u/KirisDitex001

Vaelithra moved cautiously through the corridor.

The architecture had changed completely.

Gone were the irregular walls and damp earth of the hidden passage. Here, every block of stone had been cut deliberately. The corridor was narrow, functional, and sparsely illuminated by lamps mounted at measured intervals along the walls.

Her boots touched the floor as quietly as she could manage.

Vaelithra kept one hand near the vials beneath her cloak.

Then she heard voices.

She stopped.

They were somewhere ahead.

Low.

Indistinct.

At least two.

Vaelithra pressed herself closer to the wall.

Her heart pounded against her chest.

This was it.

Everything she had done until now could still have been explained away.

Sneaking through the estate gardens.

Using the hidden passage.

Entering the prison through a forgotten door.

If she turned around now, no one might ever know.

She could retrace her steps, return home, clean the kitchen, gather her severed hair from the floor, and pretend none of this had happened.

Kharun would die in the morning.

Vaelithra closed her eyes.

She inhaled slowly.

The prison air filled her lungs.

For a moment, she imagined she could draw courage from it. Pull strength from the darkness itself and hold it somewhere inside her.

Her heartbeat slowed.

Not much.

Enough.

She opened her eyes.

There was no going back.

Vaelithra continued.

The voices became clearer as she approached the corner.

Two guards.

Possibly three.

She couldn't tell.

Looking would answer the question.

Looking would also give them the opportunity to see her.

Vaelithra stopped before reaching the edge.

Her hand slipped beneath the cloak.

Her fingers found one of the vials.

She carefully pulled it free.

The glass felt impossibly fragile now.

Hours of preparation contained within something she could crush between two fingers.

The compound required exposure to air before the reaction accelerated.

She held her breath.

Then tossed the vial around the corner.

A tiny sound followed.

Glass striking stone.

Breaking.

The conversation stopped.

"What was..."

The voice never finished.

Another guard coughed.

"What in the..."

Silence.

Then came the sound of something heavy striking the floor.

Another impact followed.

Metal scraped against stone.

Vaelithra remained where she was.

A pale vapor began creeping around the corner.

She watched it.

The cloud was thinner than she had expected.

For one terrible instant, doubt seized her.

Had she miscalculated?

Had the compound reacted properly?

Then the vapor reached her.

Vaelithra smelled it.

Sharp.

Mineral.

Slightly bitter.

She had breathed it in.

Her body tensed.

She waited.

One heartbeat.

Two.

Three.

Nothing.

Vaelithra flexed her fingers.

They moved.

She lifted one foot slightly from the floor.

No weakness.

No stiffness.

Her counteragent worked.

Relief nearly escaped her as laughter.

Instead, Vaelithra allowed herself the smallest smile.

"Still got it."

A strained sound came from around the corner.

The smile disappeared.

Vaelithra listened.

Someone was trying to speak.

The attempt produced little more than a muffled noise.

Another followed.

The guards were conscious.

Exactly as intended.

Their muscles simply refused to obey them.

Vaelithra pulled her hood farther over her face.

Then she stepped around the corner.

Two guards lay on the floor.

One had fallen against the wall before sliding down it. The other lay partially on his side where his legs had collapsed beneath him.

Their eyes moved.

Nothing else did.

Vaelithra stopped.

She looked at them carefully.

Breathing.

Both of them.

Good.

The nearest guard's eyes locked onto her hooded form.

Fear appeared there.

Vaelithra felt an unexpected pang of guilt.

They had done nothing wrong.

They were guarding a prison.

Following orders.

Tonight, that happened to place them between her and Kharun.

"I'm sorry," Vaelithra whispered.

The guard could not answer.

She stepped around him.

Then stopped.

Vaelithra crouched briefly and adjusted his position enough to ensure his breathing remained unobstructed.

Temporary.

That was what mattered.

They would recover.

By then, she intended to be gone.

Vaelithra rose.

She continued down the corridor.

The vapor followed weakly behind her before gradually dispersing.

She passed through another door.

Vaelithra closed it quietly.

Only then did she allow herself to breathe normally again.

One checkpoint.

She had made it through.

Her hand moved beneath the cloak.

She counted the remaining vials by touch.

Enough.

Ahead lay another checkpoint.

Beyond that...

The prison blocks.

Kharun.

Vaelithra tightened the cloak around herself.

One more.

Then she would reach him.

 

Vaelithra descended until the last trace of the garden vanished above her.

The passage narrowed as she continued.

Her pace slowed.

She remembered this place being unpleasant, but she had forgotten just how closely it resembled the natural caves that spread throughout the Underdark.

The walls were rough and unfinished. Unlike the carefully cut stone of the manor above, little effort had been made to disguise the passage's natural origins. Portions had been widened by hand where necessary, but elsewhere the builders had simply incorporated the existing cavern into their design.

Moisture gathered along the walls.

The air smelled of damp earth and old stone.

Vaelithra stepped carefully.

She had not been through this passage in decades.

At first, that concerned her.

Then the memories began returning.

A bend ahead.

A gradual descent.

Another turn.

There should be a narrow section after that.

There was.

Vaelithra almost smiled.

Her father had shown her these passages when she was younger. Not all at once. Some she had discovered herself and later learned he already knew about. Others he had deliberately taught her in case the manor ever came under attack.

At the time, she had treated them as another opportunity for exploration.

Now one of those childhood lessons might save Kharun's life.

Vaelithra continued.

The passage curved again.

She remembered what came next.

A door.

Sure enough, she could see it ahead.

Vaelithra approached.

Then stopped.

Something was different.

Her eyes lowered.

A crack had formed across the stone floor.

It was narrow near the wall but widened toward the center of the passage before disappearing beneath the opposite side.

That had not been there before.

Vaelithra crouched slightly.

Age, perhaps.

The Underdark was never truly still. Stone shifted. Caverns settled. Water found new paths through rock that had remained dry for centuries.

She stepped closer.

Something moved inside the crack.

Vaelithra froze.

A small shape suddenly emerged.

She nearly jumped backward.

A rat scrambled out of the opening.

Vaelithra pressed herself against the wall.

"Oh, absolutely not."

The rat stopped.

So did Vaelithra.

For one ridiculous moment, drow aristocrat and Underdark rat stared at one another.

Vaelithra had faced warriors twice her size.

She had stood in battles surrounded by blood and steel.

She had ridden through parts of the Underdark where creatures considerably larger than horses hunted anything foolish enough to enter their territory.

Rats were different.

She hated rats.

The creature twitched its nose.

"Go."

It did not go.

Vaelithra narrowed her eyes.

"Go."

The rat finally scurried across the passage and disappeared into another opening along the wall.

Vaelithra remained pressed against the stone for several seconds.

She looked toward where it had vanished.

Then cautiously stepped away.

Disgusting little things.

Rats were hardly unusual in the Underdark. Anywhere people stored food, rats eventually followed.

Her thoughts drifted unexpectedly.

Kharun.

She remembered the first rat she had seen in her residence.

Not long after he had arrived.

Vaelithra had made her opinion of the creature extremely clear.

Apparently, Kharun had remembered.

Keeping them out of the house had become one of his standing duties.

She couldn't remember ever formally assigning it.

She had simply expected never to see another one.

And somehow, for twenty years, she hadn't.

Not once.

Vaelithra looked back toward the crack.

Twenty years.

She had never thought about that either.

How many little things had Kharun quietly removed from her life before she ever needed to notice them?

Problems solved before she knew they existed.

Supplies replaced before they ran out.

Equipment repaired before she asked.

A horse prepared before she reached the stable.

A fire already burning when she wanted warmth.

Rats she never saw.

Vaelithra swallowed.

"Kharun."

The name escaped quietly.

Enough.

He was still somewhere below.

She had to reach him.

Vaelithra continued toward the door.

The humor of the encounter disappeared as quickly as it had come.

Her hand moved beneath the cloak.

The paralysis vials were still there.

So was Kharun's counteragent.

She stopped before the door.

This was where familiarity stopped being enough.

Beyond it, the hidden passage began intersecting with the functional lower levels of the estate.

There could be someone on the other side.

Vaelithra leaned forward.

She pressed one pointed ear against the cold surface.

Nothing.

She waited.

Her breathing sounded too loud.

Vaelithra slowed it deliberately.

Still nothing.

No footsteps.

No conversation.

No scrape of armor against stone.

Several more seconds passed.

Silence.

Her fingers closed around the handle.

Slowly.

She turned it.

The mechanism moved with a faint click.

Vaelithra stopped.

Listened again.

Nothing.

She opened the door just enough to look through.

Darkness.

An empty corridor.

Vaelithra widened the opening.

She slipped through.

Then quietly pulled the door closed behind her.

For the first time that night, the secret passages were behind her.

From here onward, she was inside the prison.

 

Vaelithra descended until the last trace of the garden vanished above her.

The passage narrowed as she continued.

Her pace slowed.

She remembered this place being unpleasant, but she had forgotten just how closely it resembled the natural caves that spread throughout the Underdark.

The walls were rough and unfinished. Unlike the carefully cut stone of the manor above, little effort had been made to disguise the passage's natural origins. Portions had been widened by hand where necessary, but elsewhere the builders had simply incorporated the existing cavern into their design.

Moisture gathered along the walls.

The air smelled of damp earth and old stone.

Vaelithra stepped carefully.

She had not been through this passage in decades.

At first, that concerned her.

Then the memories began returning.

A bend ahead.

A gradual descent.

Another turn.

There should be a narrow section after that.

There was.

Vaelithra almost smiled.

Her father had shown her these passages when she was younger. Not all at once. Some she had discovered herself and later learned he already knew about. Others he had deliberately taught her in case the manor ever came under attack.

At the time, she had treated them as another opportunity for exploration.

Now one of those childhood lessons might save Kharun's life.

Vaelithra continued.

The passage curved again.

She remembered what came next.

A door.

Sure enough, she could see it ahead.

Vaelithra approached.

Then stopped.

Something was different.

Her eyes lowered.

A crack had formed across the stone floor.

It was narrow near the wall but widened toward the center of the passage before disappearing beneath the opposite side.

That had not been there before.

Vaelithra crouched slightly.

Age, perhaps.

The Underdark was never truly still. Stone shifted. Caverns settled. Water found new paths through rock that had remained dry for centuries.

She stepped closer.

Something moved inside the crack.

Vaelithra froze.

A small shape suddenly emerged.

She nearly jumped backward.

A rat scrambled out of the opening.

Vaelithra pressed herself against the wall.

"Oh, absolutely not."

The rat stopped.

So did Vaelithra.

For one ridiculous moment, drow aristocrat and Underdark rat stared at one another.

Vaelithra had faced warriors twice her size.

She had stood in battles surrounded by blood and steel.

She had ridden through parts of the Underdark where creatures considerably larger than horses hunted anything foolish enough to enter their territory.

Rats were different.

She hated rats.

The creature twitched its nose.

"Go."

It did not go.

Vaelithra narrowed her eyes.

"Go."

The rat finally scurried across the passage and disappeared into another opening along the wall.

Vaelithra remained pressed against the stone for several seconds.

She looked toward where it had vanished.

Then cautiously stepped away.

Disgusting little things.

Rats were hardly unusual in the Underdark. Anywhere people stored food, rats eventually followed.

Her thoughts drifted unexpectedly.

Kharun.

She remembered the first rat she had seen in her residence.

Not long after he had arrived.

Vaelithra had made her opinion of the creature extremely clear.

Apparently, Kharun had remembered.

Keeping them out of the house had become one of his standing duties.

She couldn't remember ever formally assigning it.

She had simply expected never to see another one.

And somehow, for twenty years, she hadn't.

Not once.

Vaelithra looked back toward the crack.

Twenty years.

She had never thought about that either.

How many little things had Kharun quietly removed from her life before she ever needed to notice them?

Problems solved before she knew they existed.

Supplies replaced before they ran out.

Equipment repaired before she asked.

A horse prepared before she reached the stable.

A fire already burning when she wanted warmth.

Rats she never saw.

Vaelithra swallowed.

"Kharun."

The name escaped quietly.

Enough.

He was still somewhere below.

She had to reach him.

Vaelithra continued toward the door.

The humor of the encounter disappeared as quickly as it had come.

Her hand moved beneath the cloak.

The paralysis vials were still there.

So was Kharun's counteragent.

She stopped before the door.

This was where familiarity stopped being enough.

Beyond it, the hidden passage began intersecting with the functional lower levels of the estate.

There could be someone on the other side.

Vaelithra leaned forward.

She pressed one pointed ear against the cold surface.

Nothing.

She waited.

Her breathing sounded too loud.

Vaelithra slowed it deliberately.

Still nothing.

No footsteps.

No conversation.

No scrape of armor against stone.

Several more seconds passed.

Silence.

Her fingers closed around the handle.

Slowly.

She turned it.

The mechanism moved with a faint click.

Vaelithra stopped.

Listened again.

Nothing.

She opened the door just enough to look through.

Darkness.

An empty corridor.

Vaelithra widened the opening.

She slipped through.

Then quietly pulled the door closed behind her.

For the first time that night, the secret passages were behind her.

From here onward, she was inside the prison.

 

Vaelithra moved quickly through the streets.

The gray cloak concealed most of her figure, its hood pulled forward enough to hide the silver-white hair that would have made her immediately recognizable.

At this hour, the settlement was nearly deserted.

A pair of figures moved along a distant street, their voices too faint for Vaelithra to distinguish. Somewhere farther away, someone closed a door. The sound echoed briefly between the stone buildings before silence reclaimed the street.

Vaelithra kept moving.

Every minute mattered.

Her father's manor soon came into view.

She slowed as she approached the estate grounds and stopped where the surrounding architecture provided enough shadow to observe without immediately being noticed.

The main entrance was visible from there.

Light burned beyond several windows. Guards stood near the entrance while others followed familiar patrol routes around the grounds.

Vaelithra watched them.

She could simply walk through the front door.

No one would stop her.

This had been her home for decades. The guards knew her. The servants knew her. Even at this hour, Lady Vaelithra returning to her father's manor would hardly warrant suspicion.

That was precisely the problem.

Someone would see her.

Someone would remember.

And once she began moving toward the lower levels, questions would follow.

She did not have the luxury of taking the easy road tonight.

Fortunately, this house had been hers long before the residence she had just left behind.

Vaelithra knew it.

Not merely the chambers and corridors visible to guests and servants.

She knew what lay behind the walls.

Passages constructed generations earlier threaded through portions of the manor. Some had been intended as escape routes. Others allowed members of the ruling family to move through the estate without being observed.

A few had been sealed.

Others had simply been forgotten.

And several were known only to Vaelithra and her father.

One of them would take her exactly where she needed to go.

Vaelithra watched the nearest patrol.

Two guards.

She knew the route.

They passed beneath an archway, continued along the eastern wall, and disappeared around the corner.

Vaelithra moved.

She crossed the open space quickly and slipped behind a stone partition before the next patrol could round the far side of the estate.

Her heart beat harder.

Not from exertion.

She had sneaked through these grounds before.

Many times, actually.

Usually for reasons her father would have considered profoundly irritating.

This was different.

If she were discovered tonight, she could not smile, invent an excuse, and rely upon being the Matron Mother's granddaughter to make the inconvenience disappear.

Vaelithra waited.

Footsteps approached.

She pressed closer to the stone.

Two guards passed within several paces of her hiding place.

Neither looked toward her.

Their footsteps receded.

Vaelithra continued.

The gardens lay ahead.

Even now, despite everything occupying her thoughts, the sight of them caught her attention.

Soft light spread through the darkness.

Bioluminescent plants filled carefully cultivated beds between winding stone paths. Pale blue fronds unfolded beneath broad translucent leaves. Clusters of tiny violet flowers glimmered near the ground. Taller plants produced gentle green illumination from veins running through their leaves.

The Underdark was often described by those who had never lived within it as a world without light.

Vaelithra had always found that amusing.

There was light everywhere.

It simply wasn't sunlight.

Much of the flora that survived in the depths had adapted to darkness in remarkable ways. Some produced their own illumination. Others reflected the glow of nearby fungi or mineral formations.

Vaelithra had seen plants from the surface.

Many were beautiful.

Some spectacularly so.

Yet there were nights when she believed nothing beneath the open sky could rival an Underdark garden glowing quietly beneath a ceiling of stone.

Ordinarily, she would have slowed.

Tonight she barely spared it a glance.

Another patrol approached.

Vaelithra slipped behind a cluster of tall luminous leaves.

The glow painted faint blue patterns across her cloak.

She waited.

A guard passed along the path.

Then another.

Neither noticed her.

Vaelithra emerged.

She crossed the garden quickly and left the main path.

The plants grew denser here.

That was deliberate.

Her father had ensured the entrance remained concealed even from those who tended the grounds.

Vaelithra counted her steps.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

She turned.

There.

A broad stone slab rested among the vegetation.

Nothing distinguished it from the surrounding landscaping. Moss covered portions of its surface. Small luminous growths had begun creeping along one edge.

Anyone else would have walked past it.

Vaelithra crouched.

Her fingers found the concealed groove beneath the stone.

She stopped.

Not yet.

Her hand moved beneath the cloak.

The vials rested securely against her body.

Vaelithra selected one of the two containing the protective mixture.

Her dose.

Kharun's remained untouched.

She pulled the cork free.

The smell struck immediately.

Vaelithra recoiled.

"Oh, gods."

She held the vial farther from her nose.

Apparently several years away from regular alchemical practice had done nothing to improve her talent for making compounds palatable.

The odor was sour and medicinal, with something bitter underneath it that she couldn't identify despite having put the ingredients together herself.

She stared at the vial.

Had she possessed another hour, she could have improved this.

A little flavoring.

Something aromatic.

Anything.

Too late for that now.

Vaelithra brought the vial to her lips.

She drank.

Regret came immediately.

Her face tightened.

The taste was somehow worse than the smell.

Sourness overwhelmed her tongue first, followed by a bitter aftertaste that reminded her unpleasantly of a human beverage she had once tried on the surface.

Beer.

That was it.

Cheap human beer left too long in a warm barrel.

Vaelithra swallowed.

Her stomach protested.

She forced down another mouthful.

For one horrifying instant, she thought the mixture might come straight back up.

She covered her mouth.

Waited.

Swallowed again.

"Absolutely vile," she whispered.

One final mouthful remained.

Vaelithra glared at it as though the liquid had personally offended her.

Then she finished it.

Her entire body seemed to reject the experience.

She coughed once and fought the urge to gag.

The empty vial remained in her hand.

Vaelithra wiped the back of her wrist across her mouth, removing a trace of the foul liquid from her lower lip.

If she survived tonight, she was reformulating that mixture.

Preferably into something that didn't taste like punishment.

She tossed the empty vial into the vegetation.

Then her expression hardened.

Enough.

The counteragent was inside her.

The paralysis vapor could no longer affect her for the next several hours.

Vaelithra turned back toward the stone.

Her fingers entered the hidden groove.

She pulled.

The slab shifted.

Slowly at first.

Then enough for darkness to appear beneath it.

Cold air rose from below.

Vaelithra looked once toward the manor.

No alarm.

No voices.

No one running toward the garden.

She opened the passage farther.

Stone steps descended into darkness.

Vaelithra slipped through.

Her boots found the first step.

Then the second.

She reached upward and pulled the slab back into place.

The glowing garden narrowed to a thin line above her.

Then disappeared.

Darkness surrounded her.

Vaelithra remained still for a moment.

The manor was above.

The prison was below.

And somewhere beneath her feet was Kharun.

She pulled her cloak closer and began descending.

 

Vaelithra moved quickly through the streets.

The gray cloak concealed most of her figure, its hood pulled forward enough to hide the silver-white hair that would have made her immediately recognizable.

At this hour, the settlement was nearly deserted.

A pair of figures moved along a distant street, their voices too faint for Vaelithra to distinguish. Somewhere farther away, someone closed a door. The sound echoed briefly between the stone buildings before silence reclaimed the street.

Vaelithra kept moving.

Every minute mattered.

Her father's manor soon came into view.

She slowed as she approached the estate grounds and stopped where the surrounding architecture provided enough shadow to observe without immediately being noticed.

The main entrance was visible from there.

Light burned beyond several windows. Guards stood near the entrance while others followed familiar patrol routes around the grounds.

Vaelithra watched them.

She could simply walk through the front door.

No one would stop her.

This had been her home for decades. The guards knew her. The servants knew her. Even at this hour, Lady Vaelithra returning to her father's manor would hardly warrant suspicion.

That was precisely the problem.

Someone would see her.

Someone would remember.

And once she began moving toward the lower levels, questions would follow.

She did not have the luxury of taking the easy road tonight.

Fortunately, this house had been hers long before the residence she had just left behind.

Vaelithra knew it.

Not merely the chambers and corridors visible to guests and servants.

She knew what lay behind the walls.

Passages constructed generations earlier threaded through portions of the manor. Some had been intended as escape routes. Others allowed members of the ruling family to move through the estate without being observed.

A few had been sealed.

Others had simply been forgotten.

And several were known only to Vaelithra and her father.

One of them would take her exactly where she needed to go.

Vaelithra watched the nearest patrol.

Two guards.

She knew the route.

They passed beneath an archway, continued along the eastern wall, and disappeared around the corner.

Vaelithra moved.

She crossed the open space quickly and slipped behind a stone partition before the next patrol could round the far side of the estate.

Her heart beat harder.

Not from exertion.

She had sneaked through these grounds before.

Many times, actually.

Usually for reasons her father would have considered profoundly irritating.

This was different.

If she were discovered tonight, she could not smile, invent an excuse, and rely upon being the Matron Mother's granddaughter to make the inconvenience disappear.

Vaelithra waited.

Footsteps approached.

She pressed closer to the stone.

Two guards passed within several paces of her hiding place.

Neither looked toward her.

Their footsteps receded.

Vaelithra continued.

The gardens lay ahead.

Even now, despite everything occupying her thoughts, the sight of them caught her attention.

Soft light spread through the darkness.

