleyway like a stray mutt” go over with them? Magic is real in Toril.
Gods
are real. Other realms and planes of existence are seemingly common knowledge. But the world of her former life? That colorless, aching void of broken dreams and shattered hopes?
She can’t tell them about it. It’s better to twist the truth, letting half-lies roll off her tongue and praying they have the courtesy to not pry further.
“I am…in between living situations right now,” she says carefully, still refusing to meet their expectant gazes. “Gale found out by coincidence. He was kind. He offered me tea. I asked him to teach me magic. He said yes. That’s about it—I’m sorry it’s not more interesting.”
Silence.
Then Syl is pulling her into her arms, the embrace deliciously warm and as comforting as a weighted blanket enveloping her like a shroud. The older half-elf says nothing. She just hugs her, squeezing her so tightly Rowan thinks the rats in her stomach are going to suffocate and her ribs are going to start cracking until the marrow leaks out.
Jericho rests her hand on Rowan’s head for just a moment. The sympathy in the tiefling’s claws as they prick her skull ever so slightly makes her want to scream. Guilt and shame flavor the marrow of her bones, sending the rats into a feeding frenzy. Liar , a venomous voice hisses. Filthy, disgusting liar.
But the lie is necessary. If it results in Syl and Jericho thinking she’s some kind of urchin crawling out from the dredges of society, then so be it.
And then Jericho pulls her hand away, and Syl releases her from the rib crushing embrace, and the sudden speed the two seamstresses begin to work with is phenomenal.
Approximately two hours later, Rowan is standing in front of a mirror and can barely recognize herself.
Gone are her beloved jeans and moon-cat shirt. The robe that clings to Rowan’s skin is sleek and soft, spun from silk so blue it’s almost black. Silver thread embellishes the deep, shadowy blue like stars, swirling in graceful designs around the collar and meandering at the hem. The pearly buttons of the collar are open to ensure the feather on the chain around her neck is visible. The robe is sleeveless, but she doesn’t feel ashamed by the thickness of her bare arms. Matching wrist gauntlets of the same design protect the sensitive tendons, enchanted by Jericho to ensure no muscle cramps will happen during spellcasting.
The robe hangs below her knees. It is full of secret pockets both inside and out, done by Syl’s steady hands. The openings are craftily hidden by the delicate array of ornamentation threaded through the fabric and it’s truly a masterpiece. A pair of loose, comfortable leggings compliments the robe itself, the material a lovely mottled gray. Leather boots of a rich umber hue fall short of just about meeting the ends of the robe, tied together with sturdy cord and a flexible interior that’s quite pleasant on her feet.
And her hair. Her unruly, lawless hair. Jericho’s enchantments are nothing short of a miracle. She’s tamed the wild curls enough that the humidity of Waterdeep doesn’t immediately send them into a frizzy, frazzled mess. The tiefling has braided her hair in a very similar style to her own, keeping it away from her face and ensuring just a few strands poke out fashionably.
Rowan doesn’t look like a queen.
She looks like herself . The person she always wanted to be. The robe Syl and Jericho have crafted doesn’t let her hide away from the curves of her body, the swell of her thick and bulky limbs and hips. It accentuates it. Makes her feel proud of it. Each piece of the ensemble supports and celebrates every inch of her curves, raising them up on a pedestal for all to see and appreciate.
She is beautiful. She is happy .
She reaches out and gingerly touches her face in the mirror, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Forget wizardry, sorcery, and everything arcane. This is true magic. To be able to look at herself and feel nothing but pride and joy, rather than the oily disgust and rancid hatred she once viewed her reflection with.
Just one thing is missing, though.
“Pip,” she calls to her familiar, who has been seated patiently on a bare mannequin and watching her transformation with eager eyes. The raven obediently flies to her, landing on her shoulder and nudging her cheek with their smooth beak.
“Yeah, boss?” they whisper, voice at an octave so low she’s surprised she can actually hear them.
“Can I have a feather?”
Pip nods imperceptibly and burrows their head into the crook of their wing. They expertly yank a feather out from their plumage and drop it into Rowan’s waiting hand, smoothing down the ruffles caused by its absence.
She cranes her neck and tugs the braid over her shoulder so that it rests against her chest. Pinching the feather between her fingers, she slowly threads it into her braid so that it sticks out from the bottom of it.
A feather at her throat and a feather in her hair. The mark of the Raven Queen, her silent benefactor.
“Maybe I can dye my hair purple later,” Rowan muses as she smooths the feather in her hair down, flipping her braid back over her shoulders. “It’s always been my favorite color. I never got the chance to do it before…”
Well, before she died.
But Syl and Jericho don’t need to know that.
Jericho gasps softly from behind her as if she’s had an epiphany omniscient enough to end the universe. “Oh! I can help with that!” she exclaims as she darts over to a cabinet against the back wall. She throws the doors open, reaches in, and pulls out at least a dozen scrolls. All of them are bound by a single leather cord, the parchment slightly yellowed.
She unfurls one open. Arcane sigils are scribbled on the parchment—Rowan can feel the dull thrumming roar of magic pulsating from the runes. Jericho strides back to her and murmurs incantations softly, her rich voice resonating and rumbling deep in Rowan’s very soul.
The parchment begins to glow, an aurora of purples cascading over the inky surface. “What shade of purple are we talking about?” Jericho asks her, excitement clinging to every syllable. “Lilac? Lavender? A nice, respectable plum? Or shall we be daring and dashing and go with something a little more on the magenta side?”
Rowan shrugs, eyeing the glowing scroll curiously. If there was magic just for hair dyeing, then Toril fucking ruled.
“Never give me choices. I’ll become paralyzed with indecision.”
“I quite like it when customers leave everything up to my expert opinion.”
Jericho snaps her fingers. The Weave coalesced onto Rowan for a brief, captivatingly profound moment. She blinks and in between the millisecond of her eyelids opening and closing, the hair in her reflection has changed.
An ombre of deep purple bordering on a shade between Pip’s eyes and the color of Gale’s robes runs through her braid. Her natural auburn curls mingle flawlessly with the purple, which shimmers and shines almost like a cut amethyst. All she needs is some black eyeshadow and whatever Jericho uses for her lips and she’ll be living her old high school dreams of being that hot goth bitch.
God, I love magic.
“The spell will last for a couple months if left alone,” the tiefling explains as she gets a satchel from another shelf and starts to put the rest of the scrolls in it. She’s scowling again, teeth grinding in contempt. “Just don’t do it around Gale. He’ll Counterspell the damn thing. Honestly, casting it on Color Spray , of all spells!”
“Why are you his tailor if you dislike him so much?” Rowan asks. She’s been wondering it the whole time Syl and Jericho have been helping her, the latter always finding moments for a nasty remark or snide comment regarding her new mentor.
Jericho flashes her a toothy grin, revealing sharp canines. “He felt so guilty for what an ass he was to me at the Academy. When I started working for Mistress Syl, he made sure to pay triple our going rate.”
Rowan knows she goes just a little paler than usual. Gale really is a rich bastard, isn’t he? She’ll have to double down and throw herself into being an apprentice worthy of him to pay him back for all of this.
Good thing she’s always liked an academic challenge.
“Rowan darling, I’ve finished your request for your familiar,” Syl calls out from the work table. Scraps of spare cloth and spools of thread litter the surface, cut into tiny strips with painstaking patience. She holds her creation in one hand, beaming.
It’s a little top hat.
Sewn from the same fabric as the majority of Rowan’s robe, it is the perfect accent to her dark and elegant ensemble. A ribbon of silver is tied neatly around the brim in a delicate little bow.
Pip takes one look at it and squawks with ear splitting joy. They rush from Rowan’s shoulder and zip towards Syl, hopping onto the work table—carefully conscious to not get their feet tangled in anything—and preens up at the half-elf expectantly.
Syl places the hat with reverence atop their feathery head. It’s a perfect fit. Rowan laughs when her familiar does a little twirl on the table, bobbing their head in elation as they dance with avian dignity. They look absolutely dashing . If it wouldn’t impede their flight, Rowan would beg Pip to let her commission a tiny little matching suit to finish their dapper style.
Pip crows their appreciation, bowing before Syl with all the pluckiness of a debonair. They fly back to Rowan’s shoulder, settling down in what is sure to become their usual spot, and Rowan leans her head against them in a display of affection. “Thank you,” she says softly to Jericho and Syl, voice swelling with gratitude bordering on the beginnings of a cryfest. Like Gale, she’ll never be able to repay their kindness. It doesn’t matter that his gold is already in their coffers. Rowan has never been pampered and catered to like this.
She’s never had someone help her make her feel beautiful.
“It was a pleasure, dear girl,” Syl insists. “Masterpieces are far easier to accomplish with such lovely canvases, you know.”
She blushes. The rats chittering and gnawing away at her stomach have gone silent. A fluttering of butterfly wings have taken their place, soaring freely and chasing away all dredges of anxious fear.
Jericho begins to fold the other outfits she and the half-elf created for Rowan—she had expected to walk out with just the robe, frankly, but the power of a wizard obsessed with fashion works wonders. Trousers, blouses, undergarments, a cloak, a couple pairs of shoes…Syl and Jericho have outdone themselves. She’s going to have enough variety where she won’t have to worry about wearing the same thing, over and over again.
She doesn’t ask for her old clothes back. They’re as good as dead to her, just like her old name and old life.
(Even if there might be some lingering hairs on the shirt from Freya. She will force herself to forget about them. It’s still too much.)
Rowan is about to ask if there’s anything she can do to help them put their workshop back in order when a flash of purple from one of the shelves catches her eye. She finds herself being drawn to it, walking over and pulling it out of its cubby without asking for permission.
The fabric is incredibly soft against her fingertips. It screams coziness; curling up in front of a fire with a good book, the soft breathing of a cat half asleep in her lap. She lets it unravel in her fingertips and she finds herself now looking at a flowy, lovely shirt. She glances back at the shelf and grabs the other purple fabric that has been abandoned. It’s a pair of pants, matching the shirt perfectly, and as she stares at the two articles of clothing she realizes they are incredibly close to the style of robe Gale wears.
Jericho notices her inspecting them and lets out a little snort. “Those are sleepwear. They’re actually based on a design Gale originally commissioned. I was going to duplicate it, as they were a fine piece of work, but I never got around to finishing them.” She pauses, pensive and thoughtful. “If you want them, I’ll throw them in, free of charge.”
Rowan folds them back up, quiet as she contemplates the tiefling’s words. “So…basically…if I took these, I’d have matching pajamas with Gale?”
“When you phrase it like that, yes.”
“...I’d like the pajamas, please.”
Jericho gives her a knowing smirk as she takes the bundle from her and places it into the satchel with the scrolls and the rest of Rowan’s clothes. “Maybe with you around, he won’t ignore us for another six months. I certainly missed his gold. If he’s willing to spend even more of it to indulge his pretty new apprentice…”
She trails off, the smirk deepening. Rowan knows she’s blushing again, brighter this time, the flush engulfing the base of her neck in bashful flames. She opens her mouth to rebuff, to insist that Gale and her just met and there is no chance of anything actually happening, but the door to the front of the shop chooses that moment to chime. Syl rushes out of the back room, moving with a speed that belays her boundless energy. Her voice echoes boisterously throughout the entire shop, the incandescent smile on her face obvious as she simpers away.
“Oh, Gale! What perfect timing. Come, come, you will absolutely
die
when you see Rowan’s metamorphosis! Forget a queen—your apprentice could be a contender to the goddess of magic herself!”
Rowan’s ears perk when she hears the eloquent tone of one very familiar wizard.
“Now, Sylvia, I highly doubt Mystra would approve of—”
The way Gale abruptly stops talking makes Rowan glance over at the doorway.
The half-elf is dragging him by the arm into the back of the shop the same way she dragged Rowan, her fingers like vice grips around his wrist. Tara is no longer perched on his shoulders, instead trotting alongside him with her elegant head held high. He’s got something on his back, something long and wrapped in a black cloth, tall enough that it’s at the same height of his head.
But it’s not that strange detail that captures her attention.
It’s the way Gale is looking at her.
His eyes are wide. His mouth is slightly ajar. He’s got the most peculiar expression on his face, one Rowan couldn’t read even if she had the fucking Rosetta Stone to translate it. He is suspended in the doorway as if his feet have turned to stone, an eternal sentinel as he gazes at her unmoving.
His throat bobs as he swallows.
His eyes blink as he meets her gaze, a myriad of things swirling like a storm inside of them. An ebb and flow. A push and pull.
Gale utters a single stammered syllable, his voice hoarse and halting.
“...o-oh.”
Chapter 3: needle and thread
Notes:
a majority of the events that i wanted to happen in this chapter did not happen because gale refused to stop with the inner monologues.
oops.
[will smith poses] take my interpretation of morena dekarios as an apology and remember; she's a milf <3
Chapter Text
“…o-oh.”
Gale can’t stop staring at Rowan.
He knew she was lovely. It had been one of the first things he noticed yesterday, but looking at her now…
Gods, she is breathtaking .
There is a confidence in her that he can’t recall sensing before he left her in the care of Sylvia and Jericho. A sharpness in her eyes, replacing the subtle fear and trepidation that was clinging to her this morning. The robe she wears compliments her curves and augments the strange allure about her. She’s standing up straighter, holding her head higher, and she is exuding an intense awareness as she meets his gaze. Rowan looks ready to take down a Lord of the Hells and then take a leisurely stroll through the Shadowfell immediately afterwards.
Gale has always been the type to appreciate the finer things in life. Good food, delectable wine, scintillating poetry, the ebb and flow of the Weave dancing between his fingers…
Beautiful people are no exception. To Gale, there is nothing more beautiful than a person finding an assurance in themselves—that mettle, resolute and oh so tenacious—and feeling proud of who they are.
Perhaps that is why he fell so long and hard for Mystra. The goddess of magic is nothing but an endless wellspring of certainty in herself. And perhaps that is what won him her attention in the beginning, when he was young and brash and much too bold.
Now that confidence is his undoing. He has unraveled and unmade who he once was, and the price he continues to pay aches in his chest like an eternal sword plunged into his heart.
If he can harness the Shadow Weave to rid himself of the orb, will Mystra look upon him with her divine favor once more?
Will she love him again?
Gale realizes he has been silent for far too long, swept up in a reverie ill suited for his current audience.
Gale also realizes his gaze has been fixated on a particular area of Rowan’s person, and he hastily wrenches his eyes away with a speed that would impress the most cunning of rogues. No doubt his new apprentice would be too keen on his blatant, lecherous staring of her décolletage. The damn robe does far too good a job of bolstering her shapely charm. He has half a mind to match Sylvia and Jericho and ask them what in the hells they were thinking—
Jericho clears her throat loudly, obnoxiously. Despite his instinctual self preservation telling him not to glance her way, Gale does so anyway.
The tiefling is smirking at him.
The fire in her silver eyes burns with a devious knowing as her lips curl into a vulgar, boorish sneer. “Whatever is the matter, ser?” she simpers with a false saccharine concern. “Is your apprentice’s attire not up to your standards? Even though she was so excited about it…”
She trails off with a melancholy hum. Jericho should have been a bard, not a wizard. She manipulates words with a cadence more practiced than she does the threads of the Weave.
Gale deserves this. It’s payback for the transgressions he committed towards her in his youth.
“Yeah,” Rowan pipes up. “Aren’t you supposed to refer to me as ‘your majesty’ now, Gale?”
The spell breaks.
The magic that has gripped him in a geas fades away.
He remembers how to breathe again. He pushes the stunning sight of her beautiful confidence to the corners of his mind and forces a smile on his face; one he hopes does not reveal the depths of his sudden bout of nerves.
“Forgive my silence,” he says with a laugh that, to his ears, sounds a little too strained. “You look the very picture of arcane academics, Rowan. Your majesty,” he adds in an afterthought, giving a sweeping an exaggerated bow that knocks the thing he’s carrying on his back out of place. It almost smacks him in the head and he has to quickly adjust it before it slips free of its bindings and plummets to the ground.
“Whatcha got there?” Rowan asks, stormy eyes sparkling with an untamed curiosity that Gale oh so wishes he could indulge.
Not yet. He’ll reveal it when they return to the tower. Especially after seeing Jericho’s taunting grin and the way Sylvia dragged him to Rowan with all the vigilance of a queen’s guard. Gale wants neither seamstress to be armed with any more ammunition towards him. He can only imagine the ripples of chaos this visit is going to create.
Before the day is done, Morena Dekarios is going to know of her son’s new apprentice. He can only imagine the ire she’s going to feel not hearing it from Gale himself.
Can one be grounded by their mother at thirty five years old?
“A surprise,” he answers quickly, brusquely, hoping Rowan will get the hint to not ask anymore questions. “Part of the errands I was running. I will show you when we—is Pip wearing a hat.”
The sight of the familiar, perched quietly on Rowan’s shoulder but in an extravagant pose that very much screams “LOOK AT ME,” throws Gale for such a loop he almost chokes.
Pip is indeed wearing a hat. A tiny, raven-sized top hat that is a perfect accessory to Rowan’s ensemble. They look quite pleased with themselves, turning their head this way and that as if to show it off at every possible angle.
Rowan beams , taking Pip off her shoulder and brandishing them in the air as if the raven were a sacred relic from the dawn of antiquity. “Aren’t they perfect? If Tara gets a fancy collar, then Pip gets a fancy hat. No arguing!”
Gale wasn’t going to argue, especially not with that logic. She has a point.
“I would love to craft more for your raven friend,” Sylvia says, gesturing to the sprawling mess of ribbons and fabric laying across the work table. “I’ve plenty of material for it!”
Rowan meets Gale’s eyes. A silent request for approval thunders in them. His confusion lasts only for a heartbeat; of course she’d look to him for approval. She has no money of her own yet, and it was his coin that paid for the hat currently on Pip’s head. He’ll have to remedy that. He doesn’t want her entirely reliant on him—she deserves the freedom to make these types of decisions without waiting for his acquiescence.
Gale gives her a shrug, hoping she can sense his intentions. “If it makes you happy, who am I to stop you?”
A shadow flits across Rowan’s pale, freckled face.
It is so sudden, so swift, that Gale almost believes he imagined it. A trick of the light, a mote of dust settling in his eyes. But no. He saw what he saw.
A momentary raw unveiling of the tangled emotions she silently bears. Gale’s chest throbs with a sympathetic ache. For once, that stinging pain does not come from the orb buried within it.
“I’d like that,” Rowan admits, the crooked grin she’s giving Sylvia masking whatever darkness she briefly allowed to be let through. Pip crows in her hands, bobbing their head up and down in excitement, and she adds, “Pip would like that as well.”
Sylvia claps her hands in glee, eyes sparkling. “Oh, how delightful! I’ll sketch some designs and send them off to Gale’s tower for your approval!”
Rowan meets her with a delighted grin of her own and Pip flutters back onto her shoulders, mollified for the moment. Jericho hoists a satchel bursting at the seams into her arms and Rowan slings it over her shoulder, patting it fondly.
“I know I gave you some scrolls for it,” the tiefling says, a rare display of genuine affection coursing through her typically grating tone, “but I can teach you some basic enchantments if you ever want to change your hair again and the scrolls aren’t readily available.”
Her hair?
Gale peers as surreptitiously as he can at Rowan’s hair. The wild auburn curls have been woven into a tight braid not unlike the style Jericho herself wears. It takes him a moment but once he sees it, he can’t believe he didn’t notice it in the first place.
A lovely shade of purple twists through her hair. The exact hue is oddly…familiar. A finite, phantasmal thrill courses through his veins when he realizes why; it’s almost exactly the same color as his favorite robes. The robes he is wearing right now. The robes Rowan met him in, asked him to teach her magic in.
Gale’s throat begins to close up like the jaws of a wolf tightening around the snapped neck of a fawn.
He knows better than to jump to conclusions but there is no feasible way that color is just a coincidence. Not when it stands out to him like a brand, shouting out across the rooftops of Waterdeep that his apprentice is proudly displaying his favorite color.
Said apprentice is bouncing on the heels of her feet as she answers Jericho, absentmindedly twirling the end of her braid between her fingers.
“As long as you have more stories about Gale being a little shit when he was a student, I’m down.”
“Trust me, sweetheart. I will always have more stories. Hells, there was this one time when he turned his clothes invisible, and—”
“Oh would you look at that, it’s time to go,” Gale interrupts loudly, facing flaming as he knows exactly what series of unfortunate events Jericho is about to recount. He would rather impress Rowan with his wizarding prowess, not look a complete and utter buffoon. The misfire of the Invisibility spell will certainly not impress anyone, regardless if they knew magic or not.
The transgressions of youth indeed. However did Mystra ever see him as anything but a senseless upstart?
Gale shakes the thought away and lurches towards the door, eager to return to the relative calm and safety of his tower. He adores Sylvia, but his former classmate (rival, really) never fails to make his head hurt.
“I’ll be in touch,” Rowan whispers to Jericho. It’s loud enough for Gale to hear and he knows damn well she wanted him to. He turns his head just enough to catch the other wizard giving him a downright villainous wink that makes his skin crawl.
Bringing Rowan to Sylvia was a terrible idea. Perhaps the worst he’s ever had since getting it in his head that he could return to Mystra the magic she lost.
“Don’t take another six months to visit, Gale,” the half-elf calls after him as he and Rowan exit the back room. Jericho says something to her too quiet for Gale to catch. Considering how it sends Sylvia into a choir of laughter so loud and mirthful it sounds like her heart is going to give out, he finds that he is grateful he did not hear it.
Sylvia’s laughter is still echoing through the shop as the door closes behind him. The streets are packed as the people of Waterdeep rush off to their midday meals or next job, the hustle and bustle of the city never truly grinding to a halt. Once, it was a chaotic mess he embraced wholeheartedly.
Now he just wants to go home and read three books in one sitting.
Alas, Gale is a mentor now. An arch wizard with his own apprentice at last. Such trivial motives are beneath him now. Rowan takes precedence—and the more she learns to control the Shadow Weave inside her, the better of a chance he has at curing his affliction.
Elminster’s letter burns from its resting place in his pocket. He had read those two lines over and over again as he’d searched for the item he now carries on his back, hoping that there would be some secret code revealed between the letters. Elminster was an even more powerful wizard than he was, after all. An Illusory Script cipher would be as simple as breathing for him.
But no.
His mentor’s reply has remained the same as it was when Tara first returned with it, the ink dripping with disdain.
The Shadow Weave is not a force to be trifled with, whatever its darkness may promise you. Do not delve too deeply in it, lest you further disappoint Mystra even more than you already have, Gale.
Gale can’t blame Elminster. The Sage of Shadowdale has been in the service of Mystra longer than anyone else alive. He has borne witness to her rebirth and ascendance. He knows her better than even Gale does, despite countless days they spent making love in the cradle of eternity and idling away between hushed esoterics and murmured conjectures. If Elminster is certain that the power of the Shadow Weave will serve to only further sever his bond with the goddess, then Gale has no reason to doubt.
He just wishes Mystra would come down from the stars and tell him herself.
He knows she is aware of Rowan. He knows she sensed the Shadow Weave and the woman from the strange world who holds a piece of it inside her. Not that he would ever wish for Rowan to be the subject of Mystra’s wrath—no, far from it. Even with the Raven Queen’s supposed favor there is no telling what the goddess of magic could do to Rowan if she truly saw her as a threat.
He’ll just have to get the bloody orb out of him before it consumes him and every trace of magic in Waterdeep before Mystra can throw a fit.
“Your mom sounds cool,” Rowan says suddenly, and Gale realizes he’s lapsed into furtive contemplative silence as she follows him through the crowds. A poor habit he has had since childhood, and one that’s only gotten worse in the last six months since cutting himself off from most of the world. “Your brother sounds like a dick, though. Why did it take you six months to go back to Syl’s?”
Gale winces. He should have known that was coming. “A-ah, well…”
What is he supposed to say?
I thought myself better than the goddess of magic and now an ancient artifact inside of me is slowly eating me alive.
The orb twists in its coffin. It knows he’s thinking about it. Gale feels a thousand daggers plunging into his chest, so cold they burn. He wishes for the world to stop existing so he can use that eternity to dig out his spine and use it to skewer his heart and end it all.
The marks on his neck twinge. Everyone is looking at him. Every pair of eyes in this sea of people are staring at him, demanding to know of his sin. He is vaguely aware of Tara pressing against his legs as his feet stumble. Her presence is hazy, a dying lantern in the fog of his screaming mind.
Gale’s throat constricts. His eyes blink rapidly. What does he say? How does he answer Rowan? Why can’t he just—
A hand on his arm. His neck cracks with how fast he whips his head around, panicked eyes immediately locking into Rowan’s. There is a calmness in them. A quiet understanding that ignites a new lantern in his trembling fingertips and urges him to keep moving forward.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly. “You don’t have to tell me. We just met yesterday. Deep, dark secrets are typically an ‘after six months’ kinda deal anyway.”
The humor in her tone is light, gentle. Gale can’t help but crack a small smile even though the rest of him is cracking into little shards he’ll never be able to pick up.
I don’t know if I’ll still be around in six months to tell you , he thinks.
Carefully, Gale says, “I did something half a year ago that was very foolish. Facing the world at large after it has been…difficult. Sylvia and Jericho are no exception.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeats. He knows she means it. The sincerity in her voice kills him. It is an agony worse than the orb and its arcane hunger. “But I’m glad you took me to there today. I enjoyed meeting them. And this!”
Despite being pressed in on all sides by people heedless of anyone but themselves, Rowan pirouettes and spins in a circle, the ends of her robe flaring up to reveal the shapely cusp of her thighs. The chain around her neck jingles softly, the feather at her neck and the matching one Gale now sees in her braid fluttering in the breeze from her twirl.
As free as a raven taking flight. Gale feels breathless once more as he watches her, the pain in his chest forgotten as his heart shivers for a whole other reason.
“I’ve never felt more like myself.” The storms in Rowan’s eyes could turn a desert into a garden, blossoming until the end of time itself. “Thank you, Gale. I’m just…so happy to be here, with you.”
Gale can’t bring himself to look at her when he answers. He doesn’t want her to see how red his face is or the flash of violet curling up his neck as both his heart and the orb pulse with too many emotions to name.
“I find myself quite pleased to be here with you as well, Rowan.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“…ah, my apologies. It is a pleasure to bask in your scintillating presence, Your Majesty.”
“That’s better.”
It’s obvious that Rowan can’t stand the suspense any longer.
The moment she and Gale return to the tower, without even bothering to wait for him to close the door behind him, she begs, “Can you please tell me what you’ve been hauling on your back this whole time now?”
He considers it for just a moment before shaking his head, putting the wrapped package on his desk. “Patience, my dear apprentice. Good things come to those who wait. How about some lunch first?”
“Ugh, food ,” Pip groans, their voice full of longing. “Youse got any more o’that fancy schmancy cheese? That shit was delightful!”
“Normally I’m all about lunch,” Rowan admits, staring at the bundle on Gale’s desk as if she can see right through the cloth wrapped around it. Frankly, she might be able to. He doesn’t know all that the Shadow Weave is capable of. “But you have appealed to my emotionally curious nature. You can’t just wave ‘it’s a surprise’ in front of my face and then put it off. You’re killing me, Gale.”
Gale’s only response is to hold a finger up and tut, clicking his tongue in playful shame. He feels so much more at ease now that he is back in his tower. The weight of the crowds pressing against him have lifted off his shoulders and his chest no longer feels as if it is going to cave in.
It’s so bloody easy to talk to her. He can play off her banter as if he’s merely rolling the incantation for Firebolt or Ray of Frost off his tongue. It’s been a day and yet Gale thoroughly enjoys every moment of conversation with her, and he wonders if it’s in part because of his isolation for the last six months.
Or maybe not. Maybe Rowan is just the type of person who fits with his type of person. Tara has been his rock during this tumultuous time at sea, buffeted by freezing winds and skin sliced raw by vicious sleet.
Is Rowan his anchor?
Gale does not know. He wishes he did. He so desperately wants to understand why he feels as though he can share anything and everything with her without fear of ridicule or recompense.
In turn, he wants to ensure her comfort. Her well-being is pertinent to his own situation, yes, but he also just wants her to feel like Faerûn truly is home for her. She’s adjusted to this whole ordeal remarkably well (aside from crying yesterday—he can’t blame her for that) but Gale knows there must be an underlying and ever pervasive sense of loss inside her.
Forgoing lunch for a few more minutes is a necessary sacrifice for her happiness. Besides, he can’t help but await the expression she’s bound to make when she sees what he’s gotten.
“Alright,” Gale relents with a somewhat dramatic sigh, picking the bundle back out and holding it in front of him. “Go on, open it.”
Rowan takes it and starts to unwrap the cloth with a vigor akin to a starved worg tearing into the flesh of a decaying carcass.
Her quiet, startled gasp when the prize beneath is unveiled makes all the gold he’s spent today worth it.
Rowan holds the staff in her hands with a reverently delicate touch. She stares at it with wide eyes, taking in every detail silently. Gale knows it’s a work of art—it’s what caught his attention when he saw it on display. Carved from wood harvested from a walnut tree, the glossy base is dark and thick enough to ensure a careless user won’t snap it in half. Not that he would expect Rowan to be careless with it, of course. The staff is rather plain and simple, so the user can personalize it how they see fit. At the very top of the staff a large, spherical onyx crystal has been set within a silver base. It is polished to perfection, thrumming with a quiet darkness that Gale felt would be an excellent match to whatever abilities Rowan might have.
“Any mentor worth their salt gives their apprentice their first arcane focus,” Gale explains, his hand absentmindedly going to the earring he wears. “Usually they let the apprentice choose, but when I found the staff I didn’t want anyone else purchasing it. If you’d like, we can return it and get you something different if it’s not up to your standards—”
“Shut up,” Rowan mumbles, no trace of ire in her thick and rasping tone. She clutches the staff in the same vein she was clutching the brazier this morning; as if letting go would send her falling down a hole Gale can’t see, but can rightly sense. “It’s perfect.”
“Good. I’m glad you think so. You’ll have to attune to it before you can channel your spellcasting through it. After a nice long rest, the staff will work for you and only you.”
The earring feels uncomfortably warm for a moment. He remembers the softness of Mystra’s fingers as she snapped it into place on his ear, her touch lingering against his cheek for a beat too long. He remembers his joy, his elation, his bloody pride as he concocted some perfunctory ritual to ensure it could never be separated from his person, so deep had been the tides of his devotion.
It can never be said that Gale is anything but an ardent lover.
Even if Gale could take the earring off, he can’t help but wonder if he’d still be able to cast spells. It’s been his focus for most of his wizarding career. Would his magic recognize anything else?
He doubts it. Mystra would know immediately if he even dared to try. He wouldn’t put it past her to sever his connection to the Weave forevermore as punishment.
“I’ll show you how to attune to it,” he promises, wrenching himself away from those thoughts. It’s no use focusing on a future that won’t come to fruition. He will remove the orb and find his way back into Mystra’s graces.
He will.
“I know you said I’m an investment,” Rowan clears her throat, chasing away the thickness and rough timbre from her voice, “but I still feel…guilty. What sane person listens to my story and decides to do all of this without immediately demanding something in return?”
Tara lets out a scoff, tail flicking in displeasure as she winds between Gale’s legs. “What sane person voluntarily keeps that unsightly scruff on their face?”
“I am standing right here. Questioning my sanity is a little rude when I’m in the same room as you.”
“I just meant that you’re a special kind of person to be doing all this,” Rowan quickly amends, her pale face flushing a brilliant pink. It makes her freckles stand out even more. “And I like the beard. It gives you a rugged, distinguished look.”
He tilts his head, blinking at her. “Is that a roundabout way of calling me handsome, Rowan?”
His apprentice lets out a tiny, barely imperceptible squeak in the back of her throat. She quickly looks away from him, adjusting the staff in her hands so that the obsidian crystal at the top obscures most of her face. The blush spreads down her neck and disappears into the collar of her robes. “S-sure,” she chokes out, shrugging with a nonchalance he knows is a poorly wrought facade.
Gale allows a cheeky, somewhat conceited grin to spread across his face. Oh, he likes this side of Rowan.
It’s only fair. She made him speechless only a short time ago—now it’s his turn to fluster her.
Or at least he would, if not for Tara choosing that moment to dig her claws into his ankle as she looks up at him from her spot at his feet. Her yellow eyes narrow dangerously, whiskers twitching as she silently communicates with him through the bond they share as familiar and master.
Don’t you dare tease her unless you plan on taking responsibility for what that may do , she seems to be saying, and a pinprick of guilt shoots through Gale’s veins.
Tara is correct. She usually is. Harmless flirtations are out of the question. She is his apprentice in more way than one; he needs to be her guide in not only the arcane, but this new world she finds herself in.
It doesn’t matter if he finds himself enjoying her reactions.
It doesn’t matter that when he first saw her in the new robe, he entirely forgot about Mystra.
Because despite everything—despite the orb locked away inside him, despite Mystra’s refusal to speak to him for what he’s done, he still loves his goddess. His heart still yearns for her touch; his mind still yearns to be molded and formed by her wisdom. His very essence still craves the boundless, inextricable rush of magic he felt every time he and Mystra made love.
Gale cannot allow himself to share in coquettish banter with Rowan if he has no intention of following through. It would be a grievous offense. A most heinous disservice.
So he bites back whatever quip dangling on his tongue, schools his face into a pleasantly neutral expression, and says, “I do so appreciate the compliment, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Everything I’ve done has been to ensure your study of magic goes smoothly. In return, I’m hoping to learn all I can about your connection to the Shadow Weave. What kind of wizard would I be if I didn’t take this chance to further my own studies?”
A half-truth. A lie of omission.
Gale hates himself a little more for it.
Rowan’s flush slowly fades away. She contemplates his words for a few moments, tapping her fingers on the staff to a rhythm only she can hear.
“So we’re both going to be teacher and student,” she muses, humming thoughtfully. It has the same tempo to her fingers tapping. “I guess that makes sense. Even though all I can do is poof pretty lights into existence and give my hand stage one necrosis.”
“We’ll take it one day at a time,” Gale swears, bowing his head slightly. Elminster’s letter crinkles in his pocket, as if the ancient wizard is trying to give him a sign.
He ignores it.
Damn his caution. Damn his hiding behind Mystra and her disappointment.
Unless Elminster and his goddess personally apparate in the middle of his library and force him into chains, he’s going to do as he pleases and guide Rowan on her sorcerous path. The Shadow Weave is just another power to be studied and understood. No grand magus ever rose to nigh celestial heights because they feared the very magic they held in their hands.
Though one in particular did crash back down to the earth and his empire with it, a mote of Gale’s better judgment reminds him in a whisper.
He ignores it as well.
The matter settled for the moment, Gale and his apprentice make their way to his tower’s second floor, their familiars close behind. Though she deposited her bag from Syl’s in the doorway of her room, Rowan refuses to put the staff down. She keeps a tight hold on it even when it's more of a hindrance than a help and he has to admire her commitment.
He’s glad he made the correct decision in getting it. Her elated pride as she cradles it to her chest, fingers finding a comfortable purchase at specific angles, fills him with a pleasant warmth.
Gale makes them a simple lunch. Just a spread of dried meats and cheeses, sliced apples drizzled with honey, and buttered rolls he couldn’t resist buying when waiting for Rowan.
Pip begs for an entire wedge of the finest salted Waterdhavian cheese to themselves and Gale has no choice but to obey. The little beastie is absolutely enamored with the damned stuff. It’s like living with Elminster. He makes a mental note to stock his larders with as much as he can.
In fact, as Rowan bites into a honeyed apple slice and sighs approvingly, he realizes now is the perfect time to learn her likes and dislikes when it comes to food. She might have mentioned being open to anything this morning, but he still would rather be aware of her preferences.
“Um,” she blinks when he asks, faltering for a moment. Her gaze flicks to Tara, who is greedily devouring a cut of halibut, chilled and kept fresh by his enchanted icebox. Only the best in fish for his beloved tressym—which isn’t too difficult to procure, considering Waterdeep’s seafood abundance.
“I like anything, really. Except brussels sprouts like I said earlier. And pickles. And sauerkraut. Anything with vinegar, really. Love spicy stuff, though—y’all got sriracha here? Nah, probably not. Bacon is the love of my life. As are potatoes. And bread. Sometimes dairy and I don’t get along but I can suffer through the consequences for cheese. I would commit unspeakable acts of violence for a perfectly seared and seasoned tuna steak. Sometimes sweets make my teeth hurt, but I do love anything dipped in honey. Like these apples; they’re a delight! Is that specific enough for you?”
Gale nods, appreciating the thoroughness. It’s good to know his current food stock is up to snuff with her tastes, as far as he can tell. He’s just a tad disappointed she didn’t mention any other specific vegetables she dislikes. Unfortunately for him, he’s just going to have to suck it up and force himself to start cooking with them more.
His mother will be so proud.
“Honestly, put anything in front of me and chances are I’ll eat it. Or at least give it a try.” Rowan shrugs, licking honey off her fingers. Gale finds himself paying very close attention to a particular interesting spot on the wall behind her. “If your breakfast soup was anything to go by, I doubt I’ll have any qualms against your cooking.”
“It was a dinner soup, but I am still pleased by your astute observation of my culinary skills.”
“What is dinner if not pre-breakfast?” Rowan points out, wiggling her fingers for dramatic emphasis.
Pip raises their head from their cheese wedge, nodding sagely. They’ve pecked a rather impressively large hole in it. Gale wouldn’t be surprised if they made a nest inside the bloody thing.
“I’ll be sure to consult your expert opinion on all breakfasts, pre or not,” Gale says with a quiet chuckle and roll of his eyes. “Lunch, too, if I can help it.”
“Ah, yes, post-breakfast. I’ll hold you to it, wizardboy.”
“Is there any reason you keep referring to everything in relation to breakfast?”
“Of course! It’s the most important meal of the day, after all. The most versatile. You can even have breakfast items during other mealtimes. How is breakfast not the most important one when nobody bats an eye if you say you’re going to have pancakes and sausage for dinner?”
Gale’s sudden laugh gets caught in his throat, coming out as a politely pathetic wheeze. “Can’t argue with that logic,” he agrees, grinning.
Rowan grins back, looking absolutely delighted by his response.
They finish their simple lunch (or, as he will now subconsciously call it, post-breakfast) and Gale instructs Rowan to follow him. He never showed her his chambers yesterday, wanting her to focus on resting and acclimating to her new existence. “It’ll be easier to help you attune to the staff in my quarters,” he explains as he opens the door and steps in. “I’ve a collection of items requiring attunement that I can use to demonstrate.”
“Gonna be real with you, chief, this is the first time a boy has invited me to their—oh.”
Rowan stops in the doorway of his room and just stares.
Gale knows his private quarters are impressive. Bookshelves line the walls, bursting with tomes and magical items not unlike the shelves in his main library. Tapestries and maps hang on golden hooks. Paintings depicting scenes of other planes and Waterdeep itself are interposed throughout. Truthfully, there is hardly a blank spot on Gale’s walls. He’s always had a weakness for material things.
His fireplace, the flames enchanted never to go out, crackles quietly. His reading chair and Tara’s personal little throne rest on a rug right in front of it, the latter covered in tressym hair. His bed is made, sheets pressed as crisp as parchment, not a pillow out of place. The entrance to his personal bathroom is opposite of the fireplace, the door tightly shut. Rowan doesn’t need to see his obscene amount of beard care products. He gets enough pish posh from Tara as is.
The doors to his balcony are open as they always are, wards preventing any mischievous critter from creeping in from outside. The bench is laden with scrolls and parchment containing his own notations on various readings. The table pushed up against the balcony’s grating still has a half-full glass of wine from two nights ago. He hadn’t been able to finish it last night; thoughts of Rowan and desperately cleaning the main floor of his tower had kept him occupied.
This is the axis upon which his universe spins and dances around. This room, the balcony, the view, and everything in between.
Beyond the sacred space the sea calls, waves lapping at the shoreline of the dockside, and Gale feels even more at peace.
A wizard’s tower is their sanctum. Their bedroom is even more so.
Nevermind that the first few weeks of his isolation he could barely leave the confines of these walls. Nevermind that for the first couple of months, his private quarters were more prison than anything else.
A prison of his own making, but a prison nonetheless.
Rowan lets out a low appreciative whistle as she gazes around in awe. “I didn’t think anything could top your library, but this? This is amazing, Gale. It fits you. I feel like I can sense your entire personality just standing in here.”
“You should see it when the sun sets,” Gale can’t help but brag, turning to face the balcony and the horizon beyond. He closes his eyes, imagining the warmth of the sun seeping into his skin. “I’ve positioned the room so that when those last rays of light reflect off the gentle tides and filter through the doorway…bedroom becomes as a living painting, swathed in colors every artist dreams of capturing on canvas.”
There is an odd sound.
A muffled thud, like someone has thrown a pile of downy pillows onto the floor.
Gale turns back around. Rowan has thrown herself on his bed, splayed out on her back and stretching her limbs out to every corner. Not that she can reach them—his bed is wonderfully massive, mostly so he can fall asleep comfortably with stacks of books placed at random on the mattress.
“Your bed is way more comfier than mine,” she complains, barely lifting her head as she glowers at him. She waves the staff in one hand, moving it up and down as if she’s imagining smacking his head with it. “I mean, mine is pretty nice, but still. Do you have a magic bed or something?”
It takes every ounce of Gale’s self control to ignore the siren song of a very thinly veiled innuendo.
“Not necessarily,” he answers instead, focusing on slow and deep breaths. “I simply prioritize a good night’s rest. Sleep is important for anyone well-versed in spellcraft.”
“As the newly crowned queen of Waterdeep, I hereby royally decree that you allow me to nap in your bed at least twice a month.” Rowan points the staff at him menacingly, though it’s more painfully endearing than anything else. “Tara must join me as well. I have appointed her as my lady-in-waiting.”
The lady-in-waiting in question purrs loudly from her chair, having settled down on it in the midst of the conversation. Pip is nestled down in her fur, preening their feathers, and Tara’s eyes glitter with amusement as she gives Gale a pointed look.
“Long live the queen,” his familiar murmurs, whiskers twitching in the tressym equivalent of a smirk.
Gale does not dignify Rowan’s request with a response. He’s too busy trying (and failing) to put certain thoughts and images out of his mind.
“Remain on my bed if you so wish,” he offers, voice strained as he saunters over to one of his bookshelves. “I can still show you how to attune to the staff.”
He thinks for a moment before deciding on the object to demonstrate on, picking up a golden ring embellished with tiny, scrawling runes along the surface. He returns to Rowan, who is indeed remaining on his bed, and stands over her with his hand held out.
The ring thrums with a quiet power as it rests in his palm. It’s almost like a twin to the vacuum inside his chest, hungry for the taste of magic.
At least this one won’t kill him.
“This is a ring of spell storing,” he explains. “I’ve already imbued it with a couple spells, but it cannot be used without first attuning to its arcane properties.”
Gale slides the ring onto a barren finger, as he is already wearing enchanted rings on most of them. This one will replace the cantrip-infused ring his condition devoured the day before. “Attunement is simple in theory,” he continues, “but can be tricky in practice if your magical essence isn’t up to par with the item you’ve chosen.”
He’s worried that a description such as that will go over her head. She comes from a world without magic, after all. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
But to Gale’s surprise and Rowan’s credit, she nods in understanding.
“Like a video game,” she murmurs, more to herself than him. The odd phrase means absolutely nothing to him and when she spies his confusion, she adds, “It’s based on your level essentially, right? Er, your arcane prowess or whatever pretentious intellectual term that makes sense.”
“That…is a very apt way to put it,” Gale agrees.
A wizard, sorcerer, or anyone with magical ability just starting their journey would be hard pressed to successfully attune items seen by scholars as wondrous. After his folly, Gale is at a similar crossroads. The scrying crystal he had consumed last night…as he is right now, plagued with the arcane hunger that has diminished his abilities, he doesn’t think he would be able to attune to an item like that.
The ring should pose little difficulty. The spells it contains are minor.
“You’ll want to focus your sense of self on the item. Channel your magic into it to make the connection.”
Gale reaches into the Weave and plucks a thread of arcane power. It quivers at the touch of his soul, the ring on his finger growing warm and becoming incandescent. It glows with a gentle purple light as he forges the connection to it, shoulders relaxing and jaw unclenching. Attunement has always been a serene sort of ceremony for him. There is something divine about plunging his soul into the ebb and flow of the Weave and using it to sew a magical item to his very essence.
But that could just be the influence of having experienced Mystra in every way possible.
Rowan has grown silent. Gale allows himself to glance over at her and when he does, he nearly stumbles backward.
Her eyes are pitch black.
They are starless voids, with veins of ichorous shadow branching out across her skin like roots. She is gripping the staff so tightly her knuckles are almost white. Her lips move but he hears no words falling from them.
Panic flutters inside him. Gale moves to clasp his hands on her shoulders and shake her, terrified that something has gone horribly wrong, when he feels it. The touch of the Weave. No, the Shadow Weave.
It settles upon her like a cloak, wrapping around his apprentice with a gentleness he did not expect. Darkness blossoms at her fingertips like writhing serpents. They sink into the wood of the staff and it trembles in Rowan’s grasp ever so slightly. The obsidian crystal at the top shimmers for a moment, as if lit by a black fire within.
Gale swears he hears the distant call of a raven. A quick, harried look to Pip shoes the familiar is fast asleep on Tara, overcome by all the cheese they consumed.
When he looks to Rowan and the staff once more the shimmer has vanished. Rowan lets out a sigh, exhaling deeply, and Gale watches in fascination as the shadows in her eyes fade like clouds parting before a full moon. The veins of darkness disappear, her face returning to its usual pale pallor. She looks up at him, a tired smile settling on her lips as she brandishes the staff before her.
“I did it! I think! I mean, I feel like I did it? I guess I’ll find out tomorrow. Shit, dude, I can’t wait to use Nevermore!”
There are many things Gale would like to question her about but he finds all he can do is stare at her blankly, trying to wrap his mind about what he just saw. What he just felt . The Shadow Weave responded to her as if…
As if she’s been calling upon it her whole life. As if it recognizes her as a beloved friend, eager to please and do as she bid.
“Nevermore?” he instead asks, locking away an onslaught of other burning inquiries for later. It is not without difficulty. The scholar in him begs to know what it feels like for her.
Rowan nods, waving the staff in the air. “I named it. It seemed fitting. Ya know, with Pip being my familiar and the Raven Queen bringing me here? It’s one of my favorite poems, so I couldn’t resist—”
She abruptly halts, as if a realization has struck her with the speed and precision of a well-aimed arrow. Her shoulders slump slightly. A ripple of regret, small and fleeting, roils across her face as her exuberance becomes dull. Bleak. Dismal.
“Oh. Yeah. Poe definitely isn’t a thing in this world. The irony of the name is lost on you. Ugh, nevermind. Forget I said anything.”
Gale raises an eyebrow, eyeing the staff curiously. “Don’t you mean ‘Nevermore’?”
Rowan’s mouth forms a little ‘o’ of surprise and she wordlessly points at him, eyes bright and mouth tugging into a delighted grin. He likes it better when she smiles. He likes it especially better when he’s the one making her smile.
Rowan’s second day in this new world comes to an uneventful close. Attuning to her new staff was oddly exhausting and even though Gale did not allow her to nap in his bed afterwards, he was kind enough to sit with her in the library and give her a crash course on the history of Waterdeep.
A crash course that lasted until the sun began to set, but Rowan didn’t mind. The city’s history was fascinating. She could listen to Gale lecture all day—his voice was soothing and the pictures he painted with his words were vibrant and detailed.
It’s obvious he loves this city. He speaks of it with such pride and devotion. Rowan wonders if she’ll ever feel the same way.
They depart for the night, Gale promising to eventually take her to the Yawning Portal in the Castle Ward for a coveted glimpse to the Undermountain’s entrance. The prospect of a massive dungeon beneath a tavern fascinated Rowan the most about Waterdeep. Gale made it quite clear he wouldn’t allow her to actually enter it until her grip on magic and arcane abilities were more fine tuned, however.
She never got the chance to ask him more about his family. The right moment never came up and she didn’t want to be rude. The longer she stays at his side as his apprentice, the more she’ll learn about him. She hopes.
As much as Rowan would like to collapse into her bed when she returns to her room, she knows it would behoove her to sort through the clothes Syl and Jericho worked so hard to make for her earlier. The satchel remains unceremoniously dumped in the doorway and she stares at it as she lay on her bed. Nevermore has been propped gently upon a pillow, given a place of high honor, and Pip is enjoying themselves on the windowsill.
Rowan forces herself to get back up with a groan. Shuffling to the satchel, she grabs it and shuts the door behind her, heading into the bathroom. She pulls out the items one by one and holds them up against her, scrutinizing her reflection in the mirror.
Jericho and Syl know her style better than she does. Every outfit, every piece of clothing sings with a melody woven with Rowan’s very essence. Even the lingerie! Because, gods bless her, Jericho had snuck in pieces that weren’t just basic undergarments. The tiefling had somehow crafted the laciest, prettiest matching set of bra and underwear of wine dark purple when Rowan wasn’t looking.
The bra is far more supportive than anything she ever owned in her previous life. It doesn’t dig into her flesh or snap into her shoulders. It is a miracle.
“I fucking love magic,” she says to no one in particular as she admires herself in the mirror, twisting around to view all angles. Jericho is beyond talented to have crafted something as gorgeous and comfortable as this. She never wants to take it off.
And there’s another comfort in wearing them. That confidence the robe gave her translates even more into these undergarments. She isn’t ashamed of her body; she doesn’t loathe the rolls of her stomach or the mountains of fat on her thighs.
She likes the person she sees in the mirror, curves and all. The undergarments accentuate her natural beauty and give her a little nudge, helping her appreciate the temple of her flesh.
The person she was before couldn’t stand to undress in front of anyone, much less herself. She had borne the scars of her stretch marks in silent, seething contempt.
No more.
She doesn’t just like her reflection now. She loves it. A love that is all consuming and unconditional. A love for her new life, new name, and brand new start.
Rowan wipes away a few stray tears that have suddenly appeared in the corners of her eyes. They’re good tears—happy ones. She really needs to find a way to repay Jericho and Syl for this.
Biting back sniffles, she unwraps the pajamas she had shyly admitted to wanting. The ones that were supposedly a copy of a pair that Gale had commissioned for himself. The fabric is as soft as she remembers as she rubs the velveteen material between her fingers, staring down at the dark purple cloth. Should she really try these on? Is she ever going to wear them? The thought of it is suddenly embarrassing, exasperatingly so. God, she hopes Jericho wasn’t judging her for taking them. Even though the tiefling did offer…
“Ugh, fuck it. We’re committing.”
Rowan shimmies into the pajamas before she can chicken out in the privacy of the bathroom. The pants slide on quite nicely. The shirt is a different story. Clearly, Jericho hadn’t accounted for tits in the process of copying Gale’s pajamas, because her chest strains very noticeably against the fabric. Rowan winces as she tugs the shirt down, smoothing it out as best she can. It would fit better if she took the bra off.
All in all, Rowan knows in the depths of her soul that she will never let Gale see her in this.
Beyond the fact that the pajamas may kinda-sorta-perhaps-maybe be a clone of a pair he already owns, there’s a creepy sense of intimacy associated with the thought of being in the same space as him while wearing them. One she doesn’t want to think about or dissect into tiny, bite-sized bits just yet.
She thinks back to earlier today and his stunned silence when he saw her in Syl’s workshop. The way his eyes had widened; the reddening of his face; the tongue-tied astonishment as he had looked at her and saw, well…
Her .
And then when they’d returned to the tower, and that sudden, almost flirtatious tone he’d used with her. She could see the amusement on his face as clear as day. Gale had enjoyed making her flustered. The cheeky, suave smirk that he had barely been able to contain said as much.
(Maybe she’d enjoyed being flustered by him.)
(And maybe, just maybe, she’d been dreadfully disappointed when the teasing had stopped so abruptly.)
“I can’t imagine how weird he’ll find it if he sees me in these,” Rowan mumbles to herself by way of rationalizing the decision. “I’m sure he finds me odd enough as is with all the shit that comes out of my mouth.”
It really was a shame he couldn’t appreciate the Edgar Allen Poe pun. If it had just been Rowan in the room, she would have laughed her ass off at her own joke. Naming the staff Nevermore was a genius move.
Raven Queen, if you’re listening, I hope you at least were able to appreciate it. It’s partially inspired by you, after all.
If the goddess is indeed listening, she gives no indication. Rowan will just assume that she, too, does not have the proper context to fully enjoy the ingenuity of bequeathing the staff with such a title.
Rowan strips again and takes a quick bath, forcing herself to ignore the urge to soak in the water until her skin turns pruny. Sleep takes priority. Plus, she wants to wear the pajamas as long as possible, considering she’ll have to ensure she never leaves her chambers with them on.
Her instincts prove correct. Removing the bra from the equation makes the shirt fit much better. It’s still snug, but not so much that she fears the majesty of her heavy chest is going to split the seams down the middle. She’ll probably end up removing it in her sleep anyway. Though her memories of the life she lived before may be foggy and staggered, she distinctly remembers sleeping naked a solid six out of seven days a week.
It was more comfortable that way is all!
By the time Rowan exits the bathroom, the sun has completely set. The room is shrouded in sleepy, wistful darkness. She can vaguely make out an avian shape still at the window, Pip’s violet eyes burning like bright purple stars. She focuses on the magic inside her—a sensation still somewhat alien as she continues to stretch and pull on arcane muscles that previously did not exist for her—and conjures up a few motes of Dancing Lights. They weave through the darkness and illuminate everything in their path, Rowan’s own personal mini moons as they bring Pip’s form into focus.
“Hey, boss,” the familiar says, beckoning her with a bob of their feathery head. “C’mere. Betcha ain’t never seen nothin’ quite like this.”
Rowan walks over to them, a silent question on her lips. Pip gestures towards the open window, their clawed feet tapping along the windowsill as they edge themselves out of the way, and she peers out into the world beyond.
She sees stars.
Hundreds, thousands, millions of stars. Constellations and formations she’s never seen before, and never would have seen had her life not ended when it did. They blanket the sky and swirl in myriads of galaxies, scattered across the inky black canvas of the night. They reflect off the waves of the sea, sending auroras of purples and blues, silvers and reds, and every color in between out into the air. They are brighter than anything she’s ever seen, countless and endless and whispering promises they have no means of keeping but vow anyway because they are beautiful and because they can.
Rowan tastes magic.
She doesn’t know how she knows, she just does.
There is something about the stars of Toril, and the massive moon hanging in the sky amongst them, a trail of glittering bodies dancing off its celestial body, that brings forth all the magic this world has to offer. Rowan feels it on her skin. It clings to her, caresses her, just as the darkness of the Shadowfell did when she was floating in its quiet embrace.
She could spend an eternity shackled by madness and mindless existence and she will never be able to forget this sight.
Rowan reaches a hand out. It’s almost like she can touch the stars from the window of Gale’s tower if only she can stretch her arm out further. What are the stars of this world made of? The moon? Hell, what about the sun?
She wants to know.
She wants to know everything she can about this place. She wants to learn, understand, and belong.
Maybe someday, she can be up amongst those stars, and feel their gossamer strands on her fingers as she weaves the shadows of the night around her.
The next morning dredges along at a smooth, timeless pace until it does not.
The day begins unassuming enough. She wakes up just after dawn and lets herself bask in the early morning sun, lounging in the bed as Pip scares off any seagulls ballsy enough to come near the window. After a sufficient amount of lazing around, Rowan puts her robe on and hides the pajamas under a pillow, staying true to her oath to never let Gale see her in them. She and Pip meet the wizard and Tara in his library for a simple breakfast of toasted sourdough and more sliced apples with honey.
The subtle attention to her food preferences does not go unnoticed. Rowan’s list of things she must express undying gratitude towards Gale just gets longer and longer.
As eager as she is to learn more spells and delve deeper into her connection with the Shadow Weave, he informs her that today’s lessons are going to focus on the more scholarly applications of magic.
“I’d like for you to familiarize yourself with academic essays and dissertations by wizards and mages of the past,” he explains, pointedly ignoring the way she’s scowling and holding Nevermore in front of her. “Spellcasting just based on instinct and intuition can get one far, but true understanding of the Weave cannot be achieved without proper research.”
It’s not that Rowan hates reading. No, quite the opposite. The thought of cracking open a mountain of thick, leather bound tomes and diving into their inky depths sends a thrill up her spine. Academic research is a specialty of hers. Years later she can still recite certain passages from textbooks she poured over during college. With how many times she read them and studied their hallowed words, the recitals are near perfect copies.
But how can Gale expect her to spend a whole day just reading without putting any magic into practice? Especially after giving her Nevermore!
She successfully attuned to the staff! Why waste the perfect opportunity to see how it affects her spellcasting? Nevermore practically vibrates in her hands, an uncanny and keen intelligence emanating off of it, as if it shares her opinion. It wants to be used. It wants to prove itself.
It wants to show him just what she and her arcane focus are capable of.
“What if I want to summon an army of Pips instead?” she challenges, gesturing to her familiar emphatically. They’re flitting about the library and taking stock of everything on Gale’s shelves, singing a jaunty little tune in their husky voice that is so painfully discordant she’s afraid her ears are going to start bleeding.
Gale rolls his eyes, one corner of his mouth lifting into the ghost of a smirk. “Then you must prepare yourself for bitter disappointment. Only one familiar may be summoned at a time. I fear an army of Pips shall never come to pass.”
“Then I’ll just have to prove you wrong, won’t I? I’ll fill your whole tower with Pips, each one with their own little hat. Just you wait.”
“If you are indeed successful, I promise to be the first person to congratulate you on a job well done.”
Rowan opens her mouth to match his teasing barb with another one of her own when there is suddenly a knock at the front door.
She and Gale turn to glance at it, then each other, and back at the door when another knock echoes throughout the tower library. Only this one is less of a knock. It’s more of a pounding, incessant bang that is more akin to a battering ram slamming into the priceless wood.
A voice calls from outside. Shouts, really. A feminine, dignified voice that is absolute rife with outrage.
“Gale Alexander Dekarios, if you do not open this door right now, I’m Shattering it into so many pieces that not even Mystra herself could put it back together!”
Gale Alexander Dekarios goes paler than parchment. Rowan has never seen such fear in someone’s eyes as he gapes in horror at the door, which is now shaking wildly, as he utters out, “Oh no.”
Tara sounds far too pleased as she trots over, tail swishing and wings fluttering. “Oh. Oh, yes, Mr. Dekarios. You’ve no one to blame but yourself for this.”
Gale’s hand goes to the side of his neck, where the strange purple mark lay etched into his skin. He pulls the collar of his robe up and tugs at the shirt he wears underneath so both layers of fabric completely cover the shadowy blemish. He balks when the pounding on the door crackles like thunder, throat bobbing in panic as he gazes uselessly at his tower’s entrance.
Rowan doesn’t know why, but she feels compelled to step away from him. Some kernel of self-preservation gently guiding her to safety, perhaps?
For the moment she steps away, the door to his tower explodes.
Her ears ring with a high pitched squeal as the wood shatters in a way that is far too similar to the glass of her windshield in that other life. Splinters and shrapnel litter the doorway, an angry pulse of magic lingering in the air as a figure steps over the mess and into the threshold of the tower.
She’s a short, buxom and plump woman with hazel eyes glittering with frustration, framed by black half moon bifocals. Her hair is thick and a stunning shade of red, fading elegantly to distinguished silver in some places. It’s piled on top of her head in a messy bun, as if strands have fallen out of place in a flurry of activity. Her attire is homely, focused on comfort than style, and Rowan feels as if she’s seen clothes similar to what she’s wearing before.
The woman is older, somewhere in her late sixties if Rowan had to guess. Crows' feet and laugh lines are etched into her face, which still burns with a beauty that has not faded even in her twilight years. Syl had exuded an ethereal loveliness about her with her half-elven heritage. This woman’s allure was more down-to-earth, but just as attractive.
Rowan barely has time to formulate the coherent thought of Hey, she kind of looks like Gale before the stranger launches herself at him, hands digging into his shoulders like claws as she shakes him about wildly.
“Is the concept of writing to your mother a completely foreign one to you now?! Why is it that I found out you’ve taken an apprentice under your wing from Sylvia and Jericho , hm? Not from my son, Gale, who has sworn to inform me of any more major changes in his life? Gods, I could just—oh, hello, Tara darling, wonderful to see you—I could just Banish you to the bloody Feywilds for your complete and utter disregard towards my concern for you!”
Gale looks like he would rather crawl under a rock and perish beneath its weight than be subject to the woman’s seething, scathing castigation.
Rowan has never been so grateful to not be the subject of someone’s ire.
“I found out over tea, Gale,” the woman fumes as continues her rampage. “ Tea! I thought Sylvia simply wanted to catch up! But no, I’m bombarded with questions about my son’s new apprentice and why he’s decided to drop thousands of gold on a new wardrobe for them, when he hasn’t visited the shop in half a year! And I can’t rightly tell them why you’ve not been to them in that long, because—”
There is a flash of something primal and ferocious in Gale’s usual soft brown eyes. Swift as the wind he yanks the woman’s grip from his shoulders and turns her around. His hands tremble like leaves drifting to the ground as he says sharply, “Mother, this is Rowan. My apprentice. Rowan, this is Morena Dekarios. My mother.”
Mother and apprentice lock eyes.
Rowan waves.
Morena squints.
Then the woman is throwing herself at Rowan, sweeping her into an embrace that threatens to cut off all function in her lungs. “Stars above, I didn’t even notice you standing there!” Morena exclaims, planting quick kisses on each of Rowan’s cheeks. “Terribly sorry about that, dear. Let me get a good look at you!”
She says that, but she still holds Rowan tightly to her chest as she examines her with inquisitive eyes. Rowan is easily a foot taller than her, which makes the process a little awkward, but she remains dutifully still and patient as Gale’s mother looks her over. A quick glance at the wizard in question shows that his face is ashen and he still looks like he wants to die under a very heavy rock, holding his head in his hands and leaning against a bookshelf for support.
Tara just looks like a cat that got the cream. There is no mistaking the warm amusement in her feline gaze. Something tells Rowan this was an inevitability the tressym warned him about and until this moment, Gale clung to a naive hope that it would never occur.
“Jericho was correct,” Morena gushes after a few moments of pregnant silence. “You are adorable. I’d expect nothing less from her discerning eyes.”
Rowan feels her face heat up. “Th-thank you,” she mumbles, resisting the urge to stare down at her feet and avoid all eye contact. Sure, she might have a newfound love for herself and the person she sees in the reflection now, but hearing praise from another regarding it will take some getting used to.
“And a sorcerer to boot?” Gale’s mother continues, releasing Rowan from her bone crushing embrace at last. She takes Rowan’s hands into her own, squeezing them with a geniality and surge of affection that startles her. This woman has known her for all of five minutes and she’s already looking at Rowan as if she’s some cosmic creature sewing the stars into the sky. “A pleasure, Rowan. Truly. I trust my son hasn’t made a fool of himself yet? He’s been accommodating and respectful?”
Rowan flicks her gaze to Gale once more, who is now staring at her with pleading eyes. She half-expects him to get on his hands and knees and silently beseech her to placate the tempest that is Morena Dekarios.
Well, she can throw him a bone if he’s going to beg like a good little puppy. She does owe him after everything he’s done, regardless of his ‘investment’ in her magical education.
“He picked my sorry ass off the street and gave me a bed, food, and the opportunity of a lifetime surrounded by more books than I could have imagined one person to ever own.”
Even as the words spill out of her mouth, dancing on her tongue and dipped with sweetness, Rowan realizes it’s nothing but the truth. She’s not trying to throw Morena for a loop. She’s not even trying to save face for Gale.
She means every syllable crawling up her throat, sincerity thick and aching as her voice wavers with a sudden tumultuous, emotional squall.
“I don’t know what I would have done if Gale hadn’t found me.” She wrings her hands nervously about the shaft of Nevermore, fingernails digging into the wood and holding on for dear life as her staff anchors her to reality. She will not cry. Not again. Not in front of his mother. “These last couple days have been…a dream. Because of Gale, I get to be the person I always wanted to be. So, yes. He has been accommodating and respectful.”
She pauses.
Might as well seal the deal. If Gale wants me to be the buffer between whatever’s going on between him and his mom, I’ll bite.
Clearing the jagged lump in her throat, she adds, “He must have a mother who taught him to be a gracious host.”
Gale makes a noise behind Morena that is caught somewhere between a cough and a laugh. Tara does laugh, a quiet and mirthful sound that she makes no effort to hide. Rowan finds herself grinning at Morena, standing up a little straighter. She gives the older woman’s hands a squeeze of her own, silently willing Morena to lessen her (no doubt warranted) irritation towards her son.
The effect is instantaneous.
Morena pulls Rowan into another hug, this one not nearly as excruciating, but soft and light. She recalls the sensation of the Raven Queen’s arms around her in the darkness. The love in that embrace and the tenderness in this moment are one and the same.
“Good,” Morena murmurs in her ear, patting her back with a gentle hand. “He’s always been a precocious boy. I am glad he took some of my teachings to heart.”
Rowan knows immediately that she adores Morena Dekarios. Similar to how she knew she was going to like Gale moments after meeting him, his mother exhibits an aura that just draws Rowan in and makes her feel…safe. Wanted. Appreciated.
Forget spells and arcane mastery. The true magic of the Dekarios family is making a person feel cherished less than a day after meeting them.
Gale clears his throat, voice slightly timid as if he is afraid to speak. “I take it you didn’t come all this way just to berate me.”
Morena untangles herself from Rowan and spins around to address her son, putting her hands on her wide hips. “It was the driving factor behind my visit,” she admits heatedly, eyes narrowed and brows drawn. Even with Rowan’s mediation she’s still annoyed, that much is clear. “But I also wanted to meet this mysterious apprentice Syl and Jericho were raving about. And see how you were doing. I’ve not heard from you in weeks, Gale. Can’t a mother be concerned for her son while he sequesters himself away from the world?”
“Yes, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t destroy my front door in the process.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. I’ll fix it!”
“ Dramatic ? How am I the dramatic one when you smashed my door into smithereens?”
“How about we have this conversation over a lovely cup of tea?” Morena suggests in a voice that clearly indicates it is not a suggestion. “I never finished the one Syl brewed for me. I was too busy rushing out of her shop to come here.”
“Yeah, wizardboy,” Pip calls from one of the bookshelves, having nestled themselves between two tomes like a bird-shaped knick knack. “Offer your ma some tea!”
Gale chooses to ignore Pip’s comment, turning around in silence and practically running away as he stomps up the stairs in a huff. Once he is out of sight Morena immediately rushes to Tara and scoops the tressym in her arms, pressing a series of kisses to the familiar’s furry forehead. Tara just purrs and allows herself to be fawned over, nuzzling into Morena’s chest and pawing at the air lazily as her eyes flutter shut.
A pang of jealousy, sharp and melancholy, courses through Rowan as she watches them.
She pushes it down and pretends like it was never there in the first place, just as she pretends the Freya-shaped hole in her heart doesn’t exist.
Still cuddling Tara as if she were nothing more than a milk-drunk kitten, Morena flicks a hand towards the ruined door and snaps her fingers. The pieces of the door quiver and rise into the air, held together by some invisible buoyant current threading from her hand. Within seconds the door snaps back into place as it once was, not a speck of debris to be seen. It’s like the door was never destroyed in the first place.
“Apologies if my arrival caused you any alarm, sweetness,” Morena says to Rowan with a polite dip of her head. “I assure you I don’t typically break down doors. This was a special circumstance.”
“I think the alarm you caused Gale far outweighs anything I’m feeling right now,” Rowan admits, cracking a grin at her. Gale’s heavy footsteps from above indicate how frantically he’s pacing around the kitchen, trying to put together tea as fast as possible. “Syl and Jericho mentioned you yesterday. It’s nice to put a face to the name. I don’t suppose there will be a full family reunion in the near future?”
“Heavens, no.” Morena shakes her head, now rocking on the balls of her feet as she stands and cradles Tara against her. The tressym appears to be in absolute bliss, her entire body vibrating from the force of her purring. “My husband is currently at sea on a trade run. My eldest, Dorian, serves under a patriar family in the Upper City of Baldur’s Gate. I doubt either will pop in for a spell. Do pardon the pun.”
Rowan nods, pretending like she’s following along and like the name Baldur’s Gate means anything to her.
(It does not.)
Pip chooses that time to flutter from the bookshelf onto Rowan’s shoulder. Through their bond, a sense of familiarity awakens at the phrase ‘Baldur’s Gate.’ It is a city on the Sword Coast of Faerûn to the south of Waterdeep, though Pip doesn’t seem to know much more than that. They are far more interested in Waterdeep; Baldur’s Gate isn’t famous for delicious cheese, it seems.
“Oh, this is Pip,” Rowan motions between Morena and the raven vaguely, realizing it would be impolite not to introduce them. “They’re my familiar. Gale helped me summon them yesterday.”
Pip bows their head to Gale’s mother, tipping their hat slightly with one wing. “Ey, how’s it goin’?”
If Morena is shocked by Pip’s ability to speak she does not show it. Rather, she curtseys in greeting (a difficult thing when one is cradling a tressym who refuses to move) and beams at the familiar, eyes sparkling behind her spectacles. “A pleasure to meet you, Ser Pip. I adore your hat.”
Pip preens their feathers in happy silence, the compliment bolstering their already massive ego for days to come.
“It’s wonderful that Gale has finally put some elbow grease into the place,” Morena comments dryly as she gazes about the library. “The last time I was here you couldn’t even see the floor. The irises had all withered away. I am fairly certain there were rats living in the walls.”
She smiles. A sad, quixotic, complicated smile that makes Rowan’s heart clench uncomfortably.
“I offered to help freshen things up. Open the windows, let the sunlight in, dust the shelves, you know? He refused. I’d never seen him so…vehement. So bitter. No mother wants to stand before their child feeling helpless.”
Gale’s tower had looked even worse before Rowan showed up? Fuck, how bad had it been prior to that bleak, dismal nest she had stumbled into?
She thinks about the irises out front. How they now stand tall and firm, dark blossoms swaying in the sea breeze as they guard the entrance to Gale’s sanctum.
What had happened to Gale that he’d been so distraught that he allowed them to die?
It’s obvious he and Morena are close. The love Morena has for her son, and the affection Gale feels for his mother feels like some bastion of obstinate strength, unmistakable to Rowan despite knowing very little about them both.
But why had he not told Morena about her? The older woman’s ire at his short lived secret had been visceral. Raw.
“I’m sorry if me becoming Gale’s apprentice is a point of contention between you two,” Rowan confesses quietly, suddenly far more nervous than she was when Morena called her adorable moments ago. “I…don’t know anything about what’s happened in the last six months, but I hope him agreeing to teach me magic isn’t going to be a problem.”
“A problem? By Mystra’s grace, no!” Morena shakes her head emphatically. As she shakes her head, it is as if she is shaking off the shadows that were clinging to her. The dull, somber atmosphere around her begins to dissipate, becoming replaced by a warmth and joy that seeps into her words.
“I’m pleased as punch he’s taken you under his wing. Gale used to share everything with me. I cannot help but feel that him telling Syl and Jericho before me is because of—”
She cuts herself off immediately, mouth forming into a thin line as something unreadable passes across her face. That sadness again, reaching for her with claws that refuse to let go.
She stops rocking where she stands, her grip on Tara loosening slightly. The tressym opens her eyes and gracefully wiggles out of Morena’s arms, landing on all four feet, and rubs her head against the older woman’s leg comfortingly.
Morena looks down at Tara at the same time the familiar gazes up at her. Rowan can’t help but think that they are somehow silently communicating the way she and Pip have been able to get thoughts and emotions across using their bond. Tara must be incredibly close to Gale’s mother if the two are capable of such magic considering it was Gale who summoned the tressym, not Morena.
Whatever speechless conversation they are having will remain silent and secret. Gale appears at last, tea in hand, only instead of carrying the silver tray Rowan recognizes from her first day in Toril it’s floating in the air behind him like an oversized butterfly. The tray is utterly laden with little desserts. Three cups of tea, steam rising from the rim of each, trail behind the tray.
Rowan scoffs at the unnecessary show of magic, the little parade a tad too whimsical for her liking. “You didn’t do this when you offered
me
tea,” she gripes, waving Nevermore at him accusingly. “Are you just trying to put on a show for your mother?”
“Absolutely not,” Gale protests, cheeks darkening enough to prove that he absolutely is.
The treat-encumbered tray floats to Rowan and Morena, halting in the middle of them. Rowan can sense the magic Gale has woven around it, a prickling against her skin and a whisper in the back of her head. It’s not just some paltry parlor trick; this is a fairly complicated spell, if her novice arcane knowledge is to be trusted.
And he’s using it to levitate snacks and refreshments for his mother.
Dammit, Gale Dekarios, you’re making it impossible for me to not have a crush on you.
Rowan sullenly accepts the cup of tea that floats into her hand and takes a sip. It’s the same blend he offered her on that first day—it’s just as good the second time around. Actually, it’s even better, considering she’s not post-breakdown and drowning in a kaleidoscope of emotional turmoil and regrets regarding her fleeting mortality.
Morena takes a sniff and daintily sips from her cup, sighing in exquisite content. “Is this Elminster’s personal brew?” she asks, swirling the hot tea around. “I’ve run out at home. I didn’t realize you still had some left!”
“He keeps sending it to me by the bushel. A subtle way of apologizing without actually saying the words. Though I’m afraid my most recent letter will see to it that this is the last batch of such impeccable tea.”
Gale’s shoulders slump slightly at the admission. He runs a hand through his hair, eyebrows knit tightly together as he looks exhausted all of a sudden. He is fatigue’s unwilling partner in the danse macabre , limbs leaden and face pinched with shame.
Morena frowns, concern etched into the deep lines of her face. She steps closer to him, putting an arm on his shoulder and rubbing it with a light, comforting touch.
When she stands side-by-side with him like that, Rowan notices just how much Gale takes after his mother. They’ve got the same nose, the same softness around the eyes. Their facial structures are almost perfect mirrors—square jaws and high cheekbones. Morena could almost be his twin were she thirty years younger. Though, in actuality, she wears her age like the mantle of a crowned empress, more regal than a diamond.
“Morena, you look more like Gale’s sister than his mom,” Rowan hears herself saying, the words flying out of her mouth before she can fully process them in her head. “You’re just so pretty! …not that moms can’t be pretty, I just mean—”
Morena whips her head around and stares at Rowan with such intensity that she immediately clamps her jaw shut.
She wordlessly hands her cup of tea to Gale, who takes it as he glances between his mother and his apprentice in weary confusion.
The older woman’s eyes sparkle like the nebulae that had captured Rowan’s soul the night before.
Her lips curl into a wide, rhapsodic smile.
“Gale,” Morena declares, clapping her hands together with an air of finality, “we’re keeping Rowan.”
“Mother, you can’t just say things like that—”
“We are keeping Rowan,” Morena insists, elbowing him in the gut so quickly he lets out a grunt of surprise and nearly drops both cups of tea he is holding. “She is a wonderful, lovely woman and we would be remiss to let her go.”
“I am quite a delight,” Rowan agrees, finding herself smirking at the way Gale is just staring at his mother as if she’s gone mad.
“So wonderful, in fact,” Morena continues in an offhand tone, a calculating and impish gleam glazing over her starry gaze, “that I think you should marry her!”
Rowan’s smirk drops. The cup of tea in her hands almost does the same.
“What.”
“
Mother
!” Gale exclaims, aghast.
He’s got that “I want to die under a rock” look to him once more, nearly as pale as she usually is. His face is ashen, stricken with a panic that Rowan doesn’t know whether to share or be somewhat offended by.
She’s settling on a mixture of both. It’s the only thing she can do as she wrestles with an influx of very complicated, very disorganized emotions that are far too chaotic to fathom right now. Was this a common thing in Waterdeep? Wizard mothers breaking down the doors to their wizard sons’ wizard towers and then saying their new apprentices should marry them?
Rowan vaguely recalls a saying from her old life.
When in Rome,
she thinks, though judging by how stricken Gale appears by his mother’s suggestion, she highly doubts he feels the same way.
Again. There’s that funny ache that she doesn’t know whether to categorize as dread or displeasure. A voice slithers into her mind, sickly sweet and dripping with a venom that fills her insides with ice.
What does it matter? it hisses, fangs like jagged mirror shards digging into the skin of her throat. You’re not the kind of person someone falls in love with. Never have been, never will. Not even with this new name. You are meant to be looked at with pity, not passion.
Rowan squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath, willing the voice to shut up and for the glass into her flesh to melt. She listened to that voice too many times in her life before this one. Giving it attention is never worth the pain it brings.
Even if, deep down, Rowan knows the voice is right.
Her thoughts are interrupted when Morena throws her head back and laughs, the sound a startling and stark contrast to the stunned silence. It echoes through the library and bounces off the walls with a childish glee.
The tense, taut atmosphere snaps.
“Sweet Selûne, the looks on your faces!”
She’s clutching her chest, laughing so hard Rowan fears she’s going to pass out from lack of air. Tears are rolling down her face, fogging up her glasses. She stumbles back and leans against a bookshelf for support, taking the spectacles off and dabbing at her eyes with the edge of her blouse, giggling like a schoolgirl.
“A joke, my dears, a joke,” Morena swears, cheeks flushed from the force of her mirth. “Perhaps one only I found amusing; my apologies.” She glances at Rowan, smoothing down the front of her blouse and wiping away the wet patches from her laughter-driven tears. “I truly hope my silliness does not prevent you from wanting to continue your apprenticeship with my son. I do mean what I said about keeping you.”
“I am willing to continue said apprenticeship and to be kept,” Rowan says, forcing a peppiness she does not quite fully feel yet into her voice.
She turns to Gale, who has not recovered from Morena’s antics, appearing utterly haggard and drained of all life. His hand worries at the side of his neck very unsubtly, though the purple glow can’t be seen through the layers of fabric covering it. Another secret. Another worry for his mother.
Another piece of the puzzle that is Gale Dekarios she desperately wants to uncover.
Rowan drains the rest of her tea in one gulp—it’s gone room temperature during the madness of Morena’s rowdiness—and puts the cup on a bookshelf. She reaches over and swipes a little cake from the still-floating tray and shoves the whole thing in her mouth, heedless of what poor manners the action may be.
“I know you had lessons planned for today,” she says through a mouthful of pastry, “but would you mind if I showed Morena my Dancing Lights spell? They are pre-tty fucking epic and I want your mother to compliment me more. It is now the sole sustenance and meaning of my life.”
Gale just nods, letting out an exhausted groan as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “I find myself devoid of the energy necessary to stop you.”
She grins and boops him gently on the shoulder with the end of Nevermore, like a queen knighting a noble squire. “Your permission is appreciated, oh magic man. Do you need us to go outside so you can recover your energy in peace?”
“I need a glass of wine.”
“It’s not even noon!”
“...I need two glasses of wine.”
“Morena is right. You are dramatic.”
“I had a very meticulous teacher.”
Chapter 4: like moths to a flame
Notes:
hellooooo lovelies thank you so much for the kind words and support so far on this. it means a lot. i love you all <3
this chapter was originally supposed to span the rest of the year gale spent in isolation and lead into the beginning of the actual game plot but uh. it got way too long. i had to split it up. plus this way i can post what i have written so far!
btw in case it's of interest, i do have a sideblog on tumblr for this fic! it's basically just a spot to gush about gale and reblog pretty fanart of him and post little updates about this haha.
please continue to enjoy this fic. it makes me happy that others like this silly little brainchild born from my love for bg3 gale :)
Chapter Text
Morena stays well until dusk and effectively ruins every lesson Gale had planned for the day. Despite the initial onslaught of fury and teasing she unleashed unto him, Rowan doesn’t think he minds.
Her magical education isn’t totally ruined, however. A single moment may not be spent pouring over theoretical essays and analytical research as he had intended, but Rowan still learns something new in the ways of the arcane.
Though entirely accidental, in the midst of a very detailed explanation of why she should be allowed to travel to the Feywilds so she can achieve her childhood dream of meeting a unicorn, Rowan casts what she later comes to know as Minor Illusion.
It begins as a surge of something she mistakes for heartburn, spreading through the veins of her arms and coalescing upon her fingertips. Nevermore thrums in her grasp, her hands hardly having left the staff’s base from the moment she woke up. The excitement in her voice falters, then crescendos wildly as she exclaims to Gale and Morena, “But how can a realm be so dangerous if it’s the home of something as beautiful as this ?”
She doesn’t mean to use magic. It just sort of…happens. Like how when you live in the Midwest and you bump into someone on the street and instead of saying “excuse me” or apologizing, you utter the dreaded “ope” under your breath and give them an awkward smile.
Rowan’s “ope” comes in the form of a flash of silver light and misty shadows, billowing out from the obsidian crystal atop of Nevermore and forming into a vague equine shape. It grows slender legs, a regal neck, a shimmering mane, and a singular pearlescent horn that spirals from the center of its forehead.
The unicorn is translucent, as if it were formed of glass, a myriad of colors found in the night sky swirling about its illusory body. It is just slightly bigger than Tara, prancing about the library floor on hooves that should definitely make noise but are as silent as a sigh.
Rowan stares at her creation in surprise, glancing back at Nevermore in her hands. It is still humming with power, the wood vibrating subtly against her palms. She swears a sense of pride emanates from the staff, as if it’s trying to brag and say, “See? I work!”
Indeed it does. Together, they shall do terrible and beautiful things.
And by terrible, Rowan means honoring her oath to fill Gale’s tower with an army of Pips. She’s not certain how this spell will make it work, but it’s going to happen one way or another.
“I meant to do that,” she declares with just the teeniest touch of arrogance creeping into her voice.
“I’m most certain you did,” Gale deadpans, trying—and failing—to hide the smile that heralds his esteem.
Morena gives a series of “oos” and “ahhs” as she claps in recognition, gazing upon the spectral, crystalline unicorn. “Very impressive,” she commends. “But I do believe it is in need of a companion.”
She draws sigils in the air with practiced fingers, her movements swift and precise. Gale’s magic is mesmerizing and otherworldly, brimming with an aura of mystique and whispered secrets from the dawn of time. His mother’s? Far more practical—there’s no grand flourishes, no “woe be upon ye” pouring forth from the muttered incantations she chants with a stern tongue.
If Gale is a roaring inferno, raging and ready to consume everything in its path, Morena is the gentle crackling of a lit hearth. Both are equally as impressive, equally as important, but it is quite clear to Rowan the depth of their differences when it comes to spellcasting.
Gale clings to magic as if he has something to prove. Morena exists in a peaceful stillness with it, satisfied by her place at its side.
From the older wizard’s hands a colorful spray of arcane energy emerges, vibrant and lively. Rowan gasps softly as the image of a second unicorn joins the one she conjured. This one is pristine and as silver as the moon, a lovely counterpart to the dark equine creature she had accidentally created.
The two unicorns observe one another for a moment before they prance in a delighted circle, nuzzling against each other’s flanks and careful not to get their horns tangled. Even though Rowan knows they aren’t real she can’t help the childish wonder that wells up from deep within her.
She has always loved magic, even in a world without it.
Summoning illusory images of unicorns may be simple and not even worth a sweat to people like Gale and Rowena, but to Rowan? It’s the epitome of every whimsical daydream she lost herself in—the very center of an inexplicable, harrowing longing she had always felt in the shadowed corners of her soul.
“I’ll see real ones someday,” she whispers, feeling strangely raw and vulnerable as she watches the fantasies play and frolic about. “I’ll see everything this world has to offer.”
She misses the strange, inquisitive look Morena gives her son.
She is far too busy reminiscing about all the places she never got to see in her first life, and all the new places she’ll get to see in this one now that she has magic brimming in her veins.
When Morena finally leaves to return home (“The North Ward isn’t terribly far if you catch a stagecoach,” she insists when Gale pleads with her to leave before the sun sets), she does so with a promise to bring a collection of Dorian’s personal research for Rowan to study. The eldest of the Dekarios brothers brought a lot of his work with him to Baldur’s Gate, but some he left with his mother, deeming it unnecessary for his future.
Gale tries to pretend this offer does not bother him.
He fails miserably.
There is no hiding the twitch of his eye and the clenching of his jaw as Morena tells Rowan that notes from a fellow sorcerer may be more beneficial than manuscripts and theses written by wizards. She doesn’t know why it vexes him so. As her mentor, shouldn’t he want her to take advantage of every resource available to her?
As Morena bids them farewell with a kiss to Gale’s cheek and a tender pat to Rowan’s hand, she regrets not asking the older woman about Dorian. Gale’s brother is a thorn in his side and she has a distinct feeling it goes beyond whatever petty sorcerer versus wizard dynamics this world has deemed appropriate to pursue.
Gale never asked Morena about him, which Rowan supposes isn’t terribly surprising. Nor did he inquire after his father’s wellbeing. Was Evander Dekarios also a controversial topic for him?
She needs to push these thoughts to the side. Gale and her are still getting to know one another. She shouldn’t expect to discover his entire backstory within three days of meeting him.
Even if she does feel a peculiar, fantastic thread of kinship with him.
And so the day after Rowan meets Morena Dekarios—upon her third full day in Faerûn—she throws herself into her arcane studies.
She awakens before dawn is but a twinkle in the eye of the moon after only a couple hours of less than restful sleep. Pulling on a cream-colored shirt and tanned pants that are just a step below the lounge-ness of her pajamas, she silently exits her room like an unseen wraith.
Rowan creeps down the stairs with a cloak of Dancing Lights accompanying her and Pip on her shoulder. Gale’s library is shrouded in darkness, the curtains drawn and blocking any moonlight, and she would rather not break her neck falling down the stairs.
She just died and was brought back to life. She highly doubts the Raven Queen would be so kind as to offer her a third chance.
The books and scrolls Gale had intended for her consumption lay still in a forgotten pile on his desk. Rowan hauls everything to a secluded alcove between the two largest bookshelves and makes herself comfortable on the floor. She’s always done her best work in the strangest of places. She vaguely recalls writing ten pages of her final history degree research paper in the hallway of her dorm room—three months before it was due.
Pip flutters to her side, their talons clutching a bundle of parchment and a fluffy quill in their beak. When Rowan takes both items from the raven and they produce an inkwell, she does not question how or even where they were hiding it.
Magic is magic. Some things were better left a mystery.
Figuring out how to use the quill takes Rowan an embarrassing amount of time. She’s never yearned for the small, simple comfort of a mechanical pencil so achingly. The scratch of the quill against the parchment grates on her ears as she practices getting used to the feel of it in her hands, mindful to not spill ink all over Gale’s opulent rugs. She knows he could always fix it with magic, but it’s the principle of the thing.
Rowan also knows she should be sleeping. She barely slept long enough to dream before she jerked herself away, the desire to get a start on her arcane studies forcing her to jump out of bed and change into the more casual blouse and trousers from Syl’s. But she can’t help it. She wants to make up for the day lost to bonding with Morena; she wants to prove to Gale she is an eager study and a quick one at that.
“What should I start with?” she asks Pip.
Gale had sorted the material into stacks based on their content, as far as Rowan can tell. It’s a little difficult when the titles and authors use names she has no way of referencing. A quick, calculating glance has her guessing that one stack is for magical theory, another for a breakdown of the types of magic, and the third consisting of historical texts both magic and mundane.
Her heart calls to the latter but she wants Pip’s judgment first. They’re a denizen of Toril. They’re sure to have an educated opinion.
Pip cocks their head as they study the piles Rowan has laid out before her. “Ehhh,” they drawl, shrugging their wings. “Whatever’s gonna make you a badass?”
“Well, that’s the end goal, but don’t you have an idea of what I should focus on first?”
“How should I know? Yer the lady with the magic hands! I ain’t know shit about the fancier side of magic. Just point a finger and babble somethin’, that usually works.”
Rowan rolls her eyes and resists the urge to flick their feathered head. “Wow. You’re no help.”
“Better believe it, boss.”
She decides to follow her heart. Rowan reaches for the book at the bottom of the stack dedicated to history. It’s the largest, thickest tome; definitely her kind of read.
As Rowan leafs through the pages, skimming the contents just in case it’s not a tome she wants to dive into, she quickly realizes it is quite the opposite.
The book isn’t just a book on magical history like she initially thought. It’s a codex of sorts, detailing the pantheon of Faerûn and the realms beyond.
Oh, hey, is this one from my first day? When Gale showed me the picture of the Raven Queen?
A few more moments of thumbing through the crisp, smooth parchment tells her it is indeed. The page Rowan remembers vividly stares back at her. The mask of the Raven Queen gazes up with indifference, her ebony hair flowing across the page.
The paragraphs written in flowing calligraphy regarding the goddess are woefully small compared to the large image of her. They tell Rowan a little more than what Gale did about the Raven Queen beyond the basics that he shared with her.
The Raven Queen resides in her Fortress of Memories amidst the darkness of the Shadowfell. She collects memories of tragedy and loss, obsessing over their contents in a desire to learn all she can. She sends her ravens out into the realms to find memories, mementos, and trinkets associated with grim deaths. The Matron of Ravens rarely interacts with the material plane, preferring the solitude of her collection. Those who worship her claim she is a transitional goddess of death, and that her fascination with memories is so she can guide her faithful to a new and better life. Whether this is fanciful conjecture or fact remains to be seen as her faithful do not share much regarding the Matron outside of their respective sects of worship.
Rowan feels herself frown, irritation bubbling under her skin. Clearly the author of this tome didn’t look upon the Raven Queen with much favor.
She doesn’t recall a fortress of any kind when she was in the Shadowfell. Just that warm, loving sea of darkness. But this explains why some of her memories are shrouded or missing—the Raven Queen must have taken them in exchange for bringing her to life.
But why had she done so in the first place? She wasn’t a goddess Rowan had worshiped in her old life; she knows that for a fact.
Although…
The Raven Queen was similar to the Morrigan of the Celts and Hekate and Persephone of the Greeks. Combine the symbols and domains of those deities and Rowan supposes you could get a goddess like the Raven Queen. An image flashes in her mind, of a simple cabinet hanging on a plain white wall, filled with trinkets and candles and objects. A purple collar with a bell. Decks of tarot cards and oracle cards alike. Dried herbs, pebbles from a lakeside walk, clay shaped and painted into the form of an iris flower.
“Oh,” Rowan murmurs, clutching at her chest as a sudden wave of something overcomes her.
She…she had worshiped gods (goddesses, really) in her life before. At least, she’d tried. She remembers them now—the Morrigan, Hekate, Artemis, Persephone, Bastet, and of course, Freya. Her beloved cat’s namesake.
She loved them. She had done her best to honor them. But it was so hard, lighting a candle and affirming she believed when she had never heard anything back, and she lived in a world that insisted those beings had never existed in the first place.
Like magic, the goddesses Rowan had worshiped with a weary smile and uncertain heart were just stories passed down from people desperate to understand the world around them.
Maybe they were real here, in Toril? Maybe they had heard her years of frantic and hopeful whispers and finally had decided to give her the time of day in the form of the Matron.
Rowan searches the tome for any names familiar to her until her eyes beg for rest.
She does not find any. No depictions of the huntress Artemis, no tales of the warrior Freya, no myths of the protector Bastet. No, the gods and goddesses of this world are unknown to her, and Rowan’s confusion as to how the Raven Queen found her and brought her here only grows.
By the time she gives up and moves on to reading more about the deities of Faerûn, Rowan’s neck is stiff and her butt is starting to go numb. Maybe sitting on the floor and leaning against a bookshelves where spines were poking into her back wasn’t the best of ideas.
Rowan knows her brain works in mysterious ways. If she gets up and finds a different place to sit now, her motivation to study and ascertain what she can from the yellowed pages will completely vanish. She remains on the floor and tells herself to ignore the discomfort for the sake of learning.
After a few minutes she finds the page on Mystra. Except it’s actually pages of content dedicated to the goddess of magic, which sparks yet another surge of irritation in her. The author had a favorite subject, it seems. She doesn’t know why she feels so insulted on the behalf of the Raven Queen. She grinds her teeth with a barely concealed scowl as she skims the hallowed words, finger tapping against the thick pages impatiently.
Much of the passages regarding Mystra laud her various feats and acts of compassion and kindness unto the people of Faerûn. Rowan learns of her many Chosen throughout the centuries—wizards and others gifted in magic who do her bidding with their mastery of the Weave. There is one called Elminster Aumar, whose name is oddly familiar, but this early in the morning she cannot place why.
She has to admit the section dedicated to retelling the tale evidently known as “Karsus’s Folly” is utterly fascinating. A powerful wizard in this world’s ancient history who sought to become a god, Karsus’s attempt to ascend to divinity completely shattered the Weave. Only by Mystra’s sacrifice—known as Mystryl in those days—was the Weave and magic itself restored, and the archaic wizard was turned to stone as his floating arcane empire fell to the land below.
What prime-quality hubris served on a silver platter. Even though Rowan has only been in this world for a few days, it’s obvious even to her that one does not attempt to wrest godhood from a god. No matter how noble one’s intentions may be.
She thinks back to the way Gale spoke Mystra’s name on her first day here. The reverence, the impassioned veneration in his voice; it is obvious he worships her, considering he is a wizard and she is the goddess of all magic.
What does he think of all these stories? She’ll have to remember to ask him. Maybe he will be able to extrapolate further on the legends of the past.
Rowan quickly grows bored of the tome’s never-ending extolling of Mystra’s divine grace and flips through the pages once more, her eyes stinging from lack of sleep. She allows herself to stop only when a name or image catches her attention which, considering she knows nothing about the pantheon here, are most of the entries.
Selûne speaks to her the most after the Raven Queen. She was always partial to Artemis; it makes sense that yet another moon goddess fills her with a sense of comfort and safety. Not to mention the haunting beauty of the moon in this world when she first saw it. If Selûne is the deity presiding over that graceful light, then how could Rowan not feel drawn to her?
Her sister, Shar, is the opposite. It does not matter that she is the architect of the Shadow Weave. The very magic of darkness runs through Rowan’s veins and yet the Lady of Loss sends chills up and down her spine. The night Shar speaks of is a cold and lonely one, full of pain and nightmares unable to be shaken off come the morn.
Thankfully, she finds nothing that would suggest Shar and the Raven Queen work in quiet tandem. Though the goddess that gave her a second chance dwells in the shadows, it appears neither interact much with each other.
At least, not enough for the mortals of this world to know.
Mortals.
A funny term for Rowan, who has never known anything but.
A world where gods answer prayers with far more than scathing silence. A world where someone like her can whisper some magic words and conjure shadows with the snap of her fingers.
A world she had always been yearning for. A world she was going to drink deeply of until she could drink no more.
Matron of Ravens, Rowan thinks as she brings the Dancing Lights forward, twirling them about in her hands and compelling them to waltz lazily in intricate patterns. And Selûne too. Would it be okay if I…actually worshiped you both? Is that a thing that can happen here? I don’t know how to properly worship a god, I guess, considering the ones I tried to honor in my old life might have never existed in the first place. I just…
Rowan sighs and spreads the lights out until they make the outline of something vaguely feline. To an impartial observer, it would just be a glowing amorphous blob.
I want to do something to show my appreciation for this gift. If it’s lighting a candle, saying a few prayers, dedicating some pretty rocks in your name you want, I’ll do it. No questions asked.
She doesn’t expect an answer.
But there is a slight pressure in the darkness of Gale’s library. A sensation against her skin, prickling and uncomfortably close.
The light from her cantrip gets a little brighter. The shadows cast by their brilliance grow a little darker.
Shadows and moonlight. She’s always been partial to the aesthetic of those two notions merging together.
A whisper in her mind. Not so much words but sensations, emotions, sentiments Rowan can feel with a palpable touch upon her twice-born soul. She may do as she pleases. There is no right way to honor a god in this world. All that matters is the strength of her conviction and the soundness of her intentions.
“...okay,” Rowan says quietly, softly, out loud into the display of shadow and light. “Thank you.”
Pip, from their perch on her shoulder, lets out a low croaking sound that alerts her. She turns her attention towards them to see their violet eyes shining from the reflection of the Dancing Lights, darkness swirling within their vivid hues.
It is not her familiar that gazes at her and gives her a solemn nod.
Her skin prickles. Her heart swells. Her eyes burn with the threat of unshed tears. All she can do is manage a small, shaky smile as she repeats, “Thank you,” fingers trembling as she clutches the book of deities in a tight grip.
Pip blinks and the dual presences vanish from the library.
The shadows return to their normal obscurity. The Dancing Lights no longer seem to shimmer and shift like gossamer moonlight.
And so Rowan continues to read on, utterly transfixed by the tales and history of the gods of her new world, mind lost to centuries’ worth of legend and lore.
She does not even realize dawn has broken and the curtains have been drawn from the windows until a hand is upon her shoulder, Gale’s voice insistent and troubled as he gently shakes her.
“Rowan? Were you here all night?”
She jerks her head up and the quick movement is jarring to her neck, reminding her that sitting on the floor with her back against a shelf with book spines poking into her is terrible for her already poor posture. She has to blink a few times before Gale’s face comes into view—her eyes have gotten used to nothing but ink stained pages and elegant script that the sight of another person is hard to make out at first.
Her tongue feels weirdly thick in her mouth. Her legs are numb from sitting on the floor for so long, and she doesn’t even want to think about her butt right now. Her writing hand is cramping so badly she almost cries out when she tries to unclench it from around the quill she’s been gripping for hours. Parchment is scattered about her, full of scribbles and doodles that go every which way and then some. She’s always had a penchant for note-taking that makes sense to no one but her. Hell, a lot of the notes probably won’t make sense to her until after the third or fourth reread.
She kind of lost herself for a little bit. Research does that to her occasionally. Most of Rowan disappears into some fuzzy corner of her mind and when she emerges to rejoin the rest of herself, it takes some time to regain her senses.
“I…think so,” Rowan admits sheepishly, placing the quill on a blank piece of parchment and rubbing at her burning eyes with a shaky hand. She should have worn those wrist gauntlets. She’ll be paying for that lack of preparation all day now.
Gale purses his lips and shakes his head as he towers over her, crossing his arms and giving her a sharp look that conveys an air of disappointment. She almost flinches from it.
“While I commend your enthusiasm, rest is vital to any mage. Take it from me. Staying up all night, devoured by your studies, is a swift way to fall behind in your—what in the Nine Hells is that?”
He’s pointing to one of the sheets of parchment closest to her feet. Rowan frowns and reaches over to grab it, bringing it close to her face so her weary eyes can get a better look at it.
Symbols have been hastily drawn on the parchment’s surface. Not unlike the sigils and runes Gale helped her with in order to summon Pip, she somehow inherently understands the arcane meaning behind them the instant she gazes at them. Rowan has no recollection of scribbling them. She had been fairly certain her notes were regarding the gods and goddesses of this world, comparing and contrasting their various domains and erudite tales with the deities of her old world.
But as Rowan studies the symbols with a scrutinizing gaze, she knows she drew them.
As if another hand was guiding her own, what can only be a spell for making oneself (or another) invisible stares back at her.
She makes an impressed noise in the back of her throat. She hadn’t even conjured up something to create a makeshift altar and already either the Raven Queen or Selûne took it upon themselves to aid her with a new spell. She wonders if either goddess likes soup? Maybe Gale has some left over that she can offer.
…though maybe it would be best to offer something a little more sensible than old soup. She wants to stay on their good sides, after all.
Rowan holds up the parchment before her as if it is a holy blade blessed by Ao, overseer of the balance himself.
“Behold,” she exclaims in a gruff, exhausted voice that does little to fully express her excitement, “I can do more things now.”
She closes her eyes and allows the threads of the Shadow Weave to gather at her fingertips. She drops the parchment back onto the floor and brings a hand to her face, waving it in front of her as an unsettling sense of nothingness falls about her body like a shroud. The only reason she knows the spell worked is because of Gale’s exasperated sigh, his voice a rumbling timbre that she quite enjoys listening to.
“How do you expect me to be your mentor if you keep learning new magic without my guidance?” he complains, but Rowan detects a faint hint of gratification in his tone.
Rowan opens her eyes and looks at her hands. They appear translucent to her, like a spectral shade wandering the underworld. Ominous and riveting at once. She thinks she’s going to like this spell very much.
Nonetheless, she dismisses the invisibility with a thought. She’ll play with it later. Right now, she ought to focus on the other things she learned while Gale and the rest of Waterdeep slept, and she made poor decisions.
“Don’t blame me,” she says as she forces herself to stand, holding back a groan when her knees crack and her body cries out in vengeance. Every limb aches. Every muscle screams. Even her bones weep from the nonsensical dedication to her idiotic choice to study on the floor.
Losing her balance as her legs give out beneath her, Rowan nearly stumbles into the piles of books she has hoarded in this unsuspecting corner of the library.
Gale acts with a sudden swiftness she was not expecting.
His arms shoot out, half-catching her around the waist before she fully plummets back to the floor. The shirt she wears isn’t thin by any means but she can feel the heat of his arm so acutely, as if she wasn’t wearing a shirt at all. Rowan lets out a little strangled noise as Gale steadies her, feeling as if the courteous touch has branded her skin.
She desperately hopes he will ascertain the flush on her cheeks to be from lack of sleep.
“And this,” Gale chastises gently as he pulls himself back from her, “is why people heavily reliant on magic need a proper night’s rest, my wayward apprentice.”
Rowan averts her eyes and instead chooses to focus on the papers scattered about her feet, surreptitiously flexing the fingers of her writing hand in an effort to chase away the debilitating cramps. Shit, she really took a lot of notes. She’ll have to sort them later when her head isn’t spinning and her eyes aren’t begging for shadowy solitude.
“I just wanted to learn,” she admits in a quiet voice. “I started reading about all your gods and goddesses and…lost track of time.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“It still hasn’t sunk in, I think,” she adds as she bends over (with far more difficulty than she wants to admit) and plucks a handful of notes from the floor, shuffling the pages nervously. They’re notations on the overlap between the goddesses she used to attempt to honor and the two goddesses of Faerûn she wishes to honor now. “Where I’m from the gods might as well be dead, if they ever existed in the first place. Knowing they actually listen and intervene on the behalf of the people here…it’s kind of mind boggling.”
Gale blinks rapidly as he processes her words, the surprise on his face as clear as the sunlight filtering through the tower windows. His eyes seem to soften, though they weren’t terribly severe in the first place.
“Oh,” he says, leaning forward with an air of intrigue. “Might I ask what you mean by that? You did not have deities in your old world?”
She shakes her head. “Not…really. There were stories. Myths. Cultures from all over had their own beliefs and legends of how the world came to be and what beings had a hand in its creation. But that’s all they were. Stories.”
Rowan’s heart clenches the way it did when she recalled the altar in her apartment. The cabinet full of oddities and haphazard offerings. The attempts at some form of communication using the vast collection of tarot cards she had assembled. She still can’t remember everything, but more bits and pieces are floating to the surface of her mind, and she feels so…
Lost.
Untethered.
Unknown.
“I loved those stories,” she continues, pressing her hand against her chest and willing her heart to stop aching so painfully. “I wanted to believe in them so
badly
, Gale. I felt like I belonged in them, and not the reality I actually lived in. There is—was—a place called Greece.The land that was home to all my favorite stories. I always dreamed of visiting and walking through the remnants of ruined, ancient temples. Of being able to stand in places where people from thousands of years ago burnt offering to gods they believed in more than they believed in themselves.”
She pauses, thinking of Persephone and Hekate and Artemis. The goddesses of ancient Greece who had always held her heart. She’d loved others, of course, but those three? They were the ones who started it all when she was but a starstruck child gazing at an illustrated encyclopedia of Greek mythology.
She supposes it was her descent into madness. Her own folly. But instead of wishing to claim godhood like Karsus, she just wanted to be known. Maybe she
had
been known and her old gods were condemned to a purgatory of silence. Maybe they had watched in their own way, unable to reach out a hand and whisk her away from the darkness she was succumbing to.
She wishes she could have seen Greece. Just once. Maybe it was the only place in that world where magic still lived, quiet and still and hiding from unworthy eyes.
Rowan will never climb the steep, mountainous path to Delphi and gaze upon the place the oracle spoke her prophecies. She will never see the crystalline waves of the Aegean sparkling before her. She will never wander the crumbling halls of Knossos and wonder if the Minotaur slumbers beneath her feet.
Dead dreams for a dead world.
I’ll see everything this world has to offer.
She had meant what she said before Morena left. Regardless of following the path of the new deities she’s chosen in the stead of her old ones, Rowan will not be confined to the walls of Gale’s tower. She will not be chained by the walls of Waterdeep.
New dreams for a new world. She’s not going to let anything get in her way this time.
Rowan shakes off the unease and anguish from memories better left buried in the grave her old body is sure to be interred in by now. She flashes Gale an upbeat smile, cutting through the weight of her sleepless night.
“I think I’ve read as much as I can from that book. What do you want me to focus on next?”
Only the not-so-subtle further softening of his eyes betrays his worry at her abrupt change of subject.
Yet, Gale does not hesitate to flick his hand towards the stack of books detailing magic in all its forms, and the tomes become enveloped by a lavender glow as they rise into the air.
“I’d like for you to familiarize yourself with the various schools of magic,” he says. “Though your innate abilities obviously center around the Shadow Weave, I have no doubts you will find useful and fascinating information that can aid in your spellcasting.”
“Oooh, is there stuff about the school of Enchantment in there? I want to be cool like Jericho.”
“Yes. But there are also studies on my preferred school, Evocation. Written by yours truly. They are just as ‘cool’ as Jericho is.”
Rowan snorts, choking down the string of laughter bubbling in the back of her throat. Gale throws her a dirty look that is eerily reminiscent of Morena’s “I’m not mad, just disappointed” face, and she struggles to keep the giggles from erupting. He has to know how similar his expressions are to his mother. They’re veritable twins!
A flash of an image shoots through her mind: Gale’s hair in a messy bun a la Morena, only most of it still frames his face in delicious soft waves that accentuates his square jaw and high cheekbones.
Rowan lets out a high pitched gurgling sound that is caught somewhere between a whimsical sigh and delirious laughter.
Fuck, she’s tired.
“On second thought,” Gale proclaims as he flicks his other hand at her multitudes of notes, gathering up in a glowing pile and guiding them on top of the stack of books still levitating, “A nap is in order for you. I shan’t have you reading my work without being able to properly appreciate it.”
“Can that nap be in your very soft bed surrounded by an army of Taras?”
“I’d rather you not,” he admits quickly. A little too quickly, in a tone that is a little too strained.
Rowan pretends she doesn’t notice how his cheeks redden slightly when he says it.
Rowan becomes like the sand along the shoreline the tower looms over. She soaks up the surf of knowledge, letting it seep into her bones and fill the empty corners of her mind until they are so full she feels as though she is about to burst.
A week passes.
Then two.
Three.
After approximately one full month Rowan thinks she is settling into her new life with ease.
She collapses into her bed every night with a spinning mind and satisfied soul, spending every waking moment learning all she can about magic and Faerûn. Her exhaustion is well-earned and fulfilling. It promises of more knowledge come the morrow—of growing more confident in her arcane abilities and proving to Gale she is up to the task of being his apprentice.
The routine she falls into is a comfort. It lets her forget she is a stranger to this world and, instead, allows her to pretend she’s been here all along. Gale’s company helps in that regard immensely. Whatever strange connection she feels to him continues to bloom and grow, tended carefully by his tutelage and passion for all things magic.
She does eventually read the research he has published throughout his years as an accomplished arch mage. Some of the context goes over her head—she just doesn’t have enough background knowledge yet to comprehend it all—but it becomes very clear to Rowan just how much pride Gale has in his work.
He is a man who lives by the ebb and flow of the Weave. It is the focus of his life. His one true purpose. That fervor, a zealousness bordering on mad, emanates from the pages he has penned, detailing his journey through the arcane arts.
Truthfully, Evocation does interest her more than the other schools of magic. The idea of being able to manipulate the very elements themselves pleases Rowan to no end. Especially the concept of the Fireball spell; she’s admitted as much to Morena, who has visited Gale’s tower every week for tea. Do her fingers ever itch to conjure something as volatile as that! She vaguely recalls enjoying burning the giant pile of leaves at the start of every autumn, poking the flames with a stick and watching the smoke curl into the sky with fascination.
Admitting as much would fuel Gale’s already inflated ego, however. As much as he’s been teaching her, he needs to learn a little lesson in patience. Rowan has proven she’s a quick study but as the days have gone by, she can’t help but get the sense that Gale is overly eager for her to embrace a more wizardly approach than the way of a sorcerer.
She opts to take Jericho up on her offer for a lesson in Enchantment to knock him down a peg. It’s out of nothing but affection for her mentor.
And, dare she say, friend? Though that kinship is nascent, there is no denying the truth of it.
“My prowess in Enchantment is hardly paltry,” Gale protests, face scrunched in a veritable pout. “I could give you lessons just as well, Rowan!”
Rowan does not answer him as she pulls on the thick cloak Jericho and Syl made for her on her second day here. That month feels like a lifetime ago; especially with the end of autumn fast approaching, and the air of Waterdeep growing a little colder than it was when she first arrived. The mountain that presides over the city combined with the relatively warm currents of the sea chases away the worst of the winter chill despite its northern location. The calendar of Faerûn is a little difficult to follow, but she was brought to this world two months before the Feast of the Moon.
She tries not to think about how her twenty-ninth birthday will be shortly after. Comparing the calendar from her old life and this one, Rowan guesses her actual birthday might be on the day after Faerûn’s Winter Solstice.
She doesn’t know if she likes the idea or not. Maybe she’ll choose a new birthday for her new life.
“I know you could,” Rowan finally replies once the cloak is snug around her and Nevermore is strapped to her back. Pip is nestled in the alcove of the collar of it, feathers fluffed and ready for the somewhat brisk walk to Syl’s. “But Jericho offered first. It would be rude to ignore her.”
“But Jericho can’t teach you how to properly cast Fireball,” Gale points out, a wicked gleam in his eyes as he crosses his arms and gazes plaintively at her.
Rowan gasps, affronted and insulted, though it’s more for show than anything.
“I told your mother that in confidence! She swore she wouldn’t say anything to you!”
“Ah, but you did not think to ask me to remain silent,” Tara calls from her place on Gale’s desk, curled up in a cozy little ball with her wings tucked around her for maximum comfort. The tressym has a similar devious sheen in her eyes that matches her wizard’s perceptive glance perfectly. “As you know, Miss Rowan, I am but a weak-willed creature before the guiles of a masterfully prepared fish fillet.”
“
Et tu
, Tara? I thought what we have is special!”
“It is. But your secrets are far safer with a devil than they are with a tressym whose master never fails to bend to her cravings.”
“Y’all suck,” Rowan mutters. Morena has become a close confidante in many things, though she hasn’t revealed to Gale’s mother the truth of her origins. Mostly just the places she wishes to see, the things she wishes to do, and the magic she can’t wait to study.
(Morena Dekarios shares her son’s opinion that Rowan should not attempt to visit the Feywilds anytime soon. It saddens her greatly. She just wants to see a fucking unicorn.)
“Fireball will come later,” she adds as she opens the door, wavering in the entranceway of the tower. “I think being able to enchant items may be a little more versatile than blowing things up. As much as I want to do that.”
“Do you even know how to get to Syl’s on your own?” Gale asks.
There is no flippancy in the question—just genuine curiosity, as Rowan has not returned to the shop since her initial visit. Gale has shown her a little more of Waterdeep over the last month, venturing some ways into the Castle Ward and pointing out specific businesses necessary for an arcane education.
She has yet to wander the streets of the city on her own. Today will mark that first momentous occasion.
“Of course,” Rowan lies, flashing him a cheeky grin that she hopes will throw him off the scent.
Her unfounded confidence seems to do the trick. He relents, evidently trusting her judgment, having been witness to her desire to learn and excel in everything he throws at her.
He really should not.
“Very well.” Gale returns her smile and she has to push down the acrid stab of guilt that rushes through her chest. “Enjoy your time with Jericho but try to be back for dinner. I’ll be making my mother’s hundur sauce with pan-fried quipper fish.”
Ah, yes. Rowan specifically requested him to cook it one night last week before they both got utterly distracted and spent hours debating if it matters which syllable of a verbal spell component one emphasizes and if it affects the strength of the spell.
Ig nis or ig nis? As far as Rowan is concerned, either gets the job done.
Gale is of the opposite opinion. Damn wizards and their semantics.
“I’ll be back before you even realize I’m gone, m’lord,” she vows gravely, giving him an exaggerated bow. “Though really, you should have led with that. Like Tara, I am not immune to the allure of good food.”
“And that is precisely why we get along so well. Beyond my dapper charms, that is.”
She rolls her eyes and waves him off, not trusting herself to respond.
She would be a fool not to accept that beyond the ease with which she and Gale have connected, she does indeed harbor something of a crush on the man. He’s handsome, intelligent, well-mannered, and a damn fine cook. Not to mention his library. And his magical talking cat. And many other redeeming qualities.
And that is a secret I shall keep tucked safely inside my chest to never see the light of day or enter the ears of his mother, Rowan thinks as she meanders down the path from the tower to the street. It’s a lovely day despite the misty chill in the air. The sun is a little faded beyond the fog rolling in from the sea, but it’s the kind of atmosphere she’s always enjoyed. A perfect day to curl up before the fireplace in Gale’s room and lose herself in a book.
She wouldn’t spend so much time there if he just conjured up a fireplace for her chambers. But apparently, for all the whimsy and wonder magic can do, Gale would rather not mess with the integrity of the tower’s architecture.
She wanders and weaves through the crowds of people for about an hour before Pip voices what she’s been thinking all along, but has been far too stubborn to admit.
“You’re lost, ain’tcha?” the raven accuses, amusement thick in their gravelly tone. They speak quietly so the throngs of people cannot hear as it would be far too much work to explain why her familiar can talk when it’s a thing that usually doesn’t happen.
“No. Not at all. I’m just treading the unknown path of life to see where it takes me.”
“Yeah, youse definitely been hangin’ with a wizard. Twistin’ your words all fancylike.”
“Well, do you know how to get to Syl’s?” Rowan grumbles under her breath, raising a hand up to poke the equivalent of a cheek in their corvid countenance.
“Of course! Whaddya take me for, a chump?” Pip puffs out their chest and hops out of the cloak’s collar, climbing onto her shoulder. “Follow me, boss. I’ll getcha there in no time.”
Her familiar launches themselves off of her with a caw and takes to the air a few feet ahead of her. Rowan quickly scuttles forward, making a mental note to maybe add some kind of endurance training to all of her magical studies. Exercise and her name have never existed in the same sentence. Not even when it was the name that died in her eyes as shards of glass pierced her brain and sliced through the threads of her old life.
It’s not as easy making her way through the crowds on her own as it is with Gale at her side. His bob and weave between the people is as effortless and adroit as his spellcasting. By herself, Rowan fumbles and mumbles and bumbles her way through like a drunken lumbering bear.
She feels a bit like one by the time she finally reaches Syl’s. Trying to keep up with Pip in addition to avoiding running into someone or being trampled by rude assholes too busy to watch where they’re going is exercise in and of itself.
“Fuck, I need to work on my stamina,” she pants out in a groan, steadying herself on the corner of the shop’s exterior. “Why did you have to fly so fast?”
“That wasn’t fast,” Pip says as they land on her shoulder, smoothing down their feathers with their beak. Their top hat is a tad askew from their flight; she reaches over to adjust it back to its prim and proper place.
“Well, it was to me. I haven’t learned Haste yet. Though I think Gale would be disappointed if I used it just to keep up with my fast as fuck familiar.”
Rowan gives herself another minute or so to catch her breath before she rounds the corner and opens the door to Syl’s shop. The apparel on display has morphed into attire more fitting for cooler weather, each outfit splendid and eye catching. She wonders if Waterdhavian summertime fashion has the fantasy equivalent to booty shorts and crop tops. Not that she would wear them, but still. It’s a silly thought that brings her a short-lived wave of amusement.
Syl is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Jericho. The shop is completely empty save for Rowan and Pip.
Rowan hasn’t even gotten halfway to the door to the back workroom before it bursts open and Syl launches herself into the main shop, looking flustered and harried.
“I do apologize, valued customer, I didn’t hear the bell—oh! Miss Rowan! What a lovely surprise!”
The older half-elf practically sprints to meet Rowan, sweeping her up into a hug without so much as a second thought. Morena confessed to Rowan just last week that Syl practically raised her on account of her adventurer parents always being gone—she can’t help but think Gale’s mother got her penchant for fastidious embraces from the seamstress. Not that Rowan is complaining. She enjoys being coddled by motherly, older women very much. It’s healing.
She doesn’t quite know what she’s healing from, though.
“Hi, Syl,” Rowan greets her, unable to wipe the smile off her face as she settles into the hug. “I hope I didn’t come at a bad time. I wanted to see if Jericho could show me some Enchantment spells.”
“What, my dear Gale has run you off already?” Syl lets her go with a pat on the cheek and nods courteously to Pip, beaming at the familiar. “Well met, Ser Pip. I’ve another piece for you, actually! Just haven’t gotten around to sending it to the tower. Been absolutely swamped by orders for the winter season.”
The raven’s eyes shine with excitement. They bob their head rapidly, letting out a series of eager squawks and chirps.
“Gale didn’t run me off, but he did get kinda whiny when I said I was coming to see Jericho.” Rowan tugs on the end of her braid nervously and tries not to peer over Syl’s shoulder to see if she can catch a glimpse of the beautiful tiefling. “If you’re busy, though, I can come back later. It’s no biggie.”
“Nonsense!” Syl protests, shaking her head and gripping her wrists with that startling, expected firmness. “We’re just wrapping up an order. I’m sure Jericho would be more than happy to take you under her wing for an hour or two. Jeri, dear, look who’s come to visit!”
“If it’s the courier for the Thunderstaffs
again
, tell them they can go ahead and fu—”
Jericho’s agitated, venomous tone cuts off when the tiefling pokes her head out from the back workroom and she sees Rowan. The roiling, silver fire in her eyes dims to delight. The irate scowl on her face transforms into a pleased, knowing grin.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, sweetheart? Gods! I’m so happy it’s you gracing us with your presence.”
Rowan gives her a little wave and returns her smile. The seamstress is as glamorous as she was the day Rowan met her. “The Thunderstaffs?”
“Ugh. A wizarding noble family. Bastards and morons, the lot of them.” Jericho’s grin deepens into a smirk as she fingers an elegant amulet hanging just above her ample bosom, a decadent and ostentatious thing that on anyone else would be crass. “They’re willing to pay up front for my enchantments, however.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Rowan admits, suddenly feeling a bit sheepish. She never reached out to Jericho over the last few weeks. She should have warned the tiefling wizard she would be stopping by rather than showing up uninvited. She clears her throat awkwardly, tugging on the end of her braid once again, mindful not to pull the feather so carefully woven into her hair. “I was wondering if you could show me some Enchantment spells? Since you offered last month and all…”
Rowan has never seen someone look so fucking pleased.
Jericho looks like all the gods of this world have declared their undying servitude to her as the reigning eternal empress of all the realms.
“How much did Gale cry when you told him you were coming?” she presses, full lips pursed and silver eyes gleaming with barely restrained malice.
“Outwardly? None. Inwardly? He’s probably throwing a tantrum still as we speak.”
The tiefling raises her hands to the sky beyond the shop’s ceiling in mock reverence, an almost witchlike cackle of glee erupting from her mouth. “Hah! Praise Mystra, the old bitch!”
Rowan has the faintest suspicion Jericho doesn’t view the goddess of magic in the same light as Gale does. Considering she was brought back to life by a goddess not many people in Faerûn are fond of, she has no right to judge.
“The finishing touches on the Thunderstaff order can wait,” Jericho continues, rolling up the flowing sleeves of her stunning dress. “Come on back. I can guide you through some beginner enchantments.”
She spins on her heels and without waiting for Rowan’s response, disappears back into the workroom. Rowan exchanges an apologetic look with Syl, still feeling guilty and sheepish about her unexpected visit. Of course two seamstresses as talented as they are would have a multitude of orders to focus on. Gale Dekarios isn’t the only person in Waterdeep Syl’s caters to.
But the half-elf just smiles and pats her cheek again, the gesture full of nothing but warmth and kindness. “Don’t fret, dear. We’re very happy you’ve stopped by. Go on, let Jericho teach you a thing or two! I’ll find Ser Pip’s little gift in the meantime.”
She practically shoves Rowan into the back workroom with a cluck of her tongue. The room is a cluttered mess compared to last time; rolls of fabric are everywhere and far more mannequins donned in half-finished attire are lined along the walls like satin soldiers. The Thunderstaffs clearly had placed an immense order if they were all part of it.
Jericho is at the worktable already clearing a space amidst the sea of fabric and spools of thread. Her fingers dance in the air, the Weave answering her call as she summons objects from the shelves and floats them over to the table. Rowan has yet to perfect the act of levitating something just for the sake of it. It’s a magic she does find a little pretentious. Carrying something works just as well.
“Have you been delving much into the Enchantment school during your apprenticeship?” Jericho asks. She’s got a beautifully decorated lacquer box in front of her, along with several scrolls.
Rowan shakes her head. “Mostly Evocation, since that’s Gale’s specialty, and Illusion. Illusion seems to be my strong suit. I can go invisible and make fake unicorns. But I’ve been reading up on all magic as much as I can. I understand the premise behind Enchantment but haven’t had the chance to try it out.”
“Hm. We’ll start out with something very basic. It won’t be terribly hard, I promise.”
Jericho gestures for her to come closer and unlatches the lid to the box. Inside are an amalgamation of tools—tiny little hammers, sharp things that look like they’re meant for etching and the like. Each one is golden and glitters like a small sun. Rowan closes the distance to the worktable and gawks at the toolset with wide, interested eyes. She can feel the magic imbued within them. It’s a familiar sensation now; the prickling of her skin, the third eye in the back of her mind opening and seeing the treads of the Weave. She doesn’t have to cast Detect Magic to know the toolset is a font of remarkable power.
Also inside the box are bits and bobs of rather plain jewelry. Dull silver rings, tarnished chain necklaces, studded earrings that are mostly metal with little decoration. Items to practice on, perhaps? Jericho most likely wouldn’t want Rowan to try enchanting some of their expensive fabric and completely ruin the material if the spell goes wrong.
“This is my Enchanter’s kit,” the tiefling explains, gesturing broadly to the contents inside the lacquered box. “You can enchant items without one, but these tools help to hone the magic in a specific direction. They let you get a little more picky than a more broader ‘make this ring fireproof’ type deal. With these, you could enchant a ring to be fireproof and store the inherent magic of, say, a magma mephit and cast a spell with it.”
Rowan eyes the tools with an appreciative, discerning gaze. Gale doesn’t have anything like this as far as she knows. He had mentioned storing spells with that ring he used to show her how to attune to Nevermore, but beyond that she has not seen him do anything remotely Enchantment-related.
“What are the scrolls for?” she asks, nodding to the stack Jericho has compiled.
“They’ve already got spells on them, and we’ll basically transfer the magic from the scrolls to these practice items. I want you to get a feel for this kind of magic rather than asking you to pull some grand, realm-shattering spell out your ass. As cute as said ass is.”
Jericho gives Rowan a saucy wink and her face immediately lights up to a thousand degrees.
“Th-th-thank you…?” she stammers.
She’s positive this is the first time someone has ever referred to her ass as cute. Especially someone as breathtaking as Jericho.
“You’re welcome, doll. I told Morena someone as adorable as you was too good for her dickhead son. As an apprentice, of course,” the tiefling adds quickly, but that knowing gleam in her eyes never quite leaves them. “Frankly, it irritates me that Gale takes after his mother in the looks department. I can’t appreciate her allure without picturing his face in my head. And I’ve made sure he knows it, so he can pay me extra for that insult.”
Rowan barely has time to reflect upon the fact that Jericho maybe-kinda-sorta flirted with her for two seconds.
“Did…did you tell Gale you think his mom is a milf?” she whispers, appalled.
Jericho frowns. “I don’t know what ‘milf’ means, but I’ve told him that Morena is everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman and if his father ever passed, I would not hesitate to become his stepmother. He was about to spontaneously combust.”
“Oh my god.” Rowan slowly falls to her knees before the tiefling wizard and lowers her head to the floor, voice muffled as she quietly cries out, “You truly are the empress of all the realms. I love you.”
Jericho’s voice is smug and keen from above, a snicker twirling around her boastful words. “I know. But thank you for saying so.”
Gale certainly has never mentioned that conversation.
He’s rarely spoken about himself aside from what she’s already learned. Morena has told her a little more of their family—that Evander Dekarios is a prominent merchant with his own fleet of ships, and that her eldest Dorian was born during a tumultuous storm at sea when the newlyweds were sailing beyond Waterdeep. Whatever powers that thundered down from that storm blessed the newborn and instilled him with his arcane abilities.
Morena enjoys bragging about Dorian as much as she takes delight in pointing out all of Gale’s accomplishments. But as for Gale’s history, and why he has sequestered himself in his tower for over half a year? The older wizard remains tightlipped and steadfast on that matter, no matter how Rowan subtly phrases the question.
Maybe it’s to be expected. Rowan hasn’t shared much about herself either. She’s peppered in some minute details that she can recall. She has eagerly recounted the myths and legends of the gods that fascinated her in her old world to Gale until the candles in the library are burnt to their wicks.
But wholly, unabashedly pouring everything she knows about herself? Rowan has strayed from the desire and remained safely in the cautious web of academic colleagues with Gale.
There is a fear, gnawing and aching at her ribcage, that if she tells everything she remembers about who she once was…Gale won’t be so eager to have her as his apprentice anymore.
You are meant to be looked at with pity, not passion!
Words spoken with a voice that once belonged to a reflection of her. Words that ring with the bitter chime of truth.
“Rowan, darling, how long are you going to remain on the floor? I enjoy the supplication, but even I have morals.”
She jerks back to reality. Her worst habit; spiraling down into the void of her own thoughts even in the midst of the most engaging conversation.
Sometimes, Rowan despises the way her brain works.
“Oops. Got lost in my mind palace,” she jokes, forcing herself to rise off of the floor and dusting imaginary specks of dirt from her clothes.
“Too busy thinking about how much I could terrorize Gale if I became his stepmother, eh?” Jericho rubs her clawed hands together, baring her fangs in a vicious smirk. “Dorian too. Just imagine how they’d react if I declared I was sharing a bed with her!”
“Please don’t sleep with Gale’s mom. It would complicate my relationship with both of them in ways I cannot comprehend right now.”
Jericho snorts, rather unladylike and obnoxious. It is clear she is desperately battling the urge to burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter and, somehow, winning.
“Pah, as if it would ever happen. Morena and Evander are disgustingly in love. So much so that if he passes before she does, she would never remarry. Even if someone as fantastic as me makes an offer.”
Rowan suddenly wants nothing more than to embrace her inner crotchety old lady and spend what was supposed to be a productive day learning about Enchantment magic gossiping about the Dekarios family.
However, before she can ask Jericho anything, Syl pokes her head into the workroom’s doorway and calls out, “I’ve come bearing Ser Pip’s newest addition to their repertoire of haberdashery.”
Pip immediately launches from their place in Rowan’s cloak and takes to the air, cawing and raising a ruckus loud enough to wake an army of undead. They flit and flutter about the half-elf’s head with a childish glee. Syl just laughs at their antics as Rowan hides her face in shame, wishing her familiar could stand to learn a little decorum.
“I have ideas for more, but I trust this shall do nicely in the meantime,” Syl says as she holds out yet another tiny hat for the spoiled raven, and this one nearly makes Rowan join Jericho in her battle for composure.
It’s a little wizard hat.
A purple wizard hat just like her old world’s stereotypical stories about magic and mayhem and old men with impossibly long beards waving staffs around and summoning giant eagles.
Pip is at least polite enough to land on Syl’s wrist long enough for the seamstress to remove their top hat and replace it with the wizard one. They gingerly take the top hat into their beak and fly back to Rowan, looking at her expectantly from her shoulder. She just sighs and holds her hand out, letting them drop the other hat into her palm, and she pockets it for later. She really is going to have to get them their own damn closet at this point.
“It’s modeled after Elminster’s famous garb,” Syl gushes, epiphanies lighting up her eyes like a meteor shower. “I simply must craft them a matching set of wizarding robes as well!”
Elminster…
Elminster?
She’s heard that name. Gale mentioned it. So did Morena. And she’s read some things about him—a freakishly long-lived wizard who has saved the realms on multiple occasions, and one of Mystra’s Chosen.
Rowan doesn’t even attempt to mask her confusion as she looks between Syl and Jericho. “Why have Gale and Morena spoken about this Elminster guy like they personally know him?”
The seamstresses exchange glances of their own with one another, falling silent for a few moments.
Then:
“Elminster Aumar was Gale’s mentor,” Jericho explains. “Gale graduated early from Blackstaff and went on to apprentice with the Sage of Shadowdale for a few years. He never told you?”
Rowan finds that she doesn’t know how to answer.
Her magical mentor was once under the tutelage of one of the most famous wizards in all of Faerûn? And Gale never thought this information would be beneficial to know?
Why is this man more and more confusing the more I learn about him?
“I guess he never thought it was important enough,” Rowan says after a few moments, weaving forced disinterest in the words and trying not to grind her teeth in frustration. She focuses her attention to Jericho’s tools and wills herself to appear energized, peppy. Eager and full of energy despite the plummeting of her stomach and faltering beat of her heart. “Anyways enough about Gale! I don’t want to keep wasting your time—let’s dive into basic enchantments, okay?”
Jericho nods as Syl silently slinks away. Rowan pretends she doesn’t see the narrowing of the tiefling’s eyes and the concerned drawing of her brows. She plucks a couple of rings from the box and sets them next to the pile of scrolls, cracking her knuckles and rolling her head on her shoulders as she settles into work mode.
“Alright, so here’s what you should know about simple enchantments…”
Rowan returns to the tower with a pouch full of "enchanted" rings, a pocket full of basic spell scrolls, and a growling stomach.
She stayed longer than intended at Syl’s, her and Jericho losing themselves to the fascinating process of enchanting. Even the basics proved to be an unexpected challenge, much to Rowan’s dismay. It felt as if the shadows in her veins turned their noses at the particular school of magic and she had to coax them to yield to her curiosity. Even with all her pleading the magic within her had remained unruly and uncooperative, preferring to make some of the rings invisible or casting illusions of tiny little nightmare unicorns around the room.
“It will come easier with practice,” Jericho had insisted gently as she pressed the bag of failures into Rowan’s hands for further research. “Just keep at it like the rest of your studies, alright?”
When she opens the door to Gale’s tower and steps inside, she is immediately assaulted by a wonderful symphony of smells. Something spicy and sweet mingles in the air. Her mouth is already watering.
Rowan scampers up the stairs and deposits the rotten fruits of her labor on her bed along with Pip’s old hat. Her familiar opts for a dinner caught with their own talons tonight; if Gale is not serving cheese, Pip typically takes it upon themselves to hunt.
When she saunters into the kitchen, doing her damnedest to keep her head held high and not like she sucked absolute ass at her first Enchantment lesson, she could cry at the feast laid out before her. Beside the steaming fried quippers and creamy hundur sauce, a platter of fresh fruit and already buttered bread has been placed in Rowan’s usual spot.
A glass full of something luscious and red accompanies the meal. Rowan already knows what’s in it—Amnian dessert wine mixed with fresh apple juice. It’s become her drink of choice at every dinner even though she doesn’t think she was ever one for alcohol prior to her death.
Except for rum and pineapple juice. She did drink an open bar at a former classmate’s wedding out of that once.
“Gale,” Rowan bemoans as she collapses into her chair, putting her head on the table and ignoring the urge to tear into the food like a ravenous wolf, “I failed as your apprentice today. Enchantment is fucking hard . I couldn’t even make a ring that casts Dancing Lights!”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Gale says sincerely, placing some lightly fried fish onto a plate and sliding it before Tara’s twitching whiskers. He fixes himself a plate afterwards, and a minuscule pinprick of guilt slides under Rowan’s skin. He always serves everyone before himself. He’s too damn chivalrous.
“Take heart in knowing that nobody is perfect when branching out into unfamiliar magical territory,” he continues, sliding into his chair and gracing her with a sickly saccharine smile. “Well, nobody besides myself. I am positive my methods would have resulted in a rousing success on your first try.”
Oh yeah.
He’s still annoyed she asked Jericho for a lesson and not him.
Rowan lifts her head up from the table and sticks her tongue out at him. “Don’t be cute right now. I’m grumpy and will need three more glasses of wine to cope with my crippling disappointment.”
Gale’s smile curls into a shrew, shit-eating grin. “You think I’m being cute?”
She does not comment further. Any form of reply would be playing right into his hands and she does not have the mental energy to deal with it right now.
At least dinner is delicious. The quipperfish and hundur sauce are everything she imagined when Morena first boasted about the recipe a week after Rowan met her. She had secretly hoped Gale’s mother would have been joining them tonight. The older wizard must be busy dealing with matters regarding Evander’s current trade run.
Morena would have hugged her and comforted her about her Enchantment failures. She would not have been petty that she chose to go to a literal expert for a lesson.
He is your mentor. You literally asked him to teach you about magic, a woefully reasonable corner of her mind whispers.
Rowan tells it to shut the fuck up.
She could be petty too. She could interrogate him about Elminster and why he hasn’t mentioned the ancient mage was his mentor once upon a time. She could demand to know what was so grievous and harrowing that he locked himself in his tower for six months and hid away from the world at large. Shit, she could even throw a tantrum about his refusal to allow her a simple peek at the wondrous realm of the Feywilds, citing his cruelty for not wanting to grant a long-standing innocent childhood dream.
But…
No.
Rowan won’t. She can’t.
She’s just irritated at herself. She’s always been like this—if she doesn’t understand something with perfect clarity on the first try, she lets that ugly hatred fester and rot until she wants to flay the skin from her bones.
She could have invited Jericho to the tower. She could have talked it over with Gale and the tiefling before stubbornly deciding that she thought she knew was best. If both Jericho and Gale worked in tandem to teach her, she might have had more to show for today than a sack full of duds and a roiling mass of self-loathing.
“…can we focus on Fireball lessons tomorrow?” she asks quietly after a long stretch of awkward silence.
Gale, who has a forkful of food halfway to his mouth, immediately sits a little taller in his chair. “Of course,” he says, and his voice does not bear a trace of smug victory like she expected. He just sounds relieved. “You recall the treatise I wrote on the intricacies of somatic casting for Evocation spells? Brush up on the third chapter tonight; it has a lengthy section on Fireball.”
Rowan does indeed recall said treatise. She thoroughly enjoyed the detailing on the higher level spells solely because Gale writes his experiences casting them akin to a smutty romance novelist writing a vanilla orgasm scene.
Man really loves his magic.
She swiftly puts all thoughts comparing Gale to smutty romance novels out of her head and nods. “You keep that in your room, right?”
“Correct. On the bottom shelf next to my collection of ceramic tressyms.”
“Okay. Cool. I’ll grab it after dinner.”
Along with a certain item she knows for certain he also keeps in his bedroom.
And a glass of wine.
She’s always worked best when multitasking, after all.
Hours after dinner and just before he is about to crawl into bed, Gale realizes something very important.
The parchment inscribed with a Sending spell he uses solely to communicate with his mother is missing.
He knows with certainty it should be on the table next to his bed. Ever since his mother destroyed his door and swept into the tower like a raging storm, he has been keen on sending her a message at least once a day, if only to keep the peace. Despite her now weekly visits for tea and to fawn over Rowan, he feels it is crucial to avoid another fit from Morena Dekarios.
A fit that came from nothing but concern and love for him, but be that as it may, he’d rather not repeat that day. Rowan had enjoyed his torment far too deeply, he thinks.
Rowan…
Gale recalls with a start the sudden mischief that had been in her eyes during dinner. The impish gleam that had replaced the self-pitying shadows swirling within them as she asked about his research.
The research that had been in his room. The research she had taken from his room, along with a nigh-full bottle of Amnian dessert wine.
A spark of irritation lights in Gale’s gut. He will be the first to admit what a pernicious little scamp he had been as a child, but stealing a man’s way of communicating with his mother? Never in all his fiendish escapades had he been so callous! He’d been a rude little shite but even so, he’d had principles !
Before he can stop himself Gale is marching down the hall to Rowan’s room, opening it without so much as a knock.
“While I consider myself a relatively easygoing individual, even I have my limits, Rowan. You cannot just—”
The object of his ire is passed out cold and slumped over her desk snoring away peacefully.
The bottle of wine is nearly empty. A stack of parchment lay next to it, the page on top full of her scratchy, haphazard handwriting. What he assumes to be the book of his published research is nestled cozily underneath Rowan’s head like a pillow. For one amused moment, Gale wonders if sleeping on a pile of tones allows one to absorb their myriads of knowledge through intellectual osmosis.
Rowan snores lightly, quietly, her hair free from its usual braid and fanned out in a curled mess of tangled coils. Pip is nowhere to be seen. The familiar must still be out and about hunting in the night; Tara most likely joined them when Gale wasn’t looking as she is wont to do.
Rowan does not stir when Gale shuffles silently into the room. He stalks towards his apprentice blissfully sleeping away at her desk, peering closely at the academic mess she’s made. Despite the wine, the notes she has taken on his research is surprisingly succinct…well, as succinct as Rowan can be. Gale has become accustomed to her long winded, roundabout way of delving into her studies. If it works for her, so be it.
She has proven to be a remarkably gifted student. In a way, Gale is reminded of himself in his youth, eager to dig his teeth into every book he could get his hands on and suck out the marrow of their contents. And it has been so long since he’s had a like minded individual to wax academic and argue semantics with. Rowan has been able to keep up with him in a way he wasn’t expecting—even though magic is utterly new to her, she has kept at it with her head held high and an eagerness that warms his soul.
He should not have been so petty today when she sprang the surprise of going to Jericho for lessons on the school of Enchantment. It was an immature, foolish way to act. Gale wants Rowan to embrace any outlet, any chance she can get for furthering her arcane studies. His unsavory history with the tiefling should not get in the way of that.
It is then that he spies a very familiar sheet of enchanted parchment underneath her hand.
Gale has to force himself not to wrench the paper from her limp grasp. Instead, calmly and succinctly, he slowly tugs it free of her sleeping fingers and tucks the top sheet of her notes in its place. Let her sleep (and drink) addled mind believe she misplaced it.
He knows he should immediately exit the room and pretend he never intruded in the first place, but curiosity has always been his downfall.
Gale turns his gaze to the scribblings on the leaf of parchment in his hand and begins to read.
MORENA, YOUR SON WON’T TAKE ME TO THE FEYWILDS
Rowan? Did you steal Gale’s Sending parchment?
YES BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE FUNNY BUT NOW I’M JUST SAD
And why is that?
BECAUSE I SUCKED AT ENCHANTING TODAY AND I SHOULD HAVE ASKED GALE INSTEAD BUT I ASKED JERICHO AND NOW I FEEL LIKE A BITCH
AND ALSO I REALLY WANT TO GO SEE A UNICORN BUT GALE THINKS IT’S TOO DANGEROUS!!!!!!
ALSO I’M KINDA DRUNK RIGHT NOW
MORENA DID YOU MUTE ME PLEASE DON’T MUTE ME I’M SAD AND WANNA TALK TO YOU ALSO JERICHO THINKS YOU’RE HOT
Apologies, dear, I was eating. Yes, I know Jericho is fond of me. And Gale just wants to keep you safe. The Feywilds are no place for an inexperienced sorcerer.
BUT UNICORNS, MORENA
The unicorns will be there when you’ve got a few more years of spellcasting up your sleeves. And I am sorry your foray into enchanting did not go so well.
JERICHO SAYS I’LL GET BETTER WITH PRACTICE BUT I AM IMPATIENT AND WANT TO BE BETTER NOW
MAYBE TOMORROW WILL BE EASIER BECAUSE GALE IS GONNA SHOW ME HOW TO EXPLODE THINGS
I assume you are referring to learning how to cast Fireball?
FUCK YEAH I AM I CAN’T WAIT!!!!
Language, Rowan.
I’M SORRY MORENA I’M GONNA GO BACK TO STUDYING NOW AND MAYBE PASS OUT I’M ALMOST DONE WITH THIS BOTTLE OF WINE
Please get some rest. You’ll be a poor student with a hangover and Fireball is a spell that requires the utmost precision.
I KNOW THAT’S WHAT GALE’S RESEARCH SAYS YOU RAISED SUCH A SMART SON HE’S SO NICE AND COOL BUT DON’T TELL HIM I SAID THAT I NEED TO REMAIN ALOOF AND MYSTERIOUS
Go to bed, Rowan. I shan’t say a word.
OKAY LOVE YOU GOODNIGHT MORENA
I love you too, dear. Sweet dreams.
In the corner of the paper, written in his mother’s impeccable handwriting, is a small paragraph completely separate from the main conversation.
Gale, I know you’re reading this. If this poor thing’s end-of-study does not culminate in a visit to the Feywilds so she can see her bloody unicorns, I will throttle you so thoroughly not even Mystra will be able to recognize your face.
Gale feels his face go pale as he solemnly pockets the parchment, tugging the collar of his robes away from his throat. His mother is not one for idle threats. He doesn’t doubt Morena Dekarios would act upon that promise in a heartbeat. She’s become incredibly fond of Rowan, after all.
His eyes slide to the snoring woman in question. He supposes he has as well. He enjoys her company and conversation. He enjoys guiding her in the ways of the arcane.
But he’s running out of time. He can feel it. The blight crawling under his skin, tearing a hole in his chest and screaming for more. More magic, more power, more of his very essence.
Gale needs to start focusing on how her connection to the Shadow Weave can sever his ties to the curse inside him. He’s been too caught up in ensuring she gets a decade’s worth of a wizard’s education forcibly memorized in but a mere month. It isn’t fair to Rowan, no—he knows this better than anyone.
But if he does not push her hard, then he might not be around to push her at all.
It happens then.
The familiar telltale sign of the orb inside him waking up and instilling him with a terrible hunger.
Gale chokes down a gasp as he clutches at his chest, a wave of pain crashing into him with the force of an undertow at high tide. He stumbles forward and away from Rowan, leaning against the edge of her bed as he bites his tongue so hard he can taste the metallic tang of blood in his mouth.
He doesn’t have anything on him. No, all of the enchanted magic items he had been wearing earlier are safe and secure in his chambers, as he had been preparing to go to sleep before he realized what his dear apprentice had absconded with.
Panic. Screaming, tearing, stinging panic as wasps buzz behind his eyes and his skin constricts. He needs to get back to his room. He can’t let Rowan see him like this. She can’t know about it, not yet, he needs to—
The orb growls inside him. Its hunger deepens. It can sense the presence of something in this room, something it desires to consume more than anything Gale has fed it these last few wicked months.
Gale jerks his head towards what the orb senses. He sends out a minor Detect Magic spell, breathing ragged, and an innocuous pouch on Rowan’s bed lights up in his mind’s eye like a beacon in the night.
He reaches out and nearly rips the ties off in an effort to open the damn thing. Inside is a dozen dull silver rings bearing no fine details or filigree to suggest the blessing of something magnificent and powerful. Yet the thing buried above his heart thrums with satisfaction, a hunger that yearns to be sated, and Gale can only do as his curse bids him. He grabs one of the rings and clutches it in a sweaty, shaking hand.
Gale nearly doubles over from the tempest of sensations that envelope him.
Rowan had said these were failures. Items she had not been able to properly enchant. But nevertheless, there is no mistaking the font of pure Shadow Weave absorbed in the cold metal of the ring, and the arcane hunger that holds Gale in thrall feels utter delight as he presses the item against his chest.
His apprentice’s failure was anything but.
Rowan has filled this ring with raw magic directly from the inherent fountain of the Shadow Weave inside of her. This piece of unassuming costume jewelry is a vessel of unfiltered magic.
Gale bites his tongue once more as he presses the ring further to his chest, keeping his noises of pain and discomfort locked behind a dark door he always pretends he’s misplaced the key to. He veins surge with Rowan’s magic. His essence mingles with the limitless, formless arcana.
It is not just the orb that drinks deep of the magic this time.
Gale’s face is taut and his hands are clammy when the ring disappears into his chest. He jerks away from Rowan’s bed and drags himself out of her room before he fears he will collapse on her floor. The taste of blood no longer fills his mouth. No, his tongue is coated in a strange sweetness, like the sugary flavor of arsenic just before the poison stops one’s heart.
“Oh, gods,” he whispers hoarsely as he leans against the wall of the hallway for support, his heart thundering wild with reckless abandon in his chest. “Sweet Mystra above, no. ”
It seems the orb inside him has taken it upon itself to show him just how the Shadow Weave can be of assistance. It is not out of the kindness of whatever tainted awareness it has, no—the grim hunger is merely following its instincts to feed. To grow fat and gorge itself on a magic sweeter than Gale’s own power and the Weave-infused items he desperately tries to keep it satisfied with.
He feels sick as he leans against the wall, stomach churning and face dripping with sweat. He feels wretched. Vile . The blight is more content than it ever has been after that raw taste of the Shadow Weave. It is nothing like the essence of the Weave—it is a ten course meal complete with dessert. And Gale… he took a part of that magic into him as well. He can feel the shadows slithering in his veins. They mingle with his own magic, partnering with the threads of arcana brimming through his entire being.
They are waiting.
Watching.
Preparing to strike.
For what, Gale does not know for certain. He can feel the darkness ebb and scurry to the hidden corners of his soul. It is almost as if the essence of the Shadow Weave he somehow absorbed is concealing itself until the time is right. Almost as if…
The darkness Rowan imparted upon the items knows him. Knows his pain, his curse, his struggles. And it wants to help. It yearns to help, whispering its assurance as it cloaks itself in shadows and eyes the orb inside him warily.
More, the darkness urges, buried too deep for the arcane hunger to hear. Gather more and together, we shall triumph over this twisted thing.
Gale almost agrees immediately, as if he has not grown up reading cautionary tales of thoughtless mortals dealing with devils and cavorting with beings beyond their understanding. But if this darkness whispers true, if the shadows once wielded by Rowan are willing to help him…
No. No, no, no. Mystra forgive him. He is better than this. He is a bloody prodigy ! He must not act based on a whim or banal first instincts. He needs to study this strange effect before jumping to conclusions.
But the darkness continues to whisper. The ravenous blight seems none the wiser to its presence. Gale has a sinking feeling that the conclusion he has just come to is the only valid one. If he consumes enough of the raw Shadow Weave rather than the Weave woven by Mystra…
He might just be able to rid himself of the orb before it consumes him .
Two months into her new life and Rowan starts to realize the items she’s enchanting seem to disappear into thin air.
Subsequently, she notices the veins of dark violet on Gale’s neck are spreading.
Her experiments still end in failures for the most part. It is not for a lack of trying; far from it! Rowan works herself to the bone every day, dividing her attentions between attempting to enchant objects while also following Gale’s meticulously wrought lesson plans. She even returns to Syl’s two more times for hands on lessons with Jericho, Gale relenting that the tiefling can show her methods he might not be aware of.
Yet it seems Enchantment is never going to be her forte. Not the way Illusion-based spells are, courtesy of her connection to the Shadow Weave.
Rowan can’t even fucking cast Fireball.
Whatever string of luck her new life in this world has gifted her that first week or so, when she was learning new spells left and right, has vacated itself entirely from her being.
She feels stuck. Useless. It doesn’t matter how kindly Gale tries to coax the fire to obey her commands. It doesn't matter that he insists she needs to remember magic doesn’t always do as one wishes when they’re just starting out. It doesn’t matter that he commends her on her ability to conjure illusions and make herself and others invisible longer than what is typically possible.
She’s disappointing Gale somehow. She just knows it. Ever since that day she came back from Syl’s, he’s avoided looking her directly in the eyes. She woke up the next morning with a throbbing headache and a mess of notes on his treatise she barely remembered writing, but also with the distinct sense that she was missing something. Something she’d been holding before the wine got to her head and lulled her to sleep.
She can’t remember. And Gale has never said a word about it. Instead he tiptoes around her like he’s walking on glass, his eyes always dark with an unspoken worry that frustrates her to no end.
And her stupid fucking experiments! She just wants to know where they keep disappearing to! Sure, they may be failures, but that doesn’t matter. Rowan has been trying to study them and notate exactly what she thinks went wrong in hopes of rectifying the mistakes the next time she tries. She can’t do that if the objects are nowhere to be found.
She tries not to think about how the increasing number of disappearances coincide with the growing of Gale’s eerie purple markings. Even if she asked, it’s not like he would tell her.
Rowan’s patience is beginning to wear thin.
She just wants to successfully enchant a goddamn ring and cast Fireball.
“Shouldn’t even bother anymore,” she hisses to herself as she shoves a bundle of spell scrolls under her bed, hoping they do nothing but collect dust and maybe even disintegrate at some point. “What’s the point? I’ll just keep fucking it up like I have been.”
Rowan knows that’s not entirely true. But she’s always been like this—when something doesn’t go her way the first couple times, she gives up. Shuts down. Pushes everyone away while she slides between the cracks of self-pity and resentment and refuses to crawl back out.
The research and absorption of arcane information isn’t the problem. It’s the practical application of spells. If Gale expected her to write a dissertation on Szass Tam and his Red Wizards, she could finish it in her sleep. But performing a feat of magic beyond her illusions and cantrips?
Impossible.
Improbable.
Indefinitely so.
Are you happy?
Her reflection’s words from her first day of her new life echo hollowly in her mind as Rowan faces the wall in her room. The bookshelves are a far cry from empty now, boasting a collection of academic tomes and casual reading alike. The very top of the shelves have been dedicated to a half-ass shrine of sorts, as best as she can manage. Candles, trinkets, pamphlets regarding the Raven Queen and Selûne…her wanderings through Waterdeep have offered the chance to gather items she thinks might be beneficial to the two goddesses she feels drawn to.
Like the goddesses of her old world, however, neither have answered her prayers.
Rowan does not blame them. The Matron and the Moonmaiden no doubt have better things to do than grant the whims of a newborn sorcerer too impatient to give her skills time to grow.
Are you happy?
“I’m trying,” Rowan murmurs, fingering the feather at her throat nervously. “I don’t know why I thought this would be easy. I just don’t want Gale to…”
To what?
Abandon her?
Kick her out and onto the streets?
Just because she can’t summon a deadly mass of flames in her hands?
He would never. Regardless of whatever internal battle he’s been waging with himself for the last few weeks, Rowan knows Gale is far too kind and softhearted to give up on her.
The painstaking hours he spends going over spell components and pronunciations can attest to that. The meals he so eagerly prepares with a focus on her tastes. The things he has purchased so she can feel a sense of comfort and belonging in this strange new world. The friendship and laughter he has been willing to share.
No, Gale isn’t going to give up on her. She shouldn’t be so hasty to give up on herself.
“Pip,” she calls to her familiar, who has been dozing on top of her pillows. She should be as well considering how late it is. She bid good night to Gale hours ago and has been pacing around in her pajamas ever since, denouncing every idea to get her magic to work as a poor one.
It is somewhat of a challenge to go to sleep when one’s mind is a burning chaotic mess.
The raven snorts awake, shaking their head rapidly. A new hat from Syl sits proudly atop their feathers; this one a poet’s tam of sorts, the cap of choice by roving bards.
“Hngh? Yeah, boss?”
“I want to try something,” she says, taking Nevermore from its resting place against the side of the bookshelves. Its wooden grip is always a comfort, even more so than the raven feather she wears. She’s not sure why.
(Oh, she’s sure, but she just doesn’t want to admit it to herself.)
Rowan holds out an arm expectantly, grasping her staff in her free hand. Pip soars to their place on her wrist without complaint, cocking their head inquisitively at her as she gazes into the onyx topper of Nevermore.
“Gale once told me Tara can cast spells on her own but if he shares a bit of his connection to the Weave with her, it’s stronger,” she continues. “You’re from the Shadowfell and I’m a sorcerer borrowing magic from it. What if we do something similar?”
Pip gives a thoughtful hum. “I don’t think it’d hurt to try. But if it don’t work, no beatin’ yourself up about it. You gotta be nicer to your noggin, boss.”
Their admonishment is by far more gentle than she’s been with herself lately. Shame, hot and bitter, coats her tongue.
She must have been pretty bad lately if even Pip is saying something.
“Don’t worry.”
She closes her eyes.
Rowan focuses on the image of fire in her mind’s eye, willing the threads of the Shadow Weave to mingle between her fingers and to respond to her call.
“If it doesn’t work, I’ll admit defeat and ask Gale to work on something else with me.”
Like Fog Cloud. Or Misty Step. Spells that naturally align with the shadowy nature of the magic coursing inside her. She should have focused on them all along, instead of being stubborn about Fireball and enchanting things.
Rowan has a feeling her stubbornness regarding the former is about to pay off.
If Nevermore is a conduit for her power, then Pip is more like…an extra battery. A small one, but full of enough juice to get her past that final hurdle. She can feel their presence against her soul as she draws on the darkness, imagining blistering heat and a bonfire towering into the starry sky.
Keep goin’, boss, they reassure her silently, the fluttering of a hundred raven wings rustling through her head. We got this. You got this.
The black of night. The silvery sheen of moonlight. The comfort of shadows, boundless and eternal in their affection.
Rowan is of these things, but she is also of fire.
The flames of determination. The heat of yearning, wanting for a better life. A fire in her belly, set alight and burning at this chance to be who she was meant to be.
She wills that fiery darkness to come closer. She beckons it from the shadows within, coaxing it with a gentle hand, the way Gale encourages his own magic when he casts it for demonstration.
The hand not holding onto Nevermore grows warm.
Undulating whips of heat lick against her palm. Pip lets out a caw of surprise and delight, hopping further up and along her arm. Her staff shudders in her other hand, the wooden handle creaking as it swells with magic. The heat grows hotter and more intense. Nevermore pulses in tandem with the rhythmic threading of the arcane.
Rowan’s eyes snap open. She gasps softly as an orb of flames, black as night, hovers in her palm. It is vaguely reminiscent of her Bone Chill cantrip but while that spell made the blood in her veins freeze, these flames burn with a vigor she can feel in the beat of her heart.
“Holy shit,” she breathes, mesmerized by the shadowy fire. “I did it. I did it!”
Rowan’s feet move on their own.
The small, concentrated energy of Fireball does not fade as she bursts out of her room and races down the hall. It does not dissipate as she pounds on Gale’s door with the top of Nevermore. It does not return to ash and dust as she shouts, almost at the top of her lungs, “Gale, wake up! It’s an emergency!”
The magic does not waver even when Gale wrenches his door open with a strength more befitting a trained soldier, his brown eyes swimming with panicked worry.
“Wh-what? What’s wrong? Are you hurt? What’s happened?!”
Rowan holds her hand up triumphantly. The light emanating from the dark flames burning against her palm reflects off his eyes. It frames his face perfectly. And he kind of looks…
Oh. Gale is hot.
Well, Rowan knows he’s hot, but this Gale? The “just rolled out of bed in a panic” Gale?
Yeah. This Gale is really hot.
His hair is an absolute mess, mussed up and a far cry from its usual slicked back precision. There is a slackness to his expression, a sleepiness that he hasn’t chased away yet that makes her feel some kind of way. He’s leaning against the doorway as if to steady himself. The exhausted, overtly relaxed body language does not match the alertness he’s trying to portray in his eyes.
She can make out those strange violet markings even better than she usually can. They’ve branched halfway up the side of his face and are stretching towards his left eye. There is a subtle glow through the fabric of his shirt in an odd circular shape. It’s exactly in the middle of his sternum. The shirt must be fairly thin if she can see it, and Rowan’s excitement about her Fireball is all but forgotten. She wants to know so badly what the hell is under his shirt and why his markings have gotten worse.
Wait, what he’s wearing right now…
Ah. Well. Fuck.
Jericho had not been lying two months ago when she gave Rowan her pajamas.
Gale wears an identical pair, right down to the designs along the collar. And his attention is not on the Fireball in her hand but, rather, to the whole of her person.
She had conveniently forgotten that she is wearing her pajamas as well.
The ones that Gale is also wearing.
The ones that Jericho neglected to loosen in the chest area on the chance that an individual with ample cleavage might wish to wear.
His eyes, sleepy and distressed all at once, blink rapidly. He leans forward as he peers unsettlingly closely at her nighttime ensemble, not even casting the spell in her hand a second glance.
Slowly, Gale raises a hand and points at Rowan.
“Are…are you wearing my pajamas, Rowan?”
“N-no,” Rowan stammers in a strained voice, stepping back a few inches. “They’re my pajamas! That just happen to look like yours!”
“And may I ask why you are wearing pajamas that happen to look like mine?”
“B-because…because…”
Rowan’s face is hotter than the ball of fire she’s holding. The magic fizzles out. The Fireball wavers and extinguishes into a poof of smoke. Her focus turns from the threads of the Shadow Weave to her complete and utter embarrassment as she squirms beneath Gale’s astute gaze. She can’t tell him she asked Jericho for them knowing full well Gale owned a pair of his own. She would rather die again.
The confusion and shock etched into the lines of Gale’s face become replaced by something else as Rowan struggles to answer. Something she was not expecting to see.
A roguish, coy mask that settles against his skin far too easily.
“You know,” Gale muses, voice rough and low with sleep, “if you want to borrow my wardrobe, all you need to do is ask. I’ve several things in mind that are bound to look quite fetching on you. More so than they do on me.”
The fire inside Rowan roars.
“This was all a dream!” she cries out, spinning on her heels and begging her blood to stop boiling beneath her skin. “You will remember none of this when you wake up!”
She does not dare to turn around and catch one last glimpse of Gale’s face as she throws herself into her room and slams the door shut.
Chapter Text
By Rowan’s third month in Faerûn she has come to fully accept her silly little crush on Gale might not be so silly anymore.
He doesn’t bring up that night she woke him with a Fireball in her hand and her body clad in the twin garments of his pajamas. If Rowan did not know any better she would assume he truly did think it a dream. A strange, hazy dream brought on by the long days of plunging himself into his role as her mentor.
But Rowan does know better. Gale remembers. He’s just far too much of a gentleman to say anything.
It is both a relief and a curse.
A relief because she is grateful he feels it impolite to further embarrass her. A curse because the lack of communication creates a terse knot inside of her.
Every time she thinks back to his face and voice that night, the knot gets tighter and her mind seizes. The casual smiles he sends her way causes an uproar in the back of her head and a flush creeping up her neck. The call of her name echoing through the library, said with such affection and camaraderie, makes her want to scream. Her breath quickens when their shoulders brush as they sit side-by-side, pouring over old tomes together and returning to the inane debate on the specific emphasis of verbal components.
Ig nis versus ig nis .
A crush versus mistaking the joy of friendship for something else.
Because there’s a chance that’s all this is. Rowan has done it before, she thinks. Her fingers barely skim the surface of memories from that old life she once lived. Memories in which she housed those silly little feelings deep inside until they grew rotten and gangrenous and destroyed the precious roots of friendship between her and the ones she cared about.
You looked too much into it , someone had once told her with kind pity. You’re the kind of person who just can’t categorize their feelings with the right labels.
Rowan doesn’t remember who that was, but she remembers the poisonous shame those words had tainted her with.
Is she going to make the same mistake with Gale?
Even with her mind such a hot mess, Rowan somehow manages to keep a tight grasp on her studies. Another poor habit of hers. If she doesn’t want to think about something, she simply exhausts herself with draining and complicated tasks.
It works for the most part. By the end of month three, Rowan has built quite the repertoire of spells—Bone Chill, Minor Illusion, Dancing Lights, Poison Spray, Mage Hand, Detect Magic, Fog Cloud, Darkness, Invisibility, Fireball…
And today, Gale is resolved to have her master Misty Step.
“If you can figure out Fireball out of sheer determination, you can learn Misty Step,” he assures her warmly.
The temperature outside is anything but, however.
They’re standing on his balcony. Winter is in full swing now and the whole of Waterdeep is blanketed in layers of cold, wet snow. It’s odd to gaze out at the sea and the surf not be twisted and frozen like the river she thinks she grew up near. The sky is gray and dreary. The air is heavy with a thick, drizzly fog that refuses to go away even in the brisk and chilly breeze.
Rowan doesn’t mind. It’s perfect weather in her eyes. Though she would much rather be wrapped in a thick blanket lying in bed than standing on Gale’s balcony and looking at the docks below his tower. It’s oddly busy despite the inclement weather, with workers milling to and fro in the mist. Like wraiths flickering through the shadows of the underworld, almost.
Honestly, she would much rather practice this spell in the City of the Dead. The wide open spaces are perfect for a magic like Misty Step. Gale brought her there a couple weeks ago, on the day that coincides with her birthday from her old life.
She has kept that secret safe and sound. No one needs to know. Gale just happened to pick a day the weather was cooperating and he wasn’t bogged down with his own work is all.
Rowan probably should not have enjoyed the visit as much as she did considering she, well, died. The graves beneath her feet could easily contain her own body at any given moment. She has no doubt in her mind that she was the only person in the entire cemetery who has experienced death before and returned a whole new person.
Even blanketed in snow, the City of the Dead was a peaceful and tranquil place to Rowan. Though there was a disappointing lack of shrines and dedications to the Raven Queen, she had felt connected to the goddess there. She could hear whispers of raven wings fluttering in her periphery, a reminder that the Matron silently watched over her still.
“But there’s people down here,” Rowan protests somewhat stubbornly. “Me randomly poofing in front of them is gonna scare them!”
“Rowan, they work next to a wizard’s tower. They are aware of the occasional spell slung in their direction.”
“Wow, you attack innocent dock workers with your magic? I didn’t know you had it in you. You tyrant wizard king, you!”
“ Rowan .” Gale says her name sternly, leveling her with a look that just makes her grin. It is either feigning an overly mischievous persona or getting lost in her roundabout thoughts concerning her feelings towards him. She chooses the former.
“Kidding,” Rowan hums, holding her hands up in surrender. “You can’t even kill the spiders that get past your pest wards. There’s no way you’d ever attack an innocent.”
“I seem to recall you cannot kill the spiders either,” Gale says wryly, the corner of his mouth twitching as he fights a grin of his own. “Instead you scream and hide in your bathroom until Pip and Tara take care of them.”
“I have severe arachnophobia! I can’t help it! They creep me the fuck out!”
“Which is why Misty Step is the perfect spell for you to learn. You can cast it and run even further away from them.”
Gale makes a compelling argument.
He usually does.
Sometimes, it really irks Rowan.
“Ugh. Okay. Fine.”
She nods reluctantly and picks Nevermore up from where she’s placed it against the side of Gale’s balcony. She peeks over the edge, gazing into the wintry fog and watching the dark shapes of dock workers shuffling through it for a few moments. She’s watched Gale cast the spell once before, and she’s read plenty about it, but still…
“Can you cast it yourself first?” she pleads, blinking her eyes into the best kicked puppy look she can manage. Which isn’t much, since Gale is the king of said expression, and every attempt she makes is paltry in comparison. “I just want to make sure I have the technique correct before I give it a try. Don’t wanna end up in the ocean or on top of some poor, unsuspecting citizen just trying to go about their day.”
“As if I could ever pass up the chance to demonstrate my skills,” Gale admits with a wiggle of his eyebrows. He nods most enthusiastically and stretches his hands out before him, cracking the joints of his fingers as the tips alight with the familiar purple hue of his magic. “Now remember; this spell typically only requires a verbal component, but if you pair it with these hand movements, the distance doubles.”
His fingers curl as he brings his hands around in a wide, sweeping arc. He clasps his hands together with quick precision, the skin glowing violet, and utters the incantation with a forceful determination behind the syllables.
Gale’s body is enshrouded in a lavender mist not unlike the fog drifting through the city of Waterdeep and he disappears.
Rowan’s head swivels to the docks and she peers through the thick, chilly air. The telltale lavender glow of Gale’s spell is barely discernible through the fog but it’s indeed there, about sixty feet away from the tower and right on what she thinks is the very edge of the dock. One misstep and he could have plunged into the frigid waters of the sea.
But there’s no way Gale would manage that, because he’s a damn near perfect wizard.
“Now you try!” Gale calls out through the fog, his voice muffled and echoing only slightly. The haze is so thick it captures all sound and imprisons it; she can barely make out the grumbles and exclaims of the dock workers who were not expecting the master of the tower to just suddenly appear.
She wishes Pip were here. Casting spells is always easier with them around, plunging herself into the shared connection they share and pulling on the threads of the Shadow Weave that way. But alas—the raven is busy tormenting the gulls and pigeons that claim the rooftops of Waterdeep, Tara eagerly accompanying them. The winter weather has not deterred either familiar in the least. In fact, they both claim it makes for a far more thrilling hunt.
“Okay, Rowan. You can do this. You’re a badass bitch. A little Misty Step isn’t going to stop you.”
Gale is right. If she could brute force her way to a Fireball, she can conjure the correct magic for Misty Step. It’s on par with her shadowy collection of spells. She might be woefully new at this still, but fuck it! She has proven over the last few months that she has what it takes to be a talented sorcerer.
Despite what her occasional bouts of neurosis have to say about it.
Rowan takes a deep breath and scoots closer to the edge of the balcony. She keeps one hand on Nevermore, lamenting how unfair it is for Gale to have his arcane focus in a place he doesn’t have to hold onto at all times. With her free hand she begins to mimic his gestures as acutely and quickly as she can, sensing the familiar tug and pull of her magic deep within.
Casting a new spell is always a humbling experience. Rowan feels so small for a moment that lasts an eternity as the shadows in her veins familiarize themselves with her intentions. She is part of something grander than herself—she is but a speck of darkness in the sea of nothing that is the pocket of the Shadowfell her powers call home.
It’s terrifying.
It’s exhilarating.
It’s everything all at once.
The incantation leaves her throat with an air of confidence she’s not faking for once and the spell takes hold.
Darkness coalesces around her. Layering tendrils of black mist thicker and heavier than the fog hanging in the air caress her skin. Her stomach lurches. Her heart pounds. A sense of vertigo grips her mind as her body is shoved through space, and the magic hurtles her towards her destination.
Unfortunately for Rowan, getting closer to the balcony’s edge had been a poor decision.
Fortunately for Rowan, Gale’s hand snaps out and grasps at the back folds of her robe as her body materializes by him, her feet teetering on the end of the dock. He yanks her back just before she stumbles, preventing what would have been a very cold and very wet fall in the harbor.
“I don’t recommend swimming today,” Gale teases as he steadies her. “The water is a titch nippy, eh?”
Rowan shivers. It’s not because of the wet or the cold.
“Wouldn’t be the first time I took a dip in freezing water,” she mumbles, pushing away the delicate feeling of his touch on her back. Now was not the time for such thoughts. “Though I doubt I would get paid for it this time around.”
Gale scrunches his face up and looks at her for explanation. He’s used to her little comments and tidbits about the life she lived before, never judging her for how strange and otherworldly the stories might sound. She thinks he rather enjoys them, in fact.
“College. We were bored and dared each other to jump into a river in the dead of winter. It was a very stupid idea and I got very sick. But hey, I made two hundred bucks!” She pauses. “Uh. I think that would be about a thousand gold in Faerûn currency. Please don’t ask me to do math.”
“I assure you I would never be so callous and cruel, my friend.”
“Thank you, my esteemed wizard companion. Your good will is an inspiration to all.”
Rowan glances around the docks. The workers have gotten over their initial surprise and annoyance at the sudden appearance of not only one, but now two magic users in their midst. She feels a little bad. Gale and her and smack dab in the middle of what looks to be loading up supplies for one of the neighboring households, a relatively sizable and well-crafted ship anchored at one of the other docks. Boxes and crates of supplies are piled high and she has to resist the urge to take a peek. She’s never had any real interactions with Gale’s neighbors but she knows most of them are fairly hoity-toity, and she’s not about to cause bad blood by being caught sneaking around in their belongings.
“How about you keep practicing?” Gale suggests, seemingly indifferent to the busy goings-on around them. “Misty Step is a spell that doesn’t take up quite as magic as, say, Fireball or Lightning Bolt. You can cast it a few more times before exhausting yourself. Not that I want you to exhaust yourself,” he quickly adds, appearing sheepish. “It’s simply a good idea to know your limits.”
Rowan grins.
A very good idea—one much better than swimming in the harbor—formulates in her mind.
“I think we should have a little contest,” she muses, twirling the end of her braid between her fingers as she bats her eyelashes at Gale. “Whoever can teach Blackstaff Tower first is exempt from helping with dinner tonight.”
Gale looks positively delighted.
“Very well,” he says with a devious smirk, adjusting the collar of his robes so it’s a little more snug and warm around him. “I’m in the mood for some meat pies today, actually. I’m certain you can handle preparing them all by yourself.”
“You’re gonna eat those words, wizard boy,” she warns, Nevermore twitching eagerly beneath her fingertips. “Just like I’m gonna eat all the pies you have to make by yourself. ”
Gale does not eat his words.
He does eat the meat pies Rowan had to make, however. She made sure to put a little bit more pepper and spice in the one she served to him out of spite.
The way he subtly swallows down his choking and reaches for a glass of watered down wine is probably more satisfying than winning the race would have been.
Rowan had been fairly close to overtaking Gale. But, he had the unfair advantage of knowing shortcuts to his old place of schooling in addition to many more years of spellcasting under his belt. She had known deep down a loss on her end was the only conceivable outcome.
It did not change the fact of how thrilling and fun letting loose and chasing after Gale all over Waterdeep using Misty Step had been.
She ushers him out of the kitchen when dinner is done, ignoring his insistence that he at least helps clean up. “A win is a win,” she tells him, waving a rag in his face. “Let me keep my dignity!”
Gale relents, though she knows it’s mostly to put on airs. He’s riding the high of proving that he is, of course, the better wizard out of the two of them.
…well, only because she’s a sorcerer, so of course he’d be the better wizard. In a few years, Rowan will surpass Gale in ways he could never dream of.
She hadn’t been lying when she cited her deeply rooted academic competitiveness.
Neither Pip nor Tara have returned by the time she finishes putting the kitchen back in order. She leaves a dish full of meat pie out for the tressym and a variety of small cheese and wedges out for her dairy-obsessed familiar. They’ll appreciate it whenever they come home from what must be a very engaging hunt.
Rowan’s whole body aches. She had gone almost to her limits today, reaching deeper into the well of her magic than ever has since beginning this journey. She wants to just take a bath and go to bed, letting sleep replenish her stores of magic and soothing the soreness of her muscles.
But she also needs to ask Gale if he’ll finally take her to the Yawning Portal. Not necessarily to shimmer down into the Undermountain, but she just wants to experience what is arguably Waterdeep’s most famous pub. Gale has shown her much of the city, yes, but there’s still so many places left unexplored, cold weather be damned!
And she wants to try mead. The copious amounts of Amnian dessert wine that she has consumed over the last few months have become blasé. She’s in a fantasy world, goddammit. She wants some fucking mead. Drinking mead in a tavern while snow falls in droves upon the streets of Waterdeep is as idyllic as anything can get.
Rowan makes her way to Gale’s door and without thinking, turns the knob and opens it as if it’s actually her room instead.
He doesn’t notice her arrival, not at first. He is standing in the open doorway to the balcony, his hands held before his face as he gazes softly and sadly at something shimmering above his palms. It is the image of a woman—just the head, really, of an ethereal woman with long silken hair that cascades past his fingers. The bust is translucent and a pale lavender-blue, but her eyes shine like twin moons and she wears a diadem around her forehead with a familiar starburst symbol in the middle of it.
It is Mystra. She recognizes the goddess of all magic from her various readings, though the image Gale has conjured makes all other depictions of her pale in comparison. There is a sensuous curve to her full lips, a playful wisdom in those omniscient eyes. Rowan suddenly gets an overwhelming sense that Gale knows this goddess. Knows her more than by the histories written by mortal men and the prayers the faithful whisper to her on fervent lips. Gale knows Mystra, and the way he is staring at the image of her in his hands evokes more pain than Rowan has ever seen him express.
And she is beautiful. Of course she is beautiful. Gods, is she beautiful, with her crown of stars and divinity that outshines anything Rowan could ever be.
Her scalp prickles. She raises a hand and gingerly touches her forehead, where months ago in another body she had been crowned with shards of glass as blood dripped into her eyes.
Would Gale prefer her crown of glass over Mystra’s crown of stars?
A vapid, ridiculous thought. She forgets it ever crossed her mind as she forces a smile she hopes isn’t too wan onto her face and clears her throat.
“That’s Mystra, isn’t it?”
Gale’s whole body flinches. The image of the goddess flickers out of existence and even though it is gone, the haggard misery on his face remains as he turns towards the sound of Rowan’s voice. That sorrow morphs into something else when he realizes she is there. A speck of frustration, a resigned hopelessness that transforms him into a person he does not wish to be. She feels guilty, then—guilty for interrupting whatever quiet, pensive moment he was having alone.
“Oh,” Gale exclaims, the inflection in his voice as forced as Rowan’s smile. “My, you startled me. I…I was miles away.”
She should go. She should apologize and leave immediately. But she can’t help the question that falls from her lips, the desire to know more about him even at the expense of his own privacy.
“Were you praying?” she asks quietly, eyes flickering to the earring he wears. The earring with the starburst symbol on Mystra’s crown.
“No, not praying. Not quite. I was…practicing an incantation.”
A lie. Not a very good one. There are days where Gale can spin a story with grandeur and flourish that even a devil would believe without hesitation, and others? Others, he can barely convince her he likes vegetables.
“You were looking at her very intensely, Gale,” Rowan murmurs, not wanting to push but also not wanting to let this go. It feels important. It feels necessary.
He shrugs, chest heaving with a heavy sigh as he unsubtly raises a hand and fiddles with the earring he never takes off. “What can I say? She’s Mystra.” His mouth curves into a weary, wistful smile as his eyes take on a misty and faraway look. “I can’t quite describe it. The need I sometimes feel to see her—to draw the filaments of fantasy into existence. No sculpture or painting could ever do her justice, only the fabric that she herself is and embodies.”
He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is such a mixture of forlorn longing and hope that Rowan feels as if her own heart is being squeezed.
“The Weave. Mystra is all magic. And as far as I’m concerned, all creation , Rowan.”
Gale has never spoken of Mystra like this. Not really, besides from his utter reverence when he first told Rowan of her upon their initial meeting. Oh, he would break off into tangents at times, citing the goddess and her mighty power over the Weave and her governance of magic, but never like this. Not like…
Not like the way a lover speaks of their beloved, with such strength and conviction. Enough so that to someone on the outside looking in, it could very well be construed as misguided and misplaced affection. Obsession. Delusion, even.
But she knows it’s not the case. What Gale feels towards Mystra is something that is entirely foreign to Rowan. An emotion she has never experienced, and one she fears she never will.
“Wow,” she mumbles, tearing her eyes away from her mentor and instead focusing on the pale skin of her hands. Hands brought to life once more by a goddess she has yet to properly thank despite a half-assed shrine and daily affirmations. “You make me feel a little inadequate with my worship of the Raven Queen.”
The feather at her throat grows somewhat warm. An indication, a little prick of the Matron’s presence brushing against her. The Raven Queen does not share her sentiments, it seems.
A relief that lifts a weight off her shoulders for the moment, at least.
“I’m sorry, Rowan. I don’t mean to make you feel that way, truly. It is just…” Gale leans against the threshold of the door to the balcony, turning his head away and gazing out to the horizon beyond. The sun has set by now. The moon and stars twinkle in the velveteen canvas of the night, the frigid fog that had imprisoned so much of the day finally drifting away. He looks a bit like a god himself, Rowan thinks, framed by the night and illuminated by the celestial bodies of Faerûn.
“Magic is my life,” he explains softly, solemnly. “I’ve been in touch with the Weave for as long as I can remember. There’s nothing like it. It is music, it is poetry, it is physical beauty all rolled into one and given expression through the senses.”
She believes it.
She’s born witness to his dedication to the Craft in these few months of living with him, learning with him. None of the scrolls, tomes, books, or theses Rowan has read and gleaned knowledge from have even come close to the level of devotion Gale has for magic.
“What does it feel like?” Gale suddenly asks, peering at Rowan with an intense look in his eyes. “When you cast magic, I mean. When you reach into the Shadow Weave and draw forth on the power it shares with you.”
Rowan finds herself gazing at her hands again. She closes her eyes and focuses on all the times she’s used magic since this wonderful new life began. She thinks of the rush when she learns something new, the sensation of becoming bigger than herself whenever a spell goes off correctly.
She remembers the peace she felt adrift in that dark sea of eternity.
“Comforting,” she finally responds, opening her eyes and giving Gale a nod. “Like the moment just before you fall asleep. The Shadow Weave is like…a blanket for me. When I’m casting spells or reaching out for my magic, the darkness wraps me up and lets me know that I’m not alone. It’s the kind of darkness that makes you realize how important of a part you play in the grand scheme of things, you know? The shadows inside me aren’t frightening. They are soothing. They are the apex of tranquility, and help me focus on what means the most in the moment of the spell.”
She has never taken the time to think about it. Rowan got used to her connection to the Shadow Weave so quickly that it just kind of felt like she’d been one with the darkness all along.
“What about you?” she asks, steamrolling through the silent contemplation Gale was clearly being lulled into as he pondered her answer. “What does magic feel like for you?”
And Gale Dekarios, the wizard who picked her off the street and gave her a place in this world that has felt more like home than anything else in her first life, gives her a smile.
A sincere, grateful, delighted smile that warms Rowan down to bones.
“Let me show you.”
He beckons her forward, removing himself from the doorway and traipsing lightly out to the balcony proper. Rowan follows, coming up next to him and stopping when he turns to face her. He gestures with his hands, a familiar grandiose and practiced movement, his fingers twitching as he tugs on the thread of the Weave proper.
His magic manifests as it usually does, in a burst of pastel purples and blues. The color of an aurora borealis, shimmering and drifting elegantly in the chilly air. It fades just as quickly as he had summoned it, the prickling sensation of arcana brushing against her skin barely imperceptible.
“I want you to try,” Gale murmurs, voice low and tentative as he scoots ever so slightly closer to her. Their shoulders are touching. She can feel the warmth of his body against her, the rhythm of his breathing as his chest expands. “You’ve been channeling the Shadow Weave, but perhaps tonight I can assist you in channeling the true Weave. Perhaps…you can get a taste of what I feel when I lose myself in my magic.”
Rowan swallows as a lump of something hard and unnerving settles in the back of her throat.
“Okay,” she whispers, making sure she does not look at him as she imitates his gestures with ease. It’s not the first time she has mimicked his hand movements and it won’t be the last. However, instead of reaching deep within herself and plucking the threads of the shadows swirling beneath her skin, Rowan focuses her senses outward .
To the Weave that Mystra watches over.
And it feels…strange. Like a kind word and a kind touch at the same time. It’s warm and comfortable, akin to how the darkness makes Rowan feel, but on another spectrum. Another meaning to it. One she cannot quite grasp just yet, not even as sparks of magic the same shade as Gale’s fly from her fingers and linger in the air for one perfect moment.
“Excellent!” Gale praises, and the sheer trembling excitement in his voice makes Rowan glance over at him once more. His eyes are bright and shining like the stars in the sky, more beautiful than the goddess he conjured and gazed upon with such visceral sorrow.
More beautiful than the stars Mystra wears.
“Now, repeat after me,” he continues, clearing his throat. “ Ah-Thran Mystra-Ryl Kantrach-Ao. ”
His voice echoes with a dozen others, none of them belonging to him, and it is wholly a different incantation than she is used to. Rowan has been able to discern what certain syllables and inflections mean after so many weeks under his tutelage. She can tell if the spell is meant to be offensive or defensive, or from what school of magic it originally hails from. But this?
This is pure power. This incantation is meant for one thing and one thing only: to gaze into the Weave’s endless potential, and in turn to be seen by it.
By Mystra.
Suddenly, the scent of rosewater and a sense of wellbeing infiltrates the air of the balcony. A sliver of the Weave that tastes sweet on Rowan’s tongue, like the apples dipped in honey Gale knows to prepare for her after a long day of studying and spellcasting.
Gale’s smile is deepening. There is a sense of pride in the cosmos of his gaze, one that draws Rowan in deeper and deeper the slower the moments tick on by. “Very good, Rowan. Now picture the concept of harmony in your mind, as true as you can.”
So she does.
It comes to her faster than she anticipated. It is the image of herself draped across Gale’s chair before his fireplace, a book on her lap and Pip on her shoulder. Tara is curled up on the chair opposite, wings tucked tightly against her body as she sleeps peacefully. And Gale? Gale is standing behind Rowan, his hands buried in her hair as he slowly, concisely, weaves the thick and curly strands into a braid. His breath is hot as it fans the top of her head and she is…content. Immobile in her serenity. She could lean against his touch forever, taking in the scent of sandalwood and cedar as she lazily turns the pages of the book.
In reality, magic swirls around them.
Light blues, gentle purples, gossamer silvers—it threads around the two of them in a circle, shifting and rolling as if caught in a halcyon current. With an abrupt shudder, the thread focuses on Gale, winding along his limbs like silken chains of moonlight. The scent of rosewater grows stronger. Rowan sees—no, senses?—the presence of a woman. The woman who hovered over Gale’s palm in all her divine, mystically sacred glory: Mystra.
There is something like the anticipation of a kiss. The pleasure of being cloaked in peace. But it is not for Rowan. No, it is for Gale and Gale alone, but somehow whatever connection he has forged with her in this moment is filtering through the cracks of existence and she can feel it all . She is safe. She is protected. She is loved. She is nestled in the palm of Mystra’s hand, heedless of the fingers that curl around her like the bars of a prison cell.
And all Gale feels is joy. Boundless, inexplicable joy, coursing through him and crashing into Rowan’s soul.
“You did it!” he laughs, breathless and elated as he gazes at the ribbons of magic dancing around him protectively. Vigilantly. Possessively. “You’re channeling the Weave! How does it feel?”
Rowan doesn’t know how to answer, because she doesn’t know if the feeling is truly hers or Gale’s.
“...magical,” she finally settles on, voice coming out in a dry rasp. Because it does, and it is a wonder to behold, and a part of her is terrified at how badly she does not want it to end.
“Aha,” Gale sighs, awe and adoration alike painted on his face as he reaches out a hand and caresses the pastel strands of enchanting light around him. “That it does.”
He grows silent. Contemplative. The moment lingering between them feels…intimate. Sensual, almost. Rowan doesn’t know if it’s her mind playing tricks on her or her desperate heart reading too far into something that can never be.
Nonetheless, she can’t help but go back to the image of harmony she had pictured. Of Gale’s hands in her hair, no longer focusing on braiding it but reaching out to cup her cheeks. To tilt her head towards him as he leans down, his mouth brushing against hers so softly. She feels the tickle of his stubble upon her as his mouth presses harder, more insistent. The flick of his tongue between her lips. The rough pad of his thumb stroking her cheek just beneath the eye as his other hand stretches and reaches outward, and she reaches out her own to thread her fingers with his.
The Gale in her mind sighs as he kisses her, his throat rumbling as he murmurs her name against her lips with far more reverence and veneration than he had Mystra’s.
“ Rowan… ”
She wants to taste him, wants to hold him against her and lose herself in everything that he is. She wants to bury her heart in the grave that is yet unmade and beg him to watch over it. She wants to—she wants to—
She hears Gale choke, drowning in a cough that sputters and gets caught in his throat. “I-I,” he stammers, face flushed and eyes almost feverishly bright as he stares at her. “I didn’t think…”
Quick-fire gusts of embarrassment, trepidation, and elation emanate and roll off of Gale in waves. Rowan realizes with horror that the image in her mind was not restrained to the confines of her head only.
It was in his mind, too.
And as Rowan’s lips tingle with a kiss that never happened, a loving touch that never will happen, Gale stammers out, “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting…b-but it is a pleasant image to be sure! Most…pleasant, in fact. Most welcome.”
Rowan can say nothing, stunned to taut silence, as the Weave between them suddenly evaporates.
The night feels cold. Lonesome. As if all the warmth in the world has been stripped bare and replaced with the unrelenting chill of unwilling solitude. Rowan cannot repress a shiver as the distinct feeling of someone looking at her, looking into her, fills her soul with a strange and hollow fear.
Not even the comfort of the feather at her throat can chase it away.
“Oh,” Gale whispers, voice hoarse and raw as an unfathomable sadness creeps into his expression. “There it goes. How easily things slip away from us, no matter how hard they were in the obtaining.”
Rowan knows he’s not just talking about the Weave. The sorrow runs deeper, ever-pervasive, and is the cornerstone of whatever event occurred that led to his isolation. She might be naive at times, but she’s not an idiot. Mystra is at the heart of whatever is eating away at Gale.
Though it should not be a pressing concern of hers, considering he just saw directly into her own heart.
“I-I need to go,” Rowan stutters, face burning with humiliation and dismay. She is disgusted with herself. Repulsed, even. Those thoughts, those feelings, everything about what Gale witnesses through their shared connection—those were supposed to stay locked up and forgotten, never to see the light of day. Her shadows were supposed to cover them, keep them safe, and ensure they remained in a place not even Rowan could access.
But he had seen it all. He had felt it all. And now he knew.
Like so many other friendships, Rowan was going to destroy this one with her stupid fucking unrequited feelings.
“Rowan,” Gale begins, and the way he says her name brings hot, shameful tears to her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, because any louder she might accidentally scream. “I’m sorry for thinking that. Forget it. Forget it all. You weren’t supposed to…”
There are things crawling under her skin. A monster tearing at her throat, claws digging into the meat of her esophagus and fangs buried in the muscles of her larynx. She can’t speak. Can’t breathe. Can’t do anything but stand there, frozen and silent as Gale remains leaning against her somewhat, his once-dour face now awash with concern.
She loathes how that concern is for her.
“It’s okay,” he tells her, voice low and gentle as if he is speaking with a startled animal. “That moment was not meant to be so…intense. I should be the one to apologize. It was never my intention to make you uncomfortable.”
He reaches forward and before Rowan can react, Gale has her hand tightly clasped in his, squeezing it with a comforting fondness that does more to calm her nerves than the feather at her throat. She stares down at their connected hands and swears she can make out the faintest sliver of auroral hues crawling from his fingers and resting gently against her skin.
“I meant it,” Gale insists softly, quietly. “The image was most welcome. Do not be ashamed of following what’s in your heart. It is perhaps the finest thing there is to being human.”
He leans forward then and for one brief moment Rowan utterly panics that he’s suddenly going to make the image in her mind a reality. Instead of his mouth upon hers it is his forehead resting against her own for such a short span of time there has yet to be a term defined for it.
“Good night, Rowan,” he whispers, breath warm as his words fan across her skin and his eyes bore into hers with a myriad of emotions too tangled for her to begin to unravel. “I enjoyed sharing a moment of magic with you.”
The spell is broken.
Gale pulls away from her, his hand going limp as he releases his grip.
Rowan turns and leaves his room without another word, knowing that the thundering of her heart is loud enough to tell him all he needs to know.
It’s not until she’s safe and away from prying eyes in her room, the door locked behind her, that she realizes this is the second time in her short new life here that she’s run away from Gale in such a fashion. She slowly crawls onto her bed, slides beneath the covers, and hugs one of the pillows so tightly she’s briefly worried the feathers are going to burst out.
And then finally, Rowan lets the tears fall, silent sobs wracking her frame.
Gale watches Rowan’s departure with a strange mix of remorse and rapture.
His mouth almost burns with the throbbing of a kiss that did not happen anywhere except in their minds. His hands ache, remembering the coarseness of her curls as the Gale she had imagined braided her hair with discreet longing. To say her concept of harmony had shocked him was an understatement. The image was the furthest thing he had been expecting, and he had been content to let it go and push it to the side in favor of focusing on the magic weaving between them.
But then Mystra had taken it upon herself to work her own magic.
Gale should have known the moment he opened up the connection with Rowan that his goddess would be alerted. In all these weeks, all these months, Mystra has not cast her eye upon him and his apprentice once. Not since that day he found her in the alley, deposited with care by the hands of the Raven Queen and brimming with an intangible darkness.
Of course Mystra would come when Rowan touched the threads of the true Weave. And of course she would exercise her control, her dominion over that source of magic, as yet another way of showing Gale just what he has lost.
Who he has lost.
Gale had been…captivated. Lost in the sensation of feeling Mystra’s presence again after so many months broken and damned by his folly. He had forgotten he had earned the ire of his goddess. He had forgotten she wanted nothing to do with him and that the intimacy of the moment was more a mockery of the passion they had once shared amongst the stars.
But Rowan. Gods, Rowan! That had been real. Those had been her true feelings.
And he had shoved them aside like the fool he was.
Most pleasant? Most welcome? What the hells was he thinking? Why in any world would anyone want to hear that in a response to an unwitting display of secret affection?
Gale supposes it is better than the alternative. Better than acting upon the desire that had gripped him so fiercely when the image of himself had leaned down and kissed her, so soft and sweet. The true Gale, the Gale standing at her side in that moment, had been so overcome with the urge to mirror that act.
Even with Mystra’s observant eyes focused on that private moment between space and time, Gale wanted nothing more than to take Rowan into his arms and kiss her.
“Blast it all,” Gale hisses to himself, bringing a hand against his forehead. His skin is on fire. His mouth tingles. His heart throbs. There is a raw, arduous ache inside him that for once, does not come from the blight he carries.
He remembers the night Rowan came to his room, breathless and carrying a well-crafted Fireball in her hand. He remembers how she had looked in a pair of pajamas exactly like his own, the way the fabric stretched over her curves and accentuated every lovely part of her body—
He has tried to forget. For her sake, he has tried to pretend that it really was just a dream. A beautiful, wonderful dream that he has played in his mind over and over as he drifts off to sleep and his hand twitches with an untoward, perverse impulse.
He cannot entertain these feelings. She deserves better than someone like himself pining after her in the dark hours of the night.
It is no fault of her own. Gale adores Rowan, truly. The kinship they share, the friendship they have fostered as he has guided her in the ways of the arcane mean so much to him. It has been so long, so terribly long, since he last had a companion that was not Tara or Mystra. But now, knowing a part of Rowan genuinely feels a fraction of those clandestine emotions Gale has tried to smother and neglect…
“I can’t,” Gale whispers to himself, the earring he wears suddenly feeling as frigid as the icy waters of the harbor beyond his tower. “I can’t.”
Mystra. His beloved, sacred Mystra. Despite everything, despite all he has done, he still loves her. He still wants to prove he can fix his mistakes—that he can reverse the curse he has cast upon himself in his desperation to sway her to reveal mysteries no mortal should ever come close to knowing.
There is no Gale of Waterdeep without Mystra. There is no Gale of Waterdeep without his connection to the Weave.
There can be no Gale of Waterdeep who allows himself to love Rowan more than a dear friend. He will not subject her to that destitute and wretched existence.
He loathes himself in that moment more than he has in the months since Mystra disowned him. His hand clenches into a fist. His teeth grind. His eyes squeeze shut as he tries to slow the rapid breathing just teetering on the edge of hyperventilation.
He tries to forget that the sensation of the phantom kiss felt more real than the celestial touch of Mystra’s presence all around him.
Gale tugs at the collar of his clothes and brings one hand to the center of his sternum. He digs his nails into the scar displaying the truth of his ambitions until he can focus on the stinging pinpricks of pain and snarls, “ Damn you!”
“Oh, Mr. Dekarios, how long are you going to stand there wallowing in self-pity?”
Gale rounds on the familiar voice, spinning on his heels so abruptly that his vision swims for but a moment. Tara rests on the railing of the balcony, golden eyes glittering in the light of the moon and stars, gazing at him with a look of perplexed disappointment.
“T-Tara,” he stammers. “How long have you been there?”
The tressym scoffs ever so slightly. “Long enough.”
She gracefully descends from the railing and saunters over to him, weaving between his legs and pressing hard and close against him. It is typically a sign of affection, a comforting touch that fills him with a soothing warmth.
Tonight, it does the opposite.
“I warned you,” Tara growls—truly, actually growls, a hiss accompanying her words. “I told you, begged you not to take Rowan for granted. You handled all of that rather poorly, sir. That dear woman can do so much more for you than your paltry goddess ever could.”
It is not the first time Tara has denounced Mystra. His familiar was never a fan of the goddess, even when he was a child and Mystra first reached out to him. That dislike and contempt has only grown since the goddess abandoned him.
Tara always speaks true. She is his compass, always pointing due north.
Gale’s hatred for himself only grows as he turns in the other direction, his heart and mind facing the path he woefully believes to be the way back to Mystra’s graces.
“I can’t, Tara,” Gale insists, wincing at how grating and bloody
whiny
his voice sounds. “Magic is my life.
Mystra
is my life. I cannot exist without my goddess, and you know this.”
“Liar,” Tara spits, spine arching as the fur along her back bristles with the force of her rancor. “You can lie to yourself all you want, Mr. Dekarios, but do not lie to me. It is unbecoming. I have taught you better than that.”
She has. Tara has been a second mother to Gale ever since the day he summoned her out of stubborn spite. He loves Morena, more than words and actions can ever describe, but the bond he shares with the tressym is just as profound.
So it causes Gale more agony than the orb in his chest does when he snaps, “You will never understand what I’m feeling, Tara!”
His voice echoes around the balcony, bitter and angry and venomous. He immediately regrets the words, the shame pouring into him even hotter than what he felt when he dismissed Rowan as tactfully as he could manage.
“ Gale ,” Tara snarls, the use of his name coming from her mouth more anchoring than anything else in all the realms.
She has only used his name one other time before. It was when he first returned home after the orb infected him. All he could do was lay on his floor in the throes of arcane hunger, consumed by agony and gripped by a desire to end his life then and there.
Tara had not given up on him then. Not when she managed to drag the first enchanted item she could find to his thrashing body and beg him to touch it. Not when he spent weeks buried beneath his blankets, too numb to do anything but stare at the ceiling and ignore the pain crushing his chest. Not when time and time again, he would have rather allowed the orb to siphon every last vestige of his magic and hollow him out from the inside. But Tara had persisted, over again, finding artifacts from all around the tower and pressing them into his hands urgently.
Gale, please, hold on! Oh, please, take this, let it drink from this instead! Do not let it consume you!
“Gale,” Tara says again, softer, gentler, with so much love and sorrow that it nearly brings him to his knees. She had not given up on him then. She will not give up on him now.
“I’m sorry,” Gale whispers, running a hand through his hair and feeling as if all the air has been sucked from his lungs. “It is just…I felt Mystra again, after so long, only for her to dangle herself before me and vanish before I could realize what was happening.”
“And yet you ignored the one person who was with you until it ended. And then you chased
her
away.”
Tara levels him with a hard stare, fangs bared as her wings bristle as well as her fur and give her the appearance of a vicious predator.
“I understand you feel as though you owe Mystra everything, my dear pet. But please…do not allow yourself to be blind to what you can share with Miss Rowan. If you continue to dance along that fine line of ignorance and awareness, I shall take it upon myself to tip the scales in whichever direction I see fit.”
Without another word the tressym Blinks out of existence and Gale is left alone once more with his thoughts.
His vile, cowardly thoughts.
He stares down at his hands. Hands that have beheld many an object infused by Rowan’s magic. Hands that have pressed those items against the hunger in his chest and trembled with relief when the depraved darkness within gorged upon the shadows. The compassionate, loving shadows that hide beyond the orb’s reach even now—even when Mystra cast her eyes upon Gale and found him wanting in this moment.
How did Mystra not sense the threads of the Shadow Weave he has slowly been absorbing? She should have smote him then and there. Is it possible the goddess is unable to see the shadows? Does the Netherese blight inside him block her omniscience to some frightening degree?
Thinking of Mystra will do Gale no good.
Not when his mind is a chaotic mess.
Not when his hands throb .
Hands that long to thread themselves through the thick waves of a certain sorcerer’s hair. Hands that ache to grasp her waist and pull her close to him. His mouth sears with a desperate fire once more; his tongue feels heavy and thick in his mouth as he struggles to swallow down the sour taste of his self-hatred.
He should not have pressed his forehead against hers in some pathetic imitation of the tenderness she desires. It was almost as much of an insult as his verbal reaction to the thoughts racing in her mind.
Gale thinks about the sweet, pure yearning Rowan’s image had evoked and nearly doubles over in pain. The pain of being a craven bastard who cannot be honest with his feelings, nor be honest about his past. The orb inside him lurks and lingers, awoken by the roiling mess of emotions, and its hunger for another taste of Rowan’s darkness is unmistakable.
She’s got to know by now he has something to do with the disappearance of her enchantment failures. Another sin against her, another slight against all she has given him. Sustaining himself on nothing but the raw magic of her shadows over the last few weeks have done nothing to spare his heart from a very different kind of affliction. One he has tried to push away and live in blissful ignorance that it is just the confused whims of a man grateful for companionship.
Gale’s chest spasms painfully.
He lapses into a daydream, eyes fluttering shut and memories pouring into him unbidden.
He remembers yet again how exquisite she had looked standing in his doorway, clad in a copy of his nightclothes and brimming with unbridled joy. He remembers the confidence she had greeted him with when Jericho and Syl had gifted her with a new wardrobe.
Most of all, Gale remembers the Rowan from her notion of harmony and the images she had called upon to slip into the tranquil state needed to compose the Weave. His mouth is on fire once more as he revels in the phantom illusion of her lips against his, and he is loath to admit that he wants more.
Far more than he would ever ask her to give.
He groans as the heat upon his lips travels downward and buries his face in his hands. His bath will be long and incredibly, unbearably cold tonight.
“I cannot fathom how you can stand to read that drivel.”
“Easily. I shut the part of my brain off that is capable of in-depth analysis and allow myself to enjoy the frivolous shitshow that is poorly written smut.”
Rowan does not glance at Gale as she answers, eyes focused and honed in on said frivolous shitshow. It’s certainly one way to learn about dragonborn anatomy. Far more entertaining than picking up a legitimate study penned in the academic hand of someone whose interest in such things was just a passing fancy.
But still. She could write this novel ten times better, drunk and being hounded by a migraine. At least she wouldn’t shy from using actual terms instead of a naive dependency on phrases like “down there” and “throbbing hardness.”
“If I ever meet this Quill Grootslang,” Rowan declares as she flips to the next page, determined to finish this hot mess of a book, “I am going to give her a dictionary specifically for sexual terms. Baby girl, I can only handle
so many
instances of ‘their dewy petals quivered’. I’m literally dying over here!”
Gale snorts. “I did offer you the chance to peruse my poetry collection. I am certain it would be more engaging than that tripe.”
“Stuffy wizard poetry versus painfully innocent dragonborn porn? Oh, gee, Gale, how could I ever choose!”
It’s been a few weeks since the night Rowan channeled the Weave with Gale. A few weeks since he caught a glimpse of her true feelings. A few weeks since he saw in her mind the quiet fantasy that has given her solace over these months.
And he has not said a word about it.
He has not said a word about how he felt gazing upon that image and feeling the kiss the Gale in her mind gave her as if it were reality.
He has not said a word about whatever it is that he shares with Mystra, a thing so profound that it has caused him such complex melancholy.
Rowan is equal parts grateful and frustrated. Grateful, because she really did not want to discuss her complicated emotions and the rockiness she has experienced with past friendships because of them. Frustrated because, well…she knows she needs to talk about it, and she knows he needs to confess his own side of things. She knows she can’t let that night fester between them until it grows too big and too unruly to ignore and shatters into a mass of shrapnel that they can never dig out.
She almost chose today to finally breach that barrier. It’s a rare day off after weeks of drowning in magical study and arcane practice. Both of them are sitting adjacent from one another in the library with a stack of books meant to be read for enjoyment, not learning, though Gale has most assuredly snuck in a few abstract tomes into his. The book currently in Rowan’s hands was a bargain on account of how few copies ever sold. She has always been a sucker for poorly written smut. It’s the true backbone of literature in every world.
The words Gale, I need to talk to you have been stuck in her throat since the morning, when her mentor declared the day as one of rest and relaxation. It was the perfect opportunity for it. With so many weeks since that night and neither of them ever bringing it up, he wouldn’t suspect a thing. She could corner him and get the truth out without so much as a strangled gasp escaping her mouth, having had sufficient time to reconcile her thoughts and weld adamantine armor around her pathetic heart.
But she can’t.
The words won’t come out.
So here Rowan remains, locked in casual—too casual—conversation with the man she’s grown to care for deeply, ignoring the pinpricks of agony threatening to overcome her.
At least the sun is shining through the library windows and there is a looming sense of rejuvenation in the air. Winter is finally on its way out of Waterdeep and spring is fast on its retreating heels, the days growing warmer and the nights shorter. She’s been toying around with the idea of making her new birthday during this world’s spring. Even in Toril, it’s still a season for new beginnings.
“Stuffy wizard poetry is the only poetry I dabble in,” Gale points out from his desk, his posture infuriatingly perfect as he reads. Rowan is on the floor, of course, surrounded by her chosen literature and propped up with the pillows from her room. She is allergic to sitting in a chair properly. “Volo’s latest. I’ve not the foggiest idea how he manages to get everything he writes published. Some of this is just…ugh.”
Now it’s Rowan’s turn to snort. Gale is not the only one bewildered by the shit Volothamp Geddarm gets out into the wide, wide world. She did enjoy his guide on Waterdeep, if only because it gave her the incentive to pester Gale on how much of his posturing and faffing about was actually true.
(Spoilers: most of it was not.)
“You could pretend to be Volo and go around Waterdeep defaming him,” Rowan suggests, flashing a cheeky grin towards Gale. “Just grow out your beard a bit more, put on that doofy-lookin’ hat, and boom! Gale-Volo. Volo-Gale. Vale? Golo? Eh, you get the joke.”
“I don’t know whether to laugh or be insulted by the insinuation Volothamp Geddarm and I look somewhat alike.”
“Hey, he describes himself as being handsome in literally every single thing he writes. Live your truth, Gale. Become the Volo you were always meant to be.”
“I’d rather not,” Gale comments with a wry smile, the rolling of his eyes wholly unsubtle. He mindlessly runs a hand through his hair, mussing up the impeccable waves somewhat. “Besides, I’ve been toying with the idea of shaving the beard and cutting my hair. A fresh start for a new season and all.”
Rowan immediately shoots up in the nest of pillows she’s created for herself and levels him with a dirty glare. “If you do anything of the sort I will incinerate your secret stash of sappy romance novels you hide in that compartment behind your shelves.”
“...How did you—you know what, never mind, I don’t want to know. I’d Counterspell it before you could conjure up a single wisp of flame anyway. You’re improving, but you’re still no match for me. Or need I remind you of the Color Spray incidents?”
Gale levels her with a dirty glare of his own, though there is little rancor behind it. His eyes dance with mirth and a beguiling delight. It’s a wonderful change to the ever-darkening shadows she’s been catching passing across his face when he doesn’t think she’s looking. Yet another reason why she wants so badly to address that night they plummeted into the abyss of conjuring the Weave together.
But Rowan is a coward.
She takes the bait Gale dangles before her blithely, blissfully, if only to avoid that inevitable confrontation that will damn the precious friendship she shares with him.
“Oh, c’mon! You’d look great with green hair. Or blue. Or even purple. We can match.” Rowan gestures to the ombre in her hair for emphasis, grabbing the end of her braid and waving it like a white flag of surrender. “Counterspelling an innocent casting of Color Spray is a waste of a spell, Gale!”
“If Jericho could not manage it when we were in school together, you will not be able to manage it now,” Gale swears, chest puffing out with a slight exaggeration as he raises a hand up to one side of his head and tugs on a few strands of hair. “Besides, it’s getting longer than I’d like it to be. It will start to get in my eyes if I continue to let it grow.”
Rowan peers at him from her book-nook on the floor. His hair certainly has gotten longer in the months since she’s met him and come to know him. An idea pops into her head, one she cannot help but voice as she blurts, “What if I put it up for you?”
Gale blinks, frowning somewhat. “It’s not long enough to braid.”
“I never said braid, I said put it up,” she argues, forcing herself to her feet and leaving the confines of her pillow fortress. She scoots over to where he sits at his desk and stands at his side, making grabby motions with her hands as she eyes his hair with a keen shrewdness. “May I?”
He nods, his consent silent but evident.
Rowan steps behind him and pulls out a comb she stores in one of the many pockets of her robe. Jericho has made it abundantly clear that she will kick her ass if Rowan neglects her own appearance, hence the comb. And the hair ties in another pocket. And the recent attempts at copying Jericho’s immaculately applied smoky eyeshadow and dark lipstick.
She’s not quite at the tiefling’s level, but Rowan has to admit—she has been looking pretty hot lately. If high school her could see her now, she’d faint out of pure joy. Her current style is everything she’d ever wanted when she was younger.
(And no, this is most definitely not related to any endeavors to make Gale notice the efforts she has been putting into looking nice lately. Not at all. It is merely so Rowan can continue to look at her reflection with pride and satisfaction. Why would it be for any other reason?)
“Let me know if anything is too tight or uncomfortable,” she tells him as she starts to gently run the comb through his hair. “I don’t have a lot of practice with other people’s hair, just my own.”
He hums in the back of his throat in answer. Rowan goes slowly, deliberately, as she works on the small amount of knotted tangles in his hair. It’s nothing like her curly mess but he clearly isn’t used to it being so long and has struggled to take care of it in the last few weeks. She can’t imagine him with shorter hair, however. Nor can she imagine him clean shaven. This is the only Gale she’s ever known, and she’s grown quite fond of his current appearance.
She brushes the feathery, soft strands with a care she’s never shown her own hair, mindful to avoid causing him any discomfort. Rowan wants this to be a pleasant experience for him—one Gale hopefully will desire a repeat of in the near future.
She does not think about how this moment is a reversal of the moment she imagined that fateful night.
She does not think about how it was Gale’s fingers running through her hair in that blessed fantasy, not her hands guiding a comb with anxious care.
She does not think about the kiss that did not actually happen, but she dreams about it almost every night just the same.
Or, rather, she does think about it all, and she thinks about it with the same kind of intensity she has gone about her studies these last months.
She thinks that this is a step too far, that she’s treading a dangerous path, that this walks a jagged edge of intimacy that ominously akin to that moment. But Rowan does not care. She ignores the pounding of her heart and the prickling of her skin. She swallows down the bitter protests and declarations of too much, too much, too much!
No. It’s not enough.
Rowan wants to do this for Gale and she wants him to feel her gratitude towards him. She wants him to acknowledge that yes, perhaps there is something lurking beneath both of their skins that they should not ignore.
She fights against the longing to lose herself in this moment. She wrenches away the want, the need to throw the comb to the floor and bury her hands in his hair. Rowan’s mouth is painfully dry. Her eyes keep seeing white spots. She replays the reverie of that night over and over in her mind, her lips suddenly feeling swollen and her senses assaulted by the rawness of the kiss that was but a dream.
Too much, the part of her that prides itself on reason whispers.
Not enough, the other half of her cries out, indignant and dismayed.
It takes her a couple minutes to achieve the look she was going for as she wars internally with her true desires. She struggles slightly towards the end, the angles and adjusting of doing this to someone else rather than herself throwing her off. But, eventually, Rowan steps back with a pleased smile, tucking the comb back into her pocket and clapping her hands together with an air of finality.
It helps to banish the lingering thoughts clouding her mind.
“There! Perfect! I can go get a mirror if you want, or…?”
“No need,” Gale says with a wave of his hand, pushing the chair out and standing up. He snaps his fingers and in an instant, a second Gale appears before him.
A Gale who reflects the original as flawlessly as Rowan would expect from her mentor.
Gale studies his simulacrum with a scrutinous gaze. Rowan has pulled the upper half of his hair into a bun, tying it loosely with one of the many threads Jericho has given to her for such a purpose. The lower half still hangs above his shoulders and she has to admit, she did a damn good job of making it appear fluffy and enticing. The updo keeps the worst of it out of his face, save for a few stray strands she has allowed to be free. It makes for an audacious, slightly unkempt look she thinks makes him look even more fetching than before.
Something’s missing, though. Like when Jericho had braided her hair the day she had gotten a new wardrobe, Rowan realizes there is one more element necessary before she can firmly call this perfect.
“Pip,” she calls out, knowing the raven is creeping around somewhere. They’ve been oddly keen on leaving her and Gale alone frequently. Tara as well. She never told her familiar what exactly happened that night with the Weave and the emotions its presence conjured, but she knows Pip is aware something intense occurred.
A fluttering of wings. A soft, inquisitive caw. Pip sweeps in from seemingly nowhere, alighting on her shoulder and cocking their head as they blink their violet eyes at her.
“You rang, boss?”
“A feather, my good raven!” Rowan holds out her hand expectantly.
Their beak parts in the manner that she knows is their way of smirking. She resists the urge to flick them on the head.
“Since you asked so nicely, I guess I could part with one for ya.” Pip nods, choosing not to voice their discerned amusement. Then she really would flick them on the head.
Her familiar buries their face into the crook of their wing and pulls out a feather, depositing it into her open palm. Rowan reaches up and, before he can react, expertly tucks the feather into the center of the bun she has created in Gale’s hair. His simulacrum immediately reflects this new development as a feather materializes in the copy’s hair as well, and Gale’s mouth twitches slightly as he observes the magical reflection.
“I like it,” he admits with a playful vigor after a few moments of posturing, turning his head this way and that to gaze upon every angle he can. Only a wizard would waste a spell to create a copy of themselves rather than take the time to go get a mirror. Rowan would expect nothing less. “It fits me more than I would have anticipated. But…why the raven feather?”
She beams at him, holding up the feather in her braid in one hand and the feather at her throat in the other. “So we can match!” she exclaims. “You won’t let me dye your hair purple. I had to find another way.”
“Hm, is that so?”
Gale dismisses his simulacrum with another snap of his fingers and Rowan bites back an odd, twisted surge of disappointment. She’d been enjoying the existence of two Gales, though she much preferred the real one. Even if he is now smiling deviously at her, a hand resting against his stubbled cheek as his scrutinizing gaze turns to her.
“The pajamas were not enough?” he questions, nothing but sweet innocence in those heavy words.
She grows hot immediately.
Of all the times to bring that up, why now?
Why, when the dual desires of her wants and reason are clashing still deep inside her? When this war of attrition refuses to end, because she refuses to unveil the ugly truth she’s been holding since that night?
Her cheeks aflame, Rowan nearly bites down on her tongue as she stammers, “Th-that was all a dream! It never happened!”
“Was it now?” Gale raises an eyebrow, head turning slightly in the direction of the stairs that lead to their respective chambers. “So if I were to, say, rummage around in your armoire, I wouldn't find a pair of sleepwear perfectly identical to my own?”
“Then I would declare you a pervert before all of Waterdeep and Morena would rain havoc and hellfire upon you.”
“Then you’d have to explain to my mother why you own my pajamas’ long lost twin.”
Rowan and Gale stare at one another in terse silence, each quietly daring one another to make their next move or say their next piece.
Don’t ruin this precious thing you share with him,
her reason hisses.
Be sensible, for fuck’s sake!
Rowan listens somewhat and chooses a route less prone to suddenly yanking him to her by the collar and giving in to that burning desire to see what his mouth actually tastes like.
Quick as lightning, she whips out the scroll of Color Spray she keeps hidden in her robe at all times and sends a surge of her magic through the parchment to activate the dormant spell. Her hands move with strict precision, drawing on the immeasurable power of the shadows to make her will manifest without speaking the necessary incantation.
She knows her eyes go black as a starless night sky. Gale has told her they do so whenever she reaches deeper into the darkness that has been gifted to her.
And just as Rowan thinks, Jericho is going to praise me so much for this, the spell forming at her fingertips blinks out of existence.
Gale is regarding her with a dour, sullen look as his own hands glow with the telltale auroral hue of his magic. The marks along his neck pulse slightly, flashing with a brief and bright violet, growing imperceptibly closer to his left eye.
“Really?” he deadpans, the luminescence from his casting of Counterspell fading. The scarring into his skin grows dull and inert as well. “Really, Rowan? How many times are you going to try and dye my hair with Color Spray?”
“As many times as it takes for me to succeed,” Rowan vows with vehement honesty, face slack with disappointment. “Jericho has promised me one whole hour of petting my head and showering me with compliments once I do. You’d do the same if you were in my shoes!”
He suddenly goes quiet, contemplative. There’s that calculating look in his eyes she recognizes to mean he’s rapidly pondering multiple scenarios and the answers he could give to those scenarios.
“I suppose I would, quite enthusiastically,” he finally admits after a few moments, and Rowan does not miss the way his cheeks flush slightly and how he averts his gaze from her. His voice goes an octave lower. His throat bobs as he swallows hard and slow. “But only for…someone else.”
There is something unsaid in that response.
An implication Rowan does not have the courage to sink her teeth into.
“Damn, Gale, you really are a pervert,” she teases instead, once again wrapping herself in that evasive armor of deceit and putting too much faith in its protection. “Morena will be so disappointed in you.”
The strangled, erratic web woven between them shrivels to ash and dust.
“Please don’t tell my mother that I’m a pervert just because you enjoy inciting chaos at my expense,” Gale mutters, throwing her a surly glare that is the furthest thing from intimidating when combined with his soft, puppy-dog eyes. “She likes you well enough that she will believe it.”
She grins. “I know. ‘Tis a power I wield with utmost caution and responsibility.”
“You told her last week that I was suffering from a rare disease curable only by sugar.”
“And she was here two hours later with a fresh batch of her amazing gingersnaps to cure it. A win-win situation. I fail to see the angle you’re finagling here.”
Gale rolls his eyes with a defeated groan, mumbling something under his breath. A moment later something plush hits her in the back of her head. She jolts, the rapid movement startling Pip (still on her shoulder) and causing them to let out a shrill cry of confusion. Rowan turns around to see a most terrifying visage indeed:
Her pillows are floating in the air. Menacingly.
She turns back around.
Gale has his head cocked and the ghost of a smile peeking out from the shadows of his annoyance. His hands are once again covered in the colorful tints of his magic, fingers poised and twitching in a manner she has seen many a time before during his demonstrative lessons.
“Are you really gonna retaliate with a magic pillow fight?” Rowan asks him, appalled.
“It won’t be much of a fight if you manage to get away using Misty Step,” he points out with a false kindness that stirs something in her gut and a rush of heat bloom in places she doesn’t want to think about right now. The smile fully forms then, his lips curling upwards with a sly impatience. “Think of it as a learning opportunity. I get to learn how fast your reflexes are, and you get to learn how hard I can throw an enchanted pillow.”
“But today was supposed to be a chill ‘let’s not have any lessons’ day!” she protests, taking a step back and away from him. She’s not fond of the sudden competitive gleam in his eyes. Not at all.
“Yes, well.”
Gale’s smile transforms into a sickening smirk that sends a shiver up Rowan’s spine.
“That was before you called me a pervert and threatened to inform my mother of said lie.”
Rowan shrieks in wordless panic and casts Misty Step with a speed previously unknown to her. It takes only two castings of it before she’s in the safety of her bedroom, bolstering the door with a scroll of Arcane Lock given to her by Morena when she dropped off her eldest son’s old supplies and research.
Unfortunately for her, Gale Dekarios is a talented bastard with too many spells at his disposal.
The Arcane Lock does not last for long. Neither does Rowan’s willpower as he tosses the pillows at her with languid ease, not hard enough that it would hurt but incessantly enough that it bruises her ego.
The ridiculous assault ends only when Rowan falls to her knees and swears to never fool Gale’s mother with such a baseless lie ever again. Even if it’s a lie that results in Morena’s heavenly baking.
(She does not miss the way his eyes linger on the firmly shut doors of her armoire before he finally leaves her in peace.)
(She really needs to invest in a new pair of pajamas.)
It is when spring has fully arrived, a little over five months since the start of her new life in Toril, that Rowan discovers where her failed Enchantment experiments have been disappearing to.
The day is a beautiful one, with the sun in the sky and nary a cloud to be seen. The air carries a fresh, new scent of flowers blooming and grass turning green once more as all of Waterdeep celebrates the charming embrace of the new season.
She hadn’t thought the winter was too terrible. She knows the winters she grew up with were far more biting, dangerous, and prone to blizzards violent enough to shut everything down for a couple days. In comparison, this winter in Waterdeep had been positively balmy, more wet and misty than anything.
That does not stop Rowan from feeling invigorated as she returns to the tower, skin warm from the sun’s rays. Her belly is full and her cheeks hurt from laughter. She has been with Syl, Jericho, and Morena for the better half of the day. Gale’s mother had declared a few days ago that all of them had to have tea in the City of the Dead now that the weather is fit for outdoor get-togethers.
As much as Rowan enjoys being cooped up with her books, she has to admit it is nice to spend time outside. Especially with such good company. She’s not had time alone with all three women she’s come to adore and respect over the months.
It’s almost like—
It’s almost like she has a family .
There are still things Rowan cannot recall with perfect clarity about her old life. Her parents’ names and faces are one. She’s wondered, but never had the audacity to send up a silent prayer and ask the Raven Queen why those are memories she’s taken. Part of her doesn’t care; part of her is simply grateful that other, more sinister memories have been sundered and ripped apart, and the only thing remaining of them are broken bones and rotting teeth.
She knows she loved her parents. She knows they loved her.
But Rowan also knows that there were things about her they did not understand and did not try to understand. That was an agony worse than the glass that shattered her skull and the pain of dying alone and afraid.
So, being able to sit with the three women who have taken it upon themselves to care for Rowan with unconditional affection, despite her murky origins and exasperating quirks? She loves it. She loves them . They are a beacon of safety, a light in the darkness of the uncertainty her future in this new world holds.
Syl, with her unending generosity and predilection for sending Rowan off with gifts every time they part. She’s never met someone as giving and unselfish as the older half-elf. Syl deserves sainthood; Rowan has seen her lower a price or perform a miracle for a customer at the expense of her own profits more times than she can count now.
Jericho, with her cavalier tenacity and insistence that Rowan always be proud of who she is no matter what. Jericho is her role model in this world, truly. Rowan finds herself emulating not just the fashion sense of the feisty tiefling, but her vehement attitude as well when all else fails.
And Morena. Dear, amazing, wonderful Morena Dekarios. The older wizard has welcomed her with open arms and a warm smile since day one, never questioning her oddness and instead wholeheartedly supporting her eccentricity. Morena, who has pulled her aside and thanked her profusely on more than one occasion, citing a need to feel indebted to Rowan for becoming her son’s apprentice. Morena, who at times catches Rowan’s eyes and gives her a wink during their weekly tea-and-dinner with Gale, and the joke of that first day they met regarding marriage is always in the back of her mind.
It is Morena who called an end to the delightful morning of tea and laughter, giving Rowan that infuriating knowing wink and impertinent smile.
“We’d best be off and back to our respective callings,” she had declared, voice unwaveringly innocuous despite the implication of her next words. “Dear Rowan must return to my son, lest he level the whole of Waterdeep in her absence.”
