Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tireless is her work. 

With practised hands she spins the weave, feels ten thousand mages rip its seams, then winds it back until it is whole once more. Rosewater and spice perfume the air. It’s the scent of magic, of her– something all but imbued into the very fabric of her skin since she’d been granted her task. 

Again the strands break. Again she works them back together. Over and over and over again in a sweet dulcet cadence.

It’s perpetual, but such is the duty of the Mother of Magic.

Prayers steeped in gold prod at the edges of her realm: ‘Empower me. Save me. Succour me. Show me the truth beneath your veils.’

She ignores the trifles and rewards her faithful, smiling as new threads burst forth from below. The creation of new magic– a gift from her most devoted archmages. She guides each piece to its place within the weave, tastes the fire and the force- perfect and malleable as a babe.

Something brushes her finger as she shapes each sliver. One tiny thread flaps free, wavering and stretching out continuously into the mortal plane. She wraps it around her hands, scoffing as she feels the foul blight that still so greedily feeds upon her creation.

Karsus’ half-formed abomination . The thorn that still pricks her side with each turn of her hands.

She plucks the thread and hears her mandate: Unleash it. Tear down the heart of this false God. Re-earn your place in my paradise. Another pluck and a newer charge sings out: Deliver what should be mine and let your failures be washed away.

They flutter bitterly on her tongue, as expired as her patience on this matter.

One flick of her wrist and the tether snaps. Broken pieces fly in jubilant colours, each she guides back to the weave, now immaculate once again. 

A hungry cry brays from far below, then another, quiet as air. Mortal. She whispers the noise away and turns back to her work.

A promise broken. A price paid. Such is the nature of the weave, so too is the nature of her mercy.

Chapter Text

The pain is instant. 

It rips Gale from sleep like a fish speared in a pool, searing from his chest and burning into every nerve.

The silence of the dark study rings with his cry, then a series of duller thuds as he staggers from his desk. Papers flutter, something shatters and another flash of pain crumples his body to the floor.

He bites his lip until he tastes warm metal, trying to centre himself. He knows this ache, as familiar as an old nightmare.

This isn’t happening. It can’t.

The thought tears apart as he touches his chest. It pulses under his fingers, the dark outlines of the mark suddenly flaring with a nauseatingly bright blue light. A light he hasn’t seen in almost two years.

He squeezes his eyes shut and waits to wake up back in his bed, sweaty, aching but fine.

As if to spite such a thought, the feeling swells again and crashes through him. He swallows and hardens each joint, every piece of self control locked in on keeping it firmly inside him. The wave ebbs away slowly, along with his denial. 

It’s no dream. The orb is awake and it's desperately angry.

Old reflexes snap to life. He pulls a ring from his finger and presses it to the glow. He feels the weave wrap around it like a delicate veil, then instantly rip apart. He grabs another and does it again, then his earring, his pendant, the sending stones in his pocket. One by one their magic disappears into the orb’s waiting maw, just enough to mute the very edge of the pain. 

He sits up, shaking. He has minutes to write a plan lest his tower and the entirety of Waterdeep be levelled around him. The thought sits with cold weight on his shoulders as he heaves himself to his feet. How many people would be lost to his mistake? Babes sleeping in their Mother’s arms, wine-blushed patrons watching the stars through inn windows, sailors reclining on their boats and taking in the city’s wintery skies. A hundred thousand people, gone in a flash. 

Ciri.

The wardrobe door shudders against the wall as he yanks it open. It’s a dark mess inside, the small space piled with clutter from their old adventure they’d yet to find a proper place for. Blindly he searches, grabbing the few magical items he can find and shoving them into his chest. Hungrily it devours each one, gorging itself on the weave until he reaches the very back of the wardrobe. 

He touches the wall and breathes as slowly as he can. His body is sweaty and tight from the effort– but slightly calmer. He sinks to the floor, rubbing his damp forehead as he tries to piece the night together.

Whatever was keeping the orb dormant is gone, that much is clear. Why now or what caused it are questions Gale doesn’t have time to dwell on. The only thing that matters is finding a way to sate it in the precious few moments he’s managed to obtain.

His hands curl into fists as the only solution stares at him from a dark corner of the wardrobe.

The trinkets in here aren’t enough to hold it. Already he can feel his defences taking a battering under his skin, naught but paper strips holding a door closed against a hurricane. He needs its previous fix.

He carefully picks up a large wrapped object and carries it to the empty plinth at the back of the room. A fine layer of dust swirls in the air as he pulls the sheet free, revealing the effigy hidden beneath. 

Mystra.

He lights the candles with a snap of his fingers, then grabs anything gold or silver he hasn’t already torn to shreds and leaves it in front of her. 

Her flat eyes stare at him as he kneels. The statue stands a foot tall, but he feels smaller, sagging under the memory of her dispassionate expression from the last time he’d seen her. He can’t quite remember the exact immodesty in his words when he’d refused to blindly follow her orders; it would be foolish to hope she wouldn’t either.

“Mother of all Magic, I beseech you. As you spin the weave that lights our path, grant me the honour of your ear.” 

The formality feels strange on his tongue. Such summons were usually draped in more lyrical praises, but he’s more than certain she’d know he wouldn’t mean them. She controls his power, not his life and certainly not his love. 

It’s not a comforting thought right now.

His wedding ring bites against his finger as he repeats the words before continuing. 

“I know it has been some time and I am sure you do not wish to hear from me. I know… I know that I failed you, but I swear I can offer something much greater than an apology.” The hidden bitterness to his words curdle at the back of his throat. He takes a breath, then firmly presses forward.

“Allow me to bring you the crown and to right this wrong. Just grant me a little more time to do so.” 

The silence stretches on. The air feels colder.

He swallows, then prostrates himself until the cool flagstones rub against his forehead. “The people of this city do not deserve to pay for what I did. So many wizards here will never finish their work. It’s an injustice to all magic.”

When no response comes, he sits up against his heels and finally looks her in the eye. He feels something piercing back, taking in all of him.

“You knew me once, body and soul. That time together meant something.”

He touches the hand of the statue, gently caressing its smooth surface.

“Mystra. Please.”

The candles snuff out the moment her name leaves his lips, her presence and his last hope dissolving into darkness. 

He tears his hand away, doing nothing to stop the statue as it falls and shatters into pieces against the ground.

There’s no remorse. No fumble to fix her or quiet whisper of apology for his rashness. No. He wants to smash harder, grind each sorry lump into dust until his blasphemy permeates the very air. Let his last act on this plane be one of defiance, finally breaking that old fatuous hope that if he begged harder, worshipped harder, unmade every shred of his dignity for her, then he might finally find that she has a heart to turn.

The breath caught in his throat pushes out in a high, jagged laugh. It happens again as flames engulf his hand, then again as his fist repeatedly meets the flagstones, again and again and again until they morph into sharper, drier sobs.

The hero of Baldur’s Gate becomes the cur of Waterdeep. The thought taunts him as the ache in his chest begins to eclipse the one in his fist.  

Another lightning bolt of pressure topples him to the floor before he can stop it. It tears at the restraints until his surroundings have melted into nothing but burning white pain. He wants to fight, to run, to do something to stop this but his body has long since given up the battle. The ache builds again as he desperately thinks, cresting like a tidal wave in his chest.

He closes his eyes, letting one final thought take him into oblivion.

Ciri. Please forgive me.

“Oh Mr. Dekarios. Look at you.” 

His neck protests as he lifts his head. A familiar blur of charcoal and ginger fur sits in front of him, watching intently.

“Tara?”

The tressym stretches her wings, slinking closer until he can see the concern knit in her broad feline features. She taps his cheek, then his temple before shaking her head.

“Goodness this is quite the mess.”

He reaches out with a trembling hand. “You need to get out of–” 

She shoves something small and shining against his chest before he can finish.

“Eat, Mr. Dekarios.” 

More powerful strands of weave bind themselves around the orb as he takes the object in, strong enough so that each breath feels less like stones being forced up his throat.

A pair of gloves drop by his knee as he sits up. Tara hovers above with expectant eyes.

“Now these.”

Something heavier lands at his side as he finishes absorbing them: a large necromantic tome this time. 

“And this,” she says as Gale picks it up, frowning when he doesn’t immediately comply. 

He brushes the series of twisting skulls poking out from the worn surface. “There are only three of these on this plane, you know.”

“Then we’ll find the other two afterwards,” she replies, batting the cover with her paw. “ Eat . I won’t ask twice.”

She brings him item after item until the ground is littered with fragments of what Gale assumes is every rare artefact he’s ever collected. Little by little the pain ebbs away, a fire quenched by a handful of sand at a time, until the glow finally stops. He exhales and touches his chest again. It’s bound enough for him to think clearly, at least for now. He flicks the fireplace to life with his finger and props himself up against the nearest wall. Tara follows at his heels, taking her usual spot in his lap.

“How did you know this was happening?” he asks after a moment.

“I may not live here anymore but I am still your familiar. I’ll always know when you need me.” She presses her head to his palm, purring when he starts to pet her properly. “There was an awful lot of shouting between you and Mrs. Dekarios when I first arrived, so I decided to come back later– and it’s a good thing I did.”

He rubs his forehead. “You heard that?”

“The patriars on the other side of the city most likely heard that, but it isn’t the most pressing issue right now. Your condition has returned.”  

“Returned and worse than ever. The artefacts are barely touching the sides anymore.” He traces the grooves of the orb as he speaks, trying to remember what it actually felt like when there wasn’t a permanent weight entrenched around his heart.

Tara stretches and turns away. “With this affliction there are worse places to be than a wizard’s tower. Stay here, I’ll find more.”

“I can’t hold it in anymore.”

“Then I’ll be quick.”

“Tara. Listen to me. I can’t hold it in anymore,” he rests a hand against her back and looks over to the broken statue. “She’s made sure of that.”

He watches the quiet steel of his words settle across her face.

“No. No, I won’t believe it,” she declares, leaping from his lap. “Mystra wouldn’t do this. She could never be this senselessly cruel.”

He fights a cold laugh. “We both know that could not be further from the truth.”

“Well then, we will just keep feeding it until we think of a more permanent solution. There are powerful forces other than the divine out there.”

“I could absorb every strand of the weave in this tower and it would give me days at most. It’s never going to be sated; it’s never going to stop and we do not have enough time to experiment anymore.” He’s speaking the lines he’d rehearsed for weeks in solitude those years ago, the ones he’d thought that he’d folded away for good the moment he’d got on one knee for someone else.

She hisses and starts pawing through the broken items as if the answer could be found amongst the disarray. “There is always something to be done. You told me you’d been keeping a careful study of it.”

“I was. It’s hardly a subject I can simply close the book on. There has not been so much as a twinge in my chest for two years now and, believe me, I tested a variety of different magics to see if any would aggravate it. I thought, well, assumed that because nothing had changed all was well.” He drops his head against the wall, fingers digging bruising stars into his thighs. “I’m a fool.”

“You’re only a fool if you think that I’m going to sit here and watch you give up.” 

“This is not giving up.”

“That’s exactly what it is, Mr. Dekarios.”

“Then tell me what I’m supposed to do!” 

Tara jumps back at his sudden shout, her wings slamming flat against her body. 

“Mr. Dekarios–”

“Go on, tell me then. There is not a force on this plane that can stop it and the Gods that haven’t left me are not going to pull their fingers out for mortal affairs. They’d rather cower behind Ao then stop something that could potentially end a city’s worth of people. So tell me. Tell me how I’m supposed to repair this. How I’m to pull the perverted power of a false God out of my chest and actually live the next sixty years like I so naively believed I could.” His voice breaks on the last few words, dropping to a more jagged whisper. “Please. Just tell me what to do.”

His words hang in the silence for a long moment. She sits quietly as his breathing evens out, before padding over and curling back in his lap. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, resting her head against his thigh. “I really am.”

He sighs and lightly strokes the length of her back. “As am I, Tara. You have no idea how much.”

It’s as if all the heat of his anger has dissolved into the air. He should want to shout louder, scream, break everything around him until the whole tower is left in ruins but he can’t.He’s just tired. So so tired.

Looking down, he remembers the first time she’d rested on him like this. She’d barely been an hour old: smaller, less grey, but just as fiery a presence. How nervous he’d been at scaring her off with a wrong word, but when she’d curled up warm as a fresh pastry in his lap, every silly fear just seemed to float away. What he'd give for it to be so easy now. 

“So, what is to be done then?” she asks, lifting her head from his leg.

“The old plan,” he answers, still gently petting her fur. He doesn’t need to elaborate any further than that, the details have been clear for three years at this point. “And thus ends the tale of Gale Dekarios. At least it will be with a bang and not a whimper.” 

She stiffens under his touch but stays quiet, letting him continue his rhythmic petting until the hearth dims into embers again.

Eventually she jumps from his lap, regarding him with a softer look. “Shall I wake Mrs. Dekarios for you?”

“No. Let me,” he says, his legs clicking with the effort as he finally stands.

He pauses when he reaches the door. “Tara,” he says softly, turning back to the waiting tressym. “You must know that-”

“I know, Mr. Dekarios,” she interrupts, shaking her head. “Unless you want the last memories of me to be a blubbering mess, you really do not have to tell me.” She nudges his calf and gently rubs the spot with her head. “It’s a terrible thing for a tressym to outlive their wizard, even if the one that summons them is as withered as an old boot. The most surprising thing to me when I first arrived here was that you were just a boy. A loud, talented, nervous little boy. And even though they say that only those with pure hearts can summon us, that doesn’t mean we are bound for good lives, so I really had no idea what was in store for me… or you.” She pauses and leaps into the air, hovering so he can feel every word. “Believe me when I say there is nowhere on this or any plane that I would rather have gone and I couldn’t be prouder of the man you’ve become. You may have stumbled sometimes and made some interesting choices when it came to your personal grooming, but you were never really lost.” 

It takes every ounce of his faltering restraint to swallow back a fresh round of tears. It’s the shake in breath that betrays him as he gathers her in his arms one last time. He loses himself in the feeling and, for just a moment, lets himself be that child again: innocent, happy, completely oblivious to how the edges of greatness are far sharper than he could ever have imagined.

“Who’s the blubbering mess now?” he whispers as he deposits her back on the floor.

She taps the wet corner of his eye with her paw. “None of that Mr. Dekarios. It’s hardly becoming of you.”

He brushes his eyes, then his cheeks, completely at a loss for how he’s supposed to even begin to approach the next conversation. He touches his wedding ring for a few seconds before looking back to Tara.

“Promise me that you’ll take care of her.” 

She bows her head, wings spread like a cape as he rises again.

“On my honour, I promise.”

***

Walking into their dark bedroom, he can almost forget the discord that has just unfolded below. There’s the pile of first year papers sitting unmarked on the desk, his slippers by the wardrobe, a copy of A Dark Day for Cormyr unopened on the bedside table– everything as neat as when he’d left them this morning. The only hint of disarray is a pile of Ciri’s clothes by the window from where she’d either dropped or thrown them. 

She doesn’t rouse as he sits on the edge of the bed. She’s bundled herself in the majority of the blanket against the cold, the sliver of visible face a mask of calm. It’s a far cry from the last time he’d seen it, so flushed with anger, her eyes pointed shards of gold and grey. The dragon in her blood rarely claws its way to the surface, but he'd felt it then in the acid of her every word. He can’t quite remember half the things he’d said before she’d stormed up here, just how deliberately he had chosen his retort, refusing to be the one that broke first.

It all seems so stupid now, those problems a thousand miles away.

For the longest time death had always felt like his waiting mistress. Those years ago, he’d accepted it, made it welcome even as he rewrote his will over and over again in this very room with a calm steady hand. Falling into adventure had only strengthened that resolve, made him more ready than ever to jump into its waiting arms if it meant his failures could mean something. But, something else happened. She happened. Someone who loved him beyond the measure of his usefulness, enough to pull him from that embrace and tell him that he deserved more than being the discarded plaything of one God and the current puppet of another. So he did the hardest thing of all; he believed her. He turned away from Mystra’s forgiveness and the power of a God so he could make the choice to live. Really, honestly live.

He stops his hand as it lashes towards the bedside table.

And now all of that means absolutely nothing.

“I am going to die,” he whispers into the darkness, then again, directly at Ciri’s sleeping form. “I truly am going to die.”

The words don’t feel quite real as they leave him, just lines in a play, a fear they'd both put to bed after the first time they'd shared one.

He shifts closer and rests his hand on the warm curve of her cheek.

“Tell me that we will find another way. You never stopped believing we could fix this, even when I thought I had exhausted every other possibility. Say that you can— please.”

He’d bore witness to the miracles she could perform first hand: commanding a devil to fall on his own sword, pulling an undead dragon from the sky, burning the very avatar of Death to cinders– why would it be such a foolish thing to hope she could stop this as well?

He leans closer, stopping but a breath from her face.

“I can’t do it. I’m not ready.”

She shifts slightly at the noise, the blanket slipping to reveal the patchwork of burn scars down her back and arms. He traces each one, then the soft round of her jaw, the smudge of ash on her ear, the sleek red scales by her eyes. He wonders how many times he's explored this exact path, lightly stroking with his fingers or his mouth until her breaths dissolved into hotter sighs. Less than he would have liked; perhaps more than he deserves.

She groans slightly as he presses her left hand to his lips, rolling towards him.

“I love you. Whatever fate befalls me now please don’t ever doubt that.” He kisses the words against her palm, then again, over and over until his voice is raw and the sentiment wet on her skin. 

Not even two years they’d been married. He has grey hairs older than that. It’s such a fleeting time for a human, but even more so for an elf. She could live another six centuries, him but a single page in the story of her existence. The matter of their lifespans was a conversation they’d had but once and when he'd seen the unease starting to cloud her eyes, decided that it did not need revisiting for a while. Enjoy the time we have, that’s where they had left it. Back when the assumption was decades, not hours.

He pulls another blanket from the bottom of the bed and drapes it over her, some soft navy thing patterned with the Tears of Selûne. His touch lingers against the silvery threads. Thousands of nights he’d promised her under those very stars. It’s hard now not to count the number they’ve actually had and see just how much of a liar he’d turned out to be.

“I’m sorry, my love. I… I wish– ” He trails off, no idea where he’s supposed to go from there. What words can he possibly spin to soften this or lessen the hole he knows he’s about to rip into both the earth and her heart. 

“Let this dream be a good one,” is what he settles on, pressing his lips to her forehead before quietly walking over to his desk.

Snow falls down in sheets through the crack in the curtains in front of him. He can imagine the children at Blackstaff lying awake and staring through the dormitory windows, grinning ear to ear at the thought of missing lessons. He’d already taken more than one snowball to the back of the head between classes, though he’s yet to work out whether those had been from his students or another faculty member. Now he never will.

He shakes the thought away, grabbing a fresh piece of parchment and quietly casting darkvision on himself.

He’s never liked winter all that much, but right now it’s a small mercy. Night will hang over Waterdeep that little bit longer, giving him a few more hours to plan and for Ciri to rest in blissful abandon.

He takes in the beautiful curve of her body one more time before turning back to his desk and beginning to write.

Chapter Text

“Please Ciri, say something.”

Gale’s words barely register as she sits stiff as granite in their bed. There were more that came before, that much she's sure, some long and softly worded account accompanied by an equally soft touch that had woken her. All of it had been drowned under the racket of her own breathing after the first two sentences.

The orb has destabilised. I can’t stop it.

Eventually he takes her hand, rubbing the cluster of freckles by her thumb until her eyes meet his. 

“Ciri?”

“You’re wrong,” she finally whispers. They’re the only words she can manage, the only ones that make any sense right now.

Gale continues to stroke the back of her hand. “I wish that I were.” 

She wrenches free from his grip, jerking away from the mattress. 

“You are. You're wrong. You’re… why would you say something like that?” She pulls her robe tighter around herself, shaking her head as her foggy thoughts unspool in every direction. They’d traded blows sharp enough to pierce skin last night, but a retaliation like this is crueller than anything she could imagine.

Gale sighs and pulls down the collar of his shirt. The dull purple mark there now flickers with light, erratic as unmastered spell. She stares at it, following those curving lines from his chest to the corner of his eye. That’s when she sees it, the ghost of a wince wavering with each pulse. Two year old pain they both thought they’d left long in the past. 

“Gods.” She sucks in a breath, pushing down the panic rising in her stomach. “Well, this- this happened before. We can fix it. We can find more items for it to feed on.” She rips open her bedside drawer and grabs the silver ring from the bottom, a small souvenir from her latest job.

He takes the offered ring and slowly flips it between his fingers. “I have already gone through half the artefacts in this tower, very powerful ones, and it is still hungry. I am not sure there’s any source of weave strong enough to sate it anymore.” His fist closes around the silver. “Ciri, I need you to–” 

“ Alright. Alright alright alright-” She rubs her forehead as she paces, trying to pull the flapping thread of her thoughts into a plan. “ We’ll buy more items, just enough to tide you over.”

“Ciri. ”

“There are so many archmages in this city, one will be able to help. Or Elminster. Someone.”

“Ciri– ”

“I’ll send word to Baldur’s Gate. Yes. Then I’ll be able to-”

“Cirinna!”

She stops immediately as her full name hangs in the air between them. Two years knowing him and yet it still sounds so strange in his voice, like a language not quite settled on the tongue. She can count the number of times he’s used it on one hand, the last instance a quiet breath against her ear as the evening of their wedding drew to a close.

‘Mrs. Cirinna Dekarios.’

There’s none of that softness now. 

He grabs her hand and presses it to the mark. She feels its anger immediately, churning and tearing under her palm like his heart is trying to rip its way to freedom. He grips her tighter as she tries to pull away, shuddering when a harder pulse rocks through him.

Never has it felt like that before— some twisted manifestation of fire and teeth under his skin, more monster than magic.

Eventually he releases her and she staggers a few paces back. 

“This can’t be happening,” she murmurs, staring at her hand. It smarts with heat, fingers shaking from the aftershocks. “You said– you promised – it was alright.”

A stronger wince breaks across his expression before he can answer, his knuckles white against the blanket.

She’s back at his side immediately. “Gale?”

The edge of his face is damp and cool as she touches it. The soft creases around his face have sunk deeper, the shadows under his eyes now dark as bloody bruises. 

He brushes his lips against the stinging skin of her palm. “It hurts, Ciri.”

She holds his pallid cheeks as he catches his breath. The sight in front of her is all but a spectre of her husband, the man she loves, the man she fought for, the man she stormed away from last night while cursing his name to the hells and back.

“What about Mystra?” she says, pushing the memory aside. The goddess' name tastes like coal on her tongue but even she won’t throw away divine help if it can give her more time to plan.

He shakes his head.

“Then what do we do? There has to be something.” 

“There is,” he says a little more firmly. “The only thing to be done that will ensure no one else will pay for this.”

Ciri freezes. She knows that resolve. It’s the same one she’d heard when her heart had all but broken for him the first time.

‘I’ll go to the most remote place on the surface of Faerûn or perhaps far below in the depths of the underdark. And I’ll await death. Alone.’

“No. No no no no-” she rips her hands away. “You can’t .” 

“I don’t want to, but it is the only real choice I have left.”

“I won’t let you.”

“Ciri please-”

“No!” She’s surprised her shout doesn’t crack the window as she stands, her eyes burning. “18 months, Gale. That’s all we get? No. We have been through too much bullshit for this to be the end. We saved the Sword Coast, you did what she wanted. I remember destroying the heart of the Absolute very fucking vividly. Why is it not enough anymore?” Her hands shake with the force of her voice. Ideas and memories tumble in a mess of colour in her mind. She sees the Netherbrain falling, dirt and bloody sunlight shining on the Chionthar. She sees Gale standing there, mind churning, a decision weighing heavy on his shoulders.

“I could get the Crown of Karsus,” she says, scanning the room for her pack. “We still have the Annals. It’s the same magic is it not? It can fix this.”

“Ever the planner, the adventurer. Always forging ahead and seeking a way out,” he says softly. The warmth in his voice doesn't quite reach his eyes. “Even if we were to leave right now it would take months to dredge the Chionthar. Trust me my love, if there was another way, I'd been hunting it down as we speak.”

“You thought that the first time this happened and we stopped it. We'll do something. We’ll… we’ll.” Her words stutter and stop when no idea presents itself. She closes her eyes and opens them again, waiting for the nightmare to be over, to wake next to him and continue on with their life. To him making breakfast and her keeping the fire lit, talking about the winter festivities and school and work and magic. Everything and nothing. Them.

The feeling hits her like a sledgehammer to the gut. 

No more. No more of that. It’s over.

She stumbles forward, slamming into the bed.

“Don’t go. Please. ” Her face is pressed against his chest before she can finish. He pulls them back against the pillows, bundling her in his arms. Tears drop on her head as her words break into sobs, his lips moving gently against her ear.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The wintery light throws a grey blanket over both of them as their whispers of love become wetter with tears. His apologies dissolve into murmurs as she buries herself further into him, feeling the rise and fall of his chest with each breath. She still can’t quite fathom it. He’s here, right here, solid and real and so so alive in her arms. 

Eventually her sobs calm. He rocks her more quietly, mumbling unintelligibly against her face. She tries to focus on the nonsense shape of the words, an old comfort against even older nightmares.

She lifts her head and wipes the wetness streaked across his cheek. “If this really is how it ends then… then I’ll go with you,” she says quietly. “Just one flash and it will be over. We can wake up together, eternally.” Together at the end of all things. She’d been to the fugue plane enough times already. Its cold grey recesses were hardly inviting, but there’s something almost comforting about the prospect of returning with him. Fading together into the soft misted oblivion after the city of judgement. No more pain. No anger. Just an eternity for her to make this right. 

He closes his eyes and strokes his thumb from her forehead to the nape of her neck. “No.”

“Do you really think I would not? That I’d make you do this alone?”

“Quite the opposite, I know you mean it. You have never pulled any punches with your words, and I have never doubted the lengths you would go to for me. Even when I wish you would not.” He kisses the ring on her left hand. “But you also know me, better than anyone. So look me in the eye and tell me that you truly think I would be able to kill my wife."

“I made a promise. Forever and always.”

He squeezes her hand harder. “If there is one thing I can hold onto now, it is that you still have a life to live, adventures to have, stories to tell.” He presses his lips to her hand again and lingers there. “My memory to keep.”

She swallows a louder sob.

“I can’t.”

“Please. For me.”

For him. She’d killed and burned and blasphemed for him already and she knows she’d do it again in a heartbeat. She’d ravage herself with more scars, fight until she’s tired and bloody, but to live, to hold those memories alone for centuries more– it feels so much more impossible.

All she can do is nod.

His shoulders relax and he drops another kiss to her head. “Thank you.”

They sit in silence for a while longer. Idly, she plucks at the navy blanket underneath them until the threads start to fray.

“Let’s travel somewhere then. Anywhere,” she says. “We can spend the time together until you have to… to go.”

His answering sigh may as well be a sword through her heart. 

She covers her mouth with her sleeve. “Gale- no. Now?”

He gathers her in his arms again. “I’m sorry.”

Her breaths falter, hotter sobs clawing at her throat as they try and fight their way out. She squeezes her eyes shut, every wish for their future staring back in gaudy colour, all of them ready to be snatched away.

She wants to burn something, to scream as it crumbles to ash in her hands. She has the power of an ancient red dragon coursing through her veins and she’s never felt more useless. She has no power to save him again, the person who loves her more than anyone, living or dead. Even after all she’s done.

She rubs over the orb, round and round like she can smudge the mark away with enough force.

“We were supposed to grow old together,” she murmurs into the damp material of his shirt. They’d spent more than one evening joking about what he’d look like as the decades went on, if she’d still love him if he’d lost his hair, if he shaved his beard, if it grew to the length of his belt. Two bottles of wine had that thought dissolving into laughs when she’d asked exactly when she’d have to buy him a hat as gaudy as Elminster’s.

“Oh my love.” He touches the scales by her eyes; his lips brush her ear. 

“Why is that being taken from us?”

He tucks a shorter strand of hair away from her face. “Only a little. Your life was always going to eclipse mine.”

She immediately jerks out of his arms and off the bed. She runs from the room before he can take it back, away from all of it, him, the truth, away away away until she’s panting at least four flights down.

This isn’t the end. It’s not. The thought thrums loud as her heartbeat as she charges through the tower, seeking real answers.

She freezes as she enters his study. The usually pristine space is ruined, like an altercation had taken place while she slept– a violent one. There are papers everywhere, shards of magical items littering the floor, scorch marks black and fresh against the flagstones. She touches them and can almost feel the force of the flames and the frustration that put them there. Something larger lodges in her throat when she sees the remains of a hastily constructed altar in the corner, Mystra’s statue smashed around it. 

Ciri’s hand hesitates as it hovers over one of the pieces. She’d wanted to do that herself from the minute she’d arrived in this tower, but they’d both settled on simply putting the various idols away. Gale was hardly of interest to Mystra anymore, but the thought that she could still watch, still feel him was enough to halt Ciri’s more destructive solution. She’d never imagined he’d be the one to finally do it.

Ciri feels the smoke starting to bleed from her open palms. Decades of devotion he’d given to that Goddess, been branded as her favourite, her chosen, and all that means nothing now. 

A creak in the doorway has Ciri’s hand slamming shut. She whips around to see Tara walking in, the fur around her face as mussed as her mind feels right now. 

“Oh, Mrs. Dekarios. You’re awake.” 

Her words lack the frigidity of her last few visits. Ciri would be glad of it in any other circumstance.

She wipes her palms on her robe. “Tara… I. He’s going to–”

“I know, dear. He was moments away from bringing down this whole tower when I arrived.” She bats the mess on the floor, yellow eyes cast down. “All alone, I might add. It was rather lucky that I arrived when I did.”

Ciri looks away like she’d physically clawed her, sinking to the floor amongst Mystra’s pale remains.

She hears a short breath behind her, then Tara’s soft footsteps as she sits down beside her. “I’m sorry. That was nasty and uncalled for.”

“No. You’re right. I should have been with him. Without you he would have… it would have– ” She trails off. She can’t say it. She won’t. Part of her still hopes that if she holds the words hostage between her teeth then she can stop the minutes passing until it happens.

Ciri picks up a jagged shard of Mystra’s face. One flat eye stares back, uncaring as the real thing. She can almost see it now, him desperate in this room, tearing through magical item after magical item, trying everything, going back to the God that abandoned him in a final effort to stop it, then pushing down a lifetime’s worth of pain all while she was sleeping. He’d spent the night fighting and clawing and crying and was now spending his final hours comforting her . 

“He really did try everything,” Ciri murmurs, throwing the piece to the other side of the room.

“He did. And it wasn’t enough for Mystra,” Tara says. “I think I am going to have to forgo the arcane and pick up a crossbow now. No magic will ever be worth this.”

When Ciri doesn’t answer, she presses her head under her hand. It’s the first friendliness Tara has shown her in months, something so small, so soft and yet she feels it splinter her heart even further. More tears fall silently down her cheeks as she clumsily strokes Tara’s head.

“It’s going to happen. It really is going to happen,” she whispers.

“Yes dear. I’m afraid it is.” Tara lifts her face and gently touches her knee. “I know I may have been somewhat prickly of late, but believe me when I say if there is anything I can do for you, for you both, I will.”

Ciri scrubs her face until it feels red raw, shakes her hands, clears her throat and finally starts to think in a straight line. She’s still a fighter, still an adventurer and she refuses to sit and be some useless mourning waste if this truly cannot be stopped. At their wedding, she’d promised him until death. And then after, when they were sweaty and pink and satisfied in their bed, she’d made another vow silently to the curve of his back. There is not a force strong enough on this or any plane that will take this from her, the years between them be damned. 

She’s not forsaking that now.

She stands up, swallows back her tears and regards Tara with a firmer look. “I think there is.”

***

Back in their bedroom, Ciri finds Gale already dressed. He sits on the side of the bed, wincing as he reaches down to tie one of his boots.

“Here. Let me,” she says as she kneels in front of him. She spots the remains of the ring she’d given him lying by her feet, weave sucked out and destroyed.

She pulls the laces taut.

“Why aren’t you angry?”

His laboured breathing melts into a sigh.

“I am, Ciri. Indescribably so, but I’ll be damned if I am supposed to spend these moments with you revelling in that feeling. I would rather you not be left with the image of me cursing the sky for what is being taken from me.” He winces again and touches his chest. “Or for what I am about to do to you.” 

She doesn’t stop lacing. “For now, do not think of my feelings on the matter. Regardless of us, of our marriage, of everything– tell me you still want to live, Gale. Tell me if there was any way to stop this, no matter what it was, you would do it.”

He cups her cheek and tilts her face until she’s looking at him. “Do not mistake my calm for acceptance. Trust me, I am not going quietly into any goodnight. If there was any way to stop this, to stay here, to live – I would take it.” He brushes her bottom lip, his mouth curving into a small smile. “Although telling me not to think of you is the hardest part of all of that. I’d quite like to keep doing so if it’s alright with you.”

Her hands pause as he holds her face still. She would not be able to say with any accuracy the number of times his gaze had captured her just like this and yet, in this delicate piece of morning, it’s like she’s seeing him for the first time. That wizard with eyes as sharp as whisky and tender as a faun, incisive and verbose and forever hers .

She quickly finishes his boots, grabs her winter cloak and deposits it on the bed.

“Then I’m going with you”

“Ciri–”

“I’m going– as far as I can,” she says as she starts to undress. “I’ll stay there and I’ll wait for it to happen. I’ll be watching, I promise. Right until the last second.”

She ignores the chill as she throws her nightshirt to the ground and holds his face against her bare chest. He doesn’t move for a moment, stiff as she sees her words settle in his mind. She strokes the top of his head and grounds herself in each breath against her skin.

“Please let me do this for you.”

His hands slowly move until they touch the dip of her back, his lips tracing over her breast. “Are you sure?” 

A cool, shaky relief blooms in her gut. She holds him closer, keeping his eyes pressed to her skin so he won’t see the fresh tears she’s so desperately blinking back. 

“I won’t let you be alone.”

***

It’s almost like any other day when they leave the tower. Waterdeep bustles with its morning revelries: children cobble together lopsided snowmen between the shops, red-cheeked citizens crowd around stalls set up for the upcoming festivities, the air perfumed with a heady mix of hot cider, rich wine and honeyed meats. At the harbour they find the usual dock workers smashing ice into splinters so ships can sail without bother. Some grunt a festive greeting as they walk past, hand in hand. Periodically they’ll stop, taking a moment to absorb it all, the statues, the benches, the trails of uniform cobbles. His city. Home.

It’s when the noise fades, when she hands over the gold and a portal for them is opened to the plains, when the city suddenly becomes a speck behind them and there’s nothing but an almost infinite stretch of frosted fields in every direction that it starts to sink in for her. 

Gale doesn’t halt them until nightfall, setting down on a hill under the small slice of moon. They end up atop one bedroll in their old tent. She brightens the space with a handful of dancing lights, their own haven of warmth and orange against the winter's night. She talks into his shoulder to fill the heavy quiet, murmuring any memory she can think of that might take his mind off the growing instability they can both feel pulsing through his chest. 

“Are you afraid?” She asks after a while, concentrating on nothing but his hand running up and down her back.

“No.”

“Are you lying?”

His eyes soften. “You really do know me too well.”

Her hands tighten against his robe. “Will it hurt?”

He shakes his head. “I just have to let go. I can finally stop fighting it and then... well... that will be that. But even if there was pain, I could manage. Hurting you though? That’s the altogether harder part of all this.”

Her breath catches and she buries her face in his chest.

“It’s not fair. We… you had so much more to do. I wanted to see it.”