Bioluminescent plants filled carefully cultivated beds between winding stone paths. Pale blue fronds unfolded beneath broad translucent leaves. Clusters of tiny violet flowers glimmered near the ground. Taller plants produced gentle green illumination from veins running through their leaves.

The Underdark was often described by those who had never lived within it as a world without light.

Vaelithra had always found that amusing.

There was light everywhere.

It simply wasn't sunlight.

Much of the flora that survived in the depths had adapted to darkness in remarkable ways. Some produced their own illumination. Others reflected the glow of nearby fungi or mineral formations.

Vaelithra had seen plants from the surface.

Many were beautiful.

Some spectacularly so.

Yet there were nights when she believed nothing beneath the open sky could rival an Underdark garden glowing quietly beneath a ceiling of stone.

Ordinarily, she would have slowed.

Tonight she barely spared it a glance.

Another patrol approached.

Vaelithra slipped behind a cluster of tall luminous leaves.

The glow painted faint blue patterns across her cloak.

She waited.

A guard passed along the path.

Then another.

Neither noticed her.

Vaelithra emerged.

She crossed the garden quickly and left the main path.

The plants grew denser here.

That was deliberate.

Her father had ensured the entrance remained concealed even from those who tended the grounds.

Vaelithra counted her steps.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

She turned.

There.

A broad stone slab rested among the vegetation.

Nothing distinguished it from the surrounding landscaping. Moss covered portions of its surface. Small luminous growths had begun creeping along one edge.

Anyone else would have walked past it.

Vaelithra crouched.

Her fingers found the concealed groove beneath the stone.

She stopped.

Not yet.

Her hand moved beneath the cloak.

The vials rested securely against her body.

Vaelithra selected one of the two containing the protective mixture.

Her dose.

Kharun's remained untouched.

She pulled the cork free.

The smell struck immediately.

Vaelithra recoiled.

"Oh, gods."

She held the vial farther from her nose.

Apparently several years away from regular alchemical practice had done nothing to improve her talent for making compounds palatable.

The odor was sour and medicinal, with something bitter underneath it that she couldn't identify despite having put the ingredients together herself.

She stared at the vial.

Had she possessed another hour, she could have improved this.

A little flavoring.

Something aromatic.

Anything.

Too late for that now.

Vaelithra brought the vial to her lips.

She drank.

Regret came immediately.

Her face tightened.

The taste was somehow worse than the smell.

Sourness overwhelmed her tongue first, followed by a bitter aftertaste that reminded her unpleasantly of a human beverage she had once tried on the surface.

Beer.

That was it.

Cheap human beer left too long in a warm barrel.

Vaelithra swallowed.

Her stomach protested.

She forced down another mouthful.

For one horrifying instant, she thought the mixture might come straight back up.

She covered her mouth.

Waited.

Swallowed again.

"Absolutely vile," she whispered.

One final mouthful remained.

Vaelithra glared at it as though the liquid had personally offended her.

Then she finished it.

Her entire body seemed to reject the experience.

She coughed once and fought the urge to gag.

The empty vial remained in her hand.

Vaelithra wiped the back of her wrist across her mouth, removing a trace of the foul liquid from her lower lip.

If she survived tonight, she was reformulating that mixture.

Preferably into something that didn't taste like punishment.

She tossed the empty vial into the vegetation.

Then her expression hardened.

Enough.

The counteragent was inside her.

The paralysis vapor could no longer affect her for the next several hours.

Vaelithra turned back toward the stone.

Her fingers entered the hidden groove.

She pulled.

The slab shifted.

Slowly at first.

Then enough for darkness to appear beneath it.

Cold air rose from below.

Vaelithra looked once toward the manor.

No alarm.

No voices.

No one running toward the garden.

She opened the passage farther.

Stone steps descended into darkness.

Vaelithra slipped through.

Her boots found the first step.

Then the second.

She reached upward and pulled the slab back into place.

The glowing garden narrowed to a thin line above her.

Then disappeared.

Darkness surrounded her.

Vaelithra remained still for a moment.

The manor was above.

The prison was below.

And somewhere beneath her feet was Kharun.

She pulled her cloak closer and began descending.

 

Vaelithra moved quickly through the streets.

The gray cloak concealed most of her figure, its hood pulled forward enough to hide the silver-white hair that would have made her immediately recognizable.

At this hour, the settlement was nearly deserted.

A pair of figures moved along a distant street, their voices too faint for Vaelithra to distinguish. Somewhere farther away, someone closed a door. The sound echoed briefly between the stone buildings before silence reclaimed the street.

Vaelithra kept moving.

Every minute mattered.

Her father's manor soon came into view.

She slowed as she approached the estate grounds and stopped where the surrounding architecture provided enough shadow to observe without immediately being noticed.

The main entrance was visible from there.

Light burned beyond several windows. Guards stood near the entrance while others followed familiar patrol routes around the grounds.

Vaelithra watched them.

She could simply walk through the front door.

No one would stop her.

This had been her home for decades. The guards knew her. The servants knew her. Even at this hour, Lady Vaelithra returning to her father's manor would hardly warrant suspicion.

That was precisely the problem.

Someone would see her.

Someone would remember.

And once she began moving toward the lower levels, questions would follow.

She did not have the luxury of taking the easy road tonight.

Fortunately, this house had been hers long before the residence she had just left behind.

Vaelithra knew it.

Not merely the chambers and corridors visible to guests and servants.

She knew what lay behind the walls.

Passages constructed generations earlier threaded through portions of the manor. Some had been intended as escape routes. Others allowed members of the ruling family to move through the estate without being observed.

A few had been sealed.

Others had simply been forgotten.

And several were known only to Vaelithra and her father.

One of them would take her exactly where she needed to go.

Vaelithra watched the nearest patrol.

Two guards.

She knew the route.

They passed beneath an archway, continued along the eastern wall, and disappeared around the corner.

Vaelithra moved.

She crossed the open space quickly and slipped behind a stone partition before the next patrol could round the far side of the estate.

Her heart beat harder.

Not from exertion.

She had sneaked through these grounds before.

Many times, actually.

Usually for reasons her father would have considered profoundly irritating.

This was different.

If she were discovered tonight, she could not smile, invent an excuse, and rely upon being the Matron Mother's granddaughter to make the inconvenience disappear.

Vaelithra waited.

Footsteps approached.

She pressed closer to the stone.

Two guards passed within several paces of her hiding place.

Neither looked toward her.

Their footsteps receded.

Vaelithra continued.

The gardens lay ahead.

Even now, despite everything occupying her thoughts, the sight of them caught her attention.

Soft light spread through the darkness.

Bioluminescent plants filled carefully cultivated beds between winding stone paths. Pale blue fronds unfolded beneath broad translucent leaves. Clusters of tiny violet flowers glimmered near the ground. Taller plants produced gentle green illumination from veins running through their leaves.

The Underdark was often described by those who had never lived within it as a world without light.

Vaelithra had always found that amusing.

There was light everywhere.

It simply wasn't sunlight.

Much of the flora that survived in the depths had adapted to darkness in remarkable ways. Some produced their own illumination. Others reflected the glow of nearby fungi or mineral formations.

Vaelithra had seen plants from the surface.

Many were beautiful.

Some spectacularly so.

Yet there were nights when she believed nothing beneath the open sky could rival an Underdark garden glowing quietly beneath a ceiling of stone.

Ordinarily, she would have slowed.

Tonight she barely spared it a glance.

Another patrol approached.

Vaelithra slipped behind a cluster of tall luminous leaves.

The glow painted faint blue patterns across her cloak.

She waited.

A guard passed along the path.

Then another.

Neither noticed her.

Vaelithra emerged.

She crossed the garden quickly and left the main path.

The plants grew denser here.

That was deliberate.

Her father had ensured the entrance remained concealed even from those who tended the grounds.

Vaelithra counted her steps.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

She turned.

There.

A broad stone slab rested among the vegetation.

Nothing distinguished it from the surrounding landscaping. Moss covered portions of its surface. Small luminous growths had begun creeping along one edge.

Anyone else would have walked past it.

Vaelithra crouched.

Her fingers found the concealed groove beneath the stone.

She stopped.

Not yet.

Her hand moved beneath the cloak.

The vials rested securely against her body.

Vaelithra selected one of the two containing the protective mixture.

Her dose.

Kharun's remained untouched.

She pulled the cork free.

The smell struck immediately.

Vaelithra recoiled.

"Oh, gods."

She held the vial farther from her nose.

Apparently several years away from regular alchemical practice had done nothing to improve her talent for making compounds palatable.

The odor was sour and medicinal, with something bitter underneath it that she couldn't identify despite having put the ingredients together herself.

She stared at the vial.

Had she possessed another hour, she could have improved this.

A little flavoring.

Something aromatic.

Anything.

Too late for that now.

Vaelithra brought the vial to her lips.

She drank.

Regret came immediately.

Her face tightened.

The taste was somehow worse than the smell.

Sourness overwhelmed her tongue first, followed by a bitter aftertaste that reminded her unpleasantly of a human beverage she had once tried on the surface.

Beer.

That was it.

Cheap human beer left too long in a warm barrel.

Vaelithra swallowed.

Her stomach protested.

She forced down another mouthful.

For one horrifying instant, she thought the mixture might come straight back up.

She covered her mouth.

Waited.

Swallowed again.

"Absolutely vile," she whispered.

One final mouthful remained.

Vaelithra glared at it as though the liquid had personally offended her.

Then she finished it.

Her entire body seemed to reject the experience.

She coughed once and fought the urge to gag.

The empty vial remained in her hand.

Vaelithra wiped the back of her wrist across her mouth, removing a trace of the foul liquid from her lower lip.

If she survived tonight, she was reformulating that mixture.

Preferably into something that didn't taste like punishment.

She tossed the empty vial into the vegetation.

Then her expression hardened.

Enough.

The counteragent was inside her.

The paralysis vapor could no longer affect her for the next several hours.

Vaelithra turned back toward the stone.

Her fingers entered the hidden groove.

She pulled.

The slab shifted.

Slowly at first.

Then enough for darkness to appear beneath it.

Cold air rose from below.

Vaelithra looked once toward the manor.

No alarm.

No voices.

No one running toward the garden.

She opened the passage farther.

Stone steps descended into darkness.

Vaelithra slipped through.

Her boots found the first step.

Then the second.

She reached upward and pulled the slab back into place.

The glowing garden narrowed to a thin line above her.

Then disappeared.

Darkness surrounded her.

Vaelithra remained still for a moment.

The manor was above.

The prison was below.

And somewhere beneath her feet was Kharun.

She pulled her cloak closer and began descending.

 

Hours passed.

Vaelithra's father never came.

She noticed sometime during the evening, though by then she had stopped expecting him. He had said they would speak later. Under ordinary circumstances, she might have been irritated by his failure to appear.

Tonight, she barely cared.

He was a busy man.

The events at breakfast had undoubtedly created problems he had not expected to spend the day resolving. A noble had been struck beneath his roof. A servant had confessed. An execution had been demanded in front of witnesses. Somewhere among all of that, his promise to speak with his daughter had probably slipped from his mind.

Perhaps that was fortunate.

Vaelithra had no intention of telling him what she was doing.

The final mixture simmered over the burner.

She leaned closer to examine it, watching tiny bubbles break against the surface.

Almost ready.

Vaelithra glanced toward the clock.

Nearly midnight.

Her stomach tightened.

Less than eight hours.

By morning, the executioner would return.

By morning, Kharun could be dead.

The thought was no longer abstract.

There were hours now.

Minutes.

A finite amount of time remained between the present and a world in which Kharun no longer existed.

Vaelithra turned away from the clock.

She refused to imagine it.

The kitchen looked as though an alchemical workshop had exploded across it.

Bottles covered the counter. Stoppered vials stood in uneven rows among measuring instruments, discarded ingredients, stained cloths, and open containers. Powder dusted portions of the work surface. Several vessels waited to be cleaned.

Kharun would have hated the mess.

The thought appeared without invitation.

Vaelithra almost smiled.

He would already have begun cleaning around her while she worked, quietly moving anything she no longer needed and somehow knowing precisely what he could touch without disrupting whatever she was doing.

Her expression faded.

"Kharun."

She looked at the clock again.

No more distractions.

Her original idea had been a sleeping compound.

That had failed almost immediately.

She lacked two of the ingredients necessary to produce one potent enough to incapacitate several guards quickly. Substitutions were possible, but substitutions introduced uncertainty.

Tonight was not the night for uncertain chemistry.

So she had changed her approach.

Paralysis.

That she could make.

The finished vials rested nearby.

Each contained a carefully prepared compound that remained stable while sealed. Once exposed to open air, the mixture would react rapidly and produce a dense vapor. Anyone caught within its effective radius would lose voluntary control of their muscles for a short period.

Temporary.

Unpleasant.

But harmless if she had prepared it correctly.

Vaelithra intended to make absolutely certain that she had.

There was only one problem.

The vapor did not care who inhaled it.

Which was why another mixture currently simmered over the burner.

Protection.

She had prepared enough for two doses.

One for herself.

One for Kharun.

Vaelithra checked the mixture once more.

Still a little longer.

She left the kitchen.

Her clothing from breakfast had long since become inappropriate for what she intended to do.

Vaelithra changed quickly.

Black leather replaced aristocratic finery. The clothing fit closely enough that nothing loose could catch against a doorway or betray her movement unnecessarily. Over it, she secured a sash-style holster designed to carry small containers close against her body.

She tested the fit.

Then adjusted it.

The vials needed to remain secure.

One broken against her body before she had taken the protective mixture could end her rescue attempt rather embarrassingly.

Vaelithra looked at herself.

Her shortened hair still startled her.

The uneven silver-white strands fell around her shoulders and down her back, nowhere near the extraordinary length she had worn only hours earlier.

She resisted the urge to touch it.

There was no time to think about that either.

Vaelithra left her bedroom.

She made it halfway toward the kitchen before stopping.

Kharun's door was nearby.

Her eyes settled upon it.

For several seconds, she stood motionless.

Then she entered.

The lantern still burned.

The drawings remained where she had left them.

Vaelithra approached the dresser.

She had no reason to take them.

The thought occurred immediately.

If she reached Kharun, she could return them later.

If she failed...

Vaelithra rejected that possibility.

Still, she began gathering the drawings.

Carefully.

The oldest sheets were fragile, and she handled them accordingly. One after another disappeared into a leather-bound cover she found suitable for protecting them.

Twenty years of charcoal and paper.

Twenty years of moments Kharun had apparently thought worth remembering.

Vaelithra secured the cover.

She stood there holding it.

"Why am I taking these?"

No one answered.

She knew only that leaving them behind felt wrong.

That was enough.

Vaelithra carried the drawings with her.

Back in the kitchen, the final mixture had changed.

She extinguished the burner.

Perfect.

Using a cloth to protect her hand from the heated vessel, Vaelithra poured the liquid carefully into two separate vials.

Equal amounts.

She stoppered both.

The liquid was still too hot to drink safely, but that didn't matter. By the time she reached the prison, it would have cooled sufficiently.

One vial for her.

One for Kharun.

She placed them into separate loops on the holster so she could distinguish them easily from the paralysis compounds.

Vaelithra inspected everything one final time.

Enough.

It had to be.

She left the kitchen.

Only one stop remained.

The armory.

Vaelithra entered and looked over the weapons stored there.

Her hand passed a sword.

Then another.

She chose a dagger.

Nothing more.

She tested its weight before securing it at her side.

"I don't want to use you."

The dagger offered no opinion.

Good.

Vaelithra reached for a cloak hanging nearby.

Gray.

Plain.

Unremarkable.

She fastened it around herself and pulled the hood forward.

The cloak concealed the black leather beneath it. More importantly, it concealed enough of her face and newly shortened silver-white hair to prevent immediate recognition from a distance.

She was ready.

Vaelithra returned to the entrance.

Her hand reached for the door.

Then stopped.

Something held her there.

She turned.

Her home stretched quietly behind her.

The fire in her bedroom would still be burning.

The kitchen was a disaster.

Her bed remained unmade.

Kharun's room was empty.

Vaelithra stared down the corridor.

This was ridiculous.

She was going to the prison.

She would find Kharun.

She would learn what happened.

Then...

Vaelithra realized she had never decided what came after that.

If Kharun was innocent, she could hardly return him to his cell.

If she broke him out, her father could not simply overlook it.

Neither could the clan.

And if the guards identified her...

Vaelithra's eyes moved slowly across the home her grandmother had given her twenty years ago.

The home Kharun had entered in chains.

The home in which he had spent the next two decades serving her.

Something deep inside whispered that she should look carefully.

Remember it.

Because it might be a very long time before she stood here again.

Perhaps she never would.

Vaelithra felt a chill that had nothing to do with the Underdark air.

"No."

She pushed the thought away.

She would deal with what came afterward when afterward arrived.

Kharun did not have the luxury of waiting for her to solve every consequence.

He had less than eight hours.

Vaelithra opened the door.

Cool air touched her face.

She stepped outside.

The door closed behind her.

For twenty years, Kharun had followed wherever she led.

Tonight, for the first time, Vaelithra went looking for him.

 

Hours passed.

Vaelithra's father never came.

She noticed sometime during the evening, though by then she had stopped expecting him. He had said they would speak later. Under ordinary circumstances, she might have been irritated by his failure to appear.

Tonight, she barely cared.

He was a busy man.

The events at breakfast had undoubtedly created problems he had not expected to spend the day resolving. A noble had been struck beneath his roof. A servant had confessed. An execution had been demanded in front of witnesses. Somewhere among all of that, his promise to speak with his daughter had probably slipped from his mind.

Perhaps that was fortunate.

Vaelithra had no intention of telling him what she was doing.

The final mixture simmered over the burner.

She leaned closer to examine it, watching tiny bubbles break against the surface.

Almost ready.

Vaelithra glanced toward the clock.

Nearly midnight.

Her stomach tightened.

Less than eight hours.

By morning, the executioner would return.

By morning, Kharun could be dead.

The thought was no longer abstract.

There were hours now.

Minutes.

A finite amount of time remained between the present and a world in which Kharun no longer existed.

Vaelithra turned away from the clock.

She refused to imagine it.

The kitchen looked as though an alchemical workshop had exploded across it.

Bottles covered the counter. Stoppered vials stood in uneven rows among measuring instruments, discarded ingredients, stained cloths, and open containers. Powder dusted portions of the work surface. Several vessels waited to be cleaned.

Kharun would have hated the mess.

The thought appeared without invitation.

Vaelithra almost smiled.

He would already have begun cleaning around her while she worked, quietly moving anything she no longer needed and somehow knowing precisely what he could touch without disrupting whatever she was doing.

Her expression faded.

"Kharun."

She looked at the clock again.

No more distractions.

Her original idea had been a sleeping compound.

That had failed almost immediately.

She lacked two of the ingredients necessary to produce one potent enough to incapacitate several guards quickly. Substitutions were possible, but substitutions introduced uncertainty.

Tonight was not the night for uncertain chemistry.

So she had changed her approach.

Paralysis.

That she could make.

The finished vials rested nearby.

Each contained a carefully prepared compound that remained stable while sealed. Once exposed to open air, the mixture would react rapidly and produce a dense vapor. Anyone caught within its effective radius would lose voluntary control of their muscles for a short period.

Temporary.

Unpleasant.

But harmless if she had prepared it correctly.

Vaelithra intended to make absolutely certain that she had.

There was only one problem.

The vapor did not care who inhaled it.

Which was why another mixture currently simmered over the burner.

Protection.

She had prepared enough for two doses.

One for herself.

One for Kharun.

Vaelithra checked the mixture once more.

Still a little longer.

She left the kitchen.

Her clothing from breakfast had long since become inappropriate for what she intended to do.

Vaelithra changed quickly.

Black leather replaced aristocratic finery. The clothing fit closely enough that nothing loose could catch against a doorway or betray her movement unnecessarily. Over it, she secured a sash-style holster designed to carry small containers close against her body.

She tested the fit.

Then adjusted it.

The vials needed to remain secure.

One broken against her body before she had taken the protective mixture could end her rescue attempt rather embarrassingly.

Vaelithra looked at herself.

Her shortened hair still startled her.

The uneven silver-white strands fell around her shoulders and down her back, nowhere near the extraordinary length she had worn only hours earlier.

She resisted the urge to touch it.

There was no time to think about that either.

Vaelithra left her bedroom.

She made it halfway toward the kitchen before stopping.

Kharun's door was nearby.

Her eyes settled upon it.

For several seconds, she stood motionless.

Then she entered.

The lantern still burned.

The drawings remained where she had left them.

Vaelithra approached the dresser.

She had no reason to take them.

The thought occurred immediately.

If she reached Kharun, she could return them later.

If she failed...

Vaelithra rejected that possibility.

Still, she began gathering the drawings.

Carefully.

The oldest sheets were fragile, and she handled them accordingly. One after another disappeared into a leather-bound cover she found suitable for protecting them.

Twenty years of charcoal and paper.

Twenty years of moments Kharun had apparently thought worth remembering.

Vaelithra secured the cover.

She stood there holding it.

"Why am I taking these?"

No one answered.

She knew only that leaving them behind felt wrong.

That was enough.

Vaelithra carried the drawings with her.

Back in the kitchen, the final mixture had changed.

She extinguished the burner.

Perfect.

Using a cloth to protect her hand from the heated vessel, Vaelithra poured the liquid carefully into two separate vials.

Equal amounts.

She stoppered both.

The liquid was still too hot to drink safely, but that didn't matter. By the time she reached the prison, it would have cooled sufficiently.

One vial for her.

One for Kharun.

She placed them into separate loops on the holster so she could distinguish them easily from the paralysis compounds.

Vaelithra inspected everything one final time.

Enough.

It had to be.

She left the kitchen.

Only one stop remained.

The armory.

Vaelithra entered and looked over the weapons stored there.

Her hand passed a sword.

Then another.

She chose a dagger.

Nothing more.

She tested its weight before securing it at her side.

"I don't want to use you."

The dagger offered no opinion.

Good.

Vaelithra reached for a cloak hanging nearby.

