Part Seven - Flames
Suldenessellar was burning.
Tayna stood with her feet planted against white stone and breathed it in, the sharp, acrid stink of the flames, the way the air shimmered. Terse hours had taken them through the broken, scorched pathways of the city, past the crumpled dead and pushing hard against the drow. In the spell-wracked shell of a temple, they had mowed through a drow war party a dozen-strong before Elhan had motioned them desperately on.
The city was vast, and the thought of it caught the breath in her throat. White spires lancing up into the arching green canopy of the forest, and the broad pale spread of courtyards and avenues below. Irenicus, she thought, and wondered where he had hidden himself, where he had taken himself amid the white towers and burning trees and the carnage his monsters and his followers had left.
"Tayna," Jaheira said quietly, and jerked her chin up.
Tayna followed her gaze to the corner, her hand tightening on her sword hilt.
Shadows slipped across the stone and she settled herself, forcing the taut strain in her shoulders to ease. The first drow darted past the corner and she launched herself, half-aware of the others behind her. The first scything sweep of her sword knocked the drow's blade aside, and the follow-up buried the edge under the drow's chin. Still moving, she ripped the sword clear and turned. Another three steps took her shoulder-first into another drow, driving him back until she could heft her sword up and block.
The ringing jolt of it staggered her, and the sweep of Jaheira's spear shoved the drow away. Tayna scrabbled for her footing and responded, driving the point of her sword into the drow's chest.
"Done," Imoen said, her voice thin.
"We need to head east," Elhan said, sounding harried.
"To what?" Tayna snapped.
"The palace, and the queen."
She stared at Elhan for long, raking moments. "And the exile? Irenicus? You remember, don't you? The name you've been so very careful not to mention. And that he also happens to be the man who carved my soul out of me and took it for himself?"
Elhan swiped sweat-streaked hair out of his eyes. "This city must not fall, and we must find the queen."
"You're not listening, Elhan."
"I am hearing you."
Tayna stepped forward. She was aware of the thundering of her own blood in her ears, and how she could smell it on the long leaking wound that tracked down the side of her ribs. How she could smell the rest of it, simmering amid the jumbled pieces of the tower behind them and the stone under her feet.
"You've lied to me since you first set eyes on me," she said steadily. "You sent us off to find Bodhi. We did everything you asked. We found your Lanthorn and opened the way to your city. Tell me where he is."
Elhan shook his head. "Why would I know? The city was sealed and my soldiers entrapped outside."
"Right now, I don't care about this city. I'll burn it to the ground myself to get my hands on Irenicus."
"As an outsider, you have no right to speak such words."
She slammed Elhan against the wall, one hand digging into his shoulder. "You'll listen. You'll listen if I have to make you listen."
"Tayna," Imoen said, from somewhere behind her.
"I'm fine," she grated out, never once dragging her gaze from Elhan. "Where is he?"
"I don't know."
"Guess. Make it two guesses, even, since I'm feeling charitable."
He shifted against her, one hand tightening on his sword hilt. "It's likely he's in the palace with the queen."
"Really," she said flatly. "And I should believe you, why, exactly? After this dance you've lead us on?"
His eyes flashed. "Because to take the city, he needs to take the palace."
She lodged the point of her sword under his chin. "Why?"
"In the palace is – we call it the Tree. It is – it is the heart of the city. If he captures it, if he hurts it, he will have the city."
"How do we get in?"
He hesitated until she pressed the tip of the sword deeper against the yielding softness of his throat. He swallowed, blood beading his skin, and spoke quickly. Clipped words about gates and twisting branches and how the inside of the palace could only be opened a certain way, a way with the music of water and the glossy rich fullness of earth until the wood walls might part into a rolling pathway.
"That's the truth?" Tayna asked.
"All I know of it. You will do this? You will save the queen, and the Tree?"
"I'll find Irenicus and kill him. If I can save your queen, I will."
His shoulders sagged. "That is – that is all I can ask of you."
"And you?"
"I will gather my men. We will do whatever we can."
"Keep your people safe," she muttered, stepping away from him. The words were hollow and useless, forgotten almost as soon as she had spoken.
"Tayna." Jaheira this time, she registered, one hand clamping over her wrist.
"Yes?"
"Slow down," Jaheira said.
Tayna stared at her, sweat-streaked and breathing hard. "Why?"
"Rush this and you will hand any advantage you thought you had over to Irenicus."