Rowan is no less Gale’s keeper than he is Tara’s. For his mother to think so highly of her, however…well. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t appreciate it.
Yes, she enjoys her days with Gale. She cherishes his wealth of knowledge and willingness to share it, even when he does so with an air of impatience and hasty fervor that makes her head spin.
But…
Being able to bask in the existence of Syl, Jericho, and Morena for hours uninterrupted is a positively glorious thing that has given her a much-needed reset.
“Hopefully he’s not pouting too much,” Rowan murmurs to herself as she creeps into the tower, fiddling with the feather at her throat nervously.
Gale had been a little miffed his mother didn’t invite him. Rowan doesn’t know why—Jericho would have terrorized him the whole time and made unabashed advances towards Morena just to set him off. Frankly, he should be grateful. He would have been absolutely miserable, stuck in the middle of the cemetery-turned-park and suffering Jericho’s merciless torment.
(The tiefling had the nerves to suggest his sulking was at the behest of being away from Rowan for half a day. She threw a scone at her insinuation and pretended like she didn’t see the way Morena’s eyes lit up with exhilarated delight.)
“Ey, m’sure he’s fine,” Pip assures her, scoffing in their gravelly tone. “Tara’s with ‘im. She’s gotta know how to entertain the wizardboy.”
One of Syl’s latest creations, a tiny beret the color of their eyes, rests atop their feathery head. Syl gifted them with a small trunk full of raven-sized costumes today in addition to the new hat. Rowan doesn’t think she’s ever seen them so happy, fluttering about the half-elf with whooping caws of joy. They haven’t demanded to be dressed in any of the tiny clothes yet, but still.
She knows they are going to be insufferable about it sooner or later.
Rowan was almost certain Gale would be at his desk upon her return. He’d mentioned in the morning before she left that he’d had some special research to work on, a project he’s been wholly unwilling to share the details with every time she tries to pry for more information. Yet his desk is as empty as the bargain section at the bookseller nearest to the tower, because having not one but two cloistered bookworms in the area is a dangerous thing for cheap tomes.
“Huh. Weird.”
She glances at the stairs to the second level of the tower. Maybe he took his research into his chambers and is on the balcony, enjoying the fresh air and the uplifting rays of the sun? She hopes so. She might be the paler of them, but Gale enjoys his time indoors even more than she does.
Rowan knows not all wizards are unsociable hermits, but he really likes to embody that stereotype to a worrying degree at times.
“Maybe I’ll convince him to go on a walk with me later,” she muses to herself as she makes her way up the stairs. “Now that it’s warmer, I need to start doing that on a daily basis. Gotta get my stamina up. No more lazing around after dinner. Hold me to that, Pip. You have permission to peck me until I bruise if I don’t follow through.”
“Heh. Youse really gonna let me do that? Fuck yeah, boss! Whatever ya want.”
“You agreed to that far too readily, you little shit.”
“Oy, you asked! I’m just followin’ orders!”
“Cheeky asshole,” Rowan mutters fondly, reaching the top of the stairs. Her eyes are trained on the door to Gale’s room, which is shut, but as she passes by the closed door to her own room she hears something.
A strangled grunt of pain coming from inside. It sounds disturbingly like Gale when he stubs his toe and tries to act like he’s fine, only much, much worse.
She’s throwing the door to her room open before she can react or think about the consequences of the decision, rushing in and shouting, “Gale? Are you all right?!”
When she sees what he is doing in her room, time stands still.
Her lungs forget how to breathe.
Her heart forgets how to beat.
She stares, uncomprehending and unwilling to fathom what she’s looking at.
Gale is hunched over her bed, clutching at his chest as the marks on his neck glow with an intensity that is utterly ominous. His face is pinched and wrought with pain, eyes squeezed shut as he pants and gasps as if someone has plunged a dagger into his heart.
On the unmade sheets of her bed are the scattered contents of her failed enchanted items. The rings and other baubles she has tried so desperately to infuse with spells and magical intent over the months, dumped unceremoniously from the pouch she keeps them in and arranged haphazardly on her mattress.
Gale has not noticed her arrival.
He is too busy groaning in agony and pushing his hand deeper against his chest, flexing his fist as if the movement dispels whatever spasms of pain he is feeling, and as he does so Rowan sees it.
A ring, clutched in his hand like a lifeline, the cold metal biting into the skin of his palm.
Rowan watches with an alarming sense of horror as Gale pushes the ring to his chest with an air of desperation and the item…
Vanishes.
It flakes away into a myriad of dark purple particles, scintillating and strangely beautiful, until the cloud of swirling magic seeps into Gale’s chest. He shudders, a palpable sense of relief in the sigh he releases as the stiffness in his body melts. He still has not yet noticed her, and she and Pip are stunned into silence as they gaze at the wizard who now leans against the side of her bed for support, his eyes still shut as sweat drips down his forehead. The inky veins of violet have not ceased their eerie glow; the strange light she has caught glimpses of beneath his robes is shining with a strength she has not yet seen in her months of knowing him.
Gale’s hands are trembling. At the very tips of his fingers, she can make out faint wisps of something disturbingly familiar.
Rowan’s breath catches.
The darkness inside her calls to something inside Gale as the shadows recognize their kin dancing along his skin.
“What the fuck?” Rowan’s voice comes out harsher than she means it to and he jerks his head in her direction, eyes snapping open and widening in dread. “Gale, what the fuck is going on?”
He does not answer. He just stares at her, his face an unmoving mask of terror and panic as his mouth moves with silent words he cannot voice.
Rowan stares back, tongue thick in her mouth and throat impossibly dry.
She doesn’t know what she’s feeling. Angry, confusion, fear? It’s too much. Whatever just happened is so wrong, so alien to her that she can’t categorize her emotions. But she can sense the Shadow Weave inside him. Its presence is protective, lurking in a darkness she always suspected was beneath his eyes but never pushed to prove. This is like the night she summoned the Weave with Gale instructing her and also, it is wholly disparate and utterly new.
Rowan isn't afraid of the shadows swirling in Gale. They are a balm, a soothing and familiar comfort she has come to know.
She is afraid of the other darkness inside him. A gaping, unending beast of hunger that sleeps with one eye open. She can feel it.
“Tara,” Rowan calls—practically shouts, really—for the tressym, not even bothering to hide the anxiety in her tone. “Please come to my room! I need you!”
Gale needs you, she adds silently, her eyes never leaving his. Neither of them have moved. Rowan remains just a couple feet inside the room, and he remains slumped against the bed as if all the energy has been siphoned from his bones.
Tara appears out of thin air, using what Rowan now knows as the Blink spell to reach the bedroom from wherever she was. She faces Rowan, her back turned to Gale as she says, “Heavens, it’s rare for you to ask for me! Whatever is the problem, Miss Rowan?”
Rowan just silently points to Gale, focusing on keeping her breathing steady despite the way her finger twitches.
Tara’s eyes swirl with confusion for a moment. Dutifully, she turns around, and the moment she sees Gale the feathers of her wings fluff up and the fur along her spine bristles. “Oh,” she murmurs, her eloquent voice brimming with shame and worry and remorse. “Oh, dear. It…has come to that at last.”
“Rowan,” Gale whispers weakly, speaking at last. His eyes beg for her understanding. His throat bobs with the effort of swallowing, his face going almost as pale as hers as he looks like he’s about to be severely ill. “Rowan, please, I can explain—”
“Please do,” Rowan cuts him off, grabbing hold of the feather around her throat and running the silky texture between her fingers.
Calm down,
she tells herself, trying to ignore the way she wants to seethe and scream.
Let him explain. Don’t freak out. Not yet.
He glances around the walls of her bedroom, no longer a blank canvas. She has left her mark on every inch of this place, decorating it with books and trinkets and maps of Faerûn. Vases of irises are tucked between almost everything, providing a pop of vibrant color and a pleasant aroma.
“Sh-shall we go downstairs?” he offers falteringly. “Perhaps your chambers are not the best place for—”
“This is fine, Gale. Seeing as you chose to barge in here, rummage through my things, and…and…
eat
one of the failed enchanted rings I’ve been studying?!”
It’s the only phrasing that makes sense. To Rowan, it quite literally looked as if Gale had consumed the item in its entirety.
He slumps even more, looking like a ragdoll thrown to the side and trampled on by a herd of stampeding rothé. “No, you are correct,” he admits. “There is no time like the present, I suppose.”
He fully sinks to the floor then, back resting against the bed as he holds his lowered head in his hands. His voice grows quiet, halting, every syllable wrought with mortification.
“I…have an affliction. A curse, truly. It requires me to consume the raw essence of magic. It consumed much of my
own
magic before I began feeding it with artifacts and enchanted items. I am but a walking shadow of the promise I once held, Rowan. A husk of the wizard prodigy Waterdeep knew me as.”
Tara trots over to him, rubbing against his legs as she starts to purr loudly. It is a hopeless, despondent sound, her ears slightly flat against her head as she keeps herself as close as possible to Gale. Rowan’s heart clenches the way it tends to do whenever the tressym provides her wizard with that sacred comfort only a feline can.
She misses Freya. She misses Freya so much.
“Okay.” She takes a deep breath, fingers still rubbing the feather she wears as she takes a few steps forward, until she’s reached where he is sitting on the floor. Rowan lowers herself next to him, sitting on the opposite side of Tara. “Okay, Gale. I’m going to need a little more than that before I start having a nervous breakdown.”
He raises his head from his hands, glances up at her briefly, and then promptly turns his gaze away. As if it hurts to look at her.
“You have to know who I was. Who I really am. And I fear you won’t enjoy my company very much,” he whispers, his tone as broken and raw as it would be if he’d swallowed glass.
There is a vulnerability to Gale in this moment that she’s never witnessed before. Not even that night when she felt Mystra coil around him with a possessive hiss and the warmth of the Weave between them revealed the images in her mind.
Rowan wants to reach out and hold him.
She wants to hug him tightly, ground him back to this plane of existence, and assure him that everything is alright.
But she doesn't know if that's true. She doesn’t know how things will change after he says what he is so afraid to say.
Will
everything be alright? Or will the precious friendship they have built over the last few months shatter and fall apart like a broken mirror?
No,
Rowan thinks, looking at Gale with a softening of her eyes.
Nothing he says or does will change the fact that I care about him.
“I’ll still enjoy your company,” she murmurs, putting a hand on his shoulder with as light a touch as she can manage. Just enough that he knows she’s here and that she’s not leaving. Pip bobs their head in agreement as they sidle across her arm and settle down on his shoulder as well, cooing quietly.
Gale doesn’t reply for a minute or so. He’s trembling, still wan and sickly as the blood continues to drain from his face.
“I,” he finally says, voice still raspy with defeat, “am one of Mystra’s Chosen. She came to me when I was a boy, impressed by my magical prowess. I was the finest composer of the Weave in decades, a poet whose every breath was a ballad sung of arcane power. Mystra became my mentor, my muse, and in time even my…lover.”
Rowan grows cold.
“Your…”
Lover.
She can’t bring herself to say the word out loud. The taste of it is foul and rotten on her tongue.
“Oh, yes,” Gale nods, an ounce of what can only be arrogance slipping between the cracks of his consternation. “We enjoyed each other’s company in every way you can imagine. But I wanted more. I craved more.”
He leans his head back against the bed, the mattress squeaking as he does so. Rowan wants to smack him and tell him he’s going to mess up his updo, which she has meticulously prepared for him every morning since styling it a month or so ago. As inane and ridiculous as it is considering the weight of what he is telling her.
“No matter how powerful a wizard we mortals can become,” Gale continues, gazing hollowly at the ceiling, “we never scratch more than the surface of the Weave. Mystra keeps us in check. There are boundaries she does not allow us to cross. Every time I was with her, I stood upon that precipice, gazing into the wonders beyond.”
The paleness of his face gives way to a slight flush. His cheeks grow ruddy beneath his beard.
“I tried to convince her. I pleaded with her, I pouted, I swore that my every ambition was to serve her. But Mystra would just smile at me, and tell me to be content. I was the furthest thing from content. How inconceivable, to share a bed with the goddess of magic herself, and still be unsatisfied? So I thought to prove myself worthy of that knowledge. Worthy of her. And thus performed the greatest folly known to mortalkind since the fall of Netheril.”
Unbidden, his hand reaches up and presses against the now-dull scarification resting beneath his left eye.
The chill in Rowan’s gut grows colder. Netheril. She knows that term. She’s read extensively about the magical empire and the would-be god that caused its plunge through the skies.
“You didn’t,” she whispers, shaking her head in disbelief. “Gale, if you tried to repeat what Karsus did—”
“I swear to you becoming a god to rival Mystra’s power has never been written in my woefully long list of ambitions,” Gale insists with a sordid desperation. “No, I wished to…restore a piece of the fractured Weave caused by Karsus’s recklessness. I’d learned of an ancient Netherese tome that contained that mote of magic, locked away for centuries after Mystra restored the threads sundered by him. ‘What if I could return this lost piece to my goddess?’ I wondered. What if indeed.”
A scoff bubbles up in Rowan’s throat, derisive and cruel. Before she can stop herself, she mumbles, “I’m guessing you ruled out chocolate and flowers.”
She winces at how bitter she sounds.
But Gale, to his credit, doesn’t appear put off by her disdain. A mocking laugh of his own escapes his mouth, eyes flashing with a darkness that brings a wave of shame crashing down on her.
“Come now, Rowan, you’ve known me for some time now. My gestures can never be grand enough.”
She does. She certainly does.
Her entire life the last few months by his side is proof enough.
“I was certain that this deed of raw power draped in romance would convince Mystra to take my hand and welcome me into her hitherto forbidden domains,” Gale resumes, sounding wistful and exhausted both. “I was mistaken. When I obtained that fabled book and sought to unseal its pages…well.”
He turns to look at her again, pulling his hand away from the marks on his face and holding it before her.
“Take my hand. It is easier to show you.”
Rowan does not want to hurt him further by hesitating.
Even though her mind aches with everything he is telling her, even though she feels a strange treachery at wandering into her room and finding him invading her space because of some weird fucked-up magic, Rowan places her hand in his with a quickness that betrays more than she wishes to reveal.
Gale’s hand is warm and inviting as he grasps her own and pulls it forward. He places her open palm against his chest, in the middle of his sternum, and something beneath his clothes pulses with a blinding light.
Darkness.
Rowan has never felt such darkness. Not even when she was dying, dead, alone and adrift in the Shadowfell. Dread, heavy and suffocating, suffuses her veins. It is not the Shadow Weave. It is not Mystra’s Weave.
It’s something else entirely and gods, is it hungry .
Teeth. Claws. Tearing, digging, ripping, shredding, biting—
She does not wrench her hand away.
She focuses on it, on that monster contained inside of Gale, and pushes deeper. Beyond the hunger, beyond the accursed beast that lingers in the web of Gale’s soul. Towards the darkness that she knows like a friend, the darkness that has answered her call so many times since her new life. The shadows that she watched Gale consume from the ring minutes ago.
We are here, they whisper to her, butting their consciousness against her as she reaches for them. We will help. But we are not enough. Not yet. He must gather more of us. Help him. Help him help him help him help him…
Rowan severs her connection with the pocket of the Shadow Weave inside of Gale with a wordless gasp. Its words echo in her mind, over and over again, like a prayer.
She does not remove her hand from his chest. Beneath her trembling fingers she can feel the steady beat of his heart. Its rhythm is uninterrupted, as if the mortal organ is unaware of the endless and corrupt power slumbering inside it.
“How are you still alive?” she whispers, harrowed and humbled by the nature of the
thing
she just felt inside him. “My magic, it’s…shielding you?”
“It’s trying,” Gale agrees, squeezing her hand as if to comfort her. As if he’s not the one who deserves comfort right now, unveiling a disturbing truth that could have very well sent her running from this tower without looking back. “The moment I absorbed the fragment wasn’t enough to kill me. The Netherese blight, this…orb, it devoured an immense amount of my power at first. Tara had the foresight to give me an artifact of great magic before it consumed the rest of me, and it absorbed that instead. Thus I have been living this way for nearly a year now, feeding the orb with enchanted items to keep it sated. Very recently, I have found a rather potent source of magic.”
He pauses, having the sense to draw his expression into a chagrined and shameful frown.
Though the bed is behind both of them, Rowan immediately knows what he’s referring to. “There’s no way those have worked,” she protests. “All of those are failures! I was never able to properly enchant them!”
“Not with a proper spell, no. But you still imbued them with your magic.” Gale squeezes her hand once more, and the way he looks at her makes her want to cry. She wants to be angry! She wants to be upset with him! She wants to scream, kick, throw things and demand why he’s kept this a secret for so fucking long.
She can’t. She just can’t. She cares too much to let those ugly, caustic feelings have their way with her sense of reason.
“Mystra has forbidden those who follow her to touch the Shadow Weave. It is supposedly the antithesis of the Weave, as I’ve told you, sewn by Shar’s dark hand. But the darkness inside you, Rowan?” He leans closer, so close she can make out the veins of the Netherese magic under his skin and see the way they undulate and pulse as if alive. “I never meant to absorb it, but gods above, am I glad I did. It is kind. It is caring. It…reminds me of you, I suppose. Maybe that is why it’s been so willing to keep me safe.”
He smiles, a thin and fragile one, but a smile nonetheless. She hates the sickening sweetness bubbling up inside her at the sight.
(A lie. She loves it.)
Rowan can’t allow herself to get distracted. She can’t allow herself to dwell on the feelings she’s tried so fucking hard to ignore and kill when they subsequently cannot be ignored.
“What happens if the orb is no longer satisfied by the magic you feed it?” she asks quietly, even though deep down she knows the answer.
She’s read enough about Netherese magic to have more than a vague idea.
Gale knows she is aware of his potential fate, but he answers her nonetheless. “I will erupt. The fragment I carry is enough to wipe Waterdeep off the map.”
Rowan can contain her emotions no longer.
She pulls him to her, heedless of Pip on his shoulder and Tara who has crawled into his lap at some point during all of this, and wraps her arms around him so tightly she swears she hears his joints pop. “You should have told me,” she mumbles, biting on the inside of her cheek as she fights away the tears that so badly want to break free. “Dammit, Gale, I could have helped somehow! I could have…”
Rowan doesn’t know what she could have done. She’s a sorcerer with under half a years’ worth of academic study and no field training whatsoever. She’s a woman from a world with no magic. No matter how much she reads, no matter how much information she absorbs, how in the hells can she expect to fix a problem like this?
“You should have fucking told me,” she finishes lamely, hugging him to her even closer. “I’m your friend, Gale. Not just your apprentice. You shouldn’t have to face this kind of thing alone.”
“...I know,” he whispers, distraught. He makes no moves to return the embrace—not that she thinks he could with how tightly she’s sandwiched him in her arms—and just rests against her, limp and dazed. “I’m sorry, Rowan. I’m so sorry.”
“A lot of things make sense now,” she admits quietly, thinking back to everything she’s learned (and not-learned) about him. “You being one of Mystra’s Chosen explains why Elminster was also a mentor to you.”
“How did you…” Gale looks up at her, his confusion evident for a moment before clarity dawns. “Ah. Jericho. I should have figured she would have told you about that.”
“Does she know? Are Jericho and Syl aware about…everything?”
He shakes his head. “No. There are very few that do know. My being a Chosen of Mystra is not something I have advertised; my family and Elminster are the only ones blessed with that knowledge. As for the orb…” Gale sighs, still sinking into Rowan, and she briefly wonders how badly he’s needed this. For someone to just provide physical comfort in the sense of a kind embrace.
She tries not to think about how the man in her arms, the man she has a very big fat crush on, so boldly professed to having an intimate relationship with a goddess.
She fails. Miserably.
“My mother knows it all,” Gale admits morosely. “My father and brother…they just know I did something to fall out of Mystra’s favor. My father called me a disappointment. My brother laughed and called me a fool.” His head drops as he rests against her, and yet another thing Rowan tries not to think about is how he’s basically using her chest as pillows right now. “My mother wanted to help. Mystra forbade her, saying it was my punishment for defying her. I wrote to Elminster for weeks, begging him for advice, but he would only reply that this was my burden to bear. He’s always been far more devout than I to our goddess. I wasn’t terribly surprised by his refusal.”
Anger takes root in Rowan’s breast and burns.
It spreads, flowering into something chaotic and vicious as she focuses on the earring Gale wears. The earring that bears the symbol of Mystra.
She doesn’t know what it means to be a god’s lover. She doesn't even know what it means to be a mortal’s lover. She doesn’t know the severity of defying a god, not when the one who watches over her silently gave her this chance at a new life. But she does know that no matter what, no matter how stupid and vain someone may be, they deserve a second chance. They deserve to realize their mistakes and learn from them and in the process, become a better person than they were before.
There is no doubt in Rowan’s mind that there should be some consequences to his actions. Seeking to go above the advice of his goddess and stubbornly trying to prove he knows better? That he can
do
better?
Yeah. Gale deserves a swift kick in the arse and a slap in the face for that.
But not this. Not this doomed existence of being a ticking time bomb, never knowing if he’s going to wake up and damn the entire city to eviscerated rubble.
This is just Mystra being petty. Vindictive. Catty, even. Rowan knows why the goddess looked to them the night they conjured the Weave together. She understands the belittling, controlling sense she felt when Mystra wrapped the chains of the Weave around Gale as if to say, “He’s mine , not yours.”
I doubt you’re listening, Rowan thinks as her blood boils and the shadows in her veins flicker with eagerness. But Gale doesn’t need you. He has me now. I’ll help him get rid of this orb. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me, you spiteful bitch.
The only answer she receives is the feather she wears growing warm. A warning from the Raven Queen, a beseeching to be cautious when slighting the Lady of Mysteries. Not even the Matron would be able to protect her from Mystra’s wrath.
Rowan swallows the majority of her ire and bites her tongue to prevent further blasphemy.
She doesn’t think Gale would appreciate slander of his goddess, even if she did turn her back on him. He still loves her, she realizes. That’s why he says her name with such clarity and reverence. Such pained longing.
How could she ever compete with a goddess?
The image Gale had conjured that night of Mystra had been breathtakingly beautiful. Rowan is nothing like that. She is plain and plump. She has little offer compared to the goddess of magic.
No, that’s not quite right.
She has her friendship to offer. And maybe that’s what Gale needs most right now. Not some unbalanced, supposedly romantic relationship with a goddess who would rather leave him to a grim fate than forgive his transgressions. There’s a bad taste in her mouth about one thing in particular—he had mentioned the goddess was first drawn to him when he was a boy. A child. It just feels wrong. Wretched. Did she manipulate him? Did she take advantage of his devotion before he was old enough to recognize what she was doing?
Oh, the things Rowan could accuse Mystra of right now! Should accuse her of!
The raven feather grows warmer. Another warning. Another nod that she may be closer to the truth than she wants to be.
If Gale was guilty of disobeying Mystra’s wishes, then Mystra was guilty of twisting his psyche and affections to the point where he thought it was the only way to prove his love for her.
I’m gonna have to fistfight a goddess, aren’t I?
“We’ll fix this,” she promises instead of inciting a potential reckoning from Mystra with what she actually wants to say. “You won’t succumb to that corrupted magic inside you, Gale. Not while I’m around.”
He opens his mouth to respond but suddenly falters, eyes growing slightly misty as he struggles to answer. After a few charged moments of awkward, tense silence, he finally utters out, “I don’t deserve you, Rowan. You’re a far better person than I.”
No you’re not, a garbled voice hisses in the back of her mind. The voice that always accompanied her reflection in that other world.
She has better things to worry about than that pitiful thing.
“Yeah, well, we’ll just pretend like you haven’t been stealing my experiments for the occasional midnight snack.” She pats his head, mindful not to muss up his hair and ruin all her hard work from this morning. “And you
do
deserve me. Shit,
I
deserve me. Everyone deserves someone who will care for them. Everyone deserves someone who has the nerve to tell them when they’ve fucked up.”
Everyone deserves a friend.
Rowan schools her face into a grimace of sorts, staring deep into Gale’s eyes as she draws upon every ounce of exasperated irritation she can muster.
“You done fucked up, Gale. But because I am your friend, I am going to help you to un-fuck up. Okay?”
He flushes. His eyes have lost that misty barrier and they now dart back and forth with something she doesn’t quite recognize. He clears his throat, glancing down at the length of her arms pulled taut around him. “O-okay,” he nods, sullen and solemn combined with a flustered stammer that is music to Rowan’s ears. “Thank you. You, ah…you don’t have to keep holding me. If you don’t want to, I mean,” he adds quickly.
She raises an eyebrow. “And what do you want?”
“...for you to continue holding me,” Gale admits, so quiet she has to strain her ears to hear it.
“Then that’s what I’ll do. Until you tell me to stop or my arms go numb. Whichever comes first.”
Rowan would continue to hug him even after her arms go numb if he let her. Belatedly, embarrassingly, she is slowly starting to realize how much she needed this, too.
This moment goes beyond the feelings she’s been harboring for him since they met. Rowan feels…useful. Like her presence actually means something. Like she can provide something Gale well and truly needs, just as his friendship and kindness has done for her over these last few months.
He’s helped her to forget the terror of her last moments in her old world. He’s helped her grow and become someone she never knew she was capable of turning into.
So she’ll do the same for him. Somehow. In whatever way she can.
But…
He’s been honest with her about something so viscerally important to him. She needs to show him that same candor, even though the truth she’s been hiding is nowhere near as damning as a concentration of corrupted magic that can explode at any time.
“Gale,” Rowan starts, voice low and somewhat certain as he continues to lay in her arms. He shows no signs of moving at any time. She does not blame him. She imagines she’s very soft and comfortable. Lucky bastard. “Even though I’ll do whatever I can to help, I…need you to understand something about me.”
He glances up at her with a hum of interest, blinking slowly as he waits for her to continue.
“You’ve probably noticed,” she says with a slight shrug, her skin suddenly prickling uncomfortably. This is not something she’s discussed since that day she brought it up to her parents, and they shot her down with indignant eyerolls and biting retorts that she was just thinking too much. “But I can be somewhat…odd. I don’t always know how to react in social situations and there are times where I say things that really shouldn’t be said.”
How should she word this? She highly doubts Faerûn, or even Toril at large, has coined the term she wants to use.
“My brain is different,” she finally settles on. “The easiest way to explain it is that I have a neurological condition. Sometimes it makes it so that I can’t communicate with others very well. Sometimes I focus too much on one particular thing. And sometimes, I’m either overly emotional about a situation or you’d be hard pressed to find that I care at all. There’s not really a happy medium to it.”
Rowan hates that she feels shame as the confession escapes her lips.
She shouldn’t. There is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s just the way her mind works.
But that does not stop the way she avoids Gale’s inquisitive gaze as she adds, “So I’m apologizing in advance if I ever do something to annoy or upset you. I don’t mean to. Some days I struggle with myself. Just let me know if I’m being a bother.”
She flinches inwardly despite herself. The phantoms of a memory linger in her mind. Faded and barely there, just blurry faces and dissonant voices, but she remembers. Vaguely. People glaring at her in frustration, snapping at her when she butts into a conversation, nudging her roughly to bring her focus back to reality…
She’s always been like this. Even here. He may have not shown irritation regarding it yet, but she would be remiss not to provide some sort of explanation for her strange ways.
“Rowan,” Gale says, his gentle voice shaking her from her thoughts. He reaches a hand out at last and rests his palm against her cheek. His gaze is soft but still burdened by the weight of the things he just shared with her. “You could
never
be a bother to me.”
He lets out a little laugh, a quiet chuckle full of affection that makes something lawless and dissonant swell in her chest.
“Yes, there are days you vex me to no end! But it doesn’t upset me. I am thrilled by your uniqueness. I enjoy our conversations, even when they turn down a path I would have never expected. A path you opened up, with your fearless wonder and passion for life.”
Gale’s hand is warm. So fucking warm. She wants to sink into his touch. She wants to let go and beg him to hold her as well.
Too much.
Not enough.
She is hopeless.
Completely, utterly, hopeless in love with him.
She is so fucked.
“You are you, Rowan,” Gale murmurs, and in mirror to the night they stood with the Weave dancing around them, pulls himself forward so that his forehead rests against hers. “Never be ashamed of that. I am fond of you, quirks and all.”
Oh.
Oh, gods.
She’s going to cry. She’s going to lose it and start sobbing if she can’t pull herself together. He can’t just say things like that. She’s supposed to be comforting him, not the other way around! Rowan just wanted him to know why she acts the way she does sometimes! Not…
Not…
“Hey, uh,” Pip’s gravelly voice suddenly cuts through the thick miasma of whatever storm that was beginning to form inside her. “I know this is s’posed to be a sweet moment and all, but…youse got any Elturan cheeses, wizardboy? I’m starvin’ over here. Your mama only fed us fancy lil’ cakes.”
Rowan has never wanted to kill her familiar more than she does at this moment.
“ Pip ,” she hisses, voice full of fury and venom as she jerks her head away from Gale and glares at the raven on his shoulder. “Now is not the time!”
Gale looks as if he is torn between the decision to seethe silently or laugh at the absurdity of Pip’s frippery.
“There’s some in the larder,” he says, nodding stiffly. “Be my guest and help yourself.”
“But I ain’t got no thumbs to open the door!”
“Hm. That does sound rather tragic.”
Tara clears her throat from where she rests in Gale’s lap. Rowan almost forgot she was here with how quiet the tressym has been. “Come, Ser Pip,” Tara commands—there is no mistaking the air of authority in her haughty voice. “Let us raid the kitchen and if that is not to our satisfaction, hunt the local flock of pigeons and feast most voraciously on their bones.”
“Ooooh!” Pip hops up and down on Gale’s shoulder and jumps off onto Tara’s back as she slinks out from his lap. “Yes, ma’am! I love the way you think!”
The tressym throws both Rowan and Gale a look that clearly says “you’re welcome” before sauntering out of the room, Pip babbling the way they do whenever they’re overly excited about something.
Rowan is still hugging Gale even after the familiar’s voice fades down the hallway. Gale makes no attempt to unentangle himself from her grasp, seeming content to remain on the floor and in her arms.
This was a bad idea on her part. She’s already dreading the devastation she’s going to feel tonight when she tries to sleep and all she can think about is how lonely and cold it feels without Gale tucked against her.
“Hey,” she says, forcing as much of a casual smile as she can on her face with her heart beating too damn fast. “Let’s go on a walk. Sometimes getting up and moving helps brainstorming. Maybe we’ll come up with ideas on how to fix you.”
Gale’s face brightens. He nods, slowly pulling away from her arms and stretching his legs out until he stands.
His absence is already unbearable.
“I’ve been toying with one possible theory,” he admits as Rowan forces herself to stand up as well, wincing as the blood flow returns to her ass. She hadn’t realized it was going numb from sitting on the floor without proper cushioning.
“Oh? Do tell, magic man. I’m all ears.”
“The Shadow Weave,” he says, looking pointedly at the rings and items scattered about her bed. She wonders if the magic supposedly inside them calls to him even now. “I think if I absorb enough raw magic derived from it, I’ll be able to overpower the Netherese magic and expel it from myself.”
It makes sense. It could work. The shadows she connected to hiding inside of Gale certainly seemed eager to try. Did they inherit that desire from her attachment to him, or was the magic just inherently helpful?
Maybe it was both. The Raven Queen’s space in the Shadowfell had been sympathetic and kind. Rowan likes to imagine she is as well.
“Do you have to absorb it directly from an item or artifact?” she asks. “What if you absorbed magic from a person—from me—instead? Kinda like vampirism.”
He looks horrified at her suggestion, but only for a brief and fleeting moment. That revulsion, that apprehension, quickly morphs into pensive pondering as he thinks on her words.
“I suppose my condition is a bit like vampirism,” Gale admits quietly, his hand subconsciously scratching at the dark marks against his neck. “I’ve never made the connection before. Now I’m highly disturbed by it. Thank you for that revelation.”
She shrugs. “You said you appreciated my quirks. Here’s one; I overthink everything .”
He’s silent for a few moments, still mulling over her words. His foot taps impatiently on the floor as he does so. She has to resist the urge to fix his hair and straighten the raven feather so fastidiously tucked into the bun hours before.
“You’re directly connected to the Shadow Weave,” he posits at last. “Suffice to say, siphoning magic from you would be far more beneficial than feeding off of the paltry bits and pieces of failed enchantments. But—no, Rowan.”
Gale levels her with a look of sincerity, candid and frank enough that she can clearly see how much the idea hurts him.
“As much as I appreciate the sentiment, that is one line I cannot cross. The effects are too unknown. The last thing I would ever want is for you to suffer the pain I feel every time the orb’s hunger awakens.”
Crestfallen, Rowan nods. She doesn’t care whatever pain it may cause. She’s willing to put up with it, if it means Gale’s freedom and safety. Nonetheless, she wants to respect his decision. Until there is no other alternative, perhaps. “I understand.”
“Thank you,” he says breathlessly, sharing her nod. His is more of relief than stubborn acquiescence. “I’m certain there are more theories we can devise together. Let’s take that walk like you suggested. I could do with a dose of sunshine after all that macabre talk.”
Though he smiles as he says it, Rowan sees the unease and misgiving still clinging to Gale. She can’t believe he’s been shouldering it by himself all this time, with no hope of help from those who care about him. All because of the pettiness of the goddess he loved. The goddess he tried to prove his loyalty to, only to fail miserably because he vastly overestimated his own mortality.
Fuck Mystra’s crown of stars. She didn’t deserve it.
The only crown worthy of her is one of jagged glass, cutting into her skull so deep it leaves scars.
The day Gale takes Rowan to the Yawning Portal is the day he realizes it’s been a few weeks past the culmination of his year of self-imposed isolation. It is almost unfathomable to think. A year. An entire year with Mystra’s back turned away from him as if he were nothing more than a buzzing fly not even worthy of being swatted at.
Those first months were unbearable. Gale well and truly thought he was going to die. He wanted to die, if only for the slight chance that his beloved goddess would pity his soul wandering the Fugue Plane and grant him the right to pass on.
How strange time is. It does not heal all wounds, as some might say, but it does indeed change one’s perspective. And oh, has Gale’s perspective on life changed significantly in the last month or so.
Rowan did not leave him.
She did not gaze upon him with fear and disgust. She did not turn her back on him the way Mystra did, the way he was terrified she would, and vanish from his world forever.
Rowan did the opposite. She held out her hand to him, promised she would help, and pulled him out of the darkness he’s been living in for so long. Out of kindness. Out of friendship.
Friendship.
A funny word, that. Almost paltry in comparison to the truth of whatever it is he and the sorcerer share. Gale is a fool, but he is also a prudent and sensible man—most of the time. He knows friendship cannot accurately describe the captivating, wondrous web woven between him and Rowan. It is an unknown territory, one he cannot help but feel trepidation at the thought of exploring.
He cannot allow things to continue the way they have. Ever since that night, when they shared in the poetry and beauty of the Weave and Mystra revealed Rowan’s innermost thoughts to him, they have been treading water so deep neither can have their head above the surface for very long.
Gale does not want to drown any more. He wants to drag Rowan to the shore, kneel before her on the sand, and beg her to…
Beg her to do what, exactly?
He doesn’t know.
Despite all the knowledge he has amassed, all the wealth of arcane study and dissection of magic, human emotion is still a somewhat foreign subject to him. Oh, he feels—he cares, too much at times—but being able to readily quantify what stirs in his heart when he thinks of Rowan? When he looks at her and his chest tightens as if the orb is going to suddenly implode, and his mouth becomes dry, and he stumbles over the words he has so painstakingly formulated in his mind?
It isn’t friendship. He knows that much.
But is it love? Can he truly feel love for someone who is not Mystra? His mentor, his muse, his everything… the goddess of magic has been the only thing that mattered to Gale for so long.
He thought he was going to die when Rowan held him in her arms.
It would be a far better death than the one he had craved in the early days of his abandonment, desiring nothing more than to waste away to ash and bone or to let his body be blasted apart by the cruel monster inside him.
She had held him. She had comforted him. She had not ridiculed or scoffed at him.
Gale thought safety was nestled in Mystra’s palm, channeling the Weave and gazing upon the splendors of a realm beyond mortal ken. He thought joy was floating amongst the stars of the Astral Plane, making love with Mystra as his spirit joined with her essence and his senses spread out amongst the very threads of the Weave itself.
None of that could compare to what he felt when he allowed himself to give in to Rowan’s embrace. To lay his head against her and hear the thundering of her heart, feel the rise and fall of her chest as she struggled to control her breathing.
He would have kissed her. Had Pip not reminded them of their presence, Gale would have cupped her face and kissed her and finally, finally discovered if her taste was as sweet as he had imagined it to be.
Gods, he wanted to kill that raven and their blasted craving for cheese. Rowan could always summon them from the Shadowfell again, no harm done. If Gale transfigured them to look like a miniature, winged Elminster, it would be morbidly cathartic.
It is the Sage of Shadowdale that has finally prompted Gale to take Rowan to the Yawning Portal.
When he awoke the day prior, stirring from a rather lovely dream in which Rowan was surrounded by a herd of unicorns in some idyllic flowering glade and gazing at him with elation, it was to Tara dropping a letter unceremoniously on his pillow.
He would recognize Elminster’s wax seal anywhere.
Gale,
I have received word you have taken on an apprentice. Congratulations are in order! I will be traveling to Waterdeep come the morrow. Perhaps you would humor an old wizard and find it in your heart to introduce me to them? I am most curious to see what kind of person has at last dusted off your long standing desire for teaching. They must be very special indeed!
Yours in friendship,
Elminster
Gale had burned the letter with a well-controlled Firebolt immediately after reading it. Morena would not have told him about Rowan. She knew how strained their relationship has become. Had Mystra informed the old man?
It’s possible. She cannot interfere directly with the mortal plane under Ao’s watchful eye, but that does not mean she can’t whisper in the ears of her other Chosen and point them in a specific direction. Elminster has always been eager to do her bidding, after all.
And those last two lines! Elminster knew damn well Gale had been considering applying for an opening at the Blackstaff Academy before his unfortunate mistake with Mystra. Gale has always desired to teach magic! It has only been his greatest ambition, aside from swaying his goddess to guide him through the unknown truths of the universe!
No, Elminster does not need to meet Rowan. There was no mention of Gale’s prior letter months ago, when she first fell into his life, and he had reached out to his old mentor for his thoughts regarding the Shadow Weave. But Elminster is wiser than the most sagacious cleric in the highest of temples. He would suss out exactly why Gale had written to him and the nature of his curiosity all those months ago.
Gale did not want Elminster to know the depths of Rowan’s connection to the Shadow Weave. Not when his reply had been so short and scathing, reminding Gale of Mystra’s disappointment and her subsequent abhorrence of that dark magic.
So Gale has declared today to be the day they enjoy the tavern’s Shadowdark ale while simultaneously brainstorming over ways they can rid him of his dangerous affliction. He has not said a word about the possibility of Elminster’s visit. He hopes that with Rowan none the wiser, she won’t be so keen to return to the tower, and avoid running into his former mentor in the process.
It is a foolish hope, but one he holds nonetheless.
They have passed the Yawning Portal many a time during their jaunts to the Castle Ward. Gale knows he should not have waited so long to actually bring Rowan inside, but considering her penchant for mischief and wide-eyed wonder at everything Faerûn has to offer, he just wanted to do his due diligence and ensure she doesn’t sneak off into the Undermountain without his knowledge.
He’s only been there once and it was not an experience he wishes to repeat without proper preparation. It was in his later days at the academy, before Dorian graduated. Some of the nobility had dared him and his brother to spend a night in the remnants of Blackcloak’s dungeon, on account of the Dekarios brothers claiming the Mad Mage’s traps and lingering spells would be no match for them.
Dorian and Gale had been very wrong.
It was one of the few times the two of them had worked together like a tight knit pair of companions, firing off spells and dispelling curses for hours on end.
Gale had never been so grateful to be Mystra’s Chosen than he had that night. Elminster had suddenly teleported in the middle of a chamber in which Gale had accidentally set off a portal to some wretched area of the Underdark and allowed a Beholder to come through. The brothers had been spared a grisly end via petrification due to Elminster’s clever spellcasting.
They had not been spared a very long, seething lecture on their lunacy nor the scathing disappointment of their parents.
Gale is suddenly overcome with a strange, sad longing for those days. He misses his youth with a terrible emptiness as he leads Rowan into the tavern, a satchel full of books and papers slung around his shoulder. Things were simpler then.
He was simpler then.
“Oh, wow,” Rowan breathes as she shuffles in behind him, taking in the tavern’s interior. The floorboards are well-worn from years of adventurers and patrons alike. Tapestries depicting famous Waterdeep locales and vistas cover the walls. It is bustling and full of people as always, many of them obviously adventurers getting ready to scour the depths of the Undermountain judging by their gear and armor.
“It’s not too loud for you, I hope?” Gale asks her over the din of the crowds. Truthfully, he would prefer the sanctity of his tower, but a promise is a promise. And it will be nice to spend time here again. Aside from that harrowing night with his brother, he has many fond memories of the Yawning Portal.
“A little,” Rowan admits with a wince, but there is a fiery determination in her eyes. “I can suck it up. I don’t want to go home without trying this ale you’ve been raving about.”
Gale’s heart flutters.
Home .
He can’t recall when exactly she started referring to his tower as such. He doesn’t even think she’s aware she’s doing it. He finds he quite enjoys the warm sensation he feels every time it happens.
There is a table all the way at the back free of any patrons. He makes a beeline for it, gesturing for Rowan to follow, which she does obediently. It’s tucked in the corner, just a few feet away from the bar, and the acoustics of the location make it so the shouting and laughter of patrons isn’t terribly raucous.
They sit across from one another. Gale empties his bag out full of research supplies and parchment; Rowan does the same, equipped with a similar set of books and haphazard notes written in her blocky hand. She’s been working herself to the bone trying to read as much as she can on Netherese magic and the fundamentals of the Weave. Gale can’t help but feel a stinging guilt every time he glances at her and sees dark bruises of exhaustion beneath her eyes.
She tells him not to, of course. That she owes it to him for taking her in and treating her with such kindness.
“You’ve given me the gift of becoming the person I was always meant to be,” Rowan has told him time and time again over the weeks since his confession. “The least I can do is find a way for you to do the same.”
Gale truly doesn’t deserve her. Even though she insists that she understands why he was pushing her so hard at times, even though he had skulked about and stolen her failed enchantments to feed the beast inside him, Rowan has forgiven his transgressions.
That’s more than Mystra will ever do, no matter how hard you try to get back in her good graces, a thin and reedy voice has hissed at him time and time again.
Gale ignores that voice.
Just as he is trying to ignore how…lovely Rowan looks right now, holding a quill between her teeth as she flicks through pages of notes with discerning eyes and nimble fingers. She always looks lovely. She looks lovely when she pushes him out of the kitchen and tells him it’s her turn to prepare dinner. She looks lovely when she sits on his balcony and gazes out at the sea longingly. She looks lovely when she surreptitiously pulls a scroll of Color Spray out of her robe and tries to dye his hair to no avail. She looks lovely when they walk through the streets of Waterdeep, speaking in hushed voices about what their next steps are.
It usually comes back to one thing, and one thing only:
Gale absorbing the magic of the Shadow Weave directly from Rowan herself.
They don’t voice it out loud, of course. But the thought is always there, lingering heavy and shrouded in darkness. Gale is almost certain it would be the course of action that solves the problem of his Netherese blight. How could he ever act upon it, even with Rowan’s explicit permission? He’s already overstepped boundaries forbidden by Mystra for good reason. He can never cross that threshold between man and monster and drink directly from the shadowy fountain that is Rowan’s magic.
No, he will be content with absorbing the fragments she funnels into the rings and other items. Every bit is a droplet in the dark sea undulating beneath his skin. He will manage it somehow, someway, without causing Rowan any undue harm.
He needs to be the only one suffering from his foolishness. Not her. Never her.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to try asking the Raven Queen?” Rowan mumbles over the quill, not looking up from her myriad of erratically-written notes. Gods help anyone who tries to read it.
Gale lets out a sigh as he shakes his head, turning his gaze over to the bartender currently busying themselves with serving a rather obnoxious table full of bellowing men. Their sixth sense for customer service leads them to look over their shoulder and they meet his eyes; he raises his hand politely to signal he’s ready to order, and the bartender gives him a quick nod.
“My answer will be no matter how many times you ask,” he says quietly, gently. “I appreciate your willingness to beseech her, but I’d rather not involve any more gods with this convoluted situation.”
“It’s not like she already knows,” Rowan points out, biting down on the quill in frustration. Not at him—he can tell she’s having difficulty locating a particular batch of notes. He resists the urge to remind her once again that she really needs to come up with a better system. It would not do to insult the inner workings of her mind, not after the trust she showed in revealing her own condition. “Selûne does too. I’ve told both of them. Not that they’ve ever answered me.”
Truth be told, Gale isn’t certain how much help the Matron and the Moonmaiden would be with this corrupted Netherese magic. They’re powerful in their own right, but neither goddess’s purview truly falls under the study and manipulation of magic. Hells, Shar would be of more assistance with the Shadow Weave and the possibilities it possesses as it was her dark creation.
Rowan has assured him she has no interest in parlaying with the Lady of Loss. The Raven Queen is the one who brought her to this world and new life. As far as Rowan is concerned, she’s the only deity dwelling in the Shadowfell that deserves her admiration.
It does belay Gale’s worry. Shar and his beloved Mystra have never seen eye-to-eye, after all.
“I wish Morena could help,” Rowan admits with a disappointed sigh, evidently giving up on trying to find the notes she needed. She takes the quill out of her mouth and pulls out a fresh piece of parchment, opening one of the books on Netherese history she grabbed from his personal collection. “It’s not fair that Mystra expects you to figure this out by yourself. Your mother should be able to lend a hand!”
Gale feels the same way. How could he not? His mother was
devastated
the day Mystra sent Elminster to inform Morena she was prohibited from meddling with her son’s punishment.
Gale had never seen her cry so much. He still hasn’t. It’s a memory he isn’t keen on returning to.
But his mother is a wizard like him and as such, is bound by Mystra’s will first and foremost. She has had no choice but to honor the goddess’s demands despite the anguish it has undoubtedly caused.
They haven't told Morena that Rowan is now privy to his greatest secret. His mother already worries so much about him. She doesn’t need the added stress that is sure to come from knowing Rowan is aware of his folly and focusing all her attention on finding a way to free him from the consequences.
“She helps in her own way,” Gale says. “I cannot ask any more of her than what she already does for me.”
“Just saying, the powers of Morena and myself combined would be enough to put Mystra in her place.”
He winces.
This is not the first time Rowan has so unsubtly made her distaste for Mystra known, nor her willingness to confront his goddess.
Gale does not think he would be surprised in the least if his apprentice, his mother, and his tressym all found a way to Mystra’s dwelling in Elysium and demanded her to intervene with his bleak fate.
Before Rowan can voice her ire at his goddess, the bartender waltzes over to their table at last. Gale glances over their shoulder as they take both his and Rowan’s orders, eyeing the table they were tending to prior. The group of men are getting louder, a cacophony of profane words and slurred drunken voices as they shout over one another.
Ugh. Durnan, the builder and owner of the Yawning Portal, typically shut down patrons like that. He must be taking a holiday. Gale has a feeling they won’t be lingering here too long if the harsh dissonance of their bickering continues.
The two of them lapse into comfortable silence as they start to focus on their respective study material. Their orders of Shadowdark ale and fried quipper appear shortly after. Gale almost groans with pleasure when the familiar light, bitter taste of the ale coats his tongue. It’s been far too long since he’s partaken in this, cooped up with his bottles of fine vintage.
Sometimes, it truly is the simple things in life.
Rowan takes one sip of it and immediately pushes the mug towards Gale, her face twisted in distaste. “Nope. I’ll stick with my dessert wine and apple juice. This tastes like fermented piss, Gale. How do you like this stuff?”
“Years of being unable to obtain anything else at school. You develop a fondness for it when it’s the only thing you can smuggle into the dorm.”
“Ugh, teenagers. Always going for the cheap and shitty option. Just wait until you’re older and you can appreciate better liquor!”
He lets out a chuckle as he pulls her tankard to him, though he doubts he’ll be able to finish it along with his own. She’s not necessarily wrong. The precocious young man he once was definitely should have bided his time until he could afford something better rather than waste his tastebuds on this swill. But what can he say? He’s a creature of habit. The Yawning Portal’s ale reminds him of the days before his life became the burning wreckage now.
…though the smoke has cleared significantly since Rowan’s arrival.
The silence grows between them once again as they return to their reading, the only sound in the corner of the tavern coming from the scribbling of their quills and turning of pages. Gale loses track of time as he sits at the table, pouring over books he has read before just for the sake of maybe catching something he did not the first perusal. There seems to be no such luck, however; he is hard pressed to find a mote of information he was not already aware of.
He may have to look to other booksellers. He has exhausted Waterdeep’s multitude of academic writings on the arcane over the last year. Not even the Blackstaff Academy has been able to afford him any epiphanies with its wide expanse of knowledge despite it being the place that had set him on this dire course.
The accursed tome that he obtained had been locked away in the school library. More specifically, the forbidden section. It had only been due to his scholarly accomplishments that his alma mater had allowed him access, though the head librarian had specifically informed him he was not allowed to leave with the book.
Technically, Gale hadn’t left with it.
He’d just left with the thing sealed within its ancient pages.
“I should make a trip to Baldur’s Gate,” Gale announces.
He crosses out the last line of notes he’s just taken. Finding a hag to remove the orb from him? Absolutely not! It’s a dangerous, ridiculous notion. Not to mention Rowan does not need to know the thought ever crossed his mind. She doesn’t need another reason to beg him to go to the Feywilds. She’s talented and has come very far, but there is no way she is fit to explore the wily territory of the fey.
Even if he does want to grant her wish to see a unicorn. He still has no idea why she’s so set on it.
Rowan glances up from her book, frowning slightly. “Why? You gonna get your brother to help?”
He scowls before he can stop himself. Gale has completely forgotten Dorian is working in the Upper City. They’ve not spoken in over a year, now. Same with his father, Evander.
He doubts Dorian would be willing to help if Gale told him the truth of how he lost Mystra’s favor. Not after how their last conversation ended. They nearly wiped their childhood home out of existence with the magic that had crackled around them, growing in strength the more severe their wrath grew at one another.
“No,” he says, a little sharper than he intends. “I’d rather not have Dorian interfering. There’s a store in the Lower City, called Sorcerous Sundries—I recall hearing their collection of Netherese tomes is unparalleled. If I cannot find an answer in Waterdeep, perhaps I can in Baldur’s Gate.”
“Then let’s go!” Rowan exclaims, suddenly giddy as exhilaration lights up her eyes. “I’ve been here for six months. I love Waterdeep, but I want to see more of the Sword Coast, more of Faerûn! I’ll go to Baldur’s Gate with you, Gale. I want to be by your side through all of this.”
Oh.
Oh, dear.
There it is again. That loveliness that never leaves her person. Her excited grin, her storm-like eyes blazing with eagerness, and the overall sense of joy that gives her such a charming allure. Gods, Rowan is captivating. He could gaze at her face all day and never tire of it.
Gale wishes Tara had accompanied them. But he asked her and Pip to remain at the tower so they can alert him if Elminster does indeed show up. Without his stalwart companion, his better half…
He doesn't know if he can stop himself from doing something ill-advised.
He realizes belatedly that he’s just been staring at her, most ungentlemanly. Gale opens his mouth to respond, to give her a resounding yes , to say that he would love nothing more than to travel to Baldur’s Gate with her, when he is interrupted most heinously.
“Oi,” a guttural, rasping voice cuts through the air drunkenly. Both Rowan and Gale turn to see one of the men from the rowdy table leaning against their own, his face ruddy with ale and over confidence. He is massive and clearly a warrior, if the bulging muscles and giant sword strapped to his back is any indication.
The man is leering directly at Rowan, his eyes glazed over with more than drink.
“You one of those magic-y folks?” he grunts at her, mouth curling into a disgusting smirk as he unabashedly looks her up and down.
A fire lights in Gale’s belly. Anger prickles at his insides, hot and boiling as the bastard’s tongue lolls out of his mouth and pointedly licks his lower lips. His fingers twitch. The incantation for Call Lightning roils in the back of his throat. His eyes narrow, his nostrils flare. He imagines thunder crackling above, electricity leaping from his fingertips and encasing the man in a storm of fury. He smells the burning of flesh and hears the agonized screams as the man melts in the steely coffin of his armor.
If this brute is about to try what Gale thinks he’s going to try, he will not hesitate to bring down the wrath of—
“A sorcerer, actually,” Rowan coolly answers the man, turning her attention back to the book laid out in front of her.
“That’s just grand, innit?” his smirk deepens, his leer gets worse, and he leans forward to the point where the table squeaks and moves slightly. Gale thinks the surface is going to crack for one strained moment when the bastard practically sits on top. “Y’see, my boys and I have a hankering to explore the Undermountain. But we need someone with magic experience for all those nasty traps. A pretty little thing like you will do just nicely, I think. Whaddya say, sweetheart?”
The man’s hand travels downwards. His fingers splay lewdly across the front of his pants, patting the middle in a repugnant display.
“I can make it worth your while.”
Rowan’s eyes do not even waver from the pages of her book, though Gale can make out the disgust swirling in them. “No thank you,” she says, tone civil and steady as she turns a page. The only indication of her discomfort is how her pale face blanches even more so than usual. “I’m not interested. I’m just here to read.”
He lets out a laugh, a grating guffaw that makes Gale want to incinerate his tongue.
“Oh, don’t worry, darling,” he purrs in what he clearly thinks is a seductive tone, licking his lips again. “I got something you can read all night .”
She looks up from her book at last.
Rowan’s eyes are scathing as she surveys the lecherous bastard making a fool of himself. Her face remains a calm and impassive mask, never breaking her gaze from him as she slowly closes the tome before her and rests her hands atop the lacquered cover.
“No thank you,” she repeats, blinding him with a courteous smile. Her eyes trail downward, the smile widening to the point of contempt. “I’m afraid I don’t like short stories very much.”
Gale does not hide his laugh very well, struggling to keep it down and covering it with a bout of choking coughs as he rapidly turns his head away so the man can’t see his amusement.
“W…what.”
The bastard stares at her, uncomprehending, and stunned into silence.
And Rowan—his dear, cheeky apprentice—repeats in a patronizing voice loud enough to be heard over the din of the tavern, “I said I don’t like short stories, good sir!”
The tawdry hum of the Yawning Portal’s masses immediately grinds to a halt.
Everyone, including the man’s companions at the other table, all turn to look at Rowan and Gale as they sit in the corner. Gale does not think the tavern has ever been so quiet. You could hear a pin drop to the floor.
And then the man lets out an enraged growl, snarling with bared teeth as he roars, “What the fuck did you just say to me?!”
Gale is fully aware Rowan has no qualms about repeating herself for a third time. The air shimmers and gets thicker as he senses the signs of her reaching for the threads of the Shadow Weave. Indeed, the storms in her eyes are beginning to cloud over with shadows, and her grin is almost callous as she raises a hand in a motion he recognizes as Lightning Bolt.
He should have brought Tara with. She is much better equipped at talking sense into Rowan than he is at times.
Before she can begin uttering the incantation, Gale snaps his fingers and all of their supplies are instantly placed back in their satchels. He grabs both of them, pulling out his bag of emergency gold he keeps on hand and tossing it onto the counter of the bar behind him.
“A round of drinks for all you fine folk gathered here!” he declares, bolstering his voice with a little Thaumaturgy. “On me!”
The deafening clink of what is certainly more gold pieces than any of these sorry louts have ever had in their coffers at once does the trick. The din immediately picks up once more, the masses hurling themselves towards the bar as they clamor and shout with drunken glee. Gale grabs Rowan’s wrist and tugs her to him, slipping between the table and the bar as he says quickly, “Time to go!”
She lets out a squeak of surprise as he pulls her through the crowds now swarming the back of the tavern. Out of the corner of his eye Gale makes out the man who he was ready to turn into cinders try to reach for Rowan with his meaty hands but he is overrun by the cheering patrons eager for a free tankard of ale.
He does not breathe until they are blocks away from the Yawning Portal, chest heaving and legs throbbing from how fast he ran. His shoulders ache from the dual weights of the book-laden satchels.
Rowan pants at his side, his hand still clamped around her wrist like a manacle. He releases her and tries to pretend like the feel of her skin against his palm was not akin to a brand.
“What,” he exhales, running a hand through his hair, “in the hells were you thinking, Rowan?”
She lets out a breathless laugh, the sound a little strained and perhaps edging on the verge of mania. The darkness in her eyes has dissipated and when she looks at him, it’s with a wicked grin that is more tempting than a devil’s deal.
“I was thinking I’d teach him a lesson about being a nasty piece of shit in public. I mean, who does that? Grabbing their crotch in a place where people eat and insinuating I should suck his dick?”
She makes the same face she did when she tried the ale, sticking her tongue out and gagging dramatically. “He’s just pissed because I was right. I mean, did you see the size of his sword? He’s clearly compensating for something.”
“Be that as it may, you can’t just insult someone’s manhood when they are inebriated and armed to the teeth,” Gale groans.
“I can, I
did
, and I’d do it again.”
“You are not equipped to handle yourself in a close-ranged sword fight, Rowan.”
“And he isn’t equipped to handle anyone’s pleasure. Not even an incubus!”
The mirth he had tried (and failed) to swallow in the tavern bubbles up from his chest again. He shakes his head, drops the satchels onto the ground, and lets out a loud series of laughs almost as frenzied as hers. He doubles over, clutching at his stomach, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes as he basks in the absurdity of it all.
“You’re terrible!” he accuses, laughing so hard his diaphragm is going to bruise. “Gods, I can’t believe you said that! You brilliant, ludicrous, appalling woman!”
Rowan visibly preens beneath his words, her pale cheeks growing pink as she fiddles with the raven feather tucked into her braid. Her grin just widens as she watches him lose his composure, clearly struggling not to join him in laughter as she chokes out, “Yeah, I know. But I won’t say no to the praising of my whimsical charms.”
“Oh,” Gale says as he recovers somewhat, giving in to that ever-present desire to see just what other reactions he can get from her, “I can think of several other things of yours I can praise.”
The pink flush turns to almost blood red as she gapes at him, eyes wide.
Too far. He’s pushed a bit too far with that one. But the visage of her in those pajamas crosses her mind, his mouth aches with the pressure of a kiss that never was, his body remembers the warmth of hers when she’d held him tightly and—
Something changes in the air.
Gale’s ears ring. A strange pressure settles on his skin. His senses begin to scream and the threads of the Weave that he is always spinning, always composing, shudder in what can only be terror.
A sound like the sky ripping open comes from above.
Gale and Rowan jerk their heads upwards and a fear like no other overcomes him at what he sees. There is a hole in the sky—a hole wider than anything his mind can comprehend, showcasing a glittering expanse of nebulae and swirling stars. Something is descending from the rip in time and space. Something like a spiked massive, titanous snail, with dozens of fleshy tendrils protruding at the front.
It is a sight he has seen only in the pages of books and heard only in hushed lectures.
“We need to run,” he says harshly, even though his feet are planted firmly on the ground as he watches the nautiloid descend upon Waterdeep in a daze. “We need to…g-get back to my tower. We need to go, Rowan, we need to—”
“What the fuck is that?” she whispers, all traces of the embarrassed blush gone from her face. She is pale, paler than snow, paler than death, as terror grips her in its cold claws and plunges deep into her heart.
She’s shaking.
She can’t even bring her hands up to touch the feather she wears around her neck, a gesture he has come to realize as one of grounding and calm.
Gale wastes precious moments uttering an incantation to send their research back to his tower, despising the orb slumbering in his chest more so than he ever has. The ability to actually teleport himself and another was one of the first things the Netherese blight devoured. The magic has never returned to him no matter how hard he’s tried.
“ Go ,” he commands her, finally finding the strength to move his feet just as the tentacles of the nautiloid stretch and reach downwards, and the city of Waterdeep begins to scream.
They run.
The air becomes a symphony of terror and destruction as buildings crash to the ground. The cacophony is even worse than the din of the Yawning Portal. Gale and Rowan race through the streets, pushing through throngs of people desperate to get away from the looming monstrosity in the sky above. He does not dare to look back and see how close it’s getting. He knows it is almost upon them. He can feel it in the very Weave.
Bells begin to ring out in the city. Alarms being raised as the populace realizes what is happening, but he knows it’s going to be too late. Where there is one nautiloid, there are others. That’s what the histories have always said.
And there is no telling how many mindflayers are piloting the otherworldly warships. Waterdeep has its defenses, but Gale is not so ignorant as to put all his faith into assuming it will be enough to deter creatures like that.
Gale has been so concerned about the monster inside of him that for the last year, he’s barely considered the other monsters lurking in the hidden corners of the realms.
The roaring thunder starts to get louder, more deafening. A shadow of darkness falls upon him and Rowan as they rush around a cluster of buildings belonging to some highborn noble. The screams rising up from all areas of the city suddenly concentrate where they are as something heavy thuds to the ground, sending shockwaves out in all directions. He nearly stumbles as it reverberates through his body, fear and adrenaline spiking to levels that can not be healthy.
Rowan does stumble.
She somehow got ahead of him. He doesn’t know when that happened. One moment she was at his side and the next, she was a foot or so in front of him, falling to the ground as the world around them shakes and shudders as the gargantuan flying fortress hovers directly above them.
Gale goes against his better judgment and finally turns to look behind him.
The nautiloid has left a path of destruction in its wake. Buildings have been demolished, smoke rises in the air, rubble litters the once pristine streets of the Castle Ward. And treading before that destruction, writhing and roiling like a thing of nightmares, is the mass of tentacles descending from the nautiloid’s front. Tentacles that are whipping out in all directions.
He watches in horror as a group of fleeing citizens are waylaid by the tentacle closest to him and just…disappear.
The massive, fleshy appendage swoops around them—dozens, almost a hundred people—and the moment it touches them, they vanish in a flash of blinding light that makes his skin crawl. The symphony of their shouts for help and cries of terror disappear with them. Gale knows that is about to be his fate. That it is about to be Rowan’s fate.
Rowan. Gods, no, Rowan. He can’t let that happen to her. She deserves to live, to be free, to enjoy this new life gifted to her by a goddess kind enough to hear her prayers. Even if it has to be a life without him.
Gale spins back around, eyes trained on her. She’s struggling to get up and with a bitter taste on his tongue, he realizes the fall must have sprained her ankle. She won’t make it. She won’t even have time to cast Misty Step.
“ Rowan ,” he cries out, drawing upon the raw Weave trembling in fear around him and dashing forward with a renewed vigor. He can hear the nautiloid looming above him, the disturbing scraping of the tentacle as it flexes forward and reaches out.
Gale acts on instinct.
He grabs her by the arm and hoists her up with a strength funneled through him by the Weave. There is an alley between two of the houses that make up the estate they’ve escaped to. Gale shoves her into it, shouting wordlessly as he pushes her into the shadows, a part of him thinking that maybe he has enough time now, maybe he can manage a spell that will spirit them to safety.
He’s wrong. Of course he’s wrong.
Rowan screams. It’s a sound he knows he’ll hear in his nightmares for as long as he lives—however short that may be, considering he is about to embark on a sojourn aboard a nautiloid, and there is nary a soul that has survived something as perilous as that. She screams, his name ripping from her throat, wordless sobs full of panic and terror like an aria piercing through the deadly chorus of the nautiloid’s assault.
Her hands reach out, trying to grab for him, tears streaming down her face. Her eyes are becoming those dark pools of shadows once more, fingers dripping with an ichorous mist as she calls upon the Shadow Weave inside her. It is no use. If he can’t cast a spell in the few precious moments they have left together, then she certainly can’t either. He admires her optimism, no matter how misplaced it is.
These last six months with you have been my greatest joy, Gale thinks as he gazes upon her horror-wrought expression, trying to smile as encouragingly as he can.
It happens so fast.
“Be safe,” he whispers, but he knows she can’t hear him over the chaos exploding around them.
The last thing Gale sees before a force like a giant’s fist slams into him is Rowan’s blackened eyes and the tears that have turned to tar streaking down her face as she hopelessly, desperately reaches for him.
Notes:
:3 hi
im not sorry for ending it like that. i've bene planning this for weeks! now y'all know why i had to split the chapter up lmao
so, clearly, we're going to delve into the actual start of bg3's events. i hate to say it, but idk when the next chapter will be. i've been running myself ragging writing this and my work schedule will be changing shortly to one where i don't have much free time. i need a break :')
but i'm so proud of myself for how far i've come in such a short time! it's sad to see it go, but the domestic times in the wizard tower arc was a delight to write. i can't wait until rowan meets the rest of the companions.
anyway, thanks for reading so far, and i'm eager to hear all of your thoughts about my interpretation of the weave scene and the orb confession scene <3
i will see you eventually in the next chapter whenever that may be. please be patient with my mentally ill ass as i balance being creative with the endless agony capitalism inflicts upon my soul.
Chapter 6: the broken and the damned
Notes:
i'm sorry i lied when i said i would be taking a break. this story just means a lot to me and i physically can't keep myself from writing it :')
this chapter has some dark, heavy content. the first chunk involves mentions of suicide and just overall emotional breakdowns so if you need to walk away from it, please do. don't push yourself. i...actually exhausted myself getting this written so i hopefully mean it this time when i say i will not be writing for a little bit. especially with the holidays coming.
i am planning on the next upload to be on my birthday towards the end of january. i know the direction the story will be going in so may the gods of creativity smile upon me and i can make that deadline.
love you all. thank you so, so fucking much for your support. your love for rowan and gale warms my heart.
Chapter Text
Rowan stares at the empty space where Gale had been for far too long. Her ankle throbs in pain. Her throat aches from screaming so loud. Her ears ring as the last vestiges of the chaos that thing in the sky left in its wake begins to die down. It had just vanished. Sped up and soared through another jagged tear in the heavens as soon as the swarming crowds of terrified people were all snatched up, and then disappeared.
And Gale along with it.
He’d saved her. His last second gamble of shoving her into the narrow alleyway had paid off. Rowan was safe. Rowan was alive.
But she didn’t want to be. She should be wherever Gale is now. She should be trapped in whatever hell he’s bound to be after fucking tentacles slammed into him and turned him into ethereal clouds of mist.
They are apprentice and mentor. They are partners. They are friends. Did she not just get done telling him in the tavern that she wanted to be by his side through all of this? Has she not made it clear that she will not abandon him, no matter what?
“Gale,” Rowan whimpers uselessly, her vision blurring as another stream of horrified tears begin to fall down her grimy cheeks. “Gale…”
This area of the Castle Ward is eerily silent now that its fleeing inhabitants have all been taken. The only other sounds are the bells still ringing out amongst the city and the gasping sobs of Rowan as she curls in on herself, holding her twisted ankle in one hand and the Raven Queen’s feather in the other. She’s never heard Waterdeep so silent. She’s never seen Waterdeep so empty .
What was going to happen to all those people? To Gale? What was that thing? It had looked like some kind of fucked up flying snail with squid tentacles. In all her months of studying the magic and history of Faerûn, Rowan cannot recall coming across anything like that.
Tara would know. She’s Gale’s equal in her wealth of knowledge. Rowan has to get back to the tower. She has to…tell Tara what happened. And Morena. Oh, gods, she has to tell Morena that her son is gone.
Gale is gone and Rowan is still here because he saved her.
It should have been me that got taken by that thing, not him.
He’d had ample opportunity to run into the alleyway and leave her on the ground when the shockwave had knocked her off balance. But he hadn’t. Gale had to be the fucking hero. Her knight in shining armor.
He was gone.
He was gone.
Gone like Freya. Gone like her old name and old life. Gone gone gone gone gone—
“Pull yourself together, bitch,” Rowan hisses to herself as her whole body shakes with anxiety, with dread, with a deep and aching grief that feels as though her chest is now hollow and burning. “Get back to the tower. You can cry then. You can break then. But you have to get back to the tower. Get up, Rowan.”
It takes longer than it should to get to her feet, using the wall of the alleyway to steady herself. She bites down the cry of pain desperately crawling up her throat as her ankle pulses in pain. Misty Step. She has enough magic in her to cast Misty Step a few times. If she had Nevermore, she would probably make it to the tower’s front door, but like an idiot she left it at home.
Why would she bring it to something as innocuous as a study session in a tavern? Today hadn’t been meant for practical application of magic. Of course she left the staff behind, along with Pip and Tara.
(Not that having Nevermore would have made much of a difference. Rowan knows that there is nothing she could have done against those slithering tendrils consuming the people of Waterdeep one after another.)
The feather feels unbearable cold at her throat as she calls upon the shadows within her. She can’t feel the presence of the Raven Queen. She can’t feel Selûne. Either her goddesses have abandoned her like Mystra did Gale, or their attention is elsewhere. She’s going to hope it’s the latter. She has to. They can’t be gone too.
Rowan can’t be all alone.
She casts Misty Step as many times as she can, hurrying through the broken streets of the Castle Ward. The people that remain are in a similar state to her; ripped clothes, dirty faces, supplemental injuries. Some are sobbing. Some are hunched over, eyes wide and glazed over in disbelief. Others are pacing up and down the sidewalks, trying to grab anyone they can and ask Have you seen them? Do you know what happened? What was that thing in the sky?
Guards from the city watch are beginning to pour into the ravaged streets. They are gathering the survivors into the buildings that have not been reduced to rubble, barking orders and shouting at everyone to remain calm. Fat load of good it’s doing, considering how panicked and uncertain they sound. She supposes she can give them the benefit of the doubt. This is a situation no one could have expected.
The closer Rowan gets to the docks, a tiny mote of relief begins to burrow its way into her heart. This area of the city seems relatively unscathed. It appears the Castle Ward was the focus of this attack. People are standing on the streets and staring up at the sky warily, faces wan and drawn tightly as if they expect another round.
No one bothers to ask what happened to her. Not even when she finally makes it to the neighborhood with Gale’s tower. The workers and residents are just milling about nervously, gazes trained on the bright blue sky, as if a monstrosity had never torn through the heavens and decimated a quarter of the city.
Rowan’s ankle hurts so fucking much when she at last reaches the tower’s front entrance. She’s had to walk the last mile and without Nevermore to act as a crutch of sorts, it was a very grueling and painful mile.
She feels numb when her hands fumble on the door handle. Like her body is here but her mind and soul are elsewhere, somewhere dark and cold. Detached. Unmade. Unreal. She is not Rowan. She is no one.
She should not be here. It should be Gale returning home.
Home. This is my home now. But can it really be home without him? I don’t deserve to be here if Gale isn’t. I should be…I should be…—!
Rowan’s rapidly spiraling thoughts are rudely interrupted when she finally manages to open the door and sees that the library is not empty.
Three figures all turn when they hear the door. One she recognizes; Morena’s face is twisted in sickening worry, pale and gaunt. The other two she could care less about. She barely registers their appearance—two men, one who looks positively ancient with a flowing white beard and wrinkles someone could hide an entire horse in, and the other an older, distinguished, relatively handsome man with short hair.
Rowan takes one look at Morena and the dam inside her breaks.
“H-he’s gone,” she whispers, stumbling into the library and rushing to Gale’s mother. The pain spikes sharper, harder at the sudden movement. She doesn't care. Rowan throws herself at the mercy of the woman whose son was taken because he saved her rather than himself, her voice coming out in a strangled sob.
“I’m sorry! I’m so s-sorry! He’s gone. He’s gone. G-Gale’s gone .”
Saying it out loud hurts more than her ankle.
It hurts more than the glass did as it pierced her skull.
It hurts more than any fucking thing Rowan has ever felt. That hurt gnaws, tears, and rips into her, into who she has become, and she does not know who she is anymore.
Numb. That numbness again. So cold it burns.
How can she be Rowan if there is no Gale by her side?
Morena wraps in a suffocating, smothering embrace as she pulls Rowan close and that contact, that lifeline, severs off whatever part of her brain that’s forgetting how to function. “Hush, sweetheart,” the older wizard soothes, pressing a kiss to her temple. Grounding. Bringing her back. Making her feel again. She’s alive. She’s alive, and her name is Rowan, and she is here.
She is here.
“Take a deep breath,” Morena instructs, her voice soft and gentle as she smooths the frizzy curls atop Rowan’s head. “What do you mean Gale is gone?”
She almost bites her tongue from the force of how hard her body is shaking. She almost forgets how to speak with the intensity of the sobs thundering through her, her mouth full of salt and her eyes stinging. She buries herself further into Morena’s embrace, focusing on the sturdiness of the embrace and the steady heartbeat of the older woman.
“That…th-that thing in the sky,” Rowan blubbers fast and furiously, knowing her emotions are making it nearly impossible to understand her. She can’t help it. She just can’t. “It was coming for us. W-we were running. I tripped and…a-and Gale pushed me out of the way. It took him. It took h-him and not me. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking
sorry
.”
It should have been me.
Gale should be the one in your arms, not me.
I’m so sorry I failed you, Morena.
Rowan can’t bring herself to say it. The words are too cruel, too brutally honest. They hurt. They hurt so much. She hurts so much. She feels like her heart is going to stop beating and all the blood is going to freeze in her veins. Numb. She is numb. So numb.
“Oh, dear. It is worse than I thought.”
An unfamiliar voice catches Rowan’s attention. She lifts her heavy head from Morena’s chest and glances over in the direction where the voice came from, finally taking in the fact that Gale’s mother is not the only one in the tower.
(She does not dwell on why any of these people are in the tower in the first place.)
It’s the old, wrinkly man with the ridiculous beard and equally ridiculous robes who spoke. He looks like he’s trying to win a costume contest. She stares at him in confusion and there is a part of her, deep down, that suddenly wants to lash out and demand he leaves. She wants to demand he never sets foot in this tower. In her…
In their home.
“What you saw, dear child, was a nautiloid,” the old man explains. His voice is breathy and like that of a breeze whispering through the trees, emboldened by a wisdom that shines eerily bright in his pale eyes. “A warship used by a race of creatures who travel the Astral Sea and search to subjugate all people—mind flayers.”
“Who are you?”
Rowan does not like how deadly quiet her voice is. She does not like how she can hear a foreboding sense of fury in those three controlled syllables.
The old man bows his head and tips the edge of his stupid floppy hat, giving her a cordial smile. “I am Elminster Aumar,” he says. “I was traveling to Waterdeep for business and saw it upon myself to visit my former apprentice once I reached the city. Unfortunately, it…appears I was too late, despite Tara delivering my letter yesterday morn.”
Oh.
This
is Elminster? One of Mystra’s Chosen? One of the most powerful wizards in all of Faerûn? Gale’s former mentor?
The one who abandoned him on Mystra’s command, just like that?
The numbness fades. The pain is nothing but a dull thumb. Fury. Fury, hot and scalding, blinding her senses, taking over her bones, drawing twisting shadows to her side as she steps away from Morena and plants herself firmly on the floor of the library. She feels her eyes go dark. The comforting grasp of the Shadow Weave settles upon her shoulders, whispering its promise to do whatever it is she bids.
“You should have helped him,” Rowan all but snarls, and when she speaks her voice echoes with a chorus of ghastly cries that do not belong to her. “He’s been suffering for a year and you could have been helping him all this time! I don’t care what your goddess commanded! I don’t care if you’re some hero of the realms! I don’t fucking care!”
The shadows swirl around her, twisting and slithering around her limbs like serpents. Darker. Her eyes are growing darker. She is floating in that endless sea of darkness, silent and still and safe.
“And now he’s gone! Gone because you couldn’t set aside your scorn and do what was right! If you had helped Gale get rid of the Netherese blight, he could have done something! He could have—h-he could have saved himself, instead of saving me ! And now he’s probably dead! DEAD!”
Rowan can’t breathe. She can’t think. She is nothing but fury and darkness. She is a storm of shadows. She rages and blusters. She screams words meant for the goddess of magic that turned her back on the wizard who changed her life, knowing Mystra will hear every accusation through Elminster’s ears.
And then she grows quieter. The shadows shift and grow smaller, pressing closer to her as she brings her hands up and stares at them with eyes that are not quite her own.
“Do you know what death is like?” she asks calmly, too calmly, and the shudder that goes through her body nearly makes her fall to her knees and weep. Her head begins to throb. She feels every shard of glass that had splintered through the skull of a body that once belonged to her. The tears rolling down her cheeks are sticky and thick, a bloody paste that she can almost taste on her tongue.
Rowan remembers.
She remembers why she was driving in the dark.
I’m not happy, she had said to her reflection that day. I’m tired of not being happy anymore.
She…she had searched for one. A deer. It was the time of the year where they would be out in droves, the rut season. And the highway outside the town she lived in was always thick of them—every morning on her way to work she would see half a dozen corpses, their necks bent at odd angles, their legs twisted, their bellies bloated with decay.
Rowan had not tried to swerve. She had kept driving.
Even if it had meant leaving Freya behind.
“Death is cold,” Rowan whispers, sinking to the floor as the shadows begin to dissipate quietly from her form. The rage has subsided. Now there is only numbness again. Numbness and that hollow, aching sense of sorrow of a choice she is ashamed of making. “Death is painful. Death is lonely. So fucking lonely.”
How long had she been in the front seat of her car, bleeding out as shards of glass punctured and ruptured her face? Her eyes? Her throat and tongue?
How long had she prayed to a pantheon of goddesses that did not exist, until one from a world beyond heard her pleas and took pity on a thing as pathetic as her?
The feather at her throat grows warm.
She knows why the Raven Queen took her memories. Rowan probably was the one who asked her to do it in the first place. You can have it back, she thinks, still staring at her hands as she remembers the dark that did not feel cold, or painful, or lonely. The dark that was loving and kind. It served its purpose. I’m…I’m better now.
“Better” was a rather quixotic term, but at least she no longer wants to suffocate Elminster Aumar by filling his ancient fucking lungs with liquid shadows.
“I-I’m sorry,” Rowan stammers, wiping at her eyes. She doesn’t look down at her hands again. She knows they’re covered in a viscous, oily substance that will take forever to wash off. “But I can’t let Gale experience that. He deserves more than a cold and lonely death. I promised I’d stay by his side and…and he saved me. This is all my fault.”
She looks up at Morena and Elminster—and the other man, who has remained silent with a stony mask of indifference on his face—from where she sprawls on the floor and utters, “I just wanted to go to the Yawning Portal.”
No one says anything.
No one moves.
They all just stare down at Rowan, their faces a mixture of emotions she does not feel like trying to discern at the moment.
“Mr. Dekarios is not dead.”
Tara’s elegant, polished voice cuts through the silence and echoes through the library.
The tressym is suddenly sauntering to Rowan, Pip on her back, and her familiar is holding a bottle of something in their mouth by a thick string. Tara crawls into Rowan’s lap, pressing close to her as Pip hops onto her arm and drops the bottle in her wretchedly messy hands. A potion of healing, Rowan realizes. One of many from Gale’s personal stores, meant for a rainy day or an accidental misfiring a dangerous spell. She sags with grateful relief and uncorks it, swallowing the entire contents in a couple gulps and trying not to make a face at the bitter, medicinal taste. At least it’s better than the ale.
“Mr. Dekarios is not dead,” Tara repeats as she settles into Rowan’s lap, butting her head into her chest as she pats her leg with a comforting paw. “I would not be here if that were the case. He is alive, but I cannot sense him. There is strange magic at work blocking the connection we share as wizard and familiar.”
Rowan almost starts crying again.
But she keeps it together, making soft noises of relief and discomfort as the tendons and muscles in her ankle begin to knit back together. The potion is doing its work. It is not a pleasant feeling at all.
“Thank you, Tara,” she murmurs, not daring to stroke the tressym’s wings. She would never dishonor Tara by getting her fur and feathers filthy with the remnants of her shadowy wrath. She would never dishonor Tara by touching her without her explicit permission in the first place.
“Rowan,” Morena says, kneeling down in front of her and gazing at her with gentle, almost meek eyes, as if she does not want to startle Rowan. She reaches a hand out, cupping her cheek in a hand so warm she wants to just melt into the floor and dissolve into nothing. “Rowan, sweetheart, have you…died?”
Death is an everyday part of life in Faerûn. There are gods of death, clerics devoted to those gods, spells meant to instantly take the life of another and rituals that can bring someone back from the Fugue Plane. The latter is not common, but it is not impossible either. Resurrection is a very real thing in this world. As are the gods.
As is the goddess that brought her back and silently watches over her, her mantle of feathered shadows always in Rowan’s periphery.
So she does not lie to Morena.
She nods, slowly and stiffly.
“About six months ago. The Raven Queen brought me back. It’s why my magic is the way it is.”
“O-oh.”
Gale’s mother’s eyes well with unshed tears. She blinks rapidly, sucks in a quivering breath, and pulls Rowan’s limp body into yet another crushing embrace. “I didn’t know,” Morena murmurs into her hair, kissing her temple once more, chasing away the pinpricks of phantom pain left behind by a crown of shattered glass. “My dear girl, I did not know.”
Elminster sighs from where he stands and Rowan resists the urge to snap and growl at him like some feral beast. The darkness brimming in her veins is not entirely called off. It lurks and lingers like the shadows Gale has consumed, ready and waiting to strike at her command.
“I now know why Gale sent me that letter half a year ago,” the old wizard muses. Rowan does not like the way he’s looking at her, with a sharpness bordering on uncanny. She feels small beneath his gaze. Like a frightened little girl hiding from the monster under her bed. “Lady Mystra was correct, it seems. The magic inside you is most potent indeed, young Rowan.”
She has the distinct feeling that is not the word Mystra used, nor is it the word that is at the forefront of Elminster’s mind.
Rowan sinks further into Morena, mindful not to accidentally touch her with her hands or brush against the two familiars clinging to her as well. She turns her head away from the ancient wizard, loathing the sudden sensation of the Weave flickering through the tower’s library. He’s casting some kind of spell but what, she doesn’t know.
It feels like the shackles Mystra looped around Gale that precious night. She despises it. It is a mockery of what true magic should be.
It is a mockery of her beloved darkness.
There is a faint prickling at the back of her skull. A probing, poking, prodding into the meat of her brain and slivers of memory that are not all quite there. Rowan squeezes her eyes shut and wills her shadows to coalesce inside her skull, blocking the unwelcome intrusion as she whimpers softly from the sheer effort it suddenly is to exist.
She’s not numb anymore. She’s feeling everything .
“Please stop.”
Rowan opens her eyes again and jerks her head to glower at Elminster, upper lip curling in a semblance of a savage snarl. The invasion of her thoughts halts—the threads of the Weave sever from her person, and the spell fades into nothingness as Mystra’s Chosen reels back somewhat and strokes his beard thoughtfully.
“Interesting,” he murmurs, more to himself than anyone else present. “Quite interesting indeed.”
The other man speaks at last, and when he does, his voice is richly accented and swells like the waves of the open sea. “Elminster,” he says, tone trained in a low and neutral timbre, “can you find him? Our son? Can you bring him back?”
Rowan appraises him with interest. His skin is unevenly tan, his nose is aquiline and has the appearance of being broken and mended many times. His eyes are a striking, glittering green, with curly brown hair just past his ears and a close-cut beard. He resembles Gale somewhat—not as much as Morena does, but enough that Rowan knows this is his father, Evander.
Why the fuck are all three of them in our tower at once, though?
“It would be a simple matter of scrying but alas, I fear Mystra will not permit—”
“Then get out,” Rowan cuts Elminster off before he can finish what he says.
She rises, wrenching herself away from Morena’s comforting arms. Tara jumps free of her lap as she brings herself to her full height. Pip crawls to their usual place on her shoulder, their talons digging into the fabric of her robe. The shadows swimming in her veins hum. She stretches an arm out and pulls on the thread that connects her to Nevermore, calling for it silently where it rests in her room.
Rowan’s staff appears in her waiting hand, darkness swirling around the onyx head as it plunges through the Shadow Weave and defies space and time. The tower’s walls shudder around them. The floor vibrates and pulses with a power that makes Rowan’s heart beat faster and faster.
Her voice is not her own once more. It is a choir of shadows, an echo of Gale, a reverberation of her own soul as she speaks.
“I don’t care who you serve. You are not welcome in this tower, Elminster. Not until you and Mystra can treat Gale with the dignity and respect he deserves. In my mentor’s absence, I am master of his tower. It is my will that you do not set foot within these walls until Gale is safe and sound. From every threat, known or unknown.”
The oath is sworn upon the darkness of the Shadow Weave. The enchantment settles into the stone beneath the tower, seeps into the wood of its walls, etches itself into the glass of the windows. Every tome shudders in every bookshelf. Every inch of this sacred, cherished sanctum whispers with Rowan’s command.
Elminster just gives her a wink and an infuriatingly satisfied, almost proud smile before the simulacrum he had been puppeting turns to wisps of ashen shadow.
Her legs threaten to give out from under her.
She grips Nevermore tightly and schools her face into one of calm, focusing on keeping her breathing slow and steady. Her feather is warm. She is safe. She is unbroken.
She is Rowan.
“Sorry,” she apologizes quickly to Morena and Evander, avoiding their eyes and instead focusing on the sight of Gale’s empty, cleared off desk behind them. She ignores the emptiness that stretches inside her chest from it. “Knowing what I know, I can’t allow him in here if he’s not going to help Gale.”
Neither Morena or Evander respond and from their silence, Rowan forces herself to look at them. Both are gaping at her in varied expressions of shock, alarm, and perhaps the faintest touch of fascination.
She swallows the lump in her throat. Waving shyly, she gives Evander a polite nod, hoping the poor man isn’t going to run out of the tower and bring the entire might of the Waterdhavian city watch upon her head. “Um. Hello. I’m Rowan. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Dekarios.”
“Umberlee preserve me,” Evander Dekarios nearly whispers, his eyes wide with frightened awe as returns her wave. Albeit a little more shakily. “ Malaka! Gale went and got himself an apprentice with more balls than he has.”
“ Evander !” Morena hisses, elbowing him in the gut.
“What?! You know it is true, my love! Do not look at me with such disgust!”
“I won’t have you insulting our son while he’s suffering at the hands of illithids,” Morena snaps, running a hand through her hair. “My son…my boy…oh, what am I to do…?”
She wilts, leaning against Evander, and Rowan has never seen Gale’s mother look so…defeated. So browbeaten and worn down. Morena has been a pillar of strength and unwavering positivity in the time Rowan has known her. The agony in her chest snaps and twists as she witnesses the older wizard’s eyes fill with tears once more, her cheeks quivering as she desperately holds back what can only be a haunting cry of grief and anguish.
Rowan wants to comfort her. But her hands are covered in a grotesque manifestation of her darkness, and she doesn’t know what to say without breaking down herself.
Instead, she asks quietly, “What are you all doing here?”
Evander answers, looping an arm around Morena’s trembling shoulder and pulling her protectively to him. “I’ve just returned from a long trade run. My wife told me of Gale’s new apprentice and I wished to meet her. Elminster was already waiting at the door when we arrived, and the tower allowed us in, and…”
He glances out the library window, to the sea and sky beyond the pristine panes of glass.
“We did not see the attack, just heard it. For a nautiloid to descend upon Waterdeep and disappear so quickly…it is an ill omen. An ill omen indeed.”
Morena suddenly gasps, her voice heart wrenching as she cries out, “Dorian!”
She pushes away from Evander and begins to murmur something under her breath, her fingers twitching in jerky movements as the skin of her hands glow with the threads of the Weave. She grows silent abruptly, her eyes narrowed and face pinched with concentration.
She repeats this three times.
When Morena starts to repeat it for a fourth time, Evander lays a hand on her arm and gives her a soft, consoling shake of his head.
She does more than wilt.
She absolutely rots.
“He’s not answering my sending,” she whispers hoarsely, wringing her hands into a nervous tangled mess of fingers. “What if…what if Waterdeep wasn’t the only city that was targeted? What if Baldur’s Gate—”
“We will find out for sure,” Evander soothes, taking her hands into his and stroking the calloused skin gingerly. “Perhaps he is just busy with his work, yes?”
Morena doesn’t answer. She stares at their joined hands, tears falling silently down her wrinkled cheeks.
Rowan feels as if she is intruding. Even if this is her tower. Her home.
Until Gale returns, of course. Then it will be their tower again. Their home once more.
“I think it’s best if you two stay here, at least for tonight,” Rowan says quietly, already shuffling her feet to the stairs. “The Castle Ward is bound to be in disrepair and the streets going back to the North Ward might be dangerous. You can have the room I’ve been using; I’ll get what I need out of it.”
Evander raises an eyebrow at her. “Oh? And where will you be staying?”
She doesn’t even have the emotional intelligence to blush when she answers, her voice coming out in an exhausted, dead sigh.
“Gale’s room. The floors here aren’t terribly conducive to sleeping, believe me.”
Rowan does not for any more words to be said and drags herself up the stairs, Nevermore a heavy weight in her hands and Pip’s talons like knives burrowing into the skin of her shoulder. Gods, she is tired. She’s never been so tired. Whatever magic she called upon, whatever oath or spell she had spoken into existence when claiming the tower for the time being and banishing Elminster…
She doesn’t know where that power came from. She didn’t know she was capable of such magic. It’s not something she could pull out of her ass again, that’s for sure. The conditions in that moment of anger and misery were just right for it to be possible.
Rowan’s needs are few. She scrubs her hands until they are red and raw and there is no trace of desolation lingering on her skin. She grabs her pajamas and bag of Shadow Weave-infused rings, leaving everything else in the room. She can come back for it later. She just wants to shut herself in the safety of Gale’s room and pretend like none of this happened.
Like he wasn’t gone, and she was still here because he had to be a hero.
“Can you tell them that there’s food in the larder if they get hungry?” Rowan asks Tara when she comes to a stop in front of Gale’s door. It wasn’t until she felt the familiar soft fur of the tressym brushing against her leg that she realized Tara had followed her.
She nods. Her yellow eyes are downcast and her tail is tucked between her legs somewhat, wings listless against her body as she sighs wearily.
“Whatever are we to do, Miss Rowan? Poor Mr. Dekarios. My poor, foolish pet of a wizard.”
“I don’t know.” Rowan fiddles with the feather in her hair, biting her lower lip so hard it chases away the other round of tears threatening to begin. “Banishing Elminster probably wasn’t the best idea. Even if he’s bound by Mystra’s will, there has to be something he can still contribute.”
Tara scoffs and rolls her eyes, the melancholy in them transforming into irate displease. “Good riddance. Sir Aumar made his choice a year ago. If he did not stand by my wizard’s side then, he will not now. I think you made a perfectly rational decision.”
She pauses, reaching out a paw and placing it gently on Rowan’s ankle. The one that she had twisted in the fall from the nautiloid’s shockwave. The one that had been the reason for Gale to sacrifice himself and safe her from whatever dire fate he has found.
“Mr. Dekarios would be proud of what you have done today,” Tara whispers with a sincerity that stabs Rowan in the gut and sheaths the dagger somewhere between her liver and kidneys. “I hope you know that, my dear.”
She turns and prances down the hallway, disappearing down the stairs before Rowan can stop her.
Rowan stands in front of the door to Gale’s room for far longer than necessary.
When she at last gets the courage to open it, her eyes are stinging and her throat burns with the sobs it longs to let loose. She will not cry. She will not be devoured by the despair that has seeped into every inch of her being. Not yet. She has things to do.
The sun is shining through the open veranda doors, lightning up the marble of the balcony as usual. Rowan hates it. Rowan can’t look at it right now. She points Nevermore at the doors and in a burst of shadow they slam shut, closing for the first time since the tower’s construction. Not even Gale had them shut during his months of melancholy.
But Rowan doesn’t want to see the sun right now. Doesn’t want to see the pretty, clear blue sky, as if the nautiloid had never torn through it like a beast from the depths of hell.
(She doesn’t want the stars and moon to see her later. She can’t stand the shame of it, being the one to return to the tower and Gale being the one who is gone.
Gone.)
She flicks her attention to the bed. The plush, too-big-for-one-person bed she has teased Gale relentlessly about. She never has gotten to nap in it. He absolutely refuses to allow her; she can’t even lay down on the damn thing without sending him into a stammering, flustered mess.
There is something on the bed that is not typically there. Two satchels, thrown about carelessly, the flaps open and their contents half spilling out onto the crisp and pristine sheets.
Rowan pinches the bridge of her nose and takes a deep, centering breath.
Of course he poofed these back here. I didn’t even realize. So dedicated to his damn research that he prioritizes this over his own safety.
She grabs the bag Gale was using and dumps the rest of the contents out onto the bed, shuffling through the books and notes with a strange sense of desperation. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for. She doesn’t even know why she’s bothering to look for some mysterious thing. A miracle? A catch-all that will tell her what to do?
A particular book catches her eye. Volo’s Guide To Monsters—Annotated Edition. The cover is scuffed and the pages are dogeared, suggesting either Gale got this secondhand or he has torn through this volume thousands of times without paying heed to the sanctity of preserving a book’s appearance. She is going to assume it is the former. Gale Dekarios roughhousing a book is as unlikely as Selûne appearing naked in the moonlight before her and beckoning her into a midnight dalliance with equally nude nymphs.
She’s learned about monsters. She’s read about the beasts that lurk in the legends of Toril. She has a rudimentary understanding that mortals (not humans—she still struggles to remember this world is full of other people, even with Jericho and Syl as a reminder) are not the only intelligent beings in this place. But beyond dragons and the denizens of the Feywilds, Rowan hasn’t exactly gone into a deep dive on everything else. She’s been a little too focused on getting her bearings and fitting into Faerûn to care about monsters , a term that’s still somewhat implausible for her.
What had Elminster called them? “Mind flayers”? Well, now is as good a time as any for a short lesson.
She finds the pages on mind flayers relatively quickly. The book is alphabetized, much to her relief, but that relief quickly sours when the illustration of a disgusting creature meets her eyes. It’s like…a squid, standing upright, with baleful yellow eyes and a cruel countenance that makes her shudder despite it just being a picture in a book.
Rowan reads. Every word pulls that sour, bitter taste of fear sharper and sharper on her tongue.
Mind flayers, illithid, whatever name one wishes to call them—it doesn’t matter. They are sadistic and twisted things, lurking in the Underdark and Astral Sea. The book says they have psionic abilities that would make a Beholder weep for its mother.
They eat brains.
They eat fucking brains and her wizard is on one of their fucking ships.
Rowan manages to keep it together until she gets to the section that details how mind flayers reproduce.
They don’t. Not sexually, at least. They infect victims with a parasite. And that parasite turns the unlucky bastard into an illithid in just a few day’s time in a process known as ceremorphosis; their entire being is stripped from them, and they become just another monster eager and willing to dominate all the realms.
And Gale is on that nautiloid at this moment, probably getting one of those parasites shoved into his brain.
Rowan can’t hold in her horrified disgust anymore. She drops the book with a heavy thud onto the floor and rushes to Gale’s private bathroom, vomiting and gagging into the toilet as her mind reels. What would be worse? For his brain to be devoured, or for his soul to become forfeit as he changes into a creature that would seek to hold the universe in his tentacled hands?
No. It won’t happen. Gale is smart. Gale is a wizard and one of Mystra’s Chosen, even if his goddess has abandoned him out of spite. He’ll find a way out. He’ll survive.
He has to.
Rowan washes her mouth out and pulls her pajamas on, ignoring the pangs in her now-empty stomach. She undoes her braid and places Pip’s feather on the bathroom sink, letting her frizzy curls fall about her face in a wild mane. She’s filthy. Dust from the rubble of the collapsed buildings coats her arms and face. Not to mention the weird, kinda gross tar she was oozing earlier.
A bath would help. A long soak in the tub, Gale’s even more extravagant than hers, would be calming and provide a much-needed release of stress. She can’t bring herself to do it. She doesn’t even feel right standing in this room without Gale, wearing pajamas that look like his.
“Gale,” Rowan calls out quietly, a stage whisper, her voice shaky from both getting sick and the dismay that has not left since the nautiloid first appeared in the sky. “I’m going to sleep in your bed now. Better come stop me. After this, I won’t want to sleep anywhere else, you know!”
He doesn’t appear out of thin air to reprimand and refuse her desires. She doesn’t know why this comes as such a shock.
Rowan marches to the bed and with a violent snarl, rips the books and notes and bags of research off of the covers and tosses them to the floor. None of it matters now. She can’t fix Gale’s chest if he’s dead or a monster.
Her hands are shaking as she slides between the sheets. Her teeth are clenched. Her skin feels tight, too tight, like it doesn’t belong to her. She wants to grow claws—great, sharp talons like that of a lion or tiger and shred them down her flesh, slicing it into pink ribbons and letting the blood soak into the mattress.
Rowan buries her face in the pillow and breathes deep.
It smells like Gale.
His warm, comforting scent of sandalwood and cinnamon and parchment envelopes her. If she piles on all the blankets he owns, maybe she can half-ass pretend the weight is his arms around her, and she’s not in his bed alone.
Alone, because Gale is gone, and she is not.
I’m pathetic , she thinks as she allows the tears to fall once more, a gasp wrenching from her throat as she sobs into the pillow. This really is all my fault. If I hadn’t been so insistent on the Yawning Portal, we would have been safe in the tower!
He’s gone.
He’s gone.
He’s gone.
And she’s here, crying and shuddering and shoving the pillow in her mouth as she attempts to silence her sobs. She wants to suffocate. She wants to drown. She doesn’t belong here. It’s Gale that made her feel whole. It’s Gale that made her…happy.
There is no Rowan without Gale .
“Rowan?” Pip asks softly, the fluttering of their wings accompanying the use of her name. They’ve never said her name since she’s summoned them, not once. It’s always “boss.”
She jerks her head up from the pillow. The raven’s violet eyes glow with concern as they crouch carefully on the other pillow Rowan is not destroying with her weeping, head tilted to the side.
“Would you like me to change?” they murmur, nudging a strand of hair out of her eyes with their beak. “I think you could use somethin’ soft and fuzzy to cuddle right now.”
She nods.
Her familiar is correct. Soft and fuzzy is just what she needs.
Pip clears their throat and their feathers begin to shift. Shadows coalesce in languid, twisting tendrils around them. In a matter of moments the raven that has been at her side for these six months is gone and in its place, a relatively chunky long-haired black cat gazes back at her.
Their eyes are still purple, glowing with that eerie Shadowfell light.
Rowan adjusts herself so that she’s no longer about to smother herself with Gale’s pillow and holds out her arms, feeling just a little childish. Pip does not hesitate to crawl into them and purrs loud, so loud their entire furry body vibrates. Louder than Tara has purred. Louder than Freya.
(She pushes that thought to the shadowed corners of her mind. No use in dwelling on that right now.)
“Thanks, Pip,” she whispers hoarsely, burying her face in their fur. “I love you.”
“Love ya too, boss. Go to sleep. I’ll watch over you.”
Despite their gravely tone their voice is oddly soft and soothing as they speak. A rough, rasping tongue flicks against her cheek as they clean up the tracks her tears left behind.
Rowan feels herself sink further into Gale’s bed as exhaustion overcomes her. She allows sleep to take her hand and lead her into a dreamless darkness. All the while, Gale’s scent lingers on her skin like a sedative, lulling her into the safety of the shadows.
Rowan does not want to wake up.
She’s warm. Soft. Surrounded by a lovely aroma and heavy blankets. But someone is calling her name. Very loudly, in fact.
She ignores them. They should just let her sleep. In sleep, she can forget about what happened and who is gone and why she is still here.
In sleep, everything is fine.
And then there is a hand clapping on her shoulder hard and someone is shaking the living daylights out of her, rocking her body with such ferocity she can hear the bed squeaking and groaning in protest.
“Wake up,” Jericho’s husky, sonorous voice demands, the tiefling’s sharp nails pricking her as she jostles Rowan roughly. “There will be no moping in bed for you!”
Rowan lets out a startled grumble but stubbornly keeps her eyes shut, groping around blindly for the blankets she knows she kicked off at some point. She yanks them to her and burrows herself into the sheets, tucking her head under and wresting herself away from Jericho’s iron grip.
She doesn’t want to be awake. Not yet. She can’t face what being awake means.
“Dammit, Rowan, I need you to—when did you get a cat?”
“It’s Pip,” she mutters under the covers, now groping for the raven-turned-cat. Their plush fur meets her wandering fingers and she pulls them flush to her, focusing on the heat emanating from their chubby feline form. “They’re my emotional support familiar right now. Since I…lost my emotional support wizard.”
Gale is gone.
The pain of that truth still burns and bleeds like a gaping wound in her chest.
Rowan hears Jericho sigh. The mattress suddenly dips as a weight settles against her back. A pair of arms wraps around her through the blanket cocoon she has slithered into and a head rests atop of hers gently.
She at last forces her eyes to open and pokes her head out from the covers, glancing at Jericho in confusion. The tiefling is laying next to her on the bed, head tucked against her shoulder as she adjusts herself. Her tail flicks against Rowan’s thighs languidly as she stares at her with silver flames in her eyes, the fire a mixture of kindness and exasperation.
Rowan blinks back at Jericho and resists the urge to grab the tiefling by the horns and do something very stupid.
“Um. What are you doing?”
“Spooning you. Shush. Just accept it.”
So she does.
Time stands still for however long she lay in Gale’s bed, Jericho’s arms snug and unmoving around her. She’s halfway back to falling asleep when the tiefling suddenly pokes her thigh hard and sharp, jolting her back to the present.
“His room looks just as tacky and pretentious as I imagined it would be. I half-expected a marble statue of Mystra in the corner. Or of himself.”
Rowan doesn’t answer. Before a year ago, there might have been one of Mystra. She wouldn’t know. She wasn’t in Gale’s life then. She only knows the depths of his devotion in the here and now, and how each invocation in her name falls upon deaf ears.
She doesn’t think his ego is that inflated that he would have a statue of himself. Not that she would mind one. Maybe naked. And very realistically, anatomically correct. Magic can’t be the only gift Gale was given.
Oh for the love of—this is why I didn’t want to be awake. Now I’m thinking stupidly horny thoughts to block out the other thoughts. Godsdammit, Jericho!
“Would you ever consider telling the Blackstaff to piss off? You seem to have a knack fir demoralizing powerful wizards. Now that I wish I could have seen. I imagine you looked very sexy while doing so.”
Morena must have told Jericho about her little…display of aggression towards Elminster. Did she catch her up about Gale? She would have had to, for Jericho to barge in here like a storm at sea and immediately attempt to offer consolation the best way she knows how.
Gods, she has to confront Morena and Evander again. She just dumped them with the news that their son was squidnapped and then locked herself in his room to have a pity party.
“I heard about Gale,” Jericho says finally quietly, an undertone of remorse echoing in the words. All playful disdain is gone and it sounds strange in her voice. Rowan is used to her devil-may-care flair and arrogance. “I’m sorry. I know you…care about him.”
Care, not cared.
Despite the odds against him, Jericho seems to have the decency to not write Gale as completely gone. Not yet.
“I feel lost,” Rowan admits shakily, stroking Pip’s fur and rubbing their soft, velveteen ears. Just like Freya’s. “It happened so suddenly and I just…I don’t know what to do.”
Maybe what she feels for Gale isn’t exactly healthy. She’s been at his side daily for over six months at this point and in that time, perhaps she has grown to rely on his presence a little too much. He has become her beacon, her anchor, her rock—but is it in a way that is right?
It can’t be. Not if his absence has caused an abyss inside her with a hunger of its own, a voice screaming dissonantly echoing in the caverns of her soul as it cries out,
He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone…
Over and over again. A twisted, mutilated mantra.
Rowan has always been like this. She gets stuck to one person in particular and when they inevitably toss her to the side, everything in her mind goes wrong. She breaks. She bends. She snaps. She focuses too much on what could have been and not enough on the what’s next ?
Because what can be next after this? How can she live in a world without Gale when he is the one who eased her transition into this one?
“It physically pains me to say it,” Jericho murmurs, squeezing Rowan in her arms affectionately, “but Gale Dekarios is the smartest wizard I know. His ability to wriggle out of any situation is unparalleled. He’ll be okay, Rowan.”
Rowan swallows down a choked sound that was too close to a sob for her comfort. Does Jericho not know the ache she is feeling, the desperation slipping between the cracks of who she is? She can’t just say things like that. She can’t give her hope. Not when at any moment Tara could fly through the door and say he is gone for good, and then Rowan truly will be lost.
Lost like a ship in a roiling tempest of despair, her beacon of light nowhere to be found in the darkness.
“But what if he’s not?”
“Then go get him and make sure he is,” the tiefling says as if it’s the simplest thing in the world and for some reason, it is those words that cuts through the miasma clinging to Rowan’s insides.
She spins around in the bed and stares at her unflinchingly.
Jericho just shrugs, maddeningly nonchalant.
“Gale might be the smartest wizard, but honey? You’re the smartest sorcerer I know. Your magic is incredible. It’s unique! And it listens to you in ways wholly unlike the Weave we wizards control does.”
She suddenly rolls out of the bed and lands on the floor with all the grace of an acrobat. Jericho grabs hold of blankets Rowan has swaddled herself in and pulls with a frightening vigor and swiftness. Rowan tries to grab at the receding blankets but fails, her fingers snatching at empty air. It’s chilly in the room without them. Stuffy, too.
She should not have shut the door to the balcony. The stars and moon might have provided some semblance of comfort.
“So get your sweet little ass out of bed,” Jericho says with a sternness that anyone else would call unkind if they did not know the tiefling wizard well. “Start making a plan to find and save him.”
Rowan denies herself the petty satisfaction of casting Invisibility and running away. She does not want to face the repercussions of such a cowardly act later.
She runs a hand through her unruly, chaotic hair and forces herself into a sitting position. Pip lets out a soft inquisitive meow as they butt their head against her side and she glances down at them. Her mind is racing. Her thoughts are bulging and stretching in grotesque, unflattering shapes inside her head. There are so many things she could say right now. She could bare her teeth and tell Jericho to fuck off, to leave her be. She could even go so far as to demand the tiefling be the one to find Gale even though it is not her place.
But deep down, she knows Jericho is right. She usually is. Even so…
“I don’t even know where to begin,” Rowan whispers. Her eyes flick to the tomes and notes she had pushed onto the floor before crying herself to sleep. Besides Volo’s guidebook, there’s nothing in those haphazard piles that would be helpful, and she’s already read all she can stand about mind flayers.
“Then begin at the end. What will you do once you find him?”
There it is again. Jericho’s subtle confidence; her insistence Gale will be fine. Rowan doesn’t know if she’s doing it to placate her or because she genuinely believes in his self-preservation.
Perhaps it’s a little bit of both.
“When I find him, I…”
Rowan thinks back to the look on Gale’s face just before he disappeared. That resigned horror. The pained smile he struggled to keep. The way his entire body was tense with fear and yet—and yet—
He had focused on her, not himself.
He was gone, and she was here, and oh. Oh, she’s angry.
The abyss of despair quivers. Something is boiling inside her. There is blood in the water and the sharks are hungry, starving, and the only thing she can offer them is that silent rage that has not left since Gale left her.
“I’m going to punch him,” Rowan finally says after mulling over her thoughts and the last expression Gale gave her. “I’m going to drag him to an isolated corner of a room, punch him, yell at him, tell him he can’t just fucking make heroic sacrifices and leave me on my own and then…”
Her cheeks grow warm. Her neck prickles. Her chest squeezes and a fledgling bird struggles to take flight in the space between her ribs, caged by the bones keeping it trapped.
The sharks begin to circle that poor, wretched creature.
“…I’m going to tell him I’m in love with him and kiss him before he can say anything back.”
Jericho lets out a sharp, shrill whistle and holds back a snort. She does not do a very good job of it. “Whoa, babe, we’re going from zero to one hundred real quick on that,” she coughs, covering the lower half of her face with a hand. Rowan is fully aware that it’s just so she can’t see the knowing, smug smirk the tiefling is now wearing.
“You’ve known me for half a year. Would you expect anything less?”
“Fair enough. You’re just a wee bit unhinged in all the ways it counts. That's why I like you so much.”
“Aw. That’s the sweetest thing someone has ever said about me.”
Well, not really. Gale has said plenty of other sweet things to her, about her, for her.
The sharks sink beneath the waves. The storm begins to subside. Her blood cools. The bird ceases its fluttering and returns to its perch on a rib bone, mollified for the moment.
Jericho senses Rowan’s defeat and gestures pointedly at Gale’s bathroom. Rowan’s robe remains crumpled up in the doorway where she left it. “Now shut up and get dressed,” she all but commands, eyes blazing. “Actually, take a bath first. You’re kind of gross.”
Rowan glances away sheepishly, painfully and acutely aware that Gale’s impeccable sheets are now forever tainted by her bout of neurosis.
“I know.”
“You stink.”
“I know.”
“Your hair is a hot mess.”
“I know.”
“And you look like shit.”
“I know, Jericho.”
“Clean yourself up and be quick about it,” Jericho grunts, crossing her arms and standing guard in front of the bedroom door like a stoic soldier. “Mistress Syl, Morena, and Evander are all downstairs. You slept the whole of yesterday away. We’re not letting that happen again, alright, hon?”
A sudden rush of hatred, bitter and seething, courses through her veins. The vehemence of it startles her, especially after everything else she had just felt. She thought she was done with these deplorable emotions. Yet she is not. Hearing that everyone else is downstairs, aware of
Gale’s fate. Aware of how she handled the aftermath.
She wishes they would let it happen again.
Her turning to the sweet euphoria of ignorant bliss that is sleeping for the rest of her days.
She wishes they would leave the tower and let her be alone with her rage and sadness and every other emotion in between. She wishes they would allow her to sink into the darkness—the wrong darkness, the kind that makes her skin crawl—and forget she ever existed.
But they won’t. They would never. And Rowan despises herself for letting such thoughts flash across the surface of her mind.
She needs to get a grip. She can’t let herself think like this—she can’t continuously break down and give in to blight that has overtaken her mind, devouring her senses and replacing them with things better left unsaid.
Then another thought emerges from the shadowy depths. It banishes everything else with startling clarity. She looks at Jericho sharply, face drawn in worry as she realizes how strange it is for Jericho to even be at Gale’s tower in the first place.
“Syl’s shop is on the edge of the Castle Ward. Is it…?”
Her gorgeous friend’s face darkens and an uncharacteristically sad expression clouds over her typical brusque charms.
“It’s gone,” she admits quietly. “Mistress Syl and I were on a delivery run when the attack happened, so we weren’t in the shop, but…it was destroyed. I imagine everything in it shared the same fate. But we’re here.”
She gazes at Rowan, the silver fire in her eyes blazing with a genuine relief that makes guilt coil in her belly.
“We’re here, and so are you. I am ever so grateful for that, Rowan.”
Rowan does not dally in getting freshened up and dressed. As heavy as the weight of real clothes feels, as much as Gale bed beckons her to return, she strolls out of his room with her head as high as she can carry it. Her shadows whisper and murmur inside her veins. Her rage simmers and awaits until the time is right. She cannot lose herself to her emotions. She cannot just lock herself away from the world and hope things get better on their own.
She’s going to find Gale somehow. She needs to start now, before it’s too late.
Even if it’s already too late, a traitorous voice full of venom spits into her mind.
She ignores it as she makes her way down the stairs, Pip back in their raven form on her shoulder and Jericho trailing close behind. Her decision has not been made lightly. She will not give into that abyss where her heart once was. She will not be overcome with grief and lost herself in the depths of the miserable, pathetic thing she was about to become.
A table with enough chairs for everyone currently inside the tower has appeared in the middle of the library. Rowan isn’t sure if it’s the inherent enchantments of the tower itself or a dual effort by Jericho and Morena. There is food spread out on it and her stomach pangs with a painful reminder that everything she ate yesterday was evicted upon learning more about mind flayers.
But food can wait. Some things need to be said first.
“Oh, Rowan,” Morena calls out when the older wizard realizes she has descended the stairs. “Good morning. How are you feeling, my dear?”
Her face is haggard and the shadows beneath her eyes are deep. Rowan should be the one asking
her
that.
“Better. All things considered.”
Evander is seated at the table with a plate full of dried meats and cheese and a very big bottle of what Rowan knows to be Gale’s most expensive wine. Like father, like son, she supposes. He appears fatigued, though less so than Morena, but there is no denying a certain heaviness about him as he drinks directly from the bottle in sullen silence.
A hand is suddenly upon her arm, gentle and soft. She turns to see Syl gazing at her with tender concern. The half-elf’s eyes are swollen and rimmed in red as if she has been crying for hours on end.
Syl loops her arm around Rowan’s and without any word of greeting, drags her to the table and forces her into the chair next to her. She quietly goes about making a plate up, her movements stiff and full of a grief that makes Rowan’s heart crack just a little more. To see both Syl and Morena so broken down, so devastated…
“Please eat,” Syl murmurs as she hands Rowan the plate, piled high with fruits and bread. “The worst thing you can do to yourself right now is deny your body what it needs.”
The seamstress must be psychic. She’s always had an uncanny intuition, Rowan supposes.
The only noise in the library for the next few minutes are the sounds of eating, drinking, and the clinking of silverware as everyone else sits at the table and partakes in a makeshift breakfast. Tara is draped around Morena’s shoulders, Rowan realizes after awhile. Just like she would do to Gale.
The tressym’s eyes are closed. Her fur is somewhat dull and her feathers aren’t as crisp as they usually are. She is rather limp, as if gripped by a great and terrible exhaustion. Rowan wonders if a familiar can feel everything their summoner can through the bond.
She hopes, for Tara’s sake, this is not true.
After a painfully awkward stretch of silence, Morena at last sighs and says in a shaky voice, “I suppose some explanations are in order so that everyone present can be on the same page.”
She is staring at Rowan with a strange, hardened expression that is so far from the usual warm cheer. Evander is avoiding looking directly at his wife, his eyes somewhat glazed over as if in suspended disbelief.
…I fucked up, didn’t I?
Rowan shrinks beneath Morena’s gaze as the realization dawns. She had said some things yesterday during her unfortunate loss of control towards Elminster that neither Morena nor Evander Dekarios were supposed to be aware of. Gale’s mother was not supposed to know Rowan knew about the Netherese orb inside his chest. Gale’s father was not supposed to know about the orb or the truth of Gale’s fall from Mystra’s grace.
Shit. Jericho and Syl don’t know about any of this either and they’re in the room. Is Rowan supposed to air all of Gale’s dirty laundry out here and now? That doesn’t seem like her place. Even if it possibly means more people joining her secret cause to storm Mystra’s realm and slap the goddess so hard she loses a few stars in her crown.
She swallows and folds her hands together in her lap, staring at the apple core she’s left on her plate. She can’t meet everyone’s eyes right now. It’s too much.
“I’m sorry for the way I lashed out yesterday,” Rowan begins. “Sometimes I…struggle with my emotions. I can’t control them. After everything that—happened—I was not in a good way. I don’t regret the message I conveyed to Elminster but I regret the way it was delivered. I’m sorry. I should have been better. I should have done better.”
I should be gone and Gale should be here.
Morena softens. The inscrutable brick wall she’s built up since Rowan saw her last with tears in her eyes starts to crumble ever so slightly. “We all say and do things we regret. I am just worried that your actions may lead to consequences similar to the ones my son has faced since he defied his goddess.”
Jericho leans forward with interest. “Defied Mystra? What do you mean?”
Morena and Rowan meet one another’s eyes. And even though it may be a breach of Gale’s privacy, even though there is no doubt he did not want the others gathered in this library to know every nitty gritty detail of the wizard who thought himself wiser than Mystra herself, mother and apprentice share the events of the last year. They do so haltingly, as sparsely as possible, filling in the blanks when the other lapses into silence.
The recounting of the tale ends with Rowan adding their next step to fixing Gale’s chest was to travel to Baldur’s Gate. His mother’s face grows dark once more and she squeezes her eyes shut, breathing slow and steady as Evander reaches over and tugs his wife to him with one arm.
His lower lip trembles almost imperceptibly, his expression still glazed over with a mournful uncertainty.
“Baldur’s Gate was attacked as well,” he says with a quiet ache in his rich voice. “Neverwinter, too, but Baldur’s Gate suffered the worst. Cities are panicking. No one knows what to do. People are missing from all over the Sword Coast. Dorian, our oldest…he was taken in the attack on Baldur’s Gate.”
Morena lets out one controlled, shaking sob that releases a day’s worth of misery in a single gasp.
“My boys…my beautiful boys…I’ve lost both of them.”
Syl, who has remained quiet and observant, pushes out of her chair and goes around the table to where Morena and Evander sit. Wordlessly, the elderly half-elf sweeps both into a hug as best she can, murmuring something Rowan can’t hear in their ears as she holds them tenderly. Syl is as much a member of the Dekarios family as anyone. All of this must be brutal to hear, learning of the pain Gale has kept hidden for a year.
And now he is gone, Dorian has been subjected to the same horrible end, and not a damn person in this library has any idea how to fix it all.
“Sounds like we’ve got a lot of work to do, then.”
Jericho’s voice rings out across the library, echoing with conviction. She has also remained oddly silent during all of this, the only indication of her shock and disbelief the widening of her eyes and the occasional chewing on her lower lip.
(Rowan doesn’t want to tell her that she’s ruining her makeup that way. It doesn’t seem important at the moment.)
Everyone turns to the tiefling and Jericho lets out a huff, the sound almost indignant as she schools her expression into its usual querulous scowl.
“I don’t like Gale. I don’t like Dorian, either. Everyone knows this. But I like Morena. I like Rowan. And I guess I like you, Evander, even though you won’t approve of me flirting with Morena.”
Evander lets out a strangled, awkward chuckle and he sinks into his seat somewhat nervously, his neck starting to flush. He really looks like Gale when he’s embarrassed. It’s ridiculous how attractive the patriarch of the Dekarios family is.
“I like you too, Jericho, but please…” He puts his hands before his face in a postulant manner, dipping his head towards the tiefling in submission. “Wait until my body is resting beneath the waves before you seduce my wife.”
“I make no promises. Anyway.” Jericho slams her hands on the table and holds her head high, the silver flames in her eyes roiling with a sudden passion and zeal that Rowan only sees whenever she’s concentrating on a particularly touchy enchantment. “I have some pull at the Blackstaff Academy. Not much considering how I left, but it’s some. Enough that I might get access to information that can help us. I know they would let me stay there for the time being, what with the shop being nothing but rubble.”
She glances at Syl, her scowl growing gentle and contrite.
“Mistress Syl, you should stay with me there as well. The guest wing is far more accommodating than some dusty old pirate’s den under the docks. No offense, Evander.”
“Evanthe is a
privateer
, not a
pirate
!” he protests, the red in his face growing darker and blooming even further about.
“Yes, well, either way, your sister is very good at finding hidden treasure, if you know what I mean.”
Rowan levels Jericho with a look, resisting the urge to let her mouth drop in shock as she contemplates the exchange between the tiefling and Evander and puts two and two together. “Dear gods,” she whispers, half-horrified and half-impressed. “Are you planning on sleeping with every woman Gale is related to?”
Jericho gives her a devious wink, that softened scowl now transforming into an underhanded smirk with enough wanton chaos behind it that it makes even Rowan blush. “I don’t kiss and tell, hon.”
So, essentially, yes.
You know what? Good for her. At least one of us is getting some when it counts.
“You could stay here too,” Rowan offers as she lets a string of raunchy, perverse comments die down in the back of her mind where they belong. Now is not the time and place to voice such sentiments even though she is dying to know what Gale’s supposed pirate aunt is like. “I could find a way to make room, o-or you and Syl could take Gale’s room while I stay in the library and—”
Jericho holds up a stern hand, immediately silencing her.
“Nope. You, Morena, and Evander stay here. The Academy made it through the attacks unscathed and is one of the safest places in all of Waterdeep. Besides,” her upper lip curls and she bares a fang aggressively, cracking her neck as she rolls her head around her shoulders, “some of my former classmates have taken up residence as professors there. It’ll be fun to make them squirm.”
As much as Rowan wants to get on her knees and beg and plead for them to stay, it would be unbecoming. It makes sense. With Jericho on the inside of the Academy she’ll be able to funnel information Rowan otherwise wouldn’t have the means of accessing.
Her memories stir as the day Gale told her of his folly and blunder against Mystra’s wishes. Maybe there is something in the academy library’s forbidden section that knows a miracle-level spell that will immediately transport both Gale and Dorian to Waterdeep unscathed.
She doubts it. But it’s still nice to dream.
“We’ll head there now,” the tiefling decides as she walks over to where Syl still stands, holding Morena and Evander to her. It is almost like Syl has retreated into herself, glassy-eyed and as limp as the still-sleeping Tara on Morena’s shoulder.
Rowan’s heart twitches with apprehension. She can’t imagine how the seamstress must be feeling right now. She’s lost her entire home and business in one day with no warning or way to prevent it.
But you lost your home too, a piece of Rowan reminds her, and her heart pangs once more.
Because the voice is right.
The tower is no home without Gale at her side. Not a proper one, at least.
“Let me know as soon as you get to the Academy and find suitable lodging,” Morena says gently as Jericho tugs Syl away with tender, almost dainty hands. “And inform me of the Castle Ward’s condition, please.”
Jericho nods. “I will. I’ll send a message once I get Mistress Syl settled in. Come along, Mistress Syl—we’d best get going before anyone else steals my idea, hm?”
“O-oh,” Syl murmurs, blinking as if she’s suddenly woken up from a dream. “Yes. I suppose so.” She allows Jericho to steer her towards the door, her steps slow and almost senile.
Rowan pretends like she doesn’t see the pain flitting across Jericho’s stoic, beautiful face. For how strong the tiefling is and how much she likes to pretend nothing matters to her, her affection and respect for Syl is blindingly obvious. This must be killing her.
She didn’t have to be the one to drag Rowan’s ass out of Gale’s bed. She didn’t have to be the one to snap her out of the darkness. But she was. She was, even though she is hurting just as much as Rowan is.
Jericho lost something yesterday, too. They all did. She needs to remember it’s not just her that experienced the catastrophe of the nautiloid.
Three entire cities’ worth of people did. With that many casualties, someone is bound to find a way to get them back. Someone has to know where the nautiloid went and where it took their loved ones.
The moment Syl and Jericho exit the tower Evander lets out a heavy breath, slumping over the table and groaning as if he just got done with a three-day-long bender. Judging by all the wine he’s already consumed this morning, it might not be an incorrect comparison.
“For the love of the Bitch Queen,” he exclaims, voice a gasping high pitch, “Gale and Lady Mystra were
courting
?! And I did not know about it?!” He swivels his head to Morena, who is absentmindedly stroking Tara. The tressym stirs only slightly, her whiskers twitching. “For a Chosen to be involved with their deity in such a way is—”
“Dangerous,” Gale’s mother finishes solemnly, nodding.
“And that
thing
,” Evander continues, body shuddering in revulsion as his face takes on a haunted, broken expression akin to the one his wife has been wearing since Rowan came downstairs. “That magic inside him…I did not know. Gods above and below, I did not know. This whole time…the whole year, he has been so close to…”
He trails off but Rowan knows what he was going to say.
Dying.
It is on the tips of everyone’s tongue and the forefront of everyone’s brains. No one wants to voice it out loud. Not when his fate is being spun by a pair of cruel hands and the eyes and ears of the goddess who could pluck him from the tempest of destiny are blinded by petty resentment.
Gale’s father shrinks before Rowan’s gaze, throat bobbing and jaw clenched as he runs a hand through his hair.
“I said so many cruel things to him when he said he lost Mystra’s favor. I would not have said them had I known the truth of what he had done. Morena…Morena, my love, I called our son a disappointment. I told him he had shamed the Dekarios family name. If I never see him again…”
He chokes and it sounds as if he is drowning in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean.
“It will be the last thing I said to him,” he utters, and now it is Morena who holds her husband close to her heaving chest as she struggles not to cry.
Rowan can’t stand it. She can’t watch Gale’s parents break before her eyes.
“It won’t be the last thing you say to him,” she vows quietly, glancing around at the wealth of knowledge and the shelves of books surrounding them. If there’s one thing she’s disturbingly, exceptionally good at, it’s speed-reading. And right now, time is of the essence. “I won’t let it be.”
She’s had six months of doing nothing but studying. She’s had over half a year of her eyes burning in the glow of Dancing Lights as she pours over ancient tomes and books on every subject, from magic to history to the fashion trends of Menzoberranzan because even though Lolth is terrifying, she’s also kind of hot and drow matriarchs really know how to look good.
It’s time to put those skills to the test.
She’ll find Gale before he is either eaten by a mind flayer or becomes one.
It is easier said than done.
A week passes by since the nautiloid attack on Waterdeep, deceptively fast and painfully slow at once. The news up and down the Sword Coast is much the same—the warship disappeared after its assault on Baldur’s Gate, supposedly escaping into a portal bound for what may have been Avernus, and now…
Nothing.
No whispers, no rumors, no tales of squid-headed monsters roaming the countryside and eating the brains of the populace for breakfast.
But Gale is not dead. Tara confirms this every morning, weak and exhausted by some force she cannot explain, but nonetheless…the tressym knows it in her soul to be true. That Gale Dekarios is still alive, still human, and still plagued with an orb in his chest that threatens to consume every pint of magic in Faerûn.
On the dawn of the seventh day since Gale was taken, Rowan’s hope is dwindling and her will is rapidly shattering.
Jericho’s attempts at gathering information at the Blackstaff Academy have been fruitless, only repeating facts and futures they are already painfully aware of. Gale’s parents, pillars of influence in their own varying circles, continuously run into the same problem. Evander’s network of merchants have nothing to provide; Morena’s sendings to wizards and adventurers of note bring back little more than feeble apologies. She continuously tries to reach out to her sons regardless of fully knowing the outcome every time—that whatever foul thing has taken hold of Gale and Dorian, they cannot hear her words drifting on the winds of the Weave as she casts spells that never find purchase with their intended recipients.
(She has tried to pretend like she has not heard Morena dissolving into desperate sobs in the wee hours of the night, Evander’s broken voice providing empty solace and promises that cannot be kept.)
So the seventh day comes, shrouded in despair and tasting of bitter misery.
Gale's parents have left the tower before dawn even broke in one last effort to see if Elminster is still in Waterdeep and beg the Sage of Shadowdale for something, anything, any way to save their sons. They leave little more than a short letter with no pleasantries for Rowan to find on the table in the library that is now more akin to a war room. She cannot stop the shame that fans an inferno inside of her as she reads it, knowing her infantile display of emotions a week ago might have fucked up their best chance at saving the Dekarios sons.
I don’t regret the message I conveyed to Elminster but I regret the way it was delivered.
The words still ring true. The wrinkly old bastard deserved every ounce of ire and rage she had shown. She just wishes she could have chosen a better time, a better place to make him aware of the scathing hatred she feels for him and the goddess he serves.
“Tara,” Rowan says quietly to the tressym, who is wrapped around her shoulders like a scarf. She did not go with Morena and Evander. Remaining inside its walls may be the only thing keeping her spirits up to some degree. “The attic Gale stores items in…do you know if there’s anything up there we might be able to use?”
It’s the one place she hasn’t looked. It has felt wrong to wander around up there without Gale describing the artifacts with his usual gusto and his eyes shining proudly.
Tara stirs on her shoulders, her purr so quiet it might as well not exist. Pip has not left the tressym’s side, hoping their presence is somewhat of a comfort, and the raven is nestled between Tara’s wings right now.
Rowan refuses to complain that her back is going to give out. She can handle the weight of two familiars on her shoulders. Especially when one has lost her wizard and is slowly losing herself along with his absence.
“I do not think anything is of value there,” Tara answers truthfully, her voice subdued and solemn. “Mr. Dekarios has picked over much of the artifacts he was storing there over the last year. It is a veritable junkyard now. But…I suppose there is no harm in looking.”
“Well, it’s the only option I have right now.”
Rowan glances at the weak sunlight filtering in through the library windows, a knot in her chest. She’s exhausted. She’s barely slept for seven days. But she can’t rest now. Will ceremophosis happen at the end of the seventh day of infection, or does it occur immediately?
Something tells her to grab the bag she has slowly been accumulating supplies in over the last week. Potions, scrolls, enchanted items—she has been emptying out Gale’s stores and shoving them into a Bag of Holding for no reason other than telling herself it will be useful eventually. Maybe that instinct is right. Maybe it’s not.
She carries it with her from room to room anyway. As if she’s expecting another nautiloid attack to bear down on the tower and this time, she can be prepared to stop it.
The pouch of rings infused with her raw magic jingles in an inside pocket of her robe. Nevermore is strapped to her back. She bites down the pessimistic thoughts and remarks dancing on the tip of her tongue as she trudges up the stairs, glides down the hallway, and stops at the very end of it. The door to the attic is unadorned and plain, perhaps the only thing in Gale’s tower that does not drip with wizardy ostentatiousness.
She used to make fun of him for now. Now, Rowan would give anything just to hear him say “good morning” in that sleepy, eager to start the day voice he would use upon just waking up.
She pulls the door open and carefully ascends the somewhat rickety spiral staircase that leads to the very top of the tower. There are no windows in the attic. A quick casting of Dancing Lights illuminates the dusty shadows. She ignores the hurt that the cantrip brings; it was the first thing Gale taught her to cast, and now she’s using it in one last desperate attempt to find him.
The room is much like the library in that it is full of shelves, and those shelves are full of books and items and so many things that Rowan feels overwhelmed by the impossibility of knowing how to even begin looking. Enchantment lessons with Jericho over the last few months have taught her a few tricks. In the back of her mind, she has a vague idea of what she’s searching for.
Rowan still feels it is right to defer to Tara in this instance, however, so she asks in a quiet voice, “Do you think Gale has any scrying crystals up here?”
A light amusement seeps into Tara’s tone as the tressym’s throat vibrates with a purring laugh.
“He only had one, as far as I knew,” she answers. “A gift from Morena. Alas, it was one of the many unfortunate victims to the blight he carries.”
Well, shit. That ruins part one of her plan.
“What about something enchanted with a Teleportation spell? A ring, a staff, an amulet…anything like that?”
Tara pauses, her fluffy tail flicking back and forth as she contemplates silently. After a few moments she nods, the movement slow and lethargic. “I believe Mr. Dekarios does indeed keep a scroll of Teleport among these dusty old shelves. It only works once, so he claims he has no use for it. Whatever is the point of a spell that can take you somewhere but not return you home when you so desire?”
Rowan almost rolls her eyes. Almost. What a perfectly Gale thing to say.
Gods, she misses him.
She calls upon the shadows within her and flicks her wrist out sharply, sending her arcane consciousness through the attic. She focuses on the Conjuration magic that Teleport is composed of, searching for its particular signature in the sea of enchanted items. To Rowan’s relief, the scroll blips immediately on her internal radar just a few feet behind her. She turns around and shuffles to the shelf containing the scroll.
It takes her a few moments to rummage through everything piled high on the shelves. The scroll seems to be buried beneath a stack of blank parchment. A wooden box rests against the thick stack, unassuming in its simplicity. Rowan pays it no mind as she wedges her hand into the stack of papers, groping around for the supposed scroll of Teleport.
The arcane radar blips again when her fingers brush against a smooth, almost laminated piece of vellum. She yanks her hand out with a cry of victory and in her haste, somehow bumps the box with her elbow and sends it flying to the floor.
Rowan flinches when she hears it thud. It sounds like something breakable is inside. The last thing she wants to do is destroy any of Gale’s precious magic items.
(Even if he’s not coming back.)
The scroll of Teleport in one hand, she bends down to pick the box up and inspect the contents, hoping everything inside remains intact and whole. When she undoes the latch and flips the lid open, however, her stomach lurches oddly and a choked gasp gets caught in her throat.
It’s a crystal.
A perfectly spherical crystal with no marks or dents marring its pristine, translucent surface. The moment it makes contact with Rowan’s bare hands she can immediately feel Gale’s magic swirling inside it like a storm, his connection and attunement to it glaringly obvious.
She knows what this is.
It is the exact thing she was looking for.
“Holy fucking shit,” Rowan breathes in disbelief, cradling the object as if it is the most precious thing in the universe. “This is a scrying crystal.”
“How odd. I was almost certain he had but the one,” Tara insists, her voice a strange mix of hope and incredulity. “Mr. Dekarios must have gone and purchased another one without my knowledge. Heavens, that man, hoarding all these items like a packrat…”
Rowan can’t waste another minute.
She sprints out of the attic and down the spiral stairs, racing to Gale’s bedroom and throwing the door open in a huff. She sets the crystal down on the bed and the scroll next to it, wringing her hands nervously as her mind becomes a cacophony of screaming thoughts. She should wait for Morena and Evander, shouldn’t she? Wouldn’t they want to see if this will work? Morena has attempted to scry on Gale and Dorian but like her attempts at messaging them, some kind of magic has proved those efforts to be in vain.
But Gale’s mother has not used an item he himself has attuned to. The laws of magic in this world be damned. Rowan will twist them to her own logic. She will tear the order of Faerûn’s arcane ebb and flow to shreds if she must to save Gale.
She doesn’t need Elminster’s help. She doesn’t need Mystra’s help. She can do this on her own.
But she just stares at the crystal and scroll without speaking, without moving, frozen in place as if by some unforeseen hand. What if this doesn’t work? What if this was all for nothing, and Gale is still gone, and she is still here, and she will forever be lost in this world that had made her
happy
for half a year?
The feather at her throat grows warm suddenly. Uncomfortably hot, blazing even. Rowan lets out a grunt of discomfort as she grabs the feather and squeezes it in her palm, focusing on the heat and letting it fill the numb, hollowed-out parts of her that have grown deeper and darker as the seven days since Gale’s sacrifice have passed.
She remembers.
Pip’s feather. Gale had Pip’s feather in his hair when he was taken. It had been tucked into his updo as she had so meticulously done every morning for weeks.
Oh, why hadn’t she realized that before?
Thank you,
she whispers silently to the goddess that gave her a second chance, tears in her eyes as she takes hold of the scrying crystal in trembling hands.
Thank you so much. I can do this. I can
do
this.
“Pip,” she says aloud to her familiar, voice startlingly calm and steady, “I need you to help me focus. Your feather—Gale has your feather. And his magic is in this scrying crystal. I think I can find him, but I need you to act as my conduit again, like you did when I was finally able to cast Fireball. Can you do that?”
The raven bobs their head frantically, purple eyes flashing as they gaze at her with an unwavering determination that defies even the gods.
“‘Course I can, boss. Leave it to me. I won’t letcha down.”
“Tara, focus on your connection with Gale,” Rowan instructs the tressym as kindly as she can manage, even though it pains her to ask such a thing when Tara is so drained from whatever has happened to her wizard.
Their
wizard.
Tara nods mutely, pressing closer to her. The darkness inside of Rowan pulses as she gazes into the diaphanous layers of the crystal. She thinks of her fingers in Gale’s hair, caressing the silken strands for a beat too long as she pulls it up into a bun. She thinks of the feather she has placed in it over and over again, always wondering why he insists that she has to be the one to fix his hair but never questioning it out loud.
She thinks of his eyes. His smile. His voice.
She thinks of the way Gale says her name in her dreams like a promise, silver-tongued and dripping with honey.
Rowan thinks of over six months’ worth of memories in the span of moments, clutching the feather at her throat and listening to the thundering sound of her heartbeat as misty shadows begin to swirl within the scrying crystal. There is a tug on her connection to the Shadow Weave—the darkness Gale has devoured and the feather plucked from Pip’s plumage with care. She follows that strand. She chases it like a starving wolf, jaws salivating and fangs glinting as the hunt nears its brutal end. But he is still out of reach, lost in mist and shadow, whatever strange magic that obscures him clinging stubbornly to his being like oil.
She will not give up. Not now. Not when she’s so close.
Let me find you, Gale. Let me be the one to bring you home.
The barrier is thick. The walls keeping him enclosed are fit for a citadel, armed with arcane defenses and a malevolence that makes her skin crawl. But Rowan keeps pushing. She focuses on the callouses of his hands, the way his laughter echoes in the library when she’s said something untoward. She has lived a lie and died a pathetic wretch. She has been born anew and been given the purpose of finding her true happiness in this world.
Gale is the key to that happiness and for him, oh, Rowan will break down any fucking door in her way.
The feather is hot in her hand. Her skin prickles with something unknown. That thing is watching her. She knows it is. She senses it as it turns its focus on her, reaching forward with grasping tendrils ready to sink into the meat of her brain.
Rowan cries out as pain explodes in the back of her head and it is in that moment that her darkness strikes back.
Her magic pierces through something slimy and sinister. The shadows rip and shred oozing flesh into more pieces than the glass that killed her shattered into. It is like all of the magic pent up inside of her releases at once, spreading out into the very aether of the universe as it stretches farther than she intended.
Rowan is the wolf. Rowan is the hunter. Rowan is the sword and the ax and the spear, and she flings her darkness with the force of every precious memory that beats inside her breast against the walls hiding Gale from her. The barrier crumbles; the baleful, curious gaze hiding behind it suddenly winks out of existence.
And when Rowan looks into the scrying crystal, she sees Gale.
His surroundings are fuzzy. She can vaguely make out a dark, dismal place with decaying walls and gore splattered this way and that. Grotesque torches made of skulls and bones provide just enough light to illuminate him and those around him. It is a motley crew—a large, muscular bear with blood marring its thick fur, a pale elven man with eyes like rubies, a pretty woman with dark hair and almost ceremonial armor, and a lithe and slender tiefling with rosy skin and hair like the pink dawn of a sunrise.
They look exhausted. They look battered, beaten, and bloodied. They look like they can barely stand, much less fight, which is unfortunate because that is exactly what they’re doing.
Rowan cannot see past Gale and the other figures, but his hands are covered in the auroral glow of his magic and his face is set with grim, fatigued determination. The elf brandishes twin daggers dripping with viscera. The dark-haired woman grips a shield and a mace tightly. The tiefling crouches with a rapier balanced in her elegant fingers.
But she’s barely paying them any mind. She’s barely registering these strangers. All she can do is stare at Gale, his mouth moving silently in an incantation as he weaves the magic of a well-aimed Lightning Bolt towards someone (or something) beyond the purview of the scry. Pip’s feather is tucked in his hair, far messier than she would have ever done it for him, but Rowan doesn't care.
He’s alive.
He’s alive . He is not illithid. He is not a feast for those monsters, a banquet of carrion and intellect. He is alive.
And she does not have time to dwell upon the pure song of elation humming in her chest, because he is very much in danger.
“Oh, fuck,” Rowan gasps out as the flash of steel cuts through the image in the crystal, narrowly missing Gale before the scene fades to nothingness. Her shadows tremble in her veins, tugging on the shadows she knows dwell within her beloved wizard as well, and she prays he will be alright. That he can hold out for just a little longer.
Tara’s voice hisses in her ear, loud and desperate and aching with an agony Rowan shares. “We have to go. We have to get to him now .”
Rowan knows. She’s already starting the ritual to cast Teleport.
“There’s no time to tell Morena and Evander,” she says breathlessly, striking the scroll with her fingers and alighting the runes inscribed upon the vellum in shadow. “He needs us now. We’ll bring him back.”
There are other things she could attend to first. More supplies to put in the bag, more preparations to be made, more precautions to take.
None of it matters. Getting to Gale before a blade gets stuck in his chest or his throat is slit by some unseen hand in the darkness is paramount. Rowan’s mind can think of nothing more and nothing less as she speaks the words for the spell.
She takes Nevermore in her hands and grips the staff with a focus unparalleled, black mist coalescing from its onyx tip and dancing around her tenderly. The Shadow Weave beckons. Like calls to like. A doorway rips open in the space of Gale’s bedroom, a portal of nothing but swirling darkness and warmth. She can hear shouting from inside, muffled and echoing as if they come from the bottom of a well. The clash of swords. The crackling of lightning being flung by fingers she has yearned to hold just once.
Rowan steps into the gateway that will bring her to Gale, her eyes already turning black as she readies herself for whatever chaos she will find on the other side.
Seven days.
It has been seven bloody days since Gale was pulled free from the portal he inexplicably trapped himself in. Seven bloody days since he woke up in a pod on a stinking, repugnant nautiloid and had a writhing illithid parasite shoved so unceremoniously into his eye socket. Seven bloody days since the nautiloid crashed and he discovered the remainder of his magic was all but gone, devoured by yet another unwelcome entity inside of his body.
Seven bloody days since he saw the terror and heartbreak on Rowan’s face as he shoved her to safety.
Seven bloody days of trekking about the wilderness with a party of like-minded individuals equally as infected as he, piddling about in desperate attempts to find anyone, anybody at all who can remove this parasite and free them from a most vile fate. Seven bloody days of saying why yes, of course we can help you with that in exchange for possible information that will save our lives, without batting an eye or voicing his displeasure.
Truthfully, he feels more like an errand boy than anything else.
Though it has not been without its rewards, he supposes. Gale must admit to feeling a sense of pride in the valiant acts of heroism they have been enacting. The heinous Shadow Druids and their plan to take over the Emerald Grove has been stopped. The tiefling refugees fleeing from the returned city of Elturel are breathing a little easier now, with their children safer and the druids more apt to provide supplies and shelter.
The mad hag Ethel and her devious machinations have been thwarted, though the swamp she resided in may forever be tainted. The survivors of the raid on Waukeen’s Rest have been rescued and the dead buried with honor.
And today was supposed to be the day that they dismantled the goblins who have desecrated the nearby temple of Selûne and threatened to eradicate the entirety of the Emerald Grove.
It is not going as well as Miri and the others had hoped.
Gale can’t blame the tiefling bard. Her plan was solid, if just a tad messy. Infiltrating the goblin camp—a den of depravity, a nest of nefarious deeds—using her skills as an orator and unassuming quietness had been working as intended. Miri had been twisting all those poor sods around her clawed fingers, humming a ballad here, lying through her fanged teeth there that yes indeed, this group of disparate adventurers were indeed the newest True Souls ready to accept the will of the Absolute. Hells, she’d even convinced the drunken goblins celebrating the raid on Waukeen’s Rest that they’d poisoned themselves with the wine they’d stolen from the inn—when in fact it had been Astarion, with his raking smirk and nimble fingers mixing the vial of Bane into the vat of alcohol.
He remains utterly in awe of her as he did when she yanked him out of that portal and ensnared him with a sly smile and unflinching magenta eyes. Miri is a force to be reckoned with, and he is more than grateful that it is she who has heralded their cause for the last week.
The tiefling reminds him of Rowan in some ways. Both are quick to laugh and eager to please; both find joy in the little things and desire nothing more than to prove themselves useful.
Both have a quiet, unsettling darkness in them that Gale does not know what to make of.
He misses Rowan.
He misses Waterdeep.
He misses his tower.
But he misses Rowan the most. There is a cavernous hole in his chest where his heart was that day they sat in the Yawning Portal before everything went to shit. That day feels like a lifetime ago and yet, it is hard for Gale to believe that was ever his reality. It seems so idyllic, so fanciful and mundane.
Now his life has become a daily struggle for survival, weighing the threat of the mind flayer tadpole swarming about his skull and the arcane hunger of the Netherese blight thrumming in his chest.
It is like a cruel joke cast down from the heavens and sent directly to torment Gale. The parasite has blocked the remainder of his arcane mastery that the blight has not yet consumed—he is but a boy in school once more, struggling with even the most basic of cantrips and invocations. A year ago he could have leveled Waterdeep with a thought. Now, a mere Ray of Frost takes far too much concentration.
And the orb.
The bloody, fucking orb that he was certain would be his doom.
It awoke with a fury the moment the parasite bonded with him. It awoke with a salivating, greedy hunger as the illithid infection surged inside his brain and tampered down the threads of raw Shadow Weave he has been glutting himself on. It has been like Gale has never fed the damn thing—no matter how many artifacts and enchanted items their party comes across, the abyss roaring inside him is never sated.
It is worse than it was when Gale first absorbed it. And he is terrified.
He has lain awake until his eyes have burned for seven nights, praying desperately to the stars and begging Mystra to forgive him. To descend upon him in all her radiant glory and lift this dreadful burden from his chest.
But she has not.
Not even an abduction by mind flayers will sway Mystra’s mind. It is to be expected. Why should he have hoped for anything different?
Gale remains back where he started—absorbing any drop of the Weave he can in an effort to spare the world from what will happen if the orb does not feast. Miri was shockingly agreeable when he revealed the truth of his condition, seeing no other alternative other than to throw himself upon the graces of his newfound companions.
(Astarion had just voiced an even stronger longing to drink his blood, despite Gale’s insistence that its taste would be as foul as a fetid sewer.)
But Miri. Alluring, whimsical Miri. She had just smiled and given Gale a nod, vowing she would do all she could to help. She had not turned her back and demanded he leave their camp. She had encouraged the rest of their companions to believe in him, promising the blight he carries would not be a source of contention in their fledgling party.
Just like Rowan.
But she did not hold him until he felt whole and right again. She did not embrace him so tightly he felt as though his lungs would give out and his ribs would break. She is not Rowan. Miri is many things, but the tiefling bard can never hold a candle to his dear apprentice.
Oh. He misses her so much .
None of the druids have any magical means of getting a message to Waterdeep. The distance it would take to physically deliver a letter is too much, especially when Gale and the others are living on borrowed time. Though it makes him ill, he knows he must carry on and toil about without thinking too hard of how worried Rowan must be. How worried Tara and his mother are as well.
The darkness inside him is a small comfort. A fleck of shadowed solace, curled up protectively where the tadpole and the orb cannot sense it. It is still there, ready and waiting, but it is smaller. Deeper. Harder to reach since the culmination of both the parasite and the orb working in tandem to turn his magic into a paltry parlor trick.
Sometimes, if he focuses on that darkness, it almost feels like Rowan is right there with him.
(Gale knows he is a pathetic fool.)
He’s almost glad she is not with him right now, however. He would never wish for her to witness something like this.
The slaughter that Miri, Astarion, Shadowheart, the druid named Halsin, and Gale himself have caused.
The desecrated temple is littered with goblin bodies. The air reeks of bile and blood, and he feels as though his hands are caked in viscera. Halsin was always the true mission behind infiltrating this place—the First Druid of the Emerald Grove was a celebrated healer and knew much about the parasites infecting them all.
Of course Miri had nodded her head with a resounding yes when tiefling and druid alike had begged them to save him. Of course she had charmed the unsuspecting guards at the entrance with her honeyed words and lied to the drow Minthara that she was here on orders from the Absolute to dispose of Halsin.
She was the most heroic of them all, even when it seemed to be at the cost of herself.
It is very hard to sneak a rampaging bear hungry for revenge through a goblin-infested temple. Miri’s temptations had turned to taunts the moment they escorted Halsin in bear form outside of the worg kennels, his roar of rage echoing throughout the once-hallowed halls of Selûne’s temple.
All the books in the world could not have prepared Gale for the unending masses of goblins eager to spill blood in the name of a goddess he has never heard of before.
The beginnings of the battle had gone as planned.
Astarion, dipping into the shadows with glinting fangs and daggers poised to dig into the spines of whomever had the misfortune to run past him. Shadowheart, calling upon the holy darkness of her goddess and Blessing them all with a little mote of possibility as she wielded Sacred Flames left and right. Miri, her violin singing sonorously, the magic of her music bolstering them all before she switched to her rapier and readied herself for what was to come. And of course Gale, already preparing a wealth of spells specific for combat, his fingers twitching and his blood viciously eager to release a week’s worth of pent-up tension.
He should be apprehensive of that savage side of himself. These seven days have, alas, placed him precariously into a situation where he can do nothing but embrace it and use it to his advantage.
The parasites might not be changing them into mind flayers yet, but that does not mean his life is not on the line.
It is Halsin who ruins the strategy so carefully implemented by Miri and her impressive wit. Halsin, who has spent the last several days being poked and prodded by cackling goblins, whose fury and exhaustion have culminated into a beast thinking of nothing but the sweet release of retribution. Halsin, who barged through the hoards with claws and fangs bared, too lost in his bloodlust to listen to Miri’s pleas for discretion and stealth.
So now here they are.
Cornered like rats in the once-grand, cathedral-like mockery of a throne room Dror Ragzlin conveys the Absolute’s will from, surrounded on all sides by members of this seemingly newborn cult.
It is not going well.
“I don’t have much of this left in me,” Shadowheart warns from where she stands behind a column just a few feet away from Gale. Her mace glows dimly with the waning light of a Guiding Bolt. She is panting, weighed down by the endless fighting and lack of rest, her concentration on the blessings she had bestowed upon them all rapidly fading.
One of the cultists—not a goblin, oddly enough, but a human man who is just as filthy as one—rushes towards the cleric with his scimitar raised and his eyes blazing with fury. She won’t have enough time to move out of the way, Gale realizes quickly. He starts to conjure a Thunderwave between his fingers, the vibrations of the spell twitching along his skin as he aims it towards the cultist, but a guttural roar pierces his eardrums.
The druid Halsin suddenly is barreling towards them, lumbering with a frightening speed as his bear form crashes into the cultist. He swipes at the man with an enormous paw and mauls the poor bastard in one blow, his claws sinking into the man’s chest with a sickening crunch.
He goes down with a weak, rasping gurgle and does not get up again.
“Th-thank you,” the half-elf breathes, reaching forward and casting a quick healing spell onto Halsin’s fur. The bear nods sharply, his jaws parting and fangs flashing in gratitude.
“Nice save, Halsin!” Miri goads in her eloquent voice as she nimbly rolls out of the way of Dror’s massive warhammer.
The hobgoblin is snarling at her, his mouth foaming with rage and his eyes clouded with hatred. “You will regret coming to this temple,” he snarls, muscles bulging as the power of his own parasite bolsters something wicked and evil inside him. “You will regret defying our new god!”
“Yes, well!” Miri laughs, an oddly jovial and pretty sound despite the gore and terror swarming around them. “I regret to inform you that your pathetic little mind is a temple to an idiot god!”
The magic she composes with her words and song remind Gale so much of how he conjures the Weave. She throws a part of herself into every quip, ever uttered incantation, penetrating through her enemies’ psychic with vicious mockeries that make their will unravel and break within moments.
It is little wonder she and Astarion have got on so well. Even though the bard has a penchant for heroics, her capacity for mischief and callous, petty ruthlessness make her and the vampire a fine pair.
Indeed, Miri’s enchanted words have struck a chord with Dror, who has frozen in place as his eyes swirl with uncertainty. Astarion, a rogue through and through and used to decades of lurking in the shadows of Baldur’s Gate, steps out from the other pillar holding the ceiling in this room and elegantly plunges his twin daggers into the hobgoblin’s exposed back, slicing into sinew and bone.
Dror Ragzlin lets out a pained roar of madness and stumbles to the side, the warhammer slipping from his meaty hands. Astarion’s pale, bloodless mouth curls into a delighted smirk as he glances at Miri sensuously. The tiefling bard gives him a nod and a smirk of her own, pirouetting off to the next victim as she begins to sing a song of enthrallment—a tactic they have perfected, using Miri as bait only for Astarion to dance to the beat of her rhythm and sunder their foes into bloody ribbons.
It is a partnership that Gale cannot help but feel the stinging slap of jealousy from.
Would he and Rowan be that in sync if they ever had the chance to fight side-by-side?
Will he ever find out?
Will he ever see her again?
Gale cannot allow his focus on the battle to wane. Not when they are relying on his spells to control the masses from the backlines, making the floor an icy deathtrap with Ray of Frost or melting leather armor and flesh with Acid Splash. Truly, this reliance on cantrips is humiliating for a wizard who once walked the halls of Elysium and shared stolen moments with Mystra among the stars of the Astral Sea.
But it is all Gale can offer in his feeble, weakened state. The stronger spells, the magic meant to obliterate any and all enemies in his way…it is gone. Trapped behind a gate he cannot unlock so long as the parasite and the blight coexist in destructive harmony.
At least he’d had the foresight to re-familiarize himself with cantrips during his six months of educating Rowan. That commitment to her education is probably what is saving his life right now, especially as one of the goblins somehow manages to break through the wall of Halsin, Miri, and Astarion and sprints right for him.
The little beast is clad in clunky, makeshift armor that Gale has no idea how he’s managing to move around in so sprightly. Gale curses to himself as the Thunderwave he had been preparing to protect Shadowheart with fizzles out from his fingertips and his focus turns to something else, his mind racing as his eyes fill with nothing but the sight of a sword bearing down upon him.
“A rough tempest I will raise,” Gale hisses between his teeth as he shoves his hand forward, his fingers alighting with sparks of electricity. He throws his open palm against the goblin’s armored chest and sends a burst of lightning through his body, channeling all the magic he can into a Shocking Grasp that should be enough to take down someone four times his size.
Someone like that bastard who leered at Rowan with lust-filled eyes and instilled a rage he has still not recovered from. Gale may not have been born in a storm like his brother but by Mystra, he will not be outclassed in the ways of thunder and lightning.
The goblin shrieks wordlessly as the electricity courses through his body, propelled by the magnetic properties of the armor and bouncing through layers of muscle and fat. The air smells of burnt flesh. The blood pounds in Gale’s ears as the goblin falls to the ruined stone floor, body twitching and hand melded to the scimitar he very nearly was gutted with.
He wishes to do nothing more than collapse right next to the convulsing corpse. What he would not give for Wyll’s dauntless determination. For Karlach’s blazing stamina. For Lae’zel’s unparalleled endurance. It is why those three have remained behind in the Grove, their last line of defense in case any goblins or cultists begin another assault upon the people taking sanctuary there.
He does not remember the last time he was so exhausted. Not even on the worst days fighting against the arcane hunger pulsing inside him, the blight draining every ounce of his magic that it could before he distracted it with some trivial artifact.
Gale almost wonders if pain from a sword in his gut is worse than the agony of the orb ripping through his soul.
If he cannot keep his focus and manage to dodge the blades swinging for him, he’ll find out sooner than he wishes to know.
And then suddenly the air shifts.
Something changes.
He feels a magic settling upon him, though it is not his own. It wraps around him, caresses his sweaty cheek, runs its fingers through his matted and greasy hair. His skin grows warm, as if he has been basking in the summer sun all day on his balcony with Tara. He feels…safe. Strangely, curiously safe even though he can barely hit any of his spells while dodging poisoned arrows and jagged scimitars.
He swears a pair of arms is wrapping around his midsection, a pair of lips against his ear.
The darkness within him stirs.
They stretch. The writhe. They cry out and sing, scraping along the edges of his mind and soul where they lurk and hide from the other unwelcome presences inside him. Gale senses them connect to that magic that has swaddled him so tenderly and the exhilaration that jolts through him is so unexpected he stammers in his incantation and nearly fires off a stray Ray of Sickness in Astarion’s direction, who had been hiding and awaiting to strike Miri’s next victim.
“Sweet hells, wizard, watch where you’re aiming!” the vampire hisses, ducking back and pulling himself away from Gale’s line of sight.
He can barely bring himself to comprehend that he nearly struck his pale, vainglorious companion. All he can feel is the wondrous pull of the magic around him and the respite it instantaneously fills him with.
Mystra? Gale thinks, even though he knows this is not the blinding nebulae of the Weave his beloved goddess commands.
Like the moment just before you fall asleep.
Rowan’s words that day they channeled the Weave together echo in his mind and he knows.
He knows what this is. He knows the tender touch of the Shadow Weave. He knows the darkness that is full of love as it soothes his every worry and insists he is not alone. And truly, with that scintillating well of Rowan’s raw magic inside of Gale, he is never alone.
She is coming, the shadows say, their voices overlapping with joy and ecstasy as they undulate wildly about his veins. She is coming!
And reverberating throughout the chambers he swears he hears the distant, victorious cry of a raven.
Gale does not ask them who ‘she’ is, because he knows .
The air in front of Gale twists and shudders as a rolling mass of darkness suddenly appears, formed like a doorway and weeping misty shadows. His apprentice—inconceivably, miraculously—steps forth from the darkness and even though her eyes are dripping with ichorous black, she is a beacon in this moment of harrowing strife.
She is divine and eternal, more so than Mystra has ever appeared before him as the shadows curl around her limbs and the mass of darkness fades away in an instant. She is hope. She is here . She is glory and grandeur, beauty and fury.
The black voids of her eyes seethe with a wrath that sends a shock of something down to his groin and Gale has to bite his tongue to keep that strangled gasp inside him.
“I don’t know who you chucklefucks are,” Rowan bellows as she rounds on the cultists, her voice booming off the ruined walls of the sanctum. She holds Nevermore with a confidence that delights him to no end and her fingertips dance with the beginnings of midnight flames. “But you’re going to regret even thinking about hurting my wizard!”
She screams the incantation for Fireball like a warcry and flings the roiling mass of flames directly into the gathered horde before her.
The shattered sanctum of Selûne’s temple becomes a discordant chorus of screams as Dror Ragzlin and the remaining cultists burn. Gale—and his fellow companions, he notices—watch in silent awe as Rowan’s blackened flames devour and consume the throngs of goblins as if they were nothing more than dry parchment being tossed into a bonfire. The makeshift throne, the corpse of the mind flayer which Dror was trying to communicate with even in death, the rusted weapons and wooden shields with that bloodied emblem of a hand…everything immolates in a matter of mere moments.
The heat emanating from the shadowy, almost accursed flames is frightening.
A flicker of movement from the dais above the throne alerts Gale. His eyes snap to the cobblestone columns and he sees one of cultists—another human, like the one Halsin had mauled—emerging from his cover and drawing back an arrow glistening with a tar-like substance. Poison. A deadly one that Miri had been inoculated with earlier in the fight; Shadowheart had healed her, but wasted precious moments and precious magic to do so.
Gale opens his mouth to warn Rowan.
The words do not get past his lips as a duet of snarled hissing and savage, grating caws intertwine with the dying screams of those Rowan has just condemned to a death of ashen agony.
Tara—his beloved, dear old Tara—rises from where she had been curled around Rowan’s shoulders limply. Her fur is duller than he has ever seen and her wings flutter weakly, but her yellow eyes blaze with fury as she alerts Pip to the threat at hand. Pip, who strides atop Tara like they are some eldritch knight and the tressym is their bonded steed.
Pip, whose violet eyes flash dangerously as they take to the foul air of the temple and soars with a startling speed towards the cultist with the bow.
Rowan swings Nevermore in Pip’s direction and utters another incantation, the staff’s onyx tip undulating with a foggy darkness. It erupts from the staff and converges onto Pip, covering the raven in a cloud that obscures them for but a blink of the eye and then they are gone. Disappeared into nothingness, as if they were never here in the first place.
Until the cultist cries out in shock and pain and when Gale looks back at him, it is to see Pip emerging into existence once more with their talons buried in his eyes.
The bow drops from his hands as he tries to bat and swipe at the raven heckling him. Pip’s wings batter his face; their sharp talons dig and scratch and claw at his eyes with a violence Gale has never witnessed from the familiar. The cultist begins to sob, his voice wracked with pain as he cries out, “Mercy! Gods, please, mercy !”
The black abysses of Rowan’s eyes just narrow as she raises a hand. Her fingers move in hurried, fluid practiced movements and Gale recognizes the somatic gestures he taught her for Misty Step so many months ago.
Shadows swirling with pale lavender and deep violet envelope Rowan and in an instant, she appears at the side of the cultist, her hand still outstretched and just inches away from his throat.
“There can be no mercy,” she growls, her words echoing in a myriad of voices that do not belong to her, “for those who seek to harm Gale Dekarios while I still breathe.”
The rotten necrosis of Bone Chill erupts upon the flesh of her hand and she grasps the man’s throat, her fingers digging into his skin as his sobs turn to screams and those screams turn into wispy, whispering gasps. Pip wrenches away from the man’s eyes, a spurt of blood splattering the air as the raven’s talons free themselves from his flayed eye sockets and circles his trembling body like an ill omen.
Rowan squeezes .
The Bone Chill clinging to her fingers sinks deep. It eviscerates. It corrodes. It kills. Even from where he stands, Gale can see the man’s throat decaying as she commands death with her bare hand. The cultist’s voice is nothing but a mere rattle as she severs the connection between his lungs and his esophagus, rotting the flesh of his throat until he at last grows silent and still.
She lets go of his throat and lets his body sway for a moment before taking Nevermore and slamming into the back of his head with the onyx end. The carcass tumbles over the raised dais and falls to the still-burning ground surrounding the hobgoblin’s throne.
It joins the other corpses as the flesh blackens and the bones become brittle and turn to soot. No one says a word—not even Miri, who is so rarely stunned into silence—as Rowan casts Misty Step once more and is standing with her back to Gale, facing the pyre of carnage and chaos. She raises Nevermore above her head slightly and the ebony, nightmarish flames cease burning in an instant. The bodies littering the ground are nothing but ash and dust. Just some melted armor and the more sturdy weapons remain, sunken in the piles of the cultists that had been given Gale and his compatriots more trouble than any of them could have possibly imagined.
Rowan turns around slowly.
Her eyes have returned to their normal stormy blue-gray and when she gazes directly at him, his breath hitches.
She’s beautiful.
So fucking beautiful that for one unfathomable moment, he forgets what Mystra looks like. He forgets the touch of her hands against his skin. He forgets her voice. He forgets the stars they shared in the spaces between time and creation because all he can see is Rowan.
He almost falls to his knees. The why and how of her being here does not matter. Like a goddess born from the tender darkness she has answered his prayers, a beacon of light amongst a week of despondence and woe.
No one moves as Gale meets her eyes.
No one says a word as he takes a step forward, faltering and fatigued.
Mentor and apprentice just stare at one another. Gale’s heart thuds wildly in his chest. His aching, exhausted fingers twitch at his side. He wages a war within himself. The desire to close the gap between them and fall into her arms is palpable; overwhelming.
He is as damned as the broken souls who throw themselves upon the altars of the gods and she is the only thing that has made him feel whole again.
And then Rowan whispers “Gale?” with such relief, such release of emotions he cannot even begin to fathom, and he nearly breaks. She races to him, throwing Nevermore to the floor with a discordant clatter, and what she does next is wholly unexpected.
The stinging of her slap against his cheek rings loudly throughout the now-silent ruins and Gale is so shocked he cannot even feel the sharp pain sinking into his face. He can barely comprehend what has just happened—he is standing in a dream, reality a pale illusion dancing beyond the periphery of his vision, because all he cares about is her.
Rowan.
His Rowan. His fuming, ethereal Rowan, holding her hand up and poised for another stinging slap against his cheek.
“How dare you?” Rowan demands, her voice shrill and trembling. “We—we’re supposed to be a team, Gale! We were going to go to Baldur’s Gate together! You can’t—y-you can’t just—”
She breaks off in a shuddering breath, her eyes wet with unshed tears as she clenches the hand she slapped him with a fist and bangs it against his chest. The force of it is enough to send him stumbling back a few inches, knocking the wind out of his body already far past his current limits.
“I told you I would be by your side for everything ,” Rowan whispers hoarsely. “You don’t get to sacrifice yourself for me. We should have been taken together, Gale. But you had to be a fucking hero and—and…” The tears still do not fall but her chest is heavy, her mouth is trembling, and her pale skin is like ice as she looks at him with such fear and sorrow. “You left me alone,” she accuses, her voice weak and fragmented like the broken interior of the ruined temple around them. “You were gone. Gone, gone, gone .”
Oh.
Oh, how he wishes to never have had the misfortune to hear her voice like this.
The pain is worse than a sword to the belly. The agony is worse than the orb killing him from the inside.
“I’m sorry,” Gale says just as quietly, finding his voice at last. “Rowan, I’m so sorry. I only wished for you to be safe. There was no time. I just—”
The faintest clouding of shadow and darkness passes over Rowan’s eyes as she stares at him hollowly. The intensity of that gaze and all the words unsaid make him immediately clamp his mouth shut, his chest convulsing and the magic inside him clamoring in confusion. She reaches her hand out—the hand that had slapped him, punched his chest. The hand that had commanded death, the hand that had diffused her ominous flames with devastating ease.
She places that hand upon the spot the blight inside him lurks restlessly.
Her voice is an endless void and he desires nothing more than to drown himself in it.
“Don’t go where I can’t follow, Gale. Not again. Never again.”
The tears slowly begin to fall, rolling down the soft curves of her cheeks, and Gale can no longer contain himself.
He spreads his arms open and murmurs, “Come here, sweetheart.”
With a wretched, heartbreaking sob Rowan throws herself at him. She clings to his gore-splattered, bloodstained robes without hesitation, body convulsing as she cries into his chest and grips the fabric of his clothes so tightly her knuckles turn white as parchment. Gale holds her the way she held him the day he confessed his sins. Slowly, gently, he allows himself to sink to the ground, pulling her down with him as his legs give out at last.
“I found you,” Rowan weeps, voice muffled as she buries her face in his filthy robes. “I found you…!”
He just holds her closer. Tighter. As if letting go would shatter this dream because there is a part of Gale that cannot believe this is truly real. He had resigned himself to possibly never seeing her again and yet here she is, trembling in his arms and crying so loudly the ruined temple echoes as if a dozen Rowans were in its blasphemed chambers.
She’d found him.
She hadn’t given up.
“I missed you,” Gale whispers, allowing himself the sacrilege of pressing his lips to the top of her head. “I missed you so much, Rowan.”
She does not answer.
Instead she flings her arms around his neck and pulls him even closer, until they are a tangle of limbs and sweaty skin, of trembling flesh and frantic breathing, and it is the only answer he needs. For the first time in seven bloody days everything is perfect. Everything is as it should be.
Gale feels like himself again with Rowan in his arms.
He doesn’t know how long they spend on the filthy floor of the ravaged temple. Time has no meaning as they cling to one another, his composure always one moment from collapsing every time Rowan’s quietening sobs start anew. He forgets about the rest of the world. He forgets about the companions he has grown close to not because he yearned for it but because it was necessary; because their good will is the only thing standing between him and an abrupt end.
It can never compare to what he shares with Rowan. This one week in hell has nothing on the half a year of living with her, teaching her, and in turn realizing he too has much to learn.
“Sir,” Tara’s voice says delicately, and he realizes with a bitter surge of guilt he never felt her crawl onto his shoulders and nuzzle her furry head against his neck. He was far too gone in the universe of Rowan. “Your new friends are staring at us. They appear most perplexed.”
Gale feels his face flush hot as he becomes acutely aware of his companions’ eyes bearing into the back of his skull.
Despite the protesting of his creaking knees and the way his entire soul shrieks at him, he somehow finds the strength to gradually rise. He does not let go of Rowan. Obediently, limply, she stands with him, still hiding her face from the rest of the world in the comfort of his grotesque robes.
He would rather be smote by Ao himself than let go of her.
Gale clears his throat and slides a hand to the back of Rowan’s head, stroking her hair once as he murmurs so low no one else can hear, “Is it alright if I introduce you to the people I have been traveling with?”
She stiffens ever so slightly. He fears she will suddenly wrench herself away from him and dart off into the dark corners of the temple, overwhelmed and overcome by what he can only imagine is a maelstrom of emotions far too potent for her to digest right now. But Rowan eventually nods, lifting her face from his chest at last, and rubs away the remnants of tears in the corners of her swollen eyes.
Gale reluctantly pulls his arms away from her and turns back to his companions, forcing a sheepish smile that he knows does not quite reach his eyes onto his face.
“Aha, I, er…my apologies. This is Rowan. It seems we owe her our lives.”
Rowan lets out one last sniffle as she wipes at her face again, her expression quickly morphing into a practiced countenance of calm confidence. One corner of her mouth quirks in an attempt of a smile though, truthfully, it’s more a grimace than anything else. Pip—who has been silently circling the chamber with a startling vigilance—at last swoops down from the ceiling and lands upon their usual place on her shoulder.
“Hi,” she greets, her voice somewhat strained and hoarse as she gives everyone an anxious wave. “I’m…I’m Rowan. Of Waterdeep.”
Gale’s head swivels so sharply to her that he feels as if his neck is going to snap.
“Good gods,” Astarion groans, “there’s two of them now!” He’s almost scowling as he sizes her up, his handsome face contorted in a display of exacerbation that would give Jericho a run for her gold.
Miri laughs, the sound ringing like a bell as it echoes throughout the chambers of the cultists’ smoldering pyre. “So you’re the famous apprentice we’ve heard so much about,” she muses in a lilting, teasing voice, giving Gale a devious grin. “Lovely to meet you at last, Rowan. Thank you for such a timely intervention.”
Rowan glances furtively at the destruction she had wrought around them as if she’s noticing it at last. Gale does not miss the way the hand she used to kill the cultists with a bow reaches up and grasps onto the feather she wears around her throat.
She bends down to pick up Nevermore and clutches the staff in her free hand, an almost imperceptible wildness in her eyes. It is gone so suddenly that Gale tells himself he merely imagined it, especially when the pained grimace lessens into a more natural smile.
“You’re welcome. I think.”
“Gale has been singing your praises,” Shadowheart adds, mirroring Miri’s shrewd delight, “but I never expected you to be so capable. You can swoop in and save the day whenever you wish.”
Rowan’s pale face goes nearly as pink as Miri’s natural skin tone. “Thank you,” she mumbles graciously, eyeing Shadowheart with interest. She gestures vaguely to the half-elven cleric’s ensemble. “I, um…like your fit.”
“Oh! Why, thank you. I rather like your…panache as well.”
He should have known Rowan would gravitate towards the devotee of Shar. Even though she has expressed a distrust and general aversion towards the Lady of Loss, Rowan is still a person irrevocably in touch with darkness. Shadowheart’s path may walk in the opposite direction but she has been nothing but cooperative to their joint cause.
If a bit prickly, but that is neither here nor there.
The sound of a great beast grunting jolts Gale from his thoughts and he remembers the presence of the druid they had infiltrated this place to rescue. He glances in the direction of Halsin, expecting to find him still in his cave bear Wild Shape, but the form melts from his person as he dismisses the druidic magic.
In the cave bear’s place is the startling broad-shouldered, barrel-chested figure of the elf Halsin, covered in blood and superficial scratches from his foray into battle.
“I must express my gratitude as well, young one,” he rumbles, bowing his head to Rowan deferentially. “I fear we would not have lasted much longer without your arrival.”
I wonder why,
Gale can’t help but think peevishly, his eyes twitching as he resists the urge to glower at the druid. His thirst for vengeance is what cornered them into this mess. Who knew a celebrated leader of an enclave as old as the Emerald Grove could be so…capricious?
He turns his attention back to Rowan, ready to ask just how in all the hells did she find him and come here, but the question dies upon his lips when he sees the way she’s looking at Halsin.
Her eyes are wide. Her mouth is nearly hanging open. And that pretty, shy blush has deepened into a ruddy scarlet that betrays something deeper than her nervousness at meeting strangers.
“Holy shit,” Rowan whispers in a whisper that is not really a whisper at all. “You’re huge .”
Astarion snorts. The vampire does not even bother to hide his twisted mirth, red eyes flashing as he looks between Halsin and Rowan. It’s certainly an observation that has been on everyone’s minds since freeing the druid from his prison a mere hour or so ago, but not one that anyone has had the audacity to voice aloud just yet.
Leave it to his apprentice to do so and with such flagrance.
Halsin’s eyes—a mixture of browns and greens, like the very forest he serves to protect—sparkle with a barely concealed amusement. He smiles at Rowan. The gesture is disturbingly intimate to Gale, who immediately feels a flare of something strange and awry twisting inside him. A hot surge of agitation, impulsive and unruly.
It feels akin to the way his gut clenched when that vulgar brute of a man spoke to her in the Yawning Portal.
“You would not be the first to say so,” Halsin admits. His voice is lush, baritone and bursting with vindication as he bows his head once more in Rowan’s direction. “I shall take it as a compliment.”
He pauses, before adding as if in casual afterthought, “Nature has blessed me with many other immense gifts, after all.”
Rowan grows even more red. Gale did not know it was possible for all of the blood in one’s body to suddenly vacate to the face. A voice, vindictive and hissing with malice, slithers into the back of his mind as he watches her stutter and dart her eyes about with a flustered, nervous laugh.
Don’t you want to be the one to make her react like that?
Ah. So that’s what this coarse, spiny sensation fluttering beneath his skin is. Jealousy.
Gods, yes. He wants to be the cause of her reddened cheeks. He wants to be the reason she stumbles over her words like a newborn lamb. More than anything.
But that’s not important. It cannot be what his thoughts linger on. Not yet. Not here. Not now.
Even though it is obvious to even him that the damned druid is flirting with Rowan unabashedly, and she is more tongue-tied from it than Gale has ever seen her.
Patient. He can be patient. It is a virtue that he has never exercised with aplomb and was always an irritation of Mystra’s but for Rowan’s sake, he can manage it.
(He thinks.)
“O-oh, before I forget!”
Rowan suddenly shakes her head as if to free herself from unwanted thoughts and plunges her hands into the folds of her robes, pulling out a familiar pouch. The contents jingle and clink together metallically and there is no doubt in Gale’s mind he knows exactly what is inside. She hands the pouch to him, voice lowering conspiratorially as she glances around at his companions.
“I brought you some snacks,” she tells him quietly. “Please don’t eat them all at once.”
Gale resists the urge to roll his eyes and inform her that everyone (save for Halsin, he supposes) is very much aware of his particular condition. Like the sharp, burning jealousy that is currently morphing into a monster worse than the parasite and orb combined, however…he leaves it be for the moment.
He’d rather focus on the relief it is to be by her side again, regardless of the time and place in which it happened.
“I hate to interrupt your reunion,” Miri calls to Gale and Rowan from where she and Astarion are now rummaging through the cinders and ash wrought by his apprentice’s hand. Searching for loot that survived the flames of Fireball, of course. Another reason why they get along so well. “But we should get back to the Grove. We don’t know if any stragglers survived our sabotage. It’s entirely possible there are some, and they’re on their way to attack the Grove right now.”
Halsin’s back stiffens and the jovial amusement etched into the handsome lines of his face sours. A primal, bestial aura settles about his body and his eyes flash gold, his teeth sharpening into canines.
“You are correct. I shall go on ahead. I cannot allow my people in any more danger. Please, hurry back to the Grove as soon as you can, and I will tell you what I know about the parasites. And—thank you, my friends. You did not have to go out of your way to help a complete stranger but nonetheless, you did.”
His voice rumbles in his chest, earthen and rooted in gratitude.
“I know not how to repay you. I hope I can come up with a sufficient reward when I return.”
With that, the druid Wild Shapes.
His bones crack and his skin erupts into shaggy fur. A thunderous growl reverberates through the chamber as the large elf becomes a massive cave bear once more. He bares his deadly canines in parting and lumbers away on all fours, moving with that startling speed Gale can’t help but feel is impossible for a beast like that.
Rowan watches his departure intensely, a look of awe still dawning upon her face. “Wow,” she breathes, the blush fading somewhat as she begins to return to her usual paleness. “He was fucking cool. Maybe even cooler than Jericho.” She glances over to Gale and quickly adds, “Don’t tell her I said that. She’ll hypnotize me and make me walk around the docks wearing nothing but an oversized sleep shirt.”
Gale’s heart seizes at the image her words conjure in his mind.
It takes everything in him to banish it before he can allow himself to imagine just what that would look like.
“Oh, dear, sir,” Tara purrs from where she lay across his shoulders, tail flicking against the side of his face. “You seem to be growing quite warm. I do hope you aren’t catching a fever. Gods below and above know you struggle to take care of yourself without me.”
“I’m fine, Tara,” Gale deadpans. “Just a bit knackered is all. I haven’t exactly been fit to fight since waking up on a mind flayer ship and becoming the unwilling host for one of their parasites.”
“...ah. I suppose that would be detrimental to anyone’s health.”
“I hope you can manage your exhaustion until we return to the Grove,” Shadowheart informs him, an onerous expression plastered on her regal features. “I have very little to offer by way of divine healing at the moment.”
He shakes his head, adjusting his posture so his weight shifts to the side of his body that hurts the least. He hasn’t run around that much since he was a boy chasing butterflies in his mother’s garden. This entire week has been arduous and preposterously grueling. Gale is lucky to have suffered nary a scrape here and a colorful bruise there, rather than a more grievous wound.
Such as a sword to the abdomen, which could have been his fate had Rowan not emerged from the darkness like a goddess of shadow and salvation.
“I’ll manage,” Gale insists. “Your concern is very much appreciated.”
Miri and Astarion meander back to them then, the tiefling bard glancing at Rowan excitedly as she shoves whatever trinkets and prizes of victory she stole from the charred remains into her pack. “Do you have more of that in you?” she asks as she jerks her head to the smoldering piles of ash, magenta eyes burning with an eager fire. “Just in case we run into more trouble on the way back to the Grove. We’re all pretty tapped out but you…you’re positively brimming with magic.”
Rowan grips Nevermore and tilts her head ever so slightly so that her cheek brushes against Pip. The raven pecks at her softly, their curved beak angled so they do not injure her, and Gale knows the two of them are conferring silently through the bond they share.
“I should be fine,” she says after a few moments, nodding to Miri.
Their fearless leader claps her hands together gleefully. “Wonderful! It will be invaluable to have another wizard with us.”
Rowan lets out a choking laugh, head swiveling to Gale as she raises an eyebrow at him in incredulity. “I regret to inform you that I am actually a sorcerer. One with six month’s worth of a wizard’s education and only about a fourth of their inflated ego.”
“Huh. Even better, then. From the way Gale talks about you nonstop, I’d assumed you were a kindred spirit of his—a wizard prodigy and all that.”
Miri throws Gale a wink, one that nearly makes his skin crawl because he knows that look on her face. He knows she’s going to meddle in his affairs because for some reason unbeknownst to him, the tiefling has decided it is her duty in life ever since pulling him out of the portal he mistakenly wedged himself into.
“And I do mean he talks about you nonstop. I know less about Gale of Waterdeep than I know about Rowan of…Waterdeep, and I’ve just met you.”
There it is again.
That title, entrenching Rowan even deeper into heart. Miri might as well refer to her as “Rowan Dekarios.” For Gale, the two are disturbingly interchangeable.
His mother and Miri would be utterly inseparable if they ever met. He must endeavor to ensure that never happens.
“Can’t a wizard show pride in his apprentice’s progress?” Gale points out, struggling to maintain a casual inflection to his tone. “I’ve painted enough of a picture about my personal life. Rowan is the one who adds all the color to it.”
“This is very true. I am a delight,” Rowan agrees, seeming to slowly return to her keen, lively self. Her eyes are still somewhat swollen and red but there is no trace of the broken bleakness she had gazed upon him with only minutes before.
It is a relief. She looks better when she smiles.
Not when her face is twisted in horror and her cheeks are stained with tears shed for him. Because of him. Never again. He can never let that happen again. He can never let himself hear the way her voice cracks as she screams his name in desperation, hand outstretched to uselessly grab the air between them.
Gale will not go where Rowan can’t follow.
“Alrighty, kids, let’s wrap this up and head back to the Grove,” Miri calls to Shadowheart and Astarion, who have been mulling outside of the conversation with feigned disinterest. “I can’t miss Halsin giving Kagha the lecture of a lifetime. I worked too damn hard finding that letter and stopping the Shadow Druids.”
She shudders.
“Between the letter and the hag, I’ve had enough swamps to last a lifetime.”
At the word ‘hag’ Rowan immediately perks, interest blazing in her stormy eyes as she peers at Miri closely. “A hag? Did you go to the Feywilds?”
Gale can practically see a herd of unicorns dancing in her expectant gaze.
Miri shakes her head. “No. She was masquerading as a decrepit old herb-seller and when we saw through her tricks, she attacked us. We beat her within an inch of her life and she ran away like a coward. Saved a pregnant lady the hag was keeping so she could eat her unborn baby though.” The tiefling kicks at an upturned stone in the cracked floor, hissing derisively through clenched fangs. “And what an ungrateful lass she turned out to be! Like it’s my fault she made a deal with a hag and her husband came back as a zombie!”
Rowan’s disappointment is immeasurable. Her shoulders slump and the unicorns in her eyes turn to dust, withering away into nothing as she frowns unhappily. Gale sighs and reaches over, patting her head before he can stop himself as he says, “We’ll go to the Feywilds together as soon as everything is right again. I promise.”
She jabs him lightly in the stomach with her elbow and he has to keep his face neutral and his reactions minimal to hide just how much it hurts. He is severely, grievously in need of rest. And a hot, long bath.
He almost misses indoor plumbing as much as he had missed Rowan.
“You’d better keep that promise or else I’m turning your hair purple,” she threatens airily, though there’s no malice behind the words. Just relief. Relief, joy, and something else Gale cannot unravel at the moment without some things coming undone inside of himself that he does not have the capacity to ponder over.
It occurs to Gale then that he has yet to recover his ability to cast Counterspell.
He prays to the Raven Queen that Rowan never finds out. His pride, however damaged it has become from the parasite and orb blocking most of his magic, cannot handle his apprentice channeling her inner Jericho and at last besting him with Color Spray of all spells.
Keep your sorcerer in line,
he begs silently, a hand running through his messy hair.
She’ll never let me hear the end of it if she manages to pull off that inane prank!
The Matron does not answer him. He does not miss the way Pip’s head suddenly swivels and their violet eyes flash oddly as they regard him with a pensive stare.
They at last begin the trek out of Selûne’s ruined temple, stepping over the bodies and carnage left in their wake. Gale hopes Rowan does not recognize the dilapidated, headless statues of the Moonmaiden scattered about the detritus and rubble. She’ll be devastated to see the other goddess she has turned to disrespected so. At least it is not a former temple to the Raven Queen. She would most likely fly into a frenzied rage if that were the case.
And from what he has just witnessed, Rowan’s wrath is not a force to be taken lightly.
She does not comment on the piles of dead goblins as they head towards the exit. She remains quiet and contemplative, never more than one step behind him. There is so much he wants to say to her—so many questions he wants to ask—but all of that must wait. Once they’ve returned to the Emerald Grove and the camp their party has established there, he can find a deserted corner somewhere that they can talk to their heart’s content.
Gale is so lost in his thoughts he almost doesn’t register the sensation of a hand sliding into his own. He glances down quickly, a lump in his throat forming when he finds Rowan’s hand clenched around his and her fingers slowly threading themselves alongside his own. “So I don’t lose you again,” she mumbles quickly, promptly returning to the same color from the neck up she wore when she saw Halsin’s true form.
His lips curl into a smile.
“Of course,” he agrees, flexing his fingers and clasping her hand back with a reassuring squeeze. “How pragmatic.”
These seven bloody days have been worth it. His brief foray into Avernus and the agony of the illithid parasite swimming in his brain have been worth it if the reward was this. The world feels right again. Perfect .
All because of Rowan’s hand in his. All because of the blush creeping up her face like the roots of a beautiful flower, caused by him and him alone.
Chapter 7: hiraeth
Notes:
merry christmas! happy holidays! bet you weren't expecting another chapter today :V guess what? me neither lmao.
i realized that once again, i was being too ambitious with the content i wanted to tackle, and needed to quit while i'm ahead.
thus, the events i am REALLY excited for have not happened yet, but they will. hopefully next month i'll have it edited and posted. my work schedule is changing to a really crummy one (I'M WORKING MY BIRTHDAY WEEKEND AND THAT'S WHEN I WAS GOING TO SIT DOWN AND WRITE LIKE A MADMAN) so yeah...won't have a whole lot of free time anymore.
i hope this chapter will suffice for now. i struggled with a lot of it - the transition from my own plot in waterdeep to piggybacking off of the game's canon events was...way more difficult than i thought it would be. i'm sorry ): i tried to clean things up and make the flow better but i know there's goofy bits here and there.
thank you for all the kind words and support so far <3 your comments are such a joy to read!!!
Chapter Text
She found him.
She found him.
Gale’s heart is soaring as they walk hand-in-hand, above the stars and the moon, above the Tears of Selûne, beyond and floating in the very cradle of the Astral Sea itself. He feels as if nothing could tear him down from his lofty seat amongst the heavens.
Rowan had found him. Despite whatever nefarious, psionic barrier the tadpoles created around him and his fellow infected, she had found him. He doesn’t know why he’s in such shock. She’s been far more capable than himself since he found her in that alleyway half a year ago. Stubborn, too; gnawing at whatever bones are thrown her way until she cracks them open and gets to the precious marrow inside.
But there is a weariness to her that Gale cannot help feel responsible for. Exhaustion slithers under her eyes in thick, weighty layers. She walks with a hesitance, a sluggishness that speaks of days with very little sleep.
His priority should be to learn of what has happened in Waterdeep in his absence. His focus should be on ensuring she’s…safe, that some terrible and inconceivable fate has not befallen her since he pushed away and embraced his doom.
Yet he does not.
He cannot. For Rowan looks at him, relief and joy and a thousand other things he knows not the words for lighting up her eyes as she asks, “Just what the fuck happened to you, Gale?”
Gale pushes down his concern, even though it just entrenches his guilt further, as he begins to slowly recount everything that has transpired.
The two of them (well, four really, if one counted the tressym clinging to his shoulders and the raven perched on Rowan’s) remain some ways behind the rest of his companions as they navigate the unruly wilds of Elturgard. Rowan listens with rapt attention as Gale narrates the events of the last seven days—how the nautiloid had crashed and he miraculously survived. How he and his newfound allies seem to be infected with a different form of parasite that goes beyond his wealth of understanding regarding illithids. How their eclectic party have been roaming this forest for answers on how to cure themselves with very little luck, thwarted at every turn and sent in circles.
With the parasites blocking them from outside means of communication and cutting off their various abilities, there has been little more they could do than throw themselves upon the mercy of the druids and follow the leads the denizens of the Emerald Grove offer.
Gale has never felt so damned useless. The parasite and the orb are a dubious, cruel pair indeed, he tells her. The two are working in tandem to impede what little magic he had left after absorbing that fragment of cursed Netherese magic. Now, he is an even paler imitation of the man he once was. Perhaps with just the orb afflicting him, he could have rallied his magic and become these poor wretches’ saving grace.
But not with the worm and the orb. Their malign influence is too much. Even with the affectionate darkness inside him, Gale is a powerless fool capable of little more than some well-aimed cantrips.
She deserves to know. She needs to know. He dare not speak of the shadows that still lay in wait in his veins, not even in hushed whispers, for that is a phenomenon he does not wish for his fellow infected to be aware of.
(Gale is grateful he is somehow able to resist the probing of the others upon his mentality. The shared thoughts, the images and emotions his companions have accidentally revealed with one another through the parasites’ bond have yet to get the best of him. He wonders if he has the shadows to thank. As ambitious as his pride is, Gale has his doubts the deflection is made possible entirely by his own hand.)
His apprentice catches on quickly, just as he knew she would. She listens to the words unspoken; she reads between the lines unwritten, understanding dawning in her stormy eyes. An understanding interlaced with frustration and bitter resolve.
Rowan knows he—no, they , he must remind himself, for he is not alone in his calamitous plight, not when she is by his side once more—is no more better than he was the moment after he first absorbed the Netherese blight. The raw magic she has plucked from the Shadow Weave and passed onto him still remains lurking under his skin, but the hopes of it being enough to combat the orb are dashed as long as the parasite nests in his head.
But she just holds his hand tighter, squeezes it as if any lessened pressure would result in him suddenly drifting away on the wind, and steps even closer to him. “We’ll find another way,” she murmurs when he grows silent. Dwelling on how far he has fallen has left him uneasy and restless. “I’m not losing you to some fucked up psychic worm or ancient cursed magic. I promise.”
The warmth of her palm against his is almost sinful.
He wants to hold that palm against his lips, pressing his mouth against the fluttering heartbeat in the veins of her wrist. He wants that hand to lay against the contours of his face, soft and sweet. He wants her skin to memorize his own, to gift him with the glory of a new life as that fingers that had killed for him inch between his lips and—
“By the way, I banished Elminster from the tower.”
…pardon?
“You did what .”
Those lovely, untoward thoughts that he should be ashamed of even entertaining vanish from Gale’s mind as he jerks his head to stare at Rowan so quickly his neck throbs with the sudden strain.
She is pointedly avoiding his eyes, staring directly ahead at the poorly-kept road before them and as such, the backsides of Miri, Astarion, and Shadowheart as the three travel ahead of them.
“After you were taken,” she mumbles, her words slow and faltering, “I went back to the tower. He was there. So were your parents. Your father asked him to find you, he started spouting some nonsense about how Mystra wouldn’t allow it and I, uh…”
Rowan turns to look at him now, a strained and reluctant smile on her freckled face.
“Kinda-maybe-sorta became temporary master of the tower and did some weird magic shit that doesn’t allow him inside it?”
Gale stares at her, aghast.
His mind is utterly reeling. Forget soaring amongst the silken strands of the Astral Sea; he is plummeting back to reality, gaping at her as a deluge of something not quite like panic but fairly close begins to fill the empty gaps within him that aren’t already crowded with unwanted inhabitants.
“How,” is all Gale can say. How indeed. How in the hells did his apprentice manage to banish Elminster Aumar from his tower?
… their tower? That she’s now temporarily the master of? Gale supposes that revelation isn’t as appalling. His tower has been attuning itself to her arcane presence for months now. It is perfectly sensible to postulate that she would be able to convince the complicated magicks within its walls to bend to her will. Within reason, of course.
And ousting one of Mystra’s most powerful Chosen in all the realms, is apparently within reason.
Good gods, what else will she be capable of given more years of proper education and training? And people shudder in fear of the ambition of wizards. Sorcerers and their penchant for pure chaos should be far more alarming to the masses.
No, he shouldn’t allow his thoughts to venture in such a direction. Rowan is nothing like his brother. She’s proven to house much more self-restraint than Dorian ever has, regardless of her anarchic experiments with spells at times.
Rowan throws one hand up in defeat when Gale refuses to say anything further. The other remains tightly wound around his own, showing no signs of letting go anytime soon. The perverse thoughts of what he wishes that hand to do to him only seem to grow stronger. He does a very poor job of lying to himself that this is not the case.
“I don’t know! It wasn’t actually him, it was a stupid simulacrum, but it still worked. I was just—really upset. My emotions got the better of me, and that was the result. You’re, like, ninety percent of my impulse control! When you’re not around, things happen that probably shouldn’t happen!”
“Rowan, if I’m the majority of your impulse control, then I can’t help but wonder if I should be concerned.”
“You probably aren’t wrong. That just means you can’t leave me alone for more than a week again. Hence my holding onto your hand. So you don’t get lost, I mean.”
Another squeeze. Another shy, flustered blush that creeps up her neck and paints her face such a pretty pink. Nothing would give Gale the greatest of pleasures than allowing himself to be content with this moment, this stolen fragment in time in which he can gaze at such loveliness and know he’s the reasoning behind it.
But no. There’s something else Rowan had said, and he’d been far too distracted about Elminster to comprehend it until now.
“Did you say my parents were in the tower?” he asks, unable to keep the shrillness from his voice. “As in plural?”
Your father asked him to find you.
Impossible. Evander Dekarios had made it very clear during their last confrontation that Gale was nothing but a stain upon the Dekarios family name. He’d been a fool who had lost Mystra’s divine favor, after all. What worse disappointment could there be for his father—for a man who honored the gods with a verbosity that rivaled even Gale’s incessant loquacity?
It is Tara who answers. Tara, who has remained silent and still, pressed against Gale with a limpness bordering on fragility that has added even more to the guilt and shame roiling inside him.
“Evander has been distraught since you were taken, sir,” she tells him quietly, nuzzling against his ear. Her whiskers are dreadfully ticklish. He doesn’t have the heart to politely ask her to stop. He’s missed even this with a keenness bordering on agony. “Morena as well. I am afraid that your brother seems to have been a victim of this strange plot as well. Both have been but shells of themselves.”
Dorian, too?
Deep down, Gale had suspected as much. Astarion, Shadowheart, and Miri were all from Baldur’s Gate—even if the latter held fragmented, fractured memories of her life in the city.
Fate is cruel and unkind. In the back of his mind for these last seven days the notion that perhaps his brother had been on that ship as well had existed. He’d had nightmares of Dorian screaming in agony as Gale had, a mind flayer dropping a squirming, writhing parasite into his brother’s eye and watching in horror as the lamprey-like mouth latched onto the pupil and shoved its way into his skull.
The nightmares have come even after that enigmatic visitor to his dreams has faded away, filling his head with incredulous promises of protection and power. They never mentioned Dorian as one of the infected under their care. If his new companions had stumbled across his brother during the rare times they’ve gone their separate ways exploring, they would have told him.
But if that was the case, where was he? As far as Gale knew, he and his companions were the only survivors of the nautiloid crash. The githyanki and their red dragons had attacked the mind flayer ship before it had docked anywhere long enough to drop victims off somewhere, hadn’t they?
Unless Dorian snuck off somehow when the nautiloid had been in Avernus and his brother is now rolling around the sheets with an incubus.
No, Gale thinks as a hot burst of shame courses through him. Dorian is a prick, but not even he would be so unperturbed. Something else must have happened. I have to find him like Rowan found me, and ensure he is safe. That he is alive.
If only for his mother’s sake. There is a palpable ache in Gale’s chest as he imagines Morena, frantic and distressed as she paces in his library. There is no Evander in this image. Despite what Tara had said, Gale can’t seem to even begin the process of conceptualizing his father so worried.
He needs to know how Rowan found him. If they can duplicate the means, they should have no issues recovering his brother’s whereabouts. His magic may be obstructed by both the tadpole and the orb but if he and his apprentice put their heads together, Gale knows they can—
“Oh! I almost forgot!”
Rowan suddenly halts abruptly and considering she is still grasping his hand, Gale finds himself jerking to a stop as well. He lets out a noise of surprise and nearly stumbles, bumping against her shoulder. She doesn’t seem to notice as she shoves her free hand into a small leather bag tied around her hip, biting her lower lip in concentration as she rummages around.
He wants to point out that it would be easier if she used two hands.
Gale will do no such thing.
After a few moments she produces a single piece of parchment and a quill, pulling it out of the pouch with a triumphant beaming smile. “Found it!” she says excitedly, pressing it into his other hand. “It’s your personal sending parchment with Morena. I started putting things I thought would be useful in a Bag of Holding I found in your supplies, just in case. I didn’t have time to tell her or Evander that I was going to get you so…you might want to message her whenever we get to where we’re going.”
She winces, brows furrowed nervously as she swallows thickly.
“They may be back at the tower by now. If they see that I’m gone too…”
He gazes down at the parchment in silent awe. The tadpoles may prevent the casting of such communicative spells, but what are the chances they will have the same effect on an item the spell is already casted on? It would be inconceivable. The parasites alter their hosts—not the items the host is trying to use.
It will work. He knows it.
“You’re brilliant,” he breathes, folding up the parchment and tucking it gingerly into his pocket along with the quill. Later. He will attempt it later. With a clearer mind and some food and ale to stave off the state he’s slipped into. He’s of no mind to speak to his mother and possibly his father right now. “The most brilliant sorcerer in Faerûn.”
Rowan’s flush deepens and she lets out a shaky, almost restless laugh as she pats the Bag of Holding at her side. “I know,” she says, giving him a cheeky wink that wreaks absolute havoc on his already strained composure. “But feel free to praise me however you see fit, wizardboy.”
Oh, how he yearns to.
Gale would get on his hands and knees and compose whatever poetry she wished to hear from his unworthy lips right here and now were they not trudging through untamed wilds still under the potential threat of goblin hordes.
Instead, he settles on something different.
He brings her hand—still tangled so tightly in his own—up to his face and lightly brushes his lips against her knuckles. “Thank you, Rowan,” he murmurs, holding his gaze steady with her. He won’t let her look away. He wants to see the look in her eyes as he does this. He wants to feel the rapid beating of her heart in the trembling tips of her fingers as he holds them.
More than anything, Gale wants a moment and a lifetime alone with Rowan, so that he can finally convey what has been hiding in the shadows of his traitorous heart since that night he felt the sensation of a kiss that never happened.
I’m in love with you.
Her breath quickens. Her mouth parts. Her eyes are wide and roil like the twin tempests that they are, an infinity of things left unsaid and emotions too volatile to express. Gale just presses his mouth against the top of her hand, barely a phantom of a touch as he smiles into the smooth skin of the only goddess that matters to him now.
The Emerald Grove is breathtakingly beautiful. It is straight out of a storybook, idyllic and fanciful and everything Rowan could have ever imagined if someone asked her to describe a druid conclave based on speculation alone.
If Waterdeep was a fairy tale, this place was a dream. She’s never seen so much green everywhere; the grass beneath her feet is lush, the vines and moss and ivy clinging to the walls of the cavern grotto look like they could transform into tiny dryads and come to life. The carved statues of elk, wolves, bears and other animals have an uncanny spirit to them as well. As if something dwells within the stones, watching every person that passes beneath their unwavering gazes.
There is a fresh scent in the air, herbal and full of sunlight. Rowan’s spirits begin to lift the moment she passes through the thick, ivy-strewn wooden gate that cuts off the Grove from the rest of the wilds. Not that they were down, per se, but the reality of the situation at hand finally struck a chord in her somewhere between leaving that awful place she found Gale in and when time stood still on the road as his lips caressed her hand in a mockery of a kiss and he looked at her like she wore a crown of stars.
She’d killed someone.
Multiple
someones, in fact.
It hadn’t been her intention when she stepped out of that dark portal and saw the swarms of goblins—goblins, she keeps reminding herself, goblins are real here too—attacking Gale and those strangers. In a red haze similar to her dealings with Elminster, Rowan had just let her emotions take the reins and done the only thing she could think of.
Burning them all.
Turning them to ash and dust so they couldn’t touch Gale. Couldn’t hurt him. They deserved no mercy. The shadows had called for the end of their pathetic lives and Rowan had answered with the utmost enthusiasm.
She should feel…wrong about it, shouldn’t she? In her old life, one couldn’t simply summon a giant fireball and set your enemies aflame until they burned alive. Such a display of power and magic should frighten her. It should make her feel sick, like a monster in her own right, like she is broken and deserves to be torn asunder by claws and teeth.
But Rowan feels the opposite. She would do it again with not a single shred of remorse if it meant keeping Gale safe. The Raven Queen gave her these abilities for a reason. Faerûn is a world of strife and bids for power, with magic being at the center of so many conflicts. Why should she feel shame about harnessing that magic so succinctly? Why should she call herself a monster when she has read dozens upon dozens of books over the last few months spinning the tales of individuals who have done far worse?
No. Rowan refuses to feel regret. There is no stigma against what she did in that decrepit old temple. She is
proud
. Proud and satisfied that her control over magic holds up in combat despite having no experience in such environments. Proud to know that she can protect Gale and pay him back for these months of friendship and being the anchor in her otherwise tumultuous sea of adjusting to her new life in this world.
Especially if his own magic is as depleted as he claims. The orb was one thing—an illithid parasite added to that harrowing blight is a whole other layer of “oh fuck.”
She’ll be his sword. His shield. Whatever he needs, she’ll do it without question. She’s not letting him slip through her fingers this time. They’ll face the obstacles in his way together.
But how to construe the definition of “together” when it comes to her and Gale? What are they?
They are not just apprentice and mentor. They are not just strange bedfellows brought together by happenstance and a twist of fate. They are not just…friends.
Friends don’t kiss their friends on the hand and stare at them like they spoke the world into existence.
Rowan had frozen in that moment. As still as the statues in the Grove, her heart threatening to crawl up her chest and escape on her tongue and pour everything out into Gale’s warm, calloused hands. Her voice did not exist. She did not exist, tangled in the essence of Gale’s ardent gaze and unyielding hold on her hand.
Something has changed, Rowan had thought, ensnared and enraptured as she and Gale stood facing one another. Something is different between us now.
She’d found him.
And in doing so, Rowan thinks Gale had found her .
It hadn’t been until Miri, the pretty pink tiefling, shouted out from ahead, “Do you want us to leave you two here, or…?” that they realized how far they were falling behind.
So Gale and Rowan had torn themselves from one another’s gaze and, hands still woven together tightly, continued following behind the others whose lives she had inadvertently saved. They knew there was more to be said. But it could wait for the right time, the right place. Even though the interim would be agony to Rowan as she swam through the sea of her chaotic, lawless thoughts.
Thoughts that are somewhat placated as she absorbs the natural, rustic beauty of this place and allows herself to feel centered and calm for the first time in seven days.
“I’ll go check in with Halsin,” Miri says as their group walks through what appears to be the Grove’s main thoroughfare, which is currently decorated with a multitude of carts half-empty. “Astarion, Shadowheart, will you find Zevlor and confirm there were no other goblin incursions?”
They’d meandered through an abandoned, shabby village on the way back that apparently had been acting as an outpost for the goblins’ main camp. The usual sentries and lookouts the tiefling bard had bullied for information and passage were nowhere to be found—the remaining goblins seemed to have just vanished.
Miri had been worried this meant they were on their way to attack the Grove but considering the lack of smelly bodies and makeshift weapons on the road, it was hard to be sure.
Gale straightens himself up somewhat and his thumb rubs against Rowan’s palm for a brief moment. Even in this public place, with the cacophony of voices echoing from further into the grotto and dozens of figures rushing about on makeshift wooden platforms, he had not let go of her hand.
She has no plans to let go of his either.
“Rowan and I can go with—”
“You and Rowan should go to our camp,” Miri cuts him off, a cunning light blazing in her fiery magenta eyes. She has longer horns than Jericho, and they are a pastel cream color rather than her friend’s jet black, but both share a bewitching and otherworldly beauty that makes Rowan almost dizzy. “Introduce her to everyone else! And take a break. You’ve been running yourself ragged for the last couple of days with all your spellcasting, wizardboy.”
She winks, and Gale immediately looks like he needs about six glasses of wine.
“Oh, no. Not you too.”
“Tiefling hearing isn’t something to scoff at, my dear wizard,” Miri practically sings in that melodious, gossamer voice of hers as she saunters away, down the path winding through the grotto and disappearing around the bend of a stone wall.
“How uncouth,” Astarion sniffs. “She knows I wanted to watch the druid tear Kagha apart as well. What a droll, cruel taskmaster she is.”
Shadowheart rolls her eyes. “You could always just say no and follow her. I am perfectly capable of checking in with Zevlor myself.”
“Darling, have you ever tried saying no to a bard? Especially when that bard is Miri?”
“No, but that’s because she only ever asks us to perform the most basic of tasks necessary to our survival.”
“Ugh. Now you’re starting to sound like Gale.”
“Who is still standing here, mind you,” Gale points out in a deadpan, leveling the pale elf with an unimpressed look.
“And don’t you look handsome while doing so,” Astarion simpers, his lips curling into a smirk that shows a flashing of fangs. Fangs that Rowan is fairly certain do not belong inside an elf’s mouth. “It’s why I enjoy our intrepid little walks together so much.”
Without another word he spins on his heels and begins to swagger down a path in the opposite direction Miri went. Shadowheart gives Gale and Rowan an apologetic smile, exhausted face strained somewhat as she does so. The half-elf just sighs and turns around as well, following behind Astarion with a gait that suggests she also desperately needs to rest.
“He’s kind of a jerk,” Rowan observes, scowling at the retreating backside of Astarion. “I don’t like how rude he is to you.”
“Oh, he’s not so bad. He grows on you. Like a weed.” Gale grins at her, a light in the shadows of his fatigued and almost gaunt face. “I believe Astarion is simply not a fan of someone like me and my penchant for ramblings on this and that.”
“His loss. I happen to like your ramblings. They’re illuminating. Have you informed him of Sune’s temple in Athkatla? He looks like the kind of person who would be right at home getting a spa day there.”
“I’ve not, no. I’ll be sure to add it to my next round of lectures. Your suggestion is duly noted and appreciated.”
She mirrors his grin, reaching up with her free hand to pat his head (and trying not to wince at what a mess his hair has become in her absence). “You’re most welcome, professor. I expect to get some extra credit for such a scintillating proposal.”
She’s missed this.
Gods, how she’s
missed
this. The ease at which she can talk to him. How warm and fuzzy it feels to simply exist in the same space as him, trading quips and playful smiles like it’s some secret code known only to them. All the while that messy ball of something
more
stirs within Rowan’s heart, knocking at the doors she’s desperately tried to keep under lock and key for months.
“I’ll give you all the credit you deserve and more, Rowan,” Gale murmurs sincerely. The grin has changed. The smile he wears is far more maudlin than she was expecting.
Too much.
Not enough.
The flightless bird caged in her chest flaps its wings, ready to soar.
She clips the feathers like she has so many times before, ignoring the way her insides want to melt and how her mouth is twitching as if preparing for the sensation of something she has felt only in a beautiful daydream. “R-right,” she mumbles with a nervousness that makes her hate herself for a moment, jerking her head away and gazing about the Grove’s verdant surroundings. “So, uh…where’s your camp in all this?”
The spell they keep finding themselves under breaks for the umpteenth time. Gale clears his throat as the dreamlike sense to his smile changes once more. Now he is the one mirroring her, jittery and anxious and so close to falling apart.
“A-ah, yes. This way. The druids have been kind enough to allow us a spot just outside the Grove next to the Chionthar. Lots of fireflies in this area, did you know? It makes sleeping outside rather difficult at times, even if they are lovely.”
There he is. The babbling, info-dumping Gale she has come to know and love.
Gale tugs her along and she dutifully follows. They glide effortlessly past throngs of tieflings clothed in dingy, patched-up clothes and people from all races donning the pastoral attire befitting a druid conclave. He’s leading her in the direction Miri went. Past a few lumbering oxen, traveling downwards, to where a carved stone arch opens up into an arcadian clearing of pure artistic nature. A shrine of sorts looms in the middle and even from here, Rowan’s skin tingles with the brush of something ancient and arcane.
Magic is seeped into the very earth of this place, she realizes. She hadn't noticed it when they first arrived, too busy gawking at the rugged beauty and cavernous grotto housing such an eclectic crowd. It reminds her of the tower—of home—despite this magic emanating from an entirely different source than either Weave she and Gale can harness.
Out of all the places the nautiloid could have crashed, she’s glad it was here. At least Gale has had a safe place as any during these last seven days.
If he had been stuck in Avernus, what would have—
No. She won’t let herself linger on that horrid thought. Concentrating on the what ifs is never a good idea when you should be focusing on the now whats .
A group of what Rowan assumes are druids have surrounded a towering figure she recognizes as Halsin and a shorter, slender female elf. She is practically cowering, head bowed and body stiff as Halsin speaks to her in hushed but virulent tones, his hackles raised even though he is not in bear form.
Miri stands off to the side, arms crossed and a delighted smirk dancing across her face. She’s clearly enjoying herself, not even attempting to hide her eavesdropping as she leans against a stone column.
Jericho would get along with Miri far too well. The two hatching schemes together would spell utter pandemonium for all of Faerûn.
Gale especially, judging by the way he wordlessly stammers with the tiefling notices them creeping by and gestures to their still-conjoined hands with an air of glee. The poor man clearly angered some god other than Mystra for him to be plagued by hot tiefling women dedicated to tormenting and teasing him for their own personal amusement.
Oh. Rowan hopes Jericho won’t be too upset with her for leaving without warning. She’ll do worse than hypnotize her in retaliation.
It takes a couple more minutes of trekking up and down rocky trails left to nature’s whims until Gale at last comes to a stop, nodding at the view before them.
“This is our humble abode for the time being,” he says. “It’s no wizard tower, but it has a certain quaint charm to it, I suppose.”
Rowan doesn’t know what she was expecting.
A campfire? With some logs in front of it so people can roast marshmallows and hot dogs? A few tiny, ripped tents barely standing up against the perils of the elements?
Well, it certainly wasn’t the spectacle sprawling out before her.
The camp is nestled on the banks of the Chionthar as Gale had said, the calm current of the water echoing gently as it flows in the background. A small ruined building of some kind fans out in the back, accessible by a fallen tree trunk over a small stream off shooting from the river. There is indeed a fire, but it is small and almost pathetic in terms of the camp’s overall size. The forest surrounds the clearing on the opposite end of the river, the trees thicker than the wilds they had just traipsed through.
There are multiple tents set up throughout the clearing, each one extremely unique and decorated in a particular manner. They’re big enough to fit at least two people per tent if Rowan had to hazard a guess. “Quaint” certainly is an apt way to describe it. She’s never been one for sleeping outdoors or roughing it; yet, there is no denying the simple charm of this little haven, carved out in desperation amongst the harsher side of the wilderness.
Rowan points to the tent closest to the river and lingering at the back of the camp.
“I’m guessing that one’s yours.”
Gale scoffs. “Care to enlighten me on why you think so?”
“Gale, the tent is literally the same blue as the Waterdeep city colors and there’s books everywhere. And a telescope. And fancy little throw pillows.”
She peers closer at the set up, absolutely baffled. It is so painfully Gale Dekarios, yet…
“Where did you even find any of this stuff out here? Did you raid some kind of magical library out in the middle of the woods?”
“Oh! The enclave has a library, actually. Quite an extensive one considering we’re so far from any major city,” Gale explains, nodding enthusiastically. “After we convinced Kagha to break off her allegiance with the Shadow Druids, the other members of the enclave graciously supplied us with things they no longer needed in an effort to aid our cause.”
“And that included a telescope and fancy throw pillows?”
He huffs. “I am a man of no small comforts by any means. I took what was offered even if it was impractical. Dare I be so imprudent to turn my nose up at their magnanimity?”
Rowan can’t help it.
She laughs , a full-bodied and loud one that shakes her shoulders. It echoes throughout the expanse of the camp, bouncing off of the glistening waves of the river and seeping into the canopy of the trees shrouding them from above. “Only you could wander into the woods and come out with the exact items you have in your room in the tower!”
“Yes, it is reassuring to know this parasite hasn’t addled your sense of self,” Tara adds as she flicks her tail into Gale’s face, her feline maw transfigured in the tressym version of a smirk. She’s looking far better than she was in the tower. Shit, even better than she was before they got to the Grove. Being so close to her wizard again must be healing whatever strangeness was ailing her.
It’s a relief. Rowan doesn’t know if she was more worried about Tara or Gale during the last week.
“Gale? When’d you get back? How’d the raid on the goblin camp go?”
An unfamiliar voice rings out and both Gale and Rowan turn in its direction and a figure emerges from one of the tents, tall and bulky and full of an energetic fire that makes Rowan’s cheeks burn.
“Why are all the tiefling women in this world so fucking hot,” she whispers urgently to Gale, trying very hard not to stare.
Red-skinned, muscular, and with a broken horn the tiefling who comes to greet them is utterly gorgeous. Like the other tieflings Rowan has met so far she has hellfire for eyes and they crinkle with an excited mirth as they gravitate towards where Gale’s hand remains steadfastly holding onto hers. She’s dressed in some ripped leathers that show scars and burn marks all across her toned body and she could easily bench press both Gale and Rowan at once.
Gale chooses to ignore Rowan’s nigh-delirious whispers. “It was a tad touch-and-go for a moment,” he admits sheepishly, clearing his throat as he squeezes Rowan’s hand. “Luckily, a hero appeared in our hour of need. Karlach, this is my apprentice, Rowan. Rowan, this is Karlach, one of the fiercest warriors I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”
Karlach grins. “D’awww. You’re so sweet. And you’re one of the squishiest wizards I’ve ever met.” She leans forward and waves away Gale’s overexaggerated gasp of shock, beaming at Rowan with the widest smile possible. “I’ve heard so much about you! Aces to finally meetcha. I’d shake your hand but, uh, don’t wanna singe your skin off.”
Karlach doesn’t seem to be joking. This close, Rowan can feel intense heat radiating from her flesh. In fact if she looks closely, Karlach’s chest seems to glow a dull orange, illuminating her ribcage as if a hearth fire blazes deep inside her.
Almost like the light put off by the Netherese orb inside of Gale. He has fallen in with some very strange companions indeed.
“That’s alright,” Rowan says, brandishing Gale’s hand intertwined with hers like some victor’s laurel. “I’ve got my hands full as it is. Can’t lose my wizard again after I just found him, after all!”
(She is quite proud of herself for not making a “tied up” joke and subsequently, not thinking about tightening a collar around Gale’s throat and yanking him towards her.)
“You make me sound as if I am a child wandering off on market day,” Gale complains. A flush is beginning to creep up his neck and slowly bloom across the rest of his face and he is pointedly avoiding Karlach’s amused gaze.
Good. He deserves it after the fucking somersaults he made her heart do earlier. She’ll embarrass him in front of his new friends all she wants, even if they are cool and gorgeous and make her want to do stupid things.
“It is not entirely undeserving, Mr. Dekarios,” Tara points out, stretching across his shoulders and beginning to claw at the filthy fabric of his robes. “You did make the poor decision of leaving us.”
“I was trying to save Rowan from the nautiloid!”
“A perfectly honorable reason that I know she appreciates as much as I do. We are both still fairly upset with you, however, so be a good sir and reap what you have sown with dignity.”
“Oh! Is this the famous Tara?” Karlach bobs her head towards the tressym in greeting. “Gotta be honest, I think Gale talks about you and Rowan more than he talks about himself! It’s ’Tara this, Rowan that, one time my apprentice did this, one time my tressym said that’ every day.”
“Miri said something similar,” Rowan muses, lifting an eyebrow as she glances at Gale curiously. Just what has he been telling his companions about her?
He takes a deep breath, the flush on his face growing darker. “Do you happen to know where Wyll and Lae’zel are?” he asks Karlach, his attempt to segue into a whole new conversation bumbling like a lame horse. “I was going to introduce Rowan to them as well. She’s the reason our infiltration of the goblin camp ended in triumph rather than a grisly alternative.”
Karlach gestures vaguely out in the direction the Grove proper lay, making a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. “They both went off to inspect the ramparts in case any of the little shites got past the defenses again. I would have gone too, but someone needed to keep Scratch company. Even if I can’t pet him,” she adds, an air of solemnity echoing in those last words.
Scratch? Who is that?
Before Rowan can voice the question there is the scampering of paws on upturned earth and an excited yip echoing throughout the camp clearing. A bundle of white fur zips across the fallen tree, racing past the tents and skidding to a stop before Gale. It’s a dog; an adorable, white-furred dog with pointed ears and a body like a shepherd breed, its tail wagging fiercely as it lets out a soft woof.
“Yes, yes, I am glad to see you too, Scratch,” Gale says, reaching out to give him a polite pat on the head. “His master was killed out in the forest by some gnolls,” he explains to Rowan. “Miri took him in. He is a very obedient and intelligent boy.”
“He cannot hold a candle to my magnificence,” Tara mutters, envy lacing every syllable as clear as a bell.
Gale is going to have to sleep with one eye open tonight. Otherwise he’s going to wake up with his robes all shredded and maybe a dead pigeon or two stuffed into his trousers.
Rowan schools her face into one of indifference as she tries not to snort at the image in her head. She holds her free hand out towards the dog and he leans forward, sniffing her fingers curiously. Scratch’s tail wags a little faster and he nuzzles against her hand happily, letting out another soft woof as Rowan begins to pet the side of his face.
“Awww. You’re no cat, but you’re still a cutie pie. What a good boy!”
“Both of you being cat people makes way too much sense,” Karlach jokes dryly, glancing between Rowan and Gale with a grin that is rapidly forming into a smirk. “Hey—how in the hells did you find him out here anyway, Rowan? Didja run all the way from Waterdeep or something?”
Rowan reluctantly ceases in her patting and scritching of a very good boy indeed, nudging Pip with the side of her head. The raven has been silently observing everything without a word. Their talons are still flecked with dried blood from the man they had both slaughtered, for lack of a better word.
She can still feel the pulsating of his final breath vibrating weakly beneath her fingers as she rotted his throat from the inside out.
“The feather in Gale’s hair,” she explains. “It comes from my familiar, Pip. I was able to scry on him because of it. I found a single-use scroll of Teleport in Gale’s supplies and because the feather acted as an arcane focus, was able to arrive at his exact location.”
Karlach lets out a low whistle of appreciation, her eyes lighting up with interest. Gale has swiveled his head to stare at her, not dissimilar to the look he gave her when she produced the sending parchment. That’s right. He didn’t know about the scrying and Teleportation thing yet. She hasn’t had the chance to tell him, focusing on his side of the story and what he’s been doing for the last week.
“Don’t get too excited,” Rowan quickly adds, shoulders slumping. “There was only one of those scrolls and I didn’t bring the scrying crystal with me. I have a lot of other useful items, but nothing that can get us immediately to a city like Waterdeep. I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t say that there’s a chance she could replicate the spell on her own. The Shadow Weave would probably allow it, if she asked nicely enough. But would it let her bring everyone Gale has been traveling with? All of these strangers brought together by a parasite in their head?
She’s not sure. She doesn’t want to get their hopes up by dangling the possibility before them only to snatch it away at the last second.
“You truly are brilliant,” Gale murmurs, and his hand in hers suddenly feels far warmer than it has since she first took it. His voice is raw. Reverent. Nearly devout as he looks at her like he did out on the road, with such vulnerability that makes her feel like she is dying all over again. “What have I ever done to deserve you?”
Too much.
Not enough.
Rowan doesn’t know whether to be thankful Karlach is standing right there or loathe the fact that there’s another person present. She had told Jericho she was going to punch Gale and then drag him off to a corner and kiss him once she found him.
Well, she successfully completed one of those goals—even though it was a slap, and not a punch.
The latter? If Karlach was not here, Rowan would be jumping on her wizard without so much as a second thought.
He can’t just look at her like that , say those kinds of words in that tone of voice, and not expect anything different.
“I don’t know, but whatever it was, you should start including the Raven Queen in your prayers to thank her for me,” Rowan jokes, her voice tilting with a theatrical flair as she ignores the fluttering bird caged inside her once more.
Not now. Not yet. No matter how badly she wants it. She could still ruin it, this perfect and wonderful thing they share. She could be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, just like she was with all the friends she fell in love with and stupidly knelt before the altars of their hearts and asked What are we?
Gale can’t feel that way about her. It’s not possible. All of this, it’s just…
Relief. Yes, that’s right. Relief that they found one another again. Relief that she saved him and his companions like a knight in shadowy armor.
That’s all this is.
“Anyway, about the feather!” Rowan winces at how pathetic she now sounds as she attempts to derail the conversation, tugging it away from sensations and feelings best left alone and buried in a grave. “Your hair looks like shit, Gale. I’m fixing it for you right now.”
Gale’s face falls.
“…o-oh. Yes, my fingers aren’t quite as nimble as yours when it comes to this sort of thing. I’d appreciate it, Rowan.”
She tries not to let the lost, forlorn expression he now wears burrow its way into her heart like a patch of brambles. It’s for the best. It’s what is safe.
I’m sorry.
Whatever it is we share has to remain nameless for now.
I’m so sorry.
“You’re cool and I know another hot tiefling who would just love you,” Rowan says over her shoulder to Karlach as she drags Gale to the tent that is so painfully, obviously his. As much as she’d love to stay and talk Karlach’s ear off and not-so-subtly try and wingman something to happen between her and said hot tiefling who is all the way in Waterdeep, Gale is her priority. She wasn’t lying when she said his hair was a hot mess.
It’s totally not an excuse just to run her fingers through it and remind herself that he’s here, really here, and that she found him.