He kisses her forehead. “The hand destiny deals us is hardly ever fair, but I can’t exactly say I’ve achieved nothing in my time on this plane. If I recall, you are not the only hero of Baldur’s Gate in this tent. I made and unmade myself, entered into multiple entanglements with the Gods, saved the world, found purpose again, found you– it’s more than most can hope for in a lifetime. I just wish I'd had the time to finish putting it all to paper.”

“I’m not sure if being with me should rank amongst all the other items in that list.”

“If being loved by you is the best thing I will ever do, then I challenge any archmage to tell me it was not a life worth living.” He plays with the singed ends of her orange hair, twisting and tugging, before letting them fall against her skin. “When we first met, I never thought I would find love again. And when I did, I knew it would be fleeting. When staring in the face of death and dishonour, those moments with you were the only instances of sweetness I had.” His hand pauses in her hair. “How quickly they became everything to me. More than the prospect of forgiveness or Godhood.”

She immediately sits up. She cups his face, letting every word kiss warm and sure across his skin.

“In every life, in every version of me that might ever exist, I’d choose this. I’d choose you. Please, don’t ever doubt that.”

They both know what she’s getting at without quite saying the words. She can still feel the previous night burned dark into her memory, another scar she'll carry with her. 

He kisses her fully then, opening her mouth until she tastes the richness of his breath. “I know,” he murmurs as he pulls away, tracing the point of her ear. “I’ve never doubted how much you love me. And I hope that, despite it all, you know that I have never loved anyone as well, as completely, as you.”

She kisses him harder, lets herself pretend it’s the first time all over again. Back in the cursed lands, when her plans were naught but hope and a mildly misplaced sense of righteousness, when he conjured her a bed from who knows where and she gave herself to him in every way she could think of. When she’d waited for him to sleep and traced the word mine over and over across his lips until she’d been ready to make his Goddess bleed.

“How much longer will it take for you to get there?” she asks. He’d shown Ciri his destination on a map before they’d set out, a spot so desolate the only casualties should be passing insects.

“About half a day.”

“Oh. That’s not long.”

He lays them both down again. “I wish there was a way to ease this burden on you.”

She almost laughs. It’s a cold wet thing stuck in her throat. Of course when facing down the gallows he’s still thinking of her comfort. She won’t tell him how much more it twists the knife.

She presses her nose to his hair and breathes in, savouring that earthy parchment scent one last time. “Just hold me until I fall asleep,” she says softly, turning in his arms until he’s cradling her from behind. “And- and then leave before I wake up. I promise that when it’s time I’ll be watching.”

His lips touch the back of her neck. “And I promise that at the end of it all, when it’s finally your time, I’ll find you. Even if it’s at the dusk of the universe, when the skies dim and all fades into night, I’ll be there– waiting.”

She stares at the side of the tent, willing the tears to stay silent as her lights drop and dim around them. 

“I know.”

***

It’s barely dawn when she wakes up but she can feel that he’s already gone. She wraps herself in the cloak he left, walks outside and stares over the stretch of empty fields beyond. The hours pass, the horizon melts from pink to grey, her joint lock and numb, but she stays still- waiting.

And then, just as the sun begins to set, it happens.

A huge bright cloud rises in the distance and blankets the sky in swathes of blue and purple. A wall of wind hits her face, the ground shakes and magic older than any she’s tasted before splits through the air in hot shards. The colours swirl and dance, a thousand lights glimmer in the air- and then, it’s over. All of it vanishes and the sun continues its descent like every other evening.

Ciri blinks. It’s done. Her husband is gone.

She presses her hands to her face and allows herself one loud, wet cry. She collapses to her knees, bangs the ground until her hands burn and then, she stops. She swallows it all down, wipes her cheeks and mechanically starts taking down the tent. She forces past her sob when she finds the items hidden underneath their bedroll: a carefully bound letter and atop it, his wedding ring.

She pockets the letter, loops the ring around her necklace, puts away everything else and starts the long march home– leaving every sharp, aching piece of herself on top of the hill.

Three days pass before she arrives back at the tower. The entryway is as dark and cold as the outside save for one tiny triangle of light flickering further down the corridor. She follows it in a daze until she finds herself in the study. It’s been scrubbed clean, any note of the struggle that took place brushed away to some unknown corner of the tower. 

Tara is curled on a cushion by a dimming fire, eyes glassy and half open. She sits up straighter when Ciri trudges in.

“Is it done?” she asks quietly.

“Yes.” Ciri deposits her bag on the floor and collapses into her usual armchair. Everything feels fuzzy, the edge of her vision shaky and red like she’s floating in a glass of wine.

Tara curls back in on herself, hugging her wings to her body. “Oh my little love. Gale.” 

Ciri runs a hand through her tangled hair and breathes as slowly and evenly as she can. She had to let it happen, she had to. It’s simply the first step and she’d done it. The pain she can put away, for now she has work to do.

“It was so fast. Just one light and then it was over,” she tells Tara in the calmest tone she can muster. Her voice stays even, but she can feel the way her lips shake.

She barely registers Tara leaving her perch and jumping into her lap.

“I’m here, Mrs. Dekarios. And I am not going anywhere.”

Ciri closes her eyes and imagines her grief staring back at her. She takes it between her palms, folds it up as small as it will go and tucks it away. The door in her mind slams shut and she sits up taller.

“I know that what I asked of you was a lot. You really don’t have to do this,” she says as she opens her eyes, the room slightly clearer now.

Tara presses a paw against her hand. “If I’m anything, I’m a tressym of my word. I said I would help you and I am going to do just that. You simply have to tell me where we’re going to start.”

Ciri exhales slowly. The blanket of numbness on her skin finally loosens, just enough to feel the chill biting at her feet through her soaked boots. She waves her hand and the study’s fire brightens, both of their faces now flickering between orange and shadow.

“Tonight we rest,” Ciri answers, spreading her fingers over the heavy tomes she’d laid out before they’d left. “And tomorrow, we’re going to find a way to bring him back.”

Chapter Text

“Shit.”

The sewing needle jabs into Ciri’s finger and a single drop of blood oozes onto the material in her other hand. She stares at the stain, a poppy blooming amongst the dark green fabric of her robe. Her only robe. One of perhaps five things she’d managed to cling to her person as a tentacle plucked her from the crowded road at Baldur’s Gate and promptly threw her into this mess. 

She shoves her finger in her mouth and throws the robe to the muddy bank at her feet. It’s hardly ruining it further. Despite her poor attempts at needlework it’s still riddled with holes thanks to an acid coated arrow that had been shot by a more competent goblin that afternoon. They’d promptly felt the sting of her flames after that.

She rubs her bare arms, adjusting herself on the log she’d made her perch for the evening. It’s a dim spot at the very edge of their makeshift campsite, her patch of stillness amongst the reeds and silt of this unknown riverbank. She stares at the trembling moon on the water’s surface and lets herself fall back into the fantasy she’d conjured when they'd first set up here: this is just another job. She’d been picked up by a group of hired swords to fetch some expensive trinket or kill a wandering band of monsters. Easy. Normal. A few days of work before she’s hunting down another gig in the next town.

Her seconds of calm abruptly shatter as her other campmate squirms in her head. The parasite. Fat, angry and days away from making her a mind flayer. Until recently they were just flickers of imagination, stories of teeth and tentacles used to scare children and intrigue professors, not the solid wet beings that had stared at her with such malice on the Nautaloid. She presses her temple. She’d already spent far too long wondering about how much it will hurt when her skull finally splits and blood spills from every shaking orifice. A soul extinguished like a match against a hurricane.

She presses harder, trying to drown the image out with the sounds of the camp: the grind of the Gith’s sword on her whetstone, a hearty laugh from that monster hunter desperate to find his infernal target, the solemn whisper of the shadowed cleric praying to whatever God she thinks will help them. 

She grunts as it squirms more vigorously, almost like it enjoys sipping the taste of her ebbing sanity.

“Is the little one ruining your peace?”

She meets the dark eyes of the wizard that she’d pulled out of a rock and promptly regretted every moment since. Gale. Last she’d checked he’d seemed more than happy going on about some Waterdhavian recipe at the cooking pot and leaving her very much alone. A set up she’d hope would stay until morning. 

She drops her hands. “It’s not just the parasite right now.”

He ignores her surliness and holds out a bowl. “You should eat something. We have had quite a day.”

She takes it with a quiet thanks and tries not to shudder as a pungent scent fills her nose. Stew would probably be the closest approximation to the thick brown liquid sloshing inside. Given the lack of real food they’d been able to find so far, she’d rather not guess what the viscous lumps floating on the surface are.

“I’ll eat later,” she says, placing the bowl at her feet.

Gale raises an eyebrow. “Ingredients may be sparse around here but I promise you it’s more than edible.”

“We’re eating out of bowls we raided from a crypt. Trust me, I am not worried about the taste.”

He looks down at her crumpled robe on the floor. “You know, I can fix that for you.” He flexes his fingers and a cool white light begins to swirl in his open hand. “A mending charm can only repair one tear at a time but if you give me a few minutes–”

“I'm fine,” she interrupts firmly, grabbing the robe and throwing it behind the log. She’s perfectly aware of how cold her voice sounds, but right now she’s approximately one annoyance away from running into the neighbouring forest and letting her flames overcome her. The taste of soot and cinder would most likely be preferable to whatever is swirling by her feet anyway.

The light in his hand fades along with his smile. She waits for him to retreat but he stands still, eyes drifting from her face to her shoulder. In naught but her thin undershirt, the patchwork of burn scars is completely on show, trailing pink and rough from her jaw and down her left arm. 

“Does it hurt?” he asks after a moment.

She shakes her head. “They’re decades old now.”

“Ah, you mentioned you were an adventurer before all this. Scars often tell the best stories and I am willing to bet that there’s a fine one behind those.” He takes a step towards her but seems to stop himself. He rests a hand against his chest before dropping it back to his side, something unreadable flickering across his expression. “But not one you need to share, especially to a near-stranger,” he quickly adds.

It’s her turn to raise an eyebrow. A wizard with a secret is hardly new. Every one she’d had the displeasure of working with had come with some kind of baggage hanging around their neck like a particularly garish amulet. It was nothing she ever worried herself with and she’s certainly not starting now.

“Not really much of a story, just a stupid accident.” She runs her thumb over the scales on her cheekbones, the only part of the dragon that manifested outside of her blood. “The fire magic presented itself when I was maybe thirteen summers old and any child suddenly able to conjure flames is going to take them for a spin. Unfortunately I hadn't figured out the most important rule yet: don't practice around flammable stuff like wooden furniture... or festival fireworks.” She keeps her expression flat, but the memory swirls black and angry in her mind: her skin screaming with pain as she tried to calm the flames tearing through the house, then the look of fear on her family’s faces when she'd finally awoken and seen nothing but black smoke billowing in thick sheets against the moon. Ciri shakes her head. “It was the start of a pretty messy crash course on how to cast properly. Took a few years and a lot more singed fingers but now only those I choose will burn. And occasionally my hair.” She runs her hand through the uneven ends curling around her chin. It was hardly a beautiful style but she had given up caring how it looked after her mother had taken a knife and silently hacked off the charred pieces those years ago.

Ciri leans back on the log, bracing herself for the inevitable. “Well go on then.”

Gale cocks his head. “Pardon?”

“I'm just waiting to hear the exact same lecture every other wizard who heard that story has spewed at me. I can't wait to hear which version. Usually it’s advice I don’t need on how to properly be one with magic and they'd be oh so happy to show me the proper somatic component for casting Fireball. If I’m very lucky, it’s some haughty explanation about how sorcerers need to learn respect for the art and are simply too thick headed to try and learn. One lovely gentlemen even told me that sorcerers 'didn't so much cast magic as kick it into doing what they want' so it's ‘no surprise that they end up triggering wild surges of weave and turning into wheels of cheese.’" Ciri has only known Gale a day but judging by the fact he somehow seems more in love with his own voice than magic, she's guessing she's in for quite the ramble.

Gale crosses his arms, his eyebrows drawing down into a hard line. “Well I had hoped that I’d come off a tad more gracious than that in our short time together. Exactly how many ill-mannered wizards have you come across in your line of work?”

“More than enough," she answers flatly. "And I’m sure a wizard of such considerable renown has more than a few pointers for someone so clearly not studied in magic.” She wags her finger in an exaggerated impression as she parrots his own words back at him. The condescension had been palpable in his tone when he’d made that assumption of her, only her aching joints from the Nautaloid crash stopping her from shoving him right back into the portal she’d pulled him from.

It’s surprising to her that this tiff had not come any sooner, all the more surprising when she’s met with a sigh rather than an overly-worded retort.

“I can see how that might have come across,” he answers, rubbing the back of his neck. “Forgive me, but I was… am… rather desperate to locate any archmages that might be a stone’s throw from here. Wizards are usually well connected.”

“And you just assumed I didn't know any.”

“Well, do you?”

She can practically hear the snicker caught between his teeth at her stony silence.

Gods does she want to punch that smug look off his face.

He sits down on the log next to her. “I am more than happy to lecture you with such a speech if you’d like. I can probably make it last all evening if it would help to cement what I suspect is already a fairly set opinion of both me and the wizarding profession in general. And feel free to give the standard response about how we are all hermit elitists jumped up on power and far too preoccupied with outdoing each other rather than actually working on furthering the good of the arcane. I imagine you have some fairly cutting words about how, despite the superiority complex we all apparently hold, it just takes one good punch or two glasses of strong whisky to put us down.”

She hides her smirk, a little disappointed that more articulate sorcerers than her had clearly got to him already. “More cutting than that if you can believe it. I’m not sure your ego could handle it.”

He chuckles. It’s a soft messy sound, perhaps the first thread of such an uptight persona finally loosening. “In my studies, I have seen first hand that there are countless ways to touch the weave, and while certain methods are more sophisticated than others –” his hands move in a precise square as he speaks, pausing only as he murmurs a quiet spell. “ –we feel its power equally.” A small orange flame ignites between them as he finishes. 

Ciri watches it flicker for a moment before opening her own hand. Magic warms through her like a breath and an equally bright flame appears in her palm. When her eyes catch his again, there’s something different shining there, warm and content as he sits back to watch his creation. Reverence. A feeling she knows all too well. Even when it’s shining on her own ruined skin, fire is still her . The raw force of her anger, the pulse of her passion, the magic singing in her blood. And here, small and tender as a heartbeat, her peace.

She watches him quietly, taking in the flickering details of his face as they brighten and dim. His features are far gentler than she’d first gleaned, threads of silver brushing through the hair by his ears and his eyes almost auburn as they catch their joint light. All so very delicate. So… human. It’s as she wonders if the paper-soft creases around his mouth are a product of laughter or stress that the world decides to crash back into the moment.

Some poor animal squeals in the woods beyond the river, both of them jerking upright and scanning the darkness for the source of the noise.

“Perhaps finding common ground is a better use of our time than trying to pick fights,” she murmurs when the quiet returns, letting her flame whisper away in the breeze.

“Well common ground is often the foundation of a strong acquaintanceship. Who knows, perhaps there will be more to discover before we finally get these unwelcome passengers extracted.” His words are a little quicker than before as he dismisses his own fire and abruptly turns back towards the centre of camp. “With that in mind, we should probably get some rest soon if we are ever going to locate this missing druid.”

She follows him a step behind, stopping to throw a handful of kindling on the dying bonfire. She can’t quite place the feeling churning in her gut right now. It’s something far warmer than the dread that had been sitting there before, soft and dense as smoke. She ignores the similar heat in her face, chalking it up to the sudden scream and firmly deciding to leave it at that.

“So no lecture then?” she calls as Gale lifts the flap of his tent.

He pauses there, throwing an altogether more devious smirk over his shoulder before he lets it swing closed behind him.

“If you're still so inclined, I’ll indulge you another night.”

Chapter Text

Two months in.

"By Waukeen’s golden cloak, you certainly are quick.” The dwarven shopkeeper almost leaps from his stool as Ciri slams a large wet sack in front of him. The sound reverberates around the dim apothecary, causing a few of the smaller jars on the counter to shake. 

“Not a single burn, just like you asked,” she replies, stepping back to the door and sliding the heavy bolt across. She’d already appraised the space for prying eyes, sure that any hidden lurkers would have scampered away when they’d seen her stalk in with her bloody offering. She ignites the lamp in the corner with a snap of her fingers, but it does little to make the shop any more inviting. The air reeks like a warm corpse,  thick twitching vines and the pulsing body parts of various beasts crowding every inch of the walls and ceiling. She tries not to dwell on the slimy thing had caressed her ear as she’d walked in, instead focussing on the dwarf as he dons a pair of cracked leather gloves.

A month ago, she would never have stepped foot here, well aware that the regular clientele of this establishment did not hold much favour with the city’s magic elite. 

It’s the perfect spot for what she requires now.

“Your reputation precedes you Mrs. Dekarios. I had not expected you to return from the Wetlands for at least another month.” 

“Dispatching it was the easy task. Luring it away from its nest? Less so.” She rubs the bite mark hidden under her trousers, still wet and stinging three days and two antidotes later. “Now, did you have the time to get what I need?”

“Hang on. Gotta check the goods first.”

He mutters an awed curse as he pulls her payment from the bag – the roughly severed head of an infant basilisk. It’s the size of a crate between his hands, the blue scales of its face crusted with blood– both its and hers. She’d bound its huge crocodile jaws shut to prevent the teeth from ripping the sack, but it’s doing little to stop the sticky black venom now leaking from its mouth and onto the counter. The dwarf cares not, carefully peeling away the fabric she’d stuck above its nose to reveal the real prize: its eyes.

They’re powerless to petrify now, but still gleam like precious stones in their sockets. 

The shopkeeper takes a dagger from his belt and expertly removes them both. “Gods, just imagine what I can do with these,” he mumbles, depositing them in an empty jar. “And the regulars will pay a pretty price for the rest as well.” He continues to murmur to himself as he yanks the teeth free from the skull, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Ciri is still standing across from him.

She clears her throat, then again when he doesn’t look up.

“Alright alright. A deal’s a deal m’lady ,” he grunts, covering the mangled head with a sheet and hopping down from the stool and into the back room.

Ciri hears a yelp and squelch as he moves around and tries not to think about what poor things are stuck behind that curtain. A few minutes later he emerges with a fresh scratch on his face and a worn backpack in his hands.

“Is that everything?” Ciri asks as he stands back on his stool and holds it out to her.

“I had to go through some of my more discreet suppliers, but yes. That’s everything on your list.”

“Perfect.” The backpack is heavier than she’d expected. It clanks with her movement, a choking metallic stench mixed with something fouler starting to seep through the cover. 

The dwarf raises a bushy eyebrow as she swallows her gag. “You know with ingredients like that, one may be inclined to believe that some necromancy is afoot. And not the kind the people of this city would expect from such an upstanding tower as your own.”

“I couldn’t possibly comment,” Ciri answers tersely, taking the coin purse from her pocket and throwing it into his hands. “But I do hope I can count on your discretion.”

His black eyes bulge when he sees the amount of gold inside. It’s far more than she probably needed to give but she is done with taking chances. 

He looks up with a smile so wide Ciri is surprised it doesn't split his cheeks. “Well, if there is anything else you ever need, my door will always be open to you. And perhaps your husband should take trips more often if this is the kind of work you do in his absence.”

She slings the backpack over her shoulder and turns away, her chest suddenly stinging worse than the bite on her thigh. “Perhaps.”

The rain pelts like needles against her face as she hurries through the city’s slippery backstreets. She clings to the darker alleyways, partly to stay hidden, mostly to avoid the cartwheels of cold water splashing from passing stage coaches on the main road. The new year had brought with it the worst part of winter, the snow quickly melting and leaving nothing much more than hard grey streets full of hard grey people. 

She draws up her hood and hurries on. Even so far away she can still see the tower poking up in the distance like a twisting shell amongst the other town houses.

Her stomach flutters as she draws closer. 

Home.

No. It isn’t home, she thinks bitterly. Not right now . 

Home is not a wound where there was once warmth. It is not stone and shadows and an emptiness that crushes and aches like hunger. It is not seeing the ghost of his fingerprints in the dust or jerking awake into a quiet so thick that her screams do not pierce it. And it is not Tara finding her curled up unmoving on the library floor, softly tugging at a single silver hair wrapped around a pair of reading glasses.

Her feet slow at the memory.

An hour it had taken Tara to move her. Then three glasses of wine to stop the shake in her hands from wanting to reduce the entire tower to ash and take every ounce of memory with it. She’d nursed the rest of the bottle to dregs before another solution blearily presented itself: gutting the place. The whole night she’d worked in a sweaty fervour: every portrait, every memento, every unneeded book and letter was shoved away until that warm mess of a tower stood bare as a cell. And when her hands still shook, she’d simply kept going, scrubbing the stones, stripping the sheets and locking each unnecessary room – all traces of their joint life packed away.

‘Not forgetting, not ignoring– no. Just tidying. He’s not gone, not truly, just stepped into the other room for a spell. Just waiting beyond the door.’ Words she’d repeated over and over until she’d finally dried herself down to what she needed to be: functional.

It’s not home, but it’s where she’ll work. And it’s enough for now.

Ciri ducks under an awning in an empty street and finally checks the contents of the backpack. There’s a mess of jars inside containing ingredients she’s never seen before: jewel-hued leaves, bleach white skulls of varying sizes, pinches of powders and jagged crystal shards– all the things Tara needed. All the things Ciri never would have thought of. 

Magic was never academic to her. It was her breath, her blood, as imbued into her life as a limb– and none of that could help her. Not when the necromantic scrolls and tomes proved useless,  when the theories of long-dead wizards held no weight, when she’d been moments away from burning her reading pile as the sentences began to bleed together into an unintelligible mess– her thoughts nothing but seaweed caught in a riptide. 

She could blink fire into existence with ease, bend the weave beyond its means with enough willpower, but crafting her own magic? That was a level far beyond her grasp as a sorcerer. Not beyond the grasp of a tressym it turns out. 

She wipes the rain dripping from her forehead and tries to ignore how that thought still twinges like a splinter too small to pull out. 

***

Dusk has long since draped itself over the city by the time Ciri arrives back at the tower. She’s surprised to find the entryway warm, Tara stretched out in front of the lit fire with a small brown mouse twitching under her paw.

Her eyes flash as Ciri throws her pack to the table, ignoring the pile of post that cascades to the ground.

“Ah, Mrs. Dekarios. It’s good to have you back. I didn’t think this old place could feel any emptier after your little cleaning spree but I found myself mistaken. And that is a rare thing.”

“You know you can just call me Cirinna.”

“Indeed I do Mrs. Dekarios, but I have not forgotten my manners in the weeks you’ve been away.”

Ciri rolls her eyes.

“Tasty,” she comments, gesturing to the poor mouse still wriggling in Tara’s grasp.

“Well with ghastly weather like this there’s little else to do besides pest control.” She bats it between her paws, tail flicking rhythmically with each movement. “Did you obtain everything?”

“I got everything on your list and then some,” she says, pulling two blackened pigeons from the bottom of her bag and throwing them in front of her. “I remember they were a favourite of yours.” 

It’s a cheap way to try and win more of her favour. Their relationship had warmed a little in recent weeks, but she can still sense the frost that had hardened between them ever since Ciri had dared to call him hers . She knows resentment still lingers there– of being ousted from her own tower, her wizard all but taken from her. All the reassurances in the world during those early days had done little to remove the words I’m not giving him up without a fight from being emblazoned in every single look.

Tara appraises the partially charred birds, letting the mouse skitter away into the darkness. “I usually prefer them raw, but then again, I’d rather not imagine you fumbling with a bow and arrow so this will have to do. Thank you, dear.”

Ciri throws her sodden cloak onto a chair. “Were you not at Morena’s?”

“I was, but I have my own eyes and ears in the city so I knew you’d be back today. She asked after both of you again.”

Ciri stays quiet as she kneels by the fire, avoiding Tara’s stare. 

“You know, I intensely dislike lying to her,” she continues, her voice suddenly cold as iron. 

Ciri rubs her forehead. She’s exhausted, nursing four separate bite wounds and not ready to have this argument again. 

“We’ve been through this. It’s easier this way,” she answers.

Tara bristles next to her. “For whom? She spent a year with no contact from him and she is not going to just accept that it’s happened again. ”

“Tara–”

“How would you feel if someone was keeping the fate of your child from you? She is not some colleague or a distant cousin. Gale is her son.”

Ciri’s head snaps up, droplets of rain flying from the ends of her hair. “I know , Tara. It is exactly why she shouldn’t have to feel this pain. But if you want to break her heart and then explain that her closest friend and daughter-in-law are conducting some extremely illegal necromancy to bring him back, then please, be my guest.” 

Tara doesn’t move. She simply watches, eyes flat as a mirror until Ciri cracks and turns away.

“Shit- sorry. I know that we could, that maybe we should, but I’m– I mean we’re going to fix it–  so I am not burdening another person if I can help it. Especially her.” She keeps her eyes forward, mechanically rubbing her hands in front of the flames until they’re a tender red. “Not when it’s a temporary problem.” 

Just beyond the door. Just in the other room.

Tara sighs and turns to watch the shifting fire alongside her. “She’s your family too. And she is only going to believe he’s in Amn for so long.”

“It’s just temporary,” Ciri repeats, firmly putting an end to the conversation.

Tara shakes her head, leaping and hovering in front of the flames until her feathers burnish a deeper umber. “You look tired, Mrs. Dekarios.”

“I’ve spent the last three weeks trekking through a swamp. I think it would be strange if I didn’t look a little worse for wear.”

“Yes but have you been eating? Resting?” She huffs at Ciri’s second eye roll of the evening and taps her cheek. “You still need to take care of yourself. I’m not exactly sure what I was supposed to tell people had you not returned, nor how I would even begin to break that news to the other Mrs. Dekarios.” There’s a familiar concern under the layers of fuss, one Ciri still has not yet gotten used to being directed at her. Even without him she’s still every bit the mother hen. Overbearing, yes– but Ciri had decided weeks ago that it would be a cruel thing to try and take that away from her. 

“That is never going to happen, I promise, “ Ciri insists. She stands and squares her shoulders, hoping her smile doesn’t look as forced as it feels. “I’m still an adventurer, so I can handle anything we need to do to make this work.”

Tara tilts her head, placated for now. She lands on the table, seemingly unbothered by the smell as she rifles through the bag of ingredients left there.

“I suppose I should let you know that you have a guest in the library,” Tara says after a moment, head still deep in the backpack. “I know you asked me to keep people out, but I think this is someone you will want to speak to.”

She flies out of the room before Ciri can admonish her for being so cryptic and quickly follows. She stops dead in her tracks when she arrives at the library’s open door and spies a familiar wizened figure standing between the bookshelves. Withers. She blinks, sure this is but a trick of the dying sunlight, but he remains there just as she remembers from his oddly charming reunion party. Same dusty robe, same sullen expression encased in tarnished gold. 

“What is he doing here?” she whispers to Tara.

“Did you think I was lying when I said the other Mrs. Dekarios and I had a regular correspondence? He’s actually quite the conversationalist if you know what to ask. And I knew you would want to speak to him eventually.”

Ciri rubs her arms, something unpleasant starting to buzz under her skin. “I know what he is going to say.”

“I fear that I do as well. But I know you will want to ask anyway.” She gestures in with her wing. “Go on. I’ll begin preparations downstairs while you talk.”

He does not move as she enters. The familiar scent of dust and rotted cloth permeates in an aura around him, like he could simply disintegrate into the air if the wind blew strongly enough.

“I suppose you know why you’re here,” Ciri says in lieu of any greeting.

Withers inclines his head. “It was a summons I had anticipated, one to discuss the fate of erudite Gale.”

She swallows, trying to push down the burning lump of coal that’s sitting in her throat. “Yes.”

“His presence still flickers on the border ‘twixt dust and shadow here, despite thine efforts to sponge them clean.” He speaks with the same moth-soft drawl she remembers, like echoes in some infinitely large library, ancient and interminable. And annoying.

“I know thy request. And you, my answer,” he continues, unblinking.

“That is not going to stop me asking.” She takes a breath and crosses the room until those unsettlingly bloody eyes are just inches away. “Bring him back.”

“No.”

“That’s it. Just, no?”

“Yes.”

Her fists clench against her shirt. Deep in her gut she’d known this would be his response, it’s the exact reason she hadn’t sought him out herself, even if she had known where to start. It does nothing to stop a fresh anger roiling like hot oil through her. 

“You resurrected us countless times. We perished for so many ridiculous, and frankly, unavoidable reasons and you still did it– easily. You puppeted the corpses of dead absolutists for us, watched as hundreds died at our hands, died for us or alongside us and yet only we were deemed special enough to be brought back. What’s changed?”

“The path of fate required thine allies to live and thwart the plan of the Dead Three. This task is now complete. So too is mine,” he answers flatly. 

“I have gold.”

“The matter of coin is irrelevant. My charge now is to simply observe until once again I am called to rest. This cannot be changed.”

She turns away from him, fists and lips shaking. She’s speaking to a being with the power to pluck souls from the afterlife as easily as books from the shelves surrounding them and the only thing stopping him is his own inscrutable reasoning. She might have accepted as much before, but now, seeing him hold himself with the strength of a bent tree branch, that acceptance is disintegrating rapidly.

“You once asked me what the value of a single mortal life was. I told you what I truly believed at the time: that none is worth more than any other,” Ciri eventually murmurs. Her voice is quietly even, almost as flat as his. “It seemed like such an obvious answer at the time. With every job I had taken before, I had always tried to avoid killing– so sure there was always another way. And yet barely a day later I was killing without a shred of guilt, burning through people as easily as parchment in my hearth. I was skilled at it. And I told myself it was for the greater good, to save the world and then later, to save the people I cared about. But does that really change what I did? Change the judgement I’ll receive when I finally leave this plane?” 

When she turns back, her hands are wreathed in flame, itching to lash out. “So I don’t care what I have to do now to claw back the one life that matters most.” She imagines the withered bark of his skin burning and crumbling, catching faster than summer’s driest wood. It’s always the stench that lingers the longest, that pungent scent of charred skin and bone– then again, she has no idea if there’s even any flesh left to smell.

Withers doesn’t move. “Rend me to ash if thou please. It shall change nothing. No matter the power of the magic or the divine, everything shall become dust and bone eventually. All of Iraxys’ fire in thy blood cannot rewrite the laws of this world.”

Her hand trembles but she closes her fist before the flames can leap.

“Fine,” she whispers, dismissing the fire in her palm. “If the path of fate is truly set then… then tell me that I can do this. Tell me that I will succeed.”

“The future is no domain of mine. That which is yet to come is not a single straight path. It branches and splinters at the dawn of each new day.” Withers holds out his arms, gesturing around as if painting that path himself. “There is no certainty that I can give for how thou shalt live.”

She slaps her sides at his non-answer, one step away from pulling him close and shaking him until all those bones rattle and fall apart before her. “But is there a way? You must know, please.”

Withers stays silent for a long moment. Ciri waits, almost sure he’s simply given up on the conversation before she catches something in his face. She wants to call it a trick of the light or her own eyes adjusting from the brightness of her flame, but she is almost certain that his eyes flicker, drawing focus to her for the first time ever.

 “Yes,” he answers. “It would be long and marked with sacrifices perhaps unimaginable to thee now, but yes.”

She lets out a long, hot breath, the smallest relief twisting through her. It’s not the answer she wants, but it’s something. It’s hope. 

“And I suppose you will not tell me what that path looks like?” she says.

“Correct.”

She closes her eyes and steadies herself, trying to pinch off the lit fuse of her temper.

Just beyond the door. Just in the other room.

When she opens her eyes, Withers is shuffling slowly towards the door. 

“Withers, wait.”

He pauses at her words but does not turn around.

“Wherever he is, can you see him?” She whispers, desperate.

He stills for a moment before continuing his exit, words barely more than dust motes floating in the air. “He is where he chooses to be. At peace. Waiting.” 

She spends an hour in the bath after he leaves. Quietly, she sits with her knees drawn to her chest letting the few inches of scalding water lap at her bare skin until she’s finally tucked every tousled feeling away again. 

“At peace. Waiting. Fine,” she whispers, then again when her eyes start to burn. 

She inhales the curtains of steam, letting the wall around her heart harden that little bit more before dressing and descending into the bowels of the tower.

Reaching the bottom staircase, Ciri barely recognises the basement anymore. Before, it was a place she hardly visited, just a crowded dumping ground for various odds and ends: experiments gone wrong, crates of dusty bottles, broken furniture and gifts from family members however many times removed that he’d had nowhere else to put. 

Now, the space stands almost empty. It’s the first time that she’s noticed that it’s as wide as their kitchen and that there’s a small open window by the ceiling looking out at the evening streets. A series of wrought iron torches on the wall illuminate the flagstones, highlighting the new pattern drawn in thick white chalk upon them. 

Tara's ritual.

It’s half as large as the room itself, a crooked circle in the centre and a series of jagged stars and points decorating the edge. Tara flits above, depositing the ingredients between a series of carefully scribed runes within the lines. Ciri cannot place them, but she knows their purpose. Each is a different set of instructions, but together they form one command: draw together what was lost. 

Tara had explained as simply as she could when she'd first come up with the idea: a resurrection cannot work if there is no body to breathe life back into. With this, they can pull together even the smallest pieces into one whole. 

Her breath catches a little as she watches Tara place one final object in the centre of the circle: a familiar set of purple teaching robes.

She flutters out and to Ciri’s feet, face and whiskers coated in chalk dust. “No joy with Withers I assume?”

“No, but that is not important. This is,” she answers, gesturing to the chalk pattern on the stones. 

Tara rubs her ear. “It is rather impressive isn’t it? Even if we technically should not be doing this.”

Ciri nods. It’s the reason they had decided on the basement in the first place. Any passing child could see the influences of darker magic in the sharp design. She can see echoes of other ritual circles in it, angles from the top of the Devil’s Fee, shapes she’d seen scrawled on temples and in crypts. 

She pushes past her curiosity at how Tara was even able to write such a spell. It’s here now. And her heart is almost drumming out of her chest with anticipation.

“Is it truly ready?”

 “I have done all I can. Truth be told, I can scarcely believe it. It’s the first of its kind, enough power to find every missing piece of him.” Tara’s words speak of pride but there’s an uncertainty there, a waver. 

Ciri crouches down. “We need to do this, Tara.”

Tara nods, but her eyes remain distant. “Yes, I know. But you must understand that even if this activates, it is not going to be an easy undertaking, Mrs. Dekarios.”

“I know.”

“No, really. This is leagues different to any magic you have used before. We cannot will or scream this into existence. It’s technical, delicate and… well… time consuming. I also have no idea if this will do what is asked of it. Or how long it will take to complete its task.”

“I know.”

“You are going to have to remain patient and level headed. It cannot be left unattended for long.”

“I know , Tara. I might not be as studied as you but I am not naive.” Her voice comes out a little sharper than she means to. She holds up her hands as Tara backs away, beckoning her closer again. “I’m sorry. But I understand and I do not care how long it will take, I can wait.”

Tara visibly relaxes. “That’s good. Now come on, you need to eat something and sleep in an actual bed. We should also discuss shifts for watching this once it’s active. I took the liberty of telling the other Mrs. Dekarios that I would be moving back for a while to keep you company. Once every few hours should do, so– ”

“No. I’ll stay here and watch it full time. You don't need to stay.” Ciri puts down the navy blanket she’d grabbed from the bedroom and sits on it crossed legged.

“Mrs. Dekarios, that is completely unnecessary.”

“It’s not. Morena needs you and I can do this alone.” She straightens herself and stares at the pattern. “Starting now.”

