Chapter 1: The Heist
Chapter Text
The rain had been falling since dusk, a thin, needling drizzle that turned the cobbles of the Lower City slick and black as oil. The lamps along the alleys hissed in protest, smoke curling through the wet air. Zagrea moved through it quickly, precisely, passing through completely unseen.
She’d cased the manor for three nights before tonight. A noble’s summer house, half-forgotten after the Chionthar flooded the lower quarter. No guards on the perimeter, but two at the doors and one on the balcony. Easy enough for someone of her particular expertise.
The Guild had promised her a fat cut for this one. Lift a single chest from a noble vault. No killing, no heroics.
“Simple work, simple coin,” Nine-Fingers had said, sliding her a tiny brass token stamped with the Guild’s sigil. It should’ve felt like routine. It didn’t.
The wind carried the stink of tanneries and river salt. Zagrea adjusted the strap of her satchel and checked the little dagger strapped beneath her wristband—more out of habit than for comfort. Then she climbed.
The wall was slick but familiar, brick yielding to old mortar, vines finding purchase where human hands couldn’t. She moved with deliberate grace, every shift of weight measured against the pitter-patter of rain and the distant clatter of wagon wheels on stone.
By the time she reached the second-story balcony, her fingertips burned through her gloves. The guard was there, just as she’d expected—a sleepy gun for hire in half-polished armor, chin tucked unglamorously to his chest. Zagrea crouched, studying him. The lamp at his feet flickered, throwing his shadow across the wall.
She drew a small glass bead from her pouch, the one she’d traded half her last job’s profit for, and lobbed it past him. It shattered against the tiles with a hiss, releasing a thin plume of dark smoke that smelled faintly of mint and slightly rotted gloomflower.
He stirred once, blinked, and slumped deeper into his chair.
Zagrea landed softly beside him and eased open the balcony door. Inside was darkness thick enough to taste.
The noble’s home smelled of beeswax, damp wood, and dust. Her boots left faint prints on the muck that had gathered on the marble flooring. Tapestries lined the walls, threadbare depictions of sunlit gardens, a mockery of the rain-soaked city outside.
She moved by memory. She’d studied the floor plan stolen from a drunk scribe three nights earlier. The kitchen was below, servants’ quarters to the left, the study above the stair landing. The vault would be through that study, hidden behind a false wall.
It was supposed to hold gemstones. Something some fancy drow house wanted gone, or maybe just sealed away. Zagrea didn’t care enough to ask unnecessary questions.
Still, as she crept past the grand hall, her reflection caught in a tall mirror—a thin, wiry woman in patched leather and green, face half-hidden by the hood’s shadow, eyes glinting gold under torchlight—she couldn’t help thinking how small she looked against all that metal and polish.
She forced the thought down and climbed the stairs.
Each step creaked. She froze halfway up when she heard movement—a faint shuffle, followed by the whisper of fabric. Zagrea’s breath caught. She crouched low and waited.
Nothing.
Just the house groaning in the rain.
In the study, moonlight leaked through slit shutters, painting stripes across the floor. The smell here was different. Old ink, candle soot, and something almost metallic beneath. The desk was covered in papers written in an elegant hand, symbols she couldn’t read.
She found the false wall easily enough. A section of shelving where the dust lay uneven. When she pressed her fingers against the edge, it gave slightly, revealing a narrow seam.
Zagrea smiled almost involuntarily. For all its danger, theft still carried a kind of rhythm she understood.
She withdrew a small chisel and wedge, worked the panel loose, and uncovered a black iron safe etched with faint runes. No handle, no keyhole.
Her stomach tightened.
Runes meant magic. Magic almost always meant risk.
She whispered a curse under her breath and studied the markings closer. Faded, almost dormant. Maybe wards from a century ago. She’d learned enough from the Guild’s wizards to recognize the difference between active and dead glyphs.
Probably safe.
Probably.
She reached into her satchel for a pouch of fine powder and blew a pinch across the surface. Nothing stirred. No glow, no hiss. She let out a slow breath and began working the hinges.
They were old, rusted from humidity, and one snapped with a quiet crack. The door swung open, breathing out a gust of cold air that smelled faintly of stone and ash.
Inside sat a chest no bigger than her forearm, black wood banded in silver. No lock—just a clasp shaped like a spider’s curved fang.
Her pulse stuttered. She didn’t like spider motifs, not after enduring the stories Minthara used to tell during their long trudge to Baldur’s Gate, two years ago almost exactly.
Still. Coin was coin!
She opened the clasp.
The shard inside wasn’t what she expected.
It wasn’t a gem, or a relic, or anything that should’ve belonged in a chest that old. It was a sliver of obsidian, jagged and dark as spilled ink, but it… moved when she looked at it, the surface bending light as if water rippled beneath it.
For a moment she thought it was her reflection in the dark glass, but the shape staring back at her didn’t blink when she did.
Her breath caught. She reached out, intending to wrap it in cloth, and the thing seemed to warm beneath her touch. A slow pulse, like a heartbeat.
The whisper came then, soft enough she almost mistook it for the wind.
Can you hear me?
Zagrea jerked her hand back. The shard clattered against the wood, the sound sharp in the silence.
Her heart hammered. She glanced toward the door, half-expecting a guard’s shout. Nothing.
She pressed her fingers to her temple. “Too little sleep,” she muttered. “Too much wine.”
But the shard glowed faintly now, veins of red crawling like cracks across its surface. She swallowed hard.
Then she wrapped it in a strip of cloth and shoved it into her satchel.
The warmth didn’t fade. It bled through the fabric, against her hip, rhythmic. Almost alive.
She’d made it nearly halfway down the stairs before the sound of boots on stone caught her ear.
Zagrea froze, every muscle tightening. Voices—low, urgent, moving toward the hall.
“Upstairs?” one asked.
“Could be rats again. Or one of those bloody Rivington thugs.”
Drat. The balcony exit was behind her—too far. The kitchen window, then.
She moved quickly, steps measured, slipping through the dark as the front door creaked open. The guards’ lantern light licked across the foyer walls, climbing toward the staircase.
“Search the study!”
She ducked behind a cabinet, heart pounding. The heat from the shard was a brand now, burning through the cloth.
The nearest guard stepped closer. She could see the dull gleam of chainmail through the slats, smell the wet leather of his gloves. His shadow stretched toward her hiding place.
Another whisper brushed against her mind. Softer, coaxing.
Let me help.
Zagrea pressed her palms to her ears. “Shut up,” she hissed.
“What was that?” the guard said.
Shit.
She moved. Fast.
The cabinet tipped as she sprang from behind it and slammed into the man’s knees. He shouted, stumbled. She drove her elbow into his jaw, felt bone crunch. The other guard spun, lantern flaring, and she threw it. Fire met oil and burst in a blinding spray of sparks.
Smoke filled the air. She ran like hell through the kitchen, through the smell of old grease and copper pots, past a door that wouldn’t open nearly fast enough. She kicked it once, twice, and it splintered. The alley beyond yawned wide and wet.
Behind her, shouts: “Thief! Stop her!”
Zagrea vaulted over a barrel and hit the street running.
…
The rain had grown heavier. It slapped the stones, swallowed her footsteps. She cut through backstreets she’d known since she was a child — narrow veins of the city that bled into the docks.
The shard throbbed against her hip, heat seeping through the soaked cloth. Every time her boot struck the ground, she felt it pulse in rhythm.
She didn’t look back until she reached the corner of a shuttered tavern. Then she stopped, chest heaving, hair plastered to her face.
The city sprawled below her—crooked and cracked rooftops, alley fires, the faint outline of the Chionthar beyond. Somewhere out there, Nine-Fingers’ agents were waiting for her report.
She reached into her satchel, unwrapped the cloth just enough to see the shard’s dim glow.
Can you hear me?
Her fingers trembled. “Keep your voices,” she hissed. “Get out of my head.”
It didn’t answer.
But the warmth lingered. A quiet, steady rhythm beneath her skin, like a second heartbeat.
Zagrea pulled her hood tighter, turned toward the docks, and disappeared into the rain.
…
The city never truly slept.
Even at this hour, long after midnight bells, its arteries still pulsed with muttered trade, drunken laughter, and the clatter of wagons bound for the morning docks. Rainwater ran black through the gutters, carrying the day’s filth downhill to the river.
Zagrea kept to the narrowest lanes, where the roofs leaned so close their eaves kissed. She moved half-crouched, one hand on the satchel that held the shard, the other brushing the slick stone for balance. Every muscle in her legs burned with exhaustion.
A patrol passed at the mouth of the alley—two Flaming Fist guards, blades bare, lamplight trembling in the rain. She pressed herself flat against the wall until they vanished into the next street. Only then did she breathe again.
The shard’s warmth hadn’t faded. It was hotter now, almost feverish. She could feel it through the wet leather, a small brand against her ribs.
You run like prey, the whisper cooed, almost amused.
She froze.
The voice was inside her skull, soft as the breath between words.
“It isn’t real,” she told herself quietly. “Just nerves.”
Not nerves. Need.
Her teeth grit. “Shut up.”
The whisper receded, leaving behind a silence that felt like held breath. Zagrea pulled her cloak tighter and pushed on.
Her meeting point lay far below the Blushing Mermaid tavern, where the Guild kept its oldest safe-house. She was a Heapside girl through and through—Zagrea knew better than to go through the front door. No, she’d have to go through the cellar of the butcher’s next door, past hanging carcasses and sawdust that drank the blood from the floor.
By the time she slipped through the side alley and into the butcher’s, her hands were shaking. Not from fear, she told herself—from cold, from the weight of the run.
Honestly, she’d faced mind flayers. Had one of their tadpoles in her brain for the better part of a year. She shouldn’t feel so… irked by a talking piece of stone.
The butcher, a square-shouldered woman with a face like a bludgeon, looked up from her block.
“You’re late.”
“Had company.”
“That house got guests now?”
“Three of ‘em. Safe to say I won’t be walking straight for a while.”
The butcher grunted, wiped her bloody cleaver, and nodded toward the trapdoor behind the counter. “Down you go, then.”
Zagrea descended the wooden ladder into the dark. Below, lamplight glowed weakly against stone walls. Two guild toughs leaned over a table scattered with playing cards; one glanced up as she entered.
“Zagrea,” he greeted slowly, his voice gravelly. “You got it?”
She unshouldered the satchel and set it on the table. “Tell Keene I did my part.”
The man reached for the bag.
“Careful,” she warned. “It’s… odd.”
He gave a dry chuckle and undid the flap. When he pulled the cloth aside, the shard’s dim red light spilled across his face.
Both men stared.
“What in the Nine Hells…”
“I don’t know what it is or why they want it,” she cut in. “It was a simple job. Didn’t need the extra lore.”
The taller of the two frowned. “She said nothing about this one. You sure it came from the vault?”
“Positive.”
He hesitated, then set the shard back in its wrappings and closed the bag. “All right. You wait here. We’ll take this upstairs.”
Something in his tone scraped wrong. Zagrea’s stomach tightened.
“Thought the handoff was here,” she started cautiously.
“Change of plan.”
“Since when?”
He smirked coldly. “Since you showed up with whatever that is.”
He nodded to the other man, and together they climbed the ladder, the bag between them. Zagrea listened to their boots cross the floorboards above, to the muffled creak of the butcher’s door, to silence.
She exhaled, long and thin. Something was off.
…
Minutes crawled. Water dripped from the ceiling onto the dirt floor. Her nerves buzzed.
When the trapdoor finally opened again, only one man returned. The tall one, bag in hand.
“Where’s your friend?” she asked.
“Gone to send word.”
“Uh-huh. To who?”
He shrugged. “Guild business. You’ll get your cut after it’s appraised.”
“Appraised.” Zagrea’s fingers drifted slowly toward the dagger at her belt. “I didn’t steal jewelry, friend. What’s your game?”
“No game,” he said—too quickly. “Orders. You’re free to go.”
Lies, the whisper breathed.
Zagrea’s pulse spiked.
“Where’s my token, then?” she asked, keeping her voice level. “Proof of job complete.”
He hesitated, and that was enough.
She moved first.
The dagger flashed, edge catching lamplight. He lunged and caught her wrist; they slammed into the table, cards scattering like startled birds. She twisted, drove her knee into his ribs, wrenched free. The blade nicked his cheek—shallow, but bright blood welled.
He snarled and reached for the cudgel at his belt. She kicked the lantern off the table. It hit the floor, flame guttering out in a puff of smoke.
Darkness swallowed them.
Zagrea darted sideways, heart hammering. She heard him curse, stumbling in the black.
Strike now.
She didn’t question the voice this time. She moved on instinct, blade low, shoulder driving forward. The dagger met flesh. A grunt, then the heavy sound of someone collapsing onto the dirt.
She stood over him, breathless, eyes still adjusting to the faint light that leaked through the trapdoor seams.
He was alive—barely. The blow had gone too deep.
Zagrea swiped her blade over his sleeve to clean it. “Should’ve just paid me,” she muttered.
The voice murmured, almost approving.
You learn quickly.
Scooping the satchel up, she sheathed her dagger, climbed the ladder, and eased the trapdoor open. The butcher’s shop was empty now, save for the hanging carcasses swaying in the draft. The air smelled of iron and fat.
No sign of the second guildsman.
She swore under her breath and slipped out into the rain again.
…
The streets had thinned to beggars and the hopeless. Baldur’s Gate at night could be cruel even to its own. Zagrea moved with purpose now, cutting west toward the river.
She needed answers, and she knew where to find them: a smuggler named Tareth who sometimes fenced for the Guild but owed his loyalties to coin, not hierarchy. He kept a room above the old sail-loft near the docks.
By the time she reached it, dawn’s first sickly gray was bleeding into the clouds. She pounded on the warped door until it opened a crack.
Tareth’s narrow face appeared, eyes bloodshot. “Zagrea? Gods below, you look like hell.”
“I’ve had worse days. Are you alone?”
“Always.”
She slipped inside. The room reeked of brine and cheap gin. Nets hung from the rafters and a single candle guttered on the table.
Tareth eyed the blood on her sleeve. “Problem with the Guild?”
“Bigger than that.” She told him everything. The manor, the vault, the shard, the handoff that wasn’t really a handoff.
When she finished, he whistled low. “Drow property, you said? You’re mad.”
“I didn’t know. This house wanted something back from them, so I took it.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Drow don’t take theft lightly. Lolthsworn houses least of all. If they were using the Guild to move their goods—”
“Then the Guild just double-crossed me,” she finished on a sigh.
“Or they’re cleaning up loose ends.”
He’s right, the whisper came. They’ll come for you.
Zagrea stiffened. Tareth frowned. “You alright?”
She forced a nod. “Just fine.”
He poured two cups of gin and slid one her way. “What’s in the bag now?”
“Nothing.” She stared at the cup, then at the rain drumming against the small window. “I want to find out what that shard is.”
Tareth leaned back. “I might know someone. A cleric. Not very Guild-like, but she owes me a favor.”
“Name?”
“Maydiira.”
The name landed like a stone in her gut—foreign, sharp. “Drow?”
He hesitated. “But bright. Knows relics. She keeps to the ruins north of the city. You go before sunset; road’s safer then.”
Zagrea drained the gin. It burned going down, but steadied her hands. “Send word ahead if you can.”
Tareth nodded. “Be careful, Zag. You’re playing with some high and mighty nobles here.”
“Aren’t I always.”
…
By the time she reached her bolt-hole above the tannery, the city was waking. Chimneys belched smoke, merchants shouted prices into the fog. Zagrea climbed the narrow stairs, pushed open the warped door, and entered the single-room loft she called home.
It smelled of leather, lamp oil, and the damp that never quite left the walls. She locked the door, dropped her gear, and slumped onto the cot.
For the first time since the heist, she let herself breathe. Her fingers ached, her knees were bruised. The stain of the guard’s blood still clung to her gloves.
She drew the shard from her satchel.
Unwrapped, it looked inert—just black glass with faint red veins like frozen lightning. Yet the air around it felt wrong. Thicker somehow, humming at the edge of hearing.
Zagrea set it on the table. “What are you?” she breathed curiously.
No answer. Only that pulse, faint and steady.
A key, the voice murmured at last. To doors you cannot yet see.
She rubbed her temples. “Great. Cryptic messages. Exactly what I needed.”
Keep me near. They will come.
“Who?”
But the voice was gone again, leaving only the rain against the roof.
…
She didn’t remember falling asleep. When she woke, the light through the small window was orange with sunset. For a moment she thought she’d dreamed the whole thing. Then she saw the shard on the table. And the faint scorch mark it had left on the wood.
A knock sounded at the door.
Zagrea froze.
Another, louder.
“Delivery,” a man’s voice called. “From a friend.”
She crossed silently to the wall, pressed her ear to the boards. The tread outside was too heavy for a courier, too slow.
She didn’t answer.
The latch rattled.
Zagrea snatched the shard, shoved it into her pocket, and slipped toward the window. The door burst inward behind her, splinters flying. Two silhouettes filled the frame—one she recognized: the second thug from the safe-house, the one who’d examined the shard.
He grinned. “Boss wants a word.”
Zagrea didn’t wait to hear the rest. She dove through the window, glass exploding outward, hit the sloped roof below, rolled, and slid into the alley. Pain shot through her shoulder.
Run, the voice urged.
And so she ran.
Boots pounded after her. She vaulted barrels, ducked beneath washing lines, turned corners by instinct alone. The city blurred—rain, smoke, shouts.
Somewhere behind, steel rang against stone. She risked a glance back: three figures now, closing fast.
Ahead, the alley split—left toward the river, right toward the old catacombs. She veered right.
The passage narrowed, ceiling dropping to brush her head. Torches burned low along the walls, fed by thieves and smugglers long before her. She splashed through puddles, heart pounding in her ears.
The tunnel ended at a grate that opened onto the storm drains below the city. She slammed her shoulder into it once, twice—the rusted bolts snapped. Cold water roared beneath.
Zagrea dropped into the flow.
The current took her, tumbling through darkness and filth until she caught the edge of a ladder and hauled herself into a side tunnel. Her lungs burned. Her hair clung to her face.
She lay there for a moment, chest heaving, the shard pressed against her heart.
Well done, the whisper said, almost gentle. Now we begin.
Zagrea laughed once, breathless and bitter. “Yeah. Now we begin.”
She pushed herself to her feet, water streaming from her cloak, and started towards the faint light ahead.
Chapter Text
The air smelled of sweat, smoke, and iron, and it clung to every inch of the cellar like a second skin. Torches hissed along the walls, their light bouncing off wet stone and low wooden beams, illuminating the narrow, packed space.
The crowd leaned over the makeshift railings, their laughter sharp and brittle as the gold clinked in their hands. Some of them had come for the novelty, some for the thrill of seeing someone break and bleed, and a few—the ones who’d never soil their hands—just to bet on chaos.
Ranna stood in the center of the pit, shoulders tense, fists ready, her wrapped knuckles already cut and bleeding from prior rounds. Sweat streamed down her face, mingling with the grime of the cellar, but she didn’t care. Her breathing was slow, measured, though her pulse hammered like a drum behind her ribs. The fighter across from her—a stocky man with a nose that looked like it’d been broken and reset more than once—grinned and bounced on his heels.
The crowd roared, egging them on. “Make it quick!” someone called. A fat man tossed a coin at the floor, and it skittered toward the edge of the pit. Gold always made people louder.
Ranna’s eyes didn’t leave him. He was fast, and his punches had weight. But so did hers. Every swing, every step she took was calculated, instinctive. She’d learned long ago to make the first move count, to anticipate before the other could react. When he lunged, she sidestepped and jabbed her elbow into his ribs. A grunt. A stagger. She let him advance and then dropped her shoulder, driving him backward into the pit’s wall. The crowd cheered, a wave of sound that pressed in on all sides.
The man came at her again, slower this time, more cautious. Ranna dodged, pivoted, and struck his jaw with the side of her fist, feeling the satisfying impact reverberate through her arm.
The crowd hollered.
Her opponent tried to recover, swinging wild. Ranna ducked, grabbed his arm, twisted, and threw him onto the dirt floor. Dust and sweat rose in clouds. She didn’t hesitate. The pit was no place for mercy, and in a heartbeat she saw the fear in his eyes before the punch connected. He collapsed again, coughing, defeated.
She didn’t smile. Didn’t even exhale fully. Adrenaline still coursed through her, sharp and bright, like electricity. Around her, the crowd’s cheers felt distant, a background noise to the pounding in her chest. Ranna had no time for them. She’d won, but victories here weren’t celebrated with honor. They were measured in coin and liquor.
A hand clapped on her shoulder. The pit’s organizer, a tall, lean man with sharp eyes and a crooked smile, lifted a hand as she spun. “Easy, sweetheart. There’s your cut,” he said. A pouch thudded against her hip.
She didn’t take her eyes off him until she felt the weight of it. Gold. Enough to last the week if she didn’t spend it foolishly.
The pit cleared around her as the next match was called. Ranna stepped back, brushing dust and sweat from her gloves. And then she heard it.
A shout, sharp and sudden, slicing through the din of the cheers. Not from the pit—something smaller, more desperate.
Ranna’s attention snapped toward the narrow corridor that led to the cellar’s back exit. She moved instinctively, fists ready, boots heavy against the wet stone. The wealthy patrons murmured, some laughing, assuming it was part of the entertainment. They didn’t care. They never did.
At the end of the hall, she saw her—a human girl stumbling out from the shadows, soaked and battered, eyes wide and frantic. She carried something close to her chest, wrapped in a piece of cloth that glowed faintly even under dim torchlight.
Ranna’s fists flexed. This wasn’t a fight she expected, not her arena, but her instincts flared: someone was in trouble, and she couldn’t ignore it.
The girl tripped, nearly falling, and Ranna lunged, catching her by the elbow. She steadied her and looked down at the frightened face. Brown eyes, streaked with rain and grime, wild hair plastered to her forehead. She was too young, too reckless.
“What in the Hells are you doing?” Ranna hissed, voice low and rough, though her hands didn’t hurt her. She kept her body between the girl and the narrow corridor.
“I… I didn’t mean—” The girl’s voice trembled. “I just—”
Ranna cut her off. “Tell me what that is.” She nodded toward the bundle clutched to the girl’s chest. “And what you’re running from.”
The girl hesitated, then loosened her grip slightly. Ranna caught a glimpse of black glass—jagged, almost alive, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. Something about it made her gut twist.
“It’s… I don’t know. I was supposed to— someone was supposed to take it, and then…” The girl’s words faltered. Her eyes flicked toward the cellar stairs, where movement suggested pursuit.
Ranna’s jaw tightened. She didn’t ask for details. She moved first. “Come on,” she said, grabbing the girl’s arm. This really shouldn’t be her issue, but if the Flaming Fist were involved—which they were, by the look of it—she could spare a moment to tip the scales a bit.
They moved together, slipping through the cellar’s back corridors, the faint pulse of the object in the girl’s arms sending a strange warmth up Ranna’s own spine. She ignored it, focused on the path ahead.
“Stay close,” Ranna ordered. “And don’t do anything stupid.”
The girl nodded again, silently, letting herself be pulled into the shadows.
…
The corridors were narrow, the walls slick with condensation and grime. Ranna led the way with surefooted confidence, muscles coiled, every sense alert. She could hear the distant clatter of pursuit—boots and curses echoing through the stone halls.
They reached a junction where the corridor split into two directions: left led to the main streets and potential exposure, right to the backstreets, where the alleys ran like veins from the docks to the city’s heart.
Ranna didn’t hesitate. “Go right,” she said. “And keep your head down.”
The girl followed, breath quick, clutching the glowing bundle tighter. Ranna’s instincts didn’t fail—she’d spent years in this neighborhood, learned every step, every hidden passage, every barrel and broken crate that could hide a person from sight.
The chase was close now. She could hear the pursuers’ voices, their anger, their confidence. They assumed the girl was defenseless. They hadn’t counted on Ranna.
A sharp corner came and she pivoted, fists ready, herding the girl behind her. The first man came around the corner, torch in hand. Ranna moved before thought could catch up: a swift jab to the ribs, another to the shoulder. He stumbled, curses torn from his throat, and she grabbed a loose chain hanging from the ceiling, swinging herself behind him and using momentum to send him sprawling into the wall.
They moved on, deeper into the alleys, the faint pulse of the shard lighting the girl’s pale face in muted red. Ranna couldn’t stop thinking about it—about how it seemed alive, aware, dangerous. Something this potent didn’t belong in the hands of a frightened, desperate thief.
You’re going to need me, a whisper came.
Ranna shivered, pushing the thought aside. Not her problem yet. Not until she knew more.
The streets widened, leading to an open area behind the docks. Crates and barrels, stacked haphazardly, offered cover, and the night air smelled of brine and long-dead fish. The sounds of pursuit were growing fainter—their attackers were slower, maybe cautious now.
Ranna slowed, crouching behind a crate, letting the girl catch her breath. “Talk,” she said finally.