The tent is certainly cozy as Rowan and Gale squeeze through the opening. He’s got a bedroll piled high with more fancy throw pillows off to the side and yet more books stacked neatly in the other corner.
Rowan motions for him to sit on the bedroll. He does so with bashful obedience and at long last, their hands drift apart from one another as Gale crosses his legs with rigid posture.
At long last, they’re alone.
…save for Pip and Tara, of course.
Rowan’s hand feels cold and empty as she rummages through the pockets of her robe. The calloused feel of his palm and fingertips for the last hour or so had been wordlessly, intimately perfect. She doesn’t know when she’ll get another chance to twist an opportunity like that in her favor again.
It was nice while it lasted.
“Write to your mother like a good boy,” she instructs as she at last pulls out the comb she keeps on her person. “I’m not going to tell you what to say to her, but at least mention I’m sorry I didn’t wait for her or Evander to come back.”
Frankly, if they had returned with advice from Elminster or the ancient wizard himself asking to be granted passage back into the tower, Rowan doesn’t know how she would have reacted. She’s glad she never has to find out. The wrinkly old bastard still enrages her, irrationally so.
“I think it’s best to bend the truth for now,” Gale admits quietly, getting the parchment and quill out. “My mother may be limited to what she can do, but I have no doubt in my mind that she would tear apart the essence of the Weave itself if she knew everything. Not even Mystra could stop her. And that…that is terrifying to me, Rowan. I can’t risk my fa—my mother’s safety for my own.”
She catches that stumble.
It’s not just Morena he’s concerned about. Good. She doesn’t know exactly how Evander and Gale’s last confrontation went but she hopes, for their sakes, whatever strain there is between them will begin to loosen after all this is over.
Because Gale will return to Waterdeep, hearty and hale. He will return to his family. The tower.
Their tower.
“Better put on your Volo cap and spin the tale of a lifetime then,” Rowan says, plopping herself down behind him. “Something even your mother won’t bat her eyes at.”
“I’ve met him, actually. He was being detained by the goblins for failing to meet their lofty expectations of poetry and showmanship. Miri deemed it necessary to rescue him from their vile clutches. I like to think I hid my disappointment fairly well.”
“No fucking way. Is he as ridiculous in person as he is on parchment?”
He scoffs, nodding his head. The movement jostles Tara to the point where the tressym lets out an agitated meow and jumps off of his shoulders. She sashays to the stacks of books in the tent corner and jumps on top of the shorter one, grooming herself in annoyed silence. “Worse. Undeniably so. And I am far more handsome than he is, I’ll have you know. There shall be no mistaking Gale Dekarios for Volothamp Geddarm or vice versa!”
“I could have told you that, Gale,” Rowan murmurs through a heavy sigh, plucking the feather from his updo and starting the process of untying it. “No one is as handsome as you.”
“Hm? What was that?”
“Just talking to myself!”
Gale grunts in the back of his throat but doesn’t make another comment and Rowan clamps her mouth shut to prevent anything else from spilling forth. Carefully, with hands that only tremble somewhat, she begins the process of combing the messy tangles from his unwashed hair. She probably has a scroll or a potion in the Bag of Holding that would clean his hair for him, but…
When Rowan glances over his shoulder, Gale is scribbling furiously on the sending parchment’s surface. She’ll let him focus on that. Trying to wash his hair and redo the styling of it would be distracting to anyone trying to write to their worried mother. Knowing Gale, it would be three times as worse.
After a few minutes of mindless brushing and refamiliarizing herself with the texture and feel of Gale’s hair between her fingers, he says, “My mother forgives you for acting rashly. She seems content with the answers I’ve given her for now.”
“Oh? What did you tell her?” Rowan has been keeping her gaze on nothing but the back of Gale’s head and the threading of her fingers through his hair. She can’t bring herself to intrude on that private moment between him and Morena, even if it’s just enchanted ink on a page.
“That I’m in the wilds of Elturgard about a tenday walk to Baldur’s Gate, and I’m safe. Thanks to my wonderful apprentice, of course.”
His stiff posture starts to grow slack, his exhaustion at last smacking into him with all the force of a storm giant.
“I didn’t mention the parasite,” he mumbles through a yawn. “I’m sure she knows. She just chose not to interrogate me on it.”
“And that’s…good?” Rowan ventures, at last beginning the sacred ritual of gathering a portion of his hair up to tie it in a better knot than the mess he’d been attempting for the last several days.
“I don’t know yet. Perhaps. Perhaps not. None of it will matter if I don’t rid myself of the parasite. Or…find Dorian, I suppose.”
Another yawn. Gale’s voice is quieter, slower. He’s leaning into her touch, his back slumping against her arms in a way that if he leaned back just a little more, she would practically be hugging him.
“We’ll find your brother,” she promises, stroking his hair in gentle, rhythmic circles. She knows he finds comfort in this—it has been their morning routine for so long that a week without it would have been tortuous. Well, it was for her. Maybe not so much for Gale. “And we’ll get that nasty worm out of your head. And then work on the orb plan. Everything will be fine, Gale.”
He doesn’t answer.
His breathing has been even. Lethargic. Almost the same tempo of her massaging his scalp. Rowan lessens her hold of his bulk and like a ragdoll, Gale collapses against her chest. She lets out a little squeak of surprise as her arms are suddenly full of one sleeping wizard, his body slipping and twisting until somehow she’s got his head in her lap and the rest of him lay upon the bedroll.
She hurriedly adjusts herself so that the weight of his head isn’t going to make her legs go numb. The sending parchment and quill lay abandoned at his side. She stretches a foot out to push it further away from her, not trusting herself to be alone with it. “Dammit, Gale, you’re gonna mess up your hair,” she mutters as she attempts to smooth down the artistry of his updo. She doesn’t bother putting the feather back in. At this angle, it would be moot.
Plus, he needs a new one. She’ll ask Pip when the wizard awakens. The old one is bent and frayed to hell from his adventures running around this area doing the gods know what in an attempt to remove the illithid parasite.
Rowan gazes down at Gale’s face. She’s never seen him asleep before. He looks younger somehow. Less strained; less stressed. Oh, the lines are still there and the beginnings of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes remain, but they’re softer. A faded dream that transforms him into someone else as he dreams as well, lost in the sea of stars all of Faerûn rests under.
She used to write poetry.
Poetry to her dead, silent gods. Poetry to the people she loved even though they looked at her with pity, not passion. She’d stopped writing a long time ago. The words that used to bring her so much release, that beautiful sense of safety and belonging? Rowan remembers. She remembers when they started to do the opposite, and her poems brought bile and shaking and a longing for the reflection in the mirror to reach out and crush her throat.
It’s why she would always react to Gale’s sappy wizard poetry with such disdain. It didn’t matter to her that it was something he enjoyed. For Rowan, poetry of any kind was just a reminder of the mistakes she’d made and the things she’d destroyed in the process.
But she would write poetry again. If it was for Gale, she’d compose a fucking novel of stanzas, each one dedicated to all the things she loves about him. All the ways he makes her…
…happy.
Rowan reaches a hand out. The hand that held his for so long. The hand that cast the spell that brought her back to him.
The hand that killed for him.
She cups his cheek. His stubble is scratchy and oddly pleasant against her palm. His eyes flutter beneath his eyelids. He mumbles something in his sleep, his face sinking into her hand. His mouth parts, just barely, his breath warm and steady as he sighs in fatigued content.
“Out of all the stars in the sky,” Rowan whispers, cradling Gale’s head in her lap with a featherlight touch, “yours shines the brightest. And darling, when I’m with you, I’m home.”
It’s not her best.
But considering it’s been years since she even thought about her writing? It’s not her worst, either.
“I’m glad we found him,” Pip admits. It’s the first thing they’ve since since walking through the portal to save Gale.
She smiles. “You and me both, buddy. Thanks for being my conduit. And for ripping that fucker’s eyes out.”
“My pleasure, boss. Turns out—fightin’ is kinda fun. It’s different when they scream for mercy. Pigeons just try to fly away and chirp. It ain’t nowhere near as stimulating.”
“You little freak,” Rowan groans affectionately, mindful of keeping her voice down so Gale can continue to sleep. He must have been running on fumes if he could pass out so abruptly. Her poor, sweet wizard.
She turns her head to ask Tara how she’s doing now that she is reunited with said wizard but the tressym is a perfect mirror of Gale. She is curled up on top of the book stack, wings tucked in and tail acting as a pillow, and sound asleep. Her fur seems brighter. Her feathers seem less dull. She is healing, though Rowan feels somewhat guilty that she’s not on top of Gale’s chest right now.
The last thing Tara should be concerning herself with is an attempt to give Rowan and Gale a modicum of privacy. The tressym has been Gale’s friend and companion far longer than Rowan has, after all.
You’re too fucking thoughtful, Tara, she thinks as she throws the sleeping tressym a grateful smile. What would Gale or I do without you?
“Woulda mind if I do a wee bit o’scouting?” Pip asks her, nibbling on a piece of her hair. “I’ll be back toot sweet. Just wanna get the lay of the land and all.”
“You’re gonna go flirt with the druids’ birds, aren’t you?”
“No! …maybe! …okay, yes, but at least I asked for your permission first!”
She flicks them (with all the tenderness of a mother towards their newborn babe) on the beak. “Go flirt to your heart’s content, Pip. Try not to lose your raven form and become an amorphous shadowy blob in the process though, will you?”
“It was one time,” her familiar complains. “Morena wasn’t too freaked out by it!”
“Because Morena Dekarios has the constitution of a goddess.”
“Oho, I wonder what that says about her son!” Pip hums as they hop off her shoulder and zip out of the tent before she can react.
Rowan does not scowl or flip off the tent’s opening because she is a mature and responsible adult who will not give into the goading of her familiar nor their thinly veiled insinuation that the word constitution is replacing something else.
But it’s mostly because she has her hands full of Gale, continuing to adjust his head in her lap and brush his hair as gingerly as she dares so as to not wake him up. “Guess I have the magic touch,” she muses quietly as she traces the lines of his face, highlighting the curves of his cheekbones and square jaw. There is not doubt that he’s been testing his limits to a dangerous extreme. With even more of his abilities and hard earned skills locked behind the psionic bindings of the parasite, Gale must be blazing through what little magic he is slowly gaining faster than he can get used to the drawbacks.
She’s exhausted herself, now that she has a moment to breathe. If she let herself relax, Rowan could definitely pass out right alongside her wizard.
It’s an emotional exhaustion. She feels utterly drained as she dwells on the events of the last couple hours. Gods, she really had sobbed hysterically in front of Gale’s new friends, hadn’t she? While in his arms, no less.
Arms he had held out for her.
Arms that had made her feel safe.
Gale had called her sweetheart. She remembers the lilting tone with which he whispered it, the warmth and relief and dare she say love he had spoken that term of endearment with.
Rowan looks down at him once more, brushing her fingers over the smooth plumpness of his parted lips with the daintiest of touches. “We can’t keep dancing around this, Gale.”
He does not answer. He just sighs in his sleep, chest rising and falling slow and steady, his head warm and comforting as it rests in her lap.
There’s a shuffling sound from outside. Footsteps approaching the tent. A head pops in, a man’s face she does not recognize—dark and handsome, with scarring along the skin. One crimson eye rimmed in black and one oddly gray, almost stonelike eye glances at her in surprise. Two curling ram horns spiral out from his forehead. Another tiefling? Though he doesn’t share all the notable features she recognizes between Jericho, Miri, and Karlach.
“Well met. Rowan, I presume? I hope I’m not interrupting Gale’s beauty sleep.”
The man speaks softly, his gaze sliding to the passed out Gale in her arms. She doesn’t cease in her careful ministrations and continues to massage his head, spoiling him with her gentle touches even as she turns her attention to this newcomer.
“He’s already as gorgeous as he can be,” Rowan informs him with a little grin, giving the man a polite nod. “I am most definitely Rowan. You’re either Wyll or Lae’zel, and considering you’re not a grumpy githyanki, I’m going with the former.”
“Very astute of you. Though, looks can be deceiving at times.” Wyll, still remaining mostly out of the tent, bows his head to her in a disturbingly noble way, as if she’s some kind of highborn lady he’s trying to impress. Maybe he’s just that courteous. “Karlach had said you two disappeared into Gale’s tent and haven’t made so much as a peep since. I wasn’t expecting to catch him taking a nap on the job.”
“In Gale’s defense, I don’t think he was expecting it either.”
Rowan allows herself a heavy sigh, rubbing at her temple in an attempt to banish the vestiges of sleep beckoning in the corners of her mind.
“It’s been…a very trying day. I figured I’d let him rest as much as he needs to.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Wyll says, peering closely at her. “You look as if you’ve gone a few rounds with an ogre yourself. I’ve a spare bedroll in my tent if you’d like me to bring it to you so you can get some rest as well.”
“That’s very kind of you. But I’m alright. Plus, uh,” she feels her cheeks grow warm as she points her chin down at Gale, her smile becoming a little shy and strained. “I’m afraid any major movements will wake him up.”
“I don’t think even a roving band of gnolls would stir him,” Wyll chuckles. “No, I believe only a kiss from a princess would awaken this sleeping beauty.”
Rowan does not sputter or stammer like her instincts tell her to. Instead she clears her throat somewhat, drawing her shoulders to a stiff and upright position as she cranes her neck as regally as possible. “I’ll have you know,” she says, voice remarkably steady despite the tangled weave of emotions in her chest, “that I’m a queen , not a princess. Ask Gale. He frequently refers to me as ‘your majesty’.”
“Does he now? Out of all the things he has said about you, that is one fact that’s never come up in conversation.”
Again! What the hell has Gale been telling these people about her? How much has he spoken about her to the point where almost every single one of his companions have brought it up with a shrewd look in their eyes?
Wyll must see the sudden disturbance ripple across her face and he shakes his head, his voice low and kind. “Don’t worry. It’s been nothing but good things. He’s very proud of you, you know. Gale never misses a chance to brag about his bold, clever apprentice.”
His gaze flickers down to Gale once more, watching the other man sleep soundly for a few moments.
“Everyone is so quick to call wizards arrogant and full of an ambition that rivals the gods. And, yes, I see some of that in our resident wizard here. But when it comes to singing your praises, Rowan? I’ve never met a man more humble.”
Her face feels so fucking hot right now.
She doesn’t know what to say. Every response floating at the end of her tongue seems unfit and obtuse. So Rowan just settles for silence—dumbfounded, embarrassed silence as she focuses on the wrinkled brow of the wizard sleeping in her lap.
Gods bless Wyll. He seems to sense her discomfort and he clears his throat, as if the act will clear the thick air between them.
“I was stopping by to inform the two of you that there will be a congratulatory congregation of sorts once the sun goes down. A celebration of our achievements in protecting the Grove from the goblins and clearing the road to Baldur’s Gate so the tieflings can be on their way.”
He smiles at her, a vaguely chivalrous gesture when combined with yet another bowing of his horned head.
“I do hope you’ll join. It seems you were rather instrumental in the final push against the goblins, after all.”
“N-not really!” she protests. “I just kinda showed up and panic-casted Fireball on everyone. From what I hear, Gale and the rest of you did the hard work.”
“Take the little victories when you can, Rowan,” Wyll tells her quietly, the mirth and humor in his one crimson eye dulling to something heavy and grief stricken. “They make the long stretches of losses worth it.”
He shuffles out of the tent entrance without another word, leaving Rowan baffled.
She just stares at the empty tent flap for a minute or two, weighing his words in her mind. Did he have to make them go and sound so ominous? Just what was he trying to get at? Was he implying he didn’t think they had much of a chance of removing the tadpoles from their heads?
Great, now I really just want to take a nap. Thanks, dude, for freaking me out a little.
Rowan huffs indignantly and turns her focus back on Gale, taking in the soothing sight of his sleeping face. It’s unfair how handsome he looks like this. If she were a weaker person without some semblance of morals (well, as many morals as she still has, considering she still doesn’t feel that put off by murdering a bunch of chucklefucks) she would press her lips to his right now.
She does not.
For there is suddenly another urge she wishes to act upon, one that is less intrusive and far more rewarding.
Rowan slips a hand into the Bag of Holding and summons a certain scroll to her fingers. She deserves this. As a treat. So what if his guard is down and he has no way of protecting himself from it? If he had let her do this months ago she wouldn’t have been so keen to act upon the desire now!
The scroll of Color Spray glows gently as she holds it in one hand. She passesthe magic imbued in the parchment through the blood in her veins until it coalesces as misting shadows onto the fingers buried in Gale’s hair, slowly and impeccably combing through the strands.
He barely stirs. The only indication that he senses magic is the Netherese markings etched into his neck flaring to life for the briefest of moments before settling back into his skin.
Rowan finishes the spell quickly and discards the now-empty scroll under one of Gale’s pillows for the time being. She admires her work from above, grinning as she nods in satisfaction. She’s given him a similar color to the purple ombré in her own hair, focusing on making it darker towards the bottom.
She was right all those months ago. He looks damn good with his hair like this. He really ought to listen to her more.
“Now you’re the prettiest princess in all the realms,” Rowan declares quietly, patting Gale on his stubbly cheek. “And everyone will know whose wizard you are.”
The sudden possessiveness that comes over her is startling. Frightening, almost.
Because there is no denying it. Gale is hers, more so than he is Mystra’s. There is no goddess of magic in this tent tending to his hair as he sleeps in her lap. There was no goddess who ripped through the cracks between the Weave and shoved herself through it to save him from a bloody demise.
That was Rowan. It was always Rowan, and it will always be Rowan who stays by Gale’s side no matter what. Come illithid parasite or Netherese blight, she will not abandon him.
It’s stupid. It’s unwise. It’s bordering on insane. But as Rowan sits with Gale asleep and safe, his head cradled between her legs, she sends a silent challenge to the goddess that has refused to help her Chosen.
Try and take him from me. I fucking dare you.
The feather at her throat warms ever so slightly. Other than the Raven Queen’s ever-present, ever-subtle warnings, there are no divine acts performed in the tent. Rowan knows Mystra heard her. She’s just far too much of a spineless coward to step away from her halls in Elysium and do anything about it.
It takes until Halsin comments on Gale’s hair for him to realize what Rowan has done. She almost wants to punch the druid in retaliation. She does not. She’s pretty sure he could throw her into a tree with how fucking thick his arms are and she doesn’t feel like testing it out despite his genial humor.
The celebrations hosted by tieflings and druids alike have been raging since before sunset. The refugees bound for Baldur’s Gate had gathered their meager belongings fairly quickly after news of the goblins’ defeat spread through the Grove like wildfire.
Gale’s nap was barely three hours long before the rest of his companions came barreling through the camp to prepare for the sudden influx of guests. Rowan’s legs were definitely beginning to get numb by the time Miri swept through the tent like a hurricane, babbling about requiring Gale’s expert opinion on wines.
Needless to say, the bard took one look at the passed out wizard in Rowan’s lap and immediately stopped talking so she could just give Rowan the biggest, most wicked grin imaginable.
“He was tired!” Rowan had protested even though Miri hadn’t said a word. “What else was I supposed to do, force him to stay awake until he started hallucinating?”
The fearless leader of Gale’s little illithid troop had taken pity on Rowan; with much careful maneuvering and deft hands, the two managed to fully lay Gale on the bedroll as if he had been sleeping there all along. And when Rowan finally woke him up, shaking his shoulder gently and murmuring his voice, he was none the wiser to what had actually been his pillow.
It was better that way.
One roused wizard and a couple hours later, the party’s camp is bursting at the seams with strangers. There is food everywhere, laden on carts dragged across the rough trails and tables made of vines conjured by the druids. Laughter, joyous and raucous, fills the air. The scent of wine and ale wafts through the camp on the occasional evening breeze. The fire in the middle of the camp has been growing exponentially bigger the more people cross the boundaries and add another log, sending smoke rising into the reddened sky. And Gale—her precious Gale—wanders to and fro with his companions, a beaming smile on his face. Tieflings and druids reach out to them with grins of their own, heaping thanks and praises as the celebrations carry on, a miraculous sense of joy emanating from every single person.
Rowan feels brokenly out of place.
She doesn’t belong here, not really. She didn’t run herself ragged for a week doing this and that for these poor people. She just showed up out of the blue with a Fireball in her hand and seven days’ worth of emotional trauma to hash out with the man who saved her life.
But this is Gale’s night. Well, his and his friends’. Because that’s what they are, aren’t they? His other friends, or something close to it. You don’t just survive a crashed nautiloid and illithid infection in the wilderness together without something akin to friendship forming.
So Rowan sits by the fire silently, watching the festivities as the sun goes down with a plate of bread and cheese and a whole bottle of Amnian dessert wine by her side. Pip has returned to their perch on her shoulder, one wing missing yet another feather. It is tucked neatly into Gale’s updo, the perfect compliment to his new hair color, which everyone and their mother has not stopped admiring since he crawled out of the tent.
But no one ever mentions the purple ombré.
Not until Halsin.
“Mind if I join you?”
The massive elf is towering over Rowan, neither food nor drink in hand. How he managed to sneak up on her is a mystery. She should have heard his footsteps from a mile away.
Well, that other tiefling bard—Alfira, was it?—has started to play her instrument at the other end of the camp. Someone as large as Halsin would still be difficult to hear over the melodious sounds of the lute converging with her siren-like voice.
She shrugs and gestures to the empty half of the log she’s sitting on, painfully aware of his first impression of her in the goblin camp. The murdering. The breaking down. The complete lack of tact when she called him big.
Gods, she probably looked like an idiot to most of Gale’s companions. Especially Lae’zel. She had been so ethereally stunning and predatorily divine that when Rowan finally had met her earlier and just stared, the githyanki had demanded to know if Gale’s apprentice was mute.
Whatever exploits Gale told them of her, she’s certain she’s severely underwhelming their expectations.
“You do not want to join the festivities?” Halsin questions as he sits beside her, folding his hands in his lap. He gestures to the revelry behind them with a jerk of his head, no judgment in the forests of his eyes as he gazes at her inquisitively.
“Never been big on parties,” Rowan admits. “Especially when there’s a lot of people I don’t know.”
The crowds in Waterdeep still give her pause but at least she had grown accustomed to the writhing, sweaty throngs of people during her time in the city. It was different here. A break in her routine. A wrench in her carefully-crafted robotic manner of being able to focus on her destination rather than the hordes of strangers around her.
“Ah. I understand that to a certain degree. I suppose I am just surprised you and the wizard aren’t enjoying one another’s company. Tonight is the perfect night for such things, is it not?”
Rowan had been taking a sip of her wine.
She almost spits it out at the druid’s words.
“H-haha, I, uh…!”
As she’s choking and stammering and trying to form a coherent sentence, by some cruel twist of fate the wizard in question comes striding through the mingling crowds and finds his way to the firepit. His eyes are bright and there is no speck of his earlier fatigue. A three-hour long powernap in her lap really did wonders for him. Every time Rowan has glanced over at him, she’s caught him positively beaming with delight and throwing his head back in laughter at something his companions have said.
It hurts. It hurts so much even though she knows this is a good thing for Gale, despite the harrowing circumstances surrounding it. She wants to be the only one who makes him laugh like that.
Yep. These are not healthy feelings. She’s going to need to get a reality check real fucking fast before she ruins things, just like she ruined every other friendship that she mistook for being something more.
“There you are!” Gale says to Rowan breathlessly, not even giving Halsin a second glance. Tara is not with him. The tressym disappeared shortly before the party began, claiming a need to skulk about and see what delicious treats the forest had to offer. “One of the tieflings is a wizard. Miri and Alfira are trying to convince him to put on a magic show for the children, and they’d like the two of us to join. It is alright if you don’t feel up to it, however,” he adds quickly, eyeing her bottle of wine and unfinished plate of food.
Another wizard? A chance to show off her mad skills? She’s never been comfortable with kids but hot damn, there is no way Rowan would ever turn down an opportunity to prove how magnificent her magic is.
…maybe that’s just the wine talking. She has had a bit to drink. And none of it has been watered down with apple juice.
Nonetheless, a spark of excitement starts to burn in her gut and she gives Gale an exuberant nod.
“Fuck yeah! I’m down!”
“Brilliant. I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.” Gale grins. There is an impish air about him, similar to how he gets whenever they compete with Misty Step. He’s always enjoyed a challenge. Clearly that hasn’t changed even with a worm in his head.
“Gale, I’ve been remiss to not say anything since the festivities began, but…” Halsin looks him up and down, his expression one of appraising amusement. “Your hair is splendid. That’s a very good color on you.”
“Oh, ah, I appreciate you saying so, Halsin. It’s Rowan’s doing. She fusses about my hair all the— what do you mean by color ?”
Gale’s voice is suddenly shrill and he’s glancing back and forth between Rowan and Halsin rapidly. His eyes are wide and his jaw is tense as a hand flies up to his hair, tugging on one of the strands as if his fingers can tell the difference between his usual pleasant brown and the now oscillating purple. His head jerks as he levels Rowan with a steely gaze, brows furrowed.
“Rowan,” Gale asks in a frighteningly calm voice, “did you use Color Spray on my hair while I was asleep?”
She shrinks. She was really hoping the entire night would pass without him noticing. The spell was going to fade by tomorrow, anyway. The scroll wasn’t imbued with as much magic as the ones Jericho uses on her own hair, and it was just the principle of the thing for her to be able to say she finally did it! That she’d finally dyed his hair and he didn’t Counterspell it!
“I might have,” she admits quietly, pushing a piece of cheese around the plate with her pinky. “It was a spur of the moment decision and I could not resist.”
Halsin at least has the decency to look somewhat chagrined as he realizes what he has just done. He opens his mouth as if to say something else but rapidly changes his mind when Gale starts to utter an incantation, his fingers flying rapidly as he tugs on the threads of the Weave and summons his magic with a flick of the wrist.
A second Gale is suddenly before him, forming out of mist and glowing globules of light. This Gale’s eyes are two pools of incandescent pale purple and he is somewhat see through. A Mirror Image, then, not a simulacrum. The latter is still too high of a spell for Gale to cast in his depleted state.
The wizard surveys his Mirror Image with a scrutinizing gaze, peering closely at the now-purple ends of his hair. The ensorcelled version of himself just looks on with a blank face, translucent body stiff and still.
Rowan leans forward, trying to glean anything she can from Gale’s impassive expression.
This was a terrible idea , she thinks as her heart forgets how to beat. I shouldn’t have done this. Why the fuck did I do this? He’s going to hate it. He’s going to hate me for doing it. Godsdammit, Rowan, why can’t you just think before you act?
He suddenly clears his throat.
The world holds its collective breath.
Gale dismisses the spell with a snap of his fingers and turns towards Rowan once more. The stiffness in her shoulders melts away. Her heart returns to the natural rhythmic beat. The defeated, beleaguered look in his eyes has given way to something else. A faint glimmer of satisfaction, exasperated though it may be.
“It does look rather fetching,” he admits with a somewhat dramatic sigh. “And now everyone’s sudden comments about my hair make much more sense. I just thought they were talking about the new feather!”
Rowan pumps her hands in the air victoriously, letting out a triumph and loud HAH that resonates through the din of the party.
“Never doubt me again,” she proclaims, gesturing to her own ombré as she holds her braid aloft. “I keep telling you that purple would be fantastic on you!”
She pats the Bag of Holding at her side, the enchanted pouch containing an obscene amount of Color Spray scrolls. At the time it had been an afterthought to just shove them in there. Now, she was very glad of it. “The color will only last until tonight. I can always do it again if you want me to—but I’ll ask permission first, I promise,” she adds quickly, guiltily, because truthfully it was crass and tasteless of her to take advantage of his much-needed nap.
“Perhaps,” he hums in agreement. “Though once I have access to Counterspell again, I assure you it will not be an easy task.”
“Bring it on, magic man. I still have bragging rights for this win. Jericho will be so proud!”
Halsin suddenly lets out a warm chuckle, getting to his feet. “You two are remarkably close,” he says, a keen and perceptive smile curling across his full mouth. “Cherish that. Bonds such as the one you both share are so important in times like these. Enjoy the rest of the festivities, my friends.”
With that the druid saunters off with the gait of a lumbering bear, disappearing into the crowd.
“What were you two talking about?” Gale asks as Rowan also gets to her feet; his tone is casual, far too casual, and she has the distinct sense he’s prying.
Interesting.
Weird, but very interesting.
She can’t resist poking a little fun if only to see his reaction.
“He asked me why I wasn’t doing a strip tease in the middle of everyone to the sonorous sounds of Alfira’s song,” she answers dryly.
Gale stares at her. The corner of one eye twitches almost imperceptibly.
Rowan flashes him a quick, sharp grin. “I’m fucking with you, Gale. That’s a wizard tower only activity. While I’m surrounded by nubile, oil-covered nymphs. Using your bedroom, of course, since it’s the bigger one.”
A choked sound issues in his throat. A flush begins to bloom, crawling up his neck and spreading throughout the rest of his face. Gale stares harder at her, sterner, his voice coming out flat and strained at the same time.
“Rowan, no.”
“Rowan, yes. ”
He groans and covers his scarlet face in both hands, shaking his head so vehemently the feather looks as if it’s about to fly free of his updo. “Why are you like this,” he practically begs. “Astarion can’t get a rise out of me—why are you so dreadfully adept at it?!”
“Because, Gale,” Rowan answers as she reaches forward to pat his shoulder affectionately, “I’ve had over six months to study what makes you panic. Fangboy and his seven days has nothing on my analysis of the subject of one Gale Dekarios!”
He doesn’t respond. He just spins around and marches towards the riverbank, his spine as stiff as a rod. She follows along with an air of meekness despite the delicate thrill lacing through her blood, her grin unfading as she sears the image of Gale’s flustered face into her mind.
A small group has gathered at the edge of the Chionthar. They’re all tieflings; most of them are children, who all wear an indifferent expression of varying boredom. Miri and Alfira are nowhere to be found, oddly enough. Maybe they got bored of waiting.
As Gale and Rowan approach one of the adults, a man in exquisite robes with red skin and piercing yellow eyes narrowed in disdain, scowls at them with deep set annoyance.
“I don’t have all night,” he snaps hotly, arms crossed. “I’m only doing this because Cal and Lia begged me to.”
The other adults—presumably Cal and Lia—wave at Gale eagerly from where they sit on a log at the edge of the water. They look more excited than the kids do, frankly.
“My apologies, Rolan. My apprentice was confessing to some rather ruinous transgressions and I found it imperative to listen.” Gale smiles politely, as if this tiefling’s acerbity is something he is accustomed to. “Rowan, this is Rolan, who is traveling to Baldur’s Gate to accept an apprenticeship with the wizard Lorroakan. And Rolan, this is my apprentice that I have mentioned before—Rowan.”
Lorroakan?
Rowan catches Gale’s eye before she answers. He gives her a subtle shake of the head, a mix of concern and surrender in his careful gaze. They have heard of Lorroakan in Waterdeep. An arrogant bastard even by wizarding standards, the man has supposedly run out more apprentices than there are stars in the sky with his impossible demands and grueling tasks. In most circles of arcane academics, Lorroakan is not viewed with much favor. Judging by Gale’s reaction he’s already attempted to tell this tiefling of his future mentor’s sordid reputation and it did not go well.
Rowan, on the other hand, can be very persuasive.
“Rolan? Hah, we have similar naming schemes!” She gives the grouchy tiefling a dazzling grin. “Rowan and Rolan roll off the tongue so nicely. Forget Baldur’s Gate—come to Waterdeep and be Gale’s other apprentice with me! I mean, we already sound like a match made in the heavens!”
Rolan stares at her in irritated silence.
“Or you could be my apprentice instead,” she adds quickly, striking what she feels is a grand pose. “I’m pretty cool too. I can teach you how to dye people’s hair with Color Spray.”
“I’d rather not,” the tiefling says, his words sharp and full of annoyance. “Lorroakan is one of the finest wizards in all the realms! I’d be a fool to pass up the opportunity to study under him! Besides, I’d never even
heard
of Gale of Waterdeep until he came crawling out from that wreckage with all those other busybodies poking their noses into my personal life.”
Oh, he is so disturbingly grumpy! Like a stray feral cat! He reminds Rowan of Jericho in a way. Similar to the other tiefling wizard, she just can’t help but feel attached to this Rolan, despite his incessant whining and heated irritation thrown her way.
Even if he did just lowkey insult her mentor. She will let it go for now. But it doesn’t mean she’ll forget it.
“Stop bitching and start casting, Rolan!” one of the adult tiefling calls out, her voice tinged with amusement. “Or else the kids will start throwing rotten fruit at you!”
“They’d better not, this is silk imported from Cormyr,” Rolan growls as he smoothes down the front of his robes protectively. He flicks his irate gaze to Gale and Rowan, letting out a short-tempered sigh. “Might as well get this over with. I assume you both know how to cast Minor Illusion?”
Rowan nods enthusiastically. Gale just holds his hand out in front of him and conjures the image of a tiny scowling Rolan in his palm as an answer. She never heard him say the incantation—if he’s been holding that spell until this exact moment just to show off, she’s going to smack him.
Not to be outdone, Rowan hums in the back of her throat and tugs on the strands of the Shadow Weave inside her. The darkness responds to her call as eagerly as ever, perhaps a little quicker than usual. It must be the excitement from this morning. The magic is still riding whatever endorphins it got from jumping in the middle of the fray with the goblin cultists and decimating their numbers in the blink of an eye.
The space between the tieling kids and the three mages shimmers. In the sleepy, slowly-rising light of the moon and stars, a menagerie of shadows begin to shift and swirl in the air. Rowan’s fingers move as if she is puppeting the strings of an invisible marionette. She pushes and pulls, forming the magic into the shapes she desires.
Moments later, a herd of unicorns the size of cats appears hovering in the air. Their fur ripples in a myriad of blacks and silvers and grays, tossing their luminous manes about as they prance on the gentle night breeze. A few of the kids let out quiet gasps of awe, some of them even giving a couple of claps.
A couple of them just stare on with disgruntled boredom. She resists the urge to cast Darkness and go invisible inside of it to scare the shit out of them. That would get a reaction out of them. Damn kids, always impossible to impress. This is why she doesn’t like interacting with them.
Rolan glances at her fanciful herd of illusory unicorns, scoffing. “Really? Why unicorns?”
“The question is not
why
, dear Rolan,” Rowan proclaims in a grandiose tone that booms across the calm surface of the river, “but why
not
?”
The other tiefling on the log starts to snicker loudly. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t have enjoyed this fifteen years ago,” he accuses Rolan with a loving, affectionate warmth. “You used to conjure all sorts of images from the Feywilds when we were younger!”
Oh, no.
Now she really is going to become attached to him.
Gale suppresses a snicker of his own when Rowan turns to Rolan with eyes shining in pure glee. “Maybe you really should be my other apprentice,” he says quietly, one corner of his mouth curling into a grin. “You and Rowan can travel to the Feywilds together and she can finally see her unicorns in person.”
The tiefling wizard scowls at the two sitting on the log—his siblings, perhaps? He turns his back to Gale and Rowan and growls out his own incantation, moving his hands with the elegance of a conductor reigning over a symphony. Her skin prickles with the touch of the Weave. It is akin to how she feels whenever Gale uses his magic, but not quite the same. Rolan’s own style of spellcasting, perhaps?
Before she can dwell on it for too long the air above their heads crackles with fire and brimstone.
A dragon appears. Scales as red as blood, piercing yellow eyes, wings larger than a ship’s sail, the beast looms over them with a wicked maliciousness as flames drip like molten lava from its jaws. Her unicorns neigh and begin to retreat nervously, their horns glinting in the moonlight. The tiefling kids let out shrieks and gasps as they cluster together and gaze up at the dragon with wide eyes.
All except for one. The little one with the eyepatch over one half of their face, who is observing the illusion with a sneer as if to say “That’s it?”
She wishes she could be so mellow. Even though she knows it’s not real, a very real spike of bitter fear pulses through Rowan. Heat radiates from the conjured image as if a true dragon was flying over them. She can smell the sulfur clinging to its scales. There is an oppressive, weighty pressure clinging to the remnants of the Weave that lingers in the spaces between reality and myth.
She glances sharply at Rolan. He wears a devilish smirk, all traces of irritability gone as he waves up at the dragon with a flourish. The massive creature growls in its throat as its wings hold it aloft a few feet above them, the tip of its tail drifting into the water. It phases right through the surface and disappears when it makes contact, breaking the illusion somewhat, but even so it’s still a terrifying image.
And a little off putting. She’s never conjured a dragon up before. It feels like it would be cheating on her unicorns. The poor things are cowering, pressing in on themselves like the tiefling kids are. She almost feels it necessary to dismiss them before they have tiny heart attacks.
“Ooooh, Gale, make the dragon wear a funny hat,” the female tiefling calls out as she claps her hands together in glee.
Rolan’s smirk falls and becomes that scowling sneer once more.
“Ugh! No respect for showmanship,” he hisses, snapping his fingers.
The dragon immediately vanishes in a plume of acrid-scented smoke, the remains of it floating away like wisps on the wind. Her unicorns immediately settle down, their relief palpable as the slavering monstrosity above is no longer threatening them. They begin to gallop and prance in earnest, circling around the tiefling kids still shoved closed together as if they expect another dragon—a real one—to appear.
Gale raises an eyebrow at Rolan. His expression is schooled into one of neutrality but Rowan knows that look; she has been the subject of that look many a time before.
The “I’m not mad, just disappointed” face.
“I don’t think an illusion of that scale was necessary if you’re trying to entertain children,” he says slowly, carefully. “It’s impressive. You show great skill and are clearly adept at the spell. I am struggling to see how something of that capacity is suited for this particular instance, however.”
Whatever Gale was hoping to accomplish, it clearly does the opposite. The tiefling’s body language immediately becomes aggressive. Angry. The yellow flames of his eyes burn with a baleful wrath that makes even Rowan uncomfortable.
“I never asked you, did I?” Rolan snaps. “We should have never stayed here. We should have just pushed on to Baldur’s Gate.
They
would have appreciated the brilliance of that spell.”
He marches away with a thinly concealed rage, disappearing into the crowds of folks still mingling and drinking and laughing. The two tieflings sitting on the log exchange brief, worried looks before leaping to their feet and racing after him, though the male of the two pauses before fully vanishing.
“Don’t mind our brother,” he pleads weakly, wincing. “He’s been under a lot of pressure since Elturel returned from Avernus. He just…wants to prove himself.”
He scampers off to join his sister in chasing after their brother, leaving Gale and Rowan alone on the riverbank.
Well, not entirely alone. The band of gangly tiefling children remain, and the one with the eyepatch loudly complains in a feisty tone, “Thank you so much for wasting our valuable time. Stupid Alfira saying it’ll be worth it and not even sticking around for this absolute disappointment.”
Mol is her name, Rowan remembers. If Gale’s apt descriptions of the various kids still hold true.
…she has a point. This did not go as Rowan imagined it would. Did Miri and the other tiefling bard bamboozle them into embarrassing themselves and pissing off Rolan?
She dismisses her unicorns with a weary sigh and a flick of the wrist. She is suddenly very tired. Now that the sun is fully down the events of the day are starting to replay in her mind over and over again, cementing just how fucking wild and insane today truly has been. She might not have expended as much magic as Gale has today, but there is an emotional and mental exhaustion that continues to cling to her even with all the distractions thrown in her way.
It’s her turn for a nap. And it’s Gale’s turn to allow her to use his lap as a pillow.
Rowan does not realize the kids have all dispersed until Gale gently nudges her shoulder, bringing her back from her messy thoughts. “I’m sorry,” he says with the faintest hint of shame, eyes downcast. “I was hoping this would be a way for you to get to know these fine people.”
She snorts and rolls her eyes. “I mean, I did. I know Rolan is a grumpy ass who needs a hug and tiefling kids don’t appreciate unicorns as much as they should.” Rowan shrugs, shooting him a tired smile. “It’s not your fault, Gale. I wish you’d been able to do something before Rolan stomped off to have a tantrum.
Everyone
would have been enamored with whatever you were going to cast.”
“Of course they would. I never had any doubts regarding that.”
“Humility is a virtue, Mr. Dekarios. You’d think a worm in your brain would have taught you by now.”
“Oh, it has. Just not in the ways it counts.”
Gale grins at her, his usual humor and sharp wit from their days lounging in the tower without a care in the world returning to the surface. She loves his smile. She loves how it brightens his eyes and softens his face; how it adds to his charm, furthering just how handsome he is.
She wants to kiss him. She wants to drag him off into the bushes where no one can see them and push him to the ground and—
“I-I should let you get back to your mingling,” Rowan points out in a stammer, hoping her face isn’t going red from how warm she feels. “This is your night after all. You and the other heroes of the day. Go have a drinking contest with Lae’zel or something—I’m poor company compared to the rest of your comrades.”
“Attempting to keep up with Lae’zel and her ability to drink liquor like water is akin to asking Ao himself to strike me down where I stand,” Gale says wryly, giving a visible shudder. “I’d rather not, thank you very much. And pish posh! You’re my favorite company. I’ve had one very long, miserable week with everyone else, as much as I’ve been getting along with them.”
He leans against her, his body warm and soft and so utterly familiar that Rowan’s chest heaves with a sharp thrum of pain for a moment. She can almost imagine they’re in the library, standing side-by-side as Gale works her through the motions of a new spell, the scent of parchment and cinnamon and the sea mingling pleasantly.
When will they return to those halcyon days?
Never, if she can’t get the parasite out of his head and stop the orb from killing him.
Gale does not notice the way she has stiffened slightly, nor the way her eyes have suddenly darted away from him as she swallows in barely-concealed panic. “Allow me the honor of relishing your presence for a few short hours before a new day dawns,” he tells her quietly, sincerely, with a thickness that does little to hide something dark and dismal in his voice. “Who knows what tomorrow will bring? I want to enjoy tonight while we still can.”
Oh.
He’s caught up in thoughts similar to her own, isn’t he?
Music starts to drift over to where they stand. A lute and a violin, their twin melodies twisting and twirling into one as a fast-tempoed and thrilling song begins to play. Rowan glances over to where the music is coming from, past the tents and trees and throngs of people. The gathered masses of tieflings and druids have begun to pair up, their faces full of drunken mirth.
Rivalries are forgotten for one beautiful night.
A pulse emanates from those gathered. A zest for life—a deep, joyous gratitude to have survived the day and every day leading up to it.
It is captivating. It is moving. It is everything and nothing.
As the music swells and crescendos into a song like no other, Rowan’s heart begins to thud to the rhythm. Her soul reaches for the strings of the melody with grasping hands, fingers desperate to catch hold of the something that is carried along so serendipitously by the aria. It’s startling. Hot and cold, striking deep inside of her and hissing like a serpent.
Rowan doesn’t know why she feels this way.
She watches as the lively beat enthralls everyone into a stumbling, messy, carefree dance. Rowan can’t help but start to mindlessly tap her foot against the sand to the beat, a surge of that oddly bitter longing filling the cavities in her chest. She catches a glimpse of something pink through the surging crowds—two eyes of magenta hellfire somehow meet hers from across the camp. Miri the bard gives her a very pointed wink and gestures with a roll of her head to the wizard next to her, a cheerful smirk plastered on her lovely features.
Is this why she didn’t join them with Rolan and the kids? That crafty tiefling. She had this planned all along, didn’t she?
“Well, shit, I gotta get in on this!” Pip exclaims from Rowan’s shoulder, hopping up and down excitedly. “Boss! Boss! Gimme that thing! The thing Syl made for me!”
Rowan ignores the odd bitterness churning in the pit of her stomach and turns her attention to the familiar, scrunching her face up. “Seriously? You’re going to wear it now?”
“Ain’t this the perfect moment? It’s a party, boss! Youse gonna tell me I can’t wear it at a party?”
They’re not wrong. And they have been abnormally patient, forgoing to wear it until they felt it was right. Rowan sticks her hand in the Bag of Holding and concentrates on the energy imbued within it, calling the particular ensemble she knows Pip is referring to. They had insisted she add all of Syl’s creations to the bag earlier this week. In case of an emergency.
Rowan had been too numb; too drained and hellbent on getting Gale back to argue the schematics of such a request. It’s a good thing now, she supposes.
She pulls the outfit out of the bag and holds it up for Pip to inspect. They nod enthusiastically, their deep voice cackling almost with madness as they spread their wings and stand as still as a statue. She begins the slow, painstaking process of tugging it onto their feathery body, mindful not to catch the fabric on anything.
Gale makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat. He sounds horrified, confused, and impressed all at once.
“Is…it that…?”
“A replica of one of Jericho’s dresses?” Rowan finishes, gingerly guiding Pip’s head through the hole at the top. “Yes. Yes it is. Right down to the stitching on the ends. Syl made a bunch of outfits for Pip but they haven’t had the chance to wear any yet. Indulge them, will you?”
“Tell me I look amazing or I’ll shit in your breakfast,” Pip threatens as they evoke quite the vivid imagery, staring at Gale with their unsettling violet eyes.
To Pip’s credit, they do look amazing. The dark fabric blends seamlessly with their black feathers but every subtle movement causes a ripple in the precise stitching, making the patterning flare to life.
Damn, Pip, now you’re the hot goth bitch, Rowan thinks to the familiar silently, tugging on their bond and giving them a satisfactory nod.
Pip spins around on her shoulder and smooths the dress down with their beak, wings twitching as they wait for Gale’s response. Rowan wishes Jericho was here to see this. She would keel over from laughter and then demand a mini fashion show from the quirky raven.
Gale clears his throat, meeting Pip’s gaze with a steady and stoic expression. “You look better than amazing. You look ethereal. Stunning. Effervescent.”
He bows his head towards Pip in a display of deference, winking at Rowan as he turns his face so the raven can’t see his full face. Pip does not notice as their little tippy taps and dancing on Rowan’s shoulder intensifies, bobbing their head up and down in unrestrained delight.
“That’s what I’m fuckin’ talkin’ about. Now compliment my sorcerer like that or else I really will shit in your breakfast!”
With another devious cackle Pip launches themselves from Rowan’s shoulder and soars off into the night, disappearing in the crowd of dancing people. How the hell they’re managing to fly with that dress on, she has no idea. Good for them.
She will choose to ignore the last thing they said before flying away for the sake of her sanity and rapidly beating heart.
Just as she will choose to ignore how thick and awkward the air between her and Gale has suddenly become now that they are truly alone on the riverbank, the sound of music swirling around them most decadently.
Ask him to dance with you, a voice whispers in the back of her mind, gentle and encouraging. It’s her voice. Not the reflection’s voice or the dissonant, cruel hiss that occasionally makes itself known. The feather at her throat grows warm in agreement as she looks at Gale, the wizard gazing out to the throngs of waltzing and frolicking folks drunk on life and the vigor of existence. There is magic in this music. A spell casting an enchantment on all willing to fall in its tender clutches. Rowan can feel it prickling against her skin. She knows Gale can as well.
Bards are kind of scary if they can command this kind of skill.
Astarion wasn’t joking when he said to never say no to a bard. Especially when that bard is Miri, whose intense and impatient gaze is burning a hole in the back of Rowan’s head.
She opens her mouth. The words get stuck on her tongue, tumbling and trembling and terrified to be free.
Karlach rescues her before she does something she’ll regret.
“Hey! Sorry! Help!”
The burly, gorgeous tiefling comes jogging up to her and Gale, the fire in her eyes blazing as she skids to a stop. She’s sweating somewhat, face drawn in a pinched expression of worry as she tugs at the leathers clinging to her hot skin. “Don’t wanna ruin whatever fun you’re having,” she says with a guilty wince. “But…I can’t find Wyll anywhere. He was sayin’ something kinda weird earlier, about not wanting to bring the mood down because of his, uh. Horns.”
She gestures vaguely to her own—Rowan wonders just what happened to the one that’s broken, but now is not the time to ask.
She will ask about Wyll’s, however.
“His horns?” she looks to Gale and Karlach in confusion, blocking out the din of revelry and euphoric harmony. “There’s tieflings everywhere. Why is he self conscious about his horns?”
Karlach’s look of regret worsens, her shoulders slumping. The molten glow inside her chest glows slightly brighter. “He’s human,” she says, voice edging on a growl as she makes a fist. “A dickhead devil by the name of Mizora is punishing him with that appearance because he’s a good fucking person and refused to kill me.”
Whoa.
Okay.
That’s a lot of information in one compact sentence. Gale certainly never mentioned that when he was describing his companions. Just that Karlach and Wyll had some shared history, but their week infected by the parasite has proven them to be fast friends.
“Can you cast a spell or something to help me find him, Gale?” Karlach continues, teeth grinding as she does not even attempt to hide her panic and shameful worry. “Wyll seemed so down before everyone started showing up to the party. I just want to make sure he’s doing okay. I owe it to him, ya know?”
Come to think of it, he’d been somewhat subdued when he had told Rowan about the party. Not that she knew the man at all, but there had been no mistaking the terse way he held himself and the odd things he’d said before his departure.
“Hm.” Gale frowns, his face taking on a pensive look. “While that particular spell is outside of my current capabilities, and my magic itself is fairly exhausted…I do believe I have a solution in mind.”
“Oh, thank the gods,” Karlach sighs, her relief palpable as the tension immediately evaporates from her muscular body. “I tried using our creepy little brain friends to reach out to him but…it didn’t work.”
Rowan suppresses a shudder. She's completely forgotten about that little tidbit Gale had shared. It’s somewhat like the bond she and Pip share, but at the same time so horribly invasive and wrong just because of the things that make it possible.
In a way, maybe it’s a good thing she wasn’t taken by the nautiloid with Gale. She would never have survived one day being connected to a hivemind with other infected hosts. They would have killed her after the third hour of her brain blasting out Caramelldansen on repeat.
“We’ll find him, Karlach. He’s probably just taking a moment alone in the woods,” Gale assures her kindly before flicking his gaze to Rowan, a mirror of the tiefling’s earlier guilt and shame stretching across his face. He clears his throat, voice stiff and somewhat hoarse. “I know I just said I’d love to spend this evening with you, Rowan, but—”
“No, no, it’s okay! Go ahead,” she insists quickly, shaking her head. “I wanted to ask Miri something anyway.”
He frowns. His eyes are starting to remind her of a sad, wet puppy that was just kicked into the street. “Are you sure?”
She could go with them. It’s not like either Gale nor Karlach would protest and say she’s not allowed.
But…
What they share between them is precious in its own way. There are things Rowan cannot comprehend or have a sense for because she did not experience the nautiloid—she is not one of the infected, with the threat of turning into a mind flayer at any moment. Yes, what she and Gale share is special, but so is the bond between him and his unlikely friends. She doesn't want to intrude on that. She can’t. It isn’t right, just as it isn’t right to say this celebration is also for her, because all she did was show up at the right place and the right time with a well-aimed Fireball.
Gale just gazes at her silently, a myriad of questions swirling in his beautiful brown eyes.
Rowan’s voice is tremendously steady and holds no hint that she is dangerously close to succumbing to his puppy-dog look. Which is bullshit, really, because she’s the one he’s preparing to desert after being so emphatic about enjoying the party with her.
“The night is still young, wizardboy. Make sure Wyll hasn’t gotten eaten by a bear and come back as soon as you can. Otherwise, I might just be so inclined to disclose some of your more particular reading preferences to a certain pale elf.”
She did sneak some of his smut books into the Bag of Holding. They were necessary in the case of an emergency.
…and the decision may have been influenced by a state of slight mania, but it’s fine!
Gale does not turn as ashen as Rowan had hoped he would. He does, however, narrow his eyes at her with a look that says everything in a single blink.
Rowan is certainly not the only one whose particular reading preferences can be disclosed. The threat is a double edged sword. Oops.
Would Gale have a heart attack if he knew she used to write it? The memories suddenly bubble up to the surface, much like the recalling of the person she used to be when she wrote poetry. Now she knows why she was so critical of Quill Grootslang’s unimpressive, prosaic porn. Rowan wrote smut far more captivating and imaginative once upon a time. The dragonborn bard would have benefited greatly from someone like her as an editor.
Well, if the sorcerer thing doesn’t work out, she can always try for fantasy smut author. At least some of her old material can still hold up in Faerûn. Thank the gods for dragons having the ability to shapeshift. And that one spell that can summon tentacles.
“We’ll be back as soon as we find Wyll,” Karlach promises to Rowan, digging her heels into the loamy sand as her body vibrates with the desire to go go go. “Thanks for letting me steal Gale from ya, soldier!”
Without waiting for Gale or Rowan to respond, the tiefling lunges away as fast as her thick legs can carry her. Gale lets out a little noise of exasperation as he stumbles after her, his speed no match for Karlach’s impressive gait.
“In return I expect you to steal me away in your arms and carry me like a princess someday,” Rowan calls after her even though her voice hardly penetrates the crowd’s laughter and the songs serenading the night.
She still feels Miri’s eyes upon her.
She swallows.
Might as well get this over with.
Rowan maneuvers her way through the pulsing crowd, murmuring “excuse me” and “my apologies” every five seconds. The song Alfira and Miri are playing has changed to a slower, softer one. The frantic and frenetic energy has become a gentle sway. People are still dancing but it is now with a calmness, a sense of quiet hope that doesn’t burrow its way into her heart like the earlier melodies did.
When she finally reaches the two tiefling bards it is just as the song is ending. The last vibrato of plucked lute strings and quivering violin notes echoes throughout the camp, solemn and sweet. Alfira has an elated, dreamlike expression on her face as her chest rises and falls. Miri appears less affected, her body language much more controlled, but there is a strangeness to her smile as she greets Rowan with a flair and flourish.
“Ah, my favorite sorcerer! Come to avail yourself of the artistic pleasures only bards can provide?”
“Maybe,” Rowan admits, waving to Alfira. She hasn’t formally met the other tiefling bard in person, but she’s cute. Again, Rowan is beginning to think all tieflings are blessed with some kind of divine beauty specifically targeted towards her own tastes. Faerûn is a dangerous realm in that regard.
“I hate to be rude, but I really ought to take a rest before the next round,” Alfira says with an air of apology, her smile contrite and courteous. “Miri, I’ll be back shortly. Just need some food and a little refreshment. I haven’t played this hard in…well, forever!” That infectious joy radiates from her in waves and she laughs, breathless and exuberant. She sets her lute down on a crate she was using for a chair and bounds away, the bells on her entertainer’s ensemble jingling with every step.
Miri says nothing as she watches her fellow tiefling bard disappear into the crowd. Her hands twitch as she cradles her violin to her, fingers clutching the bow she was using to elicit those celestial notes from the instrument. She lets out a sigh and leans against the crate, blinking slowly as she seems to center herself.
Rowan isn’t certain if she should speak or allow Miri to have this moment of exalted silence. Bards’ magic comes from the music they put out into the world, imbuing every song and tune with a part of their very selves. The performance put on tonight must certainly be taxing, especially if Miri is in the same boat as Gale and already exhausted much of her abilities earlier in the day at the goblin camp.
Gale would probably get mad if she said it out loud to him, but in a way, wouldn’t that make bards the true composes of the Weave?
The ever-revolving possibilities and intricacies of magic will never cease to fascinate her. And confound her. How remarkable it is to exist in a world where so many different kinds of people can call upon so many different threads of magic.
“You and Alfira are amazing,” Rowan finally says after a couple minutes of silence. “I’ve never heard anything like that.”
“We are rather magnificent, aren’t we?” Miri agrees, twirling a piece of silken pink hair around her dainty finger. “I…don’t remember the last time I performed with another bard. I never knew it could be so invigorating.”
There is an odd sorrow to her words.
A deep, raw anguish that chills Rowan to the bone.
Why does it remind her of the feeling she gets when she tries to recall a memory the Raven Queen holds, only to be met with vague shadows and lucid darkness?
“I actually wanted to ask if you had met any other bards during your travels,” she confesses, bringing her hand up to the feather around her throat and worrying the ends of the soft material between her fingers. “Specifically, a dragonborn named Quill Grootslang? I heard a collection of love ballads she composed was supposed to be published in Baldur’s Gate, and Gale mentioned you were from there, so—”
Rowan stops talking.
Miri is staring at her with a face contorted in a nameless, fathomless emotion. The magenta flames in her eyes blaze. Her nostrils flare as she breathes hard. Her full, luscious lips become a thin line as a darkness overtakes her fair countenance.
The tiefling gazes at her as if she were prey ripe for the hunt of a lifetime.
Something prickles at the back of Rowan’s neck. A primal instinct to run. She smells death and decay. Rot and ruin. The tang of blood fills her tongue. Her shadows suddenly begin to scream in her veins, writhing and snarling in abject terror.
The lovely spring night suddenly feels so fucking cold .
And then the moment ends, and Miri’s expression settles back into one of jaunty frivolity, and something in Rowan tells her it’s teetering on the edge of hysteria.
“I did meet Quill, actually!” Miri says, her voice strained and high-pitched as the smile she wears does not quite reach her eyes. “A couple days ago. She wandered to our camp after goblins attacked her and stayed the night for some respite. She was gone by the time we woke up, though.”
She’s lying.
Rowan is not the most insightful person. Hells, she struggles with social cues on a daily basis, and sarcasm at times goes right over her head. But she knows Miri is lying. She can feel it in her bones, gnawing at the insides of her stomach.
That feral, animalistic look in her eyes only mere seconds earlier pierces Rowan’s mind.
She swallows down the acrid, sour taste of fear and wills herself to sound calm and normal. “Damn, that’s a shame. I was hoping you might know her music. She’s a bit of an inside joke between Gale and I—I wanted to, um. Ask him to dance to one of her songs. I-I mean, we already read all of her horrendous romance novels, so it would just be the circle completing itself. N-Not that he would probably even want to dance with me, because I’ve never danced a day in my life, and I’d probably just step on his toes or trip and fall. A-also, if you were trying to hint earlier that Gale and I should dance to that first song, I’m sorry I sucked and missed the window. Things happened. Dancing was not a priority. Did you know that ravens mate for life?”
She’s rambling.
Her nerves have gone from being freaked out by Miri’s twisted expression and dodgy comments about Quill to now being far too concerned about Gale and the fact that if they did manage to dance together, she would definitely humiliate herself.
Gods, sometimes Rowan loathes her brain.
Would an illithid parasite fix it or make things worse?
She really needs to stop thinking now.
Miri suddenly snorts and the vile, alarming tension between them snaps like a tether stretched too far. She shakes her head, her horns glinting in the moonlight. She smirks at Rowan knowingly, and whatever ominous aura that had been clinging to her moments ago evaporates as it is replaced once more with her merry, winsome charm.
“Forget Quill;
I
ought to write a ballad based on you and Gale. I don’t think I have ever seen two people so hopelessly in love with one another who refuse to say it out loud.”
Fuck.
“H-hahahaha I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rowan mumbles, her face growing hot as her eyes dart around wildly for any signs of Gale. She sees no hide nor hair of her wizard, meaning he is still skulking about with Karlach to search for Wyll. Good.
Miri raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “I don’t need to share a parasite with you to be able to read your mind, Rowan. It’s painfully obvious to everyone except, perhaps, the two of you.”
Double fuck.
It’s one thing to know it. To keep it a quiet little secret tucked inside her chest, festering and eating away at her until she feels as if it’s going to drive her to madness. It’s another for a complete stranger who has known her for less than a day to point it out so succinctly.
Not that any of it matters. Rowan is not enough. Rowan is too much.
(Rowan isn’t Mystra.)
“You’re only half-right, Miri,” Rowan says quietly, sliding a hand across her chest and gripping the meat of her upper arm. She squeezes, nails digging into her flesh as she jerks her head away from the tiefling bard and gazes out towards the dark expanse of the woods beyond the camp. “I’m not the kind of person people fall in love with. Certainly not the kind of person…Gale would fall in love with.”
You are meant to be looked at with pity, not passion.
She’s his friend. That’s all. A friend who nearly went mad with grief for the seven days she was away from him. A friend who didn’t want to let go of his hand today because deep down she was terrified that if she did, he would disappear to a place she can’t find even with the feather woven through his hair.
Does it matter that Rowan is the one who came for him and not Mystra?
She hopes so. She thinks so. But she doesn’t know so, not for certain.
Even after everything she has done and not done, Gale still speaks of his goddess with that infuriating devotion that Rowan will never come close to drawing forth from him.
No, Gale isn’t in love with Rowan even if she’s in love with him. This new life is a better one but fate surely cannot be that kind to bless her with that precious gift.
She misses Waterdeep. She misses the tower. She misses the world they lived in, just the two of them.
She misses pretending like her heart wasn’t a traitorous, cluttered mess.
“It’s kind of you to say,” Rowan adds when she realizes Miri has not said anything in return and is just staring at her pensively, with a strange sort of sorrow that tugs at the strings laced between her ribs. “But it’s just not possible. I was going to tell him when I found him again, but…”
She gestures vaguely, uselessly, to the bustling camp around them and smiles a smile that does not reach her eyes.
“Can’t really do it with all these people around, and it’s for the better anyway. I’d probably fuck everything up. I always do, every time I think I’m in love with a friend. Why ruin something that works the way it is right now?”
Miri is frowning at her now, brows drawn and face tense with something unreadable as she absentmindedly scratches at a nicked groove in her violin. “Rowan, I really don’t think—”
“I should leave you be,” Rowan cuts her off. “Hopefully I can stay awake long enough for whatever next round of songs you and Alfira have planned!”
She forces that smile to be wider, brighter, as she scurries away like a coward and does not look back. She had meant to ask Miri why she and Alfira didn’t join them in that half-assed “magic show” with Rolan but between the weird, intimidating reaction to Quill’s name and the dropping of a total stranger being fully aware of her feelings towards Gale…
The question was now forever lost to the void, and frankly, she could care less.
Rowan’s feet move on their own. She finds herself scaling the rocky slope hugging the other end of the camp. The craggy terrain stretches out to the Chionthar with the forest at her back. Night has descended in its full beauty, the moon dancing upon the river’s calm waters as crickets and nocturnal creatures begin a symphony of their own in the shaded trees behind her.
The laughter and din of the party is somewhat dull and subdued at this distance. It’s peaceful. Serene.
It almost reminds her of standing on Gale’s balcony and watching the sea as the day comes to a quiet close, minus the discordant cries of gulls on the horizon.
…ah, shit. She’s going to have to sleep on the ground tonight, isn’t she? With a threadbare bedroll no doubt. No plushy, perfect mattress to sink into. No velveteen sheets swaddled around her. No soothing lullabies echoing softly through the chamber from the ostentatious grand piano to sing her to sleep. She always made fun of him for having an enchanted piano as ridiculously ornate as that one. After a week of being the tower’s master she understands Gale’s reasoning far more than she cares to admit.
Rowan sighs.
“I miss Gale’s bed,” she mumbles to herself as she stands on the edge of the bluff. “I should have remembered to at least take the covers with me before I poofed myself here. Ugh.”
“What was that about my bed?”
Gale’s voice wraps around her from behind and she startles, whipping around to see her wizard standing a few feet away. She hadn’t even heard him creep up on her. Between the noise of the merrymaking and the concerto being performed by nature all around her, listing for footsteps was definitely not at the forefront of her mind.
“N-nothing,” she quickly says, shuffling away from the cliffside and towards him. “Did you find Wyll? Is he doing alright?”
Gale nods. “He simply needed some time alone. But, I believe having Karlach by his side will be a balm in this tumultuous point in his life.” He smiles somewhat, eyes misting over with the memories of the last seven days. “They’ve become quite close in our time together. They bring out the best in one another. I’m glad they take such solace in their friendship, considering how rocky of a meeting their first encounter outside of Avernus was.”
Curiosity takes the place of the ugly, bitter feelings that have been ravaging her from the inside since the night began. She cocks her head and blinks at him, trying to keep her voice casual and unintrusive. “Are you referring to how Wyll was supposed to kill Karlach?”
“Yes,” he admits with a nod. “But it’s not my story to tell.”
Gale levels her with a curious look of his own, glancing about the empty tranquility of the cliff above the camp. The purple in his hair shimmers like magic beneath the light of the moon and stars and away from the light pollution of the fire. Rowan’s fingers twitch as her hands hang limply at her sides. She wants to bury her fingers in his hair again, feeling that softness and grounding herself to the here and now.
“I take it the revelry is becoming a bit much for you?” he asks her gently. There is no trace of malice or mockery in his voice. He would never. He has never.
Rowan sighs again. “I am very tired and they are very loud,” she mumbles, shoulders sagging. Not everyone got to take a nap in the lap of one very soft sorcerer.
“I seem to recall a certain apprentice of mine assuring me the night was still young,” he reminds her, holding a finger up to emphasize his point. Still without mockery, of course—just genuine matter-of-fact and his typical, posh courteousness that she adores so fucking much.
“It is. But I’ve got that sleepy bitch disease. I am ready for the night to be old now.”
Another song begins to play from the camp before Gale can respond.
The melody is not unlike the last one Alfira and Miri played before they took their break. It is slow and mellow, like the rolling of waves upon the shore or the swaying of leaves in the wind. It coils around Rowan, kissing her cheeks and twirling about her hair with a peculiar, almost familiar tenderness.
She feels as if she has returned to her first day in this world. Her heart is pounding against her ribcage. Something sweet lingers on her tongue, lovely and sublime. She feels alive. Elated. The fatigue and bitterness burrow deep into her blood and shy away from a burst of memories, unable to combat the recollection of how happy Rowan had been when she’d casted Dancing Lights with Gale’s patient assistance.
This song…
Maybe it’s not one of Quill Grootslang’s. Maybe it’s one of Miri’s or Alfira’s, or some candid romantic ballad written for a queen a thousand years ago by a person who thought themselves far beneath her.
Whatever the case, the music stirs something within Rowan, just as the other songs had. She wants. She yearns. She craves.
For what, she does not know.
The lute hums.
The violin swells.
The magic of the music clings to her skin like sweat, piercing and heavy as the saccharine taste on her tongue gets stronger. The moon watches. The shadows whisper.
The feather at her throat is so warm.
And Gale is suddenly looking at her with the stars in his eyes.
There is the most beautiful smile on his face as bows, holding one hand out to her. “Might I have this dance?” he asks, so sweet and silken. “Embrace spontaneity, Rowan. The night can grow old after we enjoy ourselves for one brief moment.”
Oh, she knows now. She knows what she was waiting for.
Rowan takes the hand offered to her, fingers trembling as they return to that wonderful warmth that feels so much like
home
to her. “I’ve plenty of spontaneity,” she says, the muscles in her face relaxing as her entire body melts as his hand closes around hers oh-so-delicately. “It just doesn’t manifest in the ability to dance. I’m going to be pitifully rough around the edges, Gale.”
Gale grins, constellations of blissful amusement dancing across his face as he pulls her to his chest. The hand holding hers remains steadfast and strong. His arm slides around her waist, his touch certain and adroit as he does not shy away from his fingers splaying across the expanse of her hip. He leans forward, so close that strands of his hair brush against her forehead and tickle her nose.
“It’s a good thing I can be smooth enough for two.”
Rowan falls in love with him a little more.
Only Gale Dekarios could say such an insipid, ridiculous line with such genuine sincerity and joy. Gods, she loves this man. She loves him so much it hurts.
No words fall from her lips as she quietly, nervously allows Gale to lead her into a pantomime of something close to a dance. He glides across the rocky ground as if it’s as easy as breathing to him. His steps are measured and his pacing is timed perfectly to the tempo of the song echoing from behind them. She follows—somehow, her body innately understands the flow of his own, matching his movements clumsily.
His hand upon her waist is a guiding star.
His fingers tangle and weave with hers.
Gale doesn’t twirl her. He doesn’t flick his arm out and send her spiraling in some elegant contour of a professional ballroom dancer. He merely repeats a rhythm simple enough for her to step along, keeping her close and tight to his chest and occasionally brushing his face against the edge of her cheek.
The shadows inside her are singing. They are a chorus in her veins, crying out for the darkness she has shared with him, encouraging her with every step and begging for the moment to never end. Rowan allows herself to close her eyes, trusting the phantom touch of him against her skin and following the flow of the magic coursing through the song.
She can almost imagine they’re on the veranda of his tower and not in the forest in the middle of nowhere.
Again, Rowan thinks as her darkness mingles with his, the sensation of being safe nearly overwhelming her as her magic reaches for him. We need to dance again when we get back to Waterdeep.
And when they do, Gale will know.
He will know how much she cares for him. She can’t tell him tonight—not now, not with so much at stake, and not with so much going on. After. After the parasite is gone and the Netherese blight is a half-forgotten memory, she’ll tell him.
Right now, she just wants to embrace the spontaneous moment of dancing with him under the stars.
“I shouldn’t be so surprised you’re good at this,” she tells him, keeping her eyes closed as she allows herself to lean into his body and sway in tandem with him. “But don’t you think it’s a little unfair you’re a wizard prodigy and a dancing genius?”
He laughs, full bodied and deeply ingrained in cheerful amusement. “I’m flattered you think this is considered ‘dancing genius,’” he teases, squeezing her hand. “Dorian is a much better dancer than I am. Though, I did have my fair share of admirers lined up at every academy soiree. My card was always full before the music began to play.”
“ That doesn’t surprise me either.”
“My, my, Rowan. You almost sound jealous.”
“Me, jealous? Perish the thought. I just pity all those horny teenagers thinking you were going to whisk them away into the night and you probably just ended up tripping over your robes.”
“It’s like you were actually there!” Gale snorts, leading her in a wide arcing circle as the music crests and sings with a sonorous air of finality. The hand holding hers suddenly grows slack; the hand at her waist falters ever so slightly, and she feels his chest shudder from where it presses against her so closely.
Rowan opens her eyes, confused.
Gale gazes down at her, a thin veneer of pain and remorse and a thousand other things now darkening the stars in his eyes.
“...I wish you had been there,” he all but whispers, halting in his fluid movements as he holds her in place. “I wish I had met you when I was still a boy, before…before…”
He trails off, but Rowan knows.
Before I became Mystra’s Chosen.
Rowan reaches up with her free hand. Her palm rests against the pleasant stubble of his cheek, thumb caressing the softness of his skin. Warm. He’s so warm. Warm like her feather. Warm like home. Warm like the place she wants to bury her heart and trace the map to its hiding spot against the rise and fall of his chest, her lips against his ear as she whispers every secret tucked between capillaries and bones.
“I’m here now,” she says in a whisper to match his own. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for your past, Gale. But I’m going to be here for your present, and I will always be here for your future.”
Rely on me,
she wants to tell him.
Pray to
me
, not Mystra. She won’t do what I’m willing to do for you. She doesn’t love you the way I love you.
But she does not.
She keeps those thoughts silent and still. Her hand falls from his cheek. Rowan just rests her head against his chest as she listens to the beat of his heart pulsing in tune to a song so lovely it makes the stars shine brighter.
Gale lets go of her hand.
Both of his arms are around her now, one still wrapped around her waist and the other supporting the back of her head as he clutches her to him the way he did this morning, when she stepped through the shadows and found him. His head tucks into the crook of her neck and shoulder, his hot breath fanning her throat as he gives a shuddering sigh and holds her.
“I know.”
His voice is muffled. But those two syllables carry years of regret, months of agony, and an immeasurable nascent hope for what the next sunrise will bring. She presses herself further into him and slides her arms around him just as tightly, focusing on the feel of his robes beneath her fingers and his scent lingering around her.
He’s real. She’s real. They’re alive. She found him. Nothing else matters.
Rowan and Gale stand beneath the stars in silence, clinging to one another as the music slowly dies and fades. The spell ends. The intention and impulse riding on the melody disappears with it. Yet the magic remains, dainty as glass as it embraces them both.
The moon watches. The shadows sing. The stars continue to shine. They don’t let go of one another even when the cacophony of merriment and revelry slows to a quiet, sleepy murmur.
And it is utterly perfect.
Chapter 8: upon your altar i am undone
Notes:
hsdfhfhgtiuehgtuhbrubt. hi. this wasn't supposed to be finished until january 22, aka my birthday. but i got in my feels big time yesterday and busted out the rest of it in a fit of madness. happy new year? :')
i am definitely taking a big long break after this. between the new schedule and just needing to take a step back and reprioritize how i want this fic to go, i'm not sure how long it'll be until a new chapter is written. i apologize in advance.
but...
i think this chapter's content will make up for that <3
also i swear after this i'm going to try and keep my chapters short. i need to stop fitting so much content in. idk how to wrap things up concisely it's my biggest flaw in writing lmaooooooooo
anyway may this year be full of wonders and joy. may you bathe in the blood of your enemies. may you get fucked nasty by a sad wet wizardboy who loves his cat.
ily all i can't wait to read your reactions to the end of this :3
Chapter Text
Gale is dreaming.
He has been in this strange, otherworldly place twice before. The auroral mists swirling above him. The scent of ozone and something alien assaults his nostrils. His body feels afloat. Unchained. As if he could take a running leap and soar through the thick, starry sky. He thought this was Elysium the first time. He was so certain, naively so, that Mystra was once more nestling him in the cup of her hand.
He had been wrong. So woefully, utterly wrong.
His head is pounding. Even in this dream—this terrible, beautiful dream—the tadpole moving around in his brain is a damnable reality that he cannot forget.
Gale groans softly and winces as he leans against the broken pillar of whatever ruins these dreams have continuously brought him to. A relic of some ancient and forgotten city floating amongst the stars. The delusions are nefarious ones, never leaving him enough pause to study and ascertain their true nature.
The tadpole is the worst offender.
“Hngh…”
Every wiggle, every slithering plunge the thing in his head makes causes the orb in his chest to thrum in answer. He’ll have to consume the items Rowan brought for him when he wakes up. It’s as though learning of this cult dedicated to the Absolute has given the parasite a newfound sense of self. The blasted creature seems all the more eager to devour him, to turn him into a monster and erase everything that makes him Gale.
The shadows in his veins surge. He shudders in relief as the darkness within him blooms and blossoms like a field of wildflowers beneath the spring sun, spreading through his blood and stretching beneath his skin. They can still hold the worst of it at bay as best they can, even though they struggle so desperately to do so.
He’s fortuitous the orb and parasite still haven’t sensed the darkness. It is almost a slap in the face to know that he carries a part of the Shadow Weave, the very antithesis of Mystra, and yet it has done more to protect him than his goddess has since the nautiloid absconded with him less than a tenday ago.
Mystra…
Gale whips his head around wildly, searching for any sign of the unsettling visitor that has been present in the previous two dreams like this. It does not take long for him to spot them, leaning against a crumbling wall just a few feet away and gazing out to the starry expanse of this eerie, fascinating realm that seems to exist beyond space and time.
But when his eyes take in the sight of them, he nearly curses aloud in shock.
It is not Mystra in golden, gleaming armor as it has been before. It is not Mystra, with her porcelain face and lavender eyes swirling with the nebulae she trails her fingers through every time a wizard calls upon her Weave. No, the form this presence has taken in an attempt to mollify him, to soften him up, to appease whatever twisted desires he still harbors is long gone.
In its place is Rowan.
Rowan, clad in flowing lavender silks that cling to her curves. The dress is short, far too short, leaving little of her upper thighs to his imagination and Gale immediately wrenches his gaze away. Not before he is granted the beauty of those creamy legs swathed in golden bangles as if she were a goddess.
A goddess more benevolent and lovely than Mystra ever could be to him now.
There is a clearing of a throat.
Gale forces himself to look back, face aflame. The thing pretending to be his apprentice turns her head and catches his eye, her lips curling into a calming smile that his traitorous heart flutters at seeing. They know what this image is doing to him. They know everything about him.
They’ve proven so with startling, dubious clarity twice now.
This isn’t Rowan , he reminds himself. This being is just borrowing her appearance. Just as they did with Mystra. It is all to lure you into a false sense of security, Gale. Do not give in.
He nearly had that first dream.
Oh, Gale nearly wept in the arms of the Mystra that was not Mystra when she had held her hand out in vigilant silence. He’d nearly broken and bent, begged her to speak to him once more. If not as a lover but as one of her sacred Chosen—those so few and far between called to do great and magnificent things by her design.
How his chest had ached when the Mystra that was not Mystra had merely smiled and swore to protect him from the parasite’s inevitable end. He’d known in an instant then; this was not his goddess, for her first words to him since their parting would be far more vehement and caustic.
Terrible manners, this so-called guardian has. If they really have Gale’s best interest in mind they wouldn’t torment him so by coming to him clad in the form of the goddess that once loved him and now the mortal woman who has become an irreplaceable companion. They would reveal their true self to him. Maybe then he’d be a little more open to their suggestions regarding embracing his “illithid potential,” though the thought fills him with bitter revulsion.
“It seems your infiltration of the goblin camp ended in a success,” the guardian wearing Rowan’s form says with Rowan’s voice after a few moments of pregnant, terse silence. “Congratulations are in order, Gale. You and your compatriots did a fine job.”
A chill runs down his spine.
How dare they. How dare they puppet her silhouette around with such blunt carelessness?
He feels such revulsion at hearing Rowan’s voice speak to him like this—so prim and proper, as if they are mere acquaintances through letters rather than the dear friends they are in reality. But it’s not Rowan. It’s not Mystra. It’s not some trick of the parasite either, as much as some of his companions wish it to be.
How much of a savior can they truly be if they try so avidly to wrap him around their finger in such underhanded ways?
“The credit belongs to Rowan,” Gale says stiffly, fists clenched at his sides as he levels the guardian with a stony gaze. His eyes never lower past the velveteen sinew of her throat. “That final battle would have gone poorly if not for her intervention.”
“Yes, that was quite something. Your apprentice is a talented sorcerer indeed.” The guardian shifts how she’s leaning against the wall and as she does so, Gale can see that there is no black raven feather resting against her throat. Nor is there one in her hair.
It’s not Rowan. But gods, does Gale feel a haunting wisp of rage and acrimony rise inside him as he studies the guardian for every little movement that betrays just how not-Rowan they truly are. His blood boils. They should not speak of her. Her name is a sanctuary they are not allowed in.
(Gale pretends he does not contemplate how strange it is that Mystra’s form did not upset him so viciously.)
“Of course she is. I was the one who taught her.”
He crosses his arms, ignoring the still-throbbing pain in his head and the squeezing of his chest as the shadows writhe and whisper inside him. This is not the dream he wanted to have after reuniting with Rowan. He wanted to continue their dance, as innocuously foolish it may be, even though they both finally admitted to needing sleep. But in that sleep Gale had hoped—had almost prayed—that the moment underneath the stars had never ended, and she was still in his arms, and in his dreams he could say and do the things he could not in reality without suffering from whatever consequences may be laying in wait and ready to sink their fangs into him.
He should have told her.
He should have told her he loves her.
But Gale is a coward. A coward who must force himself to be grateful for what he has. To be content .
He was lying to himself all those months ago. It wasn’t his lack of contentment that led to him fighting against Mystra’s wishes. It wasn’t his desire to prove himself. It was his ambition. His reckless, ridiculous ambition to be greater than the goddess of magic herself, to rise above the trappings of his mortality and become a wizard far greater than Karsus or Elminster or every other fucking hero of history.
And this damned thing in his head knows that.
They’ve dangled the promise of becoming something more with each dream, urging him to not shun whatever unique abilities the worm gives unto him, ensuring they will protect him from the dangers of it.
“You could rid yourself of the orb, Gale,” they had told him in his dreams that first night he closed his eyes after the crash, body aching and mind reeling from the horror of it all. “All you need to do is trust me. Do not fear the power that awaits.”
Saying such words to him in the guise of Mystra was a detrimental mistake. Saying such words wearing her silken smile, the one she always wore after he’d reached some hallowed epiphany only the stars have ever seen, was akin to sacrilege.
Six months ago, when he was a different man, he might not have hesitated to do as they say.
But not now. Never now. He has too much to live for—too much to care for. If they try the same trick wearing Rowan’s form, if they taunt him so boldly and without remorse, Gale isn’t certain how well he will keep his temper in check.
“Of course,” the guardian agrees, oddly complacent. Rowan’s stormy eyes gaze back at him, a tempest of mirth and daunting insight. “We should expect nothing less.”
This bastard really pisses him off.
“Why the hells am I here tonight?” Gale asks with a weary sigh, his voice sharp and bordering on callous. He doesn’t feel like playing mind games with this presence. He just wants to lose himself in a dream of Rowan, her scent on his skin and her lips soft and pliant as he tastes her.
(He should have told her. He should have told her everything.)
The guardian frowns. He’s never been so blatantly rude with them; the last two dreams, Gale was as careful and cautious as need be, after the grievous discovery that they were not Mystra. He has played their game as best he could. His thoughts have rifled through the cadence of their words and come back with a thousand different meanings. It is as if he has been challenging them to a match of lanceboard every dream, though neither of them has admitted to it out loud.
“The druid Halsin was your last hope,” the guardian says, cocking Rowan’s head at him. He hates it. Abhors it. That’s not how Rowan moves. “But now that he has admitted to not having any answers beyond a wild goose chase to the place cursed by shadows, what will you do?”
Ah. That.
They’d all be disappointed when Halsin had said he knew of no cure of their parasites in those wretched dungeons the goblins were keeping him in. And before the party began in earnest, after Gale had awoken from his accidental nap (the most refreshing nap he’d ever taken, strangely enough), Miri had gathered her fellow infected to tell them what she’d learned from the druid.
The cult of the Absolute gather at a place known as Moonrise Towers, in a land shrouded by accursed shadow and vile magic conjured by the goddess Shar. The druids of the Emerald Grove had been involved in a grave, deadly battle a century ago there, fighting against the evils and corruption of an army of Dark Justiciars led by a man named Ketheric Thorm. It is why Halsin was in the shattered sanctum of Selûne—he’d been with a group of adventurers hoping to reach Moonrise in an effort to lift the curse at last.
“Halsin thinks we can find answers there,” Miri had said to them all. “Either we go through the mountains and try to navigate the area, or we go through the Underdark. There’s a few entrances to the Underdark around here; supposedly this Ketheric Thorm fellow built a massive temple dedicated to Shar down there, and there should be a way to reach Moonrise through it.”
Shadowheart had wanted to go through the Underdark, of course. Lae’zel, on the other hand, was adamant about traveling through the mountains, as that path would bring them to a githyanki crèche nearby. The warrior insisted her kin would have a way to remove the illithid parasite.
By the time the party began, no decision had been made on which route to take. Lae’zel and Shadowheart were at one another’s throats, both claiming their opinion to be the correct and proper course of action. As far as Gale knew, they still were.
Come the morrow, he will pretend like he did not see the sly and subtle glances the cleric and the githyanki kept throwing to one another when neither was looking during the merriment and wine-soaked revelry. It’s almost amusing how much they spit and claw at one another—hells, if it weren’t for Miri, Shadowheart would have killed Lae’zel in her sleep—and yet there is no doubt in Gale’s mind both women are drawn to one another irrevocably.
“That’s a decision to be made in the morning. When we’ve all rested and recovered from our adventures in the wilderness,” Gale answers at last. His eyes narrow in a glare as he seethes silently at the perverse bastardization of Rowan. The guardian could have at least chosen a different shade of purple. The lavender is far too light for skin as fair as his apprentice’s. She needs dark violets and deep, shadowy shades that highlight her freckles and bring focus to the storms in her eyes. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d very much like to get back to resting. Every other time you’ve visited all of us in our dreams we feel as though we’ve barely slept.”
Gale may be a fool at times, but he is not so shortsighted that he is unaware this same being has spoken to his fellow infected. How they have managed to communicate with everyone at once, holding vastly different conversations, he does not know. There is an aberrant sense of magic to the guardian that mocks his past desires and his current needs, as alien as the energy seeping into the fleshy interior of the nautiloid had been.
They aren’t human. Or, humanoid, at least. Gale suspects that much. But whatever their true essence is? It is beyond his ken, especially with his capabilities sundered and rent so woefully pathetic.
The guardian sighs. It sounds unsettlingly like Rowan, right down to the way her eyes roll and her mouth twitches as if trying not to grin sheepishly at him.
“I see you are in no mood to indulge my kindness tonight. Do forgive the intrusion. Keep in mind, Gale, that whatever path you end up walking…”
Their eyes go from the familiar, comforting stormy gray of Rowan’s to two pinpricks of disturbing back rimmed in pink, almost like Miri’s.
“It will end in ruin unless you heed my words and unlock the power the parasite holds.”
The mockery of Rowan’s voice, full of thinly-concealed contempt, rings through his mind as Gale awakens with a gasping start.
“Bollocks,” he hisses through gritted teeth, rubbing at an itch in the eye the parasite was shoved so unceremoniously into. It never goes away, not really. The damned thing is still moving about, thrashing and gnashing its teeth in his head. His chest throbs, a remnant of the pain he felt in the dream, though it’s nowhere near the usual horrendous agony he has gotten used to over the last year. A small mercy he will gladly accept. They are notoriously difficult to come by these days.
The sun creeps through a slight crack in the tent’s opening. He stares at that miniscule ray of light for a moment, mourning yet another night lost to the guardian’s incessant imitations encroaching upon his dreams. His body is heavy and taut with exhaustion. How long did he even sleep? He and Rowan returned to the tent rather late, scurrying past the pair of Miri and Astarion smirking at one another with equally wicked gleams in their eyes as the festivities wound down to nothing.
Rowan.
Rowan.
Bloody hells, Rowan is sharing the tent with him, isn’t she?
Gale jerks his head over to the corner of his tent that he’d been piling all the books he’s gathered on this journey. His apprentice lay in a bedroll kindly received from Wyll, her mouth hanging half-open and her curly hair spread wildly about the ground. She’s shoved the piles of books onto either side of her, twin towering shields of tomes that appear rather precarious. One twitch from her could result in them tumbling down and crashing onto her.
He’d almost forgotten. The final moments of last night are a near blur in the wake of the guardian’s visit. They’d danced. He’d admitted to wishing he had known her long ago—perhaps all his life, if Gale is to be honest with himself. And then they’d just…
Held one another. Like they had in the morning when she rescued them all from the goblins. No words had been necessary, until the songs had grown silent and the night was no longer young, and both dreadfully exhausted.
Of course Gale had stood firm on Rowan sharing his tent. There was plenty of room, and he would never be so crass as to ask her to find somewhere else to spend the night with a camp full of strangers. Karlach, perhaps, but as much as he appreciates the brass tiefling he is still a gentleman at heart.
He barely remembers telling her good night before closing his eyes and succumbing to the gossamer pull of his dreams. He barely remembers her stumbling into the tent behind him, groaning and making a mumbled comment about the tower’s beds.
Gale feels certain he should remember Tara proclaiming her desire to join Rowan rather than him, however.
Indeed, the tressym is curled up against Rowan’s side, wings tucked neatly and tail wrapped around her fluffy form. Tara snores ever so slightly, whiskers twitching as she chases pigeons in her dreams. A large, rotund black cat lay against Rowan’s other side, its head smooshed into her shoulder as it breathes long and heavy. Pip, Gale realizes after a few moments of observation. He’s never seen the Shadowfell familiar in a form other than a raven, but the massive feline has a similar aura to their typical flaunt and flair.
Was this how they slept while he was gone?
Did they cling to one another like this every night, whispering and hoping and praying that he was still alive?
Gale swallows, a shudder of guilt and shame coursing through him.
Never again. He’ll never let Rowan feel that pain as long as he retains his sense of self.
She looks so peaceful, sleeping soundly between the two familiars and towers of books. He doesn’t have the heart to wake her up, even as he becomes acutely aware of the delicious scent of potatoes frying in garlic and oil. Wyll must be awake, then. The young man never hesitates to take cooking duty if Gale has not roused himself yet to do so.
Judging by the lack of movement coming from outside the tent, Wyll must be the only one in their group awake. It isn’t wholly unsurprising. It’s usually him or Gale that are the early risers. Lae’zel, too, but the githyanki spends the dawn going through training movements and sword forms rather than offering to help with the daily camp duties.
Gale should get up. He’s never going to fall back asleep. Not as long as the guardian’s ill-mannered use of Rowan’s voice and form lingers in his mind, and the orb hums against his heart in a reminder of its hunger.
But getting up would mean leaving the tent. Leaving the tent would mean no longer being able to gaze at Rowan’s sleeping face, and it’s a face he rather likes. He wants to crawl over and reach out a hand. He wants to brush the hair from her face and trace the ends of her eyelashes, trailing the contours of her freckles.
And though he would never, he wants to kiss her. He wants to press his lips against hers, the magic of something as simple and intimate as a kiss waking the sleeping queen cursed to be trapped in an endless nightmare.
Rowan stirs slightly. She lets out a quiet little moan, nothing more than a noise made in the back of her throat as she sleeps, and turns towards him slightly. She’s not wearing her robe under the bedroll’s furs; it’s been discarded behind her, draped across the Bag of Holding she brought. Instead Gale gets a very clear view of a rather thin undershirt that leaves little to the imagination as her chest rises and falls and with that movement comes a rather…indecent sight.
Gale sucks in a breath when images far less simple than a kiss begin to filter through his head.
His face flushes.
His skin tingles.
His groin feels incredibly, uncomfortably hot.
It’s not the matching pajamas, he thinks as he attempts to calm his mind and more base instincts, quickly wrenching his head away from her and staring instead at a particular spot in the tent’s interior that’s been stained by water. Be grateful she didn’t bring them and that she isn’t wearing them and stop being so debased about what she currently is wearing!
It’s easier said than done.
She’s just so…
Wonderful. She could be covered in viscera and grime and he would still be overcome with the urge to grab a fistful of her hair and press his mouth to hers. She could grow fangs and claws and it would not deter him from wanting to run his hands over the soft, luscious curves of her body and beg her for salvation.
His desires are running wild. He has become consumed by the feelings Rowan has planted in his chest—her kindness has sewn the seeds, her wit and charm have watered them, her smile and laughter is the sunlight that coaxes his roots to grow and spread.
His chest tightens; a painful reminder that the orb still lurks, and he still requires sustenance and raw magic before the day is done.
It’s sobering.
The cinders burning in the bottom of his gut sizzles and continue to blaze as the yawning abyss of the blight’s hunger hisses venomously. The images he had conjured—blessed, sacred images, of Rowan beckoning him with half-lidded eyes and fingers curled oh-so-deliciously—struggle to evaporate.
He never felt this way around Mystra. Oh, he burned for his goddess, and a part of him perhaps still does. But Gale has always been able to lock the sensations in a vault somewhere when the situation calls for it. When she would make it very clear the time for dancing among the stars was over until the next song began, and her eyes lost the softness of a lover and gained the calculating keenness of a mentor and goddess.
Not with Rowan. With her, the fires just continue to feed off of his wayward yearning, an endless cycle with no horizon in sight.
Gale hears her murmur in her sleep once more, a garbled mess of sounds that have no meaning, and it takes everything in him not to turn back around and gaze at her once more.
Focus, the wiser half of Gale’s mind snaps at him, fangs bared and eyes narrowed in disdain as it sweeps the virulent thoughts away. This is unbecoming! You are not some prepubescent school boy wandering into a brothel!
His better judgment is correct.
Rowan holds naught but his highest esteem. How dare he allow himself to be so distracted and think such thoughts? His wrath and rage at the guardian for masquerading as her holds little sway if he disrespects her as such in his own despicable, foul way.
Gale throws the furs off of him and quickly gets to his feet, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to smooth it down. He glances around for a mirror and inwardly curses the fact he leant it to Astarion yesterday before they left for the goblin camp, though why the vampire spawn needs two mirrors when he can’t even see his reflection is a mystery.
He sighs and his fingers begin to dance in a familiar tempo, his words low and faint as he casts Mirror Image. It is a waste of a spell and holds no value except for his own vanity. He has to know. He has to see.
What color is his hair this morning?
Gale’s disappointment at the lack of purple in his Mirror Image’s reflection surprises him. True to her word, Rowan’s casting of Color Spray seems to have faded with the dawning of a new day. His usual brown lined with silver greets him, so bland and banal, that as Gale observes his double his shoulders sink with a strange surge of regret. He had rather…enjoyed that streak of dark purple in his hair last night. Not just because of the wealth of compliments it had earned him, but also—
Well. Gale supposes it feels a bit like Rowan marking him a way. A sign of their closeness, further perpetrated by the raven feather in his hair. Symbols she has created for herself and displayed with a wild, proud ferocity. Symbols he can remove at any time should he feel it necessary to, unlike the golden starburst hanging in his ear. He still has the feather, but without that pleasant shade of purple filtering through his hair, Gale feels inexplicably and inextricably empty.
You could always ask her to mark you in other ways, a languid, heady voice inside him murmurs dangerously.
He snaps his fingers and dismisses the Mirror Image in a cloud of glittering mist. Before anything else untoward and inherently awry decides to further curse him, he tiptoes out of the tent and into the morning light of a new day.
He follows the scent of food and the smoky incense of a campfire. Indeed, Wyll is wide awake and flipping a mess of diced potatoes in a skillet above the campfire, a plate of raw bacon in his other hand as he concentrates on not burning breakfast. The warlock glances at him with his good eye and nods his head in greeting, a small but polite smile forming as Gale wordlessly begins to inspect their food stores for anything else he might help prepare.
“You’re up rather early,” Wyll comments wryly. “I expected you to sleep for a tenday. Or, at least until noon.”
“An unwelcome visit from one of our mysterious friends made it quite impossible to go back to bed,” Gale admits in a grumble, letting out a quiet sound of victory when he finds some apples free of bruises. Zevlor gave Miri some honey the other day, didn’t he? The least he can do is make something somewhat familiar to Rowan when she wakes up. Not that potatoes and bacon aren’t familiar, but he knows she’ll appreciate the gesture.
“Ah. That will certainly do it. Strange—I did not receive any cryptic messages in my dreams last night. Both times it’s happened, we’ve all experienced it.”
Wyll purses his lips as he tosses the bacon into the pan as well, the salty aroma mouthwateringly appetizing. Gale says nothing else as he starts to slice the apples as neat as he can with such rudimentary cutlery. He misses his state-of-the-art utensils. His kitchen. His larder. His tower.
He misses Waterdeep.
But at least I need not miss Rowan anymore, he muses silently, and his heart flutters once again in agreement.
Once the apples are diced, Gale sets them aside and starts to rummage through their supplies once more for the jar of honey he’s almost certain Miri stashed away. Instead, he finds a surplus of vegetables of all varieties, wrapped up in cheesecloth. They’ve clearly seen better days. The carrots are starting to wrinkle, the potatoes are growing roots, and the onions are as limp as a corpse. He inspects them with a frown. He’s been slowly forcing himself to eat more vegetables since taking Rowan in, and this last week out amongst the wilds and druids who live off the land has certainly made him gain an appreciation for how versatile they can be. It would be a shame to let these go to waste.
(He still can’t find the honey. He’d bet all the gold in his account at the Waterdeep counting house that Miri stole it back from the camp supplies and has been snacking on it while everyone else is asleep. Crafty little bard.)
Gale starts to gather the necessary ingredients for soup. It’s a far simpler version than what he usually makes being so far removed from the comforts of home, but it’ll do nicely. Especially if he can’t surprise Rowan with apples soaked in honey.
“Are you…making soup?”
Wyll’s voice rings out in the camp clearing, thick with confusion. Gale nods brusquely as he dices the vegetables and tosses them into one of the many battered copper pots loaned by the tieflings, already filled with a stock he made from pork bones two days ago. As surly as the druids had been in the beginning, at least they hadn’t balked when he offered to help stretch their dwindling supplies with his culinary skills.
“But…why?” The warlock’s confusion just grows as Gale continues to go about his preparations, humming to himself as he imagines the look on Rowan’s face when he wakes her up with a bowl of the best damn soup this forest has ever seen.
“The question should never be why, but why not,” Gale quips, turning around and throwing Wyll a scintillating smile.
How perfectly Rowan of him.
Wyll merely rolls his eyes goodnaturedly, shrugging with an air of nonchalance as he removes the bacon and potatoes from the pan. “Alright, then. Keep your secrets.” He gestures to the fire, motioning for Gale that he is free to use it as he pleases. “I’ll see to divvying this up for our friends. I know Karlach will be overjoyed to receive breakfast in bed.”
“Be careful. Depending on how much they drank, that kind of food may just cause them to be ill,” Gale points out as he hoists the pot over the fire and stirs the contents around, ensuring all the spices he added mix well. “Shadowheart has made it perfectly clear her divine spells are not to be utilized as hangover cure-alls.”
Wyll coughs. “Well, er…you recall the amulet Miri stole—I mean,
found
down at the river’s edge? The one that the dismally sad bear was protecting?”
Gale nods slowly.
“She…already woke up. And used the day’s worth of magic in it on herself. So she’s as fresh as a daisy right now, seeing the tieflings off and discussing the next steps with Halsin.”
Gale does not know whether to laugh or to sigh. That comes as no surprise to him. It’s one item she hasn’t allowed anywhere near him for fear he’ll accidentally suck it up and consume its power. It has been an incredibly versatile artifact, though using it to heal a hangover seems a little derivative.
Considering he’s seen her activate the magic within the moment she crawls out of Astarion’s tent, head lolling to one side as she gazes at nothing in particular with glassy eyes…
No, I shan’t judge her , Gale thinks admonishingly to himself as Wyll heads off in the direction of Karlach’s camp. Miri and Astarion are allowed to seek whatever solace they may find. It’s an arrangement that benefits us all, anyway—a happy, fed vampire makes for a very capable partner in the heat of battle. Well, vampire spawn.
And it prevents Astarion from gazing hungrily at Gale’s own neck. The elf refuses to believe him about the blight most assuredly causing his blood to taste vile.
…Gale does not want to think of the possibility of Astarion sauntering up to Rowan and asking for a bite. It fills him with an irrational fury that will spoil the soup and foul his mood further after the guardian’s visit.
She would say no.
She would.
Wouldn’t she?
“Gale, stop thinking and make the damn soup,” he chastises out loud.
For once, he listens.
It does not take long for the soup to finish cooking. By the time it is done, there is stirring from where Karlach’s tent is set up—a cursory glance tells Gale the tiefling has woken up, and an excited yet sleepy shout informs him that she has found the breakfast Wyll graciously put together.
There are no signs of Shadowheart, Lae’zel, or Astarion yet. The latter somewhat surprises Gale, as Astarion forgoes true sleep in favor of elven trances to regain his strength. Perhaps he enjoyed himself a little too thoroughly at the party last night.
Gale returns to his tent with a bowl of soup in one hand and a spoon in the other, his steps measured and careful so as not to spill a single drop. It’s nowhere near as amazing as the dish he concocted for Rowan on her first day in Faerûn but considering what he had to work with…he is quite pleased with himself. As always, Gale Dekarios is a natural genius in the kitchen, regardless if it’s outside over a campfire or in the calm and tranquility of his beloved tower.
Rowan is still dead asleep when he slips inside. She’s now facedown on the bundled up furs that act as a poor imitation of a pillow, one hand on Pip’s feline back as if she was petting them in her sleep.
Tara is awake; the tressym grooms herself sluggishly, her ears flicking in Gale’s direction the only indication she is aware he has returned. She’s far too busy cleaning her delicate paws to so much as look at him.
How impolite
, he thinks to her through their bond.
Not even a ‘Good morning, Mr. Dekarios’ for your favorite wizard?
Tara clears her throat, wings rustling as she begins to rasp her tongue against the downy feathers.
You’re the impolite one, you impertinent pet,
she responds rather cantankerously.
You didn’t even bother to find me and tell me goodnight, did you? No, you just threw yourself upon the mercy of the bedroll and spared me not a second thought. Shame on you, sir. Shame on you for abandoning your dear old Tara.
Oh. Oh no.
Oh, no .
Gale winces as if the tressym has shoved a dagger into his heart. That’s right. He never even considered scouring the party or surrounding woods for Tara before he collapsed on the cold, hard ground. His mind had been so focused and full of thoughts of Rowan.
He is a terrible wizard. An awful, rotten, good-for-nothing friend.
I am so sorry, Gale sends to Tara, groaning out loud to show his sincerity. Last night was a bit of a blur. I understand perfectly well that it is not an acceptable excuse, and I hope you can forgive me, Tara.
She huffs. Her head pops out from the feathery cascade of her wings and she glowers at him with her yellow eyes, tail swishing back and forth as she remains close to the sleeping Rowan.
Ser Pip informed me. It seems Rowan let them know before she fell asleep. At least someone adores their familiar. Unlike a certain wizard with a ghastly, scruffy beard I might just shave off with my own claws in his sleep.
Were Gale not holding a bowl of soup, he would prostrate himself on the ground before Tara and beg for her forgiveness.
It occurs to him for the briefest of moments that he’d rather earn her forgiveness than Mystra’s now.
I’ll smoke some trout for your breakfast, he promises her, ignoring that small epiphany as best he can. I’ll even catch it for you fresh. As many fish as you want, I swear.
Tara snorts, a glimmer of amusement shining in her eyes as she observes him.
Sir, not even Elminster could teach you the patience necessary to fish, and we both know you currently lack the magical capability to cheat your way into a haul large enough to placate my ire. The thought is appreciated nonetheless.
She sniffs imperiously, nudging Rowan’s inert form with her paw.
Good luck waking Miss Rowan up, by the way. I doubt even the tantalizing aroma of that soup will do the trick. She was positively immune to my jumping on her stomach a few minutes ago.
Hm. That would explain her current position. Gale has found himself in a similar caricature many times before, protecting his delicate insides from piercing claws and ridiculously strong paws. Though, he supposes he ought to be thankful for Tara’s particular brand of a wake-up call. It was his saving grace more than once in his academy days, preventing him from being late to an exam or demonstration.
“Oh ye of little faith,” he says out loud to the tressym, shaking his head and making his way to the sleeping sorcerer. He rests a hand on her shoulder and waves the bowl of soup gingerly around her head, allowing the appetizing smell to waft through the tent’s interior.
“It’s time to wake up, Rowan,” he says gently but firmly, giving her shoulder a shake that shouldn’t be too boorish. “You’re going to miss out on breakfast.”
His apprentice mumbles something harsh and worthy of a dockhand on market day. She buries her face further into the pile of furs, raising the hand on Pip’s back and waving it loosely in the air at Gale.
It eventually forms the shape of a fist and a middle finger pointed with staggering intensity towards him.
Tara gives him a look. He ignores the look and shakes Rowan’s shoulder harder, setting the bowl of soup onto the ground by her head. Gale takes her fist and pries the rest of her fingers open all the way, deftly sliding the spoon into her flailing hand. Her fingers close around it and she lifts her head somewhat, the wild mane of curls making it difficult to tell if she’s looking at the bowl of soup or not.
Slowly, Rowan lifts herself off of the bedroll and sits up, adjusting her posture so that she has turned to face him. She pushes a mess of hair out of her face and gazes at him with squinting eyes. Her mouth is a haggard, thin line as she waves the spoon at him sullenly.
“Why won’t the light just shut up?” she moans, voice groggy and hoarse with sleep.
It’s delightfully endearing, even with her scowling like a banshee.
Rowan gives the morning sun the same vulgar gesture she’d just given him from where it spills in through the tent’s opening behind Gale and turns her head back around. The little gasp she emits is all Gale needs to hear to know she has at last spied the bowl of soup. She snatches it up and deposits it with care in her lap, the thin line of her mouth now a wide and sleepy smile as she gazes at him with overjoyed eyes.
“You made me breakfast soup!” she exclaims. “Awwwww. You do care about me.”
“Of course. Nothing but the best for my apprentice.”
He pauses to give Rowan a few moments to dig into the soup. She takes a couple spoonfuls and gives him a rousing thumbs up, her usual seal of approval making his chest feel warm. “I wanted to do apples in honey,” he admits, “but alas, our honey seems to have been purloined by a bard with a crippling sweet tooth.”
(Gale realizes he forgot to bring the sliced apples for her and that they’re still out by the campfire, most likely ruined with a charcoal taste by now. He’s going to pretend like it never happened.)
An odd, mystified expression settles on Rowan’s face. She swallows another spoonful of soup, the bob of her throat quivering slightly as she avoids his eyes.
“Has Miri…ever acted weird?” she asks, her voice quiet and dripping with faint alarm.
He tilts his head, taken aback. They’re all eccentric in his eyes, himself included. Miri’s quirks are numerous and as varied as the grains of sand in the Anauroch. Of course she’s acted strange—who wouldn’t, with an illithid worm in their head and their memories a fractured, fragmented mess? Though he hasn’t told Rowan of the latter; as with Karlach and Wyll’s fraught history in the Blood War, their connections to Zariel and Mizora…it isn’t his story to tell.
Although…
Gale remembers with startling clarity that first night they all sat around a diminutive campfire, broken and battered from the crash. How Miri had admitted to enjoying tearing through the goblins at the Emerald Grove’s gate—how her eyes had glittered dangerously, her fingers twitching as a darkness spread across her face.
The tiefling bard and her bloodlust in battle has simply been just another drop of peculiarity in the sea of their motley crew. Gale hasn’t mediated on it sincerely, too concerned with the orb and the tadpole both.
He isn’t a complete fool.
He knows deep down, Miri struggles with something she keeps hidden deep beneath the glittering veneer of her charm and glamor.
She simply plays it off so well he rarely has time to contemplate it in the few spare moments between the last fight and the next.
“Weird how?” Gale finally answers, a question for a question.
Rowan shifts, still avoiding his eyes. “It’s just…I asked if she’d ever heard of Quill Grootslang. I thought it would be funny if she knew some of her songs. And she got really…freaked out at the mere mention of her name. But then she said Quill had stayed with you all a couple nights ago and disappeared by the time everyone woke up. I dunno. Her reaction gave me some creepy vibes.”
She shrugs, taking another bite of the soup.
“Maybe I was just too tired and was seeing things that aren't actually there. Yesterday was a weird day overall, Miri aside.”
Ah, yes. Sweet Quill. Lovely to meet in person, even if her writing left much to be desired.
How could Gale forget?
The dragonborn bard’s sudden arrival and equally hasty departure from their camp had been remarkably bizarre. The poor girl had been so grateful for friendly faces and a warm fire. And the dragonborn throat songs had been fascinating from an anthropological standpoint, even if they hadn’t been to his taste.
Miri had been the last one to speak with her before they all settled down for the night.
And Miri had been the one to inform them all that Quill was gone, a clipped tone to her usually chipper voice and a storm of fiery shadows obscuring her magenta eyes.
You’re reading too much into it, Gale thinks to himself. Everyone was on edge that night. It was after we fought Ethel. Miri was upset about the hag not having a cure. She probably just didn’t have the heart to pay Quill’s exodus any mind.
At least he’d managed to have a quick chat with her before she wandered off to her next adventure. Presumably Baldur’s Gate, to publish her songs rather than her self-published romance novels. Gale hopes, perhaps a little more courteously than he should, her songs do far better than that collection of whimsically nauseous trash he and Rowan have spent hours critiquing during their lackadaisical days off in Waterdeep.
“I actually have something from Quill for you,” Gale admits, gesturing to the pile of books on Rowan’s right. “It’s the third book from the top. Take a look at it.”
It’s her turn to tilt her head curiously. Nevertheless she reaches over and—pushing Pip in their cat form out of the way somewhat, eliciting a grumbling meow from them as they continue to try and sleep—pulls out the book Gale indicated. Upon seeing the cover she immediately lets out a dramatic, poignant gasp accompanied by a high-pitched giggle of pure glee.
“Oh. My. Fucking. Gods. No way, Gale. No
fucking
way! This can’t be real!”
She brandishes the novel like a sacred relic, holding it aloft above her head, the breakfast soup completely forgotten. The cover is quite pretty for a self-published novel. It is a watercolor rendering of a handsome, armored gold dragonborn surrounded by an idyllic scene of flowers and ethereal trees, bowing before a beautiful woman with elongated ears and a flowing dress. The words
Her Wild Golden Knight
are scrawled in elegant calligraphy along the bottom, embossed in rose gold.
“Aurum’s erotic adventures across Faerûn continue!” Rowan cries out. “This is the best day of my life because this book clearly takes place in the Feywilds! Oh, Quill Grootslang, I would kiss you on the mouth if you were here. It’s like you were in my head.”
Gale’s eye twitches ever so imperceptibly.
He’d rather not picture Rowan kissing anyone unless it’s himself.
Even if that is wholly inappropriate and as intrusive as the guardian’s nightly intrusions.
“I mentioned you enjoyed her previous installations,” Gale says with a smile, forcing a light and airy tone to his words as he pretends like he is not trying to imagine kissing her. “There’s only two copies of this so far. She was keeping the other one. I attempted to pay her but alas, she insisted, as she’d…never met a fan of the series before.”
He had felt a smidgeon of guilt. Only because neither he nor Rowan were exactly fans, per se, but there was no denying the enjoyment they got out of reading Quill’s fluffed-up, fanciful romance with scrutinizing taste.
Rowan’s face is an exact mirror of Tara’s expression whenever she gets into Gale’s heavy cream even after he’s pleaded with her to leave it be. “Is it too early for smut to be read aloud?” she asks, cracking the book open and scanning the first page quickly before shaking her head. “Nah, it’s not. Buckle up, buttercup, we’re about to go down to pound town!”
Gale resists the urge to question her on her phrasing because really, he should be used to it by now. He cannot deny how much he adores her idiosyncrasies.
“It starts off so strong already. Sweet Matron of Ravens, I think I might actually like this one.” Rowan clears her throat and sits up a little straighter, adopting the stance his professors used to take whenever they would recite ancient poetry or nearly forgotten spells. “‘ The night was unbearably cold, a terrible omen for a land steeped so deeply in the majesty of the Seelie Court. As a chilly breeze wrapped around her, soft and biting as a sword encased in velvet, Sitri’s nipples grew hard. Her mind raced with vivid images, the apex of her thighs pulsing with a gnawing want. That dragonborn knight had been so—’ ”
“Gooooooood morning, soldiers!” Karlach’s booming voice cuts Rowan’s anticipatory narration off as the tiefling sticks her head into the tent, bright-eyed and well-rested. She glances between Gale and Rowan, her gaze resting on the novel his apprentice is still cradling as if it’s holy. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Reading smut and eating breakfast soup,” Rowan answers, not at all nonplussed by her interruption. “Both of which were made possible by Gale because I’m his favorite sorcerer and he knows how to make my day.”
“You’re his favorite sorcerer? I never would have guessed,” Karlach teases, capturing Gale’s slowly warming face in a cheeky wink. “Might wanna wrap it up on the smut and soup, though. Miri just came back from telling the tiefling refugees goodbye. She wants to get a move on to Moonrise Towers.”
“But I just started!” Rowan complains, waving the book frantically in one hand and gesturing to her bowl of soup with the other. “There’s hardening nipples on page one, Karlach. You can’t just expect me to put it down!”
Gale’s face is growing warmer. Perhaps this wasn’t as good of an idea as he initially thought.
Karlach raises an eyebrow. “Hardening nipples, eh? By all means. I’ll ask Miri to postpone our journey to get these worms out of our heads so you can get your jollies off, yeah?”
“I never said I was ‘getting my jollies off,’” Rowan protests. Her face is a shade of pink that Gale is acutely aware his own cheeks is currently sharing. “I just enjoy fine literature. Just like Gale enjoys his fine wine and stuffy wizard poetry.”
“Not sure when smut became ‘fine literature’ but you do you, soldier.” Karlach shrugs. “Anyway, shape up so we can ship out right quick.”
She withdraws from the tent without another word, the heavy footfalls of her steps fading away.
Gale turns to look at Rowan, half-expecting her to keep reading.
Her expression is drawn in an almost childish, disappointed pout as she hoists the Bag of Holding to her and ties it around her waist. She snaps the book shut, the sharp sound echoing in the tent and jolting the dozing Pip awake at last, and slides it into the bag’s opening. She downs the remainder of the soup, wiping at her mouth and looking at her hands blearily.
“I don’t suppose the druids have a magical tub somewhere in their grotto,” she muses, only a tad malcontent.
He sighs, a disgruntled and dejected sound mimicking her own dejection. “They do not,” he says. “We’ve been making do with water from the Chionthar and copious castings of Prestidigitation on my part.”
She groans, reaching for her robes.
“I hate camping. My back hurts. I feel gross and dirty. The sun is too bright and loud. I miss the tower. I want my fancy shampoo and bubble bath. I smell like smoke and stale wine.”
“I sympathize wholeheartedly, my friend. A wizard such as I is not meant for the perils of adventuring in the wilds. I’ve got nymph blood in me, you know, on my father’s side. I’ve never gone more than a tenday without a bath.”
Rowan does not bother to hide the snicker that erupts from her throat as she looks Gale up and down, eyes shining with sudden mischief. “If that’s true, that explains a lot about you, wizardboy.”
“It is true,” Gale insists. Tara nods in agreement, though she does not heckle the conversation with her own two cents like he expected. “My great grandmother was a sea nymph. She rescued my great grandfather during a terrible storm. He was a devotee of Umberlee, as most of the Dekarios clan are, and she was a messenger of the Queen of the Depths.”
“Be careful Jericho doesn’t find out. She already slept with your pirate aunt.”
“Aunt Evanthe is a
privateer
, not a pirate!”
“Well, Jericho certainly steered Evanthe towards her privates, if you know what I mean.”
Gale tries not to choke. He is only somewhat successful.
Managing to regain a modicum of composure, he straightens his back and levels Rowan with a stern gaze.
“Great-Grandmother Melite lives at the bottom of the Sea of Moonshae. I assure you, Jericho would never be able to seduce her, much less find her.”
“You never know. Jericho is dead set on sleeping with all the women you’re related to. She’ll find a way.”
He does not have an answer for that remark. He knows it’s the truth—and she knows he knows it as well.
Sometimes Gale thinks Jericho was placed upon this realm just to torment him indefinitely. Then again, considering how crass and cruel of a child he had been towards the tiefling wizard in their school days, he most assuredly deserves said misery.
Must it be centered around seducing his loved ones, though?
He falls into a morose silence, wishing once again that things could have been different years ago. That Rowan had come into this world during his days at Blackstaff and swept him away into her brilliant universe of wit and whimsy. Perhaps he and Jericho might have been true friends with the sorcerer to act as their buffer, before he’d gotten so bloody accustomed to being an arse. And Dorian—would Gale and Dorian be closer now, had Rowan fallen between them and shown them that for all the differences between wizards and sorcerers, it does not matter?
Gale does not know. He wishes he knew. The wishes he has cast out to the sky to sleep among the stars are countless and oblivious to agonizing reality, never to be grasped.
Rowan starts to fiddle with her hair awkwardly in his sudden and abrupt silence. She starts smoothing it down and braiding it haphazardly. They have both been utterly spoiled by the arcane intelligence of his tower’s private lavatories. One would think it is her with nymph blood in her veins, not Gale, with how dear her bathing routine is to her. “I don’t have a way to contact Jericho outside of the sending parchment connected to your mother.. Can you ask Morena to let her know I’m okay too? If…it’s not too much trouble,” she adds quickly, words taut with a quick burst of shame.
Jericho’s motive in life may be to torment Gale (and for good reason), but he knows his fellow wizard means a lot to Rowan. The seamstress genuinely cares for her—he has never seen Jericho dote on anyone else as much as she does Rowan. Not even the string of women she has enamored and dazzled, whether they are related to him or not.
He nods.
“Of course. I was meaning to send a reply to my mother this morning anyway.”
Something just to ease her mind. He refuses to tell her the full story still. Not yet, not until he’s cured and the only thing Morena Dekarios needs to worry about is her son’s penchant for starting academic arguments with wizards from Neverwinter. His ears ring from that particular lecture, even now.
It took everything in Gale yesterday not to detail his approximate location. A tenday’s journey outside of Baldur’s Gate seemed a reasonable enough answer at the time—anything else might be indicative of his true bearings, and he would never forgive himself if his mother found a way here and joined them.
She needs to stay in Waterdeep. It’s safer there, and it’s better if she doesn’t know truly how dire and cruel his fate has become.
But that’s the same mindset you had when you tried protecting Rowan from the nautiloid, his better judgment reminds him.
And now she was here, thrust into the same chaos he and his fellow infected have found themselves in, with a total disregard for her own safety. Rowan is one thing; Gale would never forgive himself if something happened to her, but that rings just as true for his mother.
The people he cares for do not deserve to suffer the consequences of his actions. That is a punishment for him and him alone.
“I’m going to go to the river and use some of the scrolls and potions I stashed in here to freshen up,” Rowan says as she gets to her feet, nudging Pip with her foot. The familiar grumbles in their throat and rolls to their pudgy feet as well, tail twitching in irritation. “I won’t be long. If Miri gets her panties in a twist, tell her I’m doing you all a favor by not smelling like a hot dumpster fire. I might not have fancy-schmancy nymph blood flowing through my veins but there’s no fucking way I’m going a single day without some kind of bath.”
“You don’t smell terrible at all,” Gale hears himself saying before he can shut his mouth and swallow his next words. “Besides, even if you did, I would appreciate your…musk?”
Why did I just say that.
“...what.”
“What.”
Rowan stares at him.
He stares back.
The times he has silently prayed for the skill to think before he speaks are numerous. Yet another wish sent to the stars, never to be granted, for the gods and fate are cruel and their humor viciously vindictive.
Tara and Pip do a poor job of hiding their blithe amusement and the fact they’re both about to dissolve into a fit of laughter so violent it could crack one’s ribs.
“E-enjoy the river,” Gale hastily says, face flaming. His heart pounds its tiny, broken fists against his chest as it beats faster than humanly possible. His words stumbling out of his mouth like a rockslide, he adds, “If you spot Withers, don’t be alarmed. He’s harmless.”
“Who the fuck is Withers?”
Aha! His deflection has worked like a charm, as he knew it would. Thank the Raven Queen.
(He hasn’t thanked Mystra for some time now. Six months, if one should give a rough estimate.)
“An enigmatic being who has decided to assist us. His appearance is…unconventional. He will remain a steadfast ally as long as you respect him.”
Rowan’s hand goes to the feather around her throat, pinching it between her fingers and rubbing the material. He wonders how simple an act can bring her such comfort. Then again, he once did the same with the earring he bears. “Your answer is enigmatic itself, Gale. Is he a blob of slime or something?”
There is no sense in sugarcoating it. The mysterious undead entity had remained out of sight for the celebration last night so as to not cause the tieflings and druids to panic, so Rowan has not had the chance to meet him yet. Gale knows how…theatrical she can be in her reactions at times. It’s best she knows exactly who she might come across to avoid any undue spellcasting.
“He’s a walking corpse. An acolyte of Kelemvor, perhaps, though he remains tightlipped about his true identity. He was slumbering in a crypt nearby, in an abandoned temple to Jergal.”
That
piques her interest.
“Y’all have a zombie priest just chilling in your camp and you didn’t tell me?!” Rowan exclaims, voice pitched with excitement. “Oh, man, I hope I meet him. He sounds dope. Maybe he knows the Raven Queen! Okay, I might be a
little
longer than I thought, because if I do come across him I’m totally grilling him on everything about the afterlife.”
She rushes out of the tent before Gale can say anything more, a whirlwind of energy that is such a juxtaposition from how she was when he first shook her awake. Pip glances up at Gale with their violet eyes, letting out a wide yawn that shows their sharp little feline fangs.
“I should prolly follow th’ boss,” the familiar grumbles, shaking their body as if they’re trying to dry themselves after falling into the harbor. The change is immediate; it happens in the blink of an eye, so quick and startling that Gale can barely feel the shivering darkness of the Shadow Weave coalescing in the tent. Pip’s usual form of a black-feathered raven appears in a cloud of mist and shadow and they hop out behind Rowan, letting out a croaking caw of farewell.
Why had he not led with Withers in the first place and avoided that painfully awkward “must” comment? Rowan has devoured every scroll and tome he owns regarding the gods of Faerûn. She adores the tales of them as much as she embraces her arcane studies.
Gale has never considered if Withers is acquainted with the Raven Queen and the realization disappoints him; how dare he declare himself a scholar? The Raven Queen is not as involved with the domain of death as Kelemvor is or Jergal was , but it is not impossible for the undead scribe to have connections with the Matron of Ravens. Miri has spoken with Withers far more than Gale has. He must remedy that blunder and find a way to surreptitiously question him on exactly what his abilities are.
Considering how Rowan’s journey to Toril began…
It isn’t all too surprising she’d be delighted to know of Withers’ existence. Gale has never pried into the death that led to her new existence in this realm. Another blunder, another miscalculation, but it feels wrong. He sees it as an invasion of sorts, a tale he does not deserve to know. And she’s never mentioned it, beyond offhand comments here and there, occasionally accompanied by casual remarks about foggy memories of the life she once lived.
What does death feel like?
Gale can’t help but wonder, his mood suddenly grim and remorseful as he pulls out the sending parchment. Withers is forgotten. His propensity for saying the first words that come to mind gets shoved to the side. Rowan becomes his priority, as she has been for weeks now. Months , really. He must devise a way to inform her that should she ever need to talk about the events that brought her to him, he will be here to listen without scrutiny. A burden as heavy as that…
Well, it’s on par with the Netherese blight eating away at his soul.
He pushes those thoughts away for now. It is just one more thing to add to the list of things he must speak to Rowan about when they have another moment alone, free of distractions or unwanted intrusions by anyone, dream visitor or not.
It takes him a few minutes to compose a message to his mother. Gale finds himself continuously changing the wording, crossing out a sentence here and adding another sentence there. How does one balance the impression of “I am fine” with “Everything is a right mess”?
Eventually, he is satisfied with what he has come up with. It will belay her fears enough that she shouldn’t attempt to leave Waterdeep, while still maintaining an air of urgency.
Mother,
My companions and I are traveling towards the answers we seek to cure our shared afflictions. It is possible I may find Dorian along the way. I swear I will do whatever it takes to ensure his safety. If all goes well, we will head on to Baldur’s Gate and return to the lives we lead before the nautiloid interrupted things so erroneously.
Please inform Jericho that Rowan is doing well, though she (as I do) misses the comforts of Waterdeep keenly. She is undoubtedly the most capable of us all at the moment and I have the utmost confidence in her ability to navigate this treacherous situation we’ve found ourselves in.
Gale chooses not to mention the revelation that his father was hideously worried, nor the fact that Rowan banished Elminster from the tower. Perhaps if his sleep had been more restful he would be more equipped to fully fathom the absurdity of it all. But, alas—the dream guardian and their mockery of Rowan lent little by way of a night of serenity, and Gale finds that truthfully, he has other issues to focus on.
He just hopes his former mentor isn’t going to appear out of nowhere and cast True Polymorph on Rowan to turn her into a toad. As Gale is now, he would be powerless to stop it.
Not that Elminster would be so petty, but…
Mystra would. Mystra is . Her continued silence and ignorance of his predicament says as much.
The parchment in his hands grows warm and shivers slightly, indicating his mother’s response. It’s just as quick as he imagined it would be. The poor woman must have been waiting with bated breath since his last message yesterday. Gods, he truly is a deplorable son, leaving her with such obvious half-truths.
I’ll let Jericho know. She has already threatened to punish our lovely Miss Rowan severely, so I doubt my passing on the message will do anything to sway her.
I wish you would tell me everything, Gale. I want to help. Mystra’s will be damned, you’re my son. Let me do everything in my power to bring you back home.
But I will respect your wishes, as much as it pains me to do so. Give Rowan my love. Keep one another safe.
Gale’s chest feels tight. His eyes begin to burn and his throat closes up. He wants to tell his mother everything. He wants her here with him now, informing her of every detail no matter how gruesome and twisted it may be. But he cannot. He will not. Remaining in the tower is what is best for her. And for his…
The parchment quivers once more, and Gale glances down with blurry eyes.
…father.
For indeed, the blocky and brusque handwriting of Evander Dekarios greets his flinching eyes.
Your mother doesn’t know I’m writing to you. She would ask too many questions.
You don’t need to respond. I just want you to know that I love you, Gale. I have never been good at showing it. I have never been good at showing how proud I am to have you as my son.
You deserve a goddess better than Mystra. That shallow, gilded shitstain of a deity is wholly unworthy of having a man as brilliant as you for a Chosen.
Come home soon, Gale. I would like to eat a meal as a family once more.
All the air sucks out from Gale’s lungs as he stares at the parchment in his trembling hands. For his father to insult Mystra so ruthlessly using a spell interwoven with the very Weave she commands…it is an action that speaks oh-so-loudly of Evander Dekarios, a man who has never shied away from speaking his truth. His father is not one to waste his breath with frivolous eloquence and euphemisms. Dorian too—his brother is blunt and brutally honest to a fault, but somehow it always ends in his favor.
Come home soon.
He hears those words echoing in his mind in his father’s rich voice, every syllable laced with hope and a gentleness he so rarely shows. The tears in his eyes threaten to spill down his cheeks. His heart is in absolute agony , ripping itself apart as he reads the lines over and over again until his father hastily erases them from where he no doubt sits at Gale’s desk in Waterdeep.
Oh.
He has not spoken to his father in a year.
He has carried the memory of their last conversation like a stone weighing him down—Evander’s face twisted in disappointment and ire, spitting his words out like daggers to the throat. How angry his father had been. How full of rage and defeat that Gale, the prodigal son, the one who was Chosen by Mystra herself, had failed so utterly.
Yet those words had not been an illusion. He still sees them in his mind, the messy scrawl of his father’s hand imprinted in the blurry vision of his burning eyes. I love you. Come home soon.
“Sir?” Tara’s voice is soft and inquisitive, her feet padding quietly towards him as he sinks to the ground with the parchment in his hands. “Whatever is the matter?”
Gale does not answer.
He simply places the parchment onto the ground and reaches out, beckoning for Tara to come forward. His tongue is dreadfully dry. His jaw is clenched so tightly he fears he’s going to crush his bones into dust.
Without a word, Tara finishes the distance between them and crawls into his lap, her body already vibrating with the intensity of a loud purr. Gale wraps his arms around her, careful not to squeeze too hard, and buries his face in the comforting downy feel of her wings. Something he has not done for over six months. Something that he realizes with a start, Rowan’s presence in his life stopped the moment she became his apprentice.
It’s ridiculous. His father’s correspondence should not affect him so acutely. Yet, Gale cannot control it. He cannot deny the emotions balled up in his chest, rotting and twisted and screaming for a chance to finally be free.
He takes a deep breath.
And allows himself to let go, sobbing wordlessly and quietly into the feathers and fur of his oldest friend, because despite everything Gale has done in the last year—
His father still loves him.
Rowan sees no signs of a zombie priest as she makes her way to the riverside, much to her disappointment. Just copious amounts of goblets still half-full of wine scattered about, the occasional shoe left forgotten on the sandy bank, and a heap of fabric she is fairly certain might be a pile of undergarments.
She sure hopes the owners come to retrieve them, otherwise crabs are going to start making a cozy little home there.
Maybe this Withers guy is avoiding me, she thinks to herself as she kneels over the calm waters of the Chionthar, cupping her hands and splashing some of it onto her face. It’s fucking cold; if the soup, smut, and Gale’s wildly out of pocket ‘musk’ comment hadn’t already woken her up, this certainly would have done the trick. Maybe I’m technically considered undead and he doesn’t want to be around such stunning competition.
It’s not something she’s ever spent time contemplating.
Hells, beyond that brief moment the Raven Queen returned her memories a week ago, Rowan hasn’t thought about her death for months now.
The memories may be gone once more but that palpable, raw ache of desolate loneliness still remains. She’s buried it, deep and dark and with a desperation to forget the fear of that moment. Glass in her skull. Blood in her eyes. Copper in her mouth.
The feather at her throat grows warm, a sharp contrast to the frigid chill that has settled against her skin. It is not just from the icy water of the river.
She has allowed herself to grow too content and satisfied with the kind hand dealt to her half a year ago. Has she ever questioned why? Has she ever sat before her makeshift altar in her room at the tower, head bowed in deference, and poured her soul out unto the Matron of Ravens?
Why? Why her? Why, out of all the miserable assholes in the cosmos, was Rowan the one her goddess chose to grant a second chance? Why bless her with such wonder and joy?
Why
?
A voice whispers in her mind, soft as a sigh.
The question should never be why, my child, but why not .
She is wrapped in a cloak of feathers.
A pair of smooth, porcelain lips presses against her forehead.
She stands in the bright morning sun, the warmth of spring clinging to her, and yet Rowan feels as though she is floating in that beautiful sea of endless shadow. She is safe. She is protected. She is loved.
She gasps, clutching at her chest as that sensation of safety and tenderness fills her, emptying out into the hollow spaces between her bones and the gaps of her memories. The Matron has not spoken to her since the day of her rebirth, has she? No, she would have remembered. Oh, there have been signs here and there—the Raven Queen’s presence is never distant, unwavering as a promise, but she has not murmured in her ear like this since Rowan first beheld her in the darkness.
She glances at her reflection in the river.
The woman looking back at her is happy .
Tired, a little grimy, with hair that would bring Jericho to shame, but happy. The Raven Queen is right. Why not Rowan? Why didn’t she deserve another chance?
Her death was frightening. Painful. Full of rage and sadness and a hundred other things she’s offered to the Matron with trembling fingers in exchange for a wisp of shadow and a thread of magic. And that’s why her goddess chose her. That’s why her goddess loves her.
She wishes Gale could experience it.
He has. He did, once upon a time.
But he deserves more. He deserves a being who will gaze upon him with compassion; one who will embrace him with dignity. Not a lover, not a teacher, but a deity who cares for him simply because she wants to, with no strings attached and no conditions written in the stars above.
Rowan touches the feather at her throat with a gentle caress.
“Watch over him,” she whispers, closing her eyes for a moment. She smells pine. Snow. Fresh lilies. The incense of a burial, beloved and kept lit until the vigil ends and then some. “I don’t know if I have the right to ask it of you, but please. He means so much to me. We’ll figure out how to fix everything somehow, but in the meantime—”
Her voice chokes.
I wish you had been there.
She is here now, and she has a goddess that loves her for the sake of nothing more than the act of love itself.
“Watch over Gale, in case I can’t do it myself,” Rowan finishes, voice small and quiet and uncertain.
The air is silent for three heartbeats.
Then she hears the cry of a raven, piercing and dissonant, as Pip’s claws dig into her shoulders and their wings flap wildly as they find purchase. She nearly tumbles forward ass over teakettle into the river from the unexpected impact, letting out a shriek as she pitches forth and digs her hands into the rocky sand for balance.
“Godsdammit, Pip, don’t sneak up on me like that!” Rowan snaps, flicking the familiar on their feathery head.
“Ow,” they complain, even though there wasn’t any force behind her flick. Their eyes swirl dark violet, another being gazing out at her through those ominous gems as they cock their head up at her. “Talkin’ to the big boss, are ya?”
She nods, plunging her now sandy hands into the river and wetting them sufficiently enough before running her fingers through her unruly curls. Who knew fantasy plumbing was such a life saver? She’s never been a fan of camping in the first place. For Gale, though, she’ll suffer through whatever minor discomforts come what may.
“Thought so. Can feel her rummaging around and watchin’ ya.” Pip nudges her cheek with their beak, nuzzling against her as they are wont to do. “Yer doin’ real good, Rowan. Big boss knows it. I know it. She’ll keep her eyes on ‘im, just like they’re always on you. Don’t worry so much, eh? You’ll get frown lines.”
Rowan reaches over and pats their back, her hands somewhat dried from combing her hair. Pip preens into her touch with a keening caw, nuzzling into her even harder as she forces herself to her feet. The words thank you sometimes are not sufficient enough, especially considering what she has just asked of the Raven Queen.
So she just stands there in silence for a moment, adrift in the scents of her goddess and the sense of her presence slowly fading away as an unspoken vow is shared between them.
“So, uh.”
Pip breaks the silence. Wholly unsurprising.
“I take it youse didn’t kiss your wizard like you said youse would?”
Her cheeks grow uncomfortably warm.
“I…did not,” Rowan admits, lowering her head in shame as she shuffles her feet in the sand. “I didn’t tell him anything. And—a-and last night had the most perfect moment, Pip. He…asked me to dance, just the two of us, away from camp and I…I could have…!”
Gale’s hands on her waist. Him, holding her so tightly, his voice in her ear as the moon shone and the song sang until the night grew old and weary.
She should have told him. She should have taken that moment in her own hands and torn her teeth in it, buried her face in it, ripped her heart out of her chest and presented it to him bloody and beating like she’s intended to since that night.
Since he showed her how to channel the Weave he’s known his whole life and felt the tingle of a kiss that never happened.
Rowan remembers the words she said to Miri.
I’m not the kind of person people fall in love with.
She won’t ruin it. She won’t destroy the precious thing between them. She won’t shatter whatever it is they’ve built.
“It’s fine,” Rowan tells Pip with a smile, knowing it’s not reaching her eyes. “We have all the time in the world.”
But do they?
Or will Gale slip through her fingers, succumbing to the orb in his chest or the parasite in his head before she can even reach out for him?
Gonna stop thinking about this now. It’s too early and I can’t even have a nice long soak in a tub to fully digest it all.
Rowan quickly forces herself to make herself as presentable as she can with her limited resources, thanking her past self for at least having the foresight to pack scented oil in the Bag of Holding. It’s one Jericho bought for her—lavender scented and good for migraines, but it works to make oneself smell less like a rowdy night out.
By the time she returns to the camp proper (still no Withers in sight) the tents and supplies scattered about are in various states of disarray and disassembly. Gale is standing before the remnants of his own, his hands glowing their typical enchanting purple as the scarred veins of the blight’s taint burn softly in tandem. He has a veritable army of phantasmal, incorporeal hands floating about, folding the fabric of the tent up and carrying piles of items wholly unnecessary for proper survival in the wilderness.
Rowan can’t blame him.
She, too, would absolutely demand fancy throw pillows and an entire telescope as a reward for saving an entire enclave of druids from a misguided (very racist) elf.
There are a few other groups of magical hands going to work, assisting the rest of his fellow infected in tearing down their camp. Gale’s eyes are narrowed. He is chewing on his lower lip on concentration, hands raised and fingers flicking this way and that like a conductor leading a grand symphony. She can see the individual threads of the Weave connected to each finger and feel the shivering whisper of magic against her skin as she approaches.
“Need a hand?” she asks in a teasing tone, wiggling her own fingers for emphasis.
Gale shakes his head but does not glance at her, instead gazing steadily at the fruits of his spell. His eyes are somewhat swollen, she notices with a pinch of worry. As if he’s been rubbing at them something fierce. Did he suddenly develop allergies in the days they were apart? Can wizards have allergies?
“Your offer is appreciated, but I believe I have this all handled quite handily, thank you very much.”
She immediately groans, face twisted in a grimace. He did not just say that.
“That was horrible and you should feel bad,” she complains, shuffling forward and getting to work on helping a couple of the hands fold the other end of the tent. She could probably cast a few Mage Hands of her own, but it would feel like showing off. She’ll leave that to Gale.
“Pardon? You started it. It was quite the heavy-handed gesture, if I must say.” Gale still isn’t looking at her, focusing intently on the magic at work, but when she peers at his face there is a definite ghost of a smile struggling not to appear.
Rowan groans.
Fucking wizards and their wordplay.
It sucks because it’s funny, but she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of him knowing it is. She adores Gale. She adores puns. She adores when Gale makes puns.
But also, she doesn’t know how much of it she’ll be able to take before she breaks and does something incredibly stupid.
“Dear me. It seems my apprentice believes this situation is getting out of hand,” Gale continues, flicking his pinky towards her as a couple other Mage Hands levitate through the air to join in the scintillating art of tent folding. “Really, Rowan, you ought to know firsthand how gifted I am in the skill of verbosity.”
“Mr. Dekarios, do be a good sir and kindly cease with the hand jokes,” Tara calls from where she is sorting the books Gale has managed to accumulate. “I’d much prefer it if you gave me a hand and made the executive decision on which books to keep and which ones to return to the druids.”
The Mage Hands falter ever so slightly all at once, blinking out of existence for a moment as Gale loses concentration on the spell briefly.
“But Tara,” he protests, head jerking toward her with wide eyes. “That’s a rather impossible ask, don’t you think?”
“Miss Miri has politely reminded everyone—not just you—that traveling lightly is for your own benefit. You do not need all of these books, Mr. Dekarios.”
“Lae’zel offered to carry some! She is more than happy to, as long as she gets to read them before I do. It is a fine trade indeed, wouldn’t you say?”
“But I am not the githyanki and I shall not indulge your hoarding tendencies, now that we are away from the tower’s seemingly infinite storage. Choose some books, sir. Lest I choose them for you.”
Rowan could remind them both that the Bag of Holding she absconded from Gale’s private collection is perfectly capable of storing everything and then some in this entire camp.
Hells, she’s shocked the realization has not dawned on Gale’s mind.
But, on the other hand (pun fully intended), it’s fun to watch the wizard squirm. She loves him. Of course she loves him. Witnessing Tara mother him incessantly, however, has become one of her favorite pastimes and this moment is no exception.
Rowan simply stands back a couple feet as Gale hurriedly rushes to the pile of books, grabbing them all and glancing at their titles furtively. Tara stares at him with a stony expression, tail flicking back and forth in a posture that clearly means business. If not for the tressym, the tower in Waterdeep would truly be piled high with anything Gale Dekarios can get his grubby wizard hands on.
…pun not intended.
Something suddenly brushes against the back of her leg. Something soft, furry, feathery, and strangely weighty. She whips her head around at the unfamiliar sensation, not knowing what to expect.
A four-legged chicken the size of a large dog is certainly not it.
The creature gazes up at Rowan with large, golden saucer-like eyes. Its feathers are a tawny brown and have a similar downy appearance to Tara’s wings—probably just as soft, too. It’s adorable. Achingly so. She just wants to get on her knees and wrap her arms around it and squeeze it like a stuffed animal.
“Hello there,” Rowan says, crouching down so that she and the creature are eye-level. “What are you? A druid pet that’s come looking for treats?”
She reaches out a hand cautiously, keeping her fist closed as she holds it before the creature’s bird-like face just in case it decides to nip. That beak looks sharp and deadly were it to get ahold of one of her fingers.
It leans forward and gives her fist a prudent sniff, squawking cutely in the back of its throat as it wiggles its body akin to a dog waggling its tail. When it butts its head against Rowan’s fist and she takes a few more moments to really look it over, she gasps in excitement and realization.
“Oh my gods,” she exclaims. “You’re a baby owlbear, aren’t you?”
“Ack! Dammit, little guy, I told you not to run off!”
Miri’s voice laced with exasperation rings out through the air. Rowan glances up from the owlbear, who is now greedily accepting scritches against its feathery face and neck. The tiefling bard comes rushing over looking strained and vexed, Scratch close at her heels. Her clothes are covered in feathers. Feathers the exact same shade and size as the owlbear’s.
She greets Rowan with a jerky wave. Rowan expected her to appear haggard and hungover after the events of last night, but Miri mostly just looks as if she’s already had a full day in the morning. Two small, nearly imperceptible pinpricks are buried in the side of her throat and there is a ring of shadows underneath her magenta eyes, but those eyes burn hot and eagerly.
She tries not to think about the terrifying look those eyes beheld last night at the mention of Quill Grootslang.
“Sorry, Rowan,” Miri breathes, wiping feathers off of her. “He said he smelled flowers and came lumbering over to you.”
Flowers? Either it’s her lavender-scented oil or the lingering aroma of the Raven Queen’s divinity. Maybe both.
“He told you that?”
Rowan’s hand slides beneath the owlbear’s chin to give him scritches there. His whole body shakes once more, a warbling coming from his throat as his giant eyes slide shut in bliss. An actual owlbear! Soup, smut, and an owlbear. The morning was shaping up to be a delightful one indeed. All she needs is a unicorn, and then everything truly will be perfect.
Miri nods. “I can cast Speak with Animals. I do it every morning; you never know what the local wildlife will tell you. This little guy was actually at the goblin camp yesterday.” She reaches down to ruffle the downy feathers between the owlbear’s ears, a soft and gentle smile on her face. Such a dichotomy compared to what Rowan witnessed last night. “His mother was…killed. I told him to follow my scent back to camp and when I woke up this morning, he was in Astarion’s tent.”
Well, that would explain the fang marks. Even living in this world for six months, the existence of certain things such as vampires still come as a shock to Rowan. She nearly fell over when Gale told her in hushed whispers on their walk back to the Emerald Grove yesterday.
It’s the loudest kept secret of their group, however, considering everyone is well aware of the pale elf’s true nature.
He’d better not try to bite Gale before she gets to. She’ll hide some garlic in his fancy shoes.
“Aw. Poor little guy.” Rowan frowns as she pats the cub, her heart twanging in sympathy. A full-grown owlbear might be a ferocious, dangerous beast, but a young one like this is still vulnerable. Without its mother, who knows what could happen?
Miri’s gaze switches from the owlbear cub to her, smile turning somewhat incredulous. “Frankly, I’m shocked he’s letting you touch him. It took me forever to lure him with food, even with my spell.”
Rowan shrugs. “What can I say? Animals like me. I have a very calm and comforting aura about me.”
Pip lets out a choked laugh that turns into a messy, unconvincing attempt at a casual corvid croak. Miri’s incredulity seems to grow a little bit more, glancing at the familiar suspiciously, and Rowan resists the urge to flick them. She doubts anyone here would bat an eye if they realized Pip could speak just like Tara, but she’d rather it happen organically.
And not when the raven is lowkey insulting her. Cheeky bastard. They’re lucky she adores them so.
“Do you have a name for him?” Rowan asks Miri, giving the owlbear cub one last pat before rising back to her full height. He instantly droops, eyes popping back open and gazing at her sadly. Oh no. She can’t resist that look. That’s more dangerous than a full-grown owlbear with its claws unsheathed.
Scratch senses the poor thing’s misery and whines quietly, pressing against the owlbear and starting to gingerly lick his face all over. It’s the sweetest thing she’s ever seen, and she’s witnessed Tara and Pip napping in the sun together. Her heart is going to explode. Today truly is a great day.
“No, not yet. I asked if his mother had given him one but he didn’t understand the question.”
“What about Nugget?” Rowan suggests brightly. “Because he’s so round, like a chicken nugget. Or, uh. Because his eyes are little nuggets of gold. I dunno. I just like Nugget.”
They definitely don’t have chicken nuggets in Faerûn. She’s checked.
The owlbear cub looks up at her, blinking.
“Hmmm…Nugget.” Miri crosses her arms and nods slowly, meeting the cub’s gaze as he turns to stare at the tiefling next. He mimics the bob of her head, almost as if he is nodding as well, and Miri’s face breaks out into a wide, beaming expression. “I think that settles it. Nugget, we bequeath to thee your new name!”
Nugget the owlbear cub hangs his head back and lets out what might be considered an intimidating roar in approximately a year, but right now is just really fucking cute. Scratch watches for a moment before throwing his head back and howling as if the blood of wolves run through his veins, the air echoing and most likely destroying anyone with a hangover within a mile radius.
Fifteen minutes later the clearing is devoid of nearly any sign that a massive camp—and party—once made a home here. Everyone is gathered around Miri and Halsin, packs swung over their shoulders with their respective things as they listen to the two speak.
(Gale continuously throws dirty looks at Tara as she sits on the ground before him, poised as perfect as can be. It seems the tressym was quite brutal in what books she allowed him to keep. Rowan only feels somewhat guilty she did not speak up in regards to the Bag of Holding.)
“Based on Halsin’s knowledge and the intel we’ve gathered in the last few days, we have two options to find a way to Moonrise Towers,” Miri says. She stands on one of the many boulders sunken into the loamy ground, Scratch and Nugget on either side like furry sentinels at attention. “Option one: we take the mountain path up by Waukeen’s Rest. There is a githyanki crèche in that area, and Lae’zel believes her people may have a cure for the tadpoles.”
“There is no
believing
,” the githyanki warrior in question scoffs, her unique slitted gaze narrowed as her eyes dart between everyone gathered. “I
know
they have a cure. Every crèche has a
zaith’isk
to purge
ghaik
parasites. Vlaakith willing, they will allow you to partake in the cleansing as well—but only if I am with you.”
Rowan did not interact much with the githyanki yesterday. The most she did was roll her eyes and seem rather unimpressed that Rowan was too dumbstruck by her one-of-a-kind beauty. She likes the way Lae’zel speaks. Her cadence and rich, strangely accented voice is gorgeous.
“Yes. That.” Miri nods to Lae’zel, throwing her a grin of gratitude. The githyanki seems entirely unphased, and Miri moves on with a quick clearing of her throat. “The other option is to travel through the Underdark. The man who led the Sharrans a century ago, Ketheric Thorm, supposedly built a massive stronghold beneath our feet that feeds directly into the area around Moonrise. The dangers of the Underdark are many, but that path may avoid immediate contact with the shadow curse.”
With everything that had happened yesterday, Rowan had somewhat pushed the conversation regarding Moonrise Towers and the cursed lands around it.
She knew it was important. She knew this place could hold the key to saving everyone and possibly stopping whatever weird cult was emerging from its dark depths, but…
Gale had been more important at the time. Dark Justiciars, curses cast by the goddess Shar, cults who seem to be worshiping mind flayers? Yesterday, all of those tasty little tidbits had been shoved aside in favor of focusing on Gale every which way she could.
Except in the way that mattered. Because she didn’t tell him how she felt. Because she chickened out.
Rowan is the true chicken nugget, not the baby owlbear.
“We’ve found quite a few ways to the Underdark since being stranded out here,” Miri continues, oblivious to Rowan’s racing thoughts. Everyone is. Once again, she is grateful she did not get the worm treatment. There are thoughts she doesn’t want to listen to, much less subject these poor assholes to them. “That abandoned village has one. The former temple of Selûne should have one too—it’s why Halsin was there in the first place.”
Wait.
Former temple of Selûne? As in, the Moonmaiden? As in the other goddess she’s grown attached to? Just not as much as the Matron of Ravens?
Rowan raises her hand, face scrunched in confusion. “Uhhhh. There’s a temple of Selûne around here and no one told me?” She throws a look of mock betrayal towards Gale, who suddenly appears very uncomfortable.
This time it’s Halsin who answers, not Miri.
“Indeed.” The druid nods. “The temple is where you appeared from the shadows and came to our rescue, my friend.”
That
was a temple? To
Selûne
?
That rotten place of filth and neglect, crawling with desecration? Now that Rowan thinks back to their exit yesterday she vaguely recalls glancing at some statues in the front foyer, their heads gone and marble body splattered with gore and refuse. Hadn’t they been holding crescent moons?
A spark of irritation flares in her gut. Taking over a temple to a different god and making it some pseudo-headquarters for a weird cult is just tasteless. No wonder Gale looks so uncomfortable—he must have known and didn’t want to tell her, in case it would upset her.
A reasonable enough assumption considering how much she likes the moon goddess, but it’s not like she’s going to throw a temper tantrum about it.
Rowan fiddles with the feather at her throat, frowning as her mind sorts through the images of that shattered sanctum. “Damn,” she mumbles, feeling oddly responsible for a building far beyond repair. “That sucks. It must have been beautiful, once. I wonder if the loss of that place has affected Selûne.”
There is another scoff, but this one comes from Shadowheart’s direction.
She looks at Rowan with an air of disdain, arrogance and ridicule thinly veiled on her expression as she gives a crooked little smirk.
“Good riddance, I’d say,” the cleric nearly spits. “It is now the perfect hovel for that moon witch.”
Oh, dear.
Rowan recognizes the symbols of Shar the half-elf wears. She’s read enough about the gods. Hells, she’s practically devoured every tome in Gale’s personal library and then some. The circlet on Shadowheart’s forehead, the ceremonial armor…to the trained eye, it is very obvious she is an acolyte of the Lady of Loss. Of course she would be so aggressive about Selûne.
She should probably keep her appreciation for the Moonmaiden on the downlow. Shadowheart seems nice enough, but Rowan isn’t about to get into a religious debate with someone who looked at Shar and went, “Yeah, that’s the goddess for me!”
…though the same argument could be made for her. The Raven Queen isn’t a deity people typically adore with open arms and open hearts.
Miri claps her hands together, the action surging with an aura of finality that echoes through the clearing. Rowan feels the tingle of magic against her skin. The tiefling is using her unique bard skills again, it seems—a spell to calm emotions? Or just a general casting of something to ensure tempers are cooled before anything untoward can be done or said?
Again, they don’t need to worry about her. The only person Rowan will gladly throw a tantrum at is Mystra. And Elminster, by default.
“Halsin and I are thinking it may be best if we split into two parties,” Miri admits, rather sheepishly at that. “While the crèche may hold a cure, the Underdark may as well. Mind flayer colonies are in the deepest depths; who’s to say there isn’t something there that may help?”
“And if neither group finds a way to extract the illithid parasites,” Halsin adds magnanimously, holding his head high, “then we just keep moving on to Moonrise Towers and the shadow curse that awaits there. The curse and the mind flayer invasions are connected somehow. I
know
it.”
Everyone gathered glances around at one another, exchanging looks Rowan cannot read. She imagines they’re all thinking exactly what she’s thinking:
What happens if one group finds a cure, and the other does not?
“I think we’ve all experienced enough with one another that we can agree to inform the other party if we find something before we go through with a ‘cure,’” Miri says, her expression taut and eyes clouded with something like anxiety.
It’s almost like Miri can read minds.
Rowan is certain the reality is that the tiefling really just did poke into the thoughts of her fellow infected.
There are a few moments of tense, pregnant silence that weighs heavy with the burden of things unsaid but clearly known by all.
Finally, to her surprise, Gale speaks up.
“It’s the best we can do with the means available to us,” her wizard says, nodding his head in agreement towards Miri. “The Underdark holds many mysteries I’ve always been fascinated with. I’d be more than happy to lend my knowledge and skills in that direction.”
Miri’s stiff, almost restless posture softens and relaxes within seconds. “Thank you, Gale,” she sighs with relief, offering him a strained smile. “I was thinking I’d be of more use with whomever goes to the crèche. I have the utmost faith in Lae’zel’s ability to parlay with her people, but a bard’s silver tongue can never hurt!”
She winks at the githyanki, who seems to contemplate the offer with a genuine sincerity.
“You have proven yourself a worthy ally,” Lae’zel concedes gruffly. “An asset in a verbal battle as much as you are in a physical one. Just…do not sing when we are around my kin. They will find the ballads of Faerûn lacking.”
“Asking a bard not to sing is like asking a bird not to fly. I make no promises.”
“And I shall go with Miri, of course,” Astarion cuts in before Lae’zel can answer, a storm of exasperation in her eyes. The vampire bares his fangs in an eager smirk, slender fingers tapping against the hilt of one of his daggers strapped to his waist as he catches Miri in a heated gaze. “You know I’d never turn down the chance to witness all the
fun
you manage to stir up, darling.”
“I’ll go with Gale,” Rowan offers, raising her hand again even though no one is going to call on her. She grins at him, cheeky and defiant. “You’re not getting away from me that easily. I’m not losing you again, remember?”
He holds his hands up weakly, sharing her grin as a delicate flush spreads across his face. “I wouldn’t dare to dream of it, Rowan.”
“Good. You can’t be a decent wizard without your trusty sorcerer. Who else is going to mock your incantation pronunciations and keep you on your toes?”
“Tara, I imagine. I’d much rather it be you. At least I know you aren’t being serious about it.”
“Please, I’m always serious when it comes to magic!”
Shadowheart clears her throat loudly, reminding Rowan that they’re actually in public and not in the sanctity of the tower back in Waterdeep. Oops. It’s going to take some time for her to get used to interacting with people that aren’t part of her usual circle and not just focus all her attention solely on Gale.
“I believe it would be best if I traveled to the crèche as well.”
Everyone stares blankly at her, the shock evident and wholly unveiled.
Shadowheart does not waver beneath the sea of gaping fools, locking her eyes with Lae’zel and leveling the githyanki with an icy gaze. “I’d rather not stroll into another githyanki stronghold,” she says, her words laced with a grim unease. “But someone needs to ensure everyone makes it out in one piece.”
If the cleric attempting to bait her somehow, Lae’zel does not rise to it.
Well, not entirely.
“How kind of an offer, Shadowheart. Do not tell me the parasite is addling your mind and turning you soft. I prefer your sharp edges.”
Shadowheart jerks her head away, ruddy and red splotches beginning to appear on her neck and creeping up her face.
Interesting.
A few minutes later the parties are all but decided. Karlach and Wyll offer to join Gale and Rowan in the Underdark, much to her relief. Not that she would have turned down a trip with just the two of them like she’d suggested the day the nautiloid took him from her, but from what she knows about the Underdark? That’s not a place you want to go with the bare minimum of anything, least of all people.
Halsin declares his intent to go with Miri and the others, citing some misadventures in his youth in the Underdark that have left him with less than pleasant memories of the sprawling ecosystem.
Now, Rowan has never been good at math. She still has nightmares about failing high school algebra. But she can count to five, and the party heading off towards the mountains clearly has one more person than the group scurrying off underground, and that extra person just happens to be a very hot and very skilled druid who can turn into a bear large enough to maul a young dragon. Not to mention Scratch and Nugget joining Miri’s band—even though the party going to the Underdark has Pip and Tara.
When she voices these concerns, partially out of jealousy and partially out of genuine apprehension for what horrors they may face, Miri steps off of the boulder she was orating on and comes towards her.
Clasping her shoulder with a vice grip strong enough it almost hurts, Miri blinds her with an inviting, dazzling smirk. The kind that makes Rowan forget her name for a moment. Gods, she’s pretty.
“You are undoubtedly our secret weapon, my sweet sorcerer! Without a parasite in your head, you pose a greater threat to whatever you might encounter in the Underdark than all of us combined. You’re worth at least three of us, darling. I have no qualms about your talents considering how easily you destroyed those cultists. While those of us going overland may struggle, there is no doubt in my mind that you will crawl out from the darkness victorious. Just as you did yesterday!”
Rowan is not immune to pretty tiefling women telling her she’s a badass and complimenting her spellcasting.
Any other complaints or anxieties she was withholding are quickly diffused.
The decisions made, everyone starts the final preparations to leave, ensuring all of their belongings have been gathered or redistributed to the druids that offered them in the first place. Rowan finds herself piddling about uselessly, since everything she needs is in the Bag of Holding, sticking to Gale’s side like a thorn in a rosebush. She almost expects him to pull her aside and drag her off to the enclave’s library when Tara isn’t looking, but he surprises her.
Instead, he approaches Lae’zel as she inspects a set of exquisite silver armor, a dazzling smile on his face.
“Lae’zel,” he calls out as he saunters up to her, the stack of books Tara allowed him to keep in his hands. “Pardon the interruption! Do you have a moment before you set off with Miri and the others?”
The githyanki does not look up as she adjusts the straps of the armor’s leg guards though she does give a curt nod. “What is it, wizard? I’ve little time for the idle prattle you
istik
are so fond of.”
“Don’t fret, this will be quick!” Gale assures her, gingerly placing the stack of books at her feet. “This is the selection Tara and I have curated. The subjects are varied and should provide some interest to you. If you are still willing to keep them for me, that is.”
Rowan may be the only one in camp who knows how much this pains him. The dazzling smile he wears does not quite reach his eyes, and he’s for sure putting on airs. Tara was maybe a little too harsh on him. The handful of tomes that he can fit with his belongings are paltry in comparison to the hoard he’s used to.
Lae’zel glances down at the stack of books and clicks in the back of her throat, reaching over to grab the one on top. She scans the cover with slight disdain, eyes narrowed, but there is a slight relaxing of her tense posture as she traces the title with a bony finger.
“...yes. I am still willing.”
Gale exhales, the sigh of relief nearly shuddering as his shoulders droop. “Excellent. I appreciate it more than you know. Perhaps you will have a chance to read some of them before we reconvene at Moonrise—I’d love to hear your opinion if you do!”
She makes that click in the back of her throat again but the exasperated, irksome cadence to it has faded somewhat. The githyanki turns to look at Gale at last, slitted eyes meeting his gaze with a relentless intensity that is just a tad off putting to Rowan.
“Perhaps I will find time for your precious books. You have never shied away from learning of my kin and our ways. I may be open to doing the same.”
Gale beams. This time, that smile
does
reach his eyes, no illusions or falsified bravado about it. “Thank you. I look forward to it. It is a shame I will not be traveling with you to the crèche. I would have been thrilled to learn more of githyanki culture with you as my guide.”
“
Chk
. Flattery will get you nowhere, wizard.” She puts the book back down on top of the stack and turns her attention back to her armor, the conversation clearly finished.
Gale moves away from the githyanki and Rowan dutifully follows close behind. He lets out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head as he heads back to where he’s left his belongings, Tara keeping watch like a tiny dragon to ensure he does not drag any more books to add to his meager pile.
“A week ago, Lae’zel would have never even entertained my request,” he says under his breath to Rowan, eyes sparkling in amusement. “Funny how closely a parasite brings people together, is it not?”
“Oh, you don’t think it’s because of your sensational charm and wit?” Rowan teases, elbowing him gently.
His grin widens. “How dare you, Rowan! I am naught but the humblest of specimens. I would never cite my sensational charm and wit as reasoning for why others agree to read my books.”
“Sure, Gale. Just keep telling yourself that.”
Rowan is very thankful she’s not claustrophobic.
The underground passage in the abandoned blacksmith’s forge is possibly one of the worst places she’s ever been to, and she used to live in Iowa. She would take the endless, liminal fields of corn and rolling flat hills over this putrid series of caverns any day.
“Let there be light,” she says more to herself than her companions, mumbling the incantation for Dancing Lights. A dozen glowing orbs shimmer into existence around her, bobbing in the air lazily and spreading out around her. Their silver luminescence are tiny beacons in the eerie darkness. She doesn’t feel like she’s fumbling around blindly anymore, despite her affinity for the shadows.
For everything the Shadow Weave has given her, the ability to see unimpeded in the darkness was not one of them.
“Thanks, soldier,” Karlach calls out from where the muscular tiefling is spearheading their foray below ground, the great ax strapped to her back pulsing slightly like a vein of lava. “Wouldn’t wanna trip down here. It’d be fuckin’ nasty.”
“We should have cleared the webs out when we dealt with all those spiders,” Wyll agrees from behind, taking up the rear. “It’s going to make navigating these tunnels rather tricky.”
Gale laughs quietly as he walks at Rowan’s side. “I’m sure it’s nothing a few Fireballs won’t be able to fix,” he says, his smile illuminated so lovingly by her Dancing Lights. “There’s nothing to worry about as long as Rowan is with us.”
The praise slides under her skin and scratches an itch she didn’t know she had.
Rowan’s tongue twists itself in a knot as she clears her throat and nods dumbly, her grip on Nevermore tightening as she tries not to forget how to breathe. He can’t just say things like that without a warning first. It’s detrimental to her psyche, even though it should be the opposite.
She’ll start to find other ways to make Gale rave about her abilities. It’s a dangerous tightrope she’s not afraid to find her balance on.
Well, she should have plenty of chances to show off once they reach the Underdark.
She still can’t believe Shadowheart didn’t join them. She clearly takes pride in her worship of Shar; it’s odd she didn’t jump at the chance to explore supposed ruins of the frightening goddess. Especially since Gale has mentioned how at odds her and Lae’zel have been since the two met within the wreckage of the nautiloid.
But who is she to question the whims of another? Or perhaps Miri batted her eyelashes at Shadowheart earlier in the morning and convinced her to come along?
Everyone seems a little bit in love with the tiefling bard. Rowan supposes herself included, despite knowing her for less than a day and experiencing that weird moment of whatever the fuck it was that Quill’s name had conjured.
Once again, Rowan is not immune to pretty tiefling women.
Which is why she finds herself here.
Trekking through some foul-smelling, creepy as shit underground tunnels that according to notes the party had previously found, lead to an entrance to the Underdark. The abandoned village was closer than the former temple of Selûne and Rowan really hadn’t felt like getting sad over the destruction of her second favorite goddess’s holy place. The abandoned village once housed a blacksmith who apparently knew the way and traveled back and forth to the Underdark secretly for sussur bark somewhere below the tunnels, and it seemed the better choice.
It’s a shame the man was long dead. This would be so much easier if they could just ask him to show them the way.
Then again, if he was still alive, he probably wouldn’t appreciate them bursting into his basement forge and demanding classified information.
“I really wish you guys hadn’t told me about the spiders,” Rowan admits as she shakes the memories of the first half of the day away, swallowing thickly. “I mean, I know you said you murdered them all, but…eugh.”
She does not even bother repressing her shudder. She can barely handle normal-sized spiders. She
definitely
can’t handle ones the size of a pony and with the ability to teleport behind you like an assassin.
An eight-legged, chittering assassin.
Karlach spins around and bares her teeth in a wide grin, pounding a fist against her glowing chest. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you. Ain’t gonna let anything creepy and crawly near ya, love. I’ll turn them to ash before they even have the chance!”
Rowan beams back, flicking a couple of the Dancing Lights towards the tiefling so she has more area in front of her illuminated.
“Gods, I love you. You’re coming back to Waterdeep with Gale and I when you’re all cured, and I am introducing you to Jericho.”
“Is that the Enchantment specialist you’ve mentioned, Gale?” Wyll asks, voice brimming with interest.
Huh. He told them about Jericho? That’s surprising, considering how much she tries to make him miserable. Has all he done is talk about those he’s acquainted with—Rowan included—back home in Waterdeep rather than himself?
“Yep, that’s Jericho,” Rowan answers for her wizard, ordering a couple orbs to fly back towards Wyll as well. It’s more efficient than all of them having to carry torches in one hand. “She’s the most beautiful person in the world and a godsdamn genius at her craft. I think she and Karlach would get along very well.”
“You had me at beautiful,” Karlach admits with a grin. “Like I’d say no to the chance of meeting someone gorgeous!”
If she managed to get Karlach and Jericho together, then the latter would maybe stop trying to sleep with every woman in the Dekarios clan. She owes Gale that much.
Though she can’t deny his casual drop of having a sea nymph in his ancestry intrigues her. What she wouldn’t give to meet this Melite. Is that why Gale and his father are so attractive?
…does that mean Dorian is ridiculously hot as well?
The Dekarios family is going to kill her. It’s unfair to be blessed with such beauty.
Gale lets out a chuckle, shaking his head as Karlach’s red-hot eyes blaze enthusiastically. “That may not be a terrible idea,” he admits. “Karlach’s fire might just melt some of Jericho’s icy personality.”
“Of course it’s not a terrible idea. It’s my idea. Since when have any of my ideas been terrible?”
“I seem to recall when you decided to try your hand at summoning a unicorn directly from the Feywilds and ended up calling forth a grease elemental instead.”
“...okay, well, I’d only been a sorcerer for like, a month at that point! Besides, they were pretty chill about the whole thing when we offered them food!”
“When
I
offered them food. You just kept trying to summon unicorns and using all my high-level scrolls.”
Another reason why Rowan is still somewhat miffed that Halsin couldn’t come with them. As a druid, he’s bound to have contact with the Feywilds, right? He could totally find a unicorn for her!
Better yet, he can probably Wildshape into one. She’ll have to remember to ask him when they reunite at Moonrise Towers, hopefully sooner rather than later.
She sticks her tongue out at Gale and rolls her eyes, waving Nevermore in the air for emphasis, and chooses not to remind him of the story he told her about summoning a magma mephit by accident. Granted, he had been a kid at the time while she had summoned the grease elemental as a full grown adult, so the comment would most likely come back to bite her in the ass.
The group settles into a natural silence as they round the winding curvature of the tunnel and the mouth opens up into a wide, dark expanse that is something straight from Rowan’s nightmares.
There are webs everywhere .
It’s a yawning, gaping cavern of sorts, with rocky cliffs covered by thick goopy strands of what can only be spiderwebs. Bundles of vaguely humanoid shapes hang from stalactites jutting out in jagged patterns from the rocky ceiling. Water drips off in the distance in a pleasing rhythm, oddly placid and gentle considering the veritable hellscape before her.
Skeletons dot the ground. Judging by how ragged their clothing is or how rusted the daggers at their bony feet are, they’ve been down here for awhile. Some of them are obscured by nearly translucent webbing. Others lay sprawled out on their backs, ligaments crumbled and skulls half caved in.
It smells awful down here.
Decaying carrion. Brackish water. A musty, abandoned scent that makes the hair on her arms rise slightly.
Oh, and of course, there are at least a dozen spider corpses littering the ground.
They’re bulbous and blue, speckling with white almost like snow, and their legs are curled in on themselves in the final vestiges of death throes. Some of them appear burnt; others, carved and sliced into by a hundred daggers or bludgeoned by something heavy. The bodies are bloated. The beginning stages of rot are most certainly occurring and Rowan doesn’t want to be anywhere near them.
“I’m gonna be sick,” she mumbles, covering her mouth in an attempt to not breathe in the sickly sweet aroma of decay. There must not be any predators down here if the bodies have remained untouched since Miri and the others slayed them.
Pip, settled in on their usual perch on her shoulder, pokes her cheek with their beak. Just burn ‘em all to a crisp, they suggest in her mind, bobbing their head towards the sea of spider corpses. You can spare a Fireball or two, cantcha?
She most definitely can. It would clear out the labyrinthine patterns of webbing coating the stone floor as Gale had suggested only a couple minutes ago. In fact, as Rowan peers closer out to the unsettling expanse of the underground cavern, a path behind the spider massacre appears blocked by a thick wall of fraying silk. Burning it all would be the sensible thing to do. It should prevent any possible scavengers from poking around down here as well.
Thank the gods the little fuckers are already dead. Rowan would simply pass out if she’d been with them all when they first explored down here and encountered the very much alive phase spider colony.
“Y’all might want to stand back,” she warns, rolling her head around her neck as she tugs on the strands of the Shadow Weave inside her. “It’s about to get a wee bit toasty in here.”
“I can handle the heat,” Karlach protests, gesturing to her person. Rowan hasn’t asked just why the tiefling runs so hot—it can’t be due to being descended from a devil. Something else is clearly going on.
Wyll sighs from behind them all, slightly exasperated but also carrying a smidgeon of good humor. “I don’t think you’d fare well with a high-level Fireball being thrown in your face.”
“We don’t know for sure! No time like the present to test it!”
“You can certainly try,” Gale says, his words swaying with a gentle reprimand. “But need I remind you that our resident cleric is not with us, and the healing potions we have aren’t as potent as Shadowheart’s spells?”
“...bollocks. Hate it when you use logic,” Karlach grumbles, shuffling backwards until she’s behind Rowan.
Gale, Tara wrapped around his shoulders, also scoots back. Rowan turns her head to glance at her companions; each one gives her a nod, and she faces the sea of webbing and bloated spiders corpses. At least the path has led them to somewhat high ground, making it so the flames shouldn’t accidentally reach the craggy precipice they’re standing on currently.
It occurs to Rowan that she’s never casted such a big spell for an audience before.
She doesn’t count yesterday when she stepped out of the portal and decimated the goblin cultists. That had been an unplanned and spur-of-the-moment decision based on nothing but the desire to keep Gale safe. The others watching had mattered very little to her then. Today the situation is quite different and suddenly she feels as though she’s suffering from performance anxiety, her skin crawling like ants are burrowing beneath her skin.
What if she fucks it up? What if her magic fails her?
…no, Rowan can’t think like that. The shadows have never let her down. The darkness is her beloved, reliable partner. How dare she insult them with such dishonorable notions? The Raven Queen is watching her; the Matron is with her always.
She can do this. Her magic is an integral part of her now. There’s no way anything will go wrong.
She has to impress Gale’s other friends. Rowan rather wants Karlach and Wyll to like her. They’ve been nothing but kind and proving she truly is an asset like Miri asserted before they all went their separate ways has jumped ridiculously high on the priority list.
Rowan closes her eyes and concentrates.
Her fingers flicker with heat, a searing burn that travels through her veins and through Nevermore’s core. She pictures a sea of dark roiling flames and tastes cinders on her tongue, her lips moving in a silent prayer as she whispers the incantation. Nevermore trembles in her grasp, eager as she is, and the shadows writhing with her soul chant the spell’s arcane words along with her.
Rowan opens her eyes.
The onyx tip of Nevermore burns as bright as a black star, hellfire dancing in waves around it. She swings the staff in a swooping arc and releases the magic gathered upon its tip, sending a massive bundle of shadowy flames into the sunken graveyard below. The seemingly endless field of webbing begins to burn immediately—smoke, oily and inky, rises to the jagged cavern roof as the fire spreads and consumes everything in its path.
Further, she commands it, holding Nevermore aloft with steady arms. Don’t let a single thing remain. Keep going. Keep burning.
It does.
The black flames envelope the spider bodies in a hellish embrace. The sound of meaty flesh and exoskeleton crackling fills the air, a discordant and disturbing song. The fire stretches further, swimming through that delightful sea of silk, devouring the fuel with a greed that rivals the malignant orb tucked against Gale’s heart.
Rowan doesn’t need to cast Fireball twice. The spell is doing exactly as she intended, keeping itself fed on the spidersilk and rotting bodies as it continues to fan out. The shadowy fire licks at the wall of silk cutting off the only other visible path, evaporating the gossamer threads into nothing but soot that glistens like diamonds. The area beneath them is nothing but a pyre, flames crackling with a joyous moan as they burn everything in sight.
She lowers her arms. The spell will end precisely when it needs to. It knows to follow her intentions. It’s learned from yesterday—once everything is ash, its duty is done. Until she calls upon it again, that is.
Rowan turns back around and smiles sheepishly at the three gathered behind her. “It’ll just be another minute or two,” she informs them, wondering how she looks with the sea of dark flames burning incessantly behind her. She hopes she looks hot. No pun intended. “When the spell wears itself out, we should be good to continue on.”
They’re all staring at her. Well, Karlach and Wyll are. Gale merely stands there looking pleased as punch, a veritable smirk spreading across his face.
Rowan suddenly feels incredibly self-conscious.
“...do I have something on my face?” she mumbles, brushing a strand of curls from her forehead. The river water did not help in soothing the savage beast that is her hair, not even with her creative use of elixirs and potions from Gale’s stash. She really should have thought to include self-care products in her bugout bag.
“Oh my gods,” Karlach whispers, voice teetering on the edge of manic devotion as she gazes at Rowan with awestruck eyes. “That was awesome .”
“You’re certainly a go-to for crowd control,” Wyll agrees with a fascinated nod, his one good eye wide. “I can see why Gale has sung your praises. Magic as powerful as that will certainly be to our advantage if we keep getting into nasty fights. Which I’m sure we will, considering the nature of this whole misadventure.”
Gale nods vigorously and returns to his place at Rowan’s side, patting her on the back. His hand lingers there for a second too long, the warmth of his touch sending goosebumps up and down her arms.
“I’d never lie about Rowan’s accomplishments,” he boasts. “As you can see, she deserves every accolade.”
I do, Rowan thinks with a flair of arrogance, trying to tamper down a smirk of her own by keeping it a shy and timid smile. But you’re also the one who’s been instrumental in my arcane education, so you deserve a little bit of praise too. As a treat.
How poorly would he react if she patted his head and called him a good boy?
Maybe she needs to start praying to Sune and ask the goddess to keep her libido in check. Weird, uncalled for horny thoughts are not helpful in these circumstances.
She clears her throat and bites her tongue to prevent any unhinged commentary from escaping. Focus. She has to focus. And totally not think about last night, when they clung to each other like their lives depended on it, or the kiss he gave her head and hand yesterday as well.
Or the kiss that has not yet happened except in a beautiful, illusory lie.
Rowan turns back around so they can’t see her flushed face. Even in the dim light of her cantrip, with how pale she is, any color would be fairly evident.
The remnants of the Fireball spell are indeed dissipating, leaving behind a sea of ash and soot. The damp stone is blackened and it appears almost like her magic melted a layer off, it had burned so hot. Only dark cinders remain, prevailing and persevering with a stubbornness as they refuse to let the water dripping from the ceiling douse them.
It’s done now, Rowan tells the magic fondly. No need to be so ornery. Thank you for your help. Until next time.
She doesn’t need to snap her fingers or flick her wrist. The final vestiges of the flames blink and disappear in an instant. It no longer smells like rotting bodies down here, at least—burnt meat isn’t appetizing in the least, but it’s far better than decay.
She takes an elegant bow and gestures to the bridge of stone that leads down to the former pyre. “The way is clear, my lords,” she calls out in an imperious, haughty tone that definitely isn’t a mockery of Astarion’s lilting cadence.
Karlach lets out a whoop of victory, punching the air with her fist.
“Aces!” she shouts with a grin, scampering ahead of Rowan and practically sprinting down the path.
Rowan, Gale, and Wyll all follow, though the tiefling moves at such a fast pace considering how long and toned her legs are. It takes embarrassingly long to catch up with her. By the time they do, yet another fresh set of horrors await.
Karlach has paused at yet another overlook. She has her arm held out, one finger up in the air to indicate absolute silence. Something feels wrong. Rowan can’t shake a primal sense of fear spiking in the back of her mind.
When she creeps up behind Karlach, her stomach drops.
A massive, gaping hole lay beneath them. Endless darkness—a yawning abyss from which there is no return, as if the entire world has been sucked into shadow and vanished. A chilly breeze rises from it, a vague earthen scent drifting on the wind, but it’s not the chasm that concerns Rowan.
No, it’s the giant spider crawling along the edge of it.
It’s easily the size of a small house. It wouldn’t fit in Syl’s shop, that’s for sure. Its body is the same bright blue and mottled white as the phase spider corpses she’d just incinerated. Its eyes are a startling ruby red that shine with a cruel, keen intelligence as it scuttles about, mandibles chittering with a disgusting hiss. Something viscous and bright green drips from those gnashing insectoid teeth, sizzling whenever it drips onto the stone below it.
And nestled within a lustrous, gossamer webbing of spider silk wrapped around rocky spires jutting out all around the hole are hundreds of spherical eggs the size of Rowan’s head.
Nope.
Nope, nope, nope.
Rowan slowly starts to back away, a scream locked in her throat as every alarm in her brain begins to go off. Her skin is crawling. Her breath is coming out in strangled, short bursts. She feels dizzy. Clammy. Hot, why is it suddenly so fucking hot in here? Oh gods. Oh gods . They lied. These assholes lied when they said they killed all the spiders. How do you miss a spider big enough to swallow you whole and its quaint little hatchery?
“Fuck this shit. I’m out.”
She whips around only to run smack dab into Gale’s chest, grunting upon impact. She feels his hands grasp her shoulders to steady her. She’s shaking, she realizes. Trembling like a rabbit caught in a snare, nearly hyperventilating as panic and raw dread go to war within her mind and shriek at her to run run run run RUN.
“Breathe, Rowan,” Gale murmurs. His voice is low. Calm and soothing, slipping past the wall of hysteria that’s rapidly forming around her. She can’t move. She refuses to move. Her feet are glued to the ground—can’t be spider webs, she burned them all—and all she can do is shove her face into his robes and try not to scream.
Why. Why did it have to be a giant fucking spider .
Rowan has faced death. She has met the abject terror of her own mortality. A monster like this should be a paltry thing in comparison! Hells, didn’t she just let loose a Fireball that burned hot enough it physically altered the stone around it? She can immolate this grotesque, appallingly large spider in a matter of seconds!
The sensible part of her knows this.
The other part that has always had a deep set irrational fear of spiders chooses to ignore it.
“Ah. That is…certainly a problem.”
Wyll’s voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere far away. His words aren’t dripping with apprehension, but there’s certainly a palpable sense of alarm as he speaks.
“It wasn’t here when we first came down here, was it?” Gale asks. His chest rumbles with every syllable, vibrating against Rowan as she shamelessly clings to him. She’s stopped shaking; instead, she’s just frozen, as if someone drenched her in basilisk venom and she’s turned to stone.
Karlach makes a noise of frustration. All three are keeping their voices low and quiet, and Rowan loathes it because she can hear the skittering of the giant spider echo throughout the cavernous chamber.
“Nah, mate. We were on the opposite end, right over there, so Miri could grab that weird purple jewel for the creepy necromancy book, remember? This thing must have crawled out from that giant hole and started laying eggs after we left.”
“Well, it needs to crawl back into the hole,” Rowan mumbles, finding her voice at last.
Something soft pats her head.
She manages to jerk her head up and meets Tara’s yellow eyes swimming with concern. Her foreleg is stretched out and her paw is resting in Rowan’s hair. Pip’s beak pokes her neck and they snuggle up against the side of her face, pressing in as close as they can as they chirp gently.
Rowan swallows thickly. She can’t act like a scared little kid. The people she’s with have mind flayer parasites in their brains, for fuck’s sake! They’re the ones who have lived every day for over a week with the knowledge that at any moment, they could transform into a soulless husk bent on world domination. They’re the ones who should be paralyzed with fear, not her.
This is a world of monsters and magic. There are worse things in this strange realm the Raven Queen brought her to for a second chance at life. Things more frightening than a massive phase spider—things like mind flayers.
Rowan has not come all this way to give in to panic and irrationality. She vowed to herself to be Gale’s sword and shield. She can’t very well accomplish that if she freezes up over something as trivial as a magical spider on steroids.
She’s Rowan of Waterdeep. She has a reputation to maintain.
She steps back from Gale, trying not to visibly wince when the warmth of his hands disappears from her shoulders. She doesn’t meet his eyes and instead turns back around, staring down at the crevice containing the phase spider and its eggs. She’s got plenty of firepower left in her.
But if that thing really is a giant phase spider, it could always jump through the Weave and appear behind them before the Fireball finishes it off. She needs to be smart about this. Wear it down, exhaust it, make it so the arachnid can’t use its teleportation ability.
“Karlach,” she says, voice trembling only slightly, “how hard can you hit something?”
The tiefling snorts and grabs the ax she has strapped to her back. The sharp blade immediately bursts into flames along the curved edge and she gives Rowan a wicked grin, muscles tense as her eyes burn fiercely.
“Pretty fuckin’ hard, soldier. Whatcha got in mind?”
Rowan reaches into the Bag of Holding at her waist and focuses on a particular bottle she knows she packed. She pulls it out, the contents an odd gray color that truly does not look appetizing in the least. “This is an Elixir of the Colossus,” she explains as she holds it out for Karlach. “It’ll temporarily make you, uh. Bigger. And should give your muscles a little more oomph.”
She doesn’t wear armor, but the scarring and musculature Karlach carries is enough to tell Rowan that the tiefling is an unparalleled warrior of some kind. The elixir is a perfect combination for someone like that. Present Gale should be thankful to his past self for being such a hoarder, even if Tara does not approve.
Karlach takes it and inspects the bottle with a perturbed expression. Rowan can’t blame her. The contents look nasty and she has no idea if the flavor is remotely appetizing.
But evidently she trusts Rowan and uncorks the bottle, throwing her head back and pouring the liquid down her throat. She swallows it in one big gulp, gagging only slightly and giving a vicious shudder.
“Blech. Tastes like moldy socks.”
Rowan is a little concerned she knows what those taste like, but she does not get a chance to voice it.
Karlach’s body ripples . She lets out a grunt of shock as the magic imbued within the elixir takes effect, and her crimson skin pulses and bulges. Her limbs stretch. Her bones creak slightly. In one, two, three heartbeats she’s doubled in size, the tip of her unbroken horn nearly scraping the rocky ceiling of the outcropping they’re standing on. Considering she was already quite large to begin with, the results are absolutely delightful.
“Oh, fuck yes!” Karlach is still keeping her voice as low as possible, but her tone is brimming with sheer excitement as she adjusts the hold on her ax. It hasn’t grown in size with her. No matter; the elixir will ensure the damage dealt with it is improved.
Rowan turns her attention back to Gale—and Wyll—and quickly asks, “What magic can either of you use right now?”
The two men exchange glances.
“I rely on cantrips more than spells,” Wyll admits after a beat. “A combination of Hex and Eldritch Blast with a focus on the latter. But, my skill with a blade is nothing to scoff at.” He pats the rapier sheathed at his hip for emphasis.
“My cantrips have proven more useful than my actual spells as I currently am right now,” Gale agrees, his face drawn in a frustrated grimace. “Nothing will be as impressive as your Fireball, I fear.”
Not exactly an answer, but she can’t blame them. The parasite has left everyone in a vulnerable state compared to the skills and abilities they once wielded. She might have accidentally opened a wound with that question but hey, she’s trying to half-ass strategize! Act first, think later isn’t always going to solve every problem, as much as Rowan would like it to.
“Okay.”
She takes a deep, gulping breath and sighs. She can do this.
They
can do this. It’s just a giant fucking spider. Piece of cake.
“I think we just need to hit this thing hard and fast,” Rowan tells them. “You fought the little phase spiders before, right? I’ve only read about them—but if we catch this one off guard and don’t let up, it won’t be able to react and cast Teleport. We should probably avoid breaking any of the eggs, too. Don’t want an army of tinier spiders swarming us.”
She really would pass out in such a turn of events. An unconscious sorcerer is about as useful as a soup spoon with a hole in the middle of it.
“Hard and fast is what I do best!” Karlach edges closer to the lip of the overlook, her enlarged body crouched and poised rather precariously. “Try and keep up, yeah? It’s time to have some fun !”
Before anyone can do or say anything more, she suddenly launches herself off of the overlook with a piercing warcry, the burning blade of her ax aimed straight for the thorax of the phase spider.
Fucking hell. And Rowan thought she was impulsive.
She watches in fascinated horror as Karlach soars through the air, her heavy form a poor match for gravity as she falls towards the massive spider. A short burst of panic rises in her throat when for a moment, Rowan swears the tiefling is going to miss her target entirely and fall down into the gaping abyss. Karlach twists in the air, a primal and guttural scream ripping from her throat as she swings her arms down in an arc and the momentum propels her forward.
Right into the back of the monstrous spider.
There is the sound of ripping flesh and sizzling meat as Karlach’s ax tears through the exoskeleton and digs deep into the spider’s body. It shrieks, mandibles gnashing wildly and body shuddering as the sound reverberates throughout the chamber like a choir of nightmarish banshees.
Welp, that’s gonna haunt my dreams.
Rowan bites her lower lip so hard she nearly draws blood.
The air around her shimmers. She feels the calling of the Weave against her skill; magic, heavy and familiar, settles about her. Voices ring out from behind her and in an instant, both Wyll and Gale are suddenly down in the pit with the spider, both of them on opposite ends of the void as they face the monstrous insect. Fog and shadow coalesce around them, dissipating into the inky darkness of the cavern. Misty Step? Well, that would have been nice to know they can use it. She could have come up with an actual plan, maybe!
“Should have just used Fireball and dealt with the repercussions,” Rowan mutters to herself as she calls upon her shadows and also casts Misty Step, channeling her focus and the magic to position her between Gale and Wyll.
The world swirls around her for the blink of an eye as the spell carries her to her destination, Nevermore gripped tightly in both hands. Wyll has his rapier drawn, the end pointed towards the spider as the tip glows a dull violet and crimson. His other hand drips with dark green mist, energy swirling about his fingertips.
An incantation falls from his lips and a burst of magic flies from his blade, enveloping the phase spider in a sickly glow. It jerks and scrambles back, slamming into one of the rocky spires jutting up from the floor, its sharp legs digging into the veil of webbing.
Karlach growls from where she stands on its thorax. Her skin is as incandescent as molten lava. She rips the ax out of the spider’s body, flinging a spray of viscera and bile-like blood in the air. The spider lets out another harrowing shriek and twists, shaking its body in a desperate attempt to throw Karlach off its back. Even from the angle she’s at, Rowan can see as Karlach plunges a hand into the exoskeleton and grabs a fistful of hairy spider flesh, using it as a perverse pair of reins as she slams the ax into the gash she’s already created once more.
“Karlach, duck!” Gale calls out, his hands moving with rapid and precise precision. She immediately obeys and with a startling speed, swings her body to the bulbous end of the spider while keeping the ax buried deep in the gaping wound.
Leaving the bloody gouge open.
The Lightning Bolt Rowan was planning on casting remains silent and still as she watches.
A bolt of fire erupts from Gale’s hands—nowhere near as blazing and potent as her Fireball, but it soars directly into the wound Karlach has already ripped into the spider. Wyll shoves his hand out and says something in a husky, rasping language that definitely does not sound like the usual incantations for a spell. The eerie, unsettling magic forming around his hand soars into the air and mingles with the fire Gale had thrown. Colors mingle. Magic entwines with magic, growing larger and stronger as it flies closer to the phase spider.
Oh, Rowan thinks as the magic bursts into the side of the arachnid, burrowing into the bloody wound and slamming it against the pillar of rock, they all work so well together.
It’s amazing.
She’s had six months of learning with Gale, of living with him and drinking in every word of his arcane lectures and explanations of magic.
But this? This is something entirely different. This is a week of surviving against all odds, thrust together by the most fucked up circumstances imaginable and forced to learn how to work off of each other’s skills. This is an unspoken camaraderie born of bloody battle and an unforeseen future, not knowing for days now if someone is going to wake up as a monster.
There it is again. That funny little feeling of bitter, biting envy that tears at her insides.
She’d felt it last night, sitting alone at the party and watching them laugh and mingle as their actions were lauded and praised. As they should—Rowan cannot deny that.
She hates it.
She hates feeling like this. She has no right to, no reason to. Like she told herself last night, Gale deserves comrades and friends that aren’t just her and his small inner circle back in Waterdeep. She can never fully understand just everything he has gone through since the nautiloid took him away from her. These people can—these people do , in their own varied ways, even though she has barely known them for a day.
Yet it doesn’t stop the poison from entering her veins. It doesn’t prevent the corrosion eating away at her logic. It’s like the venom dripping from the phase spider’s fangs as it screams and screams, body weighed down by the ensorcelled tiefling pounding relentlessly into its back.
What good is her magic if she doesn’t belong with them?
No. Stop thinking that way. You’re being an idiot. A stubborn idiot.
Toril isn’t her old world. Faerûn has proven to be more of a home than that place ever was. The people she has met are not the friends that abandoned her when she went by a different name. So what if she didn’t get the illithid worm special? So what if she hasn’t been trekking through the wilderness for nearly a tenday like Gale and his unlikely companions?
She’s not leaving him. By default, she’s not leaving them either. Rowan might be too big a puzzle piece right now but eventually, she’ll manage to wedge her way into the jigsaw that is this kaleidoscope of colorful characters.
Losing herself in her thoughts is never a good thing, especially when it's in the middle of an encounter with a creature straight from her worst nightmares.
Just as she’s raised Nevermore once again into the air, the end crackling with electricity as she prepares yet another Lightning Bolt, the phase spider screams. Its wrathful, agonized cries echo hollowly about the cavern and its body shudders as it hauls itself to its feet. Sharp broken bits of stone pierce into its thorax and abdomen, blood and ichor gushing from the multiple wounds.
The atmosphere quivers.
The Weave is threaded and pulled in a certain direction.
Rowan’s horror only grows as the phase spider’s bulbous form disappears in a flash of cyan light.
Karlach crashes to the ground with a raucous thud, her ax landing next to her and clanging against the rocky surface. She lets out a curse, her voice a dark and booming growl as she leaps to her feet, eyes blazing with fury. The caverns are silent, save for the crackling of magic upon Wyll and Gale’s fingertips, who are glancing about wildly for any sign of the spider.
There are none.
Did it run away? That was obviously its teleportation ability. Where the hells did it go?
Rowan chews on the inside of her cheeks as she scans the too-quiet chamber, eyes darting back and forth. The abyss at her feet calls to her. The Underdark lay beneath the shadows, waiting patiently. They should just forget about the phase spider and answer the call—they won’t be coming back here any time soon, right?
She opens her mouth to voice her suggestion just as she feels the presence of something massive lurking above her. The darkness swirling inside of her soul stirs, startled, sending her senses into overdrive as that familiar aching pit of fear screams at her to run run run run RUN.
Rowan makes the mistake of looking up.
Perched delicately amongst the stalactites emerging from the cavern’s ceiling, the massive phase spider hangs from a mess of thick webbing like a dancer swaddled in ribbons. Its eyes, so many eyes, too many eyes, stare directly at her as noxious green liquid dribbles from its parted maw. Blood and venom drip in tandem with the water from the stalactites in a neat, almost perfect circle around her, narrowly missing her head by a few inches as the stone underneath begins to sizzle and melt.
Rowan’s earlier statement still rings true.
“ Fuck this shit! ” she shrieks, holstering Nevermore in one swift movement and pulling out a scroll from her Bag of Holding in the next. Her fingers tremble as she clutches it, shadows misting and coalescing over her skin. “Jump! Forget the godsdamn spider and just jump in the stupid hole right fucking now !”
It is not the most eloquent of commands but she has no time or patience to specify her backup plan. She really should have just let a Fireball loose and gone with this strategy in the first place. Woe be upon her for attempting to act cool just to impress Karlach and Wyll, and maybe earn more praise from Gale.
A sorcerer’s ambition is deadly indeed.
“WHAT?!” Karlach exclaims, staring down at the gaping hole incredulously. “We’re gonna die if we jump! Who knows how far that goes!”
More venom splatters. Her shoulder stings slightly and Rowan lets out a hiss, jerking away from the deadly waterfall from above, daring not to tear her eyes away from the phase spider. Its spindly, sharp legs dig into the silken web in the ceiling, bloody body poised as if it's getting ready for a jump of its own.
Right onto the delicious morsels standing like sitting ducks below.
“Just trust me!” Rowan practically begs, taking a shaky step forward. A pebble becomes loosened from the movement and rolls down the side of the crater, disappearing in the darkness.
She closes her eyes.
Raven Queen, please let this work, because I am going to haunt myself if this ends up going poorly.
Without waiting for anyone’s response, Rowan takes a deep breath and jumps. The wind rushes past her ears, drowning out the startled and horrified cries of her name from above. Pip squawks and leaps from her shoulder, their wings spread as they catch themselves on the updraft, but she’s falling. Sinking. Fast, way faster than she expected, but Faerûn unfortunately follows the laws of gravity to a certain degree so really, she should not be so surprised.
Something shudders from above and even through her heart threatening to crawl up her throat and evacuate, she can hear a choir of gasping shouts in three various voices.
There is darkness all around. Thick, cloying, almost terrifying. She can see nothing, blind as a beggar, her hands flailing as her fingers clench the scroll so tightly she fears she’s going to rip it in half. And then—
Spots of color. Glowing, gentle and calm, in pastel yellows and blues and greens and purples. Clusters of crystals clinging to the hewn sides of the void she has plunged into, accompanied by moss and fungi, all exerting a pleasant bioluminescence that breaks through the darkness.
Rowan’s eyes are watering with the force and speed at which she’s falling. Her hair is whipping around her head, robes fluttering madly, and she swears she feels something from above drop onto her head. Something soft on the exterior, but full of a dozen hard things clinking and clanking about inside? The sensation is fleeting; it rolls off her head, onto her shoulders, and into the abyss below before she can figure out what it is.
All the while, her companions fall above her, Karlach screeching like a banshee, Gale wordlessly shouting, and Wyll letting out a stream of curses so foul she makes a note to give the man a gold star.
“Whatever your plan is, Miss Rowan,” she hears Tara call out through the cacophony of panic and wind rushes past her face, “I suggest you do it now, as you all don’t have a very convenient pair of wings!”
No, but they’re about to gain the assistance of some feathers.
Rowan tears into the magic of the scroll she’s been clutching, ripping into the Shadow Weave and calling the spell to do her bidding. The feather she wears around her neck grows warm and the shadows and mist dart out around her, rising up and wrapping her companions in dark cloaks of pure magic. She whispers the incantation, her voice broken and staggered from the adrenaline coursing through her veins.
The shadows change.
The fog embracing them all bursts into starlight almost as veils of feathers swarm around them all, immediately halting their rapid descent. She lets out a breathless laugh of relief as her body becomes buoyant, floating rather than falling, the sides of the hole no longer rushing past her so fast she was getting dizzy. From above she hears gasps of awe and reprieve as the Featherfall spell takes effect for her companions.
“You couldn’t have told us this was your plan all along?!” Gale demands, and Rowan glances upwards at last.
Illuminated by the dreamy bioluminescence around them his irritation is evident as he stares down at her, arms crossed and veins beneath his eye glowing purple. It’s quite the comical sight, really. They may be floating down slow and steady now, but the fluttering of his robes and the way his hair is all messed up gives little credence to his annoyance. Tara is flying next to him, her wings spread out magnificently so. Pip twirls around her, showing off like the little shit they are, and Rowan grins.
She spins onto her back as if she were swimming in a serene pool of water and not drifting down through the air with the help of a spell, raising both her hands in front of her face and striking him with a double thumbs up.
“I would have but that plan was created five seconds before I jumped, so…you’re welcome!”
“This was really scary at first but now it’s kinda fun,” Karlach admits as she takes a page out of Rowan’s book and starts to rotate in midair, her cloud of feathers swaying with every movement like seaweed in the current. She’s still enlarged. There are way more feathers around her than there are around anyone else.
“Well, your quick thinking is admirable and appreciated,” Wyll says. He glances upwards—the hole they jumped through is far above them now, shrouded in darkness. There’s no way to tell how far they’ve fallen down. “The beastie pounced just as we followed you. I hate to think what the outcome would have been had it caught us.”
Rowan opens her mouth to answer but her shoulder suddenly stings painfully and she winces, turning her head to look at it. The immaculate fabric of her sorcerer robe is ruined. There is a hole about the size of a coin where the caustic venom burned through. The pale skin of her shoulder is reddened and irritated where the remaining drops landed.
Damn , she thinks with a frown. Jericho’s enchantments on this were pretty strong, I thought. Just how tough was that spider?
It’s something she really doesn’t want to contemplate. There’s a good chance that it did indeed crawl up from the Underdark and if it did, what’s stopping it from following them down the crevice and finishing its hunt?
This time she really will just end it with Fireball. Who cares about strategic victories and calculated plans. Paper beats rock; Fireball beats phase spider. Simple. Elegant. Refined.
“Just what did you bring with you from the tower?” Gale questions, maneuvering himself in the air and propelling forward. He finishes the distance between her and him, coming to a rest at her side even as she continues to just lay on her back and slowly sink further.
Rowan pats the Bag of Holding at her side affectionately. “A little bit of this, a little bit of that. If I thought it would be remotely useful, I grabbed it. You’ll be quite pleased when we get back. Your stores are even more sorted than they were previously.”
“Oh, yes, I imagine so. Because most of it is currently on your person,” he says with an air of dry humor.
“Sometimes it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission, wizardboy. Now shush and enjoy the ride.”
“Fair enough. I suppose I shall.”
They don’t touch solid ground until ten minutes later, just as Featherfall is getting ready to fade. Not that Rowan was worried. She has about ten more scrolls of it in the Bag of Holding.
When they do at last land, however, it is into a place unlike any other.
The gentle, soothing glow of the moss and fungi and crystal clusters is intensified by tenfold. Color is everywhere . The stone beneath Rowan’s feet is black as night and smooth, reflecting the glow of the bioluminescence in a whimsical, wonderful way. Twisting formations of rock jut out from the ground and ceiling, creating incredible shapes that should not be possible in nature.
Almost like trees, massive mushrooms dot the underground landscape in clusters. They go on for miles and miles, appearing on outcroppings of cliffs that veer off into darkness. Paths carved by an unseen hand or other means meander through the fungal forests. The topography is almost mountainous, with not a flat rolling plain to be seen.
And those lights! Rowan never thought it would be so bright down here. The bioluminescence acts almost like a million tiny suns, all blooming in every shade imaginable.
The Underdark is magical, plain and simple.
Hells, she can feel the magic of this place. It settles on her skin, curious about these newcomers. Faerzress , it’s called, isn’t it? A remnant from the magic that formed the Underdark. Its potency creates vast ecosystems unique to their own pockets of caverns and underground tunnels. A very illuminating subject indeed—she’s always enjoyed reading about the Underdark.
Now she’s here. Standing in the middle of it. Surrounded by sights she would have never gotten to see in her old world, the touch of a magic so ancient and powerful she can taste it on her tongue as she slowly turns around to breathe it all in.
“Oh, yeah. The vibes here are exquisite. No one talk to me. Just let me take it all in for a moment.”
It’s no Feywilds, but the Underdark has definitely been on her Faerûn bucket list tour. Her excitement is creating sparks in her veins, the shadows inside her twisting and dancing as they feed off her elation. There’s so much to learn down here! So much to see!
Although…
Most denizens of the Underdark don’t take kindly to strangers from above ground just wandering into their homes slack jawed like tourists. That aside, Rowan isn’t here for an educational vacation. They have things to do. Places to find. Cures to research. Potentially.
Wyll lets out a low, impressed whistle, the first one to break the silence after Rowan’s harried vibe comment.
“I’ve been to the Underdark a handful of times before. Never in places as beautiful as this, though. How maddening to think of all the wonder that exists beneath our feet, persisting despite the darkness.”
“Better than Avernus, that’s for sure,” Karlach agrees, her eyes almost as wide as Nugget’s this morning when he was cuddling up to Rowan. One side of her mouth quirks in a smile as she takes a deep breath, similar to Rowan, and lets it out in one big sigh. “Gods, I get what you mean. About going mad. All that time in Avernus…and there is so much of the world I missed out on.”
The smile falls.
Her hand slides up to her chest, fingers splayed against the ever-bright orange glow buried in her ribcage. She takes another breath, deeper than the last, this one shuddering and nearly broken as she leans against a spiral of stone. The column creaks slightly under her weight but Karlach pays it no heed, just gazing out into the idyllic, magical scenery of the Underdark before her.
Wyll looks like he’s in physical pain. Gale as well to a certain degree, his face drawn tight in an expression of remorse as he watches Karlach stare ahead as if she’s trying to burn the view into her retinas.
Rowan glances between the three of them and feels like she’s missed a very important detail. She opens her mouth, a question dancing on the tip of her tongue, when suddenly Karlach lets out a grunt of pain and clutches at her chest harder. Sweat starts to form on her red skin. Steam drifts off the tiefling’s body as the temperature around her gets hotter—almost as hot as Rowan’s Fireball.
“Sh-shit,” Karlach hisses through gritted teeth. “Sorry. Between the fight and thinking about Avernus, the fucking engine is acting up. Dammon’s quick fix ain’t gonna be so quick unless I find more infernal metal and find him in Baldur’s Gate.”
“Do you need anything, Karlach?” Wyll asks, his voice quiet and distraught. “Water, something to squeeze, or…?”
She shakes her head. “Nah. Gimme a mo’. Just gotta…calm down, yeah? I’ll be fine. Tip top shape. Fuck.”
Another deep breath, shaking and shuddering. Rowan watches as a knot of worry twists and coils inside her, the tiefling panting and flexing her muscles. She repeats the action over and over again, breathing through her mouth and nostrils flaring with every exhale. After a couple of minutes the temperature around her has settled back to the relative normal and her skin is no longer soaked in sweat, though there is a haggardness to her usual chipper face that breaks Rowan’s heart a little.
Neither Wyll nor Gale say anything as Karlach pushes herself off of the stone column. There is an indent where her body had been. Smoke curls off of the rock as if it gathered all the heat from her skin.
She turns to Rowan, a strained and sad smile across her lips. “You, uh, are probably wondering what that was about. Wasn’t trying to hide it from you, believe me.”
She worries the frayed ends of her combat leathers between her thumb and forefinger, biting her lower lip as her eyes dart away and focus on somewhere beyond Rowan.
“I was…a soldier in the Blood War for a long fuckin’ time. One of Zariel’s best. She decided to make me even ‘better’ and installed an infernal engine in my chest—makes me run hot as hell, and fight like a devil in my own way. It’s worse outside of Avernus. One of the tieflings back at the Grove fixed it up somewhat, but not perfectly. S’why I can’t…touch anyone. I’ll burn them.”
There is an empty echo in her words. A hollowness that carves through Rowan and buries itself in her gut as Karlach’s voice rasps out, bitter and broken.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Rowan’s eyes suddenly feel very itchy and hot.
Yesterday, when she met the tiefling, that remark about not being able to shake her hand…it makes sense now. Zariel—that’s the fucking archduchess of Avernus. Karlach used to be one of her soldiers? Zariel is not known for her magnanimity and kindness. What other horrors was Karlach forced to ensure underneath the archduchess’s venom and spite, beyond that disturbing devilish construction inside her chest?
Wait.
If this infernal engine makes her run too hot to touch, then Rowan might have a momentary solution. Something that will allow her to comfort the tiefling in a small way. It’s better than nothing.
Wordlessly, she shoves her hand into the Bag of Holding and rummages around for the particular enchantment that may be of assistance. Her fingers caress smooth, cool glass and she pulls out another bottle, this one filled with a creamy liquid that almost resembles milk. She untwists the cork and pockets it, because she’s not about to commit the sin of littering on her first foray into the Underdark, and tilts her head back to chug the entire contents of the bottle.
It does not taste like moldy socks, thank the Raven Queen.
A sweetness coats her tongue, like citrus and coconut. It is cool and refreshing, spreading like ice throughout her body. She pockets the empty bottle as well and, ignoring the confused looks of Wyll and Gale, steps towards Karlach.
Her arms spread wide and she envelopes the tiefling in a hug, ignoring the panicked gasp the action elicits from Karlach’s mouth. Her skin is warm, akin to being a little too close to a space heater in a cubicle, but the elixir of fire resistance is working its way through Rowan’s bloodstream as the magic infuses her flesh. She squeezes tightly and, even though Karlach is still twice her normal size due to the elixir she downed herself, tries to fit as much of Karlach as she can into her arms.
“It’s a good thing you met me,” Rowan tells her, rubbing her scarred shoulders in slow and soothing circles. “Because I happen to know one of the smartest enchanters in Waterdeep—nay, all of Toril—who will definitely be able to figure that out. In the meantime, please accept my copious usage of potions and elixirs, and I apologize for hugging you without asking your permission.”
Slowly, as if in disbelief, she feels two very large and very toned arms slide around her. Rowan does not typically feel small. Between Halsin and elixir-enchanted Karlach, however, she’s enjoying that alien sensation.
The tiefling lets out a tiny gasping squeak, as if she’s holding back a sob and melts in Rowan’s embrace, squeezing her back almost as hard. Not too tight, however; Karlach obviously knows she’d be able to snap Rowan’s spine in half, and just rests her head on the shoulder not marred by venom.
“This—this is… thank you, Rowan,” she whispers, her voice hoarse and heavy with a grief she will never be able to understand, but can try to at least help carry it. “This is the best day. The best day.”
“Jericho’s hugs feel even better,” Rowan tells her, keeping her voice low so Wyll and Gale can’t hear. “Her boobs are great, Karlach. She made them herself. They’re the epitome of what an ample chest should feel like. And that’s high praise coming from me, because have you seen my tits? I’m cream of the crop! But trust me, Jericho’s are ten times better, and you’re going to feel them every day, because you’re coming back to Waterdeep with Gale and I. I am telling that damn wizard to seduce you instead of his dozens of aunts, his mother, and his great grandma.”
Karlach sniffles and the fabric of Rowan’s robe starts to feel somewhat wet where the tiefling is resting her head. Her arms squeeze a little tighter, the warmth fluctuating in her body to the point where it’s a little uncomfortably toasty. But Rowan can handle it. She drank an elixir of fire resistance once and tested it out on Gale’s stove when he wasn’t looking.
Why didn’t he think of this before she did? Granted, out here in the middle of nowhere it’s probably not easy to come across random elixirs and potions brewed by elite Waterdhavian alchemists. But still.
“I want a hot wizard girlfriend with great tiddies,” Karlach admits with a jerky nod, her horns poking Rowan in places horns should not poke someone.
Don’t we all? Rowan thinks to herself as she endures the uncomfortable sensations. She does not voice the thought and simply continues to hug her, pouring all the comfort and kindness she can into the gesture. It’s what she would want someone to do for her. She’s always been good at reciprocating with this kind of thing.
“You’re gonna get one, babygirl. I got you. Jericho is so hot and so are you. You’ll be the hottest tieflings in Waterdeep. And Gale’s mom will make you so many cookies.”
Another sniffle. Karlach raises her head from Rowan’s shoulders, wetness shimmering in her eyes as she looks down at her with a grateful, emotional smile. “Oh, shit,” she mumbles, removing one arm from Rowan to wipe at her eyes. “Those’re gonna be some good cookies. Gale baked some on our second night after the crash and said it was his mother’s recipe. A batch straight from her would be—”
Rowan has rounded on Gale, still clutching Karlach to her as best she can with this awkward angle.
“You made them Morena’s cookies?!” she exclaims, voice high pitched with indignant fury. “Gale, what the fuck! It took you four months to bake those for me and you baked them for these guys ON DAY TWO?”
Her wizard has taken a noticeable step back, running a hand through his hair as a nervous chuckle rumbles from his chest. “Everyone was very stressed, understandably so,” he explains slowly, eyes darting between Wyll and Karlach in a clear cry for help. “I just thought the gesture would be appreciated. The druids had the ingredients, so I—”
“I’m going to punch you,” Rowan deadpans, glowering at him with all the unbridled rage she can conjure. “After I’m done cuddling Karlach, I’m going to punch you very hard.”
Gale’s laughter is a little less nervous now, genuine amusement filtering through as he manages to form a barely visible smirk across his mouth. “Rowan, you are a woman of many talents, but the ability to punch hard is not one of them. Your slaps yesterday were more of a shock factor than anything else.”
This bastard!
“I lied. I’m going to have Karlach punch you. She is my best friend now. That lofty title once belonged to you, but you ruined it. All because of some cookies. I hope you’re happy.”
Karlach snickers, swooping Rowan back into a tight hug that emanates with joy and appreciation. How long has she gone without physical contact because of that thing in her chest? Gods, Rowan can’t imagine. This makes two people she cares for dearly with something deadly slumbering away in their ribcage. She needs to start collecting nickels or something. Wyll better not have the soul of an old god locked away in his heart to complete the trifecta.
“You heard her,” the tiefling teases, ruffling Rowan’s unruly hair with such affection it nearly knocks her off her feet. “She’s gonna get me a hot girlfriend. I’ll punch two wizards for that!”
“Or you could simply not,” Gale points out quickly, gesturing to his robust form with vivid and rapid hand gestures. “We are a very squishy breed, remember? Please do not punch a wizard.”
Wyll, shoulders shaking and hand covering his mouth, suddenly lets out a burst of laughter so rich and rowdy it’s impossible not to smile along with it. He bends over, clutching at his chest as he snorts and chuckles and whoops in pure mirth. His face creases handsomely with the laughter, his one good eye brighter from it, as if he was born with the propensity to spread joy but has found very little time to do so lately.
“Gods above and below,” he cries out, the words breaking from fits of laughter here and there. “Am I ever glad it’s the four of us paired up down here! I wouldn’t be having nearly this much fun if I’d gone to the crèche.”
Rowan scoffs, once again adopting a tone of voice and a tilt of her head that resembles a certain pale elf a little too closely. “Of course you wouldn’t. I’m a fucking delight.”
“You really are,” Karlach agrees, ruffling her hair once again and squeezing her into yet another tight, only slightly too-hot embrace. “Don’t take this the wrong way, soldier, but I’m glad Gale got sucked up into this with the rest of us. If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t have come after him, and I wouldn’t be here hugging you.”
Rowan turns her attention back to Gale, who still appears rather perturbed at the prospect of someone as strong as Karlach performing any kind of physical attack upon his very soft and vulnerable person. Wyll is still dying in his own world, overcome with laughter and lively cheer, the joy radiating from him brighter than the bioluminescence of their magical surroundings.
She smiles, soft and gentle, a far cry from the devious smirk she was wearing moments before.
“You know what? I feel the same. I got to meet you all. It’s another gift this life has given me, even if I wasn’t looking for it.”
The feather at her throat is warm. Not as warm as Karlach’s arms around her, but warm enough that she knows her goddess is listening. Thank you, Rowan thinks, her cheeks twinging with a slight ache from how hard and how much she’s smiled in the last five minutes. Gale deserves other friends, but so do I. And Karlach and Wyll are just the people I’ve always needed in my life.
There is just one problem that accompanies that epiphany.
The stakes are even higher now. Rowan can’t just concern herself with getting rid of Gale’s parasite and the Netherese blight trapped inside him. She has to focus on the others, too—they deserve her utmost attention. It’s a damn good thing she’s a stubborn bitch.
She’ll figure out a way to fix everything. Somehow.
“The fire resistance will last all day,” she tells Karlach, “and I have quite the stash of elixirs with me. Anytime you want a hug, just ask. I am very soft and very open to snuggles.” She shifts her gaze over to Gale, whose face has gone from perturbed to a similar expression to the one he wore yesterday when she was distracted by Halsin’s hotness. Interesting.
Even more interesting is the small, knowing smirk that is slowly growing on Wyll’s face as he seems to notice the strange way Gale is watching her be smothered by Karlach’s adoration.
Gods, she should have just ripped the bandages off last night and told him, repercussions be damned. It would have been better to say the words and have them air out between them rather than swallow them like razors, tasting blood in her mouth as they tore her throat into raw ribbons.
Who knows when she’ll have another chance?
“The same goes for you two, you know,” Rowan calls out to Wyll and Gale, ignoring the tearing pain in her stomach as the razors claw and shred their way through her. “Hugs for everyone. Let me soothe you with my softness.”
Gale makes a choked whining sound in the back of his throat that sounds almost like he is slowly dying.
Wyll raises one eyebrow, that crooked smirk deepening as he shakes his head. “I shall keep the offer in mind, Rowan, but I fear I must decline. Perhaps next time.”
When our resident wizard doesn’t appear to be slowly suffocating, is the silent implication.
Rowan grins at them both as Karlach gives her one final squeeze before reluctantly releasing her from her sizzling clutches. The fabric of her robes are a little singed now in addition to the spider venom that ate through part of the shoulder. Oh well. She probably has a Mending scroll in her bag somewhere. Or Gale could fix it. She’s not too worried.
“Thank you,” Karlach says to her once more, her fiery eyes blazing with a gentle gratitude that’s wonderful and warm. “You didn’t have to that for me, and I—”
YOU HAVE COME.
A symphony of voices bursts through Rowan’s mind, whispering and yelling all at once. She cries out and clutches at her head not out of pain but surprise, the words echoing and ringing unexpectedly.
FOLLOW. FIND. SPEAK.
There is no aggression in the command. A sense of urgency, perhaps; a harried, flustered cadence to the whispers and cries as the syllables dance around her head almost like a melody. She blinks, vision swirling with a sudden burst of yellow and white, the clusters of fungi around them shaking oddly. Motes of something are wafting off their colorful surfaces like puffs of snow, floating around in the stagnant underground air.
Her throat feels dry.
Her eyes are watering.
It is suddenly difficult to breathe.
She coughs, waving at the yellow and white puffs about her face in an attempt to smack them away. Spores? Great. Fantastic. Breathing in a gulp of mushroom spores is definitely a smart thing to do.
Rowan turns her attention to her companions who are all having similar reactions, holding their heads with one hand and coughing and sputtering as they try and bat away the spores with the other. Only Pip and Tara seem unaffected and unphased—they’ve been prowling and lurking about the perimeter of where they landed from above, sniffing and exploring everything curiously.
“Y-y’all hear those voices?” she calls out in a stutter.
FOLLOW. HURRY. THE PATH IS SAFE.
Before anyone can answer, the spores begin to drift in a certain direction, coalescing thickly into a large mass of shimmering creamy yellow. It lingers for a moment, floating as a foggy cloud, before slowly beginning to amble along the ground.
She has a distinct feeling of someone watching them.
Multiple someones. It’s not…hostile. It’s not threatening. Again, there’s just that sense of desperate urgency and hopeful curiosity that strikes something in her soul and seeps into her bones.
The
faerzress
. Is that what this is? Something is reaching out to them using the inherent magic of the Underdark. Something that can communicate telepathically. It’s not a mind flayer parasite because she can hear it too.
Rowan purses her lips as her mind rapidly begins to sort through everything she’s read in the last six months to perhaps find the answer.
Karlach shifts uncomfortably and looks out to the cloud of spores. It’s moving incredibly slow, as if waiting for them. “What should we do?”
“In my experience,” Wyll chokes out, wiping at his eye and hacking into his hand as he struggles to regain his composure. “Following strange voices into the dark leads to more trouble than it’s worth.”
Gale lets out a sharp intake of breath and snaps his fingers, pointing to the creeping mass of spores as they pass beneath a cluster of blue crystals hanging from the jagged ceiling. The creamy yellow turns to bright cyan for a moment, the color rippling with a magical vibrance that feels almost like a dream.
“Myconids!” he exclaims, his voice brimming with excitement. “I believe we’ve just been contacted by myconids! There must be a colony nearby!”
Show off. Rowan had been so close to coming to that conclusion on her own. Leave it to Gale to steal her thunder.
Karlach does not appear impressed with the information “The fuck are myconids?”
“A race of fungal beings,” Gale explains. “They’re peaceful. Usually the colonies have an aversion to strangers, but…that was a cry for help, was it not? We should follow the spores.”
“What if this is a trap of some kind?” Wyll points out. The cloud is getting further and further away, the brilliance and luminance of the rippling spores slowly starting to fade as they disappear into the darker corners of the Underdark landscape. “Why would a colony of myconids appeal to us for assistance?”
Gale shrugs. He dusts his robes off and straightens his collar, running his fingers through his messy hair quickly as if a one-time comb through will fix the damage the fall through the abyss did. “Only one way to find out,” he says, voice strung up with a confidence Rowan recalls from their various lessons on magic. Her wizard is in his element. Arbitrary bits of knowledge that eventually come in handy are his forte. And hers.
We really are quite a pair , she thinks as Gale begins to make his way down the winding, somewhat treacherous path in the direction of the myconid spore cloud. If only I wasn’t so afraid of ruining what we already have.
Rowan’s legs are killing her.
She doesn’t think she’s walked this much in her entire life, either this one or the previous one.
The last couple hours have been a lot, to put it simply.
It was indeed a myconid colony that was communicating with them. Without the cloud of spores to guide them, Rowan and her companions would have gotten hopelessly lost amongst the Underdark’s precarious twists and turns. She might have been reborn in the Shadowfell but the atmosphere of this strange, unique underground world was entirely out of her purview.
At least her Dancing Lights provided somewhat of a comfort.
When they had finally reached the myconid colony—a fascinating, colorful mini ecosystem of massive mushrooms and crystal clear pools of water glittering with
faerzress
—everyone was a little on edge for what to expect. Was it actually a trap? An ambush? Did they just do something incredibly, insanely stupid and would probably deserve whatever wicked end they were about to meet?
Thankfully it was nothing of the sort.
The colony’s numbers had been decimated. Slaughtered mercilessly by a group of duergar seemingly embroiled in nefarious deeds across the Ebonlake, the colony’s Sovereign, Spaw, had beseeched them for help and revenge. The myconids had sensed their battle with the phase spider above, evidently—the aftershocks of it had ripples through the fungus they were connected to.
Wyll had immediately promised his aid and Karlach, never far behind the dashing swordsman, had not hesitated either.
Gale and Rowan promised their assistance as well, even though the thought of throwing down with a bunch of vicious thugs didn’t appeal to her very much, until their exploration of the colony’s idyllic grotto led them in an entirely different direction.
A chance to be rid of the illithid tadpole once and for all.
It was happenstance. The hobgoblin trader, Blurg, had been delighted by the arrival of new explorers of the Underdark. A member of the Society of Brilliance, he had explicit permission from Spaw to remain in the grotto and study the Underdark’s flora and fauna as long as he provided supplies and aid to the myconids.
One thing led to another. Rowan had been far too engrossed with the vivid colors and unique, wondrous landscape of the grotto, the air so fresh and lively. She hadn’t been listening to Gale’s conversation with the trader, focusing instead on watching the dozens of myconids silently going about their business and planting spores in the mutilated corpses of dead duergar.
So when a fucking mind flayer had appeared out of nowhere, it should have been a surprise to no one that she immediately conjured a Fireball in her hand.
Only by the grace of Karlach’s impressive reflexes did the spell not get thrown in the mind flayer’s direction, the tiefling immediately clamping down on Rowan’s hands and fizzling out the flames with her fists.
The concept of a friendly mind flayer was utterly mindboggling. Omeluum was nothing like the disturbing, brain-hungry monsters Volo described in his book and what little glimpses Gale and everyone else had offered during their time on the nautiloid. Omeluum was patient. Kind, almost. Their hunger was for knowledge more than anything—and upon learning that the parasites buried in her friends’ heads were all shielded with an unknown magic that was key to preventing them from becoming mind flayers themselves, Omeluum had been more than happy to offer their assistance. Extraction would not be possible for them, but an alchemical tincture capable of rendering the parasite useless would be.
So, here Rowan is.
Standing at the precipice of a sheer cliff, Gale at her side, as they both gaze into the far distance at the towering building shrouded in misty shadow. Pip is on her shoulder; Tara on his. Wyll and Karlach did not come with, choosing to investigate the village where the massacre began on the coast of the massive Ebonlake.
Some fresh stalks of Tongue of Madness and Tinmask spores are all I require, Omeluum had informed them all in their minds, utilizing telepathy much like the myconids did. Lenore should have some in her tower. It was empty for quite some time but less than a tenday ago, the lights began to shine once more, so perhaps she has returned from whatever journey she previously embarked on.
A cleric of Mystra is yet another thing Rowan did not expect to find in the Underdark but, according to Blurg and Omeluum, she was another member of their Society of Brilliance. Rowan doesn’t know how to feel about infiltrating a mage’s tower that belongs to someone so inherently intertwined with the goddess that abandoned Gale, even if it is to possibly get rid of the worm in his head.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asks him quietly, wringing her hands on the ends of her robes. “I can go by myself if you’d rather hang back.”
He has a strange look in his eyes as he looks out towards the tower. The eerily placid waters of the Ebonlake surround it like a dark mirror from where it rises on a tiny peninsula in the gloom of the Underdark. There are dozens of small lights blinking from where it stands like a sentry, looming over everything in its horizon. Lines of bright blue and purple criss cross and intersect along the walls, which must be what Omeluum was referring to when they mentioned Lenore was home once again.
Gale’s hand reaches up and fiddles with the earring he wears. A nervous habit, she knows. The veins beneath his eyes and stretching down his face seem more pronounced in the lighting of the bioluminescence of this place. The expression he wears is sallow; wan. There is a paleness to him that worries her, as if he’s one breath away from getting sick and passing out or something.
Nonetheless, he shakes his head.
“I’ll be fine,” Gale insists in a voice that very much says the opposite. “If this Lenore is a cleric of my goddess, she should be more than willing to lend a sympathetic ear to my plight. Besides, I am not without my own charms. You of all people should be very aware of this.”
Oh, is she ever. It’s hard to believe she made that joke just this morning—it feels like it was a lifetime ago with everything that’s happened since. But he really ought to avoid changing the subject to his own obvious emotional turmoil by pulling whatever this shit is.
Why must he make it so easy to fall into a chasm bordering dangerously on flirtation with no way to crawl back out?
Rowan swallows razors once again, her throat bloodied and raw as she sighs with an exasperation only Gale can instill within her.
“Does this mean you’re about to practice some of that ‘charm’ on me right now, Mr. Dekarios?”
“I could. However, you must swear to not swoon too much. I tend to have that effect on people.”
Rowan’s cheeks grow warm as she shrinks beneath Gale’s sudden impish grin, delight dancing in his eyes.