Gray.

Plain.

Unremarkable.

She fastened it around herself and pulled the hood forward.

The cloak concealed the black leather beneath it. More importantly, it concealed enough of her face and newly shortened silver-white hair to prevent immediate recognition from a distance.

She was ready.

Vaelithra returned to the entrance.

Her hand reached for the door.

Then stopped.

Something held her there.

She turned.

Her home stretched quietly behind her.

The fire in her bedroom would still be burning.

The kitchen was a disaster.

Her bed remained unmade.

Kharun's room was empty.

Vaelithra stared down the corridor.

This was ridiculous.

She was going to the prison.

She would find Kharun.

She would learn what happened.

Then...

Vaelithra realized she had never decided what came after that.

If Kharun was innocent, she could hardly return him to his cell.

If she broke him out, her father could not simply overlook it.

Neither could the clan.

And if the guards identified her...

Vaelithra's eyes moved slowly across the home her grandmother had given her twenty years ago.

The home Kharun had entered in chains.

The home in which he had spent the next two decades serving her.

Something deep inside whispered that she should look carefully.

Remember it.

Because it might be a very long time before she stood here again.

Perhaps she never would.

Vaelithra felt a chill that had nothing to do with the Underdark air.

"No."

She pushed the thought away.

She would deal with what came afterward when afterward arrived.

Kharun did not have the luxury of waiting for her to solve every consequence.

He had less than eight hours.

Vaelithra opened the door.

Cool air touched her face.

She stepped outside.

The door closed behind her.

For twenty years, Kharun had followed wherever she led.

Tonight, for the first time, Vaelithra went looking for him.

 

Hours passed.

Vaelithra's father never came.

She noticed sometime during the evening, though by then she had stopped expecting him. He had said they would speak later. Under ordinary circumstances, she might have been irritated by his failure to appear.

Tonight, she barely cared.

He was a busy man.

The events at breakfast had undoubtedly created problems he had not expected to spend the day resolving. A noble had been struck beneath his roof. A servant had confessed. An execution had been demanded in front of witnesses. Somewhere among all of that, his promise to speak with his daughter had probably slipped from his mind.

Perhaps that was fortunate.

Vaelithra had no intention of telling him what she was doing.

The final mixture simmered over the burner.

She leaned closer to examine it, watching tiny bubbles break against the surface.

Almost ready.

Vaelithra glanced toward the clock.

Nearly midnight.

Her stomach tightened.

Less than eight hours.

By morning, the executioner would return.

By morning, Kharun could be dead.

The thought was no longer abstract.

There were hours now.

Minutes.

A finite amount of time remained between the present and a world in which Kharun no longer existed.

Vaelithra turned away from the clock.

She refused to imagine it.

The kitchen looked as though an alchemical workshop had exploded across it.

Bottles covered the counter. Stoppered vials stood in uneven rows among measuring instruments, discarded ingredients, stained cloths, and open containers. Powder dusted portions of the work surface. Several vessels waited to be cleaned.

Kharun would have hated the mess.

The thought appeared without invitation.

Vaelithra almost smiled.

He would already have begun cleaning around her while she worked, quietly moving anything she no longer needed and somehow knowing precisely what he could touch without disrupting whatever she was doing.

Her expression faded.

"Kharun."

She looked at the clock again.

No more distractions.

Her original idea had been a sleeping compound.

That had failed almost immediately.

She lacked two of the ingredients necessary to produce one potent enough to incapacitate several guards quickly. Substitutions were possible, but substitutions introduced uncertainty.

Tonight was not the night for uncertain chemistry.

So she had changed her approach.

Paralysis.

That she could make.

The finished vials rested nearby.

Each contained a carefully prepared compound that remained stable while sealed. Once exposed to open air, the mixture would react rapidly and produce a dense vapor. Anyone caught within its effective radius would lose voluntary control of their muscles for a short period.

Temporary.

Unpleasant.

But harmless if she had prepared it correctly.

Vaelithra intended to make absolutely certain that she had.

There was only one problem.

The vapor did not care who inhaled it.

Which was why another mixture currently simmered over the burner.

Protection.

She had prepared enough for two doses.

One for herself.

One for Kharun.

Vaelithra checked the mixture once more.

Still a little longer.

She left the kitchen.

Her clothing from breakfast had long since become inappropriate for what she intended to do.

Vaelithra changed quickly.

Black leather replaced aristocratic finery. The clothing fit closely enough that nothing loose could catch against a doorway or betray her movement unnecessarily. Over it, she secured a sash-style holster designed to carry small containers close against her body.

She tested the fit.

Then adjusted it.

The vials needed to remain secure.

One broken against her body before she had taken the protective mixture could end her rescue attempt rather embarrassingly.

Vaelithra looked at herself.

Her shortened hair still startled her.

The uneven silver-white strands fell around her shoulders and down her back, nowhere near the extraordinary length she had worn only hours earlier.

She resisted the urge to touch it.

There was no time to think about that either.

Vaelithra left her bedroom.

She made it halfway toward the kitchen before stopping.

Kharun's door was nearby.

Her eyes settled upon it.

For several seconds, she stood motionless.

Then she entered.

The lantern still burned.

The drawings remained where she had left them.

Vaelithra approached the dresser.

She had no reason to take them.

The thought occurred immediately.

If she reached Kharun, she could return them later.

If she failed...

Vaelithra rejected that possibility.

Still, she began gathering the drawings.

Carefully.

The oldest sheets were fragile, and she handled them accordingly. One after another disappeared into a leather-bound cover she found suitable for protecting them.

Twenty years of charcoal and paper.

Twenty years of moments Kharun had apparently thought worth remembering.

Vaelithra secured the cover.

She stood there holding it.

"Why am I taking these?"

No one answered.

She knew only that leaving them behind felt wrong.

That was enough.

Vaelithra carried the drawings with her.

Back in the kitchen, the final mixture had changed.

She extinguished the burner.

Perfect.

Using a cloth to protect her hand from the heated vessel, Vaelithra poured the liquid carefully into two separate vials.

Equal amounts.

She stoppered both.

The liquid was still too hot to drink safely, but that didn't matter. By the time she reached the prison, it would have cooled sufficiently.

One vial for her.

One for Kharun.

She placed them into separate loops on the holster so she could distinguish them easily from the paralysis compounds.

Vaelithra inspected everything one final time.

Enough.

It had to be.

She left the kitchen.

Only one stop remained.

The armory.

Vaelithra entered and looked over the weapons stored there.

Her hand passed a sword.

Then another.

She chose a dagger.

Nothing more.

She tested its weight before securing it at her side.

"I don't want to use you."

The dagger offered no opinion.

Good.

Vaelithra reached for a cloak hanging nearby.

Gray.

Plain.

Unremarkable.

She fastened it around herself and pulled the hood forward.

The cloak concealed the black leather beneath it. More importantly, it concealed enough of her face and newly shortened silver-white hair to prevent immediate recognition from a distance.

She was ready.

Vaelithra returned to the entrance.

Her hand reached for the door.

Then stopped.

Something held her there.

She turned.

Her home stretched quietly behind her.

The fire in her bedroom would still be burning.

The kitchen was a disaster.

Her bed remained unmade.

Kharun's room was empty.

Vaelithra stared down the corridor.

This was ridiculous.

She was going to the prison.

She would find Kharun.

She would learn what happened.

Then...

Vaelithra realized she had never decided what came after that.

If Kharun was innocent, she could hardly return him to his cell.

If she broke him out, her father could not simply overlook it.

Neither could the clan.

And if the guards identified her...

Vaelithra's eyes moved slowly across the home her grandmother had given her twenty years ago.

The home Kharun had entered in chains.

The home in which he had spent the next two decades serving her.

Something deep inside whispered that she should look carefully.

Remember it.

Because it might be a very long time before she stood here again.

Perhaps she never would.

Vaelithra felt a chill that had nothing to do with the Underdark air.

"No."

She pushed the thought away.

She would deal with what came afterward when afterward arrived.

Kharun did not have the luxury of waiting for her to solve every consequence.

He had less than eight hours.

Vaelithra opened the door.

Cool air touched her face.

She stepped outside.

The door closed behind her.

For twenty years, Kharun had followed wherever she led.

Tonight, for the first time, Vaelithra went looking for him.

 

Vaelithra continued staring at the woman in the mirror.

Wine distorted her reflection, but not enough.

She was still there.

Amber-gold eyes stared back through dark streaks. Silver-white hair framed the same face she had seen in the dream. Twenty years separated the two women, yet for a moment Vaelithra struggled to see where one ended and the other began.

It was undeniably her.

And somehow, it wasn't.

Her gaze lowered.

Why did the life of a servant matter so much to her?

The question would not leave.

She had known servants who died. She had seen slaves executed. She had watched soldiers fall in battle and had killed more enemies herself than she cared to count.

Death was not unfamiliar to Vaelithra.

Yet the thought of Kharun kneeling before an executioner tomorrow morning made something inside her twist.

Why?

Because he had served her for twenty years?

Because she trusted him?

Because of the drawings?

Because somewhere during those twenty years, something had changed between them without either of them acknowledging it?

Questions.

Nothing but questions.

And the one man who might be able to answer any of them was sitting in a prison cell beneath her father's estate.

Vaelithra turned away from the mirror.

She needed to reach him.

That much was certain.

How was considerably less so.

She began pacing.

The prison beneath her father's manor was not some neglected cellar guarded by a pair of half-asleep soldiers. It served the entire estate and, when necessary, members of the surrounding settlement. Guards controlled the entrance. More patrolled the corridors within. Others could be summoned quickly from elsewhere in the manor.

Vaelithra knew how to fight.

She knew she was good at it.

But she wasn't stupid.

One skilled fighter was still one fighter.

She might overpower the first guards. Perhaps the next few as well.

Then someone would raise the alarm.

More would come.

And every guard she injured would transform what she intended into something far worse.

They were her people.

Men and women doing exactly what they had been ordered to do.

Vaelithra had no desire to cut them down merely because they stood between her and Kharun.

There had to be another way.

She stopped.

Her reflection caught her attention again.

The wine continued its slow journey down the mirror. Some had reached the bottom of the frame and fallen onto the stone floor beneath it.

Vaelithra stared at herself.

Then her eyes moved toward the side table near the vanity.

A dagger rested there.

She reached for it.

There was no decision.

At least none she consciously remembered making.

Her fingers simply closed around the hilt.

Vaelithra lifted the dagger and stared at the blade.

Her reflection did the same.

For a moment, she seemed to be watching someone else.

Her left hand rose.

She gathered her hair.

Silver-white strands slipped between her fingers as she pulled the enormous length together.

Her hair had always been part of her.

Long even by drow standards. Carefully maintained. Impossible to overlook.

She grasped it tightly.

The dagger rose in her other hand.

Some distant part of Vaelithra wondered what she was doing.

The blade touched the gathered hair just beneath her fist.

She cut.

Once.

The thick bundle resisted.

She sawed the blade through again.

Then again.

Suddenly there was no resistance at all.

The severed length fell.

Vaelithra stood completely still.

Her left hand remained raised.

The hair remaining upon her head fell unevenly around her shoulders and down her back, still long but dramatically shortened. Loose strands framed her face where the blade had cut imperfectly through them.

Vaelithra looked into the mirror.

The woman staring back at her had changed.

Only superficially.

She knew that.

A haircut could not erase twenty years.

It could not erase the cage.

It could not erase the book striking Kharun.

It could not erase the fact that he had spent two decades serving her because she had purchased him.

But the woman in the mirror no longer looked exactly like the woman in the dream.

Vaelithra lowered the dagger.

She reached toward the table to put it down.

Her hand missed.

The dagger slipped from her fingers.

Metal struck stone.

Vaelithra looked down.

The weapon spun.

Once.

Twice.

Slower.

The blade scraped softly across the floor before finally coming to rest.

Its edge touched the severed mass of silver-white hair.

Wine had reached it.

Dark red liquid soaked through portions of the pale strands, spreading between them and staining the stone beneath.

Vaelithra stared.

Hair.

Wine.

Two separate things becoming something else where they met.

Mixed.

Her brow furrowed.

Mixed.

Mixture.

Something shifted in her thoughts.

"Alchemy."

The word escaped aloud.

Vaelithra's eyes widened.

"Alchemy."

Of course.

She turned away from the mirror.

Alchemy was not magic.

It required no incantations, no mysterious source of power, no bargain with forces she could not control.

It was knowledge.

Measurement.

Reaction.

Heat.

Timing.

And Vaelithra knew it.

Her education had included far more than swordsmanship and aristocratic protocol. Alchemy had been among the disciplines expected of someone of her station, and she had possessed considerable aptitude for it.

She simply hadn't needed the skill often.

Not for years.

Vaelithra crossed the room quickly.

An idea was forming.

She could not fight an entire prison guard.

She didn't need to.

She needed them unable to stop her.

Temporarily.

Nothing lethal.

Nothing that would cause lasting injury.

A compound capable of overwhelming the senses might give her enough time. Another could impair coordination. Something dispersed into an enclosed corridor could make pursuit nearly impossible without forcing her to draw a blade against anyone.

Her pace quickened.

The details could come later.

First she needed to know what she still had.

Vaelithra entered the kitchen.

She moved directly toward a cabinet near the far wall.

Her hand reached for the handle.

Then hesitated.

How long had it been?

Years, perhaps.

She opened it.

Rows of bottles waited inside.

Dust covered some of them.

Several were empty, intended to hold finished mixtures. Others contained base compounds, powders, extracts, oils, mineral salts, and preserved ingredients she had accumulated over the years.

Vaelithra began pulling them out.

One bottle.

Then another.

She checked labels.

Opened containers.

Smelled one cautiously.

Rejected it.

Reached for another.

Her mind was moving differently now.

The confusion remained.

The questions remained.

But beneath them, something else had finally appeared.

Purpose.

Vaelithra set an alchemical burner on the work surface and ignited it.

A small flame sprang to life.

She placed a vessel above it.

Her hands moved quickly.

Measure.

Combine.

Heat.

Wait.

No.

She did not have time to wait.

Vaelithra glanced toward the darkened corridor beyond the kitchen.

Somewhere beneath her father's manor, Kharun sat in a cell.

The executioner would return in the morning.

She looked back at the compounds spread across the table.

Whatever she made had to work.

It had to incapacitate enough guards to get her through the prison.

It had to do so without killing them.

And it had to be ready before morning.

Vaelithra reached for the next ingredient.

The first mixture began to simmer.

Time was already running out.

 

Vaelithra continued staring at the woman in the mirror.

Wine distorted her reflection, but not enough.

She was still there.

Amber-gold eyes stared back through dark streaks. Silver-white hair framed the same face she had seen in the dream. Twenty years separated the two women, yet for a moment Vaelithra struggled to see where one ended and the other began.

It was undeniably her.

And somehow, it wasn't.

Her gaze lowered.

Why did the life of a servant matter so much to her?

The question would not leave.

She had known servants who died. She had seen slaves executed. She had watched soldiers fall in battle and had killed more enemies herself than she cared to count.

Death was not unfamiliar to Vaelithra.

Yet the thought of Kharun kneeling before an executioner tomorrow morning made something inside her twist.

Why?

Because he had served her for twenty years?

Because she trusted him?

Because of the drawings?

Because somewhere during those twenty years, something had changed between them without either of them acknowledging it?

Questions.

Nothing but questions.

And the one man who might be able to answer any of them was sitting in a prison cell beneath her father's estate.

Vaelithra turned away from the mirror.

She needed to reach him.

That much was certain.

How was considerably less so.

She began pacing.

The prison beneath her father's manor was not some neglected cellar guarded by a pair of half-asleep soldiers. It served the entire estate and, when necessary, members of the surrounding settlement. Guards controlled the entrance. More patrolled the corridors within. Others could be summoned quickly from elsewhere in the manor.

Vaelithra knew how to fight.

She knew she was good at it.

But she wasn't stupid.

One skilled fighter was still one fighter.

She might overpower the first guards. Perhaps the next few as well.

Then someone would raise the alarm.

More would come.

And every guard she injured would transform what she intended into something far worse.

They were her people.

Men and women doing exactly what they had been ordered to do.

Vaelithra had no desire to cut them down merely because they stood between her and Kharun.

There had to be another way.

She stopped.

Her reflection caught her attention again.

The wine continued its slow journey down the mirror. Some had reached the bottom of the frame and fallen onto the stone floor beneath it.

Vaelithra stared at herself.

Then her eyes moved toward the side table near the vanity.

A dagger rested there.

She reached for it.

There was no decision.

At least none she consciously remembered making.

Her fingers simply closed around the hilt.

Vaelithra lifted the dagger and stared at the blade.

Her reflection did the same.

For a moment, she seemed to be watching someone else.

Her left hand rose.

She gathered her hair.

Silver-white strands slipped between her fingers as she pulled the enormous length together.

Her hair had always been part of her.

Long even by drow standards. Carefully maintained. Impossible to overlook.

She grasped it tightly.

The dagger rose in her other hand.

Some distant part of Vaelithra wondered what she was doing.

The blade touched the gathered hair just beneath her fist.

She cut.

Once.

The thick bundle resisted.

She sawed the blade through again.

Then again.

Suddenly there was no resistance at all.

The severed length fell.

Vaelithra stood completely still.

Her left hand remained raised.

The hair remaining upon her head fell unevenly around her shoulders and down her back, still long but dramatically shortened. Loose strands framed her face where the blade had cut imperfectly through them.

Vaelithra looked into the mirror.

The woman staring back at her had changed.

Only superficially.

She knew that.

A haircut could not erase twenty years.

It could not erase the cage.

It could not erase the book striking Kharun.

It could not erase the fact that he had spent two decades serving her because she had purchased him.

But the woman in the mirror no longer looked exactly like the woman in the dream.

Vaelithra lowered the dagger.

She reached toward the table to put it down.

Her hand missed.

The dagger slipped from her fingers.

Metal struck stone.

Vaelithra looked down.

The weapon spun.

Once.

Twice.

Slower.

The blade scraped softly across the floor before finally coming to rest.

Its edge touched the severed mass of silver-white hair.

Wine had reached it.

Dark red liquid soaked through portions of the pale strands, spreading between them and staining the stone beneath.

Vaelithra stared.

Hair.

Wine.

Two separate things becoming something else where they met.

Mixed.

Her brow furrowed.

Mixed.

Mixture.

Something shifted in her thoughts.

"Alchemy."

The word escaped aloud.

Vaelithra's eyes widened.

"Alchemy."

Of course.

She turned away from the mirror.

Alchemy was not magic.

It required no incantations, no mysterious source of power, no bargain with forces she could not control.

It was knowledge.

Measurement.

Reaction.

Heat.

Timing.

And Vaelithra knew it.

Her education had included far more than swordsmanship and aristocratic protocol. Alchemy had been among the disciplines expected of someone of her station, and she had possessed considerable aptitude for it.

She simply hadn't needed the skill often.

Not for years.

Vaelithra crossed the room quickly.

An idea was forming.

She could not fight an entire prison guard.

She didn't need to.

She needed them unable to stop her.

Temporarily.

Nothing lethal.

Nothing that would cause lasting injury.

A compound capable of overwhelming the senses might give her enough time. Another could impair coordination. Something dispersed into an enclosed corridor could make pursuit nearly impossible without forcing her to draw a blade against anyone.

Her pace quickened.

The details could come later.

First she needed to know what she still had.

Vaelithra entered the kitchen.

She moved directly toward a cabinet near the far wall.

Her hand reached for the handle.

Then hesitated.

How long had it been?

Years, perhaps.

She opened it.

Rows of bottles waited inside.

Dust covered some of them.

Several were empty, intended to hold finished mixtures. Others contained base compounds, powders, extracts, oils, mineral salts, and preserved ingredients she had accumulated over the years.

Vaelithra began pulling them out.

One bottle.

Then another.

She checked labels.

Opened containers.

Smelled one cautiously.

Rejected it.

Reached for another.

Her mind was moving differently now.

The confusion remained.

The questions remained.

But beneath them, something else had finally appeared.

Purpose.

Vaelithra set an alchemical burner on the work surface and ignited it.

A small flame sprang to life.

She placed a vessel above it.

Her hands moved quickly.

Measure.

Combine.

Heat.

Wait.

No.

She did not have time to wait.

Vaelithra glanced toward the darkened corridor beyond the kitchen.

Somewhere beneath her father's manor, Kharun sat in a cell.

The executioner would return in the morning.

She looked back at the compounds spread across the table.

Whatever she made had to work.

It had to incapacitate enough guards to get her through the prison.

It had to do so without killing them.

And it had to be ready before morning.

Vaelithra reached for the next ingredient.

The first mixture began to simmer.

Time was already running out.

 

Vaelithra continued staring at the woman in the mirror.

Wine distorted her reflection, but not enough.

She was still there.

Amber-gold eyes stared back through dark streaks. Silver-white hair framed the same face she had seen in the dream. Twenty years separated the two women, yet for a moment Vaelithra struggled to see where one ended and the other began.

It was undeniably her.

And somehow, it wasn't.

Her gaze lowered.

Why did the life of a servant matter so much to her?

The question would not leave.

She had known servants who died. She had seen slaves executed. She had watched soldiers fall in battle and had killed more enemies herself than she cared to count.

Death was not unfamiliar to Vaelithra.

Yet the thought of Kharun kneeling before an executioner tomorrow morning made something inside her twist.

Why?

Because he had served her for twenty years?

Because she trusted him?

Because of the drawings?

Because somewhere during those twenty years, something had changed between them without either of them acknowledging it?

Questions.

Nothing but questions.

And the one man who might be able to answer any of them was sitting in a prison cell beneath her father's estate.

Vaelithra turned away from the mirror.

She needed to reach him.

That much was certain.

How was considerably less so.

She began pacing.

The prison beneath her father's manor was not some neglected cellar guarded by a pair of half-asleep soldiers. It served the entire estate and, when necessary, members of the surrounding settlement. Guards controlled the entrance. More patrolled the corridors within. Others could be summoned quickly from elsewhere in the manor.

