The Lamb

by apeacockpersian

Guilty of murdering the Knight Captain, a demonic emissary seeks absolution. As Nevalle questions her trial, Casavir seeks revenge for his lover's death, and Bishop returns to the city, Neverwinter becomes entangled in the chilling schemes of the Abyss.

10. Closing: Chapter Eight

Closing: Chapter Eight

"What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?" -Friedrich Nietzsche

Sleep evaded Axarthys.

Night had long descended, and aged beyond the chardonnay of evening and past the merlot of midnight, evening darkened to a distinctively amaranthine shiraz. The tanar'ri's slumber had doubtless been restless- she herself was amazed Nevalle slept through her tumbling through the web of blankets- and so she yielded, woke, fell from the bed to satiate her legs with motion. Fragile, her bony limbs hesitated in step. Blessedly this rendered her footfalls quiet. The sound was like the muted sob of a child muffled by exhaustion. Interior, warm air inhabited her lungs to dull her sensibility. She sought natural air, and stumbled for the balcony at the end of the corridor. Axarthys clawed at the doors, prying them free to a burst of cool refreshment. The sunless exterior soothed her.

Yet her mind, unlike her body, was not so numbed.

War bothered the demon little. War was natural as it was fleeting, a human thing, and humanity concerned her little. She was removed from it. Save for that one last anchor weighing her vessel to that storm, him. The knight, Nevalle. She risked everything vowing her love to him. Never had she enacted such a dynamic plot as this, never had she dared lowered her defenses any lower than human emotion. Axarthys would not deny that some scrap of dignity compelled her to surrender herself to him, for after all, he'd saved her life twice. She even regretted in the slightest commanding Neverwinter's armies through him against her father and Bishop simply so she was not bound to Demogorgon, and could continue to thrive in her emissary trade. That was not to say she did not desire a minimalistic human life alongside the knight, for it would allow her the stability to carry out her usual business, but she feared it.

And fear barred her from sleep.

If she submitted to him, all she knew, thousands of years of a life she loved, would be lost. There was so much to lose and too much to gain. As if chess, she had disposed of the bishop and dallied with the knight to her immediate pleasure, yet the threat of the king at the opposite end of the board loomed. Her knight drew closer and closer to it, far from its own king, led astray into the blind oblivion of a world Axarthys controlled. Should the illusion of darkness fall, the knight would be no less a traitor to her than her people, as she had been to him.

Yet ambition did not vanquish her love.

Axarthys, though a demon, was not denied the lightheadedness of her love drawing near. Her heart fluttered with bliss when he spoke to her as if to another human, her hands run clammy with the thought of him. His voice was a beacon in the utter night she had known, illuminating a world her eyes had been blinded by shadow from. He lifted the veil of her heritage for her to peer onto a realm of angels. She no longer wished to see it. She wished to be of it.

The very vision of it agonized her.

She could no longer bear to stand on the balcony to overlook that world, to see the glow of the stars on the water. The city laid out before her would only be her home if she remained steadfast, sided with Nevalle and crushed Dantalion's armies, the severing of her connection to the Abyss. Staring upon it worsened her longing for normality, if only as a means to secure her status as an emissary and assuring her sole control of her wealth, drawing it from the Saintrowe family hands. Turning from the panorama of Neverwinter she glided indoors. Transition between cool and warm afflicted her spine with shivers. Memories of hypothermia exacerbated the trembling. Scurrying to Nevalle's chambers she buried herself in the coverlets, nuzzling her coiled body into the knight's to sap his warmth.

She shivered still. It was fear.

-

Sedna Belladonna stood in the door frame, leaning poised against the wooden molding. Chestnut hair gushed from the crown of her head around the distinctive structure of her jaw, ending at the boundary of her gown's square neckline. The radiance of her angelic power cast a glow around her shoulders and face in the lacking light of earliest morn. Her unblinking, stern eyes like grey lanterns revealed to her the sight of the knight Nevalle, awake and stroking the white hair of the demoness asleep in his bed.

"You know she cannot love you." Sedna Belladonna called, alerting her presence. He gave her his glance momentarily, his eyes descended to rub one of Axarthys's horns between his fingers.

"Isn't that her curse, to love?" He mused aloud, "She's mentioned it in passing."

The planetar scoffed, entering the room with arms crossed over her torso. She shook her head sorrowfully, replying, "You do not take that very seriously, do you? Have you even considered the implications of your infatuation with her, both in her eyes and in the eyes of your god? Tyr would be most unpleased if you did not kill her."

"I refuse to harm her."

"Fool," she murmured, scornfully and regretfully for his sake. The planetar halted at the foot of the bed, uttering, "It is the highest honor of our god to slay a demon, yet if this fiend were at all benevolent, I would tell you otherwise. I would beseech Tyr for his mercy in her name and bestow on her the hope of our religion if she was at all of good heart. Yet can you tell me with undeniable conviction that she is moral? No. Because she has done nothing to prove her decency. Tanar'ri have no compassion; they do not feel as we do. They kill. They torture. They are detached enough to do so. All that creates the illusion of her supposed morality is her rationality and intelligence, therefore her knowingness of the sheer idiocy of turning against Neverwinter alone. She is no thoughtless savage, on this both of us are certain. But that does not mean she is good."

Nevalle harkened the angel in brooding malcontent, silencing his disagreement. His lips pressed into a firm line, brows hardened into a scowl of fortitude. He shifted in his place as Axarthys tumbled in her slumber, rolling to her side to raise a pink wing from beneath the blankets to wrap it around herself. The planetar groaned woefully at this, stepping away from the bed to circle the perimeter of the parallel wall. Nevalle's eyes traced her movement in their peripheral vision. He retaliated eventually, asking, "Why did you come here? To indoctrinate me?"

"To warn you," She rebuked, "This demon's heritage will not allow her to live any longer without betraying you. Axarthys has been dormant for many months, Nevalle. All those days of peace fuel her tanar'ri's cry for chaos. She poises herself for treachery."

"She will have little opportunity to betray us amidst war." Nevalle responded.

"You have seen war, Nevalle. You know in your heart that is not true." The planetar goaded. Still the knight shook his head fervently, passion erasing sensibility. He slumped into the pillows of his bed, tangling his hands in the demon's snowy tresses and sweeping his knuckles against the curvature of her cheek.

He said, "I care little. I love her."

Sedna Belladonna frowned, "Even if she wanted to love you in return, she could not. Her kind, they are inherently wicked, capable only of ambition, anarchy, and contempt. She is outside the light of Tyr. If you loved her as much as you say, you would let her go. Let her go back to Dantalion, saving Neverwinter and the demon from war."

"These words spill from the mouth that before wished to infiltrate the hell mouths and spoke to this tanar'ri only hate." He responded piercingly, "You don't want what is best for her. She is better dead to you than never to have been given the chance at life."

"Chance. Do you think that is what she gave the Knight Captain?" Sedna Belladonna replied austerely. The question struck the knight, causing his shoulders to tighten and his back to straighten. The planetar watched his eyes widen and shrink in anger once more, his arm replaced tenderly over the demon in defense. She proposed, "If perhaps you see the crime that spurned all of this, you will understand the words I speak. Would you see what I would show you?"

"I refuse to watch anything spawned from your distorted consciousness." He denied her. Sedna Belladonna's growl was a lengthened drawl on the stillness of the room.

"I am a planetar of Tyr. I am incapable of distorting truth, only showing it." She assured firmly, adding, "Do you fear the truth so much you would hide from it so? If you are to be changed by this vision, it is Fate. If you are to embrace this demon despite the vision, it is true love. Neither outcome can wrong you, nor can it hinder my precautions. You are only able to see, I only to show. It is only a method to alert you to the Axarthys Saintrowe you have yet to know."

"Then that is your purpose here."

She replied, "Officially, yes. It is part of the work Tyr set me out to do. Our lord loves his followers a great deal, and would not have requested me to undertake the task of recollecting this murder for you if it was not to empower one of the most steadfast and loyal of his devotees. If you deny my offer, I am obliged to inform Tyr, and I will with great pleasure should you do so in corollary of your demonic obsession. If you accept, I will impart the vision in your memory through the eyes of another faithful Tyrran."

"Know what you offer to show cannot change how I feel for Axarthys. Whatever recollections you show me I agree to, but the outcome I will not promise will be to Tyr's liking." Nevalle warned, sitting up in his bed. Hesitance tensed the air about him, muscles hours ago run slack with sleep now hunched in anxiety. Sedna Belladonna recognized Nevalle had little choice but to see the vision she would bear him, lest he fall out of favor with Tyr and consequently lessen his influence in Neverwinter. The planetar contentedly realized too, as much as Nevalle claimed otherwise, no decent human being would be capable of stomaching the grotesqueness of the memory, and that ultimately the vision would undermine the naïveté of the love he reserved for the demon. The planetar shuddered with the irony of the demon's presence there. Asleep beside him Axarthys's slight form may have seemed nearly guiltless.

The memory would protest otherwise.