"No," Tayna said coldly. "I'm going to find him and he's going to die. And if you can't follow me I will kill him myself."
Jaheira squeezed her wrist roughly. "That is not what I am saying, child. I am not leaving you to march into that palace alone."
"Then what are you saying?"
"That you need to remember yourself."
She jerked her arm free. "I am. And we're wasting time."
Her head was full of the sound of water and the thrum of her blood beneath that. In front of her, the high arched doors gave way to scrolling wood, dark and gleaming and full of the scent of rain-soaked trees.
The long stretch of the afternoon had taken them through the toppled towers of Suldenessellar, the drow fierce and fighting viper-fast. More than once, they had discovered demons with the drow, the air turning sharp and metallic with spells and the reek of spilled blood. At the palace, she had ordered Anomen and Minsc to shoulder the gates open while she threw herself at the first of another drow war party. She had been aware – whispers, rustling under her skin – of the others shouting for her to be careful, mind herself, think.
Now, deep inside the twisting halls of the palace, amid this strange glassy silence, she stood waiting. She tilted her head, peering down the glossy dark corridor until she thought she could see the tangles of branches, somewhere ahead. Until she could see the first coiling boughs of the Tree.
She traced her fingertips beneath her eyes, feeling the heat in her blood. The others were muttering behind her, Minsc murmuring to Imoen that he was fine, really, a simple spell later would be all he needed. Anomen turning away and speaking to Jaheira, his voice hushed and full of awe, at the Tree, at the way the wood had unfurled. Almost absently, she knelt beside the small pool and dipped her hands below the surface. The bright rings of the water shattered around her fingers.
"Talk to her," Jaheira said, from somewhere behind. "Imoen?"
"I tried. She won't – I don't know."
They were still speaking, she realized, almost drowned out beneath the roar of her own heartbeat, beneath the aching emptiness in her.
Where her soul had been.
Wherever it was her soul had been sliced out of.
Someone laid a hand on her shoulder and she shrugged away, her hands still buried in the water.
"You've opened the way," Edwin said, his voice oddly measured. "Tayna, you have opened the way to the Tree. We need to go."
"Yes." Fluidly, she straightened up. "I can feel him."
"Who?" the wizard asked.
"I think I can feel my soul, in Irenicus. And I think I can feel my father."
His eyes narrowed. "And if you let anyone else hear what you just said, I may have to redirect a debate at best and a fight at worst."
She blinked up at him, not quite able to sort through his words. Dark hair and darker eyes, almost lightless in the shifting shadows and she wondered if he had ever looked at her quite so fiercely. "You're right," she said, hearing the flatness in her own voice. "We need to go."
"(At least she's listening and vaguely sensible.) Yes."
Sharply she turned away from him, her hand dropping to her sword hilt, the blade fouled in its scabbard from the long hours cutting through the drow, from the afternoon's work. She ordered the others on, ordered them following her, and then she was stepping into the whorled warmth of the tree. Paces in, and whatever had been overhead rolled away, and she found herself gazing up at high arcing branches, heavy with leaves and drooping.
Imoen caught at her hand. "You know where we're going?"
"I think so," she answered tersely.
She tried to count their steps among the branches, between the branches as they dipped and bowed. She tried to see the sky, the blue blur of it somewhere above the green burst of the leaves. Underfoot, the wide shining branch looped up and she followed it, drawing her sword.
"Be ready," she murmured to Imoen.
"Always."
She cleared the slope of the branch and stopped, staring down at a wide circle of the Tree, carved out and seeping with sap at the edges. Part of her mind registered the woman – the queen, she realised, the elven queen she had seen in her sleep – lashed and bound to one of the branches. Pale beneath the loose loops of her hair, the queen was stiff and still, her eyes wide and green.
The rest of her awareness narrowed on Irenicus where he stood, hands splayed over the wood and his whole frame rigid.
Tayna grinned viciously. She took another step and said, "Remember me?"
The queen moved first, her head coming up sharply. Irenicus spun, his gaze bright and blue and finding hers.
"You," he spat. "You live, yet?"
For a terrible, trapped instant, she faltered. She stared at him, his hands crackling with some spell and his eyes aflame with fury and she thought of the cage. The cage beneath the ground, cold bars and colder instruments digging into her skin.
"Mmm," she managed, her voice wavering. "Me. I do, in fact. Shocked?"
"How is that you are here?"
