“How can you defend her?” Ilira cried. “She murdered your betrothed!”
“That was an accident,” he asserted. “She meant to kill—”
“Don’t you see?” Ilira cried. “She’s controlling you! She’s controlled your life since you were a child. She rules you now, though you refuse to see it. She—Yldar!”
The bladesinger had fallen to his knees, clutching his chest. Ilira reached for him, then flinched away as though her touch might kill him. She looked at Fayne’s mother. “Stop it!”
Myrin looked up to see a bloody mass in her mother’s hand. A heart, Myrin knew—Yldar’s heart. She realized Yldar’s attention had waned, and his counterspell with it.
“Flee,” her mother said, “or he dies.”
“Do not do this, Cythara,” Ilira said. “He is your brother. You saw how he—”
“Only that he stood between us,” Fayne’s mother said. “Now you owe him your life—don’t waste his. Flee.”
Myrin heard the imperative—the magical command in that word—but Ilira fought to hold her ground. Myrin saw something move in the shadows behind her—thought she saw a face—but it was only for an instant.
“Flee.” Cythara squeezed the heart in her hand and Yldar, still moaning, screamed loud and long. “I won’t say it again.”
Ilira, tears streaking her face, rose to go. “You win, Cyth.” She turned her back.
Myrin could feel Fayne’s mother smile.
Then she heard a click and felt a sharp slash across her cheek. She screamed in Fayne’s youthful voice and fell. As Fayne fell, Cythara looked down at the crossbow bolt that had sprouted between her breasts. Myrin realized Ilira had fired behind her back, under her cloak.
Blood—bright red blood—trickled from the corner of Cythara’s mouth and she fell.
Something caught Myrin: Ilira had appeared, seemingly from the shadows. Their skin touched and Myrin’s flesh tingled but did not burn, as had Yldar’s. She wanted to speak—Fayne wanted to speak—but the elf only set her down and ran to the bladesinger, who was coughing and trying to sit up.
Myrin looked at Cythara’s corpse. Blood leaked around it—hot, sticky fluid that cooled to tacky sludge. Her open eyes stared. Yldar’s heart had vanished from her hand, and she lay like some stripped, crumpled doll. Abused by the world, humiliated, and discarded like refuse.
Myrin felt hot inside—Fayne burning with anger, crawled to her mother’s body.
Stop, child, came a voice in her head. You cannot.
But she didn’t listen. She drew Cythara’s wand—a shaft of bone—from her mother’s limp hand and turned it toward Ilira’s back. The woman was fussing over Yldar and wouldn’t see the attack.
Stop, Ellyne, commanded the voice—and she knew it was distracted. A battle was going on, somewhere, between the speaker and some shadowy foe. It is too powerful for you.
Myrin leveled the wand and uttered syllables in a language she couldn’t possibly know. But she recognized them, horribly, as the tongue of demons.
“Your worst fear,” she said in those black words. “Your worst fear to unmake you!”
Searing pain swept through her, burning every inch of her body. She fell to her knees and screamed as the horrible power ripped from her and struck the woman she most hated.
And Ilira straightened, back suddenly taut as a wire, and turned toward her. She did not see Myrin, but something between them. Her mouth spread wide in a terrified O.
“No!” she screamed. “No—I don’t need you! I don’t need you!”
Blood trickling down her face, Myrin—Fayne—Ellyne—whoever she was—laughed.
She saw something else, then, behind them—a girl, clad in blue flames.
Myrin.
Herself.
The vision ended as Fayne wrenched herself away from Myrin. Fayne lay shuddering on the floor, her hands pressed to her temples.
“Lady Ilira,” Myrin murmured. “Lady Ilira killed your mother. That’s why you wanted to hurt her. That’s why—”
“What?” Fayne shook her head. “What are you blathering about?”
“I was there—I saw you get cut. Right there.” Myrin looked hard at Fayne’s cheek, and sure enough, a scar faded into existence along the smooth skin.
Mutely, Fayne raised her hand to the scar. Her lip trembled. She was afraid.