"Then you agree to what I offer?" Sedna Belladonna asked. The knight nodded almost solemnly, the vision a funeral for the romance that consumed the fiber of his being, the dirge for the thievery of his belief in the virtue of love. There was an expectancy of death in the chocolate spheres of his eyes, a fear that the fragile glass of his world crafted for Axarthys Saintrowe was shattering as the planetar knelt beside him, weaving her palms around his elbows to bear his arms in hers. Her touch, like Axarthys's, connected his mind to the celestial's. Save there was no intoxication to the planetar's grasp. No numbness, no blissful ignorance offered in the caress of his tanar'ri beloved. Reality and unreality meshed, blurred. As the warm woods of his chambers forged the cold stone of the Claimed Lands, Nevalle choked on the final moments of fleeting virtuousness and whatever chivalry accompanied it.

-

Balimynah of grace, Balimynah of elegance. Of gowns silk, velvet and chiffon, of crowns woven from branches of gold and sprigs of platinum and between their entwinement set with gemstone purple, red, orange and pink as the setting sun that beckoned twilight to consume the land in darkness. Whose heart ran black but her garb far from such shadow, Balimynah, whose voice like chardonnay ran sweet with joy and poisonous with alcohol. Balimynah, of both day and night, of beauty great derived from cruelty but never the action of cruelty itself, fed from chaos it did not in turn create.

Save then. Save for war.

What savage foolery, Balimynah thought of war. Yet there she stood at the windows of her palace halls, exoskeleton of her black armor embracing the slender curves of her girlish body like a pillar of ebony, supported by the dual claymores acting as the extension of her arms. Vanity she valued over anarchy, a truth that questioned the very heritage that would have had her pointlessly slaughter. Chaos Balimynah discovered in the uncertainty of political alliances, knowing which allies could be risked in attempt to gain stronger ones upon the mortal plane. Balimynah operated a business that tanar'ri lawlessness could have decimated. Could have. For rare it was that war meant the furthering of her political agenda.

Yet the Lamb threatened that agenda. The Lamb was selfish, for the Lamb willed it that her life not be lived for the betterment of her family's order but for herself. The Lamb wanted a human pet, and a human life, and a human happiness, and all her emissary's wealth for herself. She wished to play as Balimynah did, to utilize mortals as the pawns upon her board of chess. The Lamb wished that power alone, and would not bow to Balimynah any longer. Even this did not infuriate Balimynah as much as the implications of such action- the Lamb utterly refused Demogorgon's consortship, and that could mean the decimation of the Saintrowes altogether.

Given, Balimynah's permission of Dantalion's siege admittedly was not amongst the most tactful of her plots. The territory such action treaded was mountainous, treacherous, a feat Balimynah concerned over. However, Axarthys's betrayal required a severe reaction. Balimynah could not allow for leniency, lest the young Saintrowes follow the path of their sister. She was forced into brutality. Balimynah took no pleasure in this; the Lamb was dear to her, not even as the finest of her emissaries, but as one of her children. She could not deny that her fondness for the tanar'ri far outweighed her anger, of this she was certain.

Though that sureness consoled her some, questions continued to swirl in the torrent of her thoughts. Would Axarthys be brought to her? Would war spill into her native plan, causing her armor and swords to transform from mere adornments of battle to the defense and offense of a warring soldier? Balimynah commanded the Fawn to battle, praying somehow the desperate sister could find a way to rescue the life of the Lamb. Her fear grew. If Neverwinter survived, perhaps Balimynah's concern would ease. Perhaps the guilt would not consume her. Swallowing her reputation, she suppressed that emotion. Shame could not be permitted to taint Balimynah of grace, Balimynah of elegance. Of gowns silk, velvet and chiffon, of crowns woven from branches of gold and sprigs of platinum and between their entwinement set with gemstone purple, red, orange and pink as the setting sun that beckoned twilight to, she prayed to whatever gods had the mercy to heed a demon, not to consume the land in darkness.

-

No paladin could prepare to enter hell.

In a similar way, it was as if to inquire of a sinner if they felt prepared to face divine judgment. Good and evil battled on a miniature scale in the mortal world, sin cured by all but the cleansing touch of a priest and the sincerity of repentance. As easily, sin could be committed in the drawing of a weapon or the cursing of a god. Yet upon the upper and lower planes, good and evil transcended the state of daily facets of existence. Good and evil were defined by the planes that either threatened torment for sinners or bliss for the pious. Save the Faithless, the planes were what all mortals strived to reach in the afterlife. And he would be there, in the very planes he never desired to enter- the lower planes. The Abyss.

Casavir dove headlong into the fray, bold, in aid the planetar Sedna Belladonna. And indeed, he did wish to battle alongside the divine celestial, refueled by the warmth of Tyr that she radiated. The planetar represented the higher order his life he would sacrifice for, Tyr's order. Her bravery in facing the hells inspired him, inspiring his action. Yet valor, not even piety could mask the fear that stirred within him. His goodness rendered him vulnerable. Demons would flock to him, and while the paladin had struck down tanar'ri before- powerful tanar'ri- he was incapable of smiting whole scores of the Abyss's finest soldiers already weakened in his benevolence by the demonic malevolence the tanar'ri oozed.

Casavir found little peace in the cage of his quarters. Unable to be contained there, he ventured outside Castle Never, wandering beyond the far reaches of the Blacklake District into the Merchant Quarter and from those walls into the freedom the surrounding woods proffered. Foliage cushioned his step, the wind quieting the quickness of his breath. Nature softened his nearly unnatural presence there, tree branches extending their arms to embrace him. Beckoned, he entered the wood, lacing between the trunks to stroke their bark, breathing in every scent, absorbing every texture. Peace was there. But the stench of war he could never escape. The hell mouths, however far they were, defiled the air with the odor of smoke. Thunder of the applause of marching demons rattled the buckles of his boots.

It was an uneasy peace.

The breeze strengthened, the whirr of wind distinct and magical. Casavir's eyes shut, hands free from his sword belt to extend at his sides. The leaves rustled overheard. The air ran tepid with the anxiety of war. Denying himself any thought of the battle he erased his memories of whatever caused the war, whatever aggravated it, whatever brought him here. He released the remainder of the hatred he bore Axarthys Saintrowe, her poignant face of features exotic in countenance soft that no longer angered him fading in closure. He forgot the guilt of having consorted with Adelaide Cryhart, the definite viciousness of her strong-jawed, half-elven face splintering as the recollection passed. All that remained was the Knight Captain herself. Casavir clung to her memory, recreating the purity of the ivory of her smile, the sleek line of her nose and the brilliant spheres of her eyes on the canvas of his remembrance. He could envision her, the memory of her dancing the night before the final battle, her tunic fluttering as she clapped her hands and twirled charmingly upon the counters of the tavern. The dance was nearly frantic, her eyes filled with inward terror at whatever fate she unnervingly understood she would face against the King of Shadows, however unexpected that fate was. Her feet had moved too rapidly for it, her shoulders tense as she clapped to the thought of war.

And yet she danced. She danced, when no one else was brave enough to.

Axarthys Saintrowe had danced.

Nights after being assaulted, the tanar'ri had woven orchids into the snow of her hair and in the sunshine of her citrine gown she danced when all Neverwinter believed she had surrendered. She waltzed in the arms of the finest of the city's knights, dallied in the noble realm of the world she had stolen its hero from. In her bravery that very night she drove a sword through the leg of a traitor, saved the life of Casavir's captain, and induced the fury of the Docks with her bold display. Axarthys Saintrowe mocked challenge, smiled when defeat seemed imminent. However real her fears were, she masked them in the enigmatic smile and mystifying eyes of the beauty of her face.

Except Casavir could save this dancer. The dancer could be saved at the price of releasing the memory of the former, liberating him fully of his loathing of the demon.

Surrendering the Knight Captain's memory struck him as criminal in the earliest hours of the trial. There was no justice in forgetting that which he battled for so fervently, he had long thought. Now Casavir recognized in letting go of the memory, the Knight Captain, and he, could finally rest. There was serenity in that. More so there was hope in that, hope left in imagining a fresh beginning without the misery of recollection. The Knight Captain herself was perpetually a part of him, this he understood. It was the pain Casavir wished to free himself of. He outstretched his arms further, spread his hands far apart. The wind quickened in its whirl, weaving around his extended limbs and between his fingers. The breeze caressed the memories from his body as they exited his mind in exhaled breaths. He inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, freeing the misery. Liberation lifted the scars from his emotional being, leaving the palette of his interior skin unmarred. Casavir willed the pain dematerialize, leaving nothing but the unadulterated reminiscence of the Knight Captain's soprano laughter and her unforgettable visage. The pain gone, those memories were clearer, richer, fuller, deeper. They were complete again.

Renewed, rejuvenated, the broken heart once more reformed. Casavir opened his eyes to the forest about him, able to see every leaf and the life that pumped through the green vessels of its foliage, to hear every bird cry fleeting the wood for farther forests, to smell the sulphur of the approaching army. His armor did not burden his shoulders with the weight of its pauldrons, his mace light and purposeful resting in his hand. Once more he was a soldier of Neverwinter, returned to the glory and the honor of the days long before Old Owl Well. Once more he served Tyr, the Knight Captain the banner of the lawfulness he promoted. As his flag, she was eternal. As his flag, she would ever march with him into war. Casavir would stand against Dantalion for the very tanar'ri- no, not even the tanar'ri, but the woman- that consecrated the Knight Captain in death as to make of her not the most mourned of heroes but the most cherished of martyrs.