"I wanted to see the look on your face. Well, on your mask. Whichever."
His head turned. "You've come for her."
"She's incidental," Tayna said blandly. "I'm here for you. I'm here for my soul."
"Are you," Irenicus said. He stepped forward, raising both hands. "And how have you managed this?"
"I killed your pet. Yoshimo." She hefted the weight of her sword, gauging the distance to him. "And I killed your sister."
His eyes glittered. "Did you. Then I should take it upon myself to finish her work?"
"If you want to try," she said. "She tried. And then I drove a stake through her spine."
"This is not about her. It never has been."
She circled him, hear the others behind her, the low whine of magic plucking at the air. The jangle of mail that meant Jaheira was hefting her spear, Minsc flanking her.
"You're right," she said, never once lifting her gaze from Irenicus. "It's always been about you and whatever it is you wanted."
"Wanted?" A vivid corona of fire sprang into life between his hands. "It is not about what I want, Child of Bhaal. It is about what I will have. What I will have again."
"A city that isn't yours? A giant elven tree that you simply like the look of? My soul, because of my father's legacy?"
Irenicus' eyes flickered. "So wrapped up in yourself, the perceptions of your own loss, and you have not understood."
"Understood what?" She braced her weight on spread feet.
The queen spoke, her voice high-pitched and cracking, her words drowned out when Irenicus whirled on her. He snarled something about memories and the way such thoughts were hollow and slipping away, fading, smoke-like.
"You did know him," Tayna said, the sudden rending truth of it a hook in her belly. "When you came to my dreams. You did know him. You've always known him."
The rooms, she thought, the rooms in the warren beneath Athkatla. The memories, shapeless, that hung trapped amid such opulence. The truth, buried and hidden behind Irenicus' words. Behind Elhan's words. Behind Ellesime's eyes as she looked at him.
Afterwards, she was never quite aware of when she moved. She heard Imoen's startled yell behind her before she ploughed shoulder-first into Irenicus.
He was solid, all lean muscle and viciously easily he shoved her aside. She staggered, turning in the same motion. Somewhere behind her, she heard Jaheira shouting at Imoen to cut the queen loose, to get her out and away. On her other side, the crackling burst of a spell made her squint. Closing the distance again, she flung herself at Irenicus. The flat of her sword smacked hard against his shoulder, driven further by the sweep of his arm.
"Tayna!"
Vaguely she was aware of Anomen moving around her, his gaze pinned on Irenicus' other side. She twisted, her sword-point glancing across Irenicus' arm, magic sputtering around his hands.
"Tayna, you need to move."
Irenicus swayed, almost stumbling when a blow from Anomen's sword dug deep above his hip. He whirled, his hands blazing with flame.
From behind, Edwin said, "You're still in my way, you idiot. Move."
"Aim better," she snarled without turning.
She could feel it, her soul in Irenicus' body. Her soul, trapped behind the cage of his ribs, held in place by the thrum of his blood and the beat of his heart.
She was inches away when Irenicus turned again, his blue eyes fixing on her. She faltered – again, stupidly, damnably – her feet slipping against the glossy wood. A spell whined past her head, staggering Irenicus back a pace. Anomen and Minsc drove him further, a third scything strike from the ranger buckling his knees.
Tayna grinned and launched herself at him. She landed hard on his chest, toppling him. He was curiously warm under her. Awkwardly she jammed her sword under his chin, leaned on the hilt, and snapped, "Tell me."
"Tell you what?" Irenicus said, calm and cold.
"Tell me why. Tell me why me." She eased the sword closer and heard his breathing hitch. Blood soaked into his collar in thick, gleaming lines.
"Did you hear nothing in Spellhold? You'll gain no truths from me, Bhaalspawn, unfortunate or otherwise. All you will do is die."
"Says the man with his throat already bleeding."
A surging flurry of magic flung her off him. She hit the ground hard, the impact punching the breath from her chest. Her head reeled. Through stinging eyes she saw him send Jaheira sprawling. A rippling wall of fire leaped up when he tipped his hands up. She twisted, trying to see the others, to see the rising arches of the Tree.
She saw him, standing over her as he had for so many days under the earth. She saw the heavy dark drops of his blood as they fell between them.
"You're stronger than I thought you would be," she said, the words harried and rough and she knew he could hear the raw fear in them.
"And you are weaker."
"Really." She scrambled halfway upright. "Which must have been why you looked so damn shocked when you saw it was me, here, now."