The girl looked at her, hesitant, unsure how much to reveal. “I… I stole it. Some Under-elf wanted it. I didn’t know what it was. It… it spoke to me.”
Ranna’s brow arched. “Spoke to you?”
The girl nodded, whispering. “It… I can’t explain. It felt like it wanted me to run, like it… it wanted me alive.”
Ranna studied her. The shard pulsed again, faint, rhythmic, almost a heartbeat in her hands. Dangerous. Beautiful. Terrifying.
“Alright,” Ranna said finally. “You’re coming with me. We’ll figure this out together, but you follow my lead. Cross me, and…” She let it hang.
The girl watched her for a moment, then nodded.
Ranna didn’t look back. Not yet. She didn’t have time to think about the chase or the magic object. Not tonight. Tonight was about survival, strategy, and keeping this thief alive until she could figure out what the hell she’d just walked into.
The Lower City stretched out before them, wet, crooked, and alive. Somewhere beyond the docks, beyond the alleys, someone was hunting them. Ranna’s fists itched, her senses screamed, but she pushed the shard aside in her mind for now.
She’d deal with it. Later.
For now, it was the fight, the girl, and the city.
Rain came down in sheets that turned every alley into a river of mud and refuse. Their pursuants were close—Ranna could hear the snap of their boots over cobblestone, the metallic scrape of armor echoing down the narrow lanes. The city never slept, but on nights like this it felt like it held its breath, waiting to see who would be swallowed first.
“Keep up,” she hissed over her shoulder. The thief stumbled after her, the obsidian shard pressed tight beneath her cloak. The faint pulse of it glimmered even through the downpour, a whisper of wrongness that set Ranna’s teeth on edge.
They rounded a corner and almost ran into a patrol. Ranna pushed her companion against a wall, flattening them both into the shadows as torchlight swept past. One soldier paused, sniffing at the rain-soaked air. Ranna reached for the dagger at her belt, muscles coiled. The soldier turned—then someone shouted from farther down the street, drawing the patrol away.
“Gods bless those drunks,” Ranna muttered. She motioned for the girl to move.
They slipped through a half-collapsed doorway into a maze of back corridors that only someone born to these streets could navigate. The sound of pursuit faded behind them, replaced by the steady patter of rain leaking through the ceiling.
The thief’s breath came in ragged bursts. “You— you didn’t have to help me.”
Ranna shot her a look. “You were bleeding and cornered. I don’t do well watching strangers get crushed.”
“A dangerous habit to have, down here.”
“Yeah, well,” Ranna scoffed, “so’s stealing things that glow.”
The girl didn’t answer. Her face was almost green beneath the grime, her shoulder dark with blood. Ranna sighed under her breath. “You’re no good to me unconscious. Come on.”
They emerged into a narrow courtyard hemmed by leaning tenements. Ranna crossed to a rusted door hidden beneath a sagging awning and banged twice, then once more. A metal plate slid open; a pair of green eyes blinked at her.
“Open it, Em.”
The plate snapped shut, and the door creaked just wide enough for them to slip inside.
…
The hideout was a forgotten cellar beneath a cooper’s shop, warm from a hearth that smelled faintly of pitch and old ale. The moment Ranna stepped in, the tension left her shoulders a little. Emil stood beside the fire, broad-shouldered and quiet, his dark hair tied back, a not-quite-healed slash lining part of his jaw. His armor, once polished silver, was blackened and patched with leather.
“You’re late,” he said. His voice seemed casual, patient, although she could tell that wasn’t really the case.
“Got busy,” Ranna replied. “Stray needed a hand.”
Emil’s eyes flicked to the thief, then to the spreading blood at her shoulder. “That arm’s about to fall off.”
From a side room came the sound of quick footsteps. “Ranna? You’re back already?”
Aelys ducked under the low lintel, a small figure wrapped in a too-large cloak, dark horns catching the firelight. The air seemed to shift around her—the faint scent of ozone, the slight tremor of magic coiled tight. Rhaegal, her snotty half-brother, followed close behind.
Ranna gestured toward the wounded thief. “This one caught a blade. Think you can fix it?”
The pink-skinned tiefling watched the girl cautiously for a moment, then nodded, pushing back damp, shaggy bangs.
“Let me see.” She guided the thief to the firelight and unfastened her cloak. “You’re lucky,” she murmured. “It missed the bone. Hold still.”
She pressed her palms near the wound. The air shimmered; sparks of color drifted up like embers. The magic that answered her wasn’t the precisely honed kind found in temples—it seemed wild, unpredictable. For a moment the flames in the hearth flared blue, shadows dancing like figurines. Then the light sank into the girl’s skin, sealing flesh and knitting sinew.
When it was done, the tiefling sagged back, a bead of sweat sliding down her temple. Rhaegal tossed her a rag. “Oh, nice work, Lys. Didn’t even blow the roof off this time.”
Aelys shot him a look, but Ranna’s hand found her shoulder before she could retort. “You’re getting steadier.”
Aelys smiled, tired but proud. “I try.”
The stranger flexed her arm, testing the healed wound. “Thank you. I—” She stopped, as if remembering something, then pulled the wrapped shard from her cloak. Its pulse dimmed under the hide, like it knew it was being watched.
Ranna frowned. “That thing’s why the Flaming Fist were after you?”
“It was the Guild,” she corrected quietly, “and they don’t even know what it is. Just that some noble wants it back.”
Emil crouched, studying the bundle. “Noble work, huh? Those jobs always end messy.” He glanced up at the girl. “Do you know what this is, uh…?”
“Zagrea,” she mumbled. “And I know about as much as you.”
Aelys rubbed her arms. “Maybe it’s cursed.”
“Feels like it,” Rhaegal said, peering closer. The shard’s surface caught the firelight, swallowing it instead of reflecting. “Pretty, though.”
“Don’t touch it,” Ranna warned sharply.
Rhaegal raised both hands in mock surrender. “Just looking.”
Silence settled. Outside, rain whispered against the walls. The city’s noise was muted here, but the tension in the room was a living thing. Zagrea sat near the hearth, her eyes flicking from one face to another, measuring.
Finally, Emil broke the quiet. “You brought trouble, Ranna. Again.”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “But I figure we’ve handled worse.”
He huffed a laugh. “Depends on how bad ‘worse’ gets.”
Aelys knelt beside Zagrea, voice gentler now. “Rest a bit. You’re safe here.”
The words almost felt true. Ranna watched the shard’s dull glow and felt the prickle of unease crawl up her spine again. Something about it stirred old instincts—the same ones that told her when a fight wasn’t over even after the bell rang.
…
Later, when the others had drifted to their corners of the cellar, Ranna sat on a barrel near the door, arms folded, listening to the rain. Zagrea approached quietly.
“I never thanked you,” the thief started.
Ranna didn’t look up. “I don’t need thanks. Just don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t.”
Ranna finally met her eyes. They were steady now, the fear tempered into resolve. “Good,” she said. “Because whatever that shard is, it’s drawn blood already. And if it brings more down here, we’ll have to decide fast whether to run or fight.”
Zagrea nodded. “Then I’ll fight.”
Ranna almost smiled. “That’s what I was afraid you’d say.”
She looked back at the door, the city beyond it, and the storm that hadn’t stopped all night. Somewhere out there, people were hunting for a shard of black glass—and the small, fragile bit of calm they had found here wouldn’t last long.
But for now, the fire held.
Notes:
Was it super obvious who inspired Ranna’s origin?
I’ll keep working on this. Thanks again for reading!
Chapter 3: Taking Charge
Summary:
Tensions rise as the party decides their next steps.
Chapter Text
Morning came slow to the Lower City.
It was gray, reluctant, as if even sunlight knew better than to show its face this close to the harbor. The sky outside the boards could have been dawn or dusk; Ranna couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered.
The rain had stopped hours ago, but the rooftops still leaked. Droplets tapped rhythmically against the boarded windows, dripped through cracks in the ceiling, gathered in the floor’s uneven dips. The whole place smelled of damp wood, coal dust, and old iron. It was comforting in a grim sort of way.
Ranna sat alone at the splintered table, elbows braced, hands clasped in front of her, staring at the thing that had nearly gotten them all killed the night before.
The shard.
It lay in the center of a dented metal plate, wrapped in layers of cloth that were thinner now than they’d been yesterday. The thing radiated heat—barely, but enough for her fingertips to tingle when she got close. Even wrapped, even weighted down, even ignored, it felt… aware.
Ranna didn’t believe in cursed objects. She believed in blades and fists and the dumb cruelty of fate, but this… this felt different. Like the air around it pressed in a little tighter than it should.
She had a scar under her left collarbone from where a wizard’s spell had grazed her once. She’d been fourteen. Foolish. Angry. That magic had felt like ice driving under her skin.
This was worse.
A shadow moved behind her, soft footsteps on wood. Emil.
“You’re still staring at it.” His voice was low, still grainy with exhaustion.
Ranna didn’t turn. Her eyes stayed locked on the wrapped object like it might move if she looked away.
“It’s hard to ignore,” she said.
He wasn’t wearing armor—he almost never did anymore—but there was still a heaviness to him, a quiet presence she’d come to rely on. Emil set a dented tin cup of tea beside her hand. Steam curled in the cold air, carrying the bitter scent of over-roasted beans.
“Have you slept?” he asked.
“About half an hour,” she grunted.
“I’m guessing you didn’t take your eyes off it once.”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t need to.
Emil took the chair across from her, sitting slowly like every joint ached. He’d helped Aelys patch up half the hideout last night and drained himself to do it, even with his weakened divine spark. It showed. His face looked more hollow than usual, cheekbones sharp in the watery morning light.
“You look like hell,” Ranna told him.
“You look worse,” he countered, managing a small smile.
She huffed, but didn’t take the bait. Humor wasn’t landing today. Not with that thing still humming to her.
The boards above creaked—someone rolling over in their bedroll, perhaps. Rhaegal hummed, half-asleep. Zagrea murmured something sharp and restless. Aelys’s voice came soft and steady, grounding her the way only Aelys could.
The group was waking.
Ranna didn’t know if she was ready for the questions that would surely rise with them.
…
The others came in slowly, one by one, drawn by some unspoken shift in the air.
Rhaegal was first, yellow hair sticking up on one side, lute slung over his shoulder. He looked like a cat dragged out of a warm corner. He took one glance at the bundle on the plate and wrinkled his hooked nose.
“Still alive, then?”
Zagrea came next. The thief looked like she hadn’t slept at all—dark circles lingered under her sharp eyes, her fingers twitched near her belt as if reaching for daggers that were no longer there. She positioned herself instinctively between the shard and the door, like she expected someone to burst through at any moment.
Aelys was last. She clutched a ripped blanket around her shoulders, light hair a loose, choppy mess, eyes soft with worry. She gravitated toward Ranna before she even seemed fully awake.
“You haven’t eaten,” Aelys murmured.
Ranna didn’t acknowledge it. She didn’t have the appetite for anything but answers.
“Sit,” she said simply.
No one argued.
They gathered around the table—Ranna at its head, the others arranged around her like mismatched chess pieces in a game none of them knew the rules to.
The shard pulsed once beneath its wrappings. Soft, but undeniable.
Zagrea flinched.
Aelys drew her blanket tighter.
Rhaegal sighed, “Oh, good. It’s awake.”
Emil shot him a warning look.
Ranna pushed her chair back, boots scraping the floor. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s figure out what we’re dealing with.”
Rhaegal was first to speak.
“I say we sell it,” he declared, folding his arms. “I’m serious. Something that dangerous? We find the shadiest fence in the Lower City, hand it over, take the coin, and disappear.”
“Sell it?” Zagrea’s voice cracked like a whip. “To who? Someone who’ll use it? Someone stronger? Someone who already filled a graveyard with bodies?”
Rhaegal shrugged. “Better in someone else’s hands than ours—especially if this thing’s gonna get us killed trying to protect it.”
Zagrea opened her mouth to argue, but Ranna cut in. “You said it spoke to you.”
Zagrea stiffened. “Not… not like that.”
“Then how?” Ranna pressed.
Silence.
Zagrea’s jaw flexed.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “It’s like feeling a thought before you hear it. Like it’s pushing at the back of my skull.”
Aelys’s expression softened with sympathy. “Zagrea… that’s not normal.”
“No shit.”
Rhaegal snorted. “Gods, it’s talking to her—”
“It’s not!” Zagrea snapped. “It’s not words. More like… like pressure. Heat. Direction.”
Ranna made a note in her mind. Direction was new. It meant the fragment had intention.
“Does it hurt you?” she asked.
Zagrea hesitated. “Sometimes. Sometimes it doesn’t.”
Aelys frowned. “And sometimes it burns you.”
She flinched. Aelys’s gentle voice had a way of making the truth unavoidable.
Emil looked between them. “Let me try something.”
“Emil—” Ranna started, warning in her voice.
Reaching for his cracked Torm medallion, Emil laid his palm over it and whispered a prayer so quiet Ranna barely heard it.
Light kindled—faint, soft—
Then the shard flashed.
A shockwave of cold tore through the room. The fire guttered, dust lifted from the floorboards.
Aelys gasped, clutching her chest as a stray spark of wild magic snapped from her fingertips.
Emil jerked his hand back like something had bitten him.
Ranna stood before she fully realized it. “Emil—?”
The paladin shook his head slowly.
Zagrea swallowed. “I… didn’t know it could do that.”
Her head snapped around to glare at the girl, and her voice dropped to a low hiss. “Seems there’s a lot you overlooked before taking this thing for yourself.”
“It was a contract,” the human insisted, fists clenching at her sides. “I never intended on keeping it.”
While Ranna fumed, Aelys reached for Emil’s hand, examining the trembling fingers. “It reacted to you. Just you.”
“Not just him,” Zagrea corrected. “It reacts to me too.”
Rhaegal shifted uneasily. “Why you?”
Her silence was answer enough.
Ranna’s chest tightened. There were layers to this they hadn’t seen yet, layers Zagrea didn’t want them to see.
She dragged one hand down her face. “Okay, listen. We’re not making a decision right now.”
“Ignoring your issues doesn’t fix them,” Rhaegal said.
“No,” Ranna responded flatly. “It’s how we survive long enough to fix them.”
Her tone ended the argument.
Not because she was loud.
Not because she was angry.
But because she was Ranna.
And they trusted her even when they didn’t trust themselves.
Silence wrapped the room. It was thick, uneasy, stretched too thin. The air tasted different now, metallic at the back of Ranna’s tongue. Emil sat rigid, still shaking faintly from the backlash, and Aelys hovered close enough that their shoulders brushed whenever one of them breathed.
Zagrea stared at the shard like it might rear up and strike.
Only Rhaegal seemed determined not to show fear. His jaw was set, eyes flickering between the group. But Ranna knew him too well. The tapping of his fingers against his sleeve gave him away—quick, irregular, restless.
Ranna leaned forward, palms against the table. “We’re going to handle this one piece at a time. First—we need to understand what it wants.”
Rhaegal’s eyebrows shot up. “Wants?”
Ranna gestured to the wrapped shard. “Zagrea said it pulls. It blocked Emil’s prayer. Aelys nearly sparked a storm because of it. It can’t be accident.”
Zagrea breathed out a shaky laugh. “Great. So it’s cursed and sentient.”
Aelys shook her head. “Not necessarily sentient. Magic can be reactive. Primal. Instinctual. Like… a storm current. Or a creature’s heartbeat. It doesn’t need a mind to reach for something.”
Ranna gave her a look. “But you think this one does have a mind.”
Aelys hesitated.
“Yes,” she whispered. “At least a fragment of one.”
Zagrea rubbed her arms, pacing a short, tight line. “Wonderful. And I carried it with me for hours.”
“You didn’t have a choice,” the tiefling said firmly. “You were trying not to die. You did what you had to.”
Zagrea froze at that, understandably. Aelys’ generosity often struck harder than a sharpened blade.
Ranna turned away from them and walked toward the shelves on the far wall—organized chaos lined up in crates and boxes. Jars filled with herbs, medical supplies, tools gathered from old jobs. And last but certainly not least, an old map of the Lower City with routes and safehouses marked in charcoal.
In the corner lay her battered notebook, leather-worn and stained with ink. She picked it up and flipped through the pages—past the accounts, past job notes, past sketches of alley layouts and sewer paths.
She stopped on a blank spread and set the book on the table.
Rhaegal frowned. “What’s that for?”
“Order,” Ranna said. “The only way we keep ahead of this mess is if we know what we’re dealing with and what we don’t.”
She uncapped her ink pot, dipped the quill, and wrote in slow, deliberate strokes:
SHARD — PROPERTIES
— Emits heat
— Reacts to paladin jibber-jabber
Emil coughed.
— Reacts to Zagrea
— Dampens or disrupts light/magic
— Resonates in pulses (coincidence?)
She paused, then added:
— Possible intention/sentience
Aelys leaned over her shoulder, reading quietly. “Taking notes, I see.”
Ranna felt a bead of sweat slither down her spine as Aelys’ thumb brushed her exposed trap. She quickly turned the page.
SHARD — RISKS
— Exposure causes physical/mental strain
— Potential tracking beacon (?)
— Corruption?
Emil looked up at that last one. “I felt… interference. Not corruption. But close.”
Ranna underlined the word anyway.
— Corruption?
Zagrea swallowed. “Does that mean I’m—?”
“No,” she cut in firmly. “Not unless you start glowing or levitating.”
Aelys gently prodded her neck. “Not the time.”
Ranna flipped to a new page and wrote:
NEXT STEPS
— Test shard reactions with objects
— Inspect Zagrea for symptoms
— Determine shard origin (outside info?)
— Keep shard isolated
— Decide long-term plan as group
When she finished, she set the quill down. Her scratched, uneven handwriting looked strangely solid on the page.
Rhaegal whistled low. “You’ve really thought this through.”
“That’s my job,” Ranna said, a little uncertainly. “Keep us alive. Keep things steady.”
Zagrea nodded once, gaze lowered. “You’re doing a good job.”
Ranna wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Praise wasn’t something she wore comfortably.
She stood abruptly. “We test the thing. Now. Before anyone else gets their hands on it.”
Zagrea blinked. “Test it how?”
“Controlled exposure,” Ranna said. “We see what sets it off.”
“Controlled,” Rhaegal muttered. “Right.”
Ranna ignored him and gestured to the table. “Aelys, can you handle this?”
With a small frown, the tiefling stepped forward, rolling her shoulders back. Her magic flickered faintly beneath her skin—like candlelight behind glass—but she steadied it.
Emil stood behind her, ready to intervene if needed.
Ranna carefully peeled back one corner of the cloth wrapping.
Heat rolled off it immediately. A low hum vibrated the table legs. The shard revealed itself slowly—dark, jagged crystal with a faint pulse deep within like a heartbeat trapped in stone.
Aelys lifted her hand, hovering it an inch above the shard.
The hum intensified.
Her hair lifted slightly—static.
Ranna tense. “Aelys?”
“I’m okay,” Aelys murmured. “It’s… curious.”
Rhaegal snorted. “Magic rocks can’t be curious.”
“This one is,” Aelys whispered.
She lowered her hand another inch—
The crystal flashed.
A burst of light cracked through the air.
Aelys staggered, magic rippling out of her like a shockwave. Rhaegal stumbled backward. Emil grabbed by the waist, steadying her. The walls trembled, dust falling from the beams.
Ranna slammed the cloth back over the shard, muting the glow. The hum died instantly.
Silence fell again.
Aelys gasped, clutching her chest. “It wanted something… I don’t know what. But it reached for me. Hard.”
“Reached?” Ranna echoed.
Zagrea sank into the nearest chair, sighing, “It does that.”
Ranna’s pulse pounded in her throat. She despised magic she couldn’t fight. Couldn’t punch. Couldn’t break. She hated how small it made her feel.
Emil checked Aelys for injuries, still not quite releasing her from his grasp. “You’re not hurt?”
Aelys nodded shakily. “I’ll be alright.”
Rhaegal rubbed his arms. “I don’t want to go near that thing.”
“Good,” Ranna said. “Because no one’s touching it unless we have to.”
She returned to her notebook and wrote in quick, forceful strokes:
SHARD — RESPONSE TO ARCANE MAGIC
— Strong
— Forceful
— NOT neutral
— Possibly invasive
Her hand pressed too hard; the quill nearly snapped.
Zagrea cleared her throat—quietly, but in the cramped space, everyone heard it.
Ranna lifted her head from the page.
“You’ve got more,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
Zagrea hesitated. Her fingers fidgeted at the hem of her sleeve. “There’s… something a friend told me that I didn’t mention yet.” She swallowed, eyes flicking from Emil to Aelys to Ranna. “Thought I should make sure you were trustworthy first.”
“Just spit it out,” Rhaegal said softly, not unkind, but weary.
Zagrea took a breath. “My friend—Tareth—arranged a contact for me. A drow cleric, possibly connected to the thing. Said she could explain what it actually is—and who’s been looking for it.” She dug into her coat and produced a folded scrap of paper she’d hidden in the lining. “He gave me a place to meet her. Tomorrow night. There are some old ruins to the north.”
The room shifted. Even the air felt heavier.
Emil’s jaw clenched. “That just might be the stupidest thing I’ve heard all week.”
Aelys, perched on a crate with her knees pulled up, didn’t look afraid. She looked thoughtful, sparks of interest flickering behind her violet eyes. “Or it’s the only real lead we’ve got.”
Ranna said nothing at first.
She reached across the small table and took the scrap from Zagrea’s hand. It was damp around the corners from sweat. The handwriting was sharp, angular, written in Undercommon. Ranna couldn’t read the words, but she recognized their precision.
“Your friend trusted this?” she asked quietly.
Zagrea nodded. “He seemed to trust her. Said this was the only safe way to understand it.”
Ranna leaned back in her chair. She hated this. Hated that she understood Zagrea’s reasoning, hated that it made sense.
A drow contact meant risk. A meeting in old abandoned ruins typically meant danger. But it was a lead. The only one they had.
Emil crossed his arms. “We can’t just walk into this meeting blind.”
“We are not,” Ranna said simply.
Everyone stared at her.
She tapped her quill once against the open ledger, leaving a small dark dot among her neat notes. “Zagrea goes. She’s the only one the drow expects. If more of us show up, they’ll bolt—or worse.”
Zagrea blinked. “You trust me to go alone?”
“No.” Ranna met her eyes, steady and unblinking. “You’ll be the one who goes inside.” She closed the ledger. “But we’ll be nearby. Close enough that, should the need arise, we can intervene.”
Rhaegal nodded immediately. “I can scout rooftops. Pick out escape routes in advance.”
Aelys added, “And if something goes sideways, I can make a distraction. Something big.”
Emil sighed. “Fine. I’ll… keep an eye on the streets.”
Zagrea lowered her gaze, voice barely more than a whisper. “Thank you.”
Ranna stood. “Good. Get more rest then, all of you. Tomorrow’s going to be ugly.” Then, softer—just for Zagrea: “But we’ll get through it.”
As the others drifted to their corners of the hideout, Zagrea lingered just a moment longer. She looked at Ranna as if seeing her for the first time—really seeing her.
Ranna exhaled through her nose, grabbed her quill again, and wrote the last line of the night at the bottom of her newest page:
— Ruins to the north. Drow contact. Protect the thief.
She didn’t cross it out.
Not yet.
Chapter 4: Contact
Summary:
New revelations are made under moonlight.
Notes:
You’ll have to forgive any grammatical errors I may make or anything of the sort. It’s quite late as I’m writing this. Regardless, I hope you enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Night had settled over the northern fringe of Baldur’s Gate like a heavy, breathless shroud. Cold air rolled down from the bluffs, carrying the sharp, metallic tang of the river, the dirty, sweet smell of crushed weeds, and the distant hum of dockside life. But out here—far beyond the last lantern, past the half-collapsed farm walls and the forgotten shrines—there was only darkness, and the wind slipping through bone-dry grass.
Zagrea had walked the whole way with her hood low, shoulders tense, fingers brushing the hidden pocket where the obsidian shard lay tucked against her ribs. Even through the fabric layers, it radiated a faint warmth, like blood sleeping against her skin. A reminder. A warning.
She’d told the others she needed air.
Ranna didn’t buy it—the half-drow didn’t seem to buy anything without inspecting it from every angle—but she had still let Zagrea go. Emil had offered to walk her back later if she needed the company. Aelys had given her a quiet, worried look, the kind that tried to be subtle but shone through anyway. Even the young bard, Rhaegal, had paused his half-hearted jest long enough to watch her leave with something like unease.
They didn’t know what she was doing. Ranna might skin her alive if they did.
Tareth's meeting was tonight.
And Zagrea was already late.
She moved quietly through the tall grass, boots crunching softly, breath steaming the cold. Her bruises—Aelys’s healing had been good, but not perfect—kept pulling and aching beneath her clothes. She welcomed the discomfort. It kept her alert. Focused.