Casavir turned from the forest. He walked again towards the light of early dawn into the gates of Neverwinter, emancipated, whole. Tyr's hope awakened him from the lull of his agony, parted his clenched eyes to see the weeping city he once turned against. For the people Casavir saw herding their children indoors as war loomed, for the men that kissed farewell their wives and the wives that donned their armor to serve, departing frightfully their homes, the paladin would enter hell. He heeded Neverwinter's cry this time, and he would the remainder of his days.

-

Nevalle sensed death.

The scene was damp, dark, damning. His boots splashed in puddles of blood congealed and reeking. Ever was his sight wary, searching for Axarthys. But it was not his head to move. He would have called her name. But it was not his voice to speak. He would have drawn his weapon to defend her. But it was not his hand to raise. Nevalle soon came to acknowledge what Sedna Belladonna had explained. He could do naught but witness the recollection from another's eyes, a follower of Tyr as the planetar had warned.

Nevalle saw through Casavir's eyes.

Casavir and the Knight Captain traveled alone, divided from the remaining members of their entourage. Nevalle supposed the two foolish for moving ahead alone, scoffing to consider Casavir would so endanger a woman's life by bounding forward apart from the others to defend them. Perhaps, Nevalle mused, it had been part of Axarthys's scheme to alienate the Knight Captain. Had he controlled Casavir's body then, Nevalle would have trembled at the thought. Instead he dismissed it. Axarthys could not premeditate so cruelly the death of a mortal. She was an emissary, not an assassin. Axarthys's heart was incapable of mechanical mercilessness; Nevalle was sure of this. As the footfalls of the paladin trod forth into the darkness of the narrow corridors the knight felt Casavir's hand situate itself over the shoulder of the Knight Captain. The muscles of his mouth uplifted in a smile.

"We are close, my love," Casavir assured, stroking her neck. The Knight Captain slowed her gait to lay a bare hand over the paladin's. The touch was warm where Axarthys was not. The pulse of her heart was evident in the flutter of her hand's veins, bliss at the most innocent of love's touches. Her smiling eyes turned to Casavir, a soft beaming cross the pink of her lips. She returned her gaze to the gleam of the Sword of Gith.

"When this is over, all of this," she promised, her voice a sound that filled the chill of that most wicked place with the flame of hope's warmth, "We will be happy."

Casavir bowed his head, chivalrous reverence compelling the recognition of the empty assurance of that future. Nevalle's frail hope failed at this exchange of words. Why would Sedna Belladonna show him this? Why would she burden him with the misery of that memory? He knew already the tale of the paladin's lost love; he needed to know no more. Nevalle did not deserve that suffering. He did not wish to carry the broken heart of the paladin upon the altar of his consciousness for the remainder of his mortal days, wishing to erase the vision. He attempted to gain control of Casavir's limbs, to run far from that place and implore the planetar to stop what nightmare she had induced. He screamed in his mind, yet no audible sound emitted from his lips. Unable to reawaken into reality, Nevalle's distress tripled. Swallowing his sudden agony he feared deeply what would come. He knew the story. He knew the story, he knew it, he knew where that love would end, beneath the blade of a demon. The demon Axarthys Saintrowe, his dear Lamb.

Casavir rounded a corner, his fingers flexing over the hilt of his blade. He tensed, raising his shield above his shoulder. Suddenly he dove in front of the Knight Captain, hissing to her, "Down! Behind me!"

"Casavir!" She shrieked as she tumbled to the floor, knocked down by his sudden movement and the collision of his side into hers. The Sword of Gith plummeted with a metallic clatter. As her knees collided with the stone she yelped, rolling to regain the blade. Casavir whirled around to her, slinging his shield over his back to free and arm to lift her. The sword regained, the Knight Captain evaded his extended palm to alert, "There!"

She leapt in front of the paladin, charging forward into the shadows. Casavir called her name, yet she only gasped in reply, a struggling, muffled series of howls following that ended with a thump, then silence. Cautious the paladin replaced his shield over his arm, feet positioned for battle. Nevalle felt his brow pound with an unceremonious attentiveness, his senses empowered by the dread thrill of combat. His breathing quickened as from the shadows a collection of minute noises echoed. It was as if three diabolical, supernatural voices chattered and chuckled concurrently. Again Casavir called for the Knight Captain, his speech constricted to the worried yelp of the syllables of her name. A pause, too long for Nevalle to bear, and then another chorus of laughter. As Casavir began to approach the noise, a silhouette materialized from the dimness.

"Pity, pity, pity. Ante mortem autvincereautmori" Three voices again mocked, all spoken from the same mouth. In the bare light the crest of Axarthys's white hair glittered like fresh snow, the pink of her eyes a glow. The Knight Captain's body hung flailing weakly in the assailant's arm. Casavir whirled his hand, hissed a string of words and summoned light to the darkness of the cave. From the ceiling to the floor it coursed its illumination, revealing fully the scene staged before the paladin. Axarthys's lengthy, sleek locks lay silken over bare, frail shoulders as a dusting of snow, her horns a tyrant crown worn atop the height of her lifted head. The scarlet leather of her armor left a multitude of bare flesh revealed, one hand gloved a similar crimson. Nevalle almost thrilled at the sight. Then he saw the hand was drenched in blood.

The Knight-Captain bled from inside her mouth, her lips opened as if to make a sound though no noise came. Casavir called once more for his love, answered only by gurgling. The demoniacal chattering sounded again. The knight's whole body would have stiffened then, stationary with dread. Sheer horror overtook him. Nevalle's own love, the precious Lamb, gazed down at her quarry unfeelingly, eyes drained of the compassion he'd celebrated in those two pink lanterns. Axarthys, her gaze inhumanly callous with expression as cold and hardhearted as stone, murmured in explanation, "Her vocal chords are severed."

Casavir screamed, charging the tanar'ri. Axarthys lifted a serrated scimitar, its point positioned at the Knight Captain's upper back between the shoulders. The paladin halted instantaneously, mace extending in poise, body frozen in stillness. The tanar'ri whispered viciously, "Remain motionless there, paladin, and perhaps I shall restore her to your captivity."

"Lies!" Casavir cried. Nevalle begged Axarthys in his mind to free the Knight Captain. He pleaded with the Lamb, swore he loved her so, wept of her to liberate the life of that woman, the Knight Captain. Axarthys, Axarthys, he frantically begged in thought, praying the words would somehow be emitted through Casavir's lips, Axarthys, my Lamb, my Axarthys please, please let her go, please stop and come back to me, come back, come stay with me, come and I'll dry the innermost tears I know you cry, I know you cry, I know you cry. Nevalle futilely implored. Tears that Casavir did not shed spilled from the knight inwardly, sobs that senselessly begged to end what had previously transpired. Juxtaposed to tears, the demon smiled. She smiled to the pointed incisors of her glossy teeth, the frame of her stormy lips encircling the heartless beaming of her mouth. She broke Nevalle's heart with her smile, cracked the veneer of what shielded him from the truth of her being. Nevalle tried to plead with the paladin to fight, to retrieve the Knight Captain. Casavir, the fool, he remained still! Just as the paladin heaved his mace upward the slightest inch, the sword's point at the Knight Captain's back crashed through her upper chest.

Before Casavir could attack the tanar'ri, she had finished sawing to the woman's lower abdomen. Each time Nevalle head the crack of ribs being broken or the pounding of the scimitar against the Knight Captain's spine the shell of his heart split more. The entrails of his emotion leaked free, exhausting his capacity for feeling at all. Halved flesh hung lifelessly from the warrior's body. Her mouth, gaping, quivered hauntingly accompanied by silence only made quiet by the slosh of rising blood from her throat. Time slowed until each singular, rhythmic impalement became more and more gradual. Split open, the Knight Captain's life faded swiftly. Her eyes closed in death before Casavir could catch her in his arms.

It was at that moment that Nevalle broke from Casavir's memory. He saw Axarthys, and their eyes caught one another's stare. She nodded in finality, her pink eyes piercingly poignant, their beauty lost eternally. Rejoining the shadow the last Nevalle saw before she faded into the depths of the hallway was the ephemeral shimmer of pallid tresses. With her Nevalle saw the fragile, dearest love he bore her depart his soul. Now his love was no less a memory than the vision itself. Tears he knew he could not cry in that world soon coursed a glacial down his cheeks as the recollection dismantled, abandoning him to the pitilessness of reality, his heart an apple cored of its love.

-

Cold.

Axarthys suffered it, numb by decree of the wooden floor farthest from the fireplace. Once, she slumbered in the soothing heat thriving between the folds of her knight's bed covers, adorned in the pearl-beaded lace of velveteen robes. Having woken in such a world for numberless morns the difference ached. Her joints welled with immobility, throbbing as the tanar'ri leveled her seat upon the floor. Hesitant as her knees were to bend the demon demanded it be so, and ladylike she reposed awake in a lonesome crook of the knight's quarters. The cream chiffon of her nightdress clouded her bare flesh as opal gossamer, too flimsy a fabric to present her warmth in that glacial position. Challenged to prevail against the cold the tanar'ri rose to stand, wings expanded and then reclosed. Her delicate jaw tilted, staring at Nevalle. At the edge of the bed he sat crumpled, leaning over his knees with back towards her.