The bright flare of a spell answered her, sinking deep under her skin, painful and staggering her. Another step took her closer, her gaze locking on the gash across his throat, on the slick lines of the blood there. A second spell sent her to her knees, the icy jolt of it leaving her gasping. Blindly she lashed out, her sword digging into the wood of the Tree. Yanking the blade free she kept moving, levering herself upright. Another lurching moment crashed her into him, the scent of his blood filling her mouth.
She drove her sword up and into the soft skin of his throat, twisting the blade until it snagged against his jawbone.
His body gave way first, taking her down with him, her sword buried in the ruin of his throat and her head bowed over his face, over his half-closed eyes. Her hand on his chest so she could feel the stillness there.
"Tayna."
Someone else said her name, hollowly. And again, her sister perhaps, and then a hand on her elbow. She blinked sweat-spiked eyelashes.
"Tayna? How do you feel?"
She shook her head. She touched the slick heat beneath Irenicus' jaw until her hands were wet with his blood.
"Tayna, we need to go. We need to tell the queen it's done." Imoen's voice shook.
"No," she heard herself say. "I'm not – I don't feel it yet. My soul."
"Tayna."
"No, I," she said, her hands burrowing deeper. "I need to find it."
Someone grabbed her arm and wrenched her around. She found herself glaring up at Edwin, his robes rumpled. "Get off me."
Whatever he saw in her face made him recoil. "We have lingered here too long."
She ignored the grip he had on her sleeve, curling herself closer over Irenicus' lifeless sprawl instead. Her fingers slid slick down to his chest, digging into his ribs. Under the questing pressure of her hands, something fluttered. When she reached for her sword – she would carve her soul out of him if she had to – her vision went black, her thoughts tumbling wildly.
She woke – or thought she woke – to dry air against her lips and the uncomfortable sensation of drying blood on her hands and her leathers. Stone underneath and blank air above and desperately she searched her thoughts.
Irenicus, she remembered, and the Tree. How he had fallen, and how she had not pried her soul out of his body. How she had felt it, finally, buried somewhere inside him.
She straightened up awkwardly, flinching when her shoulder bumped something soft and warm.
"It's me," Edwin growled. "Try not to get any more blood on me, will you?"
"Where are we?"
"You've killed us," Edwin said stonily. "Idiot child."
"I didn't," she snapped. "And gods above, wizard, stop calling me that. You're not that much more ancient than me."
"I am not ancient."
Slowly, she let herself become aware of the odd silence of this place, the rock walls rippling and curved and absurdly reminding her of that time she had seen a frozen waterfall. Years ago, the ice blue and white all at once and locked in spouts and arches that she and Imoen had touched until their hands turned numb.
"I know where we are," Tayna said.
"Enlighten me with your dazzling observations, then."
"This is my father's realm."
Beside her, the wizard went rigid. "And is he or some part of him likely to be home and expecting guests?"
She snorted. "I don't think – I don't know. It's not all of – it's part of something that belongs to him. Belonged to him. I don't know. I'm not making sense."
"No. You are not."
"Tell me what you're thinking," she said, her voice roughening.
"It was your soul, I suspect. After you killed Irenicus, it went with him, or part of it did. You reached for it?"
"Yes. I tried – gods, Edwin. I wanted to dig it out of him with my bare hands. I couldn't see you, any of you." She hesitated, her gaze fixed on the stone stretching out ahead. "And I didn't want to."
"And you've killed the both of us regardless."
"Least you're not a vampire this time around." She needed to stand, she knew. Needed to stand and start moving, start doing anything. Needed to discover where the rippling boundaries of this place might lead them.
"Yes, the fact that I am fully aware of my death at your hands a second time fills me with exhilaration," he muttered. "Idiot."
She hauled herself up to her feet, swaying. "Come on. We need to get moving."
"Oh? Did a helpful and fully-drawn map courtesy of your dead sire suddenly flash into being inside your simian-brained head? (It would be the only thing of worth in there at the moment, in any case.)"
She ignored him, one hand absently tracing the raised patterns in the stone. Deep inside, she thought she could see light, or perhaps some far away reflection of light, swimming. Musingly, she said, "If I dragged you with me, I might have dragged the others along as well. We need to start looking."
"Indeed. For a way out of here."
"Not without them," she said flatly. "You can argue with me, or you can shut up and help me, but the only way we're getting out of here is if we find them and we find Irenicus and I carve his throat open a second time."