Up ahead, the ruins rose like broken ribs from the earth.
Once, this had been a chapel. Now it was just a skeleton—crumbling stone, a frame of half-burned wooden beams, and an open ceiling clawed away long ago by fire or time. Moonlight poured through the jagged hole overhead, pooling in silver sheets across toppled pillars and moss-soaked flagstones. An old altar leaned sideways at the far end of the chamber, coated in ivy and dust.
Zagrea stopped at the threshold, scanning the shadows by instinct. Her hand drifted toward her dagger, not drawing it, merely reminding herself it was there.
Someone was watching her.
Or rather, multiple someones.
She couldn’t see them, couldn’t hear them, but her instincts prickled with a certainty as sharp as a blade to the throat. The air in the ruins was too still, the silence too deliberate. Predatory. Controlled.
Tareth had said the contact would come alone. He’d lied. Or he had been lied to. Either way, Zagrea didn’t like it.
She stepped forward anyway.
The shard tingled faintly, as if stirred by an unseen presence. Zagrea pressed her palm over the cloth to muffle it—whatever sense it had, she didn’t trust it any more than she trusted the shadows around her.
Another step. Another breath.
Then movement—soft, barely a whisper—shifted on the far side of the ruin.
Zagrea froze.
A silhouette emerged from behind a broken column. Light painted the figure in silver: tall, slender, graceful in a way that was effortless rather than performative. The woman moved as though she belonged in the moonlight, as though darkness knew her name and stepped aside to let her pass.
White hair spilled down in a smooth fall. Her skin, a soft violet in the lunar glow, carried a faint sheen like polished gemstone. A cloak of deep crimson trailed the ground behind her, matching the distinct shade of her irises.
Zagrea’s hand went to her dagger fully this time.
The woman stopped about fifteen feet away—close enough to be seen, far enough to stay proper. Her posture was relaxed, almost gentle, but Zagrea recognized the practiced stillness of someone who could move very fast should they need to.
“Zagrea, I presume,” the woman greeted softly. Her voice carried with it an unexpected warmth—gentle, melodic, nothing like the harsh, cutting tone often associated with Lolthsworn. “Thank you for coming.”
Zagrea kept her expression as flat as she could manage. Talking had always been her brother’s strong suit. “Tareth never mentioned you were Lolthsworn. Why?”
“Because you carry something dangerous. Something my family wants. And something I cannot allow to fall into the wrong hands.”
Her red eyes lowered just slightly, not to the weapon Zagrea held, but to the faint outline of the shard beneath her layers of clothing.
Zagrea stiffened.
The woman—Maydiira, Tareth had said—raised her hands. Not in surrender, but open-palmed, unthreatening. “My name is Maydiira Arabviir.”
Zagrea’s pulse snapped sharp.
Arabviir. This drow was from the same house that had sent in the Guild contract.
Her grip tightened. “You’ll understand if I’m not thrilled to meet you.”
Maydiira nodded, as though she expected as much. “If it eases you: I am not here on behalf of my mother, our matriarch. And certainly not my sister, who oversaw trade with your Guild.”
The bitterness in her tone was quiet but unmistakable.
“Dhaunaer,” Maydiira murmured, “is… thorough. And loyal to the wrong cause.” She lifted her chin slightly, posture straightening as though bracing herself. “I, however, am not so easily seduced by the Spider Queen’s lies.”
Her cloak slipped enough to reveal a faint symbol around her neck—an etched crescent moon set against a stylized blade.
Zagrea blinked.
“Eilistraee?”
Maydiira inclined her head. “A cleric, yes. A… deeply undercover one.”
Moonlight glimmered off her hair as she stepped into a fuller beam, letting the truth settle between them like an offering.
“I sent scouts the night you stole the shard,” she continued gently. “We intended to retrieve it ourselves, to ensure it would never fall into Dhaunaer’s hands. But they saw you leave with it—and saw what hunted you. Following quietly was safer than intervening.”
Zagrea swallowed once. Hard. Her skin prickled at the thought of unseen eyes on her all night.
“So they’ve been tailing me since?”
“Yes.”
“You could’ve taken the shard while I slept.”
“We could have,” Maydiira agreed. “But you survived a brush with my sister’s men. That alone earned you more consideration than petty theft.”
Zagrea’s jaw clenched. “That doesn’t make me trust you.”
“Nor should it.”
A soft, honest reply.
No offense. No pressure.
Maydiira took a slow, calm breath, the kind that carried sincerity rather than performance.
“I'm here because I want to keep you alive,” she said. “And because that fragment cannot fall into my family’s hands. It is one piece of an artifact Mother has hunted for decades. Power enough to twist the fate of the world, should reassembly occur.”
Zagrea didn’t react, but the shard beneath her clothes pulsed faintly, an icy drop against her skin.
Maydiira’s eyes softened. “I come to…. I would like you to give it to me. I—and all those Seldarine who oppose Lolth’s cult—can hide it where my mother will surely never find it.”
The ruins fell silent.
Zagrea didn’t waver.
“No.”
Maydiira didn’t flinch. She only watched Zagrea with a growing, quiet understanding—something thoughtful lingered in her gaze, like she was trying to see past the refusal to the reasons beneath.
“And why,” Maydiira inquired gently, “do you wish to carry something so dangerous yourself?”
Zagrea didn’t answer.
Not yet.
Not until she understood what kind of person Maydiira really was.
The wind drifted through the broken walls, stirring loose dust and brittle leaves across the stone floor. A moonbeam caught silver at Maydiira’s throat—the crescent symbol of Eilistraee—and reflected soft light across her features. Calm, patient, impossibly composed. As if she had all night to wait for Zagrea’s answer.
Zagrea didn’t give it.
She wasn’t ready to.
“Let’s start with you,” she shifted the subject instead, her voice low and dry as sandpaper. “You knew I had the shard the moment I left that manor. You knew the Guild wanted it. You knew the Guild would double-cross me. But your people never showed face.”
Maydiira’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. “Correct.”
“So what changed?”
Maydiira tilted her head slightly—not confused, not offended, simply considering. “You were chased,” she said simply. “You were ambushed. And you survived.”
Zagrea’s eyes narrowed. “That’s your reason?”
“It told me something important about you.” Maydiira stepped a fraction closer—still distant, still respectful of space, but with a softness that eased some of the tension in the air. “That you aren’t reckless. That you aren’t foolish. That you move with purpose instead of impulse. These are… rare qualities among those who typically stumble across relics like this.”
Zagrea snorted. “So… what, you just think I’m special.”
“No.” The drow’s eyes flickered. “I think you’re responsible.”
Zagrea froze for half a heartbeat, because that—of all things—was not what she expected. No one had ever called her responsible. Not even ironically. She didn’t know how to respond.
Maydiira continued, her voice quiet. “You protected the relic. You hid it. You did not try to use it or destroy it or profit from it. You simply… kept it safe.”
Zagrea’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t keep it safe. It burned me.”
“Yes.” A gentle wince. “It would. It is not meant for mortal handling.”
“Then why do you want it?”
“Because,” she answered, “my mother wants it too.”
The simplicity of the answer made Zagrea’s skin crawl.
“She is the matriarch of House Arabviir. Devout. Ambitious. Brilliant. And utterly ruthless.” Maydiira’s tone never rose, never hardened, even as the truth turned sharp. “She has been collecting pieces of this relic for years. Centuries, if my sources are correct. With enough of them, she could commit atrocities on a scale even Lolth would call… impressive.”
She almost laughed. “Is that meant to comfort me?”
“No. Merely to explain what you carry.”
The drow looked down at Zagrea’s ribs—where the shard lay hidden—and her voice softened even further.
“I am not here to threaten you,” she said softly. “Or harm you. If I wanted the shard taken from your corpse, I would not have sent scouts. I would have sent assassins. Like my sister.”
Zagrea believed that. Against her better judgment, she did.
“What does this relic do?” she asked.
Maydiira exhaled. Slow. Heavy. Then she took one more careful step into the moonlight.
“It was crafted in the earliest nights of the Underdark. Born from magic older than the divide between we dark elves and our surface kin. Its purpose is… disputed. Some say it opens pathways between worlds. Some say it magnifies divine power. Some say it binds shadow to light in unnatural harmony.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think,” Maydiira murmured, “that whatever unknown power it wields is far too volatile to risk the complete relic falling into the wrong hands. Not those of my mother. Certainly not my sister’s. Not even the hands of my goddess.” Her gaze lifted to Zagrea’s. “And not yours.”
The words weren’t cruel. They weren’t dismissive. They were simply… true.
“I never said I wanted to use it,” she mumbled.
“No. You didn’t.”
Silence again.
Zagrea wasn’t used to being studied so openly. Maydiira watched her carefully. Not like prey, not like a threat, but like someone trying to understand a puzzle piece they hadn’t expected to find.
“Why refuse me?” the cleric asked, not accusing, merely curious. “If your only want is safety… I can provide.”
Zagrea felt her throat tighten and she stared at the moonlit dirt at her feet.
How could she explain it?
How could she explain the cold weight of the shard, the way it pulsed against her skin like it recognized her somehow?
How could she explain the fear of handing it over to anyone—not just a stranger, but a drow from the same bloodline that tried to kill her?
“Because I don’t know you,” she finally said.
It wasn’t elegant and it certainly wasn’t clever. But it was honest.
Maydiira absorbed the words slowly. Then—softly, almost imperceptibly—she smiled.
It wasn’t a pleased smile. Not triumphant, not amused, just… understanding. Human, in a way Zagrea did not expect from a woman raised in a spider-worshipping cult of cruel politics and bloodshed.
“An easily remedied predicament.”
Before Zagrea could react, there was movement on the ruined walls—shadows detaching from columns, from stone edges, from the broken rafters. Half a dozen cloaked figures revealed themselves silently, their silhouettes elegant, lean, each wearing the faint moon-symbol of Eilistraee.
Zagrea tensed instantly.
Maydiira lifted a hand and the scouts froze.
“They are here because Dhaunaer is dangerous,” Maydiira said gently. “She is hunting for you. She will not find you tonight, but only because my people are ensuring it.”
Zagrea swallowed, eyes darting among the silent watchers. They did not move closer. They did not touch weapons. They simply observed, alert and ready to vanish again.
“Why protect me?” she asked quietly.
“Because you carry something worth protecting,” the cleric replied, far too simply. “And because my mother has already sent Baldurian assassins of her own to follow your trail.”
Her heart lurched.
“So yes, correct,” Maydiira continued, “you do not know me. But understand this—if my intentions were anything but to help you, you would never have made it past the city gates.”
Zagrea hated how easily she believed that.
Still… she shook her head. “I’m not handing over the shard.”
The woman nodded once. “Then keep it.”
Zagrea blinked. Just like that?
“I cannot force your trust. But I ask only one thing in return.” She spread her hands slightly, palms open in the moonlight. “Meet me. Regularly. Let me help you. Let me keep you informed of the dangers coming your way. Should you allow it, I will serve as your most valuable ally.”
Zagrea stared at her.
Moonlight pooled across Maydiira’s face—gentle, open, unguarded in a way Zagrea had never seen in any drow. Her voice carried no coercion, no manipulation. Only sincerity.
“And if I say no?” she asked slowly.
Maydiira’s smile softened. “Then I will still watch you from afar. My scouts will continue to follow in your stead. And I will pray to Eilistraee that such unnecessary stubbornness does not get you killed.”
Zagrea almost—almost—smiled back.
The shard pulsed again under her ribs, cold and silent.
Slowly, carefully, she lowered her dagger.
“Fine,” she conceded. “We meet. I’ll listen. I’ll decide for myself what to do.”
Maydiira inclined her head, still not triumphant, but grateful.
“Then tonight,” she murmured, “is the beginning of something larger than fear.”
Zagrea didn’t know what that meant.
But she didn’t feel alone walking into the moonlight anymore.
Notes:
A shorter chapter this time, going back to Zagrea’s point of view.
Chapter Text
The throne room emanated darkness.
Its obsidian pillars rose like petrified trees, carved with spider motifs and the sigils of Arabviir, their polished surfaces catching the faintest flicker of torchlight. Silver-threaded tapestries hung like veils of trapped moonlight, depicting scenes of cunning women, victorious priestesses, slain rivals, and obedient, faceless men kneeling at their heels. Every step in the chamber echoed with a reverence born not of admiration but of fear—fear so absolute it felt woven into the very stone.
Ryldeth knelt at the base of the dais, his forehead angled toward the polished floor. He held himself perfectly still—spine straight, hands resting upon his thighs, gloved fingers lightly curled. He controlled his breath so it would not tremble. He did not look up. He did not speak.
Men didn’t speak here. They were creatures of utility, tools to be put to use, trifled with and inevitably discarded. As such, he had long since learned to stay aware of every little noise surrounding him: the hiss of torches, the faint scrape of armored boots, the whisper of silk, wool and chain mail as the women moved.
On the throne above him sat the matriarch Iivarra, her posture one of composed lethality. Her garment was not quite a dress, a cropped yet flowing gown adorned with metal plates and glossy stones. Her stark white hair was pulled back into an elegant braid, and the cold glint in her ruby eyes reflected the torchlight like that of a predator.
To her right stood Dhaunaer—the eldest heir, executioner of the house, barbarian in both class and temperament. A cruel smirk played at one corner of her lips, though she hadn’t been given reason to smile yet.
To Iivarra’s left stood Maydiira, youngest daughter of House Arabviir. She carried herself with a quiet poise that never wavered, hands folded neatly at her waist. Her expression was calm and unreadable, yet she still radiated a nearly irresistible kind of warmth.
The contrast between the sisters was stark, yet somehow, Iivarra had always treated Maydiira’s mercy with favor.
“The fragment has been stolen,” Iivarra said, her voice a razor slicing through silence. “Absconded with by a traitor among the Guild’s ranks.”
Ryldeth did not flinch, but he felt a pulse of tension ripple through the room. Even the torches seemed to burn quieter.
Iivarra’s gaze slid to her executioner.
“The charge was yours, girl,” she continued. “You failed to deliver.”
Dhaunaer bared her teeth in something that was not quite a smirk. “The Guild hides behind the chaos of the surface city. They are rats with allies and tunnels of their own. I sent men to retrieve it. Their weakness is not my failure.”
Her words dripped disdain—directed not only at the absent men, but at every servant of hers by extension.
Ryldeth kept his eyes down, though he knew Dhaunaer’s stare had flicked toward him, gauging, as if searching for an excuse to lash out. He’d seen her rage too many times to mistake the glimmer of fury in her tone.
Iivarra’s voice remained cold. “Weakness, in subordinates, reflects poorly on the one who commands them.”
Dhaunaer stiffened.
Maydiira stepped forward slightly. “Mother,” she began, her tone gentle but not submissive, “the Thieves’ Guild is not a monolith. There are factions within it—rivalries, ambitions. If we manipulate those fractures, we may draw the artifact back into our hands without exposing ourselves to unnecessary risk.”
Dhaunaer scoffed loudly. “We have lost our property. Our reputation suffers. And you speak of conversation?” She sneered. “As ever, it seems to me you lack the stomach for decisive action, Sister.”
“Decisive action,” Maydiira replied in a hushed voice, “is most effective when applied at the right moment.”
“You are weak,” Dhaunaer snapped. “Soft. A liability.”
Ryldeth felt a chill crawl up his spine. Weakness was the greatest accusation one could level in a drow’s house. To call someone weak was to mark them for destruction.
Maydiira did not rise to the insult.
She never did.
She merely inclined her head, serene. “Softness and strategy are not one in the same.”
“Strength without calculation is wasteful,” Iivarra interjected, seemingly pleased with Maydiira’s response. “Force without aim is merely noise. Executioner, your blade is unmatched, but my daughter sees beyond the immediate bloodshed.”
Dhaunaer’s fists clenched. “Mother—”
“That is enough.” Iivarra’s voice cut through the room like a whip cracking. “You will pursue the brute pathways. Maydiira will handle the subtle ones. In time, we will surely retrieve what is ours.”
Ryldeth did not dare breathe too deeply. Not even when Iivarra’s shadow passed close, when her garb sent a gust of cold air over his face.
He could feel the tension radiating from Dhaunaer like heat from a coal. She despised Maydiira’s calm. She despised that their mother favored it. And she despised anyone who represented it.
Ryldeth, by proximity, fell automatically into her disdain.
But Maydiira…
Maydiira never looked at him like that.
Not even now, when she should have been focused entirely on matters of strategy and power. As the meeting neared its end, she cast him a brief glance—so subtle it could have been a flicker of torchlight.
But Ryldeth felt it. He always did.
It warmed him and terrified him all at once.
…
When the women departed through the high arched doors, Ryldeth rose slowly, careful to avoid any sudden or suspicious movements. He moved to his tasks with practiced quiet: sweeping the obsidian floors, polishing the ceremonial blades mounted on the walls, adjusting the throne’s armrests so the intricate glyphs faced outward at the correct angle.
His hands moved automatically. His mind did not.
He replayed every word of the meeting in his head. Every shift in tone. Every glance. Watching the sisters was like observing lightning in two different storms—one furious, one controlled, equally dangerous.
And beneath it all, the undercurrent of his odd friendship with Maydiira was there.
No, not a friendship. That’d be silly. It was… a mutual understanding.
An understanding born of whispers exchanged in shadows. Of stolen moments by torchlight. Of her attempts to coax him into ease, though his instincts always fought her—spine tightening, eyes lowering, voice softening into the obedient cadence drilled into him since childhood.
Ryldeth wished he could stop.
He wished he could meet her gaze without fear like she always asked.
But his body remembered the lash too vividly.
Sometimes, Maydiira reached out a hand as if to touch his shoulder, but always stopped halfway—aware of the risks for them both.
Yet still she tried.
That alone was more than he had ever received from anyone in House Arabviir.
He was still dusting down the last of the obsidian pillars when he heard the faintest footfall—too soft to be Dhaunaer, too light to be Iivarra.
He turned.
Maydiira stood in the shadows near the northern wall, her posture composed and her expression unreadable to anyone who wasn’t familiar with her subtleties.
Her eyes shone with warmth and she carried a bundle wrapped in old blue cloth.
“Rise,” she whispered.
He obeyed immediately, straightening but still keeping his gaze slightly lowered towards the floor. Even with her—especially alone—his muscles locked into the posture he had been taught. Shoulders back. Hands interlocked behind him. Face neutral.
She stepped closer.
The scent of her—cool night air, faint herbs, a distant hint of rain—touched him like a memory of a world he had never seen.
“I brought you something,” she murmured.
He swallowed. “You do not… need to, my lady.”
Her eyes softened. “I know.”
She held out the bundle.
He reached for it hesitantly, fingertips brushing the cloth. The contact was feather-light, but even that made his breath catch. Touch was always dangerous.
Maydiira noticed. She always noticed.
“Breathe, my friend,” she whispered.
He tried. The breath trembled.
Inside the cloth was a book—old, leather-bound, worn smooth at the corners. The smell of it—sunlight, dust, open air—hit him with an almost painful longing. Surface poetry. He could see it in the faded gold lettering etched into the spine.
“Why bring me this?” he inquired. Not defiant, but quietly pleading for understanding.
“Because there is beauty in the world,” Maydiira said softly. “And you deserve to know things beyond this place.”
His chest tightened sharply. He stared at his boots, unable to bear the directness of her words.
“Maydiira,” he whispered, her name a risk, a submission. He rarely said it aloud. He wasn’t supposed to, but the moment felt too fragile for titles.
Her breath caught. Just slightly.
She stepped closer—too close for propriety, too close for safety. Her fingers hovered near his chin, not touching, simply testing whether he would allow her. He remained still.
“You still won’t look at me,” she whispered, with no accusation. Only sadness.
“I…” His voice faltered. “I can’t. If someone saw—”
“No one will,” she assured gently. “It is only us.”
Still, his gaze stayed low.
Maydiira’s fingers brushed his chin, feather-light, coaxing.
He flinched—not away, but from the shock of gentleness. His breath stuttered. As her thumb came up to caress his cheek, Ryldeth leaned into it slightly, nervously. Then he lifted his eyes, slowly, painfully, like a man pushing against the weight of a rothe.
Her smile was soft, nearly invisible—but he saw it.
“Good,” she whispered.
It lasted only a second before he dropped his gaze again, pulse hammering. She didn’t push further. She never did.
“I must return,” Maydiira murmured. “My sister is in a foul mood, and I would not have her find me missing.”
He bowed his head again. “Thank you… my lady. For the gift.”
“Always,” she whispered softly.
Then she slipped away, footsteps fading into the labyrinthine halls.
Ryldeth stood alone in the vast throne room, clutching a book that should not exist in his hands, feeling an unfamiliar warmth in his chest that men like him were not meant to feel.
…Were they?
Notes:
Maybe men CAN be good at listening. 😭🙏
I only really have about 5 hits as of right now, but I still want to thank everyone who has read up to this point <3
Chapter 6: Spider’s Silk
Summary:
Trust doesn’t come easy in Baldur’s Gate.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The Lower City pressed close around them as they walked—leaning walls, narrow alleys, smoke curling from chimneys like tired banners. The night was thick, damp, and heavy with the smell of the river, the scent of wet rope, the faint sweetness of tavern mead carried on the wind. Lanternlight smudged the street in uneven patches. Somewhere far off, a ship bell rang.
And the whole time, Ranna could feel Zagrea behind her.
Not see. Feel. Like a cold prickle up her spine.
The anger she’d pushed down last night—the fear she’d tried to tell herself was irrational—had clawed its way back up the moment Zagrea rejoined them at camp with that maddeningly calm expression and a fresh set of details about her mysterious “informant.”
Ranna hadn’t slept. Not well. Not at all, really. Her dreams had been restless, sharp with flashes of Zagrea’s silhouette disappearing down an alley alone, swallowed by shadows.
Now she, Emil, Aelys and the thief moved through the Lower City toward their temporary lodging, and the tension radiated from Ranna so strongly that pedestrians instinctively avoided her path.
Aelys kept to her side, trying—trying—to act normal despite the stiffness in her movements. Emil brought up the rear, gaze flickering between the three women as if bracing for the inevitable explosion.
Zagrea walked beside him. Quiet. Chin slightly lifted. Shoulders straight despite the faint wince whenever her coat brushed a bruise.
Ranna didn’t start the argument.
Zagrea did.
“Are we going to keep pretending nothing happened?” she asked, voice low, careful, but undeniably sharp. “You’ve barely looked at me since I got back.”
Ranna ground her teeth. “Maybe I’m trying not to start something in the middle of a street.”
“Oh, so we’re pretending there isn’t something to start?” Zagrea shot back.
Emil heaved a weary sigh, “Please. Not here.”
Aelys stiffened beside Ranna, pointed tail curling close to her leg in apprehension.
Ranna inhaled slowly through her nose.
She failed at holding it in.
“Fine,” she said, stopping in the center of the narrow road. “Let’s talk.”
Zagrea halted too. Emil and Aelys exchanged a single, resigned glance.
Ranna folded her arms tightly across her chest. “You left. Alone. Injured. While the Lower City was still crawling with Guild hunters from your little escapade. Left the rest of us hanging. And you expect me to just accept all that without issue?”
Zagrea blinked, bewildered. “Pull your claws in. I didn’t just wander off, I told you I needed to talk to the—”
“Telling us after you’ve already gone through with the sketchy plan isn’t the same as talking to us.”
The human’s jaw set. “I didn’t have time.”
“There’s always time to avoid getting yourself killed,” Ranna snapped.
Zagrea’s eyes narrowed. “You’re angry because you’re scared. I don’t get why you can’t just say that.”
“I’m angry,” Ranna said through clenched teeth, “because you actions put the rest of us at risk.”
That landed.
She stiffened as if Ranna had struck her.
“I acted,” Zagrea said slowly, “because I had the choice between knowing nothing and knowing how to keep us all alive. I chose the latter.”
“You chose alone,” Ranna repeated.
“Someone had to go.”
“Yes!” She barked. “Someone, not you. Not alone when the rest of us already promised to help you!” She took a step closer, fury heating her voice. “You keep saying you want to see if we’re reliable, but you’re not remotely trustworthy yourself.”
Zagrea looked away, jaw clenched.
Aelys shifted beside Ranna. “Ranna… just breathe.”
“I am breathing,” she insisted. “If the meeting had been a trap—if the other drow had sent someone in her place—if anything went wrong, we would’ve had no way of knowing. You didn’t even leave a note.”
A small, bitter smile tugged at Zagrea’s lips. “What would the note have said? ‘Gone to meet that drow who knows my name and wants the thing half of all Baldur’s Gate is hunting us for, be back soon’? Would that have made you feel better?”
“No,” Ranna admitted honestly. “But at least we wouldn’t be wondering if your corpse was rotting in the Chionthar.”
Zagrea flinched as though struck.
Emil swore under his breath and dragged a hand over his face. “Can we take this somewhere private?”
“No,” Ranna and Zagrea said in unison. Then glared at each other for saying it at the same time.