Myrin understood what Fayne wanted. More than that, she understood what Fayne was. She saw the depths of her game—saw the darkness in her heart. “What happened to you?”
Fayne shook her head. She pulled a bone shaft from her belt—the wand from the vision, Cythara’s wand—and slid it across her cheek. The scar smoothed out and vanished.
“Whatever you saw, it doesn’t matter,” Fayne said. “It has nothing to do with you.”
“I saw you. Saw what you are. Ah”—Myrin shivered—“what are you?”
Fayne laughed—and in that moment, all the tension went out of her. “Oh, stop it—you’re so cute when you’re scared.” She nuzzled her thumb into Myrin’s cheek.
Despite herself, Myrin had to smile.
“You don’t have anything to worry about.” Fayne traced her fingers down her cheek. “This is one of my rare noble moments.”
“Noble?” Myrin blinked.
“Indeed,” Fayne said. “The very existence of our world is at stake, and you can save it.”
Myrin narrowed her eyes. “How?”
“Simple, my dear,” Fayne said with a smile. “You can die.”
Myrin laughed, but the nervous sound died away. Fayne’s face was mortally serious.
“You … you’re not jesting?”
Fayne shook her head. “No, tragically. Your very existence is a threat to yourself, everyone around you, and perhaps all of Faerûn.”
Myrin was stunned. “But … but I haven’t done anything!”
“No,” Fayne said. “But you will.”
“You … you can’t kill me for something I might do!”
“Will,” said Fayne. “I didn’t say might. Will”
“Tell me what it is!” Myrin said. “I won’t do it—I promise!”
“No. I’m sorry, but it’s inevitable. You can’t stop yourself.” Fayne shook her head sadly. “You might do it by accident, or more likely some villain or other will use you. You come across an archmage or one of the plaguechanged … sooner or later, you will absorb something too powerful for you to control.”
“I don’t understand.” Myrin’s heart was racing. “What do you mean, absorb?”
“Never mind. The point is that the power inside you is simply too dangerous for you to exist,” Fayne said. “Thus, I’m going to take you to someone—someone who can contain you safely, without destroying the city in the process.” She touched Myrin’s cheek, a little more guarded this time, as though fearing another vision. “Don’t worry—you might not have to die.”
Tears were streaming down Myrin’s face. “Why are you saying this? I’m … I’m just a girl. I hardly even have any magic! You can’t possibly …”
“You’re a goddess,” Fayne said.
Myrin’s eyes went so wide they might have popped. “I’m … what?”
“No, no, that was a jest.” Fayne tried to stifle her laughter with her hand. “Honestly, you should have seen your face.” Myrin wasn’t laughing.
Fayne’s expression grew grave once more. “To be accurate, you’ve got a goddess inside you—or, more truly, the death of one,” she said. “Metaphorically speaking, you’re carrying death, little one—the death of the old world. Just like all the other spellscarred. Like Kalen. Like Lady—” Her eyes narrowed. “Like that whore!’
“I—I don’t—what?”
“It’s complicated.” She pursed her lips. “You’re all spellscarred, but you, Myrin, are far more interesting than any of them. Your powers …”
“But what are they?” Myrin almost wept. “What do I do?”
“This is delightful,” Fayne said. “You really don’t
know, do you?”
Myrin shook her head, tears welling in her eyes.
“Very well,” Fayne said. “I’ll tell you, but only because I fancy you well.”
“What?” Myrin choked on the word. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
Fayne bent as though to kiss Myrin, then recoiled, thinking better of it. “Let us begin this way,” she said, catching Myrin by the chin. “You remember the lich, in the alley, when you were kidnapped, yes?”
“Yes, I—but I chased her away. I didn’t—”
“Silly girl.” Fayne batted Myrin across the chin, almost playfully—the way a cat might. “You didn’t honestly think that power was yours, did you?”
Myrin’s lungs heaved and she could barely speak. “I … I don’t understand.”
Then Myrin wept for true—terrified, confused, and frustrated. Had the world gone mad? She was just Myrin—little more than a slip of a girl, with hardly any magic to her name. She wanted her mother—whose face she didn’t even remember. That made her weep more.