Vaelithra knew how to fight.

She knew she was good at it.

But she wasn't stupid.

One skilled fighter was still one fighter.

She might overpower the first guards. Perhaps the next few as well.

Then someone would raise the alarm.

More would come.

And every guard she injured would transform what she intended into something far worse.

They were her people.

Men and women doing exactly what they had been ordered to do.

Vaelithra had no desire to cut them down merely because they stood between her and Kharun.

There had to be another way.

She stopped.

Her reflection caught her attention again.

The wine continued its slow journey down the mirror. Some had reached the bottom of the frame and fallen onto the stone floor beneath it.

Vaelithra stared at herself.

Then her eyes moved toward the side table near the vanity.

A dagger rested there.

She reached for it.

There was no decision.

At least none she consciously remembered making.

Her fingers simply closed around the hilt.

Vaelithra lifted the dagger and stared at the blade.

Her reflection did the same.

For a moment, she seemed to be watching someone else.

Her left hand rose.

She gathered her hair.

Silver-white strands slipped between her fingers as she pulled the enormous length together.

Her hair had always been part of her.

Long even by drow standards. Carefully maintained. Impossible to overlook.

She grasped it tightly.

The dagger rose in her other hand.

Some distant part of Vaelithra wondered what she was doing.

The blade touched the gathered hair just beneath her fist.

She cut.

Once.

The thick bundle resisted.

She sawed the blade through again.

Then again.

Suddenly there was no resistance at all.

The severed length fell.

Vaelithra stood completely still.

Her left hand remained raised.

The hair remaining upon her head fell unevenly around her shoulders and down her back, still long but dramatically shortened. Loose strands framed her face where the blade had cut imperfectly through them.

Vaelithra looked into the mirror.

The woman staring back at her had changed.

Only superficially.

She knew that.

A haircut could not erase twenty years.

It could not erase the cage.

It could not erase the book striking Kharun.

It could not erase the fact that he had spent two decades serving her because she had purchased him.

But the woman in the mirror no longer looked exactly like the woman in the dream.

Vaelithra lowered the dagger.

She reached toward the table to put it down.

Her hand missed.

The dagger slipped from her fingers.

Metal struck stone.

Vaelithra looked down.

The weapon spun.

Once.

Twice.

Slower.

The blade scraped softly across the floor before finally coming to rest.

Its edge touched the severed mass of silver-white hair.

Wine had reached it.

Dark red liquid soaked through portions of the pale strands, spreading between them and staining the stone beneath.

Vaelithra stared.

Hair.

Wine.

Two separate things becoming something else where they met.

Mixed.

Her brow furrowed.

Mixed.

Mixture.

Something shifted in her thoughts.

"Alchemy."

The word escaped aloud.

Vaelithra's eyes widened.

"Alchemy."

Of course.

She turned away from the mirror.

Alchemy was not magic.

It required no incantations, no mysterious source of power, no bargain with forces she could not control.

It was knowledge.

Measurement.

Reaction.

Heat.

Timing.

And Vaelithra knew it.

Her education had included far more than swordsmanship and aristocratic protocol. Alchemy had been among the disciplines expected of someone of her station, and she had possessed considerable aptitude for it.

She simply hadn't needed the skill often.

Not for years.

Vaelithra crossed the room quickly.

An idea was forming.

She could not fight an entire prison guard.

She didn't need to.

She needed them unable to stop her.

Temporarily.

Nothing lethal.

Nothing that would cause lasting injury.

A compound capable of overwhelming the senses might give her enough time. Another could impair coordination. Something dispersed into an enclosed corridor could make pursuit nearly impossible without forcing her to draw a blade against anyone.

Her pace quickened.

The details could come later.

First she needed to know what she still had.

Vaelithra entered the kitchen.

She moved directly toward a cabinet near the far wall.

Her hand reached for the handle.

Then hesitated.

How long had it been?

Years, perhaps.

She opened it.

Rows of bottles waited inside.

Dust covered some of them.

Several were empty, intended to hold finished mixtures. Others contained base compounds, powders, extracts, oils, mineral salts, and preserved ingredients she had accumulated over the years.

Vaelithra began pulling them out.

One bottle.

Then another.

She checked labels.

Opened containers.

Smelled one cautiously.

Rejected it.

Reached for another.

Her mind was moving differently now.

The confusion remained.

The questions remained.

But beneath them, something else had finally appeared.

Purpose.

Vaelithra set an alchemical burner on the work surface and ignited it.

A small flame sprang to life.

She placed a vessel above it.

Her hands moved quickly.

Measure.

Combine.

Heat.

Wait.

No.

She did not have time to wait.

Vaelithra glanced toward the darkened corridor beyond the kitchen.

Somewhere beneath her father's manor, Kharun sat in a cell.

The executioner would return in the morning.

She looked back at the compounds spread across the table.

Whatever she made had to work.

It had to incapacitate enough guards to get her through the prison.

It had to do so without killing them.

And it had to be ready before morning.

Vaelithra reached for the next ingredient.

The first mixture began to simmer.

Time was already running out.

 

The door opened.

Present-day Vaelithra watched from somewhere behind the woman she had been twenty years ago.

A drow stood outside.

She remembered him only vaguely. Another servant of the market, perhaps, or someone employed specifically to make deliveries to the households of wealthy buyers. His face held no significance in her memory.

The figure behind him did.

Kharun.

Vaelithra's attention immediately fell to the iron around his neck.

A heavy collar encircled his throat. A length of chain descended from it toward his restrained hands, where metal cuffs bound his wrists together.

For a moment, present-day Vaelithra forgot everything else.

She stared.

Had he truly arrived like this?

Of course he had.

The memory was hers.

Yet she found herself wanting to reject it.

She knew those hands.

She had watched them hold a sword. Seen them prepare food beside a campfire. Felt them fastening pieces of armor she could have secured herself but had long ago stopped bothering to. Those same hands had filled the drawer in his room with drawings.

Now she saw them bound together.

Something inside her recoiled.

How did I ever think this was acceptable?

The answer came with uncomfortable ease.

Because she had not thought about it at all.

The younger Vaelithra certainly wasn't troubled.

"Lady Vaelithra."

The drow inclined his head respectfully.

"I was instructed to deliver this servant to your residence."

Vaelithra's younger self looked past him.

Her eyes moved over Kharun from head to toe with the same assessing interest she had shown at the market.

Present-day Vaelithra watched herself do it.

"Remove the restraints."

The drow hesitated.

"Milady?"

"You heard me."

His eyes briefly moved toward the young orc.

"Are you certain you wish to do that? He has not yet been trained for household service."

The younger Vaelithra's expression sharpened.

"I can handle one untrained orc if he becomes aggressive."

Present-day Vaelithra almost smiled.

That sounded like her.

The drow apparently knew better than to challenge her confidence.

"As you wish."

He turned toward Kharun.

The restraints came away piece by piece.

First the chain.

Then the cuffs around his wrists.

Finally, the iron collar around his neck.

Kharun did not move while the drow worked.

When the last piece was removed, his hands fell to his sides.

Present-day Vaelithra found herself staring at his wrists.

She wondered whether the iron had left marks.

She couldn't remember.

The drow gathered the restraints.

"Your servant, milady."

He gave Vaelithra a respectful nod.

Then he turned and departed.

The younger Vaelithra watched him leave before returning her attention to the orc standing outside her home.

For several seconds, neither moved.

Kharun's eyes remained lowered.

Vaelithra motioned into the residence.

"Come inside."

Kharun crossed the threshold.

Present-day Vaelithra watched him take that first step into her home.

He stopped just inside.

The door remained open behind him.

He looked profoundly out of place among the polished stone, expensive furnishings, and carefully arranged possessions.

The young orc owned nothing.

Not even the clothes he wore, she supposed.

The realization came from the woman dreaming, not the woman whose memory she inhabited.

Her younger self closed the door.

"Follow me."

Kharun followed.

Vaelithra led him down the corridor.

His footsteps were quieter than she remembered them being now.

Of course they were.

He had not yet grown fully into the enormous man he would become.

Present-day Vaelithra followed them both.

It was strange watching the beginning of a routine that would eventually become so ordinary neither of them thought about it.

Vaelithra walking ahead.

Kharun following several steps behind.

How many thousands of times had they crossed rooms that way?

The younger Vaelithra stopped beside the servant's quarters.

She opened the door.

Kharun looked inside.

"This will be your room while you are in my service."

He said nothing.

Vaelithra continued.

"Tomorrow I'll begin teaching you how I expect things to be done. There will be household duties, errands, maintenance of my equipment, and whatever else I require of you."

Silence.

Kharun remained near the doorway.

His head was still lowered.

Vaelithra waited.

Nothing.

A small crease appeared between her brows.

"Did you hear me?"

No response.

Present-day Vaelithra remembered the irritation.

At seventy, she had interpreted his silence as stupidity, stubbornness, or perhaps the beginning of exactly the behavioral difficulties her father had warned her about.

The younger Vaelithra crossed her arms.

"Can you speak?"

Kharun remained still.

Then, for the first time, she heard his voice.

"Servants were told not to speak to the nobility."

Present-day Vaelithra felt the memory differently now.

His voice was younger.

Not dramatically so, but enough.

The deep resonance she knew had not fully developed. There was uncertainty in it as well, something she could scarcely associate with the Kharun of the present.

The younger Vaelithra rolled her eyes.

This is going to be more difficult than I thought.

She stepped closer.

"When I speak to you, I expect a response."

Kharun listened.

"If I ask you a question, you answer it. If I give you an instruction, you acknowledge that you understand. I have no interest in guessing whether you've heard me."

She waited.

"Do you understand?"

There was a pause.

Then Kharun answered.

"Yes, milady."

Vaelithra went still.

Not the woman standing before him.

The woman dreaming.

She had heard him call her that countless times since.

On horseback.

At dinner.

Across campfires.

In her chambers.

After battles.

In moments of irritation and moments of quiet.

She had long ago stopped noticing the words.

But this was the first.

Two words spoken by a frightened young orc who still would not look her in the eyes.

The younger Vaelithra merely nodded.

"Good."

She gestured toward the room.

"Get some sleep. Your training begins in the morning."

Kharun stepped inside.

Vaelithra began to turn away.

Present-day Vaelithra remained where she was.

She wanted her younger self to stop.

Ask him something.

Anything.

Where had he come from?

How long had he been in the market?

Did he have family?

Was he frightened?

What was his name?

She asked none of those things.

Why would she have?

She had purchased a servant.

She had given him a room.

Tomorrow, she would teach him how to serve her.

That was all the moment had meant.

The younger Vaelithra pulled the door closed.

Present-day Vaelithra stared at it.

For twenty years she had remembered this as the evening her first personal servant arrived.

Now, sitting somewhere far beyond the dream with one of Kharun's drawings still resting in her hand, she understood how little she had truly seen.

He had crossed the threshold of her home in chains.

She had removed them because she was confident she could control him.

She had shown him where he would sleep.

She had told him what she expected.

She had heard his voice for the first time.

And she had walked away without ever asking his name.

The dream moved forward again.

Morning light did not exist in the Underdark, but Vaelithra remembered the rhythms of that first morning clearly enough.

She found herself standing in the kitchen.

Her younger self was beside the counter with Kharun nearby.

The kitchen was pristine. Copper cookware hung neatly from hooks along one wall. Shelves were stocked with ingredients and utensils selected before Vaelithra had ever entered the house. An elegant teapot sat between them.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra measured dried leaves into it.

"Watch."

Kharun watched.

She added precisely the amount she preferred, then demonstrated how much water should be used.

"Too much water and it becomes weak. Too little and it becomes bitter."

Kharun said nothing.

Vaelithra placed the teapot over the heat.

"This stays here until it whistles."

She glanced at him.

"When you hear that, remove it immediately. Pour one cup."

Kharun's eyes remained lowered, but his attention never left what she was showing him.

"I'll be in my study reading. Bring it to me when it's ready."

"Yes, milady."

The younger Vaelithra left.

Present-day Vaelithra remained behind for a moment.

She watched Kharun.

He stood in front of the teapot as though guarding something of tremendous importance.

A young orc who had been brought to this house in chains the previous evening was now being taught how a drow aristocrat preferred her morning tea.

The memory shifted around her.

Vaelithra was in the study.

Her younger self sat comfortably with a book open before her.

Present-day Vaelithra recognized the book.

That surprised her.

She hadn't thought about it in years.

Footsteps approached.

Kharun appeared in the doorway.

He carried a tray.

A steaming cup rested upon it.

He moved carefully.

Painfully carefully, she realized now.

His eyes moved between the tray and the table beside Vaelithra. His shoulders were rigid with concentration.

One more step.

Then something went wrong.

His foot caught.

The tray lurched.

The cup struck the edge of the table.

For one suspended instant, it seemed almost to bounce.

Then the tea went everywhere.

Hot liquid splashed across the table, the book, and Vaelithra's left hand.

She cried out.

Pain came immediately.

The younger Vaelithra surged to her feet.

"What are you doing?"

Kharun froze.

Vaelithra looked at the tea running across the cover of her book.

Then at her reddening hand.

Anger replaced pain almost instantly.

"You clumsy oaf! Look at what you've done."

Kharun's head lowered farther.

Present-day Vaelithra stared at herself.

"Clean this up and make another cup."

The younger Vaelithra grabbed the wet book.

For a moment, present-day Vaelithra thought she was going to carry it away.

Instead, she threw it.

The book struck Kharun and fell to the floor.

Present-day Vaelithra recoiled.

Her younger self walked from the room.

She did not look back.

Kharun remained standing beside the spilled tea.

Vaelithra stared after herself.

A strange horror settled over her.

She wasn't entirely sure why.

She knew the world she had grown up in. She knew how servants were treated. She knew that nothing she had just witnessed would have been remarkable to anyone in her family.

Certainly not to the woman she had been.

Yet she wanted to follow her younger self.

She wanted to seize her by the shoulders and force her to turn around.

Look at him.

Vaelithra looked instead.

Kharun crouched and picked up the book.

The young orc said nothing.

Of course he didn't.

Vaelithra's attention fell to her own hand.

Her left hand.

She turned it over.

There.

Even twenty years later, the mark remained.

Faint.

Small enough that she rarely noticed it anymore.

She remembered the burn.

She remembered being furious about it.

She remembered the book.

She remembered making Kharun prepare another cup.

What she could not remember was whether she had ever asked if he had hurt himself when he fell.

The door slammed.

Vaelithra startled.

The dream broke.

Her eyes opened.

Bare stone surrounded her.

For several seconds, she did not understand where she was.

Then the lantern came into focus.

Kharun's room.

Vaelithra was still sitting on his bed.

One of the old drawings rested beneath her hand.

Her breathing was unsteady.

She looked down.

Her fingers were touching the paper.

Kharun had drawn this.

The same young orc she had just watched herself humiliate over a spilled cup of tea.

Vaelithra released the page as though it had suddenly become too hot to touch.

She stood.

The room felt smaller now.

She needed to leave.

Vaelithra crossed the threshold and pulled the door closed behind her.

Her own quarters were only a short distance away.

She entered them quickly.

The difference struck her immediately.

Space.

Comfort.

Warmth.

Her fireplace still burned.

The furniture had been selected for beauty as much as usefulness. Books filled shelves. Personal possessions occupied nearly every part of the chamber.

Kharun's room contained a bed, a table, a dresser, and twenty years of drawings hidden away where no one would see them.

Vaelithra walked toward the fireplace.

An ornate bottle of wine sat on the table beside her chair.

She reached for it.

Her hand trembled slightly as she poured.

Vaelithra lifted the cup and drank.

The wine was strong.

She swallowed again.

Then stopped.

Someone was watching her.

Vaelithra's body tensed before reason caught up with instinct.

The mirror.

Her reflection stared back at her from across the room.

She lowered the cup.

Silver-white hair framed the face in the glass. Amber-gold eyes stared back from skin as dark as polished obsidian.

Ninety years old.

Twenty years removed from the woman in the dream.

Yet suddenly Vaelithra could not see the difference.

The same face.

The same blood.

The same daughter of Clan Vel'Sharess.

The same aristocrat who had walked through a slave market deciding which person would best suit her household.

The same woman who had thrown a book at a frightened young orc because he spilled tea.

Vaelithra stared at herself.

Am I any different?

Her jaw tightened.

Of course she was.

Twenty years had passed.

She had fought battles.

Traveled.

Learned.

Changed.

Hadn't she?

Her eyes remained fixed upon the reflection.

This morning, Kharun had stood among the servants while she sat with the nobles.

She had eaten.

He had waited.

When someone accused an orc of striking a noble, her first instinct had not been to question the system that allowed a man's life to be decided within minutes.

It had been shock that the accused man was hers.

Her servant.

Vaelithra's grip tightened around the cup.

Why did that bother her now?

Why did any of this bother her now?

Kharun had been a servant yesterday.

He had been one this morning.

Nothing about the laws of their world had changed.

Nothing about her clan had changed.

Nothing about the relationship between drow and orc had changed.

Only something inside her had.

She didn't understand it.

Her reflection seemed almost accusatory.

Vaelithra suddenly hated the woman in the mirror.

With a sharp movement, she threw the remaining wine.

It struck the glass.

Dark liquid exploded across her reflection.

Wine streamed downward in uneven trails, distorting her face. Amber eyes fractured beneath the rivulets. Silver hair twisted behind wet streaks. Drops gathered along the bottom of the frame before falling onto the floor.

Vaelithra stood motionless.

Her chest rose and fell.

The cup remained clenched in her hand.

She watched wine drip from the mirror.

Why now?

Why did the chains matter now?

Why did the cage matter?

Why did a book thrown twenty years ago matter?

Why did it matter that she had never asked his name?

Why did it matter that Kharun had filled a drawer with her face?

And why, after twenty years of accepting the world exactly as it was, did she suddenly feel sick when she looked at the woman that world had taught her to become?

Vaelithra lowered her eyes.

The faint mark remained on her left hand.

A scar she had carried for twenty years because Kharun had spilled her tea.

She had always remembered how she received it.

Until today, she had never once wondered what Kharun remembered about the same morning.

Vaelithra looked at the ruined reflection again.

Am I still her?

She wanted the answer to be no.

But wanting it did not make it true.

And somewhere beneath her father's manor, the one person who had known both versions of her was waiting to die.

 

The door opened.

Present-day Vaelithra watched from somewhere behind the woman she had been twenty years ago.

A drow stood outside.

She remembered him only vaguely. Another servant of the market, perhaps, or someone employed specifically to make deliveries to the households of wealthy buyers. His face held no significance in her memory.

The figure behind him did.

Kharun.

Vaelithra's attention immediately fell to the iron around his neck.

A heavy collar encircled his throat. A length of chain descended from it toward his restrained hands, where metal cuffs bound his wrists together.

For a moment, present-day Vaelithra forgot everything else.

She stared.

Had he truly arrived like this?

Of course he had.

The memory was hers.

Yet she found herself wanting to reject it.

She knew those hands.

She had watched them hold a sword. Seen them prepare food beside a campfire. Felt them fastening pieces of armor she could have secured herself but had long ago stopped bothering to. Those same hands had filled the drawer in his room with drawings.

Now she saw them bound together.

Something inside her recoiled.

How did I ever think this was acceptable?

The answer came with uncomfortable ease.

Because she had not thought about it at all.

The younger Vaelithra certainly wasn't troubled.

"Lady Vaelithra."

The drow inclined his head respectfully.

"I was instructed to deliver this servant to your residence."

Vaelithra's younger self looked past him.

Her eyes moved over Kharun from head to toe with the same assessing interest she had shown at the market.

Present-day Vaelithra watched herself do it.

"Remove the restraints."

The drow hesitated.

"Milady?"

"You heard me."

His eyes briefly moved toward the young orc.

"Are you certain you wish to do that? He has not yet been trained for household service."

The younger Vaelithra's expression sharpened.

"I can handle one untrained orc if he becomes aggressive."

Present-day Vaelithra almost smiled.

That sounded like her.

The drow apparently knew better than to challenge her confidence.

"As you wish."

He turned toward Kharun.

The restraints came away piece by piece.

First the chain.

Then the cuffs around his wrists.

Finally, the iron collar around his neck.

Kharun did not move while the drow worked.

When the last piece was removed, his hands fell to his sides.

Present-day Vaelithra found herself staring at his wrists.

She wondered whether the iron had left marks.

She couldn't remember.

The drow gathered the restraints.

"Your servant, milady."

He gave Vaelithra a respectful nod.

Then he turned and departed.

The younger Vaelithra watched him leave before returning her attention to the orc standing outside her home.

For several seconds, neither moved.

Kharun's eyes remained lowered.

Vaelithra motioned into the residence.

"Come inside."

Kharun crossed the threshold.

Present-day Vaelithra watched him take that first step into her home.

He stopped just inside.

The door remained open behind him.

He looked profoundly out of place among the polished stone, expensive furnishings, and carefully arranged possessions.

The young orc owned nothing.

Not even the clothes he wore, she supposed.

The realization came from the woman dreaming, not the woman whose memory she inhabited.

Her younger self closed the door.

"Follow me."

Kharun followed.

Vaelithra led him down the corridor.

His footsteps were quieter than she remembered them being now.

Of course they were.

He had not yet grown fully into the enormous man he would become.

Present-day Vaelithra followed them both.

It was strange watching the beginning of a routine that would eventually become so ordinary neither of them thought about it.

Vaelithra walking ahead.

Kharun following several steps behind.

How many thousands of times had they crossed rooms that way?

The younger Vaelithra stopped beside the servant's quarters.

She opened the door.

Kharun looked inside.

"This will be your room while you are in my service."

He said nothing.

Vaelithra continued.

"Tomorrow I'll begin teaching you how I expect things to be done. There will be household duties, errands, maintenance of my equipment, and whatever else I require of you."

Silence.

Kharun remained near the doorway.

His head was still lowered.

Vaelithra waited.

Nothing.

A small crease appeared between her brows.

"Did you hear me?"