Ranna took a step forward. Zagrea didn’t retreat.
“You think I don’t consider the risks?” Zagrea asked. “You think I don’t know exactly what could’ve happened? I’m not trying to die—far from it. But I was the one with the contact. I was the one Tareth trusted. I was the one she expected to meet.”
Ranna’s jaw clenched. “You’re also the one the whole rest of the cult wants dead.”
Zagrea didn’t speak. Her breath barely hitched.
Ranna pressed on. “You think walking into territory where her eyes could be anywhere was smart?”
“No,” Zagrea snapped. “But it was necessary! You’re acting like I did this for fun. I went because if we couldn’t get answers, we’d be walking blind into assassins tomorrow!”
Ranna barked a humorless laugh. “Oh yes. Better to take that risk today.”
Zagrea’s temper finally broke. “What did you want me to do? Sit there? Do nothing? Just wait around for them to cut all our throats?”
“I wanted you to trust us.”
Silence fell.
When Zagrea spoke again, her voice was hushed. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s completely fair,” Ranna said. “You trusted Tareth. And this… drow, whatever her name was. And you obviously have faith in whatever scouts have been tailing you this whole time.” She stepped closer still. “But you didn’t trust us. Not enough to let us help.”
Zagrea swallowed. “I didn’t want to put you in more danger.”
“You’re not our shield,” she replied. “We agreed to do this as a team. We don’t get to make solo decisions that risk all our lives.”
Zagrea’s breath shook. Not visibly—but Ranna heard it. Felt it. With a sigh, the girl seemed to give up.
Ranna stepped back. “Forget it. Let’s just get back.”
They started walking again, but something still lingered under her ribs. A tension. A sense of wrongness in the air.
She slowed her stride without looking back at the others. Her fingers tapped a silent rhythm against her thigh—an old habit, drilled into her since childhood. A signal to herself to stay alert.
Zagrea noticed first. She always did.
She drifted a half-step closer. “Something’s wrong?”
Ranna didn’t answer. Instead, she sniffed the air lightly—not literally; it was instinct, trained awareness. The street smelled the same as always: wet wood, tar, fish from the docks, smoke from cookfires. Familiar scents. But something was missing.
No voices up ahead.
The next street should’ve been louder—a vendor usually kept his stall open late selling skewered eel and fried dumplings, shouting over the noise of taverns. But the sound wasn’t there.
Aelys’s ears twitched. “Why did it get quiet?”
Emil reached for the hilt of his sword. “Because someone made it quiet.”
Ranna tensed. Her fingers slowly curled into fists at her side.
Up ahead, the alley leading into the market was dark. Too dark. The lanterns strung between the buildings had been snuffed, not broken—snuffed deliberately. A bead of cold slid down Ranna’s spine.
“Zagrea,” Ranna ordered, voice dropping into a low growl. “Center.”
Zagrea didn’t argue; she moved between them instantly, dropping into a defensive posture.
Aelys’s pupils widened. “I don’t like this.”
A flicker of movement caught her eye—a silhouette darting between the rooftops, silent as a breath.
Ranna’s whole body went rigid.
“Watch the rooftops,” she whispered.
Zagrea swore quietly. Aelys clutched her crystal-crusted bracelets. Emil stepped forward, shield raised, angled slightly over Zagrea’s left side like a reflex.
Ranna inhaled slowly.
Then, with absolute certainty:
“They’re here for us.”
A figure dropped from the roof, landing directly in the middle of the alley with predatory grace.
Ranna’s heart punched into her throat.
The attacker was a surface man—leather armor, dark scarf over his mouth, eyes sharp and hungry. Human. A Lower City criminal. Not remarkable by himself.
But the dagger in his hand?
Black-hilted. Curved like a fang. Poison shimmering on the edge with that faint, uncanny green sheen she knew entirely too well.
The man grinned, rotating the dagger between his fingers. “You’re far from home, little half-breed,” he cooed, watching Ranna like a hawk, his tone thick with amusement.
Ranna didn’t blink.
A second figure dropped behind Emil, a third slid out from behind crates to Zagrea’s right and a fourth descended silently behind Aelys, twin short swords glinting in the dark. Above, she caught sight of a shadow perched like a gargoyle on the rooftop’s lip.
A drow.
A real one.
White hair braided close to the scalp. Obsidian armor that hugged every line of her body. Pale red eyes ringed with violet shadow. No House insignia—only a thin spiderweb symbol etched in silver at the collarbone.
Ranna’s stomach lurched.
The woman’s gaze swept over the group with slow, clinical interest before slipping onto Zagrea.
There it is, Ranna thought grimly. The reason they’re here.
And the reason this fight wasn’t going to be an easy one.
The poised drow assassin raised two fingers to her lips… and flicked them downward.
A silent command.
Every attacker moved at once.
…
Everything happened in an instant.
Ranna met the first man head-on. His poisoned dagger struck lightning-fast toward her throat. She pivoted left, caught his wrist, twisted hard, and slammed her elbow into the back of his skull. He staggered, off balance.
Ranna drove her knee into his ribs.
He collapsed with a wheeze.
But he didn’t stay down. These weren’t drunks or pickpockets. They were trained to kill people stronger than themselves. He swiped at her knee with a second hidden blade. She sprung back just in time.
Behind her, Emil’s shield clanged as it intercepted a flurry of blows. He grunted, pushing forward, trying to draw the attacker’s focus away from Zagrea.
Zagrea herself had already ducked low, parrying a thrust with a dagger—metal scraping metal with a sharp ring. She countered, aiming for the man’s ribs, but he twisted gracefully out of reach.
Aelys stepped back from the swordsman advancing on her, fingers trembling as arcane light flickered around her palms.
Ranna saw all of this in a flash—the entire battlefield laid out in her mind.
She made a choice.
“Aelys!” she barked. “Lefthand! Casting room!”
Aelys obeyed instantly, darting sideways. The assassin followed, only to be met with a blast of raw, spiraling magic that shot from Aelys’s hands. It wasn’t shaped yet—just pure force.
It hit him square in the chest and sent him flying into a wall.
He crumpled—but didn’t get up.
Ranna didn’t have time to shout praise before her own attacker lunged again. His blade slashed across her shoulder—shallow, but enough to sting. She grunted, spun, and brought the full force of her elbow down on his wrist.
Bone cracked.
He screamed, dropping the dagger.
She didn't hesitate. One swing to the jaw. Quick. Dirty.
He was down.
But the fight wasn’t over. More shadows detached from the alley walls. More figures, mixed races, mixed weapons, all wearing the same inconspicuous grime-stained cloaks used by Baldurian commonfolk.
Eleven total.
Too many.
And the rooftop drow hadn’t moved at all yet.
Emil parried a strike aimed for Zagrea’s throat, shield catching the blow with a resounding clang. Zagrea took the opening and swiftly rammed her dagger into the attacker’s thigh. He shrieked and fell.
Another stepped forward immediately to replace him.
As Ranna sprinted to intercept, the rooftop drow finally drew her weapon. It was a slender, curved blade that shimmered faintly blue in the dark.
She leapt. Not down toward any of them, not to join the fight, but to circle.
Ranna’s blood went cold.
She was gauging where to strike.
“Zagrea!” Ranna warned.
Zagrea spun just in time to see the drow land lightly against the opposite roof, blade poised at her side, body angled like a viper preparing to strike.
“I see her!” the thief shouted.
Aelys’s magic crackled again—wild, unstable, flickering with faint purple sparks.
Ranna’s heart lurched. “Careful!”
“I know!” Aelys snapped, voice breaking with fear. “I’m trying!”
The swordsman who’d survived her blast lunged again. Aelys pointed her hand toward him with a desperate cry.
Magic erupted—too bright, too fast.
A beam of unstable energy seared through the air.
It didn’t hit the swordsman.
Or… whatever was left of him.
One second he was screaming, charging.
The next he was gone—clothes, bone, flesh, everything turned to ash that scattered across the stone road.
Aelys froze. She trembled violently, hands shaking uncontrollably, horror unfolding across her face.
“I— I didn’t— no, I didn’t mean—”
“Aelys!” Ranna shouted, sprinting toward her.
But the drow moved first.
She leapt again—this time directly toward the stunned tiefling.
Ranna didn’t even think. She grabbed the axe of a fallen assassin.
Her feet pounded the cobblestones. Her lungs burned. She reached Aelys in seconds, slamming into her and twisting their bodies just as the drow landed with a whisper-soft thud exactly where Aelys had been standing.
The assassin’s blade sliced the air inches from Ranna’s back.
Ranna shoved Aelys behind her as she swiftly hauled them back up. “Stay with me.”
“But I—”
“Stay!”
The assassin lunged.
Ranna brought her axe up—
Metal clattered together like a cracked bell.
The force of the strike nearly numbed her fingers. She staggered. The drow moved impossibly fast, sweeping her blade in an arc meant to take Ranna’s head.
Ranna ducked, rolled, and slammed her axe upward toward the drow’s ribs. The assassin twisted with serpentine grace, avoiding the hit entirely.
This one was different. Skilled. Precise.
“Emil!” Ranna bellowed. “Cover Aelys!”
“On it!”
Emil dashed to Aelys’s side, shield raised, sword angled defensively.
The drow’s gaze flicked between Ranna and Zagrea.
“You are the quarry,” she said to Zagrea.
Zagrea’s grip tightened around her dagger. “Come take me, then.”
“Gladly.”
The drow blurred, but Ranna was faster. Not more skilled. Not more experienced. Just far more desperate.
She threw herself between the assassin and Zagrea, intercepting the blade with her axe.
The impact rattled her teeth.
The drow hissed. “Move, half-blood. You are irrelevant.”
Ranna shoved back with every ounce of strength she had. “Funny. Because you seem real focused on me.”
The assassin snarled and kicked, catching her square in the ribs. Pain flared white-hot, but Ranna refused to fall. She pivoted, twisting the drow’s wrist slightly off line—just enough for Zagrea to slip past and strike at the assassin’s flank.
The drow flipped over Zagrea’s strike, landing catlike against the wall.
Aelys cried out behind them. Her magic must be sparking again. Ranna didn’t look. Couldn’t. Every muscle strained to track the drow’s movements.
The assassin tilted her head, considering Zagrea again.
“House Arabviir will reclaim what is theirs,” she said.
“It was never yours,” Zagrea spat. “And you’re not claiming anything.”
An eerie, humorless smile curved the drow’s lips.
“We will see.”
Then she dropped low, blade angled, ready to finish the job—
—and something cracked sharply through the air.
Ranna looked up just in time to see a bolt of light fly past her shoulder.
It struck the drow square in the chest.
She staggered. Just once. But once was enough.
Ranna lunged.
Her axe slammed into the drow’s side, tearing a line through armor and flesh. Not a killing blow—the woman twisted too fast, too gracefully—but enough to send her tumbling back.
Zagrea followed with a slash toward the throat.
But the drow was already gone, leaping onto the wall, scrambling upward with impossible speed.
“Stop her!” Zagrea yelled.
Ranna hurled her axe, but the drow vanished over the rooftop edge.
A thick, suffocating silence fell.
The remaining attackers, seeing their commander flee, broke and ran into the maze of alleyways.
The four companions remained, bruised, bleeding, panting hard.
Aelys was crying silent tears. Emil steadied her gently, murmuring reassurance.
Zagrea stood rigid, eyes fixed on the rooftop, jaw tight enough to crack.
Ranna stood in the center of the ruined street, chest heaving, rage still trembling in her hands.
House Arabviir had finally made their move.
And this would only be the first wave.
…
The alley finally fell silent, except for the ringing in Ranna’s ears and the distant echo of someone slamming a shutter closed far down the street. The smell of ozone still hung thick in the air where Aelys’s magic had detonated. The remains of the few deceased assassins were scattered like broken marionettes, bodies twisted, armor scorched. One pile of ash still smoked faintly—the one Aelys had somehow vaporized.
Ranna stood very still, catching her breath. She scanned the rooftops. No more movement. No shadows shifting. No glint of crossbow bolts. The city seemed to exhale with them.
They were alone.
For now.
Emil wiped blood off his cheek and crouched beside Zagrea, who was bending over her knees, sucking in air.
“Everyone still in one piece?” he prompted quietly. “Aelys?”
Aelys stood a few paces away, arms wrapped around herself, yellow hair crackling with the last static flecks of wild magic. Her eyes were round and horrified, fixed on the little crater she’d accidentally made in the cobblestones. She didn’t look away from it until Ranna touched her arm gently.
“Hey. Hey, look at me,” Ranna murmured.
The tiefling blinked, lashes trembling. She looked like she might collapse. Ranna stepped closer, keeping one arm braced under her elbow.
“Okay,” Zagrea said, pulling herself upright, wiping blood from her lip. “We need to move. Now. Before they regroup.”
She wasn’t wrong.
But Aelys’ breathing was turning sharp, panicked.
Ranna shifted closer, shielding her slightly from the alley and the bodies. “I’ve got her,” she said. “Where do we go?”
Emil pointed toward a leaning storefront two streets over. “There’s a cellar under that old tailor’s shop. I used it once, a long time ago. Nobody goes down there anymore.
“Good.” Ranna wrapped Aelys’s hand in hers. “Zagrea, can you move?”
Zagrea winced as she straightened. “Yep.”
They made their way down the narrow side streets, staying in the dark patches between lanterns. Every time a drunken voice shouted in the distance, Aelys flinched. Every time a cat hissed from a rooftop, Ranna’s fist curled tighter.
By the time they reached the tailor—its windows boarded, its sign half-rotted—all four of them were halfway running on instinct.
Emil slipped around the side and pulled up a loose grate behind a rain barrel.
“Down,” he whispered.
Zagrea dropped first, then Emil. Ranna guided Aelys down after them. She followed last, pulling the grate back into place.
The cellar was small, cramped, and pitch dark until Emil struck flint and lit a tiny lantern. Dust motes drifted in the golden light. The air smelled like old cloth, mildew, and the faint metallic tang of long abandoned sewing tools.
They had to duck to avoid hitting their heads on the low beams.
Ranna gently pulled Aelys to sit against the far wall. She stayed close—not touching yet, but close enough to catch her if she slid sideways.
Aelys drew her knees up, hugging them, breaths shaky.
Zagrea leaned her head back against the wall opposite, exhaling hard, then nudged Emil. “We need Rhaegal. He needs to know they’re targeting civilians now.”
Emil nodded grimly. “And he’ll worry if we don’t come back.”
Ranna stiffened—she knew what was coming before Zagrea even looked her way.
“We should go get him,” Zagrea said. “Emil and I. Could get there quicker myself, but it’s safer as a pair.”
Emil added, “Ranna, Aelys, you should stay here. Make sure the homeless don’t get to us.”
Ranna glanced at Aelys, whose shoulders had begun to shake.
Damn it.
She nodded. “Fine. But be quick.”
Zagrea hesitated as if she wanted to say something more—maybe an apology for earlier, maybe not—but she swallowed it. She and Emil slipped back up the ladder and into the night.
The grate clicked shut.
Silence fell.
Aelys’s breath hitched again, a small, broken sound.
Ranna slid down next to her, pressing shoulder to shoulder.
“You’re alright,” Ranna murmured. “You’re here. It’s over.”
But Aelys shook her head violently. “It doesn’t feel over.”
Her voice was thin and trembling. Her hands shook visibly.
Ranna reached out and took them, grounding them both.
“Talk to me,” she whispered.
Aelys inhaled, sharp and painful. “Ranna… I— I didn’t mean to—” She lifted one trembling hand toward the cellar floor as if the ash-pile were there. “He just— he was just… gone. Like he never even existed.”
Ranna squeezed her hands hard. “He was trying to kill you.”
Aelys’s voice cracked. “But I didn’t choose it. It wasn’t a spell. I didn’t cast anything. It just— it just—”
“Happened,” she finished quietly.
Aelys’s eyes brimmed. “You said you had me. You said I’d be okay. And then I— I—“
Ranna leaned in close, pressing her forehead gently to Aelys’s temple. “You panicked. He was going to slit your throat. And the magic — the magic did what it always does when you’re scared.”
Aelys pulled away, voice breaking into a sob. “Exactly! It does whatever it wants! I don’t control it. I never have. Gods, Ranna, I’m going to hurt someone—someone I actually care about—one day. I know I will.”
Ranna grabbed her chin and turned her face gently. “Look at me.”
Aelys did, barely.
“You aren’t dangerous to us.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No.” Ranna shook her head firmly. “If you were, I would’ve been dead at age nine when you sneezed sparks across the bedroom.”
Aelys let out a half-laugh, half-sob. “I almost set the curtains on fire.”
“And your dad nearly had a heart attack,” Ranna added softly. “You remember? He kept yelling that he ‘knew this would happen with a demon baby in the house,’ but he was trying so hard not to laugh.”
Aelys sniffed. “You’re just trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?”
Aelys curled inward again, hugging herself. “I just… I just wish I were more… I don’t know. Street smart. I haven’t a clue how to stay alive out there.”
Ranna grinned faintly. “Well, that’s why you have me!”
Aelys let out a weak, tired laugh. “Oh yes, my knight in shining armor.”
Ranna snorted. “No, I… I think that’d be Emil.”
Aelys suddenly jerked her head up, scandalized. “What? No! No, that’s through. By a long time.”
Ranna arched a brow. “You didn’t seem to think so at Highharvestide this year.”
Aelys groaned and buried her face in her hands. “You mean the party? Ranna, I was drunk. He was too. Hells, wasn’t everybody?”
“Well. Yeah.” Ranna nudged her foot. “But this is different. You know it is.”
Aelys peeked at her through her fingers. “Do I?”
Ranna narrowed her eyes. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re playing coy. Stop that. Everybody knows he still likes you.”
Aelys winced, turning her head away. “Ranna… Emil is great. He’s a fine man, it just… didn’t work out. We weren’t a good match.”
“But you were together for so long.”
Aelys shrugged slowly. “We aren’t anymore, so what does it matter?”
Ranna looked away, jaw tightening. “I guess.”
Aelys leaned in ever so slightly, voice softer, lilting with the old familiarity that always made Ranna’s stomach twist. “Why, is someone jealous?”
Her heart lurched. “Pfft. You wish.”
Aelys nudged her knee. “Do I?”
Ranna elbowed her lightly. “Shut up.”
Aelys smiled for the first time that night. A real smile—small, tired, but warm.
Then she sighed and leaned her head on Ranna’s shoulder. Ranna froze for half a second before letting her rest there, letting her weight settle, and gently tilting her head against her friend’s.
They sat like that for a long moment, listening to the distant sounds of the Lower City, breathing the same dusty cellar air.
Aelys whispered, almost too quiet to hear:
“Thank you… for staying.”
Ranna swallowed. “Always.”
Aelys murmured, “I know,” and closed her eyes.
Notes:
This’ll be the third chapter uploaded today. I really need to slow down 😭
Chapter 7: A Pact by Candlelight
Summary:
A plan is made.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The cellar smelled of damp stone and smoke from the candle flickering on the low table. Zagrea let out a quiet breath as Emil and Rhaegal settled in, shutting the trapdoor behind them. The air, heavy with the scent of dust and oil, seemed to thrum with tension, though not the sharp, accusing edge from last night. That had passed, thankfully, and now a different weight pressed down on the group: the shard, pulsing faintly in the candlelight, and the impossibly high stakes that came with it.
Zagrea placed the artifact carefully on the table. Its black surface glimmered with faintly etched runes that seemed almost alive, reacting to the dim light as though it knew the conversation to come. She could feel the shard’s subtle warmth, like the heartbeat of something dangerous, and a bead of uneasy sweat trickled down her spine.
Ranna leaned against the wall, arms crossed, her stance relaxed yet watchful. She didn’t need to speak to make her presence felt; her gaze alone could sharpen the edges of any room. Aelys fiddled with the hem of her tunic, eyes darting to the shard and back to Zagrea, while Emil remained quiet, his fingers brushing the hilt of his sword, ready but restrained. Rhaegal had perched himself on a crate, looking more comfortable now that he was part of the conversation, but still tense, as if expecting a trap to fall at any moment.
Zagrea broke the silence. “We can’t just sit here. We need a plan.”
Ranna’s gaze flicked to her. “You’ve got the shard, Zagrea. You saw the drow. You know what’s at stake. So what do you suggest?”
Zagrea’s lips pressed together. She knew what she wanted to say, but she also knew how much it would shock them.
“I say… We ask the Harpers for help.”
Rhaegal blinked, startled. “The Harpers? You mean… you know them?”
Zagrea nodded as she prepared to explain herself, fingers brushing lightly over the shard.
“I traveled with them. With Jaheira, I mean. During the Crisis. So I’ve worked with their agents before, and I know they have both the means to keep dangerous things safe and the manpower to watch over something as volatile as this.”
Aelys’ mouth fell open slightly. “You… you traveled with Jaheira? The Jaheira?”
“Yes,” Zagrea sighed, tone flat but firm. “I did. And it wasn’t some casual acquaintance. She trusted me. I earned her respect. And I still have contacts within the organization.”
Emil’s brows knit together. “And you think they’ll still trust you, even after all this time? How do we know this isn’t just another trap? Maydiira did say her sister isn’t exactly the forgiving type.”
Zagrea tilted her head, letting the candlelight catch her features. “I wouldn’t have suggested it if it wasn’t the safest option we have. The Harpers have resources we don’t. They have networks across Faerûn, and they know how to hide dangerous artifacts. They can help us protect it without taking it from us, as long as we play it smart.”
Ranna shifted, one boot scraping against the stone floor. “So your plan is to… bring in the Harpers, use their network, and keep the shard under our control?”
“Yes,” Zagrea said firmly. “Exactly that.”
Rhaegal’s frown deepened. “What about the Hero? Surely you know him, if you were with Jaheira during the Crisis.”
Zagrea’s throat tightened. She hadn’t expected to have to explain that yet. “Kyros…” Her voice was low, almost brittle. “He’s… my brother.”
She didn’t allow them the time to gape.
“We fought together during the final push against the Netherbrain. But I stayed behind. He went to face the final threat while I… was left to safeguard the city.”
Aelys’ eyes widened. “You stayed behind? You fought alongside Kyros?”
Zagrea nodded. “But, I was… left out of the official record. No songs, no stories. Ky thought to spare me the politics. That’s why you haven’t heard of me.”
Ranna finally spoke, her voice low and measured. “So we’re just supposed to trust your judgment because… you claim you’re related to the Hero of Baldur’s Gate? That’s your leverage?”
Zagrea met her gaze, unwavering. “No. I’m asking you to trust me because I know what I’m doing. And because we don’t have another choice. Maydiira’s counting on us. If House Arabviir recovers this shard, the consequences will be… catastrophic. I’m asking you to trust me, not Kyros.”
Emil rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “And if we involve the Harpers, what exactly are we asking them to do? Hide it? Guard it?”
“Yes,” Zagrea said. “They can hide it, protect it, and watch over it until we’re ready to act. But the shard stays with us. We are the ones responsible for it.”
Rhaegal frowned. “And what if the Harpers don’t agree? What if they try to take it?”
Zagrea’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table. “Then we’ll negotiate. And if we must, we’ll fight. But they won’t take it by force. Not from us. Not if we play it smart and show that we’re capable. But we need a base. A place to operate. And I know just the one.”
“A safehouse?” Ranna asked, skeptical.
“Yeah,” Zagrea said, lifting the shard slightly, letting the candlelight reflect off it. “In Heapside. Kyros and I would use it as a home base, to lay low, coordinate with mercenaries when necessary. There, I can make sure no one gets at the shard without us knowing.”
Aelys exhaled shakily. “That… that actually makes sense.”
Rhaegal nodded slowly, still stunned. “I guess I can see why you kept it to yourself. The stakes…”
Ranna finally uncrossed her arms, leaning forward with a calculated tilt of her head. “Fine. Heapside it is.”
Zagrea took a deep breath. “All right,” she said finally, letting the shard settle. “We leave at first light. That’s the plan. Safehouse as our base, contact the Harpers, and stay alive.”
Rhaegal nodded slowly. “Sounds like a plan… if everyone’s on board.”
Emil exhaled. “Then we’re agreed. For now, we survive the night. Tomorrow, we move.”
Zagrea allowed herself a small smile, the first genuine one in hours. “Good. Let’s make sure it counts.”
Notes:
A shorter chapter this time to wrap up the first act.
You can find me on x/twitter (@_avinax2) to see the character art I’ll be posting soon!
Chapter 8: A Debt
Summary:
The thief’s past comes back to haunt her.
Notes:
Hi hi, sorry for the wait! Had some real life stuff come up, but I’ve since gotten quite a bit of this written, so expect more updates soon!
Enjoy :)
Chapter Text
Night in the Lower City had a way of swallowing sound.
The five of them moved through it like mismatched ghosts—boots whispering over damp stone, breaths fogging faintly in the cool air, the steady burn of lanternlight far behind them. The streets were quieter than they should’ve been for this hour. Too quiet. Zagrea could feel the stillness like the hand of someone unseen pressing between her shoulderblades.