“I don’t swoon,” she mumbles, feeling as though Karlach is wrapped around her once again.
“Hm? Hm.” Gale taps his finger to the side of his head as if deep in thought, his grin getting wider and more sincere. “I beg to differ. Is that not what you did last night when I asked you to dance? I distinctly recall you sighing oh-so-wistfully the moment I held you in my arms. Or are you going to tell me that, too, was naught but a pleasant dream?”
This motherfucker.
If he wants to play around like that, she can do it even better .
Rowan’s heart thunders in her chest as she pulls out a bottle from her Bag of Holding. The liquid sloshing around is almost as red as blood and when she pops the cork off, the aroma wafting from it has a distinct cinnamon appeal. She avoids his confused blinking and starts to chug the contents without warning, the warm and fiery taste of spices stinging her tongue with every swallow. Damn, she needs to apologize to Karlach. That’s two elixirs that haven’t tasted like moldy socks to her.
“Can you cast Fly on me right now, or do I need to use a scroll?” she asks Gale, stretching her fingers out as a surge of strength bubbles up within her and spreads throughout her limbs. She can feel the enchantment replacing the fire resistance. It’s a startling, fascinating sensation, like her arms and legs are suddenly packed with muscle and a vigor fills her veins like quicksilver.
“I…pardon?”
All trace of flirtatious humor has disappeared from Gale’s eyes as he just stares at her, completely baffled.
“We need to get to the tower, right?” Rowan gestures towards the arcane beacon in the dusky depths of the Underdark, so annoyingly far away. The path Omeluum and Blurg told them to take would be fraught with danger, they’d warned. Minotaurs, bulettes, drow scouts lurking in the shadows, and the gods know what else. “This will be the easiest way. I don’t really feel like walking into an ambush, do you?”
Even if the path they were instructed to follow would lead them to a Selûnite outpost. Supposedly, it’s the route buried beneath the shattered sanctum of the moon goddess the goblins had destroyed. Rowan would love to explore it eventually but right now, she just wants to get to the stupid tower and find the stupid mushrooms.
And make Gale eat his stupid words.
“I can cast Fly,” the wizard in question admits with a slow nod. “But only on one person. Whatever trick do you have up your sleeve? What does Fly have to do with whatever potion you just drank?”
She shrugs nonchalantly.
“Cast it on me and I’ll show you.”
Are you about to do what I think yer gonna do, boss? Pip asks through their mental bond, cocking their head inquisitively as Gale mutters something under his breath and begins to weave his hands together to cast the spell.
Rowan nods, a short bob of the head.
Oh yeah. Wizardboy is going to regret that “swoon” comment big time.
Violet and blue light cascades around Gale’s fingers. The Netherese blight glows beneath his skin as he grumbles the incantation, reaching forward and placing his hand on Rowan’s arm. The magic leaps from him and coils around her, the threads of the Weave binding into her skin and pouring its essence into her. She is somewhat disappointed that a giant pair of wings doesn’t suddenly burst from her back and spread out in enchanting magnificence. It’s not necessary but it would have been fucking cool.
Gale pulls his hand away from her, his fingers brushing against her skin for a beat too long. He clears his throat and holds his head a little higher, not meeting her eyes as he focuses his attention somewhere beyond her periphery.
“There, the spell is cast. Are you going to soar off without me? I promise I will be fine; I’d rather join you and deal with whomever lingers in that tower than be alone in—”
His sentence is cut off with an abrupt shout as Rowan rushes forward and wraps her arms around him. The elixir-granted strength flowing through her veins makes it disturbingly easy to sweep him off his feet and scoop him up like a sack of potatoes. She cradling his entire body in her arms, one hand under the back of his head and the other supporting him underneath his legs. Tara also lets out a noise of complaint as she struggles to find purchase between Gale’s shoulder smooshed up against Rowan’s stomach, the tressym’s fur bristling. Oops. She should have warned Tara. But, alas, this is a sacrifice she is willing to make.
“Better hold on tight, Gale,” Rowan tells him as she adjusts him in her arms, bending her knees. He’s as light as a feather. It feels like she’s just holding air. The angle is the worst thing about it, because with both of their sizes, there is no feasible way to avoid smothering his face somewhat with her chest.
Especially when she leaps off of the edge of the chasm.
Instead of plummeting into the darkness below, however, the flight granted to her by Gale’s spell carries her into the air, her body soaring upwards in an arc as her wizard shouts again and digs his fingers into the folds of her robe. He flails only a little, more out of shock than anything. Rowan’s laugh rings out through the strange shadowed mist of the Underdark as she glides along, an almost witchlike cackle to it.
“Who’s swooning now?!” she demands, grinning wildly when she glances down to look at Gale’s face. His eyes are wide, his mouth parted in an “o” of shock, cheeks turning pinker by the moment. He clings to her as she flies towards the tower, over the jagged paths and twisting columns of stone, his head nestled against her chest as he just looks up at her in astonishment.
“R-Rowan,” he begins, stammering her name out as if it’s the first word he’s ever spoken. “R-Rowan, this is…!”
“Shhh. No words are needed. I know I just granted about three separate fantasies of yours. Everyone should be carried like a princess at least once in their life!” She laughs again, wild and free and perhaps just a little bit mad. “Isn’t it awesome?”
It sure fucking is for her.
Not just holding Gale, although that’s a bonus.
Flying is wonderful . It’s nothing like the jolt of adrenaline she gets from Misty Step. The wind is at her back, the air is beneath her feet, and she is one with the sky! Er, Underdark sky. Ceiling? However one would refer to it.
Why has she never done this before? Not even when they were in Waterdeep and it was far easier for Gale to conjure such magic! Gods, she could do this every day and never tire of it! It’s different from Featherfall—that spell had just allowed it so they floated down, but this? This, she has complete and utter control over, and just with a mere thought she can propel herself forward or go higher in the air if she so wished.
Pip suddenly launches themselves from her shoulder and spreads their wings, soaring next to her as Rowan pirouettes in the air and brings Gale closer to her. The noise he makes cannot be categorized, not even when Tara flicks her tail in his face and leaps off of him to join Pip. The two familiars race around one another in the shadows, illuminated only slightly as the tower gets closer into view, veins of glowing arcane light running up and down its stony surface.
“Rowan,” Gale says again, her name a whisper upon his lips as he reaches a hand up and grasps a fistful of fabric around her collar. He has such a strange, intense look on his face. And that gravelly, almost growl-like tone of voice he’s using…
She shivers as she soars through the sky, swallowing thickly.
“Y-yeah?” she tries not to bite her lip as she nods down at him, the grin faltering ever so slightly.
“You win,” he admits in a hushed murmur, turning his head slightly. The pink on his cheeks is darker and redder now, especially when she adjusts him once more in her arms and it causes him to brush against the swell of her chest when she leans forward eagerly.
This was a dangerous idea.
Because instead of flying towards the tower for something that is incredibly important to his survival, Rowan wants nothing more than to yank Gale’s head up and drown herself in his mouth.
The tether between them is bending so close to a breaking point. She can feel it. Something is going to give. What started last night beneath the stars is going to finish before the day is done.
She doesn’t know if it’s a terrifying realization or not.
Rowan finds herself unable to respond, her tongue twisted and voice vanished for the time being. She simply schools her face into an expression of passive, tempered calm and points herself in the direction of the tower. With the angle she’s flying at she can make out a balcony of sorts jutting out from one of the many floors obscured within its walls. That should be as fine a place as any to land, right?
But, also, if this Lenore is anything like Gale…
The tower will have defenses in place to ward off unwanted visitors.
Rowan’s common sense kicks in, pushing away the waves of panicky longing and the very dumb desire to risk everything for a kiss in the middle of the air. She scans the area around the tower—diamond-shaped turrets of some kind dot the rocky landscape, glowing a dull cyan. There is a thrum of magic coming from the tower proper for sure but oddly enough, she can’t sense any active spells meant to abjure or prevent strangers from entering the grounds.
In fact, the place looks suspiciously abandoned. There was clearly a garden here once considering all the broken pots and wheelbarrows strewn about, but the foliage is long dead and the stairs leading up to the tower appear cracked and in severe disrepair.
If the tower’s master had truly returned, wouldn’t it be a little more put together than this?
Rowan flies closer, fully within a spell-firing range. The turrets remain silent and inactive, the cyan glow not even blinking. Braziers hang from the balcony she’s aiming towards, alight with a blue flame that’s just a little darker than the turrets’ arcane sigils. They barely flicker when she delicately lands with a twirl, her robes fluttering about and feet touching down on the smooth marble gently.
Releasing Gale is rather difficult.
She enjoyed carrying him like that far too much. She could make it a habit if she really wanted to, though she’s not sure he would feel the same way.
“Thank you for flying with Air Rowan,” she says in a very fucking normal voice even though her heart hasn’t stopping pounding since she swept him up in her arms. “Please ensure all belongings have been removed before exiting the vehicle.”
He lets out a breathless, rasping laugh as he grips the side of the balcony, shaking his head and running a shaky hand through his hair. “Next time, a word of warning would be appreciated. I almost thought you were going to drag us down into the Lowerdark.”
“‘Next time,’ eh? You wanna have another go at it?”
“I would not be opposed to it, no.”
The admission makes her face feel grossly hot.
She turns away, facing the wooden door cutting them off from the tower’s interior. It’s a fine work of craftsmanship, that’s for sure. She raises a hand and cautiously places it against the heavy oak surface, closing her eyes as she lets the shadows within her stretch and fill the hollow spaces between her bones.
It’s unlocked. She can’t sense a single trace of magic meant to keep someone out.
Oh, there’s magic brimming within the stones of the tower—spells old and worn, gasping for breath as they slowly die and fade. A final swan song swirls about the part of her that is reaching out to sense the lingering arcane rituals. And something from above that almost seems to stand guard, paying no heed to the denizens below, as if it's waiting for an unsuspecting fool to wander into its direct territory.
But the precautions she’s used to in Gale’s tower? The wards and sigils etched and woven into its very foundation, providing a constant and steady stream of enchantments that make the impossible a fond memory?
None of that is here. The lights are on but nobody's home. Even if Lenore truly had returned to this place, it should feel more…alive. Not this empty, dull and desolate sense that something is broken, as if the tower itself mourns.
She shivers.
Whatever the case, they should find the stupid mushrooms and get out of here. Something fishy is going on and she doesn’t want to linger.
“Pip, Tara?” she calls out into the gloomy mist, her voice echoing a little too loudly. Well, if there really is someone within the tower, they definitely heard that.
The two familiars emerge from the inky shadows, wings fluttering and eyes eerily bright in the thick darkness. Both land with all the grace of a dancer on the edge of the balcony, Tara rubbing her head against Gale’s arm as he continues to lean against it.
Pip locks eyes with her, head bobbing in interest. “Yeah, boss?”
“Would you two mind scouting this place out?” Rowan asks. “I think someone was here, but it doesn’t feel like it was that cleric, Lenore.”
Her familiar nods. “On it, boss. Youse can always count on me!” They take off without waiting for any more instructions, soaring back into the shadows and disappearing from view.
“I don’t suppose you would be willing to join them, Tara?” Gale asks the tressym, giving her a pleading look. “Considering how you forced me to part with so many books this morning.”
“I say, sir, you are so dreadfully whiny after one week without your creature comforts,” Tara huffs, rolling her yellow eyes goodnaturedly. She stretches long and hard, fluffing up her wings and giving him a resolute nod. “But I shall do as you ask. Miss Rowan may be on to something. Stay on this floor, will you? Ser Pip and I will return if we discover anything of a dubious nature.”
She hops off of the balcony with an agile leap, following suit with Pip and vanishing into the murky darkness around the tower.
Rowan faces the door once again and gives it an experimental push, mindful of the enhanced strength coursing through her from the elixir. It swings open slowly, creaking on hinges that have not been oiled in years, a plume of dust falling into her face. She sneezes and waves the particles away—hoping it’s not actually another case of myconid spores—and sticks her head inside the chamber the door was hiding.
It’s a library.
One in total ruin, but a library nonetheless.
The walls are lined with shelves not unlike Gale’s library back in Waterdeep. Cobwebs cover the spines of dusty tomes and she can’t help but shutter in revulsion at the site. Worn curtains are drawn over windows, heavy with neglect and nearly threadbare. Desks are piled high with haphazard collections of scrolls and even more books, along with wadded up bundles of what looks like clothing. Paintings and portraits of fantastic scenes and austere, unsmiling mages hang between bookshelves. Candles melted into a puddle of unseemly wax drip over the sides of shelves and desks, congealing into one big mess. There is a bed in one corner of the room, the sheets ripped by some creature, the downy feathers that had once occupied the plush pillows strewn about the stained covers.
She almost expects a ridiculous amount of statues and figurines depicting the goddess of all magic. Yet, she finds none as she surveys the room pensively. There is no glaringly obvious imagery of Mystra to be found. It is as though the goddess has abandoned this place.
Just as she abandoned Gale.
There is a distinct musty aroma to the library, incredibly so. Like rotting parchment and stagnant air. Just another sign that this place has not been cared for in some time, because no self-respecting mage would forgo tidying the place up upon returning to their tower. No self-respecting mage would allow this decaying dilapidation to get this bad in the first place.
In the very center of the library is a cylindrical domed chamber of some sort. It’s the only source of light in the room, pulsing with that dull cyan glow she spied on the turrets outside. Sigils, beautiful and elegant, are carved into the floor of the chamber. The glass surrounding it goes from the floor to the ceiling and Rowan wonders for a moment if it’s some kind of magical elevator. It would make sense. This tower is much larger than Gale’s and not nearly as compact.
“I feel personally offended by the state of this library,” Gale says with some disdain from over Rowan’s shoulder, joining her in peering into the room. “Who would let it fall into such disrepair?
“Lenore, apparently.”
Rowan steps into the library and summons some motes of her Dancing Lights, spreading them throughout the room as she further inspects every corner. There are empty silver plates on a table next to the bed but no sign that someone has eaten food recently. The inkwells on every desk have run dry, the quills accompanying them as brittle as glass.
It is as if the world forgot about this eerie, silent library, tucked away in some insignificant corner of the Underdark. It’s…sad. A moment trapped in time, pained and full of an aching grief.
A stack of parchment placed neatly on the largest desk in the library catches her eye. The edges are crisp and neat though the paper is yellowed, and the ink has faded somewhat. The writing has an elegant flourish to it, one that reminds her of Gale’s hand, and Rowan finds herself drawn towards it enough to pick up the piece on top and begin to read.
It’s a letter.
A poignant, descriptive one written from someone named Yrre, detailing various accolades they thrust upon Lenore and her research. Rowan puts it down and picks up the one below it, scanning the contents quickly—it’s much like the first, only a bit more flirtatious almost, with a cheeky cadence to the writing towards the end.
She stops reading by the time she gets to the tenth letter in the stack, though that’s not even half of the collection. All of them are penned by this Yrre, conveying deep feelings of admiration and affection to Lenore, begging her to collaborate in her research with them.
They were in love, Rowan realizes as she puts the letters back exactly as she found them. That much is obvious from Yrre’s correspondence even without Lenore’s replies. Shame and guilt flare up within her. Even if Lenore isn’t home, it’s in horrible taste to just pilfer through her personal items and read what was clearly a private exchange.
She’s about to turn around and see what Gale is up to when something else catches her eye. A small leatherbound book, its spine bearing no title and its cover bearing a familiar starburst design. In faded text the words 'L. De Hurst' are etched in silver beneath the starburst. Her curiosity is killing her. She shouldn’t. She really, really shouldn’t.
She does anyway.
When Rowan flips the book open and ruffles through the pages, it becomes evident immediately that this is Lenore’s diary. Crisp cursive fills its pages, detailing the daily struggles of the cleric. She was down here studying the magical properties of the Underdark as Blurg and Omeluum had said, with a focus on the effects of sussur bark and blooms. It’s fascinating, if a tad morose in some parts, as the further the entries continue the more frustrated and lonely Lenore seems. The last entry dates back about ten years.
Who would have thought, three years ago, that I would start a diary - not a research journal, but a real diary. I guess when every soul is more likely to kill you than converse with you, talking to a book starts making sense. And who would have thought, three years ago, that I would be called back to Baldur's Gate to confer with the other clerics of Mystra, right at the apex of my studies: I have all the pieces, but I have barely started my treatise. No matter. I will take my ring with me, to show them a glimpse of the possibilities. I will leave you, my dear book, here, together with the rest of my research, waiting to be finished. I should be back before next Ches.
- L.D.H.
Rowan puts the diary back down. A perfect rectangle is visible within the thick layer of dust where it had been resting for ten years, making it relatively simple to return it exactly to its decade-long grave.
Her heart feels heavy. Lenore is most certainly dead, isn’t she? The tower knows. It knows, and that’s why there’s such an oppressive feel to this place, because the magic mourns its forgotten master as the spells slowly lose their spirit.
Her eyes are burning. Does Yrre know? They loved her, didn’t they? Were they with her when she passed, in Baldur’s Gate or perhaps some distant tomb unknown by the rest of the world?
Or had Lenore been alone?
Just like Rowan.
Just like Rowan had been when the crown of glass struck through her skull and the back of her throat.
Alone.
“Rowan?”
Gale’s hand is on her shoulder, his touch light and gentle as his voice murmurs her name. So softly. So quietly. Like a prayer. Like so many prayers Lenore must have whispered into the night to her silent goddess, wasting away to the curse of loneliness that was slowly driving her mad.
Rowan startles and spins around, blinking at Gale with blurry eyes. Her cheeks are wet. She’s crying. Why is she crying? Why is she crying for sad, lonely Lenore, whose beloved Yrre wrote to her almost every fucking day that she was down here?
She wipes at her eyes, the taste of salt leaking between her lips as she takes in a deep breath. “S-Sorry,” she mumbles, finding it impossible to meet Gale’s concerned gaze. “It’s just…Lenore. She was so loved, Gale. She was so loved and yet…so alone.”
Had she been so loved in her old life, when she answered to a different name and loathed her reflection?
Had she been so loved as she sat in the wreckage of her car, trapped by shards of glass and drowning in her own blood and bile?
Gale glances to the piles of letters and the diary Rowan has just finished rifling through. He frowns, his hand on her shoulder sliding down until he’s now cradling her hand in his, threading his fingers together with hers tightly. So tightly.
“She’s not coming back to her tower, is she?” he asks, an aura of dismal understanding laced in his words.
Rowan shakes her head. “I don’t think so. She left for Baldur’s Gate a decade ago. Since she never returned, she’s probably…”
Gone.
She can’t bring herself to say it out loud. Her skin suddenly feels too tight for her body. Her mind suddenly feels not entirely her own. She is adrift. Lost at sea. But Gale’s hand in hers is an anchor, pulling her back to reality, as his thumb caresses the top of her hand. He tugs her forward a bit and numbly, she lets him—until she’s pressed against him, the beat of his heart soothing and melodic as he wraps his other arm around her waist and holds her gently.
His lips brush against her ear, warm and soft.
“You’re thinking about when you died, aren’t you?”
Damn him. Damn him for being so sickeningly perceptive sometimes.
“Yeah,” she admits, trying not to give in and bury her face against his chest. Her breathing is controlled. Slow and steady. She is fine. She is alive. She is here with him, in this world her soul was meant for, in this time and place that allowed her to meet him.
To study with him.
To fall in love with him.
His chest rumbles as he speaks with a vibrato that is terribly pleasing to her brain. “Do you want to talk about it? Do not feel pressured to do so if you’re uncomfortable. I suppose I just…want you to know that I am always here to listen, Rowan.” His chin rests atop her head, enfolding her even further into an embrace as he squeezes her hand.
She loves him. Fuck, she loves him so much. How dare he? How dare he be so kind, and genuine, and so fucking perfect ?
Rowan closes her eyes as she focuses on the beat of his heart.
She finds herself breathing in the same rhythm, exhaling every time she hears the pulsing tempo and feels the oscillation deep inside her own chest.
“Dying…hurt,” she says lamely, because honestly, she’s not sure what she wants to say about those agonizing moments. “I was so alone. So scared. Sometimes I swear I can still feel glass in my skull—in my eyes, i-in the back of my throat. But then it wasn’t scary. And I wasn’t alone. And there was darkness everywhere, and I was so safe, Gale. So…loved. By the Raven Queen.”
She had never been so loved before, except by a cat she left behind in an apartment with a sink full of dishes and laundry still needing to be folded.
“Lenore had someone,” Rowan continues, Yrre’s opulent and ostentatious handwriting glaringly bright in her mind’s eye. “And I think that’s what hurts me the most. She had someone who loved her so much, someone who wrote to her every day and waxed poetic and poured their entire soul into every letter and—and…”
No, this isn’t how she wanted to tell him. This isn’t how the tether was supposed to break. This isn’t how any of this was supposed to go.
But here she is.
The tether is no longer bending.
It has snapped in two, and with it, the razors she swallowed are crawling back up her throat for vengeance.
“I’m not the kind of person people fall in love with, Gale.”
Stop talking. Stop telling him like this. Laugh, smile, scream, joke, tell him you didn’t mean it, tell him you weren’t thinking before you spoke. Not like this. Not like this.
“I didn’t have someone before I died,” Rowan whispers against his chest, every syllable a knife to her tongue and a suckerpunch to her gut that she cannot stop. “And sometimes I’m terrified I never will. That who I am, how I act, it all makes me…impossible to care for. Not in the way Yrre cared for Lenore.”
Poor, lonely Lenore.
That could be Rowan someday. Or it could have been Rowan in the life she lived before Faerûn, wasting away in a tower of her own, drinking in the shadows and dust as her heart withered away and tears were shed on a cold, stale pillow.
“ Rowan ,” Gale says, her name both wretched and wonderful as it escapes his mouth in a tumble. “Rowan, sweetheart, look at me.”
She does.
Against her better judgment, she does.
She withdraws her face from the safety of his chest and tilts her head up, breath caught in the silent screams clawing away at her throat. Gale is so calm. So soothing as he gazes down at her, the hand that was holding hers slipping away from her fingers as he brings it up to cradle her cheek. She loves his eyes. His beautiful, gentle eyes, always full of warmth and kindness whenever he looks at her. Never frustration. Never contempt. Never any of the things her friends would try to hide after she told them the truth, wearing a mask to conceal all their disgust and horror.
I love you.
Those three words were her ending in her old life.
But even so, they led to this strange new beginning.
“How could you say things like that about yourself?” Gale whispers, the calloused pad of his thumb stroking the wet trail her sparse tears had made moments before. “Don’t you understand the joy you have brought into my life for these past six months? Don’t you know how—how happy I am to have you by my side?”
Her breath hitches.
Her heart is a roiling tempest as it sobs inside her chest, begging, waiting, wanting, hoping .
The arm around her waist tightens. The hand cradling her cheek pulls her head closer, tilting it higher until she can see the darkness churning sluggishly in the scarred veins beneath his eye. The shadows she has given him. The armor she’s crafted, unwillingly and unknowingly, that now serves as perhaps the only thing protecting him from the monsters that have made a home inside him.
“You breathe a new life into me, Rowan,” Gale tells her, sweet and soft and silken. “ I care for you. You are so loved, my beautiful, wonderful sorcerer. By myself, by your goddess, by everyone whose lives you’ve touched and changed for the better. I have been made whole, made anew because of your existence.”
His hand slides down, the palm cupping her chin as his thumb brushes against her lower lip. His touch is a phantom. His warmth is a dream from which she doesn’t want to wake up. She shivers, staring up at him as her mouth parts ever so slightly, disbelief and desperation biting into her throat like a rabid dog.
“You’re very special to me,” he murmurs, and there is a palpable ache in his voice that she will remember even when she is ancient and has forgotten her own name. His thumb traces the swell of her lip, the other fingers splayed out across her cheek trembling ever slightly as he leans forward so that the bridge of his nose brushes against hers. “I’m in love with you, Rowan.”
Rowan feels faint.
Finally. Finally finally finally FINALLY.
Finally, she can say the words she’s been clutching like daggers behind her back until they’ve dug into her spine and fileted her before anyone who cares to give her a second glance.
“Gale,” she breathes, his name a balm for her weary soul.
Her arms raise and slide around his neck, burying her fingers in the velveteen texture of his hair.
“I love you,” Rowan tells him, her voice breaking on that last syllable, a part of her still insisting that this second chance has just been one long fever dream and she’s still choking on her own blood in a wrecked car somewhere on the side of a desolate highway. “I-I love you. I love you so much.”
The world ends and begins in the span one one second as Gale proves to her that this is tangible, messy, extraordinary reality.
The thumb on her lips is replaced with his mouth, hot and pliant and surging forward with a vigor that sends electricity coursing through her veins. The kiss is everything. It is six months’ worth of stolen glances and shy smiles, of laughter shared over candlelight as they read in their respective corners. Of fingers threaded together, his hands grasping her wrists as he moves her through the motions of a spell. It is dancing beneath the stars, cooking dinner together, teasing one another with a relentless adoration bordering on devotion.
It is everything.
The kiss that never happened is now the kiss that is happening right now, and Rowan feels as if she has ascended.
The empty, hollow spaces between too much and not enough are beginning to fill with something that is just right.
Gale’s lips are warmer than his hands, fierce and without mercy as he devours her. His beard rubs against her face, the friction ticklish and scratchy. The electricity shooting through her travels downard, getting hotter and brighter with every inch, and Rowan hears herself make a sound somewhere between a sigh and a whimper as she goes limp against him.
When she feels the wet, thick muscle of his tongue dart past his lips and slide against her own coyly, she almost dies again. She tugs on his hair, tilting her head and nodding into the kiss so hard she nearly gives herself whiplash, parting her lips. Gale groans and slips his tongue into her mouth, tangling it with her own, the taste of him unbridled and unfathomable. Cinnamon and cloves. Sugar and sea salt.
Magic—both of their magic, the aurora of his Weave and the darkness of her shadows bursts into her mouth. She tries to gasp, to make a noise, to say his name, but everything is swallowed up by Gale’s tongue wreaking havoc inside her mouth as the hand cupping her cheek disappears. Rowan feels him suddenly grasp her waist, his hands dangerously close to the curves of her ass as he spins her around with a tenacity that makes her legs wobble.
She is on fire .
Hungry, starved, yearning for nothing but Gale, willing to burn herself to cinders until she’s had all of him.
Gale guides her to the desk, his movements slow and gentle even as his frantic kisses drive her to the point of madness. He pulls away from her, a thick line of saliva dangling between their panting, swollen lips as they both take shuddering breaths, and growls an incantation she’s never heard before.
The fluttering rustle of pages being scattered about is all she needs to hear to know he’s completely cleared the desk off with a spell she’s fairly certain he just crafted in the inhale he took between kisses.
And then Gale is lifting her onto the desk, pushing her down with a tender insistence as his mouth captures hers once more, crawling on top of her. His legs straddle her on either side, his hair falling into her face as he towers over her. She grips his hair harder, wanting nothing more than to pull it free from the updo and let it roll over his shoulders in waves, whimpering softly into the storm that is their tongues and lips moving against one another over and over again.
The desk creaks beneath their weight.
Her back digs into the hard, wooden surface.
But the only thing that matters is Gale. Gale, his hands so steady as he squeezes her waist. Gale, his mouth so sweet and hot as his tongue fully embraces the greedy thing that it is and licks her lips as if she were coated in honey.
Gale Dekarios, the man she’s been in love with for nearly half a year, kissing her like he will be doomed to an eternity of nothingness if he does not.
Rowan is dizzy. Floating. Unattached and flying through the shadows of the Underdark again, only this time there are constellations winking above her. She’s never done this before. She’s never been kissed, never kissed anyone, and now that this is happening she doesn’t want it to stop.
She’ll gladly suffocate, if only for one more moment of absolute perfection.
“ Gale ,” she moans against his lips, chest heaving and robes feeling far too tight. Her skin is hot. Her blood is boiling. Her core is pulsing, groaning with a need she’s definitely felt many times in her life but never fully acted on. “G-Gale…m-more…”
He suddenly tears himself away from her, panting and breathing hard. His eyes are dilated, full blown and wide as he gazes down at her as if he can’t believe she’s really there. Her mouth is throbbing. Her tongue feels raw, achingly so. There’s another trail of saliva bridging their bodies and she almost whines when he brings a hand up to swipe it away.
Gale’s face is ruddy and flushed with a heat she’s never seen on him. The hand clutching her waist squeezes, fingers tantalizingly close to her inner thigh as he adjusts how he’s hovering on top of her. He’s beautiful. The most beautiful thing she’s ever seen, goddesses and magic be damned.
“G-gods,” he pants, his voice a throaty growl that does little to stifle his own eagerness. She nearly shudders at the tightening surge of
want
and
need
that settles in the bottom of her stomach. “Rowan, sweetheart, I-I’m sorry. We shouldn’t…w-what I mean to say is…”
His chest is starting to glow. That malicious, damnable purple slithers up his neck and beneath his eye, a beacon that nearly blinds her. His breath is coming out in taut, short gasps, as if the air in his lungs is nonexistent. His eyes are hazy, unfocused. They swirl with a myriad of emotions, some she can read and others she has no name for. He rests a hand against her cheek, lowering his face against hers once more but pressing his trembling mouth against her now sweaty forehead.
“Not here,” Gale whispers. He buries his face in the crook of her neck, his breath hot as it fans her skin. He inhales deeply, as if memorizing her scent, pressing himself as hard as he dares into her. “When I make love to you, it will be in a proper bed. Not some dingy, abandoned library on a rotten desk. You deserve perfection. You deserve…everything.”
“O-oh,” Rowan breathes, and if her face wasn’t already red from the intensity of his kisses, it sure fucking is now.
Shit.
She is never going to recover from this.
“You are my everything,” he continues, his tongue snaking out and licking a strip up the vein of her throat. He begins to plant kisses against her skin, mercurial and alluring and a far cry from the vow he just made. “I’m going to give you pleasures only the gods know. I am going to drown you in a sea of bliss.”
Gale’s teeth scrape against her throat. His lips suck and his tongue swirls languidly along her flesh. His hands are running down the sides of her body and she has half a mind to wrap her legs around his waist and ignore his sacred promise, urging him to keep going. She doesn’t want to stop. If she’s his everything, he’s hers . She doesn’t need a bed. She doesn’t need the stars. She just needs Gale, here and now, before her heart gives out and the fire in her veins immolates her from within.
“One week.” Gale lifts his head from her neck, her throat tingling with loneliness as his mouth leaves the spot it was worshiping. His eyes burn with the same flames that are screaming between her legs, his swollen mouth enticing as she watches him speak. “I’m going to sequester you away in a world of our own for every day we were apart.”
Her chest heaves as she listens, fingers in his hair loosening as her breath slowly returns to its normal rhythm.
“Upon every hallowed sunrise of that week,” he whispers, “I will find a new way to adore you. You won’t know where I end and you begin. Oh, Rowan, my sweet, darling Rowan…I am going to venerate you.”
And then Gale is kissing her again, drowning whatever words she was going to say next, stoking the fires he refuses to fully writhe in as he torments her deliciously so.
She wants to cry. She wants to laugh. She wants to shout as loud as her voice can carry, screaming into the chasms around the tower in hopes the echo is carried beyond the rock and stone and up to the heavens above.
Gale loves her.
Gale loves her, and she is not a thing to be looked at with pity.
She is clay in his tender fingers, molded by his adulation, his eyes searing into her as he gazes upon her with nothing but passion. His mouth is her grave, his hands the burial sheet wrapped around her body as they roam over every swell and curve. She is dying and being reborn again. She is undone, unmade, unbecoming—
She is in love with him, and he is in love with her, and nothing else matters at this moment.
Until an unfamiliar voice cuts through the panting and tempestuous sounds of desperate kisses, deep and full of delight.
“Well, would you look at that! Dinner and a show! It’s almost like I’m back home.”
A cold jolt of fear and panic races through Rowan, instantly putting out the fires burning deep within her as a gasp tears from her throat.
Gale pulls himself away so hard and fast a sense of vertigo grips her as her swollen, aching lips feel grievously empty and alone. He jerks his head over his shoulder, adjusting himself so that he’s flush against her and blocking her heaving form, the hands on her waist gripping her so tight she hopes there will be Gale-sized bruises on her hips later.
Over his shoulder Rowan catches a glimpse of someone tall emerging from a shadowed corner of the library. Their figure materializes as if they have just stepped through the veil of this realm. As they step forward, the luminescence of her Dancing Lights frames them perfectly, giving her a proper view of their person.
As it does Gale.
And the noise he makes in the back of his throat is unholy, vexatious and full of utter shock as he blurts out, “ D-Dorian?! ”
The man standing just a few feet away, holding a loaf of bread in one hand, gives an enthusiastic nod. A crooked smirk spreads across his face as he waggles his fingers towards Gale and Rowan, the impish innocence he conveys instantly enraging her.
“Hello, little brother. It’s been awhile.”
Chapter 9: hunger
Notes:
rises from the grave. hello. it has been...a hot minute.
im sorry this took 3+ months. im not very proud of it, and i feel like the pacing is off, and it's just...bleh. but i tried, and i finished it, and that's what matters lmao.
my new work schedule is just killing me and my free time has been dedicated to spending time with my loved ones. and one in particular. hey y'all did you know that writing gale fanfic lands you mad bitches? shout out to my loving girlfriend who kept telling me to write and then distracting me with her charm and wit whenever i tried to concentrate i love you so much baby <3 tim downie's going to officiate our wedding btw.
anyway thank you for sticking with me and i hope the next chapter doesn't take another three months but i simply cannot promise a consistent update schedule. im sorry ):
Chapter Text
“D-Dorian?!”
“Hello, little brother. It’s been awhile.”
The man holding a piece of bread and smirking at Rowan and Gale like a devil is, unfortunately, incredibly handsome. He is tall, broad shouldered, and barrel chested. While Gale resembles Morena, Dorian is nearly a spitting image of Evander—aquiline nose, tanned skin, the close-cut beard. His eyes are as blue as the open sea and his hair is almost as red as Morena’s, the sides shorn in an undercut and the rest tied in an immaculate knot without a stray strand to be found. His rugged, wickedly attractive face is decorated with a smattering of silver piercings; there are a couple in his nose, one on his lip, and a few nestled in his sleek eyebrows.
Dorian Dekarios has an air of trouble about him. Like a storm at sea, rumbling over the tumultuous waves without warning as thunder booms in raucous laughter.
Gale is sputtering, the hoarse and raspy tone replaced with utter shock and disbelief. “H-How?!” he exclaims, still hovering over Rowan with a fierce protectiveness that does little to cool the flames burning inside her. “Why, in the name of all the gods, are you here ?!”
His older brother takes an aggressive bite out of the loaf of bread he’s holding, blue eyes trained on Rowan as she struggles to control her breathing. Gods, she feels so hot. Her mouth is throbbing. Her limbs feel like jelly. Shame courses through her, warring with the pent-up emotional frustrations and fulfillment she’d been reveling in only moments before.
Why indeed?
Why now, when she and Gale were finally,
finally
tearing into one another’s hearts like ravished beasts and giving in to months of unspoken desires?
She wants to hide. To bury her face in her hands and go invisible. Hells, she probably could considering the spell is one of her specialties—but there’s something rotten and twisted about that, considering Dorian fucking Dekarios just dispelled what was clearly his own Invisibility spell to make himself known.
How had she not sensed him? How long has he been in this library?
How much did he see of her and Gale’s long overdue distribution of I love you ?
Dorian swallows, eyes glinting as his smirk widens even more. “Eh, it’s a long and boring story. I’d much rather hear what you’ve been up to, Gale. Who is that delightful woman you’re pinning down with such vigor?”
Gale moves swifter than the wind.
He growls , a burst of auroral purple and blue flaring about his form in a misty veil. Shadows coalesce like translucent phantoms, coiling and curling about his limbs. She can hear them screaming, snarling, their wrath and Gale’s one and the same as they beg to lash out towards his brother.
One moment he is sprawled above Rowan and the next, he is at Dorian’s throat, one hand held dangerously close to his brother’s face as his fingers dance with a bright red flame interlaced with black veins. The fire pulses and grows, forming a roiling orb of deadly flames as it rests in his palm.
His other hand snaps out and grasps Dorian’s collar. Gale yanks his older brother close with a vehemence bordering on malevolent, his eyes blazing in a kaleidoscope of all the colors of the Weave. The darkness lurking beneath his skin merges with aurora in his eyes, forming spiderweb-like patterns across his irises, the two fonts of magic within him making their shared rage painfully known.
“You will not disrespect Rowan,” he snarls, the fire in his hand beginning to crackle as the temperature in the tower’s library grows uncomfortably warm. “You will treat her with honor and dignity or so help me Dorian I will
not
hesitate to turn you into ash right here and now!”
Oh.
Oh dear.
That was hot. Hotter than the flames he’s holding. Hotter than the fire burning in her core. Hotter than the way he was saying her name earlier, his teeth scraping against her throat and tongue rasping along her veins.
Rowan wants nothing more than to drag Gale into a dark, secluded corner of the Underdark and finish what they started, Dorian and mushrooms be damned.
But she swallows down those vulgar thoughts and smothers them in a layer of logic, wrenching herself away from the desk and smoothing down the mussed up layers of her robes. She takes a shaky breath and, with a desperation that pains her more than the glass in her skull half a year ago, blurts out, “Oh, look, you can cast Fireball again!”
Gale glances over his shoulder at her, his eyes still glowing purple and blue as the black shadows she has given him writhe between the colors. It makes him look inhuman. Divine, almost. Glorious and beautiful and perfect, despite the jagged scar of the Netherese orb pulsing in tandem with his thundering heartbeat.
She watches the bob of his throat as he swallows, his swollen lips pursed in a vicious frown as he releases his brother’s collar. The Fireball in his hand fizzles away to nothing but smoke, drifting upwards and disappearing into the ceiling. He steps away from Dorian, chest heaving as he runs a hand through his hair. It’s a delicious mess from her fingers running through it.
The touch of the Weave fades. The ethereal, celestial glow of his magic and the Netherese blight gnawing on his bones becomes dull and lifeless. The shadows recede like wolves whose prey no longer interests them. “Are you infected, Dorian?” he asks, his voice low and tired and void of the wonderful passion he’d been whispering into Rowan’s ear a minute ago. A lifetime ago.
Dorian’s smirk falters. The asinine mischief in his eyes turns to something more severe, humorless and apprehensive. The eldest of the Dekarios brothers grits his teeth and shakes his head, setting the bread down on the desk closest to him. “No,” he says, rich voice no longer full of roguish delight. “But if you’re asking me that, am I correct in assuming you are?”
The fact that he doesn’t even question what Gale means by infected confirms everything they’ve suspected for the last week. Dorian was taken by the nautiloid as well.
But how in the hells did he manage to get away without an illithid parasite in his head?
She looks over to Gale. A mystified, baffled expression has overcome him as he gapes at his brother. He runs his hand through his hair again, fingers pinching the raven feather tucked into his updo as he lets out a bitter scoff. “Reprehensible as it is, I am. A parasite rests behind my eye as we speak. The nautiloid descended upon Waterdeep before it moved on to the rest of the Sword Coast.”
His voice becomes incredulous. Angry, harsh, resentful. His eyes narrow. His words fall from his lips fast and furious, his tone wavering just on the precipice of rage.
“Am I to believe you were taken by the ship as well, and somehow escaped unscathed? And if so, care to explain why you have not contacted our mother to assure her you are safe and sound?”
Dorian visibly flinches.
“Aha, well, you see…” He clears his throat, a nervous chuckle bubbling up in his broad chest. His eyes flick away from Gale, a fleeting glimmer of what is clearly panic in his cowed gaze. “I did so happen to be taken by a mass of tentacles, and not in the way I prefer,” he admits. “When I came to, I was strapped down in some godsawful pod and a cretinous monster was dangling some sort of worm over my eye. There was a great commotion of sorts—the mind flayer became distracted, and without its focus on me, I was able to Teleport away. Alas…”
He shrugs nonchalantly, gesturing around to the dilapidated tower with a mock woe that is wholly for show.
“I was using an enchanted ring at the time. It seems whatever heinous psionic powers the illithid harbor had an adverse effect on the magic. Instead of returning to Baldur’s Gate, I found myself here.”
“You’re expecting me to believe you just Teleported away from a nautiloid,” Gale deadpans, his incredulousness practically screaming as he pinches the bridge of his nose and struggles to take a deep, calming breath.
“What, like it’s hard?”
Dorian shrugs again, that acutely bitter crumb of fear fading as fast as it had appeared. Rowan has a sudden overwhelming desire to punch him. How can he be so cavalier? Does he not realize the gravity of the situation? Does he not give a shit that thousands of people have been infected—one of them being his own brother—or that a very wonderful woman back in Waterdeep has been mourning the loss of two sons because there was no other alternative?
“Yes, Dorian,” Gale snaps, and Rowan has never seen him so frustrated. Not even when Jericho has tormented him. “Teleporting from a nautiloid
should
be hard! Escaping unscathed should be impossible! That ring—where is it? Forget Baldur’s Gate, we must return to Waterdeep and—”
“It won’t work, I’m afraid,” Dorian cuts him off with a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “The enchantment broke once I spirited away to this lovely little paradise. I’ve merely been laying low, biding my time, and enjoying a much-deserved vacation. Do you know how positively
taxing
it is to be employed by some of the most influential patriars in the Upper City?”
Rowan wants to punch him again.
Maybe kick him, too. Right between the legs. While wearing steel-toed boots. Faerûn probably has something like that, right?
Or she could just go all out and Fireball his ass. Maybe a Lightning Bolt or two.
The air changes.
She senses the kernels of the Shadow Weave inside Gale shudder with revulsion; she can feel his ire, his frustration, his utter contempt towards his brother as he stares at Dorian coldly. His eye twitches imperceptibly. His jaw locks tight as he grinds down on his teeth. His fingers twitch, the telltale flare of magic dancing in the spaces between the digits as he swallows down the urge to summon yet another Fireball—and this time, allow the spell to find its intended target.
Rowan shuffles to his side and reaches a hand out, tangling her fingers with his and pressing herself to his side. Her own shadows are shrieking. They desire recompense. Retribution. The careless, thoughtless joviality of Dorian Dekarios is infuriating. Her tongue feels heavy and leaden, bitterness replacing the taste of Gale woefully so.
She felt like this when she stood before Elminster Aumar, small and sullen and full of fury beneath his scrutinizing gaze, her soul yearning to put him in his place.
She would rather not want a repeat of those moments, even if they would be wonderfully cathartic.
“Gale,” she says softly, squeezing his hand. It’s still warm from the vestiges of the Fireball, his blood aflame beneath the calloused skin. Skin she desperately wants to feel against her own. Yet, this is no longer the time or place, even if she still harbors a deep-set giddiness in the pit of her stomach that lingers. Despite Dorian’s untimely interruption.
Gale turns his head to glance towards her. His shoulders slump. His throat bobs with swallowed words, barbed and poisonous like the thorns of hemlock. He gives her hand a gentle squeeze back and nods subtly, the shadows writhing inside him growing quiet and obedient. For the time being, of course.
“I don’t want this to turn into some foolish argument or meaningless fight,” he says carefully, slowly, as if he is weighing the value of each syllable. “Your presence here is…astonishing, to say the least. Yet I cannot deny that it is serendipity at its finest—you’re alive , Dorian. You’re safe.” A small, strained smile blooms across his face. “Mother will be so relieved. Father as well.”
Dorian blinks.
Rowan does not think he expected that.
“Rowan told me that they tried to contact you,” Gale continues, just a mote of his previous rancor still lingering in his breath, “but the spells all failed. How could they have, if you do not possess a parasite and were down here the whole time?”
Dorian blinks again.
And then his eyes dart around the sad, dismal library that once belonged to a cleric of Mystra, chagrined and shame coloring his cheeks as he clears his throat multiple times. “While I disabled many of the traps and enchantments of this tower,” he explains, his tone wrought with some modicum of guilt, “I didn’t bother with the spells that block outside arcane communication. A moment’s respite was too tempting. I suppose I never…considered my disappearance would be a cause for alarm.”
“Then you must be living under a rock since moving to Baldur’s Gate,” Gale groans in exasperation. He reaches into the pockets of his robes with his free hand, the other still tightly wound with Rowan’s—she has not stopped eyeing the eldest Dekarios brother warily, nor has she ceased in her attempt to appear as though she is Gale’s personal bodyguard. She wants Dorian to know exactly who he will be dealing with should he take one misstep.
If she can banish Elminster Aumar from a wizard’s tower, she can kick Dorian’s ass for being a boorish dickhead towards his brother.
“Contact our mother using this, for the love of all that is holy and sacred,” Gale all but commands with a sharpness in his voice that sends a shiver down Rowan’s spine. He’s holding out the parchment connected to Morena back in Waterdeep out towards Dorian, the lines of his face deeper and more haggard than they were before they stumbled into the abandoned tower of Lenore. “Tell her you’re not dead and at the very least, ask her to inform your employers as well.”
His brother takes the parchment with a frown, the shame and guilt he had been portraying moments before fading. “I’d rather my employers continue to be under the impression I’ve met with an untimely demise. This is the first vacation I’ve had in a year, little brother! I’ve been toiling away for months and while I do adore my magic’s perfection to be lauded, don’t I deserve a break?”
“No.”
Gale gives Dorian a look that mimics the one Rowan has been giving him since the bastard dismissed his invisibility and ruined the best moment of her life.
“How auspicious to know a mind flayer parasite hasn’t ruined your sense of humor,” Dorian mutters to himself, loud enough that he clearly means for Gale and Rowan to hear. He folds the parchment with a strange tenderness, slipping it into his pocket, that shiteating grin Rowan has a sinking feeling is his typical expression dawning across his face once more. “What else shall I inform mother dearest of? Is she aware that you are…”
He pauses a moment, seeming to consider his next words very carefully.
“... courting someone?”
Rowan makes a noise that is a veritable squeak.
Gale chokes.
“D-don’t you dare!” he stammers out, voice shrill and panicked, and Rowan’s heart does a series of somersaults as her throat closes in on itself. “Mother does not need to know! …yet!”
Sweet Matron of Ravens, Morena would be insufferable if she knew.
Not that Rowan doesn’t want her to know. She hopes Gale’s mother would be positively delighted to know that all her poking and prodding, teasing and taunting, was indeed right on the money. But they need time. Time to sort out the things that were said. Time to crack open the marrow of each other’s ribs and taste the richness of what it means to…
To be in love.
Oh, fucking hells, this really happened, didn’t it? Gale loves me. He loves me and he kissed me and he—he—
He would have gone further, had Dorian not appeared.
Rowan’s face is on fire once more as her mouth aches with the palpable loss of Gale’s lips. Her knees keep threatening to bend and break and send her tumbling to the floor. Her tongue is dry, like sandpaper, keening silently for the slickness of Gale’s tangled with it in a dance once more.
She has never wanted to return to Waterdeep so badly as she does at this moment. She wants to call upon the shadows within, beg them to break the fundamental laws of magic, and weave a spell like no other to whisk her and Gale away directly onto his bed and lock every fucking door in the tower.
She needs to calm down.
This really is not the time or place. Not anymore.
Later. Later, away from prying eyes and perked ears, in the darkness of this underground realm, she is going to put her foot down and finish what they started.
“Fine, fine, I shan’t say a word!” Dorian exclaims with an air of amusement, holding his hands up in defeat. Rowan returns to reality upon hearing his voice and hopes her cheeks aren’t as scarlet as she imagines them to be. Out of all the people to know she’s kind of disgustingly horny right now, Gale’s brother should not be at the top.
Gale opens his mouth to snap a retort, his face blessedly pink and eyes wild with a myriad of emotions, but before he can get a word in edgewise the familiar squawking caw of Pip fills the musty air of the library. The raven swoops in from the balcony’s open doors, Tara soaring in close behind them, and both familiars alight upon the desk that as of a few minutes ago, was about to see more action than it had in the last decade.
Rowan hastily blocks any thoughts and sensations of those perfect moments from her bond with Pip before the raven catches wind of them because the last thing she needs is the little shit to make unnecessary comments a la Dorian.
There is a stained, threadbare satchel of sorts clutched in their beak. They deposit it onto the desk’s surface, violet eyes glowing in excitement as their head bobs up and down. “Boss, boss!” they exclaim, wings flapping with every syllable. “Tara and I found them shrooms the squid was askin’ for! There’s a whole garden behind the tower! Lotsa weird magic shit and plants and—ey, who the fuck is this guy?”
Pip abruptly cuts themselves off as they notice Dorian, who has grabbed his loaf of bread once more and is slowly taking a bite. Tara makes a startled noise in the back of her throat, eyes widening, her head cocked as she takes in the sight of Gale’s older brother in shock.
“Good heavens!” the tressym blurts out. “Dorian, is that you? Whatever are you doing here, of all places?”
He waves, the movement uncharacteristically polite and mundane as he bows his head in greeting towards her. “Tara!” he exclaims, genuine joy in his voice as he calls out her name, a wide smile breaking across his mouth. “What a delight to see you! I was just about to ask my brother where his intrepid partner had gone off to. Glad to see you’re doing well. I’ve missed your colorful commentary and subtle digs at my chosen lifestyle dearly, you know. I’m simply withering away in Baldur’s Gate without the world’s wisest tressym to set me upon the path to righteousness.”
“Ah. I see.”
Tara has no qualms about masking her confused disdain as she looks Dorian up and down, whiskers twitching. Her tail swishes back and forth, something unspoken in her guileful eyes, and she decides to hold back whatever “colorful commentary” is currently on her mind.
“We can further catch up on the way back to the myconid colony,” Gale decides, looking like he suddenly wants nothing more than to lay down in the mossy beds the myconids offered as a place to rest. Rowan does not blame him. “If we have the mushrooms Omeluum requires, I see no need in remaining here.”
He pauses, his voice introspective and undoubtedly curious.
“Though, it seems a waste not to explore whatever mysteries may hold…”
Rowan’s heart swells. She finds herself squeezing his hand again, not caring that Dorian and the familiars can see it plain as day, smiling softly at him.
There’s the Gale she knows and loves.
The Gale who is always incessantly hungry for the next speck of knowledge. The Gale who desires nothing more than to uncover the riddles of the universe, untangling every arcane enigma with precision and practiced fingers.
Fingers she wants roaming down the sides of her body.
Fingers she wants between her lips, on her thighs, fisting her hair.
Rowan, please, stop being so fucking horny.
Her better judgment is correct. She needs to return to a semblance of normalcy. Or as normal as she can be, considering she’s Rowan and normal has never truly been in her repertoire.
“I’ve picked this place pretty clean, actually,” Dorian admits somewhat sheepishly, glancing around the dilapidated library with that subtle crease of guilt between his eyebrows once more. “No exploration is needed, I assure you. What secrets there were to uncover have already been studied by yours truly. I assume you’d like to hear all about it, little brother?”
Gale’s eye twitches again. Nonetheless, he gives Dorian a curt nod. “Knowledge is power. That’s one thing we’ve always been able to agree on.”
His brother grins.
“Right you are, Gale. Allow me to gather my meager things and we can be on our way. A myconid colony sounds fascinating!”
He saunters over to the elevator-like contraption in the middle of the library and shuffles into the domed archway, snapping his fingers. The symbols carved into the floor flash for a brief moment, glittering in all of the colors that can be seen by the mortal eye, before it groans with a mechanic whirring and begins to lower itself down beneath the floor. Dorian waves cheerfully as he disappears into the level below the library, the dim lighting obscuring him from view.
Rowan resists the urge to blurt out the million racing thoughts that are undulating in the wicked sea of her mind the moment Dorian disappears.
She does not drag Gale off into some secluded corner like the fire in her blood desperately yearns for and instead turns to Pip, schooling her tone and voice to sound as casual as can be.
“Would you mind giving me another feather?” she asks them, patting Gale’s hand before slipping her fingers from his despite how much the act pains her. She approaches the desk once more, wiping the memory of Gale on top of her and his teeth scraping against her throat from her mind with great difficulty. Cool. Calm. Collected. Normal. She can be normal. She can be so godsdamn normal that a jar of mayonnaise would be impressed.
Pip blinks. “Er, yeah, but what for? The one in Gale’s using isn’t all busted to hell like—oi, why is the wizard’s hair a fuckin’ mess right now? What’d we miss? Some kinda fight?”
Rowan screams internally.
Even with their hasty attempts at smoothing their ruffled robes and chaotic hair, it’s still rather obvious to the trained eye that something along the lines of indecent occurred between her and Gale.
“Y-you missed nothing,” she insists hastily, avoiding the familiar’s gaze and holding out her hand expectantly. She hears Gale make a strained sound from behind her; it is an all out war in her mind not to glance at Tara or look over her shoulder at her beloved, wonderful wizard. “Now feather me, please! It’s important. It’s Raven Queen stuff, I promise!”
Pip narrows their eyes and for one strenuous heartbeat, she’s overcome with the fear that the familiar will somehow inherently know what transpired minutes ago.
But then they shrug their birdy shoulders and spread out one wing, carefully plucking a feather from their plumage and depositing it gingerly into Rowan’s outstretched hand. She nearly sags with relief. She would simply internally combust if the raven found out that she’d finally, finally confessed.
Morena is not the only one who would be insufferable upon hearing the news.
“Thank you,” she tells them sincerely, stroking the sleek, feathery top of their head in gratitude. Pip lets out a series of chirps, leaning into her touch.
Rowan grabs the sack they had brought into the library and tucks it into one of her many pockets. A heady, earthen scent emanates from the thin fabric—definitely fungi of some kind. She should probably open it to double check the contents are indeed what Omeluum requested, but something else must take precedence.
She owes it to Lenore.
Her hand brushes over the embossed cover of the diary that once belonged to the tower’s owner. Her fingers press down on the initials, so hard she hopes their outlines will set into her skin for a few moments. She’s lucky the diary didn’t fall onto the floor and she and Gale crawled on top of the desk like horny teenagers.
She doesn’t crack the diary open again. Instead, she tucks the feather in the gap between the spine and the parchment, ten years of dust and neglect having separated whatever glue that once bound the little book together in perfection. Rowan keeps her finger pressed against Lenore’s initials, a wave of grief and hope coursing through her heart in tandem as she stares down at the last remnants of the woman who was so alone down here.
Poor, lonely Lenore.
“I’m not a cleric,” Rowan says quietly, her eyes suddenly hot. “So I don’t really know how to do this kind of thing, but…the goddess that loves me is one of death. Of rebirth. Of transitions and new beginnings. So I hope your next life is kind to you, Lenore.”
The tears don’t fall. Not like they did a lifetime ago, before Gale held her in his arms and told her all the things she’s been wanting to hear since that night they spun the threads of the Weave together.
“I hope you don’t feel so lonely,” she continues. “I hope you’re able to come out of the darkness and realize how loved you are. How cherished. I hope…you get the happy ending you deserved in this life. With Yrre. I’m sorry you didn’t.”
Rowan pulls her hand away from the diary’s cover. Her fingers feel cold, but not in a way that’s frightening or alarming. It’s more like…her warmth, the proof that she is alive and here and loved has simply transferred to the yellowed pages Lenore once scribbled hastily in.
The dismal scent of unuse and forgotten memories suddenly fades.
In its place is the aroma of lilies. Of snow. Of incense and darkness that protects and loves.
She hears the ruffling of a thousand feathers gliding through the air.
Be happy, she thinks, partially to the ghost of Lenore as the Raven Queen’s wings guide her soul to wherever her next life will take her.
But also, partially to herself.
Because she had been correct earlier, as she soared through the air with Gale in her arms and a breathless laugh on her lips. Today, everything changes. Today, everything she has ever wanted has finally come to fruition.
Today, her happiness has carved a nest in the meat of her heart and will never leave, because Rowan is not alone and she is not unloved.
The forgotten library and the rest of the tower seem to sigh at that moment. One great collective breath of relief as years of sorrow, grief, and loneliness dissolve into something…more. Something new. Something grateful and almost alive, the cracked stone around them creaking softly as the entire structure shudders ever so slightly.
Rowan swears she hears a voice whispering in her ear, as quiet and gentle as flowers on a grave.
“Thank you.”
Rowan’s chest fills with warmth and she can’t help but clasp a hand above her heart. Blood is pounding in her head as the fluttering of the Raven Queen’s wings grows further away—ushering Lenore De Hurst off to her next life, and ensuring not a single step is taken alone.
Gale’s mind races as he, Rowan, his brother, and the familiars make their way out of the abandoned mage’s tower. So much has happened in such an irreverent amount of time. Dorian is alive. His brother is alive and free of an illithid parasite and just as infuriatingly condescending about the ordeal as Gale had expected.
But that revelation pales in comparison to Rowan.
Rowan. Gods above and below, she loves him. She loves him as he loves her and there is nothing in any universe, known or unknown, that can take away the sheer resounding joy that has nestled within his soul. Holding her had been a dream. Kissing her had been a tangible reality that finally, finally come to fruition after months of gazing at her and wondering what if?
Gale had spoken true when he told her he would make love to her in a place far more suitable than a dilapidated musty library belonging to a dead cleric of the goddess he once served with his entire being. Yet—
He could have pinned her to that desk for an eternity, lost in her taste and her mouth and her hands, kissing her until neither of them remembered how to breathe.
Damn his brother.
Damn Dorian and his deplorable timing, and damn Gale for allowing his mind to wander and focus on nothing but the feel of Rowan’s lips against his as they stride by the deactivated traps meant to deter unwanted visitors to the tower. He should be focusing on other things, for Ao’s sake! He should be thinking of what message he’ll send to Miri before he and Omeluum attempt to neutralize the parasite with whatever alchemical concoction the mushrooms Pip and Tara had collected for them. He should be interrogating his brother on whatever secrets this tower once held that the elder Dekarios seemingly has devoured, just as greedy as Gale himself when it comes to ambiguous academics.
But no.
As Gale’s feet drag along the dusty ground of the Underdark, his face is hot and his mind is a tempestuous mess, the musical sounds of Rowan’s desperately nervous gasps playing over and over in his ears.
He swallows thickly as his tongue feels heavy, laden with her taste.
His hands curl into shaking fists, the pads of his fingers remembering the soft, plush feel of her curves.
His robes feel uncomfortably tight. Every movement tugs and pulls the fabric against his legs and he has to bite his tongue to silence the groans of frustration that crawl up his throat with wanton flair.
It is wholly unbecoming; to be reduced to such a state as if he were a piddling schoolboy with no control over his base instincts.
Yet every ounce of blood inside of him sings. The shadows conjured by Rowan’s gentle hand dance and twirl within his veins. Were he a lesser man, he would go back on that oath to finish what he started in the library somewhere more appropriate and tug her to him right here and now. A crass, uncouth thought—she deserves better, far better.
She deserves his chambers back in Waterdeep, the moonlight streaming through the open balcony doors as she lay propped upon his pillows. She deserves the satin feel of his sheets as he drags his tongue down her throat and glides his fingers across the middle of her stomach. She deserves his utmost attention. Hours of devotion, her name a prayer on his lips as he commits the taste of her skin to memory. She deserves…
She deserves someone better than Gale himself, truth be told.
It’s that harrowing reflection that sobers up the libidinous tangle wrapped around his heart. Gale becomes painfully aware of where he is in this moment and who is with him, his chest throbbing and his robes starting to loosen.
Pull yourself together, he admonishes himself silently, angrily, immensely grateful neither Rowan nor Dorian share a parasite with him. With how fractured and vulnerable his mind is right now, there would be no hiding these thoughts from either of them.
But judging from the way his apprentice keeps gazing at him when she thinks he’s not paying attention, he is not the only one consumed by these shameless desires.
Indeed, Rowan’s pale cheeks have not ceased blushing. There is an obvious bruised swelling to her lips that screams of what they shared moments before Dorian interrupted and her robes are still somewhat askew, despite her quickly attempting to smooth them down. She remains a few feet behind Gale, Pip on her shoulder, hands fiddling distractedly with the bag the raven had delivered minutes ago.
Dorian marches behind them all, whistling innocently. It just leads further credence to Gale’s annoyance and exasperation towards his brother.
But Rowan…
Gods, she’s beautiful.
He’s always felt that way, ever since the moment he came upon her unconscious form in that alleyway, but right now there is no sight more grand than her bashful expression and kiss-addled lips. He knows he has to stop thinking about it; he knows it would do neither of them any good to allow his mind to narrow and focus on nothing but those precious moments in the library, but sweet hells! It is easier said than done! Gale has always been one to cling to one certain aspect and ignore everything else around him when he wants to. It usually makes research or some other academic undertaking a laughably easy feat.
Now, it is just making his mind wander and his mouth tingle with the memories of but a few minutes ago, their contents worth more than all the gold in the realms.
Blessedly, a sharp clearing of a throat at his feet jolts Gale’s attention elsewhere. He glances down, meeting Tara’s keen and knowing eyes. His beloved tressym trots alongside him, tail swishing with interest, and she blinks up at him with an expression that does little to hide her interest.
He reaches for their shared bond, the magic of wizard and familiar a comfort as it always is, the threads of the Weave dancing between his ribs.
If you have something to say, I’d prefer you’d do it now rather than let it fester between us like a rotten fish.
Tara’s feline mouth curls into what constitutes as a smile for her kind, paws daintily stepping around a cluster of mossy fungus clinging to the hard ground.
I believe congratulations are in order, sir? It seems you and Miss Rowan have at last ceased dancing around the owlbear in the room?
Gale sighs and gives an imperceptible nod, though he cannot help a smile of his own as his lips slowly tug upwards. It’s all the answer Tara needs. She begins to purr, her body radiating with relief and bliss and a dozen other emotions that makes Gale’s chest constrict, though not with pain. He should have listened to her all those months ago when she encouraged him to be honest with Rowan. Tara always knows best, even when Gale is too stubborn to see it.
He is ashamed of how he has acted in recent weeks, months…hells, even the past year. How could he have been so blind? So single-minded? Oh, he knows why, knows intimately how twisted and embedded in falsehoods and lies he told himself at night to calm his thundering heart as his soul cried out for Mystra.
Gale had half-expected himself to be struck down the moment his feet touched the once sacred ground of Lenore’s tower. Even as the behemoth of arcane engineering grows ever distance at their backs he is still waiting for the other shoe to drop; for the goddess of magic to appear before him and declare him a wretch, to sever his connection to the Weave forever more and leave him even less than a shell of what he once was.
But she does not.
And Gale does not feel Mystra’s cloying, suffocating presence around him as he has every other time he and Rowan have grown closer.
No, the goddess is silent—whether it’s from rage or complete and utter disinterest, Gale does not know, but he finds he does not care.
Because the only thing on his mind is imagining what other noises he can elicit from Rowan’s lips, holier than any shrine or sanctuary built in the whole of Toril.
“So,” Dorian’s voice cuts through Gale’s fantasies, which have already begun to rapidly descend into something unspeakable. “Wherever is this myconid colony you’ve mentioned? I’ve not yet come across it but, then again, I have been content to remain in the tower and forego any outward exploring.”
His brother makes a disgruntled noise, one that always used to reveal his malcontent when they were children.
“The Underdark may be a fascinating place, but it is certainly not somewhere one should venture out into alone. Not even when one is as adept with magic as I.”
Gale resists the urge to roll his eyes and turns his head back, glancing at Dorian with slight disdain. The “meager belongings” he had gathered while Rowan was sending off Lenore’s spirit in that unsettling, yet sentimental ceremony mainly consisted of a staff now strapped to his back. A new staff, one Gale cannot recall ever seeing paired with his brother. It’s as thin as a reed and pure white, glowing with pure magic, save for the middle. It was wrapped in leather of some kind, meant to be the handle for the user. The surface crackles with electricity, the magic of a storm itself coiling around the staff, and Gale must admit it’s a rather fitting weapon for his brother.
It would be a fair assumption to believe it’s one of the things Dorian “cleaned out” from his forays in the tower over the last week. Reading the letters scattered about the library jolted something from Gale’s memory, about a gnome inventor who made their home in the Underdark, obsessed with creating magical items associating with lightning.
Gale doesn’t know what has happened to Yrre the Sparkstruck. He hopes they have not shared Lenore’s sorrowful demise.
“It’s about an hour walk from here,” he tells his brother, gesturing his hand in the vague direction of the myconid colony. He wonders if Karlach and Wyll were successful in their own mission and have already returned. “Rowan and I took a route suggested by the colony’s leader as to avoid any encounters with the more dangerous denizens of the area.”
“I do have plenty of scrolls of Fly in my bag,” Rowan pipes up, her voice sounding far too casual. As if she’s making too much of an attempt at normalcy. In fact, her posture is almost stiff with the effort as she pats the satchel at her side, her cheeks at last returning to their usual pale pallor. “If you want, we could use them to bypass the walk? That’s how Gale and I got to the tower in the first place, actually.”
Damn his brother.
Damn his brother for being alive and having the audacity to be here now, because were he not, Gale would be on his hands and knees begging Rowan to carry him through what constitutes as the sky in this underground ecosystem.
“Don’t waste a precious resource such as that,” Dorian says with genuine altruism, his bright blue eyes glittering. “My connection to the innate magic of Toril’s storms grants me that spell myself. I would be happy to caste it on us all, if you’d prefer to go that route once more!”
On one hand, Gale knows he is right.
On the other…
He cannot help the fresh wave of frustration welling up within his chest. Not at Dorian, per se, but at himself.
Were he not plagued with both the orb and the worm, he would be able to whisk them all to Waterdeep in the blink of an eye.
Not to mention Dorian’s obvious ploy to show off his magic. It is how his older brother has always been, eager to toy with the arcana innate to his being and preen beneath a crowd showering him with adoration. And Gale has been no better in the past. How many times has he done something similar—bringing up a spell or a ritual he knows that will be of use, if only to bask beneath the sun of acclaim and commendation he has always had a wicked hunger for?
Gale has had no right to judge his brother as harshly as he has for the last half of their lives. Gale is no better than Dorian is, truly. The distinctions between wizard and sorcerer mean nothing. The Dekarios brothers have always been united in their penchant for praise.
“Please,” he says, lowering his head just a smidgeon in Dorian’s direction. “If you wouldn’t mind, it would be rather beneficial in wrapping the day up as quickly as possible. Rowan and I are in dire need of rest. As will our companions, I imagine. We traveled with two others who should be back at the colony by now.”
If his acquiescence shocks his brother, Dorian makes no sign of it.
Instead, his eyes glitter once more, this time with deep interest as a grin spreads across his face. “Oh my. Do my ears deceive me, or is my dear younger brother implying he’s gained other friends in addition to his lovely apprentice?”
Gale grits his teeth and chooses not to comment on the latter half of that sentence.
“Yes,” he says with a curt nod. “Most of my other companions are investigating a means to remove our tadpoles, but Karlach and Wyll chose to accompany Rowan and I on our own investigation down here. I am…I am incredibly grateful for the kindness they have shown me since the nautiloid crashed.”
Dorian’s grin fades somewhat.
“Well,” his brother says thickly as he pulls out the strange, electrified staff from his back, “I suppose I will have to find a way to thank them. You’re my only brother, after all.”
Without another word, the air becomes charged with magic. Gale watches as the frizzy ends of Rowan’s hair begin to curl upwards. Static crackles. The scent of ozone assaults his nostrils. Dorian’s eyes flash white, the same color of the staff, and a hue not dissimilar to a lightning bolt striking from storm clouds above.
He whispers an incantation beneath his breath, flourishing his staff with an ease that has always instilled Gale with a disturbing jealousy, and his skin tingles with the sensation of a spell settling around him. It feels like the Featherfall Rowan had quickly casted as their group fell down to the Underdark yet ten times as strong. Gale’s bones are hollow. His body is weightless. He could drift away on a stiff breeze, disappearing into the darkness if he wanted to.
It’s been so long since Dorian’s magic was upon him. They used to cast spells on one another all the time as boys, both in contest and in comparison.
He’s missed it.
He has missed his brother dearly, despite the venomous words and hurtful barbs they threw at one another a year ago.
For all their differences and hateful, furious arguments, Gale knows that Dorian is one of a select few who understands his passion for all things magic. Bless his mother—bless Tara—and thank the Raven Queen, bless Rowan most of all—but it was Dorian who first held Gale’s hand and showed him how to cast a spell. It was Dorian who encouraged him to study, partially out of a desire to prove he would be better than his little brother, but there is no denying the familial affection in that act.
It occurs to Gale with a startling clarity that the first spell Dorian taught Gale was Dancing Lights.
The same spell he taught Rowan on her first day in this world, half a year ago, before he knew just how deeply entrenched his heart would become in the benevolent shadows of her smile.
“Oooh,” Rowan exclaims, rising a few inches off the ground and giving a little twirl midair. “I know I just did this less than an hour ago, but fuck is it still cool!”
She rises higher, robes fluttering as she soars upwards, clutching the satchel of mushrooms to her with a protectiveness that makes Gale’s heart skip a beat. She’s even more bound and determined to destroy the illithid parasite than he is, he thinks.
Dorian follows suit, his body crackling with the remnants of lightning as his magic continues to surge and coalescence around him. He glances down at Gale, raising an eyebrow as he says, “Are you coming, Gale?”
Gale simply tugs on the strands of the spell in answer and beckons the magic to do his bidding, floating up to join them. Tara takes a leap and soars into the air as well, joining Pip as they launch themselves from Rowan’s shoulders to greet the tressym. While he would prefer another jaunt through the sky cradled in Rowan’s arms and listening to the soothing rhythm of her heart, he
is
rather fond of course of action.
Now he understands her earlier breathless excitement. Flying is freeing.
He’ll have to take advantage of it more often.
As they soar through the inky shadows of the Underdark, Gale tells Dorian of the horrors of the last week. How the nautiloid descended upon Waterdeep and how Gale had been snatched away, pushing Rowan to safety at the last moment. He tells his brother of the motley crew he is now part of, and their intrepid adventures in the wilds of Elturgard as they all desperately searched for a way to remove the tadpoles and free themselves from a disturbing fate.
He does not tell his brother of the guardian and their claims of keeping the mind flayer transformation at bay. No, he cannot, because he has not yet told Rowan the full truth of that, and for some reason the words refuse to lay themselves upon Gale’s tongue.
Nor does he inform Dorian of what he has been up to for the last year; he does not reveal the truth of why Mystra abandoned him, or of the cursed blight that slumbers away beneath his skin, trapped by the good will of Rowan’s shadows.
And mercifully, Dorian does not ask.
No, instead his brother in turn regales them both of his life in Baldur’s Gate. He’s been busy, much to Gale’s incredulity. Constantly doing research for his employers, going off on missions with adventurers to ruins and ancient places full of old magic begging to be broken down into something more comprehensive for the people of modern Faerûn…
Dorian takes his work in Baldur’s Gate very seriously it seems. It’s a stark contrast to the young man he was in Waterdeep, forgoing his studies to seduce some poor, unsuspecting sap and spending all of his time making Gale’s life miserable.
People change, Gale reminds himself as they approach the telltale glow of the myconid’s fungal colony. You’ve changed. The you from a year ago would not recognize the person you have become, Gale Dekarios.
He can’t help but muse darkly if his past self would see his current self as a help or a hindrance.
By the time they land at the colony’s entrance, Gale’s entire being is begging for rest. He is utterly exhausted, despite his magic not being as depleted as it has been for the last several days. But between getting little rest due to last night’s party, and all the traveling they’ve been doing since leaving the Grove, it is little wonder that he feels as though he’s weathered a vicious storm for three days straight.
The glowing, hanging curtain of fungus and moss part as Rowan approaches, her movements somewhat sluggish and listless. Like him, she seems to be at her limit and wanting nothing more than to lay her head down and chase sleep.
WELCOME BACK, FRIENDS.
The Sovereign's words echo in their minds, a multitude of voices as the rest of the colony responds in kind. Lumbering myconids of all shapes and sizes mull about, barely giving them a second glance as they enter the safety of the grotto. The air is damp and earthy, a similar mustiness to this place that reminds him of the forlorn atmosphere of Lenore’s tower, yet there is also a strangely refreshing sense to it as well.
Gale hears Dorian take a sharp intake of breath as he surveys the grotto. A sly glance towards his brother shows Dorian’s face drawn in surprise and awe, his eyes wide. The colony’s home is indeed an impressive thing—anyone would be amazed by it.
Not to mention that Dorian does share Gale’s desire to learn everything and anything about a new discovery.
“Should we see if Karlach and Wyll are back first, or go straight to Omeluum?” Rowan asks him, still holding the bag of mushrooms with a valor akin to a paladin guarding a sacred relic. She looks nervous, chewing on her lower lip as one hand rises to her throat and tugs once on the feather she wears. “I hope they’re okay. Those duergar the Sovereign spoke about sounded nasty.”
“You seem to forget we can communicate with each other due to the parasite,” Gale reminds her lightly. “If something went wrong, they would have alerted me.”
As if on cue, Gale feels the tendrils of the parasite reaching for its kin, the psychic connection between him and his companions snapping into place without warning. Karlach’s fiery emotions surge into him as if they were his own; in contrast, Wyll’s calmness and playful assurance wraps around them, urging patience.
A shudder goes up and down his spine, unbidden. He’ll never get used to that. As genial and amicable as his relationship is with his infected companions, it still feels a horrible invasion whenever the worms connect without any heed for their hosts’ privacy.
“They’re here,” Gale announces after a few moments, sensing the two have been made aware of his own arrival. “We’ll reconvene with them first before we meet back with Omeluum.”
His feet move of their own accord, his body pivoting in the direction of Karlach and Wyll. Before long he, Rowan, and Dorian find themselves standing before one of the grotto’s chambers that had been closed off to them hours before. The curtain of bioluminescence has been drawn away, revealing a cozy interior full of mossy beds and crates of what Gale assumes to be supplies for non-myconids. Karlach and Wyll each sit on their own beds, covered in grime and looking as ready to pass out as Gale feels.
The moment he enters, Wyll’s head snaps up from the rapier he had been cleaning off, the sharp blade glinting in the gentle light of the glowing moss and mushrooms around them. “Welcome back,” he says warmly, one good eye trained on him and Rowan. “How did exploring the tower go—by Helm, Dorian?”
The warlock’s voice goes up an octave the moment he catches sight of Gale’s brother. He immediately stands up, posture somewhat stiff and uncomfortable as he gapes in shock, looking between Gale and Dorian as if he’s expecting a hydra to suddenly appear between them and devour him.
Dorian, on the other hand, looks positively pleased.
“When you said one of your companions was named Wyll, I wasn’t expecting Wyll Ravengard of all people,” his brother exclaims, a devious smirk manifesting on his face. He gives a mock bow of sorts, his eyes trained steadfast on Wyll’s rigid form and adds, “What a pleasure to meet you again, Lord Ravengard! And with…horns. A lovely pair of horns. Just what has happened to you since we last met?”
Wyll looks far less excited than Dorian as he nearly shrinks amidst his brother’s curious gaze.
“You know the ‘lord’ is unnecessary,” he grumbles, shifting in utter discomfort. His gaze flicks over to Gale, his one good eye swirling with a myriad of conflicting emotions. The panic in Wyll’s expression makes him feel a bitter surge of guilt. However could he have forgotten about the horns? Gale was there when Mizora cursed him with this new devilish form!
Wyll does not respond to Dorian’s question. Instead, he gives a deep sigh and hangs his head somewhat.
“Of course your brother is the Dorian I was tasked to escort to Luskan half a year ago. Your description of a swaggering sorcerer with an affinity for storm magic should have made it obvious immediately.”
Karlach’s eyes are wide. She whistles low and rubs at the back of her neck nervously, the protective aura she constantly exudes when it comes to the warlock almost a stifling presence in the grotto.
“Oh, shit, you two know each other?” she asks, one hand covertly reaching for the handle of her axe. It reminds Gale of the wariness with which Rowan beheld his brother—and the fury with which Gale’s darkness had threatened to succumb to. There is no mistaking the sense that Karlach will not hesitate to bring her wrath down upon Dorian, should the need arise.
“Unfortunately,” Wyll says somewhat miserably.
“Absolutely!” Dorian proclaims in tandem, and with far more gusto.
His grin deepens, the lines around his mouth crinkling as he throws a tawdry wink in the younger man’s direction. “Wyll was hired by my employers to guide me to Luskan on a job awhile back. Why, he even saved my life when we were attacked by a horde of undead! I’d expect nothing less from the son of the Gate’s very own Grand Duke!”
“The son of the Grand Duke?!” Rowan sputters, suddenly looking almost as panicked as Wyll is in the intense gaze of Dorian. “W-wait, Wyll, you’re royalty ?!”
Ah, that’s right.
Gale had forgotten Rowan was not with them when they stumbled upon the burning remains of Waukeen’s Rest and learned of the cult whisking Wyll’s father away to Moonrise Towers. Discovering a way to remove the parasites was not the only reason they were heading there. Rescuing the Grand Duke was another one, but it has yet to come up organically since Rowan stepped out of the darkness in Selûne’s ruined temple.
Like with Karlach’s infernal engine, Wyll’s disownment by his father was not Gale’s story to tell.
The warlock sighs once more, shoulders stiff as he shakes his head. “Any claim to my father’s wealth and titles disappeared the moment I became the Blade of the Frontiers. Before the nautiloid, I spent my days hunting down monsters and protecting people from their worst nightmares. This ,” he points at the curling horns atop his head, not looking Dorian in the eyes as his voice cracks imperceptibly, “is the result of a devil’s trickery.”
An awkward, palpable silence settles amongst them.
“Well,” Dorian says after a few terse moments, clearing his throat as tactfully as he can manage, “I suppose we’ll just have to remedy that, won’t we?”
Wyll raises an eyebrow.
Karlach mirrors his expression, though hers is more taut than curious.
Rowan is just still staring at the young warlock as if he has grown two heads and started chanting in ancient Calimshite. Evidently the reveal of his patriar parentage was wholly unexpected.
Gale’s brother does not falter underneath the dual gazes of Wyll and Karlach. Instead his face morphs into something…keen. Sharp. Determined, if Gale is reading the expression correctly.
“What? Don’t look at me like that. I am a talented sorcerer! I have means and ways to deal with problems! This foul, wretched parasite you all are infected with comes first—but I have no qualms regarding being a thorn in a devil’s side, if it means helping Wyll Ravengard. I still owe you my life, after all.”
Dorian lowers his voice an octave, tilting his head as yet another grin curls across his lips, as languid and calculating as an alley cat.
“But if I recall correctly, you still owe me for turning that necromancer into ash. I intend to collect that debt, Lord Ravengard.”
Wyll’s handsome, scarred face goes ruddy. He clears his throat and quickly looks away, his throat bobbing as he opens his mouth and shuts it many times over. Finally, he seems to give up on searching for a suitable response entirely, instead settling for returning his attention to his rapier and pretending like Dorian does not exist.
“We’ve found the materials Omeluum needs to make their alchemical concoction,” Gale informs Wyll’s backside and Karlach, sensing that perhaps a rapid change of subject would do the thick air of the chamber some good. “Would now be a good time to ask them to work their magic, so to speak? Or…are we all simply too tapped out, and tomorrow would be more suitable?”
Karlach nods, wincing as she does so. “Yeah, that’s probably the best bet. As much as I wanna get these fuckers outta our heads, those duergar kicked ass. I mean, we kicked ass harder, but still. I feel like I could eat a dragon.”
As if on cue her stomach gurgles, loud and piercing in the soft, calm atmosphere of the chamber. A quieter, more subdued growl follows almost immediately, accompanied by a familiar nervous giggle.
Gale glances to Rowan, whose cheeks are flushed for the umpteenth time today, only it is not he who has made it so.
“Uh,” she holds a hand up, biting her lower lip in a way that threatens to send his mind into another licentious tempest of untoward thoughts. “I could go for food. And sleep. It’s been a day.”
She oh-so-subtly meets his glance, her eyes twinkling with a sheen of mirth.
“A good day, but a day nonetheless.”
The endless, gaping pit in the bottom of Gale’s stomach groans and growls and yearns and it takes everything within his better judgment to remain stalwart and sane.
Even as the memory her taste blossoms upon his tongue once more, and Gale finds himself utterly and irrevocably hungry for something other than the shadows Rowan carries.
Dinner is a modest affair. What supplies they’ve brought combined with the foodstuffs the myconids have available for visitors, along with Dorian’s goods (“Not stolen, just borrowed from the tower’s previous owner,” he insists), Gale is able to conjure up a meal well-supplied with necessary nutrients if lacking in style and flair. He knew pocketing some of the spices from the druids would come in handy but truthfully, it is that assortment of herbs and whatnot that makes the food passable. Dried meats, cheese, and hardtack can only go so far. With all the mushrooms readily available—safe to eat, of course, provided by the myconids—it takes little time to whip up a potage of sorts to chase everything down with, but yet again…
He misses his tower terribly. He misses his kitchen and the whole of Waterdeep’s finest markets, packed and piqued for his careful browsing.
He misses the seamless repertoire he and Rowan had fallen into back home, taking turns preparing dinner and bouncing ideas off one another with a veritable smorgasbord of ingredients to choose from.
But what Gale does manage to prepare is greedily, hungrily lapped up until not a crumb is left. Even Dorian eagerly devours everything on his plate, practically admitting he has missed his younger brother’s cooking despite not voicing it aloud. It sparks a speck of pride in his chest, an almost vagrant emotion compared to what he is used to feeling lately.
If only his mother and father could be here too.
Well, not here here, because gods forbid they stumble into the Underdark and become embroiled in the plot of the Absolute. But there is no denying the thin veneer of hope Gale feels as he takes his brother’s empty plate and can almost imagine the space around them to be his tower, with fine wine and a five course meal the only thing separating him from the rest of his family.
And Rowan.
She is there. Of course she is there, just as she always will be, because she has been part of his family long before he realized how deeply his love for her ran. Since the moment his mother burst into the tower and demanded to know just who his apprentice was, perhaps.
…his mother really will have a heyday when she finds out. Morena Dekarios is nothing if not observant. She must have known for months and was simply too polite to really push the issue, beyond the occasional lighthearted bouts of teasing.
It’s between Gale’s thoughts running rampant once more and cleaning up after dinner when Karlach and Wyll divulge what they learned while on their separate little adventure. The duergar that attacked the colony are camped across the Ebonlake in some ruins of what supposedly is a Sharran temple; the remnants of Ketheric Thorm’s stronghold over a century ago. The temple is built upon an ancient adamantine forge, and most definitely has access to the cursed lands wreathed in shadow above.
If they wish to reach that accursed soil, they will have to deal with both duergar and Absolute cultists now claiming the ruins for their own.
Not the most ideal of prospects, but after everything Gale and his companions have been through over the last week or so, it’s not the worst either. He has Rowan. He has his brother, even. Both are fine sorcerers in their own rights. Not to mention Wyll and Karlach’s near-perfect synergy.
Yes. Everything shall be fine. He has the utmost faith that whatever tomorrow may bring, they will rise above it with heads held high.
(Even if Gale himself may be of little use.)
And it is that thought that he drifts off to sleep with, despite it all, and it is a poor sleep indeed.
For one, his mind still reels as he plays the moments in the library over and over, his lips throbbing with the memory of Rowan’s mouth moving desperately against his.
For another, there is an insatiable curiosity bubbling up inside him regarding how Dorian is going to narrate his reasonings for staying silent to their parents.
And lastly, well.
The chamber the myconids have provided them is suitable for rest, but the openness to the room leaves little to be desired in the means of privacy. The silent promise between him and Rowan to continue what they started remains taut and tangible between them, like a bridge shuddering above a great chasm. There is no feasible way Gale can sneak to the spot she has chosen to sleep and supplicate her with hands begging to touch her and a mouth despairing for more of her tantalizing taste. Not without the others realizing, because while there is no doubt in his mind Rowan would do her damnedest to remain quiet, he would rather go deaf than be unable to hear the sonorous chorus of her breathy gasps.
So Gale sleeps, just as the others do.
With Tara curled up as his head, her gentle purrs lulling him into a pleasant enough series of dreams meant to be forgotten upon waking up, he sleeps. The ache in his chest is but a dull roar, almost nonexistent when paired with the lovely voice of someone he cares for dearly whispering in his ears.
“Gale.”
Soft, gentle. Like a sun kissed breeze in spring, warm upon the cheeks.
“Gale, wake up.”
Or perhaps better yet, like the moon on a cloudless night. Ethereal and silken, a gift from Selûne.
“Dammit, wizard boy, if you don’t get your ass up this instant I’ll turn your skin purple instead of your hair.”
It’s a remarkably insistent voice, he’ll give them that. Though why it’s suddenly grounding out with irritation he does not know, for moments before it was—
“R-Rowan,” he stammers out as his consciousness suddenly snaps into place and his eyes open. Indeed, she’s hovering over him, pale face framed by the bioluminescence of the moss and mushrooms around them. He is instantly on alert, panic rising in his chest as he sits up sharply, much to Tara’s chagrin. The tressym merely grumbles in her deep sleep and readjusts herself as his head disappears from her backside.
Gale’s mouth suddenly feels very dry, throat constricted as he glances around the chamber wildly. Nothing seems out of place—Karlach and Wyll sleep soundly, and his brother a few feet away from them. It is impossible to tell if Dorian is asleep or not but that is neither here nor there. He turns his gaze back to Rowan, a question on his tongue, but it dies immediately upon conception when he catches the look on her face.
Flushed cheeks.
Bright eyes.
The strange, coy uptick of her mouth.
And hands wringing themselves into nervous knots.
“Gale,” Rowan murmurs, her voice barely audible over the sound of everyone else’s even breathing, “can we…talk?”
Oh, Gale thinks with a pinch of amusement, taking in the scintillating sense of desire in her eyes. Dinner did nothing to satisfy all her cravings. Just like him.
Just like him, Rowan is afflicted with a hunger more ruinous than the corrupt, fanged thing locked in his chest.
Oh. She’s just as flustered as I’ve been.
He only half-heartedly wonders how obvious it’s been to Karlach and Wyll as he practically leaps to his feet and takes the hand Rowan has extended towards him, tangling his fingers deftly with hers. He does not dwell on wherever Pip has wandered off to, or how worried Tara will be if she awakens to find his bedroll empty. Nor does he concern himself with the repercussions that will transpire if Dorian is actually awake and watching their every move with a discerning eye.
No, the only thing that matters at this moment is her. Gale follows Rowan out of the chamber, pushing past the otherworldly curtain of moss cutting the chamber off from the rest of the grotto. His heart pounds wildly. His skin is hot and tight. Her hand fits against his palm so perfectly, so right. He is in a daze, both unaware and yet acutely cognizant of the myconids milling about. The mushroom folk pay them no heed, even as they rush past them, having not a care in the world for the peculiar visitors from up top.
It isn’t until they’ve left the confines of the colony’s grotto that they come to a stop. They stand near a jagged crevice in the landscape of the Underdark, watched over by a massive, gnarled tree of sorts with leaves that glow the brightest out of all the fascinating flora in this ecosystem. The crevice is not unlike the chasm surrounding the way to Lenore’s tower, so deep and dark the end is nowhere in sight. The gentle blue light of the tree begets an overwhelming sensation of pure magic, casting both Gale and Rowan in a pretty pastel hue.
And when she turns her head towards him again, her lips barely parted as a sentence begins to form on her tongue, he cannot stop himself.
He surges forward and covers those delightfully soft lips with his own, sealing whatever she was about to say in a kiss.
Rowan lets out a surprised squeak against his mouth. She’s just as soft as he remembers, though it’s not as if their first kiss was centuries ago. His hand clutches hers as tight as he can manage; the other, he places against the side of her head and deftly threads his fingers through her hair. He pulls her towards her, gentle like a current as their chests press together and he can feel the thundering of her heart against him.
“G-Gale,” she stammers against his mouth with some difficulty. The stuttered syllable of his name in her voice is breathless and beguiling, but the hurried cadence gives him pause.
He quickly breaks the kiss—pointedly ignoring the way his lower stomach churns in disappointment—and feels his face flush in a mixture of shame and worry. “I’m so sorry,” Gale says quickly, contritely. “I could not help myself. I didn’t…I didn’t mean to force myself on you.”
Rowan shakes her head. Her freckled, pale cheeks are dusted with a pink that looks almost purple in the blue light of the tree. He does not miss the way her tongue darts out to moisten her lower lip as she gazes at him from under her lashes, gray eyes swirling with a thousand thoughts.
“I mean…I’m not opposed to it. It’s…it’s nice. I never got the chance to tell you that, what with Dorian and all, but, I’m…um…I wanted to talk about…that. N-not Dorian, but…us.”
She takes a deep breath and, before Gale can react, suddenly plunges her face into his chest. Her voice comes out muffled, an octave higher and nearly another squeak-like timbre to her tone as she speaks.
“I’ve never done any of this before.”
The admittance slips out fast, almost painful in its ejection.
The hand he is holding squeezes his fingers. The other hand finds purchase on the folds of his robes, gripping the fabric as if she were dangling from the precipice of the crevice only a few feet away from them.
“I’ve thought about it, gotten distracted by daydreams about it, but…that was the first time.”
Rowan refuses to lift her head, still smothering her face in his robes. He can feel her body shiver in his arms. Instinctively he drags the hand threaded through her hair downwards so that he’s cradling her waist, holding her to him as a mixture of shock and almost sickening arrogant delight dance between the confines of his ribcage.
“I’m scared, Gale,” she continues, sounding so utterly miserable that his heart feels as if it’s being shredded by a tangle of snarled claws. “I care about you so much and I’m terrified that I’m going to fuck something up, or that I’ll get overwhelmed and shut down and you won’t…”
She trails off dejectedly. Gale can stay silent no longer, angling his head so that his mouth brushes against her ear as he asks, “That I won’t what, sweetheart?”
Another shiver. Her voice is piteously soft, broken and as gaping as the chasm at their backs. “Like me,” she mumbles, finally lifting her head once more and catching his gaze. Her eyes are misty, as if she’s holding back tears, and the hunger that had been filling them has vanished completely.
Guilt eats away at him, raw and consuming. He didn’t know. They’d never spoken about past relationships beyond his history with Mystra—he didn’t know she’d never…
Except he did, didn’t he? Hours ago, when she stood in the library with him, weeping over the death of a lonely cleric, Rowan had confessed to it. Had told him her fears, her dark terrors in the ways of her heart, uncertain and insecure.
I didn’t have someone before I died. And sometimes I’m terrified I never will.
How dare he? How dare he allow himself to feel that brief sting of pride at something so antiquated as being her first kiss? Preposterous. Blasphemous. Wholly, undoubtedly, it is a stain on what little honor Gale thought he had left.
Because it is an honor to be loved by her and to love her in turn, and he will cling to that with a strength that would make even a giant balk.
“Rowan,” he whispers hoarsely, focusing on her trembling throat and vulnerable eyes. “My dear, darling girl. There is no force in any realm, known or unknown, that would lead me astray from you.”
He raises his head somewhat and presses a kiss to her forehead, swift and sweet. Her hand is hot and clammy in his as her fingers quiver, as if she cannot decide whether to run or hide.
All the words he wanted to say to her before his brother so rudely appeared tumble at the tip of his tongue, poised delicately like coins weighing down the altar of a god.
“I was drowning before I met you. Suffocating. You breathe new life into me, remember?”
He trails his mouth down, brushing his lips against her cheek as he angles himself to lean his forehead against hers, gazing at her with six months’ worth of longing and adoration and joy. The chill of the Underdark is barely noticeable in the space between them, so warm and soothing it is to have her in his arms like this.
Gale’s voice is naught but a whisper, every word an invocation of all the love wound tightly within his chest. “You are the brightest star in my sky, Rowan,” he tells her sincerely, devotedly. “I love you. I shan’t ever stop loving you. With you, I am myself—the man I want to be, need to be, because you encourage every part of me to be better. I was adrift in the dark before I met you. Your light showed me the way out of the pit I dug for myself.”
Her breath hitches.
The mistiness in her eyes grows deeper, wetter. She swallows thickly and squeezes his hand, a flutter of disbelief on her face as if she’s not certain Gale is actually standing before her
“Oh,” she murmurs, her tongue flicking out to wet her lips again.
Gale hates how it makes him want to devour her once more.
So instead of acting on instinct he repeats, “I love you.”
Such a simple sentence, those three words. How miraculous it is to think of all the magic and wonder and beauty their spell has cast on the world at large for time immemorial.
Rowan's hand, tucked in the folds of his robes, is suddenly on his cheek. He feels the movement of the pads of her fingers sliding against the stubble of his beard. She strokes his face, caressing his skin with an erratic combination of trepidation and eagerness. “This is real, isn’t it?” she says, both a question for him and a confirmation for her.
He nods.
Another swallow. A blink of both eyes—the wetness retreats, the tears held back by some unseen bastion for the time being, and Gale’s own breath nearly hitches when he catches sight of the heady darkness that begins to creep across her pupils.
“You love me.”
Rowan’s enamored, enraptured face is so beautiful it feels a sin to look at.
“And I love you.”
Her gaze flickers pointedly to his mouth, which already throbs with the promise of what is to come.
“This is real.”
Gale curses the orb and the parasite within, wanting nothing more than to spirit her away to the tower—their tower, their home—and sink into the sheets with her limbs tangled around him for all eternity.
“It’s real,” he agrees, his voice hoarse once more as he waged a war to keep his composure. “It’s all real, sweetheart.”
Rowan’s next words are ragged and threadbare, every syllable articulated with a sense of utter urgency.
“Then you’d better start kissing me again because fuck, Gale, it’s all I’ve been thinking about since we got back and—”
He does not have to be told twice. He captures her mouth with his again, cutting off the rest of her sentence. With a relieved sigh, she lets out that same strangled noise she made earlier, when he had her pinned to the desk and the only thing in his universe was her, her, her. His Rowan. His beloved. His goddess.
Gods, he does not deserve this woman.
Gale clutches her to him, tongue and teeth making short work of the flimsy barrier her lips provide as he deepens the kiss greedily. Hunger. That hunger is back, pinpointed on the sweet taste of her and the even sweeter noises he can elicit from her mouth. His blood is hot. His skin prickles. His robes are tight again, one knee pressing against the plush feel of her thighs as he maneuvers her into a waltz of sorts.
He doesn’t know how he manages it but suddenly, he is leaning against the thick trunk of the strange underground tree as Rowan moans and whimpers into the kiss. She’s flush against him, moving her inexperienced mouth in a frenzied dance desperate to match his tempo. She’s nearly straddling him, a mirror to his position above her earlier, the hand on his cheek now cupping the back of his head.
The chasm inside of him groans.
Perfection. Bliss.
A sensation he never felt with Mystra, not once. Not truly. No, eternity is with Rowan, and he can’t wait to make her see stars.
Gale fumbles about in the pastel light of the tree, fingers stretching and searching until they find purchase on her hip. Deftly, nimbly, he tugs on it, slipping past the fabric and when he comes into contact with the bare skin of her waist, Rowan jerks into the kiss and lets out a startled cry of alarm.
The sweetness on his tongue becomes bitter as guilt courses through his veins once more.
Gale breaks from the kiss, ignoring the thick trail of saliva that drops from their equally swollen lips. He immediately yanks his hand away, his skin burning as if he has attempted to grasp the sun. “Too much?” he asks, shame weighing down on his shoulders like twin mountains.
“A-a bit,” she admits, breathing hard and heavy. “Never had these sensations before. Never, um, known what it would actually feel like to kiss someone. It’s not that I don’t want to, but it’s just…”
She trails off, bruised mouth twisting with a reproachful frown.
“Overwhelming?” Gale supplies, abhorrence sharp and caustic. Whyever she was the one worried she’ll do something to make him dislike her, he does not know, when he is the one who keeps going too far and too fast.
“…yeah. I’m sorry.” Rowan’s face is so red he fears she is going to spontaneously combust. Her voice is a tremor, warbling and as quiet as a sigh as she adds, “Daydreams and reality are very different. I never would have guessed.”
Some fragile, nearly forced remnant of her usual dissonant humor peaks through the cracks.
But she hasn’t pulled away from his embrace and remains tucked against him as if she belongs there. “I will go at whatever pace you’re comfortable with,” Gale vows, subtly trying to adjust himself so she can’t feel just how thrilled he was getting from those few sacred moments. “It’s nothing to be ashamed about. I should have realized sooner. I was too hasty in my…eagerness.”
Eagerness is certainly one way of putting it, he supposes. The far more celibate phrasing than what he originally intended.
And she knows. Of course she knows, because she knows him better than nearly anyone in Faerûn. One corner of Rowan’s mouth perks up in a faded semblance of a smirk. She’s clearly about to say something, make some underhanded and positively perverse comment, but she does not get the chance to.
There is a rustling above them.
Like the sound of leaves drifting through branches.
Gale glances upwards to see a glowing something approaching them from high in the tree’s boughs. It appears to be…a flower? Nearly translucent and falling at an alarming speed, as if someone hiding in the canopy plucked it from a branch and threw it down with all their might.
Rowan steps away from him to get a better look, confusion clear on her face just as a memory surfaces to the forefront of his mind. Dorian’s voice at dinner, giving a full rundown of what he had discovered in the tower—in between his blatant flirtation with Wyll, of course.
“That cleric had been researching sussur trees and their anti-magic properties. The tower was powered by sussur blossoms somehow, though I never discovered the means by which she devised such a thing.”
Ah. What Gale and Rowan stand beneath is a sussur tree. The boughs must have shed a blossom, sensing two beings ripe with potent magic in its midst. The realization comes too late, for the time the epiphany wanders lethargically through Gale’s conflicted thoughts, the flower settles on the ground right next to him.
And his entire world turns black.
Hunger.
That terrible, deep, clawing need for magic rises up within him like nausea. The accursed orb slumbering within awakens like a bolt of corrupted lightning from a sundered heaven. Gale hears himself cry out in pain, in agony, in hunger as the shadows within weep and fade within the sussur flower’s field.
His legs give out.
He falls to the dusty, moss-covered ground and clutches at his chest. His throat constricts. There is a knife digging away at his heart, cutting and tearing and ripping. Pain. So much pain.
His bones are breaking. His skin is flaying. He is dead, he is dying, he has never been alive to begin with. Just a walking corpse fueled by a gluttonous spite for the raw, insatiable taste of the Weave. Every ounce of power, the feeble remnants not yet cast aside from the blight and the worm, is vanishing.
There will be no more magic left if this continues.
Gale Dekarios will be no more.
And all that will remain is the foul catastrophe trapped in his flesh, doomed to devour every ounce of magic in Toril.
The darkness that has spent so many months converging, hiding, protecting wails within his blood, reaching out in a desperate hope for a helping hand. The sussur flower covers its screams. Gale can’t even be sure he heard the cacophony in the first place.
He can’t even be sure it isn’t him screaming in terror and torment.
All he knows is that the thing in his chest is laughing, fully alert and full of a vindictive poison and that is leaching into his soul. It’s hungry. Gods, is it ever hungry, and if he doesn’t get an enchanted item out right now it’s going to finally consume him until there is nothing left but a dried husk and broken promises.
“Gale!”
A voice. A voice he knows so well, so dear.
“D-don’t worry, I’ll get one of those rings I brought! I’ll fix this! I-I’ll fix this…!”
The agony is so gnawing, so unending that he is blind. His eyes are open, he knows they are, but he sees nothing. Nothing but an image of his body floating in a sea of shadow, skin ashen and limbs bent in impossible angles. Something drips from his torn-out eyes, pouring out of his mouth that is open in a silent scream. A glittering river of dark purple.
The orb in his chest snarls. Claws dig into his heart, piercing and tearing as it feasts upon the vestiges of magic that once laden his being in silken layers.
Gale is afraid.
He has felt pain before.
He has felt fear before.
Oh, countless are the days he lay in bed weeping and immobile from the agony of the blight in his chest. But this? This is different. This is a complete and total ruin of his soul. A pillage of his magic, a plundering of what makes him him.
The orb feasts. The flower drains. He is an empty vessel never to be filled.
And Gale is helpless to stop any of it.
“I’m not fucking losing you to a flower ,” Rowan hisses, and suddenly he is aware that it’s Rowan, and he feels hands bracing his shoulders as something in the air shifts.
The empty sensation ends. The orb halts in its revelry, confused. He hears Rowan swear in ways that would make a pirate damn proud. Her hands are warm as they grip his shoulders, yanking his aching and limp body to her as she hisses like a feral beast.
“I think the bag fell when we jumped down the hole,” she tells him, frantic and borderline hysterical. “I-I don’t…I can’t…”
Gale tries to speak. He tries to tell her it’s going to be alright, or some other nonsensical platitude, but no words come out. His voice is useless.
She hisses again. A snarling growl rips from her, more intense than the sounds the orb has ever uttered.
“We’re just gonna have to improvise. I’m sorry, Gale. This is the only thing I can think of.”
Her voice echoes in a chorus of a thousand other voices. There is a pressure on his chest, not in, and then suddenly something is filling him to the brim. It’s like the dozens of times he has absorbed the magic from enchanted items and artifacts only more. More magic, more pure energy, more power than Gale has felt since his fall from Mystra’s grace. The shadows lurking in his veins sing in tandem as this something pours into him. They rejoice, surging between his muscles and sinew with a renewed vigor.
Gale lets out a shuddering gasp as untainted magic flows through every inch of him. It chases away the pain, replacing the agony with a warm sense of safety. The orb flinches and recoils, jerking away as a wave of darkness envelopes its prison. The daggers stop stabbing his heart. The river of magic that was once being siphoned away from him reverses and turns itself on him. It fills him to the brim, flooding his senses.
He has never felt so alive.
If the items Rowan imbued with her magic were feasts for a king, this is a banquet fit for the gods. The magic being pushed into him replaces what the orb devoured tenfold. What the sussur flower had blocked seeps back into his veins with a strength startling and more vivid than a power he remembers.
More, part of him cries out. More, gods, please! He is only vaguely aware of reaching out and grasping at empty air. His eyesight slowly returns, the blackness fading as gentle blue light fills his periphery.
Gale is a goblet of wine overflowing. His senses are on fire. His soul is alight. Power, rippling and unyielding, swirls within the darkness that has poured forth. The shadows pirouette to and fro, a veritable army fit for battle as they stalk the orb in its cage.
Rowan’s face comes into view and Gale’s heart skips a beat.
Her eyes have become inky pits of shadow. Tendrils of ichor drip down her cheeks, mixing with tears as she clutches him to her. One hand is pressed against his chest directly over the scar that marks his folly.
“You’re okay,” she whispers, kiss-bruised lips trembling as she pushes her hand deeper against his chest.
Gale glances down. Shadows leak from her fingertips. They scurry across his robes and disappear into his flesh, each one a soldier eager to join its brethren within the war that wages inside him. A quick glance around tells him the sussur blossom is nowhere to be seen and Rowan has dragged him out from under the tree’s canopy. They’re now huddled within a mass of fungi close to the grotto’s entrance.
He takes a deep, ragged breath.
“What…” His tongue is thick and unwieldy in his mouth. “What just…happened?”
How can he feel so drained and yet so full simultaneously? It’s as if he’s been stripped of everything and unmade, then pieced back together with hands that know him better than he knows himself.
“That stupid tree,” Rowan starts, sniffling and rubbing at her eyes. The tar-like substance sticks to her hands and she wipes them off on the stem of a mushroom, staining the white flesh. “The flowers on it block magic. When it got close to you, the orb…” She gestures to him, bits of blackness clinging to her fingers still. “I pushed the flower into the chasm but I couldn’t find the bag with all the shit I enchanted. You were yelling, Gale. You were in so much pain. I had to improvise.”
His chest twinges slightly. Not in pain, not in fear, but in relief. His skin is warm where her hand rests against him, fingers splayed protectively over his heart. Fingers that remain steadfast in their placement but no longer sending wave after wave of Shadow Weave into his body. Indeed, the darkness in Rowan’s eyes is beginning to evaporate—the ichor on her cheeks starts to flake off like dried blood, disappearing into the musty air of the Underdark.
“I absorbed the Shadow Weave directly from you,” Gale says slowly in realization, eyes widening.
She nods.
His thoughts begin to race. Theories, unspoken and left to die in a dark corner of his mind, resurface like triumphant heroes. They’d mentioned it; they’d toyed with the possibility once Gale revealed his condition to her so long ago, but it was always too dangerous. Too many unknown variables were involved to even attempt a ritual of some kind.
Yet she’d done it. Despite the repercussions they had posited on, the potential drawbacks and consequences a rite of that magnitude would cause, she’d done it. Rowan had poured the very essence of the Shadow Weave burrowed within her into him and he feels more powerful and truer to himself than he has in a year.
No, that’s a lie, a voice whispers insidiously in that dark corner of his mind. You’ve never felt more powerful even when you were under Mystra’s thumb and struck by her enchantments.
Gale snatches the hand that has been pouring her magic into him and squeezes, sitting upright with a speed that shouldn’t be possible after an attack from the orb. “Did it hurt you?” he all but demands, worry lacing every word as he surveys her face for anything that would tell him otherwise. “Rowan, are you alright?”
“I should be the one asking you that,” she responds somewhat stiffly. Her usual pale pallor doesn’t appear any different and there’s no immediately visible erroneous effects on her person.
Though he is now sitting up, Gale is still snugly tucked against Rowan’s chest. He lets himself rest his head where her heart beats, focusing on evening his breathing to match the rhythm. Wordlessly, she wraps both arms around him and hugs him to her, an intimate replica of the embrace she caught him in on the eve of his blighted confession.
“I'm sorry for doing it without your permission, Gale. I had to try it, before something happened that you couldn’t come back from. With the parasite in you, and limited resources, we don’t have any other options right now.”
Gale sees her point.
He was lucky to get what little help Miri and the others gave while they wandered through the wilderness. Beggars can’t be choosers. And her Rowan is, a fathomless well directly connected to the Shadow Weave; a source of magic so pure it can quiet the orb and fuel him in ways he never imagined.
But is it right?
Magical marvel aside, is this truly safe?
Or will Gale become a monster more gluttonous than the corrupted power in his chest if he decides he likes the taste too much?
Rowan would stop him before that ever happened. He trusts her. He has more faith in her than he does himself. Hells, he has more faith in her than he does in Mystra, or ever did.
Gale pushes the thoughts away. It’s too much considering the other events of the day.
Instead, he chooses to focus on the task at hand.
“You might have just saved my life,” he murmurs, gazing up at her as he fully sinks into her arms. “If you hadn’t been here…”
Rowan suddenly blushes, avoiding his eyes as a shadow of her earlier nerves starts to creep up her neck. “You wouldn’t have been here in the first place if I hadn’t dragged you out of bed so you could kiss me again,” she attests in a mumble.
He can’t argue with that.
Though weighing the chance of his brother rolling over and discovering him in a corner memorizing Rowan’s mouth with being assaulted by a sussur tree? Gale thinks he prefers the latter, to whatever end.
Still…
He raises a hand and tentatively, tenderly rests it against her cheek. Her skin is still damp from whatever tears she had shed in her panic. Guilt gnaws at him once more, yet another layer to add to the day’s ever-growing mountain. “I made you cry.”
The blush deepens. Her mouth twitches ever so slightly, the muscles jerking beneath his fingers. She continues to look away from him and focuses intently on a particular mushroom some ways away. When she speaks, her voice is strained and timid, though a barely discernible hint of longing echoes.
“You could make me do other things to make up for it.”
Gale raises an eyebrow.
“Oh? That whole display didn’t ruin your appetite?”
Rowan doesn’t answer. Instead, she shifts how she’s embracing him so that her head is now buried in his hair, making it awkward and nearly impossible to still caress her cheek as he had been yearning to. “Apparently not. I am an enigma that requires further research.”
And despite the terror and pain he had felt moments ago—despite the near certainty that everything was ending with no warning—
Gale laughs.
He grins, and laughs, and his chest tightens with the force of how much he loves the woman clinging to him right now. “Then allow me to conduct an independent study. I assure you, I’ll be most thorough in discovering your secrets.”
Rowan’s answering squeak is delightfully delicious.
Chapter 10: dark tidings
Notes:
hey
capitalism sucks
but i hope this chapter doesn't lmao
heads up: depictions of emotional turmoil and my own experience with autistic meltdowns <3
big shout out to fluentlyspeakingtreason on tumblr who wrote me the cutest gale/rowan fluff piece and singlehandedly revived my creative spark again. thank you so much, friend. :)
Chapter Text
Fuck the Grymforge.
Fuck the people who built the Grymforge.
But most of all, fuck Dorian for somehow convincing them all to trudge through the flaming ruins on the off chance it would provide them with a secret weapon of some kind.
“All right, sound off,” Rowan groans as she lay flat on her back, staring up at the staggering cavern above her. The floor beneath her is hard and worryingly hot and does little to soothe her aches from the most harrowing experience she’s ever been through—and she’s fucking died, for the Matron’s sake. “Who’s not dead?”
A chorus of disgruntled, pain-filled grunts mirroring her own discomfort rises from her companions. Everyone is in various states of also being crumpled on the ground of the forge; bruised, bloody, and nearly beaten into submission. However, none more so than the massive construct they’ve just spent every ounce of magic and muscle fighting against. Unmoving, crushed, and helmet warped beyond recognition by Karlach’s terrifying strength, the forge’s robotic guardian lay in a pool of molten magma with no signs of getting up once more.
And thank the Raven Queen for that.
I’ve never met a problem Fireball can’t solve, Rowan thinks disgruntledly as she surveys the rest of her companions through half-lidded eyes. Fuck, she’s exhausted. Completely tapped out. Draining her magic in serious, contested combat that means life or death is a whole different beast than utilizing her spells in her arcane schooling. Especially when the opponent is resistant to nearly every spell in her arsenal—and the spells of her friends.
Indeed, Wyll and Gale look like they’re ready to roll over and pass out for a month or two. Even Dorian is struggling, breathing ragged and hard as he leans on the staff he’s been relying on for the last three days.
Karlach, dangerously close to the edge of the forge’s main platform, lets out a hissing groan and gives Rowan a shaky thumbs up. The tiefling was undoubtedly the star of the show. Ripping off the construct’s arm in a desperate rage and using it as a weapon to beat the shit out of it with? Incredible. Just absolutely incredible. Rowan is going to have so many stories to tell Jericho when she gets back to Waterdeep.
Well, not all of them will be about how hot and capable Karlach is. Most, but not all. It’s been a wild three days: crossing the Ebonlake and arriving at the old Sharran ruins, weeding out Absolute cultists, saving a group of gnomes from becoming slaves to duergar, uncovering secrets from Ketheric Thorm’s reign of terror…
Not to mention all the times she and Gale have snuck away when no one is looking. Those might not be stories Rowan wants to tell Jericho. They’re for Rowan’s enjoyment alone.
…and Gale’s, she supposes. She doesn’t know who’s been more of a distracted, anticipatory mess over the last three days. Her, or Gale.
“This,” her wizard bites out through grit teeth as he grimaces at his brother with the force of a hundred burning suns, “is the last time we listen to any of your suggestions, Dorian.”
The elder Dekarios in question just stares blankly at the immobile remains of the deadly construct, brows pinched and lips set in a thin line.
Next to it, the forge’s gargantuan hammer affixed to the complex system of pulleys and levers above remains stubbornly affixed to the crucible. Only through sheer dumb luck and impeccable timing were they able to defeat the construct. A combination of activating the hammer precisely when the construct was standing on the platform, and Karlach holding it at bay with its own arm.
Now, the precious adamantine ore is forever trapped in the forge’s crucible. There is no way to release the hammer and reveal the contents on account of how fucked the machinery got during the stressful fight. Dorian’s seemingly “well thought out” plan of crafting an immaculate set of armor for Wyll is all for naught.
“…I need to lay down for a moment.”
“I suggest laying down after we’ve left this place,” Wyll points out in a gravelly tone, wiping sweat from his brow. He gestures shakily to the sea of lava that surrounds them, the already stifling temperature of the forge getting worse by the moment now that the battle is done. “Unless you would prefer to remain and test the limits of Rowan’s fire resistance elixirs?”
Well, technically they’re Gale’s, but as the bearer of the sacred Bag of Holding everyone—including him—has deemed the contents to be Rowan’s forevermore.
They’re just lucky she cleaned out the tower’s entire stock before finding Gale. The elixirs have been their saving grace since stepping into the stifling, horrendously hot ruins. Not that the magic would prevent them from immediately melting if they fell into the streams of lava constantly surging through the forge, but it helps stave off the worst of the heat.
It does not, however, prevent them from sweating.
Oh boy howdy, has there been a lot of sweating. Sweating from Karlach. From Wyll. From Dorian. From Rowan herself. But Gale? Holy shit. Holy shit has looking at a sweaty Gale for three days done a number on her self-control.
Especially right now. Even though Rowan’s body aches and her mind is reeling and her soul feels a little bit like it’s disappeared with the rest of her spells, the sight of Gale’s robes partially undone at the collar for some form of relief has her gnawing and clawing at a roiling mass of feelings. Paired with the memories of his hands ghosting along her hips and the phantom touch of his mouth on hers—
How the hell is she supposed to wait until everyone is asleep for them to continue their routine of sneaking off into a dark corner and testing the limits of her newly found appetites? Were it not for the imminent danger of being swept up by the slowly rising magma, Rowan would jump Gale right here and now in front of all their companions.
Down, girl. No horny. Only business. We need to keep moving, now that we’ve explored the Forge and found absolutely nothing to help with the parasite problem.
She had been so sure of Omeluum’s mushroom concoction. So had everyone else. The disappointment threading between them all had been palpable when Gale, volunteering to be the first guinea pig, downed the entire rancid contents and the only effect it had was increasing the worm’s innate psionic abilities.
At least Omeluum had felt guilty enough about their solution being more of a hindrance that they had gifted Gale with an enchanted ring to protect his mind from other intrusive magics.
This one, she will ensure he does not eat. The only magic her wizard is consuming is going to come directly from her from now on.
Even if he doesn’t appreciate the vampire jokes as much as he should.
Rowan has been so caught up in her thoughts, staring blankly and silently at the cavernous ceiling above, that she completely missed everyone starting the slow process of picking themselves up and dusting off after the battle. It isn’t until Karlach’s face, dripping with sweat and ash and grime, replaces the view of the craggy ceiling that she realizes how long she’s been laying on the ground.
“You good, soldier? Can you move?”
Yes.
No.
Maybe?
Rowan scrunches her face up and just holds her arms out towards Karlach. Her hands squeeze into fists rapidly as she gazes at the tiefling with her best impression of Gale’s puppy eyes coupled with a toddler who wants uppies.
“Carry me.”
Before the elixir wears off , she silently adds. She could always chug another one if it does, but the supply of them isn’t eternal and Rowan would feel terrible if she ran out and couldn’t give Karlach hugs anymore.
At least they stumbled across a collection of infernal metal down here. Enough that the tiefling blacksmith who adjusted Karlach’s engine back in the Grove should be able to give it another upgrade.
Karlach rolls her fiery eyes at Rowan but there is no mistaking the amused glint in them. She beams, sharp teeth adding to the joyous flair as she scoops Rowan up into her arms and in one fell swoop, has her cradled bridal style.
Rowan throws her arms around Karlach’s neck dramatically and snaps her head in the direction she last saw Gale. He’s grumbling and complaining to Dorian, who is still just staring at the wreckage of the construct and the Forge with eyes that have seen too many things for one lifetime.
As if on cue her wizard suddenly glances over and meets her intense gaze. She gives him what she believes is a cute, polite little wave as she snuggles up against Karlach’s warm chest. Gale’s mouth twitches with the ghost of a smile that he doesn’t want to quite show and he shakes his head, returning her wave with fingers that no doubt ache from furious spellcasting.
This could be us if you let me drink that strength elixir again, she tries telling him silently but alas, with no worm in her brain, she is without the power of telepathy.
She’s been too shy to bring it up organically even though it would be kind of hot to manhandle him while blessed with a Fly spell. Their little “sessions” have mostly consisted of Rowan setting a pace that she’s comfortable with and Gale following, pausing when he senses if she’s getting overwhelmed. Kissing him is nice. Being held by him is even better.
She wishes she wasn’t so godsdamn anxious about…everything else that may happen.
“Is everyone ready to go?” Wyll asks, his voice cutting through the burble of magma and hiss of steam. It is still steadily rising; soon, the molten rock will completely cover the Forge and its guardian’s inert remains.
The thought is somewhat saddening. To see such an amazing piece of history and magical technology disappear…
Rowan knows there are plenty of other ancient secrets hiding in Faerûn’s dark corners, but that doesn’t stop the disappointment curdling in her chest.
Gale nods to the younger man, grabbing Dorian by the scruff of his robe and jerking him upright. “We can’t keep Miri and the others waiting. Time to make our way to the Shadow-Cursed Lands.”
The tiefling bard had messaged the illithid-infected this morning. She informed them her group had finished with the githyanki crèche and had crossed over the curse’s boundary.
Judging by the way Gale, Karlach, and Wyll reacted, though, Rowan is certain there’s a little more to the story that they aren’t telling. She will force herself to be patient and wait until their two groups commingle once more.
And so, sweaty and burnt and smelling like the worst bonfire ever, their party trudges back through the ruins of the Grymforge.
Skeletal remains of Dark Justiciars and looters alike still litter the cracked, ragged ground. Tarnished metal doomed to never see the light of day is everywhere. There are most certainly still secrets and hidden stashes nestled throughout the ruins, and if they had more time Rowan would love nothing more than to continue exploring. This is what she has always wanted, always dreamed of. Back in her old life when she went by a name that no longer fits, she remembers the ache of a purpose that would never be fulfilled all too acutely.
Once Gale is cured of both orb and parasite alike she is going to drag him to every corner of this world and learn about every people and culture she possibly can.
She feels only a teeny speck of guilt about Karlach carrying her. By the time they reach their makeshift camp directly across from the elevator that leads out of the Underdark, her friend has offered that lofty privilege to the others, switching Rowan out for Gale and Dorian and Wyll just to give the exhausted magic-users equal breaks.
Fuck, she misses having an actual bed to fall into at the end of the day. A bedroll on the cold hard ground is a perverse mockery in comparison. She would kill for the tower back in Waterdeep. Maim. Murder. Pillage. Whatever. Thinking is hard when one is utterly tapped out.
Ugh. She really smells awful. And all her clothes are sticking to her in that gross, unflattering way that clothes do when you’re drenched in sweat. Forget a soft bed, she would commit unspeakable horrors for a dip in an actual bath right now!
Not to mention the bloodstains and ragged tears in her beautiful robes. Jericho would kill her for ruining them. Though, really, if the tiefling had crafted the robes with actual adventuring in mind rather than just typical spellcasting, perhaps they would be a bit more durable?
Boss! Boss! You doin’ alright?!
Pip flies at her the moment their ragtag team rounds the massive column supporting the carved ceiling and jolts her from her wandering thoughts. The familiar lands on her shoulder, sharp claws digging into her skin as they inspect her worriedly for any lasting damage.
Tara and Pip remained by the elevator just in case a wayward gnome might pop out of hiding, unaware their captors were taken care of and their brethren safe back at the myconid colony. It seems like a lifetime ago rather than just a couple days.
Rowan strokes the raven’s curved beak gingerly, giving a tired nod and burying the desire for a bed and a bath and anything else beyond it. Yeah. We got the shit beat out of us, but no major injuries. Just drained. I could sleep for a year.
“Mr. Dekarios, did I not explicitly tell you to be careful!” Tara’s voice rings out with shrill concern, piercing the air. The tressym is smacking Gale’s legs with her paws (though there is no true force behind the slaps) and straight up glaring at him, fur on end. “Look at you! You can barely stand, let alone walk!”
Gale winces.
“Please do not yell at me right now, Tara. My head hurts and my legs are currently somewhere beyond the aether of the material plane.”
“Oh, I will yell as much as I please! You’re a talented wizard with a mind to match—act like it!”
“You know, Tara frightens me more than the Absolute does,” Wyll mumbles to Rowan.
She can’t help but nod in agreement. Tara is certainly a force to be reckoned with, especially when she gets into smothering cat mom mode.
Dorian clears his throat loudly. He no longer has the thousand yard stare going on in his eyes, but his usual abundance of flair and confidence is very much diminished. He really had wanted to make that armor for Wyll. Rowan almost feels sorry for him. Almost.
“Come now, Tara, don’t be so hard on Gale! He was only trying to be a good brother and follow my suggestion—”
“I’d much rather he be a good wizard and do what is reasonable, not something so foolish as what you all just did!” Tara snaps back, fur standing on end and tail swishing oh-so-angrily. She removes herself from Gale’s legs and saunters over to Dorian, her irate exasperation coming off of her in palpable waves. “Why, if your mother knew the danger you both have gotten into since reuniting, she would positively faint! I know it is a difficult concept for you to grasp, Dorian, but perhaps exercising just the tiniest bit of restraint and wisdom would be beneficial to all, hm?”
Dorian can do nothing but shrink silently beneath the wrath of the tressym, eyes darting back and forth to Rowan and Gale in an obvious plea for assistance as Wyll and Karlach conveniently pretend as if there isn’t a yowling magical cat in their midst.
Instead of meeting Dorian’s gaze, Gale meets Rowan’s.
There is an unmistakable twinkle of mischief in the gentle brown hues, despite the overlay of exhaustion she shares with him.
“I believe it would be pertinent for us to do a quick perusal of what the chamber the elevator leads into is like,” he says with all the nonchalance in the world, Tara’s berating and reprimanding of his older brother nothing but background noise. “We ought to ensure the area is safe before we all venture into the shadows.”
There is a particular emphasis on shadows , one she has come to recognize over the last few days.
Ah, Rowan realizes as she reaches inwardly for her darkness, sensing the creeping tendrils buried within her groaning for the shadows safe and sound beneath Gale’s skin. I see where this is going.
“You always have the best ideas,” she says with a grin, dutifully ignoring Dorian’s theatrical gasp as both she and Gale turn their backs to him. “I’ve still got enough in me for another Fireball or two!”
She is vaguely aware of Dorian protesting and demanding why Tara continues to yell at him while she and Gale saunter off towards the elevator, as well as Wyll and Karlach’s gazes trained on their retreating forms. Gale’s thumb brushes against her wrist just barely and she resists the urge to shiver, the slightest touch sending tingles up and down her spine.
It’s ridiculous how even after a near-death experience she can still be plagued with indecency.
They remain silent as they step onto the elevator together. Gale fiddles with the levers for a moment before the gears grind into action, the rusted parts squealing from years of disuse. Dirt and dust and a multitude of unmentionable particles rustle down as the pulleys shift and begin to ascend at a decent pace—the elevator is so noisy that if there is truly something waiting to strike at the top, it will have plenty of time to prepare.
Not that Rowan thinks there’s anything to worry about. The tidbits from the drow, Nere, and the Absolute cultists down here made it seem like hardly anyone from Moonrise took the time to scope out the Sharran ruins beneath their feet.
The ascent is faster than anticipated. In less than ten minutes the elevator slows to a stop, groaning and shuddering as a flat platform comes into view. She and Gale step out of it in tandem and their feet touch carved marble, the floor patterned and decorated with gorgeous purple designs smudged with grime and cracked in a myriad of places. The walls appear to still be cavernous and the chamber is relatively large, big enough that she can’t make out the very edges as they are shrouded in darkness.
Sconces are hammered into the stone, half-dead flames that burn a sickly violet barely illuminating a foot in front of them. Cobwebs drape across knocked over candelabras and weapon racks. The air is musty and holds a hint of decay, not unlike the atmosphere of Lenore’s abandoned tower. A large fire pit in the center of the room holds cold cinders, ash smudging what was probably once pure gold.
And, of course, there are skeletons.
Rowan recognizes the telltale armor of Dark Justiciars considering how many of their remains the group stumbled upon during their adventures over the last few days. There are about a dozen of them scattered about, leaning against rusted swords and laying atop what is most definitely centuries’ old bloodstains. Remnants of the Ketheric’s warriors, doomed to some uncertain fate perhaps?
“Pip,” she calls to her familiar, who has remained on her shoulder during the silent ascent, “will you do a perimeter check? See if there’s anything funky or weird going on before we continue forward?”
The raven nods.
“Ya got it, Boss. I’ll be back toot-sweet if’n I sees anythin’ ‘funky’ or ‘weird,’ no worries.”
With a cry they launch from their shoulder and disappear as silent as a shadow into the darkness, their feathery wings making not a sound.
She holds a hand out expectantly the moment Pip fades away, eyeing Gale in the dim light as she desperately ignores the rapid hammering of her heart.
“Hand, please. My wizard needs his daily dose of Rowan juice.”
His throat bobs. His cheeks strain. His mouth twitches upwards ever so slightly as he places his hand in hers, the calloused fingers warm and gentle and familiar in her grasp. “I truly wish you’d stop referring to what is a highly complex magical ritual as ‘Rowan juice,’ sweetheart.”
“Nah. Your face amuses me when I say it. Now close your eyes and concentrate with me, yeah?”
She doesn’t wait for him to agree before her eyes are already closing, and Rowan focuses on the shadows within.
The sharing of her magic with Gale doesn’t hurt, per se. It’s cold. It’s peculiar. It’s a twinge of something alien, something alarming at first, like a needle poking into a vein and rummaging around for a substance that might not actually exist. But then the initial discomfort fades, and the chill under her skin is replaced by the sun itself, and her shadows sing and jump for joy as they vacate the endless well of her soul and slither their way to Gale’s heart.
There is an intimacy to this ritual they’ve conjured. It goes beyond what they share when his tongue is down her throat and his fingertips dancing just barely beyond the edges of her robes. It is an exchange of her very self—her very essence—and pouring it into him out of nothing but sheer love and respect.
If there was any way to link a soul to another and revel in the sensation of each other, then surely this would be it.
He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, one he’s made every time they’ve undergone this absorption of the Shadow Weave. It’s like he wants to moan or say or her name but he swallows it, bites his tongue, grinds his teeth as her hand squeezes his tighter and tighter.
(Rowan tries not to think about how similar it sounds to the sighs her mouth elicites from his throat when they’re lost in a world of their own.)
She chews on the inside of her cheek as a wave of exhaustion batters against her like a storm at sea. Sure, she may be a sorcerer with a strong connection to the Shadow Weave, but there’s no denying how much the battle with the robot drained her innate magic. Calling upon the deep reserves of shadow and giving them to Gale will just about take what little she has left.
But it’s worth it.
As Rowan opens her eyes, the fading sensation of the final remnants of darkness passing from her skin to his, she knows it will always be worth it as she drinks in the sight of him with a deep breath.
The fatigue clinging to him is all but gone. His eyes are bright and his skin no longer has a worrying pale pallor to it. Gale stands up straighter, his shoulders not as hunched and his head not so heavy, as the orb’s vicious mark curling up his face flashes weakly. The shadows have sated its hunger, as they have every day since that moment under the sussur tree.
Rowan’s heart feels a little lighter as it always does after seeing him look so renewed and full of vigor.
This can work.
This will work.
It’s not the same as removing the orb from Gale’s body entirely, but it will keep it from devouring him and everything else around him, and even if it comes at the cost of Rowan’s life she will do what needs to be done.
All to see him alive and well and…
Happy.
“How do you feel?” Rowan asks, even though she knows the answer.
Gale smiles and reaches a hand out, cradling her cheek and lacing his fingers with hers. “Never better,” he murmurs softly, leaning down to press his lips against her forehead. Her very sweaty, most likely still covered in soot forehead. Oh. Oh, yeah. She’s still pretty nasty after trekking around extremely hot ruins and fighting a giant robot. “Thank you.”
But before she can ask anything else, before she can react or pull away or make an attempt to actually survey the area like Gale had suggested, his mouth is on hers and all sense of time stops and she melts.
Kissing Gale will never get old.
It will never lose its sacredness; such a precious gift it is, to feel his lips against hers and to taste his tongue and to feel his breath fan against her face. Rowan sighs and lets herself lean into him, against him, hooking her free arm around his neck for support as he tilts his head for a deeper angle. She feels him let out an appreciative chuckle, the vibration rumbling in his chest as she presses into him, his tongue threading between her lips and mouth suckling against her hungrily.
All the while a tiny voice inside her cries out in alarm.
Stop, you’re gross from the fight, you haven’t had a proper bath in days, you’re disgusting, he doesn’t want you like this, he doesn’t—
She nearly snarls with a sudden rancor as bitterness wells up in her throat and her skin feels painfully tight.
No. Not now. She’s fine. This is fine. She wants this, and it shouldn’t matter that she’s covered in sweat and grime and dead robot bits and probably dried blood from the duergar. It shouldn’t matter that she hasn’t been able to return to her proper routine since leaving Waterdeep. None of that should matter, because Gale still wants her despite it, and she wants him and everything wanting him entails, and…and…
Rowan becomes all too aware that she’s started to tremble, and not with anticipation.
Gale, unfortunately, becomes aware of it as well.
“Rowan?” he asks as he pulls away from her, and her mouth suddenly feels dry. Burning. Ants under her skin, wasps in her chest, spiders in her throat. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
She glances away from him with a sharp turn of her head, face hot with shame. No, dammit. Things have been going so well. Not now. Not fucking now . She won’t have a meltdown. She won’t be an inconvenience. She can push these unwanted, idiotic emotions and feelings aside. She can put the mask on like she always used to and keep going forward as if the break in her mind never happened in the first place.
Except…
She can’t.
“...I want to be back home in Waterdeep,” Rowan admits in a whisper, every syllable laden with dread and guilt. Even though there is no sound save for the rhythm of their own breathing in this abandoned chamber, that suddenly seems too loud and too raucous for her senses to bear.
Her tongue feels thick in her mouth, a vicious little creature that doesn’t belong.
Has her skin always been so stretched out across her bones?
The desperation, the need for control, the staggering burden of feeling as if she is a phantom wandering through the afterlife burrows deep within the meat of her brain. Like the illithid parasite, it squirms and bites and digs its way through her rationality.
She is unraveling far too quickly to even comprehend, and she’s terrified.
“I-I want this with you,” she continues, focusing the beating of her heart and the feel of his skin against hers as a war wages on inside her mind. Calm. She must be calm. She can’t let this win. She can’t. “But I want it back home. I-I want it in your room, on the balcony, in the library…I want it after I’ve soaked in the bath, and we’re sitting in front of the fireplace and…!”
She lets out a choked noise of something that she is not quite sure of and buries her face against Gale’s chest, forcing herself to take a deep breath and center on the comforting scent of him.
“Fuck. Gods, I don’t…I don’t know why this is happening. I’m sorry, Gale.”
A lie. She
does
know why it’s happening.
Since finding him after the nautiloid, every day has been nothing but adrenaline pumping through her veins and other things to focus on that fueled her actions. This moment, this one singularly and seemingly innocuous moment, away from the sulphuric smell of the forge and the hustle and bustle of their friends? It’s enough to rattle the bars on the cage of her mind. Enough to finally make her break and bend under the weight of pretending to be normal, that she can handle whatever is thrown her way in this strange world.
Rowan feels disgusting. Unwanted. Unloved. Not by Gale, but by herself, and it takes every ounce of self-control to not fling her body to the dusty floor and pound her fists against the stone until they bleed.
She doesn’t want him to see her like this.
He’s caught glimpses. But never a full “everything is wrong and I cannot fix it and I am a stranger in my own skeleton” episode like she recalls vividly from her life before, with her old name and old self.
So she has to stop it before it gets too far. Quash it down, destroy it, rip it into shreds with teeth and talons. There are no ants beneath her skin. No wasps in her chest. No spiders in her throat.
She is safe.
She is okay.
“Oh, darling. Don’t apologize.” Gale’s arms are around her in an instant, so tight they’re nearly suffocating. But it’s what she wants. What she needs. To be held against him, face nestled against his heart, basking in his presence as one hand gently strokes the small of her back while the other keeps her steady. “It’s alright. You can be honest with me, Rowan. You’re overwhelmed. I understand. Truly, I do; I feel something similar.”
A light ignites between her ribs, rekindling the earlier sense of warmth.
Rowan takes another deep breath.
This one is a little haggard and worn, like the landslide of an ancient mountain that can barely remember what the beginning of the world was like.
“It’s all just a lot right now,” she allows herself to admit, doing her best to keep the unnecessary shame out of her voice. “I know we need to get the parasite out. I know we need to help everyone else. But…but I just want to go home,” she repeats lamely, the corners of her eyes prickling hotly as a wave of tears threatens to overspill. “I love you so much, Gale, and I want to love you in the home we created. Together. Away from all this doom and gloom.”
She pauses.
“...and away from Dorian, because your brother really makes me want to throw him out of a window sometimes.”
Gale snorts, his chest shaking with the force of a laugh that he’s keeping locked inside for the sake of comforting her. “Yes, he has that effect on most everyone.”
The hand at the small of her back slides up to cup the back of her head. His fingers thread through her hand, twisting and twirling the purple strands around as he caresses and massages her scalp. Slowly, gently; if she closes her eyes and stills her mind, she could fall asleep within minutes, even standing up like this.
She loves him.
Gods, she loves him so much, and hates how they can only have these stolen moments sneaking away from everyone.
After a minute of respective silence, Gale’s voice rings out through the musty darkness. “I want that too, Rowan. More than anything. I want…”
His pitch goes up an octave, almost imperceptibly so.
“I want to cherish you in the comfort of our home. I want to give you the devotion you most assuredly deserve in my bed, in your bed, in a space where we can be free to follow our hearts without fear of judgment.” Rowan feels her face grow warm at the implication of his words but she remains quiet, even when Gale follows up with, “I desire for nothing but your comfort, and I know what will truly comfort you is to be back in Waterdeep. Not wallowing in dingy ruins dodging dangers at every corner. Even if it does result in you appearing so utterly ravishing in battle that at times I forget myself.
He makes that noise in the back of his throat again. She’s starting to pick up on its inherent meaning, she thinks. It’s only further cemented by his next words, his voice now at a startlingly low octave that makes it suddenly very hard to breathe.
“I am ashamed to admit just how much I have been holding myself back since the cleric’s tower, Rowan. Even now, I… ache to give you the adoration every ounce of my being begs to bestow upon you.”
Oh, no. Now other parts of her are beginning to grow warm.
She can’t help the question at the tip of her tongue, the words tumbling out of her mouth faster than a cantrip woven by his fingertips.
“Are you saying I make you horny even when I’m covered in blood and sweat?”
“Yes,” Gale responds without a moment’s hesitation, his voice so matter-of-fact it makes Rowan want to scream nervously and also fistpump the air in victory. “When we return to Waterdeep not even Laeral Silverhand will be able to drag me out of our tower and cease making love to you.”
Rowan knows it wasn’t his intention to completely bamboozle her and wrest her out of whatever breakdown she was rapidly approaching with the power of blatant horniness. He was just being Gale—unequivocally honest when it comes to his feelings about her.
But by the Matron of Ravens, did it work.
Rowan finds herself at a loss for words as she slowly lifts her head from his chest and meets his eyes, her mouth slightly agape and face absolutely as red as can be. Gale wears the barest semblance of a smirk, his cheeks somewhat flushed, and he gives her an infuriatingly nonchalant shrug as she stares at him, mute and flustered as hell.
Uh, Boss? Someone’s on their way over to ya. I don’t think yer gonna be happy ‘bout it.
Pip’s gruff voice filters through her mind suddenly, cutting through the complicated layers of frustration on multiple levels. She jerks as their words settle in her head, her skin suddenly prickling and the shadows inside her recoiling as if they sense something rotten and ruined approaching.
Gale blinks at her in confusion, all minute traces of humor gone as he realizes she’s gone on high alert.
“Rowan? What’s wrong?”
Footsteps approach them.
Footsteps accompanied by the dragging of heavy robes, and an elderly wizened voice rings out through the darkness.
“Ah! Gale, m’boy, I’ve found you at last!”
Wrath blossoms in Rowan’s heart.
Elminster Aumar, fellow Chosen of Mystra and the stupidest-looking wizard in all Faerûn, emerges from the shadows like an old smelly sock one does not wish to find fallen behind the washing machine months after it’s gone missing. He wears a pensive smile that does not quite reach his eyes as he dodders forward with a hobble Rowan does not recall from her previous interaction with his simulacrum in the tower. Is this the real Elminster? Not some cheatskill magical clone? It’s nearly impossible to tell a simulacrum apart from their caster.
“ Elminster? Is that you?”
Gale’s sharp intake of breath says more than whatever other sentence he could utter at the sudden appearance of his former mentor.
This is the first time Gale has seen Elminster since their fall out over the orb, Rowan realizes. Harsh letters and stringent messages are one thing—but to actually see the old man in the flesh?
There is betrayal in her beloved’s shocked tone. Betrayal, confusion, worry, and perhaps just a touch of hope.
She tries to swallow down the rancor at what that hope might entail as she protectively rests against his side, narrowing her eyes at Elminster as she urges the shadows roiling inside of her to remain calm. A feat harder than slaying a dragon considering her current emotional state. Gale’s horny admission stymied the flood of anxiety but considering the newcomer in their midst, Rowan has no idea how good of a bandage it will be.
Elminster nods, his massive silver beard bobbing with the movement. “The very same, Gale. And a fair bit miffed he is, too, finding himself forced to expose his best pair of boots to so many miles of country road on your behalf!”
Oh, this motherfucker is on thin ice already and it hasn’t even been five minutes.
Rowan grinds her teeth as Pip chooses that moment to appear from whatever shadows they were lurking about, corvid head drooping in a gesture of guilt as they claim their usual place on her shoulder. Their talons bite into her skin. She clenches a fist and focuses on the sharp, tiny pain, rather than the turbulent storm raging inside as she continues to glower silently at the ancient wizard.
“On my behalf? Whatever for?” Gale sounds absolutely bewildered and for good reason. As far as Rowan knows, the only thing Elminster has done for him since his dismissal from Mystra’s side was to be a dick and play the “I told you so” game. So whatever for indeed?
“I was bid to spare neither time nor my own self to find you,” Elminster answers. Ah, so a simulacrum then. Maybe the asshole cast the spell when he was having major back pain. “ She sent me, Gale. You know of whom I speak.”
An icy chill grips Rowan’s heart. It wars with the hot, blinding surge of anger that threatens to overcome her. She jerks her head to watch Gale’s expression because no amount of flowery, evasive language can hide who exactly Elminster is referring to.
Gale has gone ashen.
His eyes are wide. His chest rises as his breathing becomes rapid. That odd mixture of hope and betrayal is painted in vivid lines across his face as he stares at Elminster, his mouth opening and closing as he struggles to find the right words to say.
“I believe we may require some…sustenance and succor before I relay my message,” the old man admits with at least some air of awareness, his gaze at last flicking to Rowan as he acknowledges her presence with naught but a nod. “Perhaps a crust of bread? Cheese? A cup of wine for one weary traveler such as myself? Why, such simple fare would appear to be as a veritable feast on this day!”
Okay.
Yep.
She’s going to kill the simulacrum and throw its corpse into the fucking Grymforge.
Rowan nearly surges forward, a spell of shadow and darkness crackling at her fingertips, when a gentle hand on her wrist stops her in her tracks. Gale’s face is set in a hard line as he shakes his head, avoiding her eyes as he says quietly, “I believe I should hear him out. Please…would you mind gathering the rest of our companions? We might as well make camp here and listen to what Elminster has to say.”
There are a dozen things Rowan could say to that, all bitter and sharp and as deadly as a knife.
But she takes a deep breath. Retracts the darkness sharpening the tips of her fingers like claws. Bites down the fangs and swallows the rage and blinks away the red that was slowly creeping into her vision.
She’ll listen to Elminster only because it’s Gale's desire to do so.
She just hopes the bastard is aware Gale has one very angry sorcerer and one very protective tressym on his side now.
Rowan cannot fathom what she’s hearing.
She can’t think.
She can’t breathe.
She can’t exist.
She just stares at Elminster, veins churning with darkness and jaw clenched as she tries so fucking hard not to scream and throw herself at him.
Redemption? Forgiveness?
What a joke. What a fucking
joke.
Elminster’s proclamation has stunned everyone else into a silence so heavy that not even Wyll’s blade could slice through. Dorian, who had been so excited to see a familiar face, so eager to regale the old bastard with all his tales from Baldur’s Gate, just gapes in horror. Wyll and Karlach share similar expressions of dismay, their eyes darting back and forth from Gale to Elminster. Tara, ever valiant and noble Tara, has her ears folded back and her body is sunken low to the stony ground as she bares her fangs with resentment not unlike the maelstrom inside of Rowan right now.
And Gale?
Gale’s posture is as stiff and unyielding as a statue as he meets Elminster’s wizened gaze, the fiddling of the corners of his robes the only thing betraying his panic.
“Mystra is asking me to destroy the Absolute using the orb,” he says quietly, numbly, a hollow sort of emptiness echoing in his words, “and in return, all will be well between us?”
“Yes.” Elminster looks pained by the admission. As much as a simulacrum can appear to be genuinely upset, that is. “Mystra has granted me the power to…stop the clock, as it were, on the orb’s rush to overpower you. Instead, you will be able to unleash its lethal combustion at will.”
Rowan is not a fool.
Nor is anyone else currently standing and witnessing this fiasco.
She knows. She knows what Elminster is asking Gale—what Mystra is asking him to do—is suicide. A sacrificial lamb brought to the slaughter, neck laid bare and legs tied in neat gold ribbon.
She understands now why Mystra has been so quiet since she and Gale’s shared realization of feelings. This was the bitch’s plan all along. To dangle a spark of hope before him and then snatch it away before he can even realize what he’s looking at, all for the sake of forgiveness and redemption. She’s been playing him for a fool the whole time. Just a pawn on the massive board of fate the goddess of the Weave believes herself worthy to control.
Every ounce of hate and rage and mania she holds for Mystra explodes and Rowan cannot contain the fiery darkness any longer.
“Fuck that!” she hisses, lunging forward and grabbing Elminster by the collar of his too-fancy robes. She feels the telltale chill of darkness creeping down her cheeks, staining her skin, latching onto her flesh like armor as shadows swirl and undulate around her form. “You’re telling him to kill himself! FUCK! THAT!”
Her scream echoes off the battered, destroyed remains of Ketheric Thorm’s dedication to Shar, and it sounds like there are a dozen Rowans screeching into the darkness from all angles.
“Did you forget what I said in Waterdeep the day Gale was taken by the nautiloid?” she continues to rage, shaking the thin excuse for a wizard’s simulacrum with a strength that would snap a mortal’s neck. She feels the feather at her throat grow warm, too warm, a warning to be calm and to get a hold of herself, but she can’t. She won’t.
Rowan has had enough of Mystra and her petty games.
“He’s under my protection,” she seethes. “From every threat, known or unknown. And I’ll be damned if I let that bitch tell him to just go kill himself so she can wipe her hands clean and be done with him as if he never existed.”
Elminster, for his part, does not appear terribly rattled by the ichor dripping off of her nor the cacophony escaping her lips as she shouts.
“Miss Rowan, your apprehension is entirely justifiable,” he says, entirely too calm for her liking. “It pains me to deliver such heinous, dark tidings. But Mystra is the foundation of magic itself. Her will cannot be denied by one who has spent his life abiding by her teachings and learning at her side for as long as Gale has. Even you must understand that.”
I’ll do more than defy her will, Rowan wants to snap back, but finds herself only able to growl like a beast from the depths of the Shadowfell not even the Raven Queen is comfortable meandering through.
“This is the only way to stop the accursed magic Gale has regrettably absorbed into himself,” Elminster continues, her predatory snarl not even pulling so much as a startled blink from him. “It must be destroyed before it consumes him and the very fabric of the Weave. This is Mystra’s solution.”
“But we have a different solution,” Rowan protests, digging her fingers into the simulacrum’s robes. “A better one! Tell him, Gale! T-Tell him, what we’ve discovered and what we’ve made work!”
She whips her head around, hating the desperation in her voice and the shrill, sharp dissonance of her echoing tone as the shadows around her hiss impatiently. Gale is still ashen. Still inert, lifeless even, as the fiddling of his robes has escalated to gripping a bundle of fabric just above where the orb rests within his chest. He suddenly appears tired. More tired than he was after the fight with the construct guarding the forge, and as if he’s aged ten years in the last ten minutes.
Haggard, hollow, and hopeless.
“Tell him!” Rowan begs, those two syllables like swords at her throat.
“Rowan—” he begins, wincing as the scar from the orb’s influence flashes purple for the briefest of moments. Her grip on Elminster falters when she recognizes the quickfire burst of pain across his face and the way he clenches his robes harder, tighter, as if it could stop the agony of the orb slowly eating away at him.
No.
She stares at him dumbly, disbelieving, as her shadows writhe and whisper and reach for their brethren inside the temple of his soul.
The entire army is in tattered ruins as they barely hold up against the might of the corrupt magic. All the darkness she shared with him not even an hour ago is as weak as brittle bones. All the little soldiers she has painstakingly gathered and sent off with sacred blades and blessed shields lay across a bloody battlefield half-dead and exhausted. Because despite everything—despite her avowal that she would fix him, that she would solve the orb and worm problem both, despite all the magic she has poured into her sweet, kind Gale…
What Elminster has just relayed from the very goddess that Gale once loved sundered all those efforts.
I’ve failed.
The tethers keeping Rowan’s sense of better judgment snap at last.
She lets out a gasping, erratic sob and yanks Elminster’s simulacrum to the side, throwing him against the floor with a loud thunk that would definitely break a normal person’s ribs. A wordless scream rips from her throat, burning her lungs as her legs move before her mind realizes what’s happening. She races off into the shadows unlit by Dorian’s Dancing Lights and the fire Karlach had lit before Elminster opened his mouth, disappearing into the darkness.
The shadows around her obscure her heavy footfalls. She mindlessly follows a path she has no reason knowing and yet she does, her soul tugging this way and that as a tar-like mixture of tears and darkness roll down her cheeks.
Pip reaches for her across their shared bond as familiar and summoner and she bats their comforting touch away, the mental image of her hand slapping at their feathers stinging and caustic like a poison.
Don’t follow me, she begs them with the same desperation she begged Gale with. Please. I need…to be alone right now.
Alone in the darkness.
Alone with the shadows.
Alone with her thoughts and failures and the realization that she was never going to be enough to save Gale, no matter how hard she studied or how much magic she swallowed.
Rowan doesn’t stop running until she reaches a precipice of sorts. She doesn’t know how far away she is from everyone or how long she’s been running or where she really is. She collapses at the edge of the crumbled floor and gets on her hands and knees. There is nothing but a gaping abyss beyond her, the faintest hint of orange filtering from below. The rank of sulfur. The hissing of magma. The Grymforge is somewhere down there. If she just hoisted herself over the edge and closed her eyes, she could—
“Stop!” she snarls to herself, breathing heavily as her magic and emotions war with one another. “Don’t think like that! Not again, never again! I won’t…I-I won’t…”
Why would she ever let herself have that thought? Why, after what she just made herself look like a total fool before Elminster and everyone else for?
A barking, keening sob wrenches itself free from her mouth as she forces herself to sit upon the edge rather than hovering over it on her hands and knees like an animal. She wraps her arms around her knees and hoists them up to her face, burying herself in the dingy folds of her burned and bloodied and battered robes.
She’s a coward.
A weak, pathetic coward.
What the fuck was she trying to prove, saying that thing about protecting Gale and then running away the moment he showed signs that her plan wasn’t working as intended? Mystra must be laughing her ass off in her idyllic slice of Elysium as nubile young virgins drop grapes into her plump mouth and oil her hair with the finest of ointments.
She should have stayed. Calmed herself down. Asked Elminster if there was another way, one that didn’t involve Gale doing as Mystra wished, one they could all work towards even if the goddess would be furious by it. The three of them—hells, four if she counted Dorian, who is no doubt now freaking out about the reveal of Gale’s other affliction beyond the tadpole—would be able to come up with something! Surely! Something that tapped into her inherent bond with the Shadow Weave and the Weave itself combined!
But what if Gale doesn’t want that? A familiar, traitorous voice whispers in the back of her mind, slithering beyond the reach of her shadows.
And Rowan hates that the voice may be right.
What if Gale will say yes to Elminster’s proposal? What if he’ll take the Hail Mary and whatever butchered spell Mystra has concocted to freeze the orb’s influence and sacrifice himself for the greater good? He’s already sacrificed himself for her. Who’s to say he wouldn’t do it again, not necessarily for the sake of mending the hurt between him and Mystra but simply so this world will be safe from the Absolute and its vile intentions?
Because Gale is kind and wonderful and never shies away from lending a helping hand, even when the one most in pain is himself.
“I should go back,” Rowan whispers hoarsely to herself, staring down at the ember-like glow her feet dangle above. “Apologize. Listen to reason. Be the bigger person.”
She should.
But she doesn’t.
She wants to go home.
She wants to go back to Waterdeep and kiss Gale on the balcony and hold his hand as they wander the streets looking for book shops and bakeries. She wants to tease him with a terrible joke and Misty Step away when he tries to Counterspell her Color Spray. She wants to live a slow, gentle life in the tower away from the horrors of the mind flayers and the threat of the orb.
She wants Gale.
Another round of convulsive sobs overtakes her and Rowan cries out into the darkness, shivering and shaking under the weight of her shame and grief. She adores Karlach. She respects Wyll. She even has a fondness for Dorian, despite the way he gets under her skin. But gods! She just wants things to go back to the way they were before the nautiloid attacked Waterdeep.
Even if that would mean she never confessed her love for him, and he never returned it tenfold.
Suddenly, the bond between her and Pip tugs on her senses. She puts up a barrier quicker than she means to, trying to block the raven out, but the little shit tears it down with a power she wasn’t aware they held. Images surge through her mind. Shapes. Voices.
“You’re going to kill me. And your mother. And Rowan.”
It’s Tara’s voice.
Laden with sorrow and anger and all the things Rowan herself feels.
“And there will be no one to mourn you when you’ve wasted yourself for no good reason at all!”
A glimpse of Gale’s face as Pip watches him, the haggardness he wears torn with dismay and regret. A flash of Tara, fur bristled and fangs bared as her wings spread in utter hurt.
“Damn the Absolute! Damn Mystra! Damn it all! If you go through with this, Gale, then go! I don’t want to look at you anymore! Go on!”
Rowan gasps as the images and voices disappear faster than they were even in her mind and she curls in on herself even more, crying like the pathetic wretch she is.
She should have stayed so Tara wasn’t the only one trying to talk sense into Gale. The tressym doesn’t deserve that. She’s been through so much already, thinking she had lost Gale to the parasite. All the times she had thought she was losing him to the blight devouring his magic slowly.
“Gale…!” Rowan sobs into the veil of shadows around her, feeling like her heart is hurtling through a chasm. “Don’t leave me again! Don’t go!”
“...I have no intention of doing so, sweetheart.”
His voice comes from behind her. Rowan nearly falls forward with a start as she wrenches her face from its confines against her knees, twisting her neck at an awkward angle. Gale stands in the darkness, illuminated by a couple of globules of Dancing Lights, and even in the gloom she can see a wetness clinging to his cheeks as if he’s stood out in the rain for an hour.
She scrambles to her feet and hurried wipes at her face though she knows it’ll just smudge the ichor around and do little to remove it from her skin. A shuddering hiccup erupts from her throat as she stares at him, not knowing what to do or say, her entire body trembling with the force of too many emotions and not enough time to process them all.
But his eyes are so kind. So gentle. So loving.
They hold one another’s gaze for an eternity.
And then Rowan is surging forward, and Gale is not hesitating to race towards her, and they meet in the middle and cling to one another as Rowan sobs into his chest and Gale clutches her to him as if he will never let go again.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers into her hair, pressing kisses to the top of her head as he cradles her so tightly she wants nothing more than to dissolve into air and melt into him. “Rowan, forgive me. Forgive me, my love. I was—I allowed myself to—”
He falters, voice shaking with uncertainty and trepidation.
No, don’t apologize, it’s not your fault, not your fault…
The words are stuck in her chest. All Rowan can do is cry and shake her head as she stains him with the darkness that’s bleeding from her flesh.
“Elminster is correct in regards to stopping the orb from getting stronger,” Gale admits after a few moments. “But I will not do as Mystra bids, Rowan. I swear it. The days where I follow her every whim, regardless of any thought towards my own wellbeing, are over.”
He threads his fingers through her hair with one hand, the other wrapped tightly around her waist as he caresses the side of her hip with slow, rhythmic movements. He trembles with every touch. It kills her. It kills her because she knows he is afraid and lost and just as overwhelmed as she is, but yet his focus is on providing her with as much comfort as he can.
“But if you let him cast that spell on you,” Rowan rasps, “she’ll have even more power over you, Gale.”
His chest rattles as he lets out a deep, shuddering sigh.
“No. She won’t.”
Rowan allows herself to look up at him at last. Through the tears and tar his face is as clear as the sun—his head is held high, his jaw is set with a confidence she has seen time and time again whenever he’s manipulating the Weave, and his eyes are no longer watery but burn with a fiery conviction.
He smiles at her.
And somehow, Rowan knows everything is going to be alright.
“We will find another way to stop the Absolute. One that doesn’t involve ending my life and letting Mystra think she has always owned me.” He brings her head closer towards him and, despite the ichor splattered across her face like shadowy gore, presses a chaste kiss against her lips. She pretends like she can’t taste the salt of the tears he had shed while she ran. “I am not her wizard anymore. I’ve not been hers for quite some time now. I’m yours, Rowan.”
Gale’s hand on her hip reaches over and grasps her wrist, untangling one of her arms from his side as he interlocks his fingers with hers. He brings her hand up to his mouth and presses another kiss to her palm, reverent and devout.
“I am yours, and with you I am a better man. With you I am your equal. With you, I am content.”
Rowan’s breath hitches. Another round of convulsions rises up in her chest and nearly knocks the wind out of her. She swallows the storm down; she bites her tongue and keeps the sobs at bay as she maneuvers his hand up to her mouth. She kisses the top of his hand, an exact parallel to what he has just given her, and nods. “I love you, Gale. I love you so much,” she whispers against his skin, and it’s a sin with how good his warmth feels. “We can do this. Together. Don’t…leave me.”
“I won’t,” he swears. “I’m with you through it all, Rowan.”
He pauses.
Then:
“Besides, I am fairly certain Tara would kill me before I could go through with Mystra’s appeal even if I wanted to.”
Considering what Pip shared with her through their bond, she does not doubt that.
Rowan allows herself to crack a small, tiny grin. “Yeah. Yeah, she would.”
They fall into an easy silence, soaking up one another’s existence. With how close they continue to cling to one another it would be no exaggeration to say that a thin piece of parchment would not be able to fit between their bodies. Finally, after a lifetime, Rowan’s heart has calmed to a steady beat. Her shadows have ceased raging and thrashing about wildly.The twisted, terse knot in the bottom of her stomach has loosened. She can breathe again without feeling as though she is going to suffocate on the musty air of the Underdark and her mind is no longer buzzing like a kicked hornet’s nest.
This is not Waterdeep. This is not the home Gale gave her, made with her. This is not her bedroom with her makeshift altars and candles and incense, nor her glorious bathroom with salts and soaps and oils galore. This is not their library where they spend their days drinking in knowledge and sharing stories with one another until their voices grow hoarse and weary with use.
But as long as she’s with him, it’s close enough, and Rowan realizes she suddenly doesn’t care about the stress of the last few days away from the tower.
There is one thing she does care about, however.
She clears her throat.
“We’re sleeping in the same bedroll from now on. I don’t give a shit what everyone else thinks. I’m not spending a moment apart from you if I can’t help it. Got it, wizardboy?”
Gale lets out an amused hum and she can just feel his eyes rolling from where his face is buried in her hair, his voice coming out in a muffled chuckle as he responds, “I wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart.”
Chapter 11: the light within
Notes:
im so sorry im incapable of writing a chapter under 10k words i just CAN'T ok,,,,,
also note the rating change and updated tags :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The Shadow-Cursed Lands are nothing like Rowan has ever felt. She (foolishly) believed herself prepared for the onslaught of cold, the intense hollow ache of emptiness; hells, she’d been thinking that maybe this place would be akin to the space the Raven Queen gave her a new life in. But she was wrong. So very, very wrong.
Thick mist that is more solid than should be physically possible clings to sickly, decaying plant life. Black vines littered with grotesque pustules straight out of a horror movie choke the skeletons of gnarled trees. A road that once heralded the arrival of caravans and traders and travelers alike now lay cracked and caved in on itself in places, shadows vicious and cruel crawling out from the corrupted earth. The air smells of rot and yet has the stale tinge of nothing at all.
The darkness suffocates everything. Rowan cannot even see the sky. The blanket of Shar’s twisted magic blocks the sun and stars and of course, the moon. She knows it should be early morning and that the rosy caress of a sunrise should be cresting over the horizon, and yet…
Just darkness. Shadows that spare her no mercy as they undulate and coil through the air like wicked wisps of a petty god, because that is exactly what they are.
It’s a far cry from the idyllic calm of the Emerald Grove. Everything was so alive there, so full of spirit and natural beauty. Even the Underdark had a charm that fascinated her to no end, despite its dangers.
She knows the gods and goddesses of this new world are domineering with their divine might, but this? It’s cheating. It’s got to be! How the fuck did the pantheon of Toril let Shar get away with destroying this land?
And who’s to say another deity wouldn’t take a page from her book and do something similar to Waterdeep?
Rowan buries that thought in a deep, deep grave before it can fully surface.
It feels like she’s made of lead as she gazes out solemnly at the wretchedness before her. Out of the frying pan, into the corner of the freezer where all the meat goes to spoil, she thinks to herself as she represses a shiver.
The shadows beneath her skin tremble in an odd combination of resentment and awe. Her darkness is borne of the Matron’s kindness—it is nothing like the cruel, cavalier contempt of Shar. Though if Elminster’s musings are to be believed, that inherent connection to the Shadow Weave should still provide some protection against the curse’s ill effects.
Not that she wants to believe anything that came out of the stupid simulacrum’s mouth yesterday, even if it is somewhat helpful.
“How are you feeling?” she asks Gale probably for the tenth time since they woke up, grabbing onto his sleeve worriedly.
“Same as I felt when you last asked me approximately an hour ago,” he answers with the patience of a saint, giving her a gentle smile. Butterflies erupt in the pit of her stomach at the sight. Gods, she loves this man. “Nothing is out of place. No pain. No misbehaving magic. Elminster’s spell is working as intended.”
Elminster’s, not Mystra’s.
It’s easier for both of them to attribute the magic solely to Gale’s former mentor rather than his former lover.
Rowan’s hand slides up his arm and rests against his chest over the space where the orb’s scar lay silent and dormant. She can’t feel the typical vindictive snarl of its arcane hunger. All she can feel is Gale, as hale and hearty as he can be at this moment, and the muffled patrols of the shadows that still survive inside him. Her shared darkness should no longer be necessary as long as Elminster’s spell holds true, but neither of them saw any reason to remove the threads of the Shadow Weave that still remain entwined with his soul.
Insurance, just in case.
And, if she is being honest, a subtle slap in the face of the goddess that thought it right to demand Gale to become a sacrificial lamb.
Rowan nods, satisfied as she pulls her hand away with some reluctance. She likes the way his heart thrums beneath her fingers. “I’m going to be annoying and ask you every three hours, just so you know.”
Gale’s smile widens. A burden of sorts seems to have been lifted from his shoulders since yesterday, when the two of them returned hand-in-hand and very sternly explained to Elminster’s simulacrum that he would
not
be blowing himself up on Mystra’s command any time soon—but the magic to quell the orb’s appetite would be a boon indeed.
“Ask all you want, sweetheart. If anything changes I swear that you shall be the first to know,” he says, leaning forward to press his lips against her forehead.
“Ugh, get a room!”
Karlach’s overly sarcastic drawl reminds Rowan that she and Gale are not the only ones present.
Her face feels hot as she glances over at the rest of their companions. Dorian is rolling his eyes in that good natured yet still exasperated way an older brother does when their sibling shares an outward public display of affection. Wyll looks amused and delighted, his joy genuine and blessedly warm. And Karlach, despite her exaggerated tone, is beaming from ear to ear as she jabs her hands up and down in a rapid display of fiery thumbs up, nodding her head so fast that it would give anyone else severe whiplash.
It’s not like Rowan and Gale told them in so many words that they were now more than apprentice and mentor; more than wizard and sorcerer, more than dear friends drawn together by the most kismet of circumstances. But considering Rowan very loudly demanded he scooch over in his bedroll last night so she could squeeze in, as well as the way they both held on tightly to one another’s hands as they returned from the dark corners of her emotional meltdown…
It would be obvious to anyone with a pair of working eyes and a dash of common sense.
I think I like them knowing, she thinks to herself with a fledgling sense of pride, unable to stop the cheeky grin that rolls across her mouth like thunder.
She can dwell on that elated comfort later, however. There are more important things at hand.
Rowan straightens her posture and turns her focus back to the shadows and darkness that stretch out before them. “Okie dokie. What did Miri tell y’all again about getting to Last Light Inn?” she asks, gripping Nevermore as she stretches out the strands of her magic to prod at the curse slightly. The wall of oppressive night does not react. Her poking is nary but a gnat nibbling the ass of an ancient dragon, it seems.
“We need to have a source of light on us. It will stave off the curse until we can receive a blessing from a cleric of Selûne that is assisting the Harpers currently stationed at the inn,” Gale answers.
As shitty as the parasites are, they do come in handy for long-distance communication. Rowan wishes Miri and the others were going to remain at this mythical protected inn full of Harpers until they arrived, however. It would be nice to see the tiefling bard again after a hectic last few days.
But a hero’s job is never done. Miri’s last message to her fellow infected last night was that she and the others were on the hunt with Halsin to break the curse on this land, as well as infiltrating Moonrise Towers if possible. The caravan of tiefling refugees had evidently made their way to this region after parting at the druid grove, only to suffer an ambush from Absolute cultists. Many were killed. Some were taken to the Towers by the cultists. Only a few remained unscathed physically; mentally and emotionally, who’s to say?
Rowan shouldn’t be so surprised Miri’s group was already on the move after barely recovering from their dangerous foray into the githyanki crèche. The bard is determined to fix everything and save everyone. Despite knowing her for a very brief time, Rowan understands this about Miri very well.
She’s going to burn out sooner rather than later with a bullheaded, overly-gallant mindset like that. It’s worrying.
“Wyll can cast Faerie Fire, and I can cast Dancing Lights,” Rowan says as she enters tactician mode, running through the list of magic everyone in their party can cast. “Dorian and Gale should focus on keeping two spells of Shield up just in case those cursed shadow creatures Miri warned you about aren’t dissuaded by the light. And Karlach—”
Her fiery friend is already wielding the twin hammers they discovered in the spoils the surviving duergar had left behind. Small enough to be looped into her belt but sturdy enough that they become deadly weapons in her hands, Karlach brandishes the hammers boldly as she presses a clawed finger against some runes carved into the handles. The metallic sheen of the hammers’ heads immediately glows with a radiance almost blinding in this place of darkness, magic channeled from some unknown divinity shining loudly.
“I’ll pretend to be a paladin,” Karlach jokes with a toothy smirk, spinning the hammers with impressive control. Her flaming great ax took a few too many hits during their time in the Underdark. Though she wanted to use the construct’s arm as her new weapon, Rowan managed to convince her that the hammers would be a better choice, especially considering their new surroundings.
Karlach would make a pretty good paladin, though. She has so much desire to protect the ones she cares for and is just so good and wonderful that Rowan has no doubt a paladin’s oath would blend very well with her morals.
But she’s not about to get up on a pulpit and preach it. A path like that should be discovered on one’s own, not shoved down their throat.
“At least the inn shouldn’t be too far from where we’re at,” Wyll points out as he digs out a map from his pack, studying it briefly. It, too, was in the duergar’s stash. It’s old and from the time before this place was cursed. But, with Miri sharing her knowledge of the area so far, it’s enough to annotate and edit the map to make it a little more accurate.
Dorian nods, giving a little hum as he surveys the map over Wyll’s shoulder. Standing very, very close. “An hour’s walk in this place is still a dangerous journey. I suggest we don’t rest until we reach this alleged sanctuary.”
Wyll surreptitiously takes one step away from Dorian and pretends like the older Dekarios was not just breathing in his ear.
Dorian pretends like he doesn’t notice.
Karlach glances between the two of them and just heaves a sigh, clucking her tongue like a mother hen. She makes no comment. Instead, she gives Dorian a sharp look that’s more cutting than a knife to the gut.
A twinge of guilt rumbles in Rowan’s chest. She hopes the tiefling doesn’t feel like an odd fifth wheel in this particular party. Though that would imply an actual relationship of some kind between Dorian and Wyll rather than the blatant flirting on the former’s part and the awkward, uncertain evasion on the latter’s.
She wishes Jericho were here. Karlach deserves to be happy. To have fun. To enjoy herself. Jericho could give that to her if she wanted it.
Maybe Gale will let her use his message parchment when they get to Last Light Inn. She should tell Jericho about Karlach finally—it would be fucking
fantastic
if the seamstress could meet them when they get to Baldur’s Gate!
If
you get to Baldur’s Gate,
the whiny, evil little bitch voice whispers in Rowan’s mind.
She ignores it and goes about casting Dancing Lights instead. With a snap of her fingers a dozen floating orbs appear around her head, shifting in a myriad of purples and blues. Pip flutters down from the skeletal branch of the healthiest looking tree around (which is a stretch to say) and lands on her shoulder, preening their wings nervously.
They remain silent as one of the Dancing Lights rests atop their head like a mini disco ball. It makes the black of their feathers stand out and give the sense of a kaleidoscope somehow. Her familiar is not comfortable in these lands, Rowan realizes as Pip’s claws dig into her shoulder. They are two sides of the same coin right now. Their darkness is that of the Matron, not Shar. These shadows do not make either of them feel at home.
Wyll follows Rowan’s lead and whispers a few syllables as a multitude of tiny flames burst forth from his fingertips like fireworks. They, too, come in all colors—oranges and reds, pinks and greens, amorphous and hypnotic. He splays his hand out and the chorus of magical flames shoot off to surround their group. Her Dancing Lights do the same, save for the one that remains steadfast on Pip’s head, and a latticework of brilliance covers the party.
Not to be outdone, the Dekarios brothers begin to rapidly summon their own magic.
Rowan has seen Gale cast Shield a handful of times but this time feels somehow more spectacular than the rest. The scar on his cheek remains inert as he speaks his incantation aloud, only the barest flash of violet appearing in his gentle eyes as wisps of energy curl along his fingertips. Like a pane of glass, a bubble of translucent magic suddenly manifests around them, just beyond the reach of her and Wyll’s magic. Veins of lavender course through the gossamer, see-through shell, and for a moment her senses are overcome with the scent of his library.
Of home.
But the vexing ache Gale’s Shield has suddenly conjured inside her chest lasts only for a moment, because Dorian lets out a pompous chuckle of sorts as he raises a lazy hand to the sky. There is a peal of thunder, muffled and distant as if it’s lurking beyond a mountain somewhere. Flashes of bright, garish cyan streak down from the curtain of darkness with a loud crack , the noise unexpected and startling enough that Rowan can’t help the little shriek that escapes her mouth. The lightning crawls across Gale’s magic. It expands and envelopes the glassy surface, hissing and twitching as it forms something like a Faraday cage from an eighties sci-fi movie.
It’s a good thing they weren’t relying on stealth to make it to Last Light Inn, because this sure as hell is conspicuous enough to be seen from the godsdamn Nine Hells.
“Mine’s bigger than yours,” Dorian sings impishly to Gale, who looks about as impressed as Tara does whenever she is presented with tinned kippers.
Karlach, most likely against her better judgment but unable to ignore the pull of a bad dick joke, lets out a cackling snort.
Wyll pinches the bridge of his nose. There is no mistaking the faint grin that tugs at the corners of his mouth.
Rowan hides a quick burst of laughter with a poor excuse for a cough, pointedly avoiding Gale’s stormy expression as she busies herself with a particularly interesting thread coming undone on her robe.
“Even at this age you two can’t help but compete like children,” Tara sighs. She flits up onto Gale’s shoulders and bats at his bun with a playful, motherly distaste.
He opens his mouth to retort and Rowan can just see the sassy, spiteful gears in his head turning as he glowers at Dorian with narrowed eyes. But, strangely enough, her wizard seems to think the better of it and simply clears his throat, taking a deep and calming breath. Whatever spark of irritation Dorian’s comment ignited is doused before it could fully fan the flames.
“We’d best be on our way. No use dallying here until something nefarious decides to make itself known.”
With that he takes a step forward. The combined magic of his and Dorian’s Shield spells follows him, the entire protective cage shimmying along. Rowan nearly yanks him backwards, a sudden fear curdling at the back of her throat as he shuffles into the thick barrier of darkness.
But—
Nothing immediately horrible happens.
Shadows do not lash out and pierce through his flesh. Shar herself does not appear from the darkness to devour him in a single gulp. The lights bob along lazily, repelling the curse and casting a glow in a radius wide enough that it becomes apparent Miri’s advice was sound.
Rowan and the others follow Gale close behind, their relief palpable in each step.
The eerie emptiness of the Shadow-Cursed Lands grows more evident the further they travel into the darkness. It’s silent. So creepily silent. No birds sing. No leaves sway in the breeze. Their feet barely make a sound, so muffled by shadows everything is. Every now and then there are glimpses of what life may have once been like here before Shar unleashed her wrath; a dilapidated shed full of gardening tools, an upturned wagon heaped high with decayed grain, a faded and splintered sign whose contents have been lost to decades of neglect.
And it’s cold. A grasping, aching cold that sinks into your bones and saps the energy out of you. Rowan finds herself shivering constantly. She hates it. She hates this place. She shouldn’t, because the darkness gave her a new life and a new name and a new purpose, but this? This is not the safety and love she awoke nestled in after the car crash. This is loathing, pure and simple. Cold, harrowing hatred that gnashes its teeth and injects ice directly into her veins.
“Stick close to Mama K,” Karlach warns her in a low tone after a few minutes of wandering down the broken, perilous road. She has not let go of her hammers and the divine enchantment on them has not wavered. The engine boiling in her chest lets out pleasant waves of heat and Rowan allows herself to creep closer, though she feels a twinge of shame for it.
Karlach’s condition should not benefit them in any way, shape, or form. Even if the tiefling herself insists otherwise.
“This place is worse than all the dive bars in the Lower City combined,” Dorian mutters, eyes darting back and forth. He’s on high alert, sending out pulses of magic much like what Rowan had attempted earlier.
Though, like Rowan, he doesn’t seem to be picking up anything immediately treacherous.
Wyll lets out a low, thoughtful whistle. “Hm. I’m not too sure about that. Even been to the one down by the docks that only serves lukewarm beer? You can’t even sit down. It’s just a dirty counter owned by the most surly half-orc I have ever met.”
“Bloody hells, yes! I know the one. Bastard doesn’t even want to serve the swill he parades as beer!”
“There is also a tavern in Daggerford that makes you sing a Volo tune before you can even view the menu.”
“Dear gods. I take what I said back. This place is a delight.”
“At least it’s not Avernus.” Karlach winces, her face flashing with something dreadful. “If you can even manage to find a pub, they serve the liquor in hollowed-out severed heads. That still scream. Very, very loudly, in case you were wondering. Booze gets everywhere.”
It is clear by the matching expressions of horror that everyone greatly disliked that tidbit.
Rowan tries to lighten the mood, forcing a bit of false cheer into her voice. “The only tavern I’ve been to is the Yawning Portal in Waterdeep. It was okay. Until this gross asshole asked me to join his party basically just so he had someone to suck his dick.”
Karlach gasps, looking even more horrified than everyone else did at her screaming skull cup comment. “Fuckin’ hell, Rowan, what did you do?!”
Rowan smirks and looks pointedly at Gale.
“I was going to cast Lightning Bolt on him but then someone dragged me out of there before I ‘caused a scene.’ After he bought a round of drinks for everyone to distract them.”
“I didn’t want you to bring the entire watch down on our heads! I panicked!”
“Hey, we don’t know that. I can be very persuasive. A lil’ bit of this, a lil’ bit of that, and poof! I probably could have convinced any guards to arrest the sick bastard for public indecency. I’m sure they would have conveniently ignored the scorch marks from a lightning spell.”
“I’d rather avoid any confrontations with the law. Even when it is clear we are not at fault.”
Whatever quip Rowan was about to unleash next is rudely interrupted.
A guttural, groaning hiss sounds from beyond the barrier protecting the party. Unnatural. Inhuman. Monstrous and menacing, it sounds far too similar to the creepy noise that one dead girl makes in that one horror movie with the well, grinding on Rowan’s eardrums like claws on a chalkboard. It drones on as it grows closer and the hair on her arms goes straight up.
Everyone freezes where they stand as out of the gloom, something approaches.
Shadows coalesce into a mockery of a humanoid figure. Something almost like arms sprout out from its sides. Its bulbous, constantly shifting lower half scuttles across the desolate ground like solidified mist. A head—or what loosely constitutes as a head—bearing eyes that glow a baleful, sickly yellow stares directly at Rowan. At least, she swears it is. The chill running up and down her spine says so with full confidence.
The shadow creature stretches open a inky maw and lets loose a horrifying cacophony of clicking screams that are more nightmarish than the giant fucking phase spider.
A clawed, mutated arm slashes out. The thing attempts to rend the magic of Dorian and Gale’s Shield spells, blackness slamming into the latticework at a horrifyingly fast rate. The lights trapped within the barrier surge forward towards the potential break in and flash rapidly, like a system of dozens of tiny alarms. The Shield spell sends a rush of magic against it, lightning crackling and the force of the pure Weave creating sparks.
But the thing does not move, clawed hand stretching and reaching and desperately trying to break through as screams and snarls.
Karlach lets out a guttural growl of her own and slams the enchanted hammers against the wall of magic. Pressure reverberates throughout the safe space inside the barrier. The light emanating from the hammers, like two twin miniscule suns suspended in the tiefling’s palms, blazes hot and hard. Blinding, purifying, sanctifying.
“Oi,” she shouts, voice crackling with rage and pure power, “get the fuck back from my friends, yeah?!”
The shadow creature doesn’t have time to react or pull itself away from the light. Rowan watches as the divinity sealed away in the hammers seems to devour the darkness, as if a cloud of mites has descended upon the oily writhing mass. It screams and snarls and almost seems to weep as it grows smaller, its form undulating and withering. Its limbs flail uselessly, claws still trying to dig into the barrier, until there is nothing left of it but a still orb of something that glows a dull, iridescent blue. Wisps of smoky shadow linger on the smooth surface only for a moment before dissipating into the fetid atmosphere.
But that moment was long enough for Rowan to hear a whisper in her mind, desolate and destitute and full of broken sobs that make her heart twist.
I only ever wanted…to serve our Lady of Silver…
She stares at the unmoving orb.
Bile rises in her throat.
A person. That thing had been a person, once.
A living person, forever twisted and changed by Shar’s curse, trapped in the form of a thing that can never see the pale light of the moon. She can feel their agony sinking into her soul like a thousand daggers. She can sense their desperation to be free, locked behind decades of torment and pain.
How many more are out there? How many more poor, unfortunate souls wander in confusion and fear and a primal desire to lash out against any and all who are not one with the shadows?
Would this blighted darkness transform her as well? Or would the Raven Queen protect her?
Because it’s clear Selûne was unable to keep this person safe, though it’s probably unfair to pin it entirely on the moon goddess. Rowan’s done enough reading to know that Shar’s shit is totally fucked. Selûne cannot hold her sister’s darkness back all the time, just as Shar can’t diminish her sister’s light every hour of the day.
“We…” It’s difficult to find her voice again after the sudden attack. The almost lighthearted, blossoming attempt at joviality that was arising between them all has completely diminished. “W-we should move faster. There’s no telling how many of these are out here.”
She shares a quick, anxious look with Dorian. He gives her a subtle nod, his eyes dark and lips drawn in a tight line. Both of their magic reached out far and wide to sense if anything was amiss. Either these shadow creatures are immune to their detection, or they’ve got a way to teleport over long distances faster than the blink of an eye.
No one argues with her.
They continue on in uneasy, timid silence.
The wretched and forlorn scenery worsens the further they venture into the Shadow-Cursed Lands. Desiccated bodies long dead slump against rotting foliage. Rusted swords and armor showing signs of heavy, bloody battle decorate the road. It’s a most macabre display and Rowan’s favorite holiday in her old world was Halloween—she’s seen a lot of creepy, sick, weird stuff.
Then again, all of that was fake.
It’s different when they’re real bodies. A real curse. A real land steeped in darkness and soaked in the petty, violent delights of a goddess who would no sooner eat your heart out than grant you your most precious desire.
The destruction in the Grymforge was one thing. This is…worse. Worse because Rowan knows these were innocent people, just trying to live their lives, and now their corpses are on display with no hope of a proper burial or remembrance. Forever stained and tainted by an ending they ran from, terror threatening to make their hearts burst.
She can hear their cries.
They ring in her ears over and over, a chorus of voices begging for mercy and salvation. Hands ripping at her hair and tearing at her robes. Spittle and tears spraying in her face, gouged out eyes bleeding black.
Sobbing. Weeping. Screaming. Hundreds of lives, hundreds of lights, all snuffed out in one breath of darkness.
The feather at her throat suddenly becomes warm and she shakes herself back to reality, snapping her mind shut and deftly throwing up a few mental barriers.
“‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,’ ” Rowan murmurs to herself, gripping Nevermore tightly to her chest and focusing on the pinpricks of Pip’s claws in her shoulder. She stares at the staff’s weathered handle, willing her mind to empty of the horrific images the tenebrous magic in the land is conjuring. Calm. She has to be calm. The curse is strong, but her affinity for the Matron’s shadows is stronger. She can’t let the sorrow and regret of strangers who died hundreds of years ago overwhelm her.
The irony of quoting Edgar Allen Poe to center herself in a place like this is not lost on her.
Rowan doubts even he could come up with this morbid, ghoulish setting. Gothic horror and the nebulous tug of the supernatural have nothing on the horrors the Shadow-Cursed Lands are sure to hold.
A hand brushes the shoulder Pip is not perched on. She jerks her head up to meet Gale’s concerned, inquisitive gaze. Ah, shit. She froze up. Stopped walking. Was rooted in one spot as the curse whispered to her and caressed her cheeks with a mocking tenderness.
“I’m alright,” she insists quietly, taking a shaky breath and rubbing at her eyes. “My heebies are just really jeebied out here big time. Sorry, y’all.”
Gale frowns.
“You heard them as well, didn’t you.”
It’s less of a question and more of a confirmation.
She nods, swallowing down the sensation of spiders in her throat. Everyone else exchanges confused glances with one another and the realization startles Rowan—she and Gale are inherently connected to this curse in a way the others are not. Both of them carry strands of the Shadow Weave in some way.
Even if those strands are woven by the Raven Queen’s loving fingers.
“It’ll be fine. Good thing my thoughts are louder than anything else that’ll try to get in my head,” Rowan jokes, though it falls somewhat flat considering the cerebral crisis shared by three of their number.
She doesn’t protest when Gale’s hand slips into hers and their fingers interlock. The dissonant whispers cease almost immediately. The prickling, jittery sense flitting about her skin fades to nothing as they fall into stride with one another, their shoulders brushing with every step.
When they at last reach what is clearly Last Light Inn, they have been walking through the darkness for almost two hours. Rowan does not have the energy to complain that Miri’s information was somewhat inaccurate.
A massive array of silvery, soothing energy envelopes the sanctuary. Jarring in this place of unending darkness, it stands out like a beacon as the party rounds a copse of diseased trees and stands out like a sore thumb. It reminds Rowan of moonlight, brought down from the night sky and carefully placed about the inn like a veil.
A cobblestone bridge that has seen better days but is in far better shape than any of the other structures they’ve passed leads into an open area. Through the silvery sheen of the barrier, she can make out a few buildings—stables, an armory and forge, some storage sheds, and then the large two-story structure must obviously be the inn itself. Something like a fountain decorated with statues lay in the middle of the courtyard. Dozens of figures mill about, though it’s difficult to discern anyone on the other side of the barrier. Not that Rowan expects to recognize someone, per se, but she can’t shake the feeling that there are eyes on her as they approach the edge of the spell.
Now that they are closer, it’s easy to spot a faint glimmer beyond the barrier, past the inn’s towering construction. Almost like moonlight reflecting on a calm, placid surface of water. Wyll did point out that there was a small lake in this area. It would be a stroke of luck if it was also protected by the cleric of Selûne’s spell.
I might be getting a bath, she thinks to herself with a shameful spark of relief and excitement.
Dorian and Gale dismiss their Shield spells the moment the group enters the safety of Last Light’s silvery protection. Wyll releases his concentration on Faerie Fire, and Rowan does the same for Dancing Lights. Karlach holsters her magical glowing hammers and ends the enchantment on them with fond pat to the handles.
The moment they enter, the frightening chill of the Shadow-Cursed Lands gives way to a gentle, cool breeze, like a forest bathed in twilight. The scent goes from rot and ruin to pine and earth. All of the pressure Rowan has felt since leaving the Underdark evaporates and it’s like she can breathe again, her lungs rejoicing in this new air full of vigor and renewal.
A very high-level, sophisticated casting of Hallow. That is what protects this place from the curse. An eagerness fills Rowan to the brim and she has to resist the urge to bounce on the balls of her feet as she basks in the serenity of the spell. The cleric in charge of the magic must be a very powerful one indeed for the spell to affect this large of a radius. She can’t wait to meet them. If Selûne has blessed them with this kind of ability, they must be pretty dope.
Not as dope as her wizard, but still.
“Halt!”
A gruff, richly accented voice tinged with nerves rouses Rowan from her (once again) wandering thoughts. There are a handful of people coming to greet them across the bridge, all armed and looking like they’ve seen better days. Weary, wary expressions paint their faces, and their weapons are dull with use. Panic flutters up Rowan’s throat as they stalk closer, moving with determined purpose. Of course a bunch of people stranded in this fucked-up place wouldn’t take kindly to strangers popping in without notice.
If a fight were to break out…
Her anxiety flares wildly and she makes a strangled sound. Gale squeezes her hand tightly and presses himself closer to her, the pad of his thumb tracing slow patterns on the back of her hand.
“They are just being cautious,” he tells her gently, his voice low enough so only she can hear. “Miri said we would receive this kind of greeting at first. All will be well.”
She hopes he’s right, because these people do not look eager to welcome new guests.
However, when the welcoming party reaches them, Karlach audibly gasps. She lets out a girlish, high-pitched squeal when the person in front steps forward, spade-tipped tail suddenly lashing to and fro recklessly.
“O-Oh my gods, that’s Jaheira! ”
‘Jaheira’ is an older woman with pointed ears and decades of laugh lines and furrowed brows etched into her tanned, handsome face. A half-elf like Syl, Rowan thinks, betrayed by the elegant poise with which she carries herself. Dirty blonde hair drifts down her shoulders, braided at her scalp and decorated with beads. Her eyes are sharp and her scars are many, though some are faded and barely visible. Her clothing is rather nondescript—green fighting leathers that are meant more for mobility than protection, and she wears two scimitars sheathed on either hip.
A silver pin clipped to her breast shimmers in the Moon Sanctuary’s light. Tiny sapphires glow like indigo embers embedded in the silver, depicting a harp overlaid on a crescent moon.
“Ah, of course,” the older woman rambles in a somewhat bemused tone, though the people behind her remain stiff and with their weapons still drawn. “Even in the middle of nowhere I am recognized. Good to know my reputation precedes me. Harpers, stand down!”
She barks out the last sentence in a voice that says she is used to being obeyed and tilts her head as she surveys Rowan and her companions, those sharp eyes unsettling and nearly invasive.
“You are the other half of Miri’s party, yes? She gave me some very colorful descriptions before she left to survey these lands. Welcome to Last Light Inn. I am Jaheira, leader of the Harpers stationed here.”
“Oh my gods,” Karlach repeats, voice shrill with elation as she clasps her hands to her face in disbelief. “I can’t believe it. You’re really her. The Jaheira! I–oh, gods, i-it’s an honor! My lady! AH! I’m talking to Jaheira !”
The name isn’t familiar to Rowan. She racks her brain for anything, a tidbit or a scrap of information that might tell her why Karlach is absolutely losing her shit like a fangirl, but there’s nothing.
Until she feels the telltale tap of Pip’s consciousness against hers. She allows the raven in, soaking up the veritable Wikipedia article they pour into her mind in a single heartbeat.
A hero from the Bhaalspawn crisis in Baldur’s Gate over a hundred years ago? Huh. Neat. She seems pretty cool. I want her to pat me on the head and tell me she’s proud of me.
“And you must be Karlach,” Jaheira says, that air of amusement remaining in her words. “Please, do not tie yourself into a knot over an old woman like me. The days of resting on my laurels are far behind me. Though, flattery will get you somewhere.” A crooked grin stretches across her mouth as she gestures for the group to follow her further into the courtyard, brushing off imaginary dust.
“We’ve a quartermaster set up in that building over there should you need any supplies. A blacksmith from the tiefling refugees has been keeping our gear in shape over in the forge. You may find plenty of rooms in the inn should you require rest, as well as food and ale. We only ask you to pay with deeds and actions—our forces have been stretched thin, and we need all the able bodies we can get to keep operations running smoothly.”
She pauses, a note of grimness mixing with her strikingly chipper tone.
“As smoothly as a bunch of Harpers can operate in the middle of Shar-cursed lands facing down an army of cultists, that is.”
“Wait, a tiefling blacksmith? Who was with the refugees?” Karlach whips her head towards the forge, a beaming smile even wider than the grin she wore when she was losing her mind over Jaheira flitting across her face. “Dammon! Oh, my gods, he made it! You lot stay put—I’m going to go talk to him and show him all the infernal metal we found!”
Rowan opens her mouth to protest, to offer to go with, but Karlach is already racing towards the forge. Her steps are accompanied by little flashes of orange sparks, the engine in her chest no doubt working into overdrive as her excitement peaks.
“Are the children here?” Wyll questions Jaheira, his brows drawn in concern as he glances around the courtyard. It takes Rowan a moment to realize he means the tiefling kids from the grove. She vaguely recalls Wyll mentioning during their downtime that he had been training them with practice swords.
The half-elf Harper nods. “Yes, you will find them in the inn. They have been…dealing with the loss of the other tieflings as best they can. I heard you were quite close with them, yes? Perhaps their spirits will lift at seeing a familiar face like yours once more.”
Relief washes across Wyll’s pinched expression. He gives a quiet, thankful sigh as some of the tension that’s been in his posture relaxes ever so slightly. A hand goes to the hilt of the rapier he carries, fingers fiddling with the leather. “I think you’re right, Lady Jaheira. The terror they must have felt during the cultist attack…it’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve been fighting to prevent all these years.”
He takes a few steps forward before glancing back at everyone else.
“Er, I hope you all don’t mind if we part ways for the moment. I’m just worried about the children.”
“Nonsense,” Dorian responds swiftly, sidling up alongside him. There is an uncharacteristic sincerity in his face suddenly, his eyes swirling with a similar apprehension. “Not as long as you don’t mind me tagging along. I’d like to help with the children.”
Wyll blinks in surprise. “You…would?”
Rowan watches as Gale’s older brother nods emphatically. He slides his hand up towards his neck and starts to rub the back of his head, scratching almost nervously along his undercut. “I would. I rather enjoy children. No child deserves to go through what they’ve experienced, what with Elturel’s descent into Avernus and the disparities they have suffered through since. Besides…”
A wink, subtle in its flirtation, gets thrown in Wyll’s direction.
“Far be it for me to hide
all
of my redeeming qualities from the mighty Blade of the Frontiers.”
The mighty Blade of the Frontiers rolls his one good eye, but there’s no true irritation or exasperation behind it. His cheeks even grow somewhat ruddy, a small and anticipatory smile blooming across his face as he gives Dorian a stalwart nod. “Very well. I’d be honored to have you accompany me, Dorian. Thank you for offering.”
They begin to make their way towards the inn’s entrance. They keep the same pace as they do so, engaged in a quiet conversation. Dorian’s hand seems to accidentally brush against Wyll’s once they reach the door; but Wyll does not turn away or push the gesture aside. He does not even acknowledge it at all as they slip into the inn, but Rowan senses something between the two has just changed.
Hopefully for the better.
She and Gale exchange glances that silently scream “holy shit did that just really happen?!” as they each blink at the now-empty doorway to the inn. Jaheira clears her throat politely and gestures to the courtyard around them.
“You are the wizard and sorcerer, correct? I do not expect it immediately, but I would appreciate it if you put your talents with the arcane to work and help with recasting the wards around Last Light. Miri has said your spellwork is exceptional, Gale. And I have heard that your instinct and natural affinity is incredibly unique, Rowan.”
“Huh?”
Rowan tilts her head curiously and stares at Jaheira, confused. Miri witnessed Rowan showing up at the ruined temple to Selûne and going apeshit, yeah, but that’s basically all the spellcasting the bard watched her do. She really has such high praises from that instance?
The feeling that she’s being watched grows even stronger.
Like there’s someone standing right next to her, but that’s impossible, because the only person standing next to her is Gale. Who appears equally confused by Jaheira’s comment.
She reaches for the darkness inside her and tugs on the threads of the Shadow Weave. There’s a presence. A familiar one. Standing on the other side of her. Invisible? Magic she swears she’s been in the company of multiple times is brighter than the moon in her mind’s eye swirls about in the vague outline of a person.
A tall, lithe person with horns.
Rowan gasps. With an efficiency that startles even her, she snaps her fingers and dispels the Invisibility clinging to the person like a cloak and lunges forward, throwing her arms out and tackling them to the ground.
“Jericho!”
she cries out, equal parts joyful and distressed. The seamstress’s name echoes about the solemn courtyard. Everyone safe within the Hallow spell undoubtedly just heard her shout.
“Ack! Rowan! Darling, seriously, is this necessary?!”
For it is indeed none other than Jericho whom Rowan has pinned to the ground, engulfing her in a hug so tight it would take the Raven Queen herself to pry her away. She squirms uselessly, huffing with indignance as Rowan sniffles and shoves her face in the tiefling’s ample chest. She smells good. Like Waterdeep. Like home. And even though she’s at a total loss as to why Jericho is here, even though there is a little twinge of panic inside because that means there’s another person she cares about who’s in this weird mess, Rowan can’t help the complete and utter euphoria at seeing her friend once more.
She missed Jericho. So fucking much. It’s crazy how much she missed her and it hasn’t even been two weeks since she left Waterdeep to rescue Gale.
After half of a minute of Rowan sniffling and holding back tears as she clings to the tiefling, it becomes obvious she does not plan on letting go. Jericho gives a resolute sigh and pats the top of her head.
“I missed you too,” she says, the fondness in her dulcet tones unmistakable. “But can you please let me up off the ground? I’d rather not go around with dirt and grass stains on my clothes.”
“Okay,” Rowan agrees, giving a jerky nod as she loosens her hold on Jericho. The two manage to get back on their feet, Rowan wiping the few tears that managed to escape as she deftly snuggles into Jericho with her free arm. “What are you doing here?! How did you get here?! Is leaving Syl a good idea?! What’s—”
Jericho puts a finger to Rowan’s mouth.
She shuts up.
“I came to help the Harpers,” Jericho answers, tone cool with her typical composure. Rowan’s rapidfire questions have never thrown her off her groove. “I am…friends with Jaheira’s eldest daughter.”
Ah. Another one of Jericho’s conquests. Damn, her self-confidence is impressive.
“Rion was one of my contacts when I was trying to find out more about the nautiloid attacks. She sent me word that her mother was journeying here to investigate the connection between the mind flayers as this strange new cult, so I invited myself along. I am a capable wizard on top of having the distinction as Waterdeep’s foremost seamstress, you know. And Syl is fine,” she adds, though there is a curtness to her words that betrays her deep set love and concern for her mistress. “Morena and Evander are taking wonderful care of her. I think, after the initial shock of losing the shop wore off, she realized she quite enjoyed being fussed over and coddled. She deserves it.”
She’s not wrong. In the six months of knowing Sylvia, the older woman has rarely ever taken a full day off from working in the shop. While the destruction of it is obviously terrible, a part of Rowan is gladdened to know her fugue state seems to have worn off. Still…she should have been more prudent about using Gale’s scroll to message Morena and check on Syl.
There’s just been so much going on since reuniting with Gale that Morena, Syl, and Evander have kind of been at the back of her mind.
“I shall take my leave,” Jaheira says. “You three take the time to catch up. It is heartening to know we have yet even more dependable allies to count on in this wretched place.”
She gives them all a smile and a nod before brusquely walking away, fading into a group of Harpers milling about what must be the quartermaster’s area.
Jericho pats Rowan’s head once more as she turns to Gale, who has remained silent and a little bit in shock himself since her sudden arrival. “Good to see you’re not dead, Dekarios,” she admits with a haughty smirk. “It means I can give you this.”
She snaps her fingers and a package wrapped in stunning black velvet appears in the air before him. It drifts into his arms, the iridescent sheen of her magic blanketing it as he catches it. The package is tied with an elegant silver bow that looks like it costs more than Rowan’s entire outfit, which boggles her mind to think about.
Gale frowns in confusion as he glances down at it. “What’s this?”
“Oh, just something you and Rowan forgot at the tower,” she answers with her usual cryptic evasiveness.
His frown deepens. “...thank you, Jericho, for clearing that up so concisely for me. I’ve forgotten how much I appreciate your candor.”
Rowan finds herself frowning as well. What could she and Gale have forgotten, considering the unusual circumstances? Nothing comes to mind. Well, except Rowan’s stash of Amnian dessert wine, but there’s no way Jericho would specifically wrap that up and act all weird about it. Maybe it’s their collection of terrible smut books they were in the middle of reviewing together? But even that seems out of place—
“Oh!” Rowan’s eyes widen as the thought of smut books reminds her of something very important. She tugs on Jericho’s sleeves, glancing up at her (first and foremost) tiefling friend with her best impression of Gale’s soulful puppy dog eyes. “There’s someone I want you to meet! I think you’ll really like them!”
“Well, I know it can’t be Dorian—I won’t even ask where the hells you managed to find him, because frankly I don’t care—and that other man was more interested in Dorian than I could ever be in him. So I take it you mean that strapping, gorgeous tiefling who ran off towards the forge?” Jericho hooks a finger in the direction Karlach sprinted, intrigue dancing across her exquisite features.
“Were you invisible the whole time Jaheira was talking to us?”
“Since you came out of the shadows and approached the bridge, babe. I can recognize your magic from a mile away. I wanted to surprise you. You surprised me by clocking the spell so fast.”
“Well, I am a delight,” Rowan reminds her with a grin. Gods, it’s amazing to be with Jericho again. She’s missed the easy banter between the two of them so much.
She has this with Gale, yes, but it’s different. Her relationship with Jericho will always be special. She holds the other wizard with the highest regard in her heart. There’s no replacing what she and Gale share, but Rowan is so thankful to know Jericho will always have her back.
Jericho looks as though she’s about to respond with something sharp and witty but Gale cuts in. “As wonderful as it is to see you again, Jericho, I think it would be best for me to scope out the inn and see what kind of rooms I might purloin. A good night’s rest is needed, desperately.” He tucks the bundle Jericho gave him under his arms and steps forward, placing a bold but chaste kiss to Rowan’s cheek. “Enjoy your reunion, sweetheart. I’ll be inside if you need me.”
He smiles warmly and departs, entering the Last Light inn.
Rowan’s cheek feels hot where his lips were just mere moments before and she swallows thickly as she senses Jericho’s eyes searing into the back of her head. She slowly turns around, meeting the tiefling’s silver eyes as she at last untangles herself from Jericho’s slender form. “Um,” she starts nervously, “so, I, uh…we might have…”
Jericho clasps Rowan’s face between her clawed hands and lets out a breathy, quick cackle that could be molded from a siren song.
“About fucking time, darling!” she exclaims ardently, squeezing her cheeks. “I need to make an offering to Sune! I watched you two come in holding hands, so I had a feeling, but…it’s truly happened! You both have finally stopped being idiots about your feelings! Oh, Morena will be ecstatic!”
Rowan blushes furiously. “P-please don’t tell Morena yet,” she begs. “We haven’t really even told everyone, though, uh, Dorian was there when everything happened so he knew right away. He was also watching us while invisible. Does Blackstaff teach all its students to creep on people that way?”
“No, just those of us who ascribe to a higher standing of existence.”
“Of course. Makes total sense.”
“I’m happy for you, Rowan,” Jericho says with a fondness she only ever reserves for Syl and, of course, her favorite sorcerer. “From the moment Gale brought you to the shop I knew there was a spark between you two. He might be a pain in my ass more days than he’s not, but…” She smiles, soft and tender, and gives Rowan’s cheeks one last happy squeeze. “He deserves someone like you. And you deserve someone like him. Besides,” the smile turns into a devious smirk, “once I succeed in seducing Morena away from Evander, we can be sisters-in-law!”
Rowan’s blush gets worse.
Marrying Gale?
Being his wife?
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. She cannot let her thoughts linger on that right now. That’s too much. Her emotions are still somewhat fragile after yesterday’s (gods, was that really only yesterday?) Elminster-ponders-the-orb debacle.
In a world that is soup, she shall be a fork, and completely ignore those feelings for the time being.
“I don’t think you’ll be so keen on Morena Dekarios after you meet my other tiefling best friend,” Rowan says instead, gesturing for Jericho to follow her.
The air around the forge is warmer than the rest of the courtyard, understandably so, and there is an acrid scent of burning metal drifting on the wind. Smoke billows as they round the corner of the open-concept style building and a decent blacksmith’s shop comes into view. Weapons and sets of armor in the process of being finished decorate the walls. Standing before a flaming forge is a handsome tiefling man with soft eyes, who is stepping away from a stockstill Karlach and removing gloved hands away from her chest.
“That should do it. How does it feel, Karlach?”
There is a moment of pregnant silence.
Then:
“It’s not hot,” Karlach says, voice tinged with almost reverential awe. “I feel…normal. I’m not burning anymore. This is…this is brilliant, Dammon! I-I can touch people now, right? It worked?”
The blacksmith—Dammon—notices Rowan and Jericho then. He nods towards them, his face lighting up with a polite smile. “Only one way to find out,” he says, gesturing for Karlach to turn around.
She does.
Rowan meets Karlach’s golden gaze. Her eyes swirl with desperate, hopeful embers. The telltale fiery glow that usually clings to her crimson skin has dissipated. The only heat in the room comes from the forge behind them, not the infernal machine buried in Karlach’s chest.
She opens her mouth but Rowan, already anticipating what she was about to ask, throws herself into Karlach’s arms with all her might.
And she does not immediately immolate upon impact. Karlach’s body is still warmer than a normal person, as if she has a permanent fever, but it feels exactly as if Rowan has taken an elixir before the hug. And she knows she has done no such thing, as the last time she consumed any of the elixirs was yesterday morning, and so whatever trick this Dammon fellow did with the metal they found has done wonders.
Karlach squeezes her tightly, a choked gasp ending in a laugh bubbling up in her throat as she spins around with Rowan in her arms. “Thank you,” she whispers, her voice laden with tears she refuses to shed, pressing her face against the top of her head. She hugs her harder, tighter, mindful of her incredibly barbaric strength so as to not crush Rowan’s ribs as a nearly imperceptible keen sounds from her chest.
Rowan does her best to hug back just as hard. It’s difficult to match the enthusiasm considering her flabby noodle sorcerer arms. “Congrats, Karlach,” she says softly, reaching a hand up to stroke the tiefling’s hair. “We’re one step closer to fixing that engine of yours.”
“Uh-huh,” Karlach agrees, inhaling deeply. She reluctantly withdraws and lets Rowan go, chest rising and falling with the effort of controlling her breath. Confusion replaces the complicated array of relief and anxiety on her face when she spots Jericho standing behind her. “O-oh, erm, hullo. Who’re you?”
“This is Jericho,” Rowan answers for the tiefling wizard, tugging Karlach closer towards Jericho. “She’s helping the Harpers! Jericho, this is Karlach. She’s super strong and a very good hugger, as you can probably tell.”
Karlach coughs once as her eyes widen in recognition. She swallows hard, looking Jericho up and down as yet another complicated array of emotions slides across her face, though these ones Rowan can’t exactly pinpoint. “Your friend from Waterdeep? This is her?”
“I am indeed her,” Jericho says, one perfectly plucked eyebrow raising as she surveys Karlach with clear interest. “Pleasure to meet you, Karlach. I take it you’ve been protecting my dearest Rowan from all things nasty and nefarious?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I have. I mean, protecting squishy sorcerers is kinda my thing, innit? A-and wizards.” Karlach is practically sweating, though now a rather bold and audacious grin is beginning to creep across her lips as she leans in a little closer to Jericho. Rowan has always thought Jericho was tall, and Karlach obviously is built like an Amazon, but now that the two of them are standing side-by-side it’s obvious the red tiefling has a few more inches to boast of.
Jericho’s brow arches even higher. She hums, twirling the end of her white braid between her fingers. Her voice lowers, sultry and sordid with a thousand implications that almost makes Rowan feel indecent just to hear her tone. “Hm. Good girl. It seems I have much to thank you for, then. Care to join me for a stroll, Karlach? I would just love to get to know you better.”
Karlach’s neck is going to snap with the force of how hard she nods.
Without another word Jericho slides an arm around Karlach’s and gently, though pointedly, pulls her along. Karlach whips her head around and mouths an ecstatic thank you to Rowan before the two hot tiefling ladies disappear beyond the forge’s border.
The moment they’re out of view, Rowan punches the air with two fists and moves her body in a vague display of a victory dance. “They’re gonna bone!” she cheers to no one in particular, rubbing her hands together in glee. “And I’m gonna be the reason it happened!”
She remembers then that the dude named Dammon is also in the forge and she shoots a couple of gracious fingerguns towards him, much to his bafflement. “And you’re also the reason it happened! Thanks, man, for helping Karlach out! Now she finally gets to get laid and it’ll be by the hottest tiefling in Waterdeep! Gods, I’m a fucking
delight
!”
He blinks rapidly, taken aback by Rowan’s rejoicing.
“Wait, she left before I could—”
“Okay bye!”
Rowan ignores whatever he was about to say, because there is no way it could be more important than her plan to get Jericho and Karlach together, and races out of the forge with a skip in her step.
When she enters Last Light, she takes a moment to compose herself so she doesn’t appear to be a complete and total fool. The interior is fairly standard for an inn of a fantasy world, hosting a quaint but cozy atmosphere that is wholly inviting after traversing the shadows. About half a dozen tables are scattered about the main foyer; the second story can be seen due to the open concept architecture, and a balcony hosting more tables rises above her. There are several doors upstairs and downstairs, most likely leading to rooms for rent, and in the very middle of the chamber is a full furbished bar laden with bottles of every kind of liquor imaginable.
The mood here is…dismal, to say the least.
She recognizes Rolan from the party at the grove. He’s sitting in the very back against the wall, hunched over with a massive mug of what she suspects is the strongest alcohol available in his lap. His clothes are disheveled, his face is wan, and his eyes are listless and bleak as he stares down at the mug.
She also recognizes Alfira. She sits at one of the tables with her lute before her, absentmindedly stroking the instrument’s handle. Her eyes are rimmed with red and swollen. A plate of untouched food is placed next to the lute. Rowan recalls another tiefling named Lakrissa had been at Alfira’s side for much of the party—she sees her nowhere.
Quiet conversation comes from a closed door to her right. It sounds like there’s quite a few people inside, discussing something fervently, but she can’t make out exact words. On the other side of the inn Rowan spies Wyll and Dorian surrounded by a gaggle of tiefling children. They all appear exhausted but also enchanted as they listen to whatever the two men are telling them with rapt attention.
Dorian says something and Wyll suddenly bursts into laughter, the rich sound raucous and so out of place in the sad calm of the inn. The kids echo his laugh, some a little forceful but most of it wholly natural, and there is a moment where from across the room Rowan catches Wyll and Dorian holding one another’s gazes for a beat longer than expected.
Her chest grows warm and she can’t help but smile to herself. Maybe if Dorian can stop being an uptight prick all the time, Wyll can observe those redeeming qualities of his.
She hopes so. Strip the eldest Dekarios of his whim and vanity, and he could be a genuinely decent person. A person that would complement Wyll’s sense of honor and integrity very well.
…would that mean Wyll could possibly be her legitimate brother-in-law someday?
Her heart skips a beat. It’s definitely a possibility, but only if she marries Gale. Which is also a possibility. Because they’re in love. And that’s what people do when they’re in love, right? They get married. Well, not all of them—marriage isn’t necessarily the end all for a fulfilling and happy relationship. But…but…
Damn you, Jericho, for putting those thoughts into my head with your shenanigans. I don’t need to think about this right now!
Rowan groans and sighs as she shuffles further into the inn, nudging Pip on her shoulder. She’s surprised they’ve stayed quiet for this long but, then again, they’ve always been keenly observant of any new spaces.
“If you wanna go off to cause some chaos, you’re more than welcome to,” she tells the familiar. “Go explore, steal some food, be the little shit I know and love.”
Pip lets out an agreeable crow as they give her cheek a quick peck with their beak, nodding. “Thanks, boss,” they say quietly. “Maybe I’ll find Tara. It’s been a hot minute since she n’ I’ve had a moment to terrorize the local fauna.”
“You do you. Just try not to eat anything that’s infected with the curse please.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Pip responds as they take off from their perch on her shoulder and flutter up to the rafters above, squeezing through a little hole in the roof and vanishing from sight.
Rowan wonders where Gale has gone off to, as he is clearly not visible amongst the subdued and small crowd here. She is weighing the options of approaching Rolan or Alfira to ask if they’ve seen him, or interrupting Dorian and Wyll’s little soiree with the children, when the choice is luckily made for her.
“Rowan!”
Gale’s calling of her name echoes across the inn’s interior. She follows the sound of his voice to see him on the second floor, leaning against the balcony. He gestures to her and motions towards the set of stairs that leads up. She quickly makes her way up them and, once she’s at his side, he gives her a dazzling smile.
“We’re in luck,” he says. “They had a room with a bathtub available. It’s ours for tonight, should you wish to avail yourself of it, my dear.”
No other words have sounded so sweet.
“Have I ever told you I love you?” she asks.
“Not that I recall. Could I trouble you to say it now?”
“I love you, Gale Dekarios,” Rowan intones solemnly as she grasps his hands and looks deep into his eyes. “Now point me in the direction of that bathtub or I swear to all the gods, I will lose my shit and have another meltdown.”
Gale whisks her towards one of the doors on the second level, going past an opened balcony that leads to the outside. She gets a glimpse of what does indeed appear to be a lake stretching past the property, a sizable portion of it trapped safely within the Hallow spell. “The cleric who protects Last Light and whose blessing allows the Harpers to traverse the shadows is staying in that room,” he tells her as he points to a door that has been left ajar. It is adjacent to the one he’s stopped in front of. “Her name is Isobel. She graciously convinced Jaheira to give us these particular chambers.”
“Let me guess, you batted your eyes and said pretty please?” Rowan jokes.
He shakes his head. “I told her the woman who has my heart is a devotee of Selûne and that bathing is an important part of her daily rituals to honor the goddess.”
Rowan suddenly feels emotional, her eyes burning sharply and her hands twitching in his grasp. He’s right. Bath time was always important to her for many reasons, but she started to use it as a way to communicate with the Raven Queen and Selûne at times. It was never anything spectacular; just a lit candle and some salts to scent the water, but it was still a part of her routine that she’s been missing dearly. She’d only mentioned it in passing to him once before, and that was months ago.
He remembered, all this time.
“Thank you, Gale,” she says quietly, swallowing down the onset of overwhelming emotions. He’s too considerate of her, really. Sometimes she fears she doesn’t meet him halfway.
“I want you to be comfortable. As best as one can be in a harrowing circumstance such as this one.” He releases her hands, gives her a kiss on the cheek in a similar vein to the one he presented her with before Jericho, and opens the door. Rowan follows him inside and almost immediately wants to just collapse on the floor in thanks.
The room is not spectacular. She’s fairly certain she stayed at more impressive hotels in her old life, but it’s warm and inviting. A candelabra placed on a small table next to the double bed is lit and the room smells of cedar. There is one window but the curtains are drawn. A privacy screen marks off a corner of the room and she catches a glimpse of a copper tub when she cranes her head. The floor is decorated with a simple quilted rug of sorts that is somewhat threadbare and motheaten, but a vista of stars and constellations has been sewn into it with obvious skill and care.
Gale’s pack is on the floor leaning against the bed and the bundle Jericho had given him lay on the mattress. The bed itself is made up with a lovely thick comforter, the blue hue of the fabric reminiscent of the tent he has been using while on the road. Four very plushy looking pillows have been placed neatly at the headboard, which is carved of a dark wood and carries a similar starry motif to the rug.
It’s not much indeed, but to Rowan, it’s a veritable suite.
She takes in a deep breath and closes her eyes for a moment. It’s taking everything in her not to just jump into that copper tub right here and now. But she knows she’ll be awhile, and it would be rude, so she clears her throat and glances at Gale shyly.
“If you want to take a bath, you should go first,” she admits. “I’ll soak in there until I get pruny and then some. I’d feel awful if I made you wait for hours.”
He chuckles and pats her cheek. “How uncouth is it for me to admit I am relieved you made the offer? I myself would greatly appreciate the chance to bathe in an actual tub. Conjuring water here and there has been dreadful.”
Ain’t that the truth, she thinks wryly.
It occurs to her then and there that bathing in this room would mean they would be naked in each other’s presence.
There is a privacy screen, yes. But they will still be in the same room. Breathing the same air. Naked. While the other is clothed.
Rowan glances towards the bed once more. The single bed. That they will both be sleeping on. Together.
She slept beside him last night in his bedroll, but between her emotional outburst and the toll Elminster’s arcane procedure took on Gale, neither of them did anything more than mumble an exhausted goodnight to one another before promptly passing out. She doesn’t even think they snuggled in the least. She vaguely remembers being next to another person while she slept, and she knows Gale was beside her when she awoke this morning, but…
The situation had not been one where she could really fully appreciate that fact.
Now, she is all too aware that she will be able to appreciate it later.
“We should see what Jericho brought first,” Rowan says quickly, casually, her skin feeling tight and her heart crawling up her throat. This is all an issue for future Rowan to think about. “I have no idea what she deemed as so important as to bring it all the way here.”
“Ah, excellent idea.” Gale nods—somewhat stiffly, she notices, and there is a strange faraway look in his eyes that wasn’t there a few moments before. He couldn’t be wrestling with the same revelations she is. Could he?
Whether he is or not makes no difference as Gale strides over to the bed and deftly unties the ribbon on the package. The velvet wrapping falls away to reveal a strikingly familiar purple fabric and as he pulls it out to inspect it, Rowan feels the urge to both high five and strangle Jericho.
It’s their pajamas.
Their matching fucking pajamas that had been left behind in the tower.
Freshly washed, pressed, and showing no signs of wrinkles. Jericho obviously took great care of the sleepwear. There’s even a faint whiff of lavender and chamomile clinging to the garments, no doubt enchanted with a proper night’s rest in mind.
Gale mutely holds his pair up, face slightly ashen as he stares at it, while Rowan’s lay abandoned on the bedspread. Slowly, he lifts his head up to meet her gaze. The corner of his mouth twitches.
“I believe I must concede this round to Jericho.”
“Oh my gods,” Rowan groans, holding her face in her hands as she feels her cheeks burn crimson once more. “She’s damn lucky she’s with Karlach right now otherwise I would find her and dye her hair lime green.” As embarrassed and irritated as she is by the delivery of the pajamas, she's not so cruel as to interrupt what is sure to be a vigorous session of “getting to know one another.”
“I have missed them. They’re my favorite pair. Sleeping in your undergarments and traveling gear grows tiresome after the second day.” Gale loops his pajamas across his arm and turns to the copper tub. A delicate flush blooms across his face, the worst of it hidden by his beard, and he clears his throat awkwardly. “Well. I shall…be off to take my bath now. Don’t worry; I’ll be quick so you can enjoy yours to the fullest.”
He practically scampers off and disappears behind the privacy screen without waiting for her response. Rowan just stands there, dumb and mute, staring at the screen as if she expects it to suddenly disintegrate.
It does not.
And then she hears the muffled sounds of clothes being removed. A quiet thump on the floor as apparel is deposited unceremoniously. The squeak of a pipe being turned. The rush of water pouring forth and emptying into the smooth basin of the tub, steam immediately rising from the hot water and lingering towards the ceiling.
When she hears the sound of a body plunging into the water, she nearly screams.
Images appear in her mind. Gale, sinking into the tub, soap suds decorating his thick chest and arms like diamonds. Steam coalescing and wrapping around him like clouded serpents as he crosses his legs, obscuring what lay between them. Droplets of water running down the roll of his thighs as he lifts himself out of the tub, his hands running through damp hair as he bends over to—
Okay this was a terrible idea and now I am going to die.
Rowan wants to throw herself onto the bed and scream into the pillows but considering the state of her clothes, she would end up staining the clean sheets. Fuck. She should have asked Jericho to enchant the grime away. Actually, why didn’t the seamstress offer it in the first place? She should have been furious by the state of Rowan’s robes!
Then again, Rowan did distract her by introducing her to Karlach, and they had more important matters at hand. Maybe she just never noticed?
Letting her mind wander to Jericho and Karlach is bad because now all Rowan can think about is how the two tieflings are
definitely
getting to know one another while naked by now. And Gale is naked. In the tub. In the same room as her. Probably looking hot and sexy and delicious and like he could fill a thousand and one of her fantasies that have been cropping up in her dreams ever since that moment in Lenore’s tower.
A lick of heat blooms in her core as the image of Gale bending over in nothing but a towel that barely clings to his full waist reappears.
Fifteen minutes later, smelling of lavender and chamomile and of warm, clean skin, Gale emerges from the privacy screen to find Rowan sitting crossed legged on the rug with her fingers steepled in her lap. The welcome sight of him draped in his form-fitting pajamas, the silk cascading over his curves and thick midsection, almost makes her sigh. Almost.
He nonchalantly folds his gear up and sticks it underneath the bed. Which he has to bend down to do so. Rowan is strong. She does not stare at his ass. Just a tiny, polite peek. Yep. Just that. Actually, she’ll even close her eyes so the temptation doesn’t exist! Hah! Take that, horny thoughts!
“What are you doing, sweetheart?” Gale asks after a few moments. Rowan keeps her eyes shut and focuses on the mental image of Dorian in a jester’s costume. It’s the least sexy thing she can manage to think of.
“Meditating.”
“I see. Any particular reason why?”
“To clear my mind and cleanse it of all evils.”
“I…see. Is it working?”
Not at all and it’s your fault because you’re too fucking attractive.
“Like a charm,” Rowan quips, holding out her hand expectantly as she continues to sit on the ground. “Hand me my jimjams, please? I can’t risk losing my concentration or all will be lost.”
Plush softness greets her open palm.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t meditation typically done in complete silence?”
“It’s my own secret technique. Monasteries from all over Faerûn will be begging me for tips, trust me.”
“If you say so, my love.” Gale’s tone is laced with fond amusement and she just knows he’s rolling his eyes at her. But she continues to be strong and keeps her eyes shut as she brings herself to her feet, clutching her pajamas to her chest with one hand and using her other as a pointy object radar. Luckily for her the room is small and the pointiest thing in here is Nevermore, which is securely propped up against the wall and nowhere near the privacy screen or tub.
Rowan doesn’t open her eyes until she’s within the relative safety of the secluded corner. The copper tub glistens with the remnants of Gale’s bath that hasn’t drained properly. She does not think any more on that subject and instead turns the knobs to fill it with water. It steams just as much as Gale’s bath did. She can’t help but be curious about how the plumbing still works so well here considering the curse.
She’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Stripping her robe and clothes off before her self-consciousness can get the better of her, Rowan hoists herself over the tub’s edge and plops into the water before the tub is full. The water sloshes to the side and splashes onto the floor somewhat. If this were their tower, magic would evaporate it immediately, but the inn has no such enchantments placed on it. Hopefully the wooden floor won’t rot.
There’s a bar of unscented lye soap in a little dish hanging over the tub’s side. Next to it, a glass vial of what she assumes is a two-in-one shampoo/conditioner that would definitely wreak havoc on her unruly hair over multiple uses. But again, beggars can’t be choosers, and she’s just grateful to be submerged in warm water at last.
Rowan lets out a relieved sigh. She turns the water off and sinks into the water, letting the heat seep into her aching bones and tired muscles. It’s been go go go since leaving Waterdeep. Her body is grateful for the chance at some normalcy, even if it may be fleeting. Days of tension and layers of grime, dust, and sweat simply drift away into the water as she soaps herself up. She massages her arms and legs and feet, wishing she had a washcloth of some kind for extra oomph, and then feels somewhat guilty after. She just has to focus on the wonder of being able to take a bath and spare the details.
It’s as she’s washing her hair that she thinks,
Is Gale imagining me naked the way I was when he was in the tub?
Her fingers freeze up mid-massage through a particularly rough knot of tangled hair.
Her gaze trains itself on the screen that is the only thing blocking the view of her from Gale, and vice versa. She hears turning of pages and the adjusting of a mattress from the other side; he’s reading something on the bed, but that doesn’t mean his mind can’t wander. Like hers did. Even when she was trying to calm the dirty thoughts and erase them completely.
Does she even want him to imagine her naked?
…a part of her does. He’s made his intentions quite clear. She knows he desires her, and while there’s still a part of her that just can’t understand or accept that, the other part wants desperately for him to see all of her and follow through on all the promises he’s whispered sweetly into her ear.
That tantalizing heat starts to burn in her core again. She bites her tongue as she recalls the tones of his voice when he had her pinned to the desk in the Underdark, his mouth tracing her throat and his hands wandering down her hips.
I am going to venerate you.
She wants him to.
She wants him to touch her.
She wants him to love her.
She wants Gale so much, but she’s so fucking scared she’ll do something wrong or won’t actually like it and end up lapsing into another meltdown that not even his kisses will fix.
(And she wants it in the tower, back home, in the place where she fell in love with him in the first place. In his room. On his bed. Where the sheets smell like him and she can feel him in every breath of air.)
Rowan does not take as long of a bath as she wishes to.
Her wandering thoughts and fluctuating libido makes it impossible to concentrate and enjoy the bliss of a familiar routine. She’s out of the tub and dried off in under thirty minutes, a new record for the shortest bath ever since coming to this world. Pulling on the pajamas is agony. She’s flustered. Weirdly turned on. Confused and more stressed than she was before she got in the damn tub. It was the opposite of relaxing, especially when her hand kept wanting to dive between her legs and give a few experimental strokes even though Gale is right in the room with her and he would certainly hear the sounds.
She can’t meet his eyes when she emerges from the corner. Her face is far too red to attribute it to the hot water and she doesn’t know if she’ll survive should he comment on it. Which sucks, because she wants to bask in the glory that is both of them wearing their matching pajamas in the same room.