No response.

Present-day Vaelithra remembered the irritation.

At seventy, she had interpreted his silence as stupidity, stubbornness, or perhaps the beginning of exactly the behavioral difficulties her father had warned her about.

The younger Vaelithra crossed her arms.

"Can you speak?"

Kharun remained still.

Then, for the first time, she heard his voice.

"Servants were told not to speak to the nobility."

Present-day Vaelithra felt the memory differently now.

His voice was younger.

Not dramatically so, but enough.

The deep resonance she knew had not fully developed. There was uncertainty in it as well, something she could scarcely associate with the Kharun of the present.

The younger Vaelithra rolled her eyes.

This is going to be more difficult than I thought.

She stepped closer.

"When I speak to you, I expect a response."

Kharun listened.

"If I ask you a question, you answer it. If I give you an instruction, you acknowledge that you understand. I have no interest in guessing whether you've heard me."

She waited.

"Do you understand?"

There was a pause.

Then Kharun answered.

"Yes, milady."

Vaelithra went still.

Not the woman standing before him.

The woman dreaming.

She had heard him call her that countless times since.

On horseback.

At dinner.

Across campfires.

In her chambers.

After battles.

In moments of irritation and moments of quiet.

She had long ago stopped noticing the words.

But this was the first.

Two words spoken by a frightened young orc who still would not look her in the eyes.

The younger Vaelithra merely nodded.

"Good."

She gestured toward the room.

"Get some sleep. Your training begins in the morning."

Kharun stepped inside.

Vaelithra began to turn away.

Present-day Vaelithra remained where she was.

She wanted her younger self to stop.

Ask him something.

Anything.

Where had he come from?

How long had he been in the market?

Did he have family?

Was he frightened?

What was his name?

She asked none of those things.

Why would she have?

She had purchased a servant.

She had given him a room.

Tomorrow, she would teach him how to serve her.

That was all the moment had meant.

The younger Vaelithra pulled the door closed.

Present-day Vaelithra stared at it.

For twenty years she had remembered this as the evening her first personal servant arrived.

Now, sitting somewhere far beyond the dream with one of Kharun's drawings still resting in her hand, she understood how little she had truly seen.

He had crossed the threshold of her home in chains.

She had removed them because she was confident she could control him.

She had shown him where he would sleep.

She had told him what she expected.

She had heard his voice for the first time.

And she had walked away without ever asking his name.

The dream moved forward again.

Morning light did not exist in the Underdark, but Vaelithra remembered the rhythms of that first morning clearly enough.

She found herself standing in the kitchen.

Her younger self was beside the counter with Kharun nearby.

The kitchen was pristine. Copper cookware hung neatly from hooks along one wall. Shelves were stocked with ingredients and utensils selected before Vaelithra had ever entered the house. An elegant teapot sat between them.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra measured dried leaves into it.

"Watch."

Kharun watched.

She added precisely the amount she preferred, then demonstrated how much water should be used.

"Too much water and it becomes weak. Too little and it becomes bitter."

Kharun said nothing.

Vaelithra placed the teapot over the heat.

"This stays here until it whistles."

She glanced at him.

"When you hear that, remove it immediately. Pour one cup."

Kharun's eyes remained lowered, but his attention never left what she was showing him.

"I'll be in my study reading. Bring it to me when it's ready."

"Yes, milady."

The younger Vaelithra left.

Present-day Vaelithra remained behind for a moment.

She watched Kharun.

He stood in front of the teapot as though guarding something of tremendous importance.

A young orc who had been brought to this house in chains the previous evening was now being taught how a drow aristocrat preferred her morning tea.

The memory shifted around her.

Vaelithra was in the study.

Her younger self sat comfortably with a book open before her.

Present-day Vaelithra recognized the book.

That surprised her.

She hadn't thought about it in years.

Footsteps approached.

Kharun appeared in the doorway.

He carried a tray.

A steaming cup rested upon it.

He moved carefully.

Painfully carefully, she realized now.

His eyes moved between the tray and the table beside Vaelithra. His shoulders were rigid with concentration.

One more step.

Then something went wrong.

His foot caught.

The tray lurched.

The cup struck the edge of the table.

For one suspended instant, it seemed almost to bounce.

Then the tea went everywhere.

Hot liquid splashed across the table, the book, and Vaelithra's left hand.

She cried out.

Pain came immediately.

The younger Vaelithra surged to her feet.

"What are you doing?"

Kharun froze.

Vaelithra looked at the tea running across the cover of her book.

Then at her reddening hand.

Anger replaced pain almost instantly.

"You clumsy oaf! Look at what you've done."

Kharun's head lowered farther.

Present-day Vaelithra stared at herself.

"Clean this up and make another cup."

The younger Vaelithra grabbed the wet book.

For a moment, present-day Vaelithra thought she was going to carry it away.

Instead, she threw it.

The book struck Kharun and fell to the floor.

Present-day Vaelithra recoiled.

Her younger self walked from the room.

She did not look back.

Kharun remained standing beside the spilled tea.

Vaelithra stared after herself.

A strange horror settled over her.

She wasn't entirely sure why.

She knew the world she had grown up in. She knew how servants were treated. She knew that nothing she had just witnessed would have been remarkable to anyone in her family.

Certainly not to the woman she had been.

Yet she wanted to follow her younger self.

She wanted to seize her by the shoulders and force her to turn around.

Look at him.

Vaelithra looked instead.

Kharun crouched and picked up the book.

The young orc said nothing.

Of course he didn't.

Vaelithra's attention fell to her own hand.

Her left hand.

She turned it over.

There.

Even twenty years later, the mark remained.

Faint.

Small enough that she rarely noticed it anymore.

She remembered the burn.

She remembered being furious about it.

She remembered the book.

She remembered making Kharun prepare another cup.

What she could not remember was whether she had ever asked if he had hurt himself when he fell.

The door slammed.

Vaelithra startled.

The dream broke.

Her eyes opened.

Bare stone surrounded her.

For several seconds, she did not understand where she was.

Then the lantern came into focus.

Kharun's room.

Vaelithra was still sitting on his bed.

One of the old drawings rested beneath her hand.

Her breathing was unsteady.

She looked down.

Her fingers were touching the paper.

Kharun had drawn this.

The same young orc she had just watched herself humiliate over a spilled cup of tea.

Vaelithra released the page as though it had suddenly become too hot to touch.

She stood.

The room felt smaller now.

She needed to leave.

Vaelithra crossed the threshold and pulled the door closed behind her.

Her own quarters were only a short distance away.

She entered them quickly.

The difference struck her immediately.

Space.

Comfort.

Warmth.

Her fireplace still burned.

The furniture had been selected for beauty as much as usefulness. Books filled shelves. Personal possessions occupied nearly every part of the chamber.

Kharun's room contained a bed, a table, a dresser, and twenty years of drawings hidden away where no one would see them.

Vaelithra walked toward the fireplace.

An ornate bottle of wine sat on the table beside her chair.

She reached for it.

Her hand trembled slightly as she poured.

Vaelithra lifted the cup and drank.

The wine was strong.

She swallowed again.

Then stopped.

Someone was watching her.

Vaelithra's body tensed before reason caught up with instinct.

The mirror.

Her reflection stared back at her from across the room.

She lowered the cup.

Silver-white hair framed the face in the glass. Amber-gold eyes stared back from skin as dark as polished obsidian.

Ninety years old.

Twenty years removed from the woman in the dream.

Yet suddenly Vaelithra could not see the difference.

The same face.

The same blood.

The same daughter of Clan Vel'Sharess.

The same aristocrat who had walked through a slave market deciding which person would best suit her household.

The same woman who had thrown a book at a frightened young orc because he spilled tea.

Vaelithra stared at herself.

Am I any different?

Her jaw tightened.

Of course she was.

Twenty years had passed.

She had fought battles.

Traveled.

Learned.

Changed.

Hadn't she?

Her eyes remained fixed upon the reflection.

This morning, Kharun had stood among the servants while she sat with the nobles.

She had eaten.

He had waited.

When someone accused an orc of striking a noble, her first instinct had not been to question the system that allowed a man's life to be decided within minutes.

It had been shock that the accused man was hers.

Her servant.

Vaelithra's grip tightened around the cup.

Why did that bother her now?

Why did any of this bother her now?

Kharun had been a servant yesterday.

He had been one this morning.

Nothing about the laws of their world had changed.

Nothing about her clan had changed.

Nothing about the relationship between drow and orc had changed.

Only something inside her had.

She didn't understand it.

Her reflection seemed almost accusatory.

Vaelithra suddenly hated the woman in the mirror.

With a sharp movement, she threw the remaining wine.

It struck the glass.

Dark liquid exploded across her reflection.

Wine streamed downward in uneven trails, distorting her face. Amber eyes fractured beneath the rivulets. Silver hair twisted behind wet streaks. Drops gathered along the bottom of the frame before falling onto the floor.

Vaelithra stood motionless.

Her chest rose and fell.

The cup remained clenched in her hand.

She watched wine drip from the mirror.

Why now?

Why did the chains matter now?

Why did the cage matter?

Why did a book thrown twenty years ago matter?

Why did it matter that she had never asked his name?

Why did it matter that Kharun had filled a drawer with her face?

And why, after twenty years of accepting the world exactly as it was, did she suddenly feel sick when she looked at the woman that world had taught her to become?

Vaelithra lowered her eyes.

The faint mark remained on her left hand.

A scar she had carried for twenty years because Kharun had spilled her tea.

She had always remembered how she received it.

Until today, she had never once wondered what Kharun remembered about the same morning.

Vaelithra looked at the ruined reflection again.

Am I still her?

She wanted the answer to be no.

But wanting it did not make it true.

And somewhere beneath her father's manor, the one person who had known both versions of her was waiting to die.

 

The door opened.

Present-day Vaelithra watched from somewhere behind the woman she had been twenty years ago.

A drow stood outside.

She remembered him only vaguely. Another servant of the market, perhaps, or someone employed specifically to make deliveries to the households of wealthy buyers. His face held no significance in her memory.

The figure behind him did.

Kharun.

Vaelithra's attention immediately fell to the iron around his neck.

A heavy collar encircled his throat. A length of chain descended from it toward his restrained hands, where metal cuffs bound his wrists together.

For a moment, present-day Vaelithra forgot everything else.

She stared.

Had he truly arrived like this?

Of course he had.

The memory was hers.

Yet she found herself wanting to reject it.

She knew those hands.

She had watched them hold a sword. Seen them prepare food beside a campfire. Felt them fastening pieces of armor she could have secured herself but had long ago stopped bothering to. Those same hands had filled the drawer in his room with drawings.

Now she saw them bound together.

Something inside her recoiled.

How did I ever think this was acceptable?

The answer came with uncomfortable ease.

Because she had not thought about it at all.

The younger Vaelithra certainly wasn't troubled.

"Lady Vaelithra."

The drow inclined his head respectfully.

"I was instructed to deliver this servant to your residence."

Vaelithra's younger self looked past him.

Her eyes moved over Kharun from head to toe with the same assessing interest she had shown at the market.

Present-day Vaelithra watched herself do it.

"Remove the restraints."

The drow hesitated.

"Milady?"

"You heard me."

His eyes briefly moved toward the young orc.

"Are you certain you wish to do that? He has not yet been trained for household service."

The younger Vaelithra's expression sharpened.

"I can handle one untrained orc if he becomes aggressive."

Present-day Vaelithra almost smiled.

That sounded like her.

The drow apparently knew better than to challenge her confidence.

"As you wish."

He turned toward Kharun.

The restraints came away piece by piece.

First the chain.

Then the cuffs around his wrists.

Finally, the iron collar around his neck.

Kharun did not move while the drow worked.

When the last piece was removed, his hands fell to his sides.

Present-day Vaelithra found herself staring at his wrists.

She wondered whether the iron had left marks.

She couldn't remember.

The drow gathered the restraints.

"Your servant, milady."

He gave Vaelithra a respectful nod.

Then he turned and departed.

The younger Vaelithra watched him leave before returning her attention to the orc standing outside her home.

For several seconds, neither moved.

Kharun's eyes remained lowered.

Vaelithra motioned into the residence.

"Come inside."

Kharun crossed the threshold.

Present-day Vaelithra watched him take that first step into her home.

He stopped just inside.

The door remained open behind him.

He looked profoundly out of place among the polished stone, expensive furnishings, and carefully arranged possessions.

The young orc owned nothing.

Not even the clothes he wore, she supposed.

The realization came from the woman dreaming, not the woman whose memory she inhabited.

Her younger self closed the door.

"Follow me."

Kharun followed.

Vaelithra led him down the corridor.

His footsteps were quieter than she remembered them being now.

Of course they were.

He had not yet grown fully into the enormous man he would become.

Present-day Vaelithra followed them both.

It was strange watching the beginning of a routine that would eventually become so ordinary neither of them thought about it.

Vaelithra walking ahead.

Kharun following several steps behind.

How many thousands of times had they crossed rooms that way?

The younger Vaelithra stopped beside the servant's quarters.

She opened the door.

Kharun looked inside.

"This will be your room while you are in my service."

He said nothing.

Vaelithra continued.

"Tomorrow I'll begin teaching you how I expect things to be done. There will be household duties, errands, maintenance of my equipment, and whatever else I require of you."

Silence.

Kharun remained near the doorway.

His head was still lowered.

Vaelithra waited.

Nothing.

A small crease appeared between her brows.

"Did you hear me?"

No response.

Present-day Vaelithra remembered the irritation.

At seventy, she had interpreted his silence as stupidity, stubbornness, or perhaps the beginning of exactly the behavioral difficulties her father had warned her about.

The younger Vaelithra crossed her arms.

"Can you speak?"

Kharun remained still.

Then, for the first time, she heard his voice.

"Servants were told not to speak to the nobility."

Present-day Vaelithra felt the memory differently now.

His voice was younger.

Not dramatically so, but enough.

The deep resonance she knew had not fully developed. There was uncertainty in it as well, something she could scarcely associate with the Kharun of the present.

The younger Vaelithra rolled her eyes.

This is going to be more difficult than I thought.

She stepped closer.

"When I speak to you, I expect a response."

Kharun listened.

"If I ask you a question, you answer it. If I give you an instruction, you acknowledge that you understand. I have no interest in guessing whether you've heard me."

She waited.

"Do you understand?"

There was a pause.

Then Kharun answered.

"Yes, milady."

Vaelithra went still.

Not the woman standing before him.

The woman dreaming.

She had heard him call her that countless times since.

On horseback.

At dinner.

Across campfires.

In her chambers.

After battles.

In moments of irritation and moments of quiet.

She had long ago stopped noticing the words.

But this was the first.

Two words spoken by a frightened young orc who still would not look her in the eyes.

The younger Vaelithra merely nodded.

"Good."

She gestured toward the room.

"Get some sleep. Your training begins in the morning."

Kharun stepped inside.

Vaelithra began to turn away.

Present-day Vaelithra remained where she was.

She wanted her younger self to stop.

Ask him something.

Anything.

Where had he come from?

How long had he been in the market?

Did he have family?

Was he frightened?

What was his name?

She asked none of those things.

Why would she have?

She had purchased a servant.

She had given him a room.

Tomorrow, she would teach him how to serve her.

That was all the moment had meant.

The younger Vaelithra pulled the door closed.

Present-day Vaelithra stared at it.

For twenty years she had remembered this as the evening her first personal servant arrived.

Now, sitting somewhere far beyond the dream with one of Kharun's drawings still resting in her hand, she understood how little she had truly seen.

He had crossed the threshold of her home in chains.

She had removed them because she was confident she could control him.

She had shown him where he would sleep.

She had told him what she expected.

She had heard his voice for the first time.

And she had walked away without ever asking his name.

The dream moved forward again.

Morning light did not exist in the Underdark, but Vaelithra remembered the rhythms of that first morning clearly enough.

She found herself standing in the kitchen.

Her younger self was beside the counter with Kharun nearby.

The kitchen was pristine. Copper cookware hung neatly from hooks along one wall. Shelves were stocked with ingredients and utensils selected before Vaelithra had ever entered the house. An elegant teapot sat between them.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra measured dried leaves into it.

"Watch."

Kharun watched.

She added precisely the amount she preferred, then demonstrated how much water should be used.

"Too much water and it becomes weak. Too little and it becomes bitter."

Kharun said nothing.

Vaelithra placed the teapot over the heat.

"This stays here until it whistles."

She glanced at him.

"When you hear that, remove it immediately. Pour one cup."

Kharun's eyes remained lowered, but his attention never left what she was showing him.

"I'll be in my study reading. Bring it to me when it's ready."

"Yes, milady."

The younger Vaelithra left.

Present-day Vaelithra remained behind for a moment.

She watched Kharun.

He stood in front of the teapot as though guarding something of tremendous importance.

A young orc who had been brought to this house in chains the previous evening was now being taught how a drow aristocrat preferred her morning tea.

The memory shifted around her.

Vaelithra was in the study.

Her younger self sat comfortably with a book open before her.

Present-day Vaelithra recognized the book.

That surprised her.

She hadn't thought about it in years.

Footsteps approached.

Kharun appeared in the doorway.

He carried a tray.

A steaming cup rested upon it.

He moved carefully.

Painfully carefully, she realized now.

His eyes moved between the tray and the table beside Vaelithra. His shoulders were rigid with concentration.

One more step.

Then something went wrong.

His foot caught.

The tray lurched.

The cup struck the edge of the table.

For one suspended instant, it seemed almost to bounce.

Then the tea went everywhere.

Hot liquid splashed across the table, the book, and Vaelithra's left hand.

She cried out.

Pain came immediately.

The younger Vaelithra surged to her feet.

"What are you doing?"

Kharun froze.

Vaelithra looked at the tea running across the cover of her book.

Then at her reddening hand.

Anger replaced pain almost instantly.

"You clumsy oaf! Look at what you've done."

Kharun's head lowered farther.

Present-day Vaelithra stared at herself.

"Clean this up and make another cup."

The younger Vaelithra grabbed the wet book.

For a moment, present-day Vaelithra thought she was going to carry it away.

Instead, she threw it.

The book struck Kharun and fell to the floor.

Present-day Vaelithra recoiled.

Her younger self walked from the room.

She did not look back.

Kharun remained standing beside the spilled tea.

Vaelithra stared after herself.

A strange horror settled over her.

She wasn't entirely sure why.

She knew the world she had grown up in. She knew how servants were treated. She knew that nothing she had just witnessed would have been remarkable to anyone in her family.

Certainly not to the woman she had been.

Yet she wanted to follow her younger self.

She wanted to seize her by the shoulders and force her to turn around.

Look at him.

Vaelithra looked instead.

Kharun crouched and picked up the book.

The young orc said nothing.

Of course he didn't.

Vaelithra's attention fell to her own hand.

Her left hand.

She turned it over.

There.

Even twenty years later, the mark remained.

Faint.

Small enough that she rarely noticed it anymore.

She remembered the burn.

She remembered being furious about it.

She remembered the book.

She remembered making Kharun prepare another cup.

What she could not remember was whether she had ever asked if he had hurt himself when he fell.

The door slammed.

Vaelithra startled.

The dream broke.

Her eyes opened.

Bare stone surrounded her.

For several seconds, she did not understand where she was.

Then the lantern came into focus.

Kharun's room.

Vaelithra was still sitting on his bed.

One of the old drawings rested beneath her hand.

Her breathing was unsteady.

She looked down.

Her fingers were touching the paper.

Kharun had drawn this.

The same young orc she had just watched herself humiliate over a spilled cup of tea.

Vaelithra released the page as though it had suddenly become too hot to touch.

She stood.

The room felt smaller now.

She needed to leave.

Vaelithra crossed the threshold and pulled the door closed behind her.

Her own quarters were only a short distance away.

She entered them quickly.

The difference struck her immediately.

Space.

Comfort.

Warmth.

Her fireplace still burned.

The furniture had been selected for beauty as much as usefulness. Books filled shelves. Personal possessions occupied nearly every part of the chamber.

Kharun's room contained a bed, a table, a dresser, and twenty years of drawings hidden away where no one would see them.

Vaelithra walked toward the fireplace.

An ornate bottle of wine sat on the table beside her chair.

She reached for it.

Her hand trembled slightly as she poured.

Vaelithra lifted the cup and drank.

The wine was strong.

She swallowed again.

Then stopped.

Someone was watching her.

Vaelithra's body tensed before reason caught up with instinct.

The mirror.

Her reflection stared back at her from across the room.

She lowered the cup.

Silver-white hair framed the face in the glass. Amber-gold eyes stared back from skin as dark as polished obsidian.

Ninety years old.

Twenty years removed from the woman in the dream.

Yet suddenly Vaelithra could not see the difference.

The same face.

The same blood.

The same daughter of Clan Vel'Sharess.

The same aristocrat who had walked through a slave market deciding which person would best suit her household.

The same woman who had thrown a book at a frightened young orc because he spilled tea.

Vaelithra stared at herself.

Am I any different?

Her jaw tightened.

Of course she was.

Twenty years had passed.

She had fought battles.

Traveled.

Learned.

Changed.

Hadn't she?

Her eyes remained fixed upon the reflection.

This morning, Kharun had stood among the servants while she sat with the nobles.

She had eaten.

He had waited.

When someone accused an orc of striking a noble, her first instinct had not been to question the system that allowed a man's life to be decided within minutes.

It had been shock that the accused man was hers.

Her servant.

Vaelithra's grip tightened around the cup.

Why did that bother her now?

Why did any of this bother her now?

Kharun had been a servant yesterday.

He had been one this morning.

Nothing about the laws of their world had changed.

Nothing about her clan had changed.

Nothing about the relationship between drow and orc had changed.

Only something inside her had.

She didn't understand it.

Her reflection seemed almost accusatory.

Vaelithra suddenly hated the woman in the mirror.

With a sharp movement, she threw the remaining wine.

It struck the glass.

Dark liquid exploded across her reflection.