She hears Tara sigh, then pad closer until she’s sitting warm in Ciri’s lap.

“It might take months to work, even years.”

“It might. But then again, it might not.” She looks at Tara, then gently brushes away the chalk dust smudged on her head. “ Please , I need to do this.”

Tara is still against her touch for a moment. She watches Ciri cautiously before pressing her head back to her palm and closing her eyes. “Why do I feel arguing with you will only make you more determined?” She says quietly. “Very well, but do not think I’m going to just leave you here to fester.” She flicks her tail and a piece of parchment appears in front of Ciri, a smaller drawing of the ritual circle on it. “Put your hand here and read what’s written.”

Ciri speaks the spell. The paper shakes under her hand and a colder magic disappears into her skin, through her body and then out on her next breath. The lines of the circle suddenly brighten in front of her. They flood the whole room with piercing white light, before quickly shrinking down. It takes a moment for her vision to adjust, but then she sees it, the circle glowing and humming softly. The air thrums with power, the taste of iron and fire and salt rich on Ciri’s every inhale.

Tara turns in her lap, her voice thick with awe. “Gods above, it’s working . We just have to wait.”

Ciri rubs Tara’s head.

Wait. Ciri knows she can do that, wait and wait for as long as it takes until the quiet in the tower floats away and she can finally unlock every door. 

Until it becomes a home again.

Just beyond the door, she thinks as they both watch the magic glow and dim in front of them, and this is how we open it.

Chapter Text

It had taken Ciri a while to find somewhere quiet.

She can still hear the revelries of the party as a hum on the breeze, the tieflings and her companions alike still very much making merry around the campfire. The goblin leaders disbanded, of course she’d agreed to let them have one evening to forget the perils of the road ahead and let the ghosts of those they’d lost hang less heavily over their heads.

She cannot complain. Not really. For a time, It had been pleasant to watch everyone, their smiles lost in their cups as they danced under the fat happy moon. She’s had her fill though. She’d slipped out when no one was watching and walked along the riverbank until the water was wide and the only light was a handful of stars scattered above. And when she was sure she was alone, she’d stripped, walked into the river and channelled her fire until the shallow water was a more bearable temperature. 

She isn’t sure how long she’s been kneeling here, not enough to be missed she assumes, and certainly not enough for her feelings to float away along with the goblin blood and grime.

She runs hot most days, but this feeling is different entirely. It’s gentle but frustratingly present, burning like embers that just won’t cool.

She submerges herself fully for a few seconds so the muffled noise of the party completely disappears. Peace. Finally . What she’d give to float here forever as naught but murk in the river. Leader and hero to none.

As she reemerges up to her shoulders, something stirs behind her. There’s a gasp, a shuffle and then the snap of a twig as it moves clumsily on the bank.

Ciri immediately whips around, firebolt poised in her hand.

“Don’t fire!” 

Gale stands about twenty paces away with wide eyes and both hands up.

She waves the fire away. “Bloody hells Gale! I could have incinerated you.”

“Ah sorry.” His eyes float from her face down to the water lapping just under her collarbones before he abruptly jerks his head towards the sky. “And– uh–  thank you for not doing that. I don’t have much else to change into should my clothes get destroyed.”

Ciri's cheeks flood with heat and she quickly ducks further into the water, crossing her arms over her breasts. She has no idea how much he’d seen, but is fairly certain the sweet pink spilling across his nose is not from indulging in too much wine.

“It’s fine,” she says. “It’s almost a relief I suppose. I’d rather not fight anyone else until at least tomorrow morning. So what brings you out here anyway?” 

“I did not follow you, if that’s what you are worried about. There may be strange creatures lurking in the bushes out here but I can assure you I am not one of them.”

Ciri turns back around and cups a handful of cool water to her neck. She’s almost surprised it doesn’t sizzle. “Just warn me next time. The last person who snuck up on me lost their eyebrows.”

His answering laugh is a soft rumble over the wind. “Duly noted.”

“Even if I didn’t turn around I think the crack of those knees would have given you away.”

“Get to my age and then see if you’re still laughing about it.”

She throws a softer look over her shoulder. “I’m ten years older than you.” 

She’s almost disappointed he’s still staring at the sky so intently. She wonders that if she’d turned a second sooner she might have interrupted a furtive glance, perhaps one that lingered on the damp column of her neck for just a moment too long. It’s as her own eyes wander over his face that she notices the red stain spreading from his neck and over his usually pristine shirt. 

“What happened to your clothes?”

“An experiment gone awry. Between Rolan and his two mage hands, it turns out the number of wine bottles he can juggle is three and I happened to be standing in the exact wrong place. Once the laughter died down I thought it was high time for a rinse.”

“You couldn’t just prestidigitate yourself clean?”

His eyes drift down to meet hers again. This time, they stay. “I could, but after being on the road for more than a tenday, the prospect of an actual bath is a luxury. And I’d go so far as to guess that you are of the same mind?”

She turns and makes a show of scrubbing her arms. “You’re the one that had plenty to say about my musk. If I am to be this party’s reluctant leader, then we cannot have anyone distracted by whatever got splattered on me this time.”

It’s a half truth. She can feel the dirt of this particular journey seeping into more than just her skin and she hadn’t planned on leaving these waters until she’s managed to scrub every fleck of blood and sinew clean. It’s her mind that needs a good clean as well. Fear, stress, confusion, want– they’re all tangled like vines knitted together over the door of some ancient temple. Every day she gets one answer and a hundred new questions about their situation.

Just one moment of true clarity. It’s all she wants. If not about what their future holds than at least what this party of broken misfits actually want from her.

Her eyes flick back to Gale, perhaps the most frustrating knot in that tangle. Now he’s here, with her. Alone. Naked. Like something out of one of the bluer novels she’d pilfered from local libraries in her younger years.

Ciri rubs the back of her neck. “Truth be told, I just… couldn’t get all the blood out from under my fingernails. We spent so long checking all the corpses for equipment and when we finally walked away we were covered in that mess.” It’s something she has not admitted to anyone, far too scared of bringing down the party’s mood when the tieflings were just trying their damndest to be happy. “Do not misunderstand, I’m so happy that everyone from the Grove is safe but there were so many bodies.”

There’s a long moment of silence between them.  “I suppose this is different to your usual adventures then?” he finally responds.

She shakes her head. “I’m usually hired to chase away monsters or fetch cursed artefacts. I stopped Sazza getting struck with a crossbow in the Grove but was more than happy to mow down her companions barely a day later. Yes, they were a violent warband, but also people.” People she burned and then looted. People that she felt no guilt for as Lae’zel pushed them from ledges and Astarion slit their throats from behind. It’s not the smell of charred skin or the gore that’s twisting like a dagger in her gut right now, but that it was easy. That up until half an hour ago she’d been parading around the party in clothes she’d stripped off a dead drow with not a comment from anyone.

“They would have killed you if you’d hesitated. Then me. Then everyone else who is enjoying tonight.” She hears the soft shuffle of Gale stepping closer to the water’s edge. “Just because I see the value in preventing a fight before one breaks out, does not mean I’m not ready to jump in when it’s required. And sometimes swords and sorcery are the only way.” 

Ciri had certainly seen that in action today. She’d watched him, awed, as he’d thrown spells with the grace of a trained archer, disintegrating his targets to dust. 

“Perhaps someone else needs to take up the mantle of leader for a while,” she says.

Gale laughs again. “I would have to disagree there. After all, we’re still here and very much alive thanks to you. Not that I’m diminishing my own considerable involvement but that silver tongue of yours has gotten us out of more than a few scraps already. There’s no one else I’d trust to get us from A to B still in one piece.”

A slow, hidden smile breaks over her face. “I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment for me or an insult to the rest of our companions”

“The highest praise, I can assure you.”

There’s a pause, a heartbeat, then something slightly sweeter plucks at that tangle inside her.

“Well, I suppose I should leave you be,” he continues when she stays quiet. “I doubt company was what you were searching for when you ventured out here. My shirt can wait.” There’s no sound of him backing away as he speaks. She can feel the question hanging between his words, present as the weight of his eyes on her bare shoulders. 

Do you want me to stay?

She turns and deliberately brushes a droplet as it falls down her neck. “You should try the water. It’s more pleasant than you might think.”

She shifts before she can see his reaction. There’s nothing to interpret here, no words lost or wrapped in metaphor. Just the two of them, the pale moonlight and a week’s worth of tension that she’s ready to shatter into a thousand irreparable pieces. 

There’s another pause, a rustle of fabric then a series of soft ripples as the water breaks behind her. 

“Well, that’s certainly warmer than I expected.”

She raises her hand to show her glowing palm. “You can thank Iraxys for that.”

“Judging by the draconic etymology, I’m going to assume that’s who you have to thank for the scales? It’s quite the impressive feat to have found the specific dragon in your ancestry.”

“It’s what my family told me so I’ve always called her that. They probably just made something up to stop my constant questions." She touches the scarlet patch on her cheek bone, it's an old rough comfort. "There's no way they could know- that anyone could, but even if that’s not what she was called, it’s nice to put a name to the feeling.”

A louder splash rings out he submerges himself fully.

“Would it be rather crass to question exactly how a fifty foot dragon joined an elven family?”

“You would not be the first to ask. I do have my own theories– some being a lot more descriptive than others.”

“And those are?”

She twists her head a fraction. “Not yet for your ears.” 

He’s a blur in her peripheral vision, knelt deep in the water a respectable number of paces back. She lifts her chin a mite, just until she can make out the edges of detail. His hair has fallen a little more freely in front of his face, the wet strands clinging to his ears. So round she’d found herself thinking more than once, so… human. She follows the purple lines of the orb from the corner of his eye to where it lies under the water. Even mostly hidden, she can see the breadth of his chest, the dark hair dusting over the softness and trailing down. They’re the things she’d seen but hints of before, ones she’s been folding away during the day and leafing through so carefully at night. She’d been quick to push past her initial vexation at such thoughts, for even if they are impractical, perhaps even insufferable– they’re warm. Why should she not indulge when it’s one of the few comforts she has left on the road?

Ciri looks away as he rubs the edge of his beard, plunging her twitching hands back into the water. Gods above does she want to feel that roughness. 

“I did not expect you to leave the festivities so soon,” he says. “You’re the talk of the camp. Last I heard there are ballads being composed with your name and drinks still being poured for you. Though as an adventurer I expect you’re used to all that.”

She shrugs. “First time actually. When you’re getting paid, people don’t tend to throw you a party as well. It’s certainly a different experience. Lots of people. Lots of attention.”

The water ripples again as she feels Gale move closer. “It can be a lot to have all eyes on you. Especially when some may linger for longer than others."

“Maybe I want that,” she whispers, idly turning a current-worn pebble between her fingers before letting it sink back into the silt. “Or maybe just one pair in particular.”

She’d been ready to take that step tonight. She’d sought him out first, laid out the teases, the smiles, her intentions flashing brightly as any beacon. But he’d left her be, told her to enjoy the evening while he waited in the background lest the orb destroy them all. She needs to hear the words now. The real words that were not so carefully chosen when surrounded by companions and strangers alike.

Ciri lifts herself from her knees and stands at her full height. The river laps around her waist, droplets running in cool trails over her scarred skin. She rubs her scales again and fights the urge to duck back down into that protective shroud of water.

“I’ve been thinking about what I showed you when we channelled the weave together.” she says. “About… if I should have done that.”

That vision of their kiss had been dancing in the gentle colour in the corner of her trances for days now. It had been such a small thing to start. Something fanciful, a want driven by both the fear of death and a few days enjoying the shape of his mouth whenever he spoke in such an overly impassioned way about magic. That was before she saw the full hungry truth with her hands clasped to his glowing chest. He’d tasted a goddess, shared her bed, her wonder, her wrath. And despite that he’d still humoured her mortal wants, seemed elated at them even, enough for that fanciful desire to grow ever hotter inside her with each passing hour.

He hums softly behind her. “You should never regret being so bold. It was more than just a pleasant moment and those have been few and far between since we crash landed here.” There’s another moment of silence. Another ripple as he moves until the smell of wine and parchment brushes past her. “And I've been thinking on it too. Perhaps more than I’d like to admit.”

Ciri rubs the back of her hand. “Then why not take it?”

She wonders what would happen if she turned around right now and showed him her every naked curve and dip and colour, about whether he would avert his eyes or drink her in more eagerly than the evening’s wine, if he would back away or reach for her and feel exactly how much she burns for him under her damp skin. They’re questions she can’t quite answer– not when she’s still standing against the memory of the divine. Magic may be her life, but Mystra she knows little of. When he showed that dark torrent of memory, Ciri had seen the echoes of her still glowing in the corners of his mind. Lyrical praises had whispered around her, about how she was beautiful as the weave, soft as a dream, everything wonderful and terrible a mage could want.

Something larger flutters in Ciri’s chest as she feels the heat of his skin barely a pace behind her now.

“Once, the promise of a truly kind touch would have been worth the cost of potentially levelling a city. To feel one’s demise in a moment of pure ecstasy– it’s almost poetic in a way.” His breath brushes her shoulder as he speaks, tender as a kiss. “But now? I cannot . For so many reasons– for the journey we must complete, for these companions, friends even. And for you, perhaps most of all.”

She breathes out shakily. “Are you really sure it would be so catastrophic?”

He lets out a short laugh. “Not even slightly. But what I do understand all too well is wanting to take comfort with someone in a moment of calm. When danger can pounce at any given time, such desires are all too mortal.” Her skin prickles with heat as he gently touches Astarion’s bite marks at the side of her neck, then the bruise on her arm from where Lae’zel had bumped her a little too enthusiastically. “Whoever that may be with.”

She reads his message loud and clear. ‘Take whomever you wish to your bed tonight. I won’t hold it against you. ’ 

“I know what I want. I don’t need an itch scratched or some fleeting desire satiated,” she answers firmly. 

There’s another breath against her skin, a longer one. “You might just be the death of me, Ciri.”

A titter bubbles in her throat. “Maybe. Maybe not. So tell me then, Gale. If you could have anything right now, what would it be?”

He considers her question for a second before removing his fingers from her arm. Her disappointment quickly dissolves into a gasp as he places them on the back of her neck instead. He caresses the short hair there before moving slowly, deliberately, over her shoulder, down her spine and to the dip of her waist. It’s feather light, but she feels sensation everywhere until her desire finally settles, warm as a blush, between her legs.

He leans forward. “If I could? Everything .” He cups her hip, stroking his thumb back and forth until all her thoughts begin to melt into a pink fog.

She wants him. Wants and wants and wants in a way she can barely comprehend right now. She wants to press herself back against him, feel the softness, the muscle, the heat. She wants to turn and wrap herself in his arms, letting them both taste and bite and devour until the mess of their joint passion dissolves into the water around them. She wants to have him until that vile orb shatters under her touch and there’s nothing left but the scar of their coupling burned into the earth. And above all that, she wants to be gentle. To touch and be touched, enjoy something quivering and slow and sweet amongst the death and disarray that follows them everywhere.

And for that, she can wait.

“Alright. That’s all I needed to know. Goodnight Gale.” She steps away from him and marches towards the closest bank without turning around. She keeps going when her feet hit the ground, walking past her clothes and into the most secluded piece of forest she can find. And then, with one hand braced against a tree, she slips the other between her legs and touches her clit until her back is misted with sweat and gold explodes behind her eyes.

Chapter Text

8 months in

Ciri had always wondered about where the idea of the hermit wizard originated. All she knew of them as a child came from the pages of storybooks: the ancient doddering recluse with a dusty beard and dustier personality who stayed locked in their tower after dispensing some riddle-strewn advice to the hero. 

‘Why do they all have towers?’ she’d once asked her family when the princess was saved and the book closed for the evening. When her question had been met with a shrug, she’d spent the night under the covers working on her own theories until boldly declaring the next morning that it was so they could have a better view for stargazing. After actually working with a few wizards on her travels, her wonder disappeared and her theory quickly changed. Clearly they could only exist somewhere as lofty and ridiculous as their own ambitions, far away from the mere mortals who didn’t seek the power they did. It also explained the stupid length of their hats.

It’s a thought that changed again when she became a tower’s mistress. Slowly, she came to understand how one can love solitude, find peace with your things and your work. The rules of a wizard’s magic are so rigidly set out in the pages of books, it’s not much of a shock that their chosen homes are so stiff and scholarly. It’s why she can see the idea of the reclusive wizard making such sense… and a reclusive sorcerer so ridiculous. Their magic is wild, free, it slams against the bounds of the weave’s law, sometimes bursting with untamed consequences when pushed too far. Regardless of the font of their power: storms, dragons, the tides of chaos themselves, their stories are always ones of bedlam and mischief. It was her story once and perhaps one she’ll go back to in time.

Ciri readjusts her legs while she sits and hums, staring more intently at the pulsing ritual circle in front of her.

Until her task is done, she’ll wear the mantle of the hermit sorcerer on a tired brow.

“By the Gods it’s musty in here.”

Ciri barely registers Tara’s voice muffled under the magic thrumming through the air. She doesn’t respond, continuing to hum over the whine of the spell. Over the past few months she’d become fairly good at harmonising, sometimes making up her own nonsense lyrics in her head as she does. It’s an easy thing to do when the noise and rhythm never change.

“Have you even moved since last we spoke?” Tara’s voice calls again, closer this time. A tap to her knee pulls Ciri’s focus from the circle and to the blurry tressym sitting beside her.

“Obviously.” 

“Let me rephrase that, Mrs. Dekarios.” Tara leaps and hovers as Ciri turns her head, blocking her view of the ritual. “Have you moved anywhere beyond the confines of this tower since we last spoke?” Her nose wrinkles and she flies back a pace. “Or bathed?”

Ciri grunts as she tries to look around, but Tara blocks her at each turn, flitting with surprising grace for a creature of her years. Eventually Ciri throws up her hands and stomps to the other side of the room. “You’re the one that said it has to be watched. So I am.”

A familiar ache radiates through her as she sits down and she wonders if there was actually a time when her bones didn’t hurt.

Tara stares at her through the curtain of magic light. “Yes, that is true. However, given it has been unchanged for six months now, we can infer that you can leave it for a few hours to sun yourself.”

“Later.”

“Ah yes. Later. That fabled land where all your promises seem to reside, somewhere that I’m starting to suspect doesn’t even exist.”

Ciri doesn’t move. It’s the same conversation they have had each time she visits and she’s grown weary of it. In the beginning Tara would at least open with news of Morena, of Waterdeep outside and the gossip running up and down the streets– the life blooming beyond this cell she’d voluntarily locked herself in. 

“I’m not leaving it,” she states, firmer this time.

“Your dedication has been rather unshakable but I am not going to sit idly by and watch you rot any longer. Every tenday that I’m gone I return to even less of you and soon you’ll be naught but bones and ash inside those clothes.”

Ciri looks back to the set of teaching robes in the centre of the circle. Still glowing. Still empty. “I’m fine.”

Fine. Technically not a lie. She’s awake. She’s alive. She’s lucid. That’s all she needs to be at this moment. She’ll let the exhaustion burn her from the inside out and fill her mind with more wool before she shirks this duty. 

Recently, she’d found her thoughts drifting back to those first optimistic days she’d spent by the circle. She’d draped herself in the determination she usually saved for her adventuring and set herself to work: sitting, walking, weaving cantrips through the air and lighting up the basement with sparks of red and pink to pass the time. More than once she’d bruised herself jumping from the floor when she heard a flicker or a chirp, waiting for something to happen. Every time, the spell stayed the same and every time she’d bottled the disappointment away until she could almost feel it bulging with phantom pressure behind her eyes. And then, day by day her resolve had wavered. Not all at once, not as one battering ram to her walls, but slowly, achingly, a gentle wind eroding at the cliffs until all those affirmations were nothing but sand at her feet. 

There’s a numbing regularity to her routine now: rest, wake, watch, rest, wake, watch– over and over until her days are little more than the brightening and dimming of the basement’s walls. She’d come to learn the passing of hours by the triangles of light moving over the flagstones, the changing seasons from the smell of the rain and the colours of the leaves that made their way through the one open window. Sometimes she’ll walk the length of the tower and trace nonsense elvish into the growing blankets of dust- not so much killing time but holding it down and strangling it, willing it end but it just keeps gasping on. Soon enough the anxiety will gnaw and she’ll find herself back on the basement floor.

“This is as far from fine as I can imagine. Just look at this place,” Tara states. 

Ciri doesn’t turn to see where she’s gesturing, very aware she could point her wing in any direction and meet some mess of books or papers Ciri had long since given up tidying. Even the walls bare her frustration. Lines of scorch marks cover the stones like some angry drake had tried to claw its way to freedom.

She hears a sigh, then a flurry of movement as Tara flies around the ritual and directly into Ciri’s lap. A thick stack of rain-yellowed letters float behind her and then scatter over the floor.

“You said you were going to answer these.” 

Ciri touches the feathered edge of the closest envelope, her name staring back in a Astarion’s looping script. The ink is blood red, his usual flair. She wonders if he’d even bothered to sign his name under whatever he’d written in the quiet dark. During their illithid adventure, she’d seen the various faces of grief in their little group: scarlet, white, damp and screaming, graveyard-quiet– each different, each heartrending in its own jagged way. She cannot quite imagine tear stains patterning this particular letter, but knows she’s still not ready to feel the emotions twined between those carefully chosen words.

She flicks it away. “I don’t have anything to say.”

“Company will do you good. Especially with those you deemed worthy enough to know of this situation.”

“No.”

Needle-thin teeth poke through Tara’s grimace. “Mrs. Dekarios, I am saying this for your own sake and I mean some offence. You look like someone slapped rouge on a reanimated corpse and smell as such. I’d say I’m surprised there are no flies in here, but frankly, they’re probably dead in the corner.” She shakes her head as she turns over Ciri’s hands and reveals the layer of ash coating her palms. “For your sake and mine, I have drawn you a bath, which you are going to take, and then I am banishing you from the tower for the next three hours.”

Flecks of black swirl in the air as Ciri rips her hands away. “I can’t .”

“You can. And what’s more, I know you want to.”

Ciri stays quiet. She can feel the weight of Tara’s stare piercing straight through the denial stretched over her face. It’s not a mask she can keep up much longer, nor is there much point in arguing. Of course she wants to. It’s not just the colours outside of these four walls but the thousand-thousand little things she misses. A new one creeps into her mind each morning: the taste of ocean spray, scanning the tavern notice boards for new jobs, the earth under her boots and blood rushing in her ears as she completes them.

It’s the same thought that always drags her back down when her hand grazes the front door, leashing her legs to the stones and her eyes to the spell: Something will go wrong. I have to be here.

Tara bats Ciri’s knee until she finally stands. 

“Do you truly believe it would be the worst thing if he were to return while I’m here?” There’s something colder under her soft tone, a thread of hurt that has Ciri jerking her face away. 

“Alright, I’ll go.”

Tara gives her a curt nod. “Good. Now leave those clothes by the washroom door, that shirt deserves to be burned . I’ll take care of everything else.”

Ciri backs away slowly but stops as Tara picks up the navy blanket she’s been trancing in.

“Don’t touch that!”

Tara immediately drops the blanket from her mouth.

“There is never a need to shout, Mrs. Dekarios.”

Ciri rubs her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s…” she trails off. It’s such a foolish thing, the way a child would get defensive over someone touching their belongings.

Tara flicks her tail and the blanket hovers between them, crumbs and ash falling off the material like hail. “I’ll be careful,” she says, watching as the stains slowly vanish and the starry pattern grows brighter. “I know it was a wedding gift.” 

Ciri almost feels as if she’s floating as she wanders down the cobbles of  Waterdeep’s High Road. Last she’d seen it, the streets were little more than a rigid set of grey shapes set against an equally grey sea, nothing compared to the gaudy green metropolis that surrounds her now. The pungent scent of ripe fish and sweat clings to the locals as they hurry past. Most bemoan the paint-thick heat and summon puffs of magic wind or dart into shaded taverns. She feels it too, pressing down with probing fingers against the back of her neck. She’d been dimly aware that summer had started to boil the basement, but forgotten just how crushing it could be away from those walls. The air wobbles around her, sticky and wet with breath. Life forging on, she notes, and so much louder than she remembers. She plugs her ears, turning into an alley and away from the nauseatingly thick chatter. 

She walks until her feet bring her to the bakery by the edge of The Great Harbour. It was one she’d go to after every successful job… and every unsuccessful one too if she’s being truthful. The shopkeeper waves her in and makes a warm comment about not having seen her in a while. Ciri just smiles and quickly orders the closest pastry. 

The bell above the door rings as she waits, someone walking in then immediately stopping in their tracks.

Looking around, she sees a young pink tiefling girl in the doorway, watching Ciri with wide eyes. She could barely be more than twelve summers old, a mess of plum-dark hair spilling around two budding horns and over her shoulders. She blinks a few times when Ciri raises an eyebrow and immediately shoves her head back between the pages of the thick evocation textbook clasped between her hands. 

Ciri rubs the back of her neck. She’s sure she looked mostly presentable when she’d finally been brave enough to check a mirror on her way out. She’d been pale, crooked and sporting a pair of sunken bruises under her eyes, but that hardly made her a monster. 

She grabs her order and heads out to a bench close to the water’s edge. The late afternoon sun has thrown a handful of yellow diamonds on the surface, the waves stretching out until they meet the unblemished sky. It’s pretty as a painting– one that any home would be proud to sport above their mantle and feel warmly nostalgic about once the chill weather creeps in. It does nothing for her. She stares until the colours start to blur, almost willing them to pierce the grey mist that had settled around her heart. Eventually she stops and shoves a bite of pastry inside her mouth. Even outside it seems there’s only so many times she can turn over the nothing inside her and hope to find something brighter underneath. 

She tells herself that she’s tired, that readjusting to trancing instead of sleeping is still taking its toll, that when this is all over and she can finally rest soundly again everything will just fall back into place. It’s the same thing she tells Tara every time she misses a sentence or drifts away from her conversation. 

It only feels like a lie half the time.

Ciri feels the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly jump to attention. Turning back she sees the same tiefling girl staring at her from the doorway of a bakery. She shifts from one foot to the other before taking a visible breath and walking over.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Dekarios?” When Ciri doesn’t immediately answer she looks down, cheeks darkening. “Uh– it is Mrs. Dekarios is it not?”

“It is,” Ciri replies. “I’m sorry, have we met before?”

She bites her lip and Ciri wonders if spending six months with only a tressym for company had made her forget some kind of social etiquette. 

“My name is Reyla. You came to our class a year ago to speak about the Battle of Baldur’s Gate.” The girl picks the edge of her sleeve. “I - uh- asked quite a lot of questions.”

Ah. Now she remembers. She’d sat right at the front of the classroom and waved her hand with such vigour that Ciri had gotten quite the breeze while speaking. 

“You asked me whether I knew the dragon in my ancestry.”

“Iraxys,” Reyla says, her expression brightening. “And then Bal, the boy next to me, told you that one of our abjuration professors called sorcerers lazy pretenders to the art and you threatened to burn down his office.”

“If I recall there was a 10-minute tirade that surrounded that threat. I felt slightly bad afterwards as I think I scared a few of your classmates away from asking any more questions.” The memory comes back slightly clearer as she speaks. By the end of her talk, there were a surprising number of people crammed into that lecture hall, the air buzzing with awed gasps and a few scoffs. One particularly sceptical professor spent the last ten minutes murmuring to his colleague about how her story didn’t make a lick of practical sense and was clearly exaggerated for the children. 

The preserved mindflayer head she’d pulled from her bag had quickly shut them up.

“It’s not the first time a wizard has said that to me so I probably should have had a little more decorum with my language, especially when surrounded by 11 year olds. I’m honestly surprised that Gale let me continue.” She stops abruptly, the end of her sentence tumbling like a stone from her lips. 

Gale.

She can’t recall how long it’s been since she’d said his name out loud, since she’d even let herself think of it outside of those rosier memories she falls back into when she trances.

Reyla leans forward, trying to catch her eye. “Are you alright–”

“So how have you been? It must be exam season soon?” she interrupts, hoping that Reyla can’t sense how artificially jaunty her voice is now.

She twists the end of her hair, smile falling. “It’s been hard. Especially since the academy still hasn’t found a replacement Illusion professor yet.”

“I can imagine.”

There’s a pause. When Ciri looks back up she can almost see the words caught in Reyla’s mouth, fighting to get free. Ciri waits, tries to keep her expression soft while she plucks up the courage to keep going.

“I – I’m sorry to just approach you like this, but when I saw you I knew that I would not get another chance to… to… I mean this is a really pathetic thing to ask– ” The words trip over her tongue as she speaks, eyes bouncing around but never quite landing back on Ciri.

Ciri gestures for her to keep going and she takes another visible breath. 

“Is Professor Dekarios returning anytime soon? None of the other professors know anything or won’t say anything about his trip. His were the only lessons that I actually enjoyed and all of the teachers we’ve had to fill in have been awful. My parents are really pressuring me to pass this year and… and well, I was hoping to pursue illusion more in the future.” She twists her hair so hard as she finishes that Ciri is surprised she doesn’t pull a large clump out.

The words writhe inside her. She’d barely thought of the imprint he’d left beyond her, the splinters of his touch still spreading throughout the city- his city, that the students and colleagues from old passing stories were more than faceless shapes, but real living people still thinking of him– some curious, some melancholy. All stuck in the web of her lie.

Ciri taps the spot next to her, trying her best to smile at Reyla as she cautiously sits down.

“Why illusion? I thought kids your age would be more into explosions. I know I was.” 

Reyla shrugs. “Don’t really know. I suppose I just… liked the lessons.” Her blush returns, the budding red of a schoolgirl crush. 

The ghost of another memory surfaces: Ciri perched on the edge of his classroom desk and swinging her legs impatiently as she waits for him. She remembers the lone apple sitting amongst the stacks of papers, plump and shiny as a jewel. She’d tossed it at him as he’d walked through the door, joked about his growing status as the most crush-worthy professor at the academy, felt her breath stutter at the sharpness of his answering grin— 

It stops after that. She closes her eyes, sees the shape of his lips moving but the words stay silent. She tries again, remembering the smooth weight of the apple in her hand, the shadows of the classroom from the setting sun, the corner of the desk poking into her thigh. His answer still drips away like water through her cupped hands. Another part of him lost.

She tries to keep her voice steady as she meets Reyla’s eyes again.

“He won’t be much longer. I’m sure of it.”

Reyla’s smile widens. “That’s great! I’ve been trying my hardest not to fall behind so I’ve done a lot of illusion practice in my spare time.” Her brows furrow and she flicks her hands in a familiar square motion. She mutters a quiet spell and a light bursts between them, revealing a small red dragon. 

“This is from the first lesson we ever had. He said it was easier to draw from something familiar– but I just copied his example.”

Ciri’s heart pounds as she watches the illusion flap between Reyla’s cupped hands. She’s seen that spell before, cast into her own waiting hands between the quiet walls of their library.

It’s Iraxys. It’s her .

A flame suddenly flickers in Ciri’s palm. She softly blows on it until the fire bends and morphs into her own dragon. She watches as the two flit together– Reyla’s a neat glowing replica, Ciri’s a shifting winged flame. It’s been a while since she’s seen the difference between a wizard and sorcerer’s magic so closely. Both different, both beautiful.

“I wouldn’t worry about your exams,” Ciri says. “You’ve clearly mastered what Professor Dekarios taught you. He’d be proud.”

Reyla’s dragon vanishes as her concentration breaks. “Really?”

Ciri lifts her hands, letting hers fly away and burst into a shower of orange sparks by the sea railing. “I promise.”

She sits for a while longer after Reyla runs off. She pulls her necklace from under her collar, the first time she’s looked at his wedding ring properly since she’d found it under their bedroll. Her own sits slightly looser on her second finger now, the metal dulled from hours of spinning it round and round while blearily watching the ritual circle. Both are in the Waterdhavian style, their individual engagement rings broken in half and fused into two new rings for the ceremony. She’d agonised for days over her choice for him before settling on a twisting band of silver and sapphire, hope and the weave bound together. She’d almost wept when he’d revealed his choice for her: a swirl of red dragonglass set in warm yellow gold, then again when he’d slipped the newly reforged band on her finger and pressed his promise against her slightly shaking lips.

“Always.”

“Gale,” she whispers, lightly thumbing the space where the two rings join. Saying it doesn’t sting as much as she’d thought, the word weighted like a blanket, not lead. “Gale,” she repeats, her voice gaining a little strength. 

She walks to the railing and stares out over the bay. 

“I remember the first time we visited this part of the harbour. It’s the only time I’ve been kissed in the rain.”

He’d pulled her along a whistle-stop tour of the city when she’d first arrived, only stopping when the day’s drizzle suddenly gave way to waterfalls of rain. He’d cupped her cheeks, warm with laughter at his tousled hair, and brushed away the droplets caught there. She remembers the flutter in her stomach, the fire in his gaze, all those silly nerves at suddenly having a completely new life, city, betrothed – gone. It was like jumping from a building and waiting for feather fall to kick in, everything wonderful and terrifying about adventuring in one already familiar look. And when his hand found her waist, the other tracing the curve of her bottom lip, she’d known she’d made the right choice. 

The memory throbs like a punch to her stomach, both hands gripping painfully tight to the railing. 

Those thoughts are for trancing, not for now . She turns the mantra over and over until she’s folded up the feeling and buried it as deep as she can. One does not weep for the sun when darkness falls nor for the roses when winter comes. Tears are for the hopeless, not for her. 

“I’m sorry it’s taking so long,” she whispers as she regains her composure, “but we’re fixing it. Well, I suppose Tara is for the most part. She’s the one that came up with everything: the spell, the ingredients, the runes. Without her guidance, I would probably still be crying into a pile of books I barely understand.” Ciri sighs and shakes her head. “ Utterly useless .”  

She doesn’t want to feel these things, to sit and stew about the fact that his tressym is succeeding where his wife failed. It’s the worst kind of pettiness, especially when Tara had been aggravatingly correct from the start– Ciri’s magic can’t fix this. She used to imagine it, burning everything around her to cinders until she could rip the veil between the planes and find him. 

The thought always stops there, partly because even in her imagination she has no plan beyond that, mostly because she still can’t think of the words she’d say to him if she could.

I love you, I’m so fucking tired. I love you, why did you promise forever if you didn’t mean it. I love you, I think I’m starting to forget.

I love you. If it were you, you would have already fixed this.

“I’m never making fun of wizards for being too studious again,” is what she says aloud.

She stays and watches the sun as it dips lower, igniting the sky in fiery hues. 

“Withers says that you are where you choose to be, but I never actually asked him if that was Mystra’s heaven or not. You might not be her favourite any longer but you still did so much . Not enough for her to save you but enough for peace I hope.” Her eyes burn as she speaks. There was one other thing she’d wanted to ask Withers, the one thing she’d ached over the second she’d realised she loved that ridiculous wizard. If she were to die too, could that also be her final resting place? Or would she be ripped away from him with the rest of the faithless and left to rot in the wall of souls.

She rubs his ring harder, firmly deciding it's better not to know.

“When I return this to you, I’ll do it right here and then I will never let go.” She’s a child of the sun, of fire and heat, but in that moment, she’ll pray for rain to drench her magic and then kiss him with the fervour he deserves.

***

Summer slowly melts into autumn, then the early days of winter and Ciri manages to hold onto the shaky peace of that afternoon for a while longer. That is until she staggers up the stairs late one morning to find Morena Dekarios sitting in her kitchen. 

She takes a long sip from the teacup in her hand and fixes Ciri with a gentle smile.

“Good morning, dear. I was starting to think you’d never rouse.”