The others felt it too, in their own ways.
Emil walked at the front, a natural vanguard even stripped of his oath—broad-shouldered, alert, jaw tight enough to crack stone. Rhaegal kept pace beside him, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his coat, eyes sharpened despite the lingering weariness of being dragged halfway across the city after midnight. Ranna and Aelys flanked Zagrea at the center of their little formation.
Five torches against the dark. Or five targets, depending on who was watching.
Zagrea kept her hood low, her hands shoved into her pockets to hide the way she kept flexing them. She hated how jittery she felt, how her pulse jumped every time she spotted a deeper shadow on a rooftop or heard the flap of a loose shutter. The botched heist, the escape, the drow assassination attempt—all of that was supposed to feel like the worst of it. But it felt like things would only get harder from here.
She exhaled slowly, forcing her shoulders to loosen. If she tensed up any more, Ranna would notice.
The half-drow noticed anyway.
“You’re doing the thing,” she muttered under her breath without looking over.
Zagrea forced a small snort. “What thing?”
“The thing where you get all quiet and your eyes do that little darting thing like you’re tracking a mosquito no one else can see.”
Aelys cast a worried glance between them, the hem of her sleeve brushing Zagrea’s side as she walked closer. “Well, if there is a mosquito, I’d appreciate you killing it before it bites me.”
Rhaegal stretched with a yawn exaggerated enough to be fake. “We’re in Baldur’s Gate. If something’s biting you, it’s not a mosquito. Probably some rat with wings or an angry landlord.”
Emil elbowed him gently. “Not helping.”
Rhaegal shrugged. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”
Zagrea tried, gods she tried, to smile back. But her chest felt tight, like the city itself was shrinking in around them.
Ranna caught that too. Ranna caught everything. She slowed slightly, letting the group’s natural pacing shift until she was walking beside Zagrea.
“So how long has it been since you used it?” she asked. “Your safehouse. It’s not going to smell like fungus when we get there, right?”
“It won’t be that bad,” Zagrea muttered.
Aelys gave Zagrea a gentle pat on the arm. “I can… burn some incense, maybe. Assuming I don’t accidentally set the drapes on fire.”
“That is not comforting,” Emil said.
“It wasn’t supposed to be,” Aelys simply replied.
Despite everything, Zagrea almost laughed. Almost.
But the feeling of eyes on her back didn’t ease.
Every step they took down the sloping Heapside road felt like an invitation. The alleyways on either side gaped like dark mouths, and a pair of dockworkers talking by a stack of crates fell silent as the party passed. A lantern guttered in the wind—except it felt like there was no breeze.
Zagrea’s skin prickled. She tried to swallow the unease, but it stuck like tar at the back of her throat. She drifted closer to Emil.
“You ever get that sensation,” she murmured, “like someone’s staring at your back with something sharp in hand?”
Emil didn’t break stride. “Yes.”
“And?”
“And you already know who it is.”
Zagrea grimaced. “Yeah.”
Aelys slowed, peering down a side street. “I don’t see anyone.”
“That’s the point,” Ranna said quietly.
Zagrea’s fingers brushed the hidden sheath within her sleeve. Old habits. Old fears.
The Guild was closing in—she could feel it, taste it. They knew the shard was with her. They knew she’d run. They knew she’d brought others into this.
The road bent, narrowing between two buildings warped with age. Lanternlight didn’t reach this part of Heapside; the shadows stretched long and unbroken. Emil hesitated at the threshold.
Zagrea felt his gaze on her. A question without words:
Is this still the right path?
She nodded once. It had to be.
They stepped into the dark.
The change was immediate. Sound dulled. The air thickened. Even Rhaegal straightened, his hand drifting toward where his lute would normally hang.
Something shifted behind them.
Zagrea’s breath hitched.
Ranna noticed first. “Emil,” she said sharply.
“I hear it,” Emil murmured.
A soft scrape — leather on stone. Another. Three more. Spread out.
Zagrea’s hand went to her belt. “Watch yourselves.”
The group tightened instinctively, falling into a protective cluster. She felt Aelys grip her sleeve, faintly trembling.
The first Guild agent stepped out of the dark. It was a scarred half-elf, leather armor etched with the faintest golden sigil. His hood hung low, his dagger gleaming faintly.
Behind him, two more emerged. And on the rooftops, more silhouettes.
“We’re not here to spill blood,” the half-elf began with no greeting, his voice low and carefully calm. “Just hand over the haul and you can go.”
Ranna stepped forward. “You can back up before I take off that scar with your cheek still attached.”
He didn’t even look at her. His eyes were on Zagrea.
“Zagrea,” he drawled. “You know how this works. The Guild always remembers. Boss says it’s time.”
Zagrea’s pulse hammered, but she kept her face still. Cold. Inscrutable.
“You’re wasting your time,” she said.
He smiled thinly and a faint whistle cut the air. It had to be a signal.
More movement on the left. Three shapes. No, four.
This was a trap. Not a subtle one, but one she’d walked straight into.
Rhaegal’s voice dropped to a whisper. “We should run.”
“No,” Zagrea said. “We fight through. Break the line at the—”
“Zagrea,” Emil cut in, “there are seven behind us now.”
“Eight,” Aelys whispered.
Ranna swore under her breath. “We run.”
The half-elf smiled wider. “Good luck.”
Zagrea’s heart slammed against her ribs.
“Go!” she barked.
Everything exploded into motion.
Ranna shoved Aelys ahead of her, forming a shield between the sorcerer and the incoming daggers. Emil barreled into the nearest attacker, buying three precious seconds. Rhaegal grabbed Zagrea’s wrist and yanked her towards a side street.
Boots thundered. Blades flashed. Shouts rang.
Zagrea looked back once—just once—and saw the entire shadowscape shift as more Guild agents spilled into the road.
“Left!” Ranna shouted. “Go, go!”
Zagrea tore down the narrow alley with the others, her breath burning in her lungs. The Guild poured in behind them, their pursuit a pounding rhythm.
When the path ahead branched, the group swerved one way almost subconsciously.
Zagrea skidded around another corner, nearly colliding with a stack of crates. She sucked breath through her teeth and whipped around.
She didn’t see Ranna. Or Aelys.
Her stomach dropped.
“Shit—Ranna!” she shouted.
But Emil grabbed her arm. “We can’t stop!”
She knew he was right.
She hated that he was right.
The Guild was closing in, Ranna and Aelys were somewhere in the maze, and Zagrea could feel the walls tightening around them:
She clenched her jaw, forced herself forward, and didn’t look back again.
…
The alleys of Heapside were a maze at the best of times, a deathtrap at the worst, and tonight they were very much the worst.
Zagrea ran.
Boots hammered the stone behind her—Emil’s heavy stride, Rhaegal’s quicker footfalls, and the uneven rhythm of at least three Guild pursuers. Their breathing echoed, muffled by the cramped stone walls, turning the chase into something claustrophobic and choking.
The darkness shifted round every corner, every broken shutter, every hanging rope of laundry swaying in the breeze. The city felt like it was pulling them forward, herding them. Not guiding—herding.
Zagrea’s lungs burned, but she didn’t dare slow.
“Go left!” Rhaegal shouted from behind her. “There’s a straight alley—”
“No!” Zagrea snapped. “Dead end!”
“How in the Hells do you— never mind...”
Emil shoved past a crate someone had left in the alley’s center, practically bowling it over to clear their path. “Keep moving!”
Zagrea risked a glance over her shoulder.
Figures spilled into the alley behind them—five now, maybe six—spreading out to block escape routes. She caught the faint gleam of metal on a rooftop, a bowstring pulled taut.
Her stomach dropped.
“Down!” she shrieked.
They all dropped low as the arrow hissed over their heads, embedding itself with a hollow thunk into the wooden beam jutting from a laundry balcony.
“Gods damn them,” Rhaegal wheezed.
Zagrea’s mind raced. The Guild didn’t fire warning shots. They wanted the shard badly enough to risk hitting her companions.
Another turn. Another alley. Another block of shadow thick as tar.
“This was supposed to be simple,” she hissed under her breath.
“Nothing with you is ever simple,” Rhaegal panted.
They reached a fork in the path.
Zagrea skidded to a stop, boots scraping stone, her eyes flicking left, then right.
Left was narrow and too dark, a choke point.
Right was wider, but she could sense movement up ahead. A silhouette running across the alley. Another dropping from a low roof.
The Guild was trying to flank.
“They’re herding us,” Emil breathed, confirming her dread.
“They always are,” Zagrea mumbled.
“Well, how do we break it?” Rhaegal asked.
“By doing something stupid,” she replied bitterly.
And before either man could question her, she veered left—straight into the narrow choke point.
“Zagrea!” Emil hissed.
“There’s no time!” she yelled.
The alley to the left squeezed so tight they had to turn sideways to fit. Jagged brick scraped Zagrea’s shoulders as she forced her way through, sucking in a breath as she flattened herself against the cold wall. Rhaegal cursed as his sleeve caught on a protruding stone. Emil practically bulldozed through behind them, breathing hard.
The Guild agents swarmed the fork behind them, voices overlapping:
“Left! She went left!”
“No — two went right—”
“Up top! Move!”
They were confused. Good.
Zagrea pushed through the final squeeze of the choke point, emerging into a much larger courtyard—quiet, dimly lit by a single lantern that had been knocked askew and now flickered erratically.
A brief moment of openness. Just enough space to breathe.
“Here,” Zagrea said, pulling the others into the shadows beneath a low balcony. “Catch your breath. We don’t have long.”
Emil kept watch. Rhaegal leaned against the wall, swallowing air like he’d been suffocating.
Zagrea pressed her back to the brick, eyes scanning the abandoned courtyard. It was little more than a square framed by leaning buildings, marked with puddles and litter. A broken cart slumped near a crumbling wall. Above, threadbare laundry hung unmoving in the stale air. They weren’t in Heapside anymore.
The quiet pressed in.
Emil spoke first.
“We need to circle back,” he said. “Aelys and Ranna are—”
Zagrea clenched her jaw. “They’re safer than we are.”
Rhaegal frowned, pushing sweat-matted hair out of his face. “How do you figure?”
“Because the Guild wants me,” she told him. “They want the shard. They’re not going to risk killing someone who might lead them to me.”
“Unless they think hurting one of us would make you hand it over,” Emil said quietly.
Zagrea stiffened, and her stomach churned.
“Then… we move now,” she agreed reluctantly. “Before the Guild figures out where we cut through.”
She looked around the courtyard again, eyes darting between exits. The far right alley led downhill back into Heapside. The left climbed toward the warehouses near the river. The one straight ahead—
She froze as a shadow slid across the far wall.
Emil moved to stand in front of her. “They’ve found us.”
“Not many,” Rhaegal whispered. “Can’t be more than two or three.”
Zagrea pulled her dagger, her hand steady despite the blood pounding in her ears.
The agent who stepped into the lantern glow was not the half-elf from earlier.
This one was taller, broader. He was a dragonborn with burnished copper scales and a heavy cloak pulled tight to just barely conceal the weapons strapped across his chest. Two more agents filed in behind him. One human, one halfling.
The dragonborn crossed his arms.
“You’re making this very difficult.”
She stepped out from behind Emil. “Good.”
His lip curled over sharp teeth. “Nine-Fingers always thought you were trouble.”
“Tell her I said hello.”
“Oh, she knows.” His eyes narrowed.
He signaled with one hand and the other thieves circled in different directions, trying to box them in.
Zagrea’s pulse spiked.
The dragonborn stepped closer. “Last chance. The shard. Now.”
“No.”
There was a beat of silence so sharp Zagrea could feel it in her teeth.
“Should have stayed in your lane, softskin,” he said.
The alley behind him lit up with movement.
Boots. Soft footfalls. Rooftop scraping.
Zagrea’s stomach dropped.
Emil lifted his sword. “We fight.”
“No,” she hissed sharply. “We run. Now.”
“But—”
“Now!”
They bolted as the Guild surged.
Zagrea sprinted toward the left alley, the uphill path her only shot at losing them. Emil stayed close, guarding her left flank. Rhaegal stumbled twice but recovered, fear sharpening his movement.
Behind them, the Guild gave chase.
Arrows whistled.
Footsteps thundered.
Someone shouted her name.
Zagrea didn’t look back.
What mattered now was corner distance — getting far enough ahead that the city could swallow them again.
Another corner.
Another narrow passage.
Another burst of adrenaline.
Zagrea tuned out everything except the rhythm of her feet and the burning need to find Ranna and Aelys.
Please be okay. Please be okay. Please—
A scream cut through the night. It was distant, but definitely female. Aelys.
Zagrea’s heart stopped.
“Zagrea,” Emil grabbed her arm.
She ripped it out of his grip. “That was them.”
“Zagrea, wait—!”
Zagrea darted through a tight passageway between two leaning buildings, ignoring the pain of her bruises still stabbing at her ribs. She burst into another stretch of alley—empty, for now—and sprinted towards the sound she’d heard.
Another corner. Another turn. Another sound, a dull impact, and a ghastly shriek.
Zagrea’s chest seized and she pushed harder, her lungs screaming, her legs burning.
The alley opened into a crossroads—five branching paths spidering out in all directions. An untrained tracker’s nightmare.
But then she heard it.
Movement down the far-right path. Fast. Chaotic.
Zagrea bolted toward it.
She caught only a flicker of motion—not Ranna, not Aelys—but a Guild agent sliding across the corner, running at full speed.
Zagrea followed.
She only knew she needed to reach them.
And she knew she was running out of time.
…
Ranna had been in more alleyway chases than she could count, but she had never once enjoyed them. She preferred open ground. Space to maneuver. Space to plan, to breathe.
Heapside offered none of that.
She and Aelys barreled down a slanted alleyway that smelled like mildew and gutter rot, their boots splashing through puddles reflecting lanternlight. Shouts ricocheted behind them, bouncing off brick and turning direction into a guessing game.
Ranna didn’t slow.
Didn’t look back.
Didn’t risk losing the precious seconds she needed to keep Aelys ahead of her.
“Left!” Aelys called, pointing toward a narrow gap between two leaning tenements.
“No, right!” Ranna barked.
“But right goes toward the square—”
“It’s too open, too obvious. They’ll expect it.”
She grabbed Aelys’ hand and dragged her along, the two squeezing into a passage that forced them single-file. Brick scraped Ranna’s shoulders. Aelys’ belt snagged on a rusty nail protruding from one wall, and she stopped just long enough to tear it free.
They emerged into a crooked alley lit by the glow of a single lantern swinging from an upper balcony. The light cast long shadows that made the walls seem to move.
Ranna released Aelys’ hand and scanned upward, downward, back the way they came.
No Guild agents.
Not yet.
But she could hear them.
They were close.
Too close.
Damn it, Zagrea, Ranna thought bitterly. Quietly, she wondered why she’d ever let the thug drag her into this.
Aelys stepped beside her, panting, cheeks flushed. “Which way?”
Ranna paused.
Shouts.
Footsteps.
Three… no, four behind them. Two to the right, getting closer. One on a rooftop overhead.
“Forward.” She pointed down the dimmer alley. “Stay low.”
Aelys crouched, keeping her stolen shortblade in a white-knuckled grip.
They moved—quick, silent, their footsteps cushioned by a thin layer of grime on the cobblestones.
Aelys leaned closer. “You’re bleeding.”
Ranna wiped her cheek. Her fingers came away red. “It’s not important.”
“You’re hurt.”
“And you’re loud.”
Aelys shut her mouth.
They slipped deeper into the alley’s throat. The walls pressed inward, brickwork slouching with age. Laundry draped overhead like funeral shrouds.
Ranna exhaled slow, steady. Her pulse throbbed hot behind her eyes. Aelys stayed glued at her side, blade trembling faintly in her grasp.
“Almost to the main lane,” she whispered. “Once we’re through, take the first left. We’ll circle back around—”
A sound cut her off. Not footsteps, not breath, just a shift of air—a subtle displacement, like something dangerous was approaching.
Ranna didn’t think. Instinct shoved her forward.
“Go!” she snapped, releasing Aelys’ wrist and sprinting ahead down the narrowing corridor.
She rounded the bend at full speed—
And the world exploded.
A fist—like a sledgehammer in living form—shot out from the blind corner to their right. It came from total darkness, a blur, a shadow with bone behind it.
There was no warning. There was no voice. There wasn’t even time to register a face
Her head flew backwards as the uppercut struck her chin, and her vision shattered into white. Her feet flew out from beneath her and her knees went limp, body slamming into the cobblestones with a sound like a dropped sack of iron. A burst of cold rippled through her skull, then heat, then nothing but ringing.
Her tongue tasted metal.
Somewhere far away, Aelys shrieked her name—not a late warning, but a cry of horror.
Ranna’s arms came up subconsciously as she tried to steady her vision, but everything doubled, then tripled. The sky pitched sideways. The world felt fluid, bending under her elbows as she tried—and failed—to push herself upright.
Aelys rushed at the figure, her wild magic gathering in frantic, uneven pulses. The air around them snapped with unstable blue light.
Their attacker moved too fast.
He sidestepped the first flare of chaotic magic—a burst of heat that scorched the wall behind him. Aelys fired again, a desperate crack of lightning arcing off the cobblestones—he leaned, slipped under it, and closed the distance before she could cast a third time.
He seized her wrist, twisted—not cruelly, but decisively— and Aelys cried out, her spell collapsing in a cascade of sparks as he threw her to the ground.
Ranna tried to roll over. Her arms buckled beneath her, and her fingers pressed uselessly against the back of her pounding skull. She felt a pulse of warmth where her head had struck the ground, and her hand came away bloody.
A shadow flickered at the alley mouth.
Footsteps—fast, sharp, purposeful.
And then:
“Stop! Stop.”
Zagrea’s voice.
The hooded man’s head spun.
Ranna stared, her vision swimming, her chin throbbing, her ears ringing like temple bells.
The tiefling thief regarded Zagrea with cold, judgmental fury—but his grip on Aelys loosened.
Just barely.
And Ranna’s vision dimmed to black.
Chapter 9: Surface Songs
Summary:
Word travels fast among servants.
Notes:
Honestly, nothing feels better than coming back to this after a few days with multiple chapters to post. Sometimes I bore myself waiting to finish the next chapter 😭🙏
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The deep corridors beneath House Arabviir always smelled faintly of cold stone and old despair. Even after centuries of blood washings, incense burnings, and layers of faerzress-saturated moss, the scent lingered like a bruise on the air. Ryldeth knew every turn of the lower halls by memory, mostly because he had been forced through them often enough—delivering messages, polishing weapon racks, carrying punitive orders or retrieving prisoners for Dhaunaer’s amusements.
But tonight, the halls felt different.
Maybe because for once, he walked them without a noblewoman trailing behind him.
Maybe because the quiet itself felt sharp, expectant.
Or maybe because the tiny, forbidden book tucked inside the pocket of his trousers pulsed against his hip like a hidden heartbeat.
Ryldeth wasn’t supposed to be down here. Not this early, not without explicit command to do so. But he had completed his duties ahead of schedule—an outcome only possible because Maydiira had intervened with a soft word earlier and redirected Dhaunaer to another servant entirely. Ryldeth suspected Dhaunaer would kill that servant by morning. He tried, and failed, not to feel relieved.
He reached the doorway to the men’s barracks and paused. Down here, the ceilings dipped low, as if the entire weight of the fortress above pressed down to remind its occupants of their place. Fungal lanterns hung in clusters, shedding a dim bluish glow that flickered with each breath of stale air.
From inside came the murmur of deep voices—low, cautious, but freer than they ever were upstairs. Laughter, even: a rare and dry sound, as if their lungs had forgotten how to shape it.
Ryldeth inhaled once, schooled his expression, and stepped inside.
Vhurin looked up first. Age had carved him into a statue of dignified ruin: tall but stooped, once broad-shouldered but thinned by years of subservience. One side of his face had faded burn marks from some punishment long before Ryldeth’s time. The other regarded him with heavy patience.
“Ryldeth,” Vhurin greeted. “Off early, are you?”
Selzek snorted before Ryldeth could answer. “If he’s off early, it’s only because the Matriarch found some other toy to play with today.”
Ryldeth stiffened automatically—not in offense, but by reflex. He was used to bracing for reprimands, even here. But there were no women present. No one would punish Selzek for the unsavory joke.
The others chuckled a little. Nalfett didn’t, but that was normal—Nalfett barely spoke at all. Tildro grinned with his nervous foxlike smile, the kind that said he was listening to everything and understanding only half of it.
Ryldeth offered a small dip of the head in greeting—still too formal, but he had not yet managed to unlearn the posture of obedience.
“No new tasks tonight,” he said simply, ignoring Selzek’s jab. “I was dismissed.”
“Dismissed,” Selzek repeated dramatically. “Imagine that. Does the sun rise in the Underdark now too?”
Tildro elbowed him. “Leave him alone.” Then, under his breath, “You know the Matriarch has favorites.”
Selzek opened his mouth to retort, but Vhurin raised a slow hand. It was a gentle gesture, but in the barracks, Vhurin was the closest thing to authority the men had. Selzek shut his mouth.
“Come,” Vhurin said, gesturing to an empty stool in the circle. “Sit. Rest.”
Ryldeth nodded and moved toward the seat—aware of how stiffly he walked, how controlled each step was. He wished he could stop that. Even now, even here, the instinct to appear small and obedient clung to his body like shackles.
Only once he settled did he allow himself to draw the small book from his garment, removing his shoddy cloth gloves before touching the cover with tattooed fingers. At least, he thought they were tattoos. He didn’t remember a time without them.
A few of the men leaned in with curiosity.
Selzek’s eyebrows shot up. “Reading material? From where? None of us get books.”
“It’s surface script,” Tildro said, squinting at the worn leather cover. “Human letters. How in the Hells did you—?”
Ryldeth’s throat tightened. The poetry collection was a treasure of immeasurable danger. He should have hidden it. He knew that. But it had been burning in his pocket for days, whispering promises of calm, of something beyond this life, and he had longed—desperately—for a moment away from the pressure of obedience.
“It was given to me,” he answered quietly, opening it to the worn first page.
Selzek leaned back, grin widening. “Given to you? By who? A mushroom merchant? A surface trader sneaking in through cracks in the stone?”
Ryldeth shook his head and kept his eyes low on the page. “I can’t say.” He wouldn’t say.
The room fell silent for a moment. It did not take a genius to guess that only one person in House Arabviir would dare give something like this to a servant—something gentle, something cultured, something that wasn’t a weapon or a punishment.
Selzek’s grin sharpened. “Can’t say, or won’t say?”
“Leave it,” Vhurin cut in, wiping a cloth along the blade of a ceremonial knife—one of the ones the men maintained for show. “He doesn’t have to answer that.”
Ryldeth felt a flicker of gratitude. He turned another page, pretending to read, though he could barely focus on the words.
Tildro, ever curious, leaned forward again. “Well… at least tell us what it says. Is it stories? Spells? Surface superstition?”
“Poetry,” Ryldeth murmured.
This earned him several blinks of incomprehension.
“Poetry?” Selzek repeated. “As in… lines that rhyme?”
“Not always,” Ryldeth said.
Selzek groaned. “Gods help us. He’s turned soft.”
“Better soft than dead,” Vhurin said. “Let the boy read.”
Ryldeth was hardly a boy. In fact, his twenty-fourth birthday had just passed this Marpenoth. Although among elves that was about equivalent to the age of a human toddler. Besides, Vhurin had seen more than one century pass. By comparison, Ryldeth felt like little more than a fragile thing molded by fear.
He smoothed a page almost reverently. The surface poet had written of trees—living, towering things without stone or fungus clinging to them; of wind that was not forced through tunnels but moved freely over plains; of light that came from a blue sky.
Ryldeth drank the words like water.
The others resumed their conversation gradually, the atmosphere softening as they relaxed.
“So,” Tildro said, lowering his voice, “did you hear? There’s talk of a prisoner. A male, held since… who knows when.”
Selzek snickered. “House Arabviir has dozens of male prisoners.”
“No,” Tildro said. “This one is different. Treason, they said.”
At that, Vhurin stiffened almost imperceptibly.
Ryldeth noticed immediately.
“What kind of treason?” Nalfett asked quietly. The man rarely spoke, so when he did, the others always listened.
“Not the killing kind,” Tildro said. “Something else. Something… personal.”
Vhurin set down his blade with a soft clatter. “We shouldn’t speculate.”
“Why not?” Selzek challenged. “It’s not as if we’re in danger of being overheard. And treason is rare. Only a handful of males have ever lived long enough to be charged with it.”
“Yes,” Vhurin murmured. “Rare.”
Ryldeth glanced over his book. “What happened to him?”
Tildro shrugged. “No one knows. Just that someone’s been asking questions about him lately. High-ranking questions.”