What also sucks is that the only place to get comfy in this room is on the bed, where Gale is sitting propped up on the pillows with a book in his lap.
Welp. She’s compartmentalized other thoughts and feelings before. The horny ones should be no different. It’s not like they’ve ever led anywhere but halfhearted daydreams and unresolved desires in the first place.
Rowan swallows hard and casually slides herself on top of the bed next to Gale, ignoring the thundering of her heart inside her ribcage. He turns his head to look at her, mild surprise etched into his handsome features. “That was a short bath. You could have taken longer. This is a rare opportunity to rest; the calm before the storm. I wouldn’t have minded.”
She shrugs. “Meh. It didn’t feel the same as my tub in Waterdeep.” It’s not a lie, per se. And she’s damned proud of how calm and steady her voice is.
“True. It pales in comparison to our tower’s enchantments, but it’s nice to feel unsullied for the first time in days.” He closes the book and places it next to him, patting her hand and smiling warmly. “Are you hungry? I could go down and get us something. The Harpers have limited supplies but I’m sure it’ll be filling.”
Yes. Gods, yes, I’m hungry. For you.
“I’m okay,” Rowan lies, and she makes it a point not to stare at the bunched up fabric between his legs as he adjusts the way he’s sitting on the bed. “I’d rather just lay here with you for a little bit and…decompress.”
Another lie.
There’s no way she can decompress with him right next to her.
And Gale, perceptive bastard he is, notices it immediately. How could he not? She can’t stop fidgeting or wringing her hands together or swallowing lumps in her throat the size of a fucking owlbear.
“Rowan,” he says, voice soft and full of concern as he brushes his thumb against her cheek, “what’s wrong?”
Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it. You won’t be able to take it back. You can’t—
“I-I think I’m horny!” she blurts out.
And then immediately flops over so that her back is facing Gale as she stares a hole into the wall, inwardly screaming as a hundred shadow soldiers start stabbing at her insides in a panic.
Silence.
Terse, restless silence.
And then he speaks, his tone gentle and free of any judgment, because he would never. He would never belittle her for something like this, and she knows it in her soul, but by the Matron does she still feel like an absolute idiot for just letting those words fly free from her lips.
“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, his hand sliding between her shoulder blades and resting soothingly against her spine. “I can go to another room if you’re uncomfortable with me being in here. I don’t want you to—”
“Don’t leave!” Rowan contemplates flipping back over to face him but just can’t handle seeing what kind of expression he’s making right now. “Don’t leave,” she repeats, bringing a hand to her mouth and nervously chewing on her thumbnail. “I, um. I-I want to…what I mean to say is…”
Gods, why is this so hard? It’s nothing like a smut novel. All of that is so effortless and silken—well, as long as it’s not Quill Grootslang writing it—and worded with such passion and intimacy! But here she is, fumbling along like a sheltered nun or something!
“Gale, I want you to touch me,” she admits quietly, full tinged with shame as her cheeks burn brighter than Karlach’s engine. “I know you want me to be comfortable, and you’ve been so patient with the pace I’ve been setting for all…this,” she waves a hand uselessly in the air, fingers waggling in his vague direction, “but I want more. I want you. I want to know what it’s like to be—to be loved. In every way. With you.”
Her anxiety is spiking. Adrenaline surges as her fight or flight response suddenly snaps on, the primal part of her brain yelling that it’s time to escape. It’s time to run and never come back and to dive into the shadows and yield herself to the unmaking of Shar’s curse.
The primal part of her brain is seriously dramatic.
“Will you look at me, Rowan?”
Gale sounds so plaintive that she can’t help but comply, rolling over again to meet his eyes. His face is flushed and his eyes are shining, and all she can see is love and wonder and joy in his beautiful gaze as he stares tenderly at her. “If that is what you want,” he murmurs, leaning forward so that his mouth is just a breadth away from hers, “then I will give you everything, my love.”
The distance between them closes.
And this kiss is unlike every other kiss up until now. It’s soft and gentle, but the quivering snap of something desperate awaiting to be unleashed lingers on Gale’s tongue as it flicks against her lips. His hands are suddenly on her waist, fingers just barely slipping under the hem of her shirt as he pulls her closer to him. He nibbles on her bottom lip as his tongue dances into her mouth and tangles with hers, a sigh emitting from his throat.
His hands go slightly higher. His fingers splay against her side, stroking the rolls of her curves as he suddenly hooks a leg over and cradles her thigh against his limbs. The movement causes the book to slide off the bed and clatter to the floor but she can barely hear it over the sound of her rapid breathing.
Gale tilts his head and deepens the kiss, his tongue wonderful and practiced as he strokes the surface of hers. “If it’s too much,” he intones into her mouth, his words somewhat slurred as he tries to speak through the kiss, “let me know at any time and I’ll stop.”
Rowan just nods. She can’t trust herself to speak, especially when his hands travel even further up her shirt, fingers light and airy as he seems to memorize a path along her sides. And then his hands are at her chest, cupping her cleavage beneath the fabric of her shirt, their weight hefty and filling his palms as he takes a thumb against one pebbled nipple and gives an exploratory caress.
She lets out a small, breathy gasp into his mouth.
The heat that hasn’t gone away since Gale got in the tub grows and spreads further.
He pulls away from her mouth, thick strands of saliva connecting their slowly swelling lips. His eyes burn. She shivers in his gaze, nipples growing harder as the other thumb sweeps across the peak of her breast and his hands knead into the soft flesh slowly.
“May I see you?” he asks, a barely perceptible tremor in his voice.
She nods wordlessly once more. The anticipation is sending her anxiety spiraling into overdrive. Her skin itches. It’s hard to breathe. Her legs twitch and her blood sings a song of utter panic. And when he rolls the pajama shirt up, past her heaving breasts and baring them to the air of the room and his notably hungry gaze, Rowan feels like she’s died and been brought back to life again.
She withers and blossoms in a single moment, shivering when he squeezes her breasts. “Beautiful,” he praises, lowering his head towards their peaks. Hot, she’s so hot right now, and his hands are so warm and big as he massages and kneads and rubs all over. A strangled sound catches in her throat, one she didn’t know she could make, and her breath hitches when she feels his breath fan against the bare flesh of one tit. “You’re beautiful, Rowan,” Gale whispers longingly. “You’re so beautiful. The first time I saw you in this I thought my heart would give out. You looked so good, wearing my clothes. But…”
He tilts his head so that he meets her eyes, a sparkle of playful desire shimmering in his gaze.
“You’ll look even better out of them.”
Without warning his mouth replaces his hand on the tit he had been gazing intently at and Rowan cries out, in shock and sudden pleasure, as the wet heat of his mouth envelopes her nipple and the flesh around it. He sucks at her, tongue flicking slow and steady as his remaining hand continues to knead and massage. The other has already traveled down to the waistband of her pants, sliding between the fabric. A gasp makes its way out of her mouth as the hand in her pants pushes past the thin barrier of her underwear, his fingers dangerously close to the apex of her thighs.
Yet Gale does not go further. Lazily, almost nonchalantly, he strokes the curves of her stomach just above where her thighs meet, his mouth and tongue on her breast matching the pace. He’s tasting her. Rolling the sensitive bud of her nipple between his tongue and teeth, suckling at the pebbled flesh, and teasing the lower half of her body with a delicately dangerous promise that makes her hips jerk.
“G-Gale,” Rowan whimpers, involuntarily pushes her hips further into his hand. Lower. He needs to go lower. Why won’t he fucking go lower , why won’t he touch her, why won’t he—
He removes his mouth from her breast and lifts his head once more. The hand down her pants inches further down and her breath hitches when his forefinger dips just above where her clit lay hidden between her folds. Close. He’s so close. She wants him to touch her. She wants to feel him, for him to feel her.
“Let me do something for you, Rowan,” he says, husky voice full of remarkable self control. “A small gesture towards your comfort.” The hand on her breast disappears, much to her chagrin, as he uses those fingers to carve sigils in the air. He closes his eyes and murmurs an incantation, the sigils floating languidly in the air glowing a pastel purple. They swirl about and intermingle to become one and the taste of the Weave explodes on Rowan’s tongue, pure illusion magic spreading out and stretching to coat every surface of the room.
She watches with a mix of awe and horny indignance as the inn’s room fades away and is replaced with one of her favorite sights in the universe.
Rowan’s eyes see nothing but Gale’s quarters. They’re on his lavish bed, tangled in the sheets that smell like him. The balcony door is cracked open, moonlight filtering through and caressing her skin with half as much tenderness as Gale’s hands are. The sound of the sea breaking upon the wharfs of Waterdeep echo, so far and yet so close, and the scent of his hundreds of books overwhelm her nostrils.
She knows this is an illusion. She knows it’s not real. She knows they’re not back in Waterdeep, but the plushness of his bed feels exactly as it did for that terrible week she slept in it alone, wracked with grief while she did not know where he was.
“Oh,” she whispers, tears forming in her eyes.
It’s kind. Horribly, wonderfully kind, because Gale knows how much she misses Waterdeep and the home they built together.
“I love you,” he says softly, sweetly, brushing the tears away as they roll down her cheeks. He presses a chaste kiss to the tip of her nose before burying his head in the crook of her neck, inhaling deep as the hand in her pants stretches down just a bit more. His free hand finds one of hers, fingers interlocking as he rasps his tongue against the side of her throat. “Thank you for allowing me to show you just how much you mean to me, sweetheart.”
And then he’s touching her.
Rowan squeezes her eyes shut when a finger finally, finally dips down and wedges its way against her clit. She bites on the insides of her cheeks, not wanting to voice the wordless noise bubbling in her throat, focusing on the foreign sensation of someone else’s fingers stroking her folds. It’s so much different compared to when she’s done it. It feels…good. Better. Amazing.
Gale starts to rub, slowly and steadily. His thumb focuses on her clit, coaxing it out of its hiding place as his other fingers caress her pussy tentatively. Small, unfocused sparks of pleasure ripple through her core. Her hips jerk when his thumb presses down at a particular angle and her clit throbs hungrily, wanting more of this strange yet sensational experience.
“F-fuck,” she hears herself whimper.
She marvels at how absolutely turned on she sounds.
He rubs the sensitive bundle of nerves a little faster, the other fingers dancing rhythmically in between her folds. The tip of a finger presses up against her entrance and dips in, ever so slightly, barely enough to penetrate but enough for Rowan to gasp again and jerk her hips once more.
“You’re wet,” he tells her, rubbing the slick flesh of her folds between two fingers. He licks her throat again, mouthing her jugular vein and pressing a trail of quick kisses against her skin. “You’re doing wonderful, sweetheart. Tell me if you want more.”
She shivers. She didn’t even know she could get wet. She didn’t know she could actually feel good. More. Yes, she wants more. She wants…she wants…
“Y-your mouth,” she whispers, daring to open her eyes once more. He lifts his head from her neck, gazing down at her with such intense concentration that the heat in her core grows hotter, her blood starting to turn into molten lava. “I want your mouth on me, Gale.”
His intense gaze flicks to her unattended breasts, a silent question in his eyes. She feels like she’s going to explode.
“Not…there,” she manages to get out, gasping when his fingers rub and caress her pussy in a way that makes her insides clench and her legs knock together, trapping his hand between the plushness of her thighs. Fuck. Shit. Fucking shit. She can’t say it. She can’t admit it out loud. What if he says no? What if that’s not something he’s into? It’s not like she can just say she’s been dreaming about his head between her legs for months.
Gale just blinks down at her patiently, that playful yet almost cruel glint of amusement coloring his gaze.
He’s going to make her say it.
Really, why should she expect anything less?
“Dammit, Gale,” Rowan cries out as she grinds into the hand she’s got clenched between her legs, “I want you to eat me out! Please! P-Please, wanna feel your tongue, wanna hear you tell me I taste good,
p l e a s e
…!”
He smirks.
“You sound so pretty when you beg, sweetheart.”
He gives her hand a squeeze and suddenly the air crackles with magic as he tugs on the strands of the Weave silently. Her clothes are entirely gone—whisked away to only the gods know, and she’s completely and utterly bare before him, but his pajamas have also vacated the premises and Rowan realizes that she is at last witnessing the sanctity that is a naked Gale Dekarios.
And even though his hand is still between her legs, even though her body is on fire and she wants more, she stares.
He’s even more gorgeous than she imagined. The orb’s scar, dull and lifeless, is almost invisible in the carpet of hair that spreads across his chest. His body is sculpted by the hands of a loving and tender god, every curve a handle for her to grab onto and squeeze and devote herself to worshiping. Their legs are tangled; even though she can’t see it, she can feel how hard he is against her bare skin, his cock poking and prodding into her as she breathes heavily.
“Gale,” she whispers, overcome with the force of her love and respect and yearning for this man, “you’re beautiful, too.”
And he is.
He’s so beautiful and perfect that she can’t believe how lucky she is to be in love with him, and him with her.
Her beloved wizard shakes his head and captures her mouth in a searing kiss. “Hush. This is my time to ravish you, not the other way around, though I do appreciate the sentiment. But you’ve asked me to taste you, and there is nothing that would give me more pleasure.”
Gale gives her clit a teasing rub, barely able to move his hands beneath the force of her clenched thighs.
“Given my propensity towards verbosity, it surely can't be a surprise that I have a practiced tongue.”
“Fuck,” Rowan swears as Gale disentangles himself from her, hiding her face in her hands as her chest heaves. “Th-that was really hot. And cringy. But hot. Shut up.”
“My mouth will be busy doing far more important things than talking in just a few moments.”
She can’t look. She knows if she catches a glimpse of his cock, hard because of her , she will pass out right then and there. So she continues to hide her face even as the bed creaks and the sheets shuffle around her and his hand wrenches itself free of her thighs. The mattress dips towards her feet and Gale’s hands rest underneath her knees, the fingers that had been playing around in her pussy damp as he rubs circles against her skin.
This is happening.
He’s going to see her.
He’s going to see all of her and he’s going to taste her and she’s going to die.
“Spread your legs, Rowan,” Gale orders gently.
She does.
Slowly, nervously, with a tentativeness bordering on hysterical, Rowan allows herself to relax as best she can. Her legs fall apart. Gale’s hands slide to her inner thighs as they do so, cupping the soft flesh as the bed creaks once more. Her skin is so tight and her heart is beating so fast and she can feel the hot fanning of his breath against her bare folds. She can hear the almost imperceptible inhale he makes, a guttural sound of longing and want crawling up his throat as she knows he’s just staring at her exposed cunt.
“Gods, Rowan,” Gale groans, his voice husky and leaden with want, “you’re stunning.”
She feels his mouth press a kiss to the inside of her thigh.
And then that mouth is on her, his tongue flicking against her clit, and Rowan’s head falls back against the pillows as wholly new waves of pleasure shudder through her. His fingers were one thing. His mouth and tongue is another, deft and wet and hot as he drags himself up and down her folds. Her hips jerk up into his face as she lets out a soft cry, hands flinging from her face to grip the sheets beneath her. She stares up at the ceiling, eyes wide as her mouth hangs open, vertigo swirling in her vision as Gale’s tongue swirls around the head of her clit.
“Ahn…h-hah…you…I-I’m…!”
It’s so strange but so wonderful and so fucking
wet
and he is relentless as he licks her up and down, tongue tickling past her folds in a rhythm that makes her whimper and moan. She jerks her hips again, this time mindlessly trying to grind into the tempo of his practiced tongue. Gale groans and suddenly something bristly and texture is rubbing into her sensitive pussy, his nose brushing against her clit as he adjusts his head.
Pleasure starts to build in her core.
Rowan lets out a noise that sounds downright pornographic and weakly lolls her head so she can finally look, and then immediately regrets it if only because of how hot her view is.
Gale’s face truly is buried between her legs, his beard scratching a delicious pattern of friction into her as his tongue scissors into her folds. The tip darts into her entrance, repeating the playful and curious exploration of his finger from earlier, and Rowan feels her fingers and toes start to tingle and go numb. His head bobs with every lick, the noises emitting from down there squelching and lewd as he sucks greedily. His tongue thrusts into her. His mouth encompasses her pussy entirely, nose rubbing frantically, maddeningly against her throbbing clit.
“So good,” Gale moans from between her legs, his voice muffled by her cunt. “You taste divine, sweetheart. I’ve wanted this for so long. Did you know that?”
He emphasizes it with a particularly rough lick up and down her slit, dragging his tongue all the way to her clit and teasing the pulsing flesh.
“So beautiful. So good. Rowan. My Rowan. Let me hear you. Tell me how you feel.”
It’s insanely unfair how turned on she is right now. The tingling in her hands and feet is getting stronger and there’s a knot of something in her core, making her cunt clench and her clit throb. His voice is deranged with desire. She feels like jelly, limp and useless.
And it’s fucking amazing.
“Gale,” Rowan breathes, moans, whimpers as she grinds her cunt into his face once more, prompting a series of eager groans and frenzied licks up and down her slit. “
G-Gale,
it feels good, you feel so good, I-I don’t want you to stop, I don’t want this to end!”
She squeezes the sheets, gasping and panting as his mouth works on her even harder, faster, at a pace that should be inhuman and impossible and yet he’s between her legs proving her very wrong. This is what this feels like? Truly? Gods, how do people stop and get anything done? How is the world not just full of horny idiots rolling around in the sheets together?
For some reason it’s that thought that nearly sends her over the edge. Combined with the friction of Gale’s beard rubbing against her and his mouth suckling her clit, she lets out a borderline shriek of ecstasy as bliss ripples through her body and she feels herself unravel.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he encourages, placing an open-mouthed kiss against her trembling pussy. “Cum for me. Let me taste it. It’s alright. I’ve got you. I’m here.”
He says it so softly, with such tenderness, a sweet longing that pierces through her libido and carves a nest within her heart. She has to. She needs to let go. She wants to feel this, to chase these new sensations assaulting her to the very end. She wants him to watch her break so he can put her back together again with those loving and gentle hands of his. The hands that took hers that first day she woke up in this world and guided her through the wonders of magic.
Rowan’s back arches. She gasps as her eyes roll back into her head, her cunt going numb as sparks appear in her vision. She cries out in wordless pleasure, clit twitching and blood pumping like molten lava in her veins. Desperately, shakily, she grinds her hips against his face as the knot in her core comes undone at last and the groan of wanton pleasure Gale lets out is staggering.
She rides out her very first orgasm with his hands cupping her legs and his tongue buried in her folds. It feels like her brain short circuits for a moment, static filling her mind as she keens and whimpers. She knows he’s still licking her, mouth eager to drink up and devour her even as she descends from the high she’s just reached, but there is a numbness creeping through her body now. A detachment, almost. Like she is herself but also not herself, and a slight panic rises in her chest.
Darkness. She’s in darkness. Is she? She doesn’t know. Is this her body? Is this her soul? Who is she? What is she? What just happened—what did she just do? Why does everything feel so far and so much and yet so numb?
“Rowan.”
Gale’s voice. It’s her rock, her anchor. Her safe space. Her temple.
She blinks.
Her vision clears. The shadows obscuring her view vanish and she is met with the sight of Gale’s head lifted from between her legs, droplets of her climax clinging to his beard and painting the entire lower half of his mouth in a lascivious sheen. It shouldn’t make her whimper and shiver so, especially considering how exhausted and drained she suddenly is.
“How are you feeling?” he asks softly, his eyes full of concern.
She doesn’t know how to answer, not at first. It was a lot. Maybe too much. But—no. No, it was…good. She feels…
“Wanna do that again,” she mumbles shyly, swallowing as the confession echoes in the room. “Gods, Gale, I don’t think I could ever get used to that. I…I-I came.” She just stares at him in trepidation and shocked delight, wanting to hide her face again but rising above the urge. “You made me cum.”
“I did. Quite vigorously, I might add.” His mouth presses against the inside of her thigh, leaving a slow and sweltering kiss against the tender flesh. Every part of her is so sensitive that even that small gesture makes her tremble. “You did so well, sweetheart. I’m proud of you.”
Rowan finds she doesn’t have the strength to respond. She just nods, letting her head fall back against the pillows once more and she tries to remember what it’s like to have a body again. A body that just experienced a level of intimacy she didn’t know was possible.
Gale removes himself from his position between her legs, sitting up and scooting back somewhat. He snaps his fingers and a damp washcloth appears in his hand. She almost makes a comment about how that would have been nice when she was in the tub but her throat feels strangely raw and words are hard. Gingerly, he starts to dab at her quivering folds, wiping down the moisture and remnants of her release. He takes care to avoid putting too much pressure on her still too-sensitive clit.
“I’d ask if you’d like to try anything more,” he says, too conversationally for a man who was just eating her out like he was starved, “but I fear you’re moments away from falling asleep on me.”
He’s not wrong.
“It was a lot,” Rowan admits sheepishly, tiredly, that odd tingly-numbness still lurking beneath her skin.
He dismisses the washcloth with another snap of his fingers and slides in next to her. He brushes some sweaty strands of hair from her face; she didn’t realize she was drenched in it. Another bath will most definitely be necessary before emerging out in public once more. “Then we’ll just have to build up your tolerance to it.”
“I’d like that,” she mumbles, curling into him with far more effort than should be necessary. It feels like someone cut open her skin and replaced her bones with lead. She could sleep for a century.
Gale hums in the back of his throat and enfolds her into his arms. A hand cups the back of her head while the other rests on the side of her hip, holding her into place against him. She presses her face into his bare chest, sighing shakily as she feels a subtle poke of something hot and hard against her leg.
“Um,” she bites her lower lip, not wanting to lift her head up, “do you want me to try to…?”
She trails off, embarrassed.
“No, sweetheart. I know that will be too much for you right now. Just focus on getting some rest.” Gale strokes the back of her head and adjusts himself so that he’s no longer pressing into her. “Sleep if you want. The illusion will last for the rest of the day, so it shall be here if you wake up at any point.”
Rowan suddenly wants to cry. She doesn’t deserve him. She could unravel the thread of the very universe itself and still not understand why he chose to care for her so much in this lifetime.
“Thank you,” she whispers, closing her heavy eyes. His heartbeat is a lullaby. She can already feel herself drifting off. Her sense of self and time and place is confounded and twisted to the point where if she doesn’t think too hard, she could almost convince herself that the illusion is real. That he made love to her in their tower, and that they’re back home in Waterdeep, and that there is no illithid parasite wriggling around in his head.
Almost.
Gale’s voice takes on an almost dreamlike quality. The cadence of his heartbeat and the pulse of his words create a harmony that sings of refuge. Of sanctuary.
“When you wake, it will be back in our small, dirty, bloody patch of existence. But stay with me now, Rowan. There are endless worlds out there. Countless ways to declare love. Infinite ways to express it. Too much for one night. But we will try someday.”
His heartbeat is her universe.
“I love you. And I cannot wait to say those words in the place I fell in love with you.”
Rowan’s lips twitch into an exhausted smile. Exhausted, but content. He feels the same. Of course he does. Because he loves her, and she loves him, and Rowan knows that this will be the first of many nights where they prove it to one another over and over again. So she relaxes, lets herself go, and gives in to the sanctum that is Gale’s arms as sleep envelopes her eagerly.
Notes:
hi it's me again
i have wrestled with how i was going to write the sex scene since the inception of this fic. i love the act 2 romance scene, but also i wanted to do something that is wholly rowan/gale considering they had 6 months to develop a relationship prior to the events of the game. i hope it is satisfactory for now. i promise there will be more porn eventually but i like how this turned out and didn't want to force anything else. i actually cut A LOT of content out of this chapter which is insane considering how long it is LMFAO
ok bye thank you for all the love im sorry there hasn't been a gale pov for the last two chapters but they focused on rowan's emotions quite heavily so the lack of pov change reflected that
also karlach and jericho are my red and blue coded lesbians!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter 12: the sacred and profane
Notes:
this is literally just a continuation of the smut from the last chapter. and it's under 10k words! huzzah!
anyway uhhhhh the power of horny gale compelled me to write this in a single day. he is the most talented wizard of our age. everybody say thank you gale for empowering me with the energy to write this.
also, this is probably gonna be the last upload for awhile, so i hope y'all enjoy and pray that i continue to keep my motivation and muse because hot damn i've missed this fic <3
Chapter Text
Gale does not mean to drift off but when the love of his life is naked and curled up against him, breathing even and skin scented with lavender and chamomile, it is impossible not to follow suit. The transition from reality to dreams is subtle; the illusion of his chambers in Waterdeep shimmer and fade away slowly, as if he is descending into the sea. His awareness stretches thin and taut. The peace cradled within his chest slips away, replaced by a sense of urgency that is not his, and he knows the damn dream visitor has returned once again.
They have not made an appearance since his curt words to them the night after reuniting with Rowan. Gale suspects it’s a combination of his ire and Miri and the others discovering they are wanted dead by Vlaakith that has kept them from dropping in unannounced.
He pinches the bridge of his nose as the familiar scenery of the quixotic dreamscape snaps into view. It’s a shame that the canopy of stars and strands of the Astral Sea no longer hold the same beauty they did the first couple times he was brought into this place.
Then again, nothing else will ever be able to overtake the beauty that was Rowan’s face contorted in pleasure as his tongue drew out noises he had hoped to hear for far too long.
“You are all getting distracted.”
Gale turns around to the sound of his own voice and is met with a most contemptible sight. It’s…him. The man he was over a year ago, when he still danced in the palm of Mystra’s hands and believed himself better than the gods. Thinner, beardless, hair shorn close to his head—and his eyes, so arrogant, the curl of his lips disdainful as his self-proclaimed guardian gazes at him insolently. This version of him does not wear that ridiculous gossamer, whimsical garb, thank the Matron. No, instead he is donned in the elegant and extravagant robes he would always bring out whenever hosting a guest lecture at Blackstaff.
(He burned those robes three days after Mystra abandoned him. He couldn’t stand the hypocrisy they stood for.)
“Whatever do you mean?” Gale grinds the question out in a tone thick with irritation. He had so foolishly, desperately hoped these visits were a thing of the past after Miri’s encounter with them in the Astral Prism. At least they no longer wander around his consciousness in the guise of Rowan. As bitter as he is to be faced with a mirror of the despicable bastard he once was, it is a relief to see they have decided to no longer parade around as his beloved.
He’s not sure what he would have done if the guardian had approached him as a perverse parody of her once more.
“Exactly as I said. All of you who survived the nautiloid crash have been allowing yourselves to grow too comfortable with each other. You are losing sight of what’s important.” His old self practically sneers and Gale feels ill at the reminder of how callous he could be before everything changed. “Find the Absolute. Cease dallying with one another. Time grows short, and it will grow even shorter if you spend it doing nothing but…”
The guardian’s eyes narrow with a ridicule that sets Gale’s blood to boiling.
“...giving in to the pleasures of the flesh.”
Gale’s chest tightens and he clenches his hands into fists, nostrils flaring. Shame and rage ebb and flow between the bones of his ribcage. Fire burns behind his eyes. Magic flares, the threads of the Weave eager to answer his summons, and Rowan’s shadows writhe in expectant glee within his blood as they await the call to battle.
Can this being be killed in this place, this theater of the mind where they tug the strings of his dreams like a puppetmaster? Gale doubts it. It is not the same as entering the physical space they reside within the prison of the Astral Prism. There is no use in allowing his anger to get the better of him. Nothing good will come of it. He would much rather avoid burning this bridge entirely before something, anything useful wriggles out of this circumstance.
The worm in his head must agree, for it is being unusually quiet and still. In truth it has since Elminster placed the spell on the orb, and Gale does not know if that is a blessing or a curse. Is it merely dormant, waiting to strike when his guard is down?
Such things are better left ignored and brushed under the rug, if only so he can focus on more important matters. Matters the mirror of himself seems to believe irrational and superfluous.
“I don’t believe that’s any of your business,” he says with the faintest hint of a snarl. “Who are you to cast judgment on such a thing? How dare you?”
“I am the only reason why your minds have not succumbed to the worm,” they respond with the same measure of acidity he used to throw at those he thought lesser than him. “I am that which protects you, nurtures you, until you can defeat the Absolute. Without me, you would all be thralls. Without me, you would all lose your sense of self and be nothing more than mind flayers eager to usher in the Grand Design.”
His former self is suddenly directly before him. A hand is on his shoulder, nails sharper than Gale ever kept them digging into his flesh hard and deep enough to draw blood.
“You must make haste,” the guardian insists, the mocking echo of his voice somewhat more subdued and almost gentle now. Like a mother mollifying an unruly child. “Cease with these insipid distractions and make your way to Moonrise, Gale. My strength can only last for so long.”
He wakes with a startled gasp, his shoulder throbbing as if the tip of a knife has pierced through.
Gale blinks as his quickened, alarmed breathing slows to something more calm. His eyes adjust to the candlelit dimness around him. For one perilous moment, seeing the walls of his quarters back in Waterdeep is nearly enough to awaken the orb once more with the emotions it calls forth. But then he remembers; it is an illusion, one he conjured forth for Rowan, and they are in the Last Light Inn. Together. In bed.
Naked.
He glances down. She remains asleep, blissfully so, her face buried in his bare chest and arms clinging tightly to his midsection. Her legs have tangled together with his. Her unruly mass of curls, much of it springing forth from her haphazard braid—brought on by all the squirming she did while his mouth was on her—tickles his neck.
Gods, she’s lovely. Perfection. Closer to divinity than Mystra or any other deity could hope to achieve. His beloved sorcerer. His friend, his partner, his everything.
“How did I ever survive in a world without you?” Gale asks her softly, ensuring his voice is low enough so as to not disturb her.
His heart is swollen and heavy with the love he holds, every ounce of affection he carries threatening to overflow. He knows what occurred between them was a big step for her. He knows she must have been overcome with anxiety, nervous and scared and hopeful all at once. The fact that she was brave enough to admit her desires and trusted him implicitly to meet them is a precious gift. Nothing and no one will ever take that away. Not Mystra, not the Absolute, and certainly not the fucking “guardian” masquerading as a concerned ally when in fact all they wish to do is control him and his companions.
Gale will not dwell on the conversation within his dream. That thing can run itself ragged for all he cares.
He turns his attention to the candles on the bedside table. They’ve melted about halfway down the wick—he and Rowan have been asleep for quite a few hours then, even though the dream lasted barely ten minutes. It must be closer to evening now. The prudent thing to do would be to wake her up, get dressed, and find food. Gather information from the Harpers and tiefling survivors, coordinate plans with his companions, maybe even reach out to Miri to check on her progress.
But…
He swallows.
The taste of Rowan’s essence still lingers on his tongue, and Gale finds that she is the only thing he craves.
Now that he has indulged once, he wants nothing more than to sink himself into the euphoria that is giving her pleasure. Of hearing those tantalizing whimpers his tongue elicits from her lips. Tasting her. Feeling her grind herself against his face in desperation as she calls out his name so wantonly. Licking and sucking every ounce of her release as her pussy quivers and clit swells in his mouth and she—
Gale groans as he feels himself begin to grow hard, biting his tongue to keep himself from being too loud. Rowan was exhausted. It had been clear she wouldn’t have handled another round very well, considering how much her first time overwhelmed her. He needs to calm himself and ignore the throbbing of his cock like he did hours ago when she drifted off to sleep in his arms.
Unfortunately, the image of her half-lidded eyes and mouth agape with pleasure fills his mind.
Unfortunately, the memory of her sweet cries echoing throughout the room sends a rush of blood to his length.
Unfortunately, Gale cannot bite back the strangled groan as he imagines how lovely and soft and wet she would feel around him.
And unfortunately, Rowan stirs against his chest, mumbling sleepily as her head lifts and her eyes slowly blink open. She gazes at him, unfocused and confused, before comprehension dawns in her stormy eyes and a delicate blush settles on her pale cheeks. She smiles, shy and content, as she reaches a hand up to cup the side of his face and strokes the divots in his skin where the orb’s scar has carved a cruel path.
“Hi.”
Even though his cock is steadily hardening and his mind is teeming with vulgar scenarios, Gale cannot help but return her smile and tilt his head into her touch.
“Hello yourself,” he murmurs, resisting the urge to lean forward and capture her lips with his. He’s not sure how well she would react to tasting herself on his mouth. It tingles and throbs on his tongue, coating his teeth. Not even an underhanded attempt at an illusion could hide it.
Rowan makes another sleepy, endearing noise. Her other hand finds its way to his hair, the bun as unkempt and messy as her braid. She starts to stroke and pet his head, her fingers threading through his hair, the movement slow and rhythmic as she just gazes at him happily. His breath hitches. His heart stammers. She’s so beautiful. So perfect. And seeing the hazy film of complete and utter adoration in her face makes him grow even harder, much to his chagrin.
“How are you feeling?” he asks, subtly shifting his weight so that he cannot nudge her with his cock.
She continues to caress him silently. The only indication that she heard his question is the way she scrunches up her nose, clearly thinking long and hard about how she is going to answer. She closes her eyes, sighing heavily.
“I can be honest, right?”
“Of course. I would prefer it if you were.”
“Okay.” Rowan opens her eyes and her flush deepens, a barely concealed ache lurking in her gaze as she stares pointedly at him. “I want more, Gale. It was—it was too good. Too fucking good. I want to…try more.”
She swallows, voice barely a whisper.
“I want you inside me.”
Gale has never been more proud of his remarkable self-control when it comes to his desires for Rowan. His heart is in his throat. His chest tightens. His mouth waters, the phantasmal and tantalizing palette of her essence becoming stronger on his tongue as he looks at her. Another rush of blood floods into his length, swelling him to full mast, and there is no amount of adjusting or maneuvering that can hide the erection now considering how tangled up they are with one another.
The way her eyes widen and her flush deepens even more, her freckles standing out like dozens of constellations, serves to excite him even more.
“Are you certain?” he cannot help but ask. He doesn’t want her pushing herself just to please him. This day is meant to focus entirely on her needs, her wants.
She nods. Such a simple gesture should not send pulses and flutters of hedonistic cries of yes echoing throughout his subconsciousness. And before Gale can protest, before he can warn her or beg her to pause, Rowan leans forward and catches his mouth with hers. He feels her falter for a moment as her tongue boldly plunges its way between his parted lips but, to his surprise, she does not pull away.
In fact, Gale would be remiss to believe it does not serve to further whet her appetites.
He eagerly takes her tongue into his mouth, curling his own around it and tugging her deeper down his throat. His hands grasp her waist and tug her closer to him, no longer caring if his cock brushes against her as she kisses him with a desperation bordering on depravity. Both of her hands tangle in his hair, gripping him tightly as she lets out a little moan into his mouth and rubs her thighs against the stiff length of his erection. A tiny spark of friction erupts where her plush skin grinds against him. Gale cannot hold back a moan of his own, nodding into the kiss as his hands slide to cup her perfect ass.
But that is all he does. He wants this to be entirely at her pace, just as every cautious step of their courting has been, and Rowan seems content to simply lose herself in a fury of kisses with an occasional grind into him. Time ceases to exist. The world at large falls away. Reality becomes nothing but her mouth and her tongue, her hands in his hand tugging and pulling, her lips trembling with the echoes of whimpers and moans that disappear down his throat.
When she finally pulls away, panting and pent up, Rowan leans her forehead against his and whispers in a ragged tone, “Is that what I taste like?”
“Yes,” he says, drunk on the sensation of his hands being so full of her voluptuous body. “Delectable. Delicious. The ambrosia of the gods.” He lowers his head down to the bare side of her neck, mouth tracing the bruised marks he had left only hours before. His tongue rasps against the quivering pulse of her throat and she lets out a little gasp, fingers tightening in the knot of his hair she’s bunched up. “Every inch of you is a veritable feast for my senses, sweetheart. I could spend a century tasting you, listening to you, feeling you and still not tire of the joy it brings me.”
“Did you get that line out of your fantasy Kama Sutra book?” she questions, her voice trailing off in a breathy whimper as Gale goes lower. Her hands let go, removing themselves from his hair as he slides his body on top of hers and hovers his head above the swell of her breasts. Bracing himself on either side of her Gale swirls his tongue around the nipple he had neglected earlier, flicking the rapidly hardening bud.
He loves how responsive she is to him. He loves how undone she becomes with his attention.
“While The Art of the Night contains many lines of poetry and praise,” he says as he traces the shape of her nipple with his tongue, unable to resist sucking a hefty portion of her breast into his mouth, “everything I have to say from you comes directly from The Book of Gale, my love.”
Rowan moans quietly, body jerking as he kisses and suckles and licks the sensitive flesh of her cleavage. “G-gotta get,” she pants out, voice shrill with randy anticipation, “some wine for that cheese…!”
He grins, cupping her other breast and slowly beginning to knead it as he focuses his mouth on her stiff nipple. The fact it heaves against his fingers, the contents plush and spilling out of his palm enough to send a thrill of pleasure up his spine. Her body is a wonder. A marvel to behold. A temple he would gladly spend the rest of his life on his knees to venerate and whisper words of adulation in.
“Hngh…” Rowan lets out a gasping sigh and were it not for the desire to memorize the shape of her breast with his tongue, he would lift his head to witness whatever expression she’s making. “Your mouth feels…so good, Gale,” she whispers. “Love it…want it on me all the time…!”
It is heartening to know the feeling is mutual. Quite so.
Gale contemplates a pilgrimage to the sacred shrine between her legs. Her whimpers and cries as his tongue buried itself in her folds and licked patterns around her clit still ring in his mind. But he knows if he were to do so he would not cease until she passed out beneath his ministrations, her taste seared onto his tongue like a brand and her essence staining his beard. She wants him inside her. He must oblige.
If she is not satisfied by that, then he will happily devour her luscious cunt for a second time.
He lowers himself back onto the bed at her side, still keeping his mouth on her breast and caressing the other one with his hand as gently and tenderly as he can muster. His free hand slides down the mountains of her exquisite curves, fingers dancing along the rolls of her stomach and swell of her hips. When he reaches the apex of her thighs, he finds her legs are already spread, the hidden treasure of her clit throbbing as a finger brushes past it with a phantom touch.
The salacious sense of delight he feels is staggering.
“I’m going to touch you here again, Rowan,” he warns her around the heaving fat of her cleavage. “I don’t want it to hurt.”
“O-okay,” she agrees, her chest vibrating with the stammered syllables.
And so he begins to gently probe her clit, caressing it with the tip of his finger as he repeats his process from before. His other fingers stroke up and down the folds of her sex, reveling in the softness of it. Her breathing gets a little faster, especially when he at last switches his attention to the other breast and engulfs that hardened nipple into his mouth. He pinches the peak of the breast he’d been sucking at and splays his fingers against her skin, spreading his saliva around as he rubs the flesh in tandem with her clit.
Rowan’s hips jerk and he hears a muffled cry from above.
He finds himself grinning as he kisses the swell of her cleavage. He takes her clit between his thumb and forefinger and slowly rubs, massaging it at the same pace as he is her breast, while the other fingers delve a little lower and tease her entrance. She’s definitely wet again. Not wet enough for her to comfortably take him, though. He’ll have to work a little harder.
Gale has always adored a challenge.
He slips his pinky into her pussy, curling the digit inwards. Warmth envelopes it, the trembling walls of her cunt almost shying away from his touch as he gives an experimental swirl around inside. Rowan lets out another muffled cry. She’s holding back on him. He tuts around her nipple as he gives it one more lick before lifting his head up.
She has her hands clamped over her mouth, eyes wide and swimming with want. He pinches her clit, just a tad harder than any of the other ministrations he’s so far pampered her with, and watches as she squeezes her eyes shut and whimpers behind the relative safety of her hands. Rowan’s hips jerk once more, arching into his fingers as they wreak a slow and steady havoc unto her sex.
“I want to hear you, sweetheart,” Gale encourages her, as kindly as he can manage while his cock is throbbing. “Please don’t try to hide it. Let me know how you’re feeling. Is this good? You still want to continue?”
Rowan gives a shaky nod and, hands trembling, lowers her arms so that she grips the sheets at her side in tight fists. The scarlet sheen on her face is glorious. Her tongue darts out from her mouth, quick as a whip, nervously licking her lower lip as she gazes at him with longing.
“Please don’t stop. I-I’m okay. I’m…more than okay, I’m—”
She breaks off in a startled moan when Gale increases the tempo on her clit and he allows himself a groan of his own as he feels her inner walls twitch around his finger.
“Good,” he murmurs, staring intently at her kiss-swollen lips. He aches to taste her again. To have her taste herself on his tongue once more and become addled by the obscenity of it all. “I love hearing the noises you make. You moaned so prettily when I was tasting you, Rowan. I could have eaten you for hours and never tired of it.”
Rowan chokes. “G-Gale…”
“I think it’s how I’ll wake you up every morning from now on,” he continues, voice almost singsong. “My tongue on your clit and my fingers in your pussy. What sweet music you would make for me, my love.”
She lets out a whimpering cry that nearly makes him roll his eyes in euphoria.
He allows his better judgment to fade and give way to several months’ worth of desire. His pinky is gyrating in and out of her entrance now, quiet squelching noises beginning to sound from her slickening folds. He teases his ring finger past the quivering entrance of her sex, watching as her eyes widen once more. He pauses, concerned for a moment that perhaps he needs to slow down, that even this much is starting to overwhelm, but Rowan nods jerkily and grinds her hips into him for emphasis.
Relieved, he goes about scissoring the digits in and out, more wetness beginning to gather along his skin every time he plunges them a little deeper. He rubs, teases, pinches, caresses her clit and the sensation of the sensitive bundle of nerves twitching in his fingers is more grand than any spell he could cast. Without warning Rowan’s back arches slightly, a tawdry whimper escaping her parted lips as he brushes against a particular spot against her inner walls.
“ G a l e ,” she all but whines, “n-no more fingers…want it now, want your…y-your cock.”
Oh, by all the gods, Gale nearly loses himself then and there.
He nods stiffly, trying desperately to conceal his ribald enthusiasm. Slowly, he drags his fingers out of her with a wet pop, the skin glistening with her wetness. He inspects them for a moment before giving in to that banal, lewd desire for her taste once more and bringing his hand to his mouth. He holds her gaze steady and stoic as he inserts each finger into his mouth one-by-one, licking the pearls of her essence off. He cannot help but give a moaning sigh as he savors the taste, sucking at the flavor like a man starved.
He means what he said. With her permission, Gale would be glad to rouse her every morning with his tongue in her folds and clit in his mouth. He will never get enough of the sinful taste of her.
Rowan makes a strangled sound that is akin to a dying animal. She’s watching him. Witnessing him revel in her taste, partaking in the ambrosia that is her. And it’s driving her mad. He knows it. She knows he knows it.
Gale has the distinct feeling that his beloved sorcerer may be a bit more depraved than she leads on.
He pushes the thought aside. They shall have plenty of time to explore other, more intense ways to delight in each other’s bodies. For now he simply focuses on honoring her request.
He hauls himself on top of her once again, careful not to press his full weight down on her. The swell of her breasts press against his chest. He can feel the curves of her stomach molding into his own. Gale cups her cheek with his unsullied hand, careful to use that one to brace her thigh, and brings his mouth to hers in a ghost of a kiss.
“If anything hurts, I will stop,” he murmurs against her lips. “I would rather wander the Fugue Plane for all of eternity than cause you any modicum of discomfort.”
“I trust you,” Rowan breathes, gazing up at him with a conviction that makes him shudder. “I love you, Gale. Please…please continue. Please let me feel you. Please .”
When she begs so sweetly, how can he refuse?
Gale kisses her again, just a simple and almost chaste meeting of their mouths as he guides his length to her entrance. She shivers the moment the head brushes against the slickness of her sex, sounding her anticipating into the kiss with a whimper. Slowly, oh so slowly, with all the care and respect and love he holds for her, he starts to push himself in.
Rowan gasps. Her hands immediately go from clutching at the sheets to wrapping around his neck, fingernails biting into the back of his scalp as she twitches beneath him. “ O-Oh ,” she groans out, in a tone that is a mix of apprehension and awe, “that feels…a-ah…”
He nearly freezes. Worry that she’s in pain triumphs over the warm, silken sensation of her pussy enveloping his cock. He feels as though he should pull out, apologize and work on preparing her a bit more—as long as she’s amenable to it, of course—when Rowan’s legs wrap around his waist and she practically yanks him further into her.
A wordless moan grinds out from her mouth. Her eyes roll back as Gale slips in inch by inch, spurred on by her movements and the lovely slickness of her eager cunt. For once, he finds himself speechless as he watches pleasure flicker across her face. Her mouth goes slack. Her head lay limp against the pillows.
And then her hips give a tentative buck upwards, almost on instinct.
His cock twitches inside her, stretching her walls. Gale thrusts into her gently, gauging her reaction as he sucks in a breath. Gods, she’s so soft. So warm. So welcoming. It’s nearly maddening how good she feels, how right and complete it is to be sheathed inside her. How can this be real? How can she love him so dearly, trust him so implicitly to allow him to cherish her like this?
“More?” he whispers, giving one more little thrust.
Rowan gives a shaking, wordless nod.
Gale groans and complies.
He loses himself in her. His pace remains slow and gentle, rocking into her hips hard enough that he hears her breath hitch with each movement but not so hard to draw out any pain. Her legs remain taut around his waist. Her hands remain clutching the back of his head. And he just slips in and out of her with languid, lackadaisical thrusts, the slickness of her cunt surrounding him absolutely perfect.
Rowan lets out little cries of bliss with each thrust. She sucks in her breath when he pulls out, and then graces him with a heavenly whimper as he slides back in unhurriedly. He wants her to feel every inch of his cock. He wants her to commit the way he stretches and fills her to memory. He wants this moment to be at the forefront of her every thought whenever she looks at him.
He could cut open his chest and tuck her inside his heart and it would still not be close enough.
Gale has fucked and has been fucked. He is no stranger to the mysteries of sex. He has had both the exhilarating thrill of taking someone to bed and the tantalizing decadence of being taken to bed. But all those stolen moments, all those experiences have never been anything like this.
He has never made love before.
Oh, he thought it was so with Mystra—he believed with all his heart that her demands to writhe with one another amongst the stars was the height of passion. He had been so assured, so confident that what he and the goddess did was the pinnacle of intimacy.
But it had never felt the way being with Rowan feels.
“Rowan,” Gale murmurs, snapping his hips quicker than his other thrusts just once, just to see what she does. Rowan’s face pinches with pleasure, eyes half-lidded and mouth slightly ajar as she rolls her waist up to meet his movements as best she can. He buries his face in her neck, pressing kisses against the fluttering of her throat.
“You’re doing so good, sweetheart. You take me so well,” he praises, emphasizing with another quick little thrust that goes deeper. He hears her gasp and feels her body shiver beneath him, the walls of her pussy clenching down in a manner that makes his blood grow hot.
“Gale,” Rowan whines, voice hoarse and haggard and dripping with want. “Don’t stop…!”
He wouldn’t dream of it.
The world of reality becomes hazy. Foggy. As it always does when he and Rowan are caught up in their own universe, exploring one another. He loses track of everything except her. He is not Gale. He is not the wizard who defied his goddess and paid the ultimate price.
He simply is.
With Rowan.
In Rowan.
Together, blessed and content and filled with a sense of purpose that would break a lesser man.
And then he thrusts into her at a new angle, in a way that makes him almost painfully aware of how perfect the paradise of being one with this woman is, and a realization dawns on him.
Gale studies the contours of her face, taking in her freckles and parted lips and half-lidded eyes. He focuses on the way her walls are clenching and squeezing and trembling around him. He listens to her ragged breathing, her symphony of euphoric ecstasy that fans the fires burning in his blood hotter and hotter.
I want to marry you, Rowan, Gale thinks silently, letting out a moan of pleasure at how perfect everything is. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, however little I may have left of it.
Spurred on by the revelation, he quickens his pace just slightly. Rowan’s legs tighten around him again and her arms pull him closer to her, practically smothering him as she writhes beneath him in pleasure. His eyes flutter shut as his cock twitches wildly. At this pace and this angle the velvet sanctuary of her cunt is too much. Too much. He cannot hold on for much longer.
“Rowan, sweetheart, I’m close,” Gale warns her, grunting with a fervor that barely conceals the approach of his climax. He tries to drag himself free of her, starting to lift himself off her so he can have his release somewhere, anywhere but inside her. Penetration is one thing, but filling her on her first time? He cannot be so remiss to allow his primal urges to get the better of him.
But—
Rowan yanks him back into her, pushing him down with her legs and practically hissing. “N-No,” she whimpers, eyes flaring open and meeting his. They are remarkably clear, even if they swirl with a zealous hunger. “Inside. Cum inside me, Gale. Wanna feel it all. Want
all
of you.”
The insistence with which she speaks proves that Gale is indeed a lesser man.
He surges forward with a groan and captures her mouth in a searing kiss. Somehow, in tandem, as if bonded by fate, their hands fumble and reach for one another. Their fingers interlock. He grips her hand tight; she squeezes his with just as much force, just as he drives himself the deepest he has yet inside of her.
His cock twitches. Rowan’s walls clench and squeeze around him.
“R-Rowan,” Gale moans—no, whimpers out—as his loins grow hot and his vision goes white. He jerks, length swelling and balls heavy with unresolved tension. He cannot stop. He cannot pull free. Nor would he dare, not when Rowan demanded otherwise, and so he spills into her aching cunt with a broken cry.
She whispers his name, strangled noises escaping her mouth as they struggle to hold the kiss steady. She’s panting, whimpering, shaking as he feels his cock empty itself out. Pleasure, wrapped around his restraint like a taut chain, snaps. Rowan grinds up into him as if trying desperately to make him cum more and, by all the gods, he thinks it works. Like a hex, her gyrating hips and clenching walls milk his cock eagerly, greedily, pulling every ounce of his ecstasy and release deep within her cunt.
They suddenly become still, panting and staring at one another. Their hands remain coiled tightly within each other. Their breath comes out in quick, short bursts as they regain some semblance of composure. In the candlelight, her face slack with bliss and eyes dark with fulfillment, Rowan looks every bit the goddess Gale has come to revere her as.
Neither of them say a word as they bask in the afterglow of the single most intimate act Gale has ever shared with another.
Then, almost sheepishly, Rowan mumbles, “Don’t pull out.”
He blinks, taken aback. “Pardon?”
“Don’t pull out,” she repeats, voice strained from the symphony of whimpers and moans of pleasure she has been performing for him. “I…I want to stay like this for a little bit. To f-feel you.”
…oh, yes. His beloved sorcerer is a shameless, wicked thing indeed.
Gale lets out a rasping chuckle and nods, leaning his forehead against hers as he continues to hold her hand. He adjusts himself just slightly inside her, maneuvering his slowly softening cock into an angle that he hopes is a little more comfortable. Her breath hitches at the movement and she gives a little shiver, reddened face turning even more ruddy as she realizes he is complying with her request.
He must admit that it’s a first. And it feels…odd. The viscous, gluey texture of his seed enveloping his length while it is still snugly sheathed within her pussy is not something he ever expected to experience. But it is not bad. No, the oddness is simply derived from the newness of it all. In fact Gale could see himself getting used to this—remaining inside her as long as she wishes, even after the act of lovemaking has ceased.
It is then that he realizes he cannot tell if she had a proper release herself.
“My love,” Gale says, voice tinged with embarrassment. “Forgive me. I was so caught up in the euphoria of being inside you that I…”
He trails off, ashamed.
Rowan giggles, shrill and high pitched with adrenaline. “No, no, it’s okay,” she assures him, tilting her mouth up to press a gentle kiss to his lips. “I think I almost came, but this is nice too.”
“No,” he argues, returning the kiss with just as much sweetness. “I shall make it up to you. If…you are feeling well enough for a third round?”
She hums in the back of her throat. After a few moments, she says, “Only if we take a bath together beforehand. I feel freakishly energized now but,” she grins against his lips, squeezing his hand with a surge of confidence that warms his heart, “all I can think about is soaking in a tub with you for a little bit. Can we do that?”
“I would be delighted and honored to share a bath with you, Rowan,” Gale answers with sincerity, nodding.
They lapse into a comfortable silence once more, Gale still tucked snugly inside of her. Finally, after what seems a far too long of a stretch but also not nearly long enough, Gale decides it’s time to do as Rowan asked before his cock grows hard inside of her once more. Reluctantly, he gingerly withdraws from her cunt, length twitching slightly as he drags against her walls and pulls out entirely. Rowan lets out a little whimper as he does so and he cannot help but edge himself backwards, gazing at the blessed sight of his pilgrimage.
His spend dribbles out of her entrance. It paints her folds like a masterpiece, thick and full, as it just keeps dripping out of her pink folds. Gale is almost impressed with himself. He has never cum that much, has he?
It is just another affirmation that he and Rowan were fated. Not only can he elicit such delicious reactions out of her, but she can make him lose himself like this as well.
Rowan sighs, languid and almost catlike, and attempts to lift her head up from the pillows. Gale frowns and shakes his head, gesturing grandly to the illusion of his chambers that still remains in place around them.
“How graceless it would be of me to make you walk all the way to the tub, my love. Do not move. I said I would venerate you, did I not?”
She tilts her head in confusion. “Gale, what are you talking about?”
The spell blocking the orb’s influence simultaneously unlocked much of his arcane abilities that have been hidden from him for over a year. It is no true Teleport, but with a single thought and a wisp of the Weave, Gale whisks the two of them the few feet from the bed to the tub. Gossamer strands of lavender and silver loop around their naked forms as they are placed gently within the basin, the water already filled to the near top. Their sudden occupation of space disturbs the water, despite it being conjured from his magic, and a fair bit splashes over the edge with a great deal of chaos.
Rowan lets out a startled cry from the displacement of the bed to the tub. Gale is grateful he had the foresight to enlargen the basin slightly so that they can both rest comfortably in it without squeezing too tightly together, though he has her seated on his lap as his back rests against the copper side. His arms laced around her waist, just under the swell of her breasts, his body relaxing in the warm water.
His mouth finds the shell of her ear, nibbling on it playfully. “In this space you shan’t lift a finger,” he whispers adoringly. “Allow me to take care of all your needs. I would like to wash you, if you’ll allow it.”
“O-Oh,” she stammers, nervous and suddenly timid. As if they didn’t just make love, and as if she didn’t order him to keep his cock inside her so she could feel him. “Um. Yeah. That…would be nice, Gale. But I’m washing you next.”
“That defeats the purpose of you not lifting a finger.”
“I am a strong independent woman, Gale Dekarios, and if I want to wash you while we both cuddle naked in a tub then I am going to fucking do so.”
“Very well. I stand corrected.”
She turns her head back to him and he cannot help but match the crooked, easy smile she throws his way. He presses a kiss to the back of her neck and unwinds an arm from her waist, lifting his hand out of the water and holding it out expectantly. The lye soap provided by the Harpers drifts into his palm and he begins to rub it into Rowan’s skin, slow and rhythmic as suds lather up.
She sighs and leans back into him, the movement sloshing water against the sides of the tub. “Thank you,” Rowan says quietly, earnestly, a profound sense of something complicated tangled in the cadence of her voice. “This has all been so…wonderful, Gale. I wish I could come up with a better way to phrase it, because wonderful doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel. I’m not…”
Her voice falters and hitches. She trembles slightly as she sits in his lap, a shiver going through her body. Gale pauses in rubbing the soap along her skin as a sudden sense of worry floods his consciousness, concern crawling onto his tongue like a bitter elixir.
“I’m not broken,” she says, and there is such pain and desolation in her tone that Gale turns her body so that she’s facing him. Her eyes are wet with tears. Her lips quiver. But her gaze remains steady on his, even as she chokes out, “I thought for so long I was broken because I could never feel the same things other people felt. Sex aside, I was so scared I was…made wrong, because whenever I felt ‘love’ people told me it was just my imagination. But you fixed it.”
Rowan reaches a hand out and places it on the bristles of his cheek, her skin warm and wet from the bath water.
“You don’t know how much you’ve helped me feel like my true self, Gale. I love you. I will never stop loving you. I can be who I was meant to be. You took the pieces of myself that I thought were lost and remade them into something beautiful.”
Gale’s soul jerks with agony.
There is no greater pain than knowing the one you love spent so much of their life thinking they were unworthy. There is no anguish more tortuous than knowing they held so many truths deep inside for fear of retribution and pity.
Gale has felt the torment of his very essence being devoured by an ancient curse. It pales in comparison to hearing Rowan’s confession.
“You were never broken, sweetheart,” Gale says gently. He places his hand on top of hers, stroking the back of it with his thumb. “You were never made wrong. You are you, and I love every part of you. Those pieces weren’t lost.” He smiles, reaching for her other hand beneath the water and holding it soothingly. “I just helped shine a little light on them so you could see them clearly.”
The tears begin to fall from Rowan’s eyes and roll down her cheeks. Silently, her shoulders shake and her chest rises and falls as she gazes at him helplessly.
Hopefully.
And even though she is crying, even though Gale knows her heart is heavy with the past she can no longer remember with clarity, he sees it. Sees the slow, gradual mending of a person who believed they would never be happy. Sees the joy, however tangled it is with a sorrow he thinks she does not even fully understand, that blooms in her chest as she nods wordlessly to him.
Gale wipes away the tears. They drip into the bath water with a barely perceptible plunk, disappearing into the soap suds. “Dye my hair,” he says to her, focusing on that brilliant streak of purple in her auburn hair. “Permanently, Rowan. The raven feather aside, I want everyone to know who we are to one another.”
The tears have not stopped but there is no mistaking the fire his entreaty lights in her eyes. The hand she has placed against his cheek twitches ever so slightly. A small, small and demure, yet brimming with unrivaled relief blossoms across her face.
“Purple?” she asks, voice thick with an amalgamation of emotions he suspects will be making an appearance for the rest of the night, no matter what course of actions they decide upon.
“Of course.” Gale nods. “The exact same shade as yours. There shall be no mistaking that I am yours, and you are mine.”
Because Gale has been hers since that day in the alley, when she burst into Waterdeep in a misty of fury and shadows.
Gale has been hers since he told her hands in his and watched her eyes light up as she performed her first feat of magic.
Gale has been hers even when Mystra called to him on the balcony, the tangled threads of the Weave threatened to pull them apart, and he has been hers since she took him into her arms and swore to cure him of the affliction consuming him as it slumbered in his chest.
Gale has been hers since the beginning.
“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.” Rowan sniffles once, leaning against his chest and slumping into him as if all the energy has evaporated from her. He would not be surprised if that was truly the case. It has been a trying day for her, despite the benefits the events have yielded. Her voice comes out in a quiet, almost tenebrous whisper.
“Gale?”
He gathers her into his arms, the soap forgotten for now, because holding her is far more important. “Yes, sweetheart?” he says, pressing his lips to her head as he begins to massage her shoulders.
She clears her throat. “...thanks for not letting me die an unkissed virgin.”
He snorts and is quite proud of how he does not lose any momentum as he kneads his knuckles into her skin. “You’re most welcome, Rowan. It was my pleasure.”
Chapter 13: nevermore
Notes:
HAPPY PRIDE MONTH LOVELIES GALE DEKARIOS IS A QUEER MAN
this chapter got away from me. would you believe i had more planned before i realized it was impossible and had to completely rewrite a few scenes to cut certain content out? narrating act 2 is going to take longer than i initially thought T_T
when will chapters with rowan AND gale pov come back from war............
also stuff gets kinda dark and deep and a wee bit fucked up after the line break. i mean act 2 is pretty dark and deep and a wee bit fucked up as is, but still. just want to warn y'all.
thank you to everyone who has commented and supported and interacted with this story. it means so much. keep the good vibes going im eating them for breakfast <3
Chapter Text
They remain in that room for nearly two full days. Time becomes nothing but Gale’s hands exploring every inch of her skin and his mouth wresting cries she didn’t know she could make from her throat. Rowan loses herself in him. She melts. She reforms. Over and over, Gale makes love to her—on the bed, in the tub, slow and sensitive and always focusing on her whimperings of more, Gale, more, I need more.
Six months’ worth of love and longing and irrational fear of all of that being lost soaks into her skin. It pulses with every heartbeat, every kiss Gale presses against her throat, every hushed whisper of her name he grace’s her with in a voice so wretched and beautiful she sees stars. Six months’ worth of too much and not enough merging into a messy, delicate blend of just right.
Gale is patient. Kind. He holds her when the pleasure overwhelms and she remembers that she is not broken, that all of this is real, and he wipes away the tears she cannot help but shed. Rowan falls more in love with him every minute, every hour, drowning herself in his warmth.
Her body aches.
Her soul is a constellation.
She is whole.
They could have lasted a third day, had Gale not suddenly winced and pushed—unwillingly—away from his place between her legs. Her skin is hot and her blood tingles delightfully, that delicious thrill she has come to know as bliss emanating from her swollen clit and tongue-addled sex. Forever. She could do this forever. She could lay her with her legs spread and his mouth on her and his moans of how wonderful she tastes echoing through her very bones.
But alas, reality has other ideas.
“Bollocks,” Gale grumbles, raising one hand to rub at his temple while the other wipes away at his mouth.
Rowan groans in disappointment, lifting her head to glance at him with a half-lidded pout. “Why’d you stop?” she complains, core coiled and bundled in a tight knot begging for release. He’s teased her and brought her to the edge multiple times now, just to lovingly test her limits, but always follows through with something extraordinary.
(She really enjoys the inappropriate deployment of Mage Hand during those moments.)
“Miri’s back,” he says with a sigh, crestfallen. “And she has made it quite clear that the two of us are allowed to sequester ourselves away no longer.”
Rowan holds a pillow to her face and groans again, loud and annoyed and flustered. She shouldn’t be so irritated. Hells, she should be horrifically embarrassed. This is the first time in nearly forty eight hours she’s thought about anyone else but Gale. With his constant casting of the tower’s illusion around them, Rowan almost had herself fully convinced they really were back in Waterdeep, and he was making good on his promise to keep her locked in his bedroom for a full week.
But nope.
She’s irritated.
Miri couldn’t have waited until Gale was done eating her out for the third time this morning?
I mean. Their lives and the fate of their brains kinda do matter more than our gratuitous sexcapades.
Rowan lets out one more grumble and removes the pillow from her face, meeting Gale’s eyes. He looks about as frustrated as she feels, with the same amount of horny mortification peppered throughout his frown. “We’re gonna get judged so hard, aren’t we?” she asks him with a small, peevish grin.
Gale nods. “I’ve not a doubt in my mind about that. But they ought to remember something very important if they decide to throw a tantrum.” He stretches over her body, placing his hands on either side of her as he lowers his mouth so that his lips brush against hers featherlight. She shivers as the strange, unusual taste of herself drips onto her tongue. “Whenever so dares to interrupt a wizard ravishing the love of his life will face dire consequences.”
“You’re cute when you threaten our friends,” Rowan muses, reaching her arms up to run her fingers through his hair. His glorious, silken hair that now harbors a purple ombré almost identical to hers. She doesn’t think she will ever tire of seeing it. Of touching it. Of knowing she was the one to dye it with her magic, all because he wanted her to.
“They are our mortal enemies for even entertaining the thought of tearing me away from you,” he hums, pressing a slow and lazy kiss against her mouth.
“Gods, you’re dramatic,” she huffs.
“Perhaps. But you love it.”
“I do.”
“Because you love me.”
“I do.”
“And I love you,” he whispers, pulling away from the kiss as he gazes at her with a soft smile and eyes that could bring her back from the dead.
But then he winces once more, squeezing his eyes shut as an indignant huff rumbles in his chest. He carefully extricates himself from her, rolling over onto the other side of the bed as he rubs at his eyes and shakes his head sharply. The movement makes the starburst earring he wears jingle and for a moment, Rowan feels a twinge of resentment in her gut.
She buries it.
Mystra will not spoil these moments, nor any more for the rest of time.
“Even the goblins had more manners than Miri does,” Gale gripes, blearily opening his eyes once more. “Forgive me, sweetheart, but we’d best brave the ridicule of our companions at last. Our fearless leader has threatened to castrate me otherwise.”
Rowan’s gaze wanders downwards, unbidden. “Hm. That would be a damn shame.”
His cheeks flush and a knowing, playful smile stretches across his face.
Somehow, someway, they manage to pull themselves together. Hair is tamed. Faces are washed. Sweaty skin is wiped down with a damp towel, each touch tender and loving and bristling with a barely concealed desire that nearly threatens to tangle them into yet another insistent bout of intimacy. Clothes are shrugged on with great effort. Gale lifts the scent of sex and sweat and stale lavender from their bodies with a quick casting of Prestidigitation.
Neither make any attempt to cover up the smattering of reddened bruises around both their necks like collars.
By the time Gale and Rowan leave the world they created behind, she imagines it’s midmorning. It is impossible to tell for certain with no sun or moon or stars to keep track of. But, judging by the gathered Harpers and tieflings alike downstairs eating breakfast in oddly festive conversation, she should be fairly accurate.
Miri and the others are seated at a large table on their own. Lae’zel and Shadowheart are nowhere to be found, nor are Wyll and Dorian. Plates of steaming pancakes, sausages, scrambled eggs, and fresh fruit are piled high in the middle. The sight of which is enough to make Rowan’s mouth water. She and Gale have been surviving on rations found in their packs in-between bouts of lovemaking—hard cheese, dried meats, and old bread only goes so far.
They approach with an air of trepidation, their hands tightly wound one another’s. We’ll play it casual, they had both agreed. As casual as they can manage, and, of course, depending on the reactions of everyone else.
Casual only lasts for approximately six seconds for the moment they come into view, Karlach locks eyes with Rowan and pushes away from the table. The chair squeaks and groans with an uproar from how quickly she moves. The tiefling puts her hands together and greets Rowan and Gale with a few hard, loud claps as she cheers out, “Well, well, well! Glad to see you two lovebirds are still alive and kickin’!”
Rowan’s face immediately grows hot. She clears her throat awkwardly but does not respond, opting to slide into an open seat next to Jericho. Gale follows suit and takes the seat next to her, Astarion on his other side. The vampire aims a cavalier, intuitive smirk at her wizard but simply raises a glass of something red to his pale lips and takes a dainty sip. She hopes it’s breakfast wine.
“Karlach, you’re one to talk,” Miri points out as her pink eyes flash with amusement.
Karlach simply beams. It should be impossible for a blush to appear on the redness of her skin but yet it somehow does, deep and lovely as she casts a sideways and almost shy glance to Jericho. The tiefling wizard raises an eyebrow as she takes a sip of her own glass of breakfast wine, only the liquid in her cup is a bubbly clear.
“Can you blame her?” Jericho simpers, smiling coolly. “Us wizards have quite a few tricks up our sleeves. We can be quite…magical.”
Gale chokes.
Rowan tries to hide her nervous laugh and fails miserably, opting to instead just reach out a hand across Jericho and give Karlach a resounding high-five. Her skin is still pleasantly warm and nowhere near the dangerous levels of scalding before the engine was upgraded. It’s wonderful to be able to touch her without the aid of an elixir or potion.
“Congrats, soldier,” Karlach stage-whispers as she grins at Rowan, her eyes bright and full of boundless joy.
“Y-you too,” Rowan mumbles back. “I’ll bake us a cake in commemoration later.”
Gods, the embarrassment is going to kill her now. They really did completely ignore everyone in favor of rolling around in the sheets and exploring one another in every which way. Talk about a lack of situational awareness. While Miri and the others were out trekking through the shadows doing the Matron knows what, she and Gale had just been giving into the pleasure of each other’s company.
…sweet hells, the entire inn probably heard them, too. Rowan doesn’t think Gale ever had the foresight to cast Silence on the door and walls.
He had been far too preoccupied with other…spells.
And now Rowan can’t stop thinking about the varied uses and capabilities of a cantrip as basic as Mage Hand.
“Anyway,” Miri drawls in a concise, neat tone that signals the time for play is over. “We’ve accomplished a lot since arriving here. I want to catch you all up before we enter the next phase of plans.”
She looks exhausted.
There are dark circles under her eyes and she carries herself much more tensely than she did when Rowan last saw her. Her entire body is as taut as a drawn arrow, as if she’s waiting for something to strike at the last moment. Yeah, Miri appears permanently on guard. There’s even a slight twitch to her slender fingers—her sharp nails have been chewed and gnawed on as if in worry—as she quietly grasps a fork and takes a bite of egg and sausage.
It reminds Rowan of the way she acted that night at the party at the mention of Quill Grootslang.
Sensing Miri’s sudden lapse in conversation, Halsin clears his throat. “We have pinpointed half of the source of the curse,” he explains, and there is such palpable relief in his face he looks as if he could collapse into tears at any moment. “A spirit of the land, Thaniel. He was…my friend when I was young. The shadows corrupted him. But we were able to pull him from the Shadowfell and reunite his soul. He rests now, but once we defeat Ketheric Thorm, he shall begin the process of healing Reithwin from Shar’s influence.”
Rowan swallows her surprise as she hungrily wolfs down some pancakes. He was friends with a spirit? And that spirit was involved in this mess? Well, that explains the druid’s eagerness to join them all in their attempts to lift the curse.
Miri suddenly covers Halsin’s hand with hers and shares a deep, unmistakably intense look with him. “You don’t have to stay with us, Halsin,” she says softly. “Go look after Thaniel and Art. I know how difficult these last couple days have been for you.”
The large elf shakes his head adamantly. “No, I shall remain at your side for a little longer. Just until you have broken your fast.”
Rowan glances between Halsin, Miri, and Astarion. The latter is still sipping his ‘wine’ with an air of devil may care, though he watches the interaction intently. A coy, almost appeased smile stretches across his handsome face.
Huh.
Apparently, everyone has been giving in to certain emotions and affections as of late, if that look means anything. Rowan would have never suspected Halsin to join whatever relationship Miri and Astarion have deemed worthy for themselves. It fits, though. The three of them look good together.
Speaking of everyone…
“Where’s Dorian and Wyll? And Shadowheart and Lae’zel?” Rowan asks, glancing about the inn’s tavern. She catches no glimpse of them. She does, however, feel as though Last Light’s population has increased since their arrival.
Are those…deep gnomes? Like the ones she and her group had rescued in the Underdark? And wait—that’s Alfira and Lakrissa in the corner, clinging to one another as if nothing else matters, laughing tearfully as the taller tiefling smothers the bard’s face with kisses. Oh! And Rolan! He’s still seated at the bar, drink left unattended, but the tieflings she remembers to be his siblings are on either side of him, smothering him in a suffocating hug. His sullen exterior has melted and given way to a relieved, messy display of emotions as he wipes at his eyes and speaks to them in hushed tones.
Gale notices the additional number at the same time Rowan does. “My word!” he exclaims, glancing around the tavern. “Aren’t those the poor folk who were taken to Moonrise? Miri, don’t tell me you—”
“Yes, Gale,” Astarion interrupts, smug and proud and looking like a cat who got the cream. “We infiltrated those dreadful towers and escaped with their prisoners. I must say, being lauded as a hero certainly has its advantages. After a lifetime of being the…opposite.”
His crimson eyes flash darkly for a moment, but it vanishes quicker than it appeared.
“As you can see, we’ve had a very productive last few days,” Miri says. The fatigue etched into her face lightens somewhat as she takes in the joy of various reunions, running a hand through her pink hair and scratching at the base of one horn. “Shadowheart and Lae’zel are taking a rest. They were instrumental in our last minute efforts to rescue everyone. As for Wyll and Dorian—your brother is exactly as you had described, Gale—I believe they’re out in the courtyard with the children.”
She gestures to the inn’s entrance. Indeed, none of the tiefling kids are in the tavern at the moment. Wyll must be extremely fond of them all.
And Dorian is, of course, extremely fond of Wyll.
“By the by,” Jericho says seamlessly, placing her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand. “That’s such a lovely color on you, Gale. It’s high time you saw fit to change your hair up a bit, hm?” She winks knowingly at Rowan, cool smile evolving into a victorious smirk.
Oh, hell yeah. She’s proud. Granted, it was Gale’s desire for Rowan to permanently dye his hair with Color Spray this time around. No shenanigans and tricks were necessary.
Gale shrugs, the ghost of his own similarly victorious grin tugging at the corners of his lips. “You know me. Ever the first to embrace spontaneity.”
“Hm. Sure. Just keep telling yourself that, Dekarios.”
Miri reaches over Halsin to stab another sausage onto her fork and dump it on her plate. The gesture seems to almost exhaust her beyond belief for a moment; Rowan barely catches the way her lithe form sways slightly, but does not miss how Astarion’s arm whips out as fast as lightning to wrap around her shoulders. He inches closer to her in his chair, subtly tugging her against him as the tiefling blinks blearily and relaxes against his side with a muffled sigh.
Rowan frowns in worry. It’s just like she predicted. The bard’s penchant for heroism is more hindrance than help if she doesn’t allow herself time to recover.
“Tomorrow, we’re going to go back to Moonrise,” Miri announces as if her little slip never happened. She does not even acknowledge the concerned gazes Astarion and Halsin share, nor does she react to the hulking elf copying Astarion and squeezing in closer to her for even more support. “We didn’t get far in our infiltration. There’s still too much we don’t know. I plan on asking Isobel if there’s any more information she can share with us before we try again. In the meantime, though…”
She slips a hand in a pocket in her fighting leathers and pulls out a piece of parchment. It’s folded neatly, tied together with a simple piece of twine with what looks to be a white feather tucked beneath the string.
Miri holds it in front of Rowan expectantly. Rowan takes it, eyes scrunched up in confusion.
The moment her fingers make contact with the parchment she catches the unmistakable whiff of fresh lilies on the stagnant air.
“We came across an elf out in the shadows,” Miri explains as Rowan stares down at the parchment in bewilderment. “He claimed to know you, Rowan. He bid us to pass that message along. He was…”
She pauses, as if politely searching for a specific phrase.
“…very strange.”
“If that’s what you want to call that perversion,” Astarion grumbles, eyes narrowing. “I mean, I know I have a flair for the unusual, but that was something else.”
“Come now, Astarion. To each their own,” Halsin muses.
A weird elf out here in the Shadow-Cursed Lands? One who claims to know her?
Who the fuck is that? Rowan barely knows anyone other than those gathered here already!
She caresses the feather with the tip of her finger out of habit more than anything as she dwells on Miri’s words. A jolt of something familiar rocks through her system and she has to bite down a gasp.
Warm. Soothing. Comforting. Home.
It’s a raven feather. Even though it’s white, it’s definitely a raven feather.
She knows what that means.
Before anyone can say anything else, she’s untying the string keeping the parchment folded and tosses it onto the table. The raven feather drifts mournfully on top before suddenly disintegrating into smoke and shadow, drifting on the wind and vanishing from view. When Rowan opens the parchment up and smooths it down to read it, the scent of lilies grows even stronger.
There is a message addressed to her in elegant, majestic calligraphy that reminds her of Gale’s handwriting.
My sister in shadow,
Our lady has asked that I measure your abilities. The road before you is long and fraught with danger. She wishes to see you thrive on the path at hand, not struggle.
Make haste. Come to me. We shall do as our lady commands. Show me the strength she has gifted unto you and the conviction with which you wield it.
May the Matron guide you.
He Who Was
Images burst into Rowan’s mind the moment she finishes reading the letter. A path through the darkness. An alcove amongst dead trees and wicked things, swathed in safety and feather and bone. A man standing before a makeshift altar, tall and pale and with pointed ears. Dark tattoos are inked into his face, almost like swirling tentacles around his closed eyes. His hair is nearly white, shaved in the back like Dorian’s with the rest pulled into an austere braid. The elf appears to be praying, lips moving silently as he caresses the bleached bone of a skull atop the altar.
A white raven perches on his shoulder. It caws quietly and nudges him in the cheek, a parallel to how Pip almost always gets her attention.
He opens his eyes.
They are as black as night.
The images fizzle out in a crackle of magic that tastes like the Shadow Weave. The letter in her hands curls into wisps of darkness just like the feather had and disappears into the dust on the wind. Everyone gathered stares at Rowan with varying degrees of concern and bafflement, Gale immediately putting a hand on the small of her back as she looks frantically at the lonely string of twine that still remains.
“Um. I think my goddess wants me to go kick that guy’s ass?”
The feather at her throat grows warm in affirmation. Rowan raises a hand and clutches it, chewing on her lower lip nervously. Did the Raven Queen just induct her into the Faerûn version of Fight Club?
“Interesting.” Miri makes a strange face, one Rowan cannot quite comprehend. “Gods and their whims, eh?” The tiefling shakes her head and sighs, thrusting a clearly faked chipperness to her voice as she adds, “Then you should speak to Isobel and have her grant Selûne’s blessing! Best not to make that elf wait. In the meantime, I should find Jaheira and go over—”
“You will do no such thing,” Astarion cuts her off before she can even start to stand up. His arm tightens around her shoulders and he levels her with a stern, frustrated scowl. “Darling, you need to rest. You have been running yourself ragged ever since the nautiloid crash. It’s starting to affect your blood, you know. Haven’t I told you I detest bitter flavors?”
Miri deflates visibly. “But…”
Halsin puts a hand on top of her head, gently, his thick fingers nestled in the crown between her horns. “We will remain with you through the nightmares, dear heart,” he murmurs, sweet and caring and startlingly similar to how Gale speaks to Rowan. “I shall even take the form of an owlbear if you wish. I know it brings you great comfort.”
(Rowan remembers now that she was going to ask Halsin about unicorns. The chance he has the ability to Wild Shape into one is extremely high, but clearly, this is neither the time nor place.)
“I do like it when you’re an owlbear,” Miri admits quietly, her voice coming out a little hoarser than before. It is as though the thin veneer of heroism and infallible endurance has at last run its course.
“Young Nugget may be eager to please, but he cannot surround you like I can,” Halsin adds with a tender chuckle. “Perhaps you will agree to a nap with myself, Nugget, and Scratch?”
“If you say no, I will knock you out with the butt of a dagger,” Astarion threatens. It’s all bark and no bite, even with his fangs flashing.
Miri sinks into her seat even more. Were it not for the two elves on either side of her, she would most assuredly slide off and probably just slump to the ground in an exhausted heap. After a few terse moments she finally nods, pushing around a spoonful of egg with her pinky finger as she avoids looking at either of them.
“Alright. Fine. You win. But someone is carrying me. Otherwise I don’t think I’ll make it.”
Halsin and Astarion exchange triumphant glances. Rowan has the distinct feeling they’ve had this argument many times since departing from the Emerald Grove. This may be the first victory for the two men. A bard is a wily opponent indeed.
Breakfast is wrapped up quicker than Rowan would prefer it to. She still has things she wants to talk to Jericho about—to regale her with everything that’s happened since she left Waterdeep to save her wizard. But she knows not to keep the Raven Queen waiting; the request to meet this mysterious He Who Was (seriously, what the fuck kind of name is that?) dangles at the forefront of her mind.
She has been called.
She must answer.
So Gale and her leave the breakfast table once their plates are cleared and their bellies are full. Not before Jericho berates her for the state of her robes and smothers her with multiple castings of Mending to fix the tattered, ragged edges and smooth the wrinkly tears. “I’ll even bolster the defenses so this doesn’t happen again,” the seamstress says as she squeezes Rowan’s hands a little too tightly, as if to politely remind her not to go trashing some of her best work.
Well.
It’s not Rowan’s fault she’s been thrust into a world of life-or-death battles that don’t prioritize keeping her outfit neat and tidy.
…er. Okay. Some of it is her fault since she chose to go off and rescue Gale, but still. She doesn’t go out of her way to deliberately ruin the robes Jericho so painstakingly sewed and enchanted for her all those months ago. She’s done her best to remain out of reach of melee fighters but a sorcerer can only do so much when all hell breaks loose!
Maybe Jericho should join them on their next adventure so she can see how difficult it is to remain fully intact in a fight.
By the time she and Gale come to a stop before the door to Isobel’s chambers, Rowan can’t stop fidgeting. Between her guilt over not spending time with Jericho, wondering how exactly this He Who Was fellow is going to measure her abilities, and overall nerves about meeting a cleric to Selûne the good mood copious amounts of Gale-driven orgasms gifted her has evaporated. She doesn’t know why she’s so godsdamned freaked out about introducing herself to Isobel. It’s not like the cleric is a princess or something.
But as someone dedicated to Selûne, Rowan just really wants Isobel to think she’s cool.
Gale knocks on the door politely. “Lady Isobel?” he calls, prim and proper. The voice of a man who has spent years posturing and arguing in an academic setting. Hot. “We would like to ask for a blessing to travel the shadows, if you would be so kind.”
There is a beat of silence.
Then:
“Of course, give me one moment!” The voice that comes through the door is pleasant and serene, like the reflection of the moon on placid waters. Rowan hears a few creaking footsteps on a wooden floor and then the door swings open, a figure standing before them smiling kindly.
Isobel is beautiful. A half-elf, if Syl and Jaheira and Shadowheart’s countenance is anything to go off of, with wavy silver hair that comes just past her ears. Her lips are painted a pretty pink and her eye makeup is superb, enough to make Jericho green with envy. She has a soft, inviting gaze that makes Rowan want to sit on a couch and tell the cleric all her deepest darkest secrets.
She dons robes and armor decorated with symbols of the Moonmaiden. Rowan can feel Selûne’s influence radiating off of Isobel in waves, protective and loving. The goddess favors her indeed. She can’t help but muse how irritated Shadowheart must be with their close proximity.
“Oh,” Isobel nods her head to Gale in greeting. “Sir Dekarios! A pleasure to see you again. Have you and your beloved sufficiently…rested up?”
Son of a bitch. She definitely heard us.
“W-we’re just fine and dandy, thank you!” Rowan stammers loudly, hoping her cheeks aren’t flushed too terribly red. “I’m Rowan. It’s an honor to meet you. Thank you again for securing a room with a tub for us.” It has certainly seen its fair share of use over the last two days. She hopes there’s not a secret infernal landlord waiting to jack up the water utility bill.
“Wonderful to meet you as well, Rowan. And you’re very welcome! It was nothing, really. I’m just happy you enjoyed yourselves.” Isobel’s voice takes on a tone of amusement as she gestures for them to step inside her chambers, pretty eyes shining mischievously. “Don’t worry. I cast Silence on the exterior of the walls.”
Gale coughs.
Rowan dies.
Yeah. They really hadn’t gave a shit about the consequences of their actions, had they?
Mortified and subdued, both wizard and sorcerer follow Isobel into her quarters. The room is as simple as the one they’ve been sequestered in, except it’s a little larger and it has a closet and a small writing desk littered with papers. Letters? Maps? Religious tenets? It’s impossible to tell at first glance. Rowan isn’t about to overstay her welcome by snooping with Isobel is literally right there.
The room opens up into a balcony that overlooks the lake behind the inn. It reminds Rowan painfully of Gale’s room back in Waterdeep and for a moment, her chest pulses with a bitter pain. That illusion had been enough until it was not. She misses their tower keenly.
Gods, she can’t wait to go home.
The balcony is set up with a highly complex ritual. Four mirrors stand in each direction, aimed at one another with a beam of moonlight bouncing off the glass. The silvery motes of magic rise up into the air above Last Light, casting the shield the Hallow spell is creating around the area. Lit candles litter the area haphazardly, wax melted into the cobblestone. A granite altar holds a simple wooden bowl filled with a white, milky liquid.
The power here is palpable. It makes Rowan’s skin itch despite her vague connection to Selûne. She has never witnessed a deity’s interference so acutely as she is right now, the Raven Queen’s involvement in her rebirth notwithstanding.
It’s amazing.
Isobel is so fucking cool, Rowan thinks as she gapes around the ritual set up with wide eyes. Clerics are cool. The Moonmaiden is cool. It’s just a shame it all came about due to a horrible curse cast by Shar.
“The blessing is strongest if I cast it here,” Isobel explains as she steps into the incandescence of the moon’s energy. Her skin immediately begins to glow as if from within, moonlight kissing her cheeks and coalescing around her fondly. Suddenly she gives a little gasp, her mouth forming an ‘o’ of surprise as she adds, “Gale said you were an acolyte of Selûne in your own right, Rowan. I strengthen the Hallow spell for the day; would you mind casting it with me?”
“Me?” Rowan blinks. “But I’m not a cleric! I mean, yeah, I worship Selûne in my own way, but the Raven Queen and I have a closer bond. I don’t know if I’d be of much help.”
“Nonsense! You care for the Moonmaiden enough that I can sense your devotion.” Isobel’s smile darkens. A twinge of sorrow enters her lyrical voice, quiet and unassuming. “It has been a long time since a follower of my lady other than myself walked these lands. The Harpers mean well, but…”
She trails off, and then shrugs uselessly.
“They’re Harpers. And you have an interesting combination of magic running in your veins, if I might add.” She peers at Rowan curiously, her gaze flicking over to Gale. “You as well, Sir Dekarios. A touch of the very Shadow Weave that haunts this place and yet…it’s not the wicked threads that Shar and her ilk enjoy wrapping around innocent Selûnite throats.”
Rowan gestures vaguely to the feather at her neck, the one in her hair, and the one in Gale’s. “Raven Queen shit, my good cleric,” she pronounces proudly with her head held high. “I don’t do that ‘there is comfort in pain and suffering’ crap Sharrans preach about. My connection with the Shadow Weave is about…kindness. New life. New beginnings.”
She meets Gale’s eyes, smiling fondly.
“Love. That connection focuses mostly on love. I use the darkness to protect those I care about, and the Raven Queen protects me in turn.”
Because she loves me , she silently adds, but a part of her feels like it’s sacrilegious to say it out loud in a space so thoroughly dedicated to Selûne.
The cleric rummages through a pocket on the side of her robes and pulls out a metal emblem. It is a pair of enchanting eyes surrounded by seven silver stars. She gracefully presses it into Rowan’s hand, nodding with a solemn yet warm sense of affirmation. “All the more reason I’d like for you to join me in casting the ritual.”
Rowan looks down at the symbol of Selûne in her palm. Her raven feather quivers at the base of her throat. No weird jealousy at Isobel’s request from the Matron, then. And Jaheira did ask her and Gale to help with the wards and spells keeping the inn safe. It just…took them two days to do it.
“Okay.” She grips the silver emblem in her hand tightly and meets Isobel’s expectant gaze. “If you’re certain, I’ll cast it with you.”
And she’ll look damn good while doing it because the need to impress the pretty, cool-as-fuck half-elf is so strong. She wants Isobel to join her best friend brigade. It’ll be nice to switch it up from her penchant of getting attached to pretty tiefling women.
(She hopes Miri has followed through on her promise and is finally passed out in Halsin’s furry, feathery embrace.)
Isobel claps her hands together in unbridled joy, her face lighting up and her smile brighter than the stars hidden by Shar’s malevolence. “Oh, thank you! You don’t know what this means to me. It’s been…hard, being the only one to cast this. The magic was always easier and more potent when A—”
A shadow crosses over her face, snuffing out the relief and delight in a single moment.
The candles around the balcony flicker. For some reason, Rowan’s heart suddenly feels heavy and full of dread.
But then it’s gone, as if the sudden melancholy has been sucked out of the atmosphere, and Isobel is smiling once more. Rowan doesn’t need Morena’s uncanny intuition to know she’s forcing it. She turns her attention to Gale, who has been watching the conversation in attentive silence, no doubt knowing how much Rowan has wanted to meet Isobel since arriving at Last Light Inn.
“Actually, would you care to join as well, Sir Dekarios? Selûne would look upon you with favor. She was the patron of love before the fall of Netheril. I think the joining of your magic with Miss Rowan’s to cast this spell would mean much to her.”
Gale blinks. “O-oh,” he stammers, sounding far more embarrassed and self conscious than he did when Karlach and Jericho were ribbing him downstairs. He casts a furtive glance towards Rowan, a silent question in his eyes. She nods emphatically as excitement creeps between her ribs. Even though he’s still a wizard, he can choose other deities to venerate besides that craven bitch Mystra. Selûne could be a good match. As could the Raven Queen.
Then again, she is incredibly, devastatingly biased.
A small smile breaks out on his face and he takes her hand, the one clutching the symbol of the Moonmaiden. “I would be delighted to,” he admits, voice quivering with a barely contained zeal. Of course he would say yes. This is her wizard’s passion; discovering new ways to harness magic. Having the chance to perform a ritual only clerics have the knowledge and ability to? Gale’s probably feeling like a kid in a candy shop right now.
The fact this never would have happened if the nautiloid hadn’t squidnapped him is deeply unsettling.
Isobel beams and bows her head in graceful deference towards both Rowan and Gale. “Thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to me. Now! Stand in the middle of the mirrors and keep hold of one another’s hands. Ensure you are both in contact with the symbol I entrusted to Rowan. I will be the conduit for the ritual itself, but I will be harnessing your magic to empower and strengthen the spell.” She steps in front of the stone altar and dips her hands into the milky substance in the bowl, turning her head around to glance back at them briefly. “If you feel uncomfortable or sick at any point, let me know. Divine magic can have adverse effects on those unaccustomed to casting it.”
“Don’t worry,” Rowan assures her with all the confidence of a prepubescent boy trying to hit on his best friend’s mom, “I’m built different.”
“No, you are not,” Gale deadpans with all the love in his heart.
She resists the urge to argue that he has been telling her quite the opposite over the past two days. While his face has been between her legs. Or his fingers curled inside her with much vigor and gusto.
She banishes the unwanted horny thoughts aside and turns to the task at hand, focusing on the smoothness of the symbol she clutches. Gale’s hands are warm as they grip hers tightly. Rowan’s eyes flutter shut as she hears Isobel begin to whisper words of prayer and accolades offered to the goddess of the moon, her soul reaching upwards.
Something wraps around her.
Something tugs and pulls.
It’s a sensation almost identical to how she felt when she was adrift in the Matron’s sea of darkness. Comforting and serene, as though all strife and discord has been vanquished. Gale squeezes her hands as the Selûne emblem grows warm, whether from the ritual or the heat in her skin she does not know. His forehead is suddenly resting against hers, his breath fanning her face as he inhales and exhales in tandem with her.
Power ripples through Rowan. Her shadows shiver for a moment, briefly concerned, before realizing the magic is a friend. They pass on their strength eagerly as moonlight simmers in her veins, waltzing between wisps of darkness in gracious delight.
Everything feels…
Raw.
Like the moment on Gale’s balcony when they channeled the Weave together, but a much more primal and ancient sense. Divinity. Divinity that triumphs mortal reckoning and the manipulation of the Weave. Divinity that soothes and saves, protects and promises that all will be well.
Divinity that Rowan has felt at the hands of the Raven Queen. Divinity she does not think Gale ever truly felt during his time at Mystra’s side.
She can hear Gale’s heartbeat pounding in her ears as if she were buried in his chest.
The moon cradles them. Magic from the depths of a goddess’s very soul drapes across their forms, silver and silken, as slender fingers run themselves tenderly through Rowan’s hair. A pair of lips brush against her cheek, motherly and kind. She is not here, not in this inn or this land cursed by Shar—no, she is among the stars, floating.
She grips the symbol harder. Gale’s grasp around her hands gets tighter. His heart is thundering away in her ears. His breathing quickens as undiluted divinity seeps into his flesh and plucks a trembling, fragile strand of magic from him.
A voice whispers in their ears, soft and satisfied.
“May the succor of a moonlit night always grant you sanctuary, dear ones.”
And then the tether snaps.
Rowan and Gale open their eyes at the same time, startled gasps escaping their lips as they return to the harshness of reality. Gale’s pupils are fully dilated, his mouth parted as he gazes at Rowan with a look of awe and wonder she no doubt is mirroring. Her skin prickles and her chest tightens as the ritual slips away with a portion of her magic, but it’s not a fearful reaction.
No, Rowan feels…honored. Deeply so.
Isobel is still chanting quietly behind them. Something tells Rowan to look up, so she does.
And by the gods, isn’t it a sight.
The silver shield coalescing over Last Light now holds hues of auroral blue and lavender. Veins of darkness run through the kaleidoscope of colors, twisting and dancing around playfully. They resemble the darkness conjured by Shar not an iota; instead, they are like misting clouds that obscure the moon and stars at night only for a moment, just to ensure their brightness is all the more appreciated once the shadows fade away.
Rowan tears her gaze away from the sky and looks back to Gale. His eyes shimmer in the beautiful colors of their magic, bonded and beloved in this sacred spell.
He smiles at her.
“We really do make quite the pair, don’t we?” he murmurs.
She can only nod mutely. She fears opening her mouth will allow something stupid and inappropriate considering the holiness of the moment to come out and wreak havoc on her self control.
“Maiden’s tears, this is remarkable!” Isobel exclaims. Rowan turns her head to look at the cleric, who is grinning from ear to ear as she glances about the strengthening Hallow spell with infectious joy. “It’s never been so powerful! This ought to keep everyone safe for days without me having to recast it. Thank you, both of you, so very much. From the bottom of my heart.”
“Anytime,” Gale answers, a note of amusement creeping into his voice. “I always enjoy sharing a moment of magic with Rowan.”
Ah. So he, too, was thinking about that night on the balcony. When Mystra tried to pull him away from her. When she opened up her heart and mind and let him see the small fluttering hope of what they could be nestled inside of her.
It feels like a lifetime ago. What would the Rowan of them and the Gale of then say if they were here now? If they saw that at last, they were no longer hiding their feelings and have fully embraced their devotion and adoration for each other?
They’ve changed so much since then. For the better.
“The blessing should have been given to you during the ritual,” Isobel is saying, jostling Rowan from her wandering thoughts. “I know you’re both touched by the Shadow Weave, but if it comes from the Raven Queen rather than Shar you will certainly need Selûne’s protection. The depths of the curse linger closest to Moonrise Towers.”
That pained, remorseful darkness flashes across her face again.
“Be wary if you join your friend Miri in infiltrating that dreadful place. Not even our Lady of Silver can keep you fully safe from the dangers waiting inside.”
There’s something she’s not telling them.
But it’s not Rowan’s place to pry. Isobel’s secrets are her own.
“If you ever need help with this again, let me know,” she tells the cleric, holding out the symbol of Selûne to return it. “This was incredible, Isobel. I’d be happy to lend you my magic anytime.”
“Keep it. Consider it a gift from a fellow devotee of Selûne.” Isobel pushes the symbol back into Rowan’s hand, smiling gently. “I will gladly call upon you again, my friend. You have a generous heart. Our lady and your Matron must be very proud to have someone as kind as you honoring their tenets.”
Rowan’s eyes burn with the threat of unshed tears.
She quickly pockets the emblem and turns away, taking a deep breath as she stares calmly at the door leading back into the inn. “I try,” she whispers, voice cracking slightly, and then exits the balcony before Isobel praises her anymore and she really will cry in front of the cool cleric.
Gale follows right behind her, his hand on the small of her back as they exit Isobel’s chambers. “Everything alright, love?” he murmurs, eyes flashing with concern.
She nods and swallows thickly, rubbing at her eyes and banishing the prickling of tears that have started to gather. “Y-yeah. It was just…nice to hear her say that. Sometimes I remember what divinity was like in my old world and I get so…sad about it, you know? Sad and upset that so many people prayed to silent gods that might have not even existed. But here?” She fingers the ends of the feather at her throat with one hand, the other slipping into her pocket and caressing the still-warm surface of Selûne’s holy symbol. “The gods don’t just exist. They genuinely care about their people and try to let them know.”
Most of them, she adds silently.
Maybe Mystra did love Gale, once upon a time. Truly and wholly.
But if that had been the case, she never would have abandoned him despite his stupid decisions.
Or maybe she would have. Rowan can’t claim to know and understand the whims of a goddess.
She would never dream of suffering in the gossamer, ephemeral coffin omnipotence offers anyway.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Gale’s hand loops around her back and rises up to her shoulder and he pulls her against his side, pressing a soft kiss to the temple of her head. “I’m glad you can feel that way. And I’m glad we were able to experience that ritual together. It was…indescribable.”
For a man so verbose and learned, a simple compliment like that really is the highest praise.
“Me too,” she whispers, leaning against his shoulder for one wonderful, perfect moment.
They’re standing in front of a door to one of the inn’s many rooms as they simply relish in each other's company. After approximately thirty seconds, however, a sound from within shatters the tender tranquility gathered around their persons.
A rasping, high-pitched moan.
“Lae’zel, yes, yes, right th-there…!”
Gale and Rowan slowly exchange looks.
“You’ll make a liar out of yourself, little istik ,” a certain githyanki’s uniquely familiar voice purrs behind the door’s threshold, deep and dark with delight. “Did you not promise your stamina could keep up with my demands?”
There’s just a gasping, shuddering whimper in response.
Rowan feels her face heating up. So much for “resting.” If Lae’zel and Shadowheart are really doing what she thinks they’re doing in there, the latter is going to need at least three business days to recover. Githyanki don’t fuck around with anything they do. She doesn’t see why the bedroom would be any different.
“For the love of Sune,” Gale whispers under his breath, so quiet she thinks she’s almost imagining it, “ they weren’t exaggerating about all of us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“N-nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
He clears his throat and snaps his fingers. A thread of blue and purple stretches from his hand and slithers to the door, vanishing in the wood like a droplet of water into a pond. Immediately the chorus of focused grunts and rhythmic cries becomes silent. Rowan raises an eyebrow and punches his cheek lightly, giving him a playful scowl.
“Oh, really, you’ll cast Silence for them but conveniently forgot to do it for us?”
Gale meets her glower with an innocent, elated grin. “Well, when one has their face buried between the legs of a woman whose taste surpasses ambrosia, paltry parlor tricks are often left forgotten.”
Rowan.exe has stopped working.
“You can’t say things like that in public,” she hisses as she grabs onto his hand and tugs him past the door, lest Shadowheart and Lae’zel hear them. Gale just laughs, the sound light and airy and full of mirth, and she can’t help the grin that replaces her flustered grimace.
When they make their way to the courtyard outside of the inn they are greeted with a rather heartwarming scene.
Dorian and Wyll are surrounded by the tiefling kids, all of them cheering excitedly. Sorcerer and warlock stare at one another intently as a strange amalgamation of magic swirls between them, crackling with wild energy. Rowan recognizes the green and crimson flair of Wyll’s Eldritch Blast, but she can’t tell what other spell is mingling with it. Sparks of cyan-blue lightning are leaping out with a dull rumbling thunder, so it obviously belongs to Dorian. A very concentrated, low-powered version of Lightning Bolt maybe?
And then the spell splits.
A little creature wrenches free from Wyll’s infernal cantrip. It’s impish in nature and formed of pure arcs of lightning, a toothy maw extended in a cackling grin as it claws at the Eldritch Blast. Wyll falters and lets out a grunt of concentration, teeth grit as he raises a hand towards his spell. The magic expands almost like a net, throwing itself at the stormy beast, but Dorian flicks his wrist sharply.
The lightning mephit—because Rowan now realizes that is what the creature is—lets out a piercing howl that would deafen a dog and lashes forward as it hovers in midair. It swings its tiny arms like a hurricane and tears its claws into the eldritch netting, breaking apart the spell with a screech.
Wyll stumbles back as the magic disintegrates in front of him. He’s sweating but, oddly enough, looks more invigorated than anything else. “Ilmater’s ashes, I thought I’d had you that time!” he bemoans as he wipes his brow, shaking his head in slight exasperation.
Dorian grins and gives an exaggerated bow as the tiefling children clap uproariously. The lightning mephit follows suit, still cackling like a madman before it zips out of existence in a clap of charged thunder. Gale’s brother closes the gap between him and Wyll and pats the younger man’s shoulders consolingly.
“You may outmatch me in swordsmanship,” he says with eagerness, “but the Blade of Frontiers will never best Dorian Dekarios in magical showmanship! Oh,” he notices Rowan and Gale approaching then, the delighted shimmer in his blue eyes rapidly morphing into taunting excitement. “If it isn’t my dear little brother and darling Rowan! Welcome back to the land of the—”
A stern, hardened look from Wyll causes Dorian to fumble over his words as he glances about the children gathered round.
“—living,” he finishes lamely, face morphing into a bit of a pout.
Rowan stares bitterly at the gaggle of children beholding Dorian and Wyll with an awe bordering on devout, as if the two men had hung all the stars in the sky. “Oh sure,” she grumbles loudly, crossing her arms and resisting the urge to flick the little shits off. “You give these knuckleheads a standing ovation and yet weren’t impressed with my illusions at all!”
“Because your unicorns were lame, lady!” one of them calls out. It’s that little fucker Mol. The one who had insulted her unicorns the night of the party originally. And now she dares to do it again? So boldly and without remorse?
Rowan’s eye twitches.
“Y’all gonna need to hold me back before I start beefin’ with a ten year old. I swear to the Matron I will cast Bone Chill.”
“I’m so scared,” Mol deadpans, looking unimpressed.
“Diss my unicorns again and you will suffer consequences only the arch devils in Nessus can conjure up!”
“Rowan, please,” a reprimanding voice rings out, “do not threaten an innocent child. It’s unbecoming!”
Rowan looks past the group of tiefling kids to where the voice is coming from. Tara sits daintily atop the dry, cracked fountain a few feet away from them, looking perturbed and disappointed. Pip is perched on the ring of stone above her, their purple eyes reflecting the Hallow spell’s new colors like the northern lights. Curled up against the fountain’s base is Scratch and Nugget the owlbear cub, both snoozing as they snuggle up to one another.
OH NO.
Her heart crashes into the pit of her stomach.
She and Gale exchange frantic looks.
They had completely and utterly forgotten about their familiars.
For two days they had been so busy having sex and being downright disgustingly in love that THEY FORGOT ABOUT PIP AND TARA.
There is a beat of pregnant, awkward silence.
Then:
“Taaara!” Gale cries out in an octave a smidgeon too high as he spreads his arms wide, smiling nervously. “How have you…been?”
“Don’t you ‘Tara’ me, sir!” the tressym nearly hisses, ruffling her wings as she turns her head away from him.
“Yeah, we’re just a wee bit pissed at both of youse right now,” Pip grumbles dejectedly.
“Pip,” Rowan hisses, realizing they just spoke. In front of Wyll and Dorian and a bunch of kids. Who are all supposed to be unaware that her run of the mill totally normal familiar actually has the ability to speak.
“Stayin’ silent kinda became moot once I realized my sorcerer abandoned me. I crave attention, boss! I needed t’feel alive!”
“This has been real fun,” Mol drawls, effectively cutting off anything Rowan was about to snap back at her familiar. “But me and my crew oughta get moving for the day. Lots of things to do, you know. Thanks for the show,” she says offhandedly to Wyll and Dorian as she gestures for the other kids to follow her. Her one visible eye locks onto Rowan’s gaze and a devious little smirk forms on her face. “And have fun with your stupid unicorns, lady.”
“I wasn’t even gonna summon them!” Rowan seethes under her breath, fingers twitching with the increasingly strong urge to cast Bone Chill. “But when I do, I’ll make sure they bite your bony little ass.”
Well. The spell is currently limited in that it has no physical form but…she’ll figure something out. She’s Rowan of motherfucking Waterdeep. Rude brats wearing eyepatches are just the motivation she needs to improve her already impressive magic.
Mol better watch her back. She’s just made a powerful nemesis. No one insults her unicorns and gets away with it.
Dorian and Wyll watch the kids depart with an air of bemusement. Gale is slowly inching closer to Tara, a strained and almost desperate smile on his face as his eyes dart around the courtyard wildly for something to say. The tressym merely continues to ignore him pointedly, tail swishing in irritation.
“Did Miri find you?” Wyll asks after a beat of tense silence. “She said she had a message she needed to relay.”
Rowan nods as she shuffles over to the fountain behind Gale, though her focus is on the two sleeping animals nestled against the stone. “Yep. Gale and I will be heading out to find a weird elf who is supposedly going to test my magic at the behest of the Raven Queen.”
(She is struck with the realization that she never actually asked Gale if he would accompany her. It was just an assumption based on the mutual desire to not be apart. They’re kind of disgustingly codependent on one another now, aren’t they?)
“Someone is willingly out in that wretched darkness?” Dorian asks, aghast.
She nods again and reaches her arms out to gingerly pat the heads of Scratch and Nugget. They’re so soft and warm! Perfect cuddling buddies! She can’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy that they went with Miri’s group, even though the heat and grime of the Grymforge made cuddling a pipe dream.
“We shall have a snuggle session when I return,” she vows aloud as Scratch opens one eye and gives her a sleepy boof, his tail slowly wagging. Nugget lets out a chirping coo, his eyes remaining shut, and nuzzles further into her hand as he sighs in content. She slides her gaze over to Tara and Pip. Both familiars continue to ask as if she and Gale do not exist. “And those two will join when they’ve finished sulking,” she adds. “Now all we need is Freya and—”
Rowan cuts herself off.
Oh.
Freya.
She…
She hasn’t thought about Freya in awhile.
She hasn’t forgotten. She could never forget Freya. But the wound has somehow stopped festering. Stopped rotting away inside her heart. The pain became dull. Muted.
Until now. Now it roars and tears into her like a rabid wolf, and Rowan gasps quietly as the thought of the cat she left behind becomes too much. She snatches her hands away from Scratch and Nugget as if they’ve burned her flesh. It’s been months since she died. Months. Has Freya missed her in that old world? Does she know she’s gone gone gone and can never come back?
Will Freya forgive her?
A warm, gentle hand is on her shoulder.
“Rowan?” Gale asks, his voice soft and calm as she turns her gaze to him. Her breathing is erratic. Her heartbeat is nigh on par with a cardiac arrest. But he’s here. He’s with her. That settles the wolf inside, enough that it no longer howls with frenzied grief.
Rowan blinks rapidly as she takes in her surroundings. They’re all looking at her with such concern. Such…pity.
No, not pity.
Just friends worried for her.
She both loathes and loves it.
“Sweetheart,” Gale murmurs as he cups her cheek with the hand not resting soothingly on her shoulder, “may I ask who Freya is?”
There is a slight weight on her other shoulder. Pip, coming to their usual perch. She can feel their claws digging into her skin. Their feathers rustle in her ear. A silent question drifts across their bond as sorcerer and familiar, the image of Pip’s massive black cat form manifesting in her mind.
No. It’s not necessary. Not right now, not yet. She will be alright. She can talk about this. It won’t break her. Not like it would have in those first months of this new world.
“Freya is…” Rowan takes a deep, rasping breath. “She’s my cat. The one I had to leave behind when I…began my new life here.” She keeps it vague considering Wyll and Dorian are standing right here. Admitting that she’s from another world in their presence is a bit much at this moment. “I never got to say goodbye. And sometimes I just…miss her.”
She fiddles distractedly with the feather in her braid, rubbing the material between her fingers as she stares at the ground.
“She’s a good cat. A little sassy, a whole lot of stubborn, but a good cat. I hope…”
Her voice falters.
“I hope she’s doing okay without me.”
Understanding ripples across Gale’s face and gives way to a haunted expression. He’s remembering her first day in the tower and her vehement reaction to Tara. That much is obvious.
She never meant to keep it a secret from him. Freya was just…something she couldn’t talk about, even after all they’ve been through.
Wordlessly, Gale sweeps her into a bone crushing embrace. Soft fur rubs against her legs and she doesn’t haven’t to look down to know Tara is pressed against her, purring deeply as she sinks into Gale’s arms. She doesn’t have the strength to hug him back. She just silently stands there, face buried in his chest as she focuses on the sound of his heart and matches her inhales and exhales to its tempo.
“O-oh,” Dorian stammers with the awkwardness of someone who isn’t used to showing empathy, “er, that’s a shame.”
A muffled thud and the older Dekarios letting out a biting curse implies he has just been elbowed hard by one Blade of Frontiers.
“Don’t fret, Rowan,” Wyll says gently beyond the safety of Gale’s embrace. “I’m sure you’ll see her again.”
No, I won’t.
She bites the bitter retort back. He doesn’t know. He has no reason to. He’s just trying to be kind. Terribly, unnecessarily kind.
“Maybe,” she allows carefully. Maybe indeed. Wyll could be right. Maybe she will see Freya again someday. Maybe it will be in whatever afterlife the Raven Queen has planned for her. That would be nice. To wake up in a lovely, cool forest filled with mist and the sound of leaves rustling above her and see Freya perched on a moss-covered boulder waiting patiently for Rowan to scoop her up in her arms.
She lifts her head from Gale’s chest. His heartbeat, Pip’s claws in her shoulder, and Tara’s purring at her ankles have mollified the melancholy for now. Rowan isn’t naive enough to know the hollowness left by Freya’s absence is completely gone. It’s just patched up again, until the next time she remembers about her beloved cat left behind in a world where she is dead.
“A-anyway,” Rowan says, wincing when she hears the crack in her voice. Mercifully, everyone around her ignores it. “Gale and I should get going. I probably shouldn’t keep an agent of my goddess waiting, ya know?”
She unravels herself from Gale’s arms and forces a chipper grin on her face.
The sharp, almost disappointed look he gives her tells her they are most definitely going to revisit this later and she will not be allowed to brick up her emotions and let them be forgotten.
“Be safe out there,” Dorian says with uncharacteristic sincerity . “Those shadow creatures have been getting worse, if the multitudes of bruised and bloodied Harpers are any indication.” He nods keenly in Gale’s direction. “You especially, little brother. No foolish decisions to try and impress Rowan with your flaunt and flair.”
Gale scoffs. “Oh, for the love of—that’s more your style, Dorian. I always act accordingly.”
“Need I remind you of the displacer beast debacle when you fancied that dragonborn lad in illusions class?”
“…no. I would much prefer it if you didn’t.”
“Of course you do not. Pot, meet kettle.”
It is as they travel through the shadows, Selûne’s blessing wrapped around them in a warm and comforting shield, that Rowan at last asks Gale something that has been weighing on her mind for the last two days.
“Am I…the first mortal you’ve been with?”
Gale stops dead in his tracks. Rowan nearly smacks into him. He turns around slowly, a strange menagerie of emotions painting his face as he clears his throat.
“You are not,” he admits quietly, a hand going up to fiddle with his earring. It glints slightly in the faint glow of Rowan’s Dancing Lights, summoned to reveal the way to He Who Was through the darkness. “You are the first mortal I have been with since my departure from Mystra’s side, but the first mortal I’ve ever been with as a whole? No.”
His eyes meet hers, blazing with a candor that lights a fire in her blood.
“After so long with Mystra, I have to say the pleasures of mortal love are much sweeter than I remember. Though perhaps that's simply because it's with you. And Rowan, you are the last person I’ll ever be with, mortal or immortal. That, I swear.”
Oh.
Why does he have to be so fucking pure? So fucking wonderful and loving and perfect?
The fire burns brighter. Rowan’s cheeks grow warm. Hot. Scalding. The heat slithers down between her legs and for a moment, all she can feel is his tongue rasping along her slick folds.
Fuck.
She clears her throat, voice struggling to remain normal and neutral. “That’s…very sweet, Gale. Thank you for saying that. But I hope you don’t mind if I, um, ask you about something.” She pokes him in the stubbly cheek and tries desperately to gather her thoughts together and tamper down the desire to jump him in the middle of the shadows. She’s seen enough horror movies. She’s not about to be the reason they get murdered out here. Because she couldn’t control her horniness.
Would Shar personally strike them down if they tried having sex with her curse swirling around them?
“Who’s the ‘dragonborn lad’ Dorian mentioned?
A blush of his own starts to spread across his face. Rowan has the distinct feeling he’s remembering some particular sensations as well. Should she be mad with envy if they most likely do not involve her? Maybe. But she’s not. She can’t change the past, nor would she want to deprive him of whatever comfort and joy a few stolen moments with someone else may have brought him.
Gale clears his throat bashfully just as she had moments before. “Ah, that would be Silas,” he admits quietly. “He was my first…everything, to be frank. Charming fellow. A master illusionist. Almost convinced me to switch my focus from evocation, in fact. He fascinated me. And I, him, apparently. It was a mutual decision to…”
He searches for the correct phrase. She so adores the creases in his forehead when he concentrates like this.
“Indulge our curiosities,” Gale finally answers after a solid ten seconds of silence. “And we were very glad of it. We were nearly inseparable for a year before deciding we were better off as dear friends. Silas was the only one in my circle to reach out after I withdrew from polite society with honorable intentions.”
Gale’s sheepishness morphs into regret, caustic and full of venom.
“I never responded. I was so angry—at myself, at Mystra, at the world—that I feared I would lash out and destroy one of the very few friendships I had ever cultivated. It was better that way. I could not bear it if my artless, misdirected ire caused Silas to wash his hands of me.”
Oh, Gale.
He sounds so forlorn. Even though this is the first she’s hearing of Silas, and even though she’s not always the best at reading the room, Rowan knows he and Gale are close. That the bond they share is special; akin to perhaps what she feels towards Jericho, minus the whole sleeping together thing.
(But hey, in another world and another life, it might have been Jericho stumbling upon her in that alleyway and it might have been Jericho with whom she had fallen in love with.)
But this is the here and now, and she has all of that with Gale, and the memory of the dragonborn who is his friend pains him more than he cares to admit. She racks her brain for some grandiose gesture, frowning as she studies the flashes of regret in his face.
Eventually, she settles on comforting him in the most simplest of ways.
Rowan takes his hand, patting the top of it gently as she tilts her head to press a swift kiss to his nose. She lets her lips linger for a beat too long, her mouth traveling to his cheek and brushing against the deep grooves the Netherese blight has left in his skin. “You should get in touch with him when we return home, Gale,” she tells him softly, sincerely.
And then another thought crosses her mind and a little grin stretches across her face, the parallels of it all kind of wild once she lets it simmer. “Also, I’m so sorry, but you have to admit that it’s kind of funny your first relationship was with a wizard who specializes in illusions and now you have me!”
She pulls away from his face and snaps her fingers with a flourish. A dozen bee-sized unicorns shimmer into life from shadow and ash. Their obsidian manes ripple in the breeze they create as they prance around both her and Gale midair, whinnying happily. He lets out a soft, fond chuckle as he reaches out a finger, watching intently when one of the tiny unicorns eagerly alights on the digit and gives him an elegant bow of its equine head.
“It’s crossed my mind,” he admits. The disparate grief he wore now gives way to something a little lighter. “Silas was—still is, I’m quite certain—so passionate about his preferred school of magic. To him, illusion is the basis of all spells. It is about making the impossible possible. Turning dreams and fancy into reality. Granting a child’s wish just for the sake of seeing them smile, or something as grand as conjuring a fleet of ancient dragons to make an enemy cower in terror. That conviction is what drew me to him initially.”
Another unicorn lands on his finger. It nudges the other one with its pearlescent horn and the two start to playfully nibble at each other’s manes. Gale’s smile falters ever so slightly and his shoulders slump, an irrevocable sadness creeping its way into his eyes once more.
“I truly wanted to throw myself into the study of illusion magic. But Mystra would not allow it. Evocation was the path she wished for me to excel in. And I, the eager fool that I was, played into her divine hands.”
The urge to tear the Weave down from the stars and muzzle the goddess of magic is overwhelming for one startling, maddening moment.
But Rowan swallows the rancor down. She puts the wrath to bed knowing it will not serve any purpose right here and now. Instead, she slides her arms around his midsection, wrapping him in a hug as tightly as she dares without disturbing the peace of her precious illusory unicorns.
“The study of magic is neverending,” she reminds him gently. “You’re no longer under her thumb, Gale. Switch your focus to illusion if that’s what you want. I’m sure Silas would love to help you. And don’t forget, you have a master of the craft right under your nose!”
She glances up at him with a wink and a cheeky grin. The pensive, dismal shadows at Mystra’s memory and his silence towards Silas fade as Gale cannot help but roll his eyes, his lips twitching into a grateful smile. The finger still acting as a perch for the two unicorns reaches over her and he gives her nose a soft boop, nodding wistfully.
“Yes, however could I forget indeed? I must find a way to atone for my negligence.”
“Join me in my quest to defeat Mol with my army of unicorns and all will be forgiven.”
“Rowan. I am not going to fight a child just because they bruised your ego.”
“Okay, but consider this: you love me and I am asking you very politely to do so.”
He rolls his eyes once more, this time in such an exaggerated and overly dramatic way that a little bit of Dorian Dekarios slips out. Rowan will not say a word. She doesn’t think Gale would appreciate the comparison, even if it’s simply an observation made in earnest.
(She also will not voice the multitude of other questions that are now floating around in her mind after learning of Silas’s existence. Is he hot? Do dragonborn dicks really have ridges or is that a lie perpetrated by Quill Grootslang in her painfully innocent smut? Would Silas be partial to her illusory unicorns? Again, is he hot?
Later. She will ask Gale later. Maybe not the ridged dick one, though. She’s not sure if she actually wants to know.)
“We have an elf to find,” Gale says with an air of finality, rousing her from her wandering thoughts. He ruffles her hair, disentangles himself from her arms and tilts his head to plant a chaste and thankful kiss against her lips that does not last near as long as she wants it to. At least someone is being mindful of their current environment. She really wouldn’t last long in a horror movie.
Rowan sighs dejectedly and dismisses the herd of itty bitty unicorns with a thought, scrunching her face into a pout even though she knows he’s right. He Who Was insisted she “make haste” to find him and as far as first impressions go, taking this long due to all the distractions probably doesn’t paint her in the best light. She marches on ahead of Gale, following the path in her mind the magic seeped into the letter revealed.
The desolation and corruption seems to grow worse the further they travel from Last Light. The horrific chill and malevolent, oppressive sense to the air gets far more intense. Selûne’s blessing keeps the whispers and betrayed sobs at bay, thank the Matron. There are no more unheard prayers wrapping around her throat like a noose as the lost souls of Reithwin vye desperately for her and Gale’s attention. Oh, they know the poor bastards are still around—there is an occasional brush of a phantom touch against their cheeks, or a cold hand gripping a wrist for a millisecond.
But it’s quiet.
Mercifully quiet.
Unsettling, dead silence.
Okay. It’s too quiet. And now Rowan is on high alert, just waiting for something to creep out from behind a boulder and gut them.
She holds Nevermore with a white knuckle grip as Pip flits from dead tree to dead tree in scrutiny. The scenery has shifted from the broken, shattered cobblestone road to glimpses of what must have been farmland once upon a time. Ravaged fields of wheat inlaid with desiccated corpses of oxen and sheep. Rusted pitchforks speared into the diseased dirt almost like gravemarkers. More dilapidated sheds and crumbling silos that once held grains and tools are now just homes for shadows and ghosts.
Rowan hates it here. She hates it even more than she did when they first arrived. It’s so wrong. This isn’t what darkness is about. This isn’t the gentle kindness her shadows have shown her since her first day in this world.
She feels guilty and she’s not even sure why. It’s not like she was around when Shar first cursed this place. It’s not like she would have had any way to be involved in the war between the Harpers and the druids and Ketheric Thorm’s forces.
But as someone born anew from the shadows of the Raven Queen, should Rowan really be here? Is there any use in someone like her joining the cause to try and lift the curse from this land? What would the victims think if they knew she loved the darkness with all her heart, while they in turn were tortured at the hands of those wielding it for all the wrong reasons?
I’m thinking too much about it, she reprimands herself mentally as she gestures for Gale and Tara to duck around a partially collapsed tree. The rotted bark is riddled with those creepy, glowing pustules whose contents she would rather not think about. Just focus on finding He Who Was.
And then after, they can focus on joining the others in storming Moonrise Towers. She needs some baddies to beat up after the bleak scenery of this place. A few Fireballs and Lightning Bolts will perk her up, right as rain.
Plus, now she can fully appreciate Gale’s wizardy hotness without feeling conflicted about wanting to act on the impulses said hotness brings out in her.
The landscape around her suddenly becomes quite familiar. She recognizes that ripped, sad excuse for a tent propped up against a dead tree over there. A cluster of pretty purple flowers, somehow able to bloom in this wretched place, unfurls out from the desiccated bark like a parasite almost. Pip lets out an affirmative croak from above as they come to the same conclusion she is—they’ve reached the spot just before He Who Was and his altar.
Indeed, as Rowan gestures for Gale to keep moving, the mist and shadows before them part like a velvet curtain. A wide open expanse sprawls out before them, a peninsula of unbroken land that veers off into a sheer cliff laden with darkness. The trees here are as dead and gnarled as every other ruined foliage they have stumbled on, but their boughs are laden with more of those purple flowers and decorated with strings of bleached white bone dangling from their skeletal fingers. Grass as red as blood grows limp around the clearing, as if it acts as a border of some kind.
Momentoes of the Matron are everywhere.
Bones and feathers and shards of mirror are scattered about. Rowan feels the presence of her goddess here as acutely as she had in the sea of darkness during her rebirth. No shadow creatures or beasts conjured by Shar’s curse are able to come near this place. She knows it in her bones as deeply as she knows the tenderness of Gale’s hands on her waist.
In the very middle of the clearing there is a ritual circle of some sorts. It is painted with acute precision and radiates with the energy of the Raven Queen—the reason for the welcome protection this far into the cursed-affected land most definitely. Deep purple candles alight with a black flame are positioned upon the ritual circle at every angle. A stylized, beautiful rendering of a raven head has been drawn directly in the middle of it, the feathers etched into the ground with utmost care.
She swears the single beady eye blinks at her.
And of course, there he is.
He Who Was.
The elf—a shadar-kai, Rowan knows in her soul—stands before the altar of bone and mirror. His eyes are wreathed in shadow, no pupils in sight, and the smile that spreads across his face as she approaches is only somewhat unsettling if only due to his strange appearance. Rowan does not feel any malice from this man. No reason to cower or be afraid.
It’s quite the opposite. She feels drawn to him, a peculiar sort of kinship she cannot quite describe.
The white raven on his shoulder opens its beak and lets out a cry in greeting just as Pip swoops down from the sky and takes their place on her shoulder. He Who Was bows his head, the movement somewhat stiff, and Rowan has the distinct feeling he doesn’t often show such courtesy to most everyone.
“Well met, sister,” he says once she and Gale have crossed the threshold into this space dedicated to the Matron. There is a curtness beneath the familiar tone, as if he isn’t used to speaking to, well, anyone.
She won’t let that get under her skin. She’s here at the behest of the Raven Queen. This dude’s reserved disdain means nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Rowan straightens her posture and gives him a polite little wave, still keeping one hand tightly on Nevermore. “Uh. Hi. I’m Rowan. Obviously. And, um…I’m here to have my skills be appraised?”
“And so you have.” He Who Was peers over her shoulder. Considering the state of his eyes, it’s impossible to tell if there is amusement or displeasure in that darkness. “You have brought another.”
“She has,” Gale confirms, taking an audacious step in front of Rowan. It is such a simple action but the butterflies it manifests in the pit of her stomach are anything but. “Where Rowan goes, I go. I trust that will not be a problem for you, ser?”
His hands remain at his sides but a finger twitches ever so slightly.
Veins of shadow, crackling with magic slither around that finger eagerly.
One of her little soldiers, safe inside him and always on guard. Always ready to do whatever he asks, because they love him as much as she does.
He Who Was shakes his head. That unsettling smile does not fade but, rather, curls more into a cocksure smirk. “None whatsoever, wizard. Our lady did not deny my sister an audience, but you must know…”
The shadar-kai’s voice echoes throughout the clearing as if hundreds of him are speaking at once.
“Only she who is twice-born will be tested in the duel. None other may assist.”
Twice-born?
Rowan hums to herself in acquiescence. Rowan Twice-Born has a good ring to it. Not as good as Rowan of Waterdeep, mind you, but it still sounds badass. She could always register as an adventurer with a moniker as dope as that. Goblins would cower in fear. Rude rich bastards would weep to have her presence grace their gilded halls.
Wait.
“You know I’m not…from Toril originally?” she asks quickly, unable to keep the surprise from her voice. She shuffles in front of Gale, unable to lunge forward with a striking sense of eagerness. She wants to know. She wants to know everything he knows. Maybe their goddess revealed the reason she saved Rowan. Maybe this strange elf can answer that question at last, even if the Raven Queen has impressed the importance of embracing why not.
He Who Was tilts his head as he studies her, the smirk turning pensive. “Of course. The Matron has told all of us of her new beloved. Her new champion. Her new Chosen.”
He spreads his arms wide, the movement strangely birdlike for a moment in the way he cocks his head once more. “Thus, she has tasked me to evaluate your abilities. You must prove yourself worthy, sister. Show the Matron her choice to grant you this new life was not in vain.”
The shadar-kai laughs.
The sudden cruelty in it makes Rowan’s blood run cold.
“How prudent our lady is, sending her disgraced son to welcome the prodigal daughter into the fold. How heartless. You raise just one too many corpses for the sake of entertaining yourself and that’s the end of it.”
“Don’t be such a prickless twit,” the white raven on his shoulder suddenly caws out, their voice hoarse and husky with a thinly veiled anger. “Don’t play the victim. You disobeyed her wishes! You gave in to your twisted desires! Instead of serving the Matron, you served your own needs!”
The white raven leaps from his shoulder and takes to the air, shrieking in pure umbrage.
“Let this child kill you, I say! Let her split your guts open! Let her suffocate you in darkness and prove what a spineless, vile bastard you’ve become!”
The shadar-kai rolls his head around his neck, bones popping and sinew stretching. The air before him shifts and shudders; he holds a hand out, fingers curled like claws, and a vicious-looking spear ripples into existence right into his expectant grasp.
The crude, jagged point is stained a rusty red.
Whatever kinship Rowan felt towards He Who Was vanishes instantaneously.
Son of a bitch, she thinks as Pip’s talons dig into her shoulder, every primal sense in her body screaming in vigilance, this really is Fight Club.
Several things happen at once.
“Rowan!” Gale calls out, her name laced with sharp unease. She goes to turn her head, to utter some useless platitude, but he is suddenly not there.
No, her wizard stands beyond a wall of translucent shadow, like a barrier of oily glass. The wall encompasses the entire clearing, rising high into the sunless sky, disappearing into the darkness above. His hands are pressed against it, his face twisted in a dour expression of panic, and Rowan becomes aware that there is no longer a weight on her shoulder.
Pip is gone. For Pip is the ground at Gale’s feet, their violet eyes swirling with confusion and their raven body swaying dizzily.
Tara hisses in warning from Gale’s shoulder, her fur and feathers standing on end.
The white raven shrieks in the air.
Rowan barely has a moment to react before there is a rustling sound at her ear, and a sense of something heavy swinging towards her, and six months of studying with Gale is the only reason why the spear He Who Was is jabbing at her does not find its mark.
She Misty Steps away before she realizes what she’s doing. The feather at her throat is warm, so warm, almost hot as her skin prickles and her mouth goes dry. She and the shadar-kai are on opposite ends of this makeshift arena, which is much smaller than she would like it do be for an apparent fight to the fucking death.
Why didn’t you warn me? Rowan asks her goddess inwardly, hands sweating as she grips Nevermore tightly. She runs through her list of spells and magic, eyes flitting from Gale behind He Who Was to the sneering shadar-kai himself.
No answer comes.
Rowan doesn’t feel it’s out of malice or spite or contempt. The Matron wishes for her to prove herself. Dealing with the unexpected and keeping a level head goes hand-in-hand with such a feat.
And if killing this asshole is what the Raven Queen wants, then so be it. Rowan is the extension of her lady’s will. She can do this.
(She hopes.)
“Rowan, I can Counterspell this,” Gale says from beyond the veil of shadows, his hands glowing a beautiful auroral blue. When he speaks it sounds as if he’s under water, the words muffled and tone muted beneath the layers of darkness. Not even that can subdue the alarm in every syllable, his gaze one of absolute frenzy. “Just hold on for a moment and I will—”
“No,” both Rowan and He Who Was say in unison, merely staring at one another from across the battlefield.
She feels her eyes begin to swarm with shadows. Tar drips down her cheeks as her inner darkness crawls through her flesh and clings to her form like armor. Nevermore pulses in his grasp, the staff eager and ready for what’s to come. “I can do this, Gale,” she tells him as she summons the magic slumbering deep inside her soul. “My goddess has entrusted me with this task. I won’t let her—or you—down.”
“Wretched little bitch,” He Who Was hisses, the spear in his hands igniting with a black oily flame. His voice is disjointed. Disconnected. Eerie and inhuman as he takes a step forward. “This is where you end, sister. I will not let some mongrel centuries too young ruin everything I have worked for!”
There is no time to pull out a potion or elixir.
There is no time to yank out one of her many scrolls to gain an upper hand.
No familiar. No emotional support wizard. No bonus tricks up her sleeve.
It’s just Rowan and her wits and the fountain of magic bubbling beneath her skin.
She can sense a spell wrapping its tendrils around He Who Was even though he speaks no incantation or moves his hand in familiar gestures. Fog bursts from the spear’s tip and swirls around him, blurring his figure as if someone has smeared him with white paint. And then he is suddenly before her, fast as lightning and with no warning, one hand stretching out and going for her throat.
The moment his fingers touch her skin, Rowan’s world explodes in pain.
She tries to scream but nothing comes out save for a rasping gasp, agony striking deep through her vocal chords. The abyss of his gaze swarms with glee as a familiar ghoulish green energy digs into her skin from his hands, the Bone Chill striking so hard and fast she nearly drops to her knees right then and there. It’s cold. Gods, it’s so fucking cold. Her shadows are unable to repel the magic; there’s something in the way that his spell is borne from the same wellspring, preventing her armor from protecting her fragile skin. It’s eating away at her, slowly, melting through layers of darkness and latching onto her skin violently.
This is her strategy. This is what she’s been doing to their enemies ever since she realized how useful it was in that ruined temple.
Is it just a typical play of the Matron’s followers? Or does he somehow know, intimately, how she wields her magic and spells?
A surge of strength ripples through Rowan’s arms as something akin to pure, blinding rage fills her. No. Absolutely not. This jackass isn’t going to take her down with
that.
She won’t allow it.
He squeezes his hand around her throat, the pain increasing. Her eyes fill with tears, mixing with the tar dripping from them as she feels the air in her lungs lessen. Rowan snarls and keeps her hold steadfast and true on Nevermore as she yanks her hands up, catching the shadar-kai beneath the chin with her staff’s heavy head.
He Who Was hisses, a sound more surprised than in pain. His grip on her throat falters for just a moment, but it’s more than enough.
Rowan quickly casts Misty Step once more and leaps away from him, her back against the wall of shadows keeping her inside this battlefield. Her throat is burning, agony coursing through her neck and collarbone. Her tongue tastes like iron. Her skin is coated in a sheen of gangrenous misery. What a fucking dick. Slamming so much necrotic energy into her right at the start of this has effectively cut off her verbal spellcasting. A healing potion would do enough to knit the flesh together—she can hear her skin bubbling as the magic eats away at it, the pain ridiculously strong for how simple of a cantrip it is. But she doesn’t have time.
Gods, she’s never been so glad for that month she and Gale worked on nonverbal spellcasting.
He Who Was lets out a wordless screech of anger as she holds Nevermore before her, her hands shaking as electricity sparks out from her fingers. It courses through the staff, crackling as it converges towards the point. The shadar-kai disappears in a burst of smoke and darkness just as she releases the Lightning Bolt aimed at where he once was, the black-tinged navy bolts of energy slamming into the ground with a vengeance.
It leaves an ugly, vicious mark upon the cracked ground as if the very heavens have opened up and cast judgment upon this land.
Of course this fucker knows some weird form of Misty Step too, Rowan thinks frantically. Misty Step and Invisibility merged together in one very convenient cheat spell? Probably. Fuck him. She hates him more than she hates the Grymforge now.
The air before her ripples, threads of the Shadow Weave tugging against her soul. A warning from the Matron, or from her own darkness? She’s not sure. But she’s grateful all the same, ducking as He Who Was coalesces into existence and tries in vain to jab at her with his spear once more.
Her robes flutter as she rolls forward with the momentum of ducking, swiftly moving Nevermore into one hand as the other lashes out. She grabs onto his leg, fingernails digging into his skin as necrotic energy forms at the tips of her fingers and sends the Bone Chill tearing into him with all her might.
Rowan expects a cry of pain.
Instead, He Who Was merely cackles, the vile sound maddeningly daunting.
“Silly little girl!” he hisses, twisting his body around with those freakish and unnatural movements of his. “Death is my domain! Death is my sanctum! You cannot
touch
me with magic carved from death’s tender embrace!”
Shit.
Immune to necrotic damage? Well, she should have expected that. Time for another plan.
Rowan curses inwardly and releases her hold on his leg, stumbling away as quickly as she can. His black, fathomless eyes flash the same sickly green as their cantrips and he snarls something savage in a language she does not know, yet it fills her veins with ice all the same.
The feathers covering the dry dirt like a blanket all begin to quiver.
Her chest tightens. The pain wrapped around her throat like a chain gnaws deeper. Her shadows falter, fear coursing through her as a sound like a reality itself tearing in two rips through the clearing louder than the nautiloid’s attack on Waterdeep.
Before Rowan’s eyes, a mass grave opens at the feet of He Who Was, and well around fifty corpses of ravens burst from the ground. They drag themselves out with an impossible speed, stabbing talons and beaks into the dirt as they emerge from their desecrated tombs. That fear sours back into righteous fury. She knows. Rowan knows he killed those ravens himself, every single one of them. A dark offering to the curse bound to these lands. A mockery—a perversion of the Matron’s pride, lambs led to a slaughter by someone who should honor their glory.
Some are completely skeletal. Others are barely flesh and feather, stitched together only by rotten sinew and desiccated cartilage. And others yet have barely begun to decompose, their milky eyes the only thing twisted and dead in them. An eerie glow the exact same shade as He Who Was’s eyes emanates from every single carcass.
She swallows. She can barely feel the pain in her throat anymore. Her fingers twitch. Her eyes narrow.
This is why the Raven Queen wanted her to come here. This bastard must be punished. He will be punished.
He Who Was just cackles, taking her still silence as terror. He sweeps his hand before his face, the gesture full of flourish and arrogance, and the mutilated corpses of the ravens all surge forward. They circle around him, flying in a cyclone of feather and bone, the sounds of dozens of wings fluttering and sharp beaks snapping in the air like something out of a nightmare. The column of corvids stretches far beyond the dark mist of the curse, their number seeming to somehow grow.
The sickening glow of his magic only gets stronger. The curse is feeding it. Rowan can feel Shar’s influence, the Lady of Loss allowing a mote of her presence to infiltrate whatever spell He Who Was has cast. Oppressive. Heavy. Deadly and succinct, a sharpened dagger poised directly above her heart and coated with the finest of toxins.
This storm of darkness was conjured specifically to tear her to pieces. This contiguous mockery of the Matron is nothing but a middle finger to everything she has learned and stood for since the womb of shadows that rebirthed her.
And that realization just makes her rage burn hotter.
Nevermore alights with a black flame and the inferno is scalding.
Rowan can hear Gale yelling her name, his voice so desperate it twists its way into her heart deeper than Shar’s knife.
She can hear Tara hissing protectively, uselessly, the second mother figure she was lucky enough to stumble on in this world.
She can hear Pip cawing in panic. Wordless, frenzied, furious. Angry like their sorcerer. Angry at whatever fucked up game He Who Was decided to play when he summoned those dead ravens.
And she can hear the white raven above, their cries an exact parallel of her dear familiar’s.
Rowan lunges forward. The Fireball held within Nevermore’s being releases with a single thought, engulfing the cyclone of ravens. Flames cling to their exploited corpses, consuming what remains of feather and flesh, and a chorus of raucous cries erupts from the undead. But it’s not enough. Rowan knows it’s not enough.
Because the curse just funnels its energy into them, knitting their putrefied flesh back together even as her black flames eat away at their bodies. Push and pull. Bend and break. Mend and mutilate. Never ending. Never changing.
Nevermore.
A window appears in the midst of the circling, swirling ravens. Ash and soot flutters from their burning bodies like a volcanic snowstorm, mixing with the heady shadows that already obscure the air. He Who Was stands perfectly still in the middle of his depraved shield, head cocked and lips stretched in a far too wide sneer.
“Cast all the spells you’d like, sister!” he calls out in that simpering, mocking tone that makes her spine itch. “This darkness will not let me die. I have fed upon it, and it me—oh, the memories we have tasted! The pain! The agony! The suffering, beautiful and glorious and delicious!”
The shadar-kai shudders, wrapping his arms around him as a blissful expression creeps into his twisted face. He drops his spear, the clatter of it hollow and barely discernible above the din of the screeching, burning ravens. His glowing eyes sputter and blink like a strobe light, flicking between noxious green and infinite shadow. His tongue darts out to lick at his thin lips, sending a curl of revulsion in Rowan’s gut as she cringes and takes a step back. Her skin crawls with the force of thousands of ants and spiders as he cackles, disjointed and demented.
Great. So he’s a literal pervert in addition to betraying the Matron. Was this what Miri meant by strange? Ugh. I’m gonna need therapy after this.
A thought occurs to her.
If she can’t attack the ravens guarding him, why not just attack He Who Was?
She could try and distract them. Make them fly away from him and come after her, leaving an opening for another Fireball to be thrown directly at his face.
Or…
Rowan glances up at the sunless sky above. The ravens swirling around He Who Was create that seemingly endless column of feather and bone, their reanimated bodies casting the whole of the clearing in that eerie green glow. But is it really endless? The number of corpses was a lot, yes, but it wasn’t hundreds. It wasn’t thousands. And even if the curse is empowering them somehow, there’s no way it created additional undead out of nothing. Rowan’s studies on necromancy are rudimentary at best but even she knows you can’t make a zombie without a dead body.
She stretches out her soul and concentrates.
…yes. There, right there! Hovering at least a hundred feet up she can sense a tangled mass of the Shadow Weave, threads being tugged and torn and pulled in all directions. It’s illusion magic; she would recognize it even if she was halfway to the Fugue Plane and missing her heart. He’s somehow holding concentration on an illusion spell of some sort in tandem with the army of undead ravens, and that illusion is manifesting in way more birds than are actually present.
Which means that up there, the shield will have a gap big enough to let loose the nastiest Fireball she can muster.
She just has to figure out a way to get there. Wings would come in very handy right now. Not that there’s anyway to get them. Sticking her hand in the Bag of Holding and grabbing a scroll of Fly or Polymorph will take too much time.
Unbidden, the memories of the day she and Gale chased one another around Waterdeep casting Misty Step over and over filter through her mind. She had less magic then, but it was still enough to get to Blackstaff and back without emptying every ounce of arcane stamina. She’s stronger now, more in tune with her magic.
Who needs wings when you’re really fucking good at Misty Step?
The feather at her throat grows warm. It escaped the wrath of Bone Chill unscathed. She wonders if He Who Was pumped so much magic into the cantrip specifically because of where she wears the Raven Queen’s gift. In that case, whatever scars she will bear will be worn with honor and integrity, especially as she feels the goddess’s pleased agreement caressing her soul like a kiss.
She hears Gale call out her name again. The terror in his voice is pure agony. It burns worse than the decaying flesh in her throat. She should look at him. She should try to give him a smile to let him know that she’s alright.
It occurs to her with startling vehemence that she does not feel quite like herself right now. More like an observer than a reactor, her mind and body split down the middle. It’s been a writhing, wriggling sensation during each battle since leaving Waterdeep, a wicked little beastie clawing at the confines of her heart. But it was subtle enough to ignore, just as she pushed down the revelations that killing people didn’t feel as damning as it should.
Is she…a monster?
No. No, no more thinking like that. She can’t let herself get distracted. She can’t turn her focus to Gale, not even for his comfort. Time is growing short. The longer the spell cast by He Who Was remains, the more the curse will feed into it, and the more potent it will become.
Rowan takes a leap of faith.
Shadows swirl around her, forming into two tiny pairs of wings on both ankles as she focuses her magic downwards. More style than sustenance but she’s always enjoyed displaying a bit of showmanship when it comes to her spellcasting. Once, twice, three times—she’s almost there, almost at the very top of the column, casting Misty Step with every beat of her heart. She’s soaring, a flightless bird, hovering in the smoky air of a sky that has not seen the moon in decades.
The necrosis clinging to her throat digs a little deeper.
She tries to swallow, choking on blood and saliva and the rotten taste of corrupted magic. It’s getting hard to breathe, especially with the congestion of feathers and bones so close to her face. Her hair is whipping around her face in the vicious wind the undead ravens create. It is a hurricane of malice that will slice her skin open if she lessens her hold on the shadows covering her skin like armor. She can see it now, her body splayed on the cold hard ground, flesh flayed into pretty red ribbons as a flock of ravens feast on her intestines and—
“Stop,” Rowan rasps out, voice hoarse and guttural as she shakes her head wildly. The illusion slips away from her, the call of a future that will not happen slithering out of her mind like a half dead parasite. The uppermost level of undead ravens shiver and caw piteously as she jerks Nevermore into their illusory bodies, connecting with nothing but open air as they disappear.
A moment of time, a blink of the eye, lasts for eons as she catches the gaze of the white raven, flying in place just beyond the reach of their former master’s spell.
They nod.
The detachment from herself carves a deeper canyon in her chest. She has to do this.
She casts Misty Step one more time.
There are no strings to hold her down as she hovers above the eye of the storm, the dark tempest swirling and roiling beneath her winged feet. Rowan stares directly at the figure of He Who Was, still lost in his perverse sense of elation as he merely clutches himself. The gesture feels…off, for a moment. That burst of kinship she felt upon meeting him flares in her chest once more and suddenly, Rowan is overcome with grief. Grief and abject terror and a mad, delirious need for all things to end.
Some semblance of whatever sanity lay buried deep inside He Who Was, crying out for release.
Rowan can grant him that mercy. The only shadows he will need are the ones lovingly crafted by their lady, spun in her sea of darkness as he awaits the start of his next life.
She takes a deep breath, lungs wheezing and throat coated with acid as she drops the magic keeping Misty Step in place.
Rowan’s body falls fast.
But not as fast as the Fireball she conjures from ash and shadow and sends soaring down beneath her, obsidian flames roaring like a dragon as they devour through the flock of ravens. Hellfire rains down from above, Rowan crashing behind the storm of flame, making a pyre out of the poor corpses as they shriek in wrath and anguish.
The heat wraps around Rowan, chasing away the vestiges of agonizing chill his spell has been carving into her throat. The onyx fire parts as she falls through it, her magic caressing her cheeks and slipping through her fingers. It won’t hurt her. Never. It seeks only to devour the wretch beneath her, starving and hungry and oh-so- eager to vanquish a thing that dares to defy her lady.
She is mercy. She is oblivion. She is the blade of the Matron and the shield of those who find succor in her shadows.
She is Rowan fucking Twice-Born, and she will not lose.
Feathers burst around her, black as night and tinged with roiling flames. Her descent grows slower, only enough so that allows her to adjust her grip on Nevermore and turn her head downwards. He Who Was is gazing up at her, his crooked, too-wide mouth agape and sickly glowing eyes flicking from green to black.
For a moment, they become hazel.
Innocuous, ordinary hazel. Free of malice. Free of contempt. Those eyes hold nothing but bitter relief and the satisfaction that at last, the end is coming.
And then the Fireball engulfs him.
He Who Was screams. It’s a sound that can shatter mirrors, ringing with pain and fury and years of corruption he tried so hard to deny. The storm of ravens burst into ash and soot around her as she Feather Falls down, pointing the butt of Nevermore towards the shadar-kai. He has collapsed onto the ground, black flames clinging to him as the scent of flesh burning fills the fetid air. His skin bubbles as blisters form and then quickly gives way to charred, blackened layers.
She could let him suffer like this. Twitching and sobbing and screaming on the ground as her flames burn him alive, searing into his flesh and sloughing it away from his bones. She could simply watch as the spell, fueled by her mercy and outrage both, eats away at him until there is nothing left but an acrid smell and shards of bone nestled within smoking cinders.
But she won’t.
Rowan conjures up the cold, biting chill of winter. If her beloved cantrip won’t finish the job, then Ice Knife will. She funnels the spell through Nevermore’s handle, frostbite clinging to its surface as the butt of the staff crackles with black ice. A sharp, gleaming dagger forms at the bottom of Nevermore, carved from frigid shadow. She could plunge it into his throat. She wants to plunge it into his throat, to get one last laugh in as payback for what his Bone Chill did to hers.
But she won’t.
(Rowan is not a monster, even if she now knows that using her magic to kill makes her feel less human.)
Cinders swirl.
Ash floats on a stagnant breeze.
Her throat burns and her eyes water.
Rowan snaps the tether keeping hold of Feather Fall when she is just above He Who Was and slams into his smoldering body, piercing his chest with Nevermore. Bones crack beneath her weight and flesh tears violently as the Ice Knife rends through his charred, blackened skin.
He tries to scream, she thinks—his mouth is open, and his arms tremble as desperately attempts to bring them up, hands curled into claws. She digs the knife into his chest deeper, grinding through barriers of muscle and pushing past ribs and not stopping even as the thick meat of his heart catches the blade. Blood wells up in his deformed, stretched lips, dark and flecked with soot.
His eyes shudder, returning to that simple hazel, free of shadow and necromancy. Tears well up in the corners as he blinks at her. She can’t help but wonder what he sees right now. How do the flames frame her? What kind of expression is she making? Is he looking at the damage his Bone Chill wrought upon her throat, the flesh ravaged and raw as the Raven Queen’s feather hangs silently below the wound?
She will never know.
Like his raven, He Who Was nods.
Rowan stabs Nevermore through the rest of his heart. Her arms go numb with the force of it.
He Who Was makes no sound as he dies, save for a strangled gurgle that sprays blood into her face. She flinches as it coats her cheeks, strangely cold. The pressure in the air vanishes immediately, Shar’s ubiquity stalking away in scowling disappointment. Rowan pants wordlessly, staring down at the shadar-kai’s face twisted in pain and perhaps relief. This is different from that man in Selûne’s temple, or the duergar in the Underdark, or the drow controlling them. This is definitely different from the stupid robot in the Grymforge.
This was a death her goddess asked for. And though it was deserved, though it was necessary to free He Who Was from the wicked darkness of the curse, why does Rowan feel so…
So…
Wrong?
Because you wanted there to be another way,
a voice says in her mind kindly, warmly. Her own voice? Maybe. She’s not sure.
He called you sister. You wanted to rejoice in the camaraderie of another who knows the Matron’s love. Not end him just minutes after meeting him.
Rowan shivers as her emotions scurry out from beneath the rock they were hiding under. Yeah. That makes sense. It isn’t fair. His letter made it seem like he was just going to have her cast a few spells, not this. Not this brutal, bloody battle.
How long has he been in this darkness, bending beneath the weight of a curse he probably scoffed at? The shadows are their domain. They are the children of the Matron. How long did he try to hold onto that hope, that crumb of well-intended faith before Shar’s grasp finally yanked him from the only goddess he ever wanted to serve?
“Rowan!”
Gale’s voice, pinched and insistent and dripping with dread.
She looks up from the corpse she’s still sitting on, arms shaking and hands sweaty as she continues to hold Nevermore in his chest. The veil has lifted. The barriers blocking the arena are gone now, vanquished with the death of He Who Was. Gale is rushing towards her, Tara and Pip at his feet as all three cross the desecrated ground. Rowan can’t move. She can’t get up to greet them. She just watches, mute and numb as they approach, fingers locked around Nevermore in a perverse mimicry of rigor mortis.
Pip reaches her first. The raven alights on her shoulder and presses themselves close to the side of her head. Thoughts and questions and feelings flood her senses as her connection with Pip reignites. She didn’t even realize it had been severed during that battle. She wants to reach a hand up and pet them comfortingly, to soothe herself with their feathers, but she just…can’t move.
“Rowan,” Gale repeats, his distress plain in the stricken gaze he offers her as he kneels down next to the body. Her flames part to allow him through, a curtain of smoldering cinders. They would never dream of hurting him, even if she begged them to. Not that she ever would.
“I killed him,” Rowan whispers. It hurts to speak. She doesn’t know why she’s stating the obvious. She tries to let go of Nevermore, to get off of the body, but when she catches a glimpse of her hands she freezes. Her skin is covered in black. Shadows, ichor, ash. Oh. She’s filthy again. Her robes are probably in a similar state, bedraggled and unkempt. Jericho will be so upset with her.
Gale doesn’t answer her. He just puts a hand over hers, the ones that are absolutely disgusting, the ones shaking violently as they refuse to loosen their grip on her staff. His touch is soft. Warm. A beacon, beckoning her home. Rowan lets him pry her fingers away from Nevermore, her body as loose and limp as the corpse beneath her. She all but crumbles into his lap. The rest of her is shaking now, as if she’s been left out in frigid waters for days on end, and her throat fucking hurts.
“Potion,” she tries to rasp, but it just comes out as a wordless gasp of pain.
“Fuck,” Gale swears, the tremor in his voice worse than her shivering. He keeps one arm around her, trying in vain to prop her up into a sitting position. It’s almost impossible with how leaden her bones are. The other hand fumbles uselessly for the Bag of Holding, his face pale and brows pinched in panic.
Her vision does dark for a moment as a renewed surge of agony courses through her. It feels as though her throat has been ripped out. She can taste blood. Shadows, ichor, ash. Is this the pain that those she has used her magic on feel? Shit. No wonder they scream until their voices no longer work, on account of their flesh being ripped asunder.
She hears bottles clinking.
Pip’s feathers brush against her cheek.
Gale says her name once more, his voice far off in the distance.
And then something cool and wet drips down her throat, cauterizing the necrosis spreading throughout her skin. The pain dilutes. Drifts away. Numbs into nothingness. She’s no longer burning. She’s no longer cold. Her skin itches as the potion mends the shredded flesh, tugging and pulling it back into place. The wound closes. Rowan’s eyes flutter open once more and she meets Gale’s gaze, his eyes swimming with a myriad of emotions that break her heart.
I’m sorry, she wants to say, but she’s not sure why she’s apologizing.
A weight crawls into her lap. Rowan glances down to see Tara curled up against her stomach, purring so loud even Morena and Evander back in Waterdeep can probably hear. Pip coos gently into her ear, their beak smooth and gentle as they begin to meticulously groom the mess of out-of-place strands of hair that broke free from her braid. Gale leans forward, the upper half of his body bent over her, and silently places a kiss to her sweaty, soot-stained forehead.
She hates the way his lips tremble.
She wants to go home.
“You were brilliant,” Gale tells her quietly, each word soaked in anguish. “Gods, Rowan. You were so brilliant and I was so bloody terrified. Are you alright, sweetheart? Are you in pain? Please,” his voice raises an octave, desperate and full of anxiety, “tell me. I…I cannot bear to see you hurt.”
Rowan swallows. It’s a little easier now that the potion has healed her throat, but the taste of blood still lingers on her tongue. She quickly, mutely, assesses herself. Physically, she’s fine. As for everything else…
She doesn’t know. Her magic is drained. The rapid use of nonverbal spellcasting sucked up almost every ounce of arcane energy in her. Her mind buzzes like a hornet’s nest. She feels tangled up inside—here but not here. She doesn’t know what words best decipher this disconnected awareness. She’s in shock, she thinks. But why? Why has killing He Who Was at the behest of her goddess affected her like this? Why is it so different from any other deaths caused by her hands, her desire to learn about the Matron from him aside?
Maybe…
Maybe it’s because unlike all the other times Rowan has fought, she was fighting to protect. To save Gale. To prevent harm from befalling those who have become dear friends. But this time?
She was fighting—she was killing—for herself.
“I think,” Rowan whispers, her voice still hoarse and raspy, “that I’ll be okay. I’m just…tired. Really, really tired.”
A bath and their bed at the inn sounds like paradise right now.
Gale opens his mouth to respond but a flutter of wings and a curt, snappish voice cuts him off.
“Good riddance,” the white raven grates out bitterly as they land on top of Nevermore, perched precariously on the staff’s onyx head as they avoid being burned by the remains of Rowan’s Fireball. Their eyes, black as night and swirling with shadows, blink rapidly as they stare down at the remains of He Who Was. But then their head swivels to Rowan, clutched in Gale’s arms and smothered by a raven and a cat, and she swears the creature’s gaze almost seems to soften.
“This was a long time coming, twice-born. Bastard deserved what he got. I’m just glad it was one of our own who put him down.”
Rowan struggles to sit up a little straighter, feeling suddenly quite self-conscious that she’s slumped in Gale’s embrace so inelegantly. He adjusts the angle he’s holding her at but does not let go, merely helping her to rise into a more dignified position. “What exactly did he do?” she asks the raven, though she already has an inkling. “Why did he turn away from the Raven Queen?”
She wants to run her fingers through Tara’s impeccable fur right now as the tressym continues to purr on her lap. But, considering the messy state of her hands, she does not. It would be a dishonor to Tara’s exquisite countenance.
“The curse,” the raven snaps derisively, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. They scoff, gaze turning to He Who Was once more, glowering at his still corpse. “Feckin’ idiot thought he could resist it. He couldn’t. We were tasked with gathering up the memories of its victims for the Matron. But this spineless, lily-livered fool began to consume their sorrow and pain instead, sharing it with that bitch Shar’s darkness.”
They slump ever so slightly, something almost akin to grief making its way into their harsh tone.
“Our lady promised she would send a champion to free him from this burden. I just didn’t think it would take one hundred years.”
Rowan tries to smile. She thinks it may come out more as a grimace. “Better late than never.”
She doesn’t ask why it supposedly had to be her. She’s not sure if she wants to know.
The white raven grunts, noncommittal and irked. They hop off of Nevermore glide down onto Rowan’s other shoulder, their clawed feet landing surprisingly gently on her. Pip pauses in their inspecting of her unruly hair and leans around her face, the feathers along their back rising much like Tara’s fur does when she’s rankled.
“Big boss coulda warned us,” they grumble hotly, bitterly. “I ain’t too keen on my sorcerer nearly dyin’ cause the Matron didn’t give us the full story.”
I was handling it just fine,
Rowan protests inwardly over their bond, even though she knows that’s a lie.
The white raven tilts their head. “This was meant to be a test of the sorcerer’s skill. She was to prove her guile and conviction in the face of adversity. Warning her of what was to come would have been a moot point in allowing her to show what she has learned since her rebirth.”
Pip does not answer, though their violet eyes flare as their temper rises. They know the white raven is correct. Rowan knows it as well. She’s dedicated herself into the service of the goddess that gave her a second chance. It would be asinine to assume the Raven Queen was going to hold her hand every step of the way, as much as she may want to. Rowan can’t solely rely on the assumption the goddess will always be able to swoop in and come to her rescue. The shadows within her are an extension of the Matron’s grace, yes, but if Rowan cannot successfully harness them to their full potential…then why should the Raven Queen continue to show her favor?
It’s a sobering, somber epiphany. One made especially so when her gaze flicks over to the cold body of He Who Was.
“Gods are nothing without their faithful,” Gale argues quietly, speaking up at last. There is a strange, complex look about him as he stares pointedly at the white raven on Rowan’s shoulder. “They demand respect, rightfully so, but in turn…should they not offer respect unto those who have devoted themselves so irrevocably to their service?”
He’s thinking about Mystra.
He might as well have screamed it at the top of his lungs.
But the Raven Queen would never do to Rowan what Mystra did to Gale. Never.
Never.
…right?
The white raven ignores Gale’s candid provocation. They tap at the silver chain around Rowan’s neck with their beak, the sound ringing out through the tense silence of the clearing. The feather hanging just below her once-ravaged throat grows warm. Gentle. Caring. Apologetic, even, as if her goddess knows her sudden worry and is doing her best to soothe it.
The aroma of lilies becomes overwhelming for one swift, nearly nonexistent moment.
“You passed,” the white raven says. “Good job on not dying. And thank you,” they add, that brackish obstinance in their tone once more giving way to something far more wistful than they may mean to reveal. “For doing what I could not.”
And then they are suddenly gone, vanished in a plume of smoke and mist, and the weight on Rowan’s shoulders is coming from just one raven. She bites back her disappointment. She wanted to ask them more—what was their name, why did the Raven Queen tell the shadar-kai of her arrival to this world even if he had (unwittingly) turned his back to her, and a million other questions that are stuck on the tip of her tongue.
But those answers will not come today.
Hells. They might even be nameless forevermore.
She can’t help the words that leave her lips next, her mind and voice and sense of self still not fully recovered as she utters, “Quoth the raven, ‘nevermore’.”
Gale’s head snaps down and he levels her with a sharp look, clearly concerned for her wellbeing. As he should be. She’s definitely not okay right now. This was a lot. Far more than she expected or anticipated. She wouldn’t be surprised if another lapse in composure was creeping up on her, a sequel to her meltdown from a couple days ago just lying in wait until the time to strike arrives.
She really doesn’t want a repeat of what happened when Elminster showed up unannounced.
And then Gale’s concern morphs into a display of confusion, and he reaches down for her neck. No, not her neck. For the feather she wears around her throat. He lifts the necklace from her tender skin, holding it up in front of her face so she can see.
There is no longer just one feather hanging from the chain.
No, two smaller feathers have joined it, one on each side. They’re white as the driven snow. White as the feathers of the raven who just vanished into thin air.
The darkness inside of Rowan shifts and stirs in recognition. Something has changed about her magic. She isn’t sure what exactly that is yet but deep down, she knows. She knows the Raven Queen has gifted her with something new, something powerful and deadly and a little frightening.
Rowan closes her eyes.
I won’t disappoint you.
A cool, smooth hand brushes against her cheek. The taste of blood in her mouth gives way to the sweet, refreshing flavor of Gale’s favorite tea he used to brew for her back home after a long day of studying and contemplation.
I know you won’t, her goddess whispers into her soul, soft as a prayer.
Rowan opens her eyes once more. With a flick of her wrist she dismisses the last remnants of her dark flames, the magic fizzling into nothing but cinders. Her staff remains plunged into the charred, concave cavity that was once He Who Was’s chest. The shadar-kai is barely recognizable now. One touch and the blackened remains would crumble into ash, joining the dust on the stagnant breeze that once belonged to the multitude of ravens who no doubt believed their sacrifices an honorable one.
The clearing is a mess. The earth is scorched from magic. Singed feathers and burnt bits of bone are scattered about. The altar seems eerie and lonely now that its attendee is gone. Rowan finds it strange He Who Was kept the altar and the ritual circle dedicated to the Raven Queen. If he had turned to Shar, wouldn’t those things be frowned upon by the Lady of Loss?
Things aren’t always black and white, she supposes. They can be as gray as the soot clinging to her clothes and skin.
“I’m getting you all dirty,” she mumbles to Gale, resting her head against his chest as exhaustion flares up within her. Yeah. She needs a bath and a bed desperately. And to sleep for about a week. It’s a shame they don’t have that kind of time.
“Pish posh. I’m far more concerned with you than the state of my robes. It’s nothing Jericho can’t fix, even if she’ll threaten to tan my hide for it.” He strokes her hair and even though there’s a strained bit of humor forced into his tone, she knows he’s still freaked out. She can’t blame him. She would feel the same if the roles were reversed.
Gale’s heart is beating so fast. The rhythm that typically calms her is erratic and harried, and the guilt that floods into her chest makes her want to cry. She could have handled this better. She should have. She has to be better. She has to be stronger. She has to be better and stronger and good enough to keep him safe and get rid of the orb entirely and cure him of the parasite.
She has to.
“We need to return to Last Light,” Gale says after a few seconds of strained silence. “You need to recover. And I need to borrow the inn’s kitchen to prepare you a meal so delicious and filling you won’t be able to do anything but sleep after delighting in it.”
That does sound amazing. The limitations forced upon him without a proper kitchen haven’t hampered his cooking overall, but by the gods the difference that proper kitchen will make. The simple breakfast fare had alluded as much. With Gale Dekarios working his magic? Harpers and tieflings alike will beg him for his recipes.
“You don’t need to woo me again,” Rowan teases tiredly, the accusation playful and unserious.
He raises an eyebrow. “Woo you? Please. I plan on wowing you.”
She groans. She hates how much she adores his cheesiness.
And while she would love nothing more than to stay like this for a little longer, Rowan’s skin prickles as her eyes land on He Who Was again. She needs to do something about the body. She can’t just leave him like this. Even if he had left the Raven Queen’s shadow, he was still one of her children.
He had called Rowan a champion. A Chosen. If that’s true, then she needs to act like one and put her revulsion aside.
“Help me up,” she asks Gale quietly. He follows her gaze and when he sees what she’s looking at, his lips become a hard line. But he acquiesces and, though it takes a couple of tries, hoists Rowan to her feet. Tara remains close to her ankles as Gale lets her lean against him. Pip does not move from their perch on her shoulder. Together, they hobble over the gap between them and the shadar-kai, and she holds out her hand above the body.
Let him return to the Matron’s side, Rowan says to the darkness within her.
It answers eagerly, as she knew it would.
The ground beneath them trembles. The bones and feathers and bits of the things he left behind seep into the dirt as shadows swirl about, creating a mire of black and tar. Ash and soot and the smoldering remains of ravens join them, the swampy sound of things sinking into the muddy shadows regrettably morbid. But Rowan does not falter, does not stop as her fingers twitch and the final vestiges of her magic lend her the last of its power.
The darkness envelopes He Who Was in a mantle of black feathers. She calls to Nevermore and the staff levitates above the plumed coffee, bobbing lazily in the air back to her. Her open hand closes around the staff’s hand, her trembling fingers becoming steady once its back in her grasp.
A raven’s cry echoes in the threads between the curse and her own strings of the Shadow Weave.
And then there is nothing left of the shadar-kai, save for a bit of raised earth and his spear dug into the head of it like a tombstone. A white feather is tied around the base of the spear, one she had not noticed during their fight. It sways in the weak, dead wind of this place, and it seems even lonelier than the altar behind it.
Rowan takes a deep breath. Her legs want to buckle beneath her but she won’t let them. She can keep going. She can last until they return to the Harpers’ sanctuary. She yearns to feel Selûne’s moonlight on her once more.
She takes a step forward. Gale comes with her, still propping her up against him as though he can sense she’s ready to collapse at any moment. She loves him. She loves him so much. She never wants to make him worry like that again. She never wants to hear him say her name with such panic and fear.
Rowan places a hand on the scarred, worn hilt of the spear. She swears the weapon trembles under her touch. “Find peace, brother,” she says to the grave softly, her chest tightening. “I’m sorry you had to wait so long for me.”
The grave does not answer. The ashen remains of the body interred within it is as silent as death itself.
Chapter 14: a knife in the dark
Notes:
not 100% happy with this tbh. i struggled big time but got to the point where i just couldn't stand looking at it, did some quick edits, and im slapping it on here. sorry <3
hopefully next chapter will be better. not sure when that will be lol
ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh writing hard depression sucks i want miso soup
Chapter Text
Gale does not breathe easy until much, much later that day, when in any other place in Faerûn the moon would be full and the sky glittering with stars. Rowan is curled up against him in the bed they have shared since coming to Last Light, her chest rising and falling with the slow, rhythmic pattern of sleep. Pip, in their large black cat forms, rests on the pillow her head is buried in. They are also asleep, whiskers twitching every now and then. Both sorcerer and familiar practically collapsed into the bed the moment they returned to the inn.
With good reason.
Gale had outdone himself with a fantastic dinner, modesty be damned! Freshly baked sourdough slathered with fresh butter, hearty beef stew simmering with perfectly seasoned vegetables and thickened with barley, and a simple lemon sorbet to top it all off with something light. He had been pleasantly surprised at the Harpers’ massive food stores—even more so by the high quality of it all. It is not enough to last an entire month in this wretched place, what with all the hungry mouths limping in from their dark patrols. But for today it was more than enough, and the quartermaster in charge of the food supplies had been more than happy to allow him access. In exchange for a well-cooked meal of course; to boost spirits and satiate everyone’s cravings, which have been left abandoned somewhere in the alleys of Baldur’s Gate.
Gods, had it felt fantastic to be back in a kitchen. A kitchen, with an oven and a stove and cutlery that wasn’t caked in rust or dried blood. A kitchen with genuine utensils, not just a giant cast iron pot to hang over a campfire that he would have to beg Karlach or Lae’zel to help lift the damn thing.
The inn’s kitchen is nothing like his tower back in Waterdeep, but, even so…As he had busied himself about, fingers moving with a deftness he secretly feared they had lost, eyes darting around to piles of ingredients, Gale had felt a little more like his old self. Not the man he was before the orb, before Mystra. Before Rowan.
No, he had felt like the person he had become during those slow, precious months after her arrival to this world. When they danced between the thin line between friendship and affection, swapping recipes and taking turns surprising one another with a meal neither had heard of.
Cooking is an inherent part of Gale. Cooking for others even more so. And cooking for Rowan trumps that by a far, far more incomprehensible sense of joy.
It almost pushes down the acrid, bitter concern that has been rising in his chest since the moment He Who Was threw his head back and laughed like a madman.
Rowan had been so quiet when they returned to the inn. Paler than usual, her body swaying with exhaustion and unkempt shadows swirling beneath her eyes. She hadn’t let him cast Prestigidation to remove the layers of ash and blood from her. No, instead Rowan had merely stood lifeless like a mannequin as she allowed Jericho to fuss over her in exasperation. The tiefling wizard had met Gale’s eyes with a sharp, concerned glare to her gaze as she had Mended and repaired the damage the battle had done.
He could only respond with a subtle shake of the head. Something about the encounter with the shadar-kai had shaken his beloved to her core. He was not a complete fool—it had begun with her slip of the tongue and mention of the cat she left behind in her previous world. Freya. Too much began to make sense at that moment. Her initial vehement reaction to Tara, the wistful gaze she would grace Pip with whenever they mentioned changing into a cat…
But her near unraveling at Freya’s name had been the precursor to something more, incited further by He Who Was and his brutal death. She wouldn’t talk to him about it as they trudged through the darkness back to Last Light. Instead, Rowan had remained silent and stiff, nervously fidgeting with the two new white feathers hanging from her throat.
Her scarred throat.
Gale had thought himself helpless that calamitous day in the library when, in his folly, he had sought to prove himself better than a goddess. He had thought himself helpless when the nautiloid had come bearing down upon Waterdeep in a terrifying storm of tentacles and destruction. Hells, he had thought himself helpless in the goblin encampment, panting and drained of all magic as jagged blades came oh so close to nearly spilling his guts.
Not a single moment had compared to when the Shadow Weave had whisked him behind the veil and he had watched in horror as He Who Was so swiftly incapacitated Rowan with the most basic of cantrips.
But Gale could not intervene. He could not interfere. Not when she had shouted no with such determination, such ambition that it struck his soul like a bolt of lightning.
Not even her satisfied—but tired—smile when she had finished her bowl of stew had calmed the erratic fluttering of anxiety curling in the bottom of his stomach. Not even a inn full of grateful Harpers and tieflings and Flaming Fist and his companions shouting their thanks and coming back for seconds until every bowl was licked clean had vanquished the surge of unrest in Gale’s blood.
Not even now, as he lay beside Rowan in the bed, both freshly bathed and free of any evidence of that harrowing encounter, is Gale’s heart any lighter. The frown he wears as he gingerly, cautiously runs his fingers through her hair refuses to give way to a more neutral expression. His head is reeling. His chest feels tight. Every thought suffocates him; every breath exhaled from his lips borders on asphyxiation.
What’s on your mind, my love? he thinks silently. Why won’t you tell me what troubles you?
Not that he has any room to talk. He still has not confessed to the mysterious, infuriating being in his dreams—in all of his companions’ dreams—nor how they are wanted dead by the lich queen of the githyanki.
But it’s in kindness. He does not want to add to the already burdensome weight she carries on her shoulders worrying about the threat of the orb and the parasite both.
Perhaps Rowan feels the same towards whatever strife poisoning her thoughts? Perhaps she, like him, simply does not want to cause him any unnecessary worry and would rather suffer through it on her own.
They are so very much alike in that regard.
It concerns him more than he cares to admit.
Gale’s frown deepens. His fingers falter in their ministrations. Her voice, ragged and raw with pain, echoes in his mind
“I killed him.”
Rowan had sounded so broken.
So defeated and haunted.
So very unlike herself.
“I will not push,” Gale whispers as he gathers her sleeping form in his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin as he cradles her from behind. Rowan barely stirs, only letting out a quiet mumble and twitching slightly before settling against him as if it’s the most natural thing in this realm. He presses a kiss to the top of her head, allowing himself to take in the scent of lavender and lemon clinging to her skin. “But I am here, my love. Tell me what ails you. I swear I shall listen, free of doubt.”
He falls silent and simply allows himself to exist in the here and now, Rowan warm against him. It’s difficult for his mind to fully settle. His thoughts are a sea, tides and currents constantly pulling this way and that. Gale finds himself playing through every second of their encounter with He Who Was. What could he have done differently? What could he have said that would have led to a better outcome, one where she wasn’t shaking and covered in the blood of a man she buried and called brother?
Nothing, he knows. Absolutely nothing.
It would have been a slight against Rowan and her resolute desire to do as the Raven Queen asked. He understands the notion all too well.
But was all of that truly well and good? He recognized the burn in her eyes, even as they spun with shadows. Blind devotion. A sacredness she would spurn an entire world for, if only to prove herself worthy.
What would Rowan’s folly be if she stepped down a path similar to the one he once followed?
What would her blight be?
The Raven Queen is not Mystra but she is still a goddess. A being mortals like he and Rowan cannot ever hope to fully fathom or comprehend. Despite her gentleness, despite whatever affection and love she may hold for his sorcerer, there will always be a staggering rift between the Matron and Rowan.
Mortal and goddess.
If the Raven Queen said jump Rowan would not hesitate to ask how high?
And he has a sneaking, bitter suspicion that the fight between her and He Who Was is a prime example. Hells, Rowan had even waved off Shadowheart earlier when the cleric had offered to remove the scarring around her throat. “It’s a reminder,” Rowan had insisted quietly, her voice still haggard from the pain of the magic that caused said blemishes. “Proof I’m the Matron’s Champion.”
How his blood had run cold at those words. How unsettling it had been to realize that before a year ago, he might have said something very similar and with just as much zealous gusto.
Even if a god’s intentions are by no means sinister, is the suffering of their faithful truly worth it?
Because Gale feels as though he is dying whenever he sees Rowan in pain. He feels as though he is tearing apart on the inside whenever he glimpses a strained flash of agony that she quickly buries down before he can say anything about it.
Gale wishes he could scoop up every fear and ounce of malcontent burrowed deep in her heart. He wishes he could snap his fingers and disintegrate her worries with but a word and a whisper of the arcane. Rowan has done so much for him. She loves him, for the sake of nothing but loving who he is and not the grand magus he once was or could be again. She doesn’t deserve to be fraught with whatever darkness that has clouded her soul since coming to this place.
He wants her to be happy.
He wants to be happy with her, back home in Waterdeep, with all of this safely behind them.
He wants to return to those halcyon days and delight in the simple pleasantries of their routine once more. Studying in his library, calling out theories with ecstatic verbosity as she grows in her understanding of magic. Standing side-by-side in his kitchen, laughing at whatever endearing and silly thing she’s just uttered. The delight on her lovely face as she harnesses the power of yet another new spell, her lips curved into a smile he aches to taste.
An image rises to the murky surface of his tempestuous thoughts.
Their hands tangled together, a band on their ring fingers. They sit in contemplative silence on his balcony, her head against his shoulder as a bloody sunset casts a kaleidoscope of colors across the placid waters of the harbor. A letter lay in her lap, sealed in dark violet wax with the Blackstaff insignia, a name inked out in delicate, precise handwriting across the vellum.
Rowan Dekarios.
Gale’s breath hitches as the fantasy fades.
His throat suddenly feels thick.
That epiphany has never quite left his senses. The realization that she truly is the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with has played in his head over and over again, and not just when he’s made love to her. Gale thought about it the entire journey to that despicable clearing. His imagination had swirled as he had prepared the beef stew, wondering if this would be a dish worthy of a wedding feast
That’s putting the cart before the horse, Gale, he reprimands himself.
There’s no guarantee she would say yes if he asked. Barring that, however can he entertain such thoughts at a time like this? When danger lurks around every corner and the only thing he could be concerning himself with is ridding himself of not just one but two unwelcome guests? Never mind it hasn’t even been a month since their mutual feelings have been professed, even though it certainly feels longer with all of the chaos thrown in their wake.
But that does not stop him from mulling over the name, his tongue aching to speak its holiness out loud over and over again.
Rowan Dekarios.
His wife.
His partner.
His everything.
His heart swells and he lets out a soft, shaking sigh as he buries his face in Rowan’s hair. He ought to tear himself from the bed and let her sleep. He ought to find Jaheira and offer his services as a well-respected wizard and make good on whatever reputation Miri has apparently sung of him. Truthfully he, Dorian, and Jericho working in tandem would probably bolster Last Light’s defenses beyond Isobel’s Selûnite ritual and last for years. All three of them are remarkable spellcasters. If they managed to stop arguing long enough to collaborate, that is.
But he finds he cannot leave the bed.
He cannot leave Rowan’s side.
What if she has a nightmare? What if she awakens in a panic and he’s not there to comfort her?
Perhaps Gale is being a tad overbearing. Perhaps he’s making a mountain out of a molehill.
But he cannot help it.
He just wants to be at her side through it all.
There is suddenly a tugging at the Weave. Gale’s skin prickles as the spell on his sending parchment to his mother activates. Ah. It’s been a few days since he contacted her. Technically it was Dorian who messaged her last, and however that conversation went is locked behind his brother’s obstinance. Gale never even reached out to let her know they were staying in the shadows of the ruins of Reithwin.
Jericho most certainly has been keeping his mother up to date. His father too, he supposes.
He is a terrible son for pushing them to the back of his mind. It’s been a very strenuous and strange last few days. It would be remiss of him not to rectify that.
But replying to whatever message his mother has just sent means getting out of bed. Which, in turn, means possibly jostling Rowan and awakening her from her slumber. He would rather not risk that. She needs to rest and recover her magic. And Gale, selfishly, needs a bit longer just holding her against him.
He hears the jingle of Tara’s collar.
“Sir,” the tressym says softly, “shall I fetch that for you?”
Gale lifts his head from the tangled mess of Rowan’s hair and glances in the direction of Tara’s voice. She sits daintily by his pack, which has been thrown haphazardly against the wall of the room.
He nods.
Tara nudges a paw into the pocket he has been keeping the parchment and fishes it out. Delicately, she places it between her teeth and trots over to the bed, hopping up in one elegant leap. Her wings ruffle at her sides as she shuffles past the sleeping sorcerer and comes to a stop on the pillow Gale will no doubt be using soon, depositing the parchment next to his head.
He reaches for the parchment but, due to the awkward positioning, winces as the muscles in his arm spasm. His current position is not conducive at all to replying to messages. He is by no means limber enough to twist and turn this way and that. Regrettably, he will have to do some maneuvering.
Gale holds his breath as he carefully, laboriously shifts himself. Rowan comes with him, of course, being that the two of them are still tangled together. She lets out a mumble, eyes fluttering behind her eyelids, but remains dead to the world as he positions himself propped up against the pillow. She squirms only slightly when he drags her head onto his chest, one arm cradling her to him as the other clutches the parchment. One of her hands twitches as she settles into him, her fingers burying themselves in the sleek softness of his pajama shirt.
He watches her movements with a small smile. To be used as a pillow by her is a dear thing indeed. Despite his worry over everything that has transpired today, Gale cannot help but be gladdened that they can share moments like this.
That smile fades when he turns his attention to the sending parchment and reads his mother’s words.
Haven’t heard from you in a few days. Any updates? How are you faring? Is Dorian still with you?
Gods above and below. He really should have been writing to her every day.
“You’ve been preoccupied, little love,” Tara says gently, sensing the guilty grip of grief that has suddenly grasped Gale in its clutches. She paws at his arm, rubbing her face against him as a low rumbling purr echoes from her chest. “Your mother understands. It has been quite the journey.”
Little love?
“You’ve not called me that for years,” Gale murmurs, chest tightening. He can’t recall the last time the tressym referred to him as such. When he was a child, certainly. After his enrollment at Blackstaff, it was always “sir” or “Mr. Dekarios,” perhaps in some attempt to further solidify his reputation as a genius of the Weave.
“Well. Just because I have not called you that in quite some time does not mean you ever stopped being my little love.” Her tail swishes downward, resting against the top of Rowan’s head as the sorcerer slumbers away. Tara curls up on the pillow and leans into his shoulder, still purring. “Perhaps you should be fully honest with Morena? No more half-truths just for the sake of avoiding any undue worry? I imagine only knowing half of what’s going on provides more anxiety than necessary.”
Who needs a sense of judgment when one can rely on the wisest tressym in all the realms?
Tara means well. Tara is definitely, most assuredly correct.
But Gale can’t tell his mother everything. Not just yet. Not when they are still in the woods, so to speak. Literally and figuratively.
Clearly, he has taken too long to answer, for Gale’s parchment shimmers with a new message.
I can always ask Jericho. She already let me know she met up with you, Rowan, and Dorian. I’d much rather hear how my son is doing from himself personally.
He winces. Of course. He expected nothing less. Only the gods know what Jericho told his mother, and Gale will not allow the other wizard to spread any disinformation about his current circumstances.
All is as well as it can be, he writes after a few moments, conjuring a quill from a strand of pure Weave. It tingles in his hand as he holds it. The path to Baldur’s Gate has been waylaid once more. We’re working on removing the obstacles, but I’m afraid I don’t have a reliable timeframe to provide to you.
He waits for the message to disappear, signifying his mother has read it, before adding Dorian is enjoying himself. He’s less of an ass around my companions. It’s an improvement.
The reply is scribbled in haste.
Don’t call your brother an ass. Even if it is true.
Gale snorts and almost rolls his eyes. He can hear his mother’s chiding tone and almost feel the pinch of her fingers against his cheek.
Then:
How is your condition?
Damnation. The tide of guilt ebbs stronger. How did he not think to inform his mother of the orb? True, so much has happened since Elminster quell its arcane hunger, but by the Matron! Was Gale so preoccupied, selfishly and wantonly so, that he couldn’t have spared a few minutes to let her know that the problem was taken care of for the time being?
It’s not a permanent solution, of course. But in the grand scheme of things, Gale no longer has to concern himself with the dreadful thought that he could devour the Weave at any moment.
No. Instead, he’s a walking bomb of pent up Netherese energy, commanded to be released upon one of the direst threats Faerûn has ever known.
(He will not be goaded into fulfilling his purpose as a pawn. There are plenty of moves still on the lanceboard; he just has to be careful about his strategy.)
But if his mother is asking, does that mean…
Elminster must not have informed her—or his father. The old man was most likely strictly forbidden from it, even if he had wanted to tell his parents. Damnation thrice over. Gale is not the only pawn left on the lanceboard. It is just a matter of whether Elminster plays his role willingly or not.
Elminster stabilized the orb, Gale finally writes after a few moments of deliberation. It is still inside of me, lamentably so. But I do not present an immediate danger to those around me anymore.
He can feel his mother’s relief, palpable in every elegant sweep of her handwriting. That’s wonderful news, Gale! He wasn’t responding to any of my messages. I suppose I know why, now.
Gale can tell she’s writing more from the way the parchment vibrates slightly in his grasp. He could message her all night if he allowed himself. He misses his mother dearly, her absence like a hole the size of the Sea of Swords in his heart. If Gale will not fully disclose his location nor impart upon her the true severity of his situation here in the Shadow-Cursed Lands, chasing after a cult bent on the supplication of the entire Material Plane, then…
He might as well be honest about something.
His hand trembles as he pens his next words carefully, every dotted i and crossed t needing to be as precise and pristine as possible.
When Rowan and I have safely returned to Waterdeep, I am going to ask her to marry me. I cannot imagine a life spent without her by my side. I am a changed man for the better because of her. I love her, more I can voice or aptly pen to paper. Do I have your and Father’s blessing to make her part of our family?
Morena Dekarios does not answer for approximately five minutes.
Gale feels as though he has made a very grave error.
All the while, Rowan continues to sleep on his chest, wholly unaware of what transpires in the world of the waking.
And then, just as Gale’s heart threatens to give out, just when he’s about to put the quill to the parchment again and ask if his mother is still there, words appear. They have a hurried, abrupt sense to them, as if they were written with all caution thrown to the wind.
Gale, I have thought of Rowan as my daughter since the moment I met her. I would never say no to making that a reality. Thank Sune you two have finally come to your senses. I feared you would not be honest with your feelings until I was in a casket sunken into the sea.
The words continue to shimmer into being on the parchment, splotches of something almost like a wet stain accompanying them.
You do not need our blessing but you certainly have it. From Evander and I both. When you return home, your father will cook a feast worthy of an admiral. Only the best for our son and his bride-to-be. Thank you for telling me, Gale. Give Rowan all of our love.
There is a brief pause.
Do you think Rowan would fit in my wedding dress?
Gale lets out a relieved, dry chuckle. He shakes his head, eyes burning with tears of joy and respite. Now that is certainly putting the cart before the horse. He is indeed his mother’s son.
I think she would prefer to have Jericho and Syl design a new one entirely to her own tastes, he writes back. But I’m sure she would appreciate the thought. Thank you, Mother.
He can picture Morena’s wide, radiant smile as she paces around in his tower’s library, hands flailing wildly as she regales Evander with the news. As for his father’s reaction, Gale has a more difficult time imagining it. He hopes Evander is smiling. He hopes his father is nodding in earnest enthusiasm as his mother narrates his words.
No. Thank you, Gale. I may not know exactly what peril you are in, but I can rest easier knowing you are finding some happiness for yourself. It is about time you listened to your heart.
Even though that heart has made some grievous mistakes, Gale cannot deny the series of foolish choices that has led to what can be called as no less than perfection with the woman who has given him reason to breathe again.
Be safe, his mother continues to write, a more finalized cadence to the words. She must have calmed down. Tell Dorian the same. I want both of my sons walking through that tower door in one piece. And my precious daughter-in-law.
I shall. Worry not. We are all striving to adhere to caution. We will return to Waterdeep hale and hearty. We have Jericho to look out for us, after all.
A somewhat painful admission, but an honest one nonetheless.
As much as Jericho delights in his (and Dorian’s) torment, the tiefling would rather be drawn and quartered than see Morena suffer. Rowan as well. His fellow wizard is loyal and headstrong despite her other…exacerbating qualities. He is glad to have her join their motley crew. Seeing her interact with Karlach only solidifies that gratification. The two are good for each other. Karlach’s fire is softening Jericho’s icy exterior, while Jericho seems to provide a much-needed release for years of Karlach’s pent up emotions.
(It also may herald the end of Jericho’s merciless flirting with every woman of the Dekarios clan she meets. Now that is something to rejoice about.)
Gale wrests himself from his musing and scribbles one last message, wishing his mother a good night and promising once more to be safe. As safe as one can be in this mess but once again, she does not need to know the depths of the dangers they face. It is far easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. He will reveal all once he has returned home, free of the parasite and orb.
He tucks the parchment beneath the pillow. The movement nudges Tara, who has drifted off to sleep, and she lets out a plaintive meow as she blinks one eye open. There is no venom behind her glare, just the typical annoyance of a tressym being woken most heinously from a lovely nap. Gale gives her an apologetic smile and dismisses the quill, returning its essence to the Weave.
“Go back to sleep, Tara. I didn't mean to disturb you.”
She yawns, baring her sharp fangs. They glint in the candlelight of the room. “What did your mother have to say?” she asks quietly, closing her eye once more and readjusting herself on the pillow.
Gale weighs his options.
Tara will certainly find out his desire to propose to Rowan one way or another.
If she learns about it now, there is a high chance she will accidentally let something slip in her excitement.
On the other hand, if he waits, she will become most upset knowing he deliberately kept it from her.
He furrows his brows. Woe is he, having to contend with the delicate balance of pleasing not just one but two mothers in his life. Either way he will come to regret whatever decision he makes and to be frank, he would rather let the Gale of the future deal with whatever indignation Tara will throw his way.
“To return home safe,” he answers. He begins the slow, methodical rhythm of stroking Rowan’s head once more, running his fingers through her hair. Her breathing is deep and even. All his furious scribbling and mumbling to himself did not wake her. Her fingers remain clawed tight around the hem of his shirt, legs swung over his own somewhat beneath the covers.
“Hm. Just that? You were writing for quite some time.”
“A wizard need not reveal all his secrets.”
“No, but as your dear familiar, do I not take precedence in knowing a majority of them?”
Gale grins sheepishly as he glances over at the dozing tressym. Her eyes may be closed but she is still frighteningly observant. If she really wanted to know, all she would have to do is tug on their bond as wizard and familiar and enough of his emotions would leak through that she could piece it all together. His forehead already prickles with the premonition of her claws poking him in frustration.
But she will not. Not yet at least. She respects his privacy despite everything he has put her through in recent months. He will tell her. She loves Rowan almost as much as he does. “All in due time, Tara. All in due time.”
Gale awakens to the sound of screaming.
His head pounds, the parasite wriggling and writhing as the hivemind shared between him and his fellow infected pulses with paranoia. The air is thick with untold tension. His skin prickles; his throat is abnormally dry. His mind is afire with a terror that does not belong to him. A terror so devastating it feels as though his own heart is bound to rip free from his chest and scurry across the floorboards in some vain attempt to find safety.
Miri’s voice echoes in his head, spurred by the tadpole.
nO No i canNOt i WiLl nOT KiLL tHE clERic
It is Miri’s voice and yet it is also not, as if someone has plucked the bard’s tongue from her mouth and is puppeteering it. The usual smooth cadence and soothing tone echoes with a vicious, wicked rasp that makes Gale’s blood run cold.
BUt thAt dOEs noT MeAn yOu cAN haVE HeR
An image slides into Gale’s head. Isobel, shoved into a corner by a man he’s never seen before, a man in Flaming Fist armor and a pair of massive, decaying wings spread from his back. The cleric’s pretty face is wrought with panic and fear though her head is held high in a vain attempt at obstinance. The man wears a twisted expression of haughty victory, his eyes empty and all semblance of humanity in them gone.
And Miri is snarling like a rabid dog.
Her fingers are curled into claws. Her pink eyes blaze with murderous fury, mouth sneering and sharp teeth bared. Gale does not recognize the tiefling he has come to know these last few strange weeks. Gone is the joviality, the quiet humor and fierce determination he has become accustomed to seeing upon her face. In its place is pure, untethered madness.
(A madness he has caught glimpses of and conveniently pretended to not notice.)
Astarion and Halsin are on either side of her, both men poised in uncertainty. As if they cannot decide whether to grab onto her or leave her be. Whether this vision comes from the vampire or Miri herself, Gale does not know, but when the latter opens her mouth and speaks he hears it as if he was standing in that room himself.
“sHe is MIne mINe i wILl kiLL HEr i wILL RIp thE SkIn fROM heR boNeS bEGonE lEt Me SHoW yOu tHe ECStasY oF MUrDEr yOU WreTchED thINg”
The connection snaps just as another round of screaming begins. It is heralded by another series of sounds—snarls and slavering growls, monstrous and hungry. The entire inn is a chorus of chaos. Confusion and alarm ring out through his consciousness, spread out amongst the rest of his companions as they become aware of what new fresh hell has descended upon them.
Gale’s head throbs.
He and Rowan are still tangled together. His sorcerer remains blissfully unconscious, her face slack with sleep. That worries Gale more than the disturbing sounds of chaos beyond their room; sounds that are now transforming into the telltale beginnings of battle. If she can continue to sleep through this, how drained is she still?
She needs to rally, and fast. As much as it pains Gale to tear her from her much-needed slumber.
“Rowan,” he says sharply, shaking her shoulders. “You need to wake up. Something’s happening.”
She groans rather pitifully, body twitching as she begins to come to. Her head remains buried against his chest. Her voice, muffled against the fabric of his pajama shirt, comes out hoarse and addled by sleep.
“Hngh…five mo’ minutes…”
“Love of my life,” Gale shakes her once more, perhaps a bit too roughly but considering the unknown circumstances beyond their own little world, it cannot be helped. “You must wake up now. Isobel is in trouble. Miri is…”
Miri is…what, exactly?
“I think the inn is being attacked,” he finishes lamely, because he does not know what else to say. “We must get up. We must—we must help the Harpers and everyone else!”
Either it is the sense of urgency in Gale’s voice or Rowan at last has heard the cacophony of cries of terror and bestial snarls. Her head whips up from his head, hair framing her face wildly as her eyes dart around the room. There are still visible dark shadows beneath them but the sheer exhaustion that had clung to her yesterday seems to have abated somewhat.
“W-what? Shit!” Rowan quickly pulls her hair into a messy bun not unlike the one she styles for him, and wipes at her face. She gropes around the sheets blindly and pushes herself off of him, stumbling out of the bed and groaning as several joints crack quite loudly.
Gale finds himself wincing in sympathy. He knows that agony all too well.
They make themselves presentable as best they can in the short time they have. Between Rowan still fumbling through sleep, the screams of battle raging beyond the room’s walls, and Gale constantly being pummeled with flashes of images and emotions through the network of tadpoles, it’s a damn miracle they manage to do anything at all.
Wizard and sorcerer rush out of their room and into the inn’s second level to something out of a nightmare.
There are creatures everywhere. Ghastly, nasty things with leathery wings and bloodied claws. Their eyes glow like fiery pinpricks, jagged teeth gnashing in unrestrained glee. Undead beasties from the hells, Gale realizes with a jolt as he senses latent devilish magic on them. Is this Raphael’s doing? He has not thought about the cambion since his initial introduction on the road days ago, claiming to be their saving grace from the tadpole. Astarion had mentioned he had shown up at Last Light, but hadn’t gone into further detail. The vampire spawn was remarkably tightlipped in that regard. It had not been in Gale’s place to pry.
Whomever led them here does not matter, for the winged horrors are doing their damndest to tear through the poor folk seeking safety in this place.
Dorian, Wyll, the tiefling wizard named Rolan, and his siblings are pushed into a corner, the children clutching one another behind them as half a dozen of the creatures rapidly advance. Gale spies Jaheira, Jericho, and Karlach towards the inn’s entrance, beset by three more of the undead monstrosities. And a flurry of shouting and activity alerts him to the balcony just a few feet away, where he sees Lae’zel and Shadowheart embroiled with one massive brute that makes a half-orc appear diminutive.
And all the surviving refugees, the prisoners from Moonrise that had been liberated, the gathered Harpers and Flaming Fist? They are either frozen in fear or scrambling to run away, the air thick with absolute terror.
Panic grips him.
His own. His companions. Miri’s, as he hears what he recognizes as her frenzied snarls coming from the closed door to Isobel’s chambers.
Where does he go? To help the others protect the weak and defenseless? To stop Miri—to save Isobel from that unknown assailant and evidently the bard that has been their fearless leader since the nautiloid crash?
Gale does not have long to decide.
Something crashes from above.
Another massive winged horror tears through the half-rotted, disparate roof and sends shrapnel of wood splinters flying everywhere like dozens of deadly little arrows. Gale’s magic lashes out on instinct as he subconsciously casts Shield, the comforting glow of the Weave forming a barrier around both him and Rowan before he realizes what he’s doing. The pieces bounce off harmlessly, the creature barely noticing either of them as it rushes to the ground floor and lands on top of a rather unfortunate gnome.
The poor bastard does not even get to scream. The monster sinks its teeth into their neck and bites down hard enough that a spray of bright red blood arcs through the air with disturbing elegance.
“I have to go down there,” Gale breathes, a foolish sense of determination rising in his chest. He turns to Rowan, a question forming at his lips, but she’s already giving him a resolute nod.
“I’ve got Miri and Isobel,” she says, eyes hard and face set like stone as she grips Nevermore tightly. The raven feathers around her neck—one black and two white—almost seem to flutter in a wind he cannot feel.
He almost protests. There is a strange and sudden gaping wound in his chest at the thought of separating from Rowan and losing sight of her during a time like this.
But Gale swallows it down.
She’s strong. She proved just how capable she was yesterday and every other encounter they’ve had before that. She wields her magic like a master who has been practicing the Art all her life—she will be just fine. He knows it deep in his soul, even if all he wants to do is be a selfish prick and keep her at his side.
“Be safe,” Gale tells her, wishing he could spare a moment to kiss her, but it is simply not possible.
She brushes a hand against his shoulder, a sliver of shadow passing between them as she shares the faintest portion of her magic with him, and rushes towards the door to Isobel’s room. Pip flies behind her, having shifted back into raven form. Gale catches but a glimpse of Rowan kicking the door open with a sudden surge of strength. He hears her shout something that he cannot hear over the din of battle before he Misty Steps down to the middle of the inn’s tavern.
Tara is close at his heels, soaring down on wings spread out wide. Her consciousness prickles at the corners of their bond, a surge of her magic rushing through him as she opens up that venerable connection they share. The threads of the Weave spin between his fingertips, harnessing raw arcane energy from both wizard and familiar.
“Arde!”
Fire bursts from Gale’s hands.
A Fireball, massive and roiling with nearly invisible veins of shadow, descends upon the horde of creatures snarling at his brother and the others gathered in the corner. His spellcasting is precise, hands trembling as he weaves the magic under his control, pouring his very will into the flames. He sculpts the magic like the finest of artists as he has learned to do in all his years as a wizard. They will not burn the innocents. They will not harm the children, his brother, Wyll—only the nasty beasts that have interrupted the relative peace and calm of Last Light, hungry and eager to devour.
“I speak, they burn,” he whispers to no one in particular, not even himself.
The monsters screech as flames lick at their gray, rotten skin, wrenching themselves away from the group in the corner and rounding on him. Impressive. He had funneled quite a bit of power in that Fireball; more magic than he has used in months, on account of the orb no longer weighing him down.
Gale holds his head high, gaze unflinching as he meets Dorian’s eyes. His brother has been holding up a Shield spell of his own, lightning latticework barring the creatures from coming any closer, but the attack has happened so fast that there has been no time to do much else.
Gale remembers that day in the Undermountain when they were just boys, flinging spells left and right and relying on the tangled threads of their magic working in tandem. He remembers how both he and Dorian had fallen into a pattern, defeating monsters and defending themselves from Halaster Blackcloak’s innumerable collection of arcane traps.
They are boys no longer. And Gale is far more worthy of title as lofty as arch mage in this moment than he ever was before.
A wordless strategy passes between them.
Dorian nods.
He raises his staff above his head as Gale thrusts his hands forward, fingers deftly dancing to the tune of a somatic spell, and their dual voices ring out amongst the screaming and sobbing and snarling of Last Light Inn.
“Perure!”
Storm and Weave intertwine.
Two streaks of lightning arc out from Gale and Dorian. Gale’s, laced with black and shadow; Dorian’s, cyan-blue and nearly blinding in brilliance. The spells collide on either side of the monsters as thunder crackles in the sunless sky above, threatening to shake the inn to its foundation. The remnants of Gale’s Fireball become consumed in the magic he and his brother have cast, flames and lightning merging into one as pure power shackles itself around the grotesque forms of the winged horrors.
They let out one long, chittering screech as their bodies flail and limbs turn to ash. The wings go first, dissolving into soot in the fetid air. The rest follow quickly and crumble into smoking, sparking heaps on the wooden floor, the acrid scent of burnt flesh and rot sharp and pungent.
Gale wants to rush forward and check his brother for any possible injuries but alas, there is simply no time. Too many monsters remain. He must act quickly, decisively.
“Tara, protect the children!” he calls out to his beloved tressym, already turning his attention to the other creatures swarming the inn. The massive one has moved on from its first victim and is greedily tearing through the remaining gnomes, who are armed with simple hammers and knives that wouldn’t even make a goblin bat an eye.
He has to save them. Or at least try.
Gale stretches a hand out, another Fireball crackling at his fingertips, when something in the tense air changes.
He hears a cry of pain. Karlach’s voice, he realizes; the tiefling so rarely gets injured to the point of voicing it, it’s almost impossible to tell. Gale’s head whips around towards the entrance to the inn and what he sees makes his stomach curdle.
It’s that armored drow from the ruined temple. The one who had sought to destroy the Emerald Grove and captured Halsin; the drow whom Miri had spared and merely knocked unconscious during their raid on the goblin camp, left to whatever unkind fortune that awaited her.
Minthara, Gale recalls. Her name is Minthara.
The winged undead chitter behind her, ragged mouths stretched in cruel semblances of excitement. Her crimson eyes blaze with a grim purpose. In each hand she wields a mace, powerful magic emanating from the weapons. She looms over Karlach, the tiefling on her knees and clasping a hand to the side of her face, blood dripping from a wound Gale cannot see. Jaheira is on her knees well, seemingly frozen in time and face twisted in an expression of extreme worry, as Jericho’s mouth moves in a silent spell from behind the fallen Karlach. His fellow wizard’s hand is gripping Karlach’s shoulder, silvery strands of magic twisting between her dainty fingers.
He does not ponder the how or why on Minthara being here.
He simply acts on instinct yet again, as he has been so wont to do this entire journey.
Shadows and fog cling to him as he Misty Steps to them, his hand alight with sparks of lightning. “Fulgur!” he calls out, grabbing hold of Minthara’s gauntleted wrist as he channels so many threads of the Weave into the Shocking Grasp cantrip he could open up a tailor shop.
The attack strikes true—Gale can feel Minthara falter, body twitching as the electricity courses through her and is conducted most effectively by her heavy armor. She lets out a rasping snarl of rage and pain, voice garbled beneath the plight of electrocution, and whatever hold she had on Jaheira breaks. The older druid gasps and rises to her feet, shaking her head as her eyes flash darkly. She braces the twin scimitars she holds and turns her gaze to the three creatures behind Minthara, calling out something in the language of primeval nature itself.
Twisting vines burst from the floorboards, thick and lush and the most vibrant green. It’s almost a shock to see something so alive in this wretched place, their smooth surface aglow with a faint golden hue as they wrap around the winged horrors. Thorns, sharp and piercing, grow from the vines and dig into the rotted flesh of the creatures. They shriek and rage against the vines but the vegetation holds fast, rooting them to one spot.
“Thank you!” Jaheira calls out to Gale, giving him a grateful nod. “I have forgotten just how distracting the prowess of a wizard can be!”
Gale’s distraction proves to be quite tactical indeed.
For Jericho finishes her spell and the shimmer of her magic encases Karlach in a shell of pure arcana. Karlach’s body begins to stretch, growing larger and taller as the spell takes hold, and she towers over Minthara in a matter of moments. The hammers she took from the Grymforge glow with a gentle radiance in her hands as she takes them from her belt, a swollen knot on the side of her head still dripping with blood.
“Let’s play with fire, baby!” she snarls, golden eyes full of righteous wrath as her voice rings out and echoes off of the inn’s walls. Flames, blue and burning hotter than ever, ignite along the surface of her hammers.
“How quaint,” Minthara sneers, Gale’s cantrip losing its effect far too quickly for his tastes. “But you will find I am all the more willing to burn for the glory of the Absolute!”
Gale barely has the chance to twist himself out of the way before the drow leaps at Karlach, narrowly avoiding being bludgeoned by the maces she wields. The singing clash of metal upon metal rings in his ears as Karlach deftly brings her hammers up and deflects the blow, letting out a wordless cry of rage and strength. Her muscles clench and ripple; the glow in her chest is as bright as a star, the now-tamed incandescence of the infernal engine obeying her wishes for the time being.
“Go!” Jericho barks at Gale, jerking her head in the direction of the rest of the inn. “We’ve got this!”
She’s already casting another spell before waiting for his answer, the components for what he knows to be a very wicked use of Shatter dancing on her lips. Her hand is aimed towards the winged horrors still entrapped by Jaheira’s vines, the High Harper hacking and slashing at them with untold grace as they writhe savagely.
Jericho is correct. His remaining there will only be a hindrance. It’s too cluttered for proper spellwork—two wizards and a druid in this small of a space would be to Minthara's advantage, not Karlach’s.
Gale turns his attention behind him. The massive winged horror still remains and, regrettably, seems to have made short work of the freed gnome prisoners. Their bodies litter about the tavern floor, chests torn open and intestines unraveled like strands of bloodied string. Some of their heads and completely crushed or limbs torn off, thrown unceremoniously across the room. The monster pays no attention to the rest of those gathered here, evidently satisfied with its prize as it gnaws happily on a pair of legs. The body those legs belong to is nowhere to be found and Gale suspects it's already been swallowed down the bastard’s gullet.
Bile rises in his throat and he wrenches his gaze away from the carnage. By the Weave. He should have focused on protecting them.
But he had seen Karlach and Jericho in trouble, and Gale Dekarios does not abandon his friends.
Gale reaches inside himself for another casting of Fireball, readying it in the direction of the massive undead fiend, but several things happen at once.
His brother shouts out his name from across the tavern. Dorian’s tone is stricken with a concern Gale has never heard in his voice.
There is a dissonance from above. Leathery wings fluttering in the dead air, gnarled fangs gnashing madly.
He feels the oppressive weight of something bearing down upon him far too late.
Gale is slammed into the wooden floor with such force he cannot breathe. A clawed hand, as rough as sandpaper and strong as steel, wraps around his throat. He is gazing directly into the furious eyes of a monster, its rotten nails digging into the flesh of his neck as it straddles him to the ground in a parody of a lover. It’s heavy. It’s crushing. He can feel his ribs starting to bend and creak, threatening to crack.
His hold on his spell wavers. Flames flicker and die at the ends of his fingers as he chokes, lungs burning and eyes watering. Unlike Rowan, nonverbal spellcasting has never been his expertise. With no voice and no air, Gale is about as useful as a waterlogged tome.
Pustules of noxious, yellowed saliva drip from the creature’s mouth. They land on his robes, the caustic liquid sizzling when it makes contact with the fabric, and Gale’s skin immediately alights with a dull burn. It’s too much; the weight of the monster and this burning acidity eating away at his tender flesh. He tries to gasp in pain, to take another breath, but the grip on his throat is tight. Too tight.
He could die like this.
His vision is already going cloudy, speckles of darkness and bursts of light adding to the suffocating vertigo entombing his entire body. Gale could very well die right here and now and if he does, the lock Elminster has placed upon the Netherese orb would break. Disappear.
And then there would be nothing stopping that blighted magic from igniting and destroying everything in the curse’s radius.
No, Gale thinks as he desperately tugs on the Weave, searching for something, anything. A simple cantrip will do, just as long as it gets this bloody monster off of him. I cannot let that happen. I cannot. I promised. I promised Rowan.
But the Weave does not answer, and Gale feels the cold grip of unconsciousness slithering into his skull like a knife.
Until—
“Tormentum!”
The undead thing shrieks in pain and stumbles off of Gale. The claws scratch at his throat as it is pushed away by a greater force, leaving behind a burning sensation that nearly makes him roll over and vomit. But he can breathe again. His ribs, bruised and battered, are not completely crushed as he takes in air with a shuddering gasp and starts to cough as his lungs sing in relief.
Gale’s vision is still somewhat foggy. He can barely make out a horned figure in impeccable robes standing a few feet away, a thick book in their hands. “Hah! How’s that for a Magic Missile?!” Rolan of Elturel brags. Gale almost makes a quip about how Rowan was very correct in that the tiefling should become his apprentice rather than Lorroakan’s.
However, talking seems to still be impossible for the moment, as Gale struggles to completely catch his breath.
And it isn’t just the sudden suffocation he has to contend with. His head is swimming. It throbs with the vestiges of his own pain and the compounded hurts and panic of his fellow infected. He cannot tell himself from them, emotions and thoughts and feelings surging through his mind. He tries to get to his feet, to focus back to the battles swarming around him, but gods. Gale can barely hear himself think, much less move.
In a situation like this, being prone on the ground is not in his best interests.
The floorboards rumble beneath his back and he knows another monster is coming for him, ready to rip and flay and tear him asunder until he is nothing but innards smeared into the grout. Useless. He is useless. His body is not cooperating. His brain is but a feast for an illithid worm. His magic will not listen, abandoning him to a gruesome fate, and he is going to—
Hands grab Gale under his arms and he is jerked backwards.
“How stupid do you have to be to enter into the fray when you’re pathetically unarmored?!” Lae’zel hisses, pulling Gale to his feet in one swift motion. The vertigo that came with asphyxiation has not quite left yet and the sudden movement churns the contents of his stomach most horrifically. He clasps a hand to his head, groaning softly as his throat continues to burn. It is most assuredly infected.
“My apologies,” he chokes out restlessly. The githyanki is covered in scrapes and bleeding profusely from a wicked gash down her arm. How the hells she’s still grasping her longsword is beyond his comprehension but then again, in the short time he has come to know Lae’zel, she has proven her pain tolerance is remarkably high.
“Your apologies are worthless if you die, wizard,” she snaps, yellow eyes narrowed. “Do not rush into battle without a proper plan. I thought you knew better than that!”
For some reason, her disappointment hurts worse than his mother’s. Odd.
Gale opens his mouth to answer but is rudely interrupted by the monster that had tried to choke him out. It lunges towards both him and Lae’zel. The githyanki lets out a snarl as she pushes Gale behind her and brings up her sword like a shield, holding the blade flat against the winged horror’s claws. Sparks fly as the thing scrapes against the metal, tried and true and forged in the Astral Sea. It must be the one he spotted her and Shadowheart fighting on the balcony; the fact it managed to get away from both the cleric and the warrior is alarming.
Even more alarming is how its first target was Gale. Gods, he hasn’t even cast Mage Armor on himself! Lae’zel is correct—how stupid is he?!
He winces and ducks behind a pillar, closing his eyes for a moment. He concentrates on Rowan’s shadows, calling them forth as politely as he can manage considering the current environment around him. He feels them answer happily, obligingly, and his skin prickles with an odd sensation. When he opens his eyes once more he finds his hands covered in thin wisps of shadow, a barrier of darkness clinging to him protectively.
Good. The Shadow Weave should provide more than ample protection.
His eyes flick towards the rest of the inn. Karlach and Minthara are still locked in a deadly dance of tenacity. Jericho and Jaheira seem to be managing just fine with the creatures the druid had entangled. Dorian and Wyll are nowhere to be found—Gale’s heart pulses with worry until he spies them ushering the children out through a door he knows leads to the back of the inn, preferably out of the notice of the monsters.
Rolan and his siblings guard the door, the young wizard standing proud and tall as he lets out another string of Magic Missile towards the undead that’s still distracted by its prized corpses. Tara is at Rolan’s feet, fangs bared and claws digging into the floorboards as her eyes glow with the promise of the Weave. She yowls, the sound piercing the air, and a Fireball comparable to Gale’s own spell launches from his beloved tressym. Flames and crimson orbs of pure force damage envelop the massive shambling behemoth, the impact of the combined spells sending quaking shockwaves through the ground.
Gale is about to stride forward into the fight once more, confidence renewed by his arcane armor, when a hand grabs his wrist. Startled, he jerks his head to meet Shadowheart’s eyes. The cleric’s face is drawn in a tight, almost neutral expression as she hastily whispers a healing incantation, her hand warm against his skin. White light emanates from where she touches him; his shoulders nearly sag in relief as he feels the infected scratches along his neck begin to stitch together and the ache of his bruised rib cage lessens.
“I’d expect this sort of carelessness from Karlach, not you, Gale,” she admonishes him, her tone sharp. But there is no cruelty in her words. Only the truth. “If you are so adamant about fighting on the frontlines, ask Lae’zel to show you around a blade. But for now, please, use a little foresight!”
Ah.
Damnation.
Foolhardiness will only get him so far. He really ought to listen to Lae’zel and Shadowheart. They are correct. Rowan is usually the one to act first, think later out of their duo—Gale must maintain his respectable appearance as a prudent wizard of the highest esteem.
Rowan.
He has been so caught up in the carnage down here he had somehow completely forgotten they were separated. What’s going on in Isobel’s quarters? Is Rowan injured? Is Miri…
Gale’s thoughts trail off abruptly.
For there is suddenly a strange tenseness in the air that he does not like in the least.
“NO! ISOBEL!”
He would recognize Rowan’s scream even if he were deaf and she was mute.
Her voice comes from above on the balcony and, heedless of whatever further danger it may place him in, Gale darts away from the relative safety of the pillar to get a better angle. His chest constricts with a frigid mixture of fear and fury as his gaze settles on a scene that spells utter disaster for the people of Last Light.
The winged, armored man has Isobel.
The half-elf is dazed and limp in his arms. He grips her like a prize, a wicked sneer crawling across his face as he stands on the railing of the balcony and looms over the heinous assault below. “Selûne’s blessing means little when there is no cleric to channel it!” he calls out, voice twisted with a vindictive glee.
He leaps from the railing.
The ragged, decomposing feathered wings on his back spread out wide.
And then the man disappears through the massive hole in the inn’s ceiling, taking Isobel with him.
Through that gap, the beautiful sheen of silver and moonlight cascading across Last Light ripples. Gale watches in abject horror as the Hallow spell blinks in and out wildly before vanishing, lunar magic extinguished in a swathe of darkness. But—
The auroral blue and lavender of his magic remains. As does the thin, wispy motes of shadow he knows was Rowan’s contribution to the Selûnite ritual.
The inn is still protected. For now. Gale does not know how long he and Rowan’s magic will last without the main energy of Isobel’s Hallow channeling it, but something tells him it will not be long enough to make any meaningful difference if the cleric cannot be rescued.
“You son of a bitch,” he hears Rowan shriek, “I’ve already lost a brother, you will not be taking my sister!”
She comes into view as she hoists herself onto the railing where the man was standing just mere moments ago. Pip is perched on one shoulder. An eerily familiar white raven clutches its talons into her skin on her other shoulder. It’s the one who was with He Who Was.
Even at this distance Gale has never seen his sorcerer look so enraged. Her face set in a bitter snarl, seething with enmity. Her eyes, rimmed in ichor and shadow, seem to draw every ounce of light within the tavern as she stares up at the hole in the ceiling. Dark threads of the Shadow Weave swirl about her, writhing like loyal serpents along her limbs and twisting through the air around her.
Rowan holds her staff in one hand. The other whips up and clutches the feathers at her throat. And then she begins to change.
The shadows and darkness clinging to her transform into a cloak of feathers black as night. Her body shifts. Bones crack. Flesh and magic alike tear into one another like ravenous wolves. The ravens on her shoulders disintegrate into a tempest of feathers, raging about her as Rowan’s very human form becomes something else.
In the blink of an eye, there is a massive raven perched on the railing in her place. It is large enough that the balcony creaks and protests beneath its weight. Its beak is sharp and jagged and its eyes glow a deep, dark violet. Smooth black feathers the color of midnight are interspersed with the occasional snowy white feather, mostly concentrated on the wings. An ombre of purple-hued feathers coils around the raven’s head like a crown.
“R…Rowan!” Gale calls out, stumbling over her name in awe. When did she learn Polymorph? Was this the reward the Raven Queen gave to her for killing He Who Was?
The raven that is Rowan does not spare him a second glance. Her beak parts and a shrill, rasping caw that rattles his very soul echoes throughout the entire inn. Her wings spread and she lurches from the balcony railing, soaring upwards and vanishing through the ceiling into the darkness beyond.
A single feather flits down to the ground. It lands just in front of Gale.
He stares at it uncomprehendingly. The magic that feather radiates is stronger than any spell Rowan has cast thus. Even the orb, still blessedly locked into an uneasy slumber by Elminster’s hand, stirs slightly in recognition. His chest clenches tightly. Gale forces himself to take a deep, calming breath—or at least as best he can considering the circumstances.
That transformation was not just some simple use of Polymorph. That was pure Shadowfell energy. That was the Matron reaching out and gracing Rowan with an aspect of her divinity.
Gale does not know if he should be impressed or apprehensive.
(Un)luckily for him, he does not have the time to dwell on his conflicting emotions.
The cold edge of a blade is suddenly pressing against his throat. Sharp nails dig into his wrist as an arm loops itself around him from behind. Hot breath fans against his ear, a voice he knows very well and yet at the same time not at all whispering sickly sweet.
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?” Miri simpers, every syllable dancing with the cadence of broken glass. The dagger she wields presses into his throat a little more, a tiny pinprick of pain sending a jolt through him as the tip pierces his skin.
Gale does not dare to attempt to look behind him to see Miri’s face. He remains stock-still and silent, trying his damnedest not to let his panic get the best of him as he breathes in slow and deep once more. A somewhat arduous task considering the knife dangerously close to his jugular.
His hesitation breeds indignation. Miri hisses, her sharp nails scratching against his wrist. “Because they both have quills!” she cries out, her voice breaking off into a high-pitched peal of frightening giggles.
But that fit of frenzied laughter ends just as quickly as it had begun and from behind him, Gale hears Miri suck in a shuddering gasp.
“I didn’t want to kill her,” she whispers in his ear. There is a childlike desperation to her tone. “The dragonborn. Quill. No more quills, no more poetry, no more love songs. I didn’t want—”
Another snarl. Another trembling hiss behind him.
“Wretched thing, pull yourself together!”
The voice that is not quite Miri returns. Deep, abysmally so. Like gnarled claws scraping against a chalkboard and the cold hard earth of a bloody battlefield.
“Kill, kill, kill again!” she sings, the knife at his throat digging deeper. Enough to draw blood were it not for the shadows that swarm to the spot to protect him. They pulse across his neck as he tries to swallow, his heart thundering wildly. “The pretty cleric was mine to slaughter! Mine! Bloody feathered bastard ruined it all, ruined it, and now I must choose someone anew! Shall it be you, sweet wizard?”
By all that is sacred and holy, Gale’s blood runs cold from the delighted way she says those words.
“Would that petty, bitch of a goddess you so cherish come down from the heavens if I made a wreath with your intestines? Would you scream? Beg? Cry? Plead for mercy?”
Every answer that leaps to Gale’s defense is the wrong one. He does not know what to do, what to say, beyond remaining silent and stiff as Miri’s knife begins to slowly drag along his throat with an eerie, coquettish eagerness. The Weave crackles in his mind’s eye—its presence clings to him, reminding him of the vast array of spells at his fingertips.
But Gale cannot bring himself to cast any.
Miri is his friend. Whatever the devil is going on with her, he doesn’t want to hurt her. Not even when she so clearly wants to hurt—to kill—him.
“Alright, darling, that’s enough dramatics for one ambush!”
There is a flash of emerald light streaked with gold. Gale hears Miri let out a surprised, angered snarl from behind him as the sound of slithering vines accompanies it. The knife at his throat jerks from her hand and clatters to the floor, her claws around his wrist disappearing. Astarion grabs hold of Gale’s robe and tugs him forward at the same time as Halsin’s well-times vines wrap around Miri’s flailing body and hold her aloft, her limbs manacled by druidic magic.
Both elves are on either side of Gale; Halsin’s eyes glow with that gentle gold of his affinity for nature and Astarion is lacerated with tiny, almost meaningless cuts across his face. A quick glance at his ripped clothing tells Gale the pale elf’s handsome face wasn’t the only victim of Miri’s knife.
Halsin has his arms raised up plaintively, palms open towards Miri. “Dear heart,” he starts, voice wrapped with a silken calm Gale has to commend the druid for. “You must fight these urges. Please.”
“Yes, no murdering of the resident wizard,” Astarion agrees, the usual aloof lightness in his tone tense and full of something akin to fear. “He’s far too useful.”
“Let me down, bastard!” the tiefling shrieks in response. She begins to struggle in the vines, desperate and feral. Her expression twists into something both monstrous and mournful, as if she fights a war inside herself. “You are all dying for me! ALL OF YOU! Every single one! I will—”
She cuts herself off abruptly and suddenly goes completely still. A sob wrenches itself from her throat, the sound a piteous one. Her haunting, savage expression morphs into one of pure terror as she looks out towards the three of them with wide, tear filled eyes.
“Help me,” Miri begs. “Don’t let me give in. Don’t let me hurt anyone again. It’s not me. This is not me.”
Her voice sounds so small, so lost, sinking between the clash of metal and rabid snarls of the battle around them.
“I don’t want to be like this.”
There is a sharp intake of breath. Gale flicks his gaze to Astarion. The face the vampire spawn wears is heartbreaking.
“I know, darling,” Astarion murmurs, red eyes blazing with a myriad of emotions Gale cannot discern. He reaches a hand out, the pale and typically unblemished skin lined with angry welts and gouges, as if claws had dug their way into his flesh over and over again.
The vines wrapped around Miri angle the tiefling towards him but their hold does not loosen. He rests his hand against Miri’s angular cheek, a nearly imperceptible tremor in his voice as he says softly, “Do not let this beat you, my dear. I am with you. You are more than this…affliction.”
The tenderness with which Astarion speaks and the raw, hollow hope with which Miri gazes at him makes Gale feel as though he should not be witnessing this.
And then suddenly Astarion’s head snaps back and he meets Gale’s eyes, lips pursed in a tight line.
“Your sorcerer went off after that winged freak. Do us all a favor and follow her. Without the cleric, we’re all doomed.”
“Do not worry about Miri,” Halsin adds, his baritone subdued and brimming with concern. “Hurry, Gale. If Isobel falls and the curse takes us all, the tadpoles will be the least of your worries.”
Gale nods.
The spot Miri’s knife had attempted to pierce through his throat throbs with a sharp chill.
Wordlessly, he turns his back on the bard and her lovers and conjures the Weave around him, focusing his magic beyond the entryway of the inn. He Misty Steps past Jaheira and Jericho still slaughtering the creatures; past Karlach locked in a fierce display of ruthless strength and relentlessness with Minthara. He does not dare to turn around. No, the moment his feet touch the dewy grass outside the tavern, Gale runs .
Past the Harpers shouting orders and panicking aimlessly. Past the Flaming Fist staring in horror at the black sky, nebulous and loathsome without the threads of Selûne’s benevolence to guard them. Past the bridge that separates Last Light from the cruelty of the curse and out into the hateful, horrific shadows.
Rowan, where are you?
There is no answer. Without a shared parasite and the most basic communication spells still lost to the slumbering orb, there is no way for him to reach out to her mentally.
But—
Gale supposes he should be grateful for the dreadful still silence of these accursed lands. It takes a few moments of concentration but once he zeroes in on his senses, he hears it.
The sound of massive wings beating against the rotten air.
Gale musters up more tangled threads of the Weave. Blue and lavender spin around him in pirouettes as he casts Haste on himself, the spell returning to him at this most crucial moment. The muscles in his legs contract. His lungs are clear. The path forward beckons to him.
He runs once more, feet flying across the muck and mire. He dashes forward without breaking a sweat, the Weave cushioning his every exertion as he grows closer and closer to the song of feathers rustling mid flight. He crosses over a tangled, creaking mass of dead foliage and fallen trees and as he rounds the corner of clustered buildings that once were farmhouses, he shouts in alarm.
The winged man, cradling a writhing Isobel in his arms, is easily two hundred feet in the air and being cajoled by the massive raven Gale watched Rowan transform into. He’s snarling something abrasive that Gale cannot hear over the sound of Rowan’s terrifying shrieks of wrath. The cries are like no corvid Gale knows. It is more akin to a roc, or a phoenix, or some mighty avian beast placed upon this mortal plane by the hands of a god.
Her talons rake across the man’s back, catching his wings just as he tries in vain to spin around and kick at her with his legs. The man lets out a bellow of pain as Rowan’s talons hook into the tendons of his wings, eyes aglow with a ferocity that sets fire to his veins. She snaps her beak at his face, the sharp jagged curves digging into his eyes much like how Pip had blinded the Absolutist that fateful day in the ravaged temple, and the man screams.
Even in the darkness, Gale makes out the spray of blood.