Edwin stared at her, his eyes narrow and furious. "I am not aiding you in some mad, harebrained attempt that will likely involve marching all over your father's realm in order to find your companions. (And knowing our luck, they will likely be still in Suldenessellar, claiming our victory for themselves.)"
As angrily, she snapped back, "Then you can damn well stay here, you selfish bastard. Unless you can happen to think of a decent way out of here by yourself?"
"That is not -"
"And you know, I could be very wrong, but I don't think we're just going to stumble upon a library with a handy section on just how to escape this place for you to pillage."
"This is hardly -"
"And you know, I am not leaving you here, you stupid man. So keep your mouth closed and get moving."
"You cannot expect me to -"
"I have and I will." She slapped the side of his arm. "Come on."
She did not know how long they walked, the ground beneath them rolling and sometimes grey and sometimes slippery with water – gods, she thought, it has to be water, it has to be – and sometimes up and down stone steps that lifted high into the starless sky. Another path took them through knifing walls of rock, the air there smoke-dense and raking when she breathed too quickly.
On the other side, she found small pools, the water glass-clear and crisp. Channels sliced through the stone above, either by hands or time or the steady ribboning water itself.
"Tears," Tayna murmured.
"What?"
She glanced across at him. "They're tears. Or they used to be."
"How do you know that?" Edwin asked warily.
"So many, and all of them shed for Bhaal." She turned finally, and heard his startled inhalation. "What?"
"Your eyes," he said. "You are – not yourself."
"I am."
"In your father's realm," he said quietly, almost to himself. "Yes. I see."
"What's wrong?"
"Aside from the fact that we are trapped?"
"The way you're looking at me," Tayna said, softer. His face all closed-off and the walls in his eyes that she had seen years ago, in Beregost, when he had glared at her as if he might see - must have seen - through the flimsy lies she threw at him. When days later she had explained that she and her friend Imoen had come from Candlekeep, and something had sharpened in the way he looked at her.
"I can't tell what you're thinking," she admitted.
"Can you usually?"
"Always," she retorted wryly. "Right down to just how you're planning to cheat at cards."
"I do not cheat at cards. (Baseless accusations, as always, spurious, altogether wrong and above all, simply inaccurate.)"
"You do. You swap the cards around when you think I'm not looking."
"That's not – I – this is not the time to belabor the finer points of your lack of observational skills."
Her throat thickened. She wanted to shout at him, wanted to scream at him to get rid of the slight, smug smile she could see threatening at the corners of his mouth. She wanted to shout at him to get himself away from her, because he could see it in her, her father's blood and her father's power, and it was rippling under her skin.
"Then tell me what's wrong," she hissed.
"Your eyes." Edwin caught her chin, holding her roughly in place. "You do remember how your dearly departed lumbering oaf of a brother looked, yes?"
"Yes."
"That is how you look. Your eyes are on fire and I can feel that you are different."
"Yes."
"Then do something," he said, sounding vaguely affronted.
"Do what?"
Edwin hesitated.
"You're afraid," Tayna said, and found herself smiling slowly.
Deep inside, she felt the swell of her heartbeat, rolling in time to the memories locked in the walls of her father's realm. So many many years, she thought, all trapped in the walls and the floor and the high sloping passageways. She looked at the light swimming in the stone, dense and dank and coiling.
"No," the wizard said viciously. "I am not and will not consider myself afraid of you."
"Well, then. What do we do with ourselves?"
"We do nothing. You need to set your foolish thoughts straight and think of a way out of here."
His voice was wavering slightly, she noticed, even if his gaze stayed hard and implacable. She reached out, dragging one hand along the warm stone. "Can you feel it, Edwin? The age of this place?"
"Yes."
"It sings with memories. All the dead, their voices. They all died for him."
"Not by choice, I imagine," Edwin snapped.
"You'd be surprised, I think. Sometimes they did choose, and they reveled in it, in what it meant." She stared at her hand, splayed against the gleaming wall. She thought about it, and her hand dipped into the stone, sliding, twisting, grazing the edges of old memories. "Gave themselves heart and blood and bone."
"Spilled all at once, or in a particular order your father found enticing?" he retorted. "Neatly packaged, or did your father not care either way for the presentation of his faithful? "
She turned to look at him and he stepped back, lifting both hands. "You know I can move faster than you can cast."
"You think you can."