“Morena– hello.” Her voice comes out in a sandpapery rasp. She clears her throat and silently prays that she looks more presentable than she feels. “I… I wasn’t expecting you. I’m sorry the tower is a mess.”

“Yes, I can see that. I was hoping I didn’t need an invitation to visit my daughter in law. Or to tidy up a spell.” She gestures around without taking her eyes off Ciri. The shutters have been wrenched open, sunlight spilling into the room for the first time in months. The dining table has been wiped clean of its grey coating of grime and replaced with an almost comically large assortment of breakfast foods. Ciri isn’t sure she even recognises half the plates or the vase in the centre that blooms with an arrangement of spider lilies.

“We may live in the same city but for the past year it’s honestly felt like a different country, so I thought I’d take the initiative.” Morena waves her hand and another chair slides out from under the table. “I fear Tara here has not been giving me all the details recently. Wash up and join us.” 

Tara’s eyes flash from across the table. She’s sitting on a neatly stacked pile of books so their faces are the same height. “That sounds nice does it not? We have a rather large selection of jams and she harvested the honey fresh this morning.”

Ciri nods tightly and heads into the closest washroom. She almost dies on the spot when she sees the state of her hair in the mirror. She'd been singeing more of it off out of boredom recently, the remaining crop protruding like a mess of orange brambles from her head. Tara appears by the open door as she tries and fails to rake her fingers through it.

“Why is she here?” Ciri hisses, giving up and throwing a house coat over her rumpled shirt.

“I did warn you she was only going to be placated by me for so long and while I did not set this up, I’m not going to say it won’t be good for you.” She flies to her shoulder, catching Ciri’s worn eyes in the mirror. “It’s been almost a year. Talk to her.”

She looks towards the basement stairs. She can still just about hear the humming of the ritual, now completely unguarded. 

“The circle–”

“Will be fine for an hour. Go .”

They both walk back without a word and Ciri sits opposite Morena as casually as she can. She's put together as always. Her face is sharp but not stern, set within a soft frame of auburn and silvery waves. Her usual half-moon glasses hang by a long gold chain round her neck amongst a collection of chunky gemstone necklaces.

She snaps her fingers and the teapot floats over to Ciri.

“No sugar if I recall?” Morena says as it fills her waiting cup. “I must say it did take me a while to find a clean set of dishes around here.”

Ciri tries not to cringe. “Sorry. I’ve been busy.” 

Morena stays silent but the arch of her eyebrow speaks volumes. She barely has two decades on Ciri but exudes centuries of shrewdness– she can feel it now as Morena watches her mechanically butter toast. Her smile is soft but there’s a point there, a thorn hiding under the rosy colour.

“How have you been?” Ciri asks.

“Well let’s see, how quickly can I sum up almost a year’s worth of activities in one conversation?”

Ciri looks down at her tea, her guilt shining back in the reflection. “Yes. Sorry. I wanted to visit but…” she trails off. There’s no answer here that will not sound truly pathetic. 

“I don’t mean to badger you, but it really did not take me very long to realise that two and two were not adding together and that both you and Tara seemed to be telling me the answer was five.” 

Sometimes Ciri forgets just how much of Gale is in her, or rather her in him she supposes. They both wield their intelligence as a warrior would their sword. Ciri can almost feel the tip of her gaze piercing through her coat to his wedding ring hidden against her breast.

“I raised that boy so I’m fairly used to him portalling to one end of the Sword Coast or the other and leaving both Tara and me alone. This is hardly the first time he’s taken off somewhere and forgotten that I might like a letter to make sure one of his experiments hasn’t blasted him to the Fire Plane. What surprises me the most is that you’ve remained here.”

Ciri traces the rim of her cup. “I leave for my work all the time as well.”

“Yes yes I am aware. It became a flip of the coin if either of you were here when I’d visit a year ago.” 

When Ciri looks back up, her smile is gone and Tara is shifting slightly awkwardly on her perch. 

“I’ll cut the idle chatter. I know my son and what goes on in his life, more than he thinks I do. I know there has always been a laundry list of excuses as to why he could never tell me, usually something about protecting my feelings or that the less people that know about divine meddling the better, and I have always let it slide, even when it came to literal life and death.”

Ciri almost chokes on her tea. Gale and her had both privately agreed that it would be impossible for Morena to be clueless to everything, especially when his previous misdeeds with magic and Mystra were hardly a secret. He’d been happy to live with the unchallenged assumption that his mother had been ignorant of the specifics, especially when he’d gone to great lengths not to tell her. 

Ciri bites back her immediate question about exactly how much she does know: the ignominious end to his affair with Mystra, the orb, his plan to reach into the heavens himself and claim divinity– hubris be damned. 

Or about what happened a year ago.

“I’m not here to berate you, I promise. I want to help.” She puts down her cup and knits her hands together. “When Gale suddenly appeared back in Waterdeep with a very new fiancée at his side, I did not think that I’d lost my son to someone else. Well… perhaps for just a moment, but I also knew that I’d gained a daughter, not something I was lucky enough to be blessed with before, someone that made him happier than he’d been in a long time. So believe me when I say that I can see when you’re hurting.”

Ciri spoons honey onto her toast, trying to keep her face impassive against Morena’s precise needling. 

“Has something happened? You know I don’t mean to pry, but I didn’t need Tara to tell me that things between the two of you were… shall we say a little frosty before he left.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Tara mumbles.

Ciri jabs her toast with the butterknife. “We’re fine.”

Morena sighs. “You really are just like him.” She rubs a smudge on her glasses with a napkin, her mouth a set line. “Stubborn. And a poor liar. I’ve seen the state of this home, the dead mess of the front garden, the empty larder and the fact my footsteps have left almost yard-deep imprints in the dust. This tower has been in disarray before, but never truly neglected. This hardly feels like the most salubrious place to stay, especially when you’re all on your own.”

“I have Tara.”

“Once a tenday maybe.”

“I would come more often but that offer has been rejected many a time,” Tara interjects but Morena doesn’t look her way.

“Cirinna, tell me the truth. Please.” 

Ciri feels her throat constrict, the hum of the ritual suddenly gratingly present in the background. “It’s complicated.”

“As I’m sure you’ve realised, the Dekarios mantra might as well be ‘it’s complicated.’ Trust me, we’ve seen it all and there’s little we have not been able to steer ourselves through.” Morena rounds the table and sits next to Ciri. “You are not very close to your immediate family, are you?”

Ciri stiffens, remembering the evening of the wedding. She’d smelled the five glasses of Arabellan Dry clouding Morena’s perfume as she’d thrown her arms around her, murmuring overly-flowered apologies against her cheek about the fact Ciri's own parents would not be making an appearance. 

“I’d just rather not speak to them about this,” she answers.

“I can be in your corner if you need me. Both of yours.” Morena’s hand pauses as it creeps towards Ciri’s arm. “But you have to tell me.”

Ciri takes a large bite of toast instead of answering. Her stomach snarls at the overwhelming urge to shove the entire thing in her mouth, the taste of honey spreading warm and rich over her tongue. A fragment of memory caresses her mind as she swallows. Honey melting on her tongue, morning light bright as a golden shawl on her shoulders, a kiss dropped to her forehead a a familiar set of purple teaching robes flutter in her vision-

“Cirinna?” Morena leans closer. “Oh my dear, you’re crying.”

Ciri rubs her face, mortified when she sees the wetness shining on her fingers. She doesn’t understand. It’s just toast, just a meal with her mother in law, for once an almost normal morning.

Morena quietly passes her a napkin and Ciri freezes when she sees her hands. There’s flour still speckled on her rings and under her usually pristine nails, the remnants of the hours she’d spent preparing all this. 

Ciri’s bottom lip starts to shake.

She’d risen at Gods-knows what time in the morning to harvest and knead and bake all this for her. Just because she could. Because she was worried. 

The ritual whines louder behind her, the hum opening into a deeper groan that seeps from underneath the flagstones. She feels it squirm into the recesses of her brain until it stabs with every blink. She presses her temples, wills it to quiet but it refuses, the truth scratch scratch scratching at the closed door in her mind until she’s sure she has to be bleeding from her ears. 

“Cirinna? Gods, please say something.” Morena gently guides Ciri’s gaze back to hers, her brown eyes boring into gold and grey. They’re kind eyes, dark eyes, his eyes. 

Ciri turns her face away. She wants to tell, to let the truth spill free from her lips until the stale air of the tower is completely wet with it. With such a pain unburdened she’s sure she’d just float away as nothing but motes in the rafters–  a fate that doesn’t sound so terrible right now.

She just can’t do it.

Morena is kind, sharp, almost too-loving, but still mortal, just like her. Her love has its limits and Ciri is not ready to smash them by telling her that her only son has been nothing but a handful of Netherese dust in the air for almost a year now. She can see Morena’s face breaking like china, the shake of her hands, the colours cycling through her face as her shouts and cries eventually melt into a much scarier silence.

It will kill her. And Ciri will be Godsdamned before she has a single drop more Dekarios blood on her hands.

Morena’s hand meets Ciri’s elbow. “Are you-”

“I thought I was pregnant,” she suddenly blurts out.

Morena and Tara both jerk back as the words leave her mouth. The whining suddenly quietens back to a distant hum, the only sounds in the kitchen now her slightly erratic breathing and the shudder of wind against the windows.

Morena blinks rapidly, then passes Ciri a fresh cup of tea. “Is that true?”

Ciri nods, drying her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “I’m not, I mean obviously I’m not, but for a while I was so sure and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. And then I wasn’t and… well that was that.” The words scrape out her throat as she finishes. She grabs her teacup, wincing when she tries to down the boiling contents.

“Okay, slowly now,” Morena says, gently rubbing her back. “You might have dragon’s blood but heat-resistant and heat-proof are not the same thing.”

Ciri stays quiet until she’s finished sipping the entire cup. 

“I haven’t told anyone that,” she murmurs when her voice finally returns.

“Not even Gale?”

“No.” 

Morena puts her hand over Ciri’s. “ That is quite the burden to shoulder on your own. I think what saddens me the most is that you thought you needed to. Why?”

Ciri feels Tara’s gaze burning into her from across the table. She ignores it, wiping her face with the napkin until she’s scrubbed away every last ridiculous tear.

“Because it’s not important. And if you’re worried about our marriage, don’t be. Gale didn’t leave me and I haven’t left him. That’s all that matters right now.”

She just wants this to be over, the conversation, the food, the ritual- all of it. She wants to screw her eyes closed and open them a year later to find everything neatly back in place. The tower will be clean, solstice decorations glittering on the walls, trophies from her adventuring lining the hall and warm conversations drifting through the air rather than that aggravating hum.

Morena’s hand tightens against Ciri’s until she can feel the gems of each ring leaving patterns on her skin.

“Cirinna, I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me that’s all. Tell me that there’s absolutely nothing else I can do to help you.”

It’s a piton to the crack of her doubt. She fists the edge tablecloth in her other hand, trying not to wilt under the weight of Morena’s stare.

“He’s coming back and then it will all be fine. I know it.” 

Ciri knows that even a child wouldn’t be convinced by the whisper of her answer, but Morena just sighs and turns away.

“Alright. If that’s all you have to say, then that is where we’ll leave it then.” She marches back to her side of the table and takes her cloak from the back of the chair. “You should eat the rest before it gets cold. Just send Tara back with the empty jars if you finish the jam.” 

The warmth from the room vanishes with every clipped movement. Ciri grips the tablecloth harder, shrinking in her chair.

“You really don’t have to go.”

Morena stops buttoning her cloak. There’s the edge of another sigh, her lips moving with words too soft to hear before she finally looks at Ciri again.

“If you need me, my home will always be there. But you will have to be the one to open the door.” 

Tara remains seated as the front door swings closed. She’s a blur at the edge of Ciri’s vision but the yellow daggers of her eyes are perfectly clear.

“I believe I told you that I intensely dislike lying to her.”

Ciri stalks away from the table and towards the basement. “If you’re going to yell at me, it can wait until tomorrow.” She can feel every word of that conversation churning like gravel in her stomach and she just wants to lie down and disappear. 

She hears the stack of books topple behind her. “Do not walk away from me.”

“Just get out and go with Morena. I’m sure you have plenty more comments about my relationship to share.”

Tara suddenly leaps in front of her, blocking her exit. “Excuse me. This was my home long before it was yours and I will not be ordered about like some common house pet.” She slinks low to the ground, hissing until Ciri stops trying to dodge round her. “Gods above, she was practically on her knees begging you for the truth, just wanting her family to be whole again and you breezed right past her. So you’re going to tell me the full story right now.” She walks until Ciri is backed against the wall. Her small frame is spring-coiled and taut, exuding more tiger than tressym. “Did you really believe you were with child? Or is that just another lie?”

“Please let it go.”

“Tell me. Now.”

“Tara–”

Her claws scrape against the stones below. “Tell me!”

Ciri slams her eyes closed and collapses down the wall.

“Yes.”

The word stings as it falls between them. She’d buried that pain months ago, an old wound that didn’t need examining now scratched at until it bled afresh. 

Tara’s sigh brushes her leg. “Gods.”

“You do not get to judge me,” she mumbles into her knee. “It’s my body and my business, no one else’s”

“I could have helped you. You were knocking back wine like it was water on a hot day last winter.”

Ciri’s fingers dig into her thighs. “It was after that.”

When she finally looks up, Tara’s face has lost its sharp edge.

“I’m sorry that you had to deal with that, truly I am, but did you really think holding on to that on top of everything else was the only course of action? I can understand not telling the other Mrs. Dekarios, but not a single one of your friends? I’m honestly surprised you haven’t broken under the weight of all this unnecessary secrecy. At this rate I’ll have two members of the Dekarios household to resurrect and these paws are not suited for basilisk hunting.” 

Ciri leans her head back against the wall. “If I’d told people then it would have made it real. I’d have gone to a healer and had my answer and… I didn’t want that.” She puts her hand on her stomach, pressing down until she feels that hollow space start to ache. “I know I’m not ready for a child, not even slightly, but it was nice to think that there was still a piece of him here, even if it was just for a while.”

She didn’t weep when she’d finally realised. After all, it would have been a foolish thing to waste time mourning something she’d never even had, especially when basilisk heads do not remove themselves. It was after, when that head was warm and sticky by her makeshift campfire that she’d let herself indulge– just the once. She’d pictured their child, their dark-haired half-elven child, a little bit of her, a little bit of him, but their own bright person. She’d wondered if they’d share his gifts, be blessed with her dragon’s scales, what it might be like to watch fire and light dance from a pair of tiny hands cupped in his.

“Gods just imagine dealing with all this and a child,” she quickly adds, stuffing those visions away. “I’d be a horrendous parent anyway.” 

Tara exhales, moving closer until her whiskers tickle Ciri’s bare calf. “How quick you are to dismiss the pieces of him that are still here. His Mother is here, his work is here, and I’m here, Mrs. Dekarios. Perhaps it’s time to stop pushing away everything because you still feel that you have to rot in your solitude.” She lightly bumps Ciri’s calf with her head. “Also you would not be a horrendous parent . Although I don’t even want to imagine what explosive being you two would create. I’ve heard enough horror stories from his Mother about his rather eventful childhood. One would think babes could not fire spells from the cradle but evidently it’s not impossible.” She shakes her head but her expression is fond. “Also I will require ample warning should this happen in the future. Children can be rather enamoured by tressyms but I’d rather not have any mucky hands near me for now. It’s not easy to maintain a coat like this.”

Ciri lifts her head. “How about a puppy instead?”

“Are you trying to drive me quite mad, Mrs. Dekarios?”

“Always.”

Ciri has never been particularly good at reading Tara’s body language, having met her teeth or claws more than once when trying to be friendly in those early days. Now, she takes the risk and hauls Tara into her lap. She’s rigid for a second, but melts into the space as Ciri keeps rubbing the softness between her wings.

 “I can’t tell Morena. Not yet,” she whispers, running her fingers through the growing patch of grey feathers. “I’m not saying that I won’t but… I can’t. Not until we know what will happen with the spell.”

Tara rolls onto her back. “She was right, you know. You are just like him sometimes, for better and worse. Why share the burden of your pain when you can just load me up with another secret to keep from her?”

Ciri’s hand stops against Tara’s belly. “She knows, doesn’t she.” 

“I have never asked, but I think she meant what she said today. You can tell her the truth yourself or break under the pressure alone, it’s your choice.”

“I’m not going to do either of those things.”

“Of course you aren’t.”

Ciri keeps petting her, trying to relax into the vibrations of her gentle purring. Morena may be frustrated now but it’s another temporary issue, one that won’t matter in a year or five or ten. Everything right now is just pencil on canvas, ready to be painted over with much brighter colours.

“It’s so quiet without him,” Tara murmurs, her eyes drooping closed. “I never thought I’d find myself missing those sudden postulations of his but, Gods what I’d do to hear him ramble now.”  

Ciri chuckles. It’s almost a warm sound. “The sleep-talking was the worst. Half the time I’d be drifting off and then he’d start mumbling about proper wrist technique for somatic illusion components. Sometimes he’d go on for minutes until I hit him with a pillow. What I would have given then to have silence like this.”

Her hand suddenly stops again.

Silence.

She jumps to her feet, Tara rolling out of her lap as she looks around.

“Tara, it’s quiet.”

“I just said–”

“No, Tara, it’s quiet .”

Her eyes widen as she realises and looks towards the basement. The hum of the ritual is gone.

It’s time.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The stairs feel endless. Ciri takes them two at a time, her bare feet thudding almost painfully against the stone. Her thoughts spin wildly, then her legs as she launches herself down the final few and into a heap on the basement floor. She ignores the sting shooting through her hands and knees, whipping her head up.

And then her heart plummets straight through the flagstones.

The light is gone, the room silent, nothing left in front of her but piles of dust where the ingredients once lay. The circle is empty, completely and inescapably so. 

“No,” she gasps, crawling towards it. “ No, no no no , this isn’t it.”

Her chest seizes with each breath. All that time sitting, waiting, rotting in this godforsaken room– ruined.

Tara lands next to her in a flurry of feathers and fur. “Your hands– ”

“Forget me, look at the spell. Something’s wrong. ” Ciri rips them towards herself, blood boiling in her face. “I shouldn’t have left it. Something has happened and I should have been here to fix it. You… you said it would be fine. You took me away from here and I’ve missed it. ” She spits the last sentence out and Tara staggers back like sparks have flown from her mouth. Ciri stumbles forward, a hand thrown out to grab the robes in the centre.

She has to know, there has to be something there.

“Don’t cross the circle!” Tara yells, spreading her wings in a barrier. 

“I have to fix this.”

“You can’t.”

“But it’s not working!”

Tara doesn’t move, her wide eyes a warning. “For pity’s sake just give me a moment , Mrs. Dekarios.” She waits until Ciri stills, then walks around the edge, quietly musing to herself as if their only hope hadn’t just sputtered into non-existence. 

Her words fade and Ciri's vision starts to shake. All the theorising in the work can’t change the fact that she can feel how achingly empty the room is. There’s not a whisper of magic, nor one shred of his presence, only a flat set of teaching robes and the creak of the window so suffocatingly loud without the ritual’s hum.

“Ah, so maybe if we let it settle for a few hours. Ahghairon’s writings did say that reconstruction is not in the light but in the…”

“Stop that. You know it didn’t work,” Ciri mumbles.

Tara sighs. “We don’t know that yet.”

“Your spell failed. You’re just rubbing salt in the wound now.” 

Tara’s head snaps up. “Don’t you dare say that.” 

“Just leave it–”

“No!”

Tara’s mouth pulls back into a hissing scowl, her claws scraping white grooves into the stone. “Too many people in this blasted tower have given up on me and I am not going to take it. For the love of all the Gods can you please have some faith in me. Just once .” Ciri stays quiet as Tara’s small body heaves with angry breaths. The tressym stares her down for a long hard moment before turning back to the circle. “Mrs. Dekraios, I have to insist you leave while I sort this out. Go and rest or something. Just get out.”

Ciri leaves without a word. She grabs her blanket as she goes, rubbing it against the torn skin of her palms until the silvery threads speckle with blood. It’s a poor attempt to tame her rising panic. It slips through her grasp like steam, wrapping around that closed door in her mind and shouting through the keyhole.

You can’t do it. You know you can’t.

She rocks back and forth, running her hands through her hair as she tries to steady herself. She pulls the strands harder, a flash of fire suddenly bursting from her palms and burning off a chunk around her chin. The stench makes her eyes water– but it’s familiar, enough for her to finally take a deeper breath.

Wait and rest. That shouldn’t be hard. It’s one more day on top of a year and she has nothing but time anyway. She turns the thought over and over in her mind until it becomes some semblance of the truth.

She wanders silently through the tower, a little unsure of where to put herself. The bannisters are caked in dust, her old fingerprints a ghost’s touch in the thready sunlight. There was warmth in these stones once, echoes of laughter, love, the smell of crackling kindling and spice bleeding through every wall. It’s hard for her to picture now. This is still her home, but walking too far from the basement is like creeping through uncharted territory. Her hand eventually pauses on the study’s doorknob. She feels as if she’s wavering on the edge of a map, staring at the inked warnings of the blank abyss beyond– here there be monsters. 

The thin smell of neglect greets her as she pushes inside. It’s just as she left it save for the blanket of grime growing thick and grey on every surface. Mountains of furniture clutter the room, the fireplace hard and chilled as the winter’s pavement. She forces her way through the mess, looking away when she spies the mildew spreading over the open books still resting on his desk.

It’s hard for her not to wonder what he’d say if he could see it now, the beating heart of his tower silently decaying under her care.

She runs her hands over the walls, pausing when they brush a slightly lighter rectangle. It’s the space where their wedding portrait once hung, the first thing she’d torn down those months ago. She gingerly pulls it out from its hiding spot behind the desk, just enough to see her own face staring back. She’s bright as a torch, her cheeks flushed pink and framed by the spider lilies woven into her hair. She touches the blush of her painted neck, trying to remember if she ever bloomed with that much colour. It’s a far cry from the person reflected back in the glass. She leans closer, taking all of herself in. Her soft edges are gone– the plumpness of her cheeks and chest withered down to the bone. Any fire that was once there has long cooled, her scales patchy and lusterless. Even her eyes are lost. The gold of her left flickers like a coin dulling at the bottom of a well, Volo’s replacement hanging like a stone in the socket. 

She lingers on the hand painted over her shoulder. She cups that same spot, thinking back to how impatient she was as they’d sat, the artist constantly grumbling about her restless leg. The memory falters after that. It’s just out reach, a thread she can’t quite catch.

She pushes the painting back to its hiding place and stalks to a darker corner of the room. Tara will know what to do, she tells herself as she wills herself to trance. The thought sits like a stone in her stomach as she pulls the blanket around herself and falls into an old memory.

The scent of roses and fresh bread slowly perfumes the air. The kitchen table in front of her is a mess of white and pink lace, scraps of the previous night’s work wrapping the flowers for the ceremony. Her ceremony. Ciri twirls a piece between her fingers, eyes fixed to the dress hanging from the door. The bodice is covered in white and pink lace as well, the skirt flowing like swathes of winter moonlight to the floor. It feels a little strange for so much work to have been put into something she’ll wear for a handful of hours and then never again. It's the last thing she’ll wear as a single woman, she reminds herself, the first as his wife. 

Mrs. Dekarios.

She jumps in her seat, burning with excitement. 

Shadowheart suddenly jabs the back of her neck. “Keep still. We don’t have time for me to redo this a second time.”

Her green eyes catch Ciri’s in the mirror and she continues to carefully unwrap the fabric rollers in her hair.

“I don’t think it’s looked this neat for about forty years,” Ciri says, watching the usually uneven strands fall into neat pin curls around her chin. Shadowheart’s own hair is loose of its regular braid, hanging in a silvery sheet down to her waist. Whatever magic she used to lighten it so drastically is still something she’s yet to share with Ciri, despite her less than subtle hints in the run up to the wedding. 

She laughs as she weaves a spiderlily behind Ciri’s ear. “While ‘I’ve just tousled with a dragon’ is quite the look, I’m glad you let me change it up for today at least. If there’s one skill from Shar worship that I’m almost glad to still have, it’s the panache. I suppose needing to constantly disguise and reinvent yourself lends itself to that, even if I can’t quite remember doing so.” Her voice is sweet, but Ciri catches the old shadow that flits across her face.

Ciri reaches back to touch her wrist. She knows Shar’s wounds are still tender, ever-stinging in her hand and in her mind. 

“Are you alright?”

Shadowheart doesn’t answer, her fingers unmoving in Ciri’s hair.

Ciri turns around. “Shadowheart?”

She’s vanished. Standing from the chair, Ciri watches as the kitchen starts to disappear around her as well. The walls crumble like sand, the table and the sides sinking into the flagstones, pulling everything down until there’s nothing but darkness left. Ciri steps back and looks around. It’s the same everywhere, endless shadows stretching like fog into a black horizon. 

She screws her eyes closed for a solid ten seconds and then opens them. Nothing changes.

Her trances are never like this. It’s why she’d stopped sleeping a year ago; she needs the control. The ability to replay sweeter memories is the one gift of her elven blood she’s still thankful for. The nightmares of those first few days still have their claws sunk into her mind and she’s never going back.

“Alright, wake up,” she whispers, pinching herself on the arm and then again when nothing changes.

“That’s only going to hurt yourself, pet. I’d stop.”

Ciri turns towards the voice. It’s barely audible,  just a breath above shadows.

“Ah, you can hear me. That’s good.”

It comes louder this time, like someone is calling down a long abandoned tunnel. It continues to murmur as she walks towards it, the shadows parting in her wake. It’s feminine, but sharp, that much she can make out, like a professor trying to guide an unruly student to better behaviour. 

She winces as a new smell invades her nose, some acrid mix of burning sulphur and iron. Memories of the House of Hope flood her mind. Raphael kept his home liberally perfumed but that foul stench was still thick underneath. It’s nauseatingly pungent now, coating her throat and tongue as she keeps walking forward. 

“That’s far enough Cirinna,” says the voice.

The hairs on the back of Ciri’s neck prickle as the shadows in front of her start to move faster. They weave together, swirling and dancing until three figures are left in their wake. They’re almost formless, like curls of smoke from an extinguished match trying to hold a humanoid shape. They regard her with white holes for eyes, the empty wounds where their mouths should be stretching into smiles.

Ciri turns away. “You aren’t real. This is in my head.”

“Just because we’re in your head doesn’t mean this isn’t real,” comes the voice. “I’m just glad we finally have the opportunity to chat, even if we’re not looking as glorious as we usually do. This is the best visage I could conjure on short notice.”

“This isn’t real because you can’t be here. The Hells are banned from this home and my mind.”

Another voice pipes up, higher and girlish. “Sister, I believe she’s referring to those darling little warding runes outside. You know those only work if you actually maintain them, right?” The laugh that follows digs into Ciri’s neck like needles. “It seems those fears about being so much stupider than your late husband may have been warranted.”

Ciri whips her head around at that. The tallest figure is facing the others, eyes drawn into slits. “Now now that is not how we’re going to speak to our guest.” They turn back to Ciri. “Please forgive my sisters, it’s their first time meeting a mortal and they were rather excited when they found out who it would be. The hells can get rather dull after a few millennia and you’ve already made a name for yourself.”

Ciri tries to keep her expression flat. If this is truly real, then there are devils in her head and a deal poised on their lips. She tries to place the voices as they murmur amongst themselves. The tone is strange but the words almost feel familiar.

“Mizora?”

The first figure blinks. “Who?” The other two whisper and they all chuckle. “Oh my dear, no. None of us would ever set foot anywhere near Zariel’s ring, far too noisy for my taste. We’ve just popped over from the court of Mephistopheles. It’s much more refined– all the wine you can drink and demon fights you can bet on. I’d wager you’d enjoy it a damn sight more than that pit of a tower you’ve spent the last year festering in.”

Ciri sucks in a breath. “Get out of my head.”

“Uh uh, we have a few things to discuss.”

Ciri draws her fingers together, ready to let her flames burst free. “If you know me, then you’ll remember that I’ve killed your kind before.”

The figure throws back their head, laughing again. “Oh pet, we know. That blowhard Rapheal finally getting his comeuppance was the best entertainment we’ve had in centuries. The entire court came to watch him be devoured and it was quite the show.” The figure waves their hand and materialises directly in front of Ciri. It’s the first time she realises just how tall they are, towering over her like a myrmidon made of shadows. “We also know that you had the rest of your little gang helping out. But even I have to admit the rampage through that gaudy house of his was still rather impressive. It’s actually why we came to seek you out personally. Oh , by the way–” Something touches Ciri’s shoulder and a chillingly pleasant shiver runs down her spine. “Haarlep send their regards and their apologies that your form has fallen out of popularity this past year.”

She jerks away from the touch, her cheeks shamefully hot. “I said get out . Whatever it is you’re offering I want no part of it.” 

“I think you’re going to want to listen to this and ten minutes is all we need.” The figure exhales and all three appear in front of Ciri again. “As a sign of good faith, I’m going to give you some exceedingly valuable information. The only payment I require is that you hear out the rest of our offer.”

Wyll’s words ring in her head. They’ll require what you're least ready to part with, then require more still. The devil won’t just take anything, they’ll take everything.”

“You don’t have any information I want.” She keeps her hand held aloft, ready to burn.

“Not even why that little ritual of yours didn’t work?”

“We don’t know that it failed.”

The figure tuts. “Oh but we both know that it did. A whole year’s worth of waiting, watching, shutting yourself off from everyone who cares about you so you could rot in that basement… and for what?” They drift a little closer, reaching out and gently pushing Ciri’s hand until it’s back at her side. “For nothing . So, why not let me tell you why?”

Something hot lodges in Ciri’s throat. She should turn away. A real adventure would fight, would damn them, would say no . But the adventurer in her had been lost somewhere between those frozen plains and the basilisk’s severed head.

She digs her nails into her palm as she nods.

The figure silently claps their hands together. “Perfect. To tell you the truth, it was a fine spell, even for a mere tressym’s creation. All three of us heard that command ringing throughout the material plane– ‘draw together what was lost .’ If circumstances were different, it might have even yielded results.” The figure sighs and shakes their head. “Sadly, such a spell won’t work if there’s nothing left on this plane to draw together.”

The words are a paring blade to her heart. Nothing . There really is none of him left here. Not dust. Not a breath. Ciri’s hands shake at her sides. She remembers her weaker days, how she’d let herself imagine those tiny parts swirling like a laugh in the air or against her skin while she watched the spell. Not truly gone, but out of reach, just waiting for her in the other room.

Yet another thing she’d been wrong about. Another thing he’d probably have known.

She staggers backwards but something cold catches her and pushes her upright.

“That much Netherse magic scarred more than just the ground. Everything it touched is lost to this plane forever,” says the figure, softer now. “Short of punching through to the heavens themselves you’re out of options. But luckily for you, that is where we come in. We can fix this, just like that .” They snap their fingers and the shadowscape around them grows a little brighter.

Ciri scrubs her face. “I don’t–” the rest of her words are instantly snatched away. The figure wags their finger.

“You took my information and you agreed to listen. I’d like to forge a contract with you and my sisters are here as witnesses. And unlike some hacks, I’ve been in the game a long time so there are not going to be any silly hidden clauses. I care about my working relationships, thank you very much.” They hold up their hands, eyes fixed to their palms as if holding some invisible book between them. “Gale Dekarios has been irrevocably lost to the material plane– at least by mortal standards. Through a contract forged with the hells’ fire and willingly given soul, we have the power to return him.” The empty sockets of their eyes flick to Ciri, rooting her in place. “And no, it won’t be a shapeshifter or a puppeted corpse or some imitation of your husband. I can guarantee the real thing– just as he was. Better actually.”

Ciri feels her words rush back. “Better?”

They lean forward, bending down until their words are a foetid kiss against Ciri’s cheek. “Sign with me and I’ll make sure he lives for just as long as you do.”

The smell of sulphur washes over her in a thick wave. She pushes past her gag. “You can do that?”

“Of course we can. You’re one of the few people that know how much crueller the heavens can be than the hells. Infants are taught to loathe devils for our nature but to accept the heartless machinations of the Gods as a sad inevitability. Perhaps it’s only fitting that the damned fix what the divine so carelessly broke. You’ll never have to worry about sitting alone in that tower again.” Their vacant smile widens. “Think of it, five, six, maybe seven centuries together of marital bliss. You’ll just be doing a little work for me on the side, but would that be so bad? Compared to everything you’ve gone through so far?”

Their words have shifted from chicanery to poetry. Ciri can feel them whispering over her body, massaging the sore spots from sitting against cold flagstones for so long. She could have him back today, she could sort this herself. No more waiting, fading, feeling the hands of time tearing at her while praying that his tressym could provide an answer. The deal is honey and meat after a year of starving and she wants more than anything to bite down.

It would only cost her soul.

She remembers Withers' whispered drawl, that the path to return him would be paved with unimaginable sacrifices, sacrifices she’d told herself she’d be willing to make– no matter what they were.

He’d taken her heart when he’d left her, what was giving her soul to get it back? 

“That’s a lot to offer for one person. Why me?” she asks after a moment.

“Souls are not equal currency,” says the figure. “When you became the hero of Baldur’s Gate, you went up in value quite a lot. Plus, we’ve all seen what you can do: traversing Avernus and back, lifting Shar’s curse, destroying a false God–  it would be a boon for our circle, I won’t lie. You’re the first we’ve been able to contact as of yet, but who knows? Give it a few years and perhaps you’ll be working side by side with those little friends of yours again.”

The slight sneer in their voice cuts through her hope like a dagger. It’s not salvation, she’s just a chit, something to be collected before they set their eyes on the others.

She looks away. “I can’t.”

The figure flickers in the corner of her eye. “Oh pet, yes you can. Not just because this is your last hope, but because we know what it is that you want, what you truly want.” Cold laughter rings out from around Ciri as they disappear. “It’s the one thing even you yourself will never admit outside of those twee little trances of yours. Beyond an end to this isolation, to stopping his Mother’s torment, to fixing the place he built with his own bare hands that you’ve let turn to rot and ruin–” she feels them appear behind her, bending down to whisper in her ear. “ –beyond remembering what it feels like to be wanted again.”

Dread unfurls in her gut. “You don’t know anything.”

Their hand closes like a caress over her shoulder. She slams her eyes closed when she sees how it’s changed. Even without the cruel imitation of his wedding ring, she’d know those fingers anywhere. The night before their final battle against the Netherbrain she’d lifted them from where they were resting on her bare stomach and spent hours mapping each callous and scar, wondering which were new, which were accidents, which came from magic and which from mischief.

“We’ve all seen into the depths of your mind and tasted those fears. There’s one that’s so delightfully sweet. It’s not that you won’t succeed, no, it’s that you will. And then you won’t hear the one thing that’s been tearing away at your thoughts every time you close your eyes.”

The voice that follows is no longer their own. It’s deeper, warmer, rich as brandy and autumn hues. His. 

“I forgive you.”

Her breath stutters. When she opens her eyes, the shadows have parted, revealing the oily shine of the Chionthar. The Netherbrain smoulders like burning meat on the horizon, but her eyes are fixed to the centre of the river. She remembers what she said, words tattooed on her tongue forevermore.

“Why did you tell me to do that?” he whispers, his fingers digging a little harder into her shoulder.

“It thought it was the right thing. I didn’t know… how could I have known–” she bites back the rest. She never comes to this memory, one she’d buried so deep that sometimes she can convince herself it was just a dream.

“You can fix this, Cirinna. You can take it all back. You just have to say yes.”

Her full name breaks the spell. He’d never use it like that. He’d never speak like this.