The man shudders violently as Rowan jabs into his face. Her talons rip and render his wings as her own, so big and beautiful and as glorious as a night sky, spread out wide to keep her aloft.
When his arms loosen around Isobel and his hands fly up in a harried, hopeless attempt to protect his face, Gale is already weaving magic between his fingers.
He flings the Featherfall spell out towards the cleric as she tumbles through the sky. Relief, almost painful in how palpable it is beneath his skin, courses through him as the magic curls around Isobel eagerly. Dozens of feathers, pristine as starlight, burst to life and drift Isobel safely down. She lands on her feet, swaying somewhat and stumbling only once in a daze. In an instant he is at her side with a Misty Step, an arm wrapped around her shoulders as he allows her to lean against him. She is panting, face drawn tight with panic and exhaustion and a hundred other things, but she is alive.
“M-Marcus,” she stammers, glancing up fearfully towards the winged man and Rowan tangled up in the air together. “He’s—he was supposed to be on reconnaissance at Moonrise! I don’t know what happened to him, but…!”
“The Absolute is what happened, I’d wager,” Gale says as he follows Isobel’s gaze upwards. The end is near now. He knows it. He can sense it. The winged man—Marcus, Isobel had called him—hangs limp in Rowan’s talons. He finds he is quite glad for the darkness of the curse, if only because it prevents him from seeing the bloodied ribbons his beloved has turned Marcus’s face into.
And then, quite unceremoniously, Rowan drops the man.
Gale won’t let sentimentality get the best of him.
His fingers crackle with Weave-spun magic as potent as he can conjure. A Lightning Bolt arcs from an outstretched hand, racing towards Marcus as he plummets towards the ground. The bastard’s body bursts into a cacophony of cyan-blue and thunderous energy. Even his armor disentigrates, the spell’s destructive capacity heightened by Haste. The scent of burnt flesh in the air is wicked and pungent as flecks of ash drift down. He can’t help but gaze at it all, his memory returning to yesterday and the scene of He Who Was as he lay burning on the ground.
A rasping screech of victory turns his attention elsewhere. Gale’s eyes find a pair of violet ones in the shadowed sky as Rowan, still held aloft in the air, gives him a bob of her corvid head.
And then the massive raven is gliding towards him, elegant and almost serene. The moment her talons make impact with the ground, her feathers melt away like black ichor. Bones shift. Flesh stretches. Skin returns. Somewhere between a heartbeat and the blink of an eye the Polymorph is dismissed and his beloved sorcerer stands before him once more.
“Isobel! Gale!” Rowan cries out as she rushes towards them both, her pale skin still swimming with wisps of shadow. She throws herself at Gale, wrapping one arm around him and the other around Isobel, shivering violently as she pulls them both into a tight embrace. “You’re both okay,” she breathes heavily, every syllable shaking. “Thank the Matron.”
“And Selûne,” Isobel chimes in, letting out a nervous laugh dripping with fatigued relief. “You were incredible. I…I would have been taken to Moonrise had you not acted so quickly, Rowan.” She pauses and then adds, almost shamefully, “Though I must admit the sight of a very large raven chasing after Marcus was just as concerning as him kidnapping me.”
“Uh. Haha. Yeah. Sorry about that. I panicked.”
Gale clears his throat and tries not to wince. The adrenaline is beginning to wear off and he is painfully aware of the still-healing scratches from the undead creature. The spot Miri’s knife had toyed with him burns with an unsettling chill. “What kind of spell was that, sweetheart?” he asks.
Rowan (reluctantly) unwraps herself from him and Isobel. One hand goes to clutch the feathers around her throat. The other flexes its fingers and in a flurry of shadows, Nevermore appears in her grasp. The staff thrums with magic. Gale’s skin prickles in proximity to it. Like the feather that had fallen from Rowan as she had flown out of the inn, the Raven Queen’s power coalesces within Nevermore. Pure, unfiltered, and untamed.
“It was my reward for putting He Who Was to rest,” she explains. “Quoth appeared and told me how to cast it. Oh, that’s the white raven, by the way. They’re kind of my pseudo-familiar now, I guess? But only when I’m channeling this particular spell. And I can’t use it every day. It was pretty cool though, wasn’t it? I mean, I was a giant fuckin’ raven! I had wings! I flew with said wings! Gods, I love magic.”
She’s rambling, and as much as Gale would love to do nothing more than listen to her excitedly describe every last detail, the battle isn’t over quite yet.
He glances in the direction he came from, where Last Light lay beyond the shadows and gloom. Without Isobel’s layer of magic on the inn, the telltale glow that has heralded its safety is nowhere to be seen in the darkness. They can’t waste any more time out here. They must go back. Minthara, the undead monstrosities, Miri and whatever foul hex that has been placed on her—even with Isobel rescued from this Marcus fellow, Last Light is still horrendously in danger.
The cleric seems to read his mind.
“We need to hurry back,” Isobel says, pulling herself away from Gale and giving him a grateful pat on the arm. Her posture is straighter and her face does not appear as ashen as it was when she fell from the sky, but her eyes still swim with fearful worry. “I must recast the Hallow spell before the curse takes over.”
Rowan nods. “Right. No use dawdling here. I have a few Misty Steps in me—what about you, Gale?”
He reaches for the threads of the Weave within him. His magic is somewhat sparse now after the constant spellcasting. But, the good thing about being so adept at the Art, is that Gale knows how to coax the Weave into providing him a little extra arcane energy when he truly needs it.
“I should be suitably prepared.”
Rowan wordlessly holds her hand out towards Isobel. The half-elf glances at it in brief confusion before understanding dawns on her face. She grasps Rowan’s hand tightly, gratitude etched into the tiny smile she allows despite the gravity of the situation.
Gale remembers Rowan’s angry scream in the inn.
“I’ve already lost a brother, you will not be taking my sister!”
His chest tightens painfully. Not because he feels some twisted remorse at how easily Rowan has connected to so many people since leaving Waterdeep, but because of how the stakes to keep them all safe are all the more higher. She loves so deeply. She cares so intensely.
And Rowan herself…
Gale’s exhale is shaky. He cannot get the image of her sprawled on the body of the shadar-kai out of his head. He cannot forget the hollowness in her eyes. He cannot vanquish the trembling of her fingers as she stared down at He Who Was in disbelief.
Not for the first time, Gale is struck with a harrowing revelation. Death will not discriminate. It can and will take anyone at any time; he and Rowan are no different.
And so, as the wizard and his beloved sorcerer and the cleric she has claimed as a sister muster their magic, a plan begins to form in his mind.
Rowan does not recall much of the remainder of the day.
Oh, she remembers the harried trek back to the inn, a rescued Isobel in tow. She remembers stumbling through the remnants of the barrier, shadows whispering about her like old friends, blood thrumming in her ears and heart pounding like a wild thunderstorm. She remembers rushing past the Harpers and Flaming Fist and everyone else who had been locked in combat, her mind focusing on one thing and one thing only:
Get Isobel back to her room so she can cast the ritual once again.
Rowan remembers her fingers interlocked with Gale’s as the two lent precious motes of magic to the cleric, her hands shaking and throat dry. Rowan remembers the relief that had swept through Last Light when the Hallow spell shimmered into existence once more, divine moonlight coalescing above the inn protectively.
But she does not really remember much else.
Her thoughts are a tangled web. Adrenaline still courses through her veins despite the inherent danger having passed hours ago. She feels feathers prickling beneath her skin. Razor-sharp talons grind beneath her nails. Her teeth scrape against her top lip, the ghost of a curved beak drawing blood every time she bites down too hard.
When she closes her eyes, wind caresses her cheeks sweetly, and she can almost swear she is soaring through the air once more.
She hadn’t meant to do all…that. Becoming a raven. Delving into the seemingly endless well of power the Matron has buried inside her. She had panicked when she burst into Isobel’s room and saw the half-elf being accosted by that creepy bastard, Marcus. That panic had only increased tenfold with the scene of Miri’s eyes burning with madness, feral snarls dripping from her twisted mouth as she screamed murderous obscenities and raged against Astarion and Halsin.
The tiefling’s eyes held the same bloodthirsty mania Rowan had caught a glimpse of during the party a lifetime ago.
So, yes. Rowan had panicked, because she had no idea what to do or how to handle the situation, and when the feathers at her throat had become blessedly warm it was just second nature to draw upon the magic inside them.
She hadn’t expected the white raven to appear. Quoth, they called themselves, right before pecking the scar He Who Was left on her neck so hard it drew blood and Rowan’s soul became full of everything.
She keeps looking down at her hands as she struggles to help cleanse the aftermath of the battle. She expects feathers to burst forth from her flesh once more at any moment, wreathed in beloved shadow. She tastes darkness on her tongue every time she swallows, her body sagging with exhaustion but her blood singing for more. More. MORE. More power. More magic. More proof the Raven Queen loves her. More proof she is the Matron’s Chosen, champion, daughter.
Precious, wretchedly necessary proof.
Focus, Rowan hisses inwardly to herself.
She flicks her wrist at a bundle of soiled rags piled on the floor. Her shadows rise from the gnarled floorboards and wrap around the fabric like an army of millions of tiny black sprites. The darkness dances and shifts for a moment before the rags completely vanish, sent off to the dock below the inn to join the other piles of laundry desperately needing to be done after post-ambush cleanup.
Another gift from the Raven Queen as thanks for bringing peace to He Who Was. Her shadows are solid. Corporeal and fully capable of touch, their darkness as solid as stone. She has a feeling any illusions cast would follow suit should she feel the urge to try and conjure a herd of unicorns. Forget Halsin—she could create her own unicorn mount born of her illusions!
…was the form of the massive raven an illusion? Or had all of that been real, and her bones really had snapped and her flesh really had been rendered asunder to make way for feathers? Had she truly become something else in those harried moments when she had made the decision to save Isobel no matter the cost?
She doesn’t know.
It’s all a blur.
Everything is such a fucking blur right now. Save for the wrath that had begun to boil the moment Rowan’s gaze met Marcus’s and saw the sly, perverse emptiness in his grin. Save for the fear in Isobel’s eyes when the traitorous Flaming Fist had grappled her tightly and all Miri had done was rage about how she wanted to be the one to kill the half-elf.
Rowan does not want to think about Miri. She does not want to think about how the bard had screamed in a voice that Rowan will hear in her nightmares for years to come. She does not want to think about Miri hissing words of death and destruction and despair in a voice that did not belong to her.
No, Rowan does not want to think about that at all.
She doesn’t know where Miri is. She hasn’t seen her in the hours following the attack. Nor has she seen Astarion or Halsin. Rowan suspects the bard has been spirited away and sequestered in a room by the two elves. To protect Miri herself, or to protect everyone else from her?
There is something foul inside Miri. Something that has finally snapped and shown its true nature.
And even though she should probably be terrified, all Rowan feels is an exhausted sense of pity. She hopes Miri will be alright.
Hells, she hopes everyone will be alright after the bullshit of the day. She missed most of the action on account of focusing on keeping Isobel safe, but she’s heard bits and pieces as she’s gone robotically about and provided what assistance she can in her dazed state. Karlach had suffered some nasty bruises from a drow paladin of the Absolute, Minthara. The undead creeps had torn up Lae’zel and Shadowheart. Not to mention the gnomes rescued from Moonrise only a couple days ago, now all cut down and bodies buried in unmarked graves beyond the inn’s grounds.
Killing Marcus broke whatever spell that was keeping the horrors sentient. Without him as a puppet master, they’d melted into piles of rotting flesh, and Minthara had escaped with a scroll of Dimension Door hidden under her armor. A shame, since the shadows inside Rowan still ache for another fight, and she would have loved nothing more than to kick the drow’s spindly ass for the wounds she inflicted on Karlach.
The sudden urge to race from the inn and take to the skies is almost overwhelming. Rowan freezes above the sullied pile of laundry and clutches the feathers at her throat in a panic. More. More death. More suffering. More destruction at her hands, all for the glory of the Matron. Anyone who harms her friends must pay. They must pay and they will know a darkness more deadly than the paltry veil Shar has summoned and—
“Fuck,” Rowan swears, shaking her head wildly. A thousand ravens beat their wings in her chest. She needs to calm down. The battle ended hours ago. Marcus is dead. She killed him, with talons given to her by her goddess. Wings. She had wings. She had glorious, beautiful wings, and she could have soared to the very stars with them.
She makes a fist and squeezes it so hard she feels her nails biting into her palm.
Away.
Away, away, away.
She can’t focus. She can’t dwell on how good it felt to fly; she can’t lose herself in the maelstrom of pure power and magic that had cradled her so lovingly when Quoth instructed her to reach for it. She wishes she could talk to them right now and ask when her mind will settle. But they slumber in the womb of the Shadowfell at the moment, Pip at their side. Both familiars poured almost all their energy into Rowan so she could make the transformation. It will be at least a day before they can materialize once more.
She could talk to Gale about it. She should talk to Gale about it.
But Rowan is hesitant, and she does not know why.
She groans. Nothing makes sense anymore. Her brain has been a hot fucking mess since stepping into the Shadow-Cursed Lands. The only thing that does make sense is Gale.
…where is he, anyway?
It occurs to Rowan that she has not seen him since they gave Isobel the magic necessary to recast Hallow. Maybe he’s helping in another part of the inn? Perhaps he has joined Jericho in casting protective wards around the perimeter as Jaheira has requested many times? Or, he could be with his brother. Dorian and Wyll have not let the tiefling children out of their sight since the attack ended, on account of Mol being kidnapped by one of the creepy undead fuckers during the chaos.
Rowan feels a teeny, tiny spark of guilt at that. Miniscule, really. The kid is still her nemesis, afterall.
It takes only a minute or so to find Dorian. The elder Dekarios is indeed still with the children. They’re gathered outside the inn near the fountain, Wyll speaking to them in hushed tones. Alfira and the pretty, plucky tiefling who is clearly very much in love with her accompany them, looking no worse for wear. Somehow, they got lucky and had not been in the inn during the attack. Rowan is glad. She likes Alfira. That’s one tiefling bard who won’t suddenly go on a murderous rampage.
…hopefully.
“Dorian?” Rowan calls out as she approaches. She feels as though she is intruding. The children appear worn and anxious. Not even Wyll’s calming tones or Alfira’s semi-forced smile seem to be doing much.
A quick and furtive glance tells her that Gale is not amongst the small crowd gathered. Damn.
Dorian turns towards her. His hair is a bit of a mess and his clothes are smudged with grime. Grime Rowan really does not want to muse on the possible origins. Her fellow sorcerer was focused on protecting the kids, she recalls hearing, but afterwards was instrumental in cleaning the viscera from the tavern floor.
“Oh, Rowan,” he greets, all wind and bluster beaten out of his usual smug voice. He sounds tired. He looks tired. They all are. It’s been a dreadfully long day. With no sun or stars in the sky, it’s still impossible to tell what time it is, but if Rowan had to hazard a guess it’s definitely well into the evening by now.
Rowan gives Wyll, Alfira, and the other tieflings an awkward wave. She has absolutely no idea how to interact with them right now, not when the massive raven inside her croons to be released once more. One wrong word and she’ll probably be stupid enough to set off for Moonrise Towers in search of Mol or something. Anything for an excuse to drink deep from the well of darkness within her grasp.
“Has Gale been with you?” she asks. “It’s been a bit since I’ve seen him. Just want to make sure he hasn’t passed out in a corner somewhere. He used a lot of magic today, fighting those undead things and finding me and Isobel out in the shadows.”
He’d looked at her so strangely before they returned to Last Light. So strangely.
Dorian nods. “He was helping us earlier. About an hour ago he mumbled something about ‘needing to prepare’ and wandered off. Frankly, I’m shocked he isn’t with you. Aren’t the two of you attached at the hip?”
Rowan rolls her eyes, even though the slight dig is warranted. They have a codependency problem. A very obvious one. Well, Gale has long since been her emotional support wizard, and she is proud to declare she’s been his emotional support sorcerer for just as long. Of course they spend as much time as they can together.
“Maybe he’s with Jericho,” she mumbles, ignoring Dorian’s teasing grin as she turns away from him. Needing to prepare? That could mean preparing spellwork to redo the wards around the inn. But he must be absolutely tapped out after a day like today. How can he still have enough magic left to accomplish that?
As she stands there in silence, musing to herself, Rowan becomes acutely aware of a change in the air.
The Weave ripples around her. She recognizes Gale’s particular flair as it coils around her, kissing her cheek almost as the space before her shivers and shimmers. In a fluorescent burst of light and a tangled web of pure magic, a figure materializes.
It’s Gale.
Or, at least, it looks like Gale. Exactly like him, if Gale were somewhat translucent and had eyes that glowed with an offsetting cyan-purple. The color belongs in a late 80’s lava lamp. Not in the unsettling gaze of something that is a perfect copy of her beloved.
“Greetings!”
The voice that emits from the copy speaks with Gale’s lilting cadence. The echo-like quality to it makes Rowan realize that this is a Mirror Image. It’s been awhile since she’s seen this spell from Gale.
The Mirror Image gives Rowan a bow that drips with all the flourish and flair of her wizard. It smiles, though it’s rather empty and just as unsettling as its lava lamp eyes.
“I come to you on behalf of Gale Dekarios. Miss Rowan of Waterdeep, would you mind accompanying me? There is something he wishes to discuss with you.”
He can’t just use a Message scroll like a normal wizard? Always pomp and circumstance with this one.
She tries not to roll her eyes again, especially knowing that Dorian is watching oh-so-intently. Her heart gives a little flutter of excitement. If he’s sending a Mirror Image to fetch her then whatever Gale has to say must be either important or interesting. Or both! Maybe, somehow, in all the chaos of this day, he discovered a way to remove the orb entirely?
“Lead the way, my good illusion,” Rowan says to the Mirror Image, flashing a messy curtsy at it. She very pointedly does not look back at Dorian and chooses to ignore him in favor of preventing any more snide commentary. Plus, she has a feeling Wyll and everyone else has turned their focus to her, and she just can’t deal with that right now.
The Mirror Image gestures for her to follow and begins to glide across the ground. Its feet move in a pantomime of walking, but its illusory body floats above the dirt and grass. The spell is more like a ghost haunting Last Light than Gale’s arcane messenger. Rowan hopes none of the survivors sees it and freaks the fuck out. She would be rattled if she caught a glimpse of it and didn’t know any better.
Eventually, the Mirror Image leads her to the lake that sprawls behind Last Light. The waters are placid and calm. It reflects Isobel’s ritual as light arcs across the surface. It’s pretty but, even so, seeing the water reminds her of home. Of Waterdeep.
Her chest tightens with that familiar pain of missing the tower.
But the pain does not last too long. She spies Gale—the real Gale, not the illusory copy—in the distance. He sits atop a rocky outcropping that protrudes over the lake’s surface, his feet dangling inches above the water. His back is turned to her and his head is raised towards the sky, the cursed darkness held at bay by Selûne’s moonlight.
She doesn’t realize she’s running towards him until her feet are no longer on sand but stone, and the scenery around her shifts.
She passes through a veil not unlike the protection separating Last Light from the rest of the world. Gone is the milky shell of Selûne’s magic intertwined with Rowan’s shadows and Gale’s aurora. Gone is the beaten down, worn palisades of the inn and the skeletal remnants of whatever trees that clung to the lakeside.
In its place are stars.
Stars and galaxies that stretch as far as the eye can see. The sky swirls with impossible blues and purples, laced with pinks and silvers that almost bring Rowan to tears. Constellations glimmer bright and true. The lake reflects their celestial glow, becoming a perfect mirror, and a dense forest is swathed around them as a cool breeze caresses her face. Crickets sing. Leaves rustle gently in an imaginary wind. And all the while more stars than there is sand on this lonely beach in the middle of a curse dance above her head, carefree and full of pure life.
Rowan tastes the Weave on her tongue. Tantalizing and familiar; it tastes like Gale and magic and love and everything wonderful in this strange new world.
Gale turns his head to look at her.
The stars reflect in his eyes even brighter than the surface of the lake does.
And the smile he gives her makes Rowan want to collapse in his arms and stay there for all eternity.
“I love this time of night,” he says softly, pensively, as Rowan settles down next to him. She does not say a word but merely rests her head against his shoulder, staring out at the magic he has conjured and the world he has built for just the two of them.
Gale’s hand finds hers. He threads his fingers around her own, thumb rubbing slow and lazy circles into her palm as he raises his other hand and flicks his wrist. A shimmer of magic emerges from his fingertips—it drifts through the air and rises high above, glittering like diamonds as it joins its brethren in the sky and with one blink, another constellation hangs perfectly.
“There’s an almost reverent silence that accompanies the peak of darkness, when you’d almost believe the dawn will never break. The cradle of eternity. The timelessness of lovers. That most beautiful of fantasies.”
He squeezes her hand. His head leans against hers, stubble scratching her temple. He lets out a sigh. There is a heaviness to it that worries her.
She frowns.
“Are you alright?”
“I—yes,” Gale answers quickly, lamely, in a somewhat flustered tone that does little to hide the fact that no, he’s probably not alright. He sighs again, the heaviness even more so than the last, and the weight of his head against her follows suit. “I’m sorry. That was a lie. I am just…”
A quiet, frustrated sound rumbles in his chest.
“This could be my last night alive,” Gale says simply. “It could be your last night alive. We could die at any given moment, Rowan. What happened at the inn today, it…opened my eyes to truths I was not even aware I was blind to.”
Rowan’s frown deepens. She gives his hand a squeeze and maneuvers herself so that her head is now resting in his lap and her face is looking up at both him and the stars, brows furrowed as she studies the complex, contemplative expression he wears. Their hands are still tangled with one another but the one that he was using to cast the illusion slowly lowers until it is splayed against her cheek, his palms warm and comforting.
“You’re not wrong,” she agrees after a few moments of just intensely staring at him. His lap makes a very nice pillow. No wonder he slept so soundly the day she found him again and he passed out when she was doing his hair. “Today was…”
Terrifying? Exhilarating? Horrifying? Thrilling?
The raven nestled inside her chest tilts its head in curious excitement. She ignores the prickling of feathers beneath her skin.
“A lot,” Rowan settles on. “I mean, I still haven’t had time to process yesterday, and now I can do things with my magic that didn’t seem possible before. I get it, though. Everything is trying to kill us here. Curses, cultists, ancient Netherese orbs, nasty little brain parasites…”
Gale lets out a little chuckle. “I seem to recall only one of us is being accosted by all four of those things.”
“I’d be more than happy to volunteer for the next squidnapping if you’d like. Not sure where I’ll find another sealed tome full of corrupt Netherese magic, though.”
“I would rather you not, my love.”
“Spoilsport.”
Gale’s hand on her cheek slides to the side of her head. He runs his fingers through her hair, which she knows is a hot fucking mess after the fight and hours of trying to put the inn back together. His smile is so soft. His eyes are so gentle. Gods, she loves the way he looks at her, like she’s the only thing that exists. She loves him. She loves him so fucking much that sometimes it feels like her heart will rip itself to shreds from the ferocity of her feelings.
“We could die at any given moment, Rowan,” Gale repeats. “And I realized today that I do not want to spend another moment without being bound to you in the deepest manner a person can be bound to another.”
It suddenly is difficult to breathe.
She stares up at him, uncomprehendingly.
Gale leans down. His lips brush against her forehead as he places a chaste kiss against her skin. It almost burns her from how holy it feels, his mouth a prayer upon her flesh as he sighs again. This time it’s lighter, full of hope and passion and a million other things that make Rowan’s heart flutter wildly.
The world he crafted for just the two of them becomes silent, the song the night is humming a dull melody in the back of her mind.
“You put the stars to shame,” Gale whispers. He lifts his head so that his eyes catch hers like a wolf snatching up a rabbit, but there is no bloody hunger in his gaze. Just love. Love, as endless as the constellations dancing above and as bright as the moon that made her feel like she truly belonged on her first night here. “I have spent so long believing my destiny lay among them, weaving magics that would strike wonder into the hearts of those who have made their home in the heavens. But…”
His hand is so warm.
His eyes are so gentle.
His voice is so sacred.
“With you,” Gale murmurs, his tone wavering on the edge of too much and not enough, “I forget my goddess.”
Oh.
Just right.
“Gale—” Rowan begins, his name stuck in her throat as her eyes suddenly feel hot and her skin prickles.
He places a finger to her lips. He traces the contours of her mouth slowly, methodically, ever the wizard as he memorizes the texture of her lips as though she were one spell he has been searching for his whole life.
“I love you,” Gale says, and even though she has heard him say it time and time again over the last few days, Rowan will never tire of the magic it conjures. “I cannot imagine a world in which I do not love you. If we had more time—if we were back home, I would do this properly, the way you deserve it, but…”
His mouth replaces his finger.
He kisses her, long and slow and deep and delicious.
When he breaks away at last, his cheeks are dusted with a flushed ruddiness that will never not look adorable on him.
“The only time we have is right here and now,” Gale continues, voice hoarse and swollen with a tremor that makes Rowan’s heart beat in a panicked stride. “I find myself unable to wait any longer. Rowan of Waterdeep—”
And in the single exhale of breath, in that precious moment’s pause, Rowan fully realizes what Gale is doing, and she is remade. She has wings once more, invisible and known only to her, but she knows if she jumped into the sky she would soar on the wind as if the Matron’s feathers were cradling her once more.
Rowan’s soul weeps. Her vision blurs. Tears cascade down her cheeks and she lets out a single, shuddering sob as Gale asks her plaintively, beseechingly, “Will you marry me?”
Chapter 15: sweet as honey, soft as silk
Notes:
hey besties guess what: sex happens again! you're welcome!
powered through a migraine to finish this up today. i really was excited to write it, and despite its shortness, it's one of my favorite moments in this fic so far. god i love gale and rowan. they mean a lot.
oh, and i updated the tags to better reflect how the plot has progressed. hopefully all the pairings don't scare people off lmfao. gale and rowan's ship name is featherweave btw. i decided that a couple days ago. it brings me joy.
i do not know when the next chapter will be. this and 14 took a lot outta me creatively, and i'm getting ready for my girlfriend (hi baby i love you) to come visit next month, so writing may be out of the question while i grapple with the excitement of being able to see her again <3
thank you for all the support, kindness, and feedback on this silly little story of mine. your comments and cheering for me are the backbone to my writing muse not fully dying. a black hole isn't large enough to contain all my appreciation for y'all!
Chapter Text
“Rowan of Waterdeep, will you marry me?”
Gale’s voice echoes and twists around the nebulae that dance above them, every word painted with earnest, imploring elation. Rowan gapes at him. This is a dream, right? It has to be. That’s the only explanation. Gale wouldn’t actually ask her to marry him. It’s all too…perfect! So this is a dream. A wonderful, beautiful dream brought on by exhaustion and hopeful whimsy.
But—
The lap in which she rests is solid. The hands that cradle her are warm and calloused. The tears rolling down her cheeks are hot, wet, and burn exquisitely.
Rowan chokes on a single breath.
She reaches a hand out. It comes to rest against Gale’s face. The stubble beneath her palm is ticklish and prickly. His skin is as soft as velvet. He is real. He is real and she suddenly feels as though she is going to faint or scream or float up into the sky and join the constellations he has conjured just for her.
This is real.
Everything is real and Gale is asking her to marry him.
“Yes,” Rowan whispers, voice surprisingly steady even as the ravens in her chest caw and soar and threaten to cause a scene. Her other hand finds purchase on his shoulder, fingers tight and unyielding as she pulls herself into a sitting position and stares at him. “Yes,” she repeats, giving a shaky nod as disbelief courses through her veins, lower lip trembling with the premonition of another sob.
This is real.
And it hits her then.
This is real and Gale loves her enough to marry her. This is real and she has just said yes. This is real and she is truly, irrevocably, extraordinarily in love with this kind wizard who has changed her life and wants her to be his wife.
Her fatigue melts away.
All the fears and worries and flashes of panic that have been rotting away inside her since yesterday vanish.
“Yes!”
Rowan shouts it, screams it, her head nodding so fast and with such exuberance she’ll throw her neck out if she’s not careful. She laughs, the sound nothing but frenzied giddiness mixing with a weeping relief as her mouth crashes against his with no warning. Gale’s chest rumbles in surprise and the force of her launching herself at him causes him to fall back, sprawled against the stone as she kisses him with all the chaos of a tempest. “Yes, Gale, I’ll marry you,” she says against his lips, and holds back the moan in her throat when his hands are suddenly clutching at her waist.
“Rowan,” Gale whispers into the kiss, squeezing her hips and devouring her with all the devotion of a sinner. “Gods, sweetheart, you…” He gasps and sighs at the same time somehow, his words slurred through their frantic kisses. “You said y-yes,” he manages to utter in a tone that conveys the same disbelief she felt when she realized what he was asking her.
She laughs again.
She cries again.
She just keeps kissing him, desperate and enraptured and loathsome with love for him.
“I would have said yes,” Rowan tells him as she playfully nips his lip, “even if you had asked in the midst of kicking zombie ass.”
Gale groans.
She feels him shudder beneath her and his grip on her hips sharpens, fingers digging into her soft curves.
“Don’t say things like that, my love,” he almost begs, tongue tangling with hers deftly. “You cannot imagine what the sight of you in battle does to me.”
No, she can’t, because she had kinda-sorta forgotten that Gale gets insanely horny whenever she’s covered in blood and viscera and other unmentionable fluids. Or killing things. Or drenched in shadow like a creature from the darkest of nightmares come to steal souls.
How the fuck did she get so lucky?
Rowan just continues kissing him—continues being kissed—and it isn’t until her lips feel as though they are about to fall numb and her tongue aches from exploring his mouth that words crawl up her throat before she can stop them.
“Let’s get married now. Tonight. Please, Gale.”
They’re both panting, cheeks flushed and eyes bright with desire and delight. Gale’s smile does not falter but he tilts his head inquisitively as she holds her gaze steady. Even though they were said in impulsivity, Rowan knows she means it. His words from earlier have struck a chord with her.
They can die at any moment, despite their best efforts to avoid such a fate. She doesn’t want to go a month, a week, a day, an hour without being his wife.
Without being Rowan Dekarios.
“We can ask Isobel,” she suggests quickly, delving a hand into the pocket of her robe where she stashed the symbol of Selûne. “A cleric as capable as her is bound to know the proper rituals. And love was once part of Selûne’s divine domain. It makes sense. She’ll say yes. Right?”
Gale nods with the same amount of enthusiasm as she had early and for a moment, she fears he’s also going to throw his neck out. He opens his mouth as if he is going to say something, but then that mouth is on her neck and he’s breathing deeply against the skin of her throat as he clutches her against his chest.
Rowan can hear his heart pounding away wildly as she is smothered in his arms.
“We’ll have a proper ceremony in Waterdeep,” Gale promises as he presses kisses to the flutter of her pulse. “All those in attendance will be whomever you wish to invite. You’ll wear the finest gown Syl can craft. And there will be a feast lavish enough it will make the gods burn with envy. And a ring,” he adds, a wisp of guilt accompanying his oath. “I will find you a ring worthy of your very soul, Rowan. I swear. Until then, will whatever we stumble upon tonight be enough?”
Shit.
Now she wants to cry again.
“Anything we do together is enough for me, Gale,” she tells him softly, quietly. “All I need is you. All I’ll ever need is you.”
She hears his breath hitch almost painfully.
He lifts his head from her throat and the feverish brightness in his eyes is now a swirling, damp storm. He looks at her. Just looks at her. As if this is the first time he’s seeing her and he’s afraid if he looks away, she will disappear.
Gale swallows. His eyes flutter shut and he brings his forehead to hers, his skin lovely and warm and a familiar comfort that will never cease to set her heart at ease.
“I love you.”
Such simple three words. But they are said with a rawness, fileted and gutted and presented to her on a silver platter.
And it’s enough.
(It will always be enough.)
“I love you,” Rowan whispers. She feels the curling of a shadow wrapped around her finger, the tug of magic pulling against her soul. She allows the thread to unravel and her voice gets louder, grows larger, expands and spreads and fills the sky full of stars above them. The constellations echo her words. They reverberate around wizard and sorcerer as sweet as a kiss.
And when the illusion at last breaks, and the aurora of Gale’s magic gives way to the reality of the curse beyond the veil, Rowan finds she doesn't mind. Her fingers slip into his. Her shoulder bumps against him. Her feet move in tandem with his gait.
Rowan and Gale stumble across the lakeshore almost drunkenly. Silently. They crawl up the stairs to the inn’s second floor in a daze. Gale’s knuckles rap against Isobel’s door with a jittery, nervous tempo.
The half-elf opens it after a few moments. She takes one look at them and somehow, someway, Rowan knows she knows why they are here.
Isobel’s tired face breaks into a small smile. It brightens her expression so much one would never know she was unceremoniously kidnapped earlier in the day.
Wordlessly, she nods. She steps aside and beckons them into the chamber, which is alight anew with the radiance of the Hallow spell. Rowan and Gale duck inside and Isobel quietly closes the door behind them.
Gale and Isobel speak at the same time.
“We are so sorry to bother you after everything that has happened—”
“I take it you’re in need of a cleric for reasons not injury related—”
Rowan snorts in amusement as the two cut themselves off, Gale looking flustered as all hell and Isobel’s smile just widening further. She holds her hands up placatingly before clasping them together, the motion brimming with excitement.
“You aren’t bothering me,” she assures. “I owe you both my life. Please, tell me what it is I can do for you.”
Her tone indicates she indeed already knows.
Rowan glances at Gale. She squeezes his hand, whatever small amount of tension that was still left in her shoulders melting away as she studies his handsome face. He looks nervous, deliciously so. It’s endearing. Adorable. Gods, she wants to push him against a wall and kiss him until she’s dizzy again.
(Later. Definitely later.)
However, in a rare moment that only comes once in a blue moon, Gale Dekarios seems to be at a loss for words. He clears his throat three times, feet shuffling awkwardly along the floorboards. Rowan tries not to roll her eyes. He’s more jittery now than he was out on the lake, for the Matron’s sake! She’s not angry or upset. It really is cute. And it just means she has to take the lead.
“Isobel, will you marry us? Right now?”
The cleric’s eyes glimmer with a satisfied insight. Her voice comes out in a teasing lilt, all affection and no malice. “Oh? Is that all you needed? Here I thought you were going to ask for a miracle.”
“W-We just don’t want to wait,” Gale explains with a stammer. His face is oh-so-red. Rowan’s self-control is getting dangerously thin. “A proper ceremony will happen when our lives are back to normal but for now…being bound by sacred rites spoken by someone of your stature is enough.”
More than enough.
The unspoken agreement is taut between her and Gale as she gives his hand one more reassuring squeeze. She just needs him. Nothing fancy. Sure, a pretty dress would be lovely and a ring around her finger sounds fantastic, but in the grand scheme of things? She just needs Gale.
Isobel’s gaze flickers between wizard and sorcerer briefly. “Is this meant to be a secret from everyone else?” she questions. “I won’t say a word if that’s what your intentions are.”
Oh. Huh. That has not occurred to Rowan yet.
Truth be told, she’s of the mind to keep it under wraps for the time being. With all the threats and anarchy being thrown at them, it feels like it would be in bad form to announce something as lighthearted as a shotgun wedding. Jericho and Karlach would be thrilled. Maybe Dorian and Wyll, too. But everyone else? Not so much, especially when one considers everything that has happened today. Getting married after death and destruction when there’s still blood seeping in the floorboards of the inn? Yikes.
A flutter of anxiety makes itself known. What if Gale has a different opinion? He’s always been one for grand gestures. She wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to shout it to the world at large.
But, thankfully, Gale nods.
“For now,” he agrees softly, and the look in his eyes tells Rowan he is of the same mind. She almost sags with relief. Nothing more needs to be said on the subject. He knows her thoughts and she knows his.
Isobel raises her thumb to the circlet she wears and presses it against the symbol of Selûne. “Then consider my lips sealed,” she says, bowing her head. A cheeky, lively grin replaces the soft and gentle smile she has been gracing them with as she adds, “It’s the first time I’ve had a sister ask me to keep a secret.”
Don’t cry again, Rowan berates herself as her eyes grow hot and itchy once more. Before she can ask permission or pause to consider her next move, she pulls away from Gale and throws her arms around Isobel. “You heard me call you that?” she asks in a near whisper.
Isobel returns the hug—in fact, her embrace is tighter than the one Rowan is assaulting her with, solid and grateful and comforting. She pats Rowan’s back soothingly as she nods, face as bright as the moon.
“You screamed it as I was being taken away. It would have been impossible
not
to hear, Rowan. Despite having known you for such a short time, the kinship I feel with you is…remarkable. If you see me as a sister, then I am happy to see you in the same light. I always wanted a sibling.”
The half-elf’s joy darkens for a moment, eyes becoming misty with the sorrows of the past. Her smile turns winsome and wan, arms dropping to her sides as she regards Rowan with a curious mix of melancholy and hope.
“I lost my family a long time ago. Who knew in such darkness I could find a new one? I want you to take this.” She slips a hand into her robes and pulls something out. When she holds her hand palm up and Rowan peers closer, she lets out a gasp.
A ring sits against Isobel’s pale skin. The band is a simple silver inlaid with a pearlescent filigree and in the center, a beautifully cut opal set in the shape of a crescent moon. Gale inches forward and lets out a sharp sound of surprise himself as his gaze settles on it, already starting to shake his head.
“Lady Isobel, no, we couldn’t possibly—”
“Yes, you can,” Isobel argues. “It belonged to my mother. I was going to propose to my beloved with it, but…” That melancholy again, bitter and deep and full of a grief that cuts Rowan to the core as Isobel’s breath quickens. “She is gone, too, and I have no use for it. Better it goes to my sister.”
Rowan gingerly, reverently, takes the ring from Isobel. It’s warm to the touch. She swears the emblem in her robes shifts, as if it has a life of its own, and something inside her tells her to check her pockets. So she does.
And when she pulls out a ring instead of the symbol of Selûne, she does not know whether to laugh or weep with joy. It is silver, just like the ring that once adored Isobel’s mother’s finger, but the crown jewel is a dark sapphire. It is as blue as the sea; as blue as the waters Gale’s tower looks out upon.
The sapphire is cut like a starburst. Not the pointed, ostentatious design of Mystra—no, this is soft and gentle and when Rowan places both rings next to one another, it is clear the designs are meant to complement one another.
Her heart flutters.
The Mother of Magic may have abandoned Gale, but it seems he now has another goddess kindly watching over him. Whether it is for Rowan’s sake or simply because Selûne’s capriciousness is one of compassion, she doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. The Moonmaiden has given her blessing.
Rowan turns to Gale. He is gaping at the other ring in her hand, his eyes wide. Slowly, she holds it out to him, her arm trembling. The air is suddenly thick with magic. With divinity. With love and grace and starsong, humming and echoing in the back of her mind as Gale takes the opal-adorned ring.
He slips it onto her finger. The metal is snug. A perfect fit. It looks as though it was always meant to be there, and the weight feels like his kiss.
She does the same to him, the sapphire glinting in the moonlight. Constellations shine from inside the gem, shimmering with pure Weave.
They stare at one another in silence, drinking in each other’s presence. They are in their own little world again. No illusions or magic is needed. The universe is Gale and Rowan and it lasts for an eternity.
Until Isobel awkwardly clears her throat, and Rowan realizes they still technically aren’t wed, and she feels her cheeks flush with shame.
But there’s something she has to know before that happens. She owes it to Isobel. The cleric has done so much for her, given her so much, and Rowan feels as though she has barely scratched the surface of doing the same.
“What was her name?” she asks quietly, taking a finger and tracing the filigree on her ring. She meets Isobel’s eyes, smiling gratefully. “Your beloved.”
She does not miss the tears Isobel blinks away.
“Aylin,” she says hoarsely after a few moments, the stillness punctured with a pain that shows no signs of ever letting go. “Her name was Aylin, and she was resplendent.”
“Aylin. Aylin and Isobel.”
Rowan reaches forward and takes Isobel’s hand.
“What wonderful names for my sisters.”
Gale reaches forward and takes Isobel’s other hand. The cleric trembles, a single breathy gasp caught in her throat as a couple tears drip down her angular cheeks. She pulls both wizard and sorcerer close, squeezing their hands. Arms brush against Rowan’s shoulders and back, a phantom touch laced with a motherly calm. The moonlight emanating from the ritual seems to glow a little brighter. The air is a little sweeter.
And then Isobel weds them.
Rowan would be lying if she said she remembers every moment of the ceremony. But she does not.
All she can remember is gazing into Gale’s eyes, every ounce of her drowning in the love she feels for him.
She remembers his fingers woven with hers, a soft and dull clink resounding from the bands they wear every time they bumped against one another.
She remembers Isobel’s voice, haunting and lovely, saying the words husband and wife.
Husband, Rowan thinks as Gale’s lips curl into a smile unlike any he has ever given her before. This is my husband. We’re married. We’re married and I’m his wife and he’s my husband and—
And then Gale is kissing her, slow and fast and everything in between, and her fingers are in his hair and his hands are on her hips and everything is perfect.
She needs to be in a world with just him again, right now, propriety be damned.
With a single thought she summons the Shadow Weave at her side. Darkness and shadows emerge from thin air and wrap themselves around the two of them. She hears Isobel let out a startled shriek before the magic of the Matron whisks them away to their room, displacing them in space.
Gale sways dizzily for a moment, breaking the kiss as he lurches against her to gain his balance back. “Rowan,” he complains, though his tone is full of amusement, “we didn’t even tell Isobel thank you!”
“We can tell her later,” Rowan points out impatiently. She drags him into another kiss, hot and heavy and frantic. She’s kissing her husband. Her fucking husband.
Rowan Twice-Born who, never in this world or the one she left behind, ever believed she would find someone who loves her as much as she loves them, is kissing her husband.
Gale doesn’t need the parasite to read her mind. Either that, or he’s activated a Detect Thoughts spell without her realizing, because as her tongue licks a seam against his mouth and her fingers coil like snakes into his silken hair, he whispers, “My wife.”
Rowan freezes.
His wife.
How can something so simple sound so amazing?
“My wife,” Gale repeats in a murmur, his mouth sliding down to her throat. His tongue curls along the scar she earned yesterday. She shivers as his teeth scrape against it, the act somehow both possessive and tender in ways she cannot describe. His hands drag her closer, pushing her into him, his voice a decadent hum. “My beautiful, wonderful wife. My perfect wife. My Rowan Dekarios.”
Her name in his mouth lights a fire beneath her skin.
She did not know she missed having a last name all this time. She never thought to give herself one. It didn’t matter. Only this new name of Rowan for this new, blessed life did, and now she is Rowan Dekarios.
And there is nothing more that Rowan Dekarios wants to do than make love with her husband on their wedding night.
“Bed?” she questions, her voice coming out in a rasp.
“Bed.”
The scent of the Weave fills the air. Clothes are removed by magic and tossed into a crumpled pile on the ground as, in one swift movement, Gale and Rowan stagger to the bed. They careen into the mattress with a desperation that would put a succubus to shame. The rings clink together, the only thing the spell did not take away, as their hands reach for one another.
Somehow, Gale makes it to the bed first.
Somehow, Rowan finds herself straddling atop him.
They breathe heavy as they gaze at one another, hands linked and bodies heaving with anticipatory sighs. Rowan can feel the length of Gale’s cock rapidly hardening as it brushes against her ass. Desire coils tight in her core, heat flaring through her bloodstream as she studies her husband beneath her. Gale’s face is painted a lovely shade of red. His eyes are shining with a wanton longing that makes her want to whimper aloud and they haven’t even done anything yet.
Gale licks his lips.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers. His tone makes her shiver.
She cups his cheek with her free hand, a grin fluttering to her face as she leans back into his erection. “I know,” she says with an excited giggle, grin widening when Gale lets out a tiny little moan as her curves rub against his cock. Hunger is etched into every line of his face as he looks up at her with raw, unimpeded devotion.
“My wife,” he repeats, and those words will never not bring her to paradise.
He licks his lips again, tongue darting out as quick as a serpent, and Rowan’s pussy clenches as she recalls the sensations of it delving between her folds. Gale raises an eyebrow, no doubt feeling her grow wet as her bare sex rests against his waist. The hand holding hers slips away as he suddenly grasps her hips and yanks her closer to his face with no warning.
“My wife. My goddess. My queen.”
Gale’s voice is sultry and sweet, every syllable he speaks dripping with a ravenous zeal. Her thighs are straddling his shoulders. She’s almost hovering above his face as she blinks down at him, breasts heaving as her heart pounds wildly away. “Your throne awaits, your majesty,” he all but begs, and she does not have time or the mental fortitude to consider anything else.
Rowan lowers her hips.
And then she’s sitting on his face, and his tongue is on her clit, and Rowan’s head rolls back as her husband begins to eat her out. Her hands fly to his head, tangling in his hair again, needy moans bubbling up in her throat. His tongue circles around her sensitive clit, flicking against the bundle of nerves so perfectly before he shifts and is wriggling between her folds. His nose bumps against her clit at this angle with every movement. It sends ripples of pleasure throughout her body, eliciting more moans as she rocks her hips into his mouth.
Gale breathes deep. His tongue, practiced and masterful as always, devours and licks and tastes all of her. His chest rumbles as he groans softly beneath her sex, nodding enthusiastically in tempo with her lazy swaying. His fingers grip into the soft flesh of her curves as he holds her in place, though not so hard as to prevent her from moving.
Rowan cries out his name softly, gently. She loves his tongue. She loves him. She loves everything about this. Gale is so hungry and she’s so wet and nothing else matters but him, him, him.
Her hips roll into his tongue, the room permeated with the wet sounds of suckling and licking. Her lips part as whimpers crawl out from her throat. Euphoria stretches spindly fingers and strokes her cunt from inside. She’s close. How is she already so close?
Because it’s Gale. Her husband with his magic tongue and divine mouth, and that’s enough to drive her mad.
“Gale,” she moans, the tempo of her gyrating hips getting faster. She’s practically fucking his face now. His nose keeps rubbing into her clit and his tongue is buried deep inside her pussy, slipping into her entrance and swirling deftly around just how she likes it. Gods, she’s on fire. Burning, beautiful and brightly, and all for him.
He squeezes her hips encouragingly. His tongue suddenly slips out from inside her and he sucks her clit into his mouth, tongue waltzing to and fro. Her body jerks at the sparks of pleasure it brings. She almost shrieks with bliss and her eyes squeeze shut as she focuses on riding the waves.
She wishes she could see his face—she loves watching him eat her out, the smirk and delight dancing in his eyes so familiar to her now—but this is amazing. Rowan can’t believe she’s never sat on his face before. The angle brings a swathe of entirely new sensations, each one better than the last.
“Gonna cum,” she pants, thrusting her hips as she drags her sex across his parted mouth. He sucks her clit harder, tongue flicking eagerly as he stretches it across. “Wanna cum, Gale, wanna cum…!”
His hands on her hips suddenly become warmer than usual. She smells the Weave again, its distinct scent mingling with the rapid sweaty aroma of sex, and something is cupping her breasts.
Her eyes snap open and she glances down.
Two Mage Hands have appeared, auroral blue and transparent. Rowan bites her lip, hard enough almost to draw blood, as Gale’s cantrip fondles her tits with a nimble expertise borrowed directly from Gale himself. “Fuck,” she whimpers, hips bucking when one hand pinches an already pebbled nipple. “G-Gale…!”
The man does not play fair. Wizards and their love for magic in the bedroom. Not that she’s complaining. Every time he’s used this on her, she hasn’t been able to get enough of it.
Rowan’s world dissolves into ecstasy. His tongue dances on her clit. His spell caresses and squeezes her breasts, toying with her nipples. He sucks and mouths and consumes her essence as she writhes atop him, fisting his hair. Her fingernails dig into his scalp. She can’t stop thrusting her hips on his face, the worry that she’s possibly suffocating him far beyond any mortal comprehension.
Her orgasm hits her hard and with no prior warning, save for the clenching of her core and the inferno inside her blood bursting like wildfire. She whimpers and cries his name out, cunt squeezing and sex pulsing with her release as she cums all over his face. The Mage Hands falter slightly, Gale’s concentration momentarily broken as his tongue burrows between her folds and licks up every drop of her release. There’s so much. And he won’t stop drinking it, groaning with carnal elation that vibrates through her core.
Forget suffocating. Drowning would probably be the way he goes if they do this again. When they do this again.
Rowan is floating. Her body is limp. Her clit throbs. Her pussy aches.
And the damn Mage Hands just keep touching her, thumbs rubbing into her nipples and fingers massaging the tender flesh as she pants and whimpers uselessly.
Finally, lamentably, Gale’s face wriggles out from underneath her sex. He gives her slit one last lick as he does so, the tip of his tongue ending on the twitching bundle of her clit. Rowan gazes down at him through a lust-filled haze, throat dry and lips parted as she sinks into the pleasure of his magic touching her.
His beard glistens with her release. His face is even more flushed now and his mouth is utterly coated with the slick, shimmering wetness of her sex. She can feel his hard cock twitch against her backside as they just look at each other. He shifts below her and purposefully, pointedly, maneuvers her hips until her ass is back up against his length once more. Its thick heat makes her shiver and let out a needy moan.
An idea forms in the dark recesses of Rowan’s mind, unbidden. It emerges from a place she has tried to keep hidden since the start of this lush, evocative journey Gale has gently eased her into.
The inferno inside her smolders back to life.
She wants him to make those noises.
She wants to be the reason he makes them.
If he can conduct the Weave during their lovemaking then by the Raven Queen, so can she.
“Gale,” Rowan whispers hungrily, stroking his hair between her fingers. She’s made a mess of it. She’s about to make a mess of him in other places. “I want to try something. If you don’t like it, will you tell me?”
Though there is a brief flicker of confusion in his gaze, he nods.
“Anything. I am but an open book, requiring only your gentle hands to turn my pages.”
“You and your literary quips. You’re going to have your way with me against every bookshelf in your library when we get back home, aren’t you?”
“Of course. I already know which shelf to start with.”
“If it’s your stuffy wizard poetry shelf, you’d better remove everything by Volo first or I will blueball you, Gale Alexander Dekarios.”
But Rowan is grinning as she makes the threat. She untangles her hands from Gale’s hair, pausing only briefly to admire the luster of the ring wrapped around her finger, before she reaches into the darkness inside her. Magic flickers. Shadows warp and coalesce around her. A raven calls from somewhere beyond her periphery and she shyly, uncouthly, asks the Matron’s forgiveness. She is about to use her goddess’s gift in a rather tasteless fashion. She prays the Raven Queen does not hold her horny, filthy inclinations against her.
It seems her prayers are answered. The shadows become solid. They are soft and malleable to the touch, a velvet-like smoothness to them as she experimentally grasps them in her hands. They hang from her fingertips like puppet strings. Rowan stares down at her husband, who is watching with restless fascination, and slowly brings her arms behind her back.
She knows they’ve made contact with his cock when Gale’s eyes widen and throat bobs in surprise.
“O-Oh,” he stammers, the usual confidence during their lovemaking slipping away and devolving into something more…meek.
Rowan likes it more than she cares to admit.
“You’re always making me feel good,” she coos, heat blossoming between her legs anew. “Let me return the favor, my love.” She leans down and presses a kiss to his lips, the musky-sour taste of herself lingering on his skin. “I want to lavish my husband with everything I have to offer. Can you blame me?”
His eyes widen even more and it seems, for a moment, he cannot respond.
She commands the shadows to move.
Gale cries out in a quiet, subdued manner that tells her he’s desperate to hide his reactions. The Mage Hands groping away at her chest flicker again and then completely dissolve into motes of Weave and starlight. A wet, rhythmic sound begins to rise through the chamber. She wants to turn around. But she will not. Not yet. She wants to watch his face. She wants to see what he looks like as she overwhelms him with pleasure.
“Let me hear you,” she tells him, remembering how he had so lovingly coached her through her reactions that sacred first time. “Don’t hold back, Gale.”
She pinches her fingers together for emphasis. She knows the shadows are wrapped around his length, squeezing and gyrating along his flesh. She knows they’ve just tightened their hold on her command, and she knows a current of darkness has surged to the tip of his cock.
The strangled moan Gale lets out as the cadence of the shadows rubbing up and down gets louder is music to her ears.
“R-Rowan!” he whines, chest rising as his breath quickens and catches on a cavalcade of noises. His eyes flutter shut, face flushing darkly.
She urges the shadows to move faster. His cock is throbbing against her ass, twitching needily. She can picture it in her mind’s eye—completely wrapped in darkness like a sword sheathed, leaking profusely from the tip. She allows a little moan of her own to escape her mouth, fingers dancing along the skin of his inner thigh as she conducts the shadows.
“Do you want more, Gale?” she asks, saccharine and sultry.
He can barely nod. “Yes,” he pleads, hips jerking up when the shadows squeeze and stroke him in a particularly rough pattern. “Oh, gods, Rowan, don’t stop…”
She wouldn’t dream of it.
Seconds drift into minutes, and minutes maybe drift into hours. She’s not sure. Time becomes nothing but Gale whimpering and twitching beneath her and the melody of his cock being ruined by her shadows. She watches intently as his eyes squeeze shut harder and his mouth grows slack. His hands, which were still clutching her hips, eventually fall to his side as he grips the sheets with sweaty palms. His hips buck in tandem with the rhythm of the shadows stroking and squeezing, fucking the air as his cock grows even harder.
“Hngh…yes…y-yes…more…”
Rowan has never heard him sound like this. Is this how he feels every time he gets her to make these noises? It’s dangerous. She could get used to doing this every day.
Fucking hells, she’s getting wet again. The sight of his face scrunched up in pleasure, the sound of him pleading and whimpering? She could get off on it with nothing else.
“That’s it,” she hums, sending a surge of magic through the strings of shadows. Hot and cold war with one another, converging towards Gale’s balls and slowly making their way up the length of his cock. He cries out, pitifully, pathetically, head limp against the pillows as the conflicting temperatures wreak havoc on him.
“C-Close,” he drools, eyes fluttering open only slightly.
Enough to see that he’s rolled them back into his head, face pinched with ecstasy.
When she feels a stickiness slowly begin to dribble down her back, Rowan at last looks behind her. She almost wishes she hadn’t. It’s a glorious spectacle, one seared in her memory forever.
Pre-cum weeps from the tip of Gale’s cock, mixing and mingling with the inky darkness of her shadows. He’s swollen, almost painfully so. But she’s not done. Oh, no, she has something else planned.
Rowan flicks her wrist.
The shadows scurry away from Gale’s cock. They morph into one, dark webbing transforming into a serpent-like shape tapered at the end. Gale lets out a frustrated, distressed whine and Rowan turns her head back to him.
His eyes are open and the puppy-dog look he’s giving her is dreadfully endearing. Her core clenches. Her pussy grows wetter. She chews the inside of her cheek, debating between abandoning this experiment or giving him what he wants.
Well. He’ll probably want this, too. And she wants to see him break.
“Be as loud as you want, baby,” she instructs him.
She orders the magic to do her bidding.
And when the shadows slither down and begin to slowly inch inside of him, slick and wet from his cock, Gale gasps.
Rowan studies his face as Gale’s eyes roll back into his head again. “F-Fuck,” he moans, hips jerking as the shadows push deeper and further. They are as gentle as he was the first time he thrust himself into her, inching away at a pace that allows him to get used to the sensation of being stretched. She feels him stiffen slightly beneath her and for a moment she fears she’s gone too far, but then his body relaxes and he whines noisily. The shadows are all the way in. His cock throbs against her backside, furiously leaking pre-cum down her spine.
“Is it good?” she asks softly, blood boiling beneath her skin.
He nods, the barest inclination and tilt of his head.
Rowan sighs in relief. She wouldn’t want him to push himself for her sake.
To reward him for his honesty, she commands the shadows to move. Gale’s breath hitches and he twitches beneath her. She slides her hands up his chest, free to do so now that the shadows are no longer attached, and holds onto his shoulders. Her body begins to move on its own. Keeping the same unhurried, drowsy pace as the shadows, she rolls her hips against him and grinds her aching sex into him.
“What a good boy you’re being,” she murmurs. The assertiveness in her voice shocks her, as do the words she spoke in it. Those were inside thoughts. Shit.
But now that she’s voiced it, Rowan finds she can’t shut up.
“You’re taking this so well,” she praises, grinding slow and steady. She can hear the fleshy thrusts of the shadows sliding in and out of him. “Did you ever imagine this, Gale? Tell me. I want to know.”
His voice is high pitched and shrill. No words fall from his lips. He just moans and whimpers, head sinking into the pillows as the shadows thrust in and out languidly. “H-Hah,” he whines out, unable to answer. “Nnnngh…o-oh…~”
Harder. Faster. She wants to hear more of him. She wants to see him come undone by her hand.
She wants to see her husband fucked silly.
“Good boy,” she repeats almost in singsong, leaning her head back and licking her lips. “Good boy…”
She tells the shadows to go harder. Faster. She knows they have obeyed when she can feel the force of their thrusts shaking Gale’s body, causing her to shift on top of him as she continues to rut into him. He lets out another string of wordless cries, the sound digging into her chest and clawing its way to her core. Gods, she loves this.
Her clit is on fire. Her pussy throbs and aches, desperate to be filled.
She tilts her gaze down to look at Gale, unable to get enough of him.
His skin is slick with sweat and shines in the candlelight of their room. “Rowan,” Gale whimpers, her name a frenzied stutter in his parted lips. He says it like he’s delirious. His eyes are barely open, his pupils almost invisible behind the curtain of his eyelashes. But even so he manages to hold her gaze, his eyes swimming with feverish want, and he reaches a hand out.
It’s the hand his ring is on.
Rowan reaches out as well and grasps his hand, their fingers curling together. Their rings clink. It’s a sound more beautiful than his symphony of pleasure. What little strength Gale has he uses to squeeze her hand, a dopey smile fluttering across his flushed face as the shadows fuck into him mercilessly.
He brings her hand to his mouth. His lips caress the inside of her wrist, drifting across her knuckles, wandering along the back of her hand. “My wife,” he murmurs, his voice startlingly clear and devoid of any wailing whimpers. “My wife…”
She loves him.
She loves him and she loves the way he says those two words.
She loves it so much she feels her eyes grow hot and heavy and prickle with tears for the hundredth time tonight.
Only Gale Dekarios could make her cry when she’s the one fucking him.
“My husband,” she says softly, halting the shadows’ movement for a moment so she can just look at him. This is the face she wants seared in her memory—the demure upturn of his lips, the flushed cheeks, the way his eyes see into her very soul and teem with a love bigger than the distance between her old world and this one.
But, also, she really wants to make him cum.
Rowan raises her hips. She closes her eyes. Her magic guides her. The shadows ready themselves.
She sinks down on the full mast of his cock at the same time the shadows thrust forward once more, and Gale cries out her name with devastating lewdness.
“R-Rowan…!”
She gasps as he fills her, his cock throbbing and twitching inside her. The shadows thrust in and out madly, lurching Gale against the mattress with the sudden force of it all. She can feel the bulge of the shadows beneath her as they slither along his insides. The friction rubs against her ass, a strange sensation, and she pants as she starts to try and match their pace again. She slides up and down, his cock slipping out of her for one brief second only to be immediately encased by the tightness of her cunt.
It feels so fucking good.
She sees stars with every movement. Gale is a moaning, whimpering mess as he desperately lifts his hips up to thrust into her. The shadows continue to ravage and ruin him, the squelching, obscene sound unraveling the overwound coils inside of Rowan. And then Gale lets out a wail, loud and miserable and ripe for the taking.
He’s close. She’s right behind him. His hand tightens around hers.
“Together,” she manages to say.
She’s not sure who is first. They pant and moan and cry out each other’s names like an invocation to the divine as Gale spills inside her and Rowan gives in to the tightening in her core. His cock twitches madly against her walls, his release pouring into her and filling her to the brim with the telltale warmth of their lovemaking. Her hold on the shadows slips and Gale shudders beneath her as he is suddenly empty, his hand trembling in hers.
Rowan collapses against his chest.
She finds it is incredibly difficult to move.
Apparently, puppeting a mass of magical shadows to fuck one’s husband in the ass takes a lot more energy than she anticipated.
A heavy, tired hand rests on top of her head. Gale shivers and spasms slightly, his cock still somewhat hard as it rests inside of her, a small river of seed already beginning to seep out of her at this angle. He clears his throat.
“Th…that was…”
“Incredible?” Rowan supplies as he trails off, her voice muffled by his chest. His wonderfully soft and comfortable chest.
“Yes. Gods, yes. Thank you, Rowan.” The hand on her head begins to lazily stroke her hair. “I did not expect it but by the Weave, was it a welcome surprise.”
Rowan lifts her head up slightly so she can look at him. She can’t tell if the expression he’s wearing means he’s ready to pass out or gearing up for another round. She’s not sure which option she would prefer right now.
“Consider it a wedding present,” she mumbles, giving him a lazy grin. “You let me sit on your face. It seemed only right to pay you in kind.”
“The only wedding present I will ever need is the fact that you are my wife,” Gale says reverently, warmly, matching her grin with a tender smile. He pulls her ringed hand to his mouth once more and places yet another chaste kiss to it, this time on the finger wearing the silver band. “I love you, Rowan Dekarios.”
Rowan will not cry again. Not after fucking him silly and hearing him make all those extraordinary sounds.
She sniffs once, just once, and swallows down the emotional sob trying to hide in the confines of her throat. “I love you so much, Gale,” she tells him, and she says every word with more ferocity than she has ever regarded him with. “So, so much.”
Silence settles between them.
He shifts inside her. The movement sends a sharp, almost inconsequential shudder of pleasure up her spine. She can’t stop the little mewl of want that spills from her parted mouth, cheeks immediately flushing when he levels her with an amused stare.
But Gale does not say anything, and Rowan finds herself focusing on his mouth.
His talented, godly mouth and the profane tongue inside it.
Gale’s smile turns into a smirk as he follows her restless gaze. “The throne is always ready and willing for the queen,” he teases, eyes dark with an aching hunger.
Rowan sighs. With great effort, she brings herself into a sitting position and raises her hips. His cock slips out of her with an audible pop, white sticky ropes of his spend dripping out and landing on his thighs.
Gale does not seem to mind.
In fact, he only looks more eager at the sight.
“Well, then,” Rowan exhales through pursed lips, trying to contain her own eagerness. “I suppose court will be in session for the remainder of the night.”
“Whatever your majesty decrees,” her husband concedes.
The air crackles with the Weave. The familiar visage of his conjured Mage Hands shimmer into existence. They clutch at her hips, digging into her waist as they drag her up and towards his face. Gale breathes in deep as her sodden sex hover only inches away from his face, his pupils dilating with devout fervor.
And when his tongue thrusts between her soiled folds, and his groan of arousal sends reverberations throughout her body, Rowan has to admit: it’s damn good to be queen.
Chapter 16: the devil you forgot
Notes:
"this chapter will be be under 10k" i told myself last month when i started writing it lol
imma be real y'all, this was a red-headed stepchild. i am not 100% happy with it, but i'm kinda at the point where i need to stop looking at it. i did some major editing that chased away a lot of the "this sucks" emotions but still, there are definitely parts that could have been better than what they are.
oh well.
Chapter Text
“You licked a dead spider. Dead. Spider. You licked it. That is something that happened.”
Rowan hears Gale’s sigh, incredulous and full of a soft pity, even from where she is sulking behind a creepy flesh pillar.
“I think we need to get you some air, and perhaps have a long talk about unresolved childhood issues, Miri.”
Which, considering recent events, are surely many in number and startlingly fucked up in nature.
“Darling, put the spider meat down,” Astarion tells the tiefling in a similar tone to Gale. Not an ounce of his typical bite curls in his suave voice.
There is a pause. A strange shuffling that sounds eerily like meat dropping on, well, meat. And then Miri’s voice rings out, laced with horror and disbelief as she exclaims, “I—I didn’t—oh, good gods, that’s disgusting!”
Rowan has a sneaking suspicion she really does not want to look in the direction everyone’s voices are echoing from. Her stomach is already turning from the nightmarish scene they wandered into—the pounds of dead flesh and raw, red bodies in various stages of decay. Seeing a giant spider corpse will make her pass out. Seeing Miri apparently lick said spider corpse will make her sob hysterically and then pass out.
She is starting to regret her decision to join them. Who knew something as problematic-sounding as “kill a devil for a cambion named Raphael so he can provide information about Astarion’s evil vampire sire” would actually be, well. Difficult.
“The displacer beast could have been spared at least,” Rowan mutters to herself, fiddling with her ring. The silver band’s unyielding comfort has not gotten any less wondrous in the three days since Gale slipped it on her finger. Even in the dismal, grotesque air of this hellish abode, the opaline crescent moon still shines as bright as a star.
Her eyes trail up to the path above her, where the still and slain body of the displacer beast lay crumpled amongst a sea of mutilated corpses. Poor thing. The devil—an orthon, Raphael had called him—disposing of it and then himself at Miri’s behest had been unexpected. Impressive. And terrifying. Manipulating the orthon with just some pretty words and a few strings of her violin took a dark kind of talent Rowan does not want to ruminate on.
Especially when she can recall Miri’s twisted, murderous sneer with perfect clarity.
The events of three days ago hang heavy between everyone. There is an unspoken vow not to speak of Miri’s sudden descent into a feral, bloodthirsty rage. Isobel seems to have forgiven her; Gale, too, on account of the bard’s knife barely leaving a scratch Shadowheart could not heal. The shadows under Miri’s eyes are more prominent than ever and yet she continues to walk with a spring in her step and a bright smile that does little to belay the unsettling twist in Rowan’s stomach.
She and Astarion have spent most of the last three days infiltrating Moonrise Towers. On their own, on account of Halsin watching over the spirit of the land haunted by Shar’s curse. The news they brought with them was…troubling. Very troubling.
Ketheric Thorm is immortal. There is a relic known as the Nightsong that gives him power over life and death. Said relic is kept somewhere within the bowels of the Gauntlet of Shar, an old and abandoned proving grounds for Sharrans carved beneath Reithwin.
And Miri has been to Moonrise before.
Pieces of the bard’s amnesia have begun to put themselves back together. Only enough for her to know she walked the sundered halls now overrun by Absolutists, but it’s enough for her to express a frustrated sorrow towards Ketheric. The general was involved in Miri waking up with a worm in her head on a mind flayer ship, she swears.
So now they are here, skulking about below the ancient catacombs of the Thorm family to find the Nightsong and destroy Ketheric’s immortality.
And apparently, that involves Miri licking dead spider meat, something Rowan wants to think even less of than Miri’s deadly lapse in sense.
“I wish Wyll and Karlach were here,” she sighs, no longer paying attention to the muffled sounds of Miri gagging and spitting behind her. She got used to fighting alongside them in the Underdark. She doesn’t know how to feel about being paired with the other members of Gale’s infected troupe.
But alas, they were on a mission of their own. Wyll’s devil patron had made an appearance the day after the attack on the inn.
(The day after Rowan and Gale were wed.)
Mizora had declared furiously, frantically, that an agent of Zariel was being held by the Cult of the Absolute. Wyll was given the task of freeing them and only by Dorian’s bullheaded list of demands, was promised an end to his pact if he succeeded. Karlach, not trusting Mizora’s word for a second, promised to accompany Wyll in his quest to find this agent.
It went without saying Dorian would not leave Wyll’s side, nor Jericho Karlach’s.
Rowan frowns as she lets her thoughts wander.
How the hell are all these people slipping in and out of a seemingly impenetrable fortress for a freaky worm cult without getting caught?
Astarion and Miri she can believe. The vampire is adept at roguish trickery and Miri is as adaptable as an amoeba. Everyone else, though? And with Jericho and Dorian being without parasites?
Well, so far no wrenches have been thrown in their plans. Maybe Rowan is just worrying over nothing. It’s hard not to, surrounded by the horrific atmosphere of Reithwin proper. And she thought the land surrounding Last Light had been ruined. Boy fuckin’ howdy, the actual town of Reithwin made the ravaged forest and farmlands look like a beachside timeshare. She had never felt so unwelcome as she had when their party had stepped across the dilapidated marble bridge leading into the ghost town.
No, scratch that. It’s down here that she has never felt so unwelcome. There is an itch under her skin that won’t go away. A hovering, suffocating presence in the back of her mind. Her instincts have been screaming at her to get out of this place and never look back.
Rowan wishes she could listen to those instincts. But she and Gale promised Isobel they would join Miri.
“Stop Ketheric and the pain he has caused,” the cleric of Selûne had all but begged them, eyes trained knowingly on the rings around their fingers. “I know it will be dangerous, but you both must be part of this moment. Please, go find this Nightsong. For me—and for Our Lady of Silver.”
Her sister had asked so desperately. Rowan couldn’t say no. Not after everything Isobel has given her and done for her and Gale. There is no mistaking the eerie sensation that Isobel knows more of the circumstances around the shadow curse than she has let on, but Rowan won’t push. She won’t pry.
She’s the Champion of the Raven Queen. This place gives darkness a bad name. She's duty bound to remedy that.
“Are you three just about done rummaging through—Miri, are you looking at that spider coquettishly?”
Shadowheart, who has remained several feet away with Rowan and Lae’zel, peers around the nightmarish column of sewn body parts. Her brows are drawn together in utter bewilderment. Lae’zel mimics her movements, sharp eyes narrowed in confusion and perhaps a little disgust.
“Everyone just forget what you saw and heard!” Miri calls out. “I’m fine! Everything is fine! L-let’s just move on, shall we?”
Rowan’s frown deepens. She doesn’t think Miri would consciously choose to, uh, lick a dead spider under normal circumstances. Whatever happened to her during the attack has not released her from its grip of madness. Rowan has given the bard a wide berth since then, not wanting to say something dumb and causing another murderous fit, but even so…Miri’s constant slips into a hazy, inattentive state have been obvious.
If it were to happen in the heat of battle, chaos would reign.
You’re in a similar boat, you know, a voice hisses inside of her. Rowan’s chest tightens. She is. The Matron’s gift is a constant hum, a buzzing in her throat and a twitching of her fingers, ready and willing to be unleashed.
“Everything will be fine,” she whispers to herself, borrowing Miri’s words.
Footsteps approach, though they are muffled by the canvas of flesh that stretches across what once must have been impeccably shiny flooring. Gale is by her side, smiling at her so beautiful and soft, his hand reaching out to play with the raven feather tucked into her braid. She leans into his touch and ignores the desist to just wrap her arms around him and cling to him like a koala. They’re not in their own little world right now. Plus, copious amounts of public displays of affection would raise suspicions, especially when they’re both so clearly matching wearing rings.
Tara has to know. She just has to. When she sauntered into their quarters the morning after, proudly carrying a fresh kill in her mouth, she had taken one look at them and sat down and just stared. Silently. Discerningly. And then moved on like there was nothing any different, but the tressym has not stopped eyeing the rings since she first noticed them.
Even now, curled around Gale’s shoulders, she gazes at them with a knowing glint in her wise eyes.
Pip, on the other hand, is woefully unobservant.
Rowan has to wonder if it’s a ploy on their part or her familiar is just that ignorant.
“No hidden stashes of wealth or weapons back there!”
Miri rushes up, Astarion trailing dutifully behind. Her pretty pink face is more colorful than usual, cheeks flushed brightly. Her mouth is red and almost raw. Like she was rubbing furiously at it with a cloth.
She fiddles with one of her sleeves as she gazes towards the way they came, shoulders straight and head poised a little too high. She’s forcing herself again. Pretending everything is hunky dory when it is so clearly not.
Rowan does not miss the worry that flashes across Astarion’s chiseled face for a brief moment.
“I think we’re done here. With Yurgir dead, we’ve fulfilled our end of the deal. Raphael should tell us what he knows of Cazador.” Miri turns her attention to the other half-elf cleric of their merry little band—er, not entirely accurate, since Isobel hasn’t actually traveled with them all. “Shadowheart, are you ready to press on to the Gauntlet? I know we didn’t fight the merregons or their leader, but we did battle with those corrupted Dark Justiciar souls. Are you feeling well enough to do the trials?”
Shadowheart scoffs. “Of course I am. Lady Shar has guided me here for a reason. I will become a Dark Justiciar today, as sure as night will fall!”
Rowan tries not to cringe. Does she sound like that when she talks about the Raven Queen? Ugh. Probably.
She shouldn’t be so judgmental, but…she just is not a fan of Shar. She doesn’t know Shadowheart very well. She hasn’t interacted with her that much beyond ‘you look dope’ and ‘heal my boo boos.’ Shadowheart has made her distaste for Selûne (and by default, Isobel) loudly known in the short time Rowan has been around her.
She doesn’t get how someone who snuggles with Scratch and Nugget and excitedly points out night orchids has decided to take on a mantle as warped and heinous as Dark Justiciar. She could do so much better than Shar. Shit, Shadowheart would be a fantastic acolyte of the Raven Queen! That’s the kind of darkness to venerate. Not Shar’s bitter, hate-filled shadows centered on loss and pain and oblivion.
Oh, great, she’s doing it again.
In another life, Rowan would have made a damn good door-to-door Bible salesman.
She’s been so preoccupied with her wandering thoughts that she didn’t realize the party had started walking. Somehow, Rowan has totally missed the scenic route back to the Gauntlet’s entrance, and they are now standing before the foreboding archway carved out of purple-veined obsidian. The tunnel beyond is just as dilapidated as the rest of the ruins; the crumbling stone and smashed marble reminds Rowan so much of the Grymforge.
How the hells did Ketheric Thorm build all of this down here without the people of Reithwin knowing? Did he Teleport the workers and materials? How in Selûne’s name did he find a mason willing to carve Shar beneath a town dedicated to the Moonmaiden?
The statues depicting the Lady of Loss clutch braziers in their outstretched hands. They burn with violet flame and for a moment, it feels as if the statues are staring at her. She swears it, even though their faces are covered by a mask of some sort.
How strange that both Shar and the Matron wear masks.
“What do these trials consist of, Shadowheart?” Lae’zel questions brusquely as they all move into the tunnel proper. Her voice is projected throughout the chamber, reverberating back in on itself. If the curse gets broken this would be a fantastic concert space. The acoustics are to die for.
Shadowheart purses her lips. “I don’t know the exact details. This place was essentially mythical to my enclave. I’m surprised it even still exists.”
There is a door a few feet away from them. A golden plaque, embellished with elegant calligraphy, lay inert on the floor beneath it. Astarion waltzes over and peers closely at the old writing. He hums in the back of his throat, an air of interest settling about him.
“Soft-Step Trial,” he reads. His ruby red eyes glitter curiously. “Why, that sounds right up our alley, doesn’t it, darling?”
His gaze slides over to Miri. She nods, coming to his side and focusing on the heavy stone doors beyond the plaque. “We have perfected the art of invisible infiltration. Astarion and I can handle this if the rest of you want to move on.”
“No!” Shadowheart protests quickly. Her voice warbles with the barest hint of outrage, her eyes darkening as she glowers at Miri. “These trials have been created by Shar for her faithful! I should be the one to complete them. On my own,” she adds, adamant and indignant.
Rowan does cringe at that. She probably would say the exact same thing were this the Gauntlet of the Raven Queen. The epiphany is disconcerting.
Lae’zel grunts and crosses her arms, her armor clanking together with the movement. She levels Shadowheart with an icy stare. “The sooner we run this Gauntlet of yours,” she hisses, “the sooner we find the Nightsong, and the sooner we stop Ketheric Thorm. Now is not the time to be stubborn.”
And then her face softens.
Ever so slightly, almost imperceptible, but it’s there. The angular edges of her cheeks shift. Her eyes aren’t narrowed. Her lips, curled into a scowl, lessen and transform into a facsimile of a smile. Just barely.
“Let us help you, Shadowheart. We are companions. This should not be done alone. You did not let me face Vlaakith’s assassins on my own no matter how loudly I insisted.”
Shadowheart looks torn between wanting to argue further and knowing the githyanki is right. She brings a hand to her forehead and pinches the bridge of her nose, shoulders slumping as she exhales deeply. The violet flames lit in the brazier directly behind her flicker, ominous and scrutinizing.
After a minute of strained silence, she nods curtly.
“Fine. I just hope Lady Shar is not offended when the trials are completed by those not wishing to become Dark Justiciars.”
“I think Lady Shar would be offended if we so much as looked at her,” Gale mumbles under his breath, so quietly only Rowan can hear. She holds back a laugh by disguising it as a well-timed cough, her face the picture of innocence when Shadowheart glances at her in momentary confusion.
Miri claps her hands.
“Then it’s settled,” she states, tone indicating the finality of the decision. “Astarion and I will do this trial. You four move on and claim the next ones. Before you know it, Ketheric will be crawling on his knees before us, begging for mercy!”
She says it with such nonchalance that one could almost pretend she didn’t mean anything by it. But Rowan knows; they
all
know. Miri’s bloodlust is snarling just below the surface. She means to rip the answers she craves from Ketheric and then tear him apart with her own two hands. The pink flames in her eyes are smoldering—her mouth is twitching into a disquieting, demented grin.
Astarion subtly curls his fingers around her thin wrist and tugs her closer to him. “Come, love. No sense in wasting time out here. We’ve a trial to complete, yes?”
Miri blinks.
The blossoming mania subsides.
She quietly allows the vampire to pull her along, the massive doors swinging open with a grinding moan. Miri and Astarion disappear into the chamber beyond and the doors slam shut behind them as if they are animated by some kind of spirit, the bang echoing dully throughout the once opulent hall.
The remaining members of the party move on.
About fifty feet down from the first door, a second one appears. It is across from there the hallway curves and dips down, following a flight of stone stairs that look ready to crumble in on themselves at any moment. A massive statue of Shar presides over the stairway, haughty and imperious as she towers with dark might. Shadow and mist swirl along the abyss from which the statue rises. Rowan gets that feeling again, the unwelcome stab of anxiety and the sense she is being watched.
“Self-Same Trial,” Gale says. Rowan tears her gaze away from the statue and turns her attention to her husband, who is peering attentively at a plaque laden before this door. “That sounds interesting. Maybe Rowan and I can do this one?”
Shadowheart shrugs. Though she acquiesced to Lae’zel, it’s clear she’s still bitter about it. “If you want.”
Gale glances over to Rowan, a silent question in his eyes. She nods. She would prefer to research all of the trials before making a decision, but time is short. They need to complete this stupid Gauntlet and find the Nightsong. The curse must be broken. Ketheric Thorm must be punished.
It occurs to her that neither Lae’zel nor Miri cited breaking the curse as a priority. They probably did not want to open that can of worms with Shadowheart present. Considering how enthralled she’s been with the twisted magic of her goddess there is a high chance she would throw a fit.
Rowan gives Shadowheart and Lae’zel a hearty thumbs up. “Don’t worry, y’all. Gale and I’ve got this.”
Shadowheart sniffs noncommittally.
Lae’zel gives Gale a stern look, sharp teeth bared as she scowls deeply. “Do not forget to cast something to give you armor, wizard,” she all but commands him, a general ordering a soldier. “I know not what lies beyond those doors, but I do not want a repeat of what happened at the inn. Protect yourself better, lest I shove you into plate mail and force you to wield a blade.”
Gale chuckles, an amused grin flitting across his face. “Yes, mother. Thank you for the kind reminder.”
“Chk.
You show far too much cheek on the eve of battle.”
“Cheek? Heavens, no! It’s delight, pure and simple. I’m just touched you care so fiercely about my wellbeing.”
“You are a vital member of this party. A severe injury would pose a problem. It’s common sense and nothing more.”
“Of course. Just common sense,” Gale agrees, his grin widening.
The look on Lae’zel’s face betrays her innate desire to smack said grin off with the butt of her sword.
Rowan and Gale bid a quick farewell to Shadowheart and the githyanki warrior. The doors to the Self-Same Trial opens on its own as they approach, revealing a dim chamber lit only by more braziers aglow with dark purple flames. When they both step inside, the doors swing shut without any prompting, and an icy chill runs down Rowan’s spine.
There is an altar in the middle of the chamber.
It’s carved from yet another statue of Shar. Black candles surround an empty basin, the gilded surface caked with something rusted. Beyond the altar is a massive archway leading to an open-aired area, almost like a balcony of sorts.
Rowan looks to Gale. His cheeky grin has transformed into a pensive frown. He approaches the altar, studying it intently. Rowan remains behind him and anxiously grasps the feathers at her throat, closing her eyes. Pip manifests onto her shoulder with a single thought, their raven form appearing out of smoke and mist. They coo softly as their sharp little talons dig into her skin, grounding and familiar.
Everything will be fine. She needs to stop panicking. Nothing has even happened yet.
“I believe blood must be split into the basin for the trial to officially begin,” Gale muses after a few moments.
She groans. “Of course it does. It wouldn’t be Shar related without blood sacrifice.”
“We should be grateful that’s all Shar is requiring. If this were Bhaal, we would have to offer a lot more than a few drops of blood.” Gale taps his fingers against the altar. “Lolth and Loviatar would also be partial to blood sacrifice. I know for certain my father has soaked quite a few prayer sheets in Umberlee’s name as well. Gruumsh, Tiamat, Asmodeus…the list of deities partial to this particular brand of ritualistic worship goes on.”
He looks up from the basin to catch Rowan staring at him. He blinks, confusion flitting across his face as she continues to silently, besottedly gaze at him as her heart thumps away at an intoxicated rhythm.
“Ah. Rowan, sweetheart? Is something the matter? Why are you staring at me?”
“No reason. I just like it when you go all scholarly. I enjoy listening to you talk as if you’re giving a lecture.”
Her cheeks grow warm at the admission. Embarrassment curls in the pit of her stomach. For the love of—Gale has had his face between her legs and his cock buried inside her how many times, and she’s getting bashful about this?
Her husband (the butterflies are never going to go away whenever she thinks of Gale as such) rewards her with a beaming grin and a kiss to her cheek, his lips lingering a beat too long. If they weren’t currently in a creepy training area built for Sharrans racing against the clock, she would shove him against a wall and ride him until her legs gave out.
“Why, thank you. I do so enjoy giving lectures. Perhaps I’ll treat you to a private one when we return to Waterdeep, hm?”
“Don’t tempt me, Professor. You know I love getting extra credit from you.”
“Please keep your hormones in check until we have left this dreadful place,” Tara complains loudly, wings rustling as she hops off of Gale’s shoulders and scoots a few feet away from the two of them.
Rowan’s face flames even more. She laughs nervously, avoiding the tressym’s sharp gaze and pointedly not fiddling with the ring around her finger. “Oops. Sorry, Tara.”
Yeah. This is not the time or place to be horny about her hot, wonderful, talented husband.
Gale clears his throat, his face flushing a little. He taps the offering bowl carved within the altar again and Rowan notices he is careful to use the hand his ring does not adorn. “Who should offer their blood? Do you think it will make a difference? I was once Mystra’s Chosen, and Shar and her have never seen eye-to-eye. I’m not sure how well my blood will be received.”
Rowan peers closer at the basin. She takes in the ancient, caked-on flecks of dried blood and represses a shiver. Neither of them are a good choice to be totally honest. She’s close enough to Selûne that Shar might do something petty.
On the other hand, she does have the Shadow Weave flowing through her veins. The threads are different from the ones Shar and her faithful tug and pull on, but still. Her darkness should be more than ample for whatever ritualistic blood sacrifice Shar gets herself off on.
“I’ll do it,” she declares. “My connection to the Shadow Weave should be enough. Besides, you don’t have much Rowan juice left in you, and I’d rather you not waste it on something like this.”
“I know the perfect way to replenish my stores of Rowan juice,” Gale says in an almost singsong tone, gaze trailing downward towards the juncture of her thighs.
“Gale!” Rowan exclaims.
“Mr. Dekarios, really?” Tara hisses at the same time.
“ Hah! Both of ya are disgusting,” Pip cackles, having the time of their life.
Rowan banishes the rest of her horny thoughts to an unseen corner in the back of her mind and bids them to remain hidden. It’s time to focus. They’ve got work to do. And as much as she loves Gale, as much as she loves exploring him and having him show her things she never would have known without him, she has to remain vigilant. Stern. At the ready.
No giving into base desires today!
She nudges Gale out of the way and pulls a simple dagger out from her robes. Wyll gave it to her before they parted ways. “An extra precaution, just in case,” he had told her with a fond pat to her hand. She’ll have to thank him when they meet back up—there is a knife upon the altar, but it’s caked in just as much dried blood as the offering basin is. She would rather not take her chances cutting herself on that.
She pricks the point of her thumb with the dagger’s edge. The pain is minimal, akin to a minor cat scratch. Blood wells up immediately. She turns her thumb over and watches as one, two, three droplets fall through the air and land in the basin.
The air hums.
Static caresses her arms, icy and devious.
The braziers flare, fires burning brighter, and she hears a satisfied sigh in her ear. There is no grand display of divinity. No lightning striking the statue, no choir of shadowy monsters beckoning her to her doom. But Rowan thinks the offering has been accepted. She and Gale haven’t been thrown out of the trial chamber. That’s got to count for something, at least.
She wipes her bleeding thumb on the end of her robe. Taking Nevermore from behind her back, she grips the staff’s handle and takes a step towards the stage ahead of them. “Shall we?”
Gale nods. He takes a step forward as well, coming to her side, and offers her a smile. It helps to settle the nerves rapidly bubbling up in the pit of her stomach. Enough that she’s not completely frozen in place with anxiety, at least.
But when Rowan takes another step forward, Gale disappears.
Pip is no longer on her shoulder.
Nevermore has vanished from her hands.
The trial chamber around her is gone and what it has been replaced with makes Rowan’s throat close up and her eyes widen. There are spiders crawling under her skin. Hornets buzzing angrily inside her skull. Her fingers twitch. Her tongue is dry and swollen in her mouth. Her heart gasps for air as it beats too hard, too fast.
It’s her apartment.
Her apartment from the life she left behind. The world she left behind.
She’s in the living room. A candle is lit and the curtains are drawn. The air is stale—she can’t tell what scent is supposed to be emitting from the candle, which is strange. Laundry is scattered about, thrown in haphazard piles all across the floor. She has no idea if the clothes are clean and ready to be folded or if she was in the middle of sorting them.
A quick glance at the black coffee table in the middle of the room shows stacks of bills and various paperwork she had always meant to file. She should take all of that off while she’s thinking about it. Move it somewhere else. It’ll be just her luck that she lights another candle and somehow all this paper catches on fire and burns the apartment down.
Why is she just standing in the middle of the living room, anyway? She was doing something. She knows she was. But what was she doing, exactly?
Rowan’s eyes flick to the dark, shadowed hallway that leads to the bathroom and bedrooms. It’s quiet. There is no creak in the ceiling as the upstairs neighbors move about. No muffled cheers filtering through the walls as the old woman across the way watches her game show at the highest volume. She usually has a Crane Wives playlist going when she’s doing laundry. Why is it so quiet?
Any moment now, Freya will trot into the living room from the bedroom. Her bell will jingle. Everything will make sense. Everything will be right again. And Rowan can go back to whatever it was she was doing before she got so…distracted.
She stands there for a minute. Two. Three. It’s still silent. Still stale. Freya does not appear. Rowan cannot remember anything.
The apartment feels empty. Dead.
Something shuffles behind her. Footsteps on carpet, heavy and dragging. Rowan whips around like lightning, her instincts calling for—for—
For…what?
Magic isn’t real. It doesn’t exist. This is real life. She’s no sorcerer, no wizard’s apprentice. She’s just a woman with a shitty job living paycheck to paycheck, wandering through each day like a ghost dragging itself through a graveyard.
But if magic isn’t real, how can she explain what she’s seeing?
Because Rowan is suddenly looking at herself. As she spins around, fingers twitching once more as they still reach out for something impossible, she meets her own eyes. It is as though she is looking into a mirror. Except the only glass she can see is a jagged circle of shards piercing through her double’s head, wrapped around like a perverse crown as rivulets of blood stream down her pale skin. It drips slowly, oh so slowly, rolling down her cheeks like scarlet tears.
The blood splatters onto the carpet.
A spark of irritation rises in Rowan’s gut. Trying to get that stain out is going to be a bitch.
(Why should she even care about that in the first place?)
Rowan winces as a sudden sharp pain rings through her head. A thousand needles are stabbing into her, digging under her eyes and rummaging through the meat of her brain. She clutches at her head, a gasp of pain caught in her ragged throat, vision going blurry as agony clutches her with a cold hand.
The version of her wearing the crown laughs. It’s a disjointed, hollow sound that echoes strangely throughout the silent apartment. “Hello, you,” her double says in a voice that she has only heard in nightmares. “Or, perhaps I should say ‘hello, me’?”
Rowan’s legs suddenly feel like they do not exist. Her body sways. The pain in her head swells and expands and spreads throughout her whole self, circulating through her blood as her knees give out from underneath her. She stumbles. She falls. Still clutching at her head, she kneels on the ground before her double, the iron taste of confusion blossoming on her tongue.
No, wait. That’s blood.
Her mouth is full of blood. She’s choking. She can’t breathe. Her ribs are broken. The glass is in her eyes, her throat. She’s in the car again, the shattered windshield sparkling all around her like stars. The jagged crown digs into her skin deeper. The pain gets sharper. Panic and fear dance joyously and slither around her heart.
“What’s happening?” Rowan rasps.
The candle flickers. Shadows stretch and shorten. Darkness ebbs and flows. They’re reaching for her. Rowan swears they’re trying to touch her. But why? And why does she want them to? Why do they feel safe?
The pain in her head flares and suddenly there are hands on her shoulders, sharp nails digging into her skin.
“Did you really think you were special?” her double asks. She looms over Rowan, the blood dripping down her face faster now, her eyes dull and dead like a rotting corpse. The glass embedded in her skin digs deeper. Her mouth curls into a grin, lips pulled back like a snarling wolf to reveal blackened teeth and a swollen tongue. “Did you really think anyone would love such a pathetic, pitiful creature like you?”
Rowan stares at her dead, dying self.
“You’re nothing. Nothing. You are a mistake. A waste of space. That’s why you ended it. That’s why you gave up.”
Her double’s fingernails are claws as they plunge deeper into the meat of her shoulders. Spittle and blood and flesh and shards of glass fly from her mouth as she hisses. Her grin widens—no, the skin of her face is becoming taut. Shriveling. Giving way to a gaunt, skeletal frame, as she begins to decay before Rowan’s very eyes.
“You’re weak,” her dead, dying self continues almost pleasantly, as if they’re talking about the weather.
Every word she speaks makes the agony in Rowan’s head stronger and stronger. She thinks she starts to scream, to weep, but it’s so quiet in the apartment. Silent and still with its stale air and long list of chores left unfinished and forgotten. She was supposed to vacuum today. Get all the fucking cat hair off of the couch. Even though it’s a bit of a moot point, considering Freya will just lay on it the moment the vacuum is back in the closet and spread even more hair all over the cushions.
Freya. Where is Freya? Where is Freya?
Her double laughs, the sound cold and sharp and accompanied by a symphony of shattered glass.
“Weak and unworthy. I can’t believe you thought you could have a second chance. This is your destiny. To rot away until there is nothing left of you. Forgotten. It’s what you deserve, my dearest—”
Her double goes to say the name Rowan left behind.
The name that died in the car crash.
Something inside of her snaps.
“Will you just shut the fuck up?!”
Rowan shrugs off her double’s hands from her shoulders. Her head pulses and pangs of agony riddle her body, but she doesn’t care. She roars, screams, snarls as the candle flickers once more and the shadows cast by its paltry light flock to her side. She stretches an arm out and her fingers coil around something hard and solid, familiar and comforting in her grasp. Nevermore materializes in her fingers. Its thrum of power feels so good and right as she holds it and glares at her dead, dying self. She’s angry. She’s so fucking angry that she could just snap her fingers and ask her darkness to snap this corpse’s neck.
But…
Rowan takes a deep, shuddering breath. She ignores the feathers suddenly itching beneath her skin. She denies the talons desperate to rip themselves free under her nails. The rage becomes softer. Gentle. Apologetic.
She looks at her dead, dying self. The hand not clutching Nevermore reaches out. The corpse she became in another life flinches and recoils, a flash of utter terror in her glassy eyes.
Rowan rests her hand against her double’s decaying cheek. The skin is cold. The flesh is hard. The blood is dry. The crown of glass has become dull and brittle, threatening to break with the slightest of movements.
“I am Rowan Twice-Born Dekarios,” she tells her old self quietly. Gently. Realization dawns on her as she gazes at her death. It hammers away at her chest, thunderous and mighty, and Rowan takes in a deep breath as she gathers the person she was once into her arms with the soft touch she would use to handle a porcelain doll.
Her old self is stiff. Brittle like the crown of glass. Unmoving, unbreathing, unspeaking.
“We are Rowan Twice-Born Dekarios,” Rowan amends as she caresses the unruly, maggot-infested hair of her corpse. “Chosen of the Raven Queen. Her Champion. Friend to so many people in this terrible, beautiful world. We are loved.”
She holds her old self as close to her chest as she can, mindful not to scratch her cheek on the glass shards. Shadows begin to slowly coalesce at her feet, coiling around her arms, slithering up her spine protectively. The darkness embraces both of them—old and new, dead and alive. They are one and the same.
The pain in Rowan’s head dissolves to a dull aching throb, and then nothing at all. The maelstrom of emotions that has been building up deep inside of her shudders, vanishing in a single exhale.
Her death makes a sound. A keening, desperate sound that still holds onto all the hate and anger and sadness she had been so embittered with in this former life. Rowan holds the person she once was tighter. The darkness curls around the two of them in full force, layers upon layers of silken shadow hanging from them like armor.
An admission crawls up Rowan’s throat, her voice as small as a child’s.
“I’m sorry I gave up on this world.”
Her death makes that sound again. It’s a sob. Of relief, of frustration, of agony—so much is held in that sound.
Rowan closes her eyes. She knows if she opens them again, she would be in the car, and the crown of glass would be embedded in her head once more.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save us,” she continues in a hoarse, half-broken whisper. “But I’m okay now. We’re okay. We’re loved. We’re stronger than we were in this life. We’re loved,” she repeats, and in the distance she hears the solitary call of a raven.
The feathers at her throat are suddenly so blessedly warm.
“So stop being so dramatic and rude,” Rowan says to her death. “I’m proud of what we’ve become. Aren’t you?”
The person she was once shudders in her arms. One last sound escapes from her rotting, decaying throat. A sigh. A final exhale of breath. The airy weight of her corpse vanishes from Rowan’s embrace and when she opens her eyes, she is no longer in her old apartment.
She’s back in the trial chamber.
The air smells of magic and nothing of the stale taint from her former life. She can taste the opposing arcane threads of the Weave and the Shadow Weave on her tongue. The cold, creeping chill and the sensation of being watched that never went away, not even when she was in her apartment, is even stronger now.
She looks down without knowing why the urge has struck her. A ring of ashen dust, fine and grainy, surrounds her in a perfect circle. Something is in her hand, the one not clutching Nevermore. She opens her closed fist and glances down.
It is one single, jagged piece of glass that Rowan knows comes from the windshield of the car she died in. She almost crushes it in her fist, some twisted and vindictive part of her wanting the sharp edges to carve a scar along her palm and draw a sea of blood to her skin. But no. That would be stupid. She’s better than that.
They’re better than that.
Rowan lets the piece of glass drop from her hand. It lands with a soft thunk into the ash around her, glittering dully in the violet flames of the trial’s sconces.
A shout of alarm accompanied by a deafening crack of lightning jerks her attention away from the glass. Her head snaps up towards the sound. There are two Gales standing in the amphitheater-like area in the middle of the chamber. One has his hands raised high, purple and blue bolts of electricity dancing between his fingers, while the other one is rapidly Weaving a shield out of magic. The latter has his back turned to her but she doesn’t need to see his face to know that’s her husband.
The one conjuring lightning doesn’t have an ounce of purple in his hair, after all.
Rowan wars with the instinct to immediately fly to Gale’s side and the inherent, primal knowledge that trying to help him would be considered cheating. Of course assisting someone else during these trials would be frowned upon by Shar. Bitch.
“Gale, are you alright?” she calls out to him, her shadows at the ready. Just in case.
Her husband turns around to glance at her, relief palpable in his eyes. His face brightens as she takes a few tentative steps forward, Nevermore poised to strike if needed.
“Oh, good, you’re no longer encased in a tomb of darkness!”
Tomb of darkness? The fuck did this trial do to me?
“I don’t know what kind of trial Shar designed for you,” Gale continues, gracefully casting a quick Counterspell just as his duplicate attempts to set off what would have been a nasty dose of Chain Lightning, “but I pray it was easier than this nonsense!”
Rowan doesn’t know if being forced to be her own therapist could be considered easy. She thinks she would have preferred just beating the shit out of a doppelgänger. She wouldn’t have been brought back to the apartment and everything she had left behind if her trial had gone down that route. Hells, Shar could have at least given her a glimpse of Freya during that Twilight Zone parody.
Even if that glimpse would not have been real.
She should probably be a little more messed up from what she just went through, shouldn’t she? Is there going to be a meltdown at any moment? The familiar numbness that overcomes her when the world becomes too much?
Truthfully, she doesn't know how to feel beyond pissed. Absolutely enraged. She’s pissed at Shar herself for being so godsdamn rude and pulling a stunt like that—for making her remember the name of the dead thing she once was and showing her the desolation she left behind.
But also?
Rowan is strangely elated.
She is loved. She is strong. She is proud of herself and how far she has come. No amount of heckling and harassment from a goddess bent on making people suffer just for the sake of suffering will change that.
It doesn’t mean she’s ready to invite Shar to a tea party any time soon.
A victorious shout from her husband jolts Rowan back to reality. She turns her gaze to where Gale is battling it out with his double just in time to see the one without purple in his hair stagger back, clutching at his chest. His face is twisted in a snarl of wrath and rage, his eyes dark and cold and nothing at all like her Gale’s gentle kindness.
The chamber suddenly smells of ozone, its taste bitter and crisp on her tongue.
Lightning crackles around her husband, deep blue and lavender as it coalesces around him protectively. Rowan’s lips stretch into a grin. He’s taken the double’s Chain Lightning spell and made it his own. She has no idea how he managed to, but it’s certain that the orb being blocked by Elminster is allowing Gale to slowly regain his former mastery over the Weave.
Just what will he be capable of once they remove the mind flayer parasite?
She can’t wait to see.
“Fuck yeah, baby!” she calls out to him, pumping a celebratory fist in the air. “You’ve got this! Show this bastard who’s the true Gale Dekarios!”
Though his back is still turned towards her, she notices the way his posture straightens ever so slightly. The spell coils and twists about his form like undulating armor woven of pure electricity.
He nods, his voice ringing out with a confidence she hasn’t heard him speak with in quite some time.
“Quite right, my love. Allow me to demonstrate.”
It happens so fast she can scarcely believe it happened at all. One moment the magic is wrapped around her husband with a protective ferocity. The next, it bursts forth from him in a clap of raucous thunder, pure power slamming into his double so hard it almost makes Rowan’s head throb with sympathetic pain. The double opens his mouth in a silent scream, those cold and unsettling eyes of his wide with disbelief as alarmingly sharp bolts lightning spear into him as if he were nothing but softened butter.
There is no acrid scent of burnt fabric and flesh. There is no gargling, strained death rattle. The spell, such a furious rush of raw magic Woven so expertly by Gale’s nimble fingers, decimates the mockery of him in the blink of an eye.
His other self disintegrates. Not into ash and soot like Rowan would have expected—like her other self did mere minutes ago. No, he simply…vanishes. Becomes nothing. There is absolutely no trace of the thing with his own face that Gale has been battling.
Save for a blackened mark on the once pristine marble floor where he once stood, the edges forming a shape strikingly close to the star pattern of his wedding band.
The tense, twisted sensation in the chamber suddenly lifts. Rowan’s chest feels lighter; her head does not pulse with the feeling of being watched as it once did. Her skin no longer tightens around her skeleton as if her body wants to curl in on itself and hide from prying eyes.
She sags against Nevermore. The staff’s weight is ever comforting in her grasp as she lets out a heavy sigh. She hates this place. It sucks so much. She misses Last Light. She misses Waterdeep.
She misses her cat.
Oh. Damn. It’s kind of hitting her now. She saw her old life. Her old self. The pathetic, deplorable creature she once was and the equally dismal environment she sequestered herself away in. She doesn’t miss that, not one fucking bit, but…Freya. She misses Freya.
She misses Freya and she wants to go home to Waterdeep with her husband. Maybe, miraculously, her cat will be there when they return. It’s possible. Magic is real. Rowan is on her second life. There is nothing to suggest the Raven Queen can’t bring Freya to this world if she gets on her hands and knees and begs.
…those are thoughts for later, when they’re not stumbling around ancient Sharran strongholds and fighting cultists bent on achieving mind flayer domination. She tucks them inside her chest for safekeeping and swallows the key.
Rowan feels a gentle touch against her cheek and she becomes aware that she is suddenly blinking away tears. She drags herself away from her thoughts again, unfocused gaze meeting Gale’s concerned, beautifully kind eyes.
His voice is soft when he speaks, as if he is afraid he will startle her.
“Are you alright, sweetheart?”
She could nod and lie.
She could force a savage, silly grin on her face and tell him everything is fine.
But she doesn’t. The days of hiding her emotions, of pushing down the truth until it snaps and breaks and poisons her from the inside, are done.
Rowan shakes her head and quickly wipes at her eyes, scrubbing away tears before they have the chance to fall. “No,” she admits, her tone gravelly and thick with heartache.
Gale’s arms do not hesitate to wrap around her. He pulls her close to his chest, her head resting against his heartbeat and the orb that lay dormant inside him. He still smells of ozone and lightning. Sharp and pungent and somehow comforting, if only because she knows how close he is to his former archmage abilities.
“What happened while you were in that darkness?” he asks, his lips brushing against her forehead. “I could not dispel it. Not that I had much time to, on account I was attacked almost immediately by that pale imitation myself.”
“...I saw myself,” she answers after a few moments of silence. The steady rhythm of his heart is doing wonders to keep her mind calm and her voice from wavering. She won’t lose it. She won’t give in to the desire to fall onto the floor and scream and sob. She is safe. She is loved. The memories of who she once was won’t break her. Shar will not win.
Rowan lifts her head up so she can look into Gale’s face, clearing her throat. “The person I used to be,” she clarifies. “Before I came here. Before I…died.”
Her husband remains silent but his eyes widen in even more concern, mouth pressing into a hard line as his expression becomes inscrutable. Rowan reaches out with the hand not holding Nevermore and caresses his stubbly cheek, her thumb tracing the dark scar carved into his skin by the orb.
“I think Shar wanted to ruin me. She wanted me to remember everything and lose myself in the pain of the life I lived. She miscalculated. Yes, it fucking hurt seeing that. I wanted to give up for a moment. I wanted to sink back into that familiar misery, because it used to be easier. But I’m not that person anymore. I have a life I am proud of, a purpose! And I have you, Gale.”
The feathers at her neck are warm, fluttering in an unseen breeze as she feels the touch of the only darkness that will ever matter ruffle through her hair. The ring around her finger is cool and comforting, as silken as strands of moonlight filtered through stained glass.
“I don’t appreciate being manipulated,” Rowan finishes, unable to keep the bitterness out of her words. “I’m pissed and upset about what she tried to do. So I’m not entirely alright, not yet, but I will be.”
Leaving this place would help immensely. She knows it. But they accompanied Miri for a reason, and there’s still the matter of the Nightsong and its connection to Ketheric to unravel. She can hold it together for the sake of the mission.
Gale opens his mouth to speak but is cut off by the sound of wings beating through the air. Pip’s claws are digging into Rowan’s shoulder and at her feet, she feels Tara’s soft fur rubbing against her as the tressym weaves between her legs.
“Boss! Boss! Youse doin’ okay?” Pip asks frantically, jabbing their beak through her braid. “Fuckin’ Shar! I couldn’t follow ya into that weird hole!”
Rowan nods. Guilt slices into her throat ever so slightly. She’d been so caught up in the memories of her past self she hadn’t even realized the familiars were no longer with them.
“We were forced out of the trial chamber by a powerful divine force,” Tara huffs, irritation painting every word. She effortlessly leaps to Gale’s shoulders and smoothes down his hair with a delicate paw, bright eyes narrowed in outrage. “I do believe I have a new goddess to despise. My most sincere apologies. I could not fight against such magic, sir.”
Gale tilts his head to lean into Tara’s fussing. His eyes remain locked with Rowan’s, even as his expression softens and the strain in his face is replaced with relief.
“No apology is necessary, Tara. I’m just thankful you weren’t hurt by an errant spell thrown by that mockery of myself.”
He loosens his arms around Rowan so that he is no longer embracing her, but threads his fingers with hers as he comes to stand at her side. The tingle of the magic lingers on his skin, seeping into her flesh and sending a little jolt up and down her spine.
He had been magnificent. She could watch him Weave spells for hours and not tire of the wonder his skills invoke within her.
Gale squeezes her hand. She almost melts into the comfort such a simple gesture provides.
“Shall we leave this place?” he asks quietly.
In answer, Rowan simply tugs him forward towards the exit. She’s had enough of this room, enough of these trials. There’s no telling what awaits them next, but there is no sense in dallying. Shar’s eyes are no longer on them and Rowan has a distinct feeling it’s because the goddess is angry they both succeeded. Whatever happens afterwards will certainly be a follow up to what they just experienced in this chamber.
The door is open once more when Rowan and Gale approach. The braziers and candles are no longer lit. It is as if all the energy and twisted shadows once beheld by these walls have been snuffed out. The result is an eerie, dim room and a sense of cruel disappointment.
The long, opulent hallway that leads to the rest of the Gauntlet is no different. It is silent and dark. A quick glance towards the door Miri and Astarion had entered shows it’s open once more, but there are no signs of the tiefling and the vampire. Shadowheart and Lae’zel are nowhere to be found either.
Rowan swallows thickly as she looks to the crumbling, carved staircase that leads further down into the darkness. The gargantuan statue of Shar still towers over it, the massive brazier it holds the only source of light.
“Guess we keep going,” she mumbles more to herself than to Gale.
So they do.
The sound of their footsteps echo dully as they make their way down the stairs. When they reach the bottom, they come to another chamber not unlike the one the Self-Same Trial had been housed in. The doors are open and a quick, cursory head poke inside reveals no grumpy githyanki or stubborn cleric.
The path keeps going to the left of the chamber so they continue, reaching another elegantly arched doorway that seems to be the end of the hall. It’s clear it once continued further but decades of neglect and decay have caused the floor to crumble and vanish into the darkness below. It once wound all the way to the area Yurgir and his merrogons were hiding out in, Rowan realizes after a few seconds of peering into the distance. The orthon probably destroyed it himself.
“Ah,” Gale says as Rowan continues to survey the broken path, “so that’s where the rest of our comrades went.”
She suddenly becomes aware of the distinct din of battle.
Rowan turns her attention to where the noise is coming from. The chamber beyond the gorgeous, stylized archway is a little larger than the Self-Same Trial’s. Violet marble steps lead downwards, framed by columns carved of obsidian. Against the walls are massive shelves that go nearly to the vaulted ceiling packed with books, some as thin as a leaf and others so thick you could give someone a concussion if you smacked them with it.
A library. One no doubt teeming with nefarious, immoral secrets Shar and her faithful would rather not see the light of the sun.
Miri and the others are scattered about the chamber. They are surrounded by shambling, groaning figures that advance on them with a furor that makes her skin crawl once more. She recognizes the armor they wear—Dark Justiciars, just like the ensemble every skeleton back in the Grymforge had been wearing.
Reanimated corpses, Rowan realizes with a jolt. She can sense the necrotic energy pulsating from them even where she and Gale stand in the doorway. The chamber reeks with it.
Is this Shar’s doing? Would the goddess use the bodies of her beloved faithful as weapons, puppeting them around shamelessly? Possibly. Probably. But for some reason Rowan is uncertain if this is the dark goddess’s work or not.
It’s not like she’s an expert.
She tightens her grip on Nevermore expectantly. “We should go down and help—”
Rowan’s next words are lost in a cacophony.
Like Gale’s expert redirecting of Chain Lightning, everything happens so fast she’s not sure what she’s witnessing.
Shadowheart is back-to-back with an ethereal, translucent knight that glows as bright as the stars as it swings a massive broadsword at a cluster of Dark Justiciars. Lae’zel is but a mere few feet away, her voice piercing the air in an unsettling githyanki war cry as she jabs at a couple more, her weapon alight with a holy glow similar to whatever being Shadowheart had conjured up. The cleric’s eyes are closed and her hands are held out almost in a prostrating gesture, lips moving in what can only be hurried prayer. Astarion darts out from shadows, quick as a serpent striking, his twin daggers slashing with meticulous precision before vanishing back into the darkness as if he was never there.
But it’s Miri who deals the decisive blow.
She holds her violin the way a grizzled warrior brandishes their sword. From its strings the melody she plucks is both lovely and alarming, a song mixed with a screech. The dizzying, overwhelming thunder of chaos and charm splits the heavy atmosphere in two.
Magic, pure arcane energy woven by the bard’s song, fills the chamber to the brim. The Shatter Miri casts engulfs each of the Dark Justiciars like cloaks, manifesting as bright pink flames that burst on impact. The columns tremble; dust flits down from the ceiling, bits of marble and stone coming undone from years of disrepair and crashing to the floor just a decibel under Miri’s dissonant music.
In an instant, the Dark Justiciars burst.
Brittle bones and rusted breastplates go flying. Weapons clatter to the ground. Everyone, save for Miri, let out startled cries as they are covered in dusted remains of their foes. Miri is panting, eyes wide and mouth curled into a phantom of a snarl as she stares out at the success of her spell.
Her shoulders begin to shake.
Rowan suspects she is holding in a contorted, stygian string of giggles.
The heavy, tense sensation she has been feeling since stepping into this place suddenly returns tenfold. It’s Shar again. Looking in, observing, that wretched telltale disappointed curiosity making Rowan’s blood run cold. As everyone rushes to Miri, their voices mingling in a mess she can barely manage to make out, she spies a glint from far beyond at the other side of the chamber.
A gilded set of golden gates, framed by yet more statues of Shar.
The ring around her finger is so cold it almost burns. Her instincts are whispering, screaming, slicing into her like Astarion’s daggers. She doesn’t want to know what lies behind those gates. She doesn’t want to step into this library. She wants nothing to do with whatever else these trials have in store for them.
She tugs on Gale’s hand and takes a few steps back. “I think,” she says quietly, mindful not to let her voice echo down towards the rest of the group, “we should just stay here and wait.”
It takes every ounce of her self control not to shout at Miri and the others and beg them to come back.
Gale nods. “...I agree.”
He squeezes her hand. Their fingers brush against one another, the bands clicking together softly. His ring is just as cold as hers is. Selûne is trying to tell them something. Rowan wishes she knew exactly what.
They withdraw from the doorway and shuffle to the wall, leaning against it as they wait for their companions to return. Both are silent in the minutes that pass. Part of Rowan wants to divulge every detail of the scene of her past life that Shar showed her. Part of Rowan wants to question Gale on every spell he used in the duel against his double.
But she does not.
And her husband follows suit, merely holding her hand and pressing his shoulder against hers as they stand in the dark hall carved by the hands of ancient Sharrans.
Not even Pip and Tara make a sound, save for their breathing. Rowan is grateful for the quiet. Grateful for these few, precious moments where she doesn’t have to throw herself into something dangerous and frightening. It does little to keep the anxiety at bay, her mind reeling as she imagines a thousand scenarios of what will come next, but that’s nothing new.
She’s just relieved she did not have to step foot in that library. She never thought she could feel that way. Books are sacred. All the knowledge she has soaked in and absorbed is worth more than a king’s ransom since her second life began. But the library beyond these walls is cursed. She will gleefully go about the rest of her life without cracking open one of those blighted tomes.
Rowan isn’t sure how much time passes as she and Gale wait but eventually, the muffled sounds of footsteps approach from the archway. Miri emerges first, her violin strapped safely to her back, followed by Astarion and Lae’zel. Shadowheart brings up the rear.
When Rowan sees what the cleric has in her hands, her heart sinks.
It’s a spear. Silver and simple in its design, there is almost nothing spectacular about it. It is so plain it could be at home in a rundown blacksmith’s shop, despite the point being filed to an end sharp enough to cut diamond. But Rowan can feel it. Sense it. Shar’s power resides in the weapon. Twisted darkness and venomous shadow dwell within it, patiently awaiting for the chance to be set free and wreak havoc on the moon itself.
She tries not to recoil. It’s the antithesis of the Matron, of Selûne, of Rowan herself. Pain and destruction and the vile desire to subjugate.
“Oh,” Miri says when she notices Rowan and Gale, “there you are!”
Her voice sounds relatively normal. No hint of her losing control.
“So sorry we didn’t wait,” Astarion simpers coolly. “Your door was still closed and we figured it best if we moved on without you.”
“Have you been here long?” Shadowheart adds. There is a strange look in her dark eyes. They swirl with a touch of uncertainty, mixed with an unmistakable gleam of eagerness. Her grip on the spear is so tight her knuckles have gone as white as bleached bone.
Gale and Rowan glance at one another, understanding passing between them.
“No,” Gale lies effortlessly. “The Self-Same Trial was quite troublesome.”
Which isn’t a total lie, but still.
Lae’zel grunts in the back of her throat. She swats at her armor, wiping off grime and dust and bits of bone from the Shattered undead. Her gaze slides subtly to Shadowheart, hesitation in the look, but only for a moment. It’s gone in the blink of an eye. Rowan isn’t even sure if what she saw was real. She says nothing as she continues to pluck debris from herself, feet digging into the ground ever so slightly.
Miri gestures down to the library beyond the door. “We discovered some things,” she informs them, but her tone does not hold an emphatic sense of excitement. It’s rather the opposite. “The Nightsong doesn’t…appear to be a relic like we initially thought.”
Gale cocks his head inquisitively.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“It’s a living thing. A person.”
Shadowheart’s answer is swift, the timbre of her voice careening into that ambiguous mixture of dubious impatience her eyes convey. She looks down at the spear she’s holding.
“According to texts written by my predecessors, the slaying of the Nightsong with this spear is the final obstacle to becoming a Dark Justiciar. They’re a person. Someone connected to—to Selûne.”
She at least has the decency to appear somewhat troubled by the admission, looking back up at Rowan. The ring Isobel gave her is utterly freezing. She feels as though her finger is going to turn into ice and snap off at any moment, her heart floundering in the pit of her stomach uselessly.
“...I see.”
What else is there to say?
It’s not like Rowan has the right to throw a tantrum and demand Shadowheart toss the spear back into the library and forget all that she read. The Nightsong, whoever they are, is directly connected to Ketheric’s immortality. It makes sense they are also connected to Selûne somehow, considering how the Thorm family were once devotees of her.
Killing the Nightsong won’t just make Shadowheart a Dark Justiciar. It should also sever whatever foul magic that makes it impossible for Ketheric to stay dead.
But that doesn’t stop the way Rowan’s soul is stretching across a gaping, discordant divide as something inside her wails painfully. There’s another way. There has to be. The Nightsong shouldn’t be killed. They can’t be.
“Let’s keep moving,” Miri says after a few moments of awkward, strained silence. “We’ll just have to see what happens once we reach the end of the Gauntlet.”
She takes the lead once more and begins to walk ahead of them all, back towards the way they came. There is little else to do but follow, the hidden gaze of Shar’s statue no doubt aware of every step they take.
The entrance to the Shadowfell looms before them with a sinister gloom.
The final chamber of the Gauntlet is seeped in shadowy darkness that brings a foul taste to Rowan’s mouth. Candles alight with purple flame glow eerily along the stone steps that form a ring around the portal on the floor. An empty doorway lay below, encased in a liquid that is both water and yet is not. Ghostly, phantasmal blue light emanates from it, reminding Rowan vividly of the fungi in the Underdark.
Yet one more statue of Shar watches over the entrance stoically. Her arms are crossed over her chest, masked face gazing out upon the chamber with an ominous stillness.
Rowan wants to run.
It is here that the sensation is the worst. Her head is throbbing. Her skin prickles with sharp, petty pain. Her chest is tight as her heart beats too fast, fingers twitching with the desire to summon her shadows and encase the chamber in true darkness.
The gentle, loving darkness of the Raven Queen. Not this.
“This is it,” Shadowheart breathes, awe and wonder alighting on her tongue as she gazes at the portal. She has not sheathed the spear once since recovering it from the library, not even when it made clamoring over fallen ruins difficult. “This is where I will become a Dark Justiciar.”
Her voice is desperate, as if she is trying to convince herself.
“I’m assuming we just jump into the creepy pool?” Astarion needles. He wears an unimpressed grimace, peering down at the entrance with raised eyebrows. When he takes a step forward Shadowheart holds a hand up quickly, shaking her head so hard her braid nearly smacks Lae’zel in the face.
“Not yet,” she murmurs. “Please, I need to…commune with Lady Shar. For guidance. It’ll take only a moment.”
She lowers herself to the ground before the portal until she is kneeling, head bowed and tip of the spear dipping into the strange fluid. The surface ripples at the disturbance like it would in water, but it does not stretch and spread throughout the entirety of the pool. It seems to halt in place just a couple inches away from the spear, frozen.
Rowan could take the spear and escape this place if she really wanted to.
She could stop whatever madness is about to occur before it even begins.
But no. She’s too close to a portal to the Shadowfell, the portion under Shar’s dominion. Doing something as impulsive and stupid as that would be a death sentence.
Pip lets out a quiet, soft sound as they nudge her cheek with their beak. They feel the same as she does at this moment. All they can do is wait and hope for the best.
Even if it makes Rowan feel as though she is failing both her goddesses.
After a few moments, Shadowheart rises to her feet once more. “I’m ready,” she declares, but the waver in her voice says anything but. Her back is still against everyone else, facing the statue of Shar and the portal at their feet. “Lady Shar spoke to me just now. Only three may join me. I don’t care who it is—or if any of you even come with.”
That desperation again. It reminds Rowan of her old self, painfully so.
“I am not letting you move forward without me,” Lae’zel hisses. The githyanki steps assertively to Shadowheart’s side, a protective aura immediately radiating from her battle-ready stance. Her shoulder brushes against the half-elf’s, posture rigid and on alert. “You will not face what lies ahead alone, Shadowheart.”
Miri steps to her other side. “I’m going as well.”
“M-me too!” Rowan blurts out before she can stop herself. Shadowheart’s head jerks as she turns around to glance at her in surprise. Rowan is just as startled at what she’s just said. “I’ve been to the Shadowfell before,” she explains hurriedly, before her self-preservation gets the better of her. “In a different capacity, but I’m the only one here who has experience with it. You’ll need me.”
You’ll need me to stop you from making a terrible mistake.
She keeps the thought safe inside her mind.
“Rowan,” Gale starts, her name a warning on his lips, but she squeezes his hand and shakes her head stubbornly.
“I have to go with them. If something happens, I can keep them safe.”
Stay with Gale, she adds silently to Pip as she places a soft kiss against her husband’s stubbly cheek. I need you on this side to pass on any messages.
She knows the raven wants to argue. She can feel their worry and displeasure through their bond, the strength of it almost as vehement as Gale’s. But Pip bobs their head once in acquiescence and flits from her shoulder to the wizard’s, violet eyes glittering anxiously.
Okay, boss. Be careful in there. Shar’s one nasty bitch. I don’t trust her for nothin’.
Yeah. Me neither. Which is why I have to go.
“I love you,” she whispers into Gale’s ear, woefully and regrettably unlacing her fingers from his. The absence of his ring against her skin feels empty, forlorn.
The way Gale’s shoulders sink and his eyes fill with apprehension makes Rowan already regret her impulsive decision. “Come back to me,” he tells her, the words more a prayer and a plea than a request.
She grins, despite everything.
“It would be impossible not to.”
Astarion steps forward and leans into Miri’s ear, whispering something under his breath. The tiefling’s pretty pink face flushes rapidly for a moment and she lets out a cough that clearly disguises a gasp. But, heedless of the group gathered around her, she quickly grabs hold of Astarion’s pale cheeks and plants a quick kiss directly on his mouth.
“You’re incorrigible!” she scolds. The lack of scathing scorn hints that she doesn’t seem to mind.
Rowan joins the others at the edge of the eerie, glowing pool. It’s strange to be so close to the Shadowfell and not feel comforted or safe. Gods, she hopes this is the right decision.
Shadowheart steps in first. She wades slowly into the liquid, the spear held in one hand while the other is splayed about the surface of the pool nervously. When she’s submerged to her hips she suddenly vanishes in a mist of shadow and darkness, a fog of inky blackness where she once was beneath the liquid. It slithers downward, smokey and almost solid, where it disappears for good the moment it passes through the open doorway at the bottom of the pool.
Lae’zel follows without hesitation. Miri jumps in after her. Rowan takes one look back at Gale, chest twisting and tightening as she wills her anxiety to leave her the fuck alone. He nods. She grasps Nevermore tightly in her hands and steps forward, focusing on the pool before her.
The liquid doesn’t feel like water. It doesn’t feel like anything at all. It’s as if she’s merely walking into air, and it’s so strange and unsettling and weird she swears it’s a trap. But nothing happens, and she keeps wading into the pool until it’s up to her waist, and then the world around her shifts and goes abysmally dark.
She is falling. Flying. Tumbling and then her feet are on solid ground once more, and she can scarcely believe what she sees around her.
It’s the Shadowfell. Shar’s Shadowfell.
Rowan stands on a jagged outcropping of rock suspended in place. The horizon is littered with them, each one impossibly hovering in the air. Chains hang from somewhere unseen above, disappearing into the darkness below. They’re big enough to hold a dragon in place, spiked and oozing with something viscous and violet. It’s nothing like the space she was reborn in. Even though that place had been empty and devoid of structures of any kind, there had been a wondrous sense of peace and tenderness in the darkness.
This part of the Shadowfell is sharp with contempt. She does not belong here, anymore than she belonged in the Gauntlet.
The atmosphere is heavier than lead and yet, Rowan’s body feels oddly light. It takes her a few moments to realize she’s alone on this rock because everyone else has moved on without her—in the distance she spies Lae’zel and Miri trailing behind Shadowheart, each of them flitting through the air as they jump from rock to rock.
“Gee, thanks for waiting for me,” Rowan mutters under her breath. Did it not occur to any of them that maybe they shouldn’t fuck off without her, considering she’s actually been to the Shadowfell before?
She takes a deep breath and, before she can tell herself that this is an even worse idea than coming in the first place, jumps.
Whatever enchantment that lingers in the air takes hold of her immediately. Rowan finds herself soaring through the heavy mist and shadow, strands of darkness brushing against her with an almost animate curiosity. The moment they make contact with her skin they flinch, scurrying away like rats rushing from a prowling alley cat.
The feathers at her throat become warm.
The ring around her finger glows softly.
It seems whatever baleful influence Shar has in this place, Rowan is impervious to it. For now.
Time lapses in a confusing, fractured sense as she chases after the rest of the party. The others always seem just out of reach, their figures obscured in shadow just beyond Rowan’s periphery. She continues to float from rock to rock, traveling downwards in a spiral, the heaviness in her chest getting worse and worse the further she goes.
All the while, voices whisper about, echoing in a frenzied chorus.
“Descend to her…”
“Listen to her…”
“Look upon her…”
“Kill her…”
Flashes of dusky silhouettes seem to follow Rowan. Shades of the past, flitting in and out of existence as she glides down.
She ignores them. She doesn’t want to think about countless others who have taken this path, all with the intent of murdering whomever the Nightsong is. They’ve got to be some kind of immortal as well, if this was an old Dark Justiciar ritual. It makes her sick. Being killed over and over again, and now…
Nope. She’s going to stop thinking about it.
Eventually, after an eternity, the scenery shifts. There seems to be an end to this floating pilgrimage of rock and wicked deeds. A large stretch of land comes into view below, the dozens of chains that hang from impossibly high above cutting through the stone and creating a netting of sorts around the suspended island. She spies Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and Miri down there, finally having come to a stop.
And there’s something else. Some one else. A figure in the midst of a ritual circle, runes aglow with a ghastly malevolence. Just looking at the sigils makes Rowan shudder.
Her wedding band suddenly tightens around her finger.
Rowan takes one last floating leap and clears the space between the final floating rock and the island, landing with a thud that sets off clouds of ichorous dust in every direction. Some of it gets in her eyes and she curses quietly, rubbing at her face to get rid of it.
By the time her vision clears, it’s to see something horrific.
The person in the middle of the rune circle is beautiful and filthy. She is tall, robust, built for battle but made to rot in contempt. Her clothes are ragged and torn, caked with grime and dried blood. Her hair is thin and straw-like, the color a dull strawberry blonde. Her skin, pale as the moon beneath layers of dirt, seems to be cracked like marble in some spots—but the cracks are filled in with gold that struggles to shine in the shadows of this place.
Her eyes are silver.
And they burn with a righteousness unlike anything Rowan has ever seen, as if they were hewn from the stars themselves. It stirs something inside of her. Something…familiar.
Isobel. When she looks at the woman in the rune circle, Rowan thinks of Isobel. But why?
She bites back a wince when her ring tightens around her finger once more, so much so it feels like it’s going to cut the circulation off.
“You,” the woman is saying, spitting, scowling at the spear Shadowheart holds in a rich voice that rumbles like a storm, “who have come to seek the praise of your wicked goddess. You, who have come to drive a dagger through my heart!”
The woman lunges.
Spooked, Shadowheart goes to take a step back but there is no need. Half a dozen hands, clawed and cyan and translucent, appear out of nowhere. They clutch the woman and hold her in place as she snarls, silver eyes full of fury and fire. Mage hands. Large, beastly mage hands that positively brim with malicious magic.
Whoever cast the ritual circle also conjured those hands; both spells were crafted out of pure, odious hatred.
“Not a dagger,” Shadowheart bites back. “A spear—my Lady Shar’s spear!”
But her hands tremble as she holds it. Her movements are hesitant, nervous. Rowan can see the way her eyes dart back and forth from the beautiful woman chained by maddened Sharran magic and the spear she took from the cursed library. Is she having some kind of crisis of faith? What happened to doing Shar’s will no matter the cost?
What else did she learn in that library, for it to have seemingly shifted her entire moral compass?
Fuck it.
She’s not going to let this play out without intervening. Rowan is going to listen to her instincts if Shadowheart suddenly seems paralyzed with indecision. This is wrong. This is so wrong she wants to throw up. She can’t let Shadowheart kill this woman, this…Nightsong. They’ll just have to figure out another way to stop Ketheric.
“Her fate is mine to seal,” Shadowheart continues, glancing back at Miri and Lae’zel—not even noticing Rowan—briefly. “Let me handle this!” But her voice is wavering even as she speaks such definitive words, the fervor it once held now tempered by undesired skepticism.
Miri frowns, deep and troubled. A dozen emotions flit across her face and she reaches a hand out towards Shadowheart, as if to touch the spear the cleric is still clutching, but she lets her arm fall to her side. The bard is silent. Anything she has to say will surely not be what Shadowheart wants to hear.
Hells, even Lae’zel looks primed to speak up, her unique features pinched in a complicated expression. Her eyes narrow and her feet shift on the hard ground in the posture Rowan has begun to recognize as her battle stance. Whether she is readying her position to attack the Nightsong, to guard Shadowheart, or to take down Miri, Rowan doesn’t know.
But she’s not about to find out.
Rowan steps forward before anyone else can speak or make a move. She brandishes Nevermore before her, her shadows already coiling along its onyx head. A whole swarm of them, primed and prepped as they undulate like a flock of maddened wasps. They’re not fully aggressive, not yet. They will await her signal, eager to obey her every command. She just hopes it doesn’t actually come to a fight, because as certain as she is that she could take the three of them down if she really wanted to, that’s the problem.
She really doesn’t want to.
“No,” she says. She is proud at how steadfast and unwavering she sounds as she comes to rest between the Nightsong and Shadowheart. “This isn’t right, Shadowheart, and you know it. That’s why you’re hesitating.”
Rowan reaches out to her darkness. It’s surprisingly easy to grab hold of it here, even though this section of the Shadowfell falls under Shar’s dominion. Armor, she commands, closing her eyes to the welcome sensation of her shadows settling against her skin. When she opens them again, she knows the telltale ichor of her magic has turned her eyes completely black.
Good. Let them know she means business.
“If you want to kill this woman,” Rowan states, voice echoing throughout the Shadowfell, “then you’ll have to deal with me first.”
Her wings itch to spread. Her teeth ache. Her fingers twitch. Fangs and claws, hidden and impatient, yearn to break free and show everyone just what she’s capable of. Her darkness despises this place. It wants nothing more than to go to war and prove its might and in turn, prove who the true arbiter of the Shadowfell should be.
The Raven Queen. Her Matron.
Not Shar and her paltry, petty malice.
Rowan holds her head high as the half-elf sputters, shock and indignation running rampant across her face. Good. It’s better than the vapid, almost vacant face expression she’s been making.
Miri blinks rapidly, eyes slowly getting wide as they dart from Rowan to Shadowheart. Lae’zel lets out a noise that she can’t tell if it’s an impressed grunt or a “you fucked up” growl but does not move, nor does she unsheath her sword.
And then, just as the taut strings of tension are about to snap, an unfamiliar voice comes from above their gathered party.
“No one is doing anything to the aasimar without my say.”
Rowan’s shadows hiss in warning too late and she jerks her head upwards, biting down a startled gasp. There is a monster just floating above them.
Humanoid, but there is no doubt he is a monster nonetheless. He’s grotesque and swollen, his form swathed in dark robes and archaic golden jewelry that seethes with necrotic energy. A gaping, leaking gash in the shape of a ritual circle has been carved into the bloated gray skin of his face. Despite the raw, bloody ribbons gouged into his flesh, he shows no signs of discomfort.
No, none whatsoever. He is smiling, almost benevolently. A hateful sheen in his glowing eyes wars in direct juxtaposition to his magnanimous grin.
“I know not how you got this far,” the undead thing tuts, waggling his finger as if they’re naught but unruly children. “It’s quite rude to intrude without so much as a word of welcome, you know. I’d almost ask if these are friends of yours, Aylin,” he lets out an amused chuckle as his baleful gaze flicks to the woman in the runes, “but judging by the spear in that one’s hands, I’d wager that’s incorrect.”
Aylin.
Aylin?
Rowan knows that name.
That’s—
“Isobel!” she gasps as the epiphany slams into her hard and fast. She spins around and looks deep into the woman’s silver eyes, starlight and the gentle caress of the moon so fucking evident in them it makes her want to cry. She doesn’t give a shit about anyone else at this moment—not the creepy dude whose rotten stench could rival a mass grave from the bubonic plague, nor Shadowheart and the others.
“You’re Isobel’s Aylin,” she whispers, her blood boiling with disbelief as she brandishes her ring before the woman. The ring Isobel gifted to her three days ago, when the cleric invoked Selûne’s blessing to bind them in matrimony. The ring that was meant for this woman, not Rowan. “You’re alive. You’re alive. I-I have to get you out of here. I have to get you back to Isobel!”
Madness. Absolute madness.
This is her sister. Though she does not know it, the Nightsong—Aylin—is as precious to Rowan as Isobel. She doesn’t know how Aylin came to be here. She doesn’t understand how a being from decades ago has been trapped down here ever since Shar’s curse infected Reithwin and Moonrise Towers. It doesn’t matter. She will not let Shadowheart kill her. Aylin is leaving with them and returning to Isobel.
“Isobel?”
Aylin’s resplendent eyes widen with a disbelief of her own. Isobel’s name is softer than a prayer and more holy than a shrine as it dances off her tongue.
“My beloved is…alive?”
A quick flash of confusion ripples through Rowan. Of course Isobel is alive. She just spoke with her this morning! What is Aylin talking about?
She opens her mouth to interject, to inquire, but the astonishment on Aylin’s enchanting face silences it. Aylin’s stricken gaze lands on the ring, incredulous and hopeful in equal measure. Her mouth trembles, body stockstill as she gapes at Rowan. The golden veins inlaid in her porcelain skin shimmer for a moment. A sliver of gossamer alights across her face, brief and fleeting, but there is no mistaking the meaning.
It’s Selûne. The goddess of the moon holds Aylin dear to her and, as the realizations of the last few moments quickly begin to unwind in Rowan’s mind, she thinks she understands why.
The necromancer (because how could he be anything but) had referred to her as an aasimar. She’s read so much of myth and history and legend that she instantly recognizes the magnitude of the situation. Aasimar are people descended from gods and goddesses and higher beings, no matter how diluted the divine blood in them is.
Aylin is a daughter of Selûne.
A legitimate celestial child, born from a goddess.
And somehow, someway, Ketheric Thorm has been perversely channeling her immortality as his own.
“Yes, Isobel!” Rowan nods ardently. She doesn’t have time to let these epiphanies stun her into silence. “She gave me this ring and told me it was meant for you! I’ll give it back when we get you out of here, I promise! You’re more deserving of—”
Rowan suddenly cannot speak.
An unseen hand squeezes around her throat . A rope, a chain, a serpent, tight and unyielding and digging directly into the scar He Who Was left only days ago. She can’t breathe. Pressure, worse than the heavy, creeping sensation she has been feeling since entering the Thorm morgue and wandering Shar’s domain, has her head in a vice grip.
Panic fills her veins like ice. It stretches and spreads, morphing into a thundering herd of rothé in her chest as she tries to swallow air, to speak. Her ears start to ring. Her nostrils burn.
Oh my fucking gods, I’m being strangled.
The shadow armor that clings to her does nothing. Whatever spell encircling her throat reeks of necrotic energy. Her darkness shrinks back, frightened, as a surge of foul arcane energy erupts from the necromancer floating above them, his hands forming intricate gestures Rowan knows to be ridiculously high level magic.
“She is not going anywhere, little interloper,” he hisses, all cordiality gone from his tone.
He curls a finger into a beckoning motion mid spellcasting and Rowan feels her body jerk violently, her grip on Nevermore loosening as she’s suddenly thrust into the air. The staff drops from her hands just as her vision blurs into bursts of bright lights and colors. Her chest is heaving, lungs burning as she tries to raise her hands up and claw at her throat, vainly thinking she can rip whatever is invisibly coiled around it.
She cannot.
Something begins to drip from her nose. It’s wet. It’s warm. It’s blood. And it’s rolling onto her lips, flooding her mouth, filling her with the taste of iron, and all Rowan can think about are the shards of glass that once pierced her skull.
“Balthazar, stop this!” Aylin demands, a mighty ire vibrating in her words. Her voice sounds like it’s coming from under water to Rowan’s ears as she continues to choke, the stampede in her chest pounding away desperately as her lungs scream for air.
A scuffle, a cluster of frantic voices sounds from below, and then there is nothing but that incessant ringing in Rowan’s ears. Popping. She can hear the sound of her own heart, beating dangerously fast. Her nose bleeds and her eyes bulge. Her entire body sags as she hangs in the air, the noose the necromancer—Balthazar—has cast around her refusing to let go.
Rowan reaches for her shadows.
They don’t come.
Rowan reaches for her darkness.
It’s not there.
She is startlingly empty. Alone. Forgotten. What was once a neverending wellspring of pure arcana woven from the place of her rebirth is now nothing but a barren wasteland inside her. She can’t find it. She can’t find her fucking magic. He’s done something. He hasn’t just cut off her air supply. He’s cut off her magic as well, disrupting her connection to the Shadow Weave. No spells come to her aid. No magic swirls around her.
She tries to reach for Pip, tugging on their bond.
Nothing.
Silence stretches on for eternity, her raven’s presence nowhere to be heard or seen or felt.
She can’t feel the feathers at her throat or the ring on her finger and she is terrified.
Balthazar’s face swims in her vision, coming in and out of focus. He’s smiling at her, yellowed teeth bared as a black tongue licks along his ravaged lips. He flicks his finger again and she is jerked closer to him, so close she can smell the sour-sweet stench of his decay even as she suffocates at the hand over whatever wicked spell he’s cast on her.
“You’ve a curious power within you,” he muses, because of course he’s the only thing she can hear.
A ringed hand appears in front of her face. Cold, swollen fingers stroke her cheeks. His flesh is doughy. Disgusting. Dead. She wants to gag, to scream, but nothing comes out as his magic squeezes and squeezes her throat. “Death has held you. But it’s more than that.”
The necromancer closes his eyes and lets out a dainty little sigh, as if he is taking a whiff from an innocuous bottle of perfume.
When he opens them again, they swim with a heartless delight.
“I’ll be damned,” Balthazar murmurs in near reverence, his smirk growing wider. “A soul from the realm Toril forgot! Never in all my years would I have expected this treat. How utterly peculiar. And how perfect for my plans.”
Rowan knows she’s moments away from passing out. Maybe even moments away from death. Help, she cries out to the Raven Queen, to Selûne, to Gale on the off chance that by some miracle he can hear her from where he awaits her return in the material plane.
But no one answers.
The stampede is an inferno. Her eyes are watering. Her nose won’t stop bleeding. Her ears are popping again. Her lungs whimper and her heart swells with fear. She feels her arms go limp at her sides. The pressure in her head is too much. She is empty, she is alone, she is nothing.
She’s going to—
She is no longer in the Shadowfell.
One moment, Rowan is being held in the air by magic, choking and dying and devoid of the very thing she was brought into this world to do.
The next, she is gasping for air, her vision dancing with black spots and chest throbbing in pain. She takes in greedy, desperate lungfuls of air, panting and wheezing and blinking as her eyes continue to water. The blood in her mouth almost makes her gag as she accidentally swallows it. She tries to wipe at her face, to clear her nose, to rub at her eyes so she can see, but she can’t.
Her limbs are so heavy. So tired.
And her back is resting against something chitinous and hard, uncomfortable bumps digging into her spine.
She’s in a tight space of some kind. There are walls all around her and a pressure pushing down on her once more, but nowhere near the same vein as whatever the fuck Balthazar did to her.
Her senses slowly start to come to as her mind continues to shift through various states of hysteria. She smells something foul. She had thought the necromancer’s rotten stench was bad, but this? This is something out of a nightmare.
Rot upon rot, decay upon decay. Something like raw meat and a disturbing mix of bodily fluids beyond blood and piss. She hears squelching. Constant, wet sounds, like a chest that’s been ripped open to reveal the symphony of a heart beating.
And garlic.
She can smell garlic.
Why the fuck is she smelling garlic?
Rowan’s throat hurts. Her ears can’t decide between ringing or popping or faded bouts of silence. Her head throbs, as if she’s been bashing it into a wall repeatedly just for fun. Her chest is on fire as her lungs remember how to function and her heart slows its beating. But she can breathe again, after a few more moments of rapid blinking, she can see again as well.
She wishes she couldn’t.
Rowan is looking out from a window. A curved, red-tinted window. Only the tempered glass is actually clear, and the red seeps in from what lay before her.
She is in a sea of flesh. Twisted and gnarled, dotted with pustules connected to thick ropes of mucus that hang from a netting of meshy membrane. It’s a hellscape. The innards of some creature, diseased and pulsing with a disturbing vibrance. It’s alive. The ceiling is meat. The walls are meat. The floor is meat. And it’s alive.
She knows where she is. She knows what she’s inside of.
But she doesn’t want to admit it. Not even when she sees the mind flayer hovering a few feet away.
It looks just like the descriptions she’s heard from Gale and the others—just like the illustrations in Volo’s Guide to Monsters. Lanky and lithe, with a mass of tentacles protruding from a squid-like head. Its skin is sleek and purple, gleaming with a layer of moisture that she hopes to all the gods is just some freakish kind of sweat.
The mind flayer turns at just the right angle for Rowan to see its eyes. They are rings of magenta, soulless and devoid of any emotion.
Its strange, clawed hands cradle a body. Rowan cannot see who it is, nor does she want to. Not when the mind flayer raises the body and props the head with one hand. Not when she watches as it lowers its beard of writhing, hideous tentacles to the top of the poor bastard’s cranium.
She squeezes her eyes shut, but her ears choose that moment to do their job once more.
She hears the sharp crack of a skull being broken. The wet, squelching of brains being picked through and devoured. The dull thud of the body being tossed to the side when the mind flayer has finished its meal. She hears it all, visceral and vicious, every sound running on repeat in her head as she staunches down the urge to vomit.
Rowan wishes she was back in the Shadowfell and suffocating.
This isn’t real, she thinks as she forces herself to open her eyes once more.
This can’t be happening, she assures herself, staring in panicked awe at the monster who nearly took Gale away.
This is just a dream, Rowan tries to lie, even though her senses are all in disagreement.
Because there is just no way she’s in a mind flayer colony. No fucking way.
But the illithid is real. She saw it. She heard it. She smelled it.
And now she is watching in horror as the monster glides past another pod. Because that’s what she’s in. A pod in a mind flayer colony, trapped and without her magic. The fleshy, quivering chamber is full of pods. She counts at least a dozen. As far as she can tell, each one holds a body. A body like the unlucky sod who never stood a chance and is now nothing but a corpse on the warm, wet ground. A body ripe with a brain ready to either be eaten or taken over by a worm.
This is real. This is happening. This is not a dream.
Rowan opens her mouth and screams.
The mind flayer pays her sounds of terror no heed, as if she does not even exist, and disappears into the crimson bowels of the colony.
Gale cannot stop pacing.
His mind races. His heart twists in apprehension. He should have gone with them. He should have begged Miri to stay behind with Astarion and accompanied them all to the Shadowfell.
Rowan is a brilliant, capable sorcerer. Of that there is no doubt. But she is a prime target for Shar’s malice, and Gale doesn’t know what is going through Shadowheart’s mind, and he would be much more comfortable being at his wife’s side than waiting here like a sitting duck.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor if you keep that up,” Astarion calls from where he lay, stretched out across a dilapidated column. He gazes up at the ceiling, mindlessly tossing his twin daggers between his hands, somehow never dropping them.
Gale sighs in answer and continues to pace back and forth. It’s only been a few minutes. He should not be fidgeting so much. Pip has remained on his shoulder since Rowan bequeathed them to him. They’ve made nary a peep.
She is fine. She is fine and dandy and will be returning shortly, and the madman known as Ketheric Thorm will be thoroughly dealt with.
“Mr. Dekarios, please,” Tara reprimands gently. The tressym sits patiently near Astarion, watching her wizard huff and sigh with only a little grievance. She’s just as concerned for Rowan as he is. She is simply far better at concealing it, is all.
Gale pauses and looks to the foreboding, eerie portal the rest of their party disappeared into. He fiddles with his ring, stroking the smooth band. It’s almost the same as stroking Rowan’s unruly hair. Almost.
He should focus on calming himself. There is no use in getting so worked up. He trusts his wife’s ability to handle whatever waits for her in Shar’s domain. He does not want to dismiss the strides Rowan has made in the months since he has come to know her and love her so deeply.
But it is difficult to be away from her.
Especially when there’s been a niggling, nagging feeling in the back of his mind all day as they have trekked through this wretched place. A sense of misgiving.
He can’t shake it, no matter how hard he tries.
Gale runs a hand through his hair and sighs for the umpteenth time. The longer he stares at the tranquil surface of the portal’s pool, the more he thinks Rowan is going to emerge with a grin on her face.
Gods above and below, he needs to get ahold of himself.
“Do you need to recite some poetry?” Astarion suggests from his perch, a teasing hint of exasperation lacing his tone. “Monologue a history lesson?”
“I am
fine,
Astarion. Thank you for your concern.”
Gale ignores the vampire’s sardonic whining and waves a dismissive hand in his direction. He loathes how Astarion might be onto something. He could catalog the events of the Spellplague. That would certainly be distracting enough to tear him from his worry over Rowan. The various theories on how it came to be are fascinating, after all. His personal favorite has always been the aboleths, rather than Mystra’s assassination. She has had previous incarnations that have passed before. Why should her murder by Cyric’s hand be the death that caused such a disruption of the Weave—
Pip suddenly shudders violently on his shoulders.
“B-boss!” they cry out, voice strained and warbled, as if the raven is choking. Suffocating. “Fuck, she’s gonna—”
The familiar vanishes.
A sickening feeling rises in Gale’s stomach, one that matches the somber unease he has suffered all day.
He turns to Tara, swallowing down a wave of panic. The tressym remained on the material plane when he was captured by the mind flayers, only in a weakened state. Her summoning was never broken. For Pip to suddenly be dismissed without warning…
It does not bode well. It does not bode well at all. Something has happened to Rowan. She would never release Pip’s summoning, not without good reason. Not without sending a message first.
A flash of pain sears through his finger. Gale cries out in alarm, hissing through his teeth as he jerks his gaze down towards his hand. The finger his wedding band rests on is numb. The metal is colder than the breath from a white dragon, the metal glinting oddly in the dim candlelight.
The sickening feeling gets worse. His skin itches. His chest rises and falls quickly. He swallows thickly, a lump suddenly stuck in his throat, but it will not go away.
“Something is wrong,” he says quietly, anxiously. The words are leaden, distraught. Tinged and run through with a worry he will never relinquish, not as long as he loves Rowan.
The portal to the Shadowfell shimmers.
Magic, raw and divine, and spun from the stars, bursts into existence as someone emerges from the pool and for a moment, Gale’s heart soars with hope.
But it is not Rowan.
It is a woman, resplendent with moonlight, clad in exquisite armor of silver and blue. Two feathered wings, white and pristine, spread out from her back as she soars into the gloomy air. Her skin glows with a celestial sheen. She carries a sword of staggering magic in gauntleted hands and, despite the size, she acts as if weighs no more than a prayer sheet.
The light she emanates with such spectacular power spreads throughout the entirety of the chamber as she takes off. She flies directly above Gale and Astarion’s heads, not even giving them a second glance, a fierce and hardened scowl of determination carved into her face like stone.
Gale has spent enough time with Rowan and Isobel to recognize the touch of Selûne. The winged woman is blessed three times over by the goddess of the moon, so much so he feels the skin of his arm tingle as she passes. She flies with a hasty precision, vanishing into the darkness beyond, the only remnants of her presence being the motes of moonlight that still fill the chamber.
The statue of Shar suddenly cracks.
The sound is jarring, louder than the frantic buzzing in Gale’s head as he stares after the winged woman uncomprehendingly. Astarion is no different, his mouth agape and eyes wide as he looks into the shadows she disappeared into, confusion evident on his handsome face.
What in the sweet hells just happened?
But Gale does not have time to ponder or postulate or further panic.
A great deal of noisy commotion comes from the pool containing the portal the moment the winged woman vanishes. He whips his head back to see the sight of Miri, Shadowheart, and Lae’zel pulling themselves out from the Shadowfell’s entrance, all three looking drained and exhausted. Almost as if they’ve been fighting for hours, bruised and bloodied and completely spent.
Shadowheart limps, dragging herself along as if she would rather collapse onto the floor and remain there forever. She will not look at anyone. Her eyes are downcast; her mouth curves downward in a haunted, haggard look of gloom.
Her hands are empty as she lifts herself out of the pool. There is no sign of the spear she had brought from the library with the wicked intention of murdering whomever the poor Nightsong was.
The spear is not the only thing missing.
Rowan is not here.
From across the chamber Gale meets Lae’zel’s eyes, unbidden. The githyanki jerks her head away, silent and dispirited. She will not look at him.
The only one who will is Miri, and he does not like the way her eyes are a patina of regret as she moves forward. There is a nasty cut sliced across her forehead. Her clothes are ripped. He swears he catches the faint scent of rot and decay from her hands and, when he glances down at them, her sharp nails are ragged with brackish blood and gray flesh.
He knows what she is going to say before the words leave her mouth.
“Gale,” she begins, voice hoarse with guilt. “Gale, I’m so sorry, but Rowan—”
“No,” he cuts her off.
The syllable hangs in the air, sharper than a sword.
He can’t breathe.
He can’t think.
Where is Rowan?
“It happened so fast,” Miri continues, and when she tries to reach out to put her soiled, unclean hand on his shoulder he wrenches away from her, stumbling back. What is she trying to tell him? Where is Rowan? Why isn’t she with them? Where is Rowan?
“Stop talking,” he snaps, bringing his hand to his chest. He presses the edge of his ring against his heart, where the orb slumbers peacefully, as he struggles to breathe and think and exist.
He reaches out with the Weave. If he concentrates, he can find her. They are bonded. They share so much—a raven feather, a ring, an essence of pure Shadow Weave, delicate and devoted as it courses through his veins. She isn’t lost. She isn’t gone.
He can find her.
But when Gale speaks the incantation, when he closes his eyes and tugs on the threads of the Weave, there is nothing but silence. Empty, cold silence in the place where Rowan’s heartbeat should be. Where her laughter should be. Where her voice, soft and silken, should be, whispering his name so sweetly as she presses playful kisses to his neck.
Gale opens his eyes to his companions gathered around him. He is only vaguely aware of the dull pain in his knees when he falls to them, gazing up at Miri hopelessly, helplessly.
“What happened to her? Where is she?” he asks, pressing the ring against his chest so hard he half-wishes the orb would awaken and consume it. “Where is Rowan, Miri? Where is my wife?”
He thinks there’s a sharp intake of breath from someone. A hum of surprise.
He can barely hear it over the screaming in his mind as his soul tears itself into pieces.
Miri does not answer. She bends down, throws her arms around his shoulders, and pulls her to him. Just like Rowan had all those months ago when she discovered his affliction. When she had promised him she would not abandon him.
“I’m sorry,” Miri repeats, and Gale does not care about the blood on the tiefling’s hands as he sinks into her embrace miserably.
The chamber around them starts to shudder. Chunks of marble and stone and debris fall from the ceiling. The statue of Shar cracks more, the head tumbling from the body and rolling into the pool it once watched over impassively. And even though Gale knows he needs to get up, even though he knows they must leave this place before it comes down on them and buries them alive, he cannot. He just sags, limp and desolate and broken, sobbing into Miri’s shoulder as he repeats the anguished mantra of Where is my wife? over and over again until his throat goes raw.
Chapter 17: the righteous hand of god
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Everything hurts.
Forget Mystra’s damnation. Forget the orb. Forget every wound and injury he has sustained on this perilous journey. Gale has never felt such pain as he does now, dragging himself behind Miri and the others as their motley crew desperately make their way to Moonrise Towers. Every step, every breath, every painstaking reminder that he has to keep moving reminds him that his worst nightmare has come to fruition—
Rowan is gone.
He has lost count of how many times he has attempted to reach out for her arcane essence only to be met with cold, unyielding silence. His tears at last ran dry somewhere between the precarious escape from Shar’s Gauntlet and passing the ruinous, abandoned remains of Reithwin. Now he is numb. Numb and empty and hollowed out, save for the agony of three words that continuously echo through his disparate mind as loud as thunder and as sharp as a knife.
Rowan is gone.
She is not dead. She is not. He can feel that much at least, by some odd grace of the gods or fate or whatever the hells it is that has been kind enough to show him a speck of providence.
A necromancer by the name of Balthazar had used some kind of spell, Miri had informed him when Gale was no longer comatose with grief. He had hurt her. Suffocated her. And then she had suddenly disappeared from the Shadowfell, and Balthazar was attacking them with an army of undead, and it was all Miri could do to bring him down.
She has yet to clean the blood and decayed flesh from beneath her fingernails.
The only light to shine through all this madness is Aylin. Aylin, daughter of Selûne, forced into captivity by Ketheric Thorm and his Sharrans. Aylin, the Nightsong, now freed and empowered by an oath of vengeance against the architect of Reithwin’s downfall. It was she who burst through the portal to the Shadowfell in a cloak of moonlight, dazzling him and Astarion for a few sacred moments before everything turned to shit.
And it is she whom Isobel spoke of the night the cleric dutifully, attentively wrapped the bonds of marriage around him and Rowan. Gale knew it the moment Miri anxiously explained all that had happened beyond the portal. So he had done what was necessary, and what was right, and sent a harried message to his wife’s chosen sister:
Your beloved is alive. She is going to Moonrise for retribution.
Truthfully, Gale did not know he had regained the ability to send messages using the threads of the Weave. It had been a spur of the moment decision; an arcane muscle memory, flexing gleefully after months and months of disuse.
(It did not work when he attempted to connect to Rowan again.)
Isobel’s reply had come moments later, as if she had been waiting her entire life to hear those words. I saw the light. I’m on my way, she had told him, and even through the tangled web of the Weave could Gale hear the palpable relief in her voice.
He did not have the heart to tell her of Rowan’s fate. He can scarcely believe it himself.
Rowan is gone.
His wife is gone.
But the proof is undeniable, for his wife’s hand is not linked with his and her voice does not ring out amongst the gloomy darkness of the curse and her warmth is not a perpetual comfort at his side. She is gone. Gone, gone, gone, trapped somewhere he cannot reach, and neither the Raven Queen nor the Moonmaiden will answer his prayers as they race haphazardly through the shadows.
Miri could have at least attempted to get Nevermore before Aylin’s prison began to collapse all around them. Gale knows he could have done something useful with Rowan’s staff in the same vein she had used the feathers that connected them to find him after the nautiloid crash. But alas—the tiefling had not realized Nevermore was on the ground until it was too late, and now his wife’s arcane focus was lost forever.
Just like Rowan will be.
Gale’s eyes begin to burn again. His vision blurs. His hands shake. He aches for Tara’s wisdom, for the softness of her fur as she slinks around his shoulders and grooms his beard kindly. But in his foolishness Gale had begged the tressym to return to Last Light Inn and guide Isobel safely through the cursed shadows, as well as anyone else who may be joining the cleric.
He almost wishes Miri had not killed Balthazar. He would much rather the honor go to him with his own two hands.
His fingers twitch with stifled, screaming spells. His chest heaves with silent, suppressed sobs.
Why?
Why did this happen?
He should have been there.
He should have been there,
damn Shar and her rules! He is Gale Dekarios, arch mage and master wizard of Waterdeep! He has held the stars in his hands! Lightning has coursed through his veins as storms rage above him! Fire has blazed in his heart, and so many have felt the death grip of winter spoken from his lips! He was Mystra’s
protege,
for all the good it did him, but by the
gods
a fucking
necromancer
had the audacity to harm his wife? To curse her, do away with her, as if she were nothing?
“Balthazar said something strange before Rowan vanished,” Miri had whispered in Gale’s ear as she had held him, her voice barely coherent above his shuddering sobs. “He said…her soul was from a realm Toril forgot. What did that bastard mean, Gale?”
It had been that revelation that had struck some sense into Gale.
He hadn’t answered her. He should have, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.
As far as he knows, only he and a very select few are privy to Rowan’s nebulous origins. He will not divulge anything more than necessary, not without her permission.
But Rowan is gone, and her permission is now as rare to find as an unguarded dragon hoard.
You made me promise to never leave you, my love, Gale thinks bitterly, despondently, as he swallows down a hiss of broken sigh. I was under the impression that vow went both ways.
A sudden, frenzied desire to release the orb in all its devastating might passes over him and he nearly stumbles. It is so raw, so real and visceral, that Gale feels the Weave tremble around him nervously.
Do it, some hideous, cretinous voice demands deep inside him. You are nothing without her—just as you were nothing without Mystra. Do it, you coward. End it. Wipe this sad, pathetic land from existence!
Gale lets out a strained gasp and brings a hand to his chest, pressing it as hard as he can. His heart thumps beneath his fingers uncertainly. The orb stirs, its slumbering interest piqued ever so slightly. He shakes his head, willing the burning spike of hatred and desperation to fade away as quickly as it had appeared.
No. Not now. Not ever. He won’t use the orb. He promised. He promised.
The worm crawls through the meat of his brain, twisting and turning with almost a mock sympathy. The pain of it is dull compared to the heavy weight of his heart hanging empty in his chest. Gale knows his emotions going awry just serves as fodder for the tadpole, that it will greedily gnaw on the neurons firing away frantically in his head. He knows he must calm down.
Gods, he’s a right fucking mess.
“There’s Moonrise!” Miri calls out.
Gale snaps his attention from the grief and enmity battling out in his soul. He didn’t realize the scenery had begun to change. Oh, the curse is still evident in the cracked road and slithering, shadowed vines, but what their party has walked up to is a far cry from the rest of Reithwin.
A bridge lit up by orbs crackling with arcane energy similar to Isobel’s blessing leads into a stately courtyard. The bridge is littered with patches of blinding white flames, smokeless and radiating with divinity. The holy fire creates a pattern of clear destruction; when Gale peers closer, he makes out several unmoving bodies amidst the burning flames.
The tower itself is beautifully built. Carved with care and precision, it rises into the blackened sky with a sense of pride that shines despite the sickly curse it is trapped in. This was a wonderful place, once. A safe haven for Selûne’s faithful before Ketheric betrayed his goddess and turned to Shar.
Now it is nothing but a den of cruelty and the wicked whims of the Absolutists.
Gale realizes inwardly he should be more impressed by the craftsmanship and overall presence, considering this is his first time seeing Moonrise, but he does not care. Rowan is gone.
What little hints Balthazar supposedly wheezed out as Miri was slaughtering him mercilessly led the bard to believe his wife is somewhere inside. Adding to everything else they have learned during their time in these godsforsaken lands, the prison beneath Moonrise leads somewhere deeper. Darker. And full of mind flayer activity.
Gale has been denying the possibility ever since they escaped from the Gauntlet. A stupid, reckless thing to do. The signs are all there. He can’t connect with Rowan. He can’t reach her no matter what spells he casts or what prayers he throws out to any deity willing to listen. He knows where she’s gone. He knows what has happened to her.
But he will not admit it, for doing so will sever every ounce of control he is barely holding on to.
I have to find her.
Gale pushes past Lae’zel, who has remained just a few steps ahead of him the entire journey to Moonrise. She hasn’t spoken to him, has not really acknowledged him beyond a curt, downcast nod. Guilt, perhaps? He isn’t sure. But it doesn’t matter.
He practically elbows Shadowheart out of the way, ignoring the half-elf’s yelp of consternation. He steps out of the way when Astarion tries to grab at his robes. He ignores Miri when she shouts his name into the soiled air.
I have to find her!
Gale has not truly rested since the battle with his double. His magic isn’t at its best. His energy is steadily waning. But it doesn’t matter, and he carelessly casts Misty Step and appears at the open doorway of Moonrise Towers, his skin shivering as the Weave wraps around him.
It’s a veritable bloodbath inside.
Harpers, Flaming Fist, and Absolutists tangle with one another in savage clusters. What may have once been a cozy and inviting grand hall is strewn with carnage, the din of battle sharp and striking. He spies no more trail of holy flames clinging to stone and eviscerated bodies. Aylin is elsewhere, and Gale cannot deny the disappointment he feels at the notion. He had hoped to enlist her help in searching for Rowan even though the mighty aasimar does not know either of them.
No matter. He’ll take care of it himself. But first, perhaps he will help his allies take care of the cultists. How so many of them arrived here so quickly, and whatever triggered this gleamingly obvious final stand is beyond him, but they are in need of a wizard of his standing. Gale will happily provide his services.
“Perure!” he commands, flicking a wrist in the vague direction of a particularly nasty grouping of cultists. The Weave around him trembles once more but this time, with eagerness. Not apprehension.
Gale feels a little more like himself as the magic swirls through his bloodstream. It travels to his fingertips, kissing the palm of his hand as it flies from his grasp elegantly. A strike of bright blue lightning erupts in the air—shrieks and death rattles accompany the crackle of it as the spell arcs from enemy to enemy.
In a mere instant, a majority of the cultists are nothing but ash and twitching limbs on scorched stone. Gale lowers his arm and ignores the rush of exhaustion that follows a spell of such immense power, willing his legs to remain stalwart and steadfast below him.
“You’re welcome,” he calls out. A tad flippantly, he must admit.
Without waiting for accolades, Gale keeps moving. The double doors directly opposite of the tower’s entrance show promise considering their intricate detail. He races to them and squeezes past their gap, cringing when he glances about his new surroundings.
A throne room of sorts? A terribly garish one at that, decorated heinously. It had been a chapel of sorts at one time, judging by the chamber’s architecture and arrangement.
The massive throne is currently empty, but the room itself is not. Three Absolutists have a figure surrounded, weapons drawn and at the ready as the figure holds their arms up in surrender. Gale steps further into the room and his footsteps echo on the stone floor. The Absolutists spin around with battle-rage burning in their eyes, and it gives him a better glance at the figure in their midst.
“Gale?!” Dorian calls out in utter shock, bewilderment painted across his face. “What the devil are you doing here?!” He looks haggard and bruised. Even from here, Gale can sense how depleted his brother’s magic is. There is barely a flicker of storm-touched Weave swirling around the sorcerer.
Gale tries to throw him a smile but he knows it’s more of a grimace than anything. “I could say the same for you.”
Before the Absolutists can act, he summons the cold and unyielding grasp of winter.
The air freezes around them. What moisture there is in the chamber suddenly converges on the Absolutists as Gale calls the spell out in a clear, confident voice. Ice apparates in a white, rushing cone, a miasma of pure cold as it dances around the three cultists. A small blizzard that batters and shreds and freezes with a wanton grace.
The poor bastards don’t even get any last words as their bodies glitter and glisten, the blood in their veins freezing instantaneously. Their skin turns blue. Frost clings to their parted lips and glassy, wide eyes. His spell keeps them rooted to the floor, icebound and forever statues of their timely deaths.
Or, at least, until it gets warm enough to melt them.
Gale ignores the clawing, aching absence of yet another spell cast when he’s on his last reserves. The tightening of his chest means nothing. The fatigue throbbing behind his eyes is a paltry thing. He must keep going. He must find Rowan. It doesn’t matter that he suddenly is struggling to breathe.
His gaze flicks to his brother. Dorian is staring at him, equal parts aghast and amazed, hands still raised in shaky surrender. A moment passes. Then another. Dorian lowers his arms at last, head cocked as a ripple of concern flashes across his face as he takes in Gale’s panting, trembling form.
“Are you alright, little brother?”
He says it with such softness, such consideration, that the dam Gale has been so meticulously trying to build inside him this past hour shatters on impact.
“Help me.”
Gale doesn’t realize he’s rushed forward and thrown himself at Dorian until his brother’s arms are around him. His shoulders shake and his eyes burn with unshed tears, voice coming out in a pathetic rasp. “Rowan was taken,” he tells him, gripping Dorian’s robes like he is a child once more, weeping over his inability to keep the irises in their mother’s garden from dying. “Sh-she was taken and I need help, Dorian. I don’t know what to do. Help me.”
And in that moment, it is as if their dreadful, violent, fury-filled fight from a year ago never happened.
“Oh, Gale,” Dorian breathes. He holds him tightly, earnestly. Gale thinks back to all the times his brother had comforted him when they were boys, assuring the younger Dekarios would grow into his magic. Before they became foolish and obstinate and insisted on competing. Before they stopped being brothers and instead, became bitter, irrational rivals.
“She’s beneath Moonrise,” Gale continues with a hiccup. The tears are now pouring down his face relentlessly and he can’t stop shaking, can’t stop gasping for air like a drowning man. “Sh-she was hurt by a necromancer. Cursed, if what Miri says is true. I can’t feel her, Dorian. I can’t feel my wife, I can’t find her, and I need help. Please. Please.”
It occurs to Gale the last time he begged his brother for help, it was when the orb was slowly devouring him from the inside and Mystra had kicked him on the streets like a rabid dog, and Dorian had unleashed the storm on him without a second thought.
Back then, all Dorian knew was that his perfect little brother had angered the goddess of all magic with his asinine arrogance. Back then, all Dorian knew was that Gale had deserved whatever punishments that were going to come this way.
But this is not like last time.
At the word “wife” Gale can feel Dorian’s arms tense around him slightly. “Rowan is your—” His brother cuts himself off with a shake of the head and releases Gale from his grasp. His hands are steady and calming on his shoulders as Dorian stares so deeply into his eyes he feels as though he is seeing into his soul.
A moment passes once more.
And then Dorian’s posture straightens. He nods briskly, abruptly, and pulls something out of his robes. A bottle that sloshes with a thick, dark liquid inside. He shoves it into Gale’s trembling hand and pats him on the cheek, his mouth curling into a shadow of his typical brash grin.
“Right. Drink up. I know arcane exhaustion when I see it. Wyll and I found something beneath the prison during our time here—obvious signs of a mind flayer colony, but no way to get to it. That Ketheric fellow ought to know. He’s up top right now, battling it out with a big-winged, shiny lady. I don’t suppose you’ve an idea who that is?”
Gale forces himself to down the elixir of arcane cultivation in one gulp. He’s always hated these damn things. They taste like vegetables. Yet there is no denying that they work, for the moment he swallows the last droplet he can already feel the threads of the Weave knitting together again inside him. It is a far cry from an actual night of sleep but for now, it’s better than nothing.
“Dame Aylin,” he supplies as Dorian chugs a bottle of his own elixir, smacking his lips obnoxiously. “A daughter of Selûne. She was the Nightsong all along, Dorian. Ketheric had her trapped in the Shadowfell and was using some necromancer’s ritual to channel her immortality to him. Rowan was taken when she and a few others went to find the Nightsong.”
His breath hitches as he recounts it. He should have been there. He should have bloody been there.
Dorian whistles through his teeth. “That…explains a lot. Wyll, Karlach, Jericho and I discovered some old letters when we broke into Ketheric’s chambers. The man went absolutely mad when his wife passed and turned to Shar; and then his daughter was killed, and he switched his allegiance to Myrkul. It’s a Myrkulite ritual that’s trapped Aylin for all these years.”
Thorm lost his daughter?
And then he trapped Aylin?
Gale’s eyes widen. The realization hits him in the gut harder than a suckerpunch from Lae’zel.
“By the gods. Isobel is Isobel Thorm. Ketheric’s daughter.”
The ring around his finger, which has been cold and silent since the Gauntlet, seems to grow a touch warm. As if in recognition.
So many pieces fall into place. The lanceboard is no longer a frenzied, confusing mess of rooks and knights. The king and queen have appeared at long last. He doesn’t know how Isobel is alive now, but it doesn’t matter. She is his friend. She is his wife’s chosen sister.
How he did not put it together when Miri told him Aylin’s name is a stain on his integrity.
(Falling into a fit of madness himself over Rowan’s capture is not an excuse.)
“We…didn’t want to share our findings without speaking to Isobel first,” Dorian admits quietly. “Then Aylin showed up, and the fighting began. We got separated. I think Jericho remained on the second floor, snooping around the library.”
He jerks his head to a double set of stairs that curl around the throne, disappearing behind stone pillars and ragged banners emblazoned with the symbol Gale has come to know as the emblem for the Absolute.
“It’s this way. Ketheric should be on the roof, duking it out with Aylin.”
And where Ketheric is, so too should be the knowledge of gaining access to the mind flayer colony. Where Rowan is being held. Gale can’t deny it any longer, no matter how sharp the knife of truth cuts into him.
He also knows he should wait for Miri. For Isobel. For any and all other reinforcements from Last Light.
Gale, unfortunately, is a right fool. Patience has never been his most practiced virtue.
He wipes at his eyes and face. He’d rather not jump into battle looking as though he lost a war with a jar of peppercorns. “I’m going,” he declares. A twinge of uncertainty slides into his voice as he gives Dorian a plaintive, pleading look. “Will…will you come with me?”
His brother’s grin grows a little brighter, a little more genuine. He nods.
“You needn’t ask. It’s high time we show the world just how spectacular the Dekarios brothers are when we actually work together, eh?”
Gale can’t argue with that. When all of this is said and done, his mother truly will weep in joy.
The two make their way up the stairs—not before Dorian pushes over one of the frozen bodies for good, petty measure—and come into a set of hallways. More bodies decorate the floor, some bludgeoned and beaten while others smolder and shimmer with the unmistakable touch of magic. Gale raises an eyebrow as Dorian shrugs nonchalantly, pursing his lips in an innocent pout.
“What? We had to defend ourselves! Blame Aylin! Everyone heard her challenge Ketheric Thorm. When we didn’t rally immediately to his side, they realized we’d been pretending to be members of the cult.”
“Hm. I take it you finally achieved your dream of becoming an actor these past few days, then?”
“In a way. There were a lot less roses and applause than I’d anticipated. A bit of a let down, really.”
“I’m sure you can add ‘infiltrated a cult’ to your resume when you return to Baldur’s Gate. Some desperate acting troupe will gladly accept you as one of their own.”
“I can already hear the adoring crowds chanting my name.”
Dorian peers into a doorway, avoiding a puddle of blood. The room inside is wall-to-wall with books and despite everything, Gale yearns to flip through the pages and take a deep breath. Now is not the time to be distracted by books, he berates himself silently. Lae’zel never did return the ones he had lent her when they separated at the Grove. They were probably lost in the scuffle against the githyanki. He will lament them later.
“Strange,” Dorian murmurs after a couple moments, perplexed. “I left Jericho right here. She had a stack she was doing last minute research with.” He pulls away from the doorway with a tight frown. “I do hope she’s alright. We managed to cut everyone on this floor down, but I’d hate for her to be outnumbered by a surprise attack. Like I was before you so miraculously appeared.”
“You and I both know Jericho can take care of herself,” Gale deadpans.
“Are you implying I cannot, dearest brother of mine?”
“No, never. Whatever would give you that idea?”
Dorian’s frown quirks into a quick, fleeting smirk. “Marriage has made you cheeky, I see.”
It’s made me a lot of other things.
But Gale remains quiet in the line of his brother’s good-natured ribbing. Instead, he maneuvers himself around the dead bodies littering the ground and walks to a particularly interesting door. It’s as elegantly decorated as the door to the throne room is—he suspects it once held depictions of Selûne and her symbols, which have since been sanded down and replaced with Absolutist markings.
He presses his ear against it. Beyond, the muffled sounds of a battle raging above him filter through the thick wood.
Without waiting for Dorian or another thought as to Jericho’s whereabouts, he yanks the door open. A set of carved stone stairs greets him and the muffled ringing of swords and shouts grows louder, clearer.
Gale marches up the stairs, heart beating wildly. Dorian calls out his name with a stutter, begging him to wait for a moment, but Gale does not. Oh, he knows he should take time to prepare—he knows he ought to be more cautious about this, to use his head and strategize. But all that matters is Rowan. If he can drag answers out of Ketheric, then he does not need to waste his time with something as mundane as a plan.
Hurried footfalls close behind him speak of Dorian’s decision to follow. Gale did not know how great of a relief that would be until he allows himself to become aware of it.
When he reaches the top of the stairs, the door is open to the roof and blackened sky beyond it.
And, of course, the vicious conflict occurring.
Ketheric Thorm is imposing. A hulking elf of a man, grizzled by hardship and strife. His armor radiates an aura of death and destruction, necrotic energy dripping off in overwhelming waves. His rugged face is set in a scowl painted with pride and wrath in equal amounts as he swings a heavy warhammer down at a familiar figure.
Gale pales.
“Why is Jericho fighting Ketheric?!” he hisses to Dorian as his brother heaves himself to his side. Both have remained unnoticed so far, lingering just behind the doorway. Dorian gasps with enough shock and vigor that would most definitely earn him crowds of adoring fans on the stage.
“...huh. That’s unexpected. I have no idea how she—is that Miri? And Jaheira?”
By the gods, he’s right.
Somehow, some way, Miri and the High Harper Jaheira are on the roof. Bard and druid are working in tandem much like Jericho and Jaheira had during the assault on the inn. Miri’s violin sings like a siren as she warbles a crescendo of her own, her lilting voice haunting and ethereal. Jaheira prances about, two scimitars drawn as her lithe body glows with defensive magic. She is twice as nimble, adroit as a knitting needle as she slashes away at shambling skeletons with quickfire swiftness.
Jericho, on the other hand, seems to be baiting Ketheric. A nigh-permanent casting of Shield is swathed around her tall form as seamless as silk. The warhammer Ketheric wields continuously bounces harmlessly off of her spell, sending reverberating shockwaves through the air. A multitude of scorch marks along the ground and battered columns speak volumes of whatever other spells she’s thrown at him before switching to this approach.
Gale takes a step forward, fingers twisting and hands turning in preparation for a casting of Hold Person on Ketheric. If he can get the bastard to just stop moving, then he can interrogate him before they cut off his head. Aylin has been freed. He should no longer be immortal, right?
…where is Aylin?
He finds himself pausing in the spell as he takes another look around. The signs of the aasimar’s presence are there—celestial flames that burn brighter than the sun have seeped into the stone, hungrily devouring the occasional body here and there. Gale cannot tell if they’re more undead or if they are cultists. The divine fire’s might is too much. Aylin herself is nowhere to be found, as if she’s disappeared.
Strange. Hadn’t Miri said she was hellbent on revenge against Ketheric? She would not just—
“Our Lady of Silver shall judge you at last and find you gorged with sin, Ketheric!”
A robust, emphatic voice booms across the rooftop, and Aylin suddenly appears.
She shimmers into existence as a carefully crafted Invisibility spell is dismissed. Gale catches Miri’s lips twist into a victorious smirk as she easily elbows a rattling skeleton that’s snuck up on her side, sending it flying backwards. The aasimar descends from above, pristine wings glowing with moonlight, her armor shining like a beacon of hope as it reflects the holy flames scattered throughout the roof.
Her greatsword thrusts down on Ketheric just as he’s turning his head upwards.
Gale watches in awe as the commander of the Absolutists crumples to the ground, steel on steel clanging discordantly, loudly. Jericho dodges his armored body as he nearly topples onto her, letting out a surprised shout. Her Shield flickers just for a moment but otherwise remains strong, and Aylin laughs with an air of victory.
“Did I not yet mention how good it is to see you again, Ketheric?” she tells him as she lands before his prone form, tense and still at the ready. She holds her sword with a poise that screams how eager and ready she is to strike again. “At last you found a god-master that suits you!”
“Aylin,” Ketheric grinds out, his voice an aged growl and seething with contempt. “The thief.” He pushes himself off the ground and as he stands up, an indent in the stone shows how hard Aylin struck.
How the hells is he still moving? Gale thinks.
Ketheric jabs a finger at Aylin, a darkness in the scowl he lays upon her as he spits, “You stole Isobel from me, and now you think you’ll take my life in the bargain?”
Aylin’s eyes burn with fury.
“You dare to speak her name?” she says, an icy calmness to her words as she takes another step forward. The point of her sword rises until it has met Ketheric’s throat, the silver gleaming like a thousand constellations. “After your crimes immeasurable, you would evoke her before me?”
The aasimar’s eyes glow as she screams the last syllable , not just burn. They glow like the moon, blue-white and full of a righteous wrath that sends chills down Gale’s spine. He is no stranger to divinity. He knows it intimately, though he has since paid the price. But this? Dame Aylin?
She is, as Isobel had said not too long ago, utterly resplendent.
“Enough!” Ketheric shouts, raising a fist to the air. There is a shudder of discomfort in his voice, a shadow of something almost akin to doubt in his face as he sneers savagely. “Enough. My Lord beckons me. This ends here and now—at last!”
The tower begins to shake.
A sense of understanding alights in Aylin’s otherworldly beauty. She grits her teeth and takes to the sky once more, feathered wings beating the stale wind as she soars. Her resplendent form erupts with holy fire, silver flames flickering all about her as she twists in the air and points her blade down at the elf raving below her.
“You must return to your prison!” Ketheric demands, unmoving. Evidently the sight of an aasimar about to invoke divinity does not concern him. Something in his chest begins to glow with a ruby-red light; a gem of sorts, embedded amongst the bones carved from steel.
Gale hadn’t noticed it before. It radiates with a sickening, pulsating energy that grinds down into his stomach. Such power! Such magic! What in the name of all the gods is it? He feels the slumbering orb inside his chest stir, tossing and turning in its stupor, and his skin is suddenly drawn too tight over his bones.
He barely hears Ketheric over the thundering of his heart as he grips uselessly at his chest, biting his tongue so hard he nearly draws blood.
“My daughter must be reclaimed!”
“Isobel will
never
fall into your hands,” Aylin fumes, the holy flames around her growing bigger and brighter. “Not while Dame Aylin still breathes!”
All then all hell breaks loose.
A smaller tower adjacent to the main one shatters, flinging cobblestone and shrapnel everywhere as a massive barbed tentacle bursts from it with a destructive roar. Aylin does not have time to move, to fly away to freedom. The monstrous appendage lashes out wildly, striking at her with such force the tower proper shakes with all the violence of an earthquake. Columns crumble. Debris is thrown everywhere, hard and fast.
Gale finds himself unable to think, unable to act, as he watches the world around him fall apart. The spell at his fingertips fizzles out of existence. There’s a nagging voice inside him, crying out for him to move, to get out of here, and all he can do is take a few more steps forward. He feels as if he is in a dream—a nightmare—as Aylin slams into the ground with enough force he feels the vibration of it ripple through his feet and legs.
The last thing he sees is a cluster of stone racing at him through the air before pain blossoms on the side of his head.
There is nothing but silence and an aching agony for an eternity.
Then voices swirl around him. Hands are upon his face, his head, cradling him gently. It’s not Rowan. He knows it is not Rowan. But it’s a beautiful thought, and better than the crushing, damnable torment of reality. The pulsing, throbbing pain in his head slowly begins to subside as his consciousness stirs back into existence, and Gale cracks his eyes open with much reluctance.
He meets the tearful gaze of Isobel.
“I’ve got you,” she says softly, gently. Her hands glide up and down the side of his head as healing magic seeps from her fingers to his skull. Her cheeks are wet. There is a tightness to her expression, drawn in sorrow and regret.
“Wh…what happened?” Gale mumbles groggily. His tongue feels too thick. He tries to turn his head but the cleric’s hold on him is tight, and all he can do is awkwardly stare up at her.
Isobel does not answer. She blinks rapidly and he realizes with a sharp slice of guilt that she’s trying not to cry.
“Ketheric got away,” Dorian replies sullenly. He is holding Gale, cradling him like a child as Isobel heals him. A hazy memory of their father balancing both boys on his knees surfaces from the depths of his mind, the rich cadence of his voice ringing out heartily as he spins tales of the sea with gusto. Gale banishes the recollection and forces himself to focus on Dorian despite the vertigo. “He got away and took Aylin. Down there.”
His brother gestures vaguely in a direction but considering Isobel’s unyielding grasp, Gale still cannot turn his head to see. Disappointment is bitter and acrid in his mouth. Ketheric got away, he muses despondently, savagely. Hesitation has cost him everything. He had the spell ready, for the Matron’s sake! Why had he not—why couldn’t he have—
Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry I failed you.
His eyes are hot and heavy. All he wants is to push away from the well-meaningness of Dorian and Isobel and throw himself off the tower.
“We’re following him.”
Gale sucks in a shuddering breath as the last vestiges of pain become so insignificant he barely notices them. The vertigo subsides. His gaze flicks back up to Isobel, whose mournful expression has shifted into something fierce and determined. It reminds him of Rowan so, so much.
The cleric smooths down his hair, the gesture innately affectionate and sisterly. She gives his head one final pat before standing up. “Tara told me what happened to Rowan. I was too late to save Aylin. So we’re going to follow him and find them. Both of them.”
“Tara,” Gale says quietly, shakily, more to himself than anyone else as Dorian helps him to his feet. He glances around with a keen desperation, chest tight and lungs squeezing as a strange wave of panic settles over him. He needs Tara. Where is she?
There is a soft, gentle meow. The familiar sensation of Tara’s luscious fur presses against his legs as she rubs against him.
I am right here, little love,
his dearest friend tells him over their bond, looking up at him with somber eyes.
Gale scoops her into his arms and holds her to him, burying his face in her fur. She does not protest, purring soothingly as he steadies himself. He feels a bit like the man he was a year ago when the orb had first infected him with its arcane hunger. Lost, terrified, and wholly uncertain of the future.
Gods, he truly does not deserve the companionship Tara has shown him over the years. Whatever would he have done without the tressym?
A hand settles on his back, warm and kind. “We should get going,” Miri says, and Gale lifts his head from Tara’s fur to look at the tiefling. The injuries she had sustained in the Shadowfell have been healed over for the most part. Isobel and Jaheira’s doing, most likely. “Only if you’re up for it, Gale. I don’t…want to push you.”
Her concern is touching and yet, Gale feels oddly offended by it. He does not know why.
“How did you get ahead of me?” he asks her, shoving the confounding emotions somewhere dark. “And why were you fighting Ketheric?” He addresses Jericho with that last statement, who is currently rifling through the pockets of the dead necromancers who had clearly been part of Ketheric’s inner circle.
His fellow wizard gives him a nonchalant shrug. “I heard the aasimar confront Thorm and decided to investigate. One thing led to another. I’m…sorry to hear about Rowan,” she adds, eyes darkening as a stricken expression clouds her harsh face. “We’re going to get her back, Dekarios.”
“And I got here because of Jaheira,” Miri answers before Gale can mumble a halfhearted thank you to Jericho. “She arrived at the bridge just as you ran off. She used druid vines to scale the side of the tower so we could avoid fighting our way through. Astarion, Shadowheart, and Lae’zel stayed behind to help the Harpers.” She runs a hand through her hair nervously, sighing. It is obvious she is battling those wretched, maddening instincts that have been clawing their way out of her darkened soul these last few days. “I wanted to tear answers from Ketheric about what happened to me. I wanted to know what he did to me. And now he’s fucking run off like a coward.”
She grits her sharp teeth, a hint of hysteria bubbling up in her voice as she seethes.
“I’ll kill him when I find him again. I’ll choke him with his intestines and carve my name into his heart so he will never forget me, even when he’s forgotten himself.”
Gale glances over at Isobel, uncertain. Aylin and Ketheric’s heated conversation before the tentacle appeared was quite clear in declaring the cleric as Thorm’s daughter. Regardless of what he has done, he is still her father. Gale can’t imagine she enjoys hearing such a vehement declaration of his death by the bard who nearly succumbed to killing Isobel a mere handful of days ago.
But Isobel merely nods, that fierce determination never waning.
“My father deserves no mercy. He has caused enough pain, and now that he has taken Aylin—”
Her voice cracks, raw grief spilling out like sand from a broken hourglass.
“—he must be brought down by any means necessary.”
Judging by the hush that settles on everyone, the feeling is positively mutual.
A few beats of tense silence passes. Then, Jaheira clears her throat. “I will return to the fight below,” she says, patting the hilts of her scimitars. “Who knows what reinforcements these cultists may have? My Harpers are big boys and girls, but I have led them this far into the shadows. I will not abandon them now. Besides…”
She cracks a tired, resolute grin as she reaches a hand out and tugs on Miri’s ear affectionately.
“I am too old to be diving into mind flayer colonies. This is your moment, cub. Remember what I have taught you. You are stronger than you know.”
Miri stiffens slightly. She seems at a loss for words, the ever-present madness swirling in her eyes going dull and listless as she looks at Jaheira. Something has happened between them, Gale realizes. In the time when Miri was sequestered away and no one saw her for a couple of days, she and Jaheira had shared something. But what?
Miri’s shoulders loosen and she rewards Jaheira with a weary, grateful smile “Try not to keel over from a heart attack,” she tells the druid, but the sharpness of her words are tempered with a genuine appreciation, and she bows her head in deference. “Who else will I look to as my wise and wizened elder?”
“I suppose I should be grateful you put ‘wise’ before ‘wizened,’ eh?”
“I am nothing if not a kind and generous soul.”
“Bah. Not the words I would use, but to each their own.”
Jaheira flicks her wrist and a cluster of hearty, lush vines of emerald green emerge from the broken and battered cobblestone. She guides them over to the side of the tower’s roof, wrapping them around herself like a protective blanket of sorts, as she hooks one leg over the side.
“Jaheira,” Jericho calls out just as the druid is about to scale down the wall. “Karlach should be down there fighting. If you see her, will you tell her I’ll be back?”
“Wyll, too,” Dorian adds hastily, a ruddy sort of blush creeping across his face as he avoids Gale’s knowing gaze. “Can’t have him thinking I just up and abandoned him.”
Jaheira nods. “Of course. Be careful down there. Good luck.”
And then just like that she is gone.
Everyone gathers to where Gale realizes Dorian was gesturing earlier. It’s the smaller tower that broke when the tentacle appeared, the debris from the fight creating a precarious path to the opened cavity. The sides of the column pulse with purple and red flesh, a disturbing stench and sound issuing from the darkness below. It’s deeply unsettling. Images flash through Gale’s mind as he recalls the interior of the nautiloid. There is not much of a difference between this and that. He swallows his nausea down thickly.
“I’ll cast Featherfall,” Jericho announces as Gale stares mutely into the ominous fleshy crevice.
Miri nods. “Good idea. Wouldn’t want to break our necks.”
As Jericho begins to murmur the components for the spell, Gale inches closer to Dorian. Tara has crawled around his neck in her usual perch, still purring and occasionally rubbing her whiskers into his face. “Thank you,” he tells his brother under his breath, blinking away a sudden onslaught of tears that are threatening to squeeze out of his eyes.
Dorian reaches a hand out and grips Gale’s upper arm, nodding resolutely. “You’d do the same for me,” he says softly, and his voice is uncharacteristically thick with emotion. “Were it Wyll down there, I don’t know if I’d manage to function.”
His brother has changed. The person he was a year ago would have never responded to Gale’s desperate cry for help. He would have scoffed and turned away, leaving him to wallow in self pity.
But now here he is, standing at his side, his thoughts no doubt teeming with precious moments he and Wyll have shared during this journey. In such a short time, surrounded by despair and chaos and strange bedfellows, Dorian Dekarios has grown a genuine heart. It’s startling. It’s mesmerizing. And it gives Gale hope, despite the hellish circumstances they find themselves in.
“You really do care for him, don’t you?” he asks, even though he knows the answer.
Dorian nods. “I want to be a better man for him, Gale. So badly it hurts. I care for him so much I hardly know what to do with it all.”
An affliction Gale knows all too well.
The ring around his finger warms. He swears he feels the gentle, tender touch of fingers brushing against his cheek and the gossamer probing of moonlight across his face. He nudges his brother in the shoulder, voice light and airy even though they are about to plunge into the belly of the beast. “I have it on good authority that marriage may help with that.”
Jericho’s spell flutters around them, wisps of feathery magic swirling around their limbs. Dorian’s gaze travels to Gale’s hand, his stormy eyes lingering on the ring.
He doesn’t say anything else as the rest of their companions all line up, preparing to leap down the tunnel dug by the tentacle. But there is a lightness to Dorian’s step, a weight lifted, as he nudges Gale in return.
Rowan is dreaming. She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she knows she’s dreaming when she realizes she is surrounded by darkness and shadow and not the squeezing discomfort of the pod.
She’s alone.
Utterly alone.
Her magic has left her. Even in this dream space, it won’t come to her call. Not when she beckons—not when she begs.
“Hello?” she calls out into the darkness. She doesn’t know why. It’s not like anyone or anything can hear her. She’s going to die. Any moment now, a tadpole is going to be shoved into her eye socket and she’ll become a mini Cthulhu, or her brain is going to be slurped up like spaghetti.
Rowan doesn’t want to die again.
“Please,” she whispers to the shadows that undulate lazily around. She reaches a hand out, trying to touch one, but it slithers away from her grasp like an offended snake. Were it one of her shadows, it would have come to her side immediately, obedient and compliant. But it’s not one of her shadows. And she’s not in a dream.
She’s in a nightmare as far as she’s concerned.
Don’t cry, she tells herself as her eyes begin to feel hot and itchy. Don’t fucking cry. It won’t solve anything.
She just feels so empty. Her magic has become integral to her very soul. She understands the agony Gale went through a year ago when the orb infected him. She understands why he’s become so dependent, so reliant on letting his magic define who he is. When it’s something that makes you feel alive and then suddenly it’s gone, it hurts. It hurts so much.
Why won’t the Raven Queen bring it back? Surely her goddess can override whatever the hells the necromancer did to her. Right?
…but she still cannot feel the Matron. She can’t even feel the feathers at her throat.
“Please,” Rowan repeats, wincing at how pathetic and strained her voice sounds as it echoes numbly into the sea of shadow. “Don’t abandon me. I can’t…I-I can’t lose my magic. I can’t lose everything you’ve given to me. Please.”
Still, no one answers.
Panic settles under Rowan’s skin, sharp as a needle and jagged as broken bone.
“Selûne!” she cries out, going to rub the ring on her finger in supplication to the Moonmaiden. But it’s not there. Her finger is bare, just as her throat is. Just as her soul is, not a trace of her beloved magic to be found.
The panic morphs into something uglier. Something desperate and ancient, adrenaline shooting spikes of twisting and turning feelings Rowan cannot fully comprehend. Her legs feel weak, immaterial. She tries to take a step forward and instead stumbles, her limbs as gangly as a newborn deer. She falls to her hands and knees, panting as her heart beats too fast and her blood runs too cold.
“Artemis,” Rowan rasps, though she knows the invocation is in vain. “Hekate. Persephone. Bastet. Freya.” Names of goddesses that never answered in her old world; why the fuck would they answer now? But she can’t stop the tide of names that fall from her parted lips, the prayers frantic and damn near reckless as she speaks them.
“Brigid. Isis. Rhiannon. Sigyn. Sekhmet. Hera. Athena.”
Silence. Frigid, damning silence.
Rowan’s voice rises to a shriek. She pounds a fist against the oddly solid, amorphous ground, her scream echoing around her like shattered glass.
“Morrigan!”
Something stirs.
A pair of wings flutters in her chest, soft and mighty. The darkness beneath her ripples. Ravens warble in the distance as fingers caress her cheeks, run through her unruly hair. Two hands, slender and as cold as a gravestone, grasp her shoulders and coax her to her feet.
“I am here, little one.”
Rowan lets out an aching, gasping sob from deep within when she raises her head to meet the masked visage of her goddess. Before she knows what she’s doing she throws herself at the Matron, who immediately enfolds her into an embrace.
“I’m sorry,” Rowan says hoarsely, one wrong breath away from fully weeping. “I’m sorry!”
She doesn’t know why she’s apologizing.
“Hush,” the Matron soothes. There is a thickness to her dulcet voice, a layer of remorse that pains Rowan more than the loss of her magic. “You need not apologize, beloved. It is I who is at fault.”
Her goddess holds her closer. Waves of raven-black hair cascade over Rowan’s shoulders, tickling her nose and threatening to coax a sneeze out of her. Remarkably, she pushes it away, because that would be very uncool considering the intensity of the situation.
“There was a curse placed upon you to cut off your connection to me. I could not reach you, nor could my shadows. That necromancer’s magic was twisted and disturbingly powerful—he was channeling threads of power from Myrkul.” Though Rowan cannot see her face, she has a feeling the Raven Queen is frowning deeply as she speaks. “The Lord of Bones and I have never gotten along considering our…opposing views on death and what must come after. I preferred Jergal over that one’s cruel approach. Kelemvor, too.”
Rowan’s stress is currently a tad too much to consider her goddess’s relationship with her fellow death deities. She chooses to ignore that interesting piece of information and instead, focuses on more important matters. “If there was a curse on me, how did you find me again?”
This time, the Matron does withdraw from her. It’s cold and lonely without her gentle, calming arms around Rowan, and she tries not to show how badly it disappoints her. Her goddess reaches a hand out, one pale finger tapping the edge of her nose with a light and teasing touch.
“I’m afraid that’s a secret, little one. We gods can’t have the mortals knowing all our tricks.”
This isn’t really how Rowan would have imagined her first genuine conversation face-to-face with the Raven Queen would go after she was given her second chance in Toril. She just stares blankly at the expressionless porcelain mask her goddess wears, confused and overwhelmed and unsure of what to say.
The Raven Queen sighs.
“Godhood is complicated, little one,” she says delicately. “It is why we cannot just directly intervene into this current mind flayer catastrophe. It is why I could not find you until just now. I am sorry, Rowan.” Her shoulders seem to slump, the ebony mantle of darkness woven around her rippling in a nonexistent breeze. “I could feel your terror, muted though it was through the curse.”
“Yeah. It fucking sucked.”
She probably shouldn’t be so flippant but frankly, she doesn’t really care. She’s not alone anymore. Her goddess is with her. Nothing else matters. Well, except one thing.
Rowan brings a hand up to her throat to nervously grab at the feathers she wears but when all she finds is the scarred skin from He Who Was’s attack, she falters. She had forgotten that the feathers and her ring had disappeared in the nightmare. But that just means they’ll be back when she wakes up! …she hopes.
Her voice is small and timid like a child’s as she asks, “Can…you give me my magic back? Can you break the curse?”
When the Raven Queen immediately nods, Rowan nearly weeps with relief. “I can. But know this, little one; if I restore your connection to the Shadow Weave, you will become even more entrenched in the power I have chosen to share with you. When you brought He Who Was back to my side, you became able to access only a fraction of what you are truly capable of. This?”
She cups her cheek gingerly, motherly, brushing away the few remnants of panicked tears that still linger in the corner of Rowan’s eyes.
“You will be my Champion in full, Rowan. Are you ready for whatever that may mean?”
Rowan thinks.
She remembers the thrill of the hunt when she chased down Marcus to rescue Isobel. She remembers the ripple of power when Quothe instructed her to become a raven, the freedom she felt as her wings took to the air. She remembers how easy it had been to kill Marcus—and she also remembers how frightening it had been to kill He Who Was. How different she had felt. How…unlike herself, broken and poisoned and oh so fucking strong.
But Rowan remembers the glimpse of the life she left behind that Shar forced down her throat. Her old name, lost to shattered glass and a world that had simply become too much for her.
She is the Raven Queen’s Chosen. Her Champion. She is Rowan Twice-Born, daughter to the Matron, weaver of shadows. Power corrupts. The kind of magic she has been toying with, tasting nervously, can be her undoing if she isn’t careful.
But Rowan has always been stubborn. She can do this. She will do this.
She swallows down the acrid taste of fear that has been ever-present since she pierced the heart of He Who Was. The Matron is not Mystra. She will not lead her astray. She knows it, deeply and irrevocably.
“Is he at peace now?” she asks, voice still childlike despite the conviction burning a hole in her chest.
She doesn’t have to say his name. Her goddess knows.
The Raven Queen nods. “His mind is his own once more. For bringing him home, I will forever be grateful to you, my beloved daughter.”
“Then yes,” Rowan says firmly, bowing her head before the Matron. “I am ready.”
To whatever end.
A heavy sense of otherness settles around her. It’s not unwelcome, but it’s a little jarring and sudden, and Rowan can’t help the startled shiver that takes hold of her body. Her eyes flutter shut. Her skin grows cold, achingly so, before her blood warms like a welcoming hearth and the stars of the stars lingers on her tongue.
Ravens cry out.
The beating of wings fills her ears.
Shadows caress her face, dancing joyously as they settle on her arms and seep into her veins where they belong.
Go, her goddess instructs inside her soul, and a smooth pair of lips presses against her forehead. Show your enemies the strength of your shadows, little one.
When Rowan opens her eyes again, she’s back in the pod, and there is a mind flayer dangling a parasite right in front of her face.
The parasite writhes and wriggles in its grotesque, squid-like hand. It shrieks, high-pitched and a thing straight from the bowels of hell, gnashing its yellowed sharp fangs in eager anticipation. For one dreadful moment, Rowan can feel its fetid breath fanning across her face as the mind flayer inches it closer and closer. If it dropped the tadpole it would have a prime spot to slither into her eye socket with ease.
She’s not going to let that happen.
With a single thought, the invisible chains manacled around her power vanish.
“Oh no you fucking don’t,” she snarls, thrusting her hands out as the familiar surge of her magic rushes through her entire being. A swarm of shadows rises from her skin, waves and waves of darkness funneling from her hands and solidifying like black ice as it pushes against the unsuspecting mind flayer.
The mind flayer stumbles back. The tadpole is flung unceremoniously from its slimy grasp, the little bastard hissing like a demon as it lands in the bottom of Rowan’s pod. It squirms at her feet and in one swift movement, she brings the bottom of her boot on top of it and stomps as hard as her muscles allow.
She’s going to hear the disturbingly thick, wet squish of it bursting beneath her foot for months
The baleful magenta eyes of the mind flayer stare into her with malice as she crawls out of the pod with surprising fluidity. The wall of shadows keeps it at bay, her darkness wrapped around her like a protective cocoon as she raises her head to meet its eyes with an unbridled rage of her own.
It’s the same mind flayer she saw devour the unfortunate poor fucker when she was first transported here. She has no doubt it's currently blaring out an alarm with its psionic abilities. By the time reinforcements come, they won’t be able to save it.
“Pro tip the next time you squidnap someone,” she hisses, jabbing an open hand out into the moist air. Shadows waltz between her fingers. The comforting weight of Nevermore appears in her palm, the smooth wood of her staff’s handle a welcome balm. “Make sure they’re fully unconscious before you try to infect them!”
Not that there will be a next time for you, you tentacled freak of nature!
Rowan swings Nevermore with a flourish as she whispers an incantation fast and furiously. Her magic rises to the occasion, filling the void its short absence woefully left behind. The wall of shadows around her transform into vicious, hungry tendrils of darkness that suction themselves into the mind flayer’s purple flesh. Its beady eyes widen imperceptibly and it cocks its head, a vibration of something emanating off of it in deadly waves.
She only has moments to react.
“Not happening!” she snarls, raising her other hand into the air. She invokes the Shadow Weave, willing its threads to knit and knot around the fragile film of her mind. The psychic blast is repelled just in time, fizzling out harmlessly as the air around her crackles with an alarming static. The mind flayer’s psionic magic digs at the shield she’s created almost desperate, like a thousand tiny knives, but she grits her teeth and pushes at it with all her might.
I am not getting bested by you! she screams at it internally, unsure if it can actually hear her thoughts or not.
Rowan wills her shadows to tunnel deeper into the mind flayer. She wants it to feel pain. She wants it to feel panic. She wants it to feel the way she did when she was trapped in the pod, watching it feast and float away without a care in the world.
The psychic flash attempting to render through her shields digs against her once more, harder and faster than before. She ignores the pulsing pain that’s beginning to throb in the back of her head and focuses on the monster’s twitching, tentacled form as her darkness leeches into its skin like a toxin.
More, Rowan instructs her magic. More shadows, more darkness! Make this thing suffer!
She wishes it would scream.
But the mind flayer is silent as her magic plunges into its soul, regrettably so. Its eyes, darting back and forth wildly as its bulbous head jerks like a marionette on a string, are the only indication Rowan has that the fucker realizes it’s dying.
Her shadows devour it from the inside out. Its purple, alien skin begins to dissolve as if it has been dropped in a vat of acid. Wisps of darkness rise like campfire smoke, the air filled with a visceral sizzling sound as flesh and bone melt away far too easily. The prickling, tapping intrusion at the back of her mind fades away into blissful nothing. Yet Rowan does not cease in her puppeteering of her shadows, begging them to tear and destroy and annihilate with reckless abandon until there is nothing left.
When there is just a sticky, slimy pile of robes on the fleshy ground, Rowan at last snaps her fingers. The army of shadows and soldiers of swirling, undulating darkness sweep across the colony floor and obediently wind around her legs. Like a pack of loyal wolves—she can sense their joy at returning to her side once more, nuzzling her tense body happily as they merge with her heart again.
Where they belong.
Rowan lowers the arm that’s been holding Nevermore aloft. She sags against the staff, panting slightly as she gives herself a moment to breathe. To think. To fully dwell on what just happened.
She met her goddess again. And she just killed a fucking mind flayer with the magic her goddess lovingly returned to her.
“Morena would be so proud,” she mumbles to herself, wiping sweat from her somewhat clammy forehead. The curse may be gone, and she doesn’t know how long she was unconscious or how long she was without her magic, but fuck. Going ham immediately after getting it back was a poor decision. The adrenaline spike currently wreaking havoc in her veins isn’t exactly conducive to rationality.
She takes a deep breath. Still leaning on Nevermore for support, she takes a furtive glance around the chamber. It’s larger than she originally thought when she was in the pod. The dozen other pods in the room each hold a still body—a couple of them are mind flayers, slumbering away peacefully. Newborns, then. Shit.
But there are others who are still themselves. In the one closest to her she spies a grizzled armored tiefling—the old, overly serious guy from the Grove, Zevlor? Double shit. She should probably try to get him out, but there’s no obvious buttons to open the damn things. The one bit of technology in the room is a creepy, very alien-looking console of sorts that she would rather not touch. Especially not with the tentacles protruding from it.
And what the hells is she going to do if she
does
get him out? She would have to do the same for everyone else trapped here, and only the gods know what’s lurking beyond the chamber. Would they be able to escape safely?
That necromancer would probably show up again and try to curse her once more. Rowan suddenly remembers the way Balthazar had grinned as he was choking her, and the last thing he said to her before she poofed into the pod:
“A soul from the realm Toril forgot!”
How did he know that? Why had he sounded so giddy about it?
She can worry about that later, preferably when she’s not in a fucking mind flayer colony.
Just as Rowan is about to steel herself and decide between being a hero and listening to precious self-preservation, she hears voices. Two voices, a man and a woman arguing, coming from what she assumes is a fleshy version of a door in this gross place. She doesn’t recognize them. Swallowing her panic, as it’ll do her no good, she quickly wills herself invisible and crouches behind the dais her pod is propped up on, going as still as she can.
After a few strained moments, the flesh door peels open with an ominous sound. The two figures that walk in are…a lot, to say the least.
The man’s face is sallow, sunken, and sinister. It’s the kind of face that is in desperate need of a good punch. His oily, messy black hair in desperate need of a good wash. His attire is ostentatious and ridiculous, a flashy gold and black ensemble that screams “I’m compensating,” complete with a sharp golden gauntlet of sorts clinging to one hand. A glowing purple gem is embedded in it and the magic that radiates from it is staggering. It’s almost enough to distract Rowan from how ungodly unattractive he is. Almost.
The woman’s appearance is just as extreme, as beautiful and deadly as a cobra. Her long hair is a light yellow, braided in a manner that’s somehow reminiscent of a flail and decorated with spiked filigree. Her smooth skin is pale with swirling, smoke-like plumes of red rippling across it. Form-fitting crimson armor adorns her, chitinous and rigid, giving Rowan a glimpse of her toned body. Pupil-less, unsettling gray eyes glance about the chamber in constant vigilance—a predator always on the look for prey.
Rowan does not like either of their vibes one bit.
Whatever argument happening between them pauses as they pass her empty pod. The man lets out an annoyed groan and rolls his eyes, clucking his tongue with much exasperation.
“Of course the sorcerer Balthazar was oddly obsessed with has up and disappeared. The least he could have done is explain why he wanted to wait to infect her before he was killed.”
The woman twitches slightly and lets out a loud laugh. It’s a disjointed, maddened sound that reminds Rowan of Miri. “Poor, poor necromancer,” she coos, her voice not at all the voice of a sane person. “His end at the hands of my bloodkin was so pathetic. So weak.”
A flash of irritation crosses the man’s face. He scowls at the woman. “Yes, yes, Orin, we all know you would have murdered him in a manner befitting a child of Bhaal and that your sister is a stain upon your legacy.” Something about his tone of voice tells Rowan the two have had this conversation many times.
He notices the abandoned pile of robes then. Rowan inwardly curses herself. She should have hidden those before hiding herself but truthfully, there had been no time.
“Hm. It seems the sorcerer managed to take down a mind flayer,” the man muses, a hint of almost admiration creeping into his deep voice. “I suppose that means we have a rat running around our operations. How unfortunate.”
“A rat? No. Oh, no no no no no. A lamb. A lamb begging for slaughter.” The woman laughs again, her distressing laugh ringing in Rowan’s ears. “Her blood will sing so sweetly when she kisses my blade!”
Rowan tries not to make a sound as fear, cold and biting, settles in the pit of her stomach. She silently begs her Invisibility spell to make everything about her disappear, the brush of the Shadow Weave flickering against her skin. She can’t let that crazy woman find her. She has to remain unseen.
“Calm yourself,” the man reprimands her, shaking his head. “She won’t make it out of here alive. Let her be cornered by what’s left of Balthazar’s little pets or another mind flayer. We need to return to the Brain and ensure everything is going to plan. Ketheric slipped back with his tail between his legs and that aasimar in tow. I’d rather start the march to Baldur’s Gate before he throws another fit about his daughter.”
Brain? Aasimar? Ketheric’s daughter?
Rowan’s mind is swimming as the two at last pass her completely, heading out the opposite side of the pod chamber. The woman—Orin—turns her head back and scans the room with her eerie gaze one last time. Her painted black lips curl into a little, fleeting smile as she stares at the multitude of bodies lying helplessly within the pods.
When she finally slips through the flesh door, Rowan lets out a ragged breath of relief and slumps against the side of the pod. “Fuck,” she mutters, wiping sweat from her brow once again. Who were they? What were they talking about? Gods, everything is a complicated mess. She misses Waterdeep.
She misses Gale.
“I need to get back to him,” Rowan tells herself quietly as she reaches for the ring on her finger on instinct. The smooth, cool metal greets her soothingly. She grasps for the feathers around her throat with her other hand and sighs gratefully when she does indeed touch them. Good. She really was worried they’d be gone when she woke up from that nightmare.
Only one thing is missing. She rests Nevermore against the pod and holds both hands out, palms facing upwards.
“Pip,” Rowan calls out, careful to keep her voice low. “I need you to come back, my friend.”
The Shadow Weave exhales around her, darkness forming in her hands. The orb of vaporous shadow swirls with veins of violet, magic coalescing into the amorphous blob she recalls her beloved familiar took the first time she discovered them. “Boss!” Pip greets her exuberantly, nuzzling into her hands as flecks of their form drip down the sides of her hands. “Thank the Matron, I was so worried about ya!”
“I’m sorry,” Rowan says, contrite. “I should have been more prepared for something like that. But I’m okay now. The Raven Queen saved me.” She leans forward and presses a kiss to the roiling mass of darkness she holds, managing to crack a smile as Pip’s essence drifts across her face. “I know we kind of had a certain aesthetic going on, but I need you to be something different. Is that alright?”
“Depends. Do I still get t’wear all the pretty dresses Syl an’ Jericho made me afterwards?”
“Of course. You can change back the moment this is all over.”
Pip scoffs good-naturedly. “Then by all means, tell me whatchu want, bosslady!”
So Rowan does.
And in the matter of moments, rather than a raven perched on her shoulder, Pip’s new form stands before her in all their shadowy glory.
They look like a carbon copy of one of her illusory unicorns. Black, sleek fur, a pearlescent and sharp horn, and a wavy mane continuously emanating a dark mist that would be an ominous portent to anyone else. Pip snorts and paws at the fleshy ground with their hooves, tossing their noble equine head in the air as they blink bright violet eyes at her amusedly.
“Youse just couldn’t resist, huh?” they ask, only slightly exasperated.
Rowan’s smile turns into a grin. “Nope. It felt appropriate. And also, it’s something I can do now. Gods, I fucking love magic.” She wiggles her fingers for emphasis and pats their flank affectionately. Now she won’t have to ask Halsin to turn into one, or find one in the Feywilds! She’s a genius!
She grabs Nevermore again and prepares to swing herself up onto Pip’s back, hesitating for a moment. They’re a little taller than she would have liked. But, she wanted them to be intimidating. No one would be intimidated by a unicorn the size of a pony. Actually, no one would be intimidated by a unicorn in the first place. Well. She’s going to be the change she wants to see in the world.
“As soon as I can figure out how to safely mount you,” she grumbles, peeking over their broad back, “we’re leaving this shit hole. We’ll find a way out and get back to everyone. I have to tell them Ketheric is somewhere down here, and that he has Aylin. I don’t know what happened after Balthazar poofed me here, but—”
The flesh-wrought door tears open.
A cluster of figures file hurriedly into the chamber, magic crackling in the air as a taut web of nervousness erupts. Rowan lets out a startled shriek, hugging Pip’s long and slender neck as she presses herself against them. She jabs Nevermore out threateningly, hiding her face in Pip’s glorious mane, because that’s a splendid idea for dealing with an ambush.
“Stay back!” she hisses, waving the staff. How did she not hear that many people coming? She really needs to be on high alert here, considering all the godsdamn people wandering through who believe murder is the solution to everything.
(Not that she’s one to talk, considering what she did to that mind flayer.)
But then a hoarse voice rings out, laden with disbelief, and all at once her panic dissipates.
“Rowan?”
She lifts her head from Pip’s mane. Her eyes meet the red-rimmed, exhausted brown eyes of Gale. Gale. Her husband. He’s staring at her, slack jawed and in shock, unmoving as he holds her gaze with no intention of ever letting go.
Nevermore falls from her hands.
“Gale,” she breathes.
Everything else fades away from existence. He’s here. He’s here . She races towards him like a pack of hellhounds snap at her heels. Gale lets out a choked sound, Adam's apple bobbing as he does the same, launching himself at her as they close the distance between them.
Rowan hits Gale’s chest hard as she throws her arms around him and lets out a shaky gasp far too close to a sob for her liking.
She held it together for so long. She’s allowed to break, just a little bit. Because he’s here. Miraculously, Gale is right here in her arms, and she doesn’t care about the hows or whys of it. He’s here.
When he sweeps his arms around her hips and pulls her in tightly, so tightly as if anything else would mean her vanishing from his sight, the world feels right again. “Rowan,” he rasps, voice thick and fractured, “I couldn’t find you. I couldn’t feel you, sweetheart.”
He buries his face in her hair, entire body shaking. His lips press against the top of her head, trailing kisses until he reaches her temple. His forehead rests against hers, his breath fanning her face as he continues to take deep, ragged sighs.
Rowan clings to him. She wants nothing more than to crawl into the spaces between his ribs, but not even that would be close enough. A part of her was terrified she’d never see him again, even when her magic was back and the Raven Queen’s blessing thrumming just beneath her skin.
“I know,” she whispers as soothingly as she can. “I’m sorry. I was lost for a bit, but I’m back. I’m back.”
Gale’s embrace tightens even more. “I would have ripped the Weave asunder if it was the only thing that would get me back to you,” he admits with a harsh, desolate sincerity.
She knows, because she would have done the same. Had the Raven Queen not at last answered her prayer in that nightmare, she would have committed unspeakable acts. Even without her magic. She would have figured something out, some way.
And then Gale’s mouth is on hers, desperate and soft and fragile. He kisses her like a man who had been on the brink of death, apprehensive and yet with a rashness that brings tears to her eyes. “I love you,” he whispers against her lips. His hands glide up from her waist until he is cupping the sides of her face determinedly, deepening the kiss with a delicate twist of his head. Her fingers curl into the folds of his robes as she melts into him, crying silently as the taste of him envelops her every sense.
She wants to go home.
Someone clears their throat.
“Well. I am heartened to see the spark of romance is still alive and well between you newlyweds,” Dorian says with faux broodiness, and Rowan lets out a squeak of surprise.
Gale practically groans into her mouth as he reluctantly pulls away, jerking his head in his brother’s direction. “You couldn’t have waited at least one minute to ruin this?” he accuses, but there is no true bite to his tone. In fact, he sounds amused, which is incredibly out of character for Gale dealing with Dorian.
Who just so happens to be here.
Along with Miri, Jericho, and Isobel, who all are glancing around the pod chamber with an awkward innocence and trying very hard not to look directly at Rowan and Gale.
Wait. Newlyweds?
“W-why do you know about that,” Rowan stammers, face heating up as she shoves her ringed hand behind her back. Like that would make a difference.
“Because Gale and I had a moment of brotherly love that has bonded us in spirit forevermore,” Dorian declares with all the gravitas of a thespian, striding over to the both of them. He tugs her and Gale into a crushing hug, his mouth curved into a striking beam of pure joy. “Welcome to the family, dear sister. Mother is going to be so upset when she finds out you didn’t tell her first.”
“We’re telling her when we return to Waterdeep,” Gale deadpans as he graciously allows his brother to smother him. “We’ve had other pressing matters to attend to.”
“Why, Gale, you act as if matrimony to your beloved isn’t the most pressing matter of them all!”
“For the love of—you
know
that’s not what I mean! I simply didn’t want Mother to—”
“Alright, that’s enough!” Jericho interrupts smoothly, dipping past Dorian’s bulk and tugging Rowan out of the Dekarios sandwich she has been smashed into. The tiefling wizard sweeps her into her own arms instead, the embrace almost as tight as Gale’s had been. “It’s my turn to hug my favorite sorcerer.” She brings her mouth to Rowan’s ear, voice dropping to a murmur. “I heard what happened in the Shadowfell. Gods, babe, I’m so glad you’re safe.”
Even in a place like this, Jericho still smells hot and amazing. That’s the most powerful magic of all.
“How are all of you here?” Rowan asks meekly as Jericho cuddles her with a fierce protectiveness. She feels like she’s going to cry again. She’s never been so relieved and thankful to see a particular group of people, as varied as this one is. Even Isobel is here!
…oh, damn. Isobel is here. Does she know about Aylin? Miri would have told her, right? Well, Miri doesn’t know who Aylin is to Isobel, but—
Stop thinking and enjoy that you are very loved by your husband and your friends. And brother-in-law, since the cat’s been let out the bag.
Miri clears her throat. “I killed the necromancer who hurt you,” she supplies smoothly. “Lae’zel and I were able to convince Shadowheart to turn away from Shar and free the aasimar, Dame Aylin. Aylin flew to Moonrise in order to get her revenge on Ketheric Thorm. She was very close to achieving it. But Ketheric used some kind of magic to control this massive tentacle from beneath Moonrise and captured Aylin. We figured you would be down here, too, judging by what Balthazar was saying before he died.”
She nervously scooches over to where Jericho has Rowan trapped in her robust arms. “Is it alright if I hug you too?” the bard asks, her voice tinged with uncertainty. “I know we’re not exactly close, but…”
She trails off, eyes downcast as she avoids looking at Rowan.
“I feel responsible for what happened to you. I’m sorry, Rowan.”
Rowan nudges Jericho to signal she would like to wriggle out from the wizard’s possessive embrace. Jericho assents begrudgingly, crossing her arms as Rowan sidles up to Miri. She throws her arms around Miri’s slender shoulders, patting her back kindly. “It wasn’t your fault,” she insists. “Everything has just been one series of unfortunate events since the nautiloid squidnapped y’all. I’m okay. Balthazar’s curse didn’t last long thanks to the Matron of Ravens.”
She steps away from Miri and turns to look at Isobel, who has remained silent during this whole exchange. She looks exhausted. Worried, frayed, and exhausted. If Ketheric snatched up Aylin and dragged her down here, Rowan doesn’t blame the cleric’s anxiety at all. It’s how she felt when Gale was gone all those weeks ago.
It’s definitely how Gale felt these past few hours while Rowan was trapped in the pod.
“She never gave up.” Rowan’s voice is soft as she speaks to Isobel, the ring on her finger pulsing with the Moonmaiden’s grace in agreement. “The entire time she was trapped, all she thought about was you, Isobel. I could tell.”
Isobel’s eyes grow wet.
Wordlessly, she takes Rowan’s hand and pulls her forward, tugging her into an embrace. Her shoulders shake slightly, a moment of silent weeping having overcome the cleric. Rowan just holds her sister tightly, closing her eyes. “We’ll get her back,” she tells Isobel after a few moments, determination flickering like flames in her throat.
Isobel nods, her movements jerky and fatigued. “Yes, we will,” she agrees hoarsely as she pulls back from Rowan, wiping at her eyes. “My father cannot continue to hurt the innocent. He dies today. Our Lady of Silver will see to it that we prevail.”
Rowan blinks.
Her father?
…as in Ketheric Thorm?
“Oh my fucking gods,” Rowan breathes as the epiphany dawns on her, “you’re Ketheric’s daughter!”
Isobel flinches and grimaces at the same time, shoulders sagging with an impenetrable sense of guilt as she nods once more. “I am,” she concedes with great shame. “Forgive me for keeping it from you. I…I had my reasons.”
Rowan can’t hide her confusion. Ketheric doomed Reithwin to Shar’s pettiness over a hundred years ago. Aylin had been the Nightsong for as long. Ketheric’s immortality via the necromancer’s vile ritual makes sense, but how did Isobel still appear so young? Half her heritage is elven, yes, but Jaheira and Syl still show their age. Does it have something to do with Selûne?
Ugh. She’ll ask later, when they’re not surrounded by gross mind flayer goop.
“Rowan,” Tara says offhandedly, and Rowan screams internally for a moment because she had totally not noticed the tressym was present, “why is there a unicorn in the mind flayer colony?”
She is currently sitting elegantly upon said unicorn’s back. Her immaculately groomed tail swishes back and forth as she eyes Rowan with suspicion.
Fuck. If Dorian knows Gale and I got married, that means Tara knows now. And she’s probably pissed we didn’t tell her.
Rowan will be sure to make up for it in copious amounts of fresh tuna when they escape. When, not if, because they are making it out of this hellhole alive.
“It’s Pip,” she explains hastily, fiddling with the feathers at her throat. “I wanted them to be…intimidating…for whatever creepy bullshit we were going to encounter down here.”
“And you decided on the form of a unicorn, my dear?”
“Yes. It’s intimidating because you’d never expect it.”
Pip whickers, the sound gruff and warbling almost like the cry of a raven. “I got a horn, don’t I?!” they argue, tossing their head proudly to show off the dagger-like protrusion spiraling out from their forelock. “It’s good for stabbin’!”
Tara affectionately pats their neck with a dainty paw, nodding in agreement. “Oh, I do not doubt that for a moment, Ser Pip. Not for a moment.”
Gale, still locked in a stifling embrace from his older brother, catches Rowan’s gaze just as she crosses her arms and schools her face into a pout. His mouth quirks into a ghost of a lopsided grin, eyebrow arching as he gives her a look brimming with love and exasperation in equal bounds. “I adore you,” he says sincerely, expression betraying how close he is to losing himself to a somewhat delirious laughing fit.
She sniffs. “I know.”
In the end, they free the other squidnap victims from the pods before moving on.
A vicious, bloody battle ensues immediately after, on account of every pod having to be opened. Meaning the pods containing the newborn mind flayers were, unfortunately, included. But between the combined might of their strange little party and the people waiting to be infected, the monsters are dispatched so swiftly it’s a little frightening.
They’re all members of the Flaming Fist, save for the old tiefling, Zevlor. After a tense, curt conversation between him and Miri regarding the truth of his supposed abandonment of the refugees—the Absolute had bamboozled him, and he had realized too late—Zevlor promised to lead the Fist members out of the colony safely.
Rowan didn’t actually pay much attention to that. Her focus was solely on staring into Gale’s eyes as he detailed the horrors they had witnessed since jumping down into the mind flayer colony.
Vats teeming with enough tadpoles to infect an entire city. Jarred brains that, when inserted into illithid machinery, tell stories of death and destruction. An entire laboratory dedicated to the creation of undead soldiers—Balthazar’s, obviously, with a delightful little surprise of the drow warrior Minthara having been turned into a zombie. Rowan can’t help the guilty relief she felt at knowing she missed that fight. Anything to do with necromancy will forever leave a bad taste in her mouth.
She has no room to complain, however, considering what Miri went through during their harried exploration of the colony. The group had come across a cluster of Myrkulites preparing for battle. One of them had recognized Miri.