"In here I can," she said coolly. She glanced up at him, studying the uncertain angles of his face, his eyes shadowed and almost black. "I want to see more."
"No."
She blinked. "No?"
"No." Flames rippled around the wizard's hands, fierce and bright. "You are getting us out of here because I am not breathing my last in a hall of Bhaal's making while you go quietly insane beside me. (Go insane? Look at her. She's halfway there already.)"
Absently she looked past him, to the high sloping rock walls, to the black starless sky above. She wondered if she had ever dreamed of this place, or if the Slayer had ever walked its halls.
She wondered if the Slayer was looking through her at this place, or if she could find it here. She wondered if it would feel the same afterwards, if she would be able to feel the drumbeat of her own blood in time with the silences here. If she would be able to hear the whispers that rustled under the stone.
The bright flare of the spell clipped her shoulder, driving her back. Another threw her hard against the stone wall, knocking the breath from her. She fumbled for her sword, the fury surging up. Her fingers slid against the stone, digging in, bruising. She looked up through sweat-dewed eyelashes and gauged her distance to the wizard.
His mouth was moving, and if he was speaking aloud she could not hear him. She saw the air buckle around his hands. She had maybe instants, she guessed, her mind flat. As coldly, she let the next spell plough into her, tipping her sideways. The fourth she dodged, the bare inches above her head roaring with the fierce energy of it. Two more steps crashed her into the wizard, spinning him sideways into the wall in the same motion. He swore, muttered something else under his breath, and magic coiled between his hands. Faster, she slammed the hilt of her sword into his chest, doubling him over.
She knew how he fought in close quarters, all scrappy desperation and only when he had to. He had height on her, but with no space between them he was clumsy, trying to wrestle back distance.
An elbow to his throat staggered him. He snarled at her – her name and just exactly what he thought of her right now – and some buried part of her wanted to laugh. Savagely fast, she caught at his collar and hauled. One of his hands flattened against her shoulder, frantic and pushing back uselessly at her. Still moving, she shoved him back, jostling his footing until he staggered. Her sword sheared the air between them and seconds later she heard him cry out, the blade snagging against the bunched cloth at his shoulder.
The frantic icy pressure of a spell wrapped around her wrist. She swore, jolting back, her hand juddering open and her sword dropping. She scrabbled for purchase, the blood roaring in her ears, her vision fogging. Her shoulder hit the wall. Blindly, she reached for her sword, her fingers scraping warm stone.
The bite of a dagger under her chin stopped her.
"Stay there," the wizard said, his voice heavy.
She swallowed against the choking press of the dagger. Eventually, slowly, she saw him again, the angles of his face swimming into focus. Sweat sheened his skin and the hand he had wrapped around the hilt of the dagger was steady.
Tayna gulped out a laugh. "I guess you weren't lying."
"About what?" Edwin snapped.
"About actually knowing your way around a blade."
"Tell me who you are and explain that you know who I am."
"Edwin, you're being an idiot. I'm me again."
"Look at me."
"I'm fine."
"Look at me."
Edwin grasped a handful of her hair and yanked her head up. His sudden proximity startled her. The dagger bit deeper, and she smelled the bright scent of her own blood. For long scrutinizing moments he searched her face before he finally eased the dagger away.
"Did I hurt you?" she asked.
"No."
She smiled shakily. "But I wanted to. I wanted to. I wanted to shove your head into the wall until you could hear what I thought I could hear."
"You did not think it, I assume, Child of Bhaal. You heard it. That of course would nonetheless have achieved nothing past attempting to kill me in a very messy way."
"No, I," she said. "Yes. I did. Gods. I'm sorry. If you want to go, then I understand."
"And where would I go?" he demanded icily. "This is your father's realm, not mine, if you care to recall correctly. (Details. Always the details that slip her idiotic mind.)"
She touched her throat, wincing when she felt blood and the jagged leaking line the dagger had opened. She glanced up in time to find him regarding her oddly. "What?"
His grip on her hair relaxed. "I find that I can throw as many spells as I need to get you away from me, but there is something," Edwin said, and stopped. "No. That is not – it is this place, in my head. That is all."
"You've never killed anyone with a blade before?"
"Of course I have," he said haughtily. "Not often, but yes."
"I know what you mean. It is different. At least, I suppose it is."
"Of course you would claim that. You've been hacking people apart since you first discovered how to, I'm certain."
"And you were doing so well until then."