The river dissolves back into darkness as she lashes behind herself. When she turns, all three figures are standing away from her, watching curiously. Ciri holds out her hand, but the fire immediately turns to dust. 

The first figure wags their finger. “I wouldn’t do that again, the weave can’t touch us in this little pocket.”

Ciri clenches her fist, imagining all of them melting in a scarlet inferno until she feels steadier. “I won’t do it.”

“Excuse me?”

She strides over to them, her neck burning as she looks straight up into their amorphous faces. “I said no. Now leave me alone.”

The other two mumble between themselves. The first figure glares at them until they’re silent, the smell of iron and ash growing stronger.

“That was a rash and unwise choice, pet . I guarantee you will not get an offer this generous from anyone else.” They spit the words like nails from their mouth, their soft form shaking. “Why don’t I paint you a clearer picture then? Six more months and he’ll have been dead longer than you were married, a few more and it will have been longer than you ever knew him. What do you think will happen then? I’ll tell you. You’ll stay locked in that tower until your name has been lost to everyone who cared for you. You’ll rot but not truly die, drape yourself in his ghost just aching to recall what a lover’s touch truly felt like. Soon, there will be no dragon left in you– just pain, and you won’t even let that go because that’s all you’ll have left of him. That is until you finally keel over as a sunken mess of bones and his tower, his pride, will be nothing but some dusty curiosity in a corner of the city where no one will dare to tread.” 

Ciri holds her ground, staring them down as the darkness closes in around them. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll find my own way. So get out of my head and never return.”

The other two laugh but Ciri can almost taste the irritation roiling off the first figure. The smell burns hotter and their eyes narrow. “Fine. Just know that I will not be so kind when you come crawling back, old and desperate.”

The darkness thickens further, engulfing Ciri like mud.

“Enjoy your prison cell,” they whisper as the final shred of light is devoured.

“GET OUT!” 

She grabs the darkness smothering her face and tears it away. It changes, shrinking down into nothing but her blanket flopping onto a dirty rug. There are no more shadows, just piles of mess, old books, dust– she’s back in the study. 

She jolts to her feet, gasping for breath. “It’s gone. It’s over. You said no,” she mumbles as reality shakily sets back in. She snaps her fingers, sighing with relief when a small flame strikes from her thumb. Those devils had taken it away as easily as pickpockets lifting gold from her purse, Gods knows what else they could have done if she’d let them.

She stares at the fire hard, willing the light to burn away the memories of that place.

“Mrs. Dekarios? Yoohoo , can you hear me?”

Ciri looks down to find Tara at her feet. Her fur is coated in a thick layer of chalk dust and she’s not wearing a smile.

“Ah there we go. I was starting to think that trance had deafened you. Now, are you alright? I heard shouting.”

Ciri dismisses her fire. “It’s fine. It’s– we need to recast the warding runes around the tower.”

Tara tilts her head. “Yes, I suppose we do. But are you sure everything is fine? You look rather shaken.”

“Nothing about any of this is fine, but I’m alright.” Ciri tries to push the visions of those figures away. His hand on her shoulder had felt so soft , so real. She rubs the spot hard. What she’d give for a pitcher of boiling water so she could scrub there until the skin that thing had touched is gone.

Tara pads a little closer. Ciri can see the words hanging silently in her mouth, her expression colder than the tower’s stone. “I think I should tell you–”

“It’s alright, I know,” Ciri interrupts quietly. She kneels so she can look Tara in the eye properly. “It can’t pull him together if there’s nothing left, right?”

Tara looks down. “It seems so obvious now. I should have considered that before I set it to work, before I let you fight basilisks and spend a year cooped up in here. I could have studied more or looked into other things in the meantime. I promised that I would…” the rest of her sentence falters. She curls in on herself, refusing to meet Ciri’s eye.

Shame isn’t a colour Ciri has ever seen on Tara. It’s unnerving, like a child finally seeing a parent break down. She draws her knees up and drops her head, blacking out the bitter sight. “At least you had an idea. I had nothing. I still do.” 

‘It seems those fears about being stupider than your late husband may have been warranted.’

It’s the truth that she herself won’t even admit. She can wait, she can burn, she can watch Tara and hope , but she can’t fix this herself. Not with her soul still intact.

Tara coughs. “Well I do know one thing. We aren’t wallowing in here anymore.”

When Ciri looks up Tara is pawing and murmuring at the opposite wall. She steps away and a small section begins to glow, the lower stones disappearing into swirling purple magic. She looks back to Ciri. “Well, in you go.”

Ciri stares at the small portal, barely the size of a vanity mirror. “What is that?”

“Tara’s Catflap of Displacement, dear. I spent some years working on the spell and I can assure you that I’ve mostly worked out all the kinks. It's not something I can cast very often but I think you can squeeze through.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I would say that you’re throwing me out.”

“Oh I’m definitely throwing you out. You need a break from Waterdeep and frankly, from yourself, so this will take you to the best and furthest place I can think of. Now go on, I’m not going to ask twice.” 

Ciri crouches down, her energy to argue long disappeared. She stops just before she pushes her head in. “You should be proud that you tried. I’m sorry I couldn’t fix this.”

Tara gently flicks Ciri’s shoulder with the tip of her wing. “That’s a conversation for when I pull you back, alright? Now brace yourself, this might be bumpy.”

Dirty fabric slams into her hands and knees as she falls through. Snarls and explosions ring in the distance as she tries to orient herself. Bumpy ride indeed , she thinks, rubbing her sore knees. She’s landed inside a large unfamiliar tent. A table covered in scattered papers takes up most of the middle, the lantern there almost burned down to nothing. Rough sketches of foul-looking beasts cover most of the sides like mismatched yellow wallpaper and skulls of varying shapes are stacked in pyramids around the floor. The only shred of comfort seems to be two bedrolls. One is neatly made and adorned with a scarlet rapier, the other a mess of blankets with a slightly singed teddy bear sitting on the pillow.

Ciri freezes. She knows that rapier, that bear.

The tent flap bursts open and a familiar waft of sulphur perfumes the space. “Alright fucker, I don’t know how you got in here but you are about to taste the fury of my–” The figure stops. Even after two years, Ciri would know her anywhere: Tall, ferocious, beautiful. 

“ Karlach .”

She’s still built like a battleaxe, her strong frame dwarfing the bloody warhammer hanging from her right hand. Her dark hair is a little longer, tiny bones and metal beads now woven into the strands. Her engine pulses rhythmically as she stares at Ciri, the hellish glow barely hidden behind a roughly-forged breastplate.

Karlach looks her up and down, her eyes burning like topaz.

“Okay the stench of Avernus has really gotten to me because that can’t be you.” She takes a step forward and cautiously touches Ciri’s arm. The hammer in her other hand clatters to the floor as she lifts Ciri into the air and crushes her into a tight hug. “Ciri, it’s you. It’s really really you.” She spins them both around, laughing and jumping until Ciri feels all the air squeeze out of her lungs. The pointed armour digs into her chest with every movement but, by the Gods , she never wants Karlach to stop. She can’t remember the last time she’d been hugged with such enthusiasm… or hugged at all really.

Ciri buries her face in Karlach’s shoulder. “Gods I missed you.”

Karlach slows her spin. “I have too, so so much. As has… wait… hey get in here now!”

The tent flap rustles again.

“Karlach!” A familiar voice calls out. “What are you… by Helm’s mantle, is that Ciri?”

Karlach turns them around and Ciri’s heart soars.

“Wyll.”

He looks older, stronger, his short hair now twisting past his shoulders and over the quiver at his back. Even in shock he stands with a bow perfectly poised– a ranger ready on their mark. One of his horns has been roughly broken off at the base, his sending stone eye gone and replaced with a studded patch. 

His bow clatters to the floor as Karlach pulls him close and Ciri swallows her immediate comment at how much the hells seem to agree with him. 

“Hw are yu evn here?” he says, voice muffled by Karlcah’s arm. His uncovered eye bulges as she squeezes them tighter.

“Tara–” Ciri manages after a moment. “I think she just wanted me as far away from the tower as possible. I didn’t expect her to send me to the actual hells but here I am.”

They stay in an awkward hug pile until Karlach finally puts them both down. She grabs Ciri’s shoulders and turns her left and right.

“Bloody hells soldier, you look fucking awful. I’ve seen bone demons with less ribs poking out than you right now.”

Ciri wraps her housecoat around herself, suddenly very aware she’s still in her sleepwear. “I feel it. It’s been a shit year to say the least and today was something else entirely. I’m not sure how I’m still standing to be honest.” 

Her laugh wavers a little too quickly as she finishes. Wyll’s smile flickers. 

“We got your letter,” he says quietly. “Gods, I don’t even know what to say right now. That Mystra could do such a thing. I– ” 

“You don’t need to say anything,” Ciri cuts him off. “I’d actually prefer it if you didn’t.” 

Karlach and Wyll share another look, silent words whispering between them. “Alright then,” he continues. “But I must ask, have you not been getting our own letters? I was sending them every chance I could, which wasn’t often, but we never heard from you. We didn’t want to think about the worst but– well you’re here now so at least we can put those thoughts to rest.”

Guilt floods her chest like ice water. There’s still a pile of unopened letters littering the basement floor, some reeking of hells even now.

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Take a look at yourself and say that again,” says Karlach. She cups Ciri’s shoulder, warmth blazing under her touch.

Ciri feels her chin shake a little. Two more years in the hells and that care still hasn’t been stamped out of her. “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t know how this hurt you. I truly thought that I’d have nipped this whole thing in the bud a lot sooner and then months had gone by and I wasn’t any closer and…” She stops, her breaths stuttering and sharp. “Gods that sounds really fucking selfish when I say it out loud. Here you are trapped in Avernus and I couldn’t even open a letter.”

Karlach swats her arm. “Hey– there are worse things than ignoring your post, you know? Through whatever magic that tressym could whip up, you’re here. It’s the first good surprise we’ve had since Withers’ little gathering. Why not fill us in on everything now?” 

And so she tells them: the failed ritual, the waiting, the devils’ deal, everything she can while keeping her voice even. She glosses over her early breakdowns and the desperate cleaning spree– she isn’t going to waste the precious time she has with them with any more unnecessary worrying.

Their eyes grow wider with each passing word. Wyll drops his hand to Karlach’s knee as she finally wraps up the story. 

“Gods, I knew it was only a matter of time before some jumped up devils tried to get to the rest of you on the surface,” he mutters, his red eye hardening. “Well, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that you made the right choice. I’m barely two years free of my contract and I’ll be godsdamned before I let anyone I know chain themselves to the hells as well.” 

Ciri picks at her sleeve. “I know. I want to say it was easy, it should have been easy, but… I wanted to take it. I think I almost did.” She refuses to meet Wyll’s gaze. “They were right about me. It’s probably how they make those contracts so bloody appealing; I don’t have any other ideas, no plans, nothing. And I could have had him back today. I know it was too good to be true but…”

“But nothing,” says Wyll firmly. “No matter what they said, they wouldn’t have given you what you wanted. And even if they did, you’d be bound to one of them eternally. You’ve seen what happens when you push against those rules.” He taps the edge of his broken horn. “There are worse things than growing spikes.”

The threads between Ciri’s fingers snap. “But he’d be here.”

“Do you really think Gale would want you to sell your soul for him?”

“He’s gone. What he wants doesn’t matter right now.” Ciri’s words come out a lot colder than she expects. Neither of them flinch but she can feel the weight of their sympathy without looking up. “I was just so sure Tara’s spell would work and now I’m back where I started with no idea of what to do next.”

Karlach grabs her axe and begins to rub the blade with a curved stone. “Yeah but you’re you , you’re bound to think of something. I’ve seen you do some truly crazy shit with magic before.”

“I think you’re vastly overestimating my abilities. I’m… whatever the opposite of Jack of all Trades is. I can do exactly one thing well.” She snaps her fingers and a small flame flickers from her thumb.

“Not true, I’ve also seen you shoot lightning. That’s at least two things,” says Wyll.

Ciri can’t help but laugh at that. It’s almost a strange feeling.

Karlach twirls her axe between her hands. “You’ve probably thought of this, but why not a wish spell or something? Even if you can’t cast one, someone topside must be willing to do it for you.”

Ciri sighs. “It was actually my first thought. Turns out, there’s a reason wizards aren’t firing off Wish spells left and right. There are only a handful of people on Faerun who are capable of doing so and even then there’s a sizable chance that they will never be able to cast it again.” Tara had explained it to her as simply as she could that first morning. Ciri had made her stop when she’d started talking about extraplaner entities that could turn up and kill everyone if the outcome was deemed against the laws of reality. 

“There’s really no one willing to even try?” Karlach asks.

Ciri closes her eyes. “No one was going to waste world-altering power on reviving someone they don’t know or care about.”

The sound of the stone smacking Karlch’s axe rings through the tent. “Send them my way and we’ll see how much I can make them care. We’re done being nice.”

Ciri doesn’t tell her how she’d never attempted to be nice. The Waterdeep arcanist had given her a curt reply before slamming his tower’s door in her face. Only Tara’s claws at her calf stopped her burning it to the ground and watching him scream for her forgiveness. Elminster’s long-winded explanation as to why he wouldn’t do it either had been worse. He’d said little to her begging, then nothing when fire started spitting from her lips. Watching his simulacrum melt in their front garden had not made her feel any better.

“Don’t you think if I had a wish spell I would have gotten you guys out first?” Ciri quickly adds.

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything about it buuut I know your husband would take priority.”

Ciri stares at the engine in Karlach’s chest. It’s been clanking in a nonsense rhythm throughout the conversation, the light behind her breastbone almost too bright to look at. “I’d hoped that by the time I found an answer, you’d both be out already. What ever happened with Zariel’s forge?”

Karlach’s eyes fall, her knuckles tense on the axe’s haft.

“It was in our letters,” Wyll answers for her. “It’s been quite a year for us too.”

“I don’t want to get into it but security was tight and Zariel really knows how to hold a fucking grudge. Hence these bad boys.” Karlach gestures to two new scars curving down her neck, thick as rope. Ciri tries not to wince. “Still! It’s not over yet. If we can secure just a few more steadfast allies down here then we should be golden.” Her voice is just a little too loud, the joy in her cadence almost awkwardly jaunty. 

Another guilt bleeds through Ciri, older this time. She remembers the moment, that brief shred of a second when she’d almost joined Karlach in Avernus. She’d clung on to her burning skin until the last moment, the words ‘I’m coming with you’ dancing on her tongue but refusing to come out. And then she’d watched as Wyll jumped in, both of them disappearing in a cloud of sparks and smoke. Perhaps in another life that would have been her, one where she didn’t wait a fraction of a second too long and never fell in love with someone that shattered her so completely.

Switching the broken pieces of her heart for Karlach’s robot monstrosity almost feels like a fair trade.

“Then I’ll stay,” Ciri says, straightening her back. “I’ll battle in the Blood War with you.”

Karlach puts her axe down. “Ah come off it. Don’t say things like that.” 

“I mean it. I know how to fight, how to plan, I could help you get out.” Ciri’s words gain strength as she goes. A real adventure, that’s what she needs. Doing good, blowing shit up and making ideas on the fly– it’s who she is, the person she lost the moment she barred herself in that tower.

Wyll shifts awkwardly on the floor. “I don’t think you mean that.”

“I don’t mince words. Down here at least I could do something and, well, it’s not like anything is going to change up there is it?” 

Maybe the fumes of hells could let her forget. Just for a little while. Just until she thinks of something else.

Karlach regards her for a moment before shifting forward and grabbing her by the arms.  “Listen to me. And I mean really listen to me, soldier. As much as I want you to stay and melt demons into piles of goo, and trust me I do, I think the guilt might burn me up more than this damn thing.” She bangs her chest and the metal thunks. “I know you think that you mean this, but you already have a mission and I have mine. You can’t hide from what happened down here and…” she takes a breath and looks down. “You really shouldn’t be so quick to give up everything you have, not when you can still see the stars.” When she lifts her head, her eyes are bright, almost rimmed with tears. “How is the sky anyway? Still blue?”

Ciri nods. “Still blue. Still waiting for you.”

She releases Ciri and rubs her face. “I can’t wait to see it again. Hopefully before I’m too old.” 

Wyll moves to her side again. Ciri catches the look between them as he brushes her shoulder. It’s something tender, strangely delicate compared to the chaos of this place.

Ciri wraps her arms around herself. “I just… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” She’s never been much of a planner but she always had something to work with during her adventures: usually a few mismatched steps of an idea that she filled in with a mix of fire and fast-talking. Now she’s listless again, toppled off the edge of the world with neither compass nor map.

“Well, since you’re here–” Karlach stands and slings her axe over her shoulder, “– want to kill some shit? We’re right near a hive of Maw demons. It’s easy pickings.”

Wyll grabs his bow. “And we’re always looking for more trophies. Jaheira here was quite the find.”

Ciri smirks. “You named your bow Jaheira? Is it really that gnarled?”

He rolls his eye. “ Unyielding is the word I’d use, and I think it fits. We’ve actually got quite the collection already.”

Karlach pets her axe. “Say hello to Lae’zel. Pulled her out of an Abishai’s eye and haven’t had a problem mowing down enemies since.” 

Ciri flexes her fingers. Aside from the occasional angry firebolt she hasn’t used her magic properly in months. “If I knew you’d be inviting me hunting I would have brought my stave.”

Karlach kicks open a chest at the side of the tent. “Hang on, I’ve got you covered.” She returns a few moments later with a twisting black staff between her hands. The wood is knotted, thin gold strips shining through the splinters and to the purple crystal welded to the tip.

“Who’s this then?” Ciri asks as Karlach pulls another breastplate from the chest.

Karlach offers her a wider smile. “That’s Gale.”

Half an hour later, Ciri is sprinting through the hells with sweat pearling on her brow and mismatched boots digging into her shins. The sky above is a ragged wound, the landscape a sharp mess of scarred rock and metal. Karlach had jumped over the brow of a hill the moment she’d heard their targets chattering, Wyll disappearing into shadow to get a better vantage point.

Ciri finally finds her own perch between a series of iron rods sprouting from the ground like dull grey shoots. The Maw demons are scattered in front of her. She’s never seen one before but judging by the giant mouths splitting their tiny round bodies in half, she’s fairly confident she’s got the right target. 

Her first few spells miss, disintegrating before they get anywhere close. She breathes, plants her feet firmer on the ground and lines up her shot again. 

“Perurere.”

Lightning arcs from the crystal and into the closest demon, instantly killing it. Her joy is short lived when she sees the dozen surrounding it fall to a hail of thorns. Wyll is practically dancing across the ground, arrows flying and hitting each remaining demon with devastating accuracy. He stops and readjusts his hair, smiling at her.

“Hmmm, that’s 24 to 1, my friend. Looks like someone is a little out of practice.”

She taps the edge of the staff and a fireball shoots out, knocking six of them flat like china dolls on a table. “Not bad for spending a year sequestered in a tower, right? Double points I think.”

Wyll pulls another arrow from his quiver. “No handicaps in the hells I’m afraid. And when I win, drinks are on you.”

A shout cuts off Ciri’s answer. Karlach jumps from the pile of demons, her axe wedged in one still twitching on the ground. She tries and fails to pull it out a few times before sighing, picking up the demon itself and slamming it into another with a bone-chilling crunch. The others flee when she finally gets her axe free. She twists it between her hands and chases after them, her laugh deep as a growl.

Wyll claps. “ Fuck yes! That’s my girl.”

Ciri raises an eyebrow “I see she’s rubbing off on you.”

“Well in for a coin, in for a copher.” Something warmer blooms over his face as he watches her mow down another. “Truth be told, I never really expected feelings to blossom, especially somewhere as vile as this. She’s the only piece of sweetness I have down here. It almost makes this whole situation alright.”

He chuckles at Ciri’s smirk. “I said almost . Thinking about the life we could have once we’re out is one of the few things keeping me sane. Going back to Baldur’s Gate someday, seeing the sea, the cobbles, Father,” his voice catches slightly, “but I’ve got her now. It’s good . I may have broken my pact just to end up in hell anyway but at least it’s my choice this time.”

Ciri knocks his arm. “I’m happy for you. Also Shadowheart owes me 20 gold.”

They inspect the corpses, pulling out the various gems and ends caught between their overlapping sets of teeth.

“Do you really think you can bring Gale back?” Wyll asks as he wrenches an arrow free.

Ciri’s hand pauses in a demon’s mouth. “Of course I do.” 

“It’s been a year and you’re already like this. Are you sure–”

“Don’t you dare tell me to stop.” She rips out a handful of teeth in a single jerk and lets them scatter to the floor.

Wyll holds up his hands. “I won’t, I swear. But you helped me out of my contract so I’m not going to sit idly by and watch you shackle yourself to any kind of cage. So promise me, no matter how bad it gets, how hopeless, how desperate, don’t let pact be your way out. The love you have for him and whatever guilt it is you feel is not worth your soul.”

“Isn’t that up to me?”

“Please promise me.” 

It’s a request with the weight of a demand. She hears the echo of an old pain, one she’d only seen when he’d twisted and burned, horns bursting like ferric parasites from his head.

“Okay. I promise,” she whispers.

Wyll nods, visibly relaxing. “Good. Also, you can talk about it if you need to. I know what it’s like to carry that kind of weight around. It festers.”

“Grieving is for the dead,” she answers curtly.

“Ciri–”

“What’s the point, Wyll? Really? Should I just sit and stare at walls, wallowing in everything I miss: the books he’d leave open for me because he thought I’d like them, that even with this bloody dragon inside me his touch was always so much warmer than mine or that… that he used to put his hand over my head when I panicked, saying he could feel how fast my thoughts were going–” she slams her lips closed, swallowing back the mess of such stupidly spilled words. “– but I won’t. I have too much work to do.”

She won’t let herself cry, not over this, not over the things she promised herself that she wouldn’t. That resolves wavers like an open door in a hurricane when Wyll silently walks over and cups the top of her head. His fingers are rougher, his hand larger but the heat of his palm warms straight through her.

“I’ll be alright, I swear,” she says.

He squeezes her head one last time and Ciri feels her thoughts calm a little. “Then I’ll believe you. Just don’t lock yourself in that tower searching for him. You have the whole world to see and I’m sure there are answers to be found beyond those walls. Plus, we’re going to want to hear some stories over a flagon or two when we finally make it out of here.” 

Ciri chuckles. He makes it sound so easy; like winning the blood war is just some line on his to-do list. “I’ll keep an open reservation at the Yawning portal for us.” She smiles as Karlach charges back over, her hands overflowing with broken weapons and treasures. 

“All four of us.”

Chapter Text

“Well that’s certainly eye-catching.” Ciri tries and fails to hide her sarcasm as she takes in the new wedding portrait hanging above Gale’s desk in the study. She considers that hanging might be the wrong word for something currently taking up the entirety of the north wall. 

Gale’s hand tightens over her waist. “You hate it.”

“I don’t hate it. It’s beautiful. It’s just… larger than I was expecting.” As masterfully painted as it is, it doesn’t change the fact that both their faces are towering over the room like twin moons or some great and terrifying Gods waiting for an offering. When Morena had sent word that she’d left them ‘something special’ for when they returned from their honeymoon, Ciri had tea or a nice vintage in mind. Not nightmare fuel for the rest of their marriage.

“My Mother is never a woman to mince words and she did promise to commission ‘the wedding portrait of wedding portraits .’ If that’s not an apt title for this gift, then I’m not sure what is.” 

Considering that the Dekarios way of thinking seems to be bigger is always better, Ciri isn't exactly sure why she's surprised. It would have been generous to describe her own guest list for their wedding as a handful, so she'd expected a small affair. However, the moment the vast spiderwebs of Gale's family had descended upon Waterdeep with swathes of flowers wine and fireworks, the plan for a quiet wedding quickly vanished.

Ciri looks away from her dinner plate eyes. “I distinctly remember the canvas we sat in front of being much smaller than that. Did this painting come along and eat all the lesser paintings in its wake?”

Gale rubs the back of his neck, the strain from staring at it starting to show. “I’m more curious as to how she fit it in here while we were away. One moment.” He traces his fingers over the bottom of the frame, a gentle pulse of magic swirling in their wake. Stepping back, the spell bursts and the portrait shrinks until the faces in front of them are of their usual size. “Better?”

She pats his arm. “Much. Thank you. Though perhaps we should have taken Oskar up on his offer to paint this instead. At least this time, murdering a mummy-lord would not be required.”

“Considering the original painting he gifted you is currently collecting dust in the tower’s basement, we were fairly certain you’d be happier with a different artist.”

Ciri huffs out a laugh. “Well it was a shit reward for everything we did for him. The memory of that spell-rot still makes me shudder.” She swallows back the dozen other tasks it had taken to get that artist unpossesed. She’d rather not sully the first fortnight of married life with that particular rant.

“Besides,” she continues, finally taking the painting in fully. “This is perfect now.”

They’d taken their reception at the harbour, so both of them had been captured standing tall against the golds and pinks of the early-evening sea. She’s wrapped around Gale, her head on his shoulder and the painted light kissing over the bare stretch of her collarbones. Her wedding dress falls off her chest in white rivulets, a cool contrast to Gale’s vibrant purple doublet. She’d mostly forgotten the finer details of his ensemble until now, just the rumble of his laugh as she’d ripped off the buttons in a tipsy haze that night.

Even amongst all this softness, she’s glad the artist did not blur away her rougher edges. He’d insisted more than once that it was absolutely no trouble to paint away the burn scars on her neck or her mismatched eyes ‘if the new Mrs. Dekarios would be so inclined.’ Smoke had started to pour from the palm resting on Gale’s chest before he’d finally taken the hint. The curves of the now-silent orb are captured there, twisting down like bleeding veins from his eye and into the open collar of his shirt. 

‘As a reminder of past missteps and why I’m still here,’ he’d murmured into her hair when she’d asked why he’d wanted that immortalised too.

Her painted self looks straight out, but his gaze lingers on the side of her face. It’s a familiar look, one she only sees in the early morning light between tangled limbs and hearts, the one she wants to fold up and press into her skin when the days get heavy.

Sometimes she forgets just how beautiful he is. She makes a note to send the artist a larger tip.

She touches the inscription carved into the bottom of the gold frame, frowning as she reads it again : Mr & Mrs. Dekarios

Gale cups her shoulder “Is something troubling you?”

“Aendryr-Dekarios,” Ciri says quietly. “I kept both names.”

“I can change it.”

She shakes her head. “No, it’s alright.”

“Are you sure–”

“Yes. Really,” she answers, pushing away her silly flicker of annoyance. “After all, you’re the one who’s going to be looking at it the most. Hopefully you won’t get tired of these scales.”

Gale strokes the scarlet patch across her cheek, stopping at the swell of her bottom lip. He presses there softly. “ A century could pass and there would still be no face I’d rather look at .” 

“Longer than that, I hope.” Ciri twists to kiss his wrist before she catches his expression. The last discussion about the possibility of extending his remaining years had almost ended with fire spitting from her lips. Human wizards can do it. Enough had boasted to her about such magics over the years so she’d expected their conversation on it before the wedding to be simple. Instead he’d talked around the question at every turn until her cheeks felt as red as her hair. 

‘The price for such a change is steep, and one I don’t think either of us are ready to pay quite yet.’ That’s all he’d said in the end, eyes boring like twin pools of warmth in hers. The slight catch in his words was enough for her to let the conversation die, but the thought still twinges every time she strokes through the grey streaks in his hair.

They deserve to grow old together. Gods-knows they’ve already bled enough for this world to earn it.

Ciri kisses the same spot, eyes rooted to the edge of his hand. “And despite its size, I still would not call that the most awkward wedding present we received.”

She feels him exhale against the top of her head. “You’re correct about that. I do believe this takes that particular prize.” He strides to the pile of wedding gifts still stacked by the door and returns with a small navy blanket. Part way through the reception, one of Gale’s numerous aunts had patted it into his hands with a slightly slurred, “for the babe.” She’d rubbed Ciri’s stomach and wobbled off back into the fray before either of them had a chance to say anything.

Ciri brushes the soft material. Her thumb skims over a fistful of tiny hand-stitched stars before coming to rest on a crescent moon in the centre. “Approximately how many members of your family thought I was with child?”

“Before the wedding or after?” Gale answers. “I believe most realised when they saw how voraciously you were knocking back wine after the ceremony.”

“More than one tried to take my glass from me. Some cousin of yours had a few interesting questions about if alcohol affected elven babies the same way it did humans.” 

“For the love of–” Gale pinches the bridge of his nose. “I can only apologise for that. To think you were meeting so many of my– our–  family for the first time and that’s the impression they gave. I swear they are good people, just… rather intense when altogether like that.”

Ciri shrugs. “Large family dynamics are not exactly my areas of expertise.” The invitations to her own parents are still folded away under a mess of library books upstairs. She’d kept them in her cloak until she could almost feel them burning like hot coals through the pocket. When she was finally brave enough to approach the postmaster, she’d dithered in silence for a few minutes before sprinting back to the tower and slamming the front door with sweaty, shaking hands.

Thirty years of silence and the wound of that particular relationship still weeps if she thinks on it too long.

She takes the blanket. “I suppose you did arrive back in Waterdeep with a brand-new fiancée and a wedding already planned. I’m not going to say it was a completely unfair assumption.”

“Is it such a stretch for them to believe I’ve found the person I want to spend the rest of my days with?” He folds his arms over his chest, sighing to the ceiling. “Or that I am not the kind of man that would try and hide something like that with a sudden marriage?”

She hums as she continues to trace the pattern. “It is rather pretty though.”

Gale points to the series of stars towards the edge of the blanket, his expression gentling. “The Tears of Selûne. Marriages performed when they are the brightest are supposed to be blessed with good fortune.”

Ciri touches the smallest speck, barely the size of a rice grain. “Then that must be Creche K’liir. ” She’d spent more than one evening staring up at it from the tower’s roof, wondering where their Githyanki companion was fighting.

“I know Lae’zel will likely never return there but it’s nice to think that any babe wrapped in this would be watched over by her in a way,” Gale murmurs.

Ciri’s fingers pause. 

Months they’ve known each other, barely more than days they’ve been married. It’s too soon, too stupid to even think about a child. Their child. Their tiny half-elven child nestled in this blanket and held so carefully in his arms. 

“I think we should keep it out.” She whispers it without thinking, her hands slowly spreading over his.

She sees her words break through his concentration like a twig underfoot. A loud crack rings through the study as the painting reverts back to its original size. 

His wide eyes slowly meet hers. “That’s–”

Too soon. Too stupid.

“Just on our bed I mean,” she quickly interrupts, folding the blanket to her chest like she could hide her confession within the fabric. “I don’t want– I mean I know it’s too early to think about…” She jerks her face back to the painting, ear smarting with heat. “Even if it was a slightly inappropriate gift, it’s too nice to put away. Plus we need to find space for everything else as well. Your family has been more than generous and I still cannot remember half their names. I should really–” 

She stops as Gale’s hand closes over the top of her head. 

“ Breathe or you’re going to get friction burns from how spectacularly fast your mind is spinning out,” he says, lightly running his thumb across her hairline. 

Ciri inhales. The press of his fingers is warm against her skin, almost precise enough for her to believe he can feel each flapping thought and command it to still. 

He squeezes her head gently before taking the blanket from her tight grip. “A conversation for another time, alright?”

She nods, holding the watercolour fantasy of him as a father close before letting it disappear with her next breath. There’s time. The hummingbird’s flap of human years for now, but time.

He taps the portrait’s frame again before turning to one of the bookshelves. “I’ll cast a more permanent transmutation on it when I have the components. But as for now, there is actually one final gift you need to see.”

She watches him draw his fingers over the spines. “Whose?”

“Mine.” He heaves a heavy tome from the middle shelf with a grunt and presses it into her hands. “I had hoped this would have arrived before the wedding but perhaps it’s better that I can show you now that everything has calmed down a spell.”

She brushes the dusty cover. The dark leather is stiff and cracked as treebark, the title long worn away under the sun or whatever old basement it had sat in before. 

“Was this not gift enough?” she says, gesturing to the newly forged wedding ring on her second finger.

“Well I can return it if you’d prefer.” He kisses her answering pout, sitting them both down on the nearest settee. 

The smell of old dust flitters around them as she opens it. The yellowed pages are worn thin and covered in faded lines of draconic. She traces them, the language coming back to her in messy threads. She’d tried her best to teach herself as a child, the only way she could think to feel closer to the blood that burned in her veins alone. Her fingers stop on a common signature at the bottom.

“Fizban?”

Gale nods. “ This is very special. There are not many copies left, but I had a strong feeling that what I wanted to find would be within these pages. And, as is so often the case, I was correct.” He shifts closer and carefully pulls the book between them. “Fizban the Fabulous was an interesting wizard to say the least. His is a long and strange story, one for another day, but something he did dedicate a long portion of his life to was compiling a compendium of this world’s dragons. Most modern copies have removed his earlier findings but not this one.” He flicks through the pages, eyebrows furrowed in concentration until he stops towards the back. “Ah, here she is.” 

The page is covered in a list, names Ciri realises. Her heart stutters at one halfway down. Even so faded, she’d recognise it anywhere. “Iraxys.”

“Indeed. It says–”

“Larger than the average red dragon,” she reads. “A menace to local shepherds as she has a taste for both their flocks and their children. It should be noted that she spent a good amount of time stalking an elven village but they seem to have remained unharmed.”

Gale rubs her back. “I should have assumed you could speak draconic.”

“It’s her. She’s real .” Decades she’d spent wondering if the name her parents had thrown at her was true or just some fanciful invention to get her to be quiet. Neither of them liked to talk about it, never said anything when the rest of the family called the scales growing on her face ugly. In the end she made up her own story, one that ended with her flying off on the back of Iraxys into a flame-red sunset and having her own adventures.

Half of that came true she supposes.

Gale softly prizes her hands from the book. “There is actually more. If I could have some fire please?”

He puts one hand over hers as she summons a small flame in her palm. 

“ Perfect ,” he breathes against her hair. “It’s another reason I wanted this particular copy. Rumour amongst the draconic scholars is that he left a few extra details within the text itself.” He touches the words with his free hand and murmurs a quiet spell. The flame shifts between their joint hands, twisting and pulling until the outline of a small, red dragon flaps there. 

Ciri stares at the tiny creature, taking in every little detail. She’s old, that much is clear, her scarlet scales greying and patchy around her face. The sinew of her wings is riddled with holes and a series of jagged wounds twist over one eye and into her hissing maw.

Gale flicks his wrist and the dragon flips, spreading her gnarled wings to their full length. “He left a fingerprint of her within the description. Pulling out the illusion took a little finessing but, if Fizban’s words are true, this is how he saw her.”

Ciri brings her closer. She’s rough, battle-hardened, scarred. 

Just like Ciri.  

She opens her palms and lets the dragon disappear into a shower of golden sparks. The ancient shard of her that even her family was too scared to even speak of– he’d found it. He’d researched, practised, paid Gods-knows how much to bring it here… just because he could. Because he wanted to.

His dark eyes flicker as the illusion vanishes and something warm pools in her belly. She isn’t sure how many more ways she can fall for him. Every time she thinks she’s touched the edge of that feeling it widens beyond her reach, blowing out bathing her in want until she can scarcely remember what it felt like to loathe him.

She cups his face, urging him forward until her words kiss across his skin. “Thank you.” 

There’s more she wants to say, a novel’s worth of feelings but words are not her art, not like they are for him. Bright palaces and verdant gardens he’d built for her with his voice alone, only a few syllables needed to break the hardened glass around her heart and nestle inside.

There are, however, other things she’s very skilled at.