Wine streamed downward in uneven trails, distorting her face. Amber eyes fractured beneath the rivulets. Silver hair twisted behind wet streaks. Drops gathered along the bottom of the frame before falling onto the floor.

Vaelithra stood motionless.

Her chest rose and fell.

The cup remained clenched in her hand.

She watched wine drip from the mirror.

Why now?

Why did the chains matter now?

Why did the cage matter?

Why did a book thrown twenty years ago matter?

Why did it matter that she had never asked his name?

Why did it matter that Kharun had filled a drawer with her face?

And why, after twenty years of accepting the world exactly as it was, did she suddenly feel sick when she looked at the woman that world had taught her to become?

Vaelithra lowered her eyes.

The faint mark remained on her left hand.

A scar she had carried for twenty years because Kharun had spilled her tea.

She had always remembered how she received it.

Until today, she had never once wondered what Kharun remembered about the same morning.

Vaelithra looked at the ruined reflection again.

Am I still her?

She wanted the answer to be no.

But wanting it did not make it true.

And somewhere beneath her father's manor, the one person who had known both versions of her was waiting to die.

 

Vaelithra remained in Kharun's quarters.

The lantern burned quietly on the small table, its light touching the bare stone walls with a warmth the room itself seemed incapable of possessing.

One of Kharun's drawings remained in her hands.

An older one.

The paper was rougher than the sheets she had purchased for him recently. The charcoal had faded slightly with age, but the image remained unmistakable.

Her.

Vaelithra sat on the edge of his bed.

The mattress yielded very little beneath her weight. She leaned back until her head rested against the cold stone wall and looked down at the drawing once more.

Twenty years.

Her eyes wandered over the charcoal lines.

There had been a time before Kharun.

The thought seemed strangely difficult to reconcile with the life she knew now. Of course there had been. Seventy years of it, in fact. Yet as Vaelithra searched through the memories of the last two decades, she found him everywhere.

Sometimes at the center of them.

More often somewhere near the edges.

Walking behind her horse.

Standing beside a doorway.

Carrying something she had handed him without looking.

Watching a campfire while she slept.

Waiting silently while she read.

She remembered the younger face that had gradually become the one she knew now. She remembered when the first scars appeared. She remembered changes in his voice, his posture, his strength.

She remembered changes in herself as well.

The drawing slowly lowered against her lap.

Her eyelids felt heavy.

Vaelithra closed them.

Just for a moment.

Her thoughts continued moving through the years. Images surfaced and disappeared without order. Journeys. Arguments. Hunts. Quiet evenings. Battles. Meals. The countless ordinary moments that had seemed meaningless when they happened.

Her breathing slowed.

The drawing remained loosely held between her fingers.

At some point, without realizing it, Vaelithra fell asleep.

And twenty years disappeared.

She was standing beneath the vaulted ceiling of the clan's ceremonial hall.

Except she wasn't.

Vaelithra watched herself from somewhere that had no physical place in the memory.

She recognized the robes immediately.

The silver ornamentation.

The ceremonial blade.

She remembered the weight of every piece.

Her Rite of Ascendance.

Vaelithra watched the woman she had been at seventy standing before the assembled members of Clan Vel'Sharess and receive formal recognition as an adult.

She remembered that day.

She remembered the pride.

The impatience.

The overwhelming certainty that adulthood would change everything.

It had, although not in the ways she had imagined.

The dream shifted.

Stone pillars passed around her.

Voices blended together.

Then came the market.

Vaelithra knew where she was before she saw the cages.

The slave markets of Clan Vel'Sharess stretched through a broad cavern beneath the settlement. Merchants called from beneath hanging lanterns while buyers moved between rows of barred enclosures.

The clan owned the market itself. Traders paid for the privilege of selling there, and members of Clan Vel'Sharess enjoyed access to some of the finest selections brought through the province.

There were slaves from nearly every people Vaelithra knew.

Humans.

Orcs.

Goblins.

Dwarves.

Deep gnomes.

Even drow.

Some stood chained individually. Others occupied cages in groups. A few merchants displayed slaves according to specialized skills, advertising cooks, craftsmen, laborers, scribes, attendants, and guards.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra walked through it all beside her father.

She remembered how little attention she had paid to the faces.

That realization felt different now.

At the time, they had been beneath her notice.

She had completed her Rite of Ascendance. She was an adult of Clan Vel'Sharess. She could own property in her own right. She could maintain a residence independent of her father's household.

And with that independence came expectations.

A woman of her station did not maintain her own home without servants.

Ordinarily, acquiring them would have been Vaelithra's responsibility.

Her father had decided otherwise.

"You have done well," he told her as they walked. "Consider this another gift."

The younger Vaelithra smiled.

"I am perfectly capable of purchasing my own servant."

"I know."

Her father glanced toward her.

"Allow me the indulgence of being proud of my daughter."

Vaelithra remembered rolling her eyes.

Watching herself do it now almost amused her.

They continued deeper into the market.

Her younger self inspected the available slaves with detached interest. She dismissed most after little more than a glance.

Too old.

Too frail.

Too expensive for what they offered.

One merchant attempted to attract her attention with a human woman trained in domestic service.

Vaelithra kept walking.

Then she reached the orc cages.

She stopped.

Present-day Vaelithra felt something twist inside her.

There he was.

She had forgotten how young he looked.

Several orcs occupied the enclosure, but her younger self was staring at one near the back.

He could not have been more than sixteen or seventeen.

Barely an adult by the standards of his people.

He was already tall, though nowhere near the immense figure he would become. Youth still softened some of the harder features Vaelithra knew so well. His shoulders had begun to broaden, but he had yet to grow fully into them.

No familiar scars.

No carefully controlled expression she had spent twenty years learning to read.

Just a young orc standing inside a cage.

Kharun.

The name came from the Vaelithra who dreamed.

The woman inside the memory did not know it.

Her father noticed where she had stopped.

"This one?"

The younger Vaelithra studied the orc.

"Step forward."

He didn't move.

Vaelithra remembered the irritation.

Her father stepped closer to the cage and struck the bars with one hand.

The metallic crash caused several of the slaves inside to flinch.

"Slave, you were ordered to step forward!"

The young orc finally moved.

He emerged from the others and approached the front of the cage.

His head remained lowered.

His arms hung at his sides.

Vaelithra walked around the enclosure.

She remembered doing this.

What she had forgotten was how thoroughly she had inspected him.

She moved slowly along one side of the cage, studying his posture and build. She crossed behind it and examined him from the opposite direction.

The young orc remained still.

Present-day Vaelithra watched.

There was something almost painful about seeing him like this.

She knew what those shoulders would eventually look like beneath armor.

She knew those hands would someday saddle her horse, prepare her meals, sharpen her weapons, tend her wounds, and fill page after page with drawings of her.

She knew that voice, still unheard, would eventually become so familiar that she could recognize it from another room.

The younger Vaelithra knew none of those things.

She was choosing a servant.

Nothing more.

Vaelithra returned to her father's side.

"Yes. This one will do nicely."

Her father looked from his daughter to the young orc.

"Are you certain you want one this young? Orcs can be notoriously difficult to train."

Vaelithra looked through the bars again.

The young orc's head remained lowered.

"Yes, Father. I think this one will do nicely."

Her father studied her for another moment before accepting the decision.

He raised a hand.

The slave master approached almost immediately.

Vaelithra remembered the man only vaguely. Even within the dream, his face seemed indistinct. Her memory had apparently decided he had not been important enough to preserve.

Her father removed a pouch from his belt.

Coins shifted heavily inside.

He tossed it to the slave master.

"Clean this one and have it delivered to my daughter's residence."

The slave master opened the pouch, inspected its contents, and smiled.

"Of course, milord. He will be delivered this evening after the market closes."

Her father nodded.

Vaelithra did the same.

Then they left.

Present-day Vaelithra remained behind.

The dream allowed it.

She watched her younger self disappear into the crowd beside her father.

Neither looked back.

Vaelithra did.

Kharun remained behind the bars.

Young.

Nameless to her.

His head still bowed.

She wanted to approach the cage.

She wanted to see his face.

She wanted to know what he had thought as she circled him and decided whether he was worth purchasing.

Had he hated her?

Feared her?

Had he looked at the arrogant drow woman inspecting him and imagined that twenty years later she would be sitting on his bed, surrounded by drawings he had made of her?

Of course not.

Neither of them could possibly have known.

Vaelithra stared at him through the bars.

She remembered what she had said.

This one will do nicely.

Such an insignificant sentence.

A decision made in minutes.

Then she had simply walked away.

Yet watching it now, Vaelithra understood something her seventy-year-old self could not have comprehended.

She had entered that market expecting to leave with a servant.

Instead, without knowing it, she had chosen someone who would still be standing beside her twenty years later.

Someone whose absence, on this terrible morning two decades in the future, would make her own home feel empty.

The dream shifted.

The slave market disappeared.

Voices faded into nothing. Iron bars dissolved into darkness. The cavern, the merchants, her father, and the young orc waiting silently inside the cage all slipped away.

When the world returned, evening had come.

Vaelithra recognized her home immediately.

Not as it was now.

As it had been twenty years ago.

She watched her younger self enter through the front door and stop just inside.

Everything was new.

Her residence had been a gift from the Matron Mother herself.

Her grandmother.

Vaelithra remembered the pride she had felt upon learning of it. Completing the Rite of Ascendance had formally established her as an adult of Clan Vel'Sharess, and the Matron Mother had apparently decided that her granddaughter's first independent residence should leave no question as to the family's wealth or status.

No expense had been spared.

The home was not enormous by the standards of the highest drow aristocracy, but it was far more than a newly ascended noblewoman required. Dark polished stone formed the floors beneath her feet. Carefully selected furnishings occupied each chamber. Cabinets had already been stocked. Goblets and plates sat waiting to be used. Fine fabrics softened the severity of the stone architecture.

Even the smallest details had been considered.

Vaelithra walked farther inside.

She remembered exploring the residence that evening.

There had been a peculiar sensation attached to it.

Mine.

Not her father's.

Not a chamber assigned to her within the family estate.

Hers.

She could come and go without explaining herself. Arrange things however she pleased. Entertain whomever she wanted.

The independence had been intoxicating.

Her personal belongings had already arrived from her father's estate. Clothing filled the wardrobes. Her books had been placed upon shelves. Weapons she had accumulated through training and travel were arranged according to instructions she did not remember giving.

Someone had even managed to reproduce the organization of her old bedroom closely enough that finding anything required almost no effort.

Vaelithra smiled as she watched herself inspect it all.

She had taken that for granted too.

There were two bedrooms.

One belonged to her.

Calling it a bedroom scarcely seemed adequate.

The chamber had been furnished for a daughter of Clan Vel'Sharess. A large bed dominated one wall, surrounded by carefully selected furniture. Thick rugs covered portions of the stone floor. Shelves waited for more books than she presently owned. An adjoining dressing area contained enough storage for a wardrobe she would spend years expanding.

She remembered standing in the center of that room and thinking it was exactly what she deserved.

Present-day Vaelithra almost laughed.

Then her younger self left the chamber.

She walked farther down the corridor.

There was another door.

Vaelithra knew what lay behind it.

She watched herself reach for the handle.

The door opened.

The servant's room was considerably smaller.

Bare stone walls.

No windows.

A simple bed stood against one side of the chamber. Beside it was a small dresser. Across from the bed sat a plain wooden table and a single chair.

That was all.

No rugs.

No decoration.

No unnecessary comfort.

Only what a servant required.

Vaelithra stood in the doorway and inspected it.

At seventy, the contrast between the two bedrooms had meant nothing to her.

Why would it?

One room belonged to a drow aristocrat.

The other belonged to a servant.

The difference was natural.

Expected.

Present-day Vaelithra looked into the room with very different eyes.

She knew this room.

She had been sitting inside it only moments ago.

Or perhaps she still was.

Dreams made such distinctions meaningless.

The bed would eventually become Kharun's bed.

The dresser would hold his clothes.

The table would someday support a lantern and a little box of tindertwigs.

And somewhere along the way, that upper drawer would fill with charcoal, paper, and twenty years of memories.

But right now there was nothing.

No drawings.

No clothes.

No lantern.

No trace of him.

It was simply an empty room waiting for a servant.

Vaelithra's younger self seemed satisfied.

She pulled the door closed.

A knock sounded through the residence.

Present-day Vaelithra knew immediately.

Her younger self did not.

She merely turned toward the sound.

Another knock followed.

Vaelithra walked down the corridor toward the entrance.

Present-day Vaelithra followed her.

A strange anticipation grew inside her.

She knew what waited on the other side of that door.

She knew the face.

She knew the man that frightened young orc would become.

She knew the sound of his footsteps well enough to recognize them without looking. She knew the way he stood when waiting for instructions. She knew how he prepared her tea, how tightly he fastened the straps of her armor, how he packed for journeys, how he built a campfire.

She knew the charcoal portraits waiting twenty years in the future.

Her younger self knew none of it.

To her, the knock at the door meant only that the purchase from the market had arrived.

Vaelithra reached the entrance.

Her hand settled upon the handle.

Present-day Vaelithra watched from somewhere just behind her.

She suddenly remembered this moment with startling clarity.

The first evening in her own home.

The first knock upon her own door.

The first servant who would live beneath her roof.

The first time Kharun would stand on the other side of it.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra began to open the door.

 

Vaelithra remained in Kharun's quarters.

The lantern burned quietly on the small table, its light touching the bare stone walls with a warmth the room itself seemed incapable of possessing.

One of Kharun's drawings remained in her hands.

An older one.

The paper was rougher than the sheets she had purchased for him recently. The charcoal had faded slightly with age, but the image remained unmistakable.

Her.

Vaelithra sat on the edge of his bed.

The mattress yielded very little beneath her weight. She leaned back until her head rested against the cold stone wall and looked down at the drawing once more.

Twenty years.

Her eyes wandered over the charcoal lines.

There had been a time before Kharun.

The thought seemed strangely difficult to reconcile with the life she knew now. Of course there had been. Seventy years of it, in fact. Yet as Vaelithra searched through the memories of the last two decades, she found him everywhere.

Sometimes at the center of them.

More often somewhere near the edges.

Walking behind her horse.

Standing beside a doorway.

Carrying something she had handed him without looking.

Watching a campfire while she slept.

Waiting silently while she read.

She remembered the younger face that had gradually become the one she knew now. She remembered when the first scars appeared. She remembered changes in his voice, his posture, his strength.

She remembered changes in herself as well.

The drawing slowly lowered against her lap.

Her eyelids felt heavy.

Vaelithra closed them.

Just for a moment.

Her thoughts continued moving through the years. Images surfaced and disappeared without order. Journeys. Arguments. Hunts. Quiet evenings. Battles. Meals. The countless ordinary moments that had seemed meaningless when they happened.

Her breathing slowed.

The drawing remained loosely held between her fingers.

At some point, without realizing it, Vaelithra fell asleep.

And twenty years disappeared.

She was standing beneath the vaulted ceiling of the clan's ceremonial hall.

Except she wasn't.

Vaelithra watched herself from somewhere that had no physical place in the memory.

She recognized the robes immediately.

The silver ornamentation.

The ceremonial blade.

She remembered the weight of every piece.

Her Rite of Ascendance.

Vaelithra watched the woman she had been at seventy standing before the assembled members of Clan Vel'Sharess and receive formal recognition as an adult.

She remembered that day.

She remembered the pride.

The impatience.

The overwhelming certainty that adulthood would change everything.

It had, although not in the ways she had imagined.

The dream shifted.

Stone pillars passed around her.

Voices blended together.

Then came the market.

Vaelithra knew where she was before she saw the cages.

The slave markets of Clan Vel'Sharess stretched through a broad cavern beneath the settlement. Merchants called from beneath hanging lanterns while buyers moved between rows of barred enclosures.

The clan owned the market itself. Traders paid for the privilege of selling there, and members of Clan Vel'Sharess enjoyed access to some of the finest selections brought through the province.

There were slaves from nearly every people Vaelithra knew.

Humans.

Orcs.

Goblins.

Dwarves.

Deep gnomes.

Even drow.

Some stood chained individually. Others occupied cages in groups. A few merchants displayed slaves according to specialized skills, advertising cooks, craftsmen, laborers, scribes, attendants, and guards.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra walked through it all beside her father.

She remembered how little attention she had paid to the faces.

That realization felt different now.

At the time, they had been beneath her notice.

She had completed her Rite of Ascendance. She was an adult of Clan Vel'Sharess. She could own property in her own right. She could maintain a residence independent of her father's household.

And with that independence came expectations.

A woman of her station did not maintain her own home without servants.

Ordinarily, acquiring them would have been Vaelithra's responsibility.

Her father had decided otherwise.

"You have done well," he told her as they walked. "Consider this another gift."

The younger Vaelithra smiled.

"I am perfectly capable of purchasing my own servant."

"I know."

Her father glanced toward her.

"Allow me the indulgence of being proud of my daughter."

Vaelithra remembered rolling her eyes.

Watching herself do it now almost amused her.

They continued deeper into the market.

Her younger self inspected the available slaves with detached interest. She dismissed most after little more than a glance.

Too old.

Too frail.

Too expensive for what they offered.

One merchant attempted to attract her attention with a human woman trained in domestic service.

Vaelithra kept walking.

Then she reached the orc cages.

She stopped.

Present-day Vaelithra felt something twist inside her.

There he was.

She had forgotten how young he looked.

Several orcs occupied the enclosure, but her younger self was staring at one near the back.

He could not have been more than sixteen or seventeen.

Barely an adult by the standards of his people.

He was already tall, though nowhere near the immense figure he would become. Youth still softened some of the harder features Vaelithra knew so well. His shoulders had begun to broaden, but he had yet to grow fully into them.

No familiar scars.

No carefully controlled expression she had spent twenty years learning to read.

Just a young orc standing inside a cage.

Kharun.

The name came from the Vaelithra who dreamed.

The woman inside the memory did not know it.

Her father noticed where she had stopped.

"This one?"

The younger Vaelithra studied the orc.

"Step forward."

He didn't move.

Vaelithra remembered the irritation.

Her father stepped closer to the cage and struck the bars with one hand.

The metallic crash caused several of the slaves inside to flinch.

"Slave, you were ordered to step forward!"

The young orc finally moved.

He emerged from the others and approached the front of the cage.

His head remained lowered.

His arms hung at his sides.

Vaelithra walked around the enclosure.

She remembered doing this.

What she had forgotten was how thoroughly she had inspected him.

She moved slowly along one side of the cage, studying his posture and build. She crossed behind it and examined him from the opposite direction.

The young orc remained still.

Present-day Vaelithra watched.

There was something almost painful about seeing him like this.

She knew what those shoulders would eventually look like beneath armor.

She knew those hands would someday saddle her horse, prepare her meals, sharpen her weapons, tend her wounds, and fill page after page with drawings of her.

She knew that voice, still unheard, would eventually become so familiar that she could recognize it from another room.

The younger Vaelithra knew none of those things.

She was choosing a servant.

Nothing more.

Vaelithra returned to her father's side.

"Yes. This one will do nicely."

Her father looked from his daughter to the young orc.

"Are you certain you want one this young? Orcs can be notoriously difficult to train."

Vaelithra looked through the bars again.

The young orc's head remained lowered.

"Yes, Father. I think this one will do nicely."

Her father studied her for another moment before accepting the decision.

He raised a hand.

The slave master approached almost immediately.

Vaelithra remembered the man only vaguely. Even within the dream, his face seemed indistinct. Her memory had apparently decided he had not been important enough to preserve.

Her father removed a pouch from his belt.

Coins shifted heavily inside.

He tossed it to the slave master.

"Clean this one and have it delivered to my daughter's residence."

The slave master opened the pouch, inspected its contents, and smiled.

"Of course, milord. He will be delivered this evening after the market closes."

Her father nodded.

Vaelithra did the same.

Then they left.

Present-day Vaelithra remained behind.

The dream allowed it.

She watched her younger self disappear into the crowd beside her father.

Neither looked back.

Vaelithra did.

Kharun remained behind the bars.

Young.

Nameless to her.

His head still bowed.

She wanted to approach the cage.

She wanted to see his face.

She wanted to know what he had thought as she circled him and decided whether he was worth purchasing.

Had he hated her?

Feared her?

Had he looked at the arrogant drow woman inspecting him and imagined that twenty years later she would be sitting on his bed, surrounded by drawings he had made of her?

Of course not.

Neither of them could possibly have known.

Vaelithra stared at him through the bars.

She remembered what she had said.

This one will do nicely.

Such an insignificant sentence.

A decision made in minutes.

Then she had simply walked away.

Yet watching it now, Vaelithra understood something her seventy-year-old self could not have comprehended.

She had entered that market expecting to leave with a servant.

Instead, without knowing it, she had chosen someone who would still be standing beside her twenty years later.

Someone whose absence, on this terrible morning two decades in the future, would make her own home feel empty.

The dream shifted.

The slave market disappeared.

Voices faded into nothing. Iron bars dissolved into darkness. The cavern, the merchants, her father, and the young orc waiting silently inside the cage all slipped away.

When the world returned, evening had come.

Vaelithra recognized her home immediately.

Not as it was now.

As it had been twenty years ago.

She watched her younger self enter through the front door and stop just inside.

Everything was new.

Her residence had been a gift from the Matron Mother herself.

Her grandmother.

Vaelithra remembered the pride she had felt upon learning of it. Completing the Rite of Ascendance had formally established her as an adult of Clan Vel'Sharess, and the Matron Mother had apparently decided that her granddaughter's first independent residence should leave no question as to the family's wealth or status.

No expense had been spared.

The home was not enormous by the standards of the highest drow aristocracy, but it was far more than a newly ascended noblewoman required. Dark polished stone formed the floors beneath her feet. Carefully selected furnishings occupied each chamber. Cabinets had already been stocked. Goblets and plates sat waiting to be used. Fine fabrics softened the severity of the stone architecture.

Even the smallest details had been considered.

Vaelithra walked farther inside.

She remembered exploring the residence that evening.

There had been a peculiar sensation attached to it.

Mine.