War. War was coming, and he feared it, Axarthys considered. She cavorted in somnolent dance to scale the bed behind him, ringing her arms around the circle of his waist. Instead of warm reception his reply was cold rejection, rising to have him stand from the bed, walking away, the embrace of the slenderness of her feeble arms a crestfallen signal of his despair. The tanar'ri followed him, capturing his wrist in both her infinitesimal hands. When still he did not halt she clung to his arm, mewling, "Of what concerns you, beloved of knights?"

"Truth," he whispered, "And love, virtue, and chivalry."

"All of which dear you've born in your heart and defended passionately." Axarthys cooed. In the absence of his usual soft grin there stretched a distinguishing, detached frown cross his lips. Detached not in lack of sentiment but in too much of it, as if sensations themselves fleeted in emotional overload.

"And I was wrong to do so." He offered quietly, again breaking from her touch to stand before the foot of his bed. Nevalle remained there many moments, hushed in mournful meditation. Axarthys gazed onward, alone at the opposite end of the chamber, abandoned. Where once there was love that filled whatever empty space spanned between them now there was only emptiness. Autumnal love bound to winter's pending ice began to shed the life of its leaves, the tale of their romance drawing its last breaths. The solitude Axarthys experienced in the minutes Nevalle wiled in rumination starved her spirit. Outside the wind howled, the grey of the sky before the storm refusing to allow morning's brilliance to shine upon the Lamb and her knight one final day. The sun of a love once recognized in yellow orchids and blue fabric ribbon settled into evening. Night would come and in darkness turn whatever hope remained for them to shadow, the moon's patina mirroring the sun of their former coexistence.

"There was hope left for us once." Axarthys mourned, hushed.

Nevalle sighed, a breath drawn after in swiftness of looming tears. He glanced over one shoulder and unable to bear the sight of her vulnerable outline in the grey glow, he peeled his russet eyes from her visage. He murmured, "The woman I loved was but a façade for the demon within. The planetar showed me everything. I watched the Knight Captain fall, Axarthys, and I was vain to have loved a hollow shell."

"Hollow, perchance, but not empty." The demon mewled. Nevalle faced her. Once a disciple of her temple he no longer believed. The skeleton of the demon's actions flayed of its emotive flesh, Axarthys could not longer summon tears. The former acolyte of her crafted religion now was her judge, a secondary verdict lingering upon his expression. Neverwinter's justice sought to punish through flesh- through the burn of holy water upon the mask of her unholy skin, through the exile of her physical body upon the ships of Ruathym, though the hypothermia that stiffened her sinew with cold. All this Axarthys conquered; corporal pain fleeted. Nevalle's justice doubtless sought to punish the fragility of her sentience. Terror tortured Axarthys in the very thought that emotional pain was eternal.

"I fell in love with a woman that does not exist," Nevalle uttered, "I loved the Axarthys Saintrowe who believed in dignity, honor and nobility, tarnished by a crime I thought purely committed as an act of war. But there was no dignity, no honor or nobility in the death of the Knight Captain."

Axarthys whispered insistently, "You knew of my crime long before you loved me."

"Yes, and I was a fool to not have seen the implications of the extent of your malice. You used our love to bring war to Neverwinter and for it we are both to blame." He quietly rebuked, hands clutching either side of his face as he grappled for words. Raising his head, locking shut his eyes and dipping his neck back, he beseeched Tyr for aid, concluding, "We must go to Dantalion and end this. The lives of my people are worth the price of ours."

"I shall go alone." Axarthys responded, but Nevalle would not have it.

"No. I must see through what I've began." He replied, straightening his neck to part his eyes, lowering their gaze towards the floor as he passed her, walking to the window. His breath was a fog on the glass, the dampness outside clinging to the glass. Axarthys tentatively approached him, a hand settled at the base of his back as her head reposed against the length of his forearm. He did not shirk from her, nor did he look upon her striking shape chastely and sparingly pressed against his body.

"Amor animi arbitrio sumitur, non ponitur," Dulcetly, soothingly she hummed. The song wove itself of the iron of a lament and the lace of a serenade, the steel of a ballad and the silk of a minuet. When the last note of her foreign hymn ceased, Axarthys explained, sadly an in regret, "We choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving."

-

As dawn in muted grey cast a white palette of tarnished light across the fields of war outside Neverwinter, Adelaide waited. Such action was not derived of choice; had she a choice, the death of Axarthys Saintrowe would have transpired long before that moment. Contrary to this impatience, the paladin could undoubtedly loiter in the confines of her prison cell for the opportunity to execute the tanar'ri at all. Thus Adelaide paced the walls of her cage, rapping upon the iron bars with fingers bare of armor. Flesh against iron thumped, the lethargy of the rhythm evident as well in her gait. She toiled in her impatience, considering long had past that twilight hour preceding the sunrise, when efforts of war were in their final details prepared, the soldiers aligned in throngs along the plains of battle.

Adelaide understood Axarthys's death was a ploy to concentrate the surge of demons that marched on the city, bridling the vast strength of the many legions into a focused position so the lesser numbers of mortal troops could easily hone their attacks on a single stream of combatants. The paladin had been schooled in the art of war. She, a tyrant to Neverwintan justice, was disposable, and at the forefront of the tactic's plot it was likely her death would preclude the tanar'ri's; with her demise, the demons would rescue their demoness. Adelaide did not dread death, contented with the exchange of her life for even the chance to torture Axarthys Saintrowe. Truly, she woke when night in its darkness still clung to the veil of the sky, and a vigor and vigilance had overtaken the common morning tire. The paladin wished war, wished it for vengeance and glory both. Stripped of fear, raw enthusiasm awakened her conscious self. It was magnificent.

Not an hour had passed when two guards removed her from her prison cell, bearing her plate mail in their arms. Adelaide refused it, taking from them but the boots and tunic of the Neverwinter Nine to don them atop the coarse muslin of her prisoner's breeches and shirt. Her sword she looped through her belt, clutching its hilt feverishly as her perspiration palm loosened her wrenching grasp. She leapt up stairs, bounded through halls, the beat of her heart escalated. Red Fallow's Watch, so many countless years past, avenged that day; the sheer notion electrified Adelaide, pulsated in her veins. Liberated, she entered Nasher's throne room, locks disheveled about the lopsided collar of her tunic. Hastily she bowed to her armored lord, trotted to her place in a line of Neverwinter's attentive generals of war: Casavir and Sedna Belladonna. Two paladins and a planetar to combat the mighty legions of hell- such irony, Adelaide considered, that Tyr willed to be so.

Nasher before them rose. There was happiness in his eyes, a celebratory sparkle of optimistic light that perplexed Adelaide. As well there subsisted a sorrow in his expression. He descended from his lofty throne to stand at his soldier's level, halting at their center to dejectedly glance to his right side, then to the marble floors, to announce, "Tyr has blessed Neverwinter with fine soldiers. On the eve of war our city's knights and guards polish the old blood of their armor, wipe clean their weapons of the lives of fallen foes. In war they risk sacrificing their lives to sustain peace, riding home victorious whether alive upon their horses or dead upon the corpse-carts alongside lost comrades. Yet there exist a rare and exceptional few who would walk deliberately to a guaranteed death to save both the lives of his people and his fellow soldiers. Know that Tyr has blessed us with fine soldiers, but even finer men.

"This morning I woke to the promise of war. I woke to the immediate threat of demons marching upon our city, to the uncertainty of the strategies we planned, and to the loss of many soldiers-many men- who have already given so much of themselves for Neverwinter's sake. I woke knowing many would have seen their last morning today. Then a man came to me and offered his life in exchange for the salvation of Neverwinter. He said to me, 'I've served this city many years, and won't act a coward now to watch it fall'. For his sacrifice, you have been summoned here to be informed there will be no war, and that your captain has gone to his death for you. Though Neverwinter has been spared, we've lost the finest of our knights, Sir Nevalle. Casavir, in his stead, he wished you be named the Captain of the Nine."

Casavir dared to part his lips in speech but Adelaide intercepted, stepping forth towards her former liege to hiss, "And so for one man's idealism you expect Neverwinter to send its soldiers home? We are at war, Nasher."

Sedna Belladonna added smoothly, "I do not neglect the severity of the sacrifice the knight has made, for his action transcends what Tyr expects of his followers. But I do agree that we must retain a level of caution. However great his actions, it is unwise to depend upon the success of one man. It is not in my place to dictate your war strategy; I only suggest we act pragmatically."

"And in so doing we risk showing Captain Nevalle our distrust of his capacity and irreverence to his sacrifice." Casavir replied, sighing, "Yet the loss of this city is far too great a loss on the behalf of one man."