Gale’s smile softens. “A lot of the details have been lost to time but it’s the best that I could–”

She pressed her finger to his mouth, twisting until she’s settled in his lap. “I said, thank you. ”

Her lips are on his before he can say anything else, hips pressing down in clear invitation. Her thighs still burn from the rub of his beard this morning, but she cares not. If her husband doesn’t take her right now she’s sure the stone around her might melt from her frustration. She sighs as one hand caresses her back, the other sliding between her thighs, his thumb brushing the edge of her smallclothes. She pushes into the touch, silently begging him to explore, stroke, take her apart like only he can– he the craftsman, she his masterwork.

She’s grown quite fond of the bed upstairs. It’s a shame they won’t make it that far.

“Ahem.”  

Tara’s voice is a breath of ice from the doorway and they immediately wrench apart. She regards them with a flat expression. “Gods, you two are worse than teenagers.”

Ciri scrambles off of Gale’s lap, pulling down her skirts as far as they will go. “I didn’t think you were still here.”

The tressym glowers at her. “As desperate as I’m sure you are to get rid of me, I’m not staying with Mrs. Dekarios until she's returned from her trip. I do not plan on changing my schedule until then.” She stalks past Ciri, tail high in the air. “The original Mrs.Dekarios I mean.” 

Gale sighs. “No one is desperate to get rid of you. Also no one asked you to leave the tower. It will always be your home.”

“And you can use my name if it’s that confusing,” Ciri murmurs.

Tara’s ears twitch. “Mmmhmmm. Perhaps if you were not so busy all the time, I wouldn’t have had to find a lesser spot to nap.” She leaps into the chair next to them and curls up before the hearth. “I’ll return to your lap when I know I’m not in for a horrible surprise.”

Ciri grabs Gale’s hand and pulls him into the hall. Weeks she’s been here and no amount of reassurance that, no she isn’t trying to take Gale away, has worn down Tara’s walls. She’s one more snide comment away from giving up entirely or torching the tressym’s favourite pillow.

“I don’t understand why she hates me so much,” Ciri says, navigating around the crates of half-unpacked luggage from their honeymoon.

Gale rubs her shoulder. “Tara does not hate you. There just has not been anyone to take up so much of my time since– well, since–”

“Mystra, I know,” Ciri finishes, the Goddess’ name a bitter ash on her tongue. “It was her idea to move out, so why am I the villain in this particular arrangement? She could at least pretend to like me.”

“She does.”

Ciri shoots him a look and he laughs. “She will.”

Ciri shakes her head, moving through the mess of their things until she makes it to the kitchen. She pulls the kettle from the shelf and lights the stove with a snap of her fingers. “Well she can have all the space she needs when I’m back to work.”

Gale leans against the side. “Are you so desperate to return to adventuring already? I feel like I’ve only just finished picking strands of illithid slime from my travelling robes.”

“Why? You worried?”

“I’ve seen you fight dragons, mindflayers and avatars of the Gods. I know how well you handle yourself.” He exhales when she raises an eyebrow. “Alright, perhaps a little. Some of the stories from your previous exploits are rather colourful and you don’t have our merry little troop to help any more.”

Ciri fills the kettle and sets it on the flame. “I’m not planning on jumping down that portal into the Undermountain any time soon even though it does sound like a lot of fun. Besides, look at these.” She gestures to the list of open jobs she’d pulled from the wall of the Yawning Portal: bandit hunting, protecting caravans, finding lost artefacts near the city. “A child could handle these. I was barely fourteen when I started, I’ll be fine.”

Gale touches the side of her arm. “I didn’t know you were that young when you left,” he says quietly.

She doesn’t look up from the kettle. “I was a tough kid. And now I know I had that Queen of a dragon inside me so it’s hardly a surprise.” She can almost see the apology about her past curling on the tip of his tongue. She relaxes when he stays quiet, brushing his fingers up her arm and resting them against her collarbone.

“As long as you’re coming home to me every night, I can put my worries at ease.”

She turns and kisses him again, softer this time. “I will. I promise,” she whispers against his lips, wrapping her arms around his waist.

Home. It’s a strange word to think on now. She imagines speaking to her younger self, steely, homeless and brimming with a hatred for the wizarding profession. A few turbulent months and now she’s wife to one, mistress to their tower, happier than she thought she could be.

She reluctantly pulls away as the kettle lets out a tinny whistle. 

Finally, things are going to work out. She can feel it.

Chapter Text

The Yawning Portal of Waterdeep is awash with nighttime revelries. Every table bustles, a savoury mix of laughter and drunken cheer filling the hearthlit room. Adventurers grow red-cheeked against their cups, spinning tales and terrors of their journeys. A few talk of the world outside the city, most focus on the well busting out of the floor like a great stone mouth: the famed path to the Undermountain. Already a new group of onlookers have gathered around. One peers down and smirks, boasting about how they were ready to dive in and explore the ruins of the dwarven hold underneath. As she’s done every half an hour on the dot, the dragonborn bartender taps the sign above her station and watches their bravado melt:

WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR INJURY, TRANSFORMATION, LOSS OF LIMB, OR DEATH (temporary or permanent) IN THE UNDERMOUNTAIN

Adventure is not what brought Ciri here. She shifts on her stool in the very corner of the room, as far away from such bright-eyed travellers as she could place herself. Once she’d planned to jump down with nothing more than her staff in one hand and a potion of feather fall in the other. Only a handful of years have passed since then– a lifetime to her now. 

She quietly thanks the barmaid when she brings over her drink, keeping her hood low enough to hide her scars and scales. Even if this is technically her local tavern she doesn’t want to exchange awkward pleasantries with the people she hadn’t seen for months, nor add more colour to her lies as to why she’s here alone. 

An old ache burns in her wrist as she lifts her glass. It matches the one in her eyes. She stares at the amber liquid, trying to recall when she last managed an unbroken trance. Berdusk? Everlund? Even in such large cities she’d dared not close her eyes for long, not with the reputation she’d been building this past year. 

Ciri presses the cool glass to her forehead. She wants to sleep. Really sleep. Right now she’d pay any weight of gold if it meant she could close her eyes and disappear from the gaudy colours of the world for a week. If she had the power to stop the cruelty of her dreams, she’d have ingested the strongest sleeping potion she could brew a long time ago.

A raucous cheer erupts before her lips touch her drink and she quickly puts it down. Her guest is here.

She hears his name before she sees him. The awe-struck crowd parts like an open book and the great Elminster Amur shuffles through. His posture is as willow-bent as she remembers, the grey wires of his beard tickling the gold belt around his bright maroon robes. He waves to the crowd, golden stars swinging from his tall hat as he goes. It’s almost comical to Ciri how much the fairytale picture of a wizard he is. 

Everyone here knows he has his own tales, all stranger and bloodier than the pages of a storybook. They weren't for the ears of children, but tonight, the dark power of those stories is exactly what she needs to borrow.

Ciri stands and forces a smile. “Elminster.”

“Ah my dear girl, it has been far too long.” He shoos his fans away with a handful of dancing lights and takes the open seat across from her. A barmaid places a glass of expensive smelling red wine in front of him before Ciri can raise her hand to order. 

“You’re popular here,” Ciri murmurs as the maid shuffles off through the crowd. All have their eyes on the two of them. Ciri tries to ignore the itch to grab her staff from its hiding place under the table.

“If discretion was your goal then these walls were perhaps an unwise choice of venue.” 

Ciri sighs and lowers her hood. If the patrons were going to tell stories tonight it would be of the man with his portrait hanging on the wall and not the road-worn elf opposite him. “Am I speaking to the real you or a simulacrum this time?”

“My answer shall depend entirely on if you intend to set me aflame.” He chuckles when she fails to hide her wince. She cannot even lie and say melting his double in her front garden was an accident. His explanation as to why he wouldn’t help her was barely past his lips before her hand extended and the sour stench of melting flesh filled the air. It hadn’t made her feel better.

Elminster takes a long sip of wine. “It is truly me, that you have my word on. Your message conveyed the utmost urgency so here I am.”

“Here you are,” she echoes. The rest of her words stick in her throat, none quite correct for what she needs to ask. 

Elminster regards her cooly as he waits for her to continue, eyes set like milky marbles in his face. Ciri hopes they’re broken enough that he can’t see the full ragged picture of her. She’d avoided every reflective surface she could the past few weeks but can still feel the grey blanket of dust and ash cracked over her skin.

“I’m... sorry about melting you before,” she starts. “I know simulacrums take a while to summon.”

“To conjure,” he corrects. “But I have had far worse happen to both me and my creations.”

“I’ve heard the stories.”

For a moment, nothing moves between them except the candle’s flame. Elminster eventually breaks the silence with a raspy cough. “I must confess, I was surprised to receive your missive. It seems your tower has been empty of soul and substance for nearly a year now. I’ve heard stories of your travels, no bard songs yet but there have been sparks enough in the wind to reach my ears. Treasures collected from the Faewild, Ardeep forest, The Stormwreck Isle, even murmurs of Chult. It seems to be quite the twisting tale.”

The scars she’d collected from her travels twinge as he recounts each name. Once they were places she’d wanted to marvel at, heroes havens from books she’d spent hours pouring over in the tower’s library. She’d traced the illustrations and imagined walking along beaches soft as scraps of silk, plotting adventure and discovering magics hidden from those not brave enough to journey to such fantastic corners of the world. Back then she’d fall asleep in her chair with her head in one book and wake up with a blanket over her shoulders and a dozen more carefully laid out next to her. 

Now she wants to rip the memory of every blasted place from her mind, damning the wounds it might leave. A year she’d spent running across the continent, haemorrhaging gold and blood with each place crossed off her list. She’d scouted everywhere from crumbling ruins to libraries shrouded in smoke-black curses and left with a sack of magical artefacts that would make any arcanist sick with jealousy. None can do what she needs. 

Temples of every known and lesser god turned her away when she admitted she did not follow their faith. Such powerful resurrections were saved for the priests and the most esteemed members in their churches. Asking turned to threats, threats to begging. The clerics at the farthest temple of Lathander she could find had sent her on her way with a tenday of supplies and some literature on ‘renewing oneself in grief.’ She’d used it as kindling to cook as she blacked out another location on her feathered map.

The only real answer she’d gotten was in the furthest corner of The Vilhon Reach. The yellow skeleton of a demi lich laid rotting in its lair, jewelled-eyed and barely conscious. She’d pulled it from its overgrown prison and offered to end its centuries of madness by finding and destroying its forgotten soul-cage. After hours of silence, just one reedy sentence had escaped its tomb-soured mouth.

“Abandon hope for all touched by Karsus; the miasma of such magic will always be lost.”

Ciri stares into her untouched whisky. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

“Exceedingly sound advice.”

“I suppose you know why I was visiting all those places.”

“I do.”

Ciri swallows back her venom at his curt reply. “Are you going to tell me it was pointless? That I wasted my time and my money trying to find a resurrection? Plenty of other wizards did.”

“I am many things, but I am not cruel. You have your own path to follow in these dark times, no one can dictate where that shall lead you,” he answers smoothly.

“Then you must know why I asked you here.” Ciri forces a gulp of her drink. It doesn’t loosen the knot in her chest. 

“I had hoped it was for reminiscence. Perhaps for guidance.”

“I don’t need guidance,” she hisses before quickly correcting her tone. “Sorry . I really don’t want to be short. It’s been a while since I’ve talked to anyone for longer than a minute.” She takes another shaky gulp and waits for the fire to settle in her stomach. “I need you to tell me exactly why you won’t help me.”

“I never said that I would not help you.” He sighs when her nostrils flare. “Grief is something that makes bedfellows of us all, no matter how far we try to outrun it. It is a feeling strong as a wave and cold as the deepest oceans. I have been swept up in its current more times than I care to remember and if you wanted a familiar hand in steering you to shore, I could have been that. I still can.” Elminster leans closer, his rough voice dropping to a whisper. “I miss Gale dearly. I had few friends left before… well before that transpired. Having no one to share this with has not been the easiest.”

Ciri grinds her heel into the stone floor. “Then fix this.”

“You know that I cannot.”

“ You mean you won’t.” She refuses to hide the bite in her tone. 

Elminster’s face morphs into the pity she remembers from almost two years ago. “Not everything is as simple as a yes or no, Cirinna.”

“This is.” She takes a breath, trying to steady herself. “I forced myself to accept your answer before. Night after night I told myself you had a reason, that a wish spell can only be used once and then all magic of that power could be cut off from you. It’s what all the other archmages from here to bloody Anauroch said when I sought them out. I have run, teleported, climbed and bled my way across this continent looking for a way to bring him back to me and I’ve returned here with nothing . So I am not taking that answer anymore.” Her words start to waver, catching like chunks of stone in her mouth. “You’re the Sage of Shadowdale. You have travelled to other planets, slain dragons, had more ballads written about your exploits than most Gods, why is bringing him back so beyond you? Gale was your friend, your protégé. He’s not nobody. ” Her hands screw into fists when he refuses to meet her eye. “Go on then, tell me his life is worth less than your ability to cast a second Wish spell.”

Elminster carefully puts down his wine glass. “Would having such a villain bring you some semblance of peace? Would it be enough for you to tell all his other friends here the truth?” 

“Elminster. Answer me.”

The question had been buzzing in her head the entire boat journey back to Waterdeep– it was the one thing that stopped her from throwing her adventuring pack overboard and watching all those golden treasures get engulfed by the ocean’s wide black maw.  She refuses to trek back to square one with nothing to show but new scars and fresh anger. 

“You truly are young,” Elminster whispers after a moment. Slowly, he removes his hat and sets it between them. “Cirinna, I am very old.”

“I know this is not beyond you.”

“That is not my point. Thirteen centuries is not a lifetime, it is an age . I have seen cities rise and fall, Gods flame into power then crash from the heavens like wailing stars. I am older than the harbour we sit by and the dragon that courses through your blood. In all that time, how many protégés do you think I have forgotten?”

Ciri pushes her glass away from her. “Plenty.”

“Not one.” His eyes remain steadfast in their withered setting. “I have memories enough to fill every library in this great city. Some are vibrant, others more faded than yellowed tomes, but ask me to recall the final words of all those I have lost and I will tell you with perfect clarity. Every student, every friend, every lover.” The hoarse melody of his voice grows firmer, “The first time will always be the hardest. You are an elf away from your people, so you too will watch those you hold close wilt and vanish while you remain unchanged. The gift of such years is a heavy burden to hold onto– we see much, both miraculous and woeful. And so, we learn to live.” He traces the edge of his wine glass with a gnarled thumb. “Even the most maleficent of liches will crumble under time’s cruel hands. With all the wonders of the weave, it’s the one part of life mages will never take from nature, no matter how studied we are. The path of my life is flanked by the headstones of everyone I ever admired or adored and they are not mine to exhume.”

Ciri leans forward. “It doesn’t have to be like that.”

“The care I still hold for them all is one of the only reminders I have that I am indeed still mortal. But tell me, which one of the hundreds should I choose to return to the world? The children I could not save? Any of the lovers who slowly forgot our time together? The buried roots of my family that have left but one old, exhausted wizard to spend his final years floating on the hot air of bard songs?” 

His words hang with a cool weight between them. Ciri had seen his white hair and wizened smile in every portrait and book that carried his name and yet this is the first time the years seem so deeply pressed into his skin. Age always seemed like such a costume for archmages, as if the moment they touched an ancient stave their youth vanished and their words twisted into nothing but riddles and wheezes for passing adventurers. 

Thirteen centuries. Three times as long as she might live if she’s lucky. And still she sees the pain of bereavement growing like mould behind his eyes. Pain she’s spent two years burning away at the root.

“Save Gale,” she answers, her voice thin and sharp as reed grass. “You said choose. So I choose Gale.”

“One day you will be glad this was never your choice to make.”

A thousand furious responses storm behind her lips. She swallows them all with the last of her whisky. 

Glad? She could live a thousand years and she’d never be glad for the pity or the condescension of another fucking wizard. He might not call himself cruel but he’d damn sure painted himself in its colours– yet another ancient power refusing to help her. At least Withers had told her Gale was at peace. Who cares if she hadn’t known it for a second since he’d destroyed her heart in a shower of Netherese vapour.

For two years she’d been trapped in a labyrinth, losing each glimmer of light she could find and smashing her face into every dead end. Because she wasn’t a wizard. Because she hadn’t spent decades researching the weave or kissing the feet of the mother of magic. To everyone that had the power to help she was just some demanding sorcerer. Fighting off an Illithid invasion, meeting and killing gods, turning down the chance to enslave the Sword Coast, all of it meant nothing if she couldn’t save the one person that mattered.

752 days she’d spent trying to revive him, 191 longer than they were married. She’d watched night turn to dawn from some empty ruins on the first day of the summer solstice, the sun piercing her eyes with the reminder that every minute that passed from then on was a minute longer than she’d ever known him. 

The barmaid quietly places more drinks in front of them. Ciri downs her entire glass in three gulps and waits for the whisky to soften the scratch of her thoughts. 

Elminster clears his throat. “Even if Mystra’s eye were not upon me–”

“Fuck Mystra.” Ciri’s words are ugly and blunt. Elminster’s wiry brow wrinkles

“Such anger will not help.”

“Believe me, it does.” Ciri hopes the goddess hears her, that she’d be angry enough to part the heavens and tear the magic right out of Ciri’s soul herself. As long as it meant that she could look in those cold shimmering eyes while it happened. Countless nights she’d curled in her latest makeshift campsite and imagined burning into the outer planes and discovering just how much effort it took to make the divine bleed. Insects, that’s what mortals were to them. Even if she’d be crushed immediately she’d show Mystra just how sharp her sting could be.

Ciri decided long ago that it wasn’t blasphemy if it wasn’t her goddess. Gale had never quite agreed.

Elminster awkwardly clears his throat. “The whims of divinity are so rarely understood. Believe me dear girl I have spent a dozen lifetimes trying to unpick such a confusing golden tapestry of thought.” Elminster looks around and rests his hands under his chin. “Gale must have told you that I once knew the goddess as he did. Her wants, her demands, her expectations– they all seemed so changeable at the time. It is almost an impossibility not to form heady plans when you have such an intimate relationship with the divine. It makes you feel untouchable, beyond boundaries and consequences. In another life, perhaps I took the road Gale did and I am not the one sitting across from you. I may have known her previous incarnation, but it’s amazing how even when a new woman took her throne she still had the same wiles. I always considered–”

The sound of Ciri’s glass shattering against the table silences him. The din of the tavern hushes, all eyes back on both of them. A city guard puts his hand on his sword but the bartender waves for him to calm.

Ciri shakes the jagged shards from her hand. “You knew what she was like… and you just sat back and let her sink her claws into Gale. You didn’t have a warning to give before he all but destroyed himself, but were happy enough to spend weeks tailing us and hand him the death warrant she’d signed. One he was ready to roll over and take.”

Elminster shifts backwards at her spat words. “Cirinna– ”

“He was a child when you met him! You knew what could happen and you just sent him off, neck already in the noose she was weaving.”

“Well technically she was not a living goddess at that time–”

“And I’m the one that had to pull him out,” she cuts through his words like a sword ripping a beast in half. She almost tastes the blood on her tongue. “I’m the one that spent days convincing him that her expectations were not worth anything, that he deserved to live his life, all of it.” The fuzzy memories spill before her eyes. Gale made it sound like it was some sort of gift to die if he happened to take the Absolute or an illithid colony with him. In the end, he didn’t even get that.

“I’m… I’m done.” The stool legs screech as she jerks to her feet. “Everything I’ve ever accomplished I’ve done my fucking self and I’ll do this too. You’re right, you are old, a sad pathetic old man who won’t lift a finger to help. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.” She throws a handful of gold onto the table. They roll and scatter to the floor around him. “Enjoy the rest of your life under Mystra’s heel.”

The words pound in Ciri’s head as she runs through the tavern’s door and into the night. The cold rain drenches her face and the slivers of broken glass sting in her palms with each movement. She ignores it, furiously scribbling a new plan in her head. She just needs to get back, to start afresh, find the one thing she missed– that’s what adventurers do, what she always does. 

She’ll never be done, not while she still has blood and fire in her veins.

Ciri runs and runs and runs until her chest is full of ash and she’s gasping against the old wood of the tower’s front door. She burns away the brambles choking the porch and pushes inside. The hinges cry into the silence, nothing but a curling mess of post and dust to greet her. There’s no sign of Tara. Ciri is almost glad. She’d appeared from glowing portals across her travels to bring supplies, yellow eyes bright as she awaited news of Ciri’s discoveries. Tara’s disappointment was clear every time. Ciri can’t bring herself to tell her that she’s failed yet again. 

Ciri slides down the door as it closes behind her. “I can do it myself. I can do it myself. I can .” Her shaky words are eaten by the darkness. The tower stands cold around her. She can feel its judgement, the spiteful want for the return of its master rather than a shuddering interloper.

“I’m still going to fix it,” she utters, then again as if the bricks themselves could give her the answers she needs.

She throws a ball of light into the air and spills her pack on the floor. The contents roll in every direction: precious stones, charred scrolls, weapons coated with gold and silver and starlight. She picks up a black diamond the size of her fist, a component for a cleric’s greater resurrection spell. 25,000 gold pieces it had cost her– the price of a life to those faiths. She tried it herself, offering it to any God she thought might hear her. None answered.

She throws it at the wall and watches it disappear into the dark. She’s done with the divine. She can rot in the hells after she dies for all she cares, she has a life to rebuild first.

The library is as she left it a year ago, a ruined battlefield. Books litter the floor like dead leaves, the smell of neglect and mildew thick in the air. Dozens of ripped pages are still stuck to the walls. She’d spent weeks covering them with her notes, zeroing in on artefacts of legend and exactly where she needed to search. She dives into the mess, clawing through every tome for something new. Familiar words blur in the low light, ones all but burned into her brain: 

True Resurrection belongs to the Gods alone… 

…and thus the mortals were punished for reaching beyond death’s domain…

…by speaking aloud the Wish spell reality shall morph to a wizard’s whims, but all such power will be lost to them forevermore…

…All of Netheril was destroyed and the child-made-God Karsus eclipsed by his own folly. 

She tosses the final book from her lap, trying to wring her rising panic. She’d looked everywhere, read everything, spent months cleaning and then ripping this tower down to its bones to try and find something. There was nothing left. His wedding ring brushes her chest as she stands, the same place it has always been since that first fateful day. Her blood runs cold as she touches it.

No. There was one place left. The one she hadn’t returned to in two long years.

Their bedroom is silent as a graveyard when she finally unlocks the door. She walks in with slow careful steps as if the room might shatter if she breathed too harshly within it. Cold air envelops her immediately. She doesn’t light a flame, letting the rain-muted moonlight guide her path. 

It’s the museum of their final morning together. Her clothes are crumpled on the floor, his slippers by the wardrobe, their purple sheets a bunched mess at the foot of the bed. A half drunk glass of wine rests on her bedside table, a perfectly stacked pile of student essays on his.  In the darkness she could almost pretend it was early morning, her off on her next job and him ready to take on another day of teaching. She stays her hand as it reaches for the bed, knowing the moment she feels the cold sheets that the illusion of such peace would shatter.

Her fingers shake as she approaches his desk. Under the grey layer of dust rests a leather-bound letter. His letter. The one he left before making the long journey to let go. 

It feels like such a fragile thing in her palms. She hadn’t been interested in his last words, not when she was so sure they were not going to be his last. Now they were her final hope. Perhaps there was a clue inside, instructions on where to look, or some stupid back-up plan involving another fire mephit and a flute.

The leather shakes as she unwraps it. It flies from her hand and hovers in front of the open bedroom door. And then, in a burst of shimmering smoke and stars, the paper vanishes and Gale’s illusionary double stands before her. Light shines from its body and throws cold, sharp shadows over the room. It’s clad in his old adventuring robes, arms tucked behind its back and hair brushing the square of its shoulders– a near perfect copy save for the vacant stretches of blue where his eyes should be. It regards her with an empty expression, a death mask sewn from the weave.

Ciri staggers towards it. “Gale–”

“Hello!” the double begins in an overly jaunty tone. Ciri almost collapses. “I am a magical projection of Gale Dekarios and if you are seeing this manifestation, that means I have prematurely perished. Alas, on this occasion I appear to have been erased from this plane entirely so the usual protocol for revivification cannot be followed.”

The words spill from its lips, bright and artificial as an illusion of colourful fruit. 

Ciri grabs a bedpost to support her shaking legs. “What– then why are you here?” 

“I have been entrusted with a message for the ears of my wife alone. Would you care to hear it now?” 

Ciri blinks furiously. “A message… but why.. I mean, yes. Please.” 

“Most excellent. Please give me but a moment.”

The double blinks, then sags slightly. Its glowing eyes almost seem to soften, then draw focus to the edge of their bed.

“Hello Ciri.”

The words push her to her knees. The double’s blunt tone is gone. It’s softer now, curling like a gentle steam in the air. It’s the voice she’d felt against the plush of her cheek in the morning or between her shoulder blades at night. Sweet and rich and just a memory until now. 

The double continues. “It feels somewhat strange to be writing this letter when I’m looking right at you. You always did sleep so deeply for an elf. I remember what you said when you first curled up in our bed. Between adventuring jobs you preferred it to trancing, that it was like falling away from the world for a while then reemerging blurry but happy. You look so peaceful right now and I dearly hope your dreams are too, that you sleep for hours more and can enjoy that calm for as long as possible.” The double stops. Ciri swears she hears it swallow. “My whole life I’ve prided myself on my talent with words. Composing letters and essays were as much of a joy as plucking the strings of the weave but now, perhaps when it is most crucial, they fail me.”

Ciri looks down. She can’t bear the hurt in his voice, the pain crinkling in the corners of his face.

“I am not sure there are words enough in any language that can express what I want to say, as if ink on parchment could ever be enough to fix this. But please allow me to try, my love. 

For so long I was not afraid of death. Sequestered in my tower I spent months waiting for it and then on the road I all but welcomed it, thinking that disappearing into a maelstrom of Netherese vapour would atone for my foolishness. For me, it was as certain as the sun rising each morning. But then there was you- undaunted and firm in your belief that you could hold that sun beneath the horizon no matter how it burned you.” The double takes another breath. “ Staring up at the Netherbrain, when I was poised to follow Mystra’s command, you did not just tell me that there was hope, you gave me the realisation that I could choose… and then later you called me an idiot, which I deserved. I’ve never had someone fight so hard for me to live. Someone who told me that my life mattered so much more than my magic or my mistakes. Someone who loved me purely as a man. It was– it is – rather wonderful.”

Ciri closes her eyes. “Of course I did. It’s so easy to love you.”

She hears the double clear its throat. “If I am correct, and that is usually the case, then some months will have passed before you have opened this letter. I do hope that in that time you’ve been living your wonderful, chaotic life being the dragon that you are. I spent so long trying to capture the story of you, of us, but just like the flames within your blood, you were an ever-changing marvel, always rewriting yourself and so delightfully new every time you returned here. That is what I will be picturing when my time comes tomorrow: you and your heat and your joy. I have seen into the heavens, scorched so close to Godhood and I want you to know it is no exaggeration when I say that you are the greatest thing to have ever happened to me. I know our time was brief, that these months are barely pages in the manuscript of your life but despite this end, I do hope you will look back on it with fondness. Remember that I loved you better and more completely than anyone. You were my home so much more than this city ever was. And… for what was said tonight– I did not mean.. you must know you are… that I wanted–”

The sound of a quill scratching parchment fills the air, like he’s scrubbing something out.

“I’m sorry,” he quickly whispers, leaving the thought unfinished. “And the tower is yours. Keep it, sell it, let it grow dusty and dilapidated by the sea– I know that these walls never truly felt like your home but I hope they can be something that can bring you peace. And… and if you ever are unsure of where to venture, or what it is I truly wished for in these moments, please just follow these words." The double shifts forward, staring more intently at the spot where she once slept. "Be the adventurer that you are. That is all you need to do. Your grit is a gift Ciri, one so many look on with both hope and envy. Travel the planes, explore the vast eddies of the oceans, stop villains, help those in need, everything you are amazing at… everything I know you wanted to do whilst you were here. I cannot bear the thought of how this will hurt you, your chest so corrupted by heartache like mine is by the orb. So please, fill up your story with wild tales. And then, when the centuries have passed and your sky finally dims, I will be waiting to hear every last detail. But until then, just be you. Be the person I fell so desperately senselessly in love with.”

Ciri bites down on her collar, muffling a cry. The words are poetry and daggers, soft as a kiss and tearing at her ears.

A tired groan fills the air. Hers she realises, coming from her side of the bed. The illusion chuckles. “You are stirring now, so my time is short. Live well Ciri. Know that these final heartbeats all belong to you. Yours, always. Gale.”

His final words drift between them like a breath. Her eyes burn, unblinking. She waits for more, for something , an addendum he thought of while she slept, some magic he’d suddenly remember that she could find. Minutes pass, maybe an eternity, she can’t be sure. When she finally raises her head, the double’s smile has returned. 

“With that I’m afraid my spell is waning. Is there anything else I can do for you before I blink out of existence?” 

Ciri stumbles to her feet. “Wait wait wait. Don’t leave, not again— please.” She can’t let go, she won’t , not of the very last piece of him in this world.

“I apologise, but there’s nothing left on this plane able to maintain me.” 

She stops directly in front of it, willing the blank mirrors of its eyes to actually look at her. This was magic born of Gale’s mind, woven by his hands, something so effortlessly brilliant and naively cruel she can almost feel his fingerprints pressed into the light.

“Alright. You’re not him, but he made you, he’s part of you so you must know something. I always hated you telling me what to do but, just this once, you can. Please. I’ve tried everything and it’s not enough. I’m not…” she sucks in a breath. It claws its way down, sharp as broken glass. “I’m not you. So go on, tell me how to bring you back to me. Because I’m just. So. Tired, Gale.” She reaches out, desperate to stroke the skin she can’t recall outside of her trances. “Please tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

She passes straight through, the ghost of his cheek swirling like a handful of stars around each finger. She clings to the air, shaking, until he slowly inclines his head down, just enough to finally take all of her in.

“Live, Ciri. Just live,” he whispers, before closing his eyes and breaking into a thousand tiny lights. She stands frozen, watching each one fade into nothing around her. 

And then she too completely shatters.

Her knees slam into the floor, a scream she barely recognises tearing through her throat and past her lips. That door she’d kept so firmly closed in her mind had finally splintered open, two years worth of grief now pouring out in a great black torrent. Her body shakes with sobs, ugly grating things filling up her lungs then running off the walls like hail. She wraps her arms around her torso as if she could force them to quiet. Her chest heaves against her grip, the monster she’d kept caged for so long smashing and scraping against her ribs.

Those aren’t the arms she wants. She wants larger hands against her, ones that were soft, ink-stained, tracing every burn and freckle like they had done a thousand times before.

Her heart pounds overripe and swollen in her chest. She wants to claw through the bone and rip it out, watch it melt in front of her until there is nothing left. There’s just too much inside her now, a passion so bright that had soured into something bitter and festering and furious. She needs to scream more, to wring out every last tear until she’s nothing but skin and dust. She wonders if then, after all that - the love she has for him will finally leave her.

“I wish I’d left you in that portal. I wish that you'd exploded a hundred miles away from me. I wish that I'd never fucking met you,” she sobs into the rug. Even choked by tears, she tastes the lie. She could rewrite their story a thousand different ways, throw herself to the farthest reaches of Faerûn, twist herself into a monster or burn Baldur's Gate to the ground and the final page always remains the same. There’s no version of herself that wouldn’t love him. No Cirinna without her Gale.

The letter from the door drifts to the spot in front of her. She stares at the neat rows of his handwriting. “I don’t want to love you anymore, but I don’t think I’ll ever know how to stop.” She twirls her finger and the paper catches alight. She stays motionless, numb, watching the fire engulf his words and then the rug underneath. The flames ripple like a wave over the floor, lapping at the desk, the curtains, the room a wash with thick red heat. She doesn’t move her hands when the flames start to bite. She just closes her eyes and waits for them to devour every last piece of their marriage from this tower. 

She’s done. It’s over.

“Mrs. Dekarios!” Tara’s shout cuts like a sharp wind through the smoke. “Oh dear Gods, Mrs. Dekarios, stop! 

Ciri blearily looks to the door. Tara’s silhouette hovers behind the fire, gold light spilling from between her wings. 

“Evanescet!”

The light shoots through the room and instantly extinguishes every flame. Tongues of black char curl in their wake, the air wobbling with smoke.

Tara flits over, breathing heavily. “By the hells, what were you thinking?”

“Fire resistant,” Ciri answers in a near silent whisper. She refuses to look up and see the damage she’d done. It won’t be enough.

Tara’s eyes bulge. “No. No no no you are not doing this. You are not doing this to the other Mrs. Dekarios and you are not doing this to me . If I had not returned… if I’d been a moment later…” Tara stops when Ciri’s shoulders start to shake again. She pads closer, her voice softening a little. “You’re alright, that is what matters. You’re here and you’re safe now. I’m not sure we can say the same about this bedroom but, well, that rug should have burned long ago if you ask me.” She leans down, examining Ciri’s hands. Her sleeves have singed to her elbows, the visible skin reddened with blisters. “Here, Mrs. Dekarios. Let me–”

Ciri rips her hands to her chest. “Don’t call me that. I’m not… not anymore.”

“Yes you are. For as long as you want to be.”

Hotter tears spill down Ciri’s cheeks. “It’s over, Tara,” she murmurs. “I can’t do it. I was stupid enough to think if I just worked hard enough I could bring him back and I can’t . It’s all my fault and I can’t fix this.”

“It is not your fault.”

“Yes it is!” Ciri spits the words like hot oil from her lips. She’d let the truth curdle in her gut for two years now. It’s the one memory she never visited, one the devils had taunted her with and that ruined her dreams if she dared try to sleep. “After the Netherbrain fell, when we were standing on the banks of the Chionthar, Gale told me that he was going to retrieve the crown of Karsus and give it to Mystra. And I told him not to. I said that such magic didn’t belong to anyone, not even her, but that was a lie. I just I… I…” Shame pools in her chest, cold and throbbing. “I didn’t want him to see her again. Ever. So I made him leave it.”

Ciri unhooks his wedding band from her necklace and stares at it in her palm. It’s hot from her skin, almost pulsing with its own heartbeat. She rubs the join where their separate rings became one. “If I’d just kept my mouth shut, he would have found it and she could have fixed him. He’d still be here. I didn’t let him because I was petty and jealous and pathetic.” She squeezes her eyes closed and throws the ring as hard as she can. It clinks against stone somewhere, rolling far away from her stupid destructive hands.

Tara remains silent, her expression flat, almost unreadable. The pain in Ciri’s mind boils to rage. 

“Well go on then!” she yells. “I’m the reason he’s dead, Tara. Me . You always hated me and it turns out you had a good reason to. I took him away from you and he’s never coming back, so curse me, hurt me, banish me from this tower.” She throws her arms up and slams them into the floor with a dull smack. She grits her teeth through the ache, eyes daggers against the tressym. “Do what you need to.”

Tara’s silence stretches on. Ciri flinches as her paw touches her fingers, but no claws tear at her skin. Instead, the telltale blue of healing magic pulses from her fur and the blisters begin to shrink.

“I am not going to do any of that,” Tara says quietly. “But more importantly, why do I get the impression that you want me to?”