The bard had been down here before. Right after she had been infected with a mind flayer tadpole. And, horrifically, had become some kind of experimental plaything to the Myrkulite as her brain was torn apart by the tadpole. It explained Miri’s amnesia, at least.
So, yeah, Rowan really shouldn’t bitch about what Balthazar did to her. At least her forgotten memories were willingly given up in exchange for this second life.
The last escapade on their charming journey through the colony before finding Rowan was somewhat positive. Apparently, Wyll’s devil patron had been taken by the Absolutists and shoved into a pod, preparing for infection. Leaving her here would have meant hell for Wyll, literally, so everyone had reluctantly freed her.
But hey, she gave Dorian a sick-ass rapier for Wyll as thanks before rudely returning to Avernus. So that’s cool. Even though her brother-in-law blatantly admitted he would much rather stab Mizora with it.
It’s wild to think that so much has happened since the start of the day, when the decision to go to the Gauntlet of Shar was first made. Now they’re traipsing about a mind flayer colony, exhausted and overwhelmed by the plethora of information they’ve gathered.
Speaking of information…
“Two people showed up in the pod room before y’all did,” Rowan says as their party walks through the pulsating, breathing halls of the colony. She had naively hoped the rest of the colony wouldn’t be so fleshy. Clearly, she was very wrong. “They mentioned something about a brain? But said it like it starts with a capital B? And how they’re getting ready to march on Baldur’s Gate.”
She cautiously avoids stepping on the corpse of an intellect devourer. There are dozens of the little guys, disintegrated into oblivion by the various magicks of everyone. As if the colony wasn’t creepy enough. Why the fuck does there have to be brains walking around on legs everywhere?
Miri frowns as she glances over at her curiously. “Do you know who they were?”
“No,” Rowan shakes her head. “They gave off stereotypical villain vibes, though. I didn’t catch the greasy-lookin’ dude’s name, but the scary lady with no pupils was…uh…I think she was called Orin?”
Miri stiffens.
Her eyes flash. Her fingers twitch. She falters in her determined stride, nearly tripling as a feral hiss escapes from her sneering mouth.
“I know that name,” she says, voice more a growl than anything else. “Why do I know that name?”
Rowan exchanges a quick look with Gale, who has predictably not left her side since reuniting. Astarion remaining at Moonrise to fight off the cultists means he’s not here to help calm Miri down when she slips into her…other self. Halsin’s presence would be helpful, too.
But Miri hasn’t shown signs of fully snapping into madness, not yet. It still lurks just beneath the surface. Rowan recalls the strange way the scary woman’s mannerisms reminded her of Miri; she recalls the greasy dude mentioning something about a sister.
A sister who had killed Balthazar.
And didn’t Miri say point blank it had been she who dealt the final blow?
“Um,” Rowan starts to say slowly, unsure just what direction the conversation is about to turn in, “I think that Orin chick might be your—”
“Umberlee’s tits, would you look at that!”
Dorian’s exclamation cuts Rowan off abruptly. She looks up and, when she sees what he’s referring to, she feels a similar sense of shock.
They’ve exited the long, fleshy corridor at last and have come out into a massive open area. It goes on for miles, and she wonders where the colony ends and the typical biome of the Underdark begins.
Stacks of metal boxes, supplies, weapons…materials clearly meant for a siege are piled high across the ground, organized neatly. A bridge of skin and cartilage stretches out and connects to a platform hundreds of feet away. In the humid, bloody gloom, it’s difficult to see beyond. But as they venture closer and Rowan focuses really hard, she can hear a distant droning hum coming from below that sends a chill up her spine.
That’s what the nautiloids that attacked Waterdeep sounded like. And considering the impossibly large space they’re in, who knows how many of the ships are hiding in the depths?
“What in the name of all the gods is that?” Jericho asks sharply, jabbing a finger in the opposite direction of all the supplies.
It looks like a shower head, but instead of modern plumbing from her old world, it’s fleshy and made of tentacles. They drift downwards in a luminous blue mass, their glow oddly inviting. A divot in the ground just beneath the swaying appendages suggests the intention to stand beneath.
But who in their right mind would do that?
“It’s an illithid healing station. It restores magic and stamina,” Miri explains, her voice steady and calm. She’s either forgotten about Orin’s name already or she’s forced herself to revisit it at a later time. Rowan can’t blame her.
She walks over to it and sticks her hand out, watching impassively as the tentacles reach for her fingers and eagerly wrap around them. Just as Rowan is about to tell her to get the fuck away, the blue glow from the tentacles dissipates. Miri’s pink skin shimmers with a similar hue and she lets out a soft sigh, the tension in her shoulders relaxing.
When she removes her hand and turns to find everyone staring at her, her face twists into a chagrined expression.
“What?” she mumbles, averting her gaze. “There was one on the nautiloid that took us. Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and I used it when we were trying to find the control room.”
“Fascinating,” Gale says with genuine awe, stepping forward. The color in the tentacle mass is rapidly returning, going from dull and lifeless so that inviting blue once more. “I was confined to my pod until the ship crashed. I never saw this technology.”
Before Rowan can stop him, her husband is also reaching out to touch the creepy tentacle shower. His skin glows with a gentle blue and in an instant, his body relaxes as he makes a similar noise of comfort that Miri had. When he steps away from it, his eyes are shining with a renewed vigor.
“Oh! How peculiar! That hit the spot, far better than those elixirs you forced me to drink, Dorian.”
Jericho eyes the healing station warily. “Does this work for anyone? Or will it only work for those infected by a tadpole?”
Dorian cracks his knuckles with a giddiness that one should not be harboring when in the bowels of a mind flayer colony. “Only one way to find out!” he declares, pushing past Gale. He strides right up to the healing station and, without a moment’s hesitation, shoves his arms deep within the nest of tentacles.
Jericho chokes on a sound that may be a laugh or a strangled protest.
“Good gods, Dorian, you can’t just put both of your hands in every strange place you see!”
“You’re one to talk,” he bites back as the healing blue glow envelopes him. He laughs in disbelief, whistling sharply. “Hah! It appears it works for the uninfected as well. Wish I could steal a sample to study!”
Jericho and Isobel follow suit once he steps away, though neither looks particularly enthused. Rowan politely declines when it is her turn.
“I’m all juiced up and raring to go thanks to the Raven Queen,” she clarifies when Gale looks like he’s about to drag her over without taking no for an answer. “I have enough magic in me for whatever we’re about to face.”
I hope, she adds internally.
There’s not much else to do except move forward. Everyone begins to creep across the bridge, she and Pip taking up the rear on account of her familiar being able to kick anyone off with their hooves. She can’t help but feel irked that everyone showed up when they did. She’s obviously grateful, yes, but she didn’t get to climb on top of Pip and ride her trusty steed like a knight in shadowy armor. And trying to do it now would be a moot point—not to mention embarrassing if she can’t get on their back on account of how stupidly tall she made them.
Rowan lets her thoughts travel elsewhere rather than dwelling on the knot of irritation in her gut. A unicorn trailing behind two sorcerers, two wizards, a cleric, and a bard is probably the weirdest fucking thing In Faerûn right now.
Or not. There’s a lot of weird shit in this world. But it’s still kind of funny to Rowan, despite the heaviness in the air as they covertly round the corner, and Gale and Miri suddenly go completely still. They suddenly clutch at their heads, groaning, and one of Miri’s hands shoots to a pocket, rummaging around wildly.
Rowan catches a glimpse of something before the tiefling bard shoves it deeper into her clothes. A cube? It flashes a bright orange for a moment, so quick Rowan half believes she’s just seeing things, before it disappears back into Miri’s pocket.
“There’s an Elder Brain here,” she whispers, terror lacing every syllable.
Gale steps closer to Rowan, his shoulder flush against hers as a shaky hand laces around her wrist. He grips her tightly, his rapid pulse thrumming through his fingers and sinking into her skin. “I’m glad you can’t hear it,” he gets out through gritted teeth, face hard. “I’m glad you don’t have a bloody tadpole in your head.”
Rowan decides now is not the time to admit she came very close to that fate.
They take a few moments to allow Miri and Gale to regain their senses. It’s easier said than done—the longer they linger, the more a foreboding sense of something powerful begins to emanate from the path forward. Raw psychic energy filters through the air in blistering waves, a constant buzzing like a nest of angry hornets echoing in the back of Rowan’s mind. She summons her shadows and wills them to act as a shield like she had with the mind flayer.
They start moving again, slinking like starving wolves readying to attack a wounded deer. “My knees were not made for this,” Gale complains under his breath as he hobbles along, crouching like the rest of them. Rowan does think she can hear his bones creaking.
She opens her mouth to comfort him but at that moment, there are voices coming from ahead. The red, bloody surroundings of the colony have turned a sickly green. The ever-present heavy moisture is even thicker now, the smile of bile all the more rancid. Spikes protrude from the ground, looking more like stone than creepy colony flesh.
And in a clearing are four figures.
She recognizes two of them. The greasy, opulently dressed man and the scary lady with the predator’s grace. She’s sitting on the back of an armored man with dark skin and a bald head, who is hunched over and staring at his hands morosely. Lastly, a tall and imposing elf in even heavier armor towers over the three, and judging by the wrinkles on his bearded face, Rowan suspects it’s Ketheric Thorm.
“Shit,” Dorian hisses under his breath, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “That’s Duke Ravengard! So he really was right under our noses the whole time Wyll and I were looking for him. And that other man…fucking hells, is that Enver Gortash?” He curses again, the string of profanities violent enough to make any sailor blush. “I always knew the bastard was shady, but this?”
“Did you say Gortash?” Jericho’s voice is dangerously low, her full lips curling into a sneer. “That’s Karlach’s old boss. The one who sold her to Zariel. Oh, I am going to
destroy
him.”
“That’s who I saw when I was hiding in the pod room,” Rowan says, readying a mass spell of Invisibility for them all as a precaution. “Him and…the lady sitting on the duke like he’s a lawn chair.”
Something tells her to look over at Miri, so she does.
The expression the bard is wearing is one of pure murder. Her eyes burn with angry flames, dark and vicious. She’s tense, as if petrified in place by a basilisk’s gaze. “I’ve seen that face,” she snarls, and only by some divine luck does she manage to keep her voice low enough not to cause a scene. “In my nightmares. Taunting me, tormenting me. She…”
Miri grips the side of her head, a fistful of her silken pink hair tangled in her clawed fingers. A look of agony flashes across her pretty face as she bites her lip so hard it draws pearls of scarlet across the soft skin.
“She did this to me. The worm. I remember a knife. I remember her holding the knife. She laughed. She laughed and laughed and laughed and I was just meat and blood in her unworthy hands.”
Damn it all, where’s Astarion and Halsin when you need them?
Rowan goes to reach a hand out and put it on Miri’s shoulder, hoping to jostle her out of the fog of rage and madness she is rapidly losing herself to. She doesn’t get the chance. The ground shakes beneath them, groaning like a dragon rousing from sleep as tremors ripple through the entire colony. The greasy man—Gortash—raises his voice as he addresses a scowling Ketheric.
“You said it was under control,” he growls out accusingly.
Ketheric squares his shoulders, head held high and gaze steady. “It isn’t you I answer to, Gortash.”
“Oh, the general voice. Is this where we salute?” Gortash bobs the upper half of his body in a mock bow, sneering.
“Salute, yes,” Orin says with blithe mania. “With cleavers through his blood-starved flesh! How it crawls with failure like flies on lick-wet carrion.”
Ketheric’s scowl deepens and he jabs a finger in her direction. “You forget yourself, Orin. I have played my part.”
“You’ve built an army for our masters, true enough. But what of the Astral Prism? A rogue True Soul flaunting it under your nose all this time, and you ran from her.”
Gortash eyes him with a look that drips with contempt.
“Sure that they would follow and deliver it into my hands here,” Ketheric explains with the same cadence one would use to discuss the weather. “If you would cease these distractions.”
“The distractions have been yours, Ketheric! Perhaps we should have never dug your daughter up, hm?”
Isobel makes a sound in the back of her throat like a wounded dog.
Ketheric lets out a menacing growl and lunges at Gortash, fire and fury burning in his eyes as he raises a gauntleted fist and prepares to strike. “So you haven’t lost your edge,” the younger man muses. His sneer morphs into a condescending smirk. “But you’re still not as sharp as Orin, I’d wager.”
The scary lady in question is no longer seated on top of Duke Ravengard.
She’s got an equally scary dagger pressed against Ketheric’s armored chest, the blade uniquely curved and as red as blood. A glowing gemstone is embedded in the golden hilt, much like the one in Gortash’s gauntlet and Ketheric’s armor (that Rowan is now noticing). She moves as silent as air and quick as a bolt of lightning—unnaturally so.
Almost like Miri has on occasion.
Orin takes a deep, ragged breath and a macabre smile flits across her face.
“His crypt-breath sings to my sinews…again again againagainagainagain!”
Clarity ripples across her face, however brief, cutting off her sinister singsong. “Bah!” she spits, shaking her head. “He must lead the murdermatch to Baldur’s Grave.”
Gortash nods in agreement. “If the weapon is truly in your grasp, might I suggest closing your fist?” he simpers to Ketheric. “Orin and I can wait for you no longer. The plan proceeds. We’re going to the city and expect you to follow—army and the weapon in tow.”
He turns from the seething Ketheric. Orin follows at his side, her black lips curled in an eager grin that splits her face like a skull. Both make their way just a few feet from the edge of the clearing, where the ground ends and nothing but empty darkness begins.
Gortash raises his gauntleted hand high in the air and proclaims, “The edict of Bane!”
A violet glow emanates from the gem he wears, intense magic pulsing through the air for one brief suffocating moment.
“The lash of Bhaal!” Orin cries out gleefully, holding her dagger up.
A crimson light glows from the gem embedded in it; another wave of impossibly complex magic rips through the air like a sonic boom.
The colony shakes once again, this time more fiercely than before. Rowan and everyone else cling to the slippery surface of the rocks hiding them for dear life, knowing if their grip loosens, they’d be tumbling straight into view.
And then something rises from the depths.
Tentacles swing, massive and spiked like a deadly weapon. A grotesque, bulbous thing, massive and terrifying accompanies them. As it fully emerges from the darkness, quivering and pulsing with unrivaled psionic energy, Rowan can’t help the shiver of pure fear that envelopes her body.
It’s…a brain. A giant fucking brain. And at the top of its “head,” encircled and ingrained in its disgusting flesh, is a crown. A crown that exudes a dark, tainted magic Rowan has felt before.
Gale squeezes her wrist so tightly for a moment, she’s afraid he’s going to cut off the circulation.
“That crown,” he whispers, voice raw with a dozen things and then some. “That magic. It’s…it’s just like…
“The orb,” Rowan finishes for him, chest tightening as she stares at him with wide eyes. He holds her gaze, the orb’s scar blazing to life for less than a heartbeat as his breath grows heavy. He knows. She knows. Whatever that crown is, it’s from Netheril. From Karsus himself. It reeks of the magic the orb holds, its blight a beacon to them both. They would have to be fools not to recognize it, all that time they spent pouring over tomes and sharing theories on how to cure Gale of his affliction.
And here they are. In the heart of a mind flayer colony, face-to-face with what is so clearly an Elder Brain, who is so clearly the true face of the Absolute. And it’s wearing the one artifact that could heal her husband.
Rowan almost doesn’t hear Ketheric’s gravelly declaration with how focused she is on Gale and the numerous possibilities racing through her mind. “The testament of Myrkul!” he shouts, joining Orin and Gortash, as his gem also begins to glow maliciously.
This is cringier than a dubbed magical girl anime, Rowan thinks to herself as she watches impassively.
The Elder Brain groans as if in pain. It does not attack. It does not maim. It does not summon an army of mind flayers. It merely hovers before the gathered three, balefully, as if waiting for a command.
“They’ve enslaved it,” Gale exclaims, and it’s only due to the Brain’s groans that his raised voice isn’t heard. “All that power, all that magic, and they’ve used it to control a bloody Elder Brain. How? Where did they get that artifact—how did they learn to harness it? Gods,” he clutches at his chest, gripping his robes as his words take on a desperate tone. “What I wouldn’t do to get my hands on it!”
“Gale,” Rowan says softly, warningly, even though she feels the same. She hates that she does. But it could be the key to Gale’s salvation. Something as ancient and powerful as whatever that crown is must be able to extract the dormant orb inside of him without setting off the arcane bomb it’s become. She could use her shadows somehow. She’s certain she’s strong enough to manage it now, after everything she’s been through in these cursed lands.
If she just got the chance, she could save Gale, once and for all.
“I suppose this is what Mystra wished for me to use the orb on,” her husband continues, as if she hasn’t spoken at all. “Yes. I can see how setting off the magic in this very chamber would solve the Absolute problem. How innovative of her. How callous.”
Panic begins to swarm in her chest like sharks circling a castaway. He isn’t going to…
But before Rowan can finish the thought, Gale leans against her. The hand holding her wrist slides down until his fingers delicately tangle with hers. “I made a promise,” he murmurs, kissing her cheek with a languid softness. “I will not sacrifice myself at the behest of a petty goddess. Not when it means leaving my wife alone.”
She exhales with relief. “Thank you. I’d rather you not blow yourself up for the sake of the world. Especially when we might have a solution staring us right in the eyes.”
Rowan turns to glance over at the massive brain once more—specifically, the crown it wears—and finds that it’s gone. As are Orin, Gortash, and Wyll’s father. Ketheric is all alone, staring hollowly at the space they once occupied, gripping an impressive warhammer.
She glances over at the rest of their party. Their expressions all range from various mixtures of horror and apprehension. When she meets Isobel’s eyes, the cleric shudders as if she’s about to vomit.
“They infected the duke,” she says, shaking her head as a few stray tears roll down her cheek. “They’re off to destroy Baldur’s Gate with that thing . And my father will be responsible for even more deaths.” She wipes at her eyes quickly, sniffing once, before raising her head and looking around at the unsettling scene they’ve found themselves in. “I can’t see Aylin anywhere. He’s got to have her close by. I…I have to find her.”
And before anyone can stop her, Isobel rushes out into the clearing, her voice ringing with a steady determination.
“Father!”
Ketheric spins around at the sound of his daughter’s voice and stares at Isobel, a restless dark shadow crossing over his face. He says nothing. He does not move. He just stares like a corpse as Isobel approaches him, her hands held out pleadingly.
“Don’t do this,” she begs thickly. “This isn’t you. What happened to the kind, gentle man who raised me? What happened to the man who adored Selûne and raised me to do the same?”
Isobel’s voice echoes throughout the clearing, hopeless and desperate for answers.
“Think of what Mother would say! Think of how saddened she would be to see what you’ve become! Do not besmirch her memory further! Please, end this madness! And—and return Aylin to me. Her suffering at your hands must end. Please.”
Three heartbeats of wretched, taut silence stretches, a frayed rope ready to snap.
Then:
“The man you once knew is dead,” Ketheric says. He puts a hand over the eerie glowing gem in his armor, mouth set in a grim line. “He died when Melodia died and Selûne would not answer me. He died when you died and Shar would not stop it. I am brought to life anew by my lord Myrkul, and he has never had a more loyal servant.”
He tries to smile.
It falters when Isobel scowls at him.
“He made my daughter’s heart beat once again.” Ketheric goes to reach out towards Isobel but his hand hangs in the air between them, hovering uselessly. “He is the only god who has ever answered my prayers. For him, I would condemn all of Faerûn to death. But you will have a place in this new world we create with the Absolute, Isobel. Come to my side. Join me.”
His hand falls limp at his side.
“I cannot lose you again, my daughter.”
Isobel takes a step back. “Never,” she spits, disgust lacing the word as she shakes her head. “I’d rather die doing what’s right than live a lie. I am not you.”
Ketheric sighs. He deflates, the ominous bravado he commands morphing into misery. “Then I will have to make you,” he says with an air of finality, and his head turns in the direction where Rowan and everyone else are hiding. “But not before my lord and I take the Astral Prism from your companions and kill them all.”
That’s the second time this ‘Astral Prism’ thing has been mentioned. Rowan is tired of feeling like she missed an entire season of plot.
“No!” Miri snarls as Rowan wracks her mind for any potential knowledge of whatever the Astral Prism is. The bard rushes out from the cluster of rocks they’ve been using for cover, rapier pulled from its holster at her side as she dashes towards Ketheric. “Not if I kill you first!” she screams with rage. “You and that red bitch who ruined me!”
Even with her frightening speed, she is too late.
Ketheric smiles again. This time, it’s a little more real; a little more natural. He looks to Isobel as he drops his warhammer, the weapon clattering to the ground with a heavy thunk, and spreads his arms out wide.
“I love you,” he says simply as he gazes at his daughter. “I have done all of this out of love, Isobel.”
He takes a step back.
Behind him, there is a gaping hole in the ground, endless and echoing with rotten whispers.
“He is here,” Ketheric whispers, closing his eyes, as his tone takes on the soft mantra of manic devotion. “He is watching. He is listening. He is…he is…”
He takes another step back and falls, just as Miri’s rapier slices out. She misses his throat by mere inches, shrieking like a banshee. Isobel grabs hold of the bard as she cries out for her father, yanking Miri back before she tumbles over the edge and follows Ketheric to her death. Everything becomes silent. The air is thick. No one moves, exchanging startled and confused glances with one another as Miri and Isobel loom over the jagged precipice.
A voice rises from the void.
“You dare end one who belongs to me?”
A chorus of wailing screams erupts from the hole. Roiling, concentrated necrotic energy swirls in a twisting miasma. It’s stronger than the poor wretches afflicted with the curse. Stronger than Balzathar’s magic. Rot and ruin burst from the wall of sheer undeath and the colony shakes violently once more.
“I am the smile of the worm-cleaned skull. I am the regrets of those who remain, and the restlessness of those who are gone. I am the haunt of mausoleums, the god of graves and age, dust and dusk.”
A large bony hand flings itself onto the edge of the crater. Isobel and Miri stumble back several feet as something drags itself up from the fetid darkness, and a god appears in their midst.
“I am Myrkul,” the god claims as it rises in all its unhallowed glory, “Lord of Bones, and you have slain my Chosen.”
Rowan has never tasted fear so acutely as she does now, gazing at the god in horror. He is a skeleton clad in broken bits of armor and ragged clothing, smaller skeletons clinging to his limbs like parasites. His lower half is obscured, remaining in the hole he has risen from. The divinity he radiates is wrong. Corrupted. Mad. This is nothing like her encounters with the Raven Queen—nothing like her brushes with Selûne.
They’re going to die here.
“But it is no matter,” Myrkul continues, his voice emotionless and droning. “For I am Death. And I am not an end—I am a beginning.”
He stretches a bony hand out.
A large piece of jagged rock coated with decomposing colony flesh flies into his bleached fingers. Necrotic magic erupts across its surface as it transforms, becoming longer and more curved in his malevolent grasp. A scythe, deadly and gleaming. A scythe to reap their souls with.
Well. I see why you two don’t get along, Rowan thinks to her goddess, and then the world goes to shit.
So much happens at once she barely knows what to focus on. Myrkul swings the scythe in an arc down towards Miri and Isobel and only by some twist of fate do the two manage to scramble out of the way, racing back towards the rest of the group as the landscape around them shifts and changes. Platforms stretch out of the colony’s floor. The air shimmers with deep, potent magic as at least a dozen skeletal warriors emerge into existence. They flank the party on either side, weapons drawn and teeth clacking with morbid glee.
A mind flayer appears in a flash of purple psionic energy, eyes glowing wickedly in the dim light of Myrkul’s presence. A handful of intellect devourers surround it like loyal pets as it slowly turns to look impassively upon their group, and Rowan swears it’s staring directly at her. As if the one she killed imprinted her visage into the minds of its fellows before it drew its last breath.
The unmistakable gentle sense of the moon suddenly drifts through the air. Rowan jerks her head in its direction and, when she sees the source of it, Isobel clearly does as well.
“Aylin!” the cleric shrieks, a thousand different emotions thrust into her cry of the aasimar’s name.
For it is indeed Aylin. She’s adjacent to Myrkul’s chasm, up on the highest platform the god has created, and violent chains of necrotic energy are wrapped around her limbs. She’s no longer in the dirty, dingy rags Rowan remembers from the Shadowfell, though. Her resplendent form is clad in glowing silver armor, a magnificent helm adorning her head. A pair of beautiful feathery wings rustles on her back as she struggles against the bonds, her ethereal face twisted in an enraged snarl.
The chains holding her prisoner once more are pulled tight and taut. They stretch all the way from Aylin to Myrkul, disappearing into his vile form. Another ritual to channel her immortality, then. Fuck. Just how much pain and suffering does her sister’s beloved have to go through? Aylin is clearly in agony from the way she writhes and shouts wordlessly.
But when she hears Isobel’s voice, she goes as still as a corpse.
She raises her head and across the chaos of certain death, her gaze meets Isobel’s.
Her lips move but her voice is only a whisper, unable to be heard over the din of Myrkul and the panicking of everyone within the chamber. It’s obvious what she’s saying. Even a blind person would know.
Isobel.
Rowan knows what she has to do.
“Pip!” she calls out, rounding on her familiar as everyone else scrambles into frenzied action. She needs to trust they can handle themselves—Gale included. Maybe it’s shortsighted of her, or perhaps even a little rude, but Isobel needs her right now. Aylin needs her. Her feathers are warm at her throat. Her ring is cool on her finger.
She was meant to be here for this moment.
Pip canters towards her, mane flowing as their hooves pound along the ground. She summons her shadows and uses them to propel herself onto Pip’s broad back in one fell swoop, grateful her magic didn’t allow her to embarrass herself when it really counted. She grips a fist full of their mane in one hand and holds Nevermore out in the other, keeping her body close to their neck as she instructs, “We have to get to Isobel!”
“On it!” Pip agrees, nodding their equine head. They race towards the cleric, who feels so close yet so far away as the gathered skeletons begin to fire off an array of necrotic spells. Rowan grits her teeth as she calls on her shadows once more and commands them to form a wall, blocking the rapid fire.
“Focus on the minions and the mind flayer,” she all but begs everyone else, voice vibrating with determination. “I’ve got Aylin!”
And Myrkul,
she silently adds.
Nevermore thrums in agreement in her grasp.
Isobel has stumbled to the ground when Pip reaches her. Her shoulders shake as she hyperventilates, tears streaming down her cheeks as she stares helplessly at the bound Aylin. Rowan’s heart throbs with empathy. Were the roles reversed, she would probably have a very similar reaction to seeing Gale imprisoned.
But she can’t let Isobel be consumed by panic. As much as she wants to give the cleric space and a moment to regain her senses, there’s simply no time. She thrusts Nevermore forward and in a misting swirl of darkness, pulls Isobel from the ground onto Pip’s back behind her. Isobel jerks in shock and sucks in a shuddering sob, both her arms immediately wrapping around Rowan’s waist.
“I don’t know what to do,” she admits hoarsely as Pip begins to run once more, powerful muscles rippling beneath them.
Rowan manages a grin, though Isobel can’t see.
“None of us really do, Isobel. It’s called winging it.”
A wave of psionic energy comes barreling towards her familiar and Rowan can’t help but be grateful for her fight with the mind flayer from earlier—it means she’s now aware of what their power feels like when they’re trying to attack. She quickly brings up another wall of darkness to block out the invasive magic, coating Pip, her, and Isobel in gloomy shadow. The back of her head tingles only slightly as the mind flayer continues to persist, its magic more concentrated than the one she killed earlier.
“Gods, I hate these tentacled freaks,” Rowan hisses to herself as she leans further against Pip’s neck. She draws deep upon the well of darkness inside her and whispers an incantation, casting Misty Step and channeling it through all three of their bodies.
In an instant, they’re standing on the ledge Aylin is held captive on, several feet away from the mind flayer’s influence. …she hopes.
Isobel is sliding off of Pip’s back before Rowan can offer assistance. “Aylin!” she cries out once more, rushing to the aasimar’s side. She flings her arms around her beloved, uncaring of the bulky armor. The chains of necrotic energy wrapped around Aylin groan and sway as the daughter of Selûne forces through their malign influence to pull Isobel into a crushing embrace, lifting her off the ground.
“Oh, my love,” she whispers with a ragged rawness. She presses her mouth to the top of Isobel’s head, the kiss terrified and elated at once. “My love. You…you are alive.”
“I am,” Isobel agrees, a whimpering laugh escaping her throat as she fumbles to cup the sides of Aylin’s face in her slender hands. “And so are you. My angel. I’m so sorry for taking so long to find you, Aylin.”
Rowan is starting to feel how their friends no doubt feel whenever she and Gale have moments of publicly displayed affection.
She glances away awkwardly, hoping her presence isn’t ruining a moment decades in the making, and instead focuses on climbing down off of Pip. “Go help everyone else,” she instructs, gesturing to the party in the distance. Magic is rippling through the air nonstop as spells are countered and cast in deft, harried gestures.
Miri’s fury is a screaming inferno as she becomes nothing but a whirling storm of conjured daggers, lashing out against Myrkul and his massive scythe. She’s not going to last long fighting that big bony bastard on her own, nor will her attacks make much of a difference as long as this ritual connects Aylin and the god. Rowan needs to get Aylin freed, now. But how? The spell is far stronger than it was in the Shadowfell—cast by Myrkul himself, rather than his crony?
As Pip gallops away, Rowan focuses back on Aylin and Isobel. They are still clinging to one another, touching each other’s faces like it’s simultaneously the first and last time they will have the chance. There is such an aching desperation to it all that cuts deep into her heart. She doesn’t want to break this moment up.
They’ll have more chances to show how much they missed and still care for each other when this is over, though.
(Just like she and Gale, though she’s trying not to think about that right now.)
“Isobel,” Rowan says as she clears her throat, “do you know the spell to remove curses?”
The cleric turns her head to look at her, pretty face blushing as though she’d forgotten Rowan was standing here the whole time. “Yes, I do,” she answers with only a slight stammer, nodding her head.
“Cool. I think using it on these ritual chains will free Aylin,” Rowan explains as she reaches out to the necrotic energy contained within them, shuddering at the sheer malevolent force of the magic. She shifts her gaze to meet Aylin’s radiant eyes. “You’ll need to channel whatever divinity you can from your mother,” she adds to the aasimar. “I can fire off some dispelling magic, but it’s going to take all three of us to get you out.”
Aylin presses one more kiss against Isobel’s head and gingerly sets her back onto the ground, though it’s obvious she would rather not. She cracks her gauntleted knuckles, sparks of moonlight drifting off her armor. “You have sound reasoning, friend. If this works, I will owe you a debt I know not if I can ever truly repay.”
“It
will
work.”
Rowan closes her eyes and concentrates on the intense magic rippling through Aylin’s chains. She hears Isobel whisper a hurried prayer to Selûne, the moon goddess’s daughter joining with an appeal of her own in hushed tones.
In the distance, a raven calls.
Her shadows surge within her. Her lips tingle as she murmurs the incantation, stretching Nevermore out towards Aylin. She feels the moon against her skin, stars shining above her. The brush of a feather light against her cheek, soft and silken and ticklish.
Unraveling the chains wrapped around Aylin is akin to playing tug-of-war with a dragon. Myrkul’s spell fights back against the three of them with a violence that shoots pain through Rowan’s body, sharp and poisonous. She hisses with discomfort as quick bursts of agony stab into her hands, her arms, her chest. Like bones that have been carved into knives, digging beneath her skin and setting fire to her blood.
She feels the god’s focus suddenly swivel to the three of them, Miri momentarily forgotten.
The raven calls out louder. The moon shines brighter. Isobel and Aylin’s dual prayer dances around like a cascade of constellations, magic woven from the bond they share. The chains push back. They rattle and shake, undeath swelling with effort as Myrkul reaches for the three of them with his rotting stench.
“No more,” Aylin swears, her voice tempered with strength and determination. “Damn Aylin shall be your prisoner no more, foul thing!”
Something shatters.
It sounds like broken glass.
Rowan opens her eyes.
Aylin is free.
The chains disintegrate into motes of moonlight and dust as Aylin lets out a victorious shout, taking to the skies as her magnificent wings spread out from behind her. A massive, elegant sword materializes in her hands out of pure light as she laughs, hair streaming in the wind. Isobel merely looks up at her beloved with tears streaming gratefully down her cheeks, her hands still clasped in prayer. A halo of silver surrounds her, Selûne’s grace enveloping her lovingly.
Rowan’s spine goes frigid.
She feels the telltale invasive ripple of psionic energy being aimed at Aylin, Isobel, and herself.
It’s trying to dominate our minds, she realizes as she spins herself around to see the mind flayer floating menacingly a few feet away, both of its hands raised up and outwards.
“Would you just get off my dick already?!” she shouts at it angrily, summoning her wall of darkness with nothing but a blink. It splits into three individual armies of shadows, coalescing around them all as the mind flayer’s influence bounces harmlessly away. The fucker has definitely got a grudge against her. Not good.
Celestial light shines down from above.
“You dare seek to harm my mate most high?!” Aylin demands as she soars down, a scintillating kaleidoscope of silvers and blues trailing behind her wings. “Allow me to reward you with what you so rightfully deserve— retribution!”
Rowan has seen a lot of things since coming to this world.
She’s never seen someone hit something with such might and power the way Aylin slams her sword into the mind flayer’s neck. The monster’s head literally tears from the rest of its body, her blade slicing through flesh and tendon and tentacles and bone. A spray of odious, black blood gushes from the headless stump, raining down on Aylin. She twists herself in a circle and the pillar of moonlight around her expands, evaporating the disgusting brackish mist in moments before it can mar a single inch of her.
The mind flayer’s body hangs in the air with an odd uncertainty, as if suspended in gravity, before immediately plummeting to the ground in a bedraggled bloody heap. Rowan doesn’t know where the head went. She doesn’t want to know.
“Your girlfriend is the coolest person I have ever met,” she whispers reverently to Isobel.
Isobel smiles. It’s the truest smile she’s ever shared with Rowan, no shadows or anguish clinging to the contour of her face. “I know,” she agrees with a quiet laugh, bringing her clasped hands to her chest. “Oh, do I ever know.”
But their merriment is short-lived.
An oppressive, heavy wave of putrescence hangs over them like an executioner’s ax. Rowan gags as the scent of decay and rot grows overwhelming, her nostrils burning and her eyes watering as the corrupt hand of Myrkul stretches over them.
“You vile interloper,” the god snarls, and a flash of Ketheric’s deep booming voice filters through the monotonous rasp. “What have you done? What have you done?”
Magic flares along bleached bone, noxious green and as black as a plague. It slithers across the hand hovering above her and Isobel, radiating with such necrotic energy Rowan feels as though her flesh is about to slough off her own bones. She doubles over as a pain unlike anything else she has ever felt before slams into her, a silent scream ripping from her throat as she desperately leans against Nevermore.
“Wretched raven bitch,” Myrkul continues savagely. “Allow me to show you what it means to defy a god!”
The pain gets worse. She starts to taste blood in her mouth and feels shards of glass in her eyes. She is decaying, she is rotting, she is being flayed from the inside as magic borne of pure evil seeps into her soul.
She remembers Balthazar’s invisible hands around her throat, squeezing and tearing as his curse ate away at her connection to the Shadow Weave. Not again. This can’t happen again.
Rowan hears Gale shout her name. It sounds so far away. So terrified. So lost.
She can’t leave him again.
Please.
Rowan reaches for her darkness just like she had hours ago, a lifetime ago, in the Nightsong’s prison.
Instead of silence and abandonment, this time something reaches back.
“It’s time, little one,” Quoth says to her, a fluttering in her breast as the white raven comes into existence on top of Nevermore. She can barely see them through the pain, her eyes straining as undeath squeezes and stabs. “You are ready.”
The pain vanishes.
She can suddenly stand up straight, the oppressive weight lifted from her shoulders. But there is another weight—a small, slight thing she is grasping in her fingers, and she brings her hand up to gaze at what she holds.
It’s a mask.
A white porcelain mask that will cover the upper half of her face, carved with utmost care.
Time stops and in that moment, Rowan realizes something.
It is not Myrkul in his truest sense they are facing. It’s Ketheric acting as a host for his moldering, malicious god. His body was the sacrifice. His soul was the vessel. He remains, just barely, as the Lord of Bones wears him like a dirty disguise. Or perhaps it is Ketheric wearing the dirty disguise—perhaps god and faithful are forever, inextricably intertwined now.
Aylin and Isobel channeling Selûne with their prayers and sincere spells are not enough.
They need a Champion.
She flicks her gaze to meet the beady, black eyes of Quoth. The white raven gives her a solemn, proud nod from their perch on her staff. She nods back.
Without hesitation, she brings the mask to her face. It slides onto her skin like water rippling in a pond. And Rowan Twice-Born Dekarios changes.
Shadows surge, deeper and darker than all the spells and magic she has called upon since this new life. Her back arches as flesh tears and bones crack, but it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t make her feel broken and bloody as feathered wings of midnight burst from her skin. Her robes shift, shadows weaving and spinning them into something else. Something other. A cloak; a mantle. Darkness incarnate and layered with feathers so black they would reflect the stars like polished obsidian. The feathers around her neck glow as she feels her teeth grow sharper, longer. Her nails become clawlike, the edges almost transparent as they drift off into misting shadow.
Something twists around her head, settling upon her brow with a gentle sigh. She reaches a hand up to touch it. A diadem. A circlet. A crown, wrought of silver and onyx, lighter than a feather.
A coronation worthy of my Chosen, the Matron whispers in her ear.
A raven calls. Quoth hops from Nevermore onto her shoulder, talons gripping the cloaked mantle that cascades down her form. She takes her staff into her hands once more and spreads her wings, grinning wildly as the familiar thrill of flight spreads through her chest. She leaps into the air, wings beating as if she were born with them as she soars out from under Myrkul’s ensorcelled hand.
“Show some fucking respect, you miserable bag of bones,” Rowan spits. “There’s a queen in your midst.”
If skeletons could have expressions, Myrkul’s would be one of absolute murder right now.
He lets out a rumbling roar that shakes the colony, his rage a peal of ruinous thunder as he swings the giant scythe in her direction. She acts on instinct and jerks out of the way as her wings slice through the air, back muscles spasming only slightly.
Adrenaline and shadow surge through her veins in tandem. Excitement and alarm war within her chest on an even playing field. Such power—such magic! She can feel her darkness writhing under her skin, every individual soldier eager to unleash hell upon this bastard.
Who is she to deny them what they want?
But if she’s going to do that, she has to ensure there will be no collateral damage.
Rowan takes a quick glance below her. Miri’s Cloud of Daggers remains spinning around her like a shield, the bard hurling insults at Myrkul imbued with arcane ammunition. Jericho and Dorian are locked into decisive combat with Myrkul’s summoned undead, spells being slung with a speed that nearly makes her dizzy. Pip races to and fro, skewering intellect devourers with their horn and trampling them beneath their hooves with a thrilled cackle. A screeching yowl accompanies a flaming Fireball as Tara throws her own magic around, her back arched and fur standing on end from where she stands at Gale’s feet.
And Gale?
He is gazing up at her in wonder, mouth parted and fingers frozen in whatever spell he was about to cast.
She blows him a kiss from across the chasm that lay between them and raises Nevermore to the sky far beyond the colony’s pulsating walls. “Miri, get back!” she commands, voice booming throughout the air, amplified by her shadows as they spread out behind her in a latticework of shifting darkness.
Miri jerks her head up. She staggers when she sees Rowan in the sky and the swathe of darkness that is rapidly cocooning itself around her. The bard immediately vanishes in a cloud of magic as she casts Dimension Door, narrowly avoiding Myrkul’s skeletal hand as he vainly tries to grab at her. Even with his size, he can’t concentrate on multiple enemies at once.
Rowan flicks her wrist. The shadows lunge from their position, lurching away and leaping towards the god as he goes to thrust his scythe at Aylin this time. She does not even attempt to dodge; instead, the aasimar shouts a battle cry and parries the decrepit blade with her shining greatsword.
A discordant clanging rings in the air. Myrkul snarls with fury, twisting his gargantuan body around as he goes for another swing, but it’s too late. Rowan’s shadows are converging on him like a swarm of locusts, an amalgamation of darkness that smothers him until he is nothing but a black mass.
“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,” she hums, lazily swirling her hand in the air with a maestro’s flair. “Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before!”
She snaps her fingers.
The shadows shift.
A towering column of ravens erupts in their place.
Black-feathered and violet-eyed; white-feathered and black-eyed; dozens, hundreds, thousands, screeching and crying out. The colony becomes a symphony of flapping wings as the flock grows and grows, a raging storm of razor-sharp feathers. Myrkul thrashes wildly within the tempest, both hands clutching the scythe as he drags the blade through the ravens with a snarl.
It does nothing. Her ravens distort into mist and shadow as the scythe passes through them harmlessly. Quoth croaks out in triumphant pride on her shoulder. She snaps her fingers again, watching with a smile as her winged soldiers fly in dizzying patterns, funneling darkness and looping it around the sockets between Myrkul’s bones. Chains of shadow and feather, digging into his cartilage like daggers as her magic solidifies.
Rowan thinks of the brother she never got to know and sends him a silent thank you where he rests at their mother’s side.
Myrkul’s bones begin to creak wetly. The roiling mass of necrotic energy he had used on her just moments ago seeps out from the hollow pores of his skinless limbs, marrow formed of disease and decay oozing on top of her shadows like slime. “You think this will stop me?” he demands.
Rowan cocks her head, the movement avian and inhuman.
When she opens her mouth to speak, her voice echoes with the haunting lullaby of the Raven Queen.
“Merely this and nothing more.”
The cacophony of wings and discordant cries of her ravens turns into silence. They dissolve into nothing but shadow once more, a webbing of darkness manacled around Myrkul’s limbs and the gaps between his bones. Rowan grits her teeth as she feels the foul touch of his divinity rapidly begin to devour her magic, putrid steam hissing from where the oozing necrosis is devouring her shadows.
She knows she could dig deeper—she knows she could reach further into the Shadow Weave and brush her fingers against the Matron’s, and whatever magic her goddess would hand off to her would destroy the thing Ketheric has become with Myrkul possessing him.
But she won’t. She can’t.
If she did, Rowan Twice-Born Dekarios might not come back. No matter how much the Raven Queen adores her, she is still a goddess.
Chosen as she is, Rowan will not dream dreams not meant for mortals.
“Aylin, Isobel!” she shouts out instead, circling around Myrkul as the god thrashes and strains against her spell. “You need to end this! NOW!”
She turns to look at them and beneath her half-mask, her eyes widen.
Isobel stands tall and proud, eyes glowing silver as she raises her arms to the air. Moonlight gathers and dances around her lovingly much like Rowan’s shadows do to her, drifting across her fingers as the cleric spreads them out in supplication. Her burning gaze is trained on Aylin. The aasimar sweeps in behind Rowan on her pristine wings, placing a gauntleted hand on the shoulder Quoth does not rest on.
“It has been a long time since I have seen darkness wielded with love rather than hatred,” Dame Aylin states, her armor starting to shimmer with a grandness that puts the sun to shame. “Leave the final blow to me, friend.”
Radiance explodes from her form.
The blessing of Selûne is blinding as Aylin channels her mother, the gilded cracks in her face erupting in holy fire. She raises her greatsword, the blade shining as magnificently as a full moon, celestial glory clinging to every inch of her form. Rowan tugs on the remaining threads of her magic, one last concentrated surge of shadow from her soul, and fortifies the chains of darkness around Myrkul with a ragged, hopeful breath.
Aylin dives towards him with her sword poised to strike, an avenging angel come from the heavens.
Myrkul’s bellow as the blessed blade slams down on his skeletal head vibrates under Rowan’s skin.
Bones crack. Shatter. Splinter away. The scent of rot and decay blossoms like a flower of death, violent and vicious. Veins of silver light replace Rowan’s ichorous shadow as Aylin and Isobel’s combined magic flows through the god’s body. The scythe in his grasping fingers disintegrates to ash. His giant form shudders and shakes. His head jerks as Aylin’s sword slices cleanly down the middle of his face and splits his skull in two. A burst of necrotic energy flares from his empty eye sockets, reaching for the aasimar, but a shield of silver and black races to her defense as both Selûne and the Raven Queen offer a moment of divine protection.
It’s beautiful and blinding, and Rowan turns her head away as the light becomes too much.
When the light at last fades away, she looks back again.
Myrkul is gone. The void from which he crawled out of is empty and the familiar armored form of Ketheric lay on the edge, his chest rising and falling as he gasps for air. Shards of bone scatter about him like a funeral shroud.
Aylin snarls and immediately dives down towards the man that kept her prisoner for one hundred years.
Rowan gathers a few threads of the Shadow Weave, just barely enough, and reaches for Isobel with her magic. In an instant she and the cleric are standing on the ground over Ketheric, Rowan swaying slightly as the Matron’s power falters. It’s going to fade away at any moment. A pity. She was enjoying her reign, no matter how brief a stint it was.
“Impossible,” Ketheric wheezes as he stares up at his daughter and Aylin with wide, terrified eyes. “Death cannot take me. I…I am its master!” Blood wells up in his mouth, dribbling past his lips as he reaches a hand weakly to the sky. “My lord, hear me!”
Silence.
Myrkul does not answer.
A bitter laugh bubbles in his throat, hand falling to his side with a limp thump. “Nothing. I am…forsaken. You…you have no idea what you’ve done!”
His horrified gaze shifts to Rowan—no, not Rowan, but someone behind her. Miri steps forward, her face twisted with frenzied wrath, but she looks remarkably in control of it. Her hand is steady and firm as she points her rapier at Ketheric’s throat. Her blade alights with a silver sheen. The same celestial glow clinging to Aylin’s sword, which the aasimar has poised ready to thrust in his gut despite the fact he is wearing armor.
A bloody tear oozes out of Ketheric’s eye as he looks to his daughter.
His voice is a weak, pathetic whimper.
“Isobel…”
“Goodbye, Father,” Isobel says softly, her eyes still glowing with moonlight as she keeps her concentration on the blessing. “May Mother find it in her soul to forgive you. I don’t think I ever will.”
She does not look away when Miri thrusts her rapier into his throat and he gurgles pitifully. She does not look away when Aylin jabs her greatsword into his abdomen and the force of her momentum rends his armor asunder.
She only looks away when Aylin drops her sword to the ground and tosses her helmet next to it, sweeping Isobel into a crushing embrace. The cleric lets out a keening, shuddering sound as she buries her face in Aylin’s armored chest, and Selûne’s silver blessing vanishes from the two women.
“It is alright, little moon,” Aylin soothes as she holds Isobel, rocking her in her arms. “It is over. I’ve got you. Oh, my love, I’ve got you….”
The sound of flesh tearing pulls Rowan’s focus away from the reunited lovers. She looks back to the still body of Ketheric and Miri looming over him, piercing the tip of her rapier into his throat over and over again. Droplets of blood spray across her face as she stabs him with relentless ruthlessness, voice hissing across sneering lips.
“Bastard,” she seethes. “Fucking bastard. You knew what happened to me. You knew what she did to me and didn’t say a fucking word! Die! ROT!”
Miri gouges out his throat like a rabid dog and for once, her affliction does not seem to have authority over her. It’s the opposite. Her hatred burns. Her voice screams insults. But she does not fall into a frenzied mass of giggles and bloodshed, every movement cold and calculated and full of intent.
Rowan winces in sympathy as the bard desecrates Ketheric’s corpse, the feathers at her throat warm and comforting. Miri is going to have a lot to unpack once they get out of here.
Because they are getting out of here. It’s over. They won. The Absolute might be on its way to Baldur’s Gate with an army of cultists and mind flayers, but they defeated Ketheric. They freed the Nightsong from her wicked prison.
Shar’s curse should hold no more sway over the ruined land of Reithwin, right?
Rowan’s chest tightens and she sways once more as her thoughts run together in a gnarled mess. “You must let it go, child,” Quoth instructs her softly as they brush their beak against her ear, talons sharp in her shoulder. “You aren’t meant to hold this power for long.”
“I-I know,” she admits with a nod, bringing a hand up to feel the crown the Matron placed on her forehead. Maybe someday she’ll wear it again. But for now, Quoth is right—she has to give it up and send it back to the Shadow Weave, where it belongs.
She takes hold of Nevermore with both hands. Thank you, she prays silently to the Raven Queen, feeling the clawed edges of her fingernails dig into the staff’s handle.
She takes a breath.
Her heart beats once.
The mantle of the Raven Queen falls from her shoulders, feathers shrinking back into her normal robes. Her wings vanish into plumes of ashen smoke that trail behind her like phantoms. The diadem melts into silver liquid, evaporating from her skin. Her fangs fade, her claws return to normal, and a great gaping sense of emptiness fills the pit of her stomach as the strained threads of her magic snap.
Rowan falls backwards, Nevermore slipping from her grasp as leaden exhaustion overtakes her. Instead of tumbling to the ground, however, she lands softly and safely into a pair of arms. They wrap around her, cradling her as Gale gazes down with a solemn yet proud smile.
“Told you I would summon an army of Pips someday,” Rowan mumbles as she leans into him, aching everywhere. She just wants to sleep for a month. A year, maybe. Gods, she’s never been so fucking tired.
“I never doubted you for a moment, sweetheart. Well done.”
Gale’s lips brush against her forehead. She hopes he thought she was hot during all that.
Rowan feels her eyes begin to grow heavy. Pressure builds in her head, not painful, just the impending sense that she is not going to be conscious for very much longer. Do all Chosen feel so empty and fragile after channeling power directly from their gods? Did Gale ever go through this with Mystra?
Ugh. She doesn’t want to think about Mystra right now. That’ll just ruin the sense of victory that swims just beneath her fatigue.
“‘M gonna pass out,” she slurs in warning, vision swimming as Gale’s face goes fuzzy. She sees his mouth move but whatever he’s said in response is rendered mute as Rowan’s world becomes inky black darkness.
When she comes to, she has no idea where she is.
Voices mingle, tired and relieved and joyous and anxious. Her eyes blink rapidly as she tries to chase the shadows lingering in her vision. Her surroundings are new and confusing. This isn’t Last Light. This isn’t Waterdeep. She’s in…a throne room? A chapel? And it’s swimming with people, some she recognizes while others she thinks maybe she’s only seen in passing.
Rowan groans and tries to lift her head from whatever plush, comfortable pillow she’s been laying on. A gentle hand reaches over and pushes her back down as Gale’s face comes into view, his lips curled in a frown as he gazes into her hazy eyes.
“Don’t you dare try to get up,” he berates softly, shaking his head. “You need to rest, Rowan.”
Ah. So it’s his lap she’s using as a pillow. Nice.
“Where are we?” she mumbles, voice still somewhat slurred with exhaustion. She turns her face to survey this new place, taking in the clusters of bloody and battered Harpers and Flaming Fist.
Her friends are here, too. There’s Jericho and Karlach speaking with that tiefling blacksmith, both hanging off of one another unabashedly. Dorian and Wyll are locked into heated discussion with Jaheira, who is nodding sympathetically. The rapier Mizora gave to Dorian is hanging from Wyll’s belt like a brand. Shadowheart and Lae’zel mingle within the crowd, the former putting her hands on a myriad of wounds and the latter dubiously inspecting weapons presented to her by weary Harpers.
And Miri—she’s between Halsin and Astarion, who each have an arm looped with one of hers. Her face is downcast and her eyes drift towards the ground as she speaks with someone Rowan knows for a fact she has never seen.
It’s a skeleton man. A godsdamn skeleton man with desiccated, shriveled skin pulled tautly over sharp bones. He’s wearing oddly put-together robes considering what he is, and his face is embellished with a golden filigree that must hold some kind of meaning.
Rowan stares at him uncomprehendingly, barely hearing Gale as her husband speaks.
“We’re in Moonrise Towers,” he explains, stroking her hair. “The Absolute cult has been purged from it. It belongs to Selûne once more. Though it will take time to heal from the Absolute’s influence, and from the poison Ketheric injected into this place when he turned to Shar.”
“Huh. Okay. It looks fancier in here than I expected. I guess I anticipated more ruins and mayhem like the rest of Reithwin. Hey, Gale? Who the fuck is that?”
Rowan points a trembling finger weakly at the skeleton man, who has taken no notice of her as he continues to converse with Miri.
Gale’s frown deepens with confusion. His gaze follows where her finger is pointing and understanding dawns across his face. “Oh!” he exclaims. “Remember when I mentioned Withers? That’s him. He has a habit of appearing at the oddest of times, just to mention something cryptic and unsettling. But he’s helpful. In his own way.”
That’s Withers? She remembers Gale telling her that he was some kind of benevolent undead, almost mythical figure, but for some reason she was expecting a bit more…oomph. Or maybe that’s just because of who they just faced down in the mind flayer colony.
A god.
She had battled an avatar of a god and won.
Not alone, nor had she delivered the killing blow, but a god.
Wonder if there’s going to be a party of some kind, like how the druids and tieflings celebrated the defeat of the goblins, she muses to herself as she just watches the crowd. Last Light has enough booze for it. And there’s all the untouched barrels in the creepy distillery. Could be fun, I guess.
Not that she feels like participating at the moment. Her skin itches, a layer of sweat ensuring that her robes cling to her uncomfortably. If she breathes in too deep she can smell the awful stench of the pod and death.
“I want a bath,” she declares in a sleepy mumble, closing her eyes as she settles back onto Gale’s lap. The cobblestone floor is hard and cold beneath her but honestly, she doesn’t mind. It’s better than undulating ripples of fleshy floor-meat.
Her husband’s fingers trace slow, methodical patterns into her scalp as he threads his hand through her unruly hair. “Then a bath you shall have,” he promises kindly. “We can head back to Last Light right now, if you wish. Pip has remained outside in their unicorn form in anticipation of carrying you. You are not walking in your current state.”
Rowan’s eyes shoot open again and she glares up at Gale, crossing her arms petulantly. “Yes, I am.”
“No, you are not.”
“Yeah-huh.”
“No, Rowan.”
“But I want to.”
“And I want you to take it easy until your body and magic recover from the incredible feat you just achieved. I’ve never seen anything like it, sweetheart. You were extraordinary.”
Rowan grunts, her face suddenly feeling hot. “Hngh,” she grunts out, tilting her head so she’s no longer looking directly up at him. “Fine. I guess I’ll let Pip carry me. Only so you don’t have a heart attack, though.”
She realizes then she hasn’t caught a glimpse of Aylin or Isobel. A sting of worry crawls up her chest and she takes another glance around the strangers and companions alike milling about the chamber. She doesn’t see them. There’s no way they stayed behind in the colony. Maybe they already returned to the inn? They do have over a century’s worth of pent-up emotions to work out. It wouldn’t be all that surprising. She and Gale had gone at it like rabbits once that door was finally open, and they only had six months of unresolved tension to account for.
“Where’s—”
Her question is swallowed up by the sound of heavy doors swinging open and loud boots thundering across a stone floor.
“It is lifting!” Aylin proclaims, her voice booming with strength and purpose as she stands tall in the doorway. Isobel is at her side, an exultant smile spread widely across her face. “Shar’s fell malady is vanishing at last!”
She spins on her heels, Isobel following behind, as a silence settles over the crowd.
No one moves, shock palpable in the air.
Rowan’s stubbornness gets the best of her. She reaches up to give Gale’s handsome face an apologetic pat before gritting her teeth, calling upon the final vestiges of darkness that still linger within. She casts a sluggish Misty Step, vertigo gripping her as she goes from laying down to standing up in the blink of an eye.
“Fuck, that was dumb,” she grumbles to herself as she stumbles, body pitching forward. Instead of meeting hard floor, a smooth flank of soft fur greets her outstretched hands, and Pip scoffs with mild derision as she crashes into their side.
“Yeah, boss. It was fuckin’ dumb,” they agree in exasperation. They nuzzle her, careful not to jab her with their horn, which someone had the forethought to wipe free of brain goo. It was probably Gale. He would be the only one not to bat an eye at the prospect.
She groans tiredly and throws her arms around their neck, face buried in their mane. “Help me up,” she whines with urgency, voice muffled. “I…I need to see what Aylin meant.”
Somehow, they do.
Rowan doesn’t remember the exact specifics of how the unicornfied Pip managed to get her onto their back.
She also doesn’t remember them trotting out of the massive, bloody foyer the throne room led to, their hooves sidestepping mutilated bodies daintily.
But she does remember lifting her head from their neck when the scent of fresh air greets her nostrils, because it is a sight she knows she will never be able to forget.
The sky has returned.
Dawn stretches across the clear horizon, rosy-fingered and delicate as the sun begins its lethargic ascension. Shadows screech silently as a glorious, beautiful light spills from above, forcing clusters of darkness and infected foliage to recede. Reithwin is visible in the distance, across the lake Moonrise was erected against. No longer does a thick, impassable wall of horror and revulsion hide the ruined town.
And from the wreckage rises a tree, grand and imposing.
Magic thrums in the clear air. The tree twists and forms as it is brought back to life, branches stretching as new growths blossom along their spindly fingers. Flecks of gold and green light drift down from the leafy boughs. The tree’s vast trunk glimmers with it, warm and inviting, as the touch of something otherworldly coaxes it from its fatal slumber.
Like a new layer of skin regrowing over scar tissue, the tree stands tall as its limbs multiply and bloom. A sentinel reborn anew, guarding over the forlorn ruins—a symbol of hope that will be seen for miles.
Isobel and Aylin stand with their backs to Rowan, gazes lingering on the sun rising and the tree towering. The aasimar has one arm around Isobel’s shoulder, and it is clear she has no intentions of removing it. When Pip approaches slowly, Rowan still slumping against them, Isobel turns her head to look behind her.
Her eyes are filled with tears, starry and brimming with a faith that never wavered. “We did it. We broke the curse,” she says to Rowan, not bothering to wipe her swollen, red-rimmed eyes. “It looks like home again.”
Rowan looks out at the land surrounding Moonrise. The shadows continue to hiss and weep as the light of the sun chases them back to the evil place they came from. For the first time since arriving, she does not feel Shar’s gaze staring daggers into her.
There’s no telling how long it will take to fully heal the pain and terror the goddess caused, but Isobel is right. They did it. They won. Despite everything, they broke the curse.
“It looks like a good home to have had,” she says to her sister, who just lets out a choked laugh of agreement as she shakes her head. A raven sings somewhere in the distance and Rowan pushes through her tiredness, presenting Isobel with a grin. “And someday, it’ll be even better than you remember.”
Isobel turns back to face the sunrise. She tilts her head to look up at Aylin, who in turn shifts her adoring gaze downwards. Isobel lifts herself up onto her tiptoes. Aylin graciously closes the distance between them, her mouth searing into Isobel’s with a gentle passion.
As they share their first genuine kiss in over a century, the ring on Rowan’s finger hums blissfully.
Notes:
and so act 2 comes to a close.
i realize i should have split this into two but honestly, having the finale of act 2 be one massive hurrah feels par for the course. i am just sorry so much happens in it LMFAO.
i'll be taking a nice long break after this. my personal life + work is ramping up and i don't know when i'll be able to focus on the fic again. i hope to get at least one more chapter out before the end of the year, but also, act 3 scares me. i still don't know how i'm going to tackle it all. thinking about it makes me have a panic attack tbh HAHAHAHAHAHA
anyway love y'all, thanks for sticking with me <3 can't believe it's been almost a year since i starting writing this silly little story. how much my life has changed since then, for the better :)
Chapter 18: to break, to bend, to make amends
Notes:
hi i am here
uh
sorry this took so long. act 3 sucks. i rewrote the start of this chapter three and a half times and i still hate it, but i wanted to be done, so here it is. warning: this chapter has more depictions of autistic meltdowns and the dreaded ~miscommunication~ trope. hopefully the smut at the end makes up for it LMFAO
i do not know when the next update will be. work is killing me and i have no time or energy to write. but i'm still here and still alive :')
i will not be doing every little thing in act 3 btw. minsc does not exist as far as im concerned because he has no actual plot importance. there's just too much to cover in this part of the game, and i'll be doing my own spin on a couple of personal quests, so for the sake of my sanity...yeah. we're only doing a portion of what act 3 entails.
anyway thanks for sticking with me, please enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter Text
Baldur’s Gate is smaller than she had expected. How many times has she stood on the balcony of the tower, or raced Gale across the whole of Waterdeep, and it felt like that city was as endless as the sea? How many times has she roamed the streets, never stepping on the same stone, lost in the endless crowds of Waterdhavians?
Rowan does not feel that tight, awestruck sense of wonder she always feels in Waterdeep as she leans against half-rotted railing and gazes out across the shadowed silhouette of Baldur’s Gate. The city is big, yes—oh, it stretches along the coast, and the ramshackle dwellings of Rivington give it the illusion of some massive beast on the horizon, but…
It’s no Waterdeep.
Seeing the twinkling lights of the harbor, the spiraling smoke of chimneys, the discordant glimpses of civilization should be a relief. After the two grueling, stressful weeks of being on the road and the horrendous return to bedrolls and summoning bath water, Rowan should be utterly delighted at the thought that soon she may return to a copper tub and clean sheets. Instead, it cuts a stabbing, gnawing pain to her chest.
Because it is not Waterdeep, and she and Gale are still not home, and there is still a parasite and an orb buried inside of him.
The backdrop of Baldur’s Gate is fairly pretty, Rowan supposes. It would even be charming were tonight different, what with the way the stars shine overhead and the city is framed against the coastline. But the whimsy falls flat. The allure of yet another fantastical city in this world of fantasy pales to nothing.
Rowan concentrates on the black flames still smoldering at her fingertips and the acrid scent of burnt flesh lingering in the night air. Not even ten minutes ago she was slinging shadows and magic like a madwoman. She should have known githyanki wouldn’t go down without a fight. Lae’zel’s countenance has proven as much, but still.
Too much has happened in the last hour. Way too much.
She sighs and lifts away from the watchtower’s railing. Leaning against it with her full weight when it appears as though it’s moment’s from falling apart is probably not a good idea. She fiddles with her wedding ring, biting her lip so hard she nearly draws blood.
Adrenaline and the thrill of a fight has given way to uncertainty and anxiety. It coils through her blood like bitter medicine. Her stomach is in knots.
She needs things to make sense.
“Rowan?”
Gale’s voice is as quiet as a whisper, her name punctuated with shame. She doesn’t turn to look at him, her gaze still trained on the famed city supposedly carrying the answer to all their problems.
“Rowan,” Gale repeats from behind her, plaintive and guilt-ridden, “please talk to me.”
What is she supposed to say?
What the hell is she supposed to say to this—this revelation? That the entire time he and the others who were infected haven’t turned into mind flayers because of a mysterious benefactor who speaks to them in dreams?
That said benefactor has been inside the fucking magical item Ketheric Thorm wanted? That it has some connection to the Astral Sea and the gith queen Vlaakith wants them dead so she can have it?
That said benefactor turned out to be a mind flayer themselves and offered Miri the chance to “ascend” to a higher state of being?
Being assaulted by errant githyanki the night before they finally arrive to Baldur’s Gate is one thing. Learning they attacked on orders of the Vlaakith is another.
But knowing that Gale—and everyone else—have been fully aware of the invasive presence in their minds and never thought to tell her?
It hurts more than Rowan wants to admit.
It hurts because Rowan can’t articulate just why she is so…
Furious.
“…I know that there’s a weird disconnect between me y’all who have a parasite,” Rowan finally says after a few moments, still facing the shadowed silhouette of Baldur’s Gate. “I get that. I don’t expect to understand every aspect of the shit that happened on the nautiloid or what it’s like to have a tadpole in your brain. But Gale…”
She finally turns around.
Oh, his guilt is painted on his face sharper than a stab wound, his eyes downcast and his shoulders sagging. The magic of the Astral Sea clings to his skin, an ancient and curious sensation that gives Rowan goosebumps. Gods. The Absolute had almost taken him; taken everyone, and she loathes that the only thing that saved them all was jumping into that damned portal while she and the uninfected battled the githyanki invaders.
“We’re a team,” Rowan tells him, voice thin and taut.
Stretched to a breaking point.
The two weeks on the road and the subsequent stumbling across ruined settlements and displaced refugees as the Absolute’s army burns a scar across the Sword Coast has left everyone exhausted. She’d gotten used to the odd routine of living in the shadow of Shar’s curse. The room at the inn she and Gale had shared had honestly become almost as special as their tower back home. Being thrust back on the road without those familiar comforts as they race against the clock?
A repeat of her meltdown after she found Gale was bound to happen eventually.
Yet Rowan manages to swallow the urge to scream, to rage, to sob as she looks her husband in the eyes and asks, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Gale opens his mouth.
Shuts it.
Opens it again.
He’s doing a remarkably apt impression of a fish out of water. And looks stupidly handsome as he does so.
“And—and what the fuck kind of name is the Emperor?” Rowan continues, her voice rising to a shrill octave. “How lame do you have to be to introduce yourself as that? And then immediately demand for all of you to embrace becoming illithids? And—and—!”
Great. She’s hyperventilating. Her chest is tight and her lungs are burning and her eyes are hot and she needs to do something, anything, before she breaks and—
Gale surges forward.
Instinctively, Rowan’s hand jerks up and a wall of undulating shadows whorl around her like a maelstrom. He pulls himself back with a startled yelp. The stricken, shameful expression that unfurls across his face only serves to constrict her breathing more. Makes her eyes and lungs and heart and skin burn like she’s been dragged into the hells.
“I-I’m sorry,” Rowan rasps out, shaking. She can’t let him touch her. Not right now. It’s too much. She doesn’t know why. She can’t stand the thought of anyone touching her right now, and she feels sickened by the revelation.
Except—
Her shadows brush across her damp cheeks. The gesture is inquisitive, protective; it is not overwhelming, like his touch would have been. Because the darkness is a part of her? Maybe. Rowan doesn’t know. She doesn’t fucking know anything right now except that she is crying in earnest at last, unable to hold back the tears.
Anger.
Sorrow.
Betrayal.
Her emotions cut into her heart like a knife as she stares at her husband through the veil of shadows, her wedding band as cold as ice on her finger.
“Rowan…”
Gale’s voice is a hushed whisper, anchored in a tempest of regret. He does not attempt to move towards her again, eyeing the wall of shadows warily, even though they both know they would never truly hurt him. Never. Not even when she’s like…this.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The repeated demand sweeps between the charged air between them. Rowan’s shadows coil and curl between her fingers, her arms, her throat as they flare with every syllable that escapes her lips.
Gale wilts.
His shoulders drop.
He runs a hand through his hair, mussed and a mess from the events of the last hour. Rowan despises the way her heart tugs painfully as she watches him run a strand of dark purple between two fingers. A gesture he has picked up from her. A wonderful, beautiful thing that shows just how deeply they are connected, and by all the gods does Rowan hate how it makes her chest tighten even more.
“I am so sorry, my love. I thought it best you did not know. I couldn’t…I couldn’t let you bear the burden of worrying about my condition even more than you already do.”
“Bullshit,” she snaps. “Bull fucking shit, Gale.
Rowan grips the plush fabric of her pajama sleeve, hand shaking as the shadows’ undulating becomes more vivid. Violent. Less a storm, more a swirling black hole bound for oblivion.
Gods, how ridiculous did they all look? The infected rushing off into the Astral Sea in their sleepwear and the rest fighting a battalion of armed githyanki in slippers? And now here she and Gale stand, arguing in the dead of night while still wearing their stupid matching pajamas because—because—
Because she loves him. He loves her. That hasn’t changed. It can’t, it won’t, but Rowan is just so angry.
She snarls, the sound bordering on monstrous as she throws her hands up in the air. “I worry about you because I love you! I care about you! Damn it, Gale, I could have helped!”
Maybe.
Possibly.
She’s not sure how, but she’s Rowan Twice-Born Dekarios, beloved of the Raven Queen. Chosen and Champion and all that jazz. A manipulative bastard hanging out in her husband’s dreams would tremble before her might.
It’s not like she hasn’t killed a mind flayer before.
She wishes Miri had killed the Emperor the moment they offered that nasty-ass “ascended” tadpole. But, considering they are the only thing keeping everyone from fully transforming…
Ugh. At least Miri had vehemently denied the offer (or, as Gale had spun it, demand).
Rowan bites her lip so hard she tastes blood. She should have gone to the Astral Sea with them. She should have given this “Emperor” a piece of her mind.
“I’m supposed to protect you,” she whispers uselessly, wrapping her arms around herself. She shudders as a swallowed sob burns a hole in her chest. The thick, dancing and wall of darkness converges even tighter around her, almost squeezing her to the point of constriction.
It’s what she swore, isn’t it? To fix the orb. Then the parasite. To keep him safe no matter the cost. It’s what she screamed at Elminster, what she will scream at Mystra and Shar and any other deity who dares to stand in her way.
She can’t protect him when she doesn’t know of every threat against him, seen or unseen.
If she can’t protect Gale, what kind of Chosen is she?
“I’m sorry,” Gale says again, his voice soft and muffled beyond the storm of shadows. The darkness is so deep that she can no longer see him through it. “Oh, Rowan, I am so sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t change the fact that everyone else knew,” she grinds out, squeezing her eyes shut. Rage still churns in her veins. “Jericho, Dorian, Halsin, Jaheira…even Isobel and Aylin knew. I was the only one in the dark.”
The irony of that phrase is not lost on her.
Everything is just too much.
Rowan opens her eyes.
Her shadows press against her harder, tighter. Nurturing and loving, the embrace of a thing that is both herself and yet is not. The feathers at her throat grow warm, worried. The Raven Queen’s hand lay across her cheek, slender fingers splayed as they brush her tears away. So motherly. So lovingly.
Rowan knows.
She knows Gale had her best interests in mind. That the thought of him being plagued by yet another outside force she is seemingly powerless to stop would topple the carefully-crafted balance she is constantly, ceaselessly forcing upon her inner self. She knows. She knows.
But it still hurts.
It hurts because it’s like she’s back in her old world, her old life, where people kept things from her so she wouldn’t lapse into…into this. A broken, messy creature. A person incapable of regulating their feelings. A friend too shattered to be called a friend, a daughter too dark and devastated to be called a daughter.
But this isn’t her old world. Her old life. And Rowan also knows that she is different now, stronger, surrounded by love and companionship. She shouldn’t be reacting like this. She shouldn’t be so angry, so convinced of her husband’s treachery.
Not when just this morning, they had stood side-by-side cooking breakfast for the team with lovesick grins on their faces. Sharing quick kisses that held a margin of heat that promised more once they found a proper bed. Braiding one another’s hair, brushing through tangles and grease, grumbling about missing a true bathtub yet again. Swapping theories on the true nature of the magic imbued in the Absolute’s ancient Netherese crown—
…ah.
That’s the crux of things, isn’t it?
He trusted her with the orb. He trusted her with the potential of the crown.
But he didn’t trust her with this.
It hurts.
A dagger to the heart. A guillotine to the neck. The thought that Gale did not trust her with something so terrifyingly intimate as an unknown presence in his mind hurts.
It hurts so much that for a moment, all she can think of is tearing that crown from the Absolute and breaking it into so many pieces that it gets lost in the wind.
But Rowan had promised.
She had promised to fix him. She had promised to figure out a way to use the crown to do so, even though deep down she knows fighting ancient Netherese magic with just more ancient Netherese magic is a a fool’s errand.
But she loves him. She loves him more than the fact he kept this from her hurts.
She would tear down the very foundations of the Weave itself to keep Gale safe.
Rowan’s hold on her shadows snaps.
The darkness recedes, returning to its place beneath her skin as the misty layers slither into her soul like tame serpents. Her heart thunders wildly, madly, as she takes a deep breath and begs herself to be calm. To not give in to the overwhelming desire to break and break and break.
She just needs a bed. A bath. A return to a normal routine. She’ll feel better after that. She won’t be so quick to have an immediate meltdown every time something less than ideal is thrown in her face.
Rowan faces Gale once more. His expression is hollow and haggard, akin to the one he wore months ago when he at last confessed the truth of the arcane hunger slowly killing him.
He takes a step forward.
She does not move.
He takes another.
She does not move.
Gale’s hand trembles at his side as he gazes at her, forlorn and the culmination of regret. He is warring with himself, just as she is.
She aches for his touch now. His comfort. She is a cruel, wicked thing to have fought against it.
But Gale knows her better than she knows herself at times. He keeps his hand away as if she were a wounded animal. In that moment Rowan becomes acutely aware that she is lying to herself. That she would have spiraled even more had he reached out for her, because her feelings are too big for this body she’s living in.
“It took the shape of you, once,” her husband tells her quietly. “It mocked me with it.”
Oh.
“It was Mystra at first,” he continues. “When that did not work, it turned to flaunting your form, bading me to use the ill-begotten powers of the tadpoles. And when that also did not work…it became me. The man I was before I met you. The wretch who believed himself better than a goddess.”
Oh.
“So perhaps it was partially in shame that I did tell you of the visits.” Gale averts his gaze downwards, his eyes focusing on anywhere that is not the tears cascading down her cheeks. “But also, a desire to protect you, Rowan. I think…I think I was concerned that if I confessed the truth of it all, you would go on a crusade and demand the ‘guardian’s’ death. Riding astride Pip in their fearsome unicorn guise and all.”
The humor lilting about in that last bit is cold, dry. His admission cuts through the layers of grief and anger and everything roiling in her guts like a dull blade.
Oh.
“Well.” Rowan sucks in a sharp breath of begrudging acquiescence. “You aren’t wrong. I definitely would have done something like that. I definitely want to do something like that right now.”
She can picture it in the theater of her mind as vibrant as if it were truly happening.
A chorus of adoring shadows singing her praises. Her wings spread like a glorious cape, her crown glittering beneath the moonlight. Her fingers weaving darkness incarnate, the threads of magic tightening around the throat of a mind flayer.
And, yes, riding Pip like the majestic steed they are.
Pip has been quite taken with the form of a unicorn, having begged her to allow the shape to remain during these two weeks on the road to Baldur’s Gate. She thinks they enjoy it more than their usual raven one.
They were quite disappointed when she asked them to change back tonight, just before the githyanki attacked, in preparation for heading out into the city in the morning. Rowan isn’t sure how Baldurians would react to a unicorn in their midst. A raven is much more socially acceptable, much to her—and Pip’s—disappointment.
Especially since that meant they could not skewer any githyanki through the gut with their horn.
She needs them right now.
She needs Pip more than she needs Gale. They wouldn’t keep a secret so big and unwieldy from her. They would gladly accept her crusade, encourage it even; they would agree to help with no hesitation at all.
Because her familiar knows that’s what she’s meant to do here. Protect Gale. Keep him safe. And use the gifts given to her by the Matron to do so.
So why is Gale insinuating that for her to fulfill the duties she has so readily embraced is a bad thing?
She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t want to get it.
And she hates it. She hates herself. She hates Gale—
…no. No, she doesn’t. Why the fuck did she think that?
Rowan tries to take a deep breath amongst her seething, tumultuous thoughts.
Her emotions are a dark cloud obscuring all reason. There’s a part of her that gets it—there is always a part of her that understands when people choose something like this. She would probably do the same, knowing what kind of reaction it would spark from someone as hypocritical and unpredictable as she can be.
A maddening thought, vicious and vindictive, whispers through her mind:
What if he doesn’t love me anymore?
Rowan’s heart clenches. Her chest tightens even more, impossibly so, and the cool night air feels thick and suffocating as she stands on the watchtower and just stares at her husband hopelessly.
He stares back, helplessly and face pinched in an anxious indecision that no doubt mirrors her own expression.
“I can’t do this right now,” she tells him when the silence between them stretches for a beat too long. “Everything is too—too jumbled up in my head, too much of a mess, for me to…”
She trails off.
She doesn’t know what she wants to say.
She’s tired.
Tired of thinking, of talking, of keeping track of all the things they need to do in order to return to Waterdeep. Tired of herself. Tired of her inability to just fucking be normal and have normal emotions that don’t feel as though they are going to explode every time she’s overwhelmed.
Rowan is so tired.
She angrily, frustratedly wipes at her still-burning eyes and swallows back a rasp of a sob. She pushes past Gale, resisting the urge to grab hold of him and weep and beg him to forgive her for being so childish.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, voice hoarse. “I love you.”
She doesn’t know if he answers. She’s already climbing down the ladder before she thinks he can even register what she said.
Everyone is still working on sorting through the carnage from the surprise attack. In the heat of things, Rowan hadn’t realized just how many githyanki had descended on the camp. There are bodies everywhere.
Most of them bear the telltale mark of her blackened flames. It sparks a mote of pride to swell between the waves of anguish. A tiny, microscopic speck.
“Hey, Rowan,” Jericho calls out to her as she hovers over one of the bodies, carefully rifling through pockets. The world could be ending and the tiefling wizard would still insist on looting bodies for potential goodies. “Mind helping with the cleanup? We could use your—”
Wordlessly, Rowan raises her hand.
She snaps her fingers.
A sea of silken darkness rises from the bloodied ground. Slithering, smothering shadows drag themselves across the multitude of corpses, engulfing them in oily coffins.
Her magic pulls, tugs, yanks. The shadows hiss like a pack of banshees. The discordant chorus echoes eerily throughout the camp as they start to drag the githyanki down, pushing past packed mud and desecrated dirt. Forever to be buried beneath the last battlefield they had the misfortune of drawing their weapons on, foolishly so.
Startled cries of varying degrees issue forth from everyone as the corpses vanish. The sounds range from a full-on shriek from Karlach to a shrill, shouted curse from Astarion. Even Lae’zel snarls something in her native tongue, the harsh syllables tinged with surprise.
Rowan pays them no heed. She doesn’t even spare Jericho a second glance when she hears her friend groan in displeasure, whatever useful trinkets she was about to snatch disappearing with the cooling corpse.
She hates them.
She hates all of them right now.
They knew and she didn’t and it’s not fucking fair.
She hates them.
She hates herself for hating them.
Pip, Rowan calls out across their bond, fingers twitching. The feathers at her throat are warm. Hot, almost. She wants to fly. She wants to surrender to her beautiful darkness.
But she won’t.
There is no point in throwing that much of a tantrum.
There is a flutter of wings cutting through the terse air. Pip alights on her shoulder, violet eyes aglow as they press their cool beak against her damp cheeks. She heaves a ragged sigh, focusing on their familiar weight, and strides through the camp with her back turned to everyone.
She passes Miri. Her lips are a tight, thin line that part as if she is about to question her, but not a sound passes them.
She passes Dorian. He looks as though he wants to reach for her, and the expression he wears is so similar to Gale’s she almost vomits.
She passes Isobel and Aylin. The stars in their eyes see right through her soul but she does not stop when the former begins to speak her name with nothing but gentle concern.
Rowan stumbles through the ramshackle ruins they have claimed for their own tonight and does not stop until she’s reached the dilapidated building at the very edge. It’s dusty and laden with cobwebs, worn by weather and war both. A cloying, musty scent pervades every inch. She suspects it was a tool shed or some kind of storage for a ravaged farm long ago, before it was left to crumble in the hands of time.
It’s quiet. And far, far away from everyone else right now. Exactly what she needs.
…though Rowan feels as though she had spied Withers skulking about this particular area when they’d arrived earlier. The strange undead man is nowhere to be seen now.
Good. He’s unsettling, what with all the coming and going as he pleases. She swears he only shows up to utter some cryptic comment about destiny and fate. It always makes Miri’s face harden with resolve and push herself even further than she did the day before.
Rowan pushes the thoughts of Withers and Miri away. She tries not to think about how heavy the ring around her finger is as she calls to the darkness within her, letting shadows curl around her fingers.
She spreads the magic across the floor like a blanket and wills it to change shape. The darkness forms a tent of sorts, just barely big enough for her and maybe another person if they squeezed close to her.
She doesn’t have the heart to make it smaller. She can’t deny what she wants deep down.
Rowan ducks into the magical shadow tent and crawls inside. Pip digs their sharp feet into her shoulder to keep themselves steady, their deep voice filtering through her mind. Cat?
She nods.
Cat. Big cat. Pillow-and-cuddling sized cat. Please.
You got it, boss. How’s ‘bout this?
The raven form of her familiar changes. Rowan settles down on the surprisingly soft, downy-like texture of the shadows as Pip scrambles off of her shoulder. They grow, feathers giving way to fur and beak giving way to fangs.
In a matter of moments, a pony-sized feline with sleek, midnight fur speckled with silver spots is purring beside her. Thick whiskers attached to rotund cheeks tickle her face as Pip nuzzles her affectionately. A massive, fluffy tail flicks to and fro lazily. A snow leopard with inverted colors.
This Pip is warm and cozy and the ultimate comfort. She really has the best familiar in the whole damn world.
“Perfect,” Rowan mumbles out loud, voice breaking somewhat. She winces. Gods, she sounds pathetic.
“You gonna be okay?” Pip asks, their voice rumbling through the darkness. It’s strangely acoustic inside the shadow tent. Weird. And entirely not her intention, but magic can be funny like that.
She shrugs, throwing her arms around Pip’s neck and curling herself against them. The rhythmic pattern of their purring reminds her of the beating of Gale’s heart. She pretends she doesn’t notice the similarities.
“I can’t answer that right now.”
She closes her eyes.
“Ask me again tomorrow.”
Pip’s violet eyes glow with concern but they say nothing. Her familiar purrs louder and gives her forehead an affectionate lick. Their tongue is coarse and rough and her skin stings a bit, but she keeps her complaint unsaid. She deserves the slight discomfort.
Their massive paws knead into her shoulders, claws kept carefully inside the squishy toebeans. She’ll have to remember to squeeze them before they return to their raven form. She might like this one better than the unicorn. The unicorn wasn’t very good for cuddling. The horn got in the way.
Rowan falls asleep without Gale at her side for the first time in a long time. The ache of it eats away at her insides, heart and all.
Rivington is a mess.
A dirty, haphazard mess of desperate people clad in worn rags and sallow faces. Dozens upon dozens of refugees wander the streets like half-dead phantoms, faces drawn with a weary wariness. The air is thick with a sense of something about to give. A fear, primal and furious, born of days of uncertainty and witnessing the Absolute’s army razing so much of the coast to ash.
“We’ve got a lot of ground to cover,” Miri is saying as she surveys the grim hamlet.
Her face is pinched and her lithe limbs are fraught with tension. It’s her new normal now. Rowan doesn’t think she’s genuinely relaxed or smiled since before defeating Ketheric.
The bard twirls a strand of limp pink hair around a clawed finger, her other hand tapping impatiently against the rapier at her side. “I think splitting up may be best. One team goes to meet Voss, another to find Jaheira’s Harper contacts, and the third to gather whatever information they can about what’s been happening in the city.”
What a fantastic idea. It’s totally not like everything went to shit the last time we split the party.
Rowan bites her tongue to keep the snide remark to herself, fingers digging into Pip’s furry shoulder. Their snow leopard form hasn’t attracted as much attention as she feared. Which is good, because she still needs the chubby emotional support cat.
Her head hurts. Even with Pip snuggling her protectively, she slept like shit. She missed Gale. She misses him still, even though he’s only five feet away. Every time she glances at him out of the corner of her eye, he’s like a brilliant beacon in a stormy sea. Or maybe that’s just the sunlight bouncing off of the purple streaks in his hair.
Ugh. The fucking sun is way too bright for how dour her mood is right now. She would like to punch it. Repeatedly.
How poorly would it go if Rowan added Lathander to her list of deities she’d happily throw down with?
…wait a damn minute, did the sun just get a little brighter? Or is she just imagining things?
I didn’t actually mean it, she protests with a half-hearted prayer, the back of her neck suddenly hot and sticky with sweat. I don’t think I can physically punch the sun!
That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t try to physically punch the god of the sun if circumstances ever allowed it. Actually, scratch that, she would totally try to punch the sun. Fuck the sun. It’s too chipper and blinding when she’s trying to wallow in the mire of her self-pity.
Rowan wonders for a moment if Faerûn’s deities would be amenable to a battle royale. If so, she gets first dibs on beating the shit out of Lathander. After putting Shar in a headlock and shoving Mystra’s face in a dirty toilet. Preferably one that was used by a band of roving goblins with severe digestive issues.
Damn, she needs to stop thinking.
Her shadows quiver in her veins, suddenly nervous. The raven feathers at her throat pulse in warning as the Matron sends her exasperation from across the Shadow Weave. Idly threatening gods in her head usually garners that response, but there is no mistaking an undercurrent of blasphemous amusement from her goddess.
Rowan would definitely prove her worth as a Chosen if she was allowed to throw hands with specific members of the pantheon.
“Jaheira, Astarion, Halsin, and I will go to the Harper hideout,” Miri continues, blissfully ignorant of Rowan’s newfound rivalry with the Morninglord. “Karlach, Wyll, Dorian, and Jericho…would you all mind investigating Rivington? Lae’zel, Shadowheart—”
She pauses, hot pink eyes flicking between Rowan and Gale.
“—you two along with Gale and Rowan should go to Sharess’s Caress to meet with Voss and see what he has to say.”
Rowan tries not to stiffen. She hasn’t spoken to Gale all morning. He tried to. Oh, he tried to talk to her, tried to say good morning, tried to pull her aside and ask her to speak in private.
But she ignored him.
Pretended like he didn’t exist.
And the finger on which her wedding ring sits was so heavy she was certain her bones would break beneath its weight.
She almost gave in when Tara brushed past her and gave her a scathing, disappointed look. She almost dropped to her knees and screamed and begged the world to stop spinning so she could apologize for how she acted.
Almost. But she did not.
She needs to be angry just a little longer, even though it’s the worst possible thing for her to do.
“Is there a particular duty you’d like for us to assist with, friend?” Aylin asks, fingers laced together with Isobel’s. The aasimar is always touching her beloved. Always.
Before yesterday, it was endearing.
Today, it is nauseating.
Miri shakes her head. “Whatever you wish. You didn’t have to join us—you could have remained in Reithwin to help with the reconstruction. I’d rather you both take care of your own needs.”
“Ah, but our own needs align with yours,” Aylin reminds her. “While we have bested the foul wretch that was Ketheric, we still have a vested interest in defeating the Absolute as a whole.”
“Buuuut,” Isobel drawls as she lightly elbows Aylin, “there is a conclave dedicated to Selûne in the city. I’d like to make contact and see if they can help.” She turns her head to Shadowheart, a gentle smile spreading across her face. “You should join us! They would love to have you.”
Shadowheart shifts uncomfortably, uncertainty flitting across her face. Her hair is now dyed a stark silver so blazing it is practically white. It’s a better fit than the stark, black fringe she had going on.
“I’m not quite sure if I am ready for that,” the cleric admits.
There is a brisk clarity in her voice that hadn’t existed when Rowan first met her. Turning from Shar and accepting the truth that she was once a child of Selûne has been good for her. It doesn’t change that Rowan still feels weird around Shadowheart, considering her former goddess’s trial led her to being squidnapped.
“That’s perfectly fine. Take all the time you need.” Isobel leans her head against Aylin’s shoulder, beaming up at the tall aasimar. Even out of her resplendent armor she’s still the tallest in the group, even more so than Halsin. “Can we stop by the Elfsong first? There’s a soup on their menu that my mother used to always make.”
Aylin’s face softens, the holy fire in her eyes burning with nothing but pure adoration as she nods.
“Of course, my love. I shall endeavor to ensure you receive whatever it is you wish for.”
Rowan’s fingers dig deeper into Pip’s fur. Is that what she and Gale look like whenever they share a moment? So wonderfully in love, so disgustingly happy to simply bask in one another’s presence?
Will they ever look like that again? Or has she ruined it permanently with her stupid, foolish, idiotic temper and—
A gentle hand is suddenly on her shoulder.
She blinks, the touch jolting her from the thought spiral before it can truly begin. Her head turns to meet Isobel’s kind, warm gaze, her eyes shrouded with something Rowan cannot quite comprehend at this moment.
“Sister,” Isobel says quietly, and Rowan tries not to flinch at the endearment. She doesn’t deserve to be called that. Not right now. She leans in close, voice low enough that only Rowan can hear it. “Please don’t be angry at Gale. He only kept the truth to protect you.”
Rowan’s answer slips out in a cold, clipped tone.
“Yeah. So he told me.”
Isobel frowns. She seems to be waiting for Rowan to say more. When she remains silent, the frown deepens.
Her disappointment hurts.
Rowan turns away from the half-elf, focusing instead on the still-too bright sun high in the sky. Glaring at it is easier than letting all of her thoughts and feelings tumble out of loose lips.
An awkward, pensive atmosphere settles upon their gathered group as everyone mills about, discussing plans in hushed voices. They pointedly do not include her, which is perfectly acceptable.
But…
Rowan knows her attitude is making an already fucked up series of circumstances even more difficult to deal with. She knows she needs to stop giving Gale the silent treatment and be reasonable.
She almost wishes Elminster’s simulacrum were here. She could take her frustrations out on it. It would be better than getting into a fistfight with the sun.
Approximately ten minutes later, their party is assembled at a massive, makeshift gate. It was obviously put together hastily, a flimsy barrier between the refugee-laden outskirts of Rivington barring entrance to the slightly more cosmopolitan area leading to Baldur’s Gate and beyond.
The dozen or so Flaming Fist members guarding it seems odd.
The giant, helmed robot wielding a massive great sword is even more so.
“Halt, citizen!”
An artificial, janky voice emanates from it as it stares down at them. Or, at least, Rowan thinks it’s staring at them. There’s no face or eyes to tell.
She’s getting scalding flashbacks to the robot in the Grymforge.
Fuck the Grymforge.
Great. Now she’s sad and conflicted, because remembering the Grymforge means she’s remembering delicious, sweaty Gale.
Fuck the Grymforge.
The Flaming Fist member closest to the robot holds up a hand in what she must think is a placating manner, but there is an unmistakable air of contempt behind the gesture.
“Entrance to the city proper is strictly not allowed at this time,” she says with a haughty sniff. “Under orders of Lord Gortash, the city is on lockdown in preparation for his coronation.”
“Lord Gortash’s coronation?!” Karlach exclaims, gritting her teeth. “The fuck you mean by that?”
“Yes, pray tell, whatever you mean?” Wyll adds, crossing his arms. He spares the woman with a withering look, eyes narrowed in confused suspicion. “The Grand Duke is still missing, is he not? There should be no cause for coronation.”
His voice echoes with a torn rawness for a moment. He had not reacted to the news of his father joining the leagues of the infected and dragged off by an elder brain well.
He can’t be blamed. It’s a fucked up situation, despite whatever bad blood lingers between him and his ousting from the city he loves.
Jaheira’s rugged, scarred face is mirroring an expression similar to Wyll’s as she stares at the creepy robot bearing down on them. The panther form she is so fond of almost seems to ripple beneath her skin, lithe and on alert as if ready to pounce on an enemy at any given moment.
“And what is this?” she demands hotly, nose wrinkling. “Since when did the Flaming Fist enlist the help of clockwork soldiers? Have you forgone your pride as the city’s finest?”
The mockery bubbling up in her accented voice is scathing.
Dorian clears his throat. His tone is a tad more shaken than his usual boisterousness as he beholds the cluster of the checkpoint and the massive robot before them.
Rowan has a distinct feeling he is also remembering their delightful time down in the Grymforge. Which had been his idea. That had gone horribly.
They should start a Robot Victims Anonymous support group.
“Ah, that, well…do you recall when I mentioned the newest sentinels of the city parading the streets? You are, unfortunately, looking upon one of them right now. They weren’t this prevalent before I was rudely spirited away, however.”
The Fist pretends as if Dorian never spoke, waving her hair carelessly in the direction of the robot. “The Steel Watch is under the direct command of Lord Gortash. You have nothing to fear. The Watchers are here to protect the people of Baldur’s Gate, merely bolstering the ranks of the Flaming Fists.”
It sounds rehearsed. There’s not an ounce of genuine good will behind the phrasing.
Miri clucks her tongue. She hums a few notes asshe glances between the Fist and the Watcher. An ounce of her old mischievous fire seems to shimmer in her eyes, a telltale sign of her silver tongue and whimsical ways.
The air around her ripples. It would be invisible to most anyone—but to someone with an eye for magic, it’s obvious she’s casting a bardic spell, tangled up in her velveteen words.
“Oh? If the city is under their protection, then why the need to bar entry? Especially with so many refugees needing shelter! Shouldn’t the Flaming Fist be focused on providing those poor souls with something other than a cold shoulder?”
It is like the party at the Grove all over again. An inherent persuasion sways in Miri’s honeyed words, her smile wide and her body relaxed. She gives another hum, seemingly innocuous and innocent, the forced cheer in her voice almost enough to distract from the haggard, semi-permanent shadows beneath her eyes.
That arcane ripple in the air around her gets stronger, larger. It shifts to the Flaming Fist and envelopes her like a shroud.
The Flaming Fist frowns as the magic presses against her. She shakes her head somewhat, blinking rapidly, her eyes partially glazed over.
“I, uh…just trying to do my job, ma’am. Orders. Right, just…orders.”
“We’re accomplished adventurers capable of handling ourselves,” Miri presses, her voice lilting in a singsong cadence as she gestures grandly to their ragtag troupe. “Baldur’s Gate would benefit greatly from having us around, especially in this time of crisis! You really ought to let us through. Think of all the good people like us could do for the city, hm?”
The magic ripples again. The Fist winces and rubs at her temple, glazed eyes blinking once more as she looks at Miri in stupefied confusion.
Either Miri is losing her touch, or this particular Flaming Fist is immune to the ways of bards.
Jericho suddenly shoves herself forward, coming between Miri and the Fist. “How much?” she barks, tail flicking in irritation as she scowls down at Miri’s hapless victim.
The glazed look in the Fist’s eyes starts to fade slightly. “W-what?”
Jericho shoves a hand into her pocket and yanks out a sack that jingles and clinks as she palms it. It’s impossibly large in the sense that it should not fit in her pocket. Her clothes are no doubt enchanted to hide all sorts of bits and bobs. Gold is no different.
“How much,” Jericho says slowly, deliberately, shaking the pouch of gold for added effect, “do I need to pay you so we can move on with our day and get shit done?”
It’s like she’s flipped a switch.
Miri’s attempted spell dissolves completely from the Flaming Fist as she straightens her posture, eyeing the sack of gold with thinly veiled greed. The glazed look is all but gone. A pompous, conniving smirk settles across her face as she tilt her head, tapping a gloved fist against the hilt of the sword on her hip.
“Based on the rather large group you’re traveling with…ten thousand. The city’s coffers are in need of bolstering, and I’d say that sum should suffice.”
Wyll sputters in outrage, gasping. “Ten thousand—?!”
“Done,” Jericho agrees readily, tossing the bag of gold at the Fist.
She catches it with nimble and deft fingers. She holds it for a moment, seeming to weigh it in her mind, before pocketing it quickly.
“Kindly pass through, citizens,” she says with mock kindness, gesturing for her fellow Fists to move out of the way.
Jericho takes the lead and boldly saunters past them, a pleased spring in her step. Everyone else follows suit, Miri muttering something in Infernal under her breath. The Steel Watcher watches impassively. Rowan resists the urge to kick at its knee as she scoots by it. One giant robot was hard enough to deal with. She’s not stupid enough to invoke the wrath of a second one.
Once they’ve made it by the checkpoint and are out of earshot from the Flaming Fist, Dorian lets out a snort of surprise.
“I cannot believe you handed off that much money to a total stranger!” he exclaims to Jericho, gracing her with an expression of utmost bafflement. “The Jericho I know hasn’t even paid the library at Blackstaff for all those late book fees!”
“Oh, please.” Jericho rolls her eyes, scoffing. “It wasn’t my gold. It was Gale’s.”
Gale, who has remained as sullen and as silent as Rowan has since arriving in Rivington, snaps to attention.
“I beg your finest pardon?!” he cries out, aghast, eyes nearly as wide as dinner plates as he gapes at her in shock.
The tiefling wizard gives him a devious, wicked little grin. Delight dances across her face like a masquerade of stars, sharp fangs poking out as the grin widens into a full blown smirk.
“Dear me! I forgot to tell you, didn’t I? Your mother gave me almost all the funds in your emergency fund she has access to. Just in case.”
Gale’s hands fumble in front of his face as he gesticulates wildly, uselessly. “B-but—but she can’t just—you shouldn’t be—for the love of all that is sacred, why?!”
Jericho shrugs.
“Because Morena Dekarios is a wise, wonderful woman.”
She pauses.
“And, I suppose, because she loves me more than you.”
Gale just makes a choked, scandalous sound of dismay as he continues to stare at Jericho with an open mouth. Jericho, meanwhile, promptly ignores his incensed glare as she murmurs something to Karlach. It’s so ridiculous, so achingly like the dynamic between them before he was taken from Waterdeep, that Rowan can’t help it.
She laughs.
It’s quiet, unassuming, and mostly stuck somewhere between her throat and her chest. But there is no mistaking what it is, and Gale’s head swivels in the direction of it.
Of her.
When he meets her eyes, his mouth closes. The frustrated look of disbelief melts. A phantom of a smile seems to start to tug at the corner of his lips, as if enchanted by the whisper of her half-formed giggle. She feels herself nearly returning the grin, cheeks flushing at being caught.
But then she remembers last night.
As does he.
The smiles die. Her chest twists painfully. They just look at one another, neither not knowing what to say or do, and Rowan wishes the sun would burst and turn them all to ash.
Jericho’s victorious smirk falls as she glances between Rowan and Gale. It shifts to a grim, thin line bordering on apprehension.
She wants to say something. That much is obvious. But maybe she doesn’t know what to say, or maybe it’s the look of exhausted irritation on Rowan’s face that keeps her quiet. She hasn’t tried speaking to Rowan today, not really.
Part of Rowan has been grateful to be left alone. The other part has been devastated, just wanting her friend to slap some sense into her like she did all those weeks ago when Gale was taken from her.
Gods, why won’t someone just grab her shoulders and shake her?
Why won’t someone tell her to stop being so fucking stupid?
Because Rowan won’t listen to herself, no matter how loud her inner voice screams at her.
She will not burst into frustrated tears in the middle of Rivington. Nope. She is fine. She can continue to shove her emotions aside and maneuver her way through whatever misadventures they are sure to have before the day ends.
The party splits off and the moment for Jericho to wedge her way between Rowan and Gale disappears. Everyone goes their separate ways, focused on the various tasks at hand. Rowan numbly follows behind Gale, who follows behind Shadowheart and Lae’zel, as the four (and two feline familiars) make their way down the cobbled streets beyond Rivington’s checkpoint.
It’s much more livelier than the agrarian, disheveled hovels of Rivington. Shops line the streets. Multi-level wooden buildings bustle with crowds of people just trying to pretend everything is normal. Threadbare market stalls are tucked into shadowed alleyways, sourfaced merchants hawking their wares. The people here are a little better dressed than in Rivington but there is still an air of tense, nervous uncertainty that follows the realization of war.
In the distance looms a massive castle of sorts, carved from grey stone. It’s foreboding and unsettling, blocking out the sun at this angle.
(Though, Rowan may be a touch relieved by that. Maybe that means Lathander can’t see her if she flips the sun off.)
Wyrm’s Rock Fortress. That’s what the castle is called, she remembers. And this is Wyrm’s Crossing. The last bastion between the wider world and the true city streets of Baldur’s Gate.
She misses Waterdeep.
Rowan’s hand does not leave Pip’s fur as they weave between the crowds. Her neck is stiff from how tense she is, staring at Gale’s broad back and desperately hoping he will turn around. Make a quip about how this place pales in comparison to their home.
But he doesn’t. And he won’t. Because she ruined everything.
By the time they reach Sharess’s Caress, Rowan is ready to find a dark corner somewhere and turn the world off for a while. Just long enough to get her bearings and force herself to act normal.
Alas, duty calls.
Lae’zel strides through the swinging doors as if she owns the place. Shadowheart follows suit with a similar posture. An eagerness clings to both women. Rowan never met this Voss fellow, but he supposedly is some high and mighty githyanki warrior who has turned away from Vlaakith.
He had promised assistance in removing the parasite. Apparently, said assistance could only be given in a brothel.
For that is what Sharess’s Caress is, and Rowan was wholly unaware of that fact.
It’s obvious the moment she steps inside.
Opulent decor that borders on obscene, grandiose displays of wealth sing of how popular the establishment is. The air is dim and heady with smoke and incense, the smell so strong it masks the menagerie of clandestine activities that go about behind velvet curtains. People in tasteful, scandalous attire mill about, fingers brushing against clients. Tantalizing smiles dance with beautiful promises as they converse, whispering sweet nothings with a gentle tug.
Rowan scoots closer to Pip. This is definitely not her preferred haunt. Not that she would ever shame someone for being in this line of work, but she would rather not linger longer than necessary.
But there is a very fluffy, pretty cat in the corner cleaning herself daintily. Maybe she can just chill with the kitty while everyone else talks to Voss.
Why did Miri send her with this group? Why did she even listen? She’s an adult. With full autonomy. She could have said no!
…and done what, exactly? Twiddle her thumbs and create illusory unicorns for the fun of it? All alone?
Yeah, no.
Rowan can’t help but heave a quiet sigh. She wishes she could have gone with Isobel and Aylin. The aasimar could have smacked her face with the butt of her sword and shaken the sense back into her brain.
“Welcome, sweetlings,” the woman at the front desk purrs. She eyes Lae’zel with interest, taking in the otherworldly armor and weapons she carries, before her gaze flicks over to the rest of the group. “Are you here for business…or pleasure?”
Based on the sharp smile she gives, she already knows the answer.
“One of my kin should be here,” Lae’zel answers with a note of disdain, her harsh tone carrying no civility. “You will direct us to him immediately.”
If the woman is put off by Lae’zel’s brusque, demanding demeanor, she makes no show of it. Her alluring face is perfectly schooled in what Rowan recognizes as the “customer service” expression; blank and demure, a mask of impassive surrender.
“Ah. Of course. I believe you will want to try the second floor, my dear. The room you want is called the Devil’s Den. I do suggest a modicum of swiftness, however.”
Her large, sultry eyes shimmer.
“Its current occupant is quite popular.”
Rowan suppresses a giggle-cough. Did the front desk lady just insinuate some super ancient, super powerful githyanki warrior is actually using the brothel’s services as intended?
Good for him!
Without another word, Lae’zel strides away with a purposeful gait. Shadowheart mumbles a quick thank you to the woman at the front desk, seeming a tad embarrassed at her githyanki companion’s lack of decorum. She follows, both disappearing into the perfumed throng of people.
Leaving Rowan and Gale alone.
He looks at her.
She looks at him.
Pip presses closer to her, their form vibrating with a powerful and comforting purr.
Tara swishes her tail idly from where she lay draped across Gale’s shoulders.
After a beat too long of just staring at one another, Gale clears his throat.
“…well. Shall we?”
He sounds so lost. Rowan’s eyes start to burn.
She jerks her head away and nods, focusing on anyone but him. Her eyes land on a dwarven woman a few feet away, leaning against the brothel’s bar and nursing a mug. Her clothes are fine and without a speck of mud or blood, dark curly hair framing a pretty, rounded face.
Her kohl-rimmed gaze flicks up from the mug in her hands. She meets Rowan’s eyes. Her painted lips curl into a knowing, mischievous grin.
She winks. For some reason, Rowan’s blood turns to ice and a shiver coils up her spine.
Rowan turns back to Gale and nods, palms sweaty as she holds onto Pip tighter.
“Y-yep. We shall.”
It is the first thing she has said to him all day.
The next couple minutes are a blur. Rowan does not recall pushing through the brothel’s crowds, only the undulating aroma of expensive oils that shifts subtly depending on who they pass. Her head feels as though it is going to explode. It’s too fucking crowded in here. Too hot. Too stifling.
There’s a set of stairs. A hallway, as gilded and ostentatious as the front room.
A door.
And then they’re suddenly outside on a long balcony, the fresh air a balm to her overwhelmed senses. Half a dozen doors are lined up against the wall, embellished with such stark differences it’s wild to think they’re all part of the same establishment.
The door lit by enchanted candles glowing a gentle pink has a thick, sprawling ream of parchment meandering overhead. It announces “Elminster’s Library” in elegant calligraphy. She doesn’t have time to dwell on what that entails. Nor does she want to have the time.
If the people of Baldur’s Gate get off on thoughts of sexy Elminster, Rowan might have to kink shame.
At the very end of the balcony, three people are gathered and speaking in furious tones. She recognizes Lae’zel and Shadowheart. The third is a male githyanki, donned in similar armor as Lae’zel. A massive, gleaming silver sword is strapped to his back.
His sharp, angular face is scarred from eons of battle. His eyes are narrow, limber hands clenched into fists as he speaks in a frustrated tone.
“Please, child,” he is saying to Lae’zel, “the devil will take nothing that I offer. You must have something he will want. Anything is worth the freedom of our prince—the freedom of our people. Will you not at least try?”
“Kith’rak,” Lae’zel starts, the usual predatory grace she exudes diminished and meek, “I desire the release of the Prince of the Comet as much as you. But what do you expect me to offer, if the devil wants nothing from you?”
“We could always just sneak into his home and steal the hammer,” Shadowheart suggests wryly, earning her an intrigued tilt of the head from Lae’zel. The half-elf gives her a sly little grin. “I did manage to infiltrate a githyanki stronghold for the Prism. Have you forgotten my talent in subterfuge?”
“The parasite scrambles your mind,” Lae’zel says with a snort. “You were found almost immediately. Were it not for the ghaik interruption, my kin would have made a spectacle of your death.”
“Perhaps. But I did sneak in, and I did abscond with the Prism.”
“Ch’k. If believing that bolsters your pride, do not let me stop you.”
Her tone is as sharp as ever, but her eyes are soft and her mouth is twitching as she clearly fights the urge to return Shadowheart’s grin.
“What’s going on?” Gale asks as he walks up, Rowan not far behind.
The male githyanki—Rowan assumes this is the famed and fabled Voss—surveys the two of them with a scrutinizing eye. “I had hoped to be of service to you and yours,” he says, voice sturdy enough that it almost hides the thrum of exhausted disappointment. Almost. “But my efforts have been…waylaid. The devil will not accept a deal with me.”
Gale frowns. “Devil?”
“It’s Raphael,” Shadowheart explains, face pinched. “Apparently, his base of operations in Baldur’s Gate is this brothel.”
Raphael?
The devil who bade Miri and Astarion to kill that one dude so he would reveal some kind of secret about Cazador?
Rowan technically met him during their foray into the cursed lands around Reithwin. Technically as in she was present when he stopped the group just before they wandered into the Thorm mausoleum.
But she hadn’t really paid attention to him. Shar’s eyes and incessant whispers through her corrupt threads of the Shadow Weave had made it difficult to focus. Plus, he hadn’t spared her a second glance. So why would she have bothered to do the same?
Even if she was fascinated by the concept of the Hells and devils and the like.
“The devil owns an artifact capable of freeing Prince Orpheus from his infernal shackles,” Lae’zel adds, and Rowan can’t help but stiffen.
Prince Orpheus.
The mythic figure of gith legend, trapped and bound in the Astral Prism.
The person whose psionic powers the Emperor is borrowing to keep Gale’s and everyone else’s brain worms in check.
Great. Just fucking great. It all goes back to that, doesn’t it?
“And if you freed the prince,” Voss interjects “then I have no doubt he would be capable of removing the ghaik parasites in return.”
His face twitches once, ever so slightly. A ripple of something dangerously close to a desperate hope burns in his eyes. It is gone in the next moment as he blinks it away, his expression instead one of expectation as he focuses on Lae’zel.
“Take a deal if he offers one, child. I ask this of you as my kin; I ask this of you as one who understands the treachery of Vlaakith. Farewell.”
Voss abruptly turns and surges past Rowan and Gale, nearly stepping on Pip’s tail as he does so. Her familiar’s fur stands on end as they swallow an irritated snarl in their throat, ears flicking back with displeasure.
Rowan does not give in to the urge to throw a rock at his departing backside.
“You two,” Lae’zel addresses her and Gale with a bob of the head that is equally as expectant as Voss, “should be the ones to deal with the devil.”
A flare of anxiety gnaws at Rowan’s insides. “W-what?!” she stammers, taking a step back. “Why?!”
“You are a wizard and a sorcerer. You will be able to sniff out any surreptitious attempts by the devil to undermine our cause. Are you both not skilled in magic?”
“Lae’zel, they’re not bloodhounds!” Shadowheart rolls her eyes in exasperation. “Magic doesn’t necessarily work that way.”
“Well…” Gale holds a finger up in light protest, his voice taking on the scholarly lilt from the bygone days of Rowan’s apprenticeship. She does not appreciate how it gnaws at her insides in a very different way. “Technically there are certain spells and rituals meant to foster truths and make lies either impossible or quite painful to speak aloud. I, personally, do not have the capability of casting such magic.”
His eyes dart over to Rowan.
“…neither does my wife.”
Wife.
Rowan wants to sink into the floorboards of the balcony and fall through, down to the ravine below. She’s his wife. He’s her husband. And it hurts. It hurts it hurts it HURTS.
She’s a fucking moron.
Lae’zel does not pick up on the thick, tense awkwardness that bounces between Rowan and Gale. Or maybe she does and simply does not care, because she is Lae’zel, and she is laser-focused on finishing what they came here to do.
“That is unfortunate. But it does not change the fact that you are both better suited to this task than myself or Shadowheart.” She jerks her head in the direction Voss went, back to the main section of the brothel. “Come. Let us leave this to Gale and Rowan. There are things I might discuss with the Kith’rak. Perhaps he may have a lead on the location of your former conclave.”
Shadowheart frowns. “I doubt it. Why would a gith warrior know where a group of Sharrans are hiding? If not even I know, I’ve little hope Voss will.”
“You’d be surprised at what intelligence a gith on the Material Plane can uncover,” Lae’zel tells her, almost wryly as she already starts to walk away. Shadowheart makes a noise of neutral agreement and follows after her, the din of their conversation fading away as they disappear back into Sharess’s Caress proper.
Leaving her alone with Gale. Again.
Well, alone save for Tara and Pip.
Before her nerves win and she lets herself run away like the coward she is, Rowan grits her teeth and puts her hand on the door to the Devil’s Den. The wood beneath her palm is startlingly warm to the touch.
“Let’s just get this over with, I guess,” she mutters, pushing the door open and stepping inside.
She’s not sure what she was expecting.
A chamber full of whips and chains, with mounted phallic objects of all shapes and sizes hanging from the walls? Bloody heads with their eyes gouged out stuck on pikes, still screaming their death rattle and kept in a state of terror through infernal means?
The room is…quaint. There’s a bed, yes, and it’s definitely large enough that one could host an orgy or two, but the space is clean. Put together. The marble tiling on the floor shines to the point where when she looks down, she can see her reflection. A chandelier overhead provides ample light, bright and cheerful. Potted plants and hanging flora compliment tasteful painted portraits of gorgeous landscapes—fitted into gilded frames, of course, but nothing what Rowan had in mind for a devil’s “base of operations” in a famous brothel.
And as for the devil himself?
He is in full human form, no horns or wings to be seen. Seated at a polished desk tucked against the wall, piles of paperwork surrounding him, he almost looks like a normal man just going about business as usual. The sound of a quill scribbling with practiced flourish echoes throughout the chamber as Raphael works, seemingly to pointedly ignore the newcomers. He is dressed prim and proper, his slicked back hair tucked behind his ears as he hums nonchalantly to himself.
The aroma of cherries alights in the air. Cherries mixed with a musky, vanilla undertone and laced with…sulfur?
Rowan grimaces. You can take a devil out of the Hells, but you can’t take the Hells out of a devil. She hadn’t noticed the sulfuric smell during their previous interaction with Raphael. The curse’s ambient aroma of sorrow and decay had been overpowering.
She clears her throat.
Raphael at last looks up from his stack of parchment and meets her eyes. His honeyed gaze positively dances with delight as an oily, self-satisfied smile spreads across his (regrettably) attractive face.
“Ah,” he purrs in a rich, cadenced tone, “I was wondering who my next guests would be. What a wonderful surprise! Welcome! Allow me to set the mood, hm?”
The devil stands up from the desk and snaps his fingers.
The door to his “office” slams shut and at the same time, Gale lets out a startled yelp so loud that Rowan immediately rounds on him in concern. His eyes are wide and he’s holding a hand to his head, face twisted in surprise as he blinks rapidly.
“The parasite,” he says, bewildered, “it’s…silent. I can’t hear it! I can’t feel it!”
“Consider it a token of good faith.” Raphael’s smarmy smile widens. “I don’t imagine your little illithid friend would appreciate the road this conversation is about to take. They cannot hear you for the time being. Alas, it is not a permanent solution to your parasite problem.”
His eyes flash, a flicker of hellfire and brimstone burning in them.
“Yet.”
Rowan glances at Gale, who holds her gaze for a moment. The fact that Raphael knows of the Emperor isn’t surprising. He’s a devil. The prick probably knows secrets unimaginable, though she can’t imagine how.
Raphael clasps his hands in front of him, appearing as benign and benevolent as a saint as he clears his throat. “Now, to business, my mortal friends. I can make all of this dreadful tadpole business simply go away. Meaning you,” he bows his head in Gale’s direction, “and all your lovely friends can remain blessedly free of tentacles.”
Jokes on you, he’s into that shit, Rowan thinks disgruntledly, recalling how beautiful Gale had sounded with her shadows inside him.
And then she immediately feels like a gross pervert for her brain going there, when obviously Raphael is talking about ceremorphosis, but dammit she’s in a brothel and her mind is a mess and she misses her husband even though he’s standing right next to her.
“Let us speak plainly,” Raphael continues. He steps forward, hands still clasped before him, and comes to a stop between her and Gale. The scent of sulfur is even stronger with him so close. She tries not to wrinkle her nose in a way that’s too noticeable. “I’ll admit—you’ve impressed me. I wasn’t sure you’d make it this far. Reithwin and the horrors beneath it would have ended most…especially one who has not even walked this realm for a year, graced by the very magic you once sought so desperately in a world far away from here.”
He’s looking at her.
He’s looking at her the way that fucker Balthazar did when he smelled her in Aylin’s prison and knew she did not belong here.
The feathers at Rowan’s throat suddenly grow warm in warning. Her shadows slither beneath her skin, fingers twitching as the devil eyes her with an unmistakably hungry gaze. She holds Pip harder, tighter, and instinctively presses herself against Gale. Her heart thunders in her chest. How? How does he know? She had tried to forget that Balthazar somehow figured it out—had pretended like it had never happened, which was easy to do when Miri and the others never brought it up. Out of kindness or a respect for her privacy, she doesn’t know.
Balthazar might have been a fluke. She will never know why he was so intrigued by her being from another world. But what use could that possibly be to a devil like Raphael?
Rowan does not think she wants to find out.
“The panicking is unnecessary,” Raphael hums, his tone infuriatingly calm and soothing. “I’ve no need for a soul such as yours at this time, my dear.”
She feels Gale bristle beside her, his body tense as he starts to growl out, “And just what do you mean by—”
The devil cuts him off with a careless brush of the hand.
“But I digress. No matter how far you’ve come, you are still on the road to ruin. A road that leads directly to a confrontation with the elder brain. You have the key to destroying it in the palm of your hands, though.”
Rowan recalls what Voss had been saying only minutes ago. “Orpheus?” she murmurs, more to herself than anyone else.
Raphael’s smile widens as he nods.
“Very
perceptive. Yes. I can give you the means to break him free.”
He spreads his arms wide now, as if he could encompass the whole of Faerûn in his embrace and squeeze the breath out of every single person.
“The Orphic Hammer. It is an artifact capable of shattering the chains that hold the prince captive. It is held securely in my humble House of Hope even now.”
Gale scoffs. “It is quite convenient you have exactly what we need,” he says, voice thin with enmity.
Raphael lets out a pleased chuckle, nodding his head. “Isn’t it just? And it’s even more convenient that you can give me exactly what I want in return.”
“I fail to see what we can give you that an insanely powerful githyanki warrior from the stars can’t,” Rowan deadpans, still pressed as close to Gale as she possibly can be. He hasn’t inched away from her yet. A misguided, misbegotten speck of hope dangles dangerously in her heart at the notion.
“What use have I for a battalion of dragon riders? I already command the very fires of Avernus. That decrepit old soldier can provide nothing useful.”
Rowan swallows down her protest. A battalion of dragon riders sounds cool to her. Not cooler than a battalion of unicorn riders, but pretty close.
“No, the power I seek is much more pragmatic than that.” Raphael taps the side of his temple, his saccharine smile not fading even for a moment. “You free Orpheus, save yourselves, save the city, the Sword Coast—my, perhaps even the whole world! And in return…all I ask is for the Crown that dominates the elder brain.”
“WHAT?!”
Rowan and Gale’s voices ring out in unison, tandem and joined together with a crippling sense of unease.
“You can’t—we won’t—why do you want it?!” Rowan stammers, the darkness inside of her pulsing as her panic swells. He can’t have it! It’s what will save Gale, what will destroy the orb inside of him!
“Oh, I have craved it since the archwizard Karsus created it, long centuries ago, and brought down the empire of Netheril,” Raphael muses, heedless (though uncaring is more likely) of her mounting alarm. “That was the great age of humanity, and Netheril’s flying sky-cities were the apex of civilization. I was there the day it all fell apart. Entire cities plummeted from the sky, like angels with broken wings.”
He closes his eyes as if in rapture, sighing wistfully.
“The screams…oh, the screams! Hundreds of thousands of people watching in horror as the ground came up to meet them.” A wicked, amused chuckle rumbles in his throat as his eyes open once more, mirth twinkling darkly in them. “It was not a happy meeting. And Karsus was responsible. Not driven by malice, but by ambition.”
Gale flinches at her side.
A shudder so sudden and shaking that her shoulder vibrates where she stands pressed against him.
“He forged a Crown imbued with all the powers of magic. A Crown that would make any who wore it a god.” Raphael’s voice takes an almost forlorn tone as he shakes his head, as if in regret. “Men cannot contain so much power. The Crown destroyed its creator, and his empire fell with him.”
The devil takes another step closer. He is mere inches away from Gale, his form brimming with a voracious and deadly charm. He tilts his head as he stares down at Gale, smiling morphing into a full smirk.
“Karsus’s Folly, the scholars call it. I call it hope. The hope of creating a better world, and the perils of unchecked hubris. And I knew then that the folly of mortals could be the triumph of devils, and that I could use that Crown to unite the Nine under one Archdevil Supreme.”
The acrid, sour scent of sulfur surrounding him burns stronger to the point where the insides of her nostrils hurt.
“Me.”
Gale snorts. The scoff echoes about the chamber as he shakes his head.
“Absolutely not! Handing a devil like you that artifact is akin to feeding a lava worm a barrel of smokepowder! Barring that,” he places a hand over his chest, fingers splayed over the prison in which the orb slumbers. “You cannot seriously expect us to willingly give you the Crown after confirming it was forged by Karsus himself!”
It had been a suspicion neither had wanted to voice out loud, she realizes in that moment. They knew it was from Netheril. They knew it had to be connected to Karsus in some way, as every piece of ancient magic brimming with Netherese power is.
But for Raphael to just come out and say that yep, big bad Karsus created it and it backfired on him? The the thing controlling the giant fucking brain is also the thing that destroyed this world’s most magically advanced society?
…what does that mean for Gale?
He nearly died trying to use Netherese magic once before. Even with her help, who’s to say he’ll be able to harness the powers of the Crown, if not even its creator was able to fully control it?
Rowan sucks in a breath as her mind reels.
They can’t use it.
They can’t. She won’t risk it. She won’t risk Gale. Yes, she is the Chosen of the Matron—yes, he was once the Chosen of Mystra—yes, their magic and abilities combined should make gods tremble and the stars quake in fear.
But she spent months devouring every book in Gale’s library. Hours pouring over the written word in dim candlelight, scribbling her own commentary in the margins and connecting the dots. She had analyzed the causes and effects of Toril’s tumultuous past so much she could host her own history class.
She swore to protect Gale. To cure him.
Not to let him fall to his ambition and hubris again. Not to let him throw away the remnants of his humanity for the sake of a magic no mortal should wield.
But that doesn’t mean she’ll let this fucker have the Crown either.
“No fucking deal,” she says sharply, heart crawling up her throat. “You will never have the Crown. We don’t need the Hammer. We can find another way to free Orpheus.”
Gods, she hopes the rest of the group doesn’t get pissed. None of them had seemed overly fond of Raphael—save maybe Astarion, but only in the sense that the devil had given him much needed answers.
And now she knows why Raphael had somehow silenced the parasite’s connection. If the Emperor knew about this conversation…damn. It would be furious. To free Orpheus means disrupting its ability to remain free of the elder brain’s control.
But fuck the Emperor. And fuck Raphael.
Rowan opens her mouth to add another spiteful comment, to tell Raphael to crawl back to Avernus and take his nasty-ass sulfur smell with him, when he suddenly barks out a laugh.
A raucous, irritating chuckle that grates on her nerves.
“I suppose I should have expected such a vehement refusal. Despite the current strained bond I sense, you are both still disgustingly in love with one another. A pity. A shame. A disgrace.”
Raphael’s smirk turns cruel, vindictive. Though he is still directly facing Gale, when his head turns to glance over at Rowan, she feels as though a set of clawed hands is suddenly brushing across her neck like a nightmare.
“There is a version of this story in which you say yes, Rowan Twice-Born. A version in which you and I do great things together. How it disappoints me to know this retelling is doomed to banality and bland notions such as love.”
The warm, inviting air of the room turns frigid.
Rowan stares at him, mouth agape in disbelief. Pip’s fur bristles as a low, rumbling growl emanates from them. “What the fuck are you talking about?” she demands with a hiss, her shadows snarling inside her in agreement.
The devil gives her a shrug as he examines his nails, unflappable and apathetic. “It is nothing for you to trouble your pretty little head over, my dear. Just musing on the multiverse and its cruel sense of humor. The story you and I have penned in another life is one I ache for terribly, but I can be patient.”
His eyes rake across her, that hunger from before swirling inside their honeyed gaze as she feels his voice in her bones.
“Good things come to those who wait. And you, my precious raven, have proven to be utterly delectable.”
Rowan swallows.
Presses closer to Gale.
And just stares at Raphael as his words sink into her, whatever fucked up implication he is trying to shove down her throat sending sparks of fear and panic spreading throughout her entire being.
Gale makes a sound caught somewhere between a snarl and a grunt of rage. Rowan jerks her head so that she’s now looking at him, watching as narrows his eyes. The Weave twitches like a wounded animal, the orb’s vein-like scar flashing a deep violet she has not seen since Elminster’s spell. He jabs a finger into Raphael’s chest so hard the devil actually twitches as if startled. The skin of Gale’s hand puckers as if he has shoved it in an open oven, the flesh rippling as magic thicker than blood manifests down his arm.
It’s not a spell. Not really. Just pure, conjured Weave that encases him like a suit of armor and a perfectly balanced weapon, primed and ready to rend a devil asunder.
“I’d ask you not to speak to my wife that way.”
The Weave is embedded in every syllable he speaks. Magic fills the air, raw and unfiltered, as Gale’s other hand slowly coils around Rowan’s waist and brings her right up against him. His hand is warm and familiar, safe and protective, as he grips her.
His eyes lose their gentle brown luster as a miasma of auroral blue swirling with purple fills them to the brim. He digs his finger deeper into Raphael’s chest, flames the same hue of his now-glowing eyes wisping into reality and dancing across his skin. Currents of electricity course through the almost holy fire, crackling recklessly.
“We are going to leave now,” Gale says slowly, calmly, his ire raging beneath the thin veneer of decorum he is struggling to maintain. “And you will never address my wife in such a manner ever again. You will never speak to her again. If you do, I will kill you. I will incinerate you. I will turn you, a thing that cannot be harmed by fire, into nothing but ash and soot and drown your remains in the Sea of Swords and offer them up to Umberlee. Am I understood, devil?”
Raphael blinks. For a moment, he seems to be stunned into silence.
And then he lets out an annoyed groan, eyes rolling as his ominous smirk fades into a disgruntled frown.
“Ugh. I think I prefer you as a floundering godling with a broken heart.”
Gale does not ask what Raphael means.
For he is too busy turning away and pushing the door open with a gust of wind that nearly blows it off its hinges, dragging Rowan along with him. Her heart won’t stop hammering away in her chest, beating too fast as she lets Gale pull her behind him. His feet stomp loudly against the balcony floor. Instead of marching down the same hall they came from, he turns the opposite direction, leading her around the corner of the brothel that dips down.
The balcony stops, raised out over the ravine that Wyrm’s Crossing is built upon. Gale comes to a stop as well, meaning Rowan must do the same, and he faces the sight of the coast beyond. Baldur’s Gate stretches across the horizon, a looming shadow beneath the lowering sun.
Strange. It was late morning when they got to Sharess’s Caress. They hadn’t spent hours speaking with Raphael. It hadn’t even been a full hour!
Yet the approaching sunset is as real as the terror that Rowan still feels churning in her insides, even though she is no longer in Raphael’s presence.
She swallows. Gale will not look at her, silent as he stares out at the scenery. Tara creeps down from his shoulders, wings fluttering as she nudges Pip’s leopard form. They give a chuff of understanding and detach themselves from Rowan’s side, much to her dismay, and the two familiars creep away in a manner so quiet it is as if they fear spooking their respective wizard and sorcerer.
Rowan manages to find her voice after a moment.
“Gale—”
His name has barely escaped her lips when he is suddenly crushing her into a hug, his arms so tight they are like a vice grip. He holds her against him, face buried in her hair, mouth pressing frantic and frenzied kisses against her temple as he rasps, “I am so sorry, Rowan.”
He isn’t referring to the display in Raphael’s office moments ago.
Her eyes burn with tears in an instant. She presses herself to him, throwing her arms around him as she practically hangs from him. “No,” she protests weakly, hoarsely, hiding her face in the folds of his robes. “No, I’m the one who should be sorry! Gods, Gale, I’ve been such a bitch!”
“No, you have not,” Gale says firmly, assertively, speaking in between showering the crown of her head with kisses. “I was a fool. I have been a fool, ever since the Emperor first wandered through my dreams in their ill-fitting disguises. I should have told you. Regardless of the belief that it was in your best interests, it was wrong of me to keep it from you.”
She’s crying now, cheeks wet and eyes a veritable waterfall as she sucks in a shuddering breath. It’s a notch below a pathetic sob. The only reason it’s not a full blown one is because she can hear the rhythmic pattern of his heart beating in his chest, and the relief she feels at such a wonderful sound is palpable.
She had been so afraid she would never hear it again.
“I get why you didn’t tell me,” Rowan admits. “I can’t blame you for automatically assuming I would go off the deep end and do something stupid if I thought it was going to protect you.”
Her breath hitches.
“I understand how…unpredictable I can be. With my emotions. I’m hard to be around sometimes. I…I was so afraid, Gale. So afraid that after how I acted last night, that you…you were going to stop loving me.”
“Never.”
He says it so quickly it is as though a dagger has been thrown from his lips. His voice trembles, thick and paralyzing, a maelstrom she would gladly throw herself into.
Rowan lifts her head from his now tear-stained robe and looks up at Gale. She sees his eyes shining wetly but, even so, her face is still reflected in them.
A hand reaches up and cups the side of her face. His thumb brushes away a tear, the sense of his bare skin against hers like a forgotten memory she thought she had lost forever.
“You are my heart. My soul. My life. I will
never
stop loving you, Rowan.” Gale kisses the bridge of her nose. “I love everything about you, even the parts you seem to believe are difficult. I reacted poorly last night.”
His lips trail downwards, hovering just above hers. The kiss he brushes against her mouth is so sweet, so infinitesimal, she cannot help but sigh longingly.
“I wanted to believe I was fully in the right. I didn’t understand why it had upset you so, not until you mentioned that we are a team. Partners.”
Gale leans her forehead against hers and closes his eyes. His breath fans against her face as he stands there, mouth parted as he ruminates on his next words.
“My decision to keep the full scope of the parasite’s effects was a slight against you, and for that I will never forgive myself. I don’t expect you to forgive me, either.”
She resists the sudden desire to grab his ears and pinch them. “Well, then. I don’t expect you to forgive me for losing my shit and acting like a child who wasn’t getting her way. We both acted like fools, Gale. Stubborn, cranky fools who are tired of wandering the wilds searching for a way to save the world.”
She pauses.
“...or, maybe that’s just me and my penchant for getting overwhelmed at the drop of a hat every time my routine changes. Gods, I am way too dependent on consistent access to a bathtub.”
“Then it is a relief to know a bathtub should be in the very near future now that we are once again within the cradle of civilization.” Gale’s hand cupping her cheek shifts as he pulls his forehead away from hers. He tilts her head up towards him, gazing down at her as a strained smile punctured by equal parts relief and regret curls across his face. “It will be nothing compared to our tower, but I’ve heard the accommodations at the Elfsong will be fit to our standards.”
A grin starts to tug at the corners of her mouth.
“Are you referring to a tub large enough to fit two people, Gale Dekarios?”
“Perhaps. Though size is never an issue with my abilities. I can always make it bigger if I so wish.”
“Heh. That’s what she said.”
“Sweetheart, please. Is now truly an appropriate time for such a crude joke?”
“Probably not. But you still love me.”
“Oh, I do,” Gale admits and without another moment’s hesitation, presses his mouth to hers. This kiss is more earnest, more tangible, a whisper of a promise of more to come.
When he pulls away, Rowan almost groans in frustration. She wants more. She’s spent so much of the last twenty-four hours angry and conflicted and confused and exhausted that it’s evil to only give her a couple kisses when all she wants to do is shove him against the wall and—
Okay. There’s got to be some kind of horny sex spell embedded in the walls of this brothel. She needs to take her mind somewhere else. The thought of jumping Gale’s bones in a place like this isn’t exactly a good one, especially when they still have things to discuss.
Such as Orpheus and the Hammer. The Crown. Raphael’s deal and their refusal of it.
His odd, creepy, sickening connotations regarding his belief that she was going to side with him.
Aaaaaand now the trickle of inappropriate horniness is creeping back between Rowan’s thighs as she recalls the thrum of power Gale had held in that moment. The solidifying of the Weave around him as he had woven the threads in righteous anger, threatening a godsdamn devil on her behalf.
Rowan feels her cheeks flush and she gives Gale a sincere, intense stare.
“Hey, Gale? You know when you were defending my honor? Telling Raphael you would kill him? Yeah, so…uh…that was hot. Really, really hot. Gods, you’re hot. I married the hottest fucking wizard that has ever lived.”
Gale rewards her with a sly smile. It is brimming with elated mischief. “Yes, I know.”
Finding the Elfsong is not terribly difficult. The streets of Baldur’s Gate are crowded, yes, and Gale has never stepped foot in the city, but that is one benefit of a parasite shared. Following the threads of senses and trickling thoughts sent across his connection with his fellow infected makes the trek simpler than it might have been without their assistance.
By the time they reach the illustrious tavern, the first stars of the night are already twinkling overhead. In all his readings on the denizens of the Hells and their abilities, time modification was never mentioned. He loathes how his scholar’s curiosity begs to know just what Raphael did to make the day slip through their fingers.
Not enough to return to the devil and ask.
No. If he ever sees that wretched bastard’s face again, it will be far too soon for his taste. Even the mere thought of the way he had looked at Rowan—had spoken to her with such rapacious familiarity—nearly makes him shake with rage.
He had meant every word uttered in that room. He will gladly kill Raphael should he interact with his wife in any way, shape, or form.
It should not prove too challenging, what with his mastery over the Weave slowly recovering to its former glory.
Gale shifts his gaze to Rowan as his thoughts wander. Her eyes are darting back and forth, taking in the din and hectic nature of the Lower City. Their fingers are interlocked so tightly one would think they would never let go. Pip is perched on her shoulder, donning their raven form once more, while Tara purrs with relief as she trots dutifully at his wife’s side.
All is well once more. Gale feels as though he can breathe again, the mammoth weight of his guilt and shame vanquished from his chest.
If only they were home in Waterdeep rather than wandering the streets of Baldur’s Gate. If only.
For despite the wounds of last night’s revelations having mended, Gale still carries a yawning ache inside of him. It rips wider and digs further with every step, the foreign sights of Baldur’s Gate piercing him with such agonizing nostalgia for his—their—home that he could nearly cry out if he allowed himself the lapse in judgement.
He supposes it would be worse were they taking a stroll through the Upper City. Dorian has often remarked on the similarities between the patriars’ quarters and Waterdeep as a whole. Gale will have to contend with the small blessing they are cavorting with the rabble.
The front doors to the Elfsong are crowded when they approach. People laugh and sing and make merry, mugs of ale and fine spirits sloshing about in their hands as they jostle one another good naturedly. A scintillating tune echoes from within the tavern, a lovely voice singing along to a strumming lute.
It strikes him as bizarre.
The city could fall to an elder brain and its army of mind flayers at any given moment and yet, here everyone is. Going about their lives as normal, completely unaware of the staggering circumstances they are powerless to do anything about.
Not if he has anything to say about it.
…gods above and below, Miri’s hero complex is beginning to rub off on him, isn’t it?
“I do hope we receive some answers about what happened in Wyrm’s Rock Fortress while we were with Raphael,” Gale murmurs to Rowan as they push through the surging, inebriated crowds. “What little context I received over the tadpoles’ link did not tell me much.”
“And I hope everyone won’t be too mad we told Raphael to fuck off,” Rowan admits, not bothering to repress the shudder that goes through her when she mutters the devil’s name. “Lae’zel especially. Without an easy way to access the Hammer, getting Orpheus away from the Astral Prism is…yeah.”
A stinging truth.
But they had to turn down the deal. Giving Raphael the Crown of Karsus—allowing a devil like that access to unlimited arcane potential? No. They could not allow it. Not even at the prospect of curing themselves of the parasites.
Not when he and Rowan need it to rid him of the orb once and for all.
Gale forces himself to push those thoughts to the back of his mind for the time being. Dwelling on them will do no good, especially when the cozy interior of the Elfsong comes into view.
It is cozy and humble, no added flair or flaunting of magic that the Yawning Portal is so fond of. Patrons mill about at tables, their faces lit by the soft glow of plain old candles. The decor is rustic and sturdy, yet quietly elegant enough that it still boasts an eye for detail. The tantalizing aroma of a home cooked meal wafts through the air.
“Stew…” Rowan whispers with reverence, closing her eyes as she takes a deep whiff. “Bread…”
Anything that was not a simple staple had to be left behind at Last Light before they departed Reithwin. They’d been surviving off of the bare basics on the road. Despite Gale’s culinary genius and her eagerness to help, the lack of a kitchen is a truly severe impairment for any cook. A hearty, tavern stew is a veritable feast at this point.
But first—
“Look.” Gale nods his head in the direction of the tavern’s bar, to where a smattering of tables remain mostly bare save for a few familiar figures. “There’s Jericho and Karlach. And Dorian and Wyll.”
“Hm. Where’s everyone else, though?” Rowan quickly glances around the busy tavern, frowning. “I don’t see any of them.”
“Perhaps they’ve not arrived yet. We should see what those who are here have to say.”
The two push through the throngs of people, Rowan clinging to Gale’s side in a way akin to lichen on a rock. He knows she is desperate for a bed and a bath and a moment’s reprieve from the world at large. She’s doing her best not to show it. But he knows her. He knows the way her shoulders tense and her eyes glaze mean that his wife is fighting that aggravating, overwhelming sense of anxiety.
These two weeks on the road have been hard on her. That, and her (deserved) meltdown over his inadequacy last night…he will have to spoil her the moment they are truly alone.
“Hey, y’all,” Rowan greets as she gives a tired wave with the hand not clutching Gale’s. “We made it!”
“You did indeed,” Jericho says dryly, glancing at their clasped hands with interest. A small smile tugs at the corners of her lips, the barest hint of warmth swirling in her eyes as she meets Gale’s gaze knowingly.
The warmth only lasts for a fleeting moment,
For Rowan quietly, nervously says, “Karlach? Are you alright?”
A sharp coldness, hard and bitter as a poisoned blade flares in Jericho’s gaze as she places a hand on Karlach’s bicep. The red tiefling is staring dully into a nearly full mug of dark, strong-smelling liquor that could probably set even water on fire. She swirls the drink around, listless and halting, chewing on the inside of her lip as she refuses to meet Rowan’s concerned eyes.
“I’m…not sure, soldier,” Karlach answers with uncharacteristic numbness, her shoulders dropping. Her tail smacks against the back of her chair as she shifts, scooting the chair closer to Jericho’s.
She sets the mug of unidentified alcohol down on the table and leans her head against Jericho’s shoulder. Like a wilting flower having made peace with its inevitable demise, she sinks into Jericho. An exhausted, rasping sigh falls from her lips.
“Lots happened while you two were stuck with that fucker Raphael. That’s all I can say right now. Sorry.”
“It’s been a day,” Wyll adds as he knocks back his own drink, slamming the mug down on the table with unrestrained frustration. He has the inferally-enchanted rapier his devil patron had gifted him with in front of him. The glare he gives the weapon is enough to slaughter an aboleth with one blink. “Some glorious return home this has been.”
“We’ll find him, Wyll,” Dorian soothes, sliding a hand over and placing it gingerly on the younger man’s back. Gale sees his brother’s face shift between worry and hatred as swiftly as the lightning he summons with a snap of his fingers, teeth bared in a scowl. “We won’t need Mizora’s help to do so.”
Wyll does not answer. He simply leans into Dorian’s light touch and continues to burn a hole in the rapier’s delicately-crafted blade, throat bobbing. Dark shadows are etched beneath his eyes. They were not present this morning when they all parted ways.
Just what occurred between then and now?
Gale opens his mouth to ask for clarification but Jericho cuts him off before he can even utter a word, shaking her head with a vehemence that he momentarily hopes she does not give herself whiplash.
“Tomorrow, Dekarios,” she says sternly. “We’ll regroup tomorrow and discuss what we’ve learned. All of us,” she adds, gesturing to himself and Rowan for emphasis. “I think right now, we just need to get our asses to sleep. Or at least try. The entire top floor is ours for the time being. The others have already gone to bed.”
“We were waiting for you both to get here,” Dorian adds, rubbing Wyll’s back with a slow and methodical pace. “Didn’t want you to arrive and feel left out from all the fun.”
There is little humor in his brother’s voice. He sounds shaken. Acutely and abnormally serious, like he had when Gale had wept in his arms and begged his assistance in rescuing Rowan.
Dorian’s typical pomp and arrogance has been declining rapidly since that moment. Wyll truly has changed his older brother. Gale can’t help but grieve the Dorian he might have had if his brother and Wyll had met before his folly with Mystra.
The past cannot be changed, no matter how hard he may wish it so.
“Here, take this.”
Jericho suddenly tosses something at Gale. He regrettably, unintentionally, releases Rowan’s hand as he reaches out to grab hold of it, fumbling the object between his fingers. He holds it up and it glints as the glow of the candles scattered about the tavern catches on the smooth, gilded surface. A key. Flowering vines have been carved into the base, filigreed and dainty.
“You two get the special suite,” Jericho coos, raising a familiar, headache-inducing pouch in the air and jingling it noisily. “The best gold owned by Gale Dekarios can buy!”
His blood sings in irritation, eyes twitching.
Gale forces himself to take a deep, slow breath as he stares at Jericho.
“...you still had more of my gold?”
“Yes. What use is it if it just stays in my pockets? I bought everyone a room with it! Even Isobel and Aylin’s. They said thank you, by the way.”
“Jericho,” Gale groans, pinching the bridge of his nose and resisting the urge to fire off a series of miniscule Fireballs towards his fellow wizard. She would just Counterspell them anyway. “Exactly how much gold did my mother send you off with? And how much is left? Are you planning on letting me spend any of it?”
Jericho clucks her tongue. She scoffs, exaggerated and exasperated, tucking the bag of gold back into the depths of her fine clothes. “I’m not telling you shit, Dekarios. If you can’t give an educated guess, it’s because you never knew how much was in that account in the first place, and you don’t deserve to touch a single coin. I’ll handle all the finances in this group from now on.”
“But it’s not
our
collective gold, it’s
mine!”
“Technically, one could argue it’s Morena’s. She’s been the one to manage the account since she opened it with you, hasn’t she? When was the last time you actually checked the balance?”
“Oh, for the love of—I don’t bloody well know, alright?! It’s an
emergency
account! I haven’t had an emergency dire enough to warrant my intervention! Until now, apparently!”
“And your intervention still isn’t warranted,” Jericho sniffs, patting the pocket she’s stashed the gold in. “It’s doing perfectly fine staying with me. Though I could be persuaded to part with a small sum if you got on your knees and begged me.”
“Not happening,” Gale deadpans icily.
Rowan erupts in a cascade of giggles, disguising them as poorly-timed coughs as she glances between him and Jericho. “Y’all are goofy,” she says with a grin, before immediately sobering and giving Gale a startled look. “Wait. I’m your wife now. Does that mean your gold is my gold?”
She furrows her brows and crosses her arms, gracing Jericho with a semi-scathing frown.
“If that’s the case, I think I deserve some of it. Don’t you?”
Jericho hums thoughtfully. “You
do
make a compelling argument, but have you considered: I want to spend it on my gorgeous girlfriend and buy her the biggest, richest chocolate cake this city has to offer. An entire cake, mind you. Karlach deserves only the best.”
Karlach gives a weepy, touched sniffle as she raises her head somewhat from Jericho’s shoulder. “Awww, Jeri,” she mumbles in a tone thick with emotion, “you’re too sweet to me. You know that, love?”
Jericho turns her head and places a soft, chaste kiss to Karlach’s cheek. “I do know. I’ll get you one of those limited edition, seasonal pastry sets the fancy patisseries sell too. The kind that leaves powdered sugar everywhere.”
The ghost of a true, genuine smile starts to come to life on Karlach’s face. “Fuck yeah. Always wanted to eat one of those. Can’t wait for it.”
Gale’s indignation subsides as he watches the two women interact. Maybe he’s overreacting. Jericho has always had a mind for finances that goes beyond a simple greed or desire to hoard wealth. And she’s only used his gold for the good of the team so far.
Well. That he knows of. He suspects today is not the first time she’s dipped her hand in that pouch, but he shall let it slide.
How can he not, when Karlach looks so grateful, and Jericho herself seems so content? Rowan’s instincts had been correct all those weeks ago. The two really were perfect for one another.
Especially since it means his fellow wizard will stop threatening to sleep her way through every willing female in his bloodline.
Rowan chooses that moment to let out a large, disruptive yawn. She sways on her heels as she rubs at her eyes, grunting. “Not to be that guy,” she says tiredly, “but I’m more than ready to collapse on a bed and pass out. Gale, can we…?”
She trails off, hesitant. He nods readily and twirls the key in his hand, a wave of his own exhaustion suddenly gripping him. Wyll is correct. It really has been a day.
“Thank you for taking care of the rooms,” he says to Jericho, meaning it. It is one less thing to worry about. “Which way to the one you said was for us?”
She gestures to a set of stairs tucked in the corner, off a ways from the bar. “It’s the last room on the left. The design on the door matches the key. Hopefully it’s up to your standards. Oh,” she smirks a bit, winking more to Rowan than to Gale, “and don’t worry about the noise. Isobel has already cast Silence on your room. After casting it on the one she and Aylin took.”
In a true testament to her tiredness, Rowan does not even blush at Jericho’s implication. She merely raises her hands to the sky and gives a muffled, half-hearted cry of “Praise Selûne!”
The ring on Gale’s finger quivers as if it is laughing. He tries to ignore it. As grateful as he is to the Moonmaiden, the thought that she may be acutely aware of the more intimate times with his wife is not something he wants to think about.
They bid swift farewells and even swifter goodnights. It is quieter when they make their way up the stairs, the raucous din of the tavern subdued through the floor. A dozen doors line a long hallway, six on each side, and Gale leads Rowan to the one Jericho had described.
A beautiful painted collage of sprawling vines and colorful flowers decorate the stained wood. The blooms are identical to the ones on the key Jericho had entrusted him with. He inserts it into the knob, turns, and opens it.
Stepping inside is like stepping into a fairy tale.
Moss bounces beneath his feet. A fresh, earthy smell permeates the room. Floral and light, not overpowering at all, as the same blossoming vines painted on the door cover every inch of the walls. Floating crystals of various shapes and sizes meander languidly through the air, glowing in soft pastel hues that remind him of the Underdark.
A large bed inundated with pillows lay beneath an open glass-paned window. The moon filters through, spotlighting the plush mattress and the thick blanket folded neatly on top of it. A canopy hangs from the ceiling above the bed, knitted and woven with the verdant flowering vines that encase the walls. Strands of blossoms sway in an arcane, omnipresent breeze that keeps the room pleasantly cool.
And, against the back wall of the room, a most refreshing sight.
It is a pool of water. There is no tub, no basin. A veritable pond has been carved into the mossy floor of the room, its translucent surface reflecting the various colors of the floating crystals. He spies a multi-tiered shelf at the end of the pond formed of lush leaves and tree branches. Fluffy towels and glass vials labeled with a myriad of scents and uses are tucked into the cubbies.
The room is, to put it mildly, absolutely enchanting.
“Oh. My. Gods.” Rowan gapes in astonishment as she takes in the suite with wide, excited eyes. She bounces on the balls of her feet, the moss below sinking with her movements. “This is amazing! Gale! Gale! It’s like we’re in the Feywilds! But minus the mortal danger and deathly whimsy of its inhabitants!”
Gale’s heart fills with a surge of appreciation and (dare he admit it?) admiration for Jericho. For all the terse jibes and insults they trade between them, both wizards are united in one thing: caring deeply about Rowan. Jericho picked this room specifically because she knows how fascinated his precious sorcerer is with all things related to the fey.
He just hopes she does not get it in her head to attempt to summon a unicorn again. With how today was, Gale is bound to give in to whatever she wishes, no matter how poorly it may go.
“We’re renovating the tower to have a room like this when we get back,” Rowan decides, all strain and exhaustion gone from her voice.
Pip lets out a disgruntled croak as she suddenly starts to peel off her clothes in the middle of the room, heedless of the fact that the door is still very open and the window has not been covered up. The raven flutters from her shoulder and lands on top of Tara, feathers ruffled as they nestle themselves at the crook of Tara’s neck.
“Eh, I think we oughta check out what the local pigeon population is like,” they say conspiratorially to Tara as Gale hurriedly checks the doorway to ensure no bystander is getting an eyeful of his wife’s naked body. Thank the Matron, the hallway is blessedly empty.
Tara coughs daintily, nodding her head as she looks up at Gale with an amused glint in her wise eyes. “A wonderful idea, Ser Pip. It has been too long since you and I have shared a hunt over uncursed rooftops.”
“Yeah! Exactly!” Pip bobs their head in agreement. They level Gale with a violet-hued, painfully perceptive look. “An’ that means youse two can, uh…have some alone time. Have fun, kids!”
“Yes, Mr. Dekarios. Do have fun,” Tara adds with a flick of her tail. A loud, echoing splash reverberates behind them all, accompanied by a delighted cry from Rowan. “And try not to engage in any activities that make walking unpleasant, hm? There is much ground to cover in a city this size, sir.”
Gale groans and hides his face from the familiars, cheeks burning as tressym and raven trot out of the suite’s door. “It was one time,” he protests weakly, but the objection falls on deaf ears. Tara and Pip are already gone.
He shuts the door deftly and turns his attention to his wife.
She lay in the crystalline waters of the pool, the peaks of her breasts and swell of her stomach and thighs breaching the surface. Her hair fans out beneath her, free of its braid and floating like seaweed. Gale makes for the window above the bed, intending on searching for curtains to pull or some fabric to toss over the glass, but Rowan sticks a hand out from under the water and flicks her fingers with a sharp gesture.
In an instant, shadows erupt before the window. They obscure the glass like the veil of night. No prying eyes will be able to peer through the darkness, though it is a shame the moonlight disappears with their emergence.
Gale would have quite liked to gaze upon his wife in the moonlight.
“Gale Alexander Dekarios,” Rowan calls to him impatiently, “take your damn clothes off and get that perfect ass in here.”
He smiles and approaches the pond. It is indeed large enough for two people to comfortably crawl in together.
“As you wish, sweetheart.”
He strips just as unceremoniously as Rowan had, tossing his road-dusty clothes to the floor. The water is wonderfully warm as he steps down into the pool. He would have preferred it to be a tad deeper, if only to fully submerge his whole body, but there is no denying how fantastic it is to finally be naked in a bath with his wife once more.
Gale groans as the warm water seeps into his skin. His muscles are already beginning to relax. The sore joints and stiffness from days of marching to Baldur’s Gate fade away. He is most certainly not meant for an adventurer’s lifestyle. Travel is all well and good, provided there is a warm bed and a hot bath guaranteed at the end of each day.
“How much do you think this room costs?” Rowan muses as she reaches across him and grabs one of the glass vials. The label announces it to be of a citrus scent. Delightful.
He plucks the vial from her hands before she can open it. “I do not even want to think about that right now,” he tells her, shaking his head as he twists the cap off. He shakes some of the liquid out onto his hands and lathers it across his skin, the smell light and refreshing. He immediately sets to work, rubbing his hands over Rowan’s shoulders, lifting an arm out of the water as he scrubs her gently. “The outside world doesn’t exist. Only you, myself, and this bath.”
“And the bed?” She waggles her eyebrows playfully, limp as a rag doll as she allows him to do as he wishes.
“Well, yes. And the bed. Which will be for sleeping. You were barely holding on in the tavern just minutes ago.”
“I seem to have recovered and been gifted with a second wind. Whatever shall we do with that, oh husband of mine?”
Gale boops her nose, smothering it with soapy suds. “Let’s say we revisit that after we’ve cleaned up. I’ve a feeling your second wind won’t last much longer.”
Rowan grunts but does not argue further, leaning against him and sinking into his chest. A comfortable silence settles between them as he devotes himself to the adoration of her body, fingers gliding across every swell and curve.
She sighs, content. The slight shifting she does when his hands cup her breasts and brush the sweet-smelling soap across her nipples is as subtle as a dragon’s roar. Gale swallows as he pretends not to notice, focusing instead on quickly moving on to her thighs and feet.
It’s been days since they’ve had a moment to themselves like this. Sneaking kisses and the like whilst on the road wasn’t enough. Not to mention the undue stress his idiocracy had caused last night.
Gods, he wants her.
But—
They need rest. Uninterrupted, genuine rest. His touches will remain chaste and pure. The delicate thread of intimacy will simply be woven by his desire to ensure she is taken care of.
And Gale remains true to those intentions for the next few minutes. He manages to scoop water onto his wife’s perfect form and rinses the soap off, his fingers working through her tangled hair next. He chooses lavender for this task, something that will hopefully soothe her to sleep the moment she crawls into bed.
It is only when Rowan declares that it is her turn to wash him that Gale falters.
Oh, she feigns innocence at first. Her fingers knead and massage his sore muscles with all the tenderness he had shown her. Her hands glide across his body, scrubbing and rubbing and washing away days of sweat and stress. She is as virtuous as a saint as she pours a bergamot-scented oil into his hair and works it into a lather, rinsing it off with painstaking care.
But then some of it drips onto his face.
And she frowns, as though it is a grievous offence indeed.
“Oh, no,” Rowan says with faux outrage, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. “Clumsy me. I’ll have to get that for you. Sit still for a second, okay?”
Gale starts to raise a hand out of the water with some difficulty. The combination of the warmth, the relaxing scents, and Rowan’s talented touch make it an almost impossible task to move. “It’s quite alright, Rowan. I can get it…my…self…”
He trails off as his wife slowly, deliberately, climbs on top of him.
Rowan cups his face. With one hand she wipes away the remnants of the soapy oil and flicks it into the bath.
The other disappears beneath the water and when familiar fingers wrap around the length of his cock, Gale sucks in a breath.
“Guess what?” Rowan whispers, her tone calculating and sly. Her mouth hovers just above his, lips plump and ripe and begging for him. She kisses the corner of his mouth. Her hand gives him a little squeeze beneath the water, thumb circling around the head of his cock lazily. “I’ve still got that second wind, Gale.”
Rest be damned it seems, for when Rowan’s mouth crushes against his in earnest, Gale feels a renewed surge of energy as well.
Everything dissolves into nothing but her, and him, and their mouths working against one another’s furiously. He groans into her kiss, his tongue wrapping around hers messily, desperately. Sparks of pleasure undulate in his blood as she squeezes him, rubs him, runs her fingers along the length of his rapidly-hardening cock. Her touch is experimental; uncertain. She’s used her shadows to pleasure him a couple of times but until now, never her own hands.
His beloved, darling wife is getting bolder and more certain of herself every day.
Today is no exception, as demonstrated by the delightful squeeze she gives him.
Fuck, it’s almost enough to make him cum already.
“R-Rowan,” he rasps against her lips, hips bucking when her hand travels further down and pumps at the base of his shaft. “Rowan, you don’t have to—”
“Wanna,” she admits as she sucks on his tongue, pebbled nipples and full breasts heaving as she presses them into his chest. “Wanna make you feel good, Gale.”
By the gods is she succeeding in her commitment so far.
She strokes and caresses his cock with a playful tenderness, fingers dancing beneath the warm waters. Gale shudders violently when she slides her other hand from his face and plunges it underwater, down to cup his balls. Mirroring the ministrations she had performed only minutes ago to his sore muscles, Rowan starts to massage him, sending ripples of euphoria coursing through his body.
The groan that escapes Gale’s lips is utterly pitiful. He twitches in her hands, hips thrusting up on their own accord. Rowan pulls away from the kiss and stares at him, eyes lidded and cheeks rosy as she rubs her breasts against his heaving chest.
“Do you want me to use my mouth?” she asks, her voice shy and timid and almost a whisper.
Gale nearly chokes on his shock.
“Y-you don’t have to—”
“But I want to,” she cuts him off once more, shaking her head with deliberate stubbornness. “You deserve to feel good, Gale. I’m not the only one struggling. Let me take care of you, baby.”
“But…” Gale swallows, a hiss of pleasure tearing from his throat when Rowan gives his swollen balls another squeeze. Her thumb rubs the slit of his dick slowly, methodically, wholly unaware of how wild the sensations are driving him. His skin is burning. His mind is dissolving.
Yes.
Yes, he wants her to use her mouth.
Yes, he has fucked himself with his hand time and time again, imagining how hot and wet her tongue would be as it licks up and down.
But it’s not a desire he’s wanting to pressure her into. It’s not a need that he’s been adamant about fulfilling—every new level of intimacy in their relationship he has left up to her and her alone. Even if she’s the one suggesting it right now, wholly of her own accord, he cannot just…
“I want you to feel good first,” Gale finishes lamely, stupidly, trying not to let his eyes roll in the back of his head when Rowan rubs her thumb a tad roughly against his slit. Fuck, the pressure is incredible.
“Too bad,” Rowan huffs, petulant and impossibly determined. “You’re getting a blowjob. An apology blowjob for how much of a brat I’ve been. I, uh…just hope it’s up to your standards.”
Any way you decide to pleasure me is a gift in and of itself. The only standards I have are that every touch comes from you.
But the words are caught in Gale’s chest as his body reacts on its own. Before he realizes what’s happening, he’s lifted himself out of the water and onto the edge of the carved pool. His back is pressed against the ivy-coated wall. His legs are spread. His hands are gripping Rowan’s shoulders.
And his beautiful, perfect wife is kneeling in the bath between his thighs, her head completely level with his twitching, leaking cock.
“Just remember, Gale,” Rowan breathes huskily, “you can be as loud as you want.”
Her head surges forward without warning. Her hot, wet mouth envelopes the first half of his dick, her tongue gliding along the throbbing vein. Her hands work the bottom half, massaging his balls and the thick length. Gale groans animalistically, wantonly, and his hands scramble from her shoulders to find purchase on either side of her head. His fingers bury themselves in her wet hair as she hollows her cheeks and gives an experimental short suck, her hand still squeezing and rubbing the base of his length.
“F-fuck!” he cries out, head almost slamming against the wall.
Her mouth feels just as he imagined. Soft and inviting, silken and velveteen. He’s waited so long for this. So long.
Rowan hums in the back of her throat as her tongue flicks out. She pauses and for a moment, Gale worries this is too much. He tries to tell her she can pull away, that this is enough and he doesn’t need her to go further, but he feels her swallow.
As if all she needed was a second to gain her bearings, Rowan’s tongue moves to focus on the slit at the tip of his cock. It flutters against it as she grazes the beads of pre-cum leaking from it, scooping the viscous liquid up as she sucks again and tastes him. She licks and swirls around the sensitive head of his dick, putting far too much focus on that area and making him feel dizzy.
“Gods,” Gale moans, cock twitching wildly as her tongue snakes along it exquisitely. “You’re perfect, Rowan, so perfect…!”
His moans echo off every wall in the room, reverberating back loudly and discordantly. His hands grip her hair tightly, so tightly, as his better judgement falls through the cracks between the tantalizing threats of bliss and ecstasy. His hips buck; he unwittingly thrusts himself a little further into her mouth. He needs the plush softness of her cheeks. He needs the delicate dance of her tongue as she sucks him off, timidly and carefully and oh-so-wonderfully.
Rowan makes a startled sound and Gale curses inwardly, readying himself to quickly pull out and apologize. He should have warned her, should have not done that without asking permission, but she feels so good that he just—
His wife surprises him.
Her head bobs up and down in a rhythmic pattern, taking his cock deeper into her mouth and down her fluttering throat.
Her tongue laps harder, faster at his leaking slit.
Her throat starts to vibrate as muffled moans struggle to escape her mouth, so stuffed full of his cock that all she can do is drool around him with half-lidded eyes that are beginning to water with the effort of swallowing him down. Gale stares down at her in ribald, wanton shock, her flushed face slack with the effort of giving him as much pleasure as she can.
He cannot help it.
He fists her hair and yanks, shoving himself even further into her mouth as a storm of euphoria comes to life inside him. His voice is a shrill, frantic keen as he babbles nonsense, fucking her face in tandem with her licks and sucks and squeezes.
“Fuck, Rowan! Don’t stop, don’t you dare stop! Your tongue is so good, sweetheart, so fucking good…I love this. You look so pretty with my cock in your mouth, did you know? I love it. I love it. I’m so proud of you, my love, so proud. Look at you—look at you, taking me like this! I love you, Rowan, I love you…!”
His frenzied, desperate words seem to elicit even more determination from Rowan than he imagined they would. The obscene sound of her sucking him off grows almost uncomfortably loud in the room as she licks faster, tongue almost as practiced as though she has pleasured him like this dozens of times before.
Everything is so wet. So warm. So perfect.
Gale slumps against the wall for support. The bones in his legs have turned to jelly. His body is swathed in ecstasy. He trembles. He shivers. He shakes. His hips jerk; his cock twitches wildly in her mouth. His lips part as he loses himself to it all, fairly certain he’s drooling like a rabid animal.
“Close,” he pants, fisting her hair as he thrusts his hips against her face. “I’m so close, sweetheart, you need to…!”
Rowan seems to take that as a challenge because she suddenly sucks his cock the furthest down her throat he’s ever been. The obscene gag she lets out as she chokes on him threatens to make all the tension inside of him snap.
Gale whimpers.
He doesn’t want to finish inside her mouth. He doesn’t want to overwhelm her. It feels wrong, perverted, to let himself cum on her tongue for this first time—even if she seems to be enjoying it as much as he is.
But he is utterly powerless to the ensorcelled ecstasy that is his wife’s mouth. A few more licks, a couple more strokes and squeezes is all it takes for Gale to let go.
He jerks. He writhes. Her name rips from his lips in a broken cry of pleasure as his cock twitches with reckless abandon inside of Rowan’s mouth. Waves of euphoria cascade through his veins. His cock twitches and his balls become taut in Rowan’s palm as his release shoots down across her tongue, dripping down her throat and coating the insides of her mouth.
His hands in her hair go limp. He pants, moaning quietly as he slumps against the wall, eyes fluttering shut.
When he hears the wet, lewd pop of Rowan sliding him out of her mouth, he can only utter a pitiful mewl. It is so cold and lonesome without the hot, soft cavern of her mouth surrounding him. He manages to crack an eye open and swivel his head to look at his wife, a jumble of words caught between his tongue and throat as he cannot process what he should say.
Rowan gazes up at him, eyes hazy and pinpricked with tears of effort in the corners. She is breathing heavily, breasts hypnotic with every rise and fall of her chest. Her cheeks are so red. Her mouth is so swollen.
Oh.
There, on her bottom lip, Gale sees it.
A pearl of cum, almost perfectly round, clinging stubbornly to her plump flesh as it glistens in the enchanting light of the room.
Rowan follows his intense gaze. Her tongue darts out, knife-quick, and in one erotically elegant swoop she licks his seed from her mouth and swallows.
Gale watches the bob of her throat in vulgar fascination. When she opens her mouth and showcases a perfectly pink tongue, not a speck of sticky white coating it or the insides of her cheeks, he shudders and lets out a hiss of tawdry approval.
His cock twitches once, twice more. A second orgasm rips through Gale without warning. The throbbing head of his length spurts out a few more ropes of cum, the obscene sound of it splashing into the now-soiled waters of the bath earning a strangled cry from him and Rowan both.
His head is spinning.
“D-Did I,” Rowan pants, her hands slipping away from the base of his dick and resting on his trembling thighs, “do good, Gale?”
She looks so expectant, so hopeful, so positively alight with salacious satisfaction that Gale almost cums a third time just by looking at her.
He nods, head jerking wildly as he tries to smooth her wet, matted hair and untangle it from his clenched fingers. “S-So good,” he stammers. “You were such a good girl, Rowan. So bloody good.”
She shivers. A soft, quiet whimper of her own falls from her lips at his praise and she shyly turns her head, looking away from him as her already flushed face turns an even darker shade of red.
“I think I liked it,” she admits, biting her lower lip. “The taste was weird at first, but you kept making all those sounds, and I just—”
“Get out of the bath.”
She looks back over at him, startled.
“W…why?”
“Get out of the bath,” Gale repeats, slowly forcing himself to his feet as he inches away from the pool, “and stand against the wall, sweetheart.”
She holds his gaze for one confused, dizzying moment.
And then she nods, stiff and simultaneously excited. She crawls out of the water, rivulets of it dripping down her luscious curves and dripping onto the mossy floor. Gale takes her hand in his when she reaches him and brings it to his mouth, placing a gentle kiss against her wrist.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” he tells her softly, tenderly, heart swelling as he gives one little lick against the pulse in her veins. “But now it’s your turn, my love. And I am going to fuck you until you can’t walk.”
“O-Oh,” Rowan whispers, all bravado vanishing as he snaps his fingers.
The Weave ripples to life. Half a dozen mage hands appear in the air, floating with a phantasmal glow as Gale reaches down and slips a finger between her folds. She’s wet. Gods, she’s so wet, and it’s not just because she was in the bath only moments before. He rubs her slick, soft pussy a little faster than he normally does, dragging her dripping wetness over the head of her clit.
She whimpers and grinds against his hand, hips moving in a slow circle. She leaks onto his finger, a river gushing rather than a stream trickling, and Gale’s cock twitches in response. By all the heavens and hells in the universe, taking him in her mouth had gotten her this excited.
His dirty little sorcerer.
His sweet, darling wife.
His Rowan.
“So eager for me to be inside you,” he teases, caressing her clit as he presses a trail of nibbling kisses to her throat. “Do you want it, my love? Do you want me fucking you against this wall? Do you want to scream my name all night?”
Rowan nods, her voice pitched with pure wanton need as she rubs into his hand harder. “Yes. Yes! Yes, Gale, please…!”
The mage hands move on his silent command.
In an instant they are on Rowan. Two cup her breasts and pinch her nipples. Two lift her by the hips, turning her to face the wall. One hovers at her mouth, slipping a finger between her parted lips; the final one replaces his own hand at her clit, rubbing and circling the bundle of nerves with expert precision.
Gale grabs hold of her thick, plush thighs and thrusts himself inside of her needy cunt. The cry she lets out is muffled and broken, suppressed by the fingers in her mouth that are slowly pumping in and out in a cruel mockery of his cock. He swallows down a moan of his own as he sinks into her, her walls already trembling and twitching tightly around him as his fingers dig into her flesh.
Rowan’s hands, shaking and weak, grab hold of a cluster of whimsical vines as Gale rolls his hips forward. Her knees press into the wall, head lolling back as the manifested hand fucks her mouth relentlessly. He almost wishes he could see the way the other hands are ravaging her breasts. But he can hear the slick, obscene sound of the hand at her clit rubbing and pinching between her legs and for the moment, it’s all he needs.
“Such a good girl,” Gale whispers as he buries his face in the crook of her neck, his chest pressed against the curve of her spine. “My perfect, pretty wife.”
“G-Gale,” Rowan moans around the handful of fingers in her mouth, his name like shattered glass in her sloppy, desperate voice. “Gale…!”
He thrusts.
And thrusts.
And thrusts.
The room erupts in a chaotic chorus of delirious, maddening pleasure. Skin against skin, the sound slapping sharply as Gale fucks her lovingly from behind. Her strangled moans and whimpers, choked and smothered, mix with his groans and devoted cries of her name.
She is so soft. So perfect. So tight around him, squeezing and milking his throbbing cock as he slams into her over and over again. He adores every moment of this, he always does. Feeling her ripple around his dick as she loses herself in pleasure, hearing her unravel in ecstasy as he shows her every ounce of love.
She deserves everything. Everything. Gale will always strive to give it to her.
“If I get an apology blowjob,” he sings into Rowan’s ear as he licks and sucks against her throat, telling the mage hands on her hips to raise her a little higher, “then you get this, sweetheart. You get this all night long.”
Whatever answer she has is lost in a keening wail of bliss, her fists gripping the vines on the wall so tightly he fears for a moment she is going to rip them from their enchantments.
Gale lets his eyes flutter shut as he thrusts easier into her with this new angle, fucking her against the wall like a wild and reckless thing. His wife was correct earlier, as she often is. They most certainly need to renovate the tower in Waterdeep to have a room like this.
Though, he doubts they would be able to leave it long enough to accomplish anything.
Who bloody well cares? It doesn’t matter. Only this does. Only this.
He slips in deeper, further, filling her as much as he dares to. Rowan slams back into him, matching every thrust with a pistoning and frantic movement of her own. The noises she is making no longer sound human. The noises he is making could probably frighten a raving band of direwolves into submission.
Gods, please, never let tonight end. Let me make love to my wife for an eternity. Let me show her everything she deserves.
Last night’s argument destroyed him. Cut his heart into pieces and tossed them to the wind, leaving him hollowed out and empty. He knows it did the same for Rowan. It is something Gale never wants to experience again.
His inadequacies will never make it so they go through something like that again. He will not allow it.
The sudden profound twisting of his thoughts are clipped short when Rowan squeezes around his cock in such a way that Gale cries out. The painful agony of yesterday is all but forgotten as he thrusts up at that particular spot he knows will drive her mad. The messy, choked sounds of her ecstasy fill his mind to the brim, and all Gale can think of in that moment is making his wife cum over and over again tonight.
Gale does not know what time it is when he creeps down to the tavern proper of the Elfsong, steps as light as he can manage.
The sun still has a couple hours until it rises. The crowds have all but dispersed, save for a few stragglers here and there. But there is still someone tending to the bar and, Gale hopes, that should mean someone can still deliver food of some sorts.
Rowan is going to need it when she finally wakes up. He might have pushed her a little too hard.
Gale grimaces as his legs quiver, the muscles spasming. He might have pushed himself a little too hard as well. So much for focusing on resting and recovering from the long journey to Baldur’s Gate. He wonders if he can cajole Isobel into spinning a quick restorative spell around them come the morrow.
Though he doubts the cleric would appreciate her divinely-gifted talents be used to help two wanton fools recover from hours of sex.
Just as Gale drags himself up to the bar and leans against the side of it, trying to catch the proprietor’s attention, a familiar voice booms out from behind him.
“Ah, wizard! Come for a quick libation, I presume?”
He turns around and meets the sterling gaze of Dame Aylin, looking far too refreshed and chipper for this time of night. A languid smile stretches across her gilded face as she comes to stand at his side, towering over him as usual.
Gale tries to return her smile. He fears it comes across more as yet another grimace as his bones ache and his muscles weep in protests. Hells and damnation, they really should have waited at least a day before going at it like lovesick teenagers. He’s more exhausted now than he has been the whole time they were on the road, sleeping on bedrolls and avoiding the notice of the Absolute’s armies.
It had been worth it, however.
Gods, had it been worth it. Rowan’s cries ring out in his mind even now and his hands twitch as he thinks back to the plump, soft sensation of her skin in his grasp.
Gale realizes he’s been quiet for a beat too long, too caught up in the thoughts of his wife’s face twisted in pleasure. “Y-Yes,” he answers with a stammer, nodding to the aasimar. “A meal rather than a libation. Rowan and I did not…eat dinner.”
Her licking the entire length of his cock in the bath and him delving his tongue between her dripping folds after filling her relentlessly does not count.
Aylin raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow, her winsome smile widening. “Oh? And why, pray tell, did you and your beloved do instead? I seem to recall her being fond of stew. I’d expect her to be quite eager for a meal.”
Gale glances about the tavern nervously, not knowing what to say. He does not think he’s ever spoken to Aylin when it’s just been the two of them before. Either Rowan or Isobel has always been present and acting as a buffer for any potential awkward lapses in conversations.
“We, er…”
“You were too busy taking succor in one another, I imagine,” Aylin continues with an impish glint in her eyes, her smile now forming into a smirk. It is infuriatingly adjacent to Jericho’s. “A fine thing indeed. My mate most high was concerned when your bond became so frail and fragile. I am glad to hear it has been mended, and that you are both once again partaking in the sacred act of devotion to one’s lover.”
Gale chokes a little, coughing into his hand as he desperately tries to flag down the bartender. The bastard still has his back to them, whistling and humming to himself out of tune as he rubs down a mug. It looks perfectly clean to Gale. He’s starting to suspect the man is doing this just to torture him. Jericho probably paid him to do it. With his gold.
“I’d rather hoped it wouldn’t be that obvious,” he mutters, face flaming. He’s not a prude, but Dame Aylin is not exactly an individual he wishes to discuss the nature of his and Rowan’s sex life with.
Selûne’s daughter eyes him with a curious sense of confusion, her smirk fading to a frown. “Why would it not be that obvious?” she asks. “You were singing one another’s name so loudly I’d dare say you woke up the very heavens with your passion!”
Gale stares at her, uncomprehending.
“...what do you mean? Isobel cast Silence on our room, did she not?”
Aylin shakes her head. Her voice takes on a rueful, almost remorseful tone as she says, “My beloved cast it on our room. The spell requires a specific type of concentrated magic that cannot be in two places at once. You are a wizard. Should you not be aware of this?”
Gale’s eyes twitch.
He takes a seat at the bar, the chair squeaking along the polished floor.
He places his elbows on the scuffed, well-worn surface of the bar and buries his face in his hands, his voice muffled and wrought with shame.
“I am going to fucking kill Jericho.”
Chapter 19: a folly most wizardly and wicked
Notes:
so, i was originally going to finish this on 1/22 and upload then as a birthday gift to myself, but the timing sucks and it was easier for me to get it done today lmfao. oops :)
it got too long again. also oops. i just really like writing ok?
also - i did some major editing to the tags on this fic. felt they were all over the place. i think they're a little more cohesive and concise now!
rolan is my bbygirl and it is fucking blatant in this chapter. love that grumpy tiefling sm. he deserves all the smooches in the world <3
Chapter Text
“So…you’re a child of Bhaal. The god of murder.”
Rowan takes a deep breath as she looks at Miri, mind reeling as she slowly takes in everything that has just been revealed within the last hour or so. The bard is just staring down at her hands, eyes unfocused and fingers trembling.
It explains, unfortunately, a lot. Miri’s lapses, her insatiable bloodlust, the time she was gung-ho to kill Isobel while Astarion and Halsin struggled to hold her down…
And Quil. Poor, innocent Quil Grootslang. Rowan will never get to read the rest of the dragonborn’s terrible smut series. She thinks she’s more upset about that than she is about Miri being a Bhaalspawn.
“And you were apparently working with Gortash and Ketheric,” Rowan continues, “but then your sister threw a tantrum and tadpoled you because she wanted to be the favorite daughter. Okay. Cool.”
Gods, this is insane.
This is fucking insane.
Miri is the reason why the elder brain is being controlled by the Crown of Karsus. Miri is the reason behind the mind flayer attacks. Miri is why Gale was taken from Waterdeep all those weeks ago.
Granted, she’d had help, and she was a completely different person back then. But still. The pretty pink-haired bard who has been running herself ragged trying to save every soul she stumbles across is Faerûn’s version of the Antichrist.
Rowan just can’t believe it.
She and Gale are standing in the room Miri, Halsin, and Astarion have rented. It’s not as magical as her and Gale’s, but it’s fairly nice. The bed’s bigger. She tries not to be jealous. It’s stupid to be jealous of that when they have a rad as hell Feywilds pool.
The air is thick. Tense. Uncertainty coils in the gentle breeze filtering in from a cracked window. The tiefling who has led them through the Hells and back—literally—is seated at the small table in the room, tail curled around a leg of the chair as she continues to stare down at her hands.
It is as though she fears they will move on their own and wrap around someone’s throat.
“I understand if you want to go your own way after this,” Miri says miserably, quietly, her voice a hoarse croak of shame.
A pale hand reaches from behind her and lays on her shoulder as Astarion, frowning, steps in closer. She doesn’t acknowledge the touch; she doesn’t smile or look up, not even when Halsin mirrors the gesture in kind. The gentle giant of a druid cups the back of her head tenderly, placing a kiss between her horns as her body slumps.
When she at last looks up to face Rowan and Gale, her pink eyes are rimmed with red and swollen. Dark shadows accompany the swelling as though she has been up crying all night.
“I’m a monster. A liability. I could hurt any of you. I could kill any of you. Fuck, I tried to kill Isobel. I almost killed Astarion, and would have if Halsin and Jaheira didn’t stop me. Everyone else—”
Her voice cracks, dissonant and broken.
“They despise me now. I’m the cause of the parasites. The…the thing I was before all of this is why they’re all suffering. Why Wyll’s father is infected. And gods, Karlach!” Miri’s voice raises an octave, shoulders beginning to shake violently as a strangled sound rips from her throat. “Gortash greeted me like an old friend! I worked with that bastard for years! She won’t even look at me now!”
“Darling, that person isn’t you anymore,” Astarion hedges, his voice uneasy even as he speaks in a calm tone. Comforting another has never been his strong suit, with what little interaction Rowan has had with the vampire spawn. His words take on a careless lilt, his hand squeezing her shoulder as he adds, “And besides, I’ve already forgiven you for nearly stabbing me in the heart. It was warranted, considering how we first met.”
“But I didn’t want to stab you in the heart!” Miri cries out.
And then she promptly burst into tears, burying her face in her hands and sobbing.
Rowan exchanges a worried look with Gale. Astarion and Halsin stare at one another helplessly. The sounds of Miri’s horrified, overwhelmed sobs fill the room, and for a moment no one says anything.
That moment stretches on for a painful eternity, until Rowan clears her throat forcefully.
“Alright. Everybody, out.”
Three pairs of eyes turn to look at her in confusion. Well, two, really. Gale gives her a subtle nod of understanding after a couple of seconds and immediately makes for the door, Tara trotting behind him.
“Actually, Tara, do you mind staying?” Rowan calls out to the tressym.
Tara’s wings ruffle as she looks behind her. “Of course, dear,” she says, nodding and giving Gale’s leg a flick of the tail before padding up to Rowan.
Astarion’s hand on Miri’s shuddering shoulder tightens its grip. A fierce, protective scowl deepens across his handsome face as his ruby eyes clash with mistrust. “Look, Rowan, I mean no offense, but…why the hells should we listen to you? Leaving Miri alone is—”
Halsin nudges Astarion in the shoulder. “Peace, love. I think it would behoove us to do as she says.”
Astarion’s scowl deepens. His face takes on a sharp, deadly expression as his mouth parts as if to argue, but Halsin shakes his head. His eyes burn with a plea for understanding as his gaze shifts down to the weeping tiefling below him.
For some reason, Rowan gets the impression this is a dynamic that has occurred more than once since the trio became entangled with one another.
Miri’s sobbing gets louder. Both elves flinch. It seems to snap them out of their stupor and, so dramatic it borders on theatric, Astarion hisses a sigh.
“Fine. I’ll play nice. But Rowan—” He jabs an accusatory finger at her, hooked and as intimidating as the daggers he wields. “I will be standing right outside the door. If you pull off some weird shadow nonsense and Miri becomes even more upset, I will know.”
The silent threat in his words is heavy as his hand drops to one of his daggers at his side. Rowan suppresses a shiver. He is a terror with those blades. She’d rather not be on the receiving end of their pointy-ness.
“And if you use that knife, I will incinerate you,” Gale chimes in with a cheer akin to one simply discussing the weather.
Rowan feels her cheeks flush somewhat. Ugh. He’s so hot when he’s threatening others on her behalf. Not that she wants Astarion and Gale to fight to the death, but her husband would definitely win before fangboy could even blink.
“Let us all be calm and rational,” Halsin cautions, deep voice rumbling as he pushes Astarion away and herds him towards the door. He turns his head to the weeping Miri, a sad smile that conveys such pain it slices through Rowan as if she’s already been stabbed. “We shall both be just outside, my heart. Should you need us, we will come running.”
Miri doesn’t answer. She’s just shaking and keening and rocking back and forth in her chair, utterly catatonic with the force of her grief.
The moment the three men exit the room and the door closes behind them, Rowan pokes Pip on her shoulder. She doesn’t even have to convey what she needs them to do. They already know.
Her familiar hops off and jumps onto the table. With a ruffle of feathers and a rippling of the Shadow Weave, Pip’s raven form falls away and in its place is the chubby black cat she’s used for comfort many a time.
Rowan claps her hands once, the sound loud and discordant. It startles Miri enough that she halts in her crying, head snapping up and magenta eyes swirling with confusion.
“Okiedokie, kids. Operation: Fluffy Kitty Cuddle Time is now commencing. Miri, to the bed with ye! You need snuggles only the joys of cats can provide.”
“O-okay,” Miri sniffles, giving her a jerky nod. A glimmer of clarity shines on her tear stained face as she pushes herself out of the chair, legs wobbling.
Rowan helps her over to the bed, letting her lean on her shoulder. Tara and Pip trot dutifully at the tiefling’s feet, the dual chorus of their purring already echoing off the room’s walls.
Miri practically collapses into the sheets. She doesn’t protest when Rowan tucks the blankets around her, nor when she smooths the pillow under her horned head. Her cries have diminished to hiccupping sniffles. Her shoulders no longer shake with the force of wracking sobs, but her face is still twisted in an expression of such self-loathing Rowan feels a kinship with her.
They’re more alike than Rowan ever realized. Different and strange, trying to pretend that everything is fine despite knowing the opposite is true. Miri has worn a mask for so long. She’s worked so hard to keep it together as she warred with the dark urges inside her.
Forcing a dazzling, eager-to-help persona has burned her to cinders. Miri was the one who needed help all along.
Well, it may be a little late, but Rowan’s here now. She’ll do what she can.
Tara and Pip hop onto the bed. Both felines pad softly around Miri’s form, paws kneading her stomach and shoulders. Pip eventually settles just beside her arm, head resting on her shoulder. Tara curls up beside Miri’s head, careful not to sit on any of her fine hair, purring as loud as a storm.
“Sorry I kicked everyone out,” Rowan says to her quietly as she stands vigil beside the bed. “I’m the queen of breakdowns. I know how overstimulating it can be with a room full of people, but even so, it kind of wasn’t my call.”
Especially considering how two of those people are Miri’s boyfriends. Lovers. Companions. Whatever label they’ve attached to themselves.
Miri shakes her head. She wiggles a hand out from the blanket cocoon Rowan has wrapped her in and starts to gingerly stroke Pip’s backside, fingers trembling still. As if she truly is afraid she’ll snap at any moment and do something terrible to the familiar.
Well, if she does, Pip will be fine. They’re virtually indestructible. Being a blob of shadow goo comes in handy.
“N-no, it’s…fine. I appreciate it. Thank you, Rowan.”
Rowan doesn’t say anything else for a couple of minutes. She just lets Miri lay there with Tara and Pip, her breathing slowly returning to a more normal cadence. Her sniffles eventually become fewer and further apart. Her trembling all but ceases.
When the bard lets out a shaky sigh that does not end in a little sobbing gasp, Rowan allows herself to sit on the edge of the bed. “Are you doing better now?” she asks softly.
Miri shrugs. “I’ve got a lot on my mind right now. And, well, in it.” She gives Rowan a wry, tired smile, but it holds a slip of her usual good humor.
Rowan tries not to laugh. She fails only somewhat miserably, a couple of giggles escaping her lips as she shakes her head ruefully. “Please don’t let me find tadpole jokes funny. I don’t think I’m allowed to. But, uh…yeah. So.”
She pauses, unsure how to word this.
“I’m…really sorry. About the whole Bhaalspawn thing. I kind of knew something was up. That woman in the colony, Orin, spoke about a sibling who killed Balthazar. She meant you. I tried to bring it up, but so much was happening that day, and I just kind of…let it go.”
Guilt coats her tongue, bitter and vile. If she had pulled Miri aside and confided in what she had seen and heard, then maybe the group’s confrontation with Gortash would have gone quite differently.
Miri’s eyes flash, but not in the frenzied, maddened way that she has fallen prey to more often than not. There is a sorrow in her gaze, wretched and worn and hollow, as she lets her head fully sink into the pillow below her.
“I don’t think I would have wanted to listen,” she admits. “I knew I was wrong. Vile. I didn’t want to know why. Deep down, I was terrified to know why. Now that I do…”
She trails off. Her eyes flutter shut. Her lips quiver and her cheeks tremble.
“I have so much blood on my hands, Rowan. I reveled in the glory of every kill. Pieces are coming back to me after talking to Gortash—flashes, small things. I was a monster.”
She suddenly tugs Pip close to her and buries her face in their fluffy fur, earning naught but a disgruntled meow from the familiar. They readily accept their role and allow themselves to be manhandled. “The way that I am now,” Miri mumbles into Pip’s fur, “is the personality I used to…trap people. Victims. I would play the innocent bard, bat my eyes, sing their lullabies and…and…”
Her voice is beginning to pitch an octave higher once more. Her shoulders are shaking again.
Rowan’s heart breaks.
“Hey.” She reaches over and puts a hand on Miri’s arm, her touch light and gentle so as to not spook the spiraling woman. “The way you are now is the Miri we all know. The Miri we all like and care about. You’re not the same person you were before Orin shoved a tadpole in your brain.”
Miri doesn’t answer. Her breath hitches, sharp and bitter, and she keeps her face hidden against Pip. Tara scoots closer to her and begins to quietly, unassumingly groom the side of her head. Miri’s stiffness seems to settle somewhat and she sinks further into the bed.
The dual purring of Tara and Pip is loud enough it could constitute as an orchestra.
Rowan bites her lip. There’s already been one major revelation. She might as well add to it. “The Miri you were before is effectively dead,” she continues, not unkindly. “She died when she woke up in a mind flayer pod with no memories and a splitting headache. I have some…experience with that. Dying and reinventing yourself. I’m not actually from here. From Toril, I mean. I come from a realm this universe seems to have forgotten.”
She pauses. Miri peeks out from behind Pip, one magenta eye blinking at her. There’s no cry of shock. No immediate bombardment of questions. Just a subtle confirmation of something that Miri has perhaps known for some time; she must have indeed heard Balthazar in the Shadowfell.
“When I died, I was lost. Lost, alone, and scared. The Raven Queen somehow found my soul across whatever vast multiverse there exists and decided I was worth saving. She saw that I wanted to become someone new, and brought me here to have that chance. The person I was is dead. The person I am now is someone I was meant to be, but I never had the chance to before my death.”
Rowan manages a small, thin smile.
“Rowan Twice-Born isn’t exactly the kind of person who would have been welcomed in my old world. People don’t react well to unhinged sorcerers who can turn into a giant raven in the blink of an eye. But,” she leans forward, patting Miri’s shoulder as a gathering of shadows alights between the fingers of her other hand, dancing playfully, “that doesn’t matter anymore. Because I’m here now, the way that I want to be. And you can do the same, Miri.”
A beat passes.
When Miri answers, her voice is small like a child’s, fearful and trembling with too many emotions to count.
“I don’t want to be the person I used to be. But what if I can’t change? I’m not…good.”
Rowan’s heart breaks further, cracks spider webbing through her chest as she shakes her head vehemently.
“Miri,” she exclaims, “you are good! You brought peace to the Grove! You didn’t turn your back on the refugees from Elturel! You took in Scratch and Nugget! You rescued so many people from Moonrise! You helped Shadowheart turn from Shar; you found the first pieces of infernal metal for Karlach’s engine; you helped Halsin save Thaniel and restore Reithwin’s natural balance. Hells, if you hadn’t sang that song at the party all those weeks ago, Gale and I wouldn’t have danced together! If we hadn’t taken that step, we might still be dancing around our feelings like the hapless pining idiots we were back in Waterdeep. You are good, and kind, and you can change.”
Miri fully lifts her face from Pip’s fur now, her expression shifting to one of dismay to one of conflicting awkwardness. Her eyes widen slightly and she swallows, mumbling out, “I just did what felt right.”
The shadows around Rowan’s hand form a hand of their own. Both point a finger at her not accusingly, but akin to a teacher excited to see their student taking a lesson to heart.
“Exactly! You did what felt right, because the person you’ve become cares about others.”
Miri swallows again. “I…I do care,” she admits. About this team. About saving the world. About Astarion. Halsin. I care so much.” A darkness passes over her though, weighty and unwieldy. She gives a small, quiet sniffle. “I just don’t want to hurt anyone else, Rowan. The rancid blood inside me will want to kill again. I got lucky last time. Bhaal won’t let that happen again.”
Rowan scowls. “Fuck Bhaal,” she snaps, the hand formed of shadow morphing so that it’s pointing a middle finger up at the sky now. Hopefully Lathander doesn’t think it’s towards him. Her day-long rivalry has been put to an end. For now. “You didn’t get lucky, Miri. Halsin and Astarion and Jaheira stopped you because they love you. You’re not alone. You’re surrounded by so many people who care.”
Tears well up in Miri’s eyes once more. Rowan inwardly winces. She may not have been the best person for this job after all. She didn’t want to make Miri cry again!
“But they hate me now,” Miri croaks. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see how Jericho looked at me when Karlach realized I used to be close to Gortash. And then when I was forced to ally with him temporarily. It was worse than how she looks at Gale!”
Oh, fuck. Double fuck, actually. That’s a pretty damning comparison. Rowan can only imagine Jericho’s scowl, deadlier than a dragon’s breath or a lich’s ritual.
“Jericho is fiercely protective of the people she loves,” Rowan explains gently, hoping she sounds more genuine than she feels on the inside. The quiet fear that Miri has made Jericho’s eternal shitlist shall remain unspoken for now. “This is only temporary. I guarantee she will never hate you the way she hates Gale.”
“…why does she hate him so much?”
“Long story short, he was an absolute ass during their school days. So she turns herself into the hot woman she was always meant to be and dedicated her life to seducing his mother as payback. Morena just thinks it’s funny.”
“Ah. I see. Well, I don’t have a mother she can try to seduce. That I know of, at least.”
Miri manages a somewhat broken smile. Her eyes are still wet but the tear tracks on her angular cheeks are starting to dry somewhat. Rowan gives herself a mental high-five. Good. Hopefully, there will be no more gut-wrenching sobs and crying so hard she hyperventilates.
Rowan wiggles closer on the bed and bumps her leg affectionately, patting her shoulder again. “This was a lot to take in for the group. Give everyone time to work through it. Give yourself time.”
“We don’t have time,” Miri protests weakly. “The elder brain could destroy the city at any moment!”
“It could. But I don’t think it will. Orin and Gortash still control it with their Netherstones. A mental health day isn’t going to bring the end of all things one step closer.” Rowan winks. “Besides, the hero of Baldur’s Gate needs to be at her best when she saves everyone. You’ve got a track record to maintain, oh hero of the Grove. Hero of Reithwin.”
“You’re the one who dealt the final blow to Ketheric.”
“With help from Aylin and Isobel, yeah. But you’re the one who fully investigated Moonrise and the curse while Gale and I were busy going at it like rabid bunnies.”
Miri blinks.
The shattered smile she was wearing becomes tangible, more real. Her lips curl in a grin as a string of unabashed snorts escape her throat, the sound lovely and lively and full of something dangerously close to hope as she dissolves into laughter.
The tension in her body snaps.
The tears that roll down her face are now ones of mirth as she shakes her head, running a hand through her silken hair as Tara still grooms away like her life depends on it.
“Gods,” she exclaims, “every time I wanted to talk to one of you, you were locked in that room! It was nonstop, Rowan! Nonstop! I was actually starting to get concerned we’d break the door down and find you both dead of a sex-induced heart attack!”
Rowan no longer has the decency to be ashamed. She just grins and gives Miri a dauntless set of double finger guns, cheeky and blithe as she says, “It was worth it!”
Miri laughs a little longer, airy and light. A timbre of a melodious, gossamer hum merges with her giggles. A bard’s inspiration, the magic of music and rhythm incarnate returning to its rightful place within her soul.
When she at last sobers, wiping tears from her eyes, she clears her throat.
“Orin appeared yesterday after we met with Gortash. She desires a fight to the death. A display of Bhaal’s bloodline to prove who is the perfect daughter. I’d rather just shove her off a cliff and be done with it. But I’ll have to face her eventually. She has a Netherstone, after all. We can’t stop the brain without it.”
Her voice twists once more with fear, primal and deep. Her arms tighten around Pip as her eyes glaze over, a haunted sheen to them as she chews on her lower lip so hard it draws a pinprick of blood.
“It’s…daunting to think I’ll have to face her once more.”
The admission comes with a staggering sigh, exhausted beyond belief. Miri’s mouth curls into a phantom of a sneer for one brief moment, an echo of the madness she wars with every day, before it fades and she blinks rapidly.
When she glances up at Rowan, her eyes are clear.
“What little I’m starting to remember might be useful,” she says. “Gortash and I staged a heist on the vault Mephistopheles stashed the Crown of Karsus in. I think I can use those methods to break into Raphael’s House of Hope. Gods willing, we can sneak out with the Hammer.”
It’s as an abrupt change of subject as any, but Rowan won’t argue. She won’t push Miri any further than she already has. It would be a disservice. “So I take it you’re not upset Gale and I told Raphael to fuck off with that deal?” she asks, careful to keep the insane amount of relief she feels out of her voice.
“No. I would have done the same. He’s an oily creep. The only reason I’ve tried to be pleasant is because he promised answers about Astarion’s situation. Frankly, dealing with Cazador takes precedence over the hundreds of other things we need to do in this blasted city.” Miri brings a hand to her forehead and rubs at it, wincing. Rowan recognizes that gesture all too well. The telltale signs of a migraine beginning.
“Today, you just need to focus on resting,” she says to the bard sternly. “If you don’t, I’ll kick your ass.”
“You sound like Jericho.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. She’s the baddest bitch around.”
Despite the dust settling and the worst of a total meltdown averted, Rowan can’t help but frown to herself. Between Shar, Mystra, and now Bhaal…is she really the only one of their group with a genuinely positive relationship with a god?
Matron, Rowan thinks, stretching her soul across the bond she has come to share with the Raven Queen, please watch over Miri. I know you don’t get along with the Dead Three, and it may be out of your hands, but she needs someone like you on her side.
She should probably stop asking her goddess to act as a buffer between her loved ones and their unfortunate toxic deities. But—
The feathers at her throat grow warm, motherly. A wisp of a whisper brushes past her ear, the scent of lilies and incense suddenly overwhelming in the room.
“If you ask this of me, I shall see to it as best I can.”
Miri shivers as the air around her grows cold for a moment. One of Pip’s ears flick up with interest and they raise their head, violet eyes glowing as their gaze meets Rowan’s.
Her familiar nods in assent. Rowan flicks the shadow hand over to Miri. It coalesces into a foggy mist before settling around one of her horns, solidifying into a pitch black feather. It dangles on a silver chain, eerily similar to what Rowan wears around her neck.
A sigh curls around Miri. The ruffling of wings echoes throughout the room. The cold chill lingers. In the corner of her eye, Rowan catches a glimpse of midnight-black hair streaming in the sunlight, a white porcelain mask gazing at Miri almost with a listless sadness from where the Matron stands before the window.
And then her presence is gone as quick as it had come.
The tiefling’s eyes widen when she reaches a hand up and feels the feather with deft fingers. “Rowan, was that—”
“You’re not alone, Miri,” Rowan assures her, reaching over and enveloping her into a hug. Pip is squeezed between them, much to their displeasure, but they make no attempt to squirm away as Rowan holds Miri tightly against her chest.
The tiefling in her arm shudders and for a moment, Rowan is plagued with worry that she’s going to start crying again.
But then Miri mutters, muffled and quietly, “You’re smothering me with your big pillowly bosoms.”
Rowan cracks a grin. “Good. That’s what they’re there for. I feel bad for Astarion and Halsin. You’re so bony that trying to snuggle you probably feels like cuddling up to a knife.”
“Not all of us were blessed with glorious and ample cleavage, damn you.”
They remain like that for a minute, Miri just limp in Rowan’s arms. She breaks the hug first, wriggling out and sinking back into the pillows as Pip settles gracefully across her chest. They give Rowan a sleepy wink, tail flicking lazily.
Don’t worry about Tara and me, boss. We’ll stick with Miri. She’s in good paws.
The best, Rowan adds over their bond, reaching over and giving their chin a little scratch.
She gets off the bed and hops onto the floor. She turns towards the door and takes a few steps, Miri’s voice halting her in her tracks.
“You really aren’t afraid of me?” the Bhaalspawn whispers, voice cracking at the last second.
Rowan swivels her head to face Miri. She looks so small, so forlorn. Like a child abandoned in the middle of nowhere, reaching out desperately to anyone who walks by.
She could lie. She could say exactly what Miri wants to hear.
Rowan decides to be honest. It’s better for Miri, even if it may hurt for a moment. “I was for a solid three seconds. I’m mostly irritated that I’ll never get to know how Aurum’s erotic adventures across Faerûn will end. Fuck Bhaal for deciding Quil had to die! I could have been her editor!”
With yet another declaration of animosity towards a god she has no business antagonizing, Rowan slips out of the room and closes the door behind her.
She nearly smacks into Halsin’s thick torso when she turns around to face the hall.
The tall druid is bearing down at her with an unreadable expression, his usually gentle eyes somewhat hard. She is acutely reminded of being face to face with a mama bear. Er, papa bear, in this case.
Astarion is right at his side, scowling. His arms are crossed. His hair is frazzled as though he’s run his hand through it many times in frantic impatience.
Before either can say a word, Rowan scoots around them and gestures to the closed door behind her. Pointing to Halsin, she says, “You must ingratiate yourself into Operation: Fluffy Kitty Cuddle Time. Astarion,” she rounds on the pale elf with a warmer smile than she cares to grace him with, “go get some peppermint tea and salty snacks.”
Astarion’s scowl deepens. His voice comes out haughty and shrill with condemnation as he sneers, “And why should we do as you say?”
Rowan tries not to roll her eyes. He’s so transparent. But she supposes it's a good thing he’s lashing out at her. It means he cares about Miri deeply enough that he sees her intervention as a challenge.
“Because Miri needs to just chill in bed for the rest of the day. And needs both of y’all to be by her side while she does so. Stop being a rude prick and go comfort her.”
She turns to head down the hallway. Before she can take another step, she adds softly, “Miri is lucky to have you both. I did my part. Go do yours.”
She shuffles away before either can answer, but she can feel the burn of their intense gazes on her back until she rounds the corner and heads down the stairs. It’s late morning by now, so she’s not entirely surprised to find the main level of the Elfsong emptier than it was when she and Gale arrived last night.
Between how long it took him to rouse her out of bed and talking to Miri, it’s no wonder most of the tavern’s regulars are going about their day. In Rowan’s defense she could have woken up earlier had Gale not fucked her silly most of the night.
She tries not to blush as she recalls the crude, dirty things he had whispered to her while he had her pinned against the wall. Or the salty taste of him in her mouth, his moans a melody she could happily listen to on repeat.
I’ll have to think of a way to thank Jericho for renting that room, she thinks as she spies Gale seated at a table, talking animatedly with a nodding Jaheira. I owe her big time.
Both have plates of breakfast items situated in front of them. Her mouth instantly waters at the sight. She skipped dinner last night in favor of being a horny little freak. She vaguely recalls Gale whispering in her ear as she dozed afterwards that he was going to get some stew, but he never woke her up to eat. The tavern probably just stopped serving food at a certain time.
Rowan bounces over to her husband and plants an obnoxious kiss against his stubbly cheek, sliding into the chair next to him. “Morning, Jaheira!” she greets the wise and wizened druid. “Enjoying being back home?”
Jaheira leans back in her chair and takes a long, languid sip out of a steaming mug. It smells herbal. Too herbal. The kind of herbal that reminds Rowan of medicine.
“As much as I can considering the various trying circumstances surrounding my return,” Jaheira says with a crooked grin. “A little lordling believing he can rule Baldur’s Gate, an army of Absolutists to root out, an elder brain to defeat…not to mention the rise of the Bhaalists. Again.”
The grin falters. She swirls the tea around in her mug, face pinched as she glances at Rowan.
“…how is my cub doing?”
“Miri’s going to be okay,” Rowan answers. She plucks a juicy looking sausage from Gale’s plate and bites into it, ravenous. “You knew she was a Bhaalspawn, didn’t you?”
Jaheira nods. “I had my suspicions. A century ago I traveled with a man who shared her affliction. I recognized the signs when I met her at Last Light. But when it was confirmed yesterday, I…”
She pauses, sighing. A flicker of guilt spreads across her face. “I offered to take the young owlbear and Scratch to a safe place rather than remain in case she needed to talk. A coward’s way out, especially considering the reactions of nearly everyone else to the news.”
She grows quiet, restlessly contemplative. Rowan steals another sausage from Gale. She doesn't really know what to say to Jaheira. They’ve not had a lot of one on one conversations. She glances over at Gale, hoping he catches the “help make this less awkward” signals in her eyes as she chews very deliberately.
Her husband is a saint and immediately catches on. “I was hoping to speak to Dorian,” he says with an obvious clearing of his throat, pushing his plate over to Rowan. She happily descends upon it like a starving beast. “I wanted to ask if he’d be willing to accompany me to Sorcerous Sundries. Alas, it seems he and Wyll left for the Upper City already this morning, hoping his employers can help find a lead on the Duke’s whereabouts. Karlach and Jericho went with to do research on the infernal engine.”
Rowan grumbles sadly. “Aw. I wanted to thank her for the room. Have Isobel and Aylin left for that Selûnite temple yet?”
Gale coughs.
It is very pointedly hiding a choked, flustered sound.
“N-no. They are joining Shadowheart and Lae’zel in finding the Sharran cloister in the city. Dame Aylin claimed she wanted to show the poor sods the glory of the Moonmaiden.”
“Aha! The Sharrans are in grave danger. Sucks to be them.” Rowan starts to nibble on the piece of toast Gale hadn’t eaten yet. Gods, that’s good bread. And butter. She loves food. “Sooo it’s just us, then? Going to Sorcerous Sundries?”
There’s no way she’s asking Miri to tag along. She just made it clear she needs to be in bed. Astarion and Halsin definitely won’t be leaving her side if they know what’s good for her.
…not that she’s even sure if she wants to go to Sorcerous Sundries anymore. In the bygone days before the squidnapping, Gale had mentioned visiting to research the orb.
His prerogative has shifted to the Crown.
Rowan still hasn’t had the chance to confide her fears about him using it. She knows she needs to. She knows it’s hypocritical to keep quiet, considering her attitude regarding him keeping the Emperor a secret.
But it’s hard. She doesn’t know how to approach it. She doesn’t have the right words to fully articulate why she wants to forget the Crown’s potential.
She’ll think of something. Eventually. Before it’s too late.
She has to.
“—and I would like to have a conversation with the wizard Lorroakan,” Jaheira is saying when Rowan snaps out of her momentary daze. “His foolhardy quest for the Nightsong led to the death and infection of hundreds of adventurers. As a Harper, I cannot just let that pass.”
“Of course!” Gale nods with unbridled enthusiasm, smiling widely. “Whatever assistance you have to offer should prove most illuminating. I bow to your infinite kindness, my lady!”
The druid reaches over the table and pinches Gale’s ear, vividly bringing to mind the image of Morena doing the same. “Don’t get cheeky with me, young man.”
“I’m not being cheeky! I genuinely appreciate it!”
Rowan swallows the mouthful of bread she’s been chewing into oblivion and looks between them. Jaheira is going to tag along to the magical bookstore? Interesting.
A pang of homesickness ripples through her gut as she watches. Morena would like Jaheira. And Sylvia. Good gods, would Syl adore Jaheira! She hopes that maybe when all this is over, the three can mingle. That’s exactly what Gale needs. Another mother figure to torment him.
The thought makes her smile secretly, already imagining all the hell the combined forces of Jaheira, Syl, and Morena would inflict upon her beloved.
Sorcerous Sundries is a grand testament to book nerds in any universe, magical or not. It’s to be expected considering it’s built into the main level of a grandiose wizard’s tower.
Rowan’s mouth hangs open as she stands in the store’s foyer, skin tingling. Currents of the Weave swirl about this way and that, being threaded by wizards and other persons of magical persuasion as clerks wrap times up lovingly in crinkling parchment.
The stained glass domed ceiling above filters in the sunlight perfectly. It alights on every arcane bit and bob tucked between seemingly endless rows and shelves of books, showcasing the merchandise in a devastatingly appealing way. The prismatic rainbow coats the already vibrant interior, utterly dazzling.
It’s crowded but for once, it doesn’t set Rowan’s anxiety off. People are just casting spells willy-nilly, reciting incantations and mimicking hand gestures as the store employees guide them through the process. There’s an almost manic energy to the staff, as if they must attend to every explicit need of those who walk through the doors. Rowan chalks it up to typical customer service.
She’s too engrossed in the beauty of this place to think otherwise.
So much magic is in such a contained space! It’s like she’s walking through a veil of perfection, energy buzzing around her head and instilling her with feverish excitement.
Sorcerous Sundries is paradise.
She has to admit it—Waterdeep definitely doesn’t have a place like this.
“Bury me under the floorboards here when I die,” Rowan proclaims as she spreads her arms out in supplication, basking in the glory of so much magic and so many books. “Let me be one with my people.”
“There’s certainly a charm and flair to this place,” Gale agrees as he glances around, a sparkle in his eyes. “Dorian wasn’t exaggerating when he claimed one could find just about anything arcane under this roof.”
Jaheira makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. “Do not let the gilded walls fool you. Lorroakan has much to answer for.”
“Oh, of that I have no doubt. He was regarded as a bit of a cad in the Waterdhavian academic circles. But he has an impeccable knack at running a smooth shop, if my eyes don’t deceive me.”
Gale looks like he’s fit to run off and lose himself in one of the numerous stacks of books for sale. Rowan feels a similar desire, bouncing in place as she continues to take it all in.
Where do they even start? Netherese magic and history probably aren’t best sellers. Plus, who’s to say they’re the kind of books that people are even allowed to—
“Holy shit, it’s Rolan!” Rowan exclaims, pointing to the middle of the store.
Indeed, the grumpy tiefling wizard from Elturel is standing behind a circular counter, hurriedly thumbing through a massive catalogue of some sorts. The counter is directly in front of the spiral stairs that lead to the store’s second floor.
Rowan bounds up to the counter. She puts her elbows down on the surface and leans against it, head tilted as she sings, “Heeeeey Rolan! What is up, oh name buddy of mine?”
She’s glad he made it to Baldur’s Gate. He’s the first of the refugees from Elturel she’s seen. Granted, she hasn’t exactly been looking, but still. They all left as soon as the curse had lifted and the Absolute’s army cleared out. She hopes seeing Rolan means the rest of them got here safely.
Rolan visibly flinches when she speaks, the sound of her voice seeming to startle him. He jerks his head up, nearly dropping the catalogue. When he sees her his eyes widen in recognition.
“Oh. It’s you. Welcome to Sorcerous Sundries, I guess.”
His voice is quiet, subdued. Completely devoid of any snark or irritation. Just…drained.
And his face…
It’s bruised.
Large, angry welts mar his skin. He looks as though he’s been thrown out a window and then smacked in the face with a brick. And he’s a little thinner than she recalls. A wisp of a wizard, eyes dark and clouded by exhaustion.
When he sets the catalogue down, he winces as though moving his limbs causes him pain. He lets his arm hang at his side and subtly slips his hand into the pocket of his robe, but not before Rowan sees it.
Burn marks. In the shape of five fingers wrapped around his wrist.
She narrows her eyes.
“Rolan,” she says, shadows writhing inside her, “who hurt you?”
By now Jaheira and Gale have joined her, flanking on either side. Rolan’s eyes widen further at seeing them and a distinct flash of panic crosses his swollen face as he shakes his head, swallowing nervously.
“Wh-what? No one! Nothing! I-I’m just…clumsier than anticipated during my apprenticeship is all. I’m fine.” His tail flicks back and forth behind him, tense and stiff. He quickly glances behind him and up towards the second floor, as though he is searching for someone. His shoulders go slack with relief a moment later and he turns his attention back to Rowan, tone clipped as he adds, “Master Lorroakan doesn’t like it when I make customers wait, so…what can I do for you today?”
His voice cracks ever so slightly on Lorroakan’s name. It’s all the proof Rowan needs.
The bastard has just earned a spot on her nemesis list, his name scrawled snugly beside Elminster’s in striking red font.
“Oh, hells no,” she seethes, the darkness in her veins hissing alongside her rising fury. Her voice rises, echoing throughout the store and earning bewildered looks from customers and workers alike. “That fucker is beating you, isn’t he?! Gale, rain check on the book shopping spree. I got a wizard to strangle!”
Teeth grit, she spins around and begins to march up the stairs, heedless of Rolan’s stammered protestations.
“W-wait! You can’t just—gods damn it all, I do not need this right now!”
“Rowan, perhaps we shouldn’t be so hasty,” Gale calls after her as she rushes to the second floor like a raging storm.
She ignores him. It’s silly to be so upset when she doesn’t actually know Rolan beyond a few party tricks that resulted in him pulling a tsundere, but she can’t just stand by idly. He may be a bit of a grumpy ass, but that doesn’t mean he deserves whatever horrific treatment he’s getting from Lorroakan. And she doesn’t care if he’s insisting everything is fine.
Bruises don’t lie.
The second floor is barren of books and merchandise. Instead, three swirling portals of kaleidoscopic phenomena greet her. Two clockwork figures stand guard before the portals, holding spears in gloved hands.
When they turn to look at her, their helmed heads squeak discordantly. Veins of bright blue shimmer throughout their metallic armor, an animation enchantment singing a song of well-spun magic.
Rowan could destroy them with a snap of her fingers if she really wanted to. But she won’t. It would cause too much of a scene.
Not that what she’s about to do will be any better.
She marches up to the two animated soldiers and barks out, “Lorroakan! Where is he?!”
They do not answer. Rowan narrows her eyes and spreads her senses outwards, her shadows tapping on the intricate webbing of the Weave throughout the tower. It pulls and yanks, almost aggressively, leading her to the portal on the very left.
She puts a hand out towards it. The magic is thicker around this portal, almost tangible. Yep. There’s definitely an asshole wizard somewhere beyond it. The other two portals are probably failsafes of some kind. She has no doubt they would toss anyone unfortunate enough to not have a basic arcane understanding into some kind of prison.
Thank the gods she was such a good student under Gale’s tutelage.
Rowan steps through the portal without another moment’s hesitation, not even turning to look back behind her when she hears Gale call out her name in alarm.
The world spins. Her body shifts. Vertigo assaults her for a fraction of a second, so inconsequential it hardly ever happened. And then her feet are on solid ground once more as she is propelled outwards, stepping into a marbled floor that screams flashy.
Books flutter above her head like birds of parchment, leaving behind glittering trails as they dive and pirouette. The walls are thick with scrolls and tomes galore. Everywhere she looks, Rowan spies a golden statuette or unimaginable treasure of some kind.
Crystals hang from the vaulted ceiling. They pulse with enchantments and contained spells, humming with power. Open windows show off a spectacular view of Baldur’s Gate below; this must be at the very top of the tower. The remnants of a rooftop garden seem to dwindle sadly up against the windows, the plants alive but by no means flourishing.
Rowan recalls this tower once belonged to a wizard named Ramazith. She vaguely wonders if it was as ostentatious back then, or if Lorroakan’s new ownership smothered the place in gaudy and tactless decor. She’s just not a fan of the vibes of this place. Should a wizard’s tower be cozy and welcoming?
Or maybe she feels this way because she is incredibly biased towards her and Gale’s tower. It’s probably that.
Someone clears their throat.
The bad vibes get worse. Her skin crawls as she turns her head in the direction of the sound.
Rowan’s eyes land on a most heinous sight. A long-haired man is draped elegantly over a throne of books, flipping a massive tome’s yellowed pages with a lazy hand. He’s staring at her, nose scrunched up in irritation.
When he slowly gets off the book throne their spines creak and pages rip, faring poorly under such contemptuous treatment.
“You’d best be here with news of the Nightsong,” Lorroakan tells her in a wheedling voice, immaculate mage robes shimmering with the Weave. “Otherwise, I’m afraid I shan’t take this intrusion upon my private office lightly.”
Rowan steps forward with every intention to summon a puddle of darkness beneath his feet but the sound of three figures stumbling out of the portal behind her gives her pause.
“M-Master Lorroakan, my deepest apologies!” Rolan says nervously as he grabs onto Rowan’s shoulder, pulling her back. “I tried stopping her—”
“Clearly, you didn’t try hard enough,” Lorroakan snaps, holding a dismissive hand in the air.
Rolan immediately goes silent, body stiffening.
Lorroakan lets out a sigh that would make one think he bears the weight of the world on his shoulders, shaking his head in faux sorrow. “No matter. We shall discuss this little lapse in judgment during your next lesson. I’m sure I can come up with a way to ensure it sinks into that thick skull of yours this time.”
The writhing mass of enraged shadows within Rowan twitches. “Wanna run that by me again?” she asks coldly. “Because unless I heard wrong, that’s as clear an admission of abusing your apprentice as any.”
“Please, don’t make this worse for me. And everyone else he employs,” Rolan begs in a whisper, his hand sliding from her shoulder as he stares down at the floor.
Everyone else?
Rolan isn’t the only one he hurts?
Oh, yeah, this limpdick waste of air is going to pay.
Lorroakan opens his mouth to retort, his gaze focused on the way Rowan’s hands are twitching. As if he can sense her imminent command to her shadows, her soldiers rippling beneath her skin. Jaheira cuts him off, her voice controlled and steady, yet there is no mistaking the thrum of anger in her words.
“Harming your apprentices, sending adventurers all over the Sword Coast to their dooms in hopes of locating this precious ‘Nightsong’ of yours, and never hosting a half-off sale for even your overstock?” The High Harper clucks her tongue as she stares him down with piercing eyes, the steel of her scimitars glinting in the sun as she subtly maneuvers herself in front of both Rowan and Rolan. “You are a stain upon this city, Lorroakan.”
The stain in question glares silently, lip curling in a semblance of a snarl.
“Why do you even want Aylin?“ Rowan demands. “She’d snap your spine before you can so much as utter a cantrip!”
Lorroakan’s brow raises as, for a moment, a flicker of interest passes across his face. “Hm. So you know the Nightsong is no mere relic.”
Rolan stammers out a shrill, “What?! The Nightsong is a person?”
Rowan frowns. She did not realize this was a stunning revelation for the tiefling. “Uh, yeah. She was the aasimar who rained down holy fire on Moonrise. Ya know, the majestic winged lesbian with moon powers? The one who helped us defeat Ketheric and end the curse?”
The one I wish was here right now so she could beat the shit out of this asshole, she adds silently.
“And the one who was meant to be the key to my immortality,” Lorroakan grumbles with an almost bored nuance, as if admitting such a thing means absolutely nothing to him. “If she’s been freed from her soul cage then that certainly puts a damper on things. No matter. She shan’t be terribly difficult to find. Children of the gods do tense to stick out amongst the mortal rabble.”
Rowan stares at him in shock, dumbfounded by his idiocy.
Rolan mirrors her expression.
Jaheira makes a sound vividly close to a growl in the back of her throat, as if her inner panther is prowling just beneath her skin.
And Gale?
He leans into her ear and murmurs, “He would seek the powers of the gods for the pettiest of reasons? His own gratification? At least I seek them for the better of all!”
Ah.
Fuck.
The Crown.
Rowan really needs to have a nice long talk with her darling husband about why using it is a bad idea, but now is not the time.
Lorroakan’s face twitches in annoyance. “What’s that?” he simpers mockingly. “I didn’t quite catch the words but the insolent tone was clear enough.”
Gale scoffs. “Pitying,” he clarifies, raising his voice. “Not insolent. You chase one power without knowing an even greater one lies within my—our—reach. The Crown of Karsus. Once we acquire it, your ambitions will be dwarfed. I will be able to use its power for the betterment of all, and not even Mystra will stop me.”
Rowan’s blood runs cold.
That particular phrasing goes beyond using the Crown to rid himself of the orb. It almost sounds like…like…
Gale, are you talking about godhood?
Rowan’s dumbstruck gaze swivels to her husband. Not once had that come up in their harried conversations about what the Crown could do. Never. He can’t mean that. He can’t.
After everything his hubris a year ago set into motion, how can he even entertain that thought?
Gale flicks his eyes over to her. A shadow of doubt and surprise, as if he had no control over what he has just said, swirls within his startled gaze. As if he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
As if he hadn’t realized his true desires for the Crown until this very moment.
A haughty, petulant laugh cuts through the sudden silence that has befallen. “The Crown of Karsus?” Lorroakan questions, incredulous and exasperated. “Even if it still existed you couldn’t possibly handle its power!”
“Netheril’s power is in my very blood,” Gale says with matching haughtiness, chin raised defiantly as he takes a step forward. Rowan doesn’t recognize her husband. This is a reflection of who he once was, before her. Before the orb. When he dared to think himself better than Mystra. “I know the intricacies of its threads better than most. I know Mystra better than most.”
“Aha!” Lorroakan snaps his fingers in delighted confirmation. “It is you! Mystra’s discarded lapdog!” He regards Gale with a sneer of ever-growing disdain, almost recoiling as if in total disgust. “And now you think your bark is cause to make me tremble? You are the stain in this room, Ser Dekarios. A stain upon all wizardkind, pathetic and so dismally impotent that the scorn of every arch mage in Waterdeep is well-earned and well-founded.”
She does not care that Gale was acting like a puffed up peacock with something to prove.
She does not care he all but dropped his notions of godhood as if it meant nothing.
No. She can’t care about those banal, finite things. Not when Lorroakan has just signed his death warrant by denouncing her husband so stupidly, so foolishly.
Something snaps inside of Rowan.
In a swirl of darkness she appears directly before Lorroakan, eyes pitch black and shadows coiling around her limbs.
“You wanted to use Aylin for some fucked-up immortality ritual like Ketheric,” she snarls, drawing upon the Shadow Weave and bading darkness to coat her hand in a necrotic veil. “You hurt Rolan—and probably all of your other employees as well! But you dared to insult Gale? With me in the room?”
She reaches for him, the chill of her magic sickly green as it forms into undulating claws at the tips of her fingers.
“You just threw away all hope of a quick and painless death!”
But her hand does not reach the tender skin of Lorroakan’s throat like she intends. With a speed she was not expecting the bastard mutters a few arcane words and she is suddenly thrown upwards into the air by some unseen force, pressure squeezing all around her as she is suspended.
“Rowan!” Gale calls out, voice thick with worry. All traces of his fleeting arrogance are gone.
She rotates in the air, arms flailing about uselessly. It’s like Balthazar’s magic—she can’t break out of it, no matter how hard she tries. For a moment she is back in the Shadowfell, choking and dying and screaming on the inside, and she has a flash of such intense terror that her magic is going to disappear again that she gasps in desperation.
Instead, something very different happens.
“How reckless do you have to be to attack a wizard in his own tower?!” Lorroakan seethes. He makes a fist with his hand and jerks his arm towards the window as Gale starts to rush towards him, threads of the Weave curling between his fingers.
He isn’t able to fire off the Counterspell before Rowan is sent hurtling through the room and out the window.
The force with which she is thrown knocks all the air out of her lungs. Wind whips sharply at her face and hair. Whatever constricting pressure around her is gone now, flung to the sky along with her body.
She is free falling.
Dropping through the air at an alarming rate.
The wind screams in her ear as a shriek yearns to leap from her throat. Panic grips her, adrenaline spiking as the myriad of rooftops grows closer and closer.
Rowan feels a tug on her bond with Pip. Hey, boss? Youse doin’ alright? Why do I have the sense that you’re fallin’ through the air right now?
Because I am, but it’s fine! Don’t worry! I got this! she sends back, mentally slapping herself in the face. A raven! Duh! She can become a giant fucking raven!
…or…
It’s been a hot minute since she put her crown on. The only crown that matters, in her opinion. But to fully embrace her Champion’s mantle means taking Pip away from Miri, and she’d rather not interrupt Operation: Fluffy Kitty Cuddle Time.
And Quothe. She would need Quothe as well for the full transformation. She senses them stir somewhat, waking as her thoughts turn to them, but she quickly sends them a vague notion of shaking her head. Let them remain slumbering at the Matron’s side, resting as they deserve.
She’s got this, all on her own.
Wings. She just needs wings. The giant raven form is cool, but she should probably keep her hands for whatever comes next.
Rowan closes her eyes.
Her shadows caress her cheeks, kiss her brow. Her spine tingles. Her back itches. The magic of the Shadow Weave explodes from the depths of her darkness, cocooning her in a swathe of mist.
In the span of a single intake of breath, Rowan’s wings unfurl from behind her, and she is no longer plummeting.
No, she is flying, soaring as the black feathers glint in the sunlight. Her muscles spasm and ache in slight protest, still unused to exerting the energy necessary for a functional pair of wings, but she’ll deal with the consequences later.
Right now, she needs to get back to the tower’s top floor.
Rowan propels herself towards the window she was thrown out of. Her wings catch on an updraft, her speed surprising even her as she alights on the edge. Nevermore’s familiar weight materializes in her hand as she calls the staff from the room at the Elfsong.
She wishes she’d brought the Bag of Holding. There are so many scrolls in there that can neutralize a wizard easily. It’s a shame she can’t summon it at will the way she can her staff.
In a flurry of feathers and darkness Rowan leaps back into the tower’s interior, voice echoing in a discordant chorus as she shouts, “Trying to make me fall for you, Lorroakan? Cute, but I’m already married!”
“Oh, gods, not puns,” Rolan groans. “As if today couldn’t get any worse!”