"Very funny," he muttered. Without quite looking at her, he tipped her head up. With the edge of one sleeve cuff, he mopped at the cut beneath her chin, her blood soaking into the red fabric.
She wanted to ask why he was still standing so close to her. She wanted to ask him to stand closer, to pull her away from the warm press of the stone at her back. She moved first or he did until they were leaning into each other. The unkempt black ends of his hair prickled against her eyelashes. He was breathing as unevenly as she was.
She turned the side of her face against his and felt his shuddering inhalation.
"Sorry," Tayna mumbled without moving, his stubble rasping against her cheek.
"You are still entrapped in the concept that I believe you to be something to be feared?"
"Yes, and I'm also entrapped in the concept that you need a decent shave."
He laughed, brisk and short and mirthless. "You like the way I look."
"Confessions, wizard? You're so dramatic."
"No," he muttered. "(Deliberately obstreperous Child of Bhaal, and she knows it.)"
"Shut up and stay there. I'm scared as well," she murmured.
For long moments they clung to each other, the wizard leaning down awkwardly and Tayna settling for burying her face under his chin.
"You're too tall."
"You are too short."
"What do you want?"
Edwin froze. "We are here, and you ask me that? What do you wish me to say? A carafe of red wine and a morning alone? More coin than I can count? A way out of this damnable maze? (This sort of question, now? Gone completely mad, obviously.)"
"Edwin," she snapped. "Stop expecting me to work out what this is."
"What this is is the both of us trapped here."
"I didn't mean that and you know it." She closed her eyes and let herself breathe him in, skin and sweat and the familiar scent of ink and parchment that clung to his robes.
"Not now," Edwin said, and shook her off him. "We have no time. None, foolish girl."
"Alright. I hear you. You bastard," she added sourly. "Plan?"
"We walk," he said flatly. "Until we find your friends, or Irenicus, or some other semblance of a suggestion as to how we might leave this place. Which means that you need to keep your thoughts straight."
"So no trying to kill you. Got it."
He shot her a withering glare. "I am so glad you can cling to the simplest of plans with such fortitude."
"If we're already dead, though," she said musingly. "Would I have even killed you?"
"Baseless speculation. Regardless of our physical status in Suldenessellar at the moment, you did attempt to render me lifeless here."
"You stuck a dagger against my neck. You know how easily that tactic can go very badly wrong?" She sighed. "Gods, this is the stupidest argument we've ever had."
"Doubtful," he said blandly. "Given your predilection for latching upon the smallest issues and deeming them worthy of full-blown attention."
"Oh, and you never do that." She elbowed him gently. "Should have left you behind after all."
"Why didn't you?"
"I have this strange thing that you wouldn't recognize called a conscience, Edwin. Very occasionally it bothers me. Besides, I wouldn't have been able to stand turning around and watching you try to track me."
"Try to track you."
"I've see you try and track. It's never pretty." Tayna scrubbed at the back of her neck. "Ready?"
He glanced down at her, and she saw her own apprehension in his face. "Yes."
Hours later amid the maze of the red rock she discovered her brother, or something wearing his shape, toweringly tall. Without thinking, she snarled at Edwin to stay back and hurled herself at Sarevok, the anger a fierce roil in her gut.
He fought the way she remembered, each scything sweep of his sword slicing the air apart, his footwork startlingly rapid given his size. She let her weight stagger him, and when his arm lifted again, she drove her sword into the joint just below his shoulder. He swayed, his sword-arm flailing. When he toppled, she thrust the blade up and under his helmet, feeling the surge of his death.
She rolled off him, looking up in time to see Edwin watching her warily. "Stay there," she snapped.
"Was it him?"
"Truly? I don't know. But it smells like him."
Edwin stepped back a pace, tilting his hands palm-up. "And?"
She fought back the urge to tear off Sarevok's helmet. To bury her head under his chin and swallow down the truth of his death. "Stay behind me."
"Tell what you are thinking."
She smiled. "I know where Imoen is."
"How?"
"Him and her and me. We're the same. Or all part of the same. Come on."
She turned away, barely aware of him as he quickened his pace behind her. She moved fast, as fast as she was able, her feet falling soundless and swift over the stone. Once he shouted at her to slow down, to listen and summon up some damn sense, but she whirled, her sword rattling halfway free and he backed down.