“Because I deserve it. Because it’s my–”

“Don’t,” she interrupts. The spell fades, leaving Ciri’s hand rough but mostly healed. “I’ve known that man for almost three decades now and not once has anyone been able to make him do anything he did not already think was a sound idea. But that isn’t my point.  Maybe Mystra could have removed the orb, but maybe she wouldn’t have. She is the mother of magic but she is also fickle, we both know that.” Tara nudges Ciri’s hands back into her lap. “I know it would be easy to try and assign blame here, but how far back must we go? You for suggesting he leave the crown? Me for not finding a solution before? Him for opening that blasted book and getting infected with the orb in the first place? We can’t. It will drive us to madness. And if I thought cursing you out would make me feel even slightly better I would have done it months ago.”

Ciri draws her knees to her chin. The tears refuse to stop, falling in a mess and darkening her trousers. Tara curls by her ankles.

“Also, I never hated you, Mrs. Dekarios.” Tara rolls her eyes at Ciri’s answering snort. “I disliked you, there’s a difference. And even then it was for truly petty reasons. For so long I was his best and sometimes only friend and both he and his mother are my family. For years I wanted him to settle down and start actually living instead of chasing Mystra’s tempestuous wants but I never imagined what that would actually look like. In just a handful of days you changed from a stranger to the person he loved most. You convinced him to live when I’d been begging him to for a year at that point.” Tara pushes around the ash by Ciri’s feet. “I told you I do not like sharing, and believe me I don’t, but that’s not why I’m sour. When you arrived here together, I could see it clear as day. If Gale ever had to choose between the two of us, it would always be you.”

Ciri slowly raises her head. “Tara–”

“Which is exactly how it should be by the way. I’m not insane, Mrs. Dekarios. You are his wife. I think I’m just territorial in my old age.”

Ciri rubs her eyes with the blanket hanging from the bed. The last night she’d slept here, she’d screamed into the material and called Gale every awful name she could think of until she finally fell asleep.

“Given the last few months of our marriage I am fairly sure he’d choose you,” she murmurs.

“Now you know that isn’t true.” Tara shakes her head. "Do you know what the last thing he ever said to me was? He made me promise to take care of you. It's a promise I hold with pride Mrs. Dekarios, but– " she ducks her head into her wings, her next words a shaky whisper. " –did he even think to ask someone to take care of me?"

It’s the first true crack of grief Ciri has seen from Tara in years. The tressym had always been the iron wall around her, blunt, matronly, every insult and sharp retort from Ciri running right off her. Or at least that’s what Ciri had thought. Tara was the only being that knew the full ugly mess she had become. She’d fed Ciri, bathed her, dug in her claws and dragged her from the floor when the full weight of her sorrow had held her like chains– and not a single person had been there to ask about her own pain. Pain hidden from Morena and ignored by Ciri.

She feels the fragments of her heart break that tiny bit more.

“I will,” Ciri says with quiet strength. “I’ll take care of you, even if you don’t want me to.”

She pats her lap and Tara slowly crawls onto the offered spot. “That sounds rather nice actually. You do have very warm hands.” 

Ciri swallows her sore laugh. She has fire in her veins but has felt nothing but black ice under her skin for two years now. “I’ve been awful to you.”

“You haven’t been awful. Rude, short, frustratingly dense and stubborn… but no, not awful.” Tara softly noses at Ciri’s hand. It still stings a little. “And I’m not sure I’ve been keeping my promise. Perhaps we both need to do a little better.”

They both sit in the darkness for a while. The moon lazily drifts across the sky, its silvery fingers highlighting the claws left from Ciri’s flames. Slowly, her chest relaxes, the monster inside quieting breath by breath.

“He left me,” Ciri finally whispers. “He left me and thought a stupid projection would soften the blow. He promised forever and he left me.”

Tara curls into her chest. “I’m glad I was not here for that. Those doubles always made me uncomfortable. Any time he used one to summon me I refused to move until he actually came and picked me up himself. He used to send them to talk to his Mother when he was busy, which I always told him was exceedingly rude.”

Ciri’s hand freezes against Tara’s back. “I have to tell Morena the truth. Gods, how do I–”

A sharp rap at the tower’s front door interrupts her. Tara jumps to the window, eyes narrowing. 

“It’s Elminster. What does that doddering windbag want at this hour?” She turns to Ciri. “Should I send him on his way?”

“No. I’ll do it.” Tara wraps around Ciri’s shoulders as they walk away from the bedroom’s mess.

The wizard greets them with a smile as she opens the door. “Ah, good evening Cirinna. Tara.” He holds out his hand. “I do apologise for waking you but this is rather urgent.”

Ciri eyes the offered hand but doesn’t take it. “I didn’t think I’d see you again. What I said to you was fairly final.” 

Elminster laughs. “My girl I have had far worse insults shouted at me over the years. My skin is as thick as it is withered. ‘Pathetic old man,’ wouldn’t leave a scratch. I'm here because I thought about all you said and I think I have one final piece of wisdom to dispense before I fully retire.” He straightens his crooked back so he stands at his full height. “Do not give up, Cirinna.”

The words fall with an almost audible thud between them. Ciri rubs her forehead.

“Well thanks for that nugget of wisdom. Goodnight.”

Elminster puts his hand on the door before she can close it. “There is a gift that comes with that advice, something I would like you to have from my younger and more adventurous days.”

He pulls a parcel from his robes and hands it to Ciri. Peeling back the paper, Ciri finds a thick black book inside. It shines like oil, hues of sickly green and blue slithering across its cover. A grey chain binds it closed, the links disappearing into the mouth of a grinning human skull embedded in the centre. The eyes are wide, almost impossibly deep for its size. Something cold caresses the back of her neck as she brings it closer to her face.

Elminster coughs. “I would not advise staring. This is a necromantic tome I found two centuries ago in the deepest recesses of the underdark. If it is powerful magic you seek, here is where you will find it.”

Ciri’s eyes snap up. “It can bring him back.”

“I cannot say, but it should be a fascinating read for you.”

She tugs the chain but it refuses to move. A puff of chilled air leaves the skull and she swears she hears a cruel titter rustling from the burned bushes around them. “How does it open?”

“The arcane charms that guard this text are almost innumerable. Every time I unlaced one malodorous tangle, another took it's place, determined to keep mortal hands out. From what I understand, only those with truly divine hands, ones cloaked within the weave itself could even attempt it.”

Ciri glares at him. “What good is that then?”

“Truly divine hands,” Tara repeats, then sighs against Ciri’s face. “I suppose your not so subtle subterfuge is referring to the mother of magic herself.”

Ciri almost throws the book back at Elminster. “No. Not her— I won’t. I can’t…”

“Mrs. Dekarios-“ Tara starts.

”She didn’t give a damn when he died, why in the hells would she care about what I’ve been killing myself to do?” Anger claws at Ciri’s throat. The goddess had the power to save Gale and she chose not to, instead casting away his last plea like dregs of wine at the bottom of a glass. There was a reason Ciri had let that broken alter in the study rot.

Elminster knits his calloused fingers together. “As we are speaking in the realms of the hypothetical, I can tell you that being her supplicant would be irrelevant if you were to bring her a worthy enough offering. Perhaps something she wanted, something still faraway lost.”

Ciri’s fingers tighten around the book as she picks up the dropped end of Elminster's thought. “The Crown of Karsus.”

Elminster inclines his head, the wide brim of his hat shadowing his expression. “Well, I believe a bed is calling to these old bones. Good evening again.”

Ciri steps into the front garden. “Elminster– thank you.”

“For what?” he calls over his shoulder. She doesn’t see his face but still hears the smile as he disappears into the night.

Tara flies to the floor, nose wrinkling. “Gods below, look at that ugly thing. If the word evil had an illustration in the dictionary that would be it.”

Ciri hugs the book to her chest, the skull pressing over her rapidly pounding heart. “Maybe it is. But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to open it.”

Tara doesn’t answer but her wide eyes betray her curiosity.

Ciri staggers inside and spreads her crinkled map on the floor. She runs her fingers over the long inked line of the Chionthar. “The crown is still at the bottom of the river. No one else knew it was there so I just have to locate all the pieces.” Her words trip over eachother, lips wet with adrenaline.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Tara's voice comes softly from behind.

Ciri doesn’t take her eyes off the map. Her breathing shakes, smile stretched red and almost painfully wide. “It’s our last chance. We could have him back. Tara… I can fix this, really actually fix this.”

Tara refuses to look at the book in her arms. “Well I hope you know that I’m coming with you. I meant it when I said I was going to keep my promise and I am not leaving you alone to get your soul eaten by whatever is in there.”

“Yes... yes of course. Just give me a moment.” Ciri runs back to the bedroom, scrambling through the charred mess until she finds Gale’s wedding ring hidden under the wardrobe. She strokes the metal in her palm before carefully looping it back around her necklace.

One last chance. One last adventure to bring him back. And this time, she’ll rip the answers from a goddess's heart if she has to.

She gently presses her lips to the metal. 

“I’m coming, my love. Just wait for me a little bit longer.”

Chapter Text

The infestation plaguing the Waterdeep catacombs is larger than the Archaeological Guild had led Ciri to believe. ‘Just a handful of angry bone spiders,’ was what the Guild Master had said when she’d taken the contract. Such jobs were easy pickings for her and usually went the same way– clamber down, spend a few days burning the hells out of the place and be back before the tenday is out. Simple. Spiders the size of dogs were little match for sparks and grease.

The beast currently glowering in front of her is a different story.

The tomb she stands in is a vast chasm of stone and iron, yet it does nothing to dwarf the sheer size of the spider Matriarch slowly approaching her. Stupidly big are the only words that jump to mind as she takes it in. The bulk of its black body is as wide as a ship, every leg a thick log of muscle and barbs. The coarse hair of its face glistens as it enters her firelight, eight tar-black eyes now focussing squarely on her and the pile of burned spider babies at her feet. It’s babies.  

Ciri swallows the dread nipping in her throat and forces her expression flat. Fear is the scent of prey, not the hunter. Not the dragon. She tries to focus on the memory of the dead Phase Spider at her feet, legs curled, flesh scorched, eyes lifeless as stones– and that monster could teleport. She’d ripped away its silk gland and used the gold from selling it to buy food not raided from old crates to eat that night. Back when a tadpole in her head was a death sentence. When every day was its own fight.

When she had a full party to help.

Ciri brightens the flaming tip of her staff until the light ripples off the marble plinths scattered around her. The Matriarch continues its slow pace forward, raising its fangs towards the brightness. Venom glistens on their pearly surface. Thick, valuable, and a slow death sentence if the old bestiary in the tower’s library was accurate. She steps back, trying to coax it closer. On the ground she still has the advantage. Even with her fire, the ceiling above is still a great swallowing darkness. If it disappears up there, it could drop down and finish her off in any number of lurid way. Crushed, eaten, poisoned–  none sound particularly nice or painless.

Ciri holds her staff higher, watching its eyes follow the light. The tomb’s walls glisten with a thick curtain of web– her own tomb should she get caught in it. What she’d give for those Boots of Spiderstepping she’d found underneath the Blighted Village those months ago. She’d laughed at the Guild Master’s bulging eyes when she’d casually mentioned that, yes she’d once owned a pair, but sadly her husband had eaten them. It’s the furthest thing from funny now. 

Ciri reaches into her pack, rapidly rewriting her original plan. She’s sure she has a small canister of smokepowder in there. She just has to toss it underneath its abdomen and knock it over. Then she can take it out clean without letting the whole place go up in an angry blaze. 

She adds suffocating to death to her growing list of ways not to die down here.

Ciri steps back and an egg shatters with a wet crunch under her foot. The spider’s eyes lock back on her face in an instant. It hisses in anger and leaps forward with bared fangs. 

“Et Alibi!” 

Ciri vanishes in a swirl of blue magic, appearing with a gasp a dozen paces behind the spider. It heaves its huge body around and charges toward her with surprising speed. She teleports again, her heart pounding in her head as she blindly aims for the crack she squeezed through to find the tomb. The shadows blur in every direction, each wall she scans the same mess of web and rotted bones. Again it leaps for her, again she vanishes, again and again, bullets of venom and web chasing her with every blind cast. 

Eventually Ciri skids to a stop between the dusty stone caskets. She sucks in a sharp breath, her chest aching from the effort of each spell. She needs more time. Time to retreat, plan, something . She braces herself on the edge of the coffin, the magic inside her scraping like a knife from her heart and to her hand.

“Perure.” A thin chord of lightning jumps from her fingers and hits the Matriarch squarely between its bulbous eyes. It hisses louder, finally stopping. She exhales, her gaze not leaving the spider as she scrabbles in her pack again. Seconds she has to knock it over, less to finish it off– and Gods knows how much air she has left in this dusty pit. 

Pain suddenly burns in her shoulder and her staff and pack skid across the floor. A baby spider had dropped from the ceiling and the needles of its fangs were embedded deep in her collarbone. She jerks backwards, watching in horror as the flamed tip of her stave ignites the webbing blanketing the floor. Snakes of fire hungrily devour everything in its path until the entire cavern glows with thick orange heat. 

Ciri stumbles back from the inferno, covering her mouth against the smoke. “No. No . Shit–” The baby spider cries, the venom from its bite searing like ice water through her veins. Ciri slams it into the floor, its twitching body instantly devoured by the flames. She stares at it, her bitten arm cooling to numb. There could be others, hundreds waiting in the dark above to drop and bite, paralysing her until their mother finally had her feast.

Ciri’s arm swings uselessly at her side as she staggers through the blaze. Her lungs burn, the flames biting through her robes to the damp skin below.  “Et Al– Invenium–” Exhaustion rips the misty step from her grasp. She sucks in an ash-dry breath, shaking. She’s a sorcerer without magic. A dragon with its wings ripped off. Realisation smacks her that if she wants out, then she’s only got her blistered feet left to get her there. 

Something dark suddenly crashes next to her. Then another by her feet, her face, the path in front of her. A rockfall? No, she quickly realises as they splinter in front of her– desiccated corpses are falling from their sticky home above, each bark-skinned and sucked to rot by the spiders. Her fate staring back with empty, cavernous eyes.

Another screech cuts through the blaze. The flames almost seem to part in fear as the Matriarch charges through them. Its body smoulders, but its eyes flare, reflecting the fire like all the anger of the hells are trapped there. Ciri knows that look. It’s one that had been glared at her through the eyes of beasts and bandits alike

Die. Now. 

It slams her into the ground. Her teeth rattle as her head bounces on the stone. She throws up her free hand, barely deflecting its fangs as they slam into a weakly conjured shield. The magic ripples when the spider bites again, then again, the hairy bulk of its face dripping spittle and venom with every blow. She kicks at the steely flesh of its abdomen but it doesn’t stop, rearing up on its back legs and slamming down hard enough to wedge its fangs straight through her magic. Ciri grunts, hot tears of effort blurring her vision until the spider is nothing but a black smudge. 

Ciri bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. This can’t be how she dies: alone, rotten, and skewered like the other husks around her. 500 years snatched away by her first real job in this city. 

Tears ooze more thickly down her face.

Will anyone find her body down here ? Probably not before her pearly bones are left to dangle in this monster’s web. Just another piece of macabre decor for the next unlucky soul the Guild sends. How long before they assume she’s dead? Before anyone tells Gale– 

Her heart stutters and the shield in her hand splits straight down the middle.

‘Don’t be too long.’ His words were mumbled into her cheek when she’d left bed that morning. She’d held onto that moment when she’d let herself trance down here, darkness giving way to the golds and pinks of dawn, bed-warm skin under her hands and the familiar scratch of stubble against her throat. She fights the picture of his face crumbling like her spell when he finds out, her promise of ‘be right back,’ lingering cold and mocking in that tower. She’d seen that look only once before, the first time Withers had yanked her back from the fugue plane and into his waiting arms. There’s no Withers now. Just her.

Something hotter than the flames around her ignites behind Ciri’s eyes.

She isn’t some corpse. She killed one God and pissed off three others. She saved a city. She turned down the power of the illithid empire. And no matter what, there’s still a hell of a lot more fire than poison in her blood right now.

The shield shatters and Ciri slaps her free hand between the Matriarch’s cold, slick eyes. “Arde!” A column of fire bursts from her palm and straight into its face. The Matriarch screeches and staggers backward. Ciri pulls herself to her feet, back on the beast in seconds. “Arde!” Hotter flames tear through her palm and envelop its huge body in jagged light.  Its legs skid uselessly against the floor, screams drowned out by her voice as she steps through the curtains of flame. “Arde!” She feels the heat rip her skin. “Arde!” The scent of burning, hair and cloth is thick in her nose. “Arde!” The columns of fire grow wider. Gone is the careful motion of bending fire to her will. This magic is raw, nothing but claws and teeth and angry screams. Every part of Iraxys inside her forcing her way out and devouring her prey. “Arde. Arde. Arde. Arde–” Sparks spit from her mouth, the magic tearing through every vein and muscle. Agony and ecstasy blindly crash together, the protests of her body drowned out by one singular thought. I’m not breaking my promise.

Salt and iron sizzle on her lips as the beast still shudders under her fire. Ciri grinds her boots harder into the stone. “Come on you bastard. Just die !” 

She feels the last explosion of heat inside her rip its way through her body and burst in a maelstrom of white flame over the spider. The tomb is engulfed in light, one final flash of power and pain and then every fire within the space quickly disintegrates into nothing.

Silence falls. And then, finally, so does the Matriarch. Ciri staggers over and kicks its face as hard as she can. Its flat eyes remain unblinking as she kicks again, then three more times until its skull crumples like hot metal under a blacksmith’s hammer. 

“ Fuck .” Her body collapses onto stones before the curse is free of her mouth. Her muscles radiate pain and she can almost feel the sharp edges of the hole inside where her magic ripped free– but she’s still here. Breathing and more or less intact. A raspy laugh bubbles low in her chest. It hurts with each breath, giddy and wild as a deranged ghost echoing between the walls. She should be dead. If she’s being honest, she should’ve been dead at least five times over at this point, but Myrkul still hasn’t got his bony fingers on yet. 

Ciri rubs the patch of scales on her forehead. “Thanks for keeping me alive, old girl.”

She lays until her lungs stop crackling then drags herself towards the tiny flicker of her abandoned staff. Another job down and another chapter of her story she could confidently conclude with ‘drop everything and launch a fireball at the problem.’

After downing every antidote in her pack, she finally finds her scroll of Arcane Gate and falls back into the Archeological Guild’s office. The human Guild Master drops his tea all over his desk when he takes in the singed, poisoned mess marching towards him.

“Found your problem,” Ciri says with a smile, dropping one of the Matriarch's enormous fangs in front of him. His eyes shake behind his glasses as it oozes thick green liquid all over his papers. Ciri wipes her hand on the tatters of her robe. “You might want to be a bit more upfront with the job next time. So I’m sure you’ll understand that I charge extra for that.”

With a much heavier coin purse, Ciri makes her way back through Waterdeep’s midnight streets. The moon hangs fat and gold above, but it’s a poor substitute for the sun. Days underground with only her own fire to brighten the catacombs, her body was all but gasping for real light. Still, she had bigger problems to deal with first.

She bangs on the door of the Apothecary until an exhausted-looking orc finally opens it. His huge green frame slouches in the doorway, eyes bleary behind a tiny pair of silver spectacles. She shakes her numb arm, now covered with a bouquet of broken veins. “Sorry, but I think if I waited much longer I might have melted from the inside out.”

The sleep in his mossy eyes immediately vanishes. “Mother of Mysteries, what in the nine hells happened to you?” 

“Work,” she answers. 

He stares at the thick layer of ash spotting her skin before zeroing in on the festering bite. “If that’s bone spider venom I’m bloody surprised you’re still standing.”

Ciri rubs the tiny punctures. “Good eye. Luckily it was just a small one.” She hands him the wrapped fang as he ushers her inside, trying to breathe through the sting still spreading under her skin. She pointedly ignores the small statue of Mystra in the corner. A similar one had once stood in the bedroom when she’d first moved into the tower, its marble eyes and hands reaching out to the centre of the bed. Ciri had wanted to throw it out the window but the slim chance of it smashing directly into some poor passerby’s head had her asking Gale to stuff it in a random cupboard instead.

The Apothecary tears up a few herbs between his fingers. “It’s Mrs. Dekarios ain’t it? We don’t get a whole lot of dragon-blood sorcerers ‘round here.” He gestures to the scales on her cheeks.

“Cirinna’s just fine,” she replies. 

He milks the venom into a viscous-looking elixir. “You’re lucky it was just a baby. If Mum had bitten you, you’d be nothing but a glob of skin and bones.” The wonder in his voice is barely hidden as he shakes the mixture in front of her.

“Mum did put up quite the fight, but she’s nothing but ash and meat now,” she answers before grabbing the offered concoction and knocking it back like a fifth of whisky. It tastes of sour milk and dirt but she quickly feels the burn in her veins start to dissolve. She slams the glass on the counter. “Dear gods, that’s awful.”

The Apothecary clicks his tusks. “Sorry I forgot to ask if ma’am would like one sugar or two. I’m a wee bit tired because someone dragged me out of bed at Mystra-knows what time.” 

Ciri sighs and deposits a handful of gold on the counter, at least three times what she owes. “Sorry. I’ll try and get bitten at a more reasonable hour next time.”

He scrapes the coins into his hand, eyes dropping to the spider fang resting on the counter. “You know, if you feel like bringin’ me back a few of the the legs I’d pay you well. It ain’t just the venom that does wonders and I hear you’ve been looking for more steady adventuring work, Mrs. Dekarios.” 

“Cirinna,” she corrects again, firmer this time. 

He taps the side of his head. “First names are earned when the job is done around here.”

The dry pain of her eye roll is worth it for the Apothecary’s answering chuckle. “Fine. I’ll come back tomorrow. And I charge by the leg you know.” Her tone is cool but she’s more than glad to pick up another job so soon.It turns out three decades of experience and the title Saviour of Baldur’s Gate doesn’t make much of a ripple in Waterdeep when compared to the other heroes here. The splendours of the city extends to its golden list of adventurers and apparently she needs more than one dead cult under her belt before the locals will remember her name. 

Still, she did always love a challenge. 

The Apothecary folds his broad arms. “Wait three days at least. Any sooner and you’ll be throwin’ up your guts the moment you go faster than a slow walk. Hilarious as that would be, I’d rather not have Gale of Waterdeep burnin’ down my shop because his wife couldn’t put her feet up for a spell.”

Ciri bites back her immediate retort about how she’d be the one doing the burning. “I thought that first names were earned when the job was done,” she says instead, wincing as feeling slowly returns to her numb arm.

“Believe me, Mrs. Dekarios,” he replies, gaze drifting through the window to the tower poking up amongst the other houses. “Everyone in this city knows the story of what he’s done.”

Ice curls in Ciri’s chest when she finds every room in the tower empty. Even the library’s fireplace is cold, the room spotless save for yesterday’s broadsheet left open on a half finished crossword. She rubs her eyes, trying to recall if Gale had said he’d be staying at the academy tonight rather than his tower. Their tower, she mentally corrects as she gently touches the paper. This twisting spire of magic and mess technically belongs to both of them now, but ink on the marriage parchment hadn’t made that feeling any less odd. Everything here was still his: the books, the work, the accolades scattered over every floor– his life imbued into every stone of this place like a heartbeat. Now it stands shadowed. Still. Dark in a way that made the walls close in and shift until she’s standing in those wretched catacombs again.

She bolts to the bedroom, burying herself in their bed until the sour scent of that tomb rubs off her skin. She buries her face in Gale’s pillow and inhales the cool smell: lavender, amber, the earthy crack of parchment and fresh ink. Home . She hugs it close for hours, drifting somewhere between dreams and delirium until the door of their room finally creaks open.

“Ciri?” Gale’s voice is a gravelly breath in the darkness. 

She launches herself against his chest before he can say anything else. He staggers back a little with the force of it, something clattering out of his arms as she wriggles between them. Solid. Warm. Here. Her wizard. Her husband. 

His surprised exhale brushes the top of her head. “Are you really here or has my exhaustion finally given way to full blown madness?” 

“I’m here.” Ciri rubs the muscles of his back, feeling the familiar curve, the warmth and dip of each breath. “And dear Gods did I miss you down there.” 

He softly tugs the burned edges of her hair. “What happened?” 

Concern blooms tender as a bruise under his words and she finally tilts her face back to greet him. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

She touches the side of his face. Beautiful, strong, and looking just as tired as her body feels right now. His eyes are unfocussed and heavy, the soft lines around them tracked deep like he’d spent days squinting by candlelight alone. There’s something grey speckled over his neck and the rumpled collar of his robes. Ichor? Ash? Probably the byproduct of whatever his students managed to conjure when they thought he wasn’t looking. 

She kisses him gently, pressing long enough for the tension to bleed from his frame. She wants to hold him, lose herself in dreams and his skin until it’s long past noon the gulls are loud outside their window. She doesn’t expect him to hold fast when she tries to tug him towards the bed. He clings to her mouth, pulling her close until he’s swallowing her surprised little gasp. There’s nothing tentative about the ways his hands roam her back, her sides, the outside of her thigh. She lets him feel, falls into the ease of loving him as warmth pools low in her chest.

“Ciri.” When he pulls back, his want is stained clearer than any blush over his face. She adores it. 

And sleep can always wait a little longer.

He brushes the swell of her bottom lip, waiting for her assent. “Please?” 

She slips her hands into the opening of his robe, smiling when she finally finds bare skin. “Yes.”

They don’t make it to the bed. Her palms end up against the rug, handprints of soot eclipsing the golden sunflowers stitched there. It was a wedding gift from one of Gale’s countless relatives. An aunt perhaps. Or maybe of his hundred cousins. The Dekarios clan was so endless that the harder Ciri tried to mentally separate them, the more they clumped into some enormous chimera of brown hair and loud opinions. The name eludes her– a fair consequence considering her husband is currently fucking her senseless into their bedroom floor.

His hands clamp harder against her waist. It’s Possessive. Angry almost. Gods does she want it. His hands had been speckled with ink when he jerked them to vanish her clothes. The marks of a professor Ciri had started calling them. Now she wants him to leave his own marks on the parchment of her skin, ones she’ll poorly hide under collars and cuffs and caress when her work pulls her out of the city. Sometimes she wants to be taken apart carefully, her body some delicate contraption under his meticulous hands. This isn’t one of those times. She needs mess, fire, rough edges and blunt inelegant movements. She wants to be under his tongue and between his teeth, left with bites of passion not poison. 

He nips her shoulder and slams into her again, the slap and her cry reverberating between the walls like a perverse hymn. Desire burns in her chest when she turns to take him in. His face is flushed, lips wet, his hair a sweaty mess of chestnut and silver against his neck. It’s the sight of him that only belongs to her. And the sight of her red and arched on her knees will only ever belong to him.

He releases her waist to massage her breasts, pinching at her nipple with soft precision. Her legs tremble as he rubs the tip, slowly, maddeningly. He kisses from her shoulder to her ear, mouthing there until it's damp with want and she’s fisting the rough fibres of the rug hard enough to hurt. 

“Ciri, love , I’m going to– I need...” Gale screws his eyes shut and his pace stutters.

She smiles and gently cups the back of his neck. “Go on. I want you to.”

He presses his face between her shoulder blades as he finishes. She strokes his hair through the aftershocks before easing him out of her and laying them both down on the floor. His eyes stay closed but the hand against her chest wanders down until it brushes her swollen clit. She lifts her hips to his touch, sighing as he circles and plays until her own pleasure washes over her in a warm tide.

She runs her fingers through the damp hair on his chest while they slowly come back to themselves. Another thing she loved and another thing so removed from elves. She’d met a few with fairly meticulously beards but all the ones she’d been with had been smooth like marble. Ciri was never smooth, even before she burned herself red and rough.

She waits for their breaths to calm before shifting over him. His face is soft, but there’s a crease in his brow, a single stone caught in the gentle current of his thoughts. She traces the bruised veins swirling from the corner of his eye to the silent orb in his chest. Sometimes she almost finds it strange to think that it’s forever satiated now, never to brighten again. 

“I miss how it used to glow,” she murmurs, rubbing over it slowly.

Gale’s eyes flick back from their faraway thought. “Really now?”

She chuckles. “There were no emotions you could ever hide from me. When you were embarrassed, wanting, when you really liked what you saw. The first time you took my clothes off you could have cut straight through the shadow curse with how powerful that light was. I’m surprised the Absolute didn’t descend on our camp then and there.”

He kisses the slight tease from her lips. “The permanent mark of my folly and beacon for impending disaster, but at least it functioned as a mood light. I think I prefer it as it is now. Besides, you hardly need me to light your way.”

She ignites the tip of her finger at his words and flicks the flame over to the hearth. His smile drops as the room brightens, eyes fixed to the sickly green veins on the arm that hadn’t yet healed. “When did that happen?”

“It’s nothing.” 

“Nothing looks a lot like spider venom, Ciri.” 

“Really, it’s fine,” she insists, keeping her voice gentle. “Hazards of the job. One time I lost three fingers when a particularly angry Allosaurus took a bite out of my staff. The cleric I was with restored my hand but I was more angry about the staff to be honest. It was made of Cryptstone.”

The laugh in her words doesn’t assuage his frown. “I wouldn’t exactly call that anecdote reassuring.”

“I suppose not, but there’s a reason I’m still standing here. Yes, the spider problem was a tad larger than they advertised but I handled it the usual way. With fire and a lot of improvising.” 

Gale turns her hands over, eyes jolting wide when he takes in the burns slicing up her arms. “Ciri… you promised that if it got too much–”

“It wasn’t.” She crosses her arms over the worst of her marks, suddenly feeling a lot more naked than when he was inside her. “And I’m here now, just like I promised. Nothing to worry about. I was fine. I’m always fine.” The words spill a little too fast from her mouth as she strides over to the wash basin by the window. She ignores the mismatched smudge of scorch-red and green in her reflection. Stupid , she thinks, use the salves before you return next time.

Gale’s reflection runs a hand down its face. “You know it’s perfectly alright that you aren’t indestructible. Or if you want to give it a little more time.”

Ciri doesn’t look up from rubbing the cloth between her legs. The last year had seen her burned, crushed, drowned and her mind penetrated with voices that she wanted to tear out with a pickaxe– she won’t let herself be scared by spiders. The other heroes here certainly wouldn’t have been.

“It was a bit of a close call but I’ve had plenty of those before,” she continues, wringing the cloth in the cold water. “It’s my job, Gale. One I’ve been doing since I was fourteen. It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“You see, you keep saying that but I think I’m entitled to a bit of a shock when you disappear for more than a tenday and return with considerably more burns and bite marks.” 

Ciri hears him pad closer. “Come on, we’ve faced big spiders before.”

“ We being the operative word there. You do not have our merry little troop to help anymore.” He cups her shoulders and gently turns her around. “Or Withers.” 

The concern on his face cools her blood far more than the water dripping down her body. “Gale–”

“If I, if someone can’t get to you in time… I’d rather not dwell on it.” 

Pride curdles to guilt in her chest. “It sounds like you’ve been dwelling on it quite a lot actually,” she answers flatly. She doesn’t need to be reminded of the dangers of her work; she doesn’t need to be saved. Not by anyone, not by– 

She pinches off the tip of the thought before it ignites into foolish anger. Dragon fire in her soul meant dragon fire in her thoughts but she’s not going to let her temper ruin this. Not when it’s not even what he’s saying. Being worried for, ached for, it’s an alien feeling– decades hiding her gold and rations from bandits and monsters and now her husband sends her off to adventure with an actual packed lunch. The eddies of his love were still an ever-changing series of discoveries, love that didn’t need to be begged for, no worry of it being taken, of her being too much, too hot, to dangerous to want. Something she thought she’d lowered her walls enough to let in.

She considers that being a little softer might not such a bad thing. Not if his arms are the ones holding her up.

“I’m right here,” she murmurs, pressing her cheek to the soft thud of his heartbeat. “I’m home.”

There’s a long moment of quiet before Gale wraps his arms around her, forehead resting to the crown of her head. “You’re right. You are.”

She can almost feel the words he’d swallowed down now bubbling in his chest. She rubs her face against them.

“Do I really look that bad?”

“You look fierce. You always do.” He softly thumbs the scales on her forehead. “Without you or Tara it’s so maddeningly silent here. There are only so many essays I can mark before my mind starts to drift to all the ways you’re probably getting hurt.”

She kisses the orb again before untangling herself and grabbing her pack. Deep in the bottom she finds the book she unhooked from the hands a particularly dusty skeleton. “I thought you might like this.”

His eyes brighten like the sun when he brushes the grime from the tough leather cover. “Aubayreer's Workbook,” he murmurs, awed. “There are only about twelve known copies left— by the weave—   this looks hand scribed…” his gaze snaps up to meet hers. “Who did you pinch this from then?”

She shrugs. “Is it really a crime if they’re dead?”

He cradles the book with the care of a parent holding their newborn babe. “Last I checked, grave robbery was still an offence in Waterdhavian law… but I suppose they are not exactly here to report you, are they?” 

She squeezes his shoulder, glad for the warmth now painted pink and beautiful over his face. “Perks of the job.”

The final hours of the night are spent wrapped up in each other and their bedsheets. She buries herself in his chest, bathing in their joint scent of sweat and soot. She watches dawn brighten their shared space and begins to plan how to get back down and grab those spider legs before anyone else claims her prize. And if she should find another rare tome hidden in a locked crypt, who was to stop her taking a look?

Chapter Text

"Okay. Here we go again."

The artificial gusto in Ciri's voice does nothing to prise her toes from the wooden edge of the pier. Her reflection regards her with a flat grimace, its dirty face splitting in half as another unidentified lump breaks the surface of the Chionthar. Wonderful. The reflection's body shudders as she tries not to think about whether it was chum or cerebellum. Two tendays of diving in and out of this gods-forsaken river and the whole ordeal still hadn't gotten any less disgusting.

Behind her, Tara coughs from the safety of her blanket nest. "Are you sure you'd not rather try another part of the river? This stretch seems to be especially… viscous."

Ciri scans for the glint that had just pierced the thick brown water. Every attempt to magically pull them out had failed. Hot pain pierced her mind the second she had a grip and ripped each spell to nothing. Even shattered to shards, the netherese remnants still fought against true weave like an alley cat backed into a corner.

"I'm sure it saw it here. One more try," she calls.

"Your funeral, dear."

"You are more than welcome to look yourself."

Tara's eyes flick up and down, lazily appraising her mud-soaked robes. "Tempting, but then there would be no one here as your faithful lookout."

Ciri sighs as her faithful lookout stretches under the one patch of yellow that had broken through the heavy clouds. It does nothing to brighten the rest of the dock which remains a cold patch of damp slate and gunmetal. Even in the springtime, Grey Harbour lives up to it's name.

The wind picks up, turning the droplets on her skin to ice. Instantly, her muscles seize and jagged smoke curls behind her lips. Iraxys isn't happy. Ciri can't exactly blame her.

"I've waded through a literal sewer before. This isn't that bad," she grits out, rubbing her arms until they're salmon pink under the dirt.

"Tell that to whatever is clumped in your hair right now."

Her fingers search then jerk away from the spongy lump. Netherbrain. The main culprit for fouling up her hunting ground. Even before it crashed straight into the Chionthar, the water was hardly inviting. The scent of rotten fish and oil clung to the air, squeezing like a dirty hand around her throat if she breathed too hard in the Lower City. If Waterdeep was soft curves and jewel tones then Baldur's Gate was hard edges and smog— it was an honest sort of griminess, one Ciri had found herself missing, but the water was something else entirely. Passage on a good ship got you an apology and perfume soaked handkerchief. On a cheaper one— maybe a bucket. Her enquiries in the Blushing Mermaid had quickly dashed her hopes that the river had gotten any cleaners.

"Looking to fish?"

"To swim."

The bartender had given her a sour shrug. "Hope you know a good cleric then."