"He walks to his death regardless. We haven't the chance to be reverent to the dead, Casavir- abandon your paladin morality in the face of war." Adelaide snapped, snarling, "Or are ideals of more importance than the survival of this city and the preservation of-"

"-Adelaide, silence," Nasher demanded to the low growl and recoiling of her unarmored body behind the planetar, "You were summoned here as nothing more than a ploy, and now you stand here for no greater reason than my graciousness. Sedna Belladonna speaks well, her plan a solid one, and Casavir, the consideration of your comrades is honorable. Let us see to it that both matters are handled properly. We may reformat our original strategy to complement Nevalle's singular infiltration of the hell mouths along with the tanar'ri, perhaps channeling the demons south with a force stationed exclusively along the river and around the upper walls of the city."

"In so doing, we would draw the tanar'ri from their hell mouths, alienating them from their source of abyssal power. Naturally, with fewer demons surrounding the portals it will be much more likely for the knight and the demoness to enter the Abyss unharmed. Though we cannot predict what will transpire once they reach that plane, it is as best a chance as we may offer them. From there, you must invest your faith in Axarthys Saintrowe." Sedna Belladonna said, "Nasher, should we depart to station the soldiers? It is best we prepare early."

"Yes, you are dismissed. Though Adelaide- I am wary to trust you. Go with the planetar." Nasher answered. Adelaide lowly growled, stomping off in a weathered sashay before Sedna Belladonna and the paladin. The two lingered, departing the throne room slowly, as if to hesitate walking to their fates. Perhaps the planetar wished to allow the paladin a moment more to draw off her celestial aura. Casavir glanced to the planetar, fingers tingling with the sensation of her divinity as she strode beside him. She was warm and he wasn't even touching her. As they strolled farther from the throne room, Sedna Belladonna gave a gentle chuckle.

"Nervous?" Casavir asked politely. She shook her head.

"Amused, actually," she responded, "I haven't slain a tanar'ri in a number of decades."

"Yet planetars are traditionally the celestial generals who aid mortals in battling fiends." Casavir noted. The planetar laughed once more, audible and alto.

"Astute. I see you studied tediously to become a paladin, as well any paladin should. You see, once my sole purpose was suppressing demonic and devilish uprisings throughout Toril. It is what Tyr believed I excelled in, and a task I admit I had a penchant for. Then I was assigned to exterminate a succubae coven, and there was an alu-child there. I killed her; I followed the order explicitly. The guilt has lasted many years, and now I find myself in a situation painfully similar," She explained, shrugging sadly, "I bear Axarthys Saintrowe much disdain, but she, she-"

"Has a comparable innocence?" Casavir asked. Sedna Belladonna's lips pursed as if to retort, though no words escaped. She only nodded, dipping her head downwards.

"Let us see to war, not Axarthys Saintrowe." She managed finally.

-

Through the field she strolled, gait as if in promenade and not as if a march towards death's jaws where the hell mouths opened from the core of Faerun into extraplanar landscapes. Her leathery wings offered flight and instead she walked alongside her knight, the narrow panels of pink silk that dangled at her front and back from the waist of her scant, black armor stained with the moisture of the grass, the chill of autumnal winds turning her breath to fog. The white of her widely-curled hair tangled in the zephyrs, her fine jaw tucked over the shoulder of a fragile arm to see Nevalle behind her. Her gaze she proffered to him for a moment, repealing it as the auburn of his eyes met hers. She fleeted then, floating off into the grey haze of the morn.

Nevalle would have shouted she steady her pace, deciding speaking to her ached far too much to attempt it. Her response, liquid silk in its muted dirge, drove a blade deeper into the core of his heart. The innocence of the Lamb expired at witnessing her crime; having peered into the hollow of her naive veneer, his heart corrupted with the memory, he could no longer smile when she spoke. Her speech was poison.

Instead of the final utterances of goodbye and the last declarations of love, they marched in silence. Unearthly Axarthys Saintrowe glided cross the terrain, somber and reminiscent of the golden age of her earthly being. These were the final moments of the reign of the Lamb on the mortal plane, the finale of a world once lived in the luxury of Waterdeep upon the sprawling vineyards of her estate and once loved in the soul of a knight within the halls of the City of Skilled Hands. The era lived roaming the Neverwinter Wood alongside her ranger and wandering the Docks barefoot and pensive was dying. Her golden age began with war and would end in like; from the blood and fire of Red Fallow's Watch to the blood and fire of the Abyss, Axarthys had ever been ephemeral. Her time upon Faerunian soil ended then, circumvented. Closure could be sought in that truth. Nevalle did not seek it.

When at last Axarthys had led them to the hell mouths she halted, facing Nevalle. In the fog she appeared alone. He continued to walk towards her, each step closer revealing a refined silhouette of the demons lined in formation. The screen collapsed as he stood within ten feet of Axarthys, the thousands of demons- from the strongest colossal crimson-skinned balor generals and serpentine marilith commanders to taloned nabassu captains and fanged nalfeshnee mages to the lowliest diminuitive manes and mindless hezrous. Nevalle felt his lungs tighten, the instinct to retreat strong. Breath quickened to swift puffs of fog as he willed himself to move forward. There were hundreds of tanar'ri, if not thousands. Half of the demonic ilk Nevalle had never seen- or battled- the likes of before. Chasme patrols soared high in the air, circling the army from the heavens. Armanites plated in suits of armor aligned in a row of glimmering silver, motionless and attentive. At the forefront of the army, Dantalion stood. Tall and imposing, his autumn eyes intense and jaded acknowledged the human. Armored entirely in oranges and blacks, his fiery wings unfurled stylishly, he extended the point of his longsword, black hair tossed in the wind about the barbs of his reddish horns. Beside him, Axarthys appeared a vision, the only beauty found against the palette of demon kind stationed behind her. Her father said, voice confident in telling charisma, "You dare to march alone on an army of the Abyss's finest warriors. Are you mad?"

"He is a knight of Neverwinter, father," Axarthys leaned towards the demon to utter, "Thrice he has saved my life, and thus it belongs to him. Be kind to him; he has brought me to you, and would follow me home if necessary."

"He stinks of mortal flesh, little Lamb. Blessedly he is also a traitor having loved you; otherwise I'd be retching from the stench of his goodness. Repulsive. These Tyrrans are worst; that band of paladins and clerics couldn't help slaying fiends if Tyr himself told them to. I dislike your affection for Neverwintan, in general human men, my daughter, though I can't deny you chose better with this one. He has bravado. The last one was as miserable as Lynkhab and as insatiable as Malcanthet." Dantalion snorted, pacing a portion of his legions to beckon Nevalle forward. The knight hesitantly obliged to walk next to the tanar'ri, leaving Axarthys as the two ventured along the interminable line of fiends assembled away from where she stood. Nevalle recognized this as an opportunity to implore the siege of Neverwinter be halted, but he could not risk forthrightness. He swallowed his anxiety, forcing his patience to last.

"You risk much by coming here." Dantalion said. Nevalle's teeth clamped on his gums. He plotted his response, subtle and significant, rehearsing it in his thoughts in the pause between breaths' clouds of white exhaled onto the haze.

"I accept that my life may be forfeit." He vocalized cautiously.

"Death pales in comparison to what the demon lords would do to you," Dantalion responded sharply, "Tell me, would you die for Neverwinter before you would my daughter?"

"I would," Nevalle admitted quietly, "Axarthys would not love me if that was untrue. She cares for me as a knight, and as a knight I must retain my code of chivalry and subservience to Neverwinter. Do not think I didn't love her; I loved her so dearly I allowed my city to go to war for the preservation of our love. There is something extraordinary about your daughter, something evocative, perhaps something provocative. She had me questioning every belief I invested in my city and in Tyr."

"You speak as though you no longer love her." Dantalion replied.

"Her crime… a, a planetar showed me what occurred to our city's Knight Captain. The brutality of that action contradicted the Axarthys I knew, questioned the vulnerable woman I rescued from freezing to her death, the woman who I took a sword to the torso for, the woman whose burns I healed. I knew an Axarthys that did not exist, an Axarthys whose love was but a shell." Nevalle lamented.

Dantalion snarled distinctively, aggravation apparent, explaining, "Love and lineage are separate entities. She can do nothing to change that she is a tanar'ri, human. Remember as well that though her demonic blood no doubt has led her to sin, humans and demons alike have stumbled. You forget the eons of good she has done as an emissary in the genuine love she has for humankind, for what? Because once she acted as any demon would?"

Nevalle wronged, he sealed his lips and continued to stroll alongside the legions. What Dantalion spoke was painfully true; Axarthys had been born a demon, and nothing could be done to remedy that. As they turned to walk towards her, Nevalle gazed upon her in regret. He could not love her even still, however much he desired to in repentance of having severed her from his love for her former actions. The thought consuming him, the knight could no longer focus on his duty to Neverwinter. He bowed his head, depressed. Dantalion stopped then, clamping one gauntleted hand on Nevalle's shoulder to utter, "Do you know why I brought war here, human?"

"You work on behalf of Demogorgon, who wishes Axarthys to become his consort." Nevalle emptily replied. Dantalion hesitated, growling impatiently.