His back is facing her, arms raised as he focuses on a thick wall of magic shielding Gale. Her husband’s hands are moving in bullet time almost, face contorted with rage as he fires off spells that are more pure emotive magic than genuine castings. Lorroakan is lounging lazily back on the book throne. His smirk is framed with utter boredom as he channels a Shield of his own with one hand, the fingers of the other splayed out like he’s controlling a marionette.
Or four.
Because surrounding Gale and Jaheira—who is currently in the midst of summoning what appears to be a lush mass of vegetation on the floor—are four elementals clad in armor and wielding dangerously sharp weapons.
Myrmidons. Rowan remembers Gale teaching her about them once, months ago. Insanely powerful, incredibly difficult to defeat, and hell bent on protecting the person who brought them to the material plane.
Of course Lorroakan is a conjuration wizard! He seems the type to let others fight his battles.
Rowan grits her teeth and launches herself forward, arcing towards Gale and Jaheira. One of the myrmidons takes a swipe at her feet as she soars past; the air one, armed with a large flail.
A tendril of shadows lashes out from her skin and bats the flail away. Her soldiers are eager for battle. They haven’t let loose since the showdown with Ketheric. Their excitement is palpable and floods through her chest as if it were her own.
Then again, a portion of it kind of is.
“We’re killing this asshole, right?” she shouts from above, hovering in the air with a mighty beat of her wings.
“Absolutely,” Jaheira agrees, her eyes aglow with an emerald hue as the vines bloom and blossom at her and Gale’s feet. “But it will be incredibly difficult! He is absorbing the elementals’ magic and using it to fuel that shield!”
“Ideally, we target the summons first,” Gale adds, the orb’s scar pulsing ever so slightly as he stares down Lorroakan. “Taking them out destroys the shield and leaves him vulnerable!”
She sees the logic. It’s a solid plan.
But also, the myrmidons appear to be very beefy boys, and if the connection between wizard and summons breaks before the spell ends…
“Will you two handle the myrmidons?” Rowan asks frantically. “I think Rolan and I can get the shield down quickly!”
“We shall do our best!” Gale assures her, rounding on Jaheira as his hands glow their telltale auroral sheen of his magic. He shouts an incantation and the Weave swirls around the High Harper like a cloak, enfolding her protectively.
Jaheira rolls her head around on her neck as she withdraws her twin scimitars, an almost feral grin spreading across her face as her eyes flash. “Ah, my thanks, wizard. I shall try to make it swift.”
She disappears.
No, she doesn’t disappear—Jaheira moves with the quickness of lightning, a veritable storm upon a sea as she rushes at one of the myrmidons, her scimitars seeming to drip with an acid-like liquid. The Haste spell empowers her lithe limbs, imbuing her with a dangerous speed. She is a blur, the druidic magic she has summoned following her in a rush of thick vines that entangle the myrmidons.
“Serene she might seem,” she calls out, twisting like a cyclone and slamming the blades of her scimitars into the water myrmidon, “but nature has claws!”
The water myrmidon goes to raise its silver trident to strike, but it is to no avail. The vines are as swift as the druid who controls them, wrapping around its undulating form and holding it still. Jaheira’s blades plunge into it, slicing through flesh that is more liquid than not, and a sizzling sound like burning skin fills the air.
Damn, she’s so cool,
Rowan thinks to herself as she races to Rolan. Druidic magic is fascinating. She really needs to sit down with Halsin and Jaheira one of these days and see if they’d be willing to teach her a thing or two.
Hopefully Gale won’t get too jealous. He’s not exactly her mentor anymore, and she’s not exactly his apprentice.
“Rolan,” Rowan says as she lands behind him, flinging a Shield spell of her own up as a barrage of flames from the fire myrmidon barrels towards them, “how good are you with a sword?”
The tiefling lets out a growl of frustration as he flicks his wrists, sending the whirling flames back towards the myrmidon in a well-woven Counterspell. “If you ask Lia, woefully inept!”
Rowan draws upon the darkness in her veins, allowing it to concentrate in the palm of her hand as the shadows hiss and gather. Her senses tingle as she does so, the irrevocable alarm of danger going off in her head.
Her wings snap out just as both her and Rolan’s Shield spells fail, the magic splintering and shattering like glass. Midnight feathers curl around them both, growing as thick as stone, as a deadly bolt of lightning bounces off of them and gets hurled back to where it came from. Her body tingles as the energy passes through, the faintest shock going through her system and nearly interrupting her concentration.
She chances a glance up. The stupid air myrmidon has its hands raised, flail spinning around and creating another bolt of lightning above its head. Shit. She needs to act fast. The fact that its magic was strong enough to break through two castings of Shield is worrisome.
“Well, congratulations, name buddy, because today is the day you’re gonna learn how to stab someone!”
Rolan spins around, a mixture of apprehension, fear, and begrudging awe on his face as he meets her eyes. “Name buddies aren’t a thing!” he insists, gaze flicking around at the canopy of midnight feathers protecting them.
She ignores him, holding her hand out as the last vestiges of shadows coalesce and form against her palm. A jagged purple blade, a little larger than a dagger but not quite long enough to be called a sword, glints with the Shadow Weave. It is almost incorporeal, tendrils of mist trailing from the edges. But she can feel the weight and she knows it is real.
Especially considering she just made the fucking thing.
“Take this,” she says, shoving it towards him. Rolan plucks it from her before the tip nicks him, out of more self-preservation than any actual swordsman’s instinct. “It should cut through Lorroakan’s magic.”
He scowls. “What, like he’s just going to let me come up and stab him?”
Rowan’s danger senses are tingling again. It can’t be the air myrmidon—not enough time has passed for it to cast its lightning spell. The earth one. It’s that one. She can tell by the way the floor beneath her feet is subtly shaking, preparing from a great eruption of some kind.
“He will,” she says, patting Rolan on the shoulder and giving him a cheeky grin. “Because I’m going to make you invisible, and he’ll never see you coming.”
“Lorroakan has abilities that allow him to see through invisibility,” Rolan argues, shaking his head. “It won’t bloody work!”
His voice is tinged with desperation, bruised face twisted with shame. Something tells Rowan the only reason he knows this is because he tested it himself…and was met with some harsh consequences in the process.
Gods, Lorroakan’s death is going to be more satisfying than Ketheric’s.
“Luckily for you, he’s never dealt with my kind of magic before.” Rowan calls on her shadows, urging them forward. They rise from her skin and wrap around Rolan like a cloak, not dissimilar to the way Gale’s casting of Haste had to Jaheira. His golden eyes widen but he does not move or deny the darkness, swallowing thickly.
She has to hand it to him—most people would probably be a little freaked out by the wings and a sea of darkness covering them. But Rolan is silent as he allows the spell to take hold, embracing it with a determined nod.
The tiefling fades out of view. There is not even a slight ripple or shimmer where he once was, but she knows he’s still standing there.
“Lorroakan may be a powerful wizard,” Rowan whispers, as if she’s imparting Rolan with the greatest secret in the whole universe, “but here’s the thing, name buddy—I’m the Chosen of the Raven Queen.”
There is a beat of silence.
Then:
“Name buddies are
not
a thing,” Rolan insists once more with twice his grumpy rancor.
But she feels him rush past her, dipping out from underneath her wings and darting towards the heinous book throne upon which Lorroakan sits.
And just in time.
For the ground beneath her shakes, and Rowan takes to the air as the marble floor churns and dissolves into a sludgy, muddy mire. She breathes a sigh of relief as she hovers above it. She has no doubt that’s some kind of quicksand. Getting stuck would not be ideal.
Her gaze shifts to the earth myrmidon that had created it. It is the only elemental not wielding a weapon. Instead, it has two large fists covered in thorny barbs, and it seems to be—
Shit.
“Gale, behind you!” Rowan yells, aiming Nevermore at the earth myrmidon. It’s rushing for her husband, whose back is turned as he has his hands held out and is seeming to halt the air myrmidon in its movements. But the damn thing is fast, so fast, and Jaheira is preoccupied with the water and fire myrmidons now.
There's a sickening thud in the pit of her stomach as she realizes whatever spell she casts won’t be in time.
But Gale is the foremost wizard in Waterdeep. The former Chosen of Mystra. Like a warrior mage of old, he snaps a hand out with such battle-bred precision that Rowan can’t help but gape a little. The other hand still concentrating on the magic that has paralyzed the air myrmidon, Gale summons a chilling blast with a shouted incantation. Icicles and a blustering squall of pure winter burst forth from his fingertips. It coats the earth myrmidon, clinging to the vegetation growing from its bulky form.
He flicks his gaze up towards her. A crooked grin, dangerous in its allure, flits across his face.
Rowan’s heart skips a beat. It’s a shame they’re currently in the middle of a harrowing fight with a dickheaded wizard and his beefy summons, because fucking hells, she would love to shove him against the wall and cast a few spells of her own.
“My thanks for the heads up, sweetheart!” Gale calls out to her. All she can do is give a jerky nod in response. She doesn’t trust her words right now. She’s bound to say something untoward and inappropriate that shouldn’t be said in good company.
Rowan flies above both him and Jaheira, glancing down at the duo’s handiwork. The druid has the water and fire myrmidons entangled in her vines, which glow with a vibrance and a life that is born of pure magic. The earth and air myrmidons are equally immobilized.
Jaheira is still hacking and slashing at the elementals she’s incapacitated. Judging by her frustrated scowl, her scimitars are doing as much damage as she’d like.
“These blasted creatures are far too healthy for my liking!” she growls.
Lorroakan’s voice rings out behind them, dripping in unrestrained glee.
“My elementals shall never fall to the likes of you,” the dickhead practically sings, a chuckle wrapping between his words. “I’ve spent years studying their physicality, their resistances. I’ve crafted such wonders to ensure they are as immortal as I deserve to be. You shan’t—what the hells?!”
Rowan chances a glance back at her.
The arcane bubble around Lorroakan is quivering. Veins of shadow, inky-black and viscous, are slowly spreading across the Shield like an infection.
Her darkness swells with pride. Good. Rolan figured out how to use the blade.
Lorroakan quickly scrambles off of the book throne and shoves his hands against the interior of his magic, teeth grit and eyes flashing in a momentary panic. He jerks his head to and fro, the panic increasing as a realization seems to dawn across his face.
“Where’s that bloody tiefling?!” he demands.
Rolan’s scoff reverberates throughout the tower, seeming to come from all directions.
“You’d be able to figure it out if you were half the wizard you proclaimed you are, you fucking bastard!”
Rowan raises Nevermore in a salute, grinning wildly as she watches a flash of darkness swipe against Lorroakan’s Shield. More shadows start to crawl up the magic’s surface, an army of soldiers eager for blood. She’s impressed. Rolan really got a handle on that magic quickly. She knows he helped protect Last Light Inn when it was attacked, and was the reason the children escaped the cultists. Not to mention he was apparently integral to the assault on Moonrise.
He never needed this apprenticeship. He already had what it takes to be a great wizard.
“Kick his ass, Rolan!” Rowan shouts to him, wherever he is. Wasting time and energy to locate him would be a moot point.
“He will do no such thing!” Lorroakan seethes.
A ripple of arcane energy shoots out from the Shield curled around him. It is as fast as a bullet; there is no feasible way to counterspell it or stop it.
It slams into Jaheira.
She shouts in shock, scimitars dropping to the floor with a clatter. Her body warps. Shifts. Changes. One moment, an old half-elven druid is standing there. The next…
A sheep.
A bleating, incredibly angry sheep, shaking its head and stomping its hooves as it levels Lorroakan with a glare that even makes Rowan’s spine shiver.
Wait, no. That’s her sense of danger tingling once more.
A flash of something orange and red rises from below.
She glances down to see the flaming scimitar wielded by the fire myrmidon soaring towards her.
Or, more aptly, her head.
Her wings flare out behind her with a mind of their own, jerking her body and careening away from it. The hot, fiery blade whizzes past her ear, the air shrieking as an uncomfortable heat flashes on that side of her face.
She breathes a sigh of relief.
It is short lived, however, because the scimitar immediately doubles back like a boomerang and falls through the sky towards her again.
“Don’t you dare decapitate me!” Rowan yelps with great indignance, lurching away once more.
The scimitar is like a meteor, flames trailing in its wake as it returns to the outstretched hand of the fire myrmidon. The vines swarming it have been burned away. The water myrmidon is tearing itself free as the enchanted flora withers into a tangle of dead foliage. Jaheira’s spell is broken now that she’s been turned into a sheep. Shit.
Gale’s face is pinched with effort as the hand concentrating on the air myrmidon trembles, the auroral blue of his magic shuddering. The earth myrmidon is rapidly beginning to thaw.
And of course, Lorroakan can see that her husband’s spells will not last much longer.
“Oh, do not think I have forgotten about you, lapdog!” the other wizard calls out, incensed and haughty. He snaps his fingers and the Shield around him ripples once more, heedless of the ever-encroaching mass of shadows taking over.
Orbs form from the magic. Orbs of pure, raw power, glowing a ghastly red. There are a dozen, spinning like stars, and with another snap of his fingers Lorroakan sends them hurtling through the air.
Straight at Gale.
Rowan watches in horror, her body frozen in the air. The barrage crashes into him with an audible crack, sending sprays of scarlet energy bouncing off of his body as the missiles assault him one after another. Gale hisses in pain, the impact shoving him back and away from the elementals he’s held trapped. The spots where he’s been hit are singed. They crackle with residual magic, ruining his purple robes.
His hands fall as he grasps onto his shoulder, eyes squeezing shut. The magic holding the earth and air myrmidons vanishes like a snapped twig. Gale stumbles over to Jaheira, who presses against him with her fluffy body, and groans out, “I’ll try to break the Polymorph, just…give me a moment!”
They don’t have a moment.
Rowan’s rage builds within her, a storm ready to be unleashed.
“...you hurt my husband,” she says quietly, softly. No one can hear her from her place in the sky. Certainly not Lorroakan. She knows this.
But by the gods, she’s never wanted to kill someone more than she wants to tear this fucker apart.
No, her better judgment reminds her, even as her shadows scream with a wrath that threatens to overwhelm her. That has to fall to Rolan. It’s his right. Calm down. Be reasonable. What’s the most important thing right now?
Rowan forces herself to take a deep, centering breath. She looks down at the scene before her.
Gale, wounded but still weaving a spell with practiced hands as Jaheira bleats at him urgently. The four myrmidons closing in on them, movements somewhat sluggish. A side effect of whatever Rolan is doing to Lorroakan’s Shield?
And Lorroakan himself, eyes narrowed in concentration, carving sigils on the inside of the arcane bubble he is so desperate to keep hold of…even as the tide of darkness grows longer and closer to him.
Rowan grips Nevermore with both hands. She dips lower towards the floor, a scattering of feathers falling beneath her. A Fireball wouldn’t work very well on the water and fire elementals. Lightning Bolt would be ineffective on the air and earth ones. She could summon her tempest of ravens, but without ascending to her full Chosen status, she’s not terribly keen on how well that would work. Plus, the risk of passing out isn’t worth the reward. Not right now.
An idea forms in Rowan’s head.
She’s felt the whisperings of a spell since leaving Reithwin. There hasn’t been a chance to use it until now.
“No one freak out,” she warns as she raises Nevermore to the ceiling, summoning darkness to its tip. “This will only hurt the elementals!”
She casts her spell.
Shadows swirl. They grow thick and viscous, not unlike the darkness Rolan is thrusting against Lorroakan’s shield. They drip and ooze like poison. A sea of caustic darkness, hissing like a thousand serpents, undulates in a massive orb inches away from Nevermore. Tendrils lash about wildly, angrily, screaming for release.
Her blood burns.
It feels like she’s been injected with acid, a bitter taste coating her tongue. But she ignores it. She digs deeper, pulls more shadows forth, urges the darkness to grow larger and deadlier despite the pain lacing beneath her skin.
The feathers at her throat grow warm. Enough. This is enough magic.
Rowan flicks her staff downwards, aiming for the cluster of myrmidons.
The sphere of acidic shadows, scathing and vitriolic, lunges at them from the air. Gale and Jaheira both let out startled, panicked cries of human and sheep variety as the darkness inevitably rains down on them as well. But true to Rowan’s word, the spell does not touch them—no, a veil of darkness rises from the latticework of the magic and coats their skin, protecting them from the burning bite of the Shadow Weave.
But no such protection is afforded to the elementals.
Their thick, massive bodies writhe in what Rowan can only imagine is pain. The hissing sound of her shadows grows louder, a veritable cacophony as the magic devours and eats away at their arcane-wrought flesh. The smell is…interesting. Indescribable. Like rotten Weave, spoiled and left to be forgotten in the trash.
To her displeasure, though, the damn things are still standing.
Hunched over, weakened, and massively injured, yes. But still standing, even as ichorous shadow drips from their limbs.
Rowan lets out a hiss of her own, gripping Nevermore tighter. “Godsdammit, these things are too bulky!”
Lorroakan’s smug laugh burns worse than the shadows did beneath her skin. She rounds on him and looks down. He’s still holding up the Shield spell, but twice as much darkness is now smothering its translucence.
“Of course they are,” he says with a vicious satisfaction. “Were you not listening to a word I said? I’ve devoted years of research to maximizing their potential! They are utterly perfect in their—”
His words cut off abruptly, ending in a garbled gasp.
For the bubble of magic around him suddenly shatters, arcane shrapnel flying in every direction and morphing into harmless, shadowed mist.
And standing behind him is Rolan, darkness sloughing off of him in waves as he dispels Rowan’s spell. The jagged purple blade is plunged into Lorroakan’s shoulder. Rolan’s eyes are narrowed, a controlled contortion of rage and fury spreading across his face as he grips the blade with a steady hand.
“This,” he snarls, digging the blade into the older wizard’s flesh, “is for telling my brother and sister they were not allowed within Sorcerous Sundries. For calling them a
distraction.”
The water myrmidon dissolves into a puddle, a handful of bubbles forming sadly on the surface.
Rolan yanks the blade out of Lorroakan’s shoulder and quickly, so quickly Rowan realizes he’s casted Haste on himself, thrusts it somewhere into his back. Lorroakan’s body stiffens and he lets out a low groan of pain. Unmoving. Immobile. A familiar shimmer of blue wraps around him in phantasmal chains.
She glances at Gale.
He’s shifted his focus. No longer attempting to break Jaheira’s Polymorph, it seems, he has instead decided to cast Hold Person. His fingers are splayed out as threads of the Weave dance between them.
“And this,” Rolan says as he twists the blade deeper into Lorroakan’s back, “is for all the threats you’ve uttered against those who work for you.”
The air myrmidon vanishes, becoming nothing but a weak and tepid breeze.
Rolan is suddenly in front of Lorroakan, stabbing the blade into the soft and yielding flesh of his stomach, over and over again. A blackened stain begins to seep through the wizard’s impeccable robes. Blood drips onto the pristine marble floor below.
Rolan shouts, every syllable tinged with release and anger.
“This is for all the times you’ve raised a hand to me! Every fucking time you told me I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t fast enough! Is this fast enough for you, Master Lorroakan? Have I taken your lessons to heart at last? I should certainly hope so, considering how often you beat them into me!”
The earth myrmidon crumbles to dust, chalky and useless. The fire myrmidon’s flames are snuffed out as it smolders into a pile of cold cinders.
And still Rolan stabs. His voice is a scream of release as Lorroakan is forced to stand and take it, Gale’s magic binding him.
“This is for calling me useless! For looking down on me! For insulting my family, for scoffing at us because all we wanted was to have a new start at a better life!”
He lets out a single, piercing cry in a language Rowan does not understand. He yanks the blade out of Lorroakan’s punctured stomach, sending a spray of blood that arcs almost with an elegance as he presses the sullied edge to the other wizard’s fluttering throat.
Rolan leans in close, his horns digging into Lorroakan’s forehead.
“I’m Rolan of Elturel,” he snarls, the remnants of Rowan’s shadows dancing around him. “And this is because I despise your tacky taste, you pathetic excuse for a spellcaster!”
He slits Lorroakan’s throat in one swift, merciless movement. The master of Ramazith’s tower slumps and crumbles to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, strangled death rattles wheezing from his lacerated neck. His body twitches once, twice; and then it is still, silent, as the pool of blood beneath him gradually grows darker and larger.
Rolan takes a step back.
He breathes deep, a shuddering sigh racking his chest.
He turns around, hands shaking as he still grips onto the shadow blade. Splashes of blood are painted across his face and robes. His lips are curled in a snarl, fangs flashing. His tail lashes about behind him as his chest rises and falls, pupils somewhat dilated.
The tower is eerily silent.
Rowan swallows and flutters down to the floor, landing before Rolan. “Hey, bud,” she starts, voice low and gentle. “Are you going to be okay—”
The ground beneath them begins to shake.
The tower walls tremble and quiver, books tumbling from shelves. Windows crack, the sound a roar of splintering glass. The air feels thick, weighty. It is like it is suddenly a miasma, clinging to skin as raw Weave unravels from every single enchantment Lorroakan has ever woven into the tower’s structure.
And then pain shoots through Rowan’s entire body.
Deep, lingering pain. It is agony. It is everywhere and nowhere, seeping into her bones and tainting her blood. Fangs gnaw on her flesh. Knives bury themselves in her guts. Her eyes burn. Her tongue is rotten in her mouth.
She is dying again, sharpened tendrils of the Weave slicing her soul apart.
She cries out, wings vanishing in a puff of black feathers. Somewhere beyond the cacophony of shattering glass and rumbling tower, she hears the anguished groans of Gale and Rolan and Jaheira. Who is no longer a sheep, at least. The Polymorph has broken with Lorroakan’s death.
But that’s the only positive to this situation, because Rowan knows within her soul that they are in deep shit now.
It’s a curse. A curse like Shar’s, born and bred of pure malice.
A hand is suddenly holding hers, squeezing tightly.
Rowan turns her head to see Gale, his face ashen with pain. “We need to get out!” he says frantically, brown eyes filled with an urgent panic. “Lorroakan must have placed a failsafe on the tower to be enacted upon his death! This isn’t magic we can dispel easily!”
“No!” Rolan snaps, stumbling back to Lorroakan’s body. His movements are janky, halted, as he struggles against the pain wracking through him. “I won’t let that bastard have the last laugh! I will not!”
His voice is a roar. A peal of thunder, a column of hellfire. It resonates through Rowan’s chest, squeezing her heart.
She watches with wide eyes as the tiefling dips the blade of shadows she crafted for him in the sanguine puddle spreading under Lorroakan. The darkness glides along the surface and eagerly, avariciously drinking in the blood.
The deep, royal violet of the blade now has a crimson ombré to it. And as the tower shakes around them, the negative energy of whatever death-invoked spell Lorroakan had twisted into its foundation, Rolan places the jagged edge against his palm.
He cuts.
Blood so dark it is almost black spills from his flesh, dripping across the enchanted blade. He raises his bloodied hand to the air. With the other, blade grasped tightly, he starts to draw sigils in the very miasma that threatens to choke them.
When he speaks, it is in a voice booming with unwavering conviction.
“I am claiming this place as my own!” Rolan calls out to the magic, head held high despite the pain wracking through him. His eyes glow, golden and brilliant, the same shining hue illuminating the complex array of runes he’s carving through the air. “Lorroakan is no more! I am Rolan of Elturel, and I am the master of this tower!”
The shaking gets worse. Rowan swears the floor is going to crack beneath her feet. The pain swells, almost unbearable, her throat clogged to the point where she cannot breathe.
Magic screams in her ear. The raw Weave unleashed by Lorroakan’s death, howling and raging like some wild animal.
Gale’s hand squeezes hers tighter. He draws himself closer, gasping for air, a flicker of purple dawning in the eye bearing the orb’s scar. “I-it’s not going to accept him,” he rasps, voice thick with anxiety. “I must…do something to help…!”
She shakes her head, tears rolling down her cheeks from the agony such a simple movement causes. She can’t even speak. She just hopes he sees it in her eyes—Rolan has to do this on his own. Just like she couldn’t be the one to kill Lorroakan, no matter how badly she wanted to.
Rowan was lucky when she became the pseudo-master of Gale’s tower in his absence. Her magic was already linked with his and had been for months. Rolan has been here barely a week, and it is obvious Lorroakan despised him just for the sake of loathing someone with a decent grasp of magic.
It makes sense the tower is fighting back so viciously. It’s simply doing what its previous master would have done.
Rolan snarls something in that language she does not understand. Infernal, she thinks. The language of the Hells. The shadow blade shakes in his hand as he completes whatever spell he was casting with a flourish.
The golden sigils burn as bright as the sun.
And then they…shift.
Crimson. Black. White. The briefest flash of purple. And then back to gold. The colors ebb and flow like a tide, bits of the arcane writing dispersing throughout the interior with each change. Magic created not of hate or loathing, but of a furious desire to protect, fills the air.
The shaking slows. The pressure holding Rowan hostage gradually lessens.
The accursed, thick miasma is gone. She can breathe normally again. No staggering jolts of pain pierce her lungs as she does so.
Rolan pants. His hands fall to his sides, legs nearly buckling beneath him. His entire body shakes as he gazes around the tower, mouth parted in shock and eyes wide with a mixture of awe and disbelief.
“I…I did it,” he whispers, more to himself than anyone else present.
He raises his head to the ceiling.
A smile flits across his face.
And then he laughs, the sound free and joyous, and the tower seems to vibrate in tandem with the rhythm of his relief. “I did it!” he repeats, almost boyish in his elation. “Fuck you, Lorroakan! I am twice the wizard you could ever have hoped to be!”
He spins around and aims a hard, violent kick at his former master’s corpse. His foot connects with a dull thud. Rolan lets out another laugh, satisfied and brimming with utter joy.
Gale steps forward, smiling. The smile falters, however, and gives way to a wince of pain as he grabs hold of his shoulder once again. Rowan scoots over to him and gingerly places her hand against him, frowning. She wants to kick Lorroakan’s corpse as well. For good measure. He hurt her wizard.
“Gale,” she murmurs, “are you alright? You took an entire Magic Missile spell!”
“A little sore,” he admits sheepishly, plucking at the frayed threads of his robe with an irritated twitch of his eyes. “I should have been able to call upon the shadows you’ve shared with me to stop it but alas…my focus was spread too thin. There was so much magic I could scarcely concentrate on what to do next.”
Jaheira approaches and cracks her knuckles. “Allow me.”
She stretches a hand out. Her calloused fingers glow with a beautiful emerald light veined with gold. Gale’s shoulder—and various other spots on him where the missiles had made impact—shine with the same light. A faint refreshing scent, like mint, fills the air.
Gale lets out a heavy sigh as the healing spell works its magic. Rolan makes a surprised sound and Rowan turns her head towards him, confused. His face is also glowing with Jaheira’s druidic magic. The bruises and swelling are rapidly disappearing, showing no signs of his hellish apprenticeship in a matter of moments.
Jaheira smiles, warm and kind. The spell ends. The sharp aroma of mint still lingers. She claps her hands together, the smile twisting into a slightly crooked grin as she says, “Well. Let no one ever say a fight between wizards cannot be interesting, eh?”
“Technically not a wizard,” Rowan points out as she dismisses Nevermore with a thought, her staff no longer needed. “Just a sorcerer with six months’ worth of a wizard’s education!”
“Pah. That is wizard enough for these old bones.”
Rolan shuffles his feet as he drags himself over to the three of them. The shadow blade Rowan had crafted is still in his hands, and he’s holding it so tightly his knuckles go pale. “I…don’t know how to thank you all,” the tiefling admits quietly, avoiding the three pairs of eyes that are now on them. “I told myself I could handle Lorroakan’s cruelty and indifference. That I could someday make a home for Cal and Lia, as long as I just swallowed every insult down and did as he wished. But I was…wrong. A bastard like that never deserved a tower like this.”
The tower vibrates once more, as if in agreement. Rowan’s chest flutters. It reminds her of Waterdeep, as so many things do nowadays. She misses home. She misses their tower.
But she cannot let those feelings of homesickness rule her. Not when there’s still so much to be done.
“All hail Rolan, master of Ramazith’s tower!” she cheers, throwing an arm around his shoulder and giving him a cheerful squeeze.
The tiefling immediately stiffens and makes a strangled squeak in the back of his throat, limp in her embrace as he pointedly looks in the complete opposite direction of her. She releases him immediately, running an awkward hand through her hair as she steps away and clears her throat.
“Uh. Oops. Sorry, Rolan. Should have asked before I hugged you. I can be terrible with personal space.”
“It’s fine,” he wheezes, his cheeks a blotchy and flushed shade of red darker than his normal skin tone. “Don’t worry about it.”
Rowan glances over at Gale, who has an eyebrow raised. He clasps a hand on Rolan’s shoulder, perhaps a bit tighter than would be polite, and says in a steady tone, “My
wife
is correct, Rolan. Congratulations are in order, for you are indeed the new master of this tower.”
Rolan clears his at Gale’s emphasis on the word “wife.” Under his fellow wizard’s increasingly scrutinizing gaze, his blush deepens even more. He continues to look anywhere but the two Waterdhavians in his midst, movements strained and flustered.
“Hopefully I can prove that I deserve it,” he mumbles.
He finally looks back to Rowan, though he does not meet her eyes, and holds out the shadow blade towards her. It is still slick with blood, scarlet swirling within the violet darkness.
“I’ve never studied the Shadow Weave closely,” he says, “but I think after this, I’m going to. Thank you for allowing me to use this, Rowan.”
“Keep it!” Rowan insists, shaking her head. She winks, adding, “We’re name buddies, after all. Gotta give you something to remember me by.”
“Not a thing,” he protests.
But it’s a weak protest. There’s not an ounce of his former grumpiness behind it. In fact, the ghost of a begrudging smile flits across his face as he tucks the blade into his robe.
Rolan turns his focus to the book throne. The puddle of Lorroakan’s blood has stopped just short of it. A few of the books have tumbled onto the floor, offset by the jostling of the tower in the magical death throes of its former master.
His faint smile fades. In its place, a familiar pouting scowl appears. He raises a hand up and points a clawed finger at the offending creation.
“Won’t be needing this anymore.”
The books erupt into flames.
Rowan gasps, clutching her chest as if it were her that the tiefling stabbed multiple times and not the dead man on the floor. “Dude! Those books don’t deserve this treatment! You can’t just set them on fire!”
“Every single one is a Volo title. I’m doing the world a favor, trust me.”
“Oh, shit, carry on. Actually, let me help!”
She flicks her wrist and sends a slithering tendril of darkness towards the amalgamation. Black flames join Rolan’s, devouring vellum and gilded spines eagerly.
Gale surreptitiously summons a handful of his own flames and urges it forward. The spell careens into the burning book throne with a giddiness that betrays his opinion on the author’s works.
Rowan gives him a knowing look. He simply shrugs, the paragon of nonchalance. “It seemed this task required my assistance. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“There is something inherently wrong about three wizards standing around a pile of burning books and being happy about it,” Jaheira comments in a dry voice.
Rowan does not bother trying to correct her again.
The druid bends down and takes her scimitars from the floor, tucking them back into their sheaths. “Just as there is something inherently wrong about being turned into a sheep against my will for five minutes,” she grumbles, making a face. “Ugh! I feel as though I am going to crave hay for the rest of the day! This is why I prefer beasts with fangs and claws.”
“You made a very cute sheep,” Rowan supplies helpfully.
“Cute does not always mean fit for battle, little raven.”
“I dunno. I mean, look at me! I’m plenty cute and very fit for battle.”
“Young man,” Jaheira addresses Rolan, choosing to skillfully ignore Rowan’s quip, “would you humor an old woman? I should like to speak with your former master’s employees regarding his…passing.” She glances over at Lorroakan’s corpse, a flicker of disdain crossing her face. “I imagine there are some matters that will require the kind of discretion only a Harper can provide.”
Rolan nods. “I won’t turn my nose up at that. Though I’d be lying if I say hearts will be broken by the news.” He sags somewhat, as if a great and terrible burden has returned to rest upon his weary shoulders. “I really am the new master, aren’t I? Does that mean I own Sorcerous Sundries too? Good gods, I’ll have to completely redo the tower’s entire inventory! This prick had a system so asinine it was a miracle to catalogue even the most basic of spell components!”
“What about books?” Gale asks, still maintaining that air of nonchalance about him. “Tomes, ancient manuscripts, and the like? You wouldn’t happen to have an inkling of, say…items on Netherese history?”
Rowan’s blood goes cold.
Fuck.
The stupid Crown.
She was hoping in all this excitement he would have forgotten. But it’s Gale Dekarios. There’s simply no way he would allow something like a possibly forbidden text to go to the wayside of his memory.
Not when he apparently wishes to peruse its pages in hopes of finding the secret to godhood.
She opens her mouth, a tangled protest caught between her teeth, but Rolan answers too quickly.
“Actually, there is.” He digs through the folds of his robes and pulls out a simple iron key. “This is to the vaults in the tower’s lower levels. Tolna and I—she’s the shop’s rare tomes dealer—were meant to sort through some things later today. There is a volume in one of the vaults called The Annals of Karsus. It supposedly is a collection of notes written by the famed wizard himself.”
At that moment, Rowan decides she is no longer name buddies with Rolan.
The look on Gale’s face is akin to whenever Tara gets hold of a bowl of cream.
His smile widens, eyes shining, pure delight dancing in his gaze. “Yes!” he exclaims with a rapid nod. “That’s it! That’s exactly what I’m looking for!” He pauses, seeming to gather his decorum for a moment, and then adds with a modicum of shame, “I don’t suppose you would mind if Rowan and I took a gander at those vaults?”
“I should, since I think everything in them is technically mine now, but you also helped me kill the bastard who stored them for his own gratification.” Rolan hands the key to Gale. He is almost glad to be rid of it judging by the way his face twitches. “The vaults are trapped. Just don’t come crying to me if you take a Fireball to the arse.”
“You shan’t even know we were there,” Gale promises solemnly, putting the key in his robes. They’re still battered and frayed from battle. Rowan will have to convince Jericho to part with Gale’s gold so they can get him some new clothes. It’ll be easier than trying to talk her into mending them with magic.
Rowan sighs to herself. If she has the balls to talk to Jericho, then she needs to use them to discuss the whole god thing with Gale.
Before he does something he’ll regret.
The vaults are indeed trapped.
Luckily for Rowan and Gale, they are very good at magic.
“Why do wizards like magical puzzles so much?” Rowan whines as she conducts a swathe of shadows with her fingers. They swarm the walls at her command and stretch across hidden incisions in the old brick, blocking any more potential traps from going off.
Without Astarion’s aptitude for sending nefarious contraptions, they’ve had to improvise.
Gale hums. “Oh, you know. We enjoy showing off our creativity. Though some of these solutions are a little too on the nose for me. Where’s the whimsy? The elaborate poetry? This is all far too straightforward!”
He fiddles with a set of runic writing etched into the door they stand in front of. If their explorations of the vaults have been correct so far, this is the final hurdle. Beyond the arcane locks should lay the prize they—Gale, really—seeks.
The Annals of Karsus.
Rowan bites her tongue as she watches her husband send a surge of magic rushing through the wards. She hasn’t told him her reservations about the Crown. They’ve been down here for almost two hours and she still hasn’t found the words. She can’t. She just can’t.
She doesn’t want to disappoint him. It’s like yesterday all over again and she hates it. Why can’t she just be normal and talk to him like a mature adult? He won’t get angry with her. She knows this. He’ll listen. She knows this.
But her anxiety has returned, riddled with mocking whispers as it slithers beneath her skin. A part of her brain insists their heart-to-heart never happened after the noxious encounter with Raphael.
She wants to shove that part through a cheese grater. Gale loves her. She loves him. He will respect her doubt regarding the Crown.
Rowan just has to fucking voice it.
A clicking echoes through the chamber. She glances back at Gale, the sound rousing her from her thought spiral. A victorious grin spreads across his face as he snaps his fingers. Strands of thick, undulating Weave spread across the door. The runes splinter like falling stars, shimmering with a callous glow before fading from view.
With a somewhat ominous creaking, the door swings open.
“Hah!” Gale turns to look at Rowan, grin widening. “Not bad for a wizard who skipped arcane trap lessons, if I do say so myself!”
“...wait, does Blackstaff actually teach a class like that?”
“Oh, they do indeed. There’s a reason Halaster Blackcloak’s lair beneath the Yawning Portal is so dangerous.”
“Huh. Neat. Learn something new every day.”
She’s stalling, but Gale doesn’t know that.
Learning what lay beyond this door is making her sick.
It’s entirely possible the famed tome isn’t actually in this vault. The ones they’ve unlocked during their foray beneath Ramazith’s tower have been as disappointing as they’ve been fascinating. Various arcane bits and trinkets, scrolls and books that would probably come in handy at some point, ancient staffs unearthed from Athkatla…
Rowan once again wishes she had the Bag of Holding. There is so much she could bring back with them. But then again, it belongs to Rolan now. She’d rather not steal so blatantly from him. The fact he gave them access to this place is enough.
Besides, while showing them the way down here, Rolan had mentioned something about sharing the wealth of knowledge Lorroakan kept hidden during his time as Sorcerous Sundries’ proprietor. Rowan doesn’t want to take that chance from him. He was so eager and hopeful, excited about a genuine fresh start for him and his siblings.
He’s a good noodle. He deserves to sift through the myriad of treasure and decide what to do with it himself, rather than Rowan and Gale absconding with every shiny bauble they take a liking to.
She may be the Chosen of the Raven Queen, but she’s not going to hoard treasures like a corvid.
Rowan follows Gale through the doorway, sending a mental stream of commands to her shadows to remain on the walls. Just in case. They’ve managed to wiggle through all the traps and magical puzzles thrown their way so far, but considering how much of a prick Lorroakan was, she would rather be safe than sorry.
This final vault has a heavy air to it than the previous once they rifled through. A stagnant, eerie sense that is also somehow incredibly alive. It makes her feel like spiders are tiptoeing across her arms, wolves snapping at her heels with salivating jaws.
A hunger.
A hunger not unlike the magic sleeping inside of Gale’s chest.
Sconces along the stone walls come to life as they walk by. Enchanted flames burning a deep, capricious blue burn and cast their shadows across the floor. Their footsteps echo hollowly. The hall twists and opens up into a large, expansive chamber just like the previous vaults, but Rowan knows.
She knows this one is different.
The veil between the Weave and the material plane is thinner here. Almost nonexistent. Weapons hang from the walls, glittering with the promise of potent magic. Worn, lovingly-carved shelves are clustered one after another, the bottoms nearly buckling beneath the weight of heavy books. Thick spines encrusted with gilded titles shimmer in the cerulean flames.
A glass cabinet rests against one of the bookshelves. The door hangs open. Dozens of scrolls are piled haphazardly inside as if whoever put them in there did so uncaringly. One is pushed away from the rest. It dangles precariously over the shelf, sliding almost halfway out of the open door.
Rowan swears the parchment is glowing. A faint, subtle and gentle light, warm and inviting. She wants to go towards it. Touch it. Hold it.
But she does not. Her attention is drawn elsewhere. As is Gale’s, who lets out a quiet gasp.
In the very center of the room is a pedestal, wrought in pure silver and decorated with swirling filigree reminiscent of stars.
And on that pedestal, wrapped in arcane chains that seem to drift in a nonexistent breeze, is a book. The cover is so deep a red it could be formed of blood, a golden starburst design splayed out on the front. Uneven yellowed pages peek out from the bindings, almost tauntingly so.
“It’s real,” Gale breathes.
He steps towards it.
Rowan finds herself doing the same, a series of pinpricks slicing through her heart as she does so. She watches as Gale waves a hand over the tome, his magic curling with feline grace as it wraps around the arcane chains and does away with them in a matter of moments.
His fingers ghost across the cover. The book shivers beneath his touch. He slowly, reverently pries it open.
She tries not to notice the way the orb’s scar pulses in tandem with the crinkling of pages. A redolent, enticing scent of paper and ink wafts into the air as the tome splays open. Gale smooths the archaic, thin pages with utmost care. His eyes dart to and fro wildly. His lips move with a frantic, frenzied sense, murmuring silently to himself.
Rowan peers over his shoulder. The pages are covered in what is clearly a cipher of some sorts, written in a steady hand. The ink has not faded, despite the obvious age of the vellum. Letters and symbols leap across the pages. Diagrams are etched into the corners. Rigorous notations, measurements, anatomical drawings, ritualistic portraits…
A grimoire. A spellbook. An actual collection of notes written by fucking Karsus himself, and Gale is turning page after page like a madman.
A heartbeat passes. Then another. Rowan finds that she is suddenly unable to speak, simply watching her husband with a sense of dread mounting in the pit of her stomach.
Gale gets to the final page. Words become more recognizable. Real. No longer a tangled, erratic series of secret ciphers and red herrings. His voice rings out in a hushed, awestruck tone as he begins to read out loud.
“ ‘My great spell of transcendence is mine alone, not to be committed to ink and parchment, but I have also forged three supreme enchanted items that are the physical embodiments of my wizardry, and of them I shall make record.
There is a Crown, an Orb, and a Scepter, each night-alive and with its own power and purpose, and these I call the Regalia of Karsus.
The Crown of Karsus: to attract and absorb magical knowledge, and give the wearer dominion over himself so that he remains his own entity apart from the Weave.
The Orb of Karsus: a storage device or battery that condenses mystic power, ever-gathering so that it must be syphoned at intervals of its excess.
The Scepter of Karsus: an instrument of projection, a focusing utensil for the precise wielding of unimaginably vast forces.
Know of these items you must, for if I fail to achieve immortality, they will persist, and I dare say, 'live' on beyond me.’ ”
The final vestige of the book’s words echo throughout the room as they leave Gale’s lips. He pulls his hand away from the page, fingers trembling. The Annals suddenly snaps shut of its own accord, a heavy slam reverberating through the air as the pedestal shakes with the force. The book sighs, forlorn and solemn, a raspy voiceless whisper shuffling through its ancient pages.
Gale picks the tome up with both hands.
He spins around, clutching it to his chest. His eyes brim with elation, childish wonder sparkling in them as he exclaims, “This confirms it, Rowan! I can rid myself of the orb with the Crown’s power! If we can wrest it from the elder brain, I can…I can reforge it in my own image and purge the malign magic from my body!”
He surges forward, pressing a heated and hasty kiss to her lips.
“I will no longer be a danger to those around me,” Gale murmurs against her mouth. “No, I shall be quite the opposite.”
A god.
He means a god.
He doesn’t say those exact words. He doesn’t repeat that sliver of ambitious pandering he had thrown at Lorroakan hours ago. But Rowan knows him. She knows Gale Dekarios, and she knows the driven energy now animating him comes from his worst—and best—trait.
His ambition.
Rowan swallows thickly. “Gale, I think we should—”
Fear halts her tongue. Fear and that bitter, damning anxiety. Its claws its way up her throat, slicing her mouth into bloody ribbons, pulling her teeth and making her eyes water.
He’ll listen to me, she tells herself inwardly, biting her lip as she tugs on a strand of her hair.
A darkness that she doesn't like to claim scoffs back, its scorn poisoning her thoughts. But what if he doesn’t?
She says no more. Gale doesn’t notice, sliding the Annals into the pockets of his robes. His voice is tinged with such excitement, such fucking relief that it hurts Rowan to hear it.
“We must return to the tavern,” he says exuberantly. “I can decipher the more enigmatic writing within the evening. I know it!”
She nods. She doesn’t trust herself to speak. Maybe by the time they get back to the Elfsong, she’ll have figured out a way to rip the anxiety from her throat and grab onto Gale’s face and tell him that he will do no such thing with the Crown.
The feathers against her throat grow warm. She sees a subtle, vexing glow in the corners of her eyes.
Rowan glances over at the glass cabinet once more. The scroll about to tumble from the shelf is shining brighter, just slightly. A raven croaks in the distance.
Well, if that ain’t a sign, she doesn’t know what is.
She crosses the room with a purposeful stride and snatches a hand out, grabbing hold of the scroll. Magic pulses beneath her fingers, sending a mini shockwave through her skin. She bites down a yelp of surprise and instead furrows her brows in concentration, focusing on the raw threads of Weave woven throughout the parchment’s enchantments.
It’s…a myriad of different schools of magic. Abjuration and enchantment based, a series of seals and protections layered one after another in a dizzying but impressive array. Someone really did not want this to be opened. It would take a great deal of spellcasting to break through the wards. Something like this is Jericho’s specialty, not hers.
But…
Rowan pushes harder. Deeper. She sends her will through the wards, her shadows rising off her fingers. I just want to know what’s in here, she tells the scroll. Can you give me a peek? Please? You must be important if the Matron pointed you out.
A nascent, begrudging power brushes back against her consciousness. Necromantic in nature, but not evil. Not wicked. It’s curious—lonely, almost. As if it’s been left to rot and forgotten in this vault, locked away with so much other magic it has lost sight of its true nature.
She pulls the scroll free from the cabinet. It thrums in her hand, purring for the briefest of moments before falling silent. She doesn’t even try to unfurl it. Doing so would definitely invoke the abjurative magic protecting the scroll's contents and Rowan doesn’t really feel like dealing with that right now.
Yeah, she’ll give it to Jericho. The seamstress will gladly fuck around and find out with whatever’s sealing the scroll.
Rowan tucks the scroll into her robe. Hopefully Jericho and Karlach will be back from the Upper City when she and Gale return to the Elfsong. She’d rather hand the scroll over before she…
…before she tells Gale her reservations.
“Let’s head back,” Rowan says in what she hopes is a perfectly placid, calm tone. She returns to Gale’s side and gives him as wide a smile as she can muster, even though it feels like her skin is going to stretch and rip. “I think we’ve got all we need from the vaults.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” Gale muses, slipping his hand into hers. He squeezes, adoration written across his face as he presses another kiss to her lips. This one lingers longer, weighs heavier; the familiar taste of his mouth and bristles of his beard are almost enough to distract her from her mounting panic.
Almost.
Going back through the vaults is a lot less strenuous than making their way through them. Rowan’s shadows still maintain their stalwart watch for any wayward traps they may have missed. When they emerge from the hidden portal sealed away in the office Rolan had led them to, the air in Sorcerous Sundries is far lighter than it was when they first arrived.
Indeed, wandering through the storefront proper, there is a palpable sense of relief in each employee they pass. Their smiles are genuine, not at all the plastered-on and forced mask of customer service.
Rolan and Jaheira are conversing at the front counter where they had first encountered the tiefling. Two other figures have joined them. Cal and Lia, Rolan’s siblings. They’re both grinning widely, ruffling Rolan’s hair.
As she and Gale pass, Rowan raises a hand and gives Rolan a wave of farewell.
“Proud of you, name buddy!” she calls out. Despite her twisting thoughts, she means it.
“Yes, it would be remiss not to give credit where it’s due,” Gale agrees, beaming at the tiefling wizard. “Congratulations once again on a job well done, Rolan. I’d love for you to visit Waterdeep one day when all is settled. Our tower shall always be open to you, should you wish.”
Rolan’s cheeks return to that blotchy, flushed shade of red darker than his skin. He blinks rapidly, wringing his hands together as he chokes out, “Th-thank you. Both of you. I shall…keep that in mind.”
Lia whispers something in his ear, her face as mischievous as an imp, and his cheeks burn brighter. Without a word he spins on his heels and starts to stomp up the stairs, tail twitching behind him. Cal lets out an amused chuckle and shakes his head, but neither he nor Lia follow. They continue speaking with Jaheira, who seems nonplussed by Rolan’s swift departure.
Rowan frowns as she and Gale continue through the shop. “Wonder what that was about.”
“I haven’t the foggiest clue. Perhaps Rolan is adverse to accolades? An aberration amongst wizards, I’d say.”
A vindictive, traitorous thrill surges through Rowan at Gale’s words and the bold, sensuous smirk he gives her.
Damn him for being so hot. Now she’s remembering last night in vivid detail and the way he had praised her for hours, fucking her against the wall until her legs gave out. She’s grateful for the fresh air of Baldur’s Gate as they exit the shop. The slight breeze is hopefully chasing away her flushed cheeks. She doesn’t need him to know that her mind is now thoroughly in the gutter, tongue tingling as she recalls his salty taste.
Maybe instead of talking to him like a mature adult she can just crawl on top of him and—
“Ah! Gale, m’boy, we meet again!”
Rowan’s head snaps up like a hound that has scented blood.
Her shadows hiss and coil inside her, flaring with rage as they recognize the doddering, feeble voice calling out to her husband.
Elminster Aumar, clad in his ridiculous robes, is standing before them with such a bright smile it is almost blinding. He shuffles up to them, stroking his beard, eyes sparkling in delight. “What a surprise it is to see you here, at this most esteemed emporium! Might I inquire as to what wonders you’ve discovered within its walls?”
“Fuck you,” Rowan snarls in response, resisting the urge to summon Nevermore to her. She has enough darkness within her to kick another wizard’s ass today. But, making a scene in the middle of the city is not a good idea.
Right now, it doesn’t matter that Elminster put the orb to sleep the last time she and Gale met with him. He still told her husband that it was his sacred duty or whatever to sacrifice himself to appease Mystra.
Until Elminster actually apologizes for that, he will forever be on her shit list.
“Elminster.” Gale nods his head with a reasonable amount of respect towards the ancient wizard, face dark and difficult to read. His hand slides across his chest and rests on the barely perceptible outline of the Annals tucked within his robes. A protective, impulsive gesture. “You are no fool. I think you know precisely what Rowan and I discovered.”
The Sage of Shadowdale sighs, disappointment evident in the exhalation. “Indeed I do. You have discovered the truth of what you are up against at last, then. Karsus’s pestilent Crown! The very thing that undid the eponymous mage’s empire…and magic itself.”
The Weave ripples.
Rowan’s shadows bristle within her, fangs bared and claws sharpened. A presence settles between the three of them. A heavy, dangerous thing—like a sun near its inevitable demise, a cluster of burning stars dancing on the edge of a divine knife.
She recognizes it. She’s felt this before. Months ago in the tower, that first night Gale and her channeled their magic together, and her secret yearning for him was laid bare before him.
And this presence had not been a fan of it.
She clutches at her feathers absentmindedly, closing her eyes. Mystra will not intimidate her. She’s Rowan Twice-Born Dekarios. She will not cower with her tail between her legs just because the eyes of her husband’s ex-goddess and ex-lover are on her with a scathing, disparaging glare.
Gale stiffens at her side, his hand suddenly clammy as he entwines his fingers tighter between hers. He feels her too, then. Of course he does. Mystra is a petty, cold bitch. She wants him to feel her.
“Mystra knows you defied her, Gale,” Elminster continues. A hand, translucent and only vaguely corporeal, strokes his shoulder. The skin is flawless. Pale. Dainty and perfect, shimmering with a purple sheen, before winking out of existence as if it had never actually been present. If the old wizard notices, he gives no sign. “She bids you come to her holy shrine in the Stormshore Tabernacle. There, she will grant you an audience at last.”
Gale does not answer. He just stares at the man who was once mentor and friend, mouth forming a tight line. Rowan presses closer to him, back tingling. Her wings ache to spread out and swoop the two of them into a world of pure darkness, safe and sound.
A cloying, nauseating aroma wafts through the air. Rosewater.
It grows stronger, deadly in its loveliness. The Weave is a noose around Rowan’s throat for a moment, just a moment. A teasing, taunting moment, daring her to react like a mad dog and snap at the leash Mystra has looped around her and Gale.
She bites her tongue.
She closes her eyes.
She won’t rise to the challenge. This is precisely the kind of thing Gale worries about. She has to prove she’s better than her instincts. She has to make everyone see that she is deserving of her title as Chosen. That she is not ruled by anger and the fierce, unyielding desire to protect her husband at all costs.
Even if she truly wants nothing more in this moment than to declare war on the mother of all magic.
After a lengthy, taut beat of silence, Elminster clears his throat. The suffocating scent of rosewater fades. The gravity of a goddess lifts from their shoulders, Mystra mollified for the time being.
Elminster looks at Gale, his gaze stern and his voice tempered with a strange sorrow. “She wishes to discuss the Crown with you, m’boy,” he says quietly, worriedly. “And your plans for it.”
Chapter 20: dancing with divinity
Notes:
hi. i don't have much to say. i'm sorry this took so long. depression is a bitch.
this chapter goes out to all my fellow mystra haters come get y'all's juice
Chapter Text
Were it not for Gale’s hand resting gently on her arm, Rowan would have slaughtered Elminster the moment he opened his ancient and wrinkly mouth. Were it not for the mere fact that engaging in a battle of arcane mastery would have probably decimated the whole of Baldur’s Gate, she would have declared war on Mystra right then and there. Were it not for the Raven Queen’s quiet and insistent warning bell ringing inside of her soul, she would have reached into the Weave itself and ripped out that bitch’s throat.
But Rowan did no such thing.
She did no such thing because she knows a war waged within a war is a stupid, idiotic struggle. As she and Gale trudge their way back to the Elfsong, her mind is reeling and her shadows are snarling in her veins. She’s gritting her teeth so hard that the muscles in her face burn, her grip on Nevermore so tight she wonders if the staff’s handle will snap in two.
She is angry.
Angry. Frustrated. Helplessly, inanely pissed.
She’d expected Gale to vehemently refuse an audience with the goddess that abandoned him—she’d expected him to laugh in Elminster’s face and turn around without so much as another word. But he hadn’t.
He’d agreed, a venomous grin of victory he bothered to barely conceal spread across his face. He had ignored the silken scent of rosewater and magic suddenly turning sharp and sour. He had denied the regretful, almost pained expression Elminster wore as the elder wizard’s gaze drew pointedly to where the Annals resided inside of Gale’s robes.
And now he has an audience with Mystra come tomorrow’s sunrise.
She knows what he’s planning. She knows he’s going to dangle the prospect of harnessing the Crown and ascending to godhood right in front of Mystra’s face. She knows he’s going to repeat the past, falling prey to the allure of ambition.
Rowan has to talk to him tonight. She can’t wait anymore.
She can’t let him lose himself just because he thinks he has to prove to fucking Mystra that he’s better than divinity.
Neither of them speak as they wind through the crushing crowds of the city streets. Gale’s hand has slid from her arm to coil protectively around her own, fingers interlocked with hers in a lovingly familiar grasp. But it doesn’t bring about the usual tingling rush of warmth; no, instead, Rowan’s chest is flooded with a cold dread as she panics inwardly.
How do you convince the love of your life they’re making a terrible mistake the day before they confront their abusive ex?
Because even though Gale was all delighted smirks and carefree chuckles in the face of Elminster’s disappointment, there is no denying the undercurrent of anxiety that pulses through him. Even now, as they stride hand-in-hand, his heartbeat hums under his skin and vibrates against her own in a hushed lullaby of apprehension.
For all his talk about the Crown and its benefits, Gale is restless. Nervous.
I won’t let you become another Karsus, Rowan vows silently as she gazes at her husband’s side profile, his face schooled into a mask of calmness. And I won’t let Mystra bully you into submission.
The feathers at her throat blossom with a tinge of warmth, her shadows murmuring in acknowledgement.
When they return to the Elfsong, Gale gives her hand a fond squeeze that’s perhaps maybe just a tad too tight. “I’d like to retire to our room for the day,” he admits, his tone just a tad too chipper. “I’ve much to think about. Will you join me? I could use your help in how…I should phrase what I wish to say to her.”
He doesn’t say her name. Rowan doesn’t know if it comforts or alarms her.
She opens her mouth to answer when movement by the tavern’s bar catches her eye. Jericho and Karlach, sitting on the stools with a drink before both of them, looking as frustrated as she feels on the inside right now. Dorian and Wyll are nowhere to be found. Maybe they’re still in the Upper City, searching for clues of Wyll’s father’s whereabouts?
Either way, she needs to share something with Jericho.
“In a bit,” she says to Gale, giving his hand a squeeze. It, too, is just a tad too tight. “I need to talk to Jeri about something really quick. I-if that’s alright with you?”
She winces at her stammer. It’s not like she needs to ask him permission to talk to one of her best friends.
Gale’s eyes, which have been strangely stoic and glassy since plucking the
Annals
from Lorroakan’s vault, soften. He nods, his gaze flicking to where Jericho and Karlach are. “Of course, sweetheart,” he says softly, gently, so tenderly that for a moment Rowan thinks she’s going to burst into tears. “I’ll be upstairs. Take all the time you need.”
His hand slips from hers. He turns to make his way towards the inn’s stairs. Rowan’s heart suddenly leaps to her throat as she bursts out, “I love you, Gale.”
He pauses. It’s almost as if he’s a rabbit caught in a snare with how abrupt his body freezes at the sound of her voice.
But when Gale turns his head back to her, his eyes are softer yet and his mouth is curved in a beautiful smile. “I love you too, Rowan,” he murmurs, just barely loud enough over the din of the patrons for only her to hear.
She watches him disappear with a sour taste in her mouth and clammy, twitching fingers.
When Gale is gone, Rowan practically races over to the bar, sidling up beside Jericho as she stands next to the tiefling wizard. “Good, you’re here,” she says by way of greeting, somewhat breathlessly, already digging into her pockets for the weird scroll she discovered in the vaults. “I think I’ve got something you should look at.”
“Hello to you too, Rowan,” Jericho mutters with a level of acidity that’s typically only reserved for the Dekarios brothers. “I’m doing well today. Thank you so very much for asking.”
Oh, dear. She’s in a mood.
“Don’t mind her, soldier,” Karlach says with a half-hearted smile that doesn’t reach her fiery eyes. Her face is haggard, sorrow etched into the spaces usually reserved for mirth and merriment. “It’s just been a…trying day.”
Rowan doesn’t miss the way Karlach’s hand raises and presses against her chest, nor the brief flash of pain accompanied by a flicker of orange peeking through her armor.
“Gods, I fucking hate the pricks in the Upper City!” Jericho growls, grabbing the mug in front of her and downing its entire contents in one swift gulp. “Does it matter that I’ve personally crafted wardrobes for some many patriar families? No, apparently not! Not enough for any of the bastards to be helpful!”
“It’s alright, Jeri,” Karlach soothes, placing her other hand on Jericho’s shoulder placatingly. “There’s always tomorrow. That fancy cleric of Ilmater mentioned they might know something about Infernal machinery.”
Jericho sighs. She slams the mug back down on the bar and bites her lower lip, an uncharacteristic flash of nerves shining in her silver eyes for a moment.
“You might not have tomorrow,” she says, voice dull and quiet and terribly void of its acerbic flair. “I promised I’d fix this for you, Karlach. I don’t break my promises.”
Her burning gaze, always so stony and unbroken, quivers with a wetness Rowan has never seen before.
Oh.
Rowan feels very, very awkward and like she shouldn’t be privy to this conversation.
She swallows, her own troubles forgotten for the moment as she produces the scroll.
Placing it in Jericho’s lap, she coughs out, “I’m sorry if this is a bad time. I found this in the top-secret vault under Sorcerous Sundries. There are a lot of insane wards on it, but I think it could be useful. Maybe…it could help Karlach?”
Jericho picks the scroll up and studies it, a vindictive glower overtaking her momentary crumbling composure. She runs a clawed finger across the vellum, face twisting with interest. She murmurs an incantation under her breath, magic swirling atop her skin and coalescing across the scroll’s surface.
Rowan feels it again. That curiosity, freakishly animate and brimming with a necromantic touch. It seems to stretch towards Jericho, and then towards Karlach, a nascent and white-tinged mist emanating outwards. It brushes against the red tiefling’s chest, forming into a vague shape of a hand with fingers splayed out inquisitively.
And then it’s gone, so soon Rowan wonders if she just imagined it.
Jericho’s eyes widen. When she sees the interest in the tiefling’s gaze, Rowan knows the weird hand wasn’t just a trick of the light.
“Thanks, doll,” Jericho tells her sincerely, gripping the scroll as if it were the most precious treasure in the universe. “If this is what I think it is…”
She trails off, hope clinging to her words as a sharp smile settles across her face. Rowan resists the urge to ask her what spell could possibly be hidden in the scroll. She’s anxious to get back to Gale, even though she still has no fucking clue how to tell him he’s being a moron and she just wants him to stay the same Gale she fell in love with.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” she mumbles.
Guilt. Shame. Fear. A thousand emotions are suddenly worming their way inside of her, cackling madly.
Her skin feels too tight.
Her chest feels like it’s going to burst.
Her head is suddenly pounding, panic and doubt combining into a swirling maelstrom in her thoughts.
Rowan pretends to miss the confused, concerned expressions Jericho and Karlach both exchange as she stands there like a statue, fingernails biting into Nevermore’s handle.
“Hey,” Karlach starts, a deep frown cutting across her face, “you okay, Rowan?”
Rowan doesn’t answer. Instead, she chooses to turn from the two tieflings as quickly as her stiff body can manage. Her ribs squeeze around her heart as she starts to shuffle away, blood turning to ice in her veins.
She could ask Jericho for help. It’s not like the wizard hasn’t told Gale how it is before many, many times. She wouldn’t mince words. She would know exactly what to say, how to say it, and the secret to refuting Gale’s dangerous puppy-dog eyes.
But…
Rowan has to do this on her own. Jericho has enough to worry about with Karlach’s heart. She doesn’t want her to worry about this, too.
Plus, well, Jericho might choose to just beat Gale up instead of using words. She’s not sure how helpful that would be.
Rowan ignores Karlach’s troubled voice calling out her name as she pushes through the inn’s patrons and makes her way to the stairs. She’ll apologize for her rudeness later. It’s time to say what needs to be said.
She passes the room Miri, Astarion, and Halsin are renting and almost pauses in front of the door. Almost. She wants Pip. She wants Tara. But no—Miri needs the two familiars more than she does right now.
She can do this.
She loves Gale.
He loves her.
He will listen. He will understand.
Because Rowan knows she would have lost him to the legacy of Karsus already if the opposite were true.
She swallows hard when she opens the door to their room, stepping into the enchanted glade with trepidation. The place is even more magical in the daytime with the sun shining through the window. The grass feels softer under her feet. The bubbling pool seems brighter, more vibrant.
Gale lays on his back, stretched out on the bed. The Annals of Karsus hovers in the air above his face as he holds it up with two sky-blue Mage Hands. The summoned appendages lazily turn to the next page as her husband stares at its contents, face scrunched up in concentration and intrigue.
When she shuts the door behind her, Gale looks over at her and immediately gives her a bright smile.
It’s just a tad too bright.
“Rowan! You wouldn’t believe what else I’ve discovered in Karsus’s notes! It seems he crafted a spell that—”
There’s no time like the present and if she doesn’t say it now, she’s going to lose her nerve.
And with that, possibly lose him.
“I don’t think you should read that book anymore,” Rowan interrupts, leveling Gale with a grimly resolute look. “I don’t think you should have anything to do with Karsus. Including the Crown.”
Gale stares at her.
She stares back, unflinching.
When he doesn’t say anything, choosing instead to continue to stare at her in utter bafflement, Rowan takes a deep breath and steps forward. She stands before the bed and sets Nevermore against the wall, fiddling nervously with her feathers with one hand and tugging on a strand of her curly hair with the other.
She worries for a moment that she's going to get sick.
“I think,” she continues slowly, carefully, ignoring the bitter taste coating her tongue and the slithering of fear racing under her skin, “that you’re letting your ambition blind you like you did a year ago, Gale.”
Silence.
Gale blinks. His face is suddenly unreadable, impassable, a mountain range Rowan isn’t sure she has the strength and stamina to overcome.
And then he sits up. Snaps his fingers. The Mage Hands cradling the cursed book disappear and it falls to the bed with a dull thud. He drags himself off of the mattress, bringing himself to his full height.
“Oh,” he says at last, never breaking his alarmed gaze from her.
Rowan reaches both of her hands out. She tugs him to her. He allows it, limp as a rag doll. She cradles his wrists as she buries her face in his chest, trying to quell the shaking of her shoulders as the weight of the last couple of days threatens to send her hurtling against the fortress he’s built around him.
She can’t remember what else she was going to say. All the words are suddenly lost, buried in her throat as she tries to remain calm.
“But,” Gale whispers, his voice a hoarse and harried tone, “using the Crown will keep us safe, sweetheart.”
“It would,” she agrees, her voice just as brittle. “But at the cost of your humanity. And I can’t let that happen.”
If what you did a year ago lost you Mystra’s favor, then what you plan to do now will lose you mine.
The words, though unspoken and existing only in the swirling minefield of her thoughts, are perhaps the loudest thing in the room right now.
“I…” She feels Gale swallow. She feels him breath deep, his chest shuddering as she clings to him. “Allow me to demonstrate exactly what ascension will mean to me. To us.”
He speaks an incantation.
The Weave stirs to life around them.
Magic caresses Rowan’s skin, curling and coiling around her playfully. Demandingly. Begging her to look, to listen, to feel. The world beneath her feet shivers and disappears. The heady, city-filled aroma of the inn gives way to a touch of ozone and otherworldliness. She finds that she is no longer standing, no longer pressed against Gale with a desperation bordering on pitiful.
She’s sitting.
And all around her are stars.
Rowan is surrounded by magic and galaxies and realms beyond her comprehension. It’s like the scene Gale had conjured the night he asked her to marry her, back at the Last Light Inn—only this time, it’s somehow more surreal and more real than it was that day. The sky once more swirls with impossible blues and purples, pinks and silvers, every color imaginable and then some. A lake of pure starlight cradles the nebulous boat she and Gale are aboard, its glassy surface once again a perfect reflection of the constellations threaded throughout the diaphanous atmosphere.
The bitterness on Rowan’s tongue is replaced with the tantalizing taste of the Weave. Of Gale. Of magic and beauty, possibility and promises.
She feels weightless as she gazes at the auroras around her. It’s almost impossible to guess where the sky ends and the lake begins. Maybe they’re one and the same. Maybe if she stretched out a hand and dipped it into the celestial waters, she could take hold of the very Weave itself and demand it to bow before her will rather than Mystra’s.
But she doesn’t move.
She can’t.
All Rowan can do is gaze at Gale, sitting in the boat across from her, his hands clasping hers as his expression settles into a plaintive and pensive one that threatens to break her heart.
“The Outer Planes,” Gale explains softly, every color of this fanciful place shimmering in the depths of his eyes. “This is where gods dwell. Where they observe us from afar.” A derisive, harsh note enters his tone. “Where they make playthings of us.”
Her husband glances all around them, taking in every twinkling star and every shimmering constellation that hangs within the cradle of divinity. “They would keep all of this from us. The power, the possibilities—they only want us to serve them, pray to them, and ultimately…to die for them.”
Most of them.
But not all.
Not
her
goddess.
“But what if we didn’t need them?” Gale continues before Rowan can interject, conviction thundering in his words like lightning. “What if we wielded their power instead and helped ourselves in all the ways they refuse to?”
His thumb brushes across the top of her hand, locking eyes with her as he gives her a look so full of hope and longing Rowan fears she is going to topple into the celestial waters and drown in their divinity.
“I could make that happen. I could make it a reality with you by my side, Rowan. You…you are already halfway to godhood yourself, in many ways. Think about it. Think of all the good the two of us combined could do for this world, once the Absolute has been vanquished.”
His voice breaks only slightly.
“Think of all the stars we could make shine for the countless mortals who need them.”
Rowan’s breath hitches in her throat.
Oh, Gale.
She understands. She truly, genuinely does. He’s not wrong. What she can do now, the powers and magic she can command when she so wishes, is dangerously akin to something like godhood. It’s not a secret. It’s not a surprise, after all the conversations she has had with the Matron and all the trials she has fought through in her goddess’s name.
But to be a Chosen of the Raven Queen is not the same as being a god.
To be the Matron’s champion, skimming the surface of whatever the fuck can consistute as divinity while keeping her friends and loved ones safe? That’s what Rowan wants. That’s all she’s ever wanted.
To be among the stars would get old after a while. She much prefers to look up at them and admire them from afar.
“I don’t want the stars, Gale,” Rowan says, her voice remarkably calm and steady. “I just want you.”
His face falls.
“But…!” He shakes his head vehemently. “But you could have the best version of me! A god’s powers paired a mortal conscience, a mortal heart!”
He lets go of her hands, gripping the fabric of his robes against his chest. The mark the orb has left on his face pulses with a dark violet light for a moment, his mouth parted as his fingers seem to seek where the damn thing sleeps precariously inside of him.
“With the power of the Crown, the orb would be rendered impotent. Any obstacle would be dwarfed by our might!”
His voice rises, desperate, and for a moment Rowan catches a glimpse of the man he once was before she fell into his life.
The man who believed his only worth could be determined by what he could do for others.
The man who sought to best Mystra if only for a fraction of her respect.
The man he cannot return to, because that’s not who Gale truly is.
She’s taken too long to answer, caught in her tumultuous thoughts as she gazes at her husband silently. It’s obvious by the way he sighs and hangs his head, not meeting her eyes as he twists his body and almost seems to shield himself from her presence.
“I used to believe Mystra’s forgiveness was worth dying for,” Gale admits in a whisper as fractured as the glass that once pierced Rowan’s temple like a crown. “But I was wrong. You showed me just how much I have to live for. I love you, Rowan. Why don’t you want me to love you as the best possible version of myself?”
Rowan can’t take this anymore.
She growls, an inhuman and almost bestial snarl that rips past her teeth and echoes throughout the tranquil sea of stars.
“Because I love you for the man you are, you idiot!” she shouts, hands reaching out to yank him to her. The boat shakes as Gale lets out a surprised yelp, her hands digging into his robes and pulling him flush against her. “Not for the god you’d pretend to be! I love you for you, Gale! Not because you’re a fucking wizard genius! Not because you could become a god just to spite Mystra! I love you because—because—!”
She claps her hands on both sides of his cheeks, pulling his face only mere centimeters away from hers.
“Because you let me into your home,” she whispers, tears pricking in the corners of her eyes. “You showed me kindness just for the sake of kindness, even though you needed to keep that kindness for yourself. You showed me how beautiful life can be. And yeah, magic has been in every aspect of our relationship since we met, but nothing has been more magical than being your friend, Gale. Being your wife. Your partner.”
Rowan slides a hand past his face and through his hair, her fingertips brushing against the raven feather tucked safely in the soft strands.
“I don’t want the stars,” she repeats. “I don’t want a god. I want you, Gale Alexander Dekarios. I want the man who looks at me like I’m the only other person in the world. I want the
mortal
who found a woman from another world and decided, without any hesitation, to care about her because he is good and kind and worth so much more than he realizes.”
Disbelief dances starkly across Gale’s face.
“You would prefer me as I am?” he asks, his voice a doubtful whisper.
She almost laughs, a sudden and stupid giddiness filling her chest and fluttering about on raven wings.
“Of course,” Rowan asserts, perhaps a bit more aggressively than intended. “Why else did I agree to marry you? You’re already everything I need you to be. So stop being such a fucking idiot and listen to reason already!”
Her eyes grow hot, uncomfortably so. Her throat closes up. Her tongue is thick, awkward, a half-dead thing in her mouth as the words tumble out in a frantic shout.
“If you become a god, I’ll punch you so hard you’ll turn back into a mortal! I’ll drag your shiny, pretty ass all over Faerûn charging admission so people can see the culmination of stupidity! And then I’ll do the same to Mystra! And Elminster! Hell, then myself for not stopping you! I don’t fucking care!”
She hiccups, a frustrated sob wreaking havoc in her throat as she screams,
“All I want is the man I fell in love with!”
Her voice echoes shrilly across eons and realms that can never be known by mortals.
Rowan is shaking. Her shadows vibrate under her skin, uncertain and unsure if they should stretch out and wrap around her in a protective shroud. She silently begs them not to. She’s afraid if they unraveled from their place inside her, she would command them to get a head start on the punches she just threatened.
Her husband just gapes at her.
His mouth hangs open, a startled expression of clarity settling across his face as her exclamation seems to sink into his thick, senseless skull.
She doesn’t know who moves first.
One moment, Gale is gazing at her in awe and wonder and everything perfect that exists in the universe.
The next, she’s laying on her back in the boat’s stifling crevices with his mouth on hers, his body blocking the view of the stars as her hands tangle in his hair.
“Gods, I’ve been a fool,” Gale groans against her lips, kissing her with a ferocity that makes her want to scream again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
“A total fool,” she agrees, tongue tangling with his own as his one of a kind taste bursts across her senses like a dying sun. “Idiot. Moron. Stupid, reckless wizard.”
“Rowan,” he breathes, hands on her hips as he slides fully on top of her, heedless of the way the boat rocks precariously. “My wife…my wife…my everything…”
Time loses meaning. The world becomes nothing but Gale and his mouth and his hands and his voice. He kisses her and kisses her, the flurry of his lips and tongue dizzying in all the best ways. Rowan shivers as the Weave tangles around them, the whispering might of the Outer Planes naught but a faint breeze as they dissolve into one another.
Seconds, minutes, years later, Gale pulls away. He is breathing hard. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are bright. His mouth is deliciously swollen, plush and sinful with how bruised they already are from the frantic way he was kissing her.
“I let my ambitions blind me,” he says, a note of self-derision and scorn painting every syllable. “Gods, how could I have allowed myself to return to that arrogant bastard I swore to leave behind?”
Rowan manages a small, sad smile as she strokes his head and gazes up at him.
“Because you’re not wrong about what the Crown could do, but we’re better than that. We’re going to get rid of the orb, stop the Absolute, and whatever fuckery the world throws in our way with our own power. We’re stubborn humans who don’t know when to quit, and we don’t need something as asinine as ascending to godhood to prove it.”
“You’re right.”
He leans his forehead against hers, warm breath fanning her face as he lets out a shuddering sigh.
“Godly power I can live without. But not you. Never you, Rowan. Forgive me for nearly succumbing to the same preposterous notions that almost killed me the first time around.”
Why was she so nervous and freaked out about being honest with him? She should have known better.
After yesterday’s frustrations (gods, was their almost day-long fight and subsequent making up only yesterday?) Rowan should have known Gale wouldn’t just bulldoze over her reservations. She just had to voice them.
Tension she hadn’t been aware of melts from her body and the celestial atmosphere around them. She wraps her arms around Gale, holding him close as he lay practically sprawled atop of her, forehead still pressed against hers. She focuses on him, inhaling and exhaling slowly and steadily.
His heartbeat never ceases to be the balm to her aching soul. She could listen to it for hours and never tire of the comforting, monotonous sound.
The boat creaks beneath them as Gale shifts. Rowan is almost disappointed when he rolls away, settling next to her rather than on top of her. Her arms feel disparagingly empty when he slips out of them and she tries not to pout, turning her head to look at him.
She has never seen something as beautiful as the stars reflected in his eyes.
Gale takes hold of her hand. He places it upon his chest, right above where the orb slumbers. Its evil, vicious aura seems more dull in a place like this. If only she could pluck it out right here and now and let it sink to the bottom of the lake of stars, never to hurt him again.
“Is it alright if we stay here awhile?” Gale asks her in a breathless whisper, his voice thick and shy. “I want to drink you in as long as I can.”
Rowan smiles and nods.
She tilts her head up and leans into him, pressing a gentle and woefully chaste kiss against his stubbled cheek.
“We can stay as long as you want.”
“Excellent.”
Another silence settles between them but this time, it’s a serene and relaxed one. The last couple days have been emotionally staggering—exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, what with all the heartfelt admissions and understandings they’ve reached.
Rowan knows Gale still fears the orb.
He still fears succumbing to the fate Mystra drew for him.
She hates that they’re at a standstill with how to fix the cursed magic inside of his chest, but she would have hated him choosing godhood as a solution even more.
If only the world wasn’t thrown into such chaos. She just needs more time. Time to study, time to test her abilities beyond what she thought she was capable of. The Shadow Weave is the key. She knows it.
Ugh. I don’t want to think about that shit right now. I just want to chill with my hot wizard husband in a magical starscape as we ignore the fact he’s going to confront his bitchy ex-lover.
So Rowan does.
An eternity stretches on as Gale and Rowan simply lay side-by-side on the boat, nestled within a sea of stars, gazing up at the impossibly ethereal nebulae above them. The scent of ozone is suddenly accompanied by the faintest whiff of roses, so distant it could almost be a false memory.
Rowan’s eyes narrow and she glares at the too-perfect starry sky. Nope. No way Mystra is going to sneak a peek at her and Gale’s cuddle time. Of course the goddess of magic is able to interrupt considering where Gale has brought them.
Well, if that’s how Mystra wants to play, Rowan can prove the ball is in her court now.
She reaches a hand out limply, letting it droop over the boat’s side. Her fingertips dip into the water. Closing her eyes, she reaches for her darkness.
How about a little change of scenery?
Her magic complies.
Gale stirs and lets out a hum of sleepy alarm as shadows start to drift across the unbroken surface of the lake. Neither of them had spoken for so long she hadn’t realized he was losing a battle with the desire to accidentally nap. She turns and gives him an apologetic grin, patting his chest as she murmurs, “Just setting the mood.”
The stars shift around them as darkness enters the unending horizon.
The sky becomes less divine. The stars don’t lose their luster but, rather, become smaller and more spread out, the wisping mists of ether and Weave giving way to a midnight silken canopy embedded with purple and blue diamonds. A loamy, rainy scent mixed with earth replaces the smell of ozone and roses, a far more tangible and realistic aroma that refreshes all of Rowan’s senses.
Underneath them, the boat fades away. It becomes nothing but motes of light that rise and rise until they join their brethren in the night. A calm breeze ruffles their hair and clothes, rolling across the hill both sorcerer and wizard now find themselves on.
Not just a hill, but a meadow. A sloping meadow full of irises and lilies, heather and lavender. The flowers stretch as far as the eye can see, petals glistening with dew only a perfect night can bring. Rowan and Gale lay within a bed of heather, the verdant stalks of irises rising around them like quiet sentries.
A moon shines overhead, pale and translucent. It bathes the meadow in just enough light that Rowan’s shadows can still dance between the flowers eagerly. They remain some ways away, giving her and Gale as much privacy as they can while they maintain the illusion.
Though, it could be argued this magic is hardly a true illusion. It’s more real than any other she’s cast before, especially here in the Outer Planes.
If she wanted to summon a unicorn out of nothing but shadows and hope, it would definitely exist now.
She is very proud of her self-restraint as she ignores the desire to do exactly that, instead focusing on playing with the ends of Gale’s hair.
“That’s better,” she says. “Less godly and more…Rowan-y.”
All traces of sleepiness evaporate from her husband as he looks at her, eyes brighter than the moon above them.
“Rowan,” he murmurs, and his tone says more than it needs to as a familiar lick of heat rouses itself between her legs.
She swallows nervously. Oh. Oh, fuck. Fuck. How did one measly spell immediately make him horny?
Not that she’s any better. Her breath is already quickening, skin tingling with the beloved phantom sensation of his touch. She is haunted and hypnotized by the look he’s giving her, his lips pursed in a cocky little grin as the tranquil atmosphere around them shifts to something a lot more…suggestive.
Rowan’s voice is a squeak as she stammers out, “I-I haven’t taken a bath yet! I’m gross from fighting Lorroakan!”
Her husband raises an eyebrow. “Sweetheart, why in Ao’s name would that ever stop me?”
And then Gale is on his knees before her, and he’s thrown her legs over his shoulders, and she barely has time ponder where the fuck her pants and underwear went before his tongue is flicking against her clit.
“F-fuck!” Rowan cries out. Gods, his tongue is always so warm and so soft! Her eyes flutter shut as he strokes the already damp folds of her pussy with his talented tongue. It’s been days since he ate her out. She’s missed it.
Gale’s hands grip under her knees as he hoists her closer to him, a delicate and dream-like sigh escaping his mouth. His beard scratches and tickles her sensitive sex, tongue encircling her clit one moment and then delving into her aching pussy the next. She lets out a string of wordless sounds, head cradled by a pillow of cool, damp heather, hands scrambling to grab onto whatever vegetation she can find.
“Forgive me,” he pants as he licks and sucks and kisses her sex, the lasciviously wet noises accompanying his rasping voice setting Rowan’s blood on fire. “Forgive me, love, for all the pain my foolishness has caused you as of late.”
She can’t answer him properly. It’s impossible to speak with his tongue thrusting in and out of her pussy and his mouth suckling her clit.
“If anyone deserves godhood, it’s you,” Gale continues, the words muffled against her dripping pussy. Muffled, but still utterly aching with a devotion that makes her legs feel like jelly and her chest constrict. “Oh, stars above, Rowan, I could spend my whole life worshiping you on my knees and it still wouldn’t be enough.”
“Gale…!” Rowan whimpers out, her voice ending in a tinny shriek when he gives her throbbing clit a particularly rough suck. “D-Don’t…say things like… that…!”
She feels him grin against her pussy, licking a quick and teasing stripe down the entrance before plunging it as deep inside of her as he can. Hot, thunderous waves of sudden and almost deadly pleasure ripple through her core. She digs her hands into the ground even more, earth beneath her fingernails, as her hips gain a mind of their own and start to gyrate wantonly against his face.
He nods, a vehement and vigorous gesture, his excitement palpable as he fucks her with his tongue. His grip on her legs tighten, steadfast and strong. The friction of his beard as she desperately grinds up and into his face elicits mewls she never knows she has the capacity to create. His tongue buried between her slick folds summons tidal waves of bliss rocking back and forth in her core.
A knot forms inside of her.
Rowan moans languidly, brokenly, legs locking around Gale’s head. Her back is practically arching off the ground with how hard and desperate she’s fucking herself on his face, on his tongue. All sense of softness has vanished, replaced with a wild and vicious longing to cum in his mouth.
Gale’s face buried between her legs will never not be divine. Damn all this talk of ascension and godhood—what else could ever compare to this?! His tongue scissoring into her folds...his eager, loving exploration of her deepest parts…
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK.
“Why are you so good at this?!” she rasps accusingly.
“Because,” Gale answers, voice muffled but not so much so that she can’t hear the preening arrogance in his tone, “my mouth is my most cunning weapon of all, and I take care to ensure it never loses its finesse.”
As if in emphasis, his tongue does something magical that she can’t even comprehend with how ridiculously amazing it feels.
F U C K.
It’s maddening. It always is. Her poor, throbbing clit can’t take much more of this. His nose keeps bumping into it, the pleasant scratchiness of his beard making her feel raw and undone. And he just keeps sucking. Sucking and devouring her as if it’s his very reason for existence, tongue far too talented for it to be fair.
She’s not sure how she manages it, but somehow between feeling like she’s going to faint and greedy for even more pleasure, Rowan gets out, “Don’t stop!”
He nods again. His tongue quickens and so, obviously, so does her rhythmic grinding against his face. It only serves to encourage him.
“Rowan,” Gale gasps into her cunt, her name deliriously wet and vulgar. “I want to die with your taste on my tongue. I want to drown in it.” He suckles her clit, tongue swirling all around her sex. “Oh, my love, how are you so perfect?”
He speaks too sweetly.
Too sincerely.
It’s too much for their sudden, frantic fucking.
It hits her hard and fast. Flames course through her veins as Rowan cries out, his name stretched into a whimpering shout that disappears into the flowers around them. The knot in her core tightens and then unravels, letting go as it unspools throughout her body and sends static shooting up and down her spine.
Her thighs squeeze around his head so hard she fears for a moment she’s going to choke him.
But it seems the pressure does the opposite of dissuading him from his sacred task. Gale groans as he laps up every drop of wetness; he repeats her name, a prayer on his tainted lips as his tongue licks patterns up and down her trembling sex. Her limbs are limp as she sinks into the earth below her, the night time breeze gently caressing her sweaty forehead. She is only vaguely aware of his tongue slipping out from between her folds a few moments later, too dizzy with the rippling aftershocks of her orgasm to mourn its loss.
Gingerly, tenderly, he pries her legs from around his head. She hopes she didn’t hurt him too much when she squeezed.
She forces her eyes to crack open as she feels her husband adjust himself, the sensation of his hands on either side of her panting body alerting her.
He hovers above her, face glistening with her release. A hazy, heady glaze coats his eyes as he gazes down at her, mouth curled into a ghostly smile. It’s such a pretty sight. Prettier than the miasma of stars and galaxies from before.
Gale’s smile widens as he catches her staring intently at the mark her orgasm left on his face, musing softly, “You are just as delicious as I remembered.”
Welp.
If she wasn’t still horny, that decadent tone of his would put her right back where she started.
“Clothes,” Rowan mumbles quickly as her hands stretch out, “off. Now.”
Maybe it’s by magic. Maybe it’s by some kind of spell crafted in their joint desire for nothing but each other, but before she can even begin the process of helping him shed his robes, all of Gale’s attire disappears. The rest of her clothes follow suit, fading away like a falling star.
She reaches for him, fingers threading into his hair, pulling his head down with a violence that causes him to let out a startled noise. She kisses him, lips practically slamming against his soiled mouth, relishing in the taste of herself on his tongue as he slides his naked body perfectly on top of hers.
“Inside,” Rowan demands against his mouth, teeth nibbling his lower lip as her legs wrap around his thick waist. “Need you inside, Gale, need you now, need you—!”
“Yes,” he moans into the savage, stormy kiss, his cock already hard and brushing against her sex. “Whatever you need, love, take it…!”
When he pushes into her, sliding in so easily, Rowan almost weeps in relief at the sensation of being full once again. She sighs and gasps in tandem against his mouth, fingers tangling in his hair as she revels in his cock slowly sheathing inside.
Perfect.
Gods, how is it always so perfect?
“Gale,” Rowan pants, pussy already clenching around him. “Gale…”
His cock throbs. It begins twitching inside her, eager and desperate, and he breaks from the kiss to bury his face in the crook of her neck and moan against her skin. “P-please,” he whispers raggedly, hips rocking as he starts to reward her with little thrusts. “Please, Rowan…”
Gale’s voice dips an octave, an entanglement of sheepish yearning in his next words.
“I need you inside me as well.”
A vicious, cruel, and delighted streak of elation burns in Rowan’s heart.
“Aw,” she hums, composure remarkably returning despite Gale’s thrusts in and out of her, “does my darling husband need to get fucked too?”
She feels him shudder. His head nods stiffly as he keeps his face buried in the safety of her throat. She grins, stroking his hair with all the adoration in the world.
“Maybe I will,” she muses, “but only if you beg for it.”
She is already reaching for the threads of her shadows as she did on their wedding night, but he doesn’t need to know that.
Gale shudders once more. His rhythm skips a beat, his thrusts faltering somewhat as she hears him suck in a breath. “Please,” he whispers, pressing needy kisses against the fluttering pulse of her throat. “Please, Rowan. Please. I want to feel it again. I want to feel your magic inside of me. Please…”
She curls her fingers in his hair, tugging on them at the same time she tugs on her shadows. “Good boy,” she praises, squeezing her legs around his waist to pull him deeper into her.
Rowan commands her shadows with nothing but a thought.
Gale lets out a strangled gasp and jerks against her as thick strings of darkness tease his ass, caressing his backside eagerly. She can see the spell in her mind’s eye, the tips of the appendages dripping with an oily substance for easy entry. She is a puppet master once more, her consciousness split between the magic under her control and the sensations of her own body.
“Please,” Gale whispers brokenly, meekly, wiggling his hips impatiently.
She tugs on his hair again.
The shadows swarm and slither inside without a moment’s hesitation, and the sound that Gale lets out is a perfect symphony.
Rowan gasps and moans and whimpers herself as she feels his cock throbbing and twitching inside her. The shadows are wasting no time, already thrusting in and out as madly as they had on their wedding night. Gale rocks into her, hips desperate as he keens into her neck pathetically. She swears she can sense the collective pleasure of the spell as it coils along his insides, spreading and slithering with reckless abandon.
“F-Fuck…~”
Gale’s blissed-out tone makes her pussy throb and her clit pulse. She tries to match the pace of the shadows fucking into him, moving her hips with the same speed and cadence. A numbness, overly sensitive and almost painful, manifests deep in her core as he attempts the same.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Gale’s cock, sliding in and out of her furiously.
The shadows, thrusting and wriggling in and out of Gale’s ass with alarming intelligence.
The tranquil, calm atmosphere of the dewy meadow becomes lost in a sea of wanton sin. A squelching, obscene sound travels throughout the air—disturbingly, almost disgustingly lewd, a combination of Rowan’s wet sex and Gale’s ravaged insides.
Every movement sends quakes and tremors through Rowan’s body. She can barely hold onto the spell, her concentration split between the desire to lose herself in Gale’s pleasure and the need to focus on her own. She can feel the shadows fucking Gale as he fucks her. A delicious, devilish sensation that wraps chains around her reasoning and imprisons her in a cage of filth.
He’s so tight.
He’s so tight and he’s throbbing and pulsing around her—around the shadows—and with every inch that they wriggle deeper he just trembles even more. More. More. More.
She wants to give him more, wants to be given more. She wants him to cry out, to wail, to moan and keen and whimper as her magic fills him up and toys with him. She wants him to keep her pinned against the damp earth, back cushioned by soft petals and the scent of moonlight in the air as his cock pistons into her for time immemorial.
“Hah…ngh…o-oh…”
She’s not sure whose sounds those belong to. It’s impossible to tell where Gale ends and she begins. Magic and shadow descend upon her, dancing across her skin like a lover, as Gale’s cock slams into her walls without any intention of stopping.
“So g-good,” he pants, voice taut and crumbling. “You’re perfect, love, utterly perfect…just like that, just like that…gods, my Rowan, my darling, my perfect, lovely, good girl…”
Every uttered speck of praise is electricity in her head. It blazes and thrums wickedly, threatening to short-circuit her brain. She loves it. She loves it when he says those things to her, all sense of control gone as he lavishes her with just the right words to drive her insane.
And then suddenly Gale is lifting his head from the crook of her neck and staring at her, mouth parted and cheeks flushed. Rowan has to bite her lip to prevent the salacious sound she wants to make.
Fuck. Shit. Fucking shit. Look at him. Look at how pretty he is when he’s being fucked silly.
Like their wedding night all over again, Gale’s face is a gorgeous mess. Feverish with want, eyes half-lidded, tongue almost lolling out as sweat glistens across his forehead. His eyes burn, a soft and delirious fire that is eclipsed only by the veneration he gazes at her with.
“My wife,” he chokes out, thrusting roughly at a particular spot just as Rowan’s shadows perform a similar dance inside of him. And she can feel it. Oh, gods, she can feel him squeezing again, feel him shudder as his muscles embrace every dark inch of shadow writhing within him.
Rowan is going to erupt.
She sees stars for a fleeting moment, pleasure roiling within her core. Her legs tighten around his waist, pulling him even deeper, further, not wanting to feel as though any part of their beings are not touching.
“Gale,” she nearly wails, begging the shadows to go faster, harder. “Gale!”
Her hands slip from his hair, fingers tugging along the tangled knots and extracting a little too excited moan from him. She grabs his shoulders, desperate to match his and the shadows’ cadence again, her pussy trembling as everything inside of her screams for release. But no. Not yet. Longer. They can keep this up for longer.
She wants to climb that summit of ecstasy with him and just before they reach the top, tumble back down only to restart. Over, and over, and over again. Endless, fathomless. Teasing, toying, torturing one another until their bodies threaten to give out and then some.
It can’t end. She won’t let it. She needs this. He needs this. She can tell, with his mouth hanging open and his eyes practically rolling into the back of his head as the shadows curl even deeper into his ass.
Rowan just can’t stop staring at the pretty, perfect sight of Gale’s face twisted in intoxicated bliss.
And then—
Something wraps around her clit. She jerks in surprise, a gasp escaping her lips, as a velveteen tendril of something starts to squeeze and pinch and twitch around the sensitive bundle of nerves. A shadow. A small, almost insignificant portion of the spell has slipped from her grasp, seemingly intent on showering her with a modest amount of attention while its brethren continue their assault on Gale.
It’s too much.
Rowan knows she cums first, knows that her pussy clenches and clamps down around Gale’s cock as heat slithers down her legs and to the tips of her toes. She knows the moment she does, the spell falls apart, the shadows melting into nothing. She knows this leaves Gale empty and alone even as she cries out and moans, body jerking beneath him.
It doesn’t stop him from following her shortly after, pounding and thrusting a few more times before his cock gives the telltale twitch she so craves. Primally, savagely, it shudders inside of her as he gives one last mad thrust against her walls. His release pours into her, gushing.
Rowan shivers and lets out a satisfied sigh as Gale fills her to the brim. The warmth spreads through her entire body, her cunt soaking up every drop he has to give. It’s only when he groans and drops his head squarely into the cushion of her breasts that she realizes with some small disappointment that she missed his orgasm face.
She’d been too startled by the shadow on her clit.
You cheeky little bastards, she calls out to the darkness, the likes of which is still skulking about amongst the conjured flower field. All of you are on time out! That was uncalled for!
The darkness doesn’t answer. A spark of irritation floods her head and she scowls deeply. She resists the urge to flip her shadows off and glances down at her unmoving husband.
Gale’s breath fans the hot, sticky skin of her breasts as he lay there as if her chest is a pillow. Not that she minds. She’s happy to oblige. It’s just that he’s eerily quiet after an abrupt end of intense lovemaking, and his cock is still snugly inside of her pussy. She shifts, starting to feel the drip of his spend inch its way out of her sex as it slides past his softening length.
“Um,” she mumbles, concerned, “you alright there, bud?”
Gale answers with a wordless mumble. He nuzzles into her tits, barely lifting his head, gazing at her through a curtain of messy hair that has fallen free from his bun—all due to her tugging and pulling. Oops.
“It wasn’t enough,” he all but whines, a petulant and annoyed undercurrent to his words. “It ended far too quickly. I…I wanted more.”
Rowan tries not to laugh. Mostly because she feels the same but, also, because the irked expression he’s wearing is just too cute. He’s pouting. Gale Dekarios is pouting because he came too quickly.
(Well, it’s technically her fault for losing focus on the spell, but maybe he’ll not come to that conclusion until later.)
She leans her head and presses a kiss on his forehead. A hand falls from his shoulder to find one of his own, which rests on her hip. She finds his wedding band and caresses the surface, heedless of the loam stuck under her fingernails. It’ll go away when they leave this place. A shame, because she really likes the scene she created.
“Well,” Rowan ponders, “how much longer can you keep us here?”
Gale blinks, calculating arcane equations and composing formulas in his mind in the span of a single heartbeat. “I’d say another hour or so,” he answers with an air of certainty, gaze flicking very pointedly to her nipples. “Anything more than that and the Weave may just hold us hostage.”
His head lowers, eyes full obscured by his hair as the flat of his tongue ghosts just barely across the soft curve of her breast. Just
barely
a centimeter away from her nipple, the tip already starting to pebble and harden with eager anticipation.
Rowan swallows and sucks in a shaky, shuddering breath, trying to pretend like she doesn't want to grab his head and force his mouth where it belongs.
“Well. I can think of a few ways to spend an hour.”
Gale’s cock, still snug inside of her at full-hilt, twitches. She can feel it slowly beginning to harden once more, a pleasant burn accompanying the stretch as he shifts himself into a more comfortable position.
She hears the grin in his voice rather than sees it, especially since his lips are now hidden by the heaving weight of her chest. “What a coincidence,” Gale all but sings, “so can I.”
The Stormshore Tabernacle is…boring.
For a place dedicated to the entire Faerûnian pantheon, Rowan expected a lot more splendor. Instead, the shrine is rather small, lit by multitudes of candles and sconces that fill the air with a distinct aroma of incense.
No worshippers or clerics mull about. It’s weirdly, uncannily empty. As though a decree was hung on the door saying no one was allowed entry. Which is untrue, considering she and Gale just walked through the door, and it was blessedly free of any signage.
Her footsteps echo hollowly along the marble floor. The crimson rug leading up to the obvious altar towards the back of the shrine is so pristine and devoid of dust she feels as though to step on it would be sacrilegious. The sun shines through the stained glass decorating the walls behind said altar, creating tiny rainbows that dart along the surfaces of statues of at least a dozen gods.
No depiction of the Raven Queen, though. Of course. It’s so damn annoying that there are hardly any formal places of worship for her Matron.
She misses her room in Waterdeep. Her makeshift shrine isn’t much, but it’s more than what the denizens of Baldur’s Gate refuse to give. Despite all their gold and glamor.
Speaking of gold…
A glittering halo catches her eye. Rowan glances over at a statue of a god draped in flowing regalia, his hands spread out to cup a rising sun. A crown of gold has been woven around his forehead, resplendent and glorious as a morning sunrise. The light is freakishly bright as it settles on the statue, almost as if someone had installed a fancy lamp in the ceiling right above it.
Oh, uh. Hey, Lathander, she thinks as she gives his statue a polite, reserved wave. Sorry for threatening to punch you a couple days ago. I was having a…moment. No hard feelings?
She swears the statue’s eyes flash gold for a moment.
And then a shining, shimmering ray of sunlight shifts from the elegant stained glass window right into her eyes.
“ACK!” Rowan barks, squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to avoid the flashbang, but it’s too late. It feels like someone’s poked them with hot needles for a millisecond, more bothersome than actually painful.
When she opens her eyes again, the world is a dark blur.
“Oh, come on!” she grouses, holding up her hands placatingly in the direction she thinks Lathander’s statue is. “I’m sorry! I was in a really bad mood yesterday! I’m not actually gonna punch you! Or the sun!”
“...Rowan? Are you alright?” Gale asks at her side, voice brimming with bafflement. The bafflement quickly turns to alarm when he adds, “Your eyes are pure white!”
Pip’s talons dig into Rowan’s shoulder. They peck her cheek gently, sighing as they grumble, “This is why we don’t talk shit about gods, boss.” The feathers at her throat are starting to grow warm, the Matron’s familiar presence washing over her.
Just as quickly as her blindness had manifested, it is banished before Rowan can even blink. A wisp of shadow hovers by the statue of Lathander. It undulates like strands of black hair floating in the tide, seeming to poke and prod the side of the statue’s head. Almost…apologetically.
She winces and gives the statue a civil, courteous thumbs up.
And then a second one, just in case.
When another speck of dangerously bright sunlight does not descend from the heavens to blind her once more, she considers her accidental grudge with the Morninglord to have been settled.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rowan insists as she turns her focus back to Gale. “Just a misunderstanding with…”
She trails off when she sees her husband’s face.
He has gone pale. His breath hitches, somewhat strangled and vibrating with nerves that border on paranoia. His eyes have landed on a particular statue, one on the left side of the room, and it seems as though a great conglomeration of rainbows have gathered at the statue’s feet.
Mystra.
She swallows a sneer of disdain and threads her fingers with his. Showing her dislike so outwardly in a shrine partially dedicated to the Mother of Magic probably isn’t the best of ideas considering what just happened with Lathander, even if her heart is full of loathing.
In the end, Gale and her had never discussed what he should say to the goddess. They’d been too busy dedicating themselves to one another over and over again, even after he had to return them to the Material Plane.
There had been no time for plotting and planning when he was whispering his apologies in her ear, smothering her face with kisses, and she insisting with every touch that he was and always would be enough.
Gale’s feet drag him across the shrine with a leaden, lethargic pace that betrays his apprehension. Rowan follows, pressing against his side, and he is flanked by Tara loyally trotting. The tressym’s fur is standing on end, her tail fluffed up to the point of sheer aggression.
She does not bother to hide her disdain. Tara would dare Ao himself to smite her should he wrong her dear wizard.
“You don’t have to do this, sir,” she says for what must be the fifth time today, her tone soft and gentle and kind. “You owe her nothing. And if Sir Aumar returns to air her complaints, he shall have to answer to me.”
Gale pauses. He’s stopped in front of a statue of Selûne. It’s the only thing between him and Mystra’s statue, and not an ounce of sunlight has reached the Moonmaiden’s idol.
He looks as if he wants to reach out a hand and place it between the eyes of her holy symbol. But he doesn’t. Though his body is pointed towards Selûne, his gaze remains locked onto the guise of his former goddess.
“I know,” he says after a few moments of silence. “Thank you, Tara. But I must.”
Rowan wants to open her mouth to protest, just as Tara had. She says nothing. This is Gale’s choice. She will respect it.
After all, he respected her fears and sent the Annals of Karsus back to Rolan this morning with a plea to lock the book in the vault once more.
So she just squeezes his hand, her fingers brushing against his ring, the sapphire inlaid within the silver a perfect twin to Selûne’s starry eyes. It seems to spur him forward, giving him the strength to finish the last leg of the race. He steps towards Mystra’s statue, coming to a stop before it at last, and stares in solemn silence at the carved face of the goddess he once loved.
The goddess who abandoned him.
The statue looks similar to the conjured face Rowan remembers Gale holding reverently all those nights ago in Waterdeep. Her long hair flows about her face as if caught in a windstorm, a divinely-appointed raiment draped across lithe limbs and stony curves. Her eyes are closed in a beatific mask of radiant altruism.
A lie, of course.
The air around the statue smells like rosewater. Cloying, suffocatingly so.
When Rowan rubs Gale’s ring again, the Weave pulses in the statue’s proximity. Like a living, breathing thing—like a heartbeat, a rush of blood, greedy and hungry and oddly cruel. Vindictive. A sharp, petty sense of something terrifying beyond the veil settles against Rowan’s skin, and it’s only Pip’s talons in her shoulder grounding her to reality that keeps her from falling to the ground in utter fright.
At least Shar had been a bitch in a temple dedicated solely to her.
Mystra has no right to act as if the Stormshore Tabernacle belongs to her and her alone.
“The old man wasn’t lying,” Gale says quietly, shivering as the Weave caresses him with silken claws. “She’s opened a summoning channel. Can’t you feel it?”
Yes, she can. It sets her teeth on edge. The shadows inside of her writhe and rage beneath her skin, snarling like protective wolves as the air crackles with divine magic.
“A stream of pure, undiluted Weave,” her husband continues, voice a hushed murmur. “I only have to reach out and it will carry me to Mystra, wherever she may be.”
“You’re ready for this, Gale,” Rowan encourages him, pressing her lips to his cheek in a lingering kiss. The Weave around them thrums with displeasure, a shuddering rosy breeze eerily sharp as it glances across her own cheek.
He turns to look at her, finally wrenching his gaze away from Mystra’s statue. “Am I?” he asks, voice lilting with light amusement.
“If you’re not,” Tara interjects, sitting on her haunches and starting to sharpen her claws on the marble floor, “I’d be happy to go in your stead, Mr. Dekarios. I am quite ready to tell that narrow-minded tart exactly what I think of her.”
It’s not that she wants anything to happen to Tara, but if the insults while standing in front of Mystra’s statue aren’t worth a punishment, then why the fuck was Rowan apologizing to Lathander deserving of a momentary blindness?
“No, no,” Gale shakes his head a little too quickly, obviously trying to hide a nervous frown. “I am a strong, capable wizard. And this is no more than a casual reunion with an ex-lover.”
He swallows.
“...my omnipotent, omniscient ex-lover.”
Rowan eyes the statue warily, trying to tamp down the raging desire to cast Fireball at it. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“No,” he repeats with another shake of his head, this one even quicker than the last. “I mean…yes. Yes, of course I do, Rowan. I’d feel so much more at ease were you by my side. But…”
He gestures loosely to the flicker of the Weave around them, careful not to touch the area where it seems to be the most concentrated. “The summoning channel Mystra has provided is one only I can enter, no matter how much I’d prefer not to face her alone.”
Ugh.
That feels like cheating.
Coward, Rowan can’t help but think seethingly, biting her tongue before she says worse out loud.
“Coward,” Tara mutters under her breath, tail flicking angrily as she glowers at Mystra’s statue.
Rowan would high five the tressym if she wasn’t so certain any sudden movements will be surefire way to being smited where she stands.
Plus, well, Tara’s paws aren’t exactly appropriate highfive material.
“I’ll only be gone for a matter of moments,” Gale says as he chooses to ignore Tara’s grumbling. The muscles in his face twitch as he steels himself, swallowing and sighing. He gives Rowan a melancholy, lonely look that stabs into her heart and rips her wings into useless confetti. “I’m not sure what I’m going to say to her, but…wait for me. Please.”
“Always,” she vows, swallowing her own surge of anxiety and grief. She wants to beg him to reconsider. But it would be wrong; it would be a disservice to the trust he has placed in her, and she never wants to make him feel the way Mystra once did.
But as Gale’s fingers slip from hers like a funeral shroud, and his hand reaches out to touch the concentrated threads of Weave, she desperately wishes she had kissed him one last time. It will just have to wait until he returns, because then he is gone, the space where he stood empty and lonely and miserable as the divine magic dissipates from the air.
Rowan’s shoulders sag.
She fiddles with her braid, chewing nervously on the ends of her hair as she glances about the tabernacle. How long is a few moments? Thirty seconds? A minute? A blink of an eye?
She grabs onto the cluster of feathers at her throat like they are a lifeline, her shadows prowling to and fro in the cage of her soul.
I can’t do this. I can’t let him face her alone. But how do I go where he’s gone? How can I follow someone to an audience with a goddess?
The scent of incense suddenly drowns out the saccharine smell of roses, heady and thick and reminding her of home. “Why,” a voice whispers in her ear, soft as death and as gentle as a grave, “by tagging along with another goddess or two, little one.”
A familiar hand envelops her own, cold as winter but without the deadly chill. Rowan blinks in surprise when a second hand brushes against her wrist, the tips of delicate fingers tapping the opal of her wedding band.
Something tells her to look at the statue of Selûne.
So she does.
The Moonmaiden’s carved eyes are wide open, and the stony lips are curved in a knowing smile as black mist coalesces around her eagerly.
“Gale Dekarios is under my protection now,” Selûne says through her statue’s mortal-made mouth, her voice as clear as a moonlit night. “I’ve no intention of allowing Mystra to antagonize him any further. Shall we be on our way, dear child?”
A grin spreads across Rowan’s face.
Nevermore materializes in the hand her Matron is not holding, the staff’s weight a dependable comfort against her skin.
“Let’s go!” she exclaims without hesitation, nodding exuberantly. “I’m gonna punch the
fuck
out of a goddess today!”
The Raven Queen sighs and even though she is formless in this place, Rowan still senses her exasperated shake of the head.
“Rowan, no. You will not be punching any goddesses today. Not even Mystra. Please stop antagonizing my fellow deities when there is no need to.”
“Party pooper,” she mumbles. She glances down at Tara, who doesn’t seem all that surprised by the sudden appearance of not only the Raven Queen, but Selûne as well. “Get on my other shoulder. There’s no way you’re not coming too.”
“You needn’t ask,” the tressym asserts gleefully, hopping into the air. She lands on the shoulder Pip isn’t perched on, settling elegantly as her wings fold back against her fluffy form.
Rowan turns her focus back to the statue of the Moonmaiden. “So, do I need to click my heels together and chant ‘there’s no place like home’ in elvish, or—”
She doesn’t get to finish her thought.
For the world suddenly changes around her and for the second time in her life, Rowan is adrift in the Outer Planes.
The starscape of the Outer Planes loses its splendor without his wife at his side.
Gale breathes in deep, taking in once more the pungent aroma of ozone. Magic pulses and shifts, gossamer as it slides across his skin. His chest feels as though it will splinter at any moment. He has never been so bloody nervous. The violent panic he had been struck with when he had given his thesis to the board members of Blackstaff is laughable now.
Mystra stands before him in all her divine glory.
She hasn’t changed a bit in the year since Gale last saw her face-to-face. And why would she? She is a goddess. A goddess as immutable as hewn stone; a barricade erected and fortified by the very universe itself.
“Gale of Waterdeep,” his once beloved says with an unmistakable flair of subtle disfavor, “you look well.”
The nebulae in her eyes inspect him stoically, impartially. How had he ever thought their glow was the most beautiful thing he could behold? Where Gale had once seen an endless sky of fondness and delight, he now views their probing for what it is:
Cold, hard calculation.
How foolish Gale had been.
Mystra’s eyes have never been capable of softness—of kindness. Not like Rowan’s.
Gale swallows the lump in his throat and tries to pretend it does not feel as though a sword has lodged itself in his gullet.
“Dekarios.”
Mystra tilts her head, lips thin as she regards him with a slight narrowing of her eyes. “Pardon?”
“It’s Gale Dekarios,” he says, rubbing the silver band of his wedding ring with his thumb. The metal feels oddly warm to the touch. Comforting. Strength wells up within him on wings as black as night, the taut sensation of his skin stretching over bones too fragile for stars loosening. He finds himself standing taller, head held higher, his throat no longer threatening to choke him. “Gale of Waterdeep sounds so preposterously arrogant. I’d much prefer to be known by the name I share with my wife.”
The mouth that had once praised and punished him in equal measure morphs into a frown bordering dangerously close to a sneer. “Ah, yes. The little sorcerer from another world. One of the Raven Queen’s pets, as I understand it. She is rather…quaint.”
Gale’s fingers twitch.
Currents of the Weave whisper into his ear, magic untapped and untamed. They mock him, tempt him, seducing him with the possibility of striking the goddess before him. He ignores the call. Just as he ignores Mystra’s thinly veiled barb towards Rowan.
“Why am I here?” he questions, ready for his feet to be back on solid marble.
Mystra seems almost disappointed by the inquiry, as if she had wanted—had hoped—for a more impetuous display on his part.
“There is much unsaid between us, but time runs ever short. You discovered what lies at the Heart of the Absolute; the Crown of Karsus. And you disobeyed my instruction. Why?”
Gale almost laughs in Mystra’s face right then and there.
“Why?” he echoes, tampering down all desire to scoff and roll his eyes. He instead is careful to keep his face a cool mask of indifference, the tremor in his voice barely noticeable as he refuses to look away from her. “I didn’t want to die. And when I saw the Crown, I thought I might not have to, if I only understood its power.”
Saying the notion out loud, summed up so succinctly…
Rowan had been correct. Gale truly had been a fool. Trading one arrogant folly for another.
Gods, what would he ever do without her?
Mystra does laugh in Gale’s face at his answer.
A slight, almost silent sigh of scorn passes between her lips as she raises an eyebrow. “And you believe you have a right to such an understanding?”
It wouldn’t do to be dishonest, no matter how badly he just wants this conversation to end.
“I did,” Gale admits. “For a handful of days. Until I had a modicum of sense beaten into me and realized I am just a man, and for the person who means the most to me in this world…” He feels himself smiling before he can stop it, his heart swelling. “I am enough as is.”
He does not think he’s ever seen a goddess appear close to vomiting.
“The past cannot be undone with self pity,” Mystra declares piously, a cavalier spark in her starry gaze. “Nor can a future be forged. Only with the truth will you see the way ahead.” She raises a hand, so slender and pale and once upon a time, the epitome of perfection in Gale’s eyes, and points a delicate finger directly at his chest. “The fragment of magic you tried to return to me was not of my creation. It was the Karsite Weave.”
…oh.
Oh.
Oh.
Gale cannot help the shocked sound that emits from his throat, his eyes widening as his own hand subconsciously goes to the place where the orb dwells. He swears the accursed thing almost stirs in recognition at the disdain in Mystra’s voice, a beast awakening from its slumber.
Has there truly ever been a fool more audacious and idiotic as I?
The thought races across his mind as he quickly sorts through his memories of that ill-fated day in the Blackstaff library. He had his suspicions, especially with the year of research and the recent events of the past couple weeks, but to have it confirmed so blatantly by the goddess of magic herself…
What he had discovered was not a portion of the true Weave. It was yet another scrap leftover by Karsus, discarded in his delirium to achieve what mortals should wisely let be.
“It is corrupted,” Mystra continues as if she is heedless of the turmoil now seeping into Gale’s mind. “Half-wrought magic born in the brief moment Karsus ascended to godhood. It hungers for power just as he did, and it can never be sated.”
“I’m very much aware,” Gale mutters under his breath, reminiscing of the countless artifacts and ancient relics he has devoured all for the sake of calming the beast. He still has yet to confess to his mother all of the gifts she’s given him over the years are now nonexistent, forced to serve a perverse purpose in the guise of an arcane feast.
Her consternation frightens him more than Mystra’s derision, frankly.
The goddess in question is still speaking, for as Gale knows quite well, there is nothing a wizard loves more than the sound of their own voice. “You unleashed something that would consume all magic in existence,” she says, words tinged with an accusatory venom, “and yet you only thought of preserving yourself.”
She is not wrong.
Oh, no, she has slammed the hammer onto the proverbial nail with the force of a thousand giants.
Before Rowan, Gale had spent hours in his tower, ink splattered on his robes and quills snapped in twain as he struggled to put to parchment all the words he wished to say to Mystra. Days would be filled with nothing but him reciting his arguments as if they were poetry, his only audience a weary Tara and books that held no answers.
How often had he imagined this conversation? How often had he conjured up a debate in his mind, so assured of his own victory?
Too often.
Even so, all of those pointless arguments are rendered moot after Rowan’s scolding. As they should be. Gale has no one to blame but himself for his current troubles, even though he bloody well knew better.
“...I am sorry,” he says quietly after enduring what feels like a lifetime of bitter silence beneath Mystra’s terse gaze. “I sought only to prove myself worthy back then—it’s no excuse, I know, but it’s the truth. I had no idea what I was about to unleash at the time.”
A flicker of something unreadable dawns across her face. Her eyes grow just a little more cold. Her hand forms into a clawed shape before him, threads of purple and blue misting off of her fingertips and lazily bobbing towards him.
“You were already worthy. What you lacked was patience, and it cost you dearly.”
The magic embraces him and it is a cruel gesture. A heavy, oppressive sense seems to press against Gale. A weight that makes him want to fall to the ground, head bowed, never to rise back on his own two feet again.
His hand clenches to a fist at his side. The scent of roses is so strong. Mystra’s command of the Weave surrounds him in a vice grip. His chest feels tight again. Too tight. A noose is forming around his throat.
When he tries to take a deep breath, no air floods his lungs.
And yet the goddess pretends as if it is not her doing.
“When the Karsite Weave entered your body, your gifts were the first thing it consumed. The only reason the orb sleeps is because I have allowed it to feed on the true Weave—a temporary measure, but one that will not be enough to save us.”
Mystra lowers her hand. The pressure vanishes from Gale’s body in an instant and he chokes out a shuddering gasp, gulping in air. He takes a step back, at last tearing his gaze away from her and instead focusing on a particularly interesting pattern of stars beneath him.
He can’t do this.
How had he ever loved her?
The goddess lets out a soft, breathy laugh. It is all thorn and briars, no trace of saccharine sweetness to be heard in the scalding sound.
She’s enjoying this. Toying with him. Making him feel inferior.
She always did. Gale had just been too blind to see it.
“With each day that passes,” Mystra muses, her tone clipped and business-like, “the Elder Brain threatens to become a new kind of god, its worshippers a scourge of soulless illithids. If you will not use the orb to end this abomination, then you must find a way to separate the Crown and host. And when you’ve done this, you must surrender the Crown of Karsus to me.”
A phantasmal hand brushes across Gale’s cheek.
“If you succeed, I shall give you what you so desire: I shall remove the Karsite Weave from your body. It is a task your dear sorcerer will never be able to accomplish. Only I can grant you this boon.”
Fingers stroke his skin. So soft. So delicate. So tender.
And so utterly revolting.
A surge of anger, frustration, and a thousand other things Gale cannot name alight within him.
“Only you?” he seethes, head snapping up to glower at Mystra. He takes a step forward, swiping across his face and flinging the concentration of the Weave away from him. It hurtles back towards Mystra and even though her starry eyes flash dangerously, Gale finds he doesn’t fucking care.
“Only you, yet when I begged you to help me a year ago, you did nothing. That such corrupted magic was not to be trifled with, not even by a god, and it was my punishment to discover a cure on my own. You forbade Elminster from helping me—you forbade my own mother!”
Flames swirl about his fingers.
Lightning dances down his arms.
Tinged with shadow, interlaced with darkness, his magic shimmers to life with a violent, betrayed snarl. His blood runs hot beneath his skin. His eyes prickle, regret scratching in the corners as he grits his teeth.
“What I did was reckless,” Gale admits hoarsely, “and I regret the hurt it caused you. I regret, and I am sorry for the pain you felt from my mistake. But—”
His wedding ring burns to the point where it is as cold as moonlight on his finger, and he feels tears slowly begin to drip down his cheeks.
“But you left me to die, Mystra. You cast me aside, discarded me like I was nothing. You were my friend, once. My teacher. Your guidance and counsel meant the world to me. Why…why did you abandon me?”
A muscle in her face twitches. It is a subtle, barely there movement, but Gale notices it nonetheless. It’s the closest thing to a flinch the goddess of the Weave will ever impart in mortal company.
“...because I could not allow you to surpass me. I could not allow another Karsus to exist.”
“I would not have become another Karsus had you shown me the error of my ways, instead of twisting the dagger deeper into my heart!”
“DO NOT PRESUME TO KNOW THE WILL OF THE GODS!”
Mystra’s voice thunders throughout the Outer Planes, crackling with divine fury. Her face twists with rage, so perfect and lovely that it is a horror to witness. Her form shifts and shimmers, the guise of the beautiful woman she wears becoming something…other. A brief glimpse into the raw, shapeless existence of godhood. An endless, amorphous expanse of pure magic that strikes a peal of fear into Gale’s chest.
But his own anger is too great to allow that fear to take hold of him. His flames continue to swirl about his hands, black-tipped and wrathful, as obsidian streaks of lightning coil about his body like loyal serpents.
“What is so presumptuous,” Gale demands raggedly, tasting salt on his tongue, “about believing the gods are inclined to show grace to the mortals that revere them? That love them? That the gods love us foolish mortals in return?!”
He thinks of Rowan.
He thinks of his dear, tenacious, wonderful wife and her stalwart faith in the goddess that gave her another life.
He thinks of the Raven Queen and her seemingly never ending affections towards her twice-born daughter. Of the Matron’s trials for the sake of Rowan bettering herself, to fully embrace the magic she was always meant for. Rowan’s goddess has never asked her for the impossible. Rowan’s goddess has never left a prayer unanswered, or a request unfulfilled.
And all she has ever demanded is for Rowan to use her newfound strength in the shadows for good. Never a means to an end. The Raven Queen clearly loves her; and Rowan loves her goddess in turn.
(He thinks, briefly, of Selûne and the ring around his finger. The moon has never felt more soothing than it has after Isobel bound him and Rowan in marriage.)
Gale’s eyes won’t stop burning. He can’t stop the tears from leaking down his face, even when he tries to blink them away and bade them into nonexistence. He is embarrassed—ashamed! Mystra does not deserve his tears! How much time he had wasted a year ago, weeping into soiled pillows and crying out her name, only to be met with silence!
Yet still, the tears do not stop. His shoulders shake. His throat constricts. His face is on fire, cheeks feeling as though a swarm of hornets have stung him over and over again. Humiliation stings him worse still, an inner voice retaining some minute ounce of pride growling at him to stop.
“You left me to die,” he whispers, “and when I still yet lived, you shoved the dagger into my own hands and commanded me to end it. For what, Mystra? For the mere fact that I am mortal, and you are not, and because you simply thought you had the power to?”
She does not answer, nostrils flaring.
It only serves to make him angrier.
And his growing anger just fuels the hopeless, betrayed pain that has been trapped inside him for a year.
Gale despises the way his voice sounds when he speaks next, every word dripping with a pathetic rasp woefully close to a sob.
“Did you ever truly love—”
“Do not ask me that,” Mystra snaps curtly, cutting him off.
She might as well cut his tongue out with such vehemence.
The anger leaves Gale. In its place is a hollow, empty ache. One he does not know what to do with.
All he wants is to leave this place, crawl into the bed he shares with his wife, and listen to the sound of her heartbeat.
Suddenly, Mystra lets out a curse. It’s not in Common, or any other language known to mortal ears. The only reason Gale knows this is a curse is from the years spent under Mystra’s tutelage and, subsequently, what he had once believed to be her passion. No, the word the goddess utters with alarm is quite the nasty little swear in some arcane, godly jargon he supposes he is glad that he will never have the opportunity to learn.
“Those conniving, flimsy excuses for deities,” she growls, bringing both her hands up in a gesture indicative of spellcasting. “How dare they think they can barge in on my—”
A sound like reality tearing in two vibrates through the starscape.
Gale’s head turns on instinct towards the sound and what he sees coming from its direction is the last thing he could have ever expected. A hole. A literal, visible hole has ripped through the seam of the Weave, blacker than night and swarming with undulating wraiths of shadow.
A leg steps through the void.
Then another.
Two hands appear on either side of the darkness, one gripping an acutely familiar staff. In one swift movement a figure pulls themselves through the tear and in a loud, theatrical tone the love of his life calls out, “Heeeeeere’s Rowan!”
Gale stares in mute shock as Rowan steps out, brandishing Nevermore as if she is prepared for battle. Pip preens themselves on one shoulder while Tara levels Mystra with a venomous glare on the other, her fur on end and fangs bared slightly.
His shock only grows when Rowan is not the only one to emerge.
Two other figures follow suit. Two women.
Two goddesses.
One is toned and lithe, with dusky skin and braided hair the color of pure moonlight. A silver circlet wraps around her forehead, simple yet elegant.
She is clad in shimmering armor that glitters like the song of constellations. It is inlaid with vibrant sapphire hues throughout, resembling Dame Aylin’s plate. Her green eyes are kind as she regards Gale with a gentle smile, her face ageless and beautiful and maternal.
The other is tall and as slender as a willow tree. A river of long, black hair trails behind her like a velvet curtain, seeming to disappear into a cloak of onyx feathers. It’s impossible to tell where her hair ends and the fabric of her somber, similarly colored dress begins. Her face is hidden behind a plain white porcelain mask. The carved holes where a pair of eyes should be are naught but pools of shadow.
A white raven stands proudly on her shoulder. He knows that raven. He’s seen it before in the Shadow-Cursed Lands and the times Rowan has reached for her deeper, darker magic.
“By Ahghairon’s lost nose,” Gale whispers before he can stop himself, looking wildly between them both, “You…are Selûne! A-and the Raven Queen!”
“And you are delightfully observant, Gale Dekarios,” the Moonmaiden says as her smile widens. “I am glad to meet you in person at last.”
The Raven Queen inclines her head towards him, the gesture intimately courteous. She does not say a word. When she lifts her head again it is obvious her masked gaze has landed intently on Mystra, whose face is still contorted with rage as her eyes flare savagely.
“What kind of game do you think you two are playing?” she demands with a hiss.
It’s Rowan who speaks, and it is not to answer Mystra’s question but rather to ask one herself.
“Gale…” She takes a step forward, gray-blue eyes widening as she looks him up and down. “Are you crying?”
Gale stiffens.
He’s not sure why Rowan seeing his tears shames him even more than Mystra seeing them. But it only lasts for a moment, his better judgment reprimanding him inwardly. How stupid. How foolish. Rowan has seen him at his worst and refused to think less of him.
He should not have to hide his emotions from anyone, least of all his wife.
Before he can nod, Rowan rushes to him in a flurry of shadow. She dismisses Nevermore and cups his face in her hands, worry and concern lining her face.
Fingers stroke his skin, brushing the tears streaking his cheeks. Her fingers are so soft. So delicate. So tender.
So reassuring. Unlike Mystra’s.
He is only vaguely aware of Tara hopping from Rowan’s shoulder to his own, the tressym curling protectively around him and beginning the grueling process of grooming the salt from his stubble. He is far too preoccupied with the way Rowan’s eyes shift from stormy seas to the black of night. Shadows coalesce in her gaze as the familiar ichor of her magic slowly begins to drip down her face in a pantomime of tears.
She cranes her neck. The movement is odd; avian, almost, and entirely too jarring. As she stares at Mystra over his shoulders the sound that crawls out of her mouth is alarmingly inhuman.
“You made my husband cry.”
Her voice is low and still, her pronunciation crisp and punctuated with barely restrained ire.
“Forget punching. I am going to rip your fucking throat out.”
The Shadow Weave swirls around her and she changes.
Oh, dear, Gale thinks as black feathered wings burst from Rowan’s back, she’s activated her Champion form.
She is just as resplendent as he remembers from that awful fight in the colony beneath Moonrise. A diadem appears and settles across her forehead. Her face is suddenly hidden by a white porcelain mask, though the ichor still drips down its smooth cheeks. Her fingers seem to end in translucent, shadowy claws.
A wisp of longing stirs inside of Gale. He mentally chastises himself, swallowing. Now is clearly not the time to be distracted by baser desires. But by the gods, he cannot help it! She is beautiful!
A warrior wrought in darkness and steeped in magic.
Rowan lunges forward, the shadow-tipped claws of her hands spread out like dark shackles. She lets out a wordless, bestial shriek that makes the starscape shudder. Pip leaps from her shoulder as if the little familiar is going to charge as well, but instead they take to the air on black wings.
Wings that multiply over and over again until they fill the ethereal horizon as an army of ravens crying out for blood.
It happens so quickly.
Each step Rowan takes towards Mystra seems to alter the reality of the Outer Planes. Stars give way to a grotesque, violent scene.
A field that must once have been verdant and plentiful, now blackened and burnt beyond recognition. Bodies in strange regalia and unfamiliar armor are strewn about, bruised fingers locked around weapons in rigor mortis. The ravens all descend one by one, swarming the bodies like flies. They rummage through the corpses with ragged beaks, their feathers dripping with viscera.
In the blink of an eye they are no longer ravens. Instead, they have become crows.
They are silent, eerily so. No death knell is sung from their carrion-hungry throats, no raucous chatter is shared amongst the fallen.
Silent and watchful, seeming to take pride in their duties as ghosts of a war quite obviously lost. They observe Rowan as she glides across time and space with an air of curiosity, beady eyes flashing.
No, it’s not Rowan.
It can’t be.
The woman who drifts through the corpses as though she is their maker has her back turned. Her long, black hair is a matted tangle of knots and braids, silver beads threaded throughout. Her arms are raised above her head, hands brandishing a blade forged in bronze, seeming to ready a strike upon some unseen assailant.
Her arms are filthy. No, not filthy—ink covers her skin, the hue as dark as charcoal. It dances along her limbs in swirling, three-sided patterns that look like sigils of a spell Gale can’t recognize.
Across her shoulders hangs a dark mantle of feathers, the edges stained with blood. She suddenly jerks her head behind her, as if she can sense an audience.
Half of a human skull clings to her face. It masks her eyes and expression, leaving only her mouth unhidden. Lips painted black as the night curl into a wicked, feral grin.
A strange, extraordinary magic the likes of which Gale has never known surges through the scene.
He inherently knows he is the only one to witness this.
He blinks at the revelation, bewildered.
The scene changes yet again before he can fully comprehend what he has just seen. The crows are now ravens once more—and the figure they look upon so keenly is their Matron.
Her vacant mask somehow conveys a sense of urgency. She steps through shadow just as Rowan nearly reaches Mystra, her pale hands grabbing hold of his wife’s shoulders and halting her in her tracks.
“No, little one,” the Raven Queen says softly, her voice lilting and gentle. “This is not a war that you want to be waging.”
Rowan jerks her head around, claws still emanating an ichorous venom. Her wings beat against the Raven Queen’s grasp for a wild moment like a bird caught in the hands of a captor. A shudder runs through her body and she slumps somewhat, practically falling against the Matron.
The mantle of her Chosen form vanishes into a storm of falling feathers in an instant.
“I…”
She shakes her head, wiping the black tar of the Shadow Weave from her eyes as she glances up sheepishly to the goddess that still holds her.
“S-Sorry,” Rowan stammers in a mumble, looking lost and bewildered. “I just…needed to fight. I couldn’t help it.”
“Keep your creature under control,” Mystra snaps. Gale’s focus returns to her, and there’s an odd sense of satisfaction as he examines her current stance.
She’s gathered a massive concentration of Weave around her like a shield but her movements are stiff, uneasy. It’s almost as though she was momentarily paralyzed and has forgotten how to use her limbs.
Her face is somewhat pale, sickly. Her eyes have lost their starry splendor and the haunted look she examines Rowan and the Raven Queen with is one of…
Fear.
It is brief. It is fleeting. It is so ephemeral that perhaps he’s just imagining it.
But no. Gale knows what he has just seen, even as Mystra’s expression shifts instead to one of deadly rancor. She was terrified in those few, quick moments Rowan was raging towards her.
Rowan glowers at Mystra with dagger-like rancor of her own, opening her mouth. The Raven Queen’s placid tone interrupts her before she can speak, pointedly tugging the sorcerer closer to her and keeping a calming hand on top of her head.
“My Chosen is her own person, free to make her own choices. I do not control. I merely guide.”
She cocks her head, the movement as eerily avian as the gesture Rowan had made not even a minute ago.
“A role you seem to have difficulties fulfilling these days, Mystra.”
“You have no right to invade my realm and throw such baseless accusations at me. How I enact my divine duties is none of your concern.”
“Perhaps not,” Selûne agrees from Gale’s side. He nearly jumps in alarm when he realizes she’s standing right next to him, so close their shoulders are almost touching. “But since you have made it perfectly clear you no longer hold Gale Dekarios in your favor, I imagine you have no qualms about me bringing him into my fold?”
“What?”
“W-what?”
Both Mystra’s and Gale’s voices overlap in a tandem symphony of incredulous disbelief.
Selûne nods, her warm smile changing into something a touch more sly. But her voice is genuine as she says, “He is a dear friend and ally to my blood-daughter and two of my bond-daughters. His talents align with my domain. Besides…”
She snaps her fingers.
Gale feels a buzzing, rushing sensation at his ear. The skin grows uncomfortably hot for but a moment before a pleasant coolness washes across the surface, as though someone has sewn a moonbeam into his skin.
A great feat of magic is undone.
But an even greater feat, one that was cast on a moonlit night within a curse, only serves to grow stronger.
Gale raises his hand to see his wedding band shining with a new vigor, threads of arcana weaving throughout the silver and sapphire. Selûne hums as she dangles the starburst earring he has been plagued with since his younger self foolishly bound it to his soul in Mystra’s honor.
“He has been channeling his spellwork through a focus born of my magic for many days now. This pretty little trinket is better off returned to you.”
She tosses the earring towards Mystra without a care. Mystra’s hand snatches out and catches it, her fist closing around it so tightly he can hear the bauble crunch in her grasp. “I am still the overseer of the true Weave. I could cut off anyone from magic should I so wish, regardless of through whom they channel their spellwork.”
The Moonmaiden’s smile widens ever yet and this time, a glint of wolf-like fangs shines in the starlight surrounding them.
“I suppose. You are the Mother of Magic. But I am mother to any and all who wish it from me, and I protect my children. No. Matter. What.” She slides her gaze towards the Matron, who is still stroking Rowan’s hair and murmuring something in her ear that Gale cannot hear. “It’s a quality any deity worth their divinity should strive to have, regardless of their origins.”
“And tressyms,” Tara pipes up from her place around Gale’s shoulders, purring so loudly it sounds as though he has a second heartbeat for a moment.
Her tail swishes with an idle, simmering ire. She does not flinch nor does she falter as she levels Mystra with a furious glare, her claws digging into Gale’s robe.
“Allow me to say something that has been a long time coming! I do not deny your godhood. My dear Gale may have paid you your dues, but not with his life. Never with his life.”
She growls, the sound reverberating through her furry body like the castigation of a curse.
“So how dare you ask that of him? How dare you when you damn well knew his life is worth more returning to Waterdeep, continuing his research? His duty was never to you. His duty was always to himself. The world was poorer with him under your thumb, you bloody two-faced twit!”
Tara’s growl morphs into a hiss. She holds her head up high as she adds, “Hells, you’re lucky I don’t have thumbs! Otherwise I would have taken up a crossbow long ago to get you out of our business.”
Gale’s heart swells with warmth. With love. With gratitude unending, as his eyes suddenly grow hot and itchy and he fears he is going to succumb to tears once more. He doesn’t care if it’s childish or silly; he doesn’t care if Tara might protest later outside of such esteemed company.
He plucks her from his shoulders and holds her in his arms, burying his face in her fur and breathing deep. “Thank you,” he murmurs, doing his damndest to steady his frantic emotions with her in his embrace. “Thank you so much, Tara.”
“Of course, little love,” Tara soothes as she purrs louder, gladly allowing him to coddle her as if she were a kitten and he a boy once more. “I only wish I’d had the chance to say such things sooner. I believe my next project will be learning how to shift into Elysium so that I may knock every precious vase off of every shelf in her realm.”
He manages a laugh. A small, weak laugh, but it’s a laugh nonetheless.
He doesn’t bother to lift his head up when he hears Mystra force out, “Enough. Begone from this place, all of you. You’ve tested my patience long enough.”
“No!” Rowan argues, insistently indignant. “I’m not leaving until you apologize to Gale! You’ve put him through so much shit! I could write a list but there’s not enough parchment in the world. Apologize right now! For hurting him, for abandoning him, for making him cry!”
Gale does lift his head now. His wife, still within the Raven Queen’s embrace (though it’s more of a well-meaning prison at this point than a true gesture of affection), scowls at Mystra with a fierceness that sets his blood aflame. Again.
He mentally reminds himself that now is most certainly not the time to entertain those thoughts.
Gods, he needs to kiss his wife.
His former lover—his former goddess, his former everything—regards Rowan coolly.
Only Gale can recognize the haunted, phantasmal flicker of dread in her gaze.
“Leave,” Mystra repeats, her voice duller and less acerbic. There is no fight left in her. Strange, when she could channel the raw might of the Weave if she so wished, binding them to her will for eternity. Strange, when she had been so keen to toy with him before the others appeared.
There is a reason she has suddenly become so cowed, so subdued. Gale cannot fathom what that reason may be.
She flicks her wrist. A swirling chaotic mist of arcane energy erupts in front of her like a doorway. She continues to regard Rowan with an icy gaze as she sneers, “You should have never been allowed into this world. You, nor the craven crone who brought you here.”
Mystra then turns that frigid stare to the Matron of Ravens. Her eyes narrow as though all she wants is for the goddess to vanish from her sight.
“Your kind have always been vagrants, tainting Toril a little bit more whenever one of you stumbles across the veil. The day you return to that wretched realm where you belong is a day I look forward to most ardently.”
Without another word, Mystra steps into the river of magic and vanishes instead.
Everyone is silent for a painfully long, strange moment.
And then Rowan grumbles out, “I never got to tell that bitch to fuck off the way I wanted to, dammit.”
“You threatened to rip her throat out. I’d say that’s close enough,” the Raven Queen muses with an exasperated sigh.
“Yeah, but you didn’t let me follow through with the threat!”
“Because had you succeeded, not even I could protect you from what may come to pass.”
“Had I succeeded, I would have kicked Mystra’s sorry ass halfway to the Hells and back. It would have been worth it.”
“Oh, my little raven…there are times where I truly do not know what to do with your determined spirit.”
A hand rests lightly against Gale’s back. He turns his head from Rowan and the Matron to meet Selûne’s eyes, swallowing nervously. “You have my most sincere thanks, my lady,” he starts to say, tongue working as intended despite everything. “I don’t deserve your—”
“Hush.”
Gale’s mouth snaps shut as Selûne’s lips press against the top of his head. His body tingles with magic. Abjurative in nature, it swirls around him protectively, an intense and innate sense of the divine pulsating from the place where the Moonmaiden just kissed him.
“I do not have the ability to remove the Karsite Weave from you. I am sorry.” She smiles sadly at him, guilt evident in her lovely face. “But I am watching over you, Gale Dekarios. As is she.” She nods in the Raven Queen’s direction, who is now pinching Rowan’s ear as his wife mutters something in protest. Pip seems to be getting their own brand of berating as the white raven pecks at them vehemently, wings flapping.
He finds himself smiling at the exchange. It seems a stretch to think of how only weeks ago, he’d been concerned the Raven Queen would someday treat Rowan just as Mystra has treated him.
He supposes it could be possible. The future is still yet unwritten.
But, seeing the goddess shake her head and seem to sigh in exasperation as Rowan sticks her tongue out…he very much doubts anything of the sort will come to fruition.
Still, he cannot help but voice the question now burning in his mind, his smile fading slightly. “Why me?” he asks Selûne, hesitant. “I…I am grateful for your patronage, so much so that I fear I don’t have the proper words to express it. But…why me?”
Selûne shrugs. Nonchalance is an odd thing to see in a goddess. “Why not you?” she questions back.
Gale finds he doesn’t have an answer.
He simply bows his head in gratitude, relief flooding his veins.
The starscape around them flickers. Brilliant constellations and colors that only exist in imagination seem to grow pale, lifeless. The Weave stirs and shudders around him, an acrid sense of displeasure evident in every ounce of magic that settles against his skin.
It’s evident by Selûne’s sigh that she feels it as well. “We had best return you and Rowan to the Material Plane. I believe we have overstayed our welcome. Mystra may have backed off when she realized she was outnumbered, but there are still limits to how we can intercede in spaces under her purview.”
She squeezes his shoulder. He finds it to be almost second nature when she bends to kiss his cheek, another wave of moonlight and magic washing over him. “Give my love to Shadowheart,” she says quietly. “Let her know I am here. All she needs to do is cease being so bloody stubborn and ask me.”
Gale nods. “I’ll do my best to pass on the message. She’s as headstrong as a rothé, that one.”
Selûne smiles and gives his cheek an affectionate pat.
And then the world shifts and roils around him until suddenly, startlingly, he is standing in the middle of a room that is not the Stormshore Tabernacle. No, his feet are planted firmly on the grassy floor of the Elfsong’s enchanted room, wisps of Weave and silver motes of light drifting away from him.
He hears a disgruntled huff from behind him. He turns around to see Rowan with her arms crossed again, glowering at nothing in particular as she blows a strand of stray hair away from her face.
When Gale meets her eyes, her glower shifts into a comical pout.
“I wanted to draw a dick on Mystra’s face,” she mutters. “The statue’s, I mean. Fucking bitch.”
Gale brings a hand to his ear. It feels naked. Exposed. Erroneous, even, without the familiar dangle of what had been more than his arcane focus. That earring had been a symbol of his oath to Mystra. A token of his boyish, irrational affections.
And now it is gone.
A weight feels as though it has lifted from his shoulders. The orb may still slumber in his chest, one ill-advised misadventure away from devouring the rest of him, and there are still many things left unsaid between him and Mystra.
He faced her. He questioned her. He rebuked her and survived.
And his wife—his beautiful, fearless, perfect wife—had been all too eager to go to war for him.
Tara, still in his arms, seems to sense what he yearns for. She wiggles from his embrace and glides to the floor, looping between his feet. She rubs her head against his leg, purring, and clears her throat meaningfully.
Pip trills in answer, hopping from Rowan’s shoulders. They land instead on Tara’s back, raising a wing as if in salute as they bob their head to their sorcerer. “Nice job today, boss,” they say airily. “Ya threatened a goddess an’ ya didn’t die!”
Whatever Rowan is going to say in response is drowned out by Gale sweeping her into his arms and shoving his face in her hair. He is only half-aware of the door opening and closing (how two familiars without hands manage it, he doesn’t care) as he takes in a deep, shaky breath.
His body shudders violently.
“She asked me to give her the Crown. In exchange, she will remove the orb at last.”
Rowan’s arms slowly slide around him. A hand rubs up and down his back in slow, gentle patterns. Her voice is quiet when she answers him, tone carefully neutral. “And did you tell her you would?”
Gale realizes he did not.
Gale realizes he never actually gave Mystra a true answer.
Instead, he had unleashed just a portion of what he has kept bottled up inside for a year, and when Rowan and the rest appeared in the Outer Planes…the chance to give Mystra a response was lost.
He will not use the Crown. He knows better now. But does that mean Mystra should have it? Wouldn’t it be best to dispose of it once they wrest it from the Elder Brain?
She claimed only she can remove the Karsite Weave from him. Even Selûne admitted it was beyond her ability.
Mortals have always been pluckier than gods, however. Even foregoing twisted notions of ambition and grandeur. Just because divinity cannot cure him of his affliction doesn’t mean there is no other way.
There is no telling what further research can reveal. He will simply have to find time for reading between preventing the end of the world and stopping a mind flayer invasion.
It can all wait until tomorrow, however.
“I don’t want to think about that,” Gale answers Rowan honestly after he’s mulled it over for a few moments, holding her tighter. “Right now, I just want you.”
She makes a soft sound like a sigh. He feels her nod, his face still hidden in the tangled mess of her hair. She starts to move, pulling him along, and Gale allows her to with no resistance whatsoever.
In a heartbeat or two, Rowan is sitting on the bed and helping Gale settle beside her, his head nestled snugly in her lap. He gazes up at her tiredly, suddenly exhausted. She gingerly strokes his hair, fingers threading through the strands as she starts to make little braids.
“I’m proud of you, Gale,” she tells him, smiling.
His chest tightens. His eyes start to burn. He swallows and clears his throat, begging for his body to cooperate.
“I did not say all I wanted to say,” he protests, raising a lethargic hand. He grabs hold of her robe, fingers curling into the fabric. Tangible. She is tangible. And so much more real than Mystra ever was and ever could be.
Rowan shrugs slightly, but it lacks any ounce of detached apathy. “Ain’t that the way it always goes? We finally have that big confrontation with someone, and we get caught up in the heat of the moment, and it’s when we’re done that we start thinking about all the things we should have said. But please don’t beat yourself up about it. You stood up to Mystra.”
She bends down, kissing his forehead. The same spot Selûne had blessed mere minutes ago. Somehow, Rowan’s lips leave more warmth than the Moonmaiden’s had.
“It’s scary to tell the people who hurt us that they hurt us. You did something wonderful and brave when you spoke with her. I’m proud of you. I’m so fucking proud of you, Gale.”
Gale feels everything and nothing all at once. He can’t stop imagining Mystra’s sneer in his mind, or the way she had so callously denied him true answers. If only he had been stronger. If only he had been more assertive. If only he hadn’t let his emotions get the better of him, if only—
His face suddenly feels wet.
He sucks in a shuddering, raspy breath. Before he can stop himself he flips onto his side and hides away from the world in the safe haven that is Rowan’s chest, clinging so tightly to her robes that his knuckles throb.
Gale lets out a deep, exhausted sob and cries out, “I-I only ever wanted to make her proud of me!”
“Oh, baby…”
Rowan scoops him with startling ease, pressing him close to her chest as he sobs. His other hand snatches yet more of her robe, fingers refusing to let go as he shakes and shudders and pushes as close he can to her. “I know,” she murmurs soothingly, rubbing his back. “I know. I know…”
Gale forgets how to speak.
His world is nothing but grief and throbbing, desperate pain. He weeps. He keens. He wails and whimpers, wordless and hollow, as Rowan gently rocks him against her all while murmuring comfortingly in his ear.
“It’s okay, baby. Let it out. I’ve got you. I’m here. I’m listening.”
He ought to feel shame. He ought to despise losing himself like this, allowing all of his carefully-built walls to at last come crashing down. His whole life he has felt the weight of the brick and mortar. Its weight has grown heavier with each passing day, but he merely told himself to grin and bear it. That’s how life must be.
To bury your true self in a prison so deep and dark and damning that no one can find it.
He’d gotten good at it. Bloody good. He’d had the whole of arcane academia fooled—his family—hells, even Mystra! The indomitable Gale of Waterdeep, who has never cracked under pressure or backed down from an impossible task.
Because he could not. He dared not. Perfection is demanded, not suggested, when one is a Chosen of Mystra.
He has never broken like this. Oh, he wept in his tower for days on end a year ago. He had bemoaned his fate to Tara and allowed himself to drift about the world like a ghost waiting for an exorcism. But this?
Gale has never cried like this.
Gale has never felt safe enough to do so.
“I-I tried,” he babbles, his gasps so loud it drowns out the sacred song of Rowan’s heartbeat. “I-I tried so hard, for so long, t-to be a wizard that would…th-that would be worthy of…her…!”
“And you are,” Rowan insists softly. Kindly. Lovingly. Oh, gods, the love and tenderness in her voice is just making him cry harder. Not because he doesn’t deserve it. No, it’s because he knows he deserves it, and the knowledge ruins him in ways he can’t fully understand.
He tries to answer her. His tongue is twisted and his mouth is a false prophet, capable of only sharp intakes of breath and hiccuping sobs. Rowan just continues to hold him, to ground him, peppering the top of his head with phantasmal kisses.
“I love you,” she whispers with every touch. “I love you so much, Gale. I love you.”
I love you, Gale wants to say.
All he can do is continue to sob, curled up against his wife like a battered ship waiting out a storm.
She holds him tighter. She knows what is trapped behind his broken tongue, buried in the rubble of his citadel’s walls. She knows. It’s enough, and Gale does not feel shame as he weeps into his wife’s arms precisely for that reason.
Chapter 21: a heart's a heavy burden
Notes:
so this chapter probably isn't one people are wanting/expecting but it's a chapter that means a lot to me.
sorry for the lack of gale. this is very jericho-centered. it was always planned to happen. she's a character that i created for various emotional reasons and i won't lie, writing certain parts made me cry a bit. she's as dear to me as rowan is to her.
anywho
fuck larian for not giving karlach a better ending. i fixed it because canon doesn't exist :)
Chapter Text
Rowan awakens to a series of softly insistent knocks ringing through the room.
She cracks an eye open and glares at the door and the offending intruder behind it. Who dares invade her privacy so early in the morning?
Though…judging by the harsh sunlight seeping through a half-open curtain, it’s probably later than she believes. She has no idea what time she eventually fell asleep.
Much of last night is a bit of an emotional blur. It had consisted of holding Gale and soothing him with words and kisses as he wept and let out years of feelings. She knows he needed it. It was about time.
She just wishes she could have said more to Mystra. She wishes he could have said more to Mystra.
Rowan carefully turns her head and faces her sleeping husband. His face is slack but his eyes are still somewhat puffy and swollen, the burden of yesterday quite evident. She sighs softly and reaches a hand out, stroking his cheek with the faintest of touches.
Gale’s mouth twitches but he remains dead asleep. He’s got both arms wrapped around one of hers, clinging to it like ivy twirling up an ancient ruin. Even passed out his grip is tight, as if he fears her being spirited off in the night.
The knocks get louder. Jericho’s voice on the other side of the door slithers under the crack in a hiss.
“Rowan! Gale! I need to talk to you! It’s important!”
Gale stirs somewhat. His mouth twitches into a frown, eyes starting to flutter. His slow, languid breathing shifts into a more alert rhythm.
Rowan quickly leans forward and presses a kiss to his nose, giving his cheek another caress.
“Hush, love. No need to wake up on Jeri’s account. Just keep sleeping. I’ll see what she’s yapping about.”
He mumbles something unintelligible. His eyes cease their fluttering. His head sinks further into the pillows, chest rising and falling in the hypnotic tide of sleep. Gods, he’s so precious and perfect. She could watch him sleep for hours.
…that may be a somewhat creepy and unhinged admission, but she can’t help it. She loves her wizard dearly.
Though she does not want to, Rowan untangles herself from Gale’s clinging grasp and leaves the bed as quietly as she can. She tiptoes across the mossy floor and pulls the door open just a crack, sticking her head out into the hallway so no more light pollution soils her sleeping husband.
“Hi,” she yawns, wincing when her neck cracks slightly. Ugh, she definitely didn’t sleep enough. A nap will be needed later. She rubs her eyes and tries to ignore the exhausted burn in them. “Gale’s still conked out. What do you need, Jericho?”
In answer, Jericho takes hold of her wrist and yanks her out of the sacred darkness of the room, tugging her completely into the offending brightness of the inn’s hallway.
“Rowan,” the tiefling says, voice low and serious and trembling with something odd, “I need you to come with me to the Stormshore Tabernacle. As soon as you can.”
Rowan tries not to grimace at the sudden influx of light. Instead, she focuses on Jericho’s expression, confusion bubbling up within her chest.
Jeri looks…
Excited? Terrified? Constipated? A combination of all three?
Her pupils are huge, her chest is rising with rapid breaths, and several muscles in her face won’t stop twitching. Rowan has never seen Jericho so animated—at least, not when bullying Gale isn’t involved.
Oh, fuck, did Mystra slither out of some slimy hole in the Weave and declare war on all wizards for hers and Gale’s (entirely necessary) impertinence yesterday?
“W-why? What’s wrong?”
“That scroll you found,” Jericho rasps, squeezing her wrist so tight her sharp nails dig into her skin somewhat, “contains a single-use of the spell True Resurrection.”
Rowan’s heart immediately flies to her throat and she gapes at Jericho in mute shock.
“It restores a body to a pristine state!” Jericho exclaims breathlessly, her full painted lips stretching into a dazzling grin. “It lifts curses! It replaces missing organs! Rowan! Rowan, don’t you see what this means? Karlach—”
Her voice cuts off in an uncharacteristic choke, teetering on the edge of a hysteric sob, but it is so quiet and fleeting Rowan thinks she must have just imagined it.
“—I could fix Karlach’s heart with this!”
Yes.
Yes, Jericho could do that.
And Rowan…could get rid of the Karsite Weave inside of Gale’s body. Destroy the illithid parasite nestled within his brain like an asinine house guest who has long overstayed their welcome. He would be whole again. Whole, well, and returned to his former glory as the greatest wizard in all of Waterdeep.
They could go home.
They could return to Waterdeep, to their tower, to the soft and unassuming life they’d created before all of this.
Gale would be free. No more arcane hunger. No more plagued with the horror of dissolving into a monster at any given moment. It would just be him and her, wizard and sorcerer, reading poorly written smut books in front of his fireplace and listening to the sea caressing the wharf outside his balcony.
Jericho is still speaking, heedless of the way Rowan has withdrawn into her own mind. Her chest is tight and her tongue feels heavy when she clears her throat, resting a hand against the one the tiefling has wrapped around her wrist.
“Are you sure the scroll can only be used once?” she asks quietly, interrupting whatever frantic babbling pouring out of Jericho.
Jericho immediately goes silent.
Then, slowly, as if she has to pry the words from her heart and it pains her to do so, she whispers, “Yes. The enchantments protecting it were so complex that it took me until an hour ago to figure out the magic’s true nature. I…I’m sorry, Rowan.”
I’m sorry to make you choose lingers in the air between them, unsaid but louder than a peal of divine thunder.
“Does Karlach know?”
“Of course. She was with me when I broke through the scroll’s wards.”
Rowan sucks in a shaky breath. She tries not to glance back into the comforting darkness of the room behind her. She tries not to think about perfect, precious Gale, sleeping his sorrow and anger away.
He would not hesitate to give this chance to Karlach.
And Rowan loathes knowing that about her husband.
Karlach was betrayed. Cast aside, broken and beaten into a bloody pulp when all she wanted to do was help someone she thought she could respect. She was dragged to the Hells on the whims of an ugly bastard who cared only for himself. Her story differs little from Gale's, replacing the callousness of a goddess with the cruelty of a mortal man. Her pain is just as damning as his own.
After everything he has been through, Gale would not choose his own self-preservation and forsake a dear friend’s chance at their own.
If any of their motley crew deserves better than what fate has currently offered, it’s Karlach.
Realization swiftly courses through her veins. Rowan blinks, clearing her throat once more as she eyes Jericho nervously. “Hold on. Doesn’t that spell only work on, uh…dead things?”
Jericho pointedly avoids meeting Rowan’s gaze. Her tail flicks to and fro behind her, however, maybe revealing a little bit more than the tiefling wants to currently share.
“Yep.”
“But…Karlach is alive.”
“Yep.”
“Are you going to elaborate?”
“Nope.”
Rowan sighs.
“Alright then,” she relents, knowing better than to try and push when Jericho is being this stubborn. It’s a miracle they haven’t seriously butted heads before, considering just how obstinate both can be. But, maybe, that’s also why Jeri has become one of her dearest friends since coming to this world.
Wait, there’s something else that’s not adding up.
“Why do you need me at the Stormshore Tabernacle?”
“I need you to help me cast the spell,” Jericho explains without missing a beat, her tone infuriatingly conversational. Like she’s talking about the fucking weather and not about an incredibly complex, intricate ritualistic magic. “Shadowheart and Isobel are still investigating the Sharrans in the city, but even if they were available I’d still pick you.”
“Jericho, I’m not a cleric!”
“You’re the favorite child of a benevolent death goddess with an affinity for necrotic-aligned spells. I don’t need a cleric—I need you, Rowan. Besides,” Jericho adds breezily, “if we perform the spell at the temple, they’ll provide the ritual components we need. Not to mention all the other gods who might be willing to help.”
Rowan thinks of Mystra’s statue and the cold, ambivalent energy that had emanated from it not but a day ago. She thinks of those icy eyes, as scintillating as an aurora and as cruel as a storm.
She shivers.
But…
She also thinks of Selûne and how the Moonmaiden had fearlessly, lovingly accompanied her to be at Gale’s side. How the goddess had proclaimed herself to be Gale’s new patron and protector; the one he had always deserved.
Hell, she even thinks of Lathander. His whole thing is about renewal, isn’t it? Giving Karlach a second chance with a body free of the infernal engine is right up his alley.
Evidently she’s taken too long to answer because Jericho squeezes Rowan’s wrist once more before finally releasing her, patting a familiar pouch at her side. The jingle of Dekarios-owned coins fills the air as Jericho smiles with all the beatific innocence she can muster.
“I'll have plenty of gold if more traditional routes of persuasion fail.”
“Hopefully Lathander will blind you with a sunbeam if you try to bribe him,” Rowan mumbles under her breath.
She straightens her shoulders and gives Jericho a discerning stare. There is a haggardness on her friend’s face. Dark shadows have settled under her eyes. Her hair is limp and bedraggled, her clothes not quite immaculate and wrinkle-free.
She must have been working on the scroll since Rowan handed it over yesterday. She must have been so focused, so desperate to unravel its secrets, that she forewent even casting Prestidigitation to keep her appearance up to its usual sleekness.
Rowan’s chest tightens again, but this time, it’s without an ounce of anxiety or fear.
She nods.
“Yeah. I’ll help. Whatever you need from me, Jeri, you’ve got it. Let me just…talk to Gale first.”
She doesn’t really want to up and disappear, not after the day he had yesterday. Plus he deserves to know about the scroll of True Resurrection. Even if she’s positive he’ll agree that Karlach is more deserving of the chance, she still needs to tell him about it.
Jericho’s sigh of relief is utterly palpable, crawling across Rowan’s skin like a pleasant summer breeze. “Thanks, babe,” she says gratefully, sincerely, the silver fire in her eyes burning. “Karlach, Wyll, and I will wait for you outside of the Elfsong’s entrance.”
Rowan furrows her brows. “Why is Wyll coming along?”
“Reasons,” Jericho answers cryptically.
She spins on her heels as elegant as gossamer and starts to glide down the hallway, a new sense of vigor seeming to fill every step as she gets further away from Rowan.
Rowan slips back into the room she and Gale are sharing and closes the door gently behind her. Her eyes settle on her husband’s inert form in the bed. Tara is curled up on the pillow Rowan had abandoned. Pip, in their feline form, dozes at Gale’s feet.
It’s so picturesque she feels a desperate, deep longing for a camera. It would mean a lot to capture this moment in a photo.
Wow. Haven’t really thought about stuff from my old world in awhile.
Shaking her head, Rowan sits on the edge of the bed and places a hand on Gale’s chest. The steady thrum of his heart beats beneath her fingers, the blanket rising and falling as he breathes evenly in sleep.
She feels a pang of guilt for waking him when he needs the rest after yesterday, but it’s for the best.
“Gale,” Rowan murmurs, shaking him gently. “Can you open your eyes for a moment? I need to tell you something.”
Gale’s slack expression shifts. He almost seems to frown, eyelids fluttering, body stirring somewhat under the covers. He mumbles, voice hoarse with semi-consciousness.
“Fold…the cinnamon…into the batter…top with melted butter…and brown sugar…”
Rowan stares down at him.
“Bake for…one hour…”
“Son of a bitch, that’s Morena’s cookie recipe!” she hisses, glancing around the room wildly for a stray piece of parchment. “You still haven’t made them for me and refuse to share the secret!”
But for a room shared by a married couple consisting of an accomplished wizard and a nerdy sorcerer, there is a suspicious lack of parchment to be seen by the naked eye.
Rowan makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat as Gale continues to rattle off obscure baking steps in his sleep. Tara’s ears twitch and she slowly raises her head, blinking her eyes as she lets out a wide, sharp yawn.
“Good morning, dear,” she says in a voice soft with sleepiness. “How long have you—”
“Shhh!” Rowan hushes the tressym with a frantic wave of her hand. “Must commit cookie instructions to memory!”
But, alas…
The combination of Tara and Rowan both seems to have done the trick. Gale grunts as his eyes fully open at last, his dream-addled gaze immediately landing on Rowan.
“Mm.” He greets her with a silly, exhausted smile that summons a flock of butterflies in the pit of her stomach. “Hello, sweetheart.”
She won’t let his stupidly cute mouth and stupidly cute voice and stupidly cute eyes distract her. Betrayal cuts so bitter that only the sweet delight of Morena’s cookies will make the world right again.
…no, Rowan, that’s definitely not a priority right now. Focus!
She shoves the thoughts of cookies and the war crimes associated with the aside. “I’m sorry to dump this on you when you just woke up, but I’m going to the Stormshore Tabernacle with Jericho and Karlach. That scroll I found in Ramazith’s archives? It’s for True Resurrection.”
She swallows nervously.
“It can only be cast once, and Jericho wants my help casting it for Karlach.”
The journey of Gale’s facial expressions in the ensuing moments is quite a sight to behold.
He goes from confusion, to disbelief, to enthusiastic joy in the blink of an eye.
“O-oh my.” He swallows, dragging himself into a sitting position. The movement nudges Pip at his feet, who lets out an annoyed meow and rolls over like a pudgy sack of potatoes.
Gale ignores the familiar’s plight as he gives Rowan a tired but delighted smile. For a moment, she can’t help but think how similar it is to the grin Jericho had flashed her way when she’d said she would help with the spell.
The two wizards are more alike than they know or would ever want to realize. She’s not going to be the one to point it out.
“That’s wonderful,” he gushes, and Rowan knows he means it from the bottom of his heart. “That’s absolutely fantastic!”
She fidgets on the bed, scooting closer to him and pressing against his side in a way that doesn’t squish Tara. “It can only be cast once,” she repeats quietly, finding she can’t quite look him in the eyes now.
“Yes, I imagine so. All scrolls are privy to such drawbacks. One composed of that tier of magic would be no different.”
Gale’s smile widens slightly. He dips his head, a hand reaching out to gently stroke the space between Tara’s wings. His fingers no longer tremble the way they did yesterday, Rowan notices. A good sign.
He says nothing for a few seconds. Neither does Rowan. She just lets him ruminate on it all, hoping his smile isn’t actually hiding a deep set misery that Karlach is going to be the first of them to rid herself of unwelcome guests, both in her head and her chest.
Finally, Gale takes a deep breath. His voice quivers slightly as he speaks but it’s not in anguish or contempt. It’s…relief. Pride. Genuine happiness.
“It should be her. She deserves the chance to live the life that was stolen from her all those years ago. Besides,” he manages a quiet, unassuming laugh, “we’ve determined to figure out my cure on our own, haven’t we? Just the two of us.” He sighs, wistful and only a touch bitter. “If I settle for what is easiest, then I’m no better than the man I was a year ago.”
Rowan swallows but nods.
Yesterday put much into perspective for Gale, she thinks. Even despite Mystra’s callous scorn. Even despite all his carefully-built walls crumbling down into a pile of weeping rubble and grief-stricken ash.
Still, it can’t help to have him confirm it out loud.
“So you’re okay if I help Jericho cast the spell?” Rowan hedges carefully, chewing on her bottom lip. “You’re not going to be upset if Karlach gets her heart back and her tadpole removed?”
Gale shakes his head. “Not at all,” he says warmly, gently. “Just…use caution. Magic like that is not to be trifled with aimlessly. It’s far beyond most spellcasters’ abilities. Not that I’m saying it’s beyond yours,” he adds quickly, cheeks flushing a bit as he frowns in apology.
Rowan feels her mouth quirk into a small grin. “Of course it’s not. I’m Rowan Twice-Born Dekarios. I could cast Wish with a snap of my fingers if I wanted to!”
“You jest, my love, but I have no doubt in the future legitimacy of that statement.”
“Damn right, baby.”
She snaps her fingers (only momentarily mourning an absence of Wish-related magic) and leans forward, pressing a kiss to his stubbly cheek. She lets her mouth linger against his skin, relishing in the pleasant and familiar warmth, sighing in content.
She almost doesn’t want to pull back, but Jericho is waiting for her. She can’t let her—or Karlach for that matter—down.
“I’ll be back,” Rowan promises softly, kissing the shell of Gale’s ear for emphasis. “I think you should rest up for a little bit more.”
“I’m of a mind to agree,” Gale admits. “Besides, I’ve a feeling Jericho would be quite unhappy if I were to tag along.”
He’s definitely not wrong.
But, Rowan isn’t going to admit that out loud.
“Go back to sleep,” she orders in a way that’s less than an order and more of an affectionate hope. She slides off of the bed and begins the arduous task of dressing in real clothes, grabbing the Bag of Holding and Nevermore as she tugs her robes on. Tossing her head over her shoulder, she points at Gale half-menacingly, half-jokingly. “Get some food. Read a book for fun. You, mister, are on strict ‘do not get up unless you have to’ orders for today. Got it?”
She yanks the snoozing Pip from the foot of the bed, ignoring their grumbling and flailing in her arms as she cradles their hefty form against her chest like a swaddled infant.
Her husband nods in mock meek acquiescence. “Of course, Doctor Dekarios. I shall endeavor to heed your professional opinion to the best of my ability.”
“Oh, please, Doctor Dekarios was my father.”
Gale snorts in amusement as Rowan spins around and swiftly leaves the room. He sounds better, looks better, and is acting mostly like his normal self today. The catharticism of his confrontation with Mystra, while painful in the heat of the moment, will hopefully prove to be exactly what he needed to heal.
It sucks leaving Gale alone when all she wants to do is coddle him, but she doesn’t want to suffocate him. They’ve both already got a somewhat unhealthy attachment to one another, marriage aside.
For all she does for Gale, her friends deserve just as much effort in their struggles.
“You should put on one of the things Jericho made for you when we were still in Waterdeep,” Rowan suggests to Pip as she walks through the halls of the Elfsong. “I’m curious to see if they’ll fit even when you’re in cat form!”
“I could,” Pip agrees groggily, grumpily, “but I’d rather go back to sleep. C’mon, boss, let me be lazy…it was so cozy on the bed…”
“Pip, you’re going to disappoint Jericho. She made you all those cute hats and dresses and you’ve barely had time to wear them since we got caught up in the squidnapping mess!” She gives them a disappointed frown herself as she pauses at the top of the stairs leading to the tavern, shaking her head. “You loved posing for her creations! Wear one of them!”
The familiar huffs, tail flicking as their eyes slide open. They regard Rowan with a sleepy, annoyed wariness. Their whiskers twitch as they blink slowly, giving a barely perceptible nod as a low purr emanates from their chest.
“...yeah. Youse right. Okay, fine. Gimme da hat.”
“...which hat? You’ve got, like, fifty of them.”
“Ey, you pick. Youse know I’ll look good in any of ‘em.”
They are absolutely correct and Rowan has the perfect hat in mind.
She pulls out one they never had the chance to try on even when they were limited to just their raven form and deposits it on their furry little head as though it’s a crown meant for the most sacred of monarchs. “It’s a wizard hat,” she sings as she adjusts the wide brim on it, smoothing the patterned fabric nicely, “for a wizard cat~”
It looks entirely too much like Elminster’s stupid costume for Rowan’s tastes, but at the same time, on Pip it’s endearing as fuck. Weirdly enough, it fits as though Jericho had sewn it with a feline head in mind rather than a corvid one. Probably just the inherent enchantments she’d cast on it during its creation.
Freya never would have tolerated being dressed up like a doll, she muses.
The thought is sudden and stabs her in the gut like a butcher’s knife.
But…
It doesn’t hurt as much as it once might have. Oh, it still stings, and she still feels a pang of sadness as she always does when she thinks of Freya.
Right now, however, it’s not nearly as paralyzing as it could be.
“Heh. Nice. Wizard cat!” Pip snickers as they adjust themselves in her arms, purring louder and snuggling against her chest. “Thanks, boss!”
Jericho and Karlach are standing together outside of the Elfsong’s front entrance when she slips through the door. The latter is bouncing nervously on her heels, dark shadows underneath her eyes not in a dissimilar vein to Jericho’s obvious exhaustion. Did she stay up all night helping Jeri unravel the scroll’s secrets?
Wyll is beside Karlach, wringing his hands as an equally nervous expression flits across his face. “I really think we ought to wait for Shadowheart or Isobel,” he’s saying, voice thick. “What if—”
“My dear, sweet, sister-in-law!” The overbearing tone of Dorian cuts Wyll off as her fellow sorcerer slings an arm easily around Rowan’s shoulder. He starts to ruffle her hair fondly, conscientious not to make it too messy. “My, oh my, it feels as though it’s been an age and a half since we last spoke!”
“Hi Dorian.” Rowan tosses him a smile in greeting. “Yeah, it kinda does feel that way. You and Wyll have been looking into Duke Ravengard, right?”
Gale’s older brother nods. He looks tired. Not as haggard or worn as Jericho and Karlach, but a lot of the air in his sails has gone poof. Wyll is the same, now that she’s looking at him a little closely. Everyone’s various missions and the keen knowledge that they’re all racing against a rapidly ticking clock is sucking every ounce of energy their ragtag party has.
She hopes Miri is doing alright. Last she knew, the bard was with Astarion, Jaheira, and Halsin trying to break into the Szarr mansion and murder Astarion’s vampire sire.
Ugh, they all have way too much to accomplish before the end of the world.
“We’ve not had much luck, I’m afraid,” Dorian admits with a heavy sigh. “It’s so strange. It’s as if Ulder has vanished from this plane of existence completely. We managed to sneak Florrick out of Wyrm Rock’s prison, so we’re hoping she can scrounge up some leads.”
Rowan has no recollection of who this “Florrick” is, but she shares Dorian’s sentiment. Poor Wyll. She can’t imagine how his father’s infection must be weighing on him. Frankly, she’s amazed he’s going to accompany them for the True Resurrection ritual. Shouldn’t he be focused on the grand duke?
“But enough of that,” Dorian adds hastily when he notices Rowan furrowing her brows at Wyll. The warlock is beginning to talk to Karlach in frantic, hushed tones, making a lot of hand gestures and frowning so deep she’s worried his face is going to freeze like that. “Where is that brother of mine? Aren’t you two attached to the hip usually?”
Rowan tries not to wince.
Yeah, they really do have an unhealthy codependency issue.
But hey, they’re working on it!
“He’s resting,” she answers. “He, uh…it was a day yesterday.”
She contemplates biting her tongue for a moment. How much should she tell Dorian about what went down between Gale and Mystra? She knows the elder Dekarios besmirched Gale for his abandonment by the goddess, but that’s because Dorian didn’t have the full story a year ago. And he’s not the asinine, bullheaded prick he once was in Jericho’s stories of their school days.
…well, he still is, but the crudeness of his former jackassery has been cut in half since they found him in Lenore’s abandoned tower.
He’s Gale’s brother, she thinks to herself. He’s been changing for the better, just like Gale has. I’ll just tell him the bare minimum.
“Gale spoke with Mystra yesterday,” Rowan says quietly, not bothering to staunch the pride that swells up in her voice. “He stood up to her. Apologized for his actions, but called her out on her own. It was…exhausting for him. He’s still in our room. I’m hoping he goes back to sleep or, at the very least, just…chills.”
Dorian blinks.
He opens his mouth, lips parted like a gaping fish for a moment, before promptly snapping his jaw shut with an audible pop.
And then his arm falls from Rowan’s shoulders and he’s rushing past her like a bolt of lightning, heading for the Elfsong’s interior.
“Wyll, darling, I do beg your pardon,” he calls out with genuine remorse. “But it seems I cannot accompany you after all!”
“Wait, where are you going?” Wyll asks, confused, as he turns from whatever intense conversation he’s having with Karlach to see the other man storming inside. “Dorian!”
Dorian’s voice echoes above the clamor of the city streets and the din of the tavern’s crowds.
“My brother needs me right now. I’ll make it up to you, I swear!”
Wyll makes a face as though he wants to protest but takes a deep breath, bringing a hand to his forehead and rubbing between his eyes. He shakes his head and gives Karlach a frustrated glance.
She crosses her arms stubbornly, silent as she meets his gaze with a fearless blaze in her eyes.
“...alright,” Wyll relents after several long moments of whatever internal war they are waging on one another. “If this is what you truly want, Karlach. I’m honored you asked it of me. I just…”
He falters, shoulder sagging as his one-eyed gaze flicks over to Rowan and Jericho ever so briefly.
“I just hope all goes well.”
“It will,” Jericho says with an impressive amount of confidence, traipsing over to Rowan elegantly and linking her arm with hers. “I’ve got my second best girl on the job, Wyll. Of course all will go well.”
Rowan’s heart skips a beat as it drowns in a wave of admiration, gratitude, affection, and a dozen other warm fuzzy feelings. A grin stretches across her face and she can do nothing to stop it, preening at Jeri’s praise.
“Hey! I used to be your first best girl,” she teases with a fierce, fake pout.
“Sorry, soldier. That position has been filled by yours truly,” Karlach interjects with a bright, sunny laugh. She grabs Jericho’s free hand with an almost possessive grip, joy alighting on her face as she leans into the other tiefling’s side.
“And there could be no better successor. Hot tieflings deserve to be with other hot tieflings.”
“And I’m the hottest tiefling around,” Karlach agrees with a wink. Though the engine is calm, her chest glows for a moment underneath her clothes, the telltale orange flames of Avernus flashing for the blink of an eye.
Before the day is over, she will be plagued by it no more.
Jericho is right. Of course it will go well. Rowan is going to make sure it does.
She’s the godsdamn Chosen of the Raven Queen.
“Oh,” Jericho suddenly says with interest, glancing over at the oddly quiet and compliant Pip in Rowan’s arms. She peers at the wizard hat on their head, a touch of smugness unraveling in her silver eyes. “You look positively dashing, Ser Pip.”
“‘Course I do,” Pip agrees eagerly, nodding. They wiggle out of Rowan’s embrace at last, landing on the ground like an acrobatic potato. Sashaying theatrically to and fro before Jericho, they simper, “It’s only ‘cause yer the one who made it for me!”
The seamstress does not bother to hide her pleased smirk. “Good kitty.”
Approximately thirty minutes and way too much of Gale’s money later, they are all gathered in a secluded chamber beneath the Stormshore Tabernacle’s main temple.
“Three thousand gold, Jericho?” Rowan mutters indignantly. “Really?”
“Hey, it bought the gnome’s cooperation and ritual components. A small price to pay for Karlach!”
Jericho is already setting up the ritual circle, her movements quick and efficient and calculating. Karlach watches the other tiefling with a look of apprehension and excitement, tapping her sharp fingernails against the stone bench she’s sitting on.
Wyll is staring dully at the rapier his patron oh-so-kindly gifted to him all those weeks ago. It sits in his lap, the infernal metal glinting in the candlelight, as his face takes on an unusual pallor.
Rowan still doesn’t know why his presence is necessary. It was never revealed to her on their way here.
She figures it doesn’t matter, choosing instead to focus on following in Jeri’s footsteps. The ritual components that the temple’s nervous little gnome cleric sold to them are clearly high quality. It’s the kind of stuff she used to take for granted back in Waterdeep, what with Gale’s magical supplies stocked so succinctly.
Paying such a large sum for it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. Especially when it’s with Gale’s gold. But hey, Jericho at last relented and passed the pouch into Rowan’s safekeeping.
It is technically her gold, too, if marriage works the same way in Faerûn as it did back in her old world. Certain details notwithstanding.
Rowan’s hands tremble only slightly. The chamber’s floor is cold and hard as she painstakingly draws sigils and runes from Jericho’s frenzied research, the dust from the enchanted chalk threatening to make her sneeze. She swallows the urge as she connects her patterns with the once Jericho is etching, their shoulders brushing as they come together.
With a snap of Jericho’s fingers the bundles of incense burst into flame. Heady, pleasant smoke rises from the blackened sticks. It reminds Rowan of her little makeshift altar in her room back in Waterdeep.
She rubs her raven feather between her fingers. It’s warm and inviting against her skin. The Matron is with her. The Matron is always with her, but her presence is a whisper on the wind as Jericho lights a series of multi-colored candles in a very specific order around the ritual circle.
Yeah. This is intense magic for sure. Rowan has become accustomed to simply drawing on her innate darkness and channeling it as she sees fit.
This much preparation means the spell is bound to be more complex than she’s encountered.
She thinks of the morning after her arrival to this world and Gale guiding her through the ritual to summon Pip.
She swallows.
She can do this.
No, Rowan amends as her gaze shifts to Jericho, we can do this.
“Fireheart?” Jericho stands up from the ritual circle, a small bottle in her hands. She turns towards Karlach, who has remained eerily silent since entering the temple.
(She didn’t even encourage Rowan when she made several rude gestures towards the statue of Mystra.)
Karlach starts as if Jericho’s voice startled her. “Y-yeah?”
“Come here, fireheart,” Jeri says softly, kindly. “I have to put this oil on you. And then all that’s left is…”
“My part,” Wyll finishes grimly, gripping the hilt of his rapier.
Karlach nods. She pushes herself off the bench. Every step heavy, leaden. Rowan purses her lips as she watches, her chest a flurry of nerves. Karlach was so excited before they got to the Stormshore Tabernacle. Why is she suddenly acting like—
It hits her then.
Rowan inhales sharply, her eyes settling on Wyll.
Oh.
True Resurrection can only be cast on a deceased individual. And Karlach is still very much alive.
“Well. Shit.” She tugs on her raven feathers, stepping away as Jericho tenderly brushes Karlach’s face with oily fingers. Pip trots loyally at her side, still in feline form and still wearing the wizard hat.
Rowan comes to a halt in front of Wyll and clears her throat. He glances up at her, his expression pained despite the undercurrent of fierce loyalty etched into his handsome face.
“…I couldn’t say no,” he admits in a rasp. “How could I? Karlach was so hopeful when she told me about this. So…happy when she asked me to—to…kill her.”
He shakes his head, the ebony sheen of his horns shimmering in the light. Sometimes Rowan forgets he’s not a tiefling or devil-adjacent but rather a human cursed by his bitch of a patron.
Cursed for not killing Karlach in the first place.
She looks over at the two tieflings once more. Jericho is caressing Karlach’s muscular, scarred arms now. Her red skin shines like rubies. She’s shivering, her voice so small and quiet.
Jericho is simply nodding along as Karlach speaks to her in a tone only Jeri can hear, the silver flames in her eyes flickering wildly. Ambient magic is already starting to swirl around her, barely perceptible to the naked eye. Threads of the Weave, both curious and eager for a spell of such undertaking.
Jericho may have dubbed Karlach with the name “fireheart,” but Rowan thinks the wizard burns hotter than all of them combined.
Rowan turns her attention back to Wyll.
“My dude,” she says with all the earnestness she can muster, “not to pull the nepo baby card, but I’ve been adopted by the Raven Queen. This spell is going to work. I promise.”
He scoffs, the sound both bitter and amused.
“Before all this,” he taps at the side of his head stiffly, “I wouldn’t dare to believe you. But…I’ve seen some pretty remarkable things since getting a worm jammed into my eye. Maybe you’re right. Every act of this cruel pantomime we’ve been thrust into has been full of miracles, good and bad.”
A torn smile flits across his face. He rolls his shoulders, grip tightening on the hilt of his rapier once more, and breathes out a deep sigh.
“I’m just not a fan of my role in it today.”
Yeah, Rowan can see why he feels that way.
She’s not sure if she would feel any different.
Jericho clears her throat loudly. When Rowan looks back over to the two tieflings, Karlach has laid down in the middle of the ritual circle, her face staring up at the ceiling above. The glistening of her skin isn’t just from the enchanted oils. She’s definitely sweating nervously, hands folded across her chest. Jericho is seated on the floor at her side, stroking the side of her head.
Rowan has never seen Karlach so still. It’s unnerving.
“We’re ready,” Jericho says, voice thick.
Wyll does not hesitate to get up despite his obvious misgivings. He’s at Karlach’s side in an instant, kneeling over her in an echo of Jericho. Rowan follows behind, settling down next to Jericho.
No one says anything for a painfully short eternity.
When a voice does break the silence, it’s Karlach’s.
“Thank you.” Her words are sluggish, as though every syllable is caught in a mire, her voice like sludge. She takes a deep, shuddering breath, fiery eyes growing misty as she tilts her head towards Wyll. A small, shy smile eclipses the anxiety stitched into her face. “Never thought we’d be in this position again, eh, mate?”
Wyll shakes his head, another scoff trapped in his chest. “Not really, no.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make this difficult for you. But there’s…no one else I’d rather trust with this.” Karlach swallows. “You’re a good man, Wyll. The best of us. A damn good man and a damn good friend. Gods, how lucky I’ve been to meet you. How lucky I am that your heart is bigger than the sky.”
“It’s a terrible honor,” he acknowledges. “One I’m glad to accept. You’re…a wonderful person, Karlach.”
Wyll leans forward and places a tender kiss to the tiefling’s sweaty brow, careful not to tangle their horns together.
“This is going to work, and you’re going to have your heart back.”
Karlach swallows again, the wetness in her eyes growing. She tilts her head to Jericho now, who has still silently runs her fingers through her hair. “Jeri,” she begins, voice quivering. “Jericho, I…I…I just want you to know that…that I…”
Jericho reaches a hand over and places a delicate finger to her lips.
“I know.”
Something shifts in the air. The threads of the Weave ready for the spell grow tighter, thicker. They brush against Rowan’s skin, swirl between Jericho’s fingers as the wizard leans back and unfurls the scroll of True Resurrection. She spreads it across her lap, the vellum crinkling as she gazes at Karlach with an expression Rowan has never seen on her before.
“I can’t wait to hear your heartbeat, darling,” she whispers with a gentle smile.
The tears caught in Karlach’s eyes start to crawl down her cheeks, steam rising from where they leave wet tracks across her warm skin.
“You’re in good hands,” Rowan promises as Pip slinks between her and Jericho, seeming to grow just large enough so that their furry form is touching both wizard and sorcerer. She slides Nevermore into her hands and reaches for the darkness within, urging her own shadows to merge with the ambient magic Jericho has already started to summon.
Karlach’s death is swift and silent.
Wyll moves with such precision that Rowan doesn’t even realize it at first. She meant to look away, to close her eyes, even though a part of her thinks it would have been an insult to Karlach and her battle to get to this moment.
She doesn’t have the chance to do anything of the sort. Wyll draws the sharp point of his blade across Karlach’s throat as if he has done so too many times before.
And she, as still and silent as a sacrificial lamb, makes no struggle.
The tang of blood fills the air.
Ash and smoke, death and life.
A shuddering, whispering gasp as a pair of lungs suck in one last breath of air.
Jericho lets out a noise caught between wounded animal and grieving widow.
Rowan watches as something redder than Karlach’s skin drips from the slice in her throat. A collar of crimson, eerily beautiful in the flickering candlelight. The fire in her eyes fades quickly—too quickly, terrifyingly so.
It’s strange. She thought Karlach would have fought harder. She burns so brightly, cleaves through monsters and madness so fiercely, that surely she must have wanted to wrench away at the last moment. Death is still death even when one is aware and accepting of it. Death is still death even when it’s a boon asked of a dear friend.
No. Karlach trusts them to bring her back.
Giving into her fear wasn’t an option.
I’m going to make sure I’m earning that trust, Rowan thinks as she stretches Nevermore over the too-warm body of her too-still friend.
Jericho starts to speak, her voice halting and haunting as she recites the spell written on the scroll. The Weave shudders around her, around Rowan, poking and prodding with curious fingers that maybe can’t quite understand what has just happened but are all too eager to help nonetheless.
The runes beneath Karlach glow.
Lines appear beneath her skin. Her veins, backlit by something not of this realm, pure white and reminiscent of constellations woven into her flesh.
Jericho speaks faster, louder. Rowan doesn’t know the words—can’t understand them, can’t hear them. She knows they’re being spoken. She knows the magic is being drawn into this space.
But it seems the spell’s true nature is for Jericho and her alone.
Everything is suddenly so heavy.
The weight of a world and then some sinks onto Rowan’s shoulders, clawing at her eyes, sinking into her heart. The taste of blood and magic burst across her tongue. Her skin prickles. She grits her teeth as she feels her eyelids drop, a cold chill creeping up her spine. Yet the feathers at her throat grow warm, as hot and soothing as a hearth.
The pungent smell of incense gives way to a calmer, kinder scent of lilies and snowfall.
“Are you prepared for this journey, little one?”
Rowan doesn’t hesitate to answer.
“Yes.”
“Then open your eyes, my dear Chosen.”
She does.
She’s no longer sitting on the floor of the Tabernacle’s basement.
The place she’s in now is…strange.
It is a vast, empty plain. Flat, bland, with a gray sky and an even grayer stony ground. In the distance lies a jagged, spiralling city of sorts. As if hewn from the very ground beneath her, it rises into the horizon like a broken crown, and she suddenly can’t tell if it’s actually far away or if she could reach out her hand and touch the wall surrounding the city.
The wall almost seems to writhe with a thousand flailing limbs.
Rowan blinks.
Where the fuck is she?
“Oh,” a voice whispers at her side, sounding small and frightened and tired, “I didn’t expect this.”
She turns. Jericho stands next to her, body stiff and eyes wide as she stares at the gloomy citadel beyond the horizon. The scroll is no longer in her hands and she’s balled her fists at her sides, chest rising and falling rapidly.
“Jericho.” Rowan puts a hand on Jericho’s shoulder, swallowing nervously. “What just happened?”
“I don’t…” Jericho just keeps staring at the city in the distance, disbelief plain in her agonized expression. “Did I cast the spell wrong? Karlach’s soul was supposed to be drawn back to her body. Why are we in the Fugue Plane?”
The Fugue Plane?
Oh, fuck.
That’s the City of Judgement, Rowan realizes with a start. Where Kelemvor resides. Where Jergal once resided. Where Myrkul claimed squatters’ rights, maybe?
Where the Raven Queen might have a place of honor, considering her status a fellow deity of death.
“A-are we dead?” Jericho continues, her voice rising to a frantic pitch as she can’t tear her eyes away from the City of Judgement. “I…if I failed, if I somehow managed to kill us with that spell, then Karlach—”
“You are not dead. Be welcome, friends.”
An unfamiliar voice cuts Jericho’s panicked words off, not unkindly.
A figure materializes before them out of shadow and dust.
She is small. Short. A gnomish woman clad in a cloak of feathers as black as night.
Her blonde hair is a tightly wound mess of bouncing curls. Her eyes are as dark and discerning as an ancient forest, a smattering of crows feet decorating the corners. She’s freckled, even more so than Rowan, and her cheeks are pleasantly rosy as she beams up at the wizard and sorcerer.
“A pleasure to meet you in person, Rowan Twice-Born,” the newcomer says, hands clasped before her as if in prayer. “I am here at the behest of our Matron.”
Why does it feel as though Rowan should know this woman?
Memories stir. A moldering tower, forgotten and abandoned in the shadows of the Underdark. A journal stained with tears. A stack of letters, never to be read or replied to.
Rowan’s voice escapes from her mouth before she can stop herself.
“Eagerly I had wished the morrow,” she whispers, “Vainly I had sought to borrow; from my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore.”
Jericho’s gaze at last jerks away from Kelemvor’s citadel, confusion sharp in her scowl. “Rowan, I’m not in the mood for riddles—we have to find Karlach’s soul, now!”
Rowan loves Jericho. Deeply and fiercely. She understands her impatience as she would definitely be freaking out were this for Gale.
But rather than answering her friend, she steps forward and sweeps the gnomish woman into the tightest embrace she can.
“For the rare and radiant maiden,” Rowan finishes almost reverently, eyes suddenly hot, “Whom the angels name Lenore—nameless here, forever more.”
If Lenore de Hurst is startled by Rowan’s bear hug she gives no indication of it.
No, she responds in kind, her diminutive frame snug against Rowan’s bosom as she wraps her smaller arms around Rowan’s waist. She feels real; solid. But deep down, Rowan knows this woman is more specter than substance, her spirit soldered together by a shadowy blessing.
How? What? Why?
All the questions she wants to ask are stuck in her throat.
Lenore pats the small of her back and pulls away from the hug, a radiant warmth in the smile she graces her with. “Thank you,” she says, as she had said to her once in a voice as quiet and gentle as flowers on a grave. “Your kindness is why I’m here, my dear girl. The Raven Queen offered me a different path as she escorted my soul to my would-be next life. I serve her now in matters such as this.”
She gestures vaguely to the bleakness surrounding them. Matters such as this is a pretty broad category. When she does not elaborate further, it’s clear that the rest is going to remain a secret.
That doesn’t really matter right now, though.
There’s so much Rowan wants to say.
Somehow the confession of “So the tragedy of your lonely life and even lonelier death caused me to have a meltdown that subsequently turned into Gale and I coming to terms with our feelings and making out sloppy style in your busted-ass library” doesn’t quite fit the mood.
“I should be thanking you,” Rowan tells Lenore instead, mindlessly grabbing hold of her raven feathers. “Discovering your tower was, well…a turning point in my life. I’m…sorry,” she adds lamely, a flicker of guilt coursing through her veins. “I feel like I could have done more than what I did back then. You deserved more.”
“It was enough. I have accomplished more by the Matron’s side than I ever did when I was struggling to follow Mystra’s ways.”
A dismissive, exasperated look ripples across Lenore’s face for a moment as she grinds out the latter goddess’s name. It’s quickly replaced by her comforting, friendly smile. It’s a smile that makes one feel at ease, as if they’ve at last crossed the threshold into home after a long and arduous journey.
She steps past Rowan and stands before Jericho, who has grown silent and sullen. The tiefling’s hands are still balled into tight fists. A faint flash of red is barely visible between her slender fingers.
Lenore reaches her hands out and slowly, gently takes Jericho’s wrists, unfurling her hands to reveal the crescent moons her nails have gouged into her palms. “Your spell did not fail, my sweet,” she says. “Her soul waits for you. You must be the one to bring her home.”
Jericho’s scowl deepens. “But that’s not how the spell
works,”
she hisses insistently. “It’s not supposed to send the caster to the bloody fucking Fugue Plane!”
“Magic is magic,” Lenore says with a nonchalant shrug.
Jeri’s scowl deepens even more. Rowan tries not to wince. Oh, dear. That kind of postulating with a wizard isn’t going to fly, especially when that wizard is Jericho. Lenore ought to know better. She was a cleric in life, but she was still a cleric of Mystra. That’s wizard-adjacent.
Before Jericho does something like try to Command Lenore into doing a jaunty little jig, Rowan stammers, “S-So, uh, where is…Karlach’s soul?”
She feels like she already knows the answer, though.
Lenore lifts a hand and points to the City of Judgement. “She is making her way there,” she answers, “as all the recently deceased do.”
“Then we go after her,” Jericho says decisively, already turning away from Lenore and starting to storm off in the direction of the looming citadel on the horizon.
Rowan is torn between immediately following and looking to Lenore for clarification, guidance, or anything the woman has to offer. Her feet are oddly rooted to the spot and make the decision for her. So, she glances away from Jericho’s retreating figure and looks down at Lenore nervously.
“Are you…coming with us?” she ventures.
She’s not sure what she has to be nervous about. Anxiety just likes to be an annoying asshole like that.
Lenore’s calming, kind smile turns a bit cryptic, which does not help her sudden flood of nerves one bit.
“In a sense. Your friend’s soul is in rather unique circumstances, hence the Raven Queen’s urging for me to greet you. But the rest of the spell must be completed by the casters; I am merely here to observe.”
Unique circumstances? Because of Karlach’s whole history with Zariel?
Rowan starts to frown, a dozen more questions on the tip of her tongue, but Lenore hums a few notes and steps back from her.
“Have no fear. The wizard and you shall succeed. It would be a slight against fate were you to not.”
“I guess I appreciate the vote of confidence, but—”
Lenore dissolves into a cloud of roiling shadow before Rowan’s eyes, the darkness fluttering wildly until it shifts into the winged shape of a raven. With a cry of farewell, the phantom of Lenore takes to the somber sky, vanishing into a gathering of colorless clouds.
Rowan’s anxiety doesn’t have time to become irritation when she hears a frustrated, pissed off shout in the direction Jericho was heading. She quickly turns back around. Her jaw drops open when she sees that the vast, empty wasteland between here and the City of Judgement is no longer vast and empty.
A labyrinth hewn from black obsidian has appeared.
And Jericho, practically ripping her hair out, stands at the stygian entrance, shrieking like an incensed harpy.
“WHAT THE FUCK.”
Rowan rushes to Jericho as quickly as she can, feet crunching on the gravelly ground. The sound is almost thunderous to her ears. It occurs to her then that there’s no breeze here; no ambient soundscape or white noise. It’s kind of like the Shadowfell. Or, at the very least, the Raven Queen’s own personal pocket dimension.
Unlike those places, however, the Fugue Plane’s lack of actuality is unnerving rather than a familiar comfort.
When she reaches Jericho, the tiefling is seething and spitting curses Rowan didn’t even know existed. An aura of furious magic surrounds her friend almost like a bubble, a layer of Weave undulating around her form as Jericho paces back and forth in front of the entrance.
“This is fucking bullshit,” she snaps, tail swishing in rage. “None of this should be happening! I did the ritual perfectly! I said the spell exactly as I should have! I don’t—I don’t ruin magic!”
She lets out a growl that is a little too like Miri’s relapses into Bhaal-blooded madness, slamming a fist against the black stone wall of the labyrinth so hard Rowan’s own hand twitches in phantom pain.
“I have to find Karlach…!”
Her voice breaks on Karlach’s name, a choked sound that ends in a staccato whimper.
Rowan’s heart swells and breaks and mends in the same breath. She immediately takes hold of Jericho’s wrist, tugging her towards her and pulling her into a tight hug. “We will,” she promises as Jeri, trembling like a newborn fawn, crumbles into the embrace and leans her entire weight into Rowan.
Jericho doesn’t cry. At least, not out loud. Rowan pretends she can’t feel a dampness on her shoulder as the tiefling rests her head, mindful to not poke her with her horns. Her clawed hands hold onto her robes with a blind desperation that creates a lump in Rowan’s throat. She says nothing, simply cradling Jericho as her friend shivers and swallows down a wretched sort of sound.
The shadows in Rowan’s veins stir, crawling out from her soul and winding together with the magic Jericho has surrounded herself in. An embrace of their own, her loyal little warriors curling and twisting affectionately.
After a few moments, Jericho pushes herself away quickly. She wipes at her face, flicking a droplet of what is definitely not a tear onto the ground. “Damn it all,” she mutters, silver eyes fixated pointedly at anything other than Rowan. “I swore to Karlach the spell would be perfect, and if I can’t keep that promise, then…”
Wordlessly, Rowan threads her fingers with Jericho’s.
It’s as she’s stepping into the obsidian maze, pulling Jericho along behind her, that she finally realizes Nevermore and Pip are nowhere to be found.
Are they just not allowed in the Fugue Plane? Is that why Lenore greeted them?
The feathers at her throat grow warm in confirmation, a cool hand brushing against her cheek. Right. Okay. No staff, no familiar, no problem. She and Jericho will be fine. They’ve just got to get through this magical labyrinth and find Karlach.
She doesn’t know why it has to be this way, but sometimes it’s better to just not question this kind of stuff. Especially when the gods are involved.
Jericho grows quiet as Rowan leads the way, numbly and dutifully following behind. Their steps are like a cacophony, echoing off of the pitch black walls. At times the stone seems to shift and narrow as if it is breathing. Other times she swears it exhales and expands, like the innards of some eldritch pair of lungs.
She is not a fan of the Fugue Plane.
Judging by the way Jericho is squeezing her hand, she isn’t either.
Despite the freaky, lifelike quality to the obsidian surrounding them, the path is straightforward. It twists and turns, but there is nowhere else to branch off to. They’re just walking in the same direction with no alternative routes in sight. Maybe it’ll be easier than she originally thought—
Ah. Shit.
Just as Rowan rounds a corner, the path splits.
She comes to a halt. Jericho freezes at her side. The paths look exactly the same. Black stone forms a cavern-like entrance, jagged and sharp as it comes together at the very top. Two equally dark tunnels greet them, mocking and mysterious, their contents unknown except by the shadows found within.
“...which way do we go?” Jericho asks quietly.
She sounds so tired. Empty. Hollow. So unlike the abrasive, alive person Rowan has come to know.
Rowan looks between the twin tunnels. She could send her shadows to investigate. It might take a bit longer, but then they would know for sure which one is the correct path.
Just as she’s about to nudge her inner darkness and ask it to go look, she hears something.
The distant, half-formed cry of a raven.
It echoes from the entrance on the left, insistent and urgent. Her magic stirs in response, subconsciously reaching for something so dear and familiar. Like calls to like. Lenore said she’d be with them in a sense. So doesn’t that mean that’s the path to choose? Is this what the Matron has asked of her—to be their guide?
Rowan starts to move forward, eyes glued to the left tunnel, but Jericho’s grip tightens and she says, “Wait.”
Rowan pauses.
There’s another sound echoing in the dull, lifeless air. It dances from the right tunnel, vibrant and playful. A peal of laughter. A chorus of joyous giggles, carefree and careless, like that of a young girl’s.
Jericho surges to the right tunnel like a streak of lightning, stepping in front of Rowan and leading the way this time.
“Karlach,” she whispers, fervent and feverish.
“Uh, in my experience, the disembodied laugh of a child down a dark tunnel isn’t usually something we should be following,” Rowan says, chest tight with vague recollections of way too many demonic horror movies.
“No. This is the way we need to go.”
Jericho’s voice is so insistent, so determined, that Rowan finds she can’t argue or protest.
She allows herself to be dragged along. They both pass through the penumbra and as they do, the laughter grows louder. The ground beneath seems to shudder, a minute quaking that would be barely noticeable except all of Rowan’s senses are on high alert.
Shadows swarm and darkness closes in on them. Even with her connection to the Shadow weave, Rowan can’t see anything. Not the wizard in front of her, not the labyrinth behind her, or the walls on either side of them.
And especially not the path before them.
Jericho’s grip tightens. But she does not falter, does not freeze, and marches forward into the unending gloom of obscurity as if she were the one born again in the sanctity of the Raven Queen’s realm.
Their footsteps echo.
The bubbling laughter grows quiet, fading, until it is woefully nonexistent.
Time seems to lose meaning and Rowan doesn’t know if a second or a minute or a century has passed when Jericho suddenly blurts out, “I’m sorry.”
Rowan frowns. “What for?”
“I should have waited for a cleric,” Jeri admits hoarsely, brokenly, her voice like shattered glass and falling stars. “I’ve done something like this once before and it went fine, so I figured this time would be no different. I didn’t think we’d be…shunted off to the Fugue Plane.”
“Once before? What do you mean?”
Jericho sighs. She squeezes Rowan’s hand. She doesn’t slow down, but there’s a heaviness to her steps now as she continues to stride forward into the impenetrable darkness beyond.
“After I left Blackstaff. After Sylvia took me in and made me her apprentice. I wasn’t the person I wanted to be, even though I was using the name I wanted. But it wasn’t enough.
I
wasn’t enough. And then I learned one of Sylvia’s clients had a scroll of True Polymorph in their possession, so I…”
She lets out a harsh, barking laugh.
“I won’t bore you with the details. Let’s just say Syl should have kicked me to the streets and locked the door behind her. She, however, refused to. She’s far too softhearted. Far too kind.”
A pause.
Another laugh, but this one quieter and less abrasive.
“Sylvia purchased that scroll for me and offered to find a wizard with more experience than I to cast it. She actually meant Morena, not that I knew it at the time. And I was so young, so determined to prove my worth after dropping out of the Academy, that I told her I would do it myself. So I did.”
Jericho comes to a stop now. The only reason Rowan knows is because she collides with her back, grunting out an
oomph
of surprise. She still can’t see the tiefling’s form in front of her. That doesn’t stop Jeri from somehow finding Rowan’s other hand and holding it too.
“It went perfectly. I still don’t know how I managed, when my studies were focused on Enchantment-based spells rather than Transmutation. But the scroll worked, and the spell made it so I could be the person I always knew I was, and Syl never once asked for anything in return. Even though she’s my employer—even though I’ve never referred to myself as anything but her apprentice—from that moment on, she…”
Jericho’s swallow is audible.
“She became the parent I never had.”
Jericho doesn’t talk about her past often.
That isn’t to say she doesn’t talk about the past. She’s eager to drag Gale and Dorian’s names through the mud and reveal all the inane, immature shenanigans the Dekarios brothers got up to in their school days. But she’s never spoken much about who she was before Blackstaff, before Syl and the shop, beyond a few passing comments about creating her current self to precise specifications.
She’s very proud of her fantastic pair of tits and never misses a chance to brag about them. Rowan can’t blame her.
“I miss Waterdeep,” Jericho admits. “I know Morena and Evander are taking care of Syl, but the shop is her entire life. Truth be told, I was planning on returning after I knew you were safe and continuing research on the nautiloids there, but then I met Karlach and…”
She trails off. Rowan doesn’t want to push, doesn’t want to pressure her. She just pats her hands comfortingly, reminding her that she’s here and has no plans on being anywhere else.
(Well, it’s not like she can be anywhere else. She has no idea how to get out of the Fugue Plane.)
“Karlach reminds me so much of my old self that it hurt at first,” Jeri whispers, guilt and shame and so much love in her words. “She’s trapped in a body that only causes her pain. That’s why I had to perform the ritual as soon as I realized what it could do. She needs her heart back. She deserves her heart back. She’s so bright, Rowan. So fierce and wonderful. She keeps burning and burning because she thinks she has to use all that fire up before it kills her, and I can’t let that happen. I can’t.”
Gods. Karlach is blessed to have someone like Jericho care for her.
“Jeri,” Rowan says, squeezing her hands, “it won’t happen. Karlach is going to get her heart back. You are so fucking capable and could have done this without my help—hells, you just told me you made a new body for yourself, all on your own! This is no different!”
She really wishes it wasn’t so dark right now so they could see one another’s faces. Inspiring speeches are only half as effective when their coinciding facial expressions are missing.
“But you’re not on your own,” she continues, grinning into the dark. “You’ve got me. When two bad bitches like us work together, we’re literally unstoppable!”
Jericho doesn’t reply immediately. Rowan feels her grin slipping, worry churning in the pit of her stomach. Did she say the wrong thing? Was that maybe a little too cavalier for the heaviness of the whole situation?
But—
A short scoff sounds from where Jericho stands in front of her. Sharp on the outside, sweet on the inside. A dagger hiding a silken scarf, wrapping around Rowan’s heart and making a home for itself.
Just like Jeri.
“You’ve changed, darling,” Jericho murmurs with an affectionate, nostalgic sigh. “You were so shy and cute when we first met, you know. Now look at you. Threatening gods and chasing away my self-pity like you’ve been doing it your whole life.”
“Weird that you’re placing threatening gods and giving you a pep talk in the same category but whatever butters your biscuit, I guess.”
“They are. I’m practically a god myself.”
Rowan resists the urge to roll her eyes. No use when Jeri can’t see it. Instead, she opens her mouth to make a joke about how all wizards apparently have a god complex, but the sudden wrapping of Jericho’s arms around her makes her forget how to speak.
Which is probably a good thing, because there’s no way she would have taken being compared to Gale very well.
They truly are far too similar in far too many ways.
“Thank you,” Jericho murmurs in Rowan’s ear, hugging her with a savage desperation that takes her breath away. “You are so dear to me. I adore you to bits, Rowan. I could not have asked for a better friend.”
“Love you too, Jeri,” Rowan says as she revels in the embrace, content and relieved and practically dizzy with how dear the tiefling is to her. “Now let’s get your girlfriend’s soul back so you can be the two hottest tieflings in the whole world.”
When they untangle themselves from one another, Rowan swears the darkness isn’t as nearly as pervasive as before.
As Jericho’s hand slips back into hers, Rowan swears she can make out her faint silhouette.
They begin to walk once more, side by side this time. The laughter starts up again. A little girl is shrieking with delight in some unreachable abyss, a song of pure mirth and innocence. With every step the laughter gets louder. With every step the darkness seems to fade, the midnight void giving way to the amber glow of a fire.
The labyrinth’s obsidian walls fall as if they were never there in the first place.
Instead, Rowan and Jericho find themselves in a small, warm home.
The interior is sparse. Humble. No decorations, no grandiose displays of pride. Just a quaint little hovel, with a bent table and three chairs before a stone fireplace. There is a figure in each chair; two are formless, phantasmal silhouettes that barely seem to exist at all. But the third?
A little girl.
A little tiefling girl with unbroken horns and a bright, toothy grin.
Her red skin is unpuckered and unblemished. Her eyes burn just like the flames of the hearth, happy for happiness’s sake. She’s giggling, clutching a patched up teddy bear that’s clearly seen better days, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Her feet swing as she bounces in her seat, gaze focused on the two shades seated at the table with her.
“Mum!” the child exclaims. “Dad! Clive and I are going to save the city one day! We’ll be heroes, just like all the stories! I’ll grow up big and strong, and have really cool powers, and I’ll be able to beat up all the bad guys!”
Jericho inhales sharply as if it hurts her to breathe.
“Oh,” she rasps, “Karlach…”
The little girl starts and turns her head towards the sound of Jericho’s voice. Her eyes grow wide when she sees Jeri and Rowan standing in the doorway of the home, a strange mix of confusion and recognition burning in their brilliant glow.
“Um. H-Hi?” She cocks her head, clutching the teddy bear closer to her chest. “Are you here to take me away? The bird told me you’d be coming.”
Jericho nods and steps forward, her fingers slipping away from Rowan’s hand as she approaches Karlach’s soul. She remains in the doorway, heart pounding so loud Kelemvor ought to hear it. It feels wrong to go to the tieflings’ sides right now. It feels more like she needs to remain an observer.
“Yes, fireheart,” Jericho says with a smile that does not quite reach her eyes. “We’re going to go home now.”
She reaches a hand out towards Karlach and the little girl suddenly gives a vehement shake of her head, hopping off of her chair and scuttling between the two faded forms at the table.
“But I am home!” she protests, stomping her foot hard onto the floor. “I’m with Mum and Dad! If…if you take me away, I won’t be with them anymore! I have to stay! If I leave, they’ll be sad!”
Her visage flickers. Karlach’s usual appearance seeps through the young, innocent thing she once was, but only for a moment. She glowers at Jericho as though she wants to bite her, pouting stubbornly.
Jericho doesn’t follow. She stays where she is, on the other side of the table, where the flames of the hearth shine through the gossamer outline of the two phantoms.
“Weren’t you just telling them you wanted to be a hero?” she asks, marvelously patient. “If you come with me, you will be. We’re going to save Baldur’s Gate, fireheart.”
Karlach’s pout dissolves slightly. “We are?”
“Of course. You, me, and all our friends. Wyll is there. So is Rowan. And you’re the strongest of us all! So—”
Jericho’s voice cracks, her words crawling out of her throat like a soldier dragging themselves through blood.
“Come back to me, love,” she whispers, legs shaking, and Rowan fears she’s going to collapse against the table. “I promised you. I can’t break that promise. Karlach, please…”
The little girl looks conflicted. She backs away from the table, away from the two phantoms, and spins around. Her back turned, she gazes at the flickering flames of the hearth, silent. Even from the angle she’s at Rowan can tell the child is staring at a strange, misshapen lump of ash in the middle of the firewood.
“I can’t,” she says timidly, fearfully. Her form shivers, becoming tall and broad shouldered again, voice deepening and full of sorrow. “I can’t leave Mum and Dad. They missed me so much, Jeri. I-I missed them so much.”
When Karlach turns around to face them, it’s with the face of the child once more.
“I don’t want to hurt anymore,” she whispers, eyes growing wide and wet with tears. “Everything will hurt again if I leave this place!”
Jericho shakes her head and slowly, carefully, begins to walk towards the little girl. “Some things will hurt,” she agrees in a soft, brittle voice. “But not everything. And even when things do hurt, you won’t be suffering alone. Not anymore.”
She comes to a stop at the child’s side. She lowers herself to her knees, gazing up at Karlach’s face. In the glow of the hearth she looks like sapphires and starlight, the silver flames in her eyes drifting in a sea of tears she refuses to shed.
She holds her hands out plaintively to Karlach. She does nothing else with them but the tremble in her fingers betrays how much she wishes to close the distance.
“I’ll be with you. I will not leave you behind. I promised I’d get your heart back. You promised to let me listen to it beating.”
The child stares down at Jericho. Her eyes linger on the hands outstretched to her. She glances over at the two phantoms seated at the table, their forms unmoving and just as see-through as they were a moment ago. But something about them has…changed.
They’re not as formless. They’ve become almost humanoid with a faint impression of horns sprouting from both of their heads.
Karlach shuffles her feet. She tears her gaze away from the horned specters and hides her face in the teddy bear, her voice bashful as she mumbles out, “Can Clive come too?”
Jericho dips her head, shoulders straightening. “Of course. I’ll even sew up some outfits for him. We can make them together.”
The little girl peeks out from behind her teddy bear’s protective shield. “I’d like that,” she admits. She tucks the plushie underneath an arm and grabs hold of both of Jericho’s hands tightly. “I’ll go with you. If I’m really the strongest hero, then you need me to protect you!”
“Yeah,” Jeri agrees in a hoarse tone, “but only if I can protect you, too.”
Karlach beams, her smile so bright it could cleave the sun in two.
“Let’s go home, Jeri!”
“You’re forgetting something, dear,” a voice says from Rowan’s shoulder. She swallows a startled yelp as she becomes aware of two clawed feet digging into her skin, the sleek black feathers of a raven apparating in the corner of her vision.
But it’s not Pip.
Lenore launches herself from Rowan’s shoulder and soars over the empty table. She lands on top of the hearth, green eyes glinting in the amber glow as she gestures down with her beak. “Remember?” she prods kindly, motherly. “Something very special is being kept safe in the fire for you.”
The little girl gasps. She yanks on Jericho’s hands, tugging the other tiefling to her feet. Swiftly, she hands Jeri the teddy bear and crouches into the open flame of the hearth, plunging both of her hands directly into the fire.
Jericho lets out a frantic curse and makes a move to grab the child’s wrist.
Rowan feels a flash of panic as she watches.
But Karlach is already pulling something out of the ash, cradling it in her hands as though it were just as precious as Clive the teddy bear. The smoldering, molten thing pulses and hums, a steady beat emanating from it. She holds it against her chest, taking a deep breath, and between the inhale and exhale she goes from the little girl she was before life hurt her to the beautiful, kind warrior her pain forced her to become.
“Thanks, feathers,” she says with a lopsided grin to Lenore, who ruffles said feathers with a modicum of indignation at the nickname.
The grin fades into a sad, small smile as she casts her gaze to the horned silhouettes seated at the table.
“Mum, Dad…” She clutches the glowing, beating bundle even tighter, her face contorted in a strange mix of melancholy and relief. “I miss you so much. I’ll miss you even more after I leave. But I’m happy. I’m happy, and getting into some really important shit, and I owe it all to the best fucking mates a girl could ask for.”
She sniffles and leans her head down, pressing her lips to the pulsating shape in her hands.
“You’re with me here. Always. Taters.”
She turns to face Jericho again, whose cheeks are glistening and wet. She sniffles again, louder and a little more abrupt this time, stepping closer to Jeri. Their tails seem to intertwine as a beat of silence passes between them, save for the quiet crackle of the fire in the hearth.
Lenore’s eyes lock with Rowan’s from across the room and she lets out a single, throaty caw as the Matron’s voice whispers in her ear, “Well done, little one.”
And then Rowan is suddenly gasping, her eyes shooting open, her hands clammy and fingers numb from where they’re wrapped around Nevermore’s wooden hilt.
Pip meows in concerned confusion, their furry body pressing against her thigh as she chokes on raw magic and the lingering nothingness of the Fugue Plane. Jericho coughs next to her, slumping into her shoulder and nearly squeezing Pip as she sucks in greedy lungful after lungful of incense-filled air and candle smoke.
There is a third gasp from below them.
Rowan’s head snaps down as Karlach wheezes, coughing and hacking like an old man afflicted with the plague. “Easy, easy, easy now,” Wyll says, his voice seeming to come from far away, one arm slinging around Karlach’s shoulders as he helps her into a sitting position.
There’s no blood on her throat. There’s no surgical, deadly incision where Wyll had sealed her death either. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, eyes glassy as her entire body shivers.
Jericho is staring at her silently. A stricken expression crosses her face as she takes one of Karlach’s lukewarm hands into her own. She holds it as if she can’t quite believe the other tiefling is real.
“Fireheart?” she says quietly, her voice a mere tremor. “Are you…”
She trails off. In the silence that follows, Rowan’s heartbeat seems to throb in her ears.
Then Jericho’s.
Wyll’s.
And then a fourth heartbeat.
“O-oh,” Karlach stammers, looking down at her chest. No orange glow shines through her combat fatigues. Her veins do not burn with a hellfire wrought from cruelty. There is no mechanical hum of a thing created for war. There is only the steady, strong beating of a warrior’s heart and all the love it was meant to carry.
“Karlach—” Jericho starts to say, the name a trembling prayer on her tongue.
But then she bursts into tears, sucking in a series of sobs and gasps as she throws herself at Karlach, wrapping her arms around the other tiefling and holding her. She buries her head in Karlach’s chest, meticulously braided hair tangling in her horns as she wails, “I can hear it!”
Karlach shakes violently, viciously. Her hands tremble as she paws at Jeri with stiff fingers. “Y-yeah, Jeri,” she wheezes, whimpers, nodding as though the rest of her body is paralyzed. “It’s beating. It’s…real.”
She presses Jericho closer to her as if her skin could split and her rib cage could drag the other woman into her chest, nestled against her flesh and blood heart.
“It’s real and it doesn’t hurt,” she breathes, a disquieting disbelief soaring on newborn wings in her voice.
And then Karlach dissolves into a weeping mess.
They cling to each other, a melody of grief and relief and rage and joy arising from their combined sobbing. Ruby and sapphire nestled against one another like the perfect match, an absolute mess on the floor of the ritual circle as their lashing tails swipe over runes and arcane sigils.
Rowan rubs at her own hot, prickly eyes and forces herself to stand. Wyll meets her eyes as he does the same, a proud smile stretching across his face, and gives her a shaky nod.
“How’s that nepotism treating you, Rowan?”
She snorts, playfully booping him on the nose with Nevermore. “Hey, this was mostly Jericho. She’s the one who found Karlach. I was there for moral support.”
Wyll lets out a ragged sigh dangerously close to the facsimile of some kind of emotional outburst. He claps a hand on her shoulder, his fingers tense with a burden he did not want to bear but carried for Karlach nonetheless.
He really is a good man.
“You did it,” he says, as if he has to say the words out loud to convince himself. “You really did it. Karlach’s heart…”
“We all did it.” Rowan boops him again, this time on the shoulder, and grins. “Thanks for playing your part, buddy.”
“Rowan.”
Jericho is suddenly standing up, one trembling hand on Rowan’s cheek. Karlach slumps against her, looking elated but exhausted, the whites of her eyes nearly as red as her skin from crying. Jeri doesn’t look much better, her face raw with emotion, the shadows under her own eyes as tender as a bruise.
Without warning, she presses a series of fluttering kisses to Rowan’s face; her cheeks, her forehead, her nose—practically everywhere but her actual mouth, repeating “thank you” over and over like it’s a sacred mantra.
When she’s finished with her flurry of gratitude and affection, Jericho rewards Rowan with a stunning smile that would put a goddess to shame.
“Two bad bitches,” she whispers, patting Rowan’s kiss-addled cheeks.
Rowan nods, face somewhat aflame. “The baddest,” she agrees, clearing her throat.
A ruffle of feathers from the chamber’s corner alerts her to the presence that never truly left the room. She turns, seeing a smoky fog of shadow hovering in the air expectantly. Glancing at her companions to see that none of them have taken notice, she immediately knows it’s a Chosen thing and they wouldn’t be aware of it even if they tried.
She slips away from them, stepping out of the ritual circle. The candlewicks are barely burnt. They couldn’t have been in the Fugue Plane for more than a minute, even though it felt like hours.
Magic is magic indeed.
The messy, bumbling conversation between Jericho, Karlach, and Wyll fades into silence as Rowan enters the darkness. Pip trots along at her feet, tail swishing and head held high as they no doubt wish to show off their fun wizard hat to the Matron.
She is not difficult to spot considering the chamber disappears around Rowan the moment she steps into the shadow. A space of nothing but the Raven Queen opens up around her, darkness skirting against her skin in greeting.
She is seated on a throne of feather and bone. Littered around her feet are weapons—old, ancient, decrepit looking things that would probably crumble to dust if someone touched them. Swords and axes and the like that are strangely familiar. Well, of course they’d be familiar in a sense, given the world she lives in now.
She just can’t shake the feeling the symbols and patterns etched into hilts and blades are ones she knew once, long ago.
She pushes the niggling sense of familiarity from her mind and admires the bone throne. It’s a little more macabre than Rowan was expecting. Grotesque and grandiose in equal measure, but not in a nasty Myrkul way.
To be honest, she’s digging whatever vibes the Matron is going for.
“What’s poppin’, Mama R?” She waves to her goddess sweetly, feeling threads of the Shadow Weave twirl between her fingers. “Everything okay?”
“All is well,” the Raven Queen says magnanimously, choosing not to comment on Rowan’s sacrilege. It’s the little victories that matter. “I simply wanted to say you did a splendid job in person.”
Rowan can’t help but preen under the praise, trying not to grin. “Thank you. I really didn’t do much this time, though!”
“You helped your friends. You were a conduit between life and death. You are a bridge between worlds, showing mortals that death is simply the next part of a never ending cycle.”
The Matron shifts in her throne. Bones creak and feathers flutter.
She cocks her head, avian and inquisitive, her intonation like an echo in a mausoleum.
“Are you happy, Rowan?”
The question throws her off a bit.
She’s asked it before. When she was first brought to this world and gazed back at her as her reflection, haunting and holy.
“I am,” Rowan answers readily with a nod. “I have people I love and people who love me. I have a sense of purpose and hope for the future. I’m happy.” A cold, lonely feeling takes root in her heart for a moment, and she as always cannot ignore the grief she carries for the one regret she left behind.
“I just…miss Freya a lot sometimes,” she admits, almost ashamed of it. She shouldn’t. She has Pip right here, and they’re utterly wonderful and so integral to her soul she’s not sure what she would do without them.
But that’s how she felt about Freya.
That’s how she still feels about Freya, in that deep dark part of her heart still hiding. The blade that’s always poised to slip between her ribs and carve Freya’s name out twitches in anticipation.
The Raven Queen is oddly, contemplatively silent.
After a few moments, she asks, “Are there other things you miss about your previous world? Your old life?”
This question throws her off even more so than the first one.
Of course not, she wants to say. What else would I miss other than Freya?
But that’s not the whole truth, and Rowan doesn’t want to lie to the Matron. She’s not sure if she even can.
“I miss…”
She swallows, wracking her brain for how to answer. Pip lets out a soft, comforting sound and presses against her leg, their feline body vibrating with the force of how hard they’re purring.
Gods, she wishes she had Freya too.
“I miss the stories,” Rowan finally allows, one hand beginning to fiddle with her raven feathers. “I miss the history, the myths—I miss learning about the gods, even if they never answered my prayers.”
She tries to laugh but it comes out a little too forced, a little too practiced.
“It’s funny,” she continues with a shrug. “I don’t miss my family. I barely even remember them, except how I was always a little too much. I don’t remember my friends except how none of them ever truly felt like a ‘friend,’ not in the way the ones in this world do.”
She hasn’t thought about this in a very long time.
Not remembering the specifics isn’t a shock. She knows those memories belong to the Matron, whether as payment for passage to this realm or simply a kind gesture to spare her from the agony of remembering. But as she speaks, Rowan becomes keenly aware of just how much she means it.
She misses the stories of her own world so much. She misses her silly little altar and her silly little trinkets. She misses the fierce, unrelenting belief that one day, a candle would flicker and a hand would brush her cheek and a voice would tell her all would be well.
But she does not miss the world or the life she had before the crown of glass snipped her string of fate.
The Raven Queen shifts on her throne again. The sound of old blades clinking together lulls Rowan from her thoughts and she can’t help but stare at the haphazard mess at the goddess’s feet once more.
They all have a symbol of a triple spiral engraved on them.
Why is it so familiar?
“You associated me with some of the deities from your old world once.” The Matron’s tone has shifted from inquisitive to uncharacteristically bashful. “Persephone, Hekate, and—”
“And the Morrigan,” Rowan finishes for her eagerly, realizing a beat too late that interrupting her goddess is a pretty rude thing to do. Even if she is a nepo baby who can (hopefully) do no wrong in the Raven Queen’s eyes.
“Yes. The Morrigan.”
She clears her throat. It’s an endearingly human gesture, strange and whimsical and charming.
“Forgive me, but please; continue to indulge me. If you could ask your old gods any question, what would it be?”
Damn, she’s really throwing me for a loop here. Is she having a moment? Is she worried I want to go back to my old world? Even if it were possible she should know there’s absolutely no fucking way I’d ever want to!
Freya aside, Rowan’s old world has nothing left for her.
Nothing but dust and bones and a name that never fit, buried in a molten pile of car parts and glass.
“I guess,” Rowan says with a frown, “I’d want to know why they never reached out to me. Why they never answered my prayers or made themselves known. Wh-which is stupid, right?” Her nervous fiddling with the raven feathers gets worse, fingers pinching and twirling as she rapidly sorts her thoughts. “They’re not even real. If they were, they’re probably dead. That’s why they never answered.”
A dead world full of dead gods and dead names.
Freya was the only thing worth living for.
“Rowan.” The Raven Queen is suddenly away from her throne, instead standing right in front of her. She doesn’t tower or look over her in all her divine might. There is an imperceptible shiver to her slender, feather-clad frame as she places both of her hands on Rowan’s shoulders.
The pressure under her palms is immense. As if she’s using Rowan to steady herself.
“Rowan,” the Matron says her name again, the death-quiet whisper of her voice oddly desperate. There is a plea to listen in the goddess’s call of her name. She swallows, gazing worriedly at the expressionless mask of the Raven Queen.
“There was one who wanted to answer,” the Matron starts, untold eons of life and death drifting between every syllable. “But there was little she could do, for she had already passed between the worlds and had sworn an oath to remain in this one. She could not actively meddle in the affairs of the realm forgotten by most. Not anymore.”
Rowan’s goddess steps back suddenly, quickly, as if Rowan has transformed into a rabid wolf and the Matron into a lame hare.
Her hands raise and tentatively settle on either side of the mask.
“I am the Raven Queen in this realm,” she rasps in a voice laden with guilt, “but I was once called the Morrigan in the world we both left behind.”
Before Rowan can even start to comprehend what the goddess has just said, her Matron pulls off her mask and allows it to drop to the solid floor of nothingness below.
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