A stone archway reared overhead. As quickly, she darted through, already aware of footsteps on the other side. Shadows slanted through and she tightened her grip on her hilt. Fiercely she hoped she was right, that she had not misread the way the blood was humming under her skin.
The last step through brought her inches from Jaheira's spear-point. She froze, her hand slipping away from her sword. "It's me," she mumbled, struggling for the words.
"Tayna." Jaheira exhaled raggedly. "Are you alright?"
"Yes." She looked past the druid, her gaze finally lighting on her sister, and the others past her. "We need to keep moving."
"Wait." Imoen grabbed her hand. Her eyes flickered. "Alright?"
"Yes."
"You ran into Edwin, I see," Imoen said, almost teasingly.
"Yes."
Imoen stared at her. "Tayna. You don't look – I mean, I know we're not in a great place right now, but…"
"Father's place."
"Yes," Imoen said, quieter. Cautiously, she let her sister's hand go. "Tayna, I think I can feel – I mean, can you maybe feel it, as well? Irenicus, maybe?"
"Yes. I need to find him. I'll find him."
She pushed past Imoen. Their words floated uselessly after her, clipped and rough.
"We cannot let her go," Jaheira snapped.
"I'm not," Imoen retorted. "I just – did you see her?"
Someone's footsteps edged closer behind her. She ignored them, following the low rise of the path up and over the swell of the stone, ribboned with water.
"No," she heard Edwin say, his voice scraped thin and worn. "Let her go. Let her lead us on."
"No," Imoen said, almost yelling. "We can't. You – what happened? Why does -"
"Because this is part of your father's realm," he answered. "Do you know what path we should take?"
"No."
"Can you trace out a pattern amid the voices and the memories and the chaos this place holds?"
"No," Imoen snapped.
"Then if your meager share of Bhaal's heritage will not help us, stand back and let her lead us out," he said coldly.
"Yes, but -"
"Stand back," he said again, each word ground out and furious. "Unless you wish to linger here witlessly? Unless you wish to remain here, foolishly lost, since I am assuming with good reason that places such as this do not come with convenient signs?"
"Remind me why we put up with you?" Imoen responded, most of the sting absent from her voice. "Yes. Yes. Alright. I'm hearing you."
Jaheira said something else, the words lost to the roaring in Tayna's ears as she pushed on. Her soul, and she could feel it, trapped in Irenicus and trapped in this place and she kept moving. The path led her through high sawtooth stones and beyond, to where the light swam in the rock, flickering.
She found him there, Irenicus, the exile, thief, captor. He had other names, she thought, other names that shivered in the rock around them. The name the elven queen had breathed into his mouth long ago, and the name the elven city had called him after his treachery.
"You," he said flatly.
"Still me. And you have something of mine."
He watched her guardedly, as if he was gauging her. "You still think to reclaim your soul."
"I will. This isn't your place. It's mine."
"You think there is something in here that will help you? How? You are soulless. There is nothing left in you."
Irenicus was still speaking when she moved, the ground seeming to shift and buckle underfoot. She registered noise behind her and footsteps, and supposed it was the others. Her sister called her name, hoarse and close to panicked. The air around her crackled, blistering with magic, with the pulse of spells.
She thought of the cage beneath the city. The metal cage where he had kept her, where he had tried to carve her soul out and failed. The glass cage in Spellhold, where he had split her soul from her body. She thought of the aching emptiness inside and how it beat at the edges of her bones.
She toppled him, her sword in his belly before he hit the ground. The others moved around her, their shapes a rushing blur. One of them – Minsc, she thought – caught Irenicus' arms, pinioning him. Someone else snarled at her to gather the useless dregs of her wits and move.
She raked her sword free. His blood spilled over her hands. She dropped her sword, the blade clanging forgotten onto the stone. Thoughtfully, she dug her hands under the ridge of his ribs. She could feel her soul, further in, and she hunted for it. She felt the tremulous flutter of it, and then the rush of it under her skin.
"Tayna?"
Someone touched her shoulder and she batted them away.
"Tayna," Imoen said, thickly. "Can you feel it? Is it done?"
She thought she could, but his blood was still hot against her hands and she wanted to wait until it had cooled. She wanted to stay.
"Tayna, it's done. It has to be done. We have to go." Her sister caught at her again, their hands locking together fiercely. "Tayna, please?"
She felt her soul stir within her, settling, and desperately she thought of the elven city. "Yes," she said, the word thick on her tongue. "I don't know how, but I'll try."