"No," he snapped after a moment, "Are you so blind? You directly caused the concern for her safety in Neverwinter that spawned this war, human- you were the cause of it; you drove House Saintrowe to war because you couldn't control your urge to rape her in a bath tub when she was hypothermic. Your mortal incapacity to control with your head what swings between your legs ended with my daughter becoming pregnant, and House Saintrowe is ravenous for the expansion of its power and the births of more demonic children."

"That cannot be." Nevalle protested, "She was, was hypothermic, dying."

"The dying cannot conceive, now? What other untruths float within the confines of your human mind? Look at her, human. You cannot see the softness in her eyes, the love she bears you lingering there? She may not know herself but she radiates with life. I am damned that you cannot sense it, mortal." Dantalion seethed.

"You are damned." Nevalle growled, fighting past advancing demons towards Axarthys. He could not help but pity her, but feel for her. He'd done this to her, he admitted silent. Love began to battle its control of his emotions and he combated it, suppressing the urge to surrender himself to Axarthys again. She was cruel, evil, corrupt, powerful, potent, provoking, seductive, lithe beneath the guise of her armor, her skin like- no, he demanded of himself. When love failed a great sorrow overcame him once more, filling the hole in his heart left by her love. What would Axarthys do? Where would she go? How would his child live? Nevalle gazed towards the heavens. Tyr would have him die not for Neverwinter, but for his child, if not both his child and its mother. No, he wished to walk to his demise for his city, not her!

"We march now on your Neverwinter, human, regardless if Axarthys you have returned to us." Dantalion called behind him. Nevalle clutched his sword, drawing it halfway from its scabbard. He battled for his city! He would not die for Axarthys Saintrowe, nor for any half-demon child she bore him. They were both spawned from evil, made of the substance Tyr himself frowned upon and bade his followers to extinguish. Nevalle's brown eyes focused on Axarthys in the distance, the legions of demons swarming past her. She stood motionless, her white hair a flag that rippled as if a sign of surrender in the wind. Her eyes gazed forth in supreme sadness, closing when the knight's eyes fell directly upon hers. He dropped his blade back into its sheath.

"Dantalion!" he yelled over the advancing tanar'ri, "Your siege will end by this night! I march to your lord, and soon your war will cease!"

"You are a fool, human!" he laughed heartily, the noise fading into the grey air as he leapt from the earth to unfurl his wings and ascend into the sky, his blade fully flourished. He called out in the demonic tongues to his legions, their cheers filling the atmosphere with the thickening breaths of sulfurous exhales of victorious phrases, their stomping quaking the ground. Nevalle darted between the legs of a massive balor towards Axarthys, scooping her into his arm's grasp as she gasped at the unceremonious action.

"They march! We must find Dantalion! He must stop this!" Axarthys yelped.

"We are beyond ending this civilly." Nevalle snapped hopelessly.

-

The Purging Duke ventured the maze of dungeons, navigating his entourage of demons through tunnels towards the central banquet hall. His path was littered with the wooden and iron masses of torturous constructs. Damned mortals wept and shrieked for liberation, salvation. The tanar'ri lord licked his maw in gratification, his footsteps' knock silenced by the puddles of blood that he strode through. A man strapped to the rack screeched as his shoulders and hips snapped in dislocation, the tautness of his bonds leaving his hands and bare feet bluish and bleeding at the bindings. A woman pleaded for reprieve as her eyes were cored out by a score of impish demons, tittering and chattering at the sounds. Alvarez's lips twisted into a grin, a softly pleased one stripped of complete joy with the absence of his darling demoness, Lamb. Her naive smile, whatever guile it masked, was the joy of a thousand tortured cries.

Alvarez admired her diminutive, slender form in his thoughts, honored the dawn of her pink wings stretched across her shoulders, the pout of her glossed lips and the cloud of her snowy tresses curled and cascading over the skeletal frame of her shoulders about the lace of a trimmed velvet gown. What a precious pet she had been, and so stylish, so decorous, so poised. He lusted for her, annoyed at the bawling of a human girl twenty years old who struggled under the spikes of her leather bonds against the ceiling above. Those cries could have been Axarthys's gasps as she sprawled beneath him upon the red damask of his bed. Snarling he stomped faster towards the banquet hall, considering Axarthys better belonging to Demogorgon than the human knight if she would belong to anyone at all. That human did not deserve the exotic elegance of the Princess of Demons as his own.

The tanar'ri approached the hall and entered, slamming the door behind him to bar his entourage from entering. He sighed, exasperated, and kneaded his brow, trudging to the seat at the head of the magnificent feast set out on the lengthy table before him. The hulking mounds of red, roasted flesh he enjoyed remained untouched, the glass of merlot at his plate struck with the back of his hand. He watched as the wine like blood coursed through the veins of the dead, dried wood of the table and leaked to a sweet, gummy puddle on the stone ground. A light chuckle was omitted from the opposite end of the table, and Alvarez's piercing stare lifted to seek the source of the sound. Bishop, his new champion, sat in one of the opulent chairs with his ankles crossed and feet propped upon the surface of the table. He gnawed barbarically at a turkey leg, an uncorked and half-downed bottle of zinfandel cradled in his lap.

"I told you not to show your face here unless Axarthys Saintrowe accompanied you." Alvarez hissed. Bishop smiled, tearing a mouthful of meat from the roasted limb in his mouth.

"Ah, but you see, your plan left no room for happenchance." He announced, tossing the devoured turkey leg to the floor, "We had a lucky change of circumstances. Little Lamb entered the Abyss. Dantalion summoned his army to play with the Neverwintan soldiers, opened some hell mouths that she used, and I jumped in after her. Found my way here; ranger, you know. Good at finding places, animals, people, demons."

"You would reap the benefits of champion when you have not been declared as such and have done naught to prove your worth? I shall have the skin flayed from your face, human." Alvarez barked. Bishop shrugged, pouring wine down his throat. The empty bottle he discarded onto the floor with the bones, the shatter of glass satisfying to his ears, as if the chorus of sweet bells on a quiet afternoon.

"You forget I want Axarthys worse than you. I wish to reclaim what is mine in retrieving her. You think I would let her bow to Demogorgon and become his consort?" Bishop asked, slipping from his seat to stand behind the Purging Duke's chair. He drew a thin rapier, pressing it to the demon lord's throat. The tanar'ri laughed.

"No mortal weapon may end my existence." He spat. Bishop smiled widely, hauntingly.

"Ah, but you see, that is where you are fatally incorrect, my lord. Here you are, casually accepting me into your service, trusting me with this task. You think I will arm myself with common weapons, allow you to have Axarthys Saintrowe, prized amongst your people? Do you think, after countless unworthy masters, I will bend my knee to you? No. Now, allow me to explain. This blade was christened in the blood of a faithful Tyrran, and it thirsts for the blood of demon kind." The ranger explicated. Alvarez's skin began to bubble up under the blade, reddening at the touch of the sword. The tanar'ri summoned his voice to protest but all that escaped his lips was a strained hiss. Bishop sunk the metal into the flesh of the demon lord's neck, thrusting backwards to cleanly sever the head from its shoulders without so much as a scream in dissent.

-

The winding black halls, as if marble carved in the fashion of organic coils of spindling branched, arched stories above. Columns endless in their height rose like stripped tree trunks from the glassy gloss of the polished floors, that estate a forest of inorganic stone perched above the volcano's pits below, the fireworks of lava spurting from the festering wounds of the Abyss, flickering in lights red and orange most gleaming. Arrow slits in the castle's exterior permitted the fiery light to illuminate the dark halls of that place, the floors buffed to mirror the fleeting specters of light as they shimmered past. Succubi armed with lofty scythes guarded each passage, their eyes obscured by the platinum visors that shielded the upper halves of their faces. Nevalle knew even disguised, their eyes were upon him.

Before him, Axarthys wove the labyrinth of the slender corridors, her rose skirts shuffling with the ripple of silk against the marble beneath her heeled boots. The narrowness of her leather-clad waist contradicted the existence of the child within her, the knight considered poignantly, though not for much longer. Axarthys soon would know; a few months' time pregnant was barely a moment's time in the ceaseless of immortality. But by then, Nevalle would be dead. He had long imagined marrying a young noblewoman, keeping the conception of their first child secret so only between them the joy could be shared. Part of that hope was rooted in decorum, part in self-want. Instead Nevalle was disturbed to think she, who should have known of the child first, was the only one unaware of it. Tyr perchance willed it to be so, so that Nevalle's death would not pain the tanar'ri as much. To detach the knight from her, so his passing would be made easier for the both of them.

Why was he so certain he would die?

He didn't wish to dwell on the answer. He followed Axarthys thoughtlessly, pleased more with thoughtlessness than a swell of memories that only offered the memory of tears and blood. The clap of her heels against the marble awakened him to the present, beckoned him from his brooding. Axarthys glanced over her shoulder to assure he trailed behind her, standing motionless at the entry to the throne room. She uttered, "Speak cautiously to Ladyship Balimynah or not at all."