“Oh, sweetling, don’t—I’ll be plain, I promise.”
Myrin was crying, and damn it if Fayne was going to stop her with anything less than divine revelation.
Fayne smiled. “Remember when we first met?” she asked. “I fussed over you, then later, you struck me with that spell? The one that hurt me and stripped my strength?”
“What—what of it?” Myrin asked between sobs.
“That was my spell,” Fayne said. “Stolen out of my head.”
The words froze Myrin, and she looked up, stunned.
Fayne raised her hand, murmured a few words, and Myrin felt the same pressure in her mind as she had used to strike Fayne in Kalen’s tallhouse.
Myrin stared, heart hammering, as Fayne knelt and picked up the gag.
“Please,” Myrin said. “Please—I need to know more!”
Fayne scoffed. “Only this,” she said. “Folk never change. Do not forget that.”
“Fayne, plea—!”
Fayne shoved the gag back in Myrin’s mouth with enough force to knock her over. By the time Myrin recovered and looked up, the half-elf was gone.
THIRTY-THREE
The sun dipped outside his window. Dusk fell quickly, and mist flowed into Waterdeep once more. No strange glowing patches would appear that night, though—only calm, expectant fog to shroud the city, hiding the unpleasant things that needed to be done.
The faltering light slanted across the blood-stained floor that Kalen had done his best to clean.
Though Kalen didn’t feel like eating, he forced himself. However much Cellica had spiced it, the cold stew tasted like soggy paper. In part, it was his curse; in part, it was fate.
The dwarf was giving him some time, and he was glad of that much, at least.
He’d taken Cellica to her adoptive family in a hired carriage. They’d accepted the body with tears and sobs. Kalen hadn’t been able to face her adoptive siblings and stood aloof. Philbin, so like a father, had whispered a silent prayer for vengeance. Kalen had nodded silently.
Now, Kalen sat wearing the armor Cellica had repaired, rolling his helm between his gauntleted hand and his bare one. He had only one gauntlet, after that noble stripling had taken his second away. He was supposed to do this alone, weakened, without his full armor or even his sword? Impossible, he thought, and yet, he had no choice.
He looked again at the scroll on the table—the note that had been affixed to his door with a dagger. His dagger, that he had given Myrin the night before.
Shadow,
Rath is making me write this.
Come to the Grim Statue at midnight or he will kill us.
Come alone.
He says he may just kill one of us and maim the other. He says you can pick.
~E
Kalen ran his hand across his grizzled chin, thinking. Why had Rath spared him? And, above that, did Rath know he was Shadowbane?
The dwarf could be toying with him, but Kalen did not think that Rath was the sort to play games with his prey. He must have known Kalen was in the room, helpless and asleep. If he’d known Shadowbane slumbered nearby, he could have slain him easily, or awakened him so they could duel on the spot. And if he didn’t know Kalen was Shadowbane, he would have had no hesitations about killing him in his sleep.
For the life of him, Kalen could not puzzle out why he was still alive.
Then he realized: Fayne.
Fayne must have done something to spare his life. Perhaps she convinced Rath that Kalen knew Shadowbane, and could deliver the letter. Perhaps she begged Rath not to kill him—perhaps she offered him lewd favors in return …
Kalen grimaced and clenched his fist.
Or perhaps he did not owe Fayne his life at all, but owed it rather to Rath himself. The dwarf came from a monastery—he knew great discipline. Perhaps he would have thought slaying a helpless man to be dishonorable. And leaving Cellica to die hadn’t been?
“Twisted sense of honor,” Kalen murmured, but in truth, he was hardly in a position to judge. Would his own code make sense to anyone besides himself?
It had made sense to Cellica, he thought.
He shook his head. Thinking with his heart was a weakness he could ill afford.
Surely Rath would have obtained healing, but likely the scars on his wrist would stop him fighting with his sword hand, or perhaps compromise his technique. That was an advantage for Kalen—a strength. He passed the helmet to his right hand, in its steel gauntlet.
Kalen did not have Vindicator—that was a weakness. He passed the helm to his left hand.
