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Shaundral stares through Gale when the tent flap opens, too proud not to meet his eyes and too ashamed to see what’s in them.
“I haven't forgotten about Sorcerous Sundries. We’ll visit tomorrow,” he says. His jaw is set, and his real eye is rimmed red. His braid hasn't been cared for, and strands escape its bounds.
“Shaundral …” Gale starts, and Shaundral raises a hand.
“There's no need. I know. Jaheira and I, we’ve discussed what to do. I can't allow Orin to live, and we need her Netherstone, but if my father wants to take the victor as a new Chosen, I refuse. If he tries to force my hand, I will use his unholy dagger on myself, and Jaheira will lead you to the end of the Absolute. That's the least I owe you all.”
Gale’s eyes widen. “I once knew a man who quite eloquently persuaded me that a life is a steep price to pay for forgiveness.”
“For the forgiveness of a fickle god,” Shaundral corrects. “I'm finding I care even less for their opinions now. I’d say I must have been a poor high priest, but evidence suggests otherwise.”
His hands stroke the flute, over the swell of bone at the end that Gale now recognises must be the beginning of a femoral head, severed from the shaft just after it began to bulge outwards.
“What I said to you, about leaving me be … I didn't mean for that to be a permanent state of affairs. When I first secluded myself in my tower, I thought that I was as lonely as I could ever be, but having loved you and now feeling your absence, I …”
“You never knew me. I didn't know me either, so I can't blame you for it.”
“I can’t condone what you've done, but do you even understand it?” asks Gale. He goes from a crouch to sitting in front of Shaundral, his legs crossed and inches away from bumping his lover with a knee.
“I barely recall it. I've been going through every scrap I found at Moonrise Towers, trying to find what it is I did. I thought of going to Gortash and asking for more secrets, more proof, but I don't know what price Bane’s pet tyrant might ask me to pay. And the way he smiles at me …”
Gale sees the piles of papers in their corner. They're in tidy stacks, and he knows suddenly that Shaundral has been systematic, organising them to aid his research.
“May I?” he asks, and he takes the topmost from one stack at Shaundral’s nod.
It's a page torn from a journal, spattered with a rusty substance Gale hopes is merely stew, but concedes is probably blood.
He knows this handwriting. Shaundral has a neat hand when he’s given time, but it turns into a scrawl under pressure, and this is the worst Gale has ever seen it.
Forgive me, Father … The prayer is strange, unhinged. Gale has heard Shaundral call him brilliant, with what he hopes isn't the same kind of admiration, but never has he promised to slaughter all. Not even in the depths of madness.
“You wouldn't do this, not for Bhaal,” he says.
“I have no need for his pride in me now,” agrees Shaundral. “But I suppose I did, once.”
“Are you sure you were in your right mind?”
Shaundral frowns. “No, but …” He pushes some lank hair back behind his ear, and Gale wants to undo the whole mess for him, to let it slip between his fingers and learn the flow of it as well as he knows the Weave.
“Whatever my right mind was, Orin destroyed it. The Urge rebelled at the idea of sharing a throne, so I must have had enough control to quell it before. Perhaps I fed it enough blood then,” says Shaundral.
“Does that work now?” asks Gale. “You take such care with bloodshed.”
Shaundral busies himself with returning the awful letter to its proper place, and doesn't speak until he's done. “I don't know,” he admits.
“What do you truly know about Bhaalspawn?”
“More than you can learn from books,” Shaundral snaps. He curls his lip, and Gale sees the too-sharp points of his teeth. He’s observed them before, but he was never familiar enough with half-drow or Shaundral’s history to make any conclusions.
He's not sure he is now either. As far as he knows there aren't usually physical signs of a Bhaalspawn, at least not any that would differentiate them from other semi-divine souls.
Gale tries not to think too much about Shaundral’s soul. He can add calling the man a god in his eyes to his ever-longer list of mistakes.
“I have been reading up on the matter,” he says, because he can't let this go. “The Urge you feel is one of Bhaal’s crueller inheritances, but it’s not insurmountable. The wizard Jon Irenicus meant to take the essence–”
Shaundral shudders. “No,” he says.
“We should consider the options available to us, my love,” Gale says.
“Don't call me that. Don't make this harder than it needs to be.”
Gale sighs. “Please. Let me speak my mind with you, as you always have with me.”
“What else is there to say?” Shaundral’s voice is harsh, defensive.
Gale clears his throat. He bumps Shaundral’s knee as he resettles himself into a more comfortable position for storytelling. Shaundral jerks away.
“Once, not so long ago, there was a wizard. He feared nothing more than being found wanting, and in his folly, he made a terrible mistake. His goddess, his muse, left him to the consequences, to the void inside him. He was hungry, and afraid to have it be known why, lest he be cast out as he … as he may have deserved. After all, what was inside him made him a danger to all.”
Shaundral’s eyes narrow. He reminds Gale of Tara before a hiss; his spine is stiff with agitation. But Gale has never been a man who let mere annoyance shut him up, and he persists now.
“He met a clever bard, who sang him an unfamiliar song. No sweet muse was he, he much preferred to needle and tease, but he fed the wizard’s hunger without a word of mockery. When the wizard told him the truth of his affliction, he was more generous than the wizard could have hoped or deserved. And the bard opened up for the wizard, naked in body and thought.” Gale swallows, but his throat only closes tighter around the words.
“I love you. I cannot gather the will to stop loving you. Do you still –”
Shaundral takes Gale’s hand, and places it over his heart, just like Gale once did for him. There's no orb there to match Gale’s, but his ribcage was once cracked open, and the scars on his skin can be felt between the lapels of his shirt.
“Yes,” he says.
He leans forward, and touches his lips to Gale’s. It's the briefest, most tentative kiss he's ever given. He keeps his grip on Gale’s hand, tight and desperate.