Axarthys floated into the throne room, ascending the dais to curtsy deeply. Balimynah, rage scribed in the marble white of her skin and in the colorless stone of her eyes, tensed her ivory wings. The black plates of her armor creaked as her muscles tensed. Before Axarthy could stand upright Balimynah struck her with the back of her palm, sending Axarthys stumbling in shock to the cushions beneath her matron. Nevalle's hand reached for his blade. He faltered. Caution. He'd battled demons before; should the situation become dire, he would know how to react. His arms fell slack at his sides, standing in the threshold to the chamber. Balimynah hissed at Axarthys, "That is for terrifying me with the prospect of losing you to holy water, the ranger's sword, hypothermia and war. Retire to your chambers, Lamb, and prepare yourself to be presented to Lord Demogorgon. Do not make it seem you would bring war to him in this armor you wear."

"My ladyship, permission to speak." Axarthys whispered, gathering herself to her feet, quivering as she steadied herself on her heels. Balimynah sighed, nodding faintly. Axarthys motioned to the floor below the dais, murmuring, "Sir Nevalle, Captain of Neverwinter."

Balimynah's gaze transfixed on his, narrowing. She muttered to Axarthys, "Leave us."

"At once, my ladyship." Axarthys replied, descending the dais to pass Nevalle. She did not acknowledge him, her face chastely bowed against her chest as the applaud of her heels resounded further and further in echo behind him. Balimynah stared unblinkingly at the knight until the footsteps dissipated, leaving she and the knight in utter silence. Nevalle allowed a pause before gradually bowing, arising unhurriedly as to solidify his action in the demoness's mind. She spoke nothing, as if waiting for his words. He parted his lips, hearing Balimynah growl lowly.

"You would speak, mortal? Do not. You have nothing to say. You have done quite enough to shake the foundations of this house to say anything on the matter, and in fact, on any matter." She snapped, reclining deep into her plush throne. Balimynah buried her face into one of her hands, "I despise you Tyrrans. Trotting about the planes declaring justice and honor like fools, ruining the lives of demons and devils alike purely because a handful of celestials dictated it be so, when fiends have done nothing to you."

"The Knight Captain's death was nothing, then." Nevalle noted beneath his breath, throat drying when Balimynah's fist pounded one of the armrests of her throne, her head bounding upwards.

"Be silent, human!" She shrieked, breathing heavily as she recoiled into her seat, "You have decimated the life of my Lamb! You dared to have loved her, abandon her with child and seek to die at the hands of her people! What a spineless evasion of your fate. You sicken me. My little Lamb shall swell miserably with your child while you find peace in death. You are a coward."

"My lady, if I may," He voiced, "I would speak for my actions."

"And what will you say, human?" She seethed. Nevalle inhaled deeply, sinking to his knees in veneration.

"Axarthys is a shrewd woman, my lady. Her love is warily placed and difficultly won. I respect it greatly. I swear, my lady, I repeal my love for her in complete compassion. Detachment will lessen her suffering when it is time for my life to expire for hers and my child's to continue." He sorrowfully responded, subdued and hushed, mourning, "If it were possible, my lady, I would easily wed your daughter, raise our child on the expanses of her vineyards. But if my life buys her and my child that happiness, so be it. I came to you prepared to die for them."

"You came here prepared to die because you could no longer bear the death of the Knight Captain replayed in your thoughts!" Balimynah rebuked, though her tone was too questioning of itself to indicate the firmness of the words it spoke. She groaned, kneading her temples wearily. Her eyes' sorrow attested to un-cried tears, her lips trembling in bereavement for what lived still. Her voice abruptly plunged to a snivel, uttering, "It was I that filled the head of the beloved Axarthys Saintrowe with tales of knights' heroism. Her sisters I could please with stories of impish mischief, perhaps quell the begging of their ears with the account of the Reckoning of Hell, quench their narrative thirst with descriptions of faerie realms unknown to demon kind. But never the Lamb. My sweet Lamb would mewl for legends of faraway kingdoms, of damsels locked in towers whose knights would rescue them. While her sisters battled cheerfully through these halls, she would perch by the windows, staring for hours. She told me she was waiting for a knight to save her from the tower. She wished so desperately to be human. I see now how heartbreakingly close she came in you. If only she knew that in fairytales, demons are not permitted happy endings."

Balimynah lifted her jaw, composure promptly regained. She braced her hands on the arm rests and rose from her seat, extending the full length of her white wings. She commanded, "You will march with Lamb to the gateways beneath this volcano's base. There my vanguard shall accompany you to the eighty-eighth abyssal layer, the Brine Flats; this is the realm of Demogorgon. You shall proceed to the central island continent and enter the capital city of Lemoriax, where our lord's palace is located. You travel as my Lamb's gift to Demogorgon, not her champion. This will strike my lord as combative and he shall squeeze the life from Axarthys's lungs for it. Now, if you wish to cease war, you must go to Demogorgon and accept his terms, surrendering Lamb to him. Likely because she is with child, he will reject her consortship and return her to my jurisdiction. You will not be so fortunate."

"I am ready to die." He replied firmly. Balimynah laughed darkly, wagging a finger at him.

"Oh, my foolish human, your fate shall be far worse than death." She responded, descending the dais to lift his chin, threatening, "If the demise of the Knight Captain haunts your memory, I cannot begin to imagine the horror you will bear your own fate. Demogorgon commands power to inflict pain a thousand times crueler than human comprehension can grasp. You Tyrrans shiver in the presence of a single sufferer of possession. Imagine tens of thousands of demons coursing through your body, twisting your limbs in ways the joints do not bend. Imagine your beating heart being torn from your chest, tanar'ri devouring it as you watch helplessly, consider every muscle in your body decaying and snapping from the bones which they-"

"-Ladyship Balimynah?"

Axarthys leaned in the doorframe, calling softly for her matron. Balimynah turned to smile lovingly, motioning for her to step into the luminosity of the room's chandelier. Like a glistening ray of sun, she had shed the night of her armor for the yellow of a cat suit that appeared to have been poured on her body. Squares had been cut from the sides of her torso and thighs to reveal the storm of her skin beneath, the dip of the neckline falling to her waist. Half her snowy tresses had been secured back, the rest left to fall in bangs cross one rose eye and over the semicircle of her shoulder. Cascades of golden chains sparkled like champagne in the pale light, but Nevalle knew better than that deception; she was as poisonous and provocative as the finest amontillado. Her spaded tail swayed restlessly, the steel spikes of her heels screeching against the stone floor precariously as she shifted. Behind her, the pink leather of her wings unfurled, her hand reposed at the small of her back revealing itself, gloved in yellow and clasping the woven hilt of the whip Legion. A half-mask of yellow leather covering her face's lower half she removed, her red-painted lips as crimson as human blood and in their true color blue with cold beneath. It was difficult to see her as a mother.

"It is time you depart." Balimynah instructed. Axarthys glanced to Nevalle momentarily, her knees weakening as her posture loosened.

"We must speak first. There is much left unsaid, my lady." She replied. Balimynah snorted, brow arched acerbically as she began towards the exit of the chamber.

"My Lamb," she spoke as she left, "If you only knew the half of what is unsaid and undone."

Once Axarthys was assured Balimynah had far fleeted towards her chambers, she circled the room, soaking in its sights as if it were a mirage. Her expression combated the consideration of this reality. She paced as if anxious, steps fast and nimble as she shook her head incredulously. Neither spoke for a time. Axarthys finally halted before him, shrugging powerlessly. She battled tears that outlined her lower lids in what seemed liquid glass, crystalline and gossamer. She asked, "Why did we leave Neverwinter, my most beloved knight?"

"Because if you love me as a knight, you must allow me to serve my people as best I can." He answered. She quivered, nearly fuming at that response.

"Knights die to defend a noblewoman's honor, impaled upon the lances of their opponents. Knights battle for love as much as honor, for chivalry more than for the salvation of their people from war." She insisted weakly. She gasped when he clutched her by the shoulders, drawing her close with a tenderness she'd forgotten after his morning detachment of her. Now, in the chill of her flesh underneath her leather, he abandoned his detachment as she sapped the warmth from his hands with the ice of her skin.

"You speak of a happy ending," he hushed, "I share your dream, Axarthys. To live out my days in the service of a Neverwinter that is at peace. I've dreamed of building you an estate upon a grand vineyard, and in the warmth of Neverwinter, your vines would never perish with winter's cold. Our halls would forever smell of orchids cut fresh from our gardens, our hedge maze a labyrinth we could lose ourselves in should the weight of the world have burdened us beyond our capacity to carry it. We'd be married in the vineyards, have a score of children. I envisioned a future for us, Axarthys. But you are a demon, my Lamb, and our happiness thus is banned from us."

"For Tyr despises our love so." Axarthys exclaimed.

"That isn't true," he cooed, gnawing on his lower lip with an anxious, thrilled sigh. He cradled her head in his hands, tangled a hand in her pallid locks. He rocked her in his embrace, whispering, "We suffered much, but in suffering, there is greater compassion. For you see, Tyr loves us dearly. He loves us so much that when he realized I would sacrifice myself for his city Neverwinter, he sealed our love forever with the conception of our child."

"But I'm not…" Axarthys trailed, quivering.