Not her father's.

Not a chamber assigned to her within the family estate.

Hers.

She could come and go without explaining herself. Arrange things however she pleased. Entertain whomever she wanted.

The independence had been intoxicating.

Her personal belongings had already arrived from her father's estate. Clothing filled the wardrobes. Her books had been placed upon shelves. Weapons she had accumulated through training and travel were arranged according to instructions she did not remember giving.

Someone had even managed to reproduce the organization of her old bedroom closely enough that finding anything required almost no effort.

Vaelithra smiled as she watched herself inspect it all.

She had taken that for granted too.

There were two bedrooms.

One belonged to her.

Calling it a bedroom scarcely seemed adequate.

The chamber had been furnished for a daughter of Clan Vel'Sharess. A large bed dominated one wall, surrounded by carefully selected furniture. Thick rugs covered portions of the stone floor. Shelves waited for more books than she presently owned. An adjoining dressing area contained enough storage for a wardrobe she would spend years expanding.

She remembered standing in the center of that room and thinking it was exactly what she deserved.

Present-day Vaelithra almost laughed.

Then her younger self left the chamber.

She walked farther down the corridor.

There was another door.

Vaelithra knew what lay behind it.

She watched herself reach for the handle.

The door opened.

The servant's room was considerably smaller.

Bare stone walls.

No windows.

A simple bed stood against one side of the chamber. Beside it was a small dresser. Across from the bed sat a plain wooden table and a single chair.

That was all.

No rugs.

No decoration.

No unnecessary comfort.

Only what a servant required.

Vaelithra stood in the doorway and inspected it.

At seventy, the contrast between the two bedrooms had meant nothing to her.

Why would it?

One room belonged to a drow aristocrat.

The other belonged to a servant.

The difference was natural.

Expected.

Present-day Vaelithra looked into the room with very different eyes.

She knew this room.

She had been sitting inside it only moments ago.

Or perhaps she still was.

Dreams made such distinctions meaningless.

The bed would eventually become Kharun's bed.

The dresser would hold his clothes.

The table would someday support a lantern and a little box of tindertwigs.

And somewhere along the way, that upper drawer would fill with charcoal, paper, and twenty years of memories.

But right now there was nothing.

No drawings.

No clothes.

No lantern.

No trace of him.

It was simply an empty room waiting for a servant.

Vaelithra's younger self seemed satisfied.

She pulled the door closed.

A knock sounded through the residence.

Present-day Vaelithra knew immediately.

Her younger self did not.

She merely turned toward the sound.

Another knock followed.

Vaelithra walked down the corridor toward the entrance.

Present-day Vaelithra followed her.

A strange anticipation grew inside her.

She knew what waited on the other side of that door.

She knew the face.

She knew the man that frightened young orc would become.

She knew the sound of his footsteps well enough to recognize them without looking. She knew the way he stood when waiting for instructions. She knew how he prepared her tea, how tightly he fastened the straps of her armor, how he packed for journeys, how he built a campfire.

She knew the charcoal portraits waiting twenty years in the future.

Her younger self knew none of it.

To her, the knock at the door meant only that the purchase from the market had arrived.

Vaelithra reached the entrance.

Her hand settled upon the handle.

Present-day Vaelithra watched from somewhere just behind her.

She suddenly remembered this moment with startling clarity.

The first evening in her own home.

The first knock upon her own door.

The first servant who would live beneath her roof.

The first time Kharun would stand on the other side of it.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra began to open the door.

 

Vaelithra remained in Kharun's quarters.

The lantern burned quietly on the small table, its light touching the bare stone walls with a warmth the room itself seemed incapable of possessing.

One of Kharun's drawings remained in her hands.

An older one.

The paper was rougher than the sheets she had purchased for him recently. The charcoal had faded slightly with age, but the image remained unmistakable.

Her.

Vaelithra sat on the edge of his bed.

The mattress yielded very little beneath her weight. She leaned back until her head rested against the cold stone wall and looked down at the drawing once more.

Twenty years.

Her eyes wandered over the charcoal lines.

There had been a time before Kharun.

The thought seemed strangely difficult to reconcile with the life she knew now. Of course there had been. Seventy years of it, in fact. Yet as Vaelithra searched through the memories of the last two decades, she found him everywhere.

Sometimes at the center of them.

More often somewhere near the edges.

Walking behind her horse.

Standing beside a doorway.

Carrying something she had handed him without looking.

Watching a campfire while she slept.

Waiting silently while she read.

She remembered the younger face that had gradually become the one she knew now. She remembered when the first scars appeared. She remembered changes in his voice, his posture, his strength.

She remembered changes in herself as well.

The drawing slowly lowered against her lap.

Her eyelids felt heavy.

Vaelithra closed them.

Just for a moment.

Her thoughts continued moving through the years. Images surfaced and disappeared without order. Journeys. Arguments. Hunts. Quiet evenings. Battles. Meals. The countless ordinary moments that had seemed meaningless when they happened.

Her breathing slowed.

The drawing remained loosely held between her fingers.

At some point, without realizing it, Vaelithra fell asleep.

And twenty years disappeared.

She was standing beneath the vaulted ceiling of the clan's ceremonial hall.

Except she wasn't.

Vaelithra watched herself from somewhere that had no physical place in the memory.

She recognized the robes immediately.

The silver ornamentation.

The ceremonial blade.

She remembered the weight of every piece.

Her Rite of Ascendance.

Vaelithra watched the woman she had been at seventy standing before the assembled members of Clan Vel'Sharess and receive formal recognition as an adult.

She remembered that day.

She remembered the pride.

The impatience.

The overwhelming certainty that adulthood would change everything.

It had, although not in the ways she had imagined.

The dream shifted.

Stone pillars passed around her.

Voices blended together.

Then came the market.

Vaelithra knew where she was before she saw the cages.

The slave markets of Clan Vel'Sharess stretched through a broad cavern beneath the settlement. Merchants called from beneath hanging lanterns while buyers moved between rows of barred enclosures.

The clan owned the market itself. Traders paid for the privilege of selling there, and members of Clan Vel'Sharess enjoyed access to some of the finest selections brought through the province.

There were slaves from nearly every people Vaelithra knew.

Humans.

Orcs.

Goblins.

Dwarves.

Deep gnomes.

Even drow.

Some stood chained individually. Others occupied cages in groups. A few merchants displayed slaves according to specialized skills, advertising cooks, craftsmen, laborers, scribes, attendants, and guards.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra walked through it all beside her father.

She remembered how little attention she had paid to the faces.

That realization felt different now.

At the time, they had been beneath her notice.

She had completed her Rite of Ascendance. She was an adult of Clan Vel'Sharess. She could own property in her own right. She could maintain a residence independent of her father's household.

And with that independence came expectations.

A woman of her station did not maintain her own home without servants.

Ordinarily, acquiring them would have been Vaelithra's responsibility.

Her father had decided otherwise.

"You have done well," he told her as they walked. "Consider this another gift."

The younger Vaelithra smiled.

"I am perfectly capable of purchasing my own servant."

"I know."

Her father glanced toward her.

"Allow me the indulgence of being proud of my daughter."

Vaelithra remembered rolling her eyes.

Watching herself do it now almost amused her.

They continued deeper into the market.

Her younger self inspected the available slaves with detached interest. She dismissed most after little more than a glance.

Too old.

Too frail.

Too expensive for what they offered.

One merchant attempted to attract her attention with a human woman trained in domestic service.

Vaelithra kept walking.

Then she reached the orc cages.

She stopped.

Present-day Vaelithra felt something twist inside her.

There he was.

She had forgotten how young he looked.

Several orcs occupied the enclosure, but her younger self was staring at one near the back.

He could not have been more than sixteen or seventeen.

Barely an adult by the standards of his people.

He was already tall, though nowhere near the immense figure he would become. Youth still softened some of the harder features Vaelithra knew so well. His shoulders had begun to broaden, but he had yet to grow fully into them.

No familiar scars.

No carefully controlled expression she had spent twenty years learning to read.

Just a young orc standing inside a cage.

Kharun.

The name came from the Vaelithra who dreamed.

The woman inside the memory did not know it.

Her father noticed where she had stopped.

"This one?"

The younger Vaelithra studied the orc.

"Step forward."

He didn't move.

Vaelithra remembered the irritation.

Her father stepped closer to the cage and struck the bars with one hand.

The metallic crash caused several of the slaves inside to flinch.

"Slave, you were ordered to step forward!"

The young orc finally moved.

He emerged from the others and approached the front of the cage.

His head remained lowered.

His arms hung at his sides.

Vaelithra walked around the enclosure.

She remembered doing this.

What she had forgotten was how thoroughly she had inspected him.

She moved slowly along one side of the cage, studying his posture and build. She crossed behind it and examined him from the opposite direction.

The young orc remained still.

Present-day Vaelithra watched.

There was something almost painful about seeing him like this.

She knew what those shoulders would eventually look like beneath armor.

She knew those hands would someday saddle her horse, prepare her meals, sharpen her weapons, tend her wounds, and fill page after page with drawings of her.

She knew that voice, still unheard, would eventually become so familiar that she could recognize it from another room.

The younger Vaelithra knew none of those things.

She was choosing a servant.

Nothing more.

Vaelithra returned to her father's side.

"Yes. This one will do nicely."

Her father looked from his daughter to the young orc.

"Are you certain you want one this young? Orcs can be notoriously difficult to train."

Vaelithra looked through the bars again.

The young orc's head remained lowered.

"Yes, Father. I think this one will do nicely."

Her father studied her for another moment before accepting the decision.

He raised a hand.

The slave master approached almost immediately.

Vaelithra remembered the man only vaguely. Even within the dream, his face seemed indistinct. Her memory had apparently decided he had not been important enough to preserve.

Her father removed a pouch from his belt.

Coins shifted heavily inside.

He tossed it to the slave master.

"Clean this one and have it delivered to my daughter's residence."

The slave master opened the pouch, inspected its contents, and smiled.

"Of course, milord. He will be delivered this evening after the market closes."

Her father nodded.

Vaelithra did the same.

Then they left.

Present-day Vaelithra remained behind.

The dream allowed it.

She watched her younger self disappear into the crowd beside her father.

Neither looked back.

Vaelithra did.

Kharun remained behind the bars.

Young.

Nameless to her.

His head still bowed.

She wanted to approach the cage.

She wanted to see his face.

She wanted to know what he had thought as she circled him and decided whether he was worth purchasing.

Had he hated her?

Feared her?

Had he looked at the arrogant drow woman inspecting him and imagined that twenty years later she would be sitting on his bed, surrounded by drawings he had made of her?

Of course not.

Neither of them could possibly have known.

Vaelithra stared at him through the bars.

She remembered what she had said.

This one will do nicely.

Such an insignificant sentence.

A decision made in minutes.

Then she had simply walked away.

Yet watching it now, Vaelithra understood something her seventy-year-old self could not have comprehended.

She had entered that market expecting to leave with a servant.

Instead, without knowing it, she had chosen someone who would still be standing beside her twenty years later.

Someone whose absence, on this terrible morning two decades in the future, would make her own home feel empty.

The dream shifted.

The slave market disappeared.

Voices faded into nothing. Iron bars dissolved into darkness. The cavern, the merchants, her father, and the young orc waiting silently inside the cage all slipped away.

When the world returned, evening had come.

Vaelithra recognized her home immediately.

Not as it was now.

As it had been twenty years ago.

She watched her younger self enter through the front door and stop just inside.

Everything was new.

Her residence had been a gift from the Matron Mother herself.

Her grandmother.

Vaelithra remembered the pride she had felt upon learning of it. Completing the Rite of Ascendance had formally established her as an adult of Clan Vel'Sharess, and the Matron Mother had apparently decided that her granddaughter's first independent residence should leave no question as to the family's wealth or status.

No expense had been spared.

The home was not enormous by the standards of the highest drow aristocracy, but it was far more than a newly ascended noblewoman required. Dark polished stone formed the floors beneath her feet. Carefully selected furnishings occupied each chamber. Cabinets had already been stocked. Goblets and plates sat waiting to be used. Fine fabrics softened the severity of the stone architecture.

Even the smallest details had been considered.

Vaelithra walked farther inside.

She remembered exploring the residence that evening.

There had been a peculiar sensation attached to it.

Mine.

Not her father's.

Not a chamber assigned to her within the family estate.

Hers.

She could come and go without explaining herself. Arrange things however she pleased. Entertain whomever she wanted.

The independence had been intoxicating.

Her personal belongings had already arrived from her father's estate. Clothing filled the wardrobes. Her books had been placed upon shelves. Weapons she had accumulated through training and travel were arranged according to instructions she did not remember giving.

Someone had even managed to reproduce the organization of her old bedroom closely enough that finding anything required almost no effort.

Vaelithra smiled as she watched herself inspect it all.

She had taken that for granted too.

There were two bedrooms.

One belonged to her.

Calling it a bedroom scarcely seemed adequate.

The chamber had been furnished for a daughter of Clan Vel'Sharess. A large bed dominated one wall, surrounded by carefully selected furniture. Thick rugs covered portions of the stone floor. Shelves waited for more books than she presently owned. An adjoining dressing area contained enough storage for a wardrobe she would spend years expanding.

She remembered standing in the center of that room and thinking it was exactly what she deserved.

Present-day Vaelithra almost laughed.

Then her younger self left the chamber.

She walked farther down the corridor.

There was another door.

Vaelithra knew what lay behind it.

She watched herself reach for the handle.

The door opened.

The servant's room was considerably smaller.

Bare stone walls.

No windows.

A simple bed stood against one side of the chamber. Beside it was a small dresser. Across from the bed sat a plain wooden table and a single chair.

That was all.

No rugs.

No decoration.

No unnecessary comfort.

Only what a servant required.

Vaelithra stood in the doorway and inspected it.

At seventy, the contrast between the two bedrooms had meant nothing to her.

Why would it?

One room belonged to a drow aristocrat.

The other belonged to a servant.

The difference was natural.

Expected.

Present-day Vaelithra looked into the room with very different eyes.

She knew this room.

She had been sitting inside it only moments ago.

Or perhaps she still was.

Dreams made such distinctions meaningless.

The bed would eventually become Kharun's bed.

The dresser would hold his clothes.

The table would someday support a lantern and a little box of tindertwigs.

And somewhere along the way, that upper drawer would fill with charcoal, paper, and twenty years of memories.

But right now there was nothing.

No drawings.

No clothes.

No lantern.

No trace of him.

It was simply an empty room waiting for a servant.

Vaelithra's younger self seemed satisfied.

She pulled the door closed.

A knock sounded through the residence.

Present-day Vaelithra knew immediately.

Her younger self did not.

She merely turned toward the sound.

Another knock followed.

Vaelithra walked down the corridor toward the entrance.

Present-day Vaelithra followed her.

A strange anticipation grew inside her.

She knew what waited on the other side of that door.

She knew the face.

She knew the man that frightened young orc would become.

She knew the sound of his footsteps well enough to recognize them without looking. She knew the way he stood when waiting for instructions. She knew how he prepared her tea, how tightly he fastened the straps of her armor, how he packed for journeys, how he built a campfire.

She knew the charcoal portraits waiting twenty years in the future.

Her younger self knew none of it.

To her, the knock at the door meant only that the purchase from the market had arrived.

Vaelithra reached the entrance.

Her hand settled upon the handle.

Present-day Vaelithra watched from somewhere just behind her.

She suddenly remembered this moment with startling clarity.

The first evening in her own home.

The first knock upon her own door.

The first servant who would live beneath her roof.

The first time Kharun would stand on the other side of it.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra began to open the door.

 

Vaelithra closed the door behind her.

 

The familiar silence of her home greeted her.

 

Normally, she welcomed it. Her father's manor had always been too large, too crowded, too filled with servants who listened and nobles who watched. Her own residence offered something his never could. Privacy.

 

Today, the silence felt wrong.

 

Vaelithra stood in the entryway for several moments without moving.

 

She was alone.

 

Completely alone.

 

The realization bothered her.

 

Kharun should have been there.

 

Perhaps not directly beside her. He might have gone to tend to some task after their return, or disappeared into another room to see to something she had forgotten needed doing. His presence had never required acknowledgment.

 

It had simply been there.

 

Vaelithra exhaled and continued toward her bedroom.

 

The fire still burned in the hearth, though it had diminished since morning. Orange light flickered across the stone walls and illuminated the chair beside it.

 

Her favorite chair.

 

Vaelithra lowered herself into it.

 

For a time, she stared into the flames.

 

Her heart was still pounding.

 

She could feel every beat against her chest, too fast and too strong. It reminded her of battle. Those final moments before weapons met, when every instinct sharpened, and the body prepared itself for violence.

 

But this was different.

 

There was no enemy standing before her.

 

No sword in her hand.

 

Nothing to strike.

 

Nothing to defend herself against.

 

Only time.

 

Tomorrow morning.

 

Vaelithra leaned back and closed her eyes.

 

It was me, milord.

 

Her eyes opened again.

 

"What happened?"

 

The empty room offered no answer.

 

What could that noble possibly have done to make Kharun strike him?

 

Vaelithra searched through twenty years of memory.

 

She remembered Kharun as a younger orc, already large but not yet carrying the immense physical presence he possessed now. She remembered testing the boundaries of his patience in ways she now recognized had occasionally been childish. She remembered arguments. Long journeys. Nights on the surface. Hunts that had gone badly. Expeditions that had gone worse.

 

She remembered insults directed at him.

 

Orders he disliked.

 

Drow who treated him as though he were barely worth acknowledging.

 

She remembered anger.

 

Yes, Kharun could become angry.

 

But aggression?

 

Rebellion?

 

Never.

 

Even when furious, he possessed a degree of control that had occasionally irritated her.

 

Yet today he had apparently struck a noble in the middle of her father's dining hall.

 

Vaelithra's fingers tightened against the arm of the chair.

 

Why?

 

Had twenty years finally been enough?

 

Perhaps there was no deeper explanation. Perhaps every insult, every contemptuous glance, every reminder of his place had accumulated somewhere beneath that infuriatingly composed exterior until there was simply no room left.

 

Even stone cracked eventually.

 

But something about that explanation refused to settle in her mind.

 

Vaelithra stared into the fire.

 

There had been another orc.

 

The thought returned quietly.

 

She saw the dining hall again.

 

Two servants standing near the accusing noble.

 

Kharun.

 

And the other.

 

The smaller orc had been looking at the floor.

 

Afraid.

 

Kharun had not.

 

Her brow furrowed.

 

The noble had shouted that one of the orcs struck him.

 

He hadn't named Kharun.

 

Her father had asked which of them was responsible.

 

Neither answered immediately.

 

Then Kharun had looked at her.

 

That glance.

 

Vaelithra kept returning to it.

 

Why look at her?

 

If he had lost his temper and struck the noble, why had his eyes sought hers before he confessed?

 

Shame?

 

Regret?

 

A farewell?

 

The last possibility made her stomach tighten.

 

"No."

 

She refused to entertain it.

 

Vaelithra rose from the chair and began pacing.

 

There had to be something she was missing.

 

Some detail she had overlooked.

 

The problem was that she knew remarkably little about what had happened before the accusation. She had been seated with her father, surrounded by conversations she had been obligated to participate in. Kharun had been among the servants at the other end of the chamber.

 

She had not been watching him.

 

Why would she have been?

 

She had never needed to.

 

Vaelithra stopped.

 

That realization bothered her more than it should have.

 

Twenty years.

 

Kharun had served her for twenty years, and she could not remember the last time she had seriously questioned what he did when she wasn't giving him instructions.

 

She knew his habits. She knew his moods. She knew the way he fought and the way he moved. She knew how he preferred to sharpen a blade and exactly how much he hated formal clothing. She knew when he was irritated even when his face showed nothing.

 

Yet there were parts of his life she had simply never considered.

 

He was her servant.

 

That had always been explanation enough.

 

Until now.

 

Vaelithra looked toward the doorway.

 

An idea came to her.

 

His quarters.

 

She remained still.

 

Of course.

 

Kharun had a room in her home.

 

The absurdity of the thought nearly made her laugh. She knew perfectly well where it was. The room belonged to her household. She had passed its door countless times.

 

But she could not remember the last time she had entered it.

 

No.

 

That wasn't quite true.

 

Vaelithra searched her memory.

 

She had been inside once, years before Kharun ever came into her service. At the time, it had simply been one of the servants' rooms. Bare stone walls. A bed. A chest. Nothing remarkable.

 

Then Kharun had been assigned to her.

 

The room became his.

 

And Vaelithra had never entered it again.

 

Not once in twenty years.

 

The realization left her strangely unsettled.

 

She looked around her bedroom.

 

Everything here told a story about her.

 

The books she had chosen. The weapons she kept. The clothing she preferred. Objects collected from journeys. Small things she had kept for reasons she would struggle to explain to anyone else.

 

A person's private space revealed things conversation did not.

 

If something had changed in Kharun, perhaps there would be evidence of it there.

 

Something she had missed.

 

Something that could explain why a man who had endured twenty years without raising a hand against a drow had suddenly thrown everything away in a single morning.

 

Vaelithra moved toward the doorway.

 

Then stopped.

 

For the first time, she felt as though she were about to intrude upon him.

 

The thought was ridiculous.

 

This was her house.

 

Kharun was her servant.

 

The room itself belonged to her.

 

She needed no permission to enter it.

 

Still, her hesitation remained.

 

Vaelithra glanced toward the fire.

 

Tomorrow morning.

 

That settled it.

 

Whatever privacy Kharun possessed could survive her curiosity.

 

He would not survive the executioner.

 

Vaelithra left her bedroom and made her way down the corridor.

 

She knew exactly which door she was looking for.

 

For twenty years, she had walked past it without wondering what lay on the other side.

 

Now she intended to find out.

 

Vaelithra pushed open the door.

Darkness waited on the other side.

She stood at the threshold for a moment, allowing what little light spilled from the corridor to reach into the room. There were no windows. No glowing crystals set into the walls. Nothing that might soften the darkness when the door was closed.