Ryldeth’s heart nudged against his ribs. High-ranking…
Maydiira?
He didn’t put the thought into words.
Selzek leaned back, folding his arms. “If it was treason of the flesh, then it’s simple. He probably got himself killed for thinking one of the females actually cared about him for more than breeding.”
A flicker of something—pain, memory, fear—crossed Vhurin’s face before he could stop it.
Ryldeth watched.
The others didn’t notice.
But Ryldeth did.
Then Vhurin spoke, soft and weary.
“It happens,” the old servant said. “Sometimes a man forgets himself. Thinks a gentle word is affection. Thinks a moment of mercy has meaning.”
Selzek scoffed. “And then what? The woman cuts his throat?”
“Or worse,” Vhurin whispered. “Much worse.”
The barracks fell quiet.
Ryldeth’s voice emerged low and careful. “You speak as if you knew someone like that.”
Vhurin looked at him then—really looked—and Ryldeth realized the older male was weighing something in that moment. Then at last, the drow sighed.
“I knew him,” he admitted. “Long ago.”
Ryldeth felt his pulse quicken. The book trembled faintly in his hands.
Selzek frowned. “This was before our time?”
Vhurin sighed. “Not by long. He served in the upper wing. A quiet man. Careful. Obedient.” His gaze flicked to Ryldeth. “Much like you.”
Ryldeth swallowed.
Vhurin continued, “He got too close to a noblewoman. She encouraged it, for a time. Maybe she didn’t mean to. Maybe she did.” A beat. “Maybe she was lonely.”
That landed heavily. A noblewoman, lonely? Impossible.
And yet…
“The man forgot his place,” Vhurin said softly. “And she allowed him to.”
Ryldeth’s breath stilled. The poetry on the page blurred.
“What happened to him?” Nalfett asked.
Vhurin hesitated. “I’m not sure. But in the end… treason was declared. He disappeared.” He paused, choosing his words with excruciating care. “There were rumors of a child, but that was never proven.”
Ryldeth suddenly felt very cold.
Selzek scoffed. “Ridiculous. No male would survive something like that. Nor would the bastard.”
“Not under regular circumstances, no,” Vhurin agreed. “But sometimes death isn’t the point.”
Ryldeth set the book down slowly. His fingers felt numb. Before he could decide what to say, Vhurin made a small, seemingly unintentional slip.
“He loved music,” Vhurin said distantly. “Quiet little songs, especially. Surface songs, he called them. Said his mother taught him before she died.”
Surface songs. Just like the poetry in his hands.
The barracks seemed to shrink around Ryldeth, the fungal lanterns pressing dim halos against his vision. The book lay open in his lap, but the words had dissolved into watery shapes.
Surface songs.
A hum.
A mother who knew poems older than this dark realm.
And Vhurin had spoken of it like someone remembering a ghost.
He forced his hands not to tremble as he closed the book.
Selzek, oblivious to the tension, kicked his legs out and said, “Treason of the flesh. What an idiotic law. As though any of us would ever be idiotic enough to…” His grin widened wolfishly. “Well—Ryldeth might.”
Ryldeth snapped the book shut harder than he intended.
Vhurin’s gaze darted up. “Selzek.”
“What?” Selzek said with an exaggerated shrug. “He’s holding a book of human poetry, gifted from some unknown benefactor. And he’s been running off all these top secret missions for years. Forgive me for jumping to conclusions.”
Tildro shushed him viciously. “Idiot. You’ll get us all killed with talk like that.”
“Oh, relax,” Selzek said. “No females down here. No ears in the stone. Let us live a little.”
Ryldeth’s jaw clenched.
“He doesn’t have to answer to you,” Vhurin said firmly, putting aside the blade he’d been polishing. His tone shifted—not harsh, but protective, weighted. “Some gifts don’t need explanation. And some attachments…” He paused, expression tightening. “Some attachments do not end well.”
Ryldeth lowered his gaze. The words landed like pebbles falling into a deep well.
“I’m not attached to anyone,” he said quietly.
Selzek laughed. “You are the worst liar I’ve ever met.”
Ryldeth’s face burned. His spine locked straight, shame and fear clashing inside him. He wanted them to stop looking at him—stop seeing him. His instincts screamed at him to bow, to apologize, to kneel, to hide. Sudden resentment clawed like an imp up his throat.
Vhurin sighed.
“Selzek,” he said, voice worn and weary, “try having a shred of discretion.”
Selzek grinned, unrepentant but quieting.
Ryldeth opened his book again, if only to give his blackened hands something to do. The familiar lines comforted him, grounding him.
One line read:
And though the world forgets your name,
the wind remembers.
He exhaled slowly.
Tildro, sitting closest, leaned over to see the page. “What does that mean?”
Ryldeth traced the lines with one fingertip. “It means… that even if everything else is lost, some part of you endures. Something remembers you.”
“That’s stupid,” Selzek muttered, but there was no venom in it—only reflexive scorn for a world none of them would ever see.
“It’s beautiful,” Nalfett said softly.
All three looked over at the usually silent servant. Nalfett blinked, as if embarrassed by his own honesty.
Selzek clapped him on the back. “Look at that! The mute speaks truth.”
Nalfett shrugged, but a shy ghost of a smile crossed his face.
Ryldeth’s chest tightened. This—this right here—was the closest thing they had to peace.
Then Tildro spoke again, lowering his voice to a near whisper. “I heard… I heard the executioner is furious about something. More than normal.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down,” Selzek said dryly.
“No,” Tildro insisted. “This time it’s something important. Something she lost.”
Ryldeth’s heart stuttered.
The artifact.
He tried to appear uninterested, flipping a page of the poetry book as if bored. But the men had known him long enough to notice his uncanny stillness.
“You know anything about it?” Selzek asked, narrowing his eyes.
“No,” Ryldeth denied all too quickly.
Vhurin studied him.
After a moment, Vhurin exhaled slowly. “Whatever is happening with the women is not our business. Nor should we risk making it our business.” He gave Ryldeth a long, searching look.
Selzek huffed. “I’m tired of everything being ‘not our business.’ What is our business, then? Surviving, barely? Cowering like kicked dogs in corners?”
“Exactly that,” Vhurin replied.
The bitterness in his voice cut deeper than any reprimand.
“Selzek…” the elder drow continued, voice calming, “I’ve lived longer than any of you. And I’ve watched enough men die for caring about things outside their place. Do you know what happens to dreamers?”
Selzek rolled his eyes. “They get beaten. They get killed. The same as all of us.”
“No,” Vhurin said. “They die slower.”
Silence fell.
Ryldeth closed the book again, hands trembling slightly.
He did not feel like a dreamer.
But Maydiira had given him a book filled with dreams.
And reading it, even here, surrounded by men born into misery, felt like chewing on forbidden fruit.
“Back to the prisoner,” Tildro started, clearing his throat. “If someone’s been asking questions about him, maybe he’s still alive.”
Selzek snorted. “Doubt it.”
Ryldeth dared a glance at Vhurin.
The older male’s face—usually carved into grim neutrality—betrayed a flicker of something else.
Fear.
Ryldeth’s stomach twisted.
“He is alive,” Vhurin sighed quietly.
Three pairs of eyes snapped toward him.
Selzek straightened. “How do you know that?”
Vhurin closed his eyes briefly, as if knowing he’d said too much. “Because the kind of treason he was accused of… they do not grant such men clean deaths.”
Ryldeth felt sick.
Tildro asked, “Then where is he?”
Vhurin hesitated. “Below.” He gestured to the floor. “Far below even us.”
The men exchanged uneasy glances.
The lower dungeons were a place of whispered legend—even among male servants, who saw the worst the House had to offer. Down there were oubliettes, pits, cages, and rooms reserved for political threats and personal grudges.
Few entered. None returned.
Ryldeth swallowed. His throat felt parched.
Then Vhurin added—softly, too softly to be anything but accidental—“He had a gentle voice, that man. Softer than you’d expect. He would hum when no one was listening.”
Surface songs.
Ryldeth’s hands closed around the poetry book, gripping it so tightly the leather creaked.
Vhurin’s gaze drifted toward Ryldeth then. His red eyes fixed first on the poetry book, then on Ryldeth’s face. And something inside the older man’s expression softened.
“You should be careful,” he said quietly, addressing Ryldeth alone now. “Some lines should not be crossed. Not even in your heart.”
Ryldeth felt heat rise to his face. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“Yes,” Vhurin said gently. “You do.”
Ryldeth looked away, shame clawing at his ribs. Not because he felt something for Maydiira—no, he had known that, quietly, silently, painfully, for years.
But because the other men saw it.
They had to tiptoe around it, trying not to bring up the wrong parallels. Trying not to make him defensive. Trying—desperately—not to compare him to the man Vhurin once knew.
Ryldeth’s voice cracked slightly as he said, “I would never be so foolish.”
Vhurin sighed. “Foolishness has nothing to do with it.”
“What do you mean?” Tildro asked, confused.
Selzek looked between them. “Wait—”
Vhurin cut him off with a sharp shake of the head. “None of you speak of this again. Not in jest. Not in passing. Not ever.”
Even Selzek paled.
Nalfett, voice barely a whisper, asked, “Vhurin… do you regret it? Knowing that man? Seeing what happened to him?”
Vhurin’s face crumpled in a way Ryldeth had never seen.
“I regret,” he said, “that he believed she truly cared for him. And that she let him do so.”
Ryldeth felt the world tilt.
Before anyone could speak another word, the sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor.
All five men snapped upright, expressions flattening, bodies stiffening. Fear clawed through the room like a wind.
Bootsteps. Slow. Measured. Deliberate.
Not a woman—noblewomen’s shoes clicked and scraped like knives.
But a male overseer.
Othyr.
He stopped at the threshold and glared at them each in turn.
“Ryldeth,” the overseer started with no greeting.
Ryldeth jerked to attention. “Othyr.”
“You’re summoned.”
Ryldeth felt his blood chill. “By whom?”
Othyr hesitated. “The younger mistress.”
Maydiira.
Vhurin closed his eyes, a silent prayer—or warning—passing through his expression.
“Go,” the overseer ordered impatiently.
Ryldeth rose, covering his hands once more and tucking the poetry book inside his pocket, feeling the weight of four gazes on his back. He stepped out into the corridor, heart still hammering, Vhurin’s words echoing behind him:
Some lines should not be crossed, boy.
Not even in your heart.
He didn’t look back.
Notes:
Surface songs, eh?
Chapter 10: Moonhaven
Summary:
Old friends bring about new opportunities.
Chapter Text
Ranna’s eyes fluttered open to a soft, dappled light, the kind that didn’t sting but rather nudged her awake like the gentle pressure of a hand. The smell of wet earth and blooming flowers drifted faintly through the open window. Birds chirped in the distance, and the faint rustle of leaves carried on a cool breeze.
Her head throbbed, a slow, nagging drum behind her skull. Every movement made her stomach twist, and her fingers brushed something soft and warm. She froze for a moment when she realized she wasn’t alone.
A figure bent beside her, hands deftly adjusting the damp cloth pressed to her temple. Silver hair caught the morning light, and eyes, green and calm, watched her with an unyielding patience.
“You’re awake,” the woman said softly, her voice a soft melody to Ranna’s ears. “Don’t move too quickly. You’ve taken quite the blow.”
Ranna tried to speak, but her throat felt thick, like swallowing sand. She managed a rasping, “Where…?”
The woman smiled faintly, tilting her head. “We call it Moonhaven. You’re safe here.”
Her eyes adjusted, taking in the room. It was warm, softly lit with candles and sunlight spilling through sheer curtains. The walls were lined with books and maps, and plants in clay pots lent the space a quiet vitality. Ranna’s pulse slowed slightly. This was like nothing she had ever seen.
“My name is Shadowheart,” the woman stated, noticing Ranna’s confusion. “You’re lucky Zagrea fought for you. Kyros is…” She gestured vaguely outside. “Well. I assume you’ve heard.”
Ranna frowned, the memory of the alley flooding back. The tiefling. Her mind was still struggling to reassemble the punch, the darkness, Zagrea’s fury, and Aelys scrambling helplessly.
Shadowheart. That name sounded familiar…
And Kyros. The Hero of Baldur’s Gate. Surely this was just some sort of… dream. A silly fantasy.
Shadowheart’s hands were gentle but firm as she wiped a smear of blood from Ranna’s chin. “I’ll need you to stay still a moment longer. Can you do that?”
“I— yes,” Ranna mumbled, her voice tight. Her hand instinctively went to her chin. The bruise was already swelling, purple-blue. She could feel every nerve ending vibrating, a reminder of what Zagrea had apparently saved her from.
Shadowheart tilted her head again, appraising her with a keen, almost analytical eye. “Good. Breathe.”
Ranna exhaled shakily, letting herself sink back into the bed. The tension in her shoulders eased slightly, though her head throbbed relentlessly.
Movement outside the window momentarily drew her attention. A small, tiny shape darted between the flowers and sun-dappled grass. A chittering, high-pitched voice accompanied it. Ranna turned to see a tiny tiefling girl, barely three years old, with yellowish skin, little stubby horns and bright, curious eyes, toddling through the open doorway.
“Callie,” Shadowheart said softly, noticing Ranna’s stare. “Our daughter. Ky and I took her in after everything. Save for the occasional mischief, she’s completely harmless.”
The little girl stopped short of the bed, one chubby hand clutching a stuffed toy that looked like a miniature owlbear. She studied Ranna with the same wide-eyed intensity the latter usually reserved for the rings. Then, satisfied, she came forward, giggling delightedly, and draped herself across the edge of the bed.
Ranna blinked, utterly unprepared for such domesticity. Her pulse slowed further. The danger of the past days—the Guild, the chase, the alley, Kyros—receded into a distant hum. For the first time since rescuing Zagrea, she felt… almost safe.
Shadowheart’s smile was calm, but it looked a bit forced. “I’ll take you to them.”
Ranna’s throat was dry. “Them… you mean…?”
The cleric nodded briefly. “Your friends. And Kyros. We’re expected.”
Ranna hesitated, then nodded. The throbbing in her head intensified, but she pushed through, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed slowly, letting Callie scamper around her feet.
Outside, the air was crisp and smelled of earth and blooming flowers. A gentle breeze stirred the trees across the property, carrying the fragrance of honeysuckle, wild lavender, and something faintly metallic. Sunlight dappled the path through the trees, and somewhere nearby, birds burst into song.
Ranna took in the serenity and tried not to think about the city, the Guild, the shard, any of it.
“Moonhaven,” Shadowheart began. “It’s safe here. Away from the city, away from prying eyes. The trees, the animals… they’re all guardians, in their way. You’ll see.”
The cleric guided her along a winding path. The property was vast—several acres of flowery fields, small copse of trees, a creek glinting in the morning light. Birds flitted through the branches, and small animals peeked from the undergrowth. The faint sound of water trickling over rocks added a steady, soothing rhythm.
“You’ll have time to rest here,” Shadowheart continued, “but Kyros insisted on settling this all immediately. He’ll… explain once you’ve met him. Your friends are in there now.”
Ranna stiffened. “Aelys?”
Shadowheart didn’t turn. “She’s fine. You’ll see.”
Ranna blinked, letting her gaze wander. The property stretched for acres, rolling gently, dotted with wildflowers in every shade of yellow, violet, and crimson. Trees leaned in towards each other, their branches intertwined like fingers, creating pockets of shade where the sun touched only fragments of the soft earth. Birds flitted between the trunks, some daring enough to perch close to the path. Squirrels and small rabbits darted through the grass, pausing curiously to regard the newcomers.
Callie, oblivious to the tension of the world, ran ahead a few steps, squealing with delight as a butterfly landed on her tiny horned head. She reached up, trying to touch it with stubby fingers, and then giggled at her own clumsiness, nearly tumbling forward before Shadowheart caught her mid-step.
“She’s fearless,” the cleric chuckled, a note of pride in her voice. “Curious, unafraid of anything. You’ll see, she’ll steal your heart in an instant.”
Ranna allowed herself a small smile. It was odd—almost disorienting—to experience domestic life, even for a few minutes, after nights of dodging death, chasing answers, and surviving assassination attempts. She let herself take in the sounds and smells: the gentle trickle of a stream somewhere off to the right, the soft rustling of leaves, Callie’s giddy squeals.
Shadowheart continued to guide her along the path, through another line of trees, the property opening into another expanse of green. This one was more cultivated—herbs in neat rows, fruit trees with ripening apples, a small orchard to one side. Bees hummed lazily, pollinating the flowers, and a faint wind carried the subtle scent of lavender and mint.
Shadowheart paused at the threshold of the main house’s porch. “Here we are.”
Ranna inhaled slowly, letting the scents and sounds of Moonhaven fill her senses. Her bruises throbbed, her knees ached, but for the first time since leaving the city, she felt a tentative sense of stability.
She swallowed her nervousness and stepped across the threshold.
…
“You were going to give the shard to Keene?”
Zagrea’s voice heightened and cracked with a mixture of disbelief and outrage.
“Do you have any idea what you were planning to do?”
Kyros dragged one exasperated hand down his tattooed face. “I didn’t know you had it. She said someone dangerous had stolen their haul and she wanted me to get it back, it was supposed to be… simple.”
Zagrea stopped pacing, the heat in her chest and the exhaustion in her limbs colliding. “Simple? Have you learned nothing? Keene would have sent it straight to our enemies. They don’t care about what’s right. They just care about leverage, profit, control—“
Kyros glared at her through piercing yellow eyes. “You’re the one who picked up a contract for them to begin with. Why didn’t you just hand it over while you had the chance, save yourself the trouble?”
“I can’t let it fall into the wrong hands, Ky,” Zagrea told him, her voice rising slightly, though tempered by the calm, almost intimidating authority the red-skinned tiefling exuded. “You don’t get to decide for me or for anyone else. This shard, it’s… it’s not some bargaining chip.”
“She’s right,” Aelys spoke softly from a seat nearby. “Sir—Kyros. The shard is part of something bigger. Whenever controls it has a great amount of power at their beck and call.”
Kyros’ lips tightened.
Zagrea’s fists unclenched just slightly, but the fire in her eyes remained. “Then understand this: I will not hand it over to anyone—not Keene, not the Guild, not anyone who will use it for their gain. The risks are too great. And if you can’t see that, then perhaps you’ve forgotten what it means to protect something truly dangerous.”
Kyros inclined his head slowly, seemingly contemplating her words. “Astele… owes me a debt. I can’t promise she’ll forget the shard entirely, but for now I think I can get her to hold off.”
Aelys, still quiet, stepped closer to Ranna, as if lending her support silently. Callie, toddling around the legs of the adults, let out a squeal and clutched Ranna’s hand, breaking the heavy air just enough for a pause.
“However,” the man went on, staring at Ranna suddenly, “I want to know what you intend to do with it.”
Zagrea exhaled sharply, halting in her tracks. “Why?”
Kyros didn’t budge. “Because you’re my sister, and I’m obliged to ensure this won’t be the death of you.”
Her tone was rigid, barely concealing her frustration. He’d clearly struck a nerve. “I don’t need protecting, Kyros.”
“All things considered, you obviously do.”
Ranna’s chest tightened. She could feel the weight of the conversation pressing in from all sides—the shard, the Guild, Zagrea’s fury, Kyros’ authority. But through it all, there was a small thread of relief: Kyros wasn’t trying to take their fragment by force, and Zagrea had made her position clear.
Plus… having the Hero on their side surely couldn’t hurt.
But the silence stretched on.
“And here I thought you were done playing the hero.” Zagrea sounded bitter.
“You’re three vastly inexperienced kids from the city—“
Zagrea didn’t hesitate to cut him off. “Five.”
Kyros’ jaw ground momentarily. “You’re five kids from the slums hauling around a magical piece of glass half of Faerûn wants for themselves. I’d say you’re in dire need of significant aid.”
There was another pause.
Then Zagrea exhaled, her shoulders dropping fractionally. “Fine. Then… we move forward.”
“Carefully. Strategically.” Ranna cut in. “No more unilateral decisions, and no one touches this shard without the agreement of all of us.”
Kyros inclined his head. “Agreed. Now, I think you owe me the full story.”
…
Ranna leaned against the edge of the table, rubbing at the bruised back of her skull. The pounding in her head made focusing difficult, but the argument unfolding in front of her demanded attention. Zagrea was pacing again, restless, and Kyros had assumed that calm, unyielding stance that made even Ranna’s muscles tighten in alertness.
“The Harpers,” Zagrea insisted, stopping in front of him, “we could call them. They have reach, numbers, resources. They could help us hide the shard until we figure out what to do next.”
Kyros shook his head slowly, voice calm but firm. “No. The Harpers operate in the surface world. They don’t know the tunnels, the paths, the dangers of the Underdark like we’ll need. We need people who know the land, the culture, soldiers who can fight and survive anything there. Contacting Minthara Baenre is the best move.”
Zagrea’s jaw clenched. “Minthara. After everything, you really still trust her?”
Kyros’ gaze was steady, unwavering. “Trust is… a strong word. But the risk of taking the shard into the Underdark alone, or relying on an organization that knows nothing of it, is far greater. Minthara’s soldiers know the terrain, the hazards, the factions. If we hope to survive and secure the artifact long-term, this is what we have to do.”
Zagrea opened her mouth, tried to argue further, but Kyros held up a hand.
“We aren’t bringing this to Jaheira. The only way forward—the only way to ensure we keep the shard—is through Minthara’s forces. This isn’t a suggestion.”
Ranna shifted on her feet uncomfortably. She wasn’t thrilled about the idea either—drow alliances were unpredictable at best—but she also trusted Kyros’ navigation of impossible odds. She’d heard the stories, after all.
Aelys, still quiet, finally spoke, her voice soft but resolute. “Then we have a choice. Trust Minthara and prepare for the journey. Or refuse and risk losing everything. There isn’t a middle ground.”
Zagrea’s fists curled at her sides, but slowly she exhaled, finally lowering her shoulders. “Fine,” she hissed. “We try Minthara. But if she tries anything—“
Kyros inclined his head. “Agreed. But we move as a team, and we do it smart. No rash decisions.”
Ranna allowed herself a quiet exhale, feeling the tension in her shoulders ease just enough. The shard was still theirs. The plan, for now, was agreed upon.
Zagrea sat down finally, still tense, but the anger in her posture had dulled. Ranna could see the fatigue in her eyes—the burden of responsibility pressing down heavier than any injury she bore.
Kyros glanced around, his attention briefly settling on Ranna and Aelys. “You and your friends will be vital in this. Zagrea’s role is crucial, but so is yours. Don’t underestimate yourselves.”
Ranna felt a quiet swell of giddy pride, though it was tempered by her exhaustion. She nodded, taming herself. “We won’t fail.”
Callie skipped across the floor, chattering innocently.
Kyros’ gaze softened just slightly, and the towering tiefling stooped to Callie’s level. “You’ll help us, won’t you, little moon?” he murmured. The girl responded with a tiny squeal and a punch of her soft fist in his direction. He smiled faintly, ruffling her hair gently.
Zagrea’s eyes flicked towards the child and then back at Kyros. “We protect the shard first,” she said firmly. “To save everything else.”
Kyros nodded once, briskly, but he kept his focus on his daughter. “Of course. And I will see it done.”
The room fell into a tense silence, broken only by Callie’s soft giggles and the occasional creak of the house settling in the early afternoon sunlight. For now, plans were made. Decisions had been weighed. And while the future remained uncertain, for the first time in days, there was a glimmer of order amidst the chaos.
Ranna allowed herself a small, private thought: perhaps this was the closest thing to peace they could have, for now. And if that meant walking into the Underdark to face a drow army, so be it. The shard’s safety demanded no less.
Notes:
Tav and Shart are officially here!
Chapter 11: Plans in Motion
Summary:
Perhaps the shard has more to offer…
Notes:
Hi hi, so I came here to post another chapter and realized I thought I hit publish on THIS one and accidentally hit save draft instead. FML 😭
Chapter Text
Moonhaven’s library, a wide room tucked into one corner of the house, smelled faintly of parchment, polished wood, and herbs drying in bundles from the rafters. Sunlight filtered through latticed windows, casting patterns across the oak floor. The shard lay on a dark velvet cloth atop a low table, its surface obsidian black, almost liquid in the sun’s rays.
Ranna crouched on one knee, leaning closer, fingers hovering above the artifact. She could feel the faint thrum of power, like a heartbeat just beneath the surface. Aelys sat opposite her, legs crossed, clothing slightly disheveled, bangs falling over her purple eyes.
“You’re sure you want to do this now?” Ranna asked, voice low. The shard had already demonstrated its unpredictability; she didn’t want to risk triggering anything too strong.
Aelys gave her a small grin, brushing a hand across the edge of the table to steady herself. “If I don’t try, we won’t know anything. And besides…” She leaned forward, placing her hand lightly over the obsidian, “I trust you.”
Ranna’s throat tightened. Aelys’ gaze held a calm confidence, tempered by a hint of nervousness. She nodded once. “Alright. Let’s see what it wants us to know.”