In the distance, the servants of Umberlee streak through the water, their scalemail shimmering like minnows in the surf. She watches them swirl and swoop for a while longer, smiles bright and faces untouched by slime. The brain in her hand bursts into flames and she briefly wonders if she should have just paid for the Bitch Queen's blessing.

Her eyes drift to the sack of metal by her feet.

Then again, she already has one callous goddess to appease and she'd rather not be subjected to the whims of another.

She makes wide, unflinching eye contact with Tara before jumping back in.

"Spiritus aqua," she spits into the icy water. Water breath. Not exactly a favourite spell of hers. Pulling such wet strings of the weave always felt as if she was trying to cast backwards. Fire and lightning tapped into her anger, her blood— but water was softer, like trying to wrestle silk without creasing it.

The mud oozes over hands as she scrabbles through the bottom. Sea-blunt weapons, rotted wood, the bones of unlucky humanoids— she rakes past them all until something sharp slices her skin. She ignores the sting and plunges her hand deeper. The metal had slipped deep; the hungry mouth of the riverbed clamps around her wrist. She tugs, feels the shard tear deeper into her palm until her muscles scream with the effort and her concentration breaks.

Brown and crimson water burn in her nose, but the mud finally releases both her hand and her prize.

Back on the pier, she lays down and lets the water run off her in thin pungent rivulets. Her throat aches like she's swallowed a chunk of sandstone— fuck she never thought she'd miss the noisy bays outside of the Tower so much. Right now she'd pay any of amount of gold for its brain-less waters and the rich scent of fried fish rather than sewage.

She lifts the fragment of crown, the dark metal aggravatingly tiny compared to her fingers. The confidence in her search, something once giddy and fiery gold, was quickly waning with every lap of the Chionthar's tide. A crown the size of a small building— not something that should have been difficult to find, and with all it's boundless cosmic power hadn't managed to save itself from shattering into what felt like infinite and ridiculously small pieces.

She tosses the shard into the mostly-empty sack.

Just another couple hundred or so to go, she thinks bitterly. No problem at all.

Soft footsteps creak on the planks behind her.

"Told you it was there, Tara," Ciri coughs without looking back. "I wasn't losing my mind."

"I'm not so sure about that."

She recognises the voice immediately. Soft, elegant, calm and judgemental as an owl. The name leaves Ciri's lips before she can jerk to her feet.

"Shadowheart?"

The half-elf stands before her, a willowy vision in pale travelling leathers. "In the flesh."

Ciri stares numbly. She isn't here, can't be here. She waits for the woman in front of her to blink away with the debris in her eyes.

She arches a well-manicured eyebrow at Ciri's gawping. "I suppose it's been a while, hasn't it. But do I really look that different?"

She runs a hand through her loose hair. She'd darkened it again, a waterfall of ink now spilling down her spine and caressing her hips. A few silvery pieces still frame her face, twining with the dark strands like slivers of moonlight on a crisp evening. Ciri unconsciously runs a hand through the mess on her own head.

"You look amazing," she admits.

Shadowheart inclines her head. "And you look a tad slimier than last I saw you."

Ciri tries to pull the memory of when they'd last seen each other. Drinks with some other academy professors? A Selûnite vigil under Waterdeep's wintry moon? The search proves fruitless, the memory trapped with so many others she'd locked away, ones she'd long decided were best left unplumbed.

"How did you find me?" she asks.

Shadowheart's green eyes sweep around the dock. “I got wind that some insane orange-haired elf had been jumping in and out of the Chionthar. I didn't exactly need three guesses to figure out who it was."

“Lots of ginger elves around here.”

"Only one with a tressym who’s been taking the best catches straight out of the fisherman's nets.” She gestures to Tara who'd abandoned her post in favour of Shadowheart's arms.

“It’s no Waterdeep but the tuna here is still excellent," she purrs.

“They sell it in the market, you know."

Tara recoils like Ciri had suggested eating straight out of the gutter. "If it doesn’t have a properly prepared sauce then I much prefer them fresh and wriggling.”

Ciri flings her arms open and Shadowheart gracefully dodges her. "Let’s save the hugs for after a long bath. You’re covered in some… interesting lumps.”

"That goes double for me, dear," adds Tara.

Ciri makes a deliberate show of spinning around and letting the river fly off her in fat droplets. “So you haven't missed the smell of adventure?”

"Adventure? Maybe. Old brain and… whatever else you're soaked in? Not so much.”

The sunlight catches Shadowheart's sharp cheekbones and kisses them a warm pink— a far cry from their papery dullness under Shar's influence. Ciri smiles. She's glad the years had been kind to someone at least.

"I've missed you," she breathes.

A muscle tightens in Shadowheart's jaw. "But not enough to tell me that you were here, I suppose."

The water running down Ciri's neck suddenly feels a lot colder. "I wanted to, I was going to," she starts. "I just— it's really complicated." The words thud between them, weak as they are unsatisfying. "Knowing you, you've probably sussed out why we're here then," she quickly adds.

"Given there's only one thing of note at the bottom of this river besides The Emperor's corpse, I had my assumptions." She gently scratches the top of Tara's head until she purrs. "Also your tressym is rather chatty." She kneels before Ciri can say anything else and peeks into the sack at their feet. Her breath catches as she pulls Orin's netherstone into the sunlight. With no thrall to command, it's as dull as seaglass, the ruby surface scratched and cold.

"I never thought I'd see this again," she murmurs.

Ciri kneels beside her. "I fished it out of a crab trap. Strange to think how many people died for this thing."

"You mean how many people we killed for it?"

"Orin's body count definitely outshines us there."

The memory of killing her swims hot and sticky in her mind. She'd torn the whitest flames she could from her soul to trap Bhaal's twisted chosen, the slayer's skin sizzling under Shadowheart's radiant touch before she'd skewered it's jaws permanently closed. They'd plucked the stone from the mulch of Orin's corpse, right from the clutches of a God. And now Ciri was going to hand it to another.

Her eyes harden.

The God of murder has her resentment. The God of magic has something far far uglier.

Ciri touches the other woman's shoulder, voice soft. "You know me. I just didn't want to drag anyone else into this. Literally or figuratively." It's a coward's excuse, bitter on her tongue with just how easily she could skirt the truth.

Shadowheart sighs like a dagger being unsheathed. It's not an unkind sound, just tired. "I know. So that's why I had to call on some old friends."

A dark shape suddenly hurtles over their heads and lands in the river with a thunderous splash. Tara hisses as water slaps at their feet. Ciri blinks, wondering if the Flaming Fist had finally grown tired of her and launched some large boulder their way. A bald head breaks the surface, proving her half right.

Shadowheart shakes the wetness from her boots. "As grand an entrance as always, Minsc."

The burly human grins as he rhythmically bobs in the waves. "Do not worry my fiery friend! Minsc is the mightiest swimmer in this city. No shiny trinkets shall escape my grasp, especially with Boo as my guide.” Ciri hears a squeak and spies the tiny hamster curled on Shadowheart's shoulder. Tara's eyes flash.

"Would you like to see a magic trick, rodent?"

Minsc splashes more water onto the dock. “Boo! Beware the tricksome feline and her tales of surprises. The only thing she wants to show you is the inside of her belly.”

"Can you blame me?" Tara runs her tongue over needle-sharp teeth. "Giant space hamster is a delicacy I’ve been meaning to try and so rarely does the opportunity present itself.” The tressym launches into the air and Boo burrows further into Shadowheart's hair.

Ciri shakes her head and turns back to Minsc's glowering face. "I'll keep him safe, don't worry."

"Then treasure awaits!" he booms before ducking below the surface, his bald head disappearing like a tan stone into the mud.

Ciri leans towards Shadowheart. "Does he actually know what I’m looking for… or why?”

"No, but the little bird that told me you were here should set him on the correct course," she answers, petting Boo's head with the tip of her finger.

“A little bird?”

“Well, she was a bird at the time.”

The water breaks again and a smaller, sleeker shape lands on the planks— an otter, Ciri realises. Tara hisses again as the creature trots forward with something dark clamped in its mouth. Its pebble black eyes regard Ciri before greyish fur bursts in a flurry of magic and leaves Jaheira standing before her. She spits the netherese shard into her hand with a sharp smirk.

“Didn’t have any time to drop in on old friends I see? And after everything we went through, it's a little rude, no?” She folds her sodden arms and Ciri suddenly feels about three inches tall.

"I've got it handled." It's not technically untrue. Her words still come out with all the confidence of a reprimanded school-child.

The taut lines around Jaheira's eyes don't waver.

“Right. Twenty days jumping in and out and in and out my Harpers tell me, and what do you have to show for it? You'd think if you wanted to find a needle in a haystack, you'd ask the people who might have eyes around the city. ” Her lips crease with humour as Ciri suddenly becomes very interested in her own shoes. Years since they've seen each other and Jaheira's judgement is still better at disarming her than swords. They'd brought down a cult together, seen the open wounds on their bodies and minds and it doesn't change the fact Ciri is standing in front of her childhood hero and disappointing her.

"It's more like a hundred needles," she murmurs, painfully aware her cheeks are as red as her scales. "For an all-powerful crown it still couldn't stop itself shattering into a fuck-ton of pieces."

Jaheira shakes her head. "Fuck-ton or no, I'm done waiting for you to notice my help so—" She whistles sharply and a dozen other people emerge from the edge of the pier, each with the Harper's symbol emblazoned on their shirts. Her eyes glimmer. "Tell me, do dragons have tunnel vision or is that just you?"

Realisation slams into Ciri. "Please let me hold onto a shred of my dignity by telling me they weren't here the whole time."

Shadowheart's laugh bleeds out of her cupped hands. "Oh yes. We spent the morning watching you blunder past them from the Blushing Mermaid." The two half-elves exchange a mirthful glance. "After a while we thought it was best to clue you in. That one track mind is going to get you killed one day."

Ciri's words dry like the silt clinging to her skin. Truthfully, she had considered reaching out to contacts in the city— Rolan, the Guild, the Harpers, hoping that they might stoke the fire in her belly from their last adventure, one she can still feel the embers from when she lets herself remember. Feelings from an aeon ago. Feelings from before her world had shattered into more shards than that fucking crown. She'd walked to the rebuilt Sorcerer's Sundries, found the hidden cobbles of the Guild entrance, spied Jaheira's front door from a wonky rooftop— each time slipping back into the shadows before anyone noticed. No one else needed to see this interlude. And no one else needed to tell her it was hopeless.

The years had ripped away so many pieces of her there was little left but sinew and scales. Her pride, her fire, the righteousness that burned unending and stalwart as the sun— gone. The saviour of Baldur's Gate reduced to grovelling for a goddess's scraps.

Poor little hero.

It isn't your place.

You'll be in our prayers.

Piteous words spread like poisoned honey across her cheeks, the same sentiment mushed up and spat out over and over from one side of Faerun to the other. She won't, can't, hear them regurgitated from people she actually respects.

Something unfamiliar warms in Ciri's chest.

What a concept. Long forgotten, or perhaps willingly ignored, that people would still come and help regardless of how much, how obstinately, she hid herself.

Jaheira whistles again. "Harpers! You know your mission. Drinks are on the last one to find a piece before the sun sets.” The rest of her team gracefully dive into the water, not a splash made between them. Ciri whips around.

"Jaheira. I— Thank you."

The druid smiles and tactfully pulls another lump from Ciri's hair. “You commanded that damned brain to end itself and you led us in the fight to save our city. Whatever happens, we’re always at your disposal.”

The blue pulse of healing magic suddenly brushes Ciri's hand. “All of us," Shadowheart continues, tracing the cuts with soft precision. "For you. And for Gale.”

The torn skin closes against her touch, closing away some of Ciri's doubts with it.

The following tenday whips past in a swirl of foamy waters and earthen spells. Harpers join from the reaches of the city and beyond, bright-eyed and stone-determined under Jaheira's barked directions. The druids take to the shores. Some bribe crabs and gulls to check narrow crevices while others scout ahead, the brown waves melting into clearer blues under their touch. The rest map the river, step by step, mile by mile, until the vastness of Ciri's impossible hunting ground zeroes down to inked squares on paper. Every day she crosses another one off and deposits the new handful of shards onto the floor of Jaheira's parlour.

Ciri spends her days with Tara amongst the disarray. For a while it's nothing but mess, shoving pieces together with the finesse of forcing sand back into it's original rock. One night she forgoes Jaheira's guest bed and lies amongst them, staring at the black constellation until the tiny shapes dance behind her eyelids. It's then that she feels the vibration. Gentle as a blown kiss in the air— the sharp edges murmur, no, hum around her.

Hazily, she remembers the tune from the crown itself, first the symphony as it held the netherbrain, then the elegy as it fell. It's a whisper now, Netheril's magic barely motes in the darkness. She presses her fingers to her lips, focuses on the shape of the noise.

Once, Gale had likened their magic to music, how he studied the sheets so careful while she played by ear. "There are different and perhaps more elegant ways to pluck the strings of the weave, but we are playing the same tune, are we not?"

The memory tightens in Ciri's chest. Her eyeroll had done nothing to dissuade the boyish grin from his face, the first time she'd noticed just how bright his gaze shone when waxing poetic about magic. That night, she'd burned some nuts between her fingers, staring at the way the hard shells split to reveal something tender and sweet and alive beneath— just like his eyes. And she'd wanted to throw herself off the Grove's cliffs for thinking it.

She pulls the pieces closer, listens to how the hum grows and wanes as dawn bleeds through the window and two shards finally fuse between her fingers.

Sparks fly on her exhausted laugh.

"The same tune," she murmurs, fingers flying across the metal until the crown begins to take shape in the blue morning light.

When the sun fully raises its head, she spends a few hours walking the Lower City. Unlike the pearly gleam of the High Halls, these streets wore their scars with pride. Bursts of mismatched stone decorate the cobbles, the shadow of a Nautaloid's firepower. Ciri touches a few, feels the warmth and the wear— the heartbeat of a place that had been thrown through hell and was pulled back through cracked spines and sweat.

Like she could.

Like she will.

She clings onto the thought like a gold piece in her palm.

Later, she finds Shadowheart staring up at a statue of Balduran, her face marble white and marble hard. Ciri makes a beeline, glad to catch her. There had scarcely been a moment to talk, the cleric usually flitting between various Harper teams with Tara wrapped around her shoulder like a furry scarf.

"This one's new," Ciri says, eyeing the plaque under the statues boots.

Against the Absolute and beyond.

"They say his spirit always helps those in need. That it's the essence of heroes," Shadowheart comments dryly.

"I'd like to keep his essence as far away from my brain in future," Ciri murmurs. She feels the echoes of it sometimes, his voice, his touch, pushing cold and violating through avenues of her mind.

The clouds shift and Balduran's shadow falls over them like a black curtain. Parts of his armour glimmer bronze through the dark patina, his boots, his gauntlets, his helmet, all places adventurers rubbed for luck. One hand crests a sword, the other his eyes, blank gaze forever cast over the the city— his city. A mindflayer's city.

"Sometimes I wonder if we should tell everyone about what he really was," Ciri continues. "What he did to Stelmane and Gods-knows how many others."

Shadowheart doesn't look away. "And destroy the hopes and dreams of people who just got their livelihoods back? Now there's a good idea."

"Well, you know me, all my ideas are good ones."

She answers with a faraway hum.

"So, how's your growing farmyard? The Owl Bear must be huge by now."

"Still tries to sleep in my bed sometimes," she says after a moment.

"What about Scratch?"

"He's fine in his own bed." The answers are clipped. Survey-clinical. She rubs her wounded hand as Ciri steps closer, thumb rhythmically pick pick picking around the skin as if excising a splinter. The last time she'd visited the tower, she'd gushed for hours about her animals, words bright and eyes blazing with a light Selûne would want to bottle and Shar could only dream of extinguishing.

Ciri swallows the pit of worry burning in her throat. "Have you heard from Isobel?"

"Not recently."

"And your parents?"

Shadowheart draws a breath, sudden and cold. "They're fine."

Ah. There's the splinter.

Ciri shifts a little closer. "I have a good bottle of red if you want to talk—"

"I don't," Shadowheart interrupts. Her words are just the edge of unfriendly, a warning Ciri doesn't understand.

"Are you sure?"

"Quite."

Ciri exhales, decides to push against the pane of ice between them with hotter words. "You told me everything once."

Shadowheart answers with a tight silence. Before, she spoke volumes in quiet— the point of her eyebrow or her smirk saying more than any retort. This is different. Colder. Ciri sees her words snagged between her teeth, turning like a bitter herb she won't spit out.

"I should see if the Harpers need anything," she finally answers before brusquely walking away, leaving Ciri in the cloud of dust and confusion kicked up by her boot heels.

"You seriously cannot understand why she might be a little frosty to you?" Tara stares down at Ciri from Jaheira's sofa that evening, eyes flickering with sleepy judgement in the lamplight.

"I know it's been a while since I've spoken to people properly but has my presence become that off-putting?"

"Would you like an honest answer to that question?"

Ciri rolls her eyes but it doesn't dislodge troubled feeling behind them. The gods were cruel and Shar was the chill of cruelty incarnate. "She's spoken more to you than me this past tenday. Did something happen?"

"Not specifically."

"Then what is it?"

The tressym sighs into the pile of shards she was supposed to be sorting. "You can be frightfully thick-headed sometimes, Mrs. Dekarios."

Ciri looks up from the giant band of the crown curling around her like some great metallic serpent. "Then any help would be greatly appreciated oh wise one."

Tara ignores her sarcasm and swishes her tail back and forth for an aggravatingly long moment.

"You know, I hear Bloomsbridge Park is very nice at this time of night," she says before curling up on the nearest pillow. "Why not take a stroll?"

It doesn't take long to find Shadowheart there. She's the sole visitor, a shadow resting against the stone balcony and staring at the Chionthar beyond the buildings. The moon hangs like a dewy peach above, brightening the river's surface to a warm shimmer.

"The city really can be beautiful sometimes," she murmurs as Ciri' footsteps break the quiet. "You have to find just the right light."

Ciri shifts on her feet. "I like its dirty little corners. Though truth be told I've never really found myself missing Waterdeep more." She almost says home, but its not quite the right word. Not yet.

Shadowheart turns but doesn't meet her eye.

"You're angry at me," Ciri states.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Another silence. Another maelstrom of emotion confined to the close of her eyes and the rub of her thumb over her palm.

Ciri strokes the scales on her forehead. "I know it's been a while, so much fucking longer than it should have, but please don't shut me out."

"You shut me out." Shadowheart answers with flat weight. “I wrote to you a dozen times, Ciri. Not one response, not even from Tara, though she told me in no uncertain terms that that was at your request. Gale was gone and I thought—" her breath snags. "I thought you were going to follow."

Ciri feels the scars on her forearms burn.

"Never," she insists. "I wanted to see you, fuck did I want to— just not like this. I needed to wait until I wasn't so…” Broken. Useless. Empty. “until it was fixed."

Shadowheart leans back until her face pales in the full blanket of moonlight. "Shar is still cruel you know. The worst part is she doesn't have to hurt me herself as my mind is her sharpest weapon. Memories always drip back at the worst moments. While I was in the Cloister, they'd make me offer my Father freedom so long as he abandoned my Mother to rot there. Every time he said no. So every time I—” She clutches her hand harder, tendons white and cable-stiff through the skin. "I needed someone, Ciri. And once I had a friend. One who didn't leave me to die on the Nautaloid. One who isn’t in hell, or the astral plane or Gods-knows what corner of the underdark."

Guilt slaps with an icy hand across Ciri's face. "Shadowheart—"

"You were only real confident I’ve ever known and then you were gone," she continues, voice rising. "I came to your tower just to find it cold and overgrown as a tomb. I asked everyone I could think of where you'd gone and they all told me different places, and then I get a letter from Wyll of all people telling me they'd last seen you in hell. I heard from bloody Avernus before you." She pauses to catch the tumbling stone of her breath. "I was the only one of us who came to your wedding, Ciri. I buttoned you into your dress. It meant something. Or at least I thought it did."

The few steps between them suddenly feels wide and deep as a chasm.

“I was hurting," Ciri answers, shakily soft.

“So was I.”

"He's my husband."

“And you are not the only one who misses him!" Her fist slams the railing hard enough that Ciri's surprised the granite doesn't shatter. "He was the one person who understood, who knew what it was like to think you were loved by a Goddess when you were actually nothing but parts that they could break and bend for their own ends. But at least when Shar discarded me, she let me live. Happy to know I'd end up alone, I suppose."

Guilt and anger fight under Ciri's skin. She can almost taste Shadowheart's hurt in the air, iron-hot and iron-hard. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. She was going to fix it, blur away these years like paint over canvas and put things back to how things were. No one else needed to be anywhere near this feeling— not so much pain as pure black emptiness. She shut away what happened so it never had the power to rot into grief and fill her. So the space stayed empty, the bare pantry of her heart.

Maybe Ciri did understand the appeal Shar more than she wanted to.

"What about the Selûnites?" Ciri says.

Shadowheart lets out a wet scoff and stalks out of the moonlight. "Every time my Mother has a good day or we talk about what happened to me, my Father thanks Selûne. But it wasn't Selûne that saved them. She didn't stop Viconia from taking me or my parents from suffering for forty years. I was the one that freed them and I am not going to let another Goddess take credit for the blood, sweat and tears I've given to try and move on. I'm done with the divine. I needed someone real, Ciri. I could have helped you."

"But I can fix it. Whatever it takes I can—"

"For Gods' sake, you're not a saint!" Shadowheart clamps Ciri's shoulders, nails digging into the cloth like she might vanish if she let go. The golden green of her eyes darken, wild and desperate. "I remember what it was like to torture— the amount of people who just took it, like suffering was a noble thing. Each lash or missing finger a coin they could trade for some brighter heaven. And it's not. It's just that… suffering." She tugs up Ciri's sleeve, traces over the burn marks from Gale's letter with a touch so tender it almost hurts.

Ciri jerks her arms away. "I'm not suffering. Soon, we can just put it all behind us like a bad dream."

"A dream we're all living right now. Did you think we'd just be waiting, frozen, while you killed yourself trying to bring him back?" She throws up her arms and slaps them against her sides. "Why even tell us what happened at all?"

"You deserved to know." The lie curdles sour on her tongue. It's what she told herself, told Tara, told the air when she doubted herself and pushed the real reason down down down as far as she could.

If something happened to her, those were the only people she wanted to know the truth of it.

Clouds cover the moon and swallow the park in thick a navy sheet.

"And what happens if this fails? Do you really think Mystra is going to help you?"

Ciri's fingers dig bruises into her palm. "I'll make her."

"I'm serious," Shadowheart continues. "Sharran doctrine always called Mystra fickle and jealous and that she holds onto grudges like a swindler does a winning hand of cards. Those texts might not be the pinnacle of truth but after what she said to Gale, after what she did to him—"

"You didn't see what she did to him!" Ciri's shout tears through the air like flames through dry kindling. "I did. I watched it happen. I stood with his wedding ring in my hand as that fucking orb tore apart every thread of his being. You think I don't know what she's capable of— how petty and vindictive and fucking cruel she is. She could have left him alone and she chose not to. He did what she wanted and she took him. The Absolute is gone and she took him from me!"

Her breaths punch through the quiet, ash-filled and wet. There it was. All the anger towards that Goddess spilled on the stone at her feet— everything she'd held back as she found the crown, playing the good little helper, hoping her silence and the sweat on her brow could be enough to finally be granted an audience with her.

And she knows it probably won't be enough. Of course it won't. Elminster danced around it but Shadowheart sees right through— her last chance to fix this and its barely more than a fool's hope.

It won't stop her trying.

"You still came all this way to speak to her before me," Shadowheart murmurs into the darkness. Her posture droops like the ground itself is tugging at her with gentle hands. "I know this is not about me, I know that, but… hells…I don't know what I'm supposed to do here."

Ciri presses her fingers into her eyes hard enough to see stars. She'd never stayed anywhere long enough to set down roots. Strange how being plucked by a Nautaloid set that in motion, gave her friends, allies, loves that bloomed and stretched from the dunes of hell to glimmer of the Astral Sea. And now it was rotting.

Mystra ripped out her heart. Everything else she let wither all by herself

"Why does saving the world seem so bloody simple now?" Ciri throws a handful of dancing lights into the air, watches as the silvery strands around Shadowheart's face catches the rainbow of colour. "I really thought the only life I was going to fuck up by doing this was my own. And I was wrong again." She stares at the ground, wishing it could just swallow her up and take her to some quiet black oblivion. "I'm a fool… and I know it doesn’t mean much now, but I’m sorry."

Warm hands cup her wrists. "You're only a fool if you truly think that doesn't mean something." Shadowheart's eyes glisten in the light as she looks up, the porcelain finally cracked. "And I'm sorry that I can't fix this either."

Ciri tugs the other woman into her arms before she can say anything else. "You 're doing more than enough. I promise." The lights around them flicker with her shaky breath. She repeats it again, resolutely. "I promise."

A strange sight, Ciri thinks, to those who might wander past on their midnight stroll. Two people falling to their knees in a tangle, weeping under the moon when she was so sure she was out of tears to shed. Shadowheart's fingers find the nape of her neck, brushing the skin there back and forth until both of them finally quiet.

"All Mystra has to do is open a book. It's such a small thing," Ciri mumbles into Shadowheart's shoulder. It was a small thing for her to remove the orb or keep it sated—even then she wouldn't. The clerics on her travels all said the same thing in a roundabout sort of way, that the whims of the gods as unpredictable as the tides. She hated that answer for as cliched as it was a copout. The ocean doesn't feel, doesn't see the lives it destroys. Gods could. Mystra could.

Shadowheart wipes the wetness from Ciri's eyes, the first genuine smile of the past tenday tugging at her lips. "Then maybe, just maybe, you should work on asking her nicely."

A few days later, Minsc erupts from the water with Gortash's netherstone clamped between his teeth. His smile practically sparkles, wide as a dog with a particularly excellent stick. Ciri secrets both into her robe and refuses to part with them for even a moment. Even stripped of their power they seem to thrum right through to her skin like burning coal in her pockets. Two down, a crown almost completely formed twisting around the house— so Jaheira calls it good enough reason to celebrate. The Harpers gather in droves in her living room with as many barrels of wine as they can carry between them.

Ciri stays until eyes and words grow heavy. She leaves Tara on Shadowheart's lap and Minsc telling the story of how he fell into the River Styx before padding as quietly as she can through Jaheira's study and into the basement.

It's as wild as the last time she ventured in, the only patch of wilderness a druid like her could ever be permitted. The air smells like rain, trees and vines bursting from the ground and towards the small shed where Ciri finds a perch for her evening reading. The Annals of Karsus. Two years ago she'd torn through it, desperate to find answers amongst words she could barely understand. Now, with the crown so close and the stones heavy in her pocket, she feels something. The tiniest voice pulling warm ideas from the caverns of her mind.

Fix it. Claim a little of the power Mystra wanted. Just enough to burn through the thin fabric between here and the outer planes until—

"Not enjoying the party?"

She slams the book closed at Jaheira's sudden voice. The half-elf leans against the doorframe with a glass of red wine in each hand.

Ciri rubs the back of her neck. "Damn, I thought I'd gotten away unnoticed."

Jaheira hands her a glass and starts rooting through one of the draws. "Even my children are sneakier than you. But then again, the modus operandi of 'explode things first and deal with the consequences later,' doesn't exactly make a good rogue."

"True."

She throws a glance back to the Annals in Ciri's lap. "That's not exactly light reading you've got there."

"I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about."

Ciri feels Jaheira's gaze pierce straight through the flimsy excuse. "I have a little experience in men trying to make themselves Gods. It never ends well."

Ciri quickly shoves the book and her ideas of divinity back in her robes. "You never know, I could be the first person to get it right."

"Yes, yes. As long as you can tell me how many letters are in the word hubris— aha!" She pulls a box free from the drawer. "I just came for my medicine." The pungent smell gives it away before she opens the case, a well-loved wooden pipe and a handful of devilweed nestled within. She smirks and pinches some between her fingers. "Care to join me? It works wonders for my bones."

Ciri chuckles and lights the pipe with a snap of her fingers. "Go on then."

Half an hour later, they're both lying on the floor amongst every blanket and pillow they could find in the basement. Ciri's muscles sag with a pleasant weight but her thoughts drift feather-light above, warm and dripping with colour.

"Not quite as potent as the stuff I brought back from Thornhold," she says as Jaheira blows an impressively large ring of white smoke towards the ceiling. "Shared a half a pipe with Gale one night and we ended up finishing an entire wheel of Arabellan cheddar between us. Gods his poor stomach the next morning. Is it like... fated that every wizard will end up with a poor tolerance for dairy? Maybe that's the ultimate price for arcane mastery."

Jaheira leans up from her stack of pillows. "I believe that's the first time you've said his name since arriving here."

The wiggle of Ciri's thoughts slows a little. "I suppose it is."

She studies the edge of Jaheira's face. Beautiful in her years, pressed lines of age, smiles, battles, life. One she kept living after the story of the Bhaalspawn crisis.

Jaheira reaches out like she could catch Ciri's stare between her thumb and forefinger. "What is on your mind, cub?"

"After it happened. After Gale—" Ciri hesitates, wonders when saying the word died wouldn't feel like she's the one pushing the knife. "After he left, I remembered what you told me when I was last in this room." She glances to the amulet around Jaheira's neck, Khalid’s Aid she’d called it, and feels Gale's wedding ring burn under her shirt. 

Jaheira picks up the end of Ciri's thought. "You wanted to ask about my husband, Khalid." There's a softness around his name as she speaks it. Something long-ago fond.

Khalid's story has been told by every hero in Baldur's Gate and beyond for over a century now. The dedicated Harper, steadfast and loyal to a fault, fighting with Jaheira in the early days of the Bhaalspawn conflict and murdered before it ended. For years that's all he was, lyrics sung in a tavern or lines printed in history books— no humanity needed. No details about the minutes when it happened, about the hole he left in his team, in the mission, in his wife's heart.

Jaheira rolls onto her back, eyes blearily scouting the ceiling. "He was a good man. Brave, a little odd, but he just made the world so much brighter. So many people are grey. Grey words, grey actions— but everything about him just seemed to burst with colour. Wild girl. Soft boy. It was a match so cliched I almost hated how perfect it felt." She closes her eyes, her smile flickering. "And then he was taken from me, alone, in pain, and far too young—murdered by a mage who craved immortality. I'll not grant it by naming him in the same breath as my husband." She thumbs the amulet on her chest until the gold fogs. "When I found him afterwards... seeing his body, what that bastard had done to him, I refused to believe it was real. I waited for a curtain to be pulled back, for him to walk out and for everything to go back to normal."

Ciri holds her own wedding ring to the light above, stares at where the two rings fuse into one mismatched whole. "For hours after the orb disrupted I half expected Gale to appear right next to me having thought of some last minute escape plan. For a while I was so angry that he didn't. I think I still am."

Jaheira passes her the pipe again. "Afterwards, Minsc tried to dry my tears with Boo. The big lug. Part of me hopes his time as a statue made him forget the things I said to him afterwards."

Her words catch slightly and Ciri looks away. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"It's alright, I've already done my time. I've turned over every second before he was killed, every conversation, every fight, every decision I made that might have saved him. I've screamed, cried, burned and broken everything I needed to. But then I moved on."

Moving on. A concept more alien to her than the mindlfayers now, though whether it's the pipeweed or the company the thought doesn't fill her with such a boiling rage— a different life, one without a chest worn so thin with heartache she's surprised people can't see to the gutted space inside.

"How did you move on?" the words spill without her mind's permission.

"You truly wish to know?"

"Wait— let me guess…" Ciri takes a long draw from the pipe, feels her tongue loosen against her teeth. "Something druidic like life comes in seasons… or— wait no... We water the seeds of change with our tears."

"Good lord, you think my brain is that clogged with dirt?" Jaheira's laugh ripples the wine in her free hand. "If I ever say something like that, kill me, as it's probably another shapechanger. There are no pithy catchphrases here, just the simple truth. Life goes on."

Ciri frowns when no other words follow. "That's awful advice."

"I’m not giving you advice. I’m telling you a fact. Life goes on. The worst thing imaginable happens, your heart shatters, your mind breaks into a thousand screaming pieces… and you don’t stop breathing." Jaheira regards her reflection in her glass for a long moment. "It's aggravating, but the sun keeps rising and eventually you find other ways to live it." When Ciri doesn't respond, she takes back the pipe with a softer expression. "You wear you pain like a laurel. One day you'll finally have to let it go."

Ciri jerks her head up. "You truly think I want to hold onto it?"

"Yes. I do," Jaheira states. "We twine ourselves to those we love and when they're gone, we grow around their absence. And that's the hardest part. Growing. Becoming something else without them. Do you think I didn't cling to my grief, my anger, because it was the last part of Khalid I still had? After a while, pain becomes armour and you don't let go because, well, who would you be without it? Discovering that person can be a terrifying prospect."

Ciri had long ago realised that two people died when the orb finally broke free but only one stopped breathing. And here she was caught in the limbo between wife and widow where neither word fit her right.

"Who did you become?"

Jaheira flicks her hand up and down her body. "You're looking at her. I've lived several lifetimes since that day, so I'll have plenty to say when it's finally my time to see him again."

Ciri hoists herself to a sitting position and stares down at Jaheira's slightly bleary person. No pained eyes, no body hunched and thin with regret. For a second she sees herself there, older, red hair twined with silver, her own fiery refuge lined with the mementos from adventures new and old. All she had to do was let go, open a hand that was rubbed bloody and raw from clinging onto her hope. Her guilt.

'Touch me again and I swear I will burn this tower to the ground.'

The old memory rips unbidden through her mind and burns the image to cinders. Ciri shakes her head. "If there was a way to bring Khalid back, even if was just a small chance, wouldn't you take it?" she asks, cramming that memory back into it's hiding place.

Jaheira offers her a smaller smile. "That's the beauty of living as long as I have. Because now I can simply say that I don't want to answer that."

"Of course you don't."

Jaheira shifts closer until Ciri can smell the savoury weight of each breath. "You know, as much we might try to fight it, we cannot choose who we fall in love with, but we can choose how we love them. And you chose to marry a man knowing your years were always going to vastly eclipse his own. Strip away the shock and your ire at his goddess and consider that even if he had lived all his human years, would the pain you feel at his death truly be that different? Would you not be searching for some way to keep him with you?"

Ciri's mouth bobs open and closed like a fish for a moment. Other memories claw in their hiding places, ones where no matter how many times she asked, cooed, kissed the question over him, Gale never wanted to make himself live any longer than he was 'supposed to.' Back when the idea of decades sounded so short, when she held that starry baby blanket to her belly and begged for something to take root while there was still time.

"I don't want to answer that," Ciri finally echoes and slumps back onto the floor. "Why are you helping me then?"

"Because I want you to succeed. More than I've wanted anything in a long long while. But also to remind you that you still have a whole lot of life left to live." Something clatters by Ciri's hand, a Harper's pin she realises. She turns it between her fingers as Jaheira taps the end of the pipe. "We're always looking for new members."

Another image floats to the front of Ciri's mind, one with the pin on her breast and Jaheira and Shadowheart smiling either side of her. A pretty dream, and she hasn't had any of those in years, so she lets it be. "You know, that doesn't sound too bad."

She fingers the netherstones in her pocket. One more was buried somewhere in the river beyond, the ticket away from the crossroads she stands at. But for now, she doesn't let herself think about it. Tonight she'll reminisce and eat and have probably the most wonderful trance of the past few years.

And in a few days, she'll stand before a Goddess and try her best to hide twenty-seven month's worth of hate.