Rolling the helm back to his right hand, Kalen thought he was the stronger—strength.
Rath had proven, though, that his skill more than compensated for Kalen’s strength—weakness. He rolled the helmet to his left.
Kalen wore armor that allowed him mobility—strength.
Rath did not need armor and seemed not to tire, while Kalen had to carry the weight of his leathers—weakness.
Kalen had the threefold god—strength.
They almost matched for speed, but Rath was just enough faster—weakness.
Rath had Fayne and Myrin, while Kalen had no bargaining power—weakness.
Rath had picked the dueling ground—weakness.
And, most important, Kalen was dying of spellplague—weakness.
Kalen was holding the helmet in his unarmored left hand. He hefted it, as though trying to dispel his doubts, then shook his head.
Going into this duel was tantamount to falling on his own blades, but he had to try.
“If I don’t,” he murmured, “then who will?”
The words he had shared with Myrin.
He felt the familiar chill at the base of his neck that told him he was not alone—someone stood just outside his door. Had Rath chosen to kill him by stealth after all?
He lifted his helm and slid it on, fastening the buckles with distinct, if muted, clicks.
Then he was up, dagger in his hand, facing the door. It burst open, as if by cue, and a woman in black coat-of-plate armor stood before him. In her hands was a hand-and-a-half sword that dripped with silver fire.
“Waterdeep Guard!” she cried. He knew her voice.
Araezra.
Shadowbane turned to the window, but a red-haired woman sat on the sill, hands at the hilts of twin knives—Talanna. “Lost your other gauntlet, have you?” she asked. “Shadowbane?”
Kalen pressed his lips firmly together—they would know his voice.
“Down arms and doff your helm,” Araezra commanded. “In the name of the city.”
He looked for another way out. Cellica’s window, perhaps, but that was a small fit. He could try his luck with Araezra, but a dagger would be as nothing against Vindicator. He might escape with a wound, but he could hardly fight Rath while hurt.
“Do it now,” Araezra said. “Down arms and unveil yourself!”
He dropped the dagger, which stabbed into the floorboards, there
to quiver. He made no move to unbuckle his helm.
“You’re making a mistake,” he said as gruffly as he could, to hide his identity. “I’ve done nothing illegal or—”
“The time for masks is past, lad,” said Talanna. She hefted her blades dangerously.
He thought desperately but could find nothing. He nodded.
“Slowly, then,” Araezra said. “Unveil yourself—slowly.”
He put his hands out, showing them empty—his left hand bare, his right hand gauntleted. Then he reached up and opened the clasps of his helm and pulled it off. He watched Araezra’s face and saw the hope in her eyes fade. And with it, his own hopes.
“I knew it!” Talanna clapped the blades of her daggers together and grinned. She looked at Araezra, who grimaced angrily. “I told you, Rayse—didn’t I tell you?”
Kalen blinked. “What?”
“Kalen.” Araezra lowered Vindicator, setting the point against the floor. “I tried so hard to believe it wasn’t you. Even up until I knocked on your door, I thought there would be an explanation.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think you would lie to me, but you did.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You were never supposed to know.”
Araezra’s eyes narrowed. “Never supposed to know? You think me a dullwit, then?”
Kalen blinked.
“All those stories we heard,” Araezra said. “About the gray knight who feels no pain? And the colorless eyes. You think I don’t know your eyes, Kalen? We’ve …”
She looked at Talanna, who grinned. Araezra nodded toward the window, as though directing her out to give them privacy, but Talanna only shrugged, feigning ignorance.
With a scowl, Araezra looked to Kalen. “It was only circumstantial, until that night in Downshadow—when you saved first me, then Tal. We were chasing you, and you came back for us anyway. You didn’t want to be caught, but you didn’t want us hurt. You’re always like that—taking care of us whether we want it or not.”
Kalen looked at the floor. He supposed it was true. “I never meant to offend.”
“And the ball,” said Talanna. She grinned. “Rayse told me about the ball.”
“What about the ball?” Kalen asked. He thought he’d hidden himself well enough there.
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