Her eyes adjusted quickly.

A faint glint caught her attention.

Something metallic rested upon a small table near the wall.

Vaelithra entered.

The object resolved into a lantern as she approached. Beside it sat a small box. She opened the lid and found several slender sticks arranged inside.

Tindertwigs.

An alchemist's invention. More convenient than a tinderbox, if considerably more expensive. Vaelithra removed one and dragged its treated end sharply across the edge of the table.

It hissed.

A small flame sprang to life.

She cupped one hand around it and carefully touched the flame to the lantern's wick. Light blossomed behind the glass.

Vaelithra extinguished the remaining ember of the tindertwig and placed the spent stick upon the table.

Then she looked around.

There was almost nothing to see.

The lantern cast warm light across bare stone walls. No tapestries covered them. No decorations. No personal possessions displayed on shelves. There were not even the little marks servants sometimes scratched into their walls to count months or years of service.

Nothing.

Twenty years in this room, and Kharun had left almost no evidence that he lived here.

Vaelithra slowly turned.

A simple bed occupied one wall. One pillow. One blanket.

The bed was made.

She stared at it.

Of course it was.

Her own bed wasn't.

Kharun usually saw to that while she ate breakfast.

Something about the absurdity of the detail caught at her. He had risen this morning, dressed for her father's gathering, and made his own bed before leaving.

Hers remained exactly as she had left it.

Vaelithra looked away.

A small dresser stood beside the bed.

Two drawers.

The lower one had been left slightly open.

She approached and pulled it farther.

His usual clothes lay inside, neatly folded. The simple garments she had seen him wear countless times were arranged with the same irritating precision Kharun applied to almost everything.

Nothing unusual.

Vaelithra pushed the drawer closed.

Her hand moved to the upper drawer.

She pulled.

Then stopped.

For the first time since entering the room, she found something unexpected.

Paper.

Stacks of it.

Beside the papers rested sticks of artist's charcoal, white chalk, a blending stump, and the other drawing supplies she had purchased for him.

Vaelithra stared at them.

She remembered leaving the parcel outside his door.

She had never asked whether he liked the supplies. Kharun had never mentioned them.

Of course he hadn't.

A faint smile almost reached her lips.

Then she noticed what was beneath them.

Drawings.

Dozens of them.

Vaelithra reached into the drawer.

She lifted the first sheet carefully.

Her own face looked back at her.

She went completely still.

It was not the drawing from the riverbank. Nor was it the one he had slipped beneath the tray after returning home.

This was another.

Vaelithra sat on the edge of Kharun's bed.

She held the page closer to the lantern.

The likeness was extraordinary.

There she was, seated with a book resting against one knee. Her hair fell across one shoulder, and the faintest crease between her brows suggested irritation at whatever she had been reading.

Vaelithra remembered that expression.

She did not remember Kharun watching her.

She set the drawing beside her and reached for another.

Vaelithra on horseback.

Another.

Vaelithra standing beside the hidden pool in the Underdark, seen from a distance.

Another.

Her armor was partially removed after a battle, exhaustion visible in the angle of her shoulders.

Another.

She was laughing.

Vaelithra stared at that one longer than the others.

She could not remember what had made her laugh.

Kharun apparently could.

She continued.

Page after page.

Year after year.

Her own life emerged from the drawer.

The paper changed first. Some of the oldest sheets were rough and cheap. The charcoal work was less refined, though still remarkably skilled. Later drawings showed greater confidence. Better control. More detail.

Then she began recognizing herself.

Not merely her face.

Herself at different points in her life.

Clothing she had not worn in years appeared again. Pieces of armor that had long since been replaced. Jewelry she had forgotten she owned. Hairstyles she had abandoned. Places they had traveled together that she had not thought about in years.

Vaelithra slowed.

She realized she was moving backward through time.

The deeper she reached into the collection, the younger she became.

Her throat tightened.

Twenty years.

She had thought of Kharun as a constant presence throughout those years.

These drawings told the same story from the other direction.

She had been a constant presence in his.

Vaelithra lifted another portrait.

She studied the eyes first.

Her own.

The detail was unsettling.

She knew artists who could spend hours studying a subject and still fail to capture what Kharun had produced here. A professional portraitist might demand repeated sittings, adjusting light and position while studying every contour of a face.

Vaelithra had never sat for Kharun.

Not once.

Most of these moments could only have lasted seconds.

A glance across a room.

A glimpse while traveling.

A quiet moment beside a fire.

He had remembered them.

Not merely enough to reproduce her features.

Enough to remember how strands of hair had fallen across her cheek.

Enough to remember the folds of a dress.

Enough to remember the expression in her eyes.

Vaelithra looked toward the empty room.

"Kharun..."

His name escaped before she realized she had spoken it.

The room seemed even quieter afterward.

She looked back at the drawings spread across the bed.

Why?

She knew he enjoyed drawing. That much had become clear after the night beside the river. She had even encouraged it by purchasing better supplies.

But this was something else.

There were landscapes among the pages. Studies of ruins. Horses. Weapons. A handful of faces she did not recognize.

Yet again and again, the subject returned to her.

Vaelithra.

Sleeping.

Reading.

Riding.

Fighting.

Laughing.

Thinking.

Simply existing.

Her fingers rested against the edge of one page.

Why me?

The answer that came to her was one she immediately resisted.

No.

That was foolish.

Dangerous, even.

Kharun was her servant.

She was his mistress.

That was the boundary between them. It had existed from the first day he entered her service and had remained there for nearly twenty years.

Yet she remembered the riverbank.

His embarrassment when she discovered him drawing her.

The way he had tried to conceal the page.

She had thought it was because a servant had been caught occupying himself while she slept.

Now she wondered.

Vaelithra looked down at the portrait in her hands.

Why would she occupy so much of his private thoughts?

She glanced around the room again.

There was nothing else.

No decorations.

No keepsakes displayed proudly.

No little luxuries accumulated over two decades.

Nothing that spoke of Kharun at all.

Except the drawings.

And most of them were of her.

A strange warmth touched her chest, immediately followed by discomfort.

He knew.

He had to know.

Whatever these drawings meant, whatever thoughts accompanied them while charcoal moved across paper in the privacy of this room, Kharun understood the world they inhabited.

Drow and orc.

Noble and servant.

Mistress and subordinate.

There were boundaries neither of them had ever questioned.

At least she hadn't.

Vaelithra's eyes moved across the drawings covering the bed.

He had.

Hadn't he?

Perhaps only privately. Perhaps never with any expectation that anything would come of it.

But something was here.

Something she had failed to see.

She thought again of that final glance in the dining hall.

Kharun's eyes finding hers.

Then his step forward.

Suddenly, the memory felt different.

Vaelithra lowered the drawing.

Her heart was beating hard again.

He had to know they could never be anything more.

The thought came easily.

Naturally.

It was simply true.

Could they?

Vaelithra froze.

For several seconds, she did not move.

Then she frowned at herself.

"This is not why you're here."

Her voice sounded too loud in the tiny room.

Kharun was going to die tomorrow morning.

Whatever these drawings meant could wait.

Whatever they made her feel could wait even longer.

She had entered this room looking for an explanation.

Instead, she had discovered a question she had never imagined needing to ask.

Vaelithra carefully gathered the drawings.

One by one, she returned them to their stack.

She handled them differently now.

More carefully than before.

When she reached the portrait of herself laughing, she stopped.

Her thumb rested against the edge of the paper.

She looked at it for a long time.

Then she placed it with the others.

Tomorrow morning.

The words crushed whatever warmth had begun to form inside her.

If she did nothing, there would be no opportunity to ask Kharun what any of this meant.

There would be no opportunity to ask why he had stepped forward.

There would be no opportunity to ask him anything ever again.

Vaelithra rose from the bed.

She looked once more around the barren little room.

Twenty years.

She had known Kharun for twenty years.

Only now was she beginning to understand how much she had never known about him.

 

Vaelithra closed the door behind her.

 

The familiar silence of her home greeted her.

 

Normally, she welcomed it. Her father's manor had always been too large, too crowded, too filled with servants who listened and nobles who watched. Her own residence offered something his never could. Privacy.

 

Today, the silence felt wrong.

 

Vaelithra stood in the entryway for several moments without moving.

 

She was alone.

 

Completely alone.

 

The realization bothered her.

 

Kharun should have been there.

 

Perhaps not directly beside her. He might have gone to tend to some task after their return, or disappeared into another room to see to something she had forgotten needed doing. His presence had never required acknowledgment.

 

It had simply been there.

 

Vaelithra exhaled and continued toward her bedroom.

 

The fire still burned in the hearth, though it had diminished since morning. Orange light flickered across the stone walls and illuminated the chair beside it.

 

Her favorite chair.

 

Vaelithra lowered herself into it.

 

For a time, she stared into the flames.

 

Her heart was still pounding.

 

She could feel every beat against her chest, too fast and too strong. It reminded her of battle. Those final moments before weapons met, when every instinct sharpened, and the body prepared itself for violence.

 

But this was different.

 

There was no enemy standing before her.

 

No sword in her hand.

 

Nothing to strike.

 

Nothing to defend herself against.

 

Only time.

 

Tomorrow morning.

 

Vaelithra leaned back and closed her eyes.

 

It was me, milord.

 

Her eyes opened again.

 

"What happened?"

 

The empty room offered no answer.

 

What could that noble possibly have done to make Kharun strike him?

 

Vaelithra searched through twenty years of memory.

 

She remembered Kharun as a younger orc, already large but not yet carrying the immense physical presence he possessed now. She remembered testing the boundaries of his patience in ways she now recognized had occasionally been childish. She remembered arguments. Long journeys. Nights on the surface. Hunts that had gone badly. Expeditions that had gone worse.

 

She remembered insults directed at him.

 

Orders he disliked.

 

Drow who treated him as though he were barely worth acknowledging.

 

She remembered anger.

 

Yes, Kharun could become angry.

 

But aggression?

 

Rebellion?

 

Never.

 

Even when furious, he possessed a degree of control that had occasionally irritated her.

 

Yet today he had apparently struck a noble in the middle of her father's dining hall.

 

Vaelithra's fingers tightened against the arm of the chair.

 

Why?

 

Had twenty years finally been enough?

 

Perhaps there was no deeper explanation. Perhaps every insult, every contemptuous glance, every reminder of his place had accumulated somewhere beneath that infuriatingly composed exterior until there was simply no room left.

 

Even stone cracked eventually.

 

But something about that explanation refused to settle in her mind.

 

Vaelithra stared into the fire.

 

There had been another orc.

 

The thought returned quietly.

 

She saw the dining hall again.

 

Two servants standing near the accusing noble.

 

Kharun.

 

And the other.

 

The smaller orc had been looking at the floor.

 

Afraid.

 

Kharun had not.

 

Her brow furrowed.

 

The noble had shouted that one of the orcs struck him.

 

He hadn't named Kharun.

 

Her father had asked which of them was responsible.

 

Neither answered immediately.

 

Then Kharun had looked at her.

 

That glance.

 

Vaelithra kept returning to it.

 

Why look at her?

 

If he had lost his temper and struck the noble, why had his eyes sought hers before he confessed?

 

Shame?

 

Regret?

 

A farewell?

 

The last possibility made her stomach tighten.

 

"No."

 

She refused to entertain it.

 

Vaelithra rose from the chair and began pacing.

 

There had to be something she was missing.

 

Some detail she had overlooked.

 

The problem was that she knew remarkably little about what had happened before the accusation. She had been seated with her father, surrounded by conversations she had been obligated to participate in. Kharun had been among the servants at the other end of the chamber.

 

She had not been watching him.

 

Why would she have been?

 

She had never needed to.

 

Vaelithra stopped.

 

That realization bothered her more than it should have.

 

Twenty years.

 

Kharun had served her for twenty years, and she could not remember the last time she had seriously questioned what he did when she wasn't giving him instructions.

 

She knew his habits. She knew his moods. She knew the way he fought and the way he moved. She knew how he preferred to sharpen a blade and exactly how much he hated formal clothing. She knew when he was irritated even when his face showed nothing.

 

Yet there were parts of his life she had simply never considered.

 

He was her servant.

 

That had always been explanation enough.

 

Until now.

 

Vaelithra looked toward the doorway.

 

An idea came to her.

 

His quarters.

 

She remained still.

 

Of course.

 

Kharun had a room in her home.

 

The absurdity of the thought nearly made her laugh. She knew perfectly well where it was. The room belonged to her household. She had passed its door countless times.

 

But she could not remember the last time she had entered it.

 

No.

 

That wasn't quite true.

 

Vaelithra searched her memory.

 

She had been inside once, years before Kharun ever came into her service. At the time, it had simply been one of the servants' rooms. Bare stone walls. A bed. A chest. Nothing remarkable.

 

Then Kharun had been assigned to her.

 

The room became his.

 

And Vaelithra had never entered it again.

 

Not once in twenty years.

 

The realization left her strangely unsettled.

 

She looked around her bedroom.

 

Everything here told a story about her.

 

The books she had chosen. The weapons she kept. The clothing she preferred. Objects collected from journeys. Small things she had kept for reasons she would struggle to explain to anyone else.

 

A person's private space revealed things conversation did not.

 

If something had changed in Kharun, perhaps there would be evidence of it there.

 

Something she had missed.

 

Something that could explain why a man who had endured twenty years without raising a hand against a drow had suddenly thrown everything away in a single morning.

 

Vaelithra moved toward the doorway.

 

Then stopped.

 

For the first time, she felt as though she were about to intrude upon him.

 

The thought was ridiculous.

 

This was her house.

 

Kharun was her servant.

 

The room itself belonged to her.

 

She needed no permission to enter it.

 

Still, her hesitation remained.

 

Vaelithra glanced toward the fire.

 

Tomorrow morning.

 

That settled it.

 

Whatever privacy Kharun possessed could survive her curiosity.

 

He would not survive the executioner.

 

Vaelithra left her bedroom and made her way down the corridor.

 

She knew exactly which door she was looking for.

 

For twenty years, she had walked past it without wondering what lay on the other side.

 

Now she intended to find out.

 

Vaelithra pushed open the door.

Darkness waited on the other side.

She stood at the threshold for a moment, allowing what little light spilled from the corridor to reach into the room. There were no windows. No glowing crystals set into the walls. Nothing that might soften the darkness when the door was closed.

Her eyes adjusted quickly.

A faint glint caught her attention.

Something metallic rested upon a small table near the wall.

Vaelithra entered.

The object resolved into a lantern as she approached. Beside it sat a small box. She opened the lid and found several slender sticks arranged inside.

Tindertwigs.

An alchemist's invention. More convenient than a tinderbox, if considerably more expensive. Vaelithra removed one and dragged its treated end sharply across the edge of the table.

It hissed.

A small flame sprang to life.

She cupped one hand around it and carefully touched the flame to the lantern's wick. Light blossomed behind the glass.

Vaelithra extinguished the remaining ember of the tindertwig and placed the spent stick upon the table.

Then she looked around.

There was almost nothing to see.

The lantern cast warm light across bare stone walls. No tapestries covered them. No decorations. No personal possessions displayed on shelves. There were not even the little marks servants sometimes scratched into their walls to count months or years of service.

Nothing.

Twenty years in this room, and Kharun had left almost no evidence that he lived here.

Vaelithra slowly turned.

A simple bed occupied one wall. One pillow. One blanket.

The bed was made.

She stared at it.

Of course it was.

Her own bed wasn't.

Kharun usually saw to that while she ate breakfast.

Something about the absurdity of the detail caught at her. He had risen this morning, dressed for her father's gathering, and made his own bed before leaving.

Hers remained exactly as she had left it.

Vaelithra looked away.

A small dresser stood beside the bed.

Two drawers.

The lower one had been left slightly open.

She approached and pulled it farther.

His usual clothes lay inside, neatly folded. The simple garments she had seen him wear countless times were arranged with the same irritating precision Kharun applied to almost everything.

Nothing unusual.

Vaelithra pushed the drawer closed.

Her hand moved to the upper drawer.

She pulled.

Then stopped.

For the first time since entering the room, she found something unexpected.

Paper.

Stacks of it.

Beside the papers rested sticks of artist's charcoal, white chalk, a blending stump, and the other drawing supplies she had purchased for him.

Vaelithra stared at them.

She remembered leaving the parcel outside his door.

She had never asked whether he liked the supplies. Kharun had never mentioned them.

Of course he hadn't.

A faint smile almost reached her lips.

Then she noticed what was beneath them.

Drawings.

Dozens of them.

Vaelithra reached into the drawer.

She lifted the first sheet carefully.

Her own face looked back at her.

She went completely still.

It was not the drawing from the riverbank. Nor was it the one he had slipped beneath the tray after returning home.

This was another.

Vaelithra sat on the edge of Kharun's bed.

She held the page closer to the lantern.

The likeness was extraordinary.

There she was, seated with a book resting against one knee. Her hair fell across one shoulder, and the faintest crease between her brows suggested irritation at whatever she had been reading.

Vaelithra remembered that expression.

She did not remember Kharun watching her.

She set the drawing beside her and reached for another.

Vaelithra on horseback.

Another.

Vaelithra standing beside the hidden pool in the Underdark, seen from a distance.

Another.

Her armor was partially removed after a battle, exhaustion visible in the angle of her shoulders.

Another.

She was laughing.

Vaelithra stared at that one longer than the others.

She could not remember what had made her laugh.

Kharun apparently could.

She continued.

Page after page.

Year after year.

Her own life emerged from the drawer.

The paper changed first. Some of the oldest sheets were rough and cheap. The charcoal work was less refined, though still remarkably skilled. Later drawings showed greater confidence. Better control. More detail.

Then she began recognizing herself.

Not merely her face.

Herself at different points in her life.

Clothing she had not worn in years appeared again. Pieces of armor that had long since been replaced. Jewelry she had forgotten she owned. Hairstyles she had abandoned. Places they had traveled together that she had not thought about in years.

Vaelithra slowed.

She realized she was moving backward through time.

The deeper she reached into the collection, the younger she became.

Her throat tightened.

Twenty years.

She had thought of Kharun as a constant presence throughout those years.

These drawings told the same story from the other direction.

She had been a constant presence in his.

Vaelithra lifted another portrait.

She studied the eyes first.

Her own.

The detail was unsettling.

She knew artists who could spend hours studying a subject and still fail to capture what Kharun had produced here. A professional portraitist might demand repeated sittings, adjusting light and position while studying every contour of a face.

Vaelithra had never sat for Kharun.

Not once.

Most of these moments could only have lasted seconds.

A glance across a room.

A glimpse while traveling.

A quiet moment beside a fire.

He had remembered them.

Not merely enough to reproduce her features.

Enough to remember how strands of hair had fallen across her cheek.

Enough to remember the folds of a dress.

Enough to remember the expression in her eyes.

Vaelithra looked toward the empty room.

"Kharun..."

His name escaped before she realized she had spoken it.

The room seemed even quieter afterward.

She looked back at the drawings spread across the bed.

Why?

She knew he enjoyed drawing. That much had become clear after the night beside the river. She had even encouraged it by purchasing better supplies.

But this was something else.

There were landscapes among the pages. Studies of ruins. Horses. Weapons. A handful of faces she did not recognize.

Yet again and again, the subject returned to her.

Vaelithra.

Sleeping.

Reading.

Riding.

Fighting.

Laughing.

Thinking.

Simply existing.

Her fingers rested against the edge of one page.

Why me?

The answer that came to her was one she immediately resisted.

No.

That was foolish.

Dangerous, even.

Kharun was her servant.

She was his mistress.

That was the boundary between them. It had existed from the first day he entered her service and had remained there for nearly twenty years.

Yet she remembered the riverbank.

His embarrassment when she discovered him drawing her.

The way he had tried to conceal the page.

She had thought it was because a servant had been caught occupying himself while she slept.

Now she wondered.

Vaelithra looked down at the portrait in her hands.

Why would she occupy so much of his private thoughts?

She glanced around the room again.

There was nothing else.

No decorations.

No keepsakes displayed proudly.

No little luxuries accumulated over two decades.

Nothing that spoke of Kharun at all.

Except the drawings.

And most of them were of her.

A strange warmth touched her chest, immediately followed by discomfort.

He knew.

He had to know.

Whatever these drawings meant, whatever thoughts accompanied them while charcoal moved across paper in the privacy of this room, Kharun understood the world they inhabited.

Drow and orc.

Noble and servant.

Mistress and subordinate.

There were boundaries neither of them had ever questioned.

At least she hadn't.

Vaelithra's eyes moved across the drawings covering the bed.

He had.

Hadn't he?

Perhaps only privately. Perhaps never with any expectation that anything would come of it.

But something was here.

Something she had failed to see.

She thought again of that final glance in the dining hall.

Kharun's eyes finding hers.

Then his step forward.

Suddenly, the memory felt different.

Vaelithra lowered the drawing.

Her heart was beating hard again.

He had to know they could never be anything more.

The thought came easily.

Naturally.

It was simply true.

Could they?

Vaelithra froze.

For several seconds, she did not move.

Then she frowned at herself.

"This is not why you're here."

Her voice sounded too loud in the tiny room.

Kharun was going to die tomorrow morning.

Whatever these drawings meant could wait.

Whatever they made her feel could wait even longer.

She had entered this room looking for an explanation.

Instead, she had discovered a question she had never imagined needing to ask.

Vaelithra carefully gathered the drawings.

One by one, she returned them to their stack.

She handled them differently now.

More carefully than before.

When she reached the portrait of herself laughing, she stopped.

Her thumb rested against the edge of the paper.

She looked at it for a long time.

Then she placed it with the others.

Tomorrow morning.

The words crushed whatever warmth had begun to form inside her.

If she did nothing, there would be no opportunity to ask Kharun what any of this meant.

There would be no opportunity to ask why he had stepped forward.

There would be no opportunity to ask him anything ever again.

Vaelithra rose from the bed.

She looked once more around the barren little room.

Twenty years.

She had known Kharun for twenty years.

Only now was she beginning to understand how much she had never known about him.