The leatherbound book between her fingers felt heavier than when she first lifted it into her lap. Weighty thoughts now recorded, she knew it was not the additional letters and ink but instead the bearing down of her own conscience fooling her. Once these pages held the lofty thoughts and ideals of a woman dedicated to her God, enough so to follow him without thought or question. Tyr had placed her before trial after trial and she had met them solidly, never wavering, always seeking.
But a just hand became cruel as death's shroud descended over NeverWinter.
She should have questioned Desther's presence more thoroughly. Or perhaps advised Fenthick not to be involved. But, he was such a gentle soul, noble in how he gave everyone a chance to prove themselves to him. Noble and gentle and trusting. It was his naivete that killed him in the end. The very innocence she loved most of all and would never have corrupted, and yet it was and by the hand of fate. She watched him hang. She stood by as the sentence was pronounced and kept her features schooled to neutral as her beloved gave her one last look of desperation. She could not rescue him. She could not cut the rope that snapped his neck and strangled the life out of him with a final crack of justice.
But this was not justice.
All her life she had followed Tyr, sacrificed everything for her God. And in her time of greatest need, no one could or would comfort her. No one could give her back the life of the lover who's body swung gently from the tree before the Hall of Justice. Even her own grief was denied her. For how would it appear to the populace if a Paladin of Tyr wept at the execution of a condemned man?
Oh she heard the reasons and understood them. She even numbly registered the words passing her own lips. Neverwinter was in turmoil. The streets ran thick with anguish and grief and the people wanted, nay, needed someone to blame. A scapegoat to appease their monsterous appetite for justice.
No, not justice. Revenge.
And so Fenthick paid this price with his life. And with it, Aribeth felt nothing but her own numbness spreading day after day. She spoke mechanically, directed men and women, adventurers and mercenaries to their activities, spurred them on to their goals. And inside her anger festered unchecked. Only a few words of inquiry from a fellow paladin, a half-elven girl who had saved Neverwinter, would recognize the doubt that now plagued her, visiting her dreams and robbing her of any decent sleep.
And yet it was not enough. While the paladin ran off on her goals, Aribeth continued to hang back and her dreams became nightmares without ending and her days were spent in quiet suffering.
Now she sat within the very Tower of the people who brought about the plague, who killed so many men and women and children in cold blood. Her hands were stained, her soul blackened. A fallen paladin, a mockery of her former religion and a pitiful specimen left in the shell of a woman who once held the reins of a great city in her small hands.
She set the book aside, rising from the edge of her bed as she heard footfalls pass outside the door to her temporary lodgings. Maugrim would soon come for her, to complete the rituals that would bind her to his mistress, to the mysterious force that worked silently in the background. She would swear her allegience and abandon Neverwinter, from champion to nemesis.
But Neverwinter had already abandoned her. Betrayed her the day the executioner kicked the footstool out from beneath Fenthick's body and the crowd cheered.