Aelys exhaled, closing her eyes. A faint pulse ran through her fingers into the shard, and the surface shimmered. Slowly, a glow rose, pale and undulating, wrapping around her hand and extending toward Ranna’s.
The moment their fingers brushed the aura, the room shifted.
Light streaked unnaturally, warm but wrong, and suddenly the two women were no longer in Moonhaven.
They were standing in a vast chamber, the walls lined with intricate runes that pulsed faintly in rhythm with an unseen heartbeat. Columns stretched upward to a ceiling they could not see, and a sun, sharp and unyielding, poured through stained openings. But the light was false—harsh, almost surgical, cutting across the floor in white-gold rays that did not cast shadows properly.
Ranna’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t natural sunlight. Look at it—it doesn’t fall the way it should.”
Aelys’ lips parted, a pale flush spreading across her cheeks. She swayed slightly, gripping the table’s edge in her mind’s vision as the room’s false sunlight shimmered and danced. “I… see it. The temple, I think… I think that’s where the shard belongs.”
Ranna frowned, studying the shifting light in her mind. “Then that’s where we go first. We find it before the drow. You understand that, right? This isn’t just curiosity anymore.”
Aelys nodded, but her face paled further, and she groaned softly. She pressed a hand to her mouth and turned away slightly. “Ugh, it’s… it’s making me sick.”
Ranna’s brows furrowed. “The shard?”
Aelys waved a hand weakly. “Magic, probably. The visions. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” But she didn’t look fine. Her hand trembled slightly, pressing against the table for stability.
Ranna leaned forward, eyes sharp, studying her friend. “You sure?” she asked. “I’m feeling fine. Mostly.”
Aelys blinked rapidly, trying to mask the momentary flush creeping over her cheeks. “I’m fine,” she repeated, but her voice cracked faintly. She tried to smile, shaking her head. “It’s just… intense, you know? All this power. Makes me feel… off-balance.”
Ranna snorted softly. “You? Off-balance? I find that hard to believe.” She leaned back slightly, watching Aelys with a grin. “All that wild magic, and yet you act like a gnome with two left feet walking through a cobblestone alley. Come on, admit it—a little thrill goes a long way.”
Aelys tilted her head, a faint smirk tugging at her lips despite her pallor. “Maybe… but I’d rather be careful this time. I’ve had enough accidents.”
Ranna let her expression soften, the usual edge in her gaze being replaced with warmth. “Accidents, huh? We both know your definition of an accident is… creative, at best.”
Aelys chuckled weakly, brushing hair behind her ear. “Maybe. But not like that vision felt just now.” Her voice lowered, almost a whisper. “It’s like I could feel the weight of the place, the way it wants to consume, or… destroy, perhaps. I don’t know how to explain it.”
Ranna leaned closer, her own heartbeat quickening slightly at the intensity in Aelys’ tone. “Well, there’s no need for explanations, right now. We’re doing this. We’re gonna get there first, you and me.” She tapped lightly on Aelys’ hand. “You know I’ve got your back. Every step of the way.”
Aelys’ fingers twitched under Ranna’s. “I know,” she whispered, though her voice had an unusual tremor. “And like I said earlier. I trust you.”
Outside the window, the muffled laughter of Emil, Rhaegal and Callie drifted faintly across the fields, carried by the warm summer breeze. They were playing some game with the girl, teasing one another, letting the hours pass in the safest place they had. The contrast between the distant carefree sounds and the charged room made Ranna’s chest tighten.
She turned back to the shard, studying the faint lines along its surface. “We need to understand these runes. See what they mean, what they’re trying to tell us.”
Aelys nodded, eyes still a little glassy from the intensity of the vision. “Yes… yes, I think I can guide it. Feel it, interpret it… if I focus.” She drew a deep breath, though another faint wave of nausea passed over her. She turned away quickly, pressing a hand to her mouth again. “Ugh… I… never mind. Probably all the magic.”
Ranna raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure it’s not something you ate? Kyros is many things, but a chef is definitely not one of them.”
“It’s fine, really. I’ll survive. You’ll see.”
Ranna exhaled, returning to the shard. “Alright, focus then. For now… runes. Power. And figuring out where in the Hells this place is anyhow.”
The artifact pulsed faintly beneath Aelys’ fingers again, and another vision flared at the edges of their consciousness: a glimmer of a massive hall, columns stretching impossibly high, light slicing in from somewhere unknown. The shard thrummed like a heartbeat, impatient, demanding action.
Aelys closed her eyes again, steadying herself. “I see it… the chamber. The light… false, but powerful. Dangerous.” She shivered lightly. “It’s overwhelming.”
Ranna placed a hand lightly over hers. “Then we’ll face it together. Just you and me, like always.”
Aelys let out a shaky laugh. “Like always, hmm? I never pegged you as one for heroics.”
Ranna’s grin widened, but there was a seriousness in her eyes that belied the teasing. “Just heroic enough to keep you alive. That counts.”
Outside, the voices grew louder, still enjoying their simple freedom. Ranna allowed herself a deep exhale. The shard was dangerous, the path ahead uncertain, and the visions harrowing—but for now, at least, they were alive, and they were together.
Chapter 12: The Cells
Summary:
Some leads must be seen through.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The house felt alive down here.
Ryldeth felt it behind the walls. A pulse of some sort, an old and patient heartbeat stitched into the house itself. He drew two gloves fingers idly along the damp stone, feeling it buzz beneath his touch. He’d always been able to feel it. The matriarch’s wizards insisted he was just imagining things, but today, right now, the sensation was more intense than ever.
The deeper he descended—past the storage pits, past the guard barracks, past the shrines where the lesser priestesses practiced their quiet cruelties—the more the air thickened. Moisture clung to him like a damp second skin. His steps grew softer, as though the castle itself wanted to swallow the sound.
He should not be here.
A servant should never go wandering into the deep cells. He had never even thought about them unless ordered. But the thought that had been needling at him since that day with Vhurin still wouldn’t let him sleep, still wouldn’t let him eat, still whispered behind his eyes every time the corridors went quiet.
Some lines must never be crossed. Not even in your heart.
But Nalfett had found him a name.
Malag’tran.
Ryldeth hadn’t intended to care.
He repeated that to himself even now, standing before the rusted iron gate that marked the start of the forbidden descent. He didn’t care about noble scandals. He didn’t care about ancient affairs. He didn’t care about the possibly false whispers of an unknown child. And he certainly didn’t care why Maydiira had been quietly researching the prisoner for months.
He cared about none of it.
But he was already here, pushing past the old gate, accepting the faint groan of metal that no one would hear this deep.
The stair to the deep cells was narrow—tighter than utility passages, tighter even than the crawl-spaces where the younger boys sometimes hid to escape overseers. It sloped down at a steep angle, spiraling like a drilled bore-hole cut into the earth. One wrong step in the slick moisture, and he could very well tumble to his death.
A fitting precaution. These cells were not meant to be visited, except to keep the unfortunate souls within fed.
Ryldeth’s bare shoulder brushed the wall, and he recoiled. The stone was cold, sweating, slick with some kind of mineral slime that shivered under his skin. He swallowed hard.
He had not brought a light. If anyone caught him with one, he’d be cut in half before he had the time to beg for mercy. But his eyes adjusted quickly, taking in the faint violet shimmer of distant lichen far below.
The air grew chilly as he descended, and the stench worsened significantly. A mix of mold, rust, blood, and something sourer.
At the bottom of the stairwell, the corridor opened only slightly. It was still narrow enough that his shoulders nearly brushed the walls, and the ceiling hung low enough to force a bit of a bow. Cells lined one side, thick, carved from actual iron slabs rather than wood or stone.
And each was marked with a single sigil—runes Ryldeth fortunately was able to recognize.
CONDENSED SENTENCE: FINAL.
Permanent imprisonment. No trial. No release. A sad fate.
He walked slowly, unsure which cell belonged to the man he sought.
Most held no sound at all, but every now and then he could detect the faintest wheezing. One held a soft, rhythmic tapping, like someone counting the passing time on knuckles worn to bone.
He came to a halt before the last cell, posture straight, hands clasped behind his back, as if reporting before a superior.
Then a voice dragged itself across the stone:
“If you’ve come for the other eye, at least take it swiftly.”
Ryldeth’s jaw tightened. He said nothing.
The prisoner exhaled sharply, the sound grim.
“Quiet today, priestess? Have you lost your taste for theatrics?”
Only then did Ryldeth speak, keeping his tone low and controlled.
“I am no priestess.”
Silence.
A long, heavy one.
Then the scrape of a body shifting against stone—slow, agonizing, cautious.
“A male,” the voice murmured, his tone wholly disbelieving. “What’s a man doing this far below?”
Ryldeth did not answer. He reached instead for the metal hatch and slid it open.
The stench hit first: old sweat, dried blood, mildew, the sourness of a body kept too long without a bath.
A large figure hunched near the back wall, half-sitting, half-crouched, wrapped in rags so torn they barely draped him. He was broad-shouldered, muscular in the way a stone pillar persists even after being cracked. His hair hung in long mats, and his fingers, thick and dirty, were chewed ragged at the nails.
Ryldeth’s gaze found the man’s face.
The right eye stared back at him with startling clarity. The left was gone, slit out with a practiced, downward cut. Dhaunaer’s trademark.
Ryldeth did not flinch. He had seen such wounds before.
The prisoner shifted closer, just enough that the dim purple glow caught the harsh map of old scars across his chest and arms—burns, lashes, cuts, the scattered constellation of past torment.
He squinted at Ryldeth through the open slit.
“You’re… young,” he rasped.
“And you must be Malag’tran,” Ryldeth redirected, deliberately ignoring the comment.
It was not a question.
Malag’tran’s lips twitched—something between amusement and bitterness.
“So they say.” A slow breath. “What do you want of me, boy?”
Ryldeth kept his voice steady.
“I have questions.”
“Questions.” Malag’tran gave a dry chuckle. “Those usually accompany knives.”
“Fortunately for you, I’ve brought none.”
The prisoner studied him—skeptical, measuring. His single eye glimmered with a survivor’s animal suspicion.
Then slowly, deliberately, he sat back against the wall.
“Ask, then.”
Ryldeth clasped his hands behind his back once more—a formal stance, almost military. A habit beaten into him long before he served this house.
“First,” he began evenly, “I want to know who you were to the Matron Mother.”
Malag’tran’s jaw clenched. A scar along his neck strained against muscle.
“That’s how you begin?” he asked, seemingly surprised. “No pleasantries? No threats?”
Ryldeth didn’t budge. “I did not come here to exchange courtesies with a dead man.”
A breath escaped Malag’tran—half-laugh, half-wince.
“You sound like her.”
“No,” Ryldeth replied sharply. “I do not.”
Malag’tran’s eye narrowed. For the first time, he seemed to be looking at Ryldeth—not past him, not through him, not at the expectation of punishment coming through the door.
“…You’re afraid of her,” the prisoner murmured. Not mocking. Not triumphant. Simply stating what he deemed to be truth. “And yet you came down here anyway.”
Ryldeth allowed the silence to answer for him. It was not denial or confession, but discipline, a skill male drow perfected young or died without.
Malag’tran gave a slow nod, acknowledging it.
“Very well,” he sighed. “I will tell you what you wish to hear.”
He leaned back against the stone, the motion slow as if every muscle protested.
“I was her lover.”
Ryldeth’s breath hitched.
Malag’tran noticed. He gave a tired, humorless smile.
Ryldeth spoke before he meant to, the words escaping more sharply than intended:
“You… chose to lay with her?” He could hear the doubt in his own voice. “Of your own accord?”
Malag’tran’s eye glinted with a strange feeling.
“You really don’t know her at all, do you?”
Ryldeth kept his posture rigid, refusing to react outwardly. Inwardly, his heartbeat thudded once—hard, the sensation entirely unpleasant.
He had not expected contempt. Or pity. Or whatever flavor of quiet sorrow had colored Malag’tran’s voice.
“I know,” Ryldeth started, struggling to even his tone, “that she is the matron of House Arabviir. That she is powerful. That she is… volatile.”
Malag’tran huffed a humorless exhale.
“You’re reciting dogma.”
“I am stating truth.”
“No,” Malag’tran murmured, leaning his head back against the wall. “You’re stating what you’ve been allowed to understand.”
Ryldeth’s fingers twitched irritably behind his back.
“Answer the question,” he tried again. “You claimed you chose her. Explain that.”
Malag’tran tilted his head, studying him. There was something calculating in his gaze—less like prey eyeing a captor and more like a man tentatively remembering how to speak to another living being.
Then he drew a slow breath.
“When I met Iivarra,” he began, “she was not yet Matron. The House still had a rightful heir—an older sister.”
Ryldeth kept his expression blank, though the information pricked sharp interest into him. He had never heard of another daughter. No one had.
Malag’tran continued:
“She was the favored one. Poised. Disciplined. Loved by their mother. And… soft.”
He said the last word with an odd mix of derision and mourning.
Softness. In a matriarch. He didn’t believe that for a second.
“What became of her?” Ryldeth asked anyway, his voice steady once more.
Malag’tran smiled—faint, tired, bleak.
“What becomes of all drow women who stray from Lolth’s demands? Iivarra made an example of her.”
Ryldeth felt his stomach tighten.
As much as he disliked imagining Iivarra murdering her own sister, he could easily picture it.
“How did the sister stray?”
“She…” Malag’tran hesitated, searching for a word. “She fell in love. Genuinely. And disastrously.”
“With whom?”
“A human.”
Ryldeth did not let his disbelief show, but it spiraled through him like a shard of ice.
A human.
A lesser creature.
A soft-skinned, short-lived outsider whose very touch would have been considered contamination.
The scandal alone would have been enough to condemn her.
“There was a child,” Malag’tran added quietly. “Though I do not know what became of it.”
Ryldeth’s breath drew in before he could stop it. A half-human child? Born to the House?
Impossible. It would have been killed outright. Or buried, or erased.
“The sister disappeared shortly after,” Malag’tran went on softly. “And Iivarra ascended.”
Ryldeth wasn’t sure why the words unsettled him. Perhaps because they confirmed what he had always feared Iivarra was capable of. Perhaps because it meant there were pieces of the Matron’s history even the servants did not whisper about.
He forced himself back to the interrogation.
“And you?” Ryldeth prompted. “Where do you come into things?”
Malag’tran’s mouth twitched in a grim semblance of humor.
“Late. Foolishly. Optimistically.”
“Elaborate.”
He shifted—shoulders rolling, joints cracking painfully.
“I was brought into the household to do the slaves’ heavy lifting. I was strong. Loyal. Dedicated. Iivarra took notice.” His remaining eye glimmered faintly. “She always took notice of strength.”
Ryldeth kept himself still as stone. He wished he didn’t know what the prisoner meant.
Malag’tran continued, voice strangely calm:
“She watched. Evaluated. Tested. And I… misread her attention.”
“You believed she cared about you.”
His laugh was hushed, bitter.
“No, of course not. Wanting is not caring. Iivarra has never loved a living thing. But she was… fascinated by me.”
Ryldeth felt a faint, involuntary chill.
“I pursued her.”
Ryldeth spoke before he could temper the bitterness within the words. “Voluntarily, you said.”
Malag’tran’s gaze did not waver.
“I did.”
Ryldeth stared through the slit at the scarred man.
What he was saying made no sense.
“You pursued a matriarch,” he repeated slowly. “Knowing the danger.”
“Knowing the thrill,” Malag’tran corrected on a sharp breath. “You’re young. Perhaps you don’t remember what she was before she hardened. Before power twisted her. She had an intensity—sharp as a blade, cold as poison, but bright. Captivating. She looked at you like she could see through you, into you, past you. It was like being drowned and worshipped at the same time.”
Ryldeth swallowed. He hated how instinctively he understood the description. He had seen flashes of that intensity—usually aimed as punishment, not affection.
“And she accepted you?” he asked.
“For a time,” Malag’tran murmured. “Our… arrangement was private. Secret. Even Dhaunaer suspected nothing then. She was still young.”
Ryldeth could not picture Dhaunaer as a girl. Could not imagine her without blood on her hands.
“And then?” he pushed.
Malag’tran lowered his gaze.
“Then her mate found out.”
Ryldeth felt the room tighten around him.
He didn't know Iivarra had a mate. Perhaps she hadn’t, in a long time. Although it wasn’t unusual for such arrangements to occur in this region of the Underdark. The male’s only use would be to ensure the matron had an heir.
“And what did he do?” Ryldeth prompted.
Malag’tran gave a faint shrug that drew a soft hiss of pain from his ribs.
“What any jealous breeder would do. He fabricated charges against me. Accused me of conspiring with the Seldarine. Of attempting to escape my station. Treason, he called it.”
“And Iivarra believed him?” Ryldeth asked before he could stop himself.
Malag’tran went still. Then he looked up through the slit.
“No,” he said softly. “She didn’t need to believe it. Treason was simply… convenient.”
Ryldeth’s jaw locked.
The implications spread like cracks through his understanding of her.
“You think she wanted you punished.”
Malag’tran gave a weary half-shake of his head.
“I think she wanted to protect the House. Her reputation. Her power. And she could not afford to show weakness by pardoning me.”
“How noble,” Ryldeth mumbled before he could restrain the bitterness.
Malag’tran barked a dry laugh.
“There’s the truth about you, then.”
Ryldeth stiffened. He had slipped. He couldn’t afford to slip.
He straightened slightly, swiftly reclaiming control of the questioning.
“One more question,” he changed the subject, his throat dry. “And answer it plainly.”
Malag’tran raised what remained of his left eyebrow.
Ryldeth inhaled.
“There were rumors,” he said carefully. “Of a child. Your child.”
Malag’tran froze. Truly froze, like a man struck dead by a blade he never saw coming.
“A… child?” he breathed, voice hardly a whisper.
Ryldeth kept his expression unreadable. “It was only a rumor.”
Malag’tran said nothing for a long time.
A very long time.
When he finally spoke, his voice was shaking.
“There was no child.”
Ryldeth paused for a while, gazing uncertainly at the man.
“You’re… certain,” he tried, “that she never conceived?”
Malag’tran’s jaw tightened. “If she had been with child, she would have told me. She told me everything that frightened her. That’s what she needed me for.”
“That seems sentimental,” Ryldeth said carefully.
Malag’tran huffed. “It was practical. Secrets are safer when named. She didn’t let shadows linger where she slept.”
Ryldeth considered this in silence.
Malag’tran continued. “She feared weakness more than knives. If she thought a child would come of it, she would have cut me off. Severed it before it rooted. Her path upward could not carry the weight of that kind of scandal.”
He met Ryldeth’s gaze directly.
“A child does not hide easily in a life like hers. And she would not have hidden one from me. Not then.”
Ryldeth’s voice stayed even. “Yet the rumor persisted.”
“Yes,” Malag’tran hissed, his voice growing desperate. “A child would have made it all… interesting. It fits the kind of story people enjoy spreading.”
Ryldeth felt his brow furrow.
“I know what we shared. I know what we didn’t. There was no child. If there had been…” The prisoner’s voice cracked, barely noticeable.
Ryldeth didn’t move. Didn’t blink.
“…Very well,” he sighed at last. “You’ve made yourself clear.”
Malag’tran almost laughed at that. “Clear. Yes. That’s one word for it.”
Ryldeth straightened, signaling the end of this line of questioning.
But Malag’tran spoke once more—low, cautioning.
“Boy. If you want to keep that pretty face of yours, I’d suggest you keep these rumors to yourself. Iivarra has never addressed such allegations with kindness.”
Ryldeth didn’t respond.
He simply stepped back, spine rigid, the gears in his mind shifting in ways even he didn’t yet recognize.
“I think we’re finished here,” he said stiffly, reaching for the hatch. “Your cooperation has been noted.”
The prisoner only laughed as he shut the cell hard and hurried away.
Notes:
Should have another chapter up for y’all soon, work’s been pretty quiet so I have all the time in the world to write. Thanks for reading to this point, btw!
Chapter 13: Descent Preparations
Summary:
The drow sends word.
Notes:
Just a reminder that I’ll be posting character art and scene concepts on my twitter/x soon :) you can find me @_avinax2, haven’t posted much as of right now but that’ll be changing shortly.
Chapter Text
Moonhaven did not sleep so much as it held still, the way a cautious animal did when it sensed movement just beyond the treeline. Floorboards no longer creaked under careless steps. The hearth burned low, its embers giving off more smell than heat. Somewhere down the hall, behind a closed door, Callie breathed in the slow, uneven rhythm of a child deep in dreams.
Ranna was acutely aware of that sound as Kyros unfolded the letter.
He did it carefully, smoothing the parchment flat against the table as if it might spring back into secrecy if handled roughly. The wax seal—blackened, impressed with an angular sigil—lay broken beside it. Ranna had not touched it. None of them had, except Kyros.
Shadowheart stood near the window, back half-turned to the room, arms crossed. Zagrea leaned against the far wall, arms tucked tight against her chest, jaw set. Rhaegal sat at the table, fingers interlaced, posture rigid in the way of someone trying not to fidget. Emil remained standing, one hand braced on the back of a chair, gaze fixed on the map Kyros had already laid out beside the letter.
Aelys sat quietly, hands folded in her lap. Too still.
Ranna took the chair opposite Kyros and waited.
The tiefling read the letter again, silently this time. His yellow eyes moved steadily, no visible reaction until he reached the bottom line. Then his jaw tightened, just enough that Ranna caught it.
“Alright,” he said at last.
No one spoke.
Kyros turned the letter so they could see it. The handwriting was sharp and economical, the ink pressed deep enough to bruise the parchment. No pleasantries. No context. Just information.
“She’s sent a location,” he told them. “Northeast of Baldur’s Gate. Deeper than the old trade tunnels, but not so deep that the dwellers have forgotten the surface entirely.”
“That’s comforting,” Rhaegal sighed flatly.
“It’s dangerous,” Shadowheart corrected, glancing disdainfully at the bard. “The two are mutually exclusive.”
Kyros nodded once. “She won’t move to neutral ground. Says the tunnels are unstable. Increased traffic, too many eyes.”
“Eyes?” Emil repeated, one brow arching.
“Drow,” Zagrea said softly. “Duergar. Worse.”
Ranna leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. “Read the part about access again.”
“She marked the region by surface alignment. Old watchtowers, river bends. She assumes I’ll know what to do with that.”
“And do you?” Zagrea prompted.
Kyros didn’t spare his sister a glance. “Of course.”
He slid it closer to the center of the table, smoothing a corner flat. Baldur’s Gate sprawled across the parchment—layers of ink and annotation marking centuries of expansion, collapse, and reinvention.
“There are catacombs beneath the city,” Kyros said. “Everyone knows that much. What fewer folk know is how far they really go.”
Ranna watched Zagrea’s expression tighten. This was not new information to her, not entirely, but hearing it spoken so plainly carried weight.
“They were dug in stages,” Kyros continued. “Burial chambers. Smuggling routes. Old cult sanctums. Emergency egress during the Bhaalspawn crisis. Some were sealed, some were forgotten. Some were deliberately left unmapped.”
Shadowheart shifted her weight. “And some lead down.”
“Yes.”
The word hung there.
Ranna studied the map, tracing possible paths in her mind. “You’re saying we can reach the Underdark without leaving the city?”
“Not directly,” Kyros replied. “But it’s close enough that we can bridge the rest below ground. Fewer surface miles. Less chance of being noticed.”
“And more time underground,” Emil said grimly.
“Yes.” Kyros confirmed. “There isn’t a cleaner route.”
Ranna nodded. “There never is.”
Kyros met her gaze, something like relief flickering there. “Minthara’s camp is, supposedly, positioned near a collapsed duergar waystation. Old transit spur. If we approach from the wrong angle, we’ll be seen. If we approach from above, we’ll be dead.”
“So we come in sideways,” Ranna finished.
“Yes.”
She turned to the others. “All right. Then let’s talk about routes.”
And so they did.
Slowly. Methodically. Painfully.
Kyros identified three possible access points beneath the city. One ran through an abandoned ossuary in the Lower City—unstable, partially flooded, but short. Another cut through an old cult complex that had been sealed after the Netherbrain incident—better stonework, worse reputation. The third required passing beneath active districts, skirting tunnels that still saw occasional use by people who did not tend to appreciate witnesses.
Ranna weighed each in turn, asking questions, noting risks, discarding assumptions.
How narrow?
How damp?
How old?
What’s the ceiling height?
What collapses if we make noise?
Kyros answered each when he could. When he couldn’t, he said so plainly.
Shadowheart offered quiet corrections, her knowledge of sealed sanctums and forgotten rites filling in gaps Kyros left open. Emil focused on physical constraints—armor clearance, choke points, places an ambush would be inevitable.
Rhaegal listened, jaw tight, fingers flexing against one another. Ranna could feel the tension rolling off him, subtle but constant.
Aelys remained silent.
Too silent for her liking.
Ranna noticed the air around her first—not shimmering yet, not flaring, but thickening, like breath held too long in a closed room. The hearthfire guttered, just slightly, as if responding to an unseen draft.
Ranna did not look at her.
She kept her voice even. “If we take the ossuary route, we’ll need rope rated for wet stone. Twice what we think. Pitons that won’t shear if the walls start to shift.”
Kyros nodded. “Agreed.”
“And masks,” Shadowheart added swiftly. “For dust as well as spores and bibberbang. Old bone dust carries lots of lovely surprises you wouldn’t ever want to grace your lungs.”
As the discussion stretched on, the night deepened. The fire burned lower. Outside, the woods creaked as branches shifted in the cooling air.
At some point, Ranna became aware that Aelys’s hands had begun to tremble.
It was subtle—so slight that anyone not watching for it would have missed it entirely. Her fingers curled and uncurled against her sleeve, a slow, restless motion. With each flex, the air bent just enough to catch the light.
Ranna shifted her chair closer, placing herself squarely between Aelys and the others.
“Catacombs mean confined spaces,” she said, deliberately grounding the conversation. “We move single file. No sudden noise. No unneeded magic.”
Aelys’s head lifted slightly.
“No unnecessary magic,” Ranna repeated, her tone unchanged.
Kyros glanced between them but said nothing.
Good, Ranna thought. Let him think it was about discipline.
The letter lay untouched at the center of the table. She looked at it once more, at the final line Minthara had written:
Do not come unprepared. The dark has eyes.
Ranna believed her.
And she was beginning to understand just how much she would have to hold together to make sure the dark didn’t see the wrong thing.
…
The map grew crowded.
Kyros had started with clean lines and careful margins, but as the hours dragged on, the parchment filled with annotations layered atop one another—arrows, cross-hatches, notes written sideways where there was no more room. Ranna watched the order give way to necessity. That, more than the talk of catacombs, made the descent feel real.
“We’re assuming the cult complex is still sealed,” Rhaegal said, tapping one thick finger against a sketched archway. “That’s not a guarantee.”
“No,” Shadowheart agreed. “Seals fail. Or worse, they’re deliberately maintained.”
“By who?” the bard asked.
Shadowheart shrugged. “Anyone who could benefit from what’s buried there, I suppose.
Zagrea folded her arms. “Assume it’s not empty,” she said, “and assume it’s occupied by something, or someone, that doesn’t want visitors.”
Kyros nodded. “That’s already my assumption.”
“Good,” Ranna cut in, “then we plan accordingly.”
They returned to the ossuary route.
Ranna traced it slowly with her finger, stopping at every junction Kyros marked as compromised. “You said this stretch floods seasonally,” she said. “How deep?”
“Waist, at worst,” he answered. “But the floor drops without warning halfway through.”
“So we test every step,” Ranna said. “No rushing. No shortcuts.”
Zagrea snorted. “You’re talking like we’ve got all the time in the world.”
“I’m talking like I want us all alive to meet Minthara,” Ranna retorted.
The thief met her gaze, jaw clenched, then looked away.
Emil leaned forward, elbows on the table. “What about divine interference?” he asked. “The shard already reacts… poorly to holy magic. If the Underdark amplifies that—”
“It will,” Shadowheart said without hesitation. “Faerzress twists everything. Spells behave strangely. Blessings sour. Curses linger.”
Ranna felt Rhaegal tense beside her. She did not look at him.
“We plan for limited magic,” she said carefully. “Especially below the city.”
Aelys’s fingers clenched somehow audibly.
Ranna felt it before she saw it—a faint prickle along her skin, the air thickening again. Not a surge. Not yet. Just pressure.
Aelys’s gaze was fixed on the map, jaw tight. There was a faint sheen of sweat along her hairline, though the room was cool.
She shifted her chair closer still, their knees nearly touching beneath the table. She grounded herself, breathing slow, steady, letting that calm bleed outward.
The pressure eased.
“Food,” Ranna said, redirecting. “What spoils fastest?”
“Anything fresh,” Rhaegal said. “Anything damp.”
“Then we pack dense,” Ranna said. “Hard tack, dried meat, root mash if we can get it. No luxuries.”
Zagrea spoke next. “How many water skins can we bring?”
“Enough for two days,” Kyros said. “After that, we’ll have to source.”
Ranna grimaced. “Then we need filters. Boiling’s not always an option.”
Shadowheart nodded. “And purification charms—carefully used.”
Emil hesitated. “Carefully,” he echoed.
The conversation circled, deepening rather than moving forward. Ranna let it. This was the work. This was where people died if you rushed.
At some point, Rhaegal rubbed at his temples. “We’re assuming the catacombs are structurally sound.”
“We shouldn’t,” Zagrea said immediately.
He gave her a tired look. “We can’t plan for every collapse.”
“No,” the brunette agreed. “But we can plan for one.”
She leaned over the map, marking a narrow section. “Here. If this gives way, what happens?”
Kyros followed her finger. “We’re funneled into a lower passage. Narrow. Hard to retreat.”
“Then we don’t put our most fragile people there,” Ranna suggested.
Silence followed that.
Aelys stilled.
Emil opened his mouth, then closed it.
Kyros studied Ranna for a long moment. “You’re not wrong,” he said carefully. “But we can’t—”
“I’m not assigning blame,” Ranna said. “I’m assigning positions.”
She turned slightly toward Aelys, keeping her voice level. “We stagger. Physical strength on point and rear. Magic centered, buffered.”
Aelys swallowed. “I can—”
Ranna raised a hand, not unkindly. “I know.”
A short silence fell..
Then Kyros nodded slowly. “All right. We’ll stagger.”
Ranna exhaled, slow and quiet. One small victory.
As the night wore on, fatigue began to creep in—not the bone-deep exhaustion of travel, but the sharper edge of mental strain. Arguments dulled. Voices lowered.
The fire guttered again.
This time, the light didn’t return on its own.
Ranna felt the flare of magic a heartbeat before it happened, hot and sharp like static before a storm. The hearth flared bright, flames leaping higher than they should have.
Aelys gasped, hands flying up instinctively.
Ranna was already moving.
Just as soon as her hand touched the tiefling’s chair, the flames settled, dropping back to embers.
No one spoke.
She straightened slowly, placing herself squarely between Aelys and the others.
“Draft,” she said calmly. “Your chimney’s old.”
Kyros did not look convinced.
Shadowheart’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she said nothing.
Emil stared at the fire, jaw clenched.
Aelys’s breathing was shallow, controlled with visible effort.
Ranna sat back down, heart pounding, and forced herself to keep her hands steady.
“I think that’s enough for tonight,” Kyros said finally. “We’ve wrung what we can out of this.”
No one argued.
They gathered their notes, maps rolled and stacked. The letter remained on the table, untouched now, as if it might bite if handled again.
As they rose, Ranna caught Kyros’s eye. He held her gaze for a moment, something unspoken passing between them—acknowledgment, perhaps? Maybe it was a warning.
When the others filtered out, she lingered, pretending to straighten the table.
Aelys hesitated, then followed her.
The hall was quiet now, the house breathing softly around them. Somewhere down the corridor, Callie shifted in her sleep.
Ranna did not speak right away.
She waited until the air felt steady again.
“You’re getting less warning,” she began quietly.
Aelys nodded, eyes downcast. “I know.”
Ranna rested her hands on the table, feeling the solid wood beneath her palms. “Below ground, it will be worse.”
“I… know that, too.”
Ranna closed her eyes briefly. “Then we need solutions. And you’ll need to tell me when it starts.”
Aelys hesitated. “And if I don’t feel it?”
Ranna opened her eyes. “Then we’ll… figure it out.”
Chapter 14: Under Watchful Eyes
Summary:
The servant’s loyalties are tested.
Chapter Text
The whip hung where Ryldeth could see it.
It was not meant to be used—at least, not yet. Dhaunaer had made that clear by leaving it untouched, suspended from a hook of blackened iron near the edge of the chamber. Its presence was deliberate. A reminder. A promise.
Ryldeth kept his eyes lowered as he worked.
The chamber was lit by false light. Crystals embedded in the ceiling pulsed with a soft, bioluminescent glow, casting long shadows that refused to settle. Nothing here was accidental. Not the placement of the furniture, not the number of attendants. Not the way sound carried just far enough to ensure every word could be overheard.
The Matron Mother reclined upon her dais, one long finger idly tracing the arm of her chair. Dhaunaer stood at her right hand, posture loose, eyes bright with a kind of restless anticipation that made Ryldeth’s skin crawl.
She had been getting worse.
That much was impossible to ignore now. Where once Dhaunaer’s cruelty had been sharp and controlled, it had begun to sprawl—indulgent, performative. She smiled too often. Lingered too long over punishments. Asked questions she already knew the answers to, just to hear people stumble.
Ryldeth felt her gaze on him even when she pretended otherwise.
“Again,” Iivarra ordered languidly.
Ryldeth bowed and repeated the inventory report, voice even, hands steady. He had learned long ago that trembling only invited attention. His role here demanded competence, not courage.
Still, he felt it—the pressure behind his eyes, the awareness that every word was being weighed not for truth, but for deference.
When he finished, Iivarra inclined her head slightly. Dismissal.
Ryldeth turned to leave.
“Stay.”
The single word came from Dhaunaer.
Ryldeth halted with one foot half-turned toward the exit, spine straightening by reflex. He did not look at her. Men were not permitted that courtesy unless instructed. He lowered his gaze to the stone at her feet and waited.
Silence followed.
Not the absence of sound—there was always sound in this house—but the deliberate withholding of it. The soft pulse of the crystal lights overhead. The faint scrape of a servant shifting their weight too slowly. The distant drip of water somewhere far below the chamber.
Ryldeth did not move.
He did not speak.
He let the moment stretch, because he could not do anything else.
Bootsteps approached, unhurried.
Dhaunaer circled him once, her presence announced by the faint scent of oil and heat. She took her time, examining him from every angle, as if he were an object newly acquired whose flaws she had not yet catalogued.
“You’ve been industrious as of late,” she said at last.
Ryldeth remained silent.
A pause.
Dhaunaer laughed softly. “Oh. Right. I forgot.” She leaned down slightly, until her chapped lips brushed his ear. “You may speak, boy.”
“As you wish,” Ryldeth said almost automatically, his voice even, eyes still lowered.
She straightened again, displeased that she’d had to grant permission at all.
“Tell me,” Dhaunaer continued, pacing now, restless energy crackling beneath her skin, “what drives a man to ask questions no one asked him to answer?”
Ryldeth measured his response carefully. “Duty, my Lady.”
That earned him a sharp exhale of amusement.
“Is that what you call it?” she asked. “I prefer the term curiosity. And curiosity in men is so often… unbecoming.”
Iivarra reclined upon her seat, one long finger idly tracing the armrest. She had not spoken yet. That, Ryldeth knew, was worse.
“You’ve been walking corridors you don’t normally walk,” Dhaunaer went on. “Lingering near cells you don’t normally linger near. Listening.”
Ryldeth kept his expression neutral. “My duties require persisting awareness, my Lady.”
“Awareness,” Dhaunaer echoed. “Such a flexible word.”
She stopped directly in front of him.
“And who,” she asked lightly, “made you aware that there was something below to be found?”
Ryldeth did not answer immediately.
Not because he was defying her. Because he was choosing what to say.
The difference mattered.
“I… was made aware,” he said finally, “that certain… irregularities existed.”
Dhaunaer tilted her head. “Irregularities.”
“Yes.”
Iivarra’s finger stilled.
“And what sort of irregularities,” the Matron asked softly, “merit attention from one of my boys?”
Ryldeth lowered his head further. “Ones that might reflect poorly on the House, Lady Matron.”
That was true enough to be dangerous.
Dhaunaer’s smile widened. “How thoughtful of you.”
She turned, clapping her hands once.
“Bring him in.”
The guards did not hesitate.
They dragged Nalfett forward from the shadows at the edge of the chamber. The young servant stumbled, nearly losing his footing before catching himself. His tunic was rumpled, one sleeve torn at the shoulder. A dark bruise bloomed along his cheekbone, already swelling.
Ryldeth felt something tighten in his chest.
He did not react.
Nalfett dropped to his knees without being told, head bowed, breath shallow. He did not look at Ryldeth, but Ryldeth could see the tension in his shoulders, the way he was already bracing for pain.
“This one,” Dhaunaer said, gesturing lazily, “has been generous with his encouragements.”
She squatted in front of Nalfett, grasping his chin between two fingers and tilting his face upward.
Nalfett’s breath hitched. He kept his eyes lowered even as she forced his face up, gaze fixed somewhere beyond her shoulder. Sweat slicked his temples.
Dhaunaer examined him with reverent intensity, as though she were appraising an offering laid upon an altar.
“Encouragement,” she repeated softly. “Such a gentle word for something so presumptuous.”
Her thumb traced a small circle at his jaw, lingering just long enough to make him flinch.
“There are things in this House that are carried only by those who have earned the right to bear them,” she said. “And others that are meant to remain buried, lest they draw the wrong kind of attention.”
She released him and stood, turning her gaze toward Ryldeth at last.
“Men who listen too closely,” Dhaunaer continued, voice drifting, “often forget who is meant to hear them.”
Ryldeth remained still, eyes downcast.
“I wonder,” she said, pacing now, “what sort of thoughts begin to take shape when a servant starts pointing out… echoes in the dark. Old names. Old places.”
Her steps stopped directly in front of Ryldeth.
“Tell me,” Dhaunaer said, tone deceptively mild, “do you know what happens to those who mistake curiosity for reverence?”
Ryldeth did not answer.
“Speak.”
“They are… corrected, mistress,” he said hesitantly.
A smile curved her lips. “Yes.”
She turned back to Nalfett.
“This one forgot that reverence is not shared freely,” Dhaunaer said. “It is taught. Carefully. With reminders.”
Nalfett’s hands curled into fists against the stone. “I only meant—”
A guard struck him, driving the air from his lungs. He collapsed forward, catching himself with a choked sound.
Dhaunaer’s expression did not change.
“Silence!” she barked. “Words are for those who understand the weight of them.”
Dhaunaer did not hurry as she crossed the chamber. She pressed the whip’s handle into Ryldeth’s palm with deliberate care, fingers lingering for a heartbeat longer than necessary.
“Show him,” she murmured, “how devotion is maintained.”
Ryldeth’s grip tightened.
The leather was warm.
He bowed his head.
“As you wish… mistress.”
Ryldeth stepped forward.
Stone scraped softly beneath his boots. The sound felt too loud in the chamber, as though even the floor below was paying attention.
Nalfett knelt where he had fallen, shoulders hunched, head bowed so low his forehead nearly touched the stone. His back was already marked from earlier correction—darkened lines visible through torn cloth. He did not look up. He did not beg.
That, Ryldeth knew, was why he was still alive.
Ryldeth positioned himself behind the younger boy and waited.
Waiting was part of it. Always had been. Action without permission was presumption. Presumption was an offense.
Dhaunaer watched him, eyes bright, hands folded loosely at her waist. Iivarra reclined upon the dais, chin resting against her knuckles, expression unreadable.
The whip felt heavier now.
“Slowly,” Dhaunaer said, almost kindly. “There is no lesson in haste.”
“As you wish.” The words were hardly more than a breath. Ryldeth lifted the whip.
He had done this before. Not often. Rarely enough that each time still lodged in his chest like a stone. Enough that his hands knew the motion even as his mind withdrew from it.
He brought the lash down.
The crack echoed sharply through the chamber.
Nalfett cried out despite himself, a broken sound torn from his throat. His body lurched forward, hands scraping uselessly against the stone as the impact landed across his shoulders.
Ryldeth exhaled shakily through his nose.
Again.
The second strike followed the first with measured precision. Not too high, not too low. He aimed where pain would bloom without tearing too deeply into flesh.
Nalfett gasped, breath coming in sharp, uneven bursts now. He rocked forward, then back, trying to keep himself upright.
“Good,” Dhaunaer murmured.
Ryldeth did not look at her.
The whip came down again.
He counted the strikes silently—not because he was ordered to, but because counting gave his mind somewhere to go that was not the sound of leather against skin.
Four.
Five.
By the sixth, Nalfett’s breathing had turned ragged. His hands trembled against the stone, fingers curling and uncurling as though grasping for something that was not there.
“Enough to teach,” Dhaunaer drawled. “Not enough to break.”
Ryldeth hesitated for the briefest fraction of a second.
Not long enough to be considered refusal.
Just long enough to be noticeable.
Iivarra’s breath hitched audibly.
Ryldeth brought the whip down again.
Nalfett screamed.
The sound echoed longer this time, bouncing off crystal and stone, lingering in the air like a stain.
Dhaunaer chuckled softly, delighted.
“Yes,” she said. “That will linger.”
Ryldeth lowered the whip, arm burning, chest tight. He kept his expression carefully neutral, gaze fixed ahead.
“Do you understand now?” Dhaunaer asked Nalfett.
Nalfett nodded frantically, tears streaking down his face. “Yes,” he choked. “Yes. I do.”
“And what do you understand?” she pressed.
“That— that I spoke too freely,” he breathed. “That I forgot my place.”
Dhaunaer crouched again, skirts whispering against the stone. She leaned close, close enough that Ryldeth could see the faint smile curve her lips.
“And who decides your place?”
“The House,” Nalfett whispered.
“And beyond that?”
Nalfett swallowed hard. “You. And the Matron Mother.”
Dhaunaer’s smile widened.
She rose and stepped back, clapping her hands once. “Very good!”
She turned toward Ryldeth.
“You see?” she prompted lightly. “Even the simplest lessons take repetition.”
Ryldeth bowed his head. “Of course, my Lady.”
She took the whip from his hands, coiling it neatly as though it were a sacred implement rather than a tool of pain. She returned it to its hook with reverent care.
“Have him bathed,” Dhaunaer ordered the guards. “Then return him to his duties. I expect no lingering… misunderstandings.”
The guards hauled Nalfett to his feet. He winced, barely able to stand, but he did not resist. As they dragged him toward the exit, his gaze flicked briefly toward Ryldeth.
There was no anger in it. Only understanding.
The chamber felt emptier once he was gone.
Dhaunaer turned her attention fully back to Ryldeth now.
“You,” she began. “Come closer.”
Ryldeth obeyed, stepping forward until he stood directly before her. He lowered his head again, hands clasped behind his back.
“You are valued here,” she said, circling him once more. “That is why this troubles me.”
Ryldeth remained silent.
“Men who serve well,” Dhaunaer continued, “do not go looking for meaning where none was given.”
“Yes, mistress.”
Her fingers brushed his chin, tilting his face upward just enough that she could see his eyes without granting him the offense of meeting hers.
“Tell me,” she said softly, “have you been looking for meaning?”
Ryldeth measured his response carefully. Too quick, and it would seem rehearsed. Too slow, and it would seem evasive.
“I have been carrying out my duties,” he replied.
Dhaunaer studied him for a long moment.
Then she smiled again—sharper this time, seemingly satisfied.
“Good,” she said. “See that you continue to do so.”
She stepped back and inclined her head towards Iivarra.
The Matron rose at last.
Her presence filled the chamber without effort. Dhaunaer fell silent immediately, reverence snapping into place like a blade sliding into its sheath.
“Loyalty,” Iivarra started, her voice calm, measured, “is not proven by zeal alone.”
She descended the steps slowly.
“It is proven by restraint.”
Her gaze settled on Ryldeth.
“You have been… restrained,” she said.
Ryldeth bowed deeply. “Of course, Matron.”
“See that you remain so,” Iivarra finished.
She turned away, dismissal implicit.
Ryldeth did not move until Dhaunaer gestured sharply toward the exit.
“Go,” she said. “And remember what you’ve seen today.”
Ryldeth bowed once more and left the chamber without looking back.
…
He did not know how long he walked.
The corridors of the House blurred together—stone, shadow, torchlight and whispering silk. He kept his pace steady, posture composed, expression carefully blank.
Only when he reached the outer passage near the servants’ wash chambers did he slow.
The sound of hurried footsteps reached him from behind.
“Ryldeth.”
He halted and turned on his heels.
Maydiira stood there, pale hair pulled back tightly, eyes sharp with concern she did not bother to hide. Two attendants hovered behind her, already carrying cloth and water.
“I heard,” she said quietly.
Ryldeth inclined his head. “My Lady.”
Her gaze flicked in the direction Nalfett had been taken.
“Come,” she said swiftly. “You will need to wash before someone decides the blood on your hands should remain.”
But Maydiira did not take him to the wash chambers.
She veered instead down a narrower side passage, one seldom used except by those who knew better than to linger where eyes were thickest. The crystal light here was dimmer, tinged faintly blue, casting long shadows that clung to the walls.
Ryldeth followed without question.
Only when they reached a small alcove set back from the main corridor did she stop. A shallow basin had been carved into the stone there, fed by a thin trickle of water that ran endlessly, quietly, into a grated channel below.
“Wait here,” she said to the attendants.
They hesitated—just for a breath—then bowed and retreated, leaving the two of them alone.
For a moment, neither spoke.
The silence between them was different from the one in the chamber above. Less performative. More fragile.
Maydiira broke it first.
“You didn’t look surprised,” she said, arms folding loosely across her chest. “When he was brought in.”
Ryldeth kept his gaze lowered, as custom demanded, though they were technically out of formal sightlines now. “Surprise would have been… unwise.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she replied.
He glanced up, just enough to meet her eyes briefly before looking away again.
“You knew,” she said quietly. “Didn’t you? That it would come back to him.”
Ryldeth exhaled slowly. “I knew it might.”
“And you let it happen anyway.”
It was not an accusation. Merely a statement.
Ryldeth inclined his head. “I did.”
Maydiira studied him for a long moment, her expression unreadable.
“That was cruel,” she said at last.
“Yes, my Lady.”
“And necessary.”
He did not answer.
She stepped closer to the basin and picked up one of the cloths left there, dipping it into the cool water. She wrung it out slowly, deliberately, as if giving herself time to choose her next words.
“She wanted a reason,” she went on. “You know that.”
“Yes.”
“And she would have found one whether you gave it to her or not.”
“Yes.”
She turned back toward him then, cloth in hand.
“What they don’t know,” Maydiira continued, “is that you are not the only one who’s been listening.”
Ryldeth’s breath caught. Just barely.
He kept his face neutral. “I wouldn’t presume to—”
“Don’t,” she said softly, cutting him off. “Not here.”
She stepped into his space, close enough that her voice did not need to carry.
“You and I,” she whispered, “have been hearing the same echoes.”
Ryldeth felt the weight of that settle into him.
Carefully, deliberately, he replied, “I would not claim knowledge of your pursuits, my Lady.”
Her lips curved faintly. Not quite a smile.
“And yet,” she said, “you went looking anyway.”
Ryldeth met her gaze this time. Held it.
“For the House,” he said.
“For the House,” she echoed.
They stood there for a moment, two figures balanced on opposite sides of a line neither dared cross.
“You were careful,” Maydiira said. “Careful enough that they cannot prove anything. That matters.”
“It didn’t spare him,” Ryldeth said.
“No,” she agreed. “But it kept him alive.”
She reached out and pressed the damp cloth gently against Ryldeth’s hand. He flinched despite himself—not from pain, but from the unexpected tenderness of the gesture.
“You didn’t enjoy that,” she commented.
“…No, my Lady.”
“Good,” she replied quietly. “Then you haven’t lost yourself yet.”
She drew back, folding the cloth again, gaze sharpening.
“They’re watching you more closely now,” she said. “Especially her.”
Ryldeth nodded once.
“And you should stop,” Maydiira added. “At least where they can see.”
“Yes, my Lady.”
Her eyes searched his face.
“That wasn’t an agreement,” she noted.
Ryldeth hesitated.
Then, very carefully, he said, “It was a promise.”
After a moment, she let out a breath that might almost have been a laugh.
“Stubborn,” she murmured. “That’s going to get you killed one day.”
“Likely,” he agreed.
She shook her head, then turned toward the corridor where the attendants waited.
“I’ll see that Nalfett is given lighter duties for a few days,” she said. “No one will question it.”
“Thank you… mistress.”
She paused.
“For what it’s worth,” Maydiira added, not looking at him, “you weren’t wrong to listen.”
Ryldeth felt something loosen in his chest at that.
“Just remember,” she said, glancing back once, “there is more than one way to serve.”
With that, she signaled the attendants forward.
Ryldeth bowed deeply as she passed.
“My Lady.”
She inclined her head in return—a gesture so small it could be dismissed as coincidence by anyone watching.
But Ryldeth saw it.
And he understood.
Ellen (Guest) on Chapter 10 Fri 05 Dec 2025 02:42PM UTC
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___Crazyraede (Guest) on Chapter 12 Sat 13 Dec 2025 06:10PM UTC
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VeronicaDavis on Chapter 14 Mon 15 Dec 2025 08:58PM UTC
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