"That is why your family sought you return, Axarthys, so our child may preserve your lineage." He replied. The tanar'ri turned from him, shoulders descending as her neck curved, her lofty chin fallen. Her eyes outlined in the glass of tears met his, a passionate plea for the return to the surface world where this forthcoming child could be loved in the household the knight spoke of, if only in dreams. Instead of weeping she nodded solemnly. Fate, not Nevalle, embraced her then, and she bore it with similar reception in her arms.

"Demogorgon will slay us both." She called.

"Or only I, if I may sway his decision otherwise." Nevalle responded. Axarthys fingered the hilt of her whip, talons clamping over the red leather like iron over silk.

"You life belongs to me." She unexpectedly hissed, her expression losing its humanity for a brief second. Pink eyes flickered red, skeletal hands fixed upon her brandished weapon with preternatural power. The soft curves of her ageless features sharpened, her gaze rusted with the ferocity of her statement. Nevalle approached her, touching a shoulder. Her features loosened, her gaze once more loving. Tears welled strongly in her eyes, her mewled words lamenting his death, "I cannot lose you, my treasured knight. My heart cannot withstand any more anguish."

"You are strong enough to conquer it." He promised, smiling, "You are a demon. You are no ordinary woman."

"Yet still, I am a woman." She reflected with a frown, turning from him to dry her eyes of the threatened tears. Axarthys's stilettos rapped on the marble, her whip trailing behind her as if a crimson serpent. She ascended the dais, perching upon the armrest of the throne to release her wings like some leathery pink cloak over her back.

In that light, the halo of the demon Axarthys's ashen hair, dampened with dim light, appeared beneath her horns' crown of thorns as her eyes rose to the crystal chandelier above. Her lips fell into a disillusioned frown, and a hand lifted, halting Nevalle from joining her atop the dais. The clamor of his boots and the shuffle of his cloak subsided. Axarthys's heels pressed into the marble of the floor; she could feel the canter of Nevalle's palomino stallion as it dashed through the city atop it, feel the burn that singed her flesh. Then an ebony-haired man, scarred from the war against the King of Shadows and freshly knighted as one of the Neverwinter Nine, leaned into the walls of her chamber and professed his apology to her, not as her superior but as her equal. She remembered that raven night, that blonde knight, the affection she harbored for him then recognized in full as they prepared to dive off the highest peaks of their love into the wastes below, joyous and sorrowful in a sacrifice Axarthys wished she would have never made. No war would be avoided by this foolery; war was too advanced upon the mortal plane, and she knew it. No, now marching to Demogorgon was useless and it was necessary, a profession of chivalry the demon and the knight craved. Tonight, they danced in hell.

"Once, my most cherished knight, you told the paladin Casavir that I was a dangerous woman. That was a lie. I am a dangerous demon," Axarthys said, tears fleeted as she rose from the throne with power instilled in her spirit for the coming misery that would act as the cementation of their love, smiling fiercely. Now, she led this man to his death in proof of his devotion to her, laughing mockingly in face of their predicament, declaring, "Make of me your orchid, Nevalle. Follow me into the depths of hell."

-

War engulfed Neverwinter's walls. The square stones comprising the barricade chipped in the hail of arrows so dense the sky grew dark and the air hissed with the descent of their fall. Winged demons swept and soared through the air, launching orbs of necromantic magic as large as ship anchors, their victorious cackling piercing the stale grey sky. The balor generals roared ominously, commanding legions to march endlessly upon the slim rows of Neverwintan soldiers. Casavir and Sedna Belladonna at their forefront, glowing white to demonic eyes with Tyrran auras, readied their weapons for the fresh wave of beasts to the slaughter. Thus far the crash of fiendish battalions upon mortal shields ended with few Neverwintan losses and the decimation of the enemy forces. Save as combat lingered the mortals grew exhausted with battle, their arms weary from the weight of plate mail and swords. The demons, however, did not tire. They fought industriously, mechanized with undeterred resolve, some of the fallen regenerating and bounding to battle again and again. Their onslaught was endless, their siege tireless.

"Sedna!" Casavir called over the clash, whirling his mace to smash into the ribcage of a lamia. The planetar swung her long sword upwards, severing the wing of a succubus to have it flutter to the ground, snarling. She drove the point of her blade into the base of its spine, guarding the futile counterattack of the demon with her shield. She glanced over her shoulder at Casavir, her stony eyes vigilant.

"Above you." She coolly replied. Casavir lifted his gaze, ducking as an incubus swooped over him. As the fiend fell, struck by a Neverwintan arrow, the paladin raised his brow and returned to the celestial. She exclaimed, "It appears they may have slain the knight Nevalle and taken Axarthys Saintrowe by force. We must find the demoness; Tyr wills her safety."

"Behind you." Casavir noted. Sedna Belladonna whipped in semicircle, slicing into the torso of a raging hezrou. The massive beast shrieked and stumbled, allotting the celestial the opportunity to leap into the air, plunging her sword into its chest to turn it like a screw. She kicked off the surface of the monster's chest and landed on her feet as the thing plummeted to the earth with a thud. Casavir added, "We should stay with Neverwinter. Axarthys is safe amongst her own people."

"Tyr charged me with defending her. I shall not fail." Sedna Belladonna insisted, dipping downwards to avoid the assault of a swarm of imps. Fiercely she flailed, horizontally splitting the wind with her blade to halve the mephits. Casavir sighed and continued to battle, breathing hard as he pummeled a lunging succubus, and after it a rutterkin who toppled into a multitude of deceased manes upon the grass as if shattered. The balor and marilith commanders shouted orders for another legion to descend. The Neverwintan soldiers behind Casavir trembled with exhaustion, their battle ceaseless. They had already lost their captain Nevalle to the fight, and they themselves were tempted with the thought of submission. The demons drained all hope left, and somehow Casavir had to inspire their persistence.

From the fray a new score of demons emerged, succubae armed heavily that they doubled as aerial and artillery forces. Adelaide had bounded before Casavir, wildly and artfully turning her sword to smite the tanar'ri. As she leapt off to assault a new demonic host, Casavir noted a vaguely familiar face. A demon, with blonde curls and tan flesh, ran for him. He lifted his mace, but she had no weapon drawn and his arms lowered cautiously. As she drew closer, the paladin saw her eyes: pink.

"Stop! Please, stop, I mean you no harm." The demoness squealed as she nearly stumbled into the paladin. He caught the demon in his arms. Her face had Axarthys's features: small, rounded, feminine. She hyperventilated, gasping, "You, you are the paladin the Lamb knows. You must come with me, to the Abyss. With the angel, the planetar; I saw her, in battle, she must-"

"-Does the knight live?" Casavir interjected. She nodded.

It was all he needed to know.

-

A vessel crafted of fine ebony wood bore the knight and his demon across the sea to the capital of the Brine Flats, Lemoriax. The tanar'ri had taken her seat at the front of the boat, her patent cat suit reflective of the water's preternatural light, a white skirt opened at either side of her waist to reveal her leather-clad thighs so reflective their surface mirrored the loveliness of her cloud of hair. Nevalle took his place behind her, leaning over her shoulder to breathe in the sweet scent of her delicate tresses. One of her wings coiled over his back, shielding him from the view of the demonic ferryman that navigated the vessel from the entry into that layer of the Abyss cross the ocean towards Demogorgon's palace. The journey was blurred as if a memory, softening the sight of leviathan's arched spines breeching the water, the monsters appearing as commonplace waves. The moment felt a dream, an unreality perpetuated by the apprehension that the dream's finale was unavoidably death. Axarthys replaced her head against the knight's, her bare touch sharpening his comprehension of reality. Her thoughts echoed in his mind, Look forth, my treasured knight. The spires that rise from the earth are the jewels of Lemoriax, the palace of Demogorgon.

Mytomb, he thought, nearly bitter. Axarthys's fear and sorrow raged through him.

Silence such thoughts, lest you shatter the heart you sought to defend, she rebuked, Nevalle, my prized of knights, shall Tyr condone the repetition of the war with the King of Shadows? Shall he cast down the innocent as sacrifice to a cruel and enemy bloodlust?

We are far from innocent, Axarthys, he replied, drawing away from her to sigh audibly, gazing at the enormous columns that ascended from Lemoriax's center, comprising the halls of Demogorgon's stronghold. The vessel docked on the rainforest shores, white with sand and edged in the emerald arms of outstretched flora. Hibiscus flowers larger than human hands sprouted in fireworks of the hues of the sunset, beckoning the knight to crawl from the boat onto the damp, yielding sand. The air was stagnant, tepid, suffocating. Axarthys inhaled it as if water to quench an ancient thirst, the air's warmth combating the constant chill she seemed to suffer. Her colored lips regained a shade of grey beneath their gloss, a smile sealing the small joy heat provided her. Continuing ahead of Nevalle, she disappeared into the greenery ahead onto a narrow forest path, arms extended to brush the bark of trees she passed. The knight observed her, cemented her memory in his thoughts to treasure it for whatever time remained for him. Her head turned, as if to question why he did not immediately pursue her.

"Will you not follow me swiftly? I fear any moment passed lacking your company, with what few moments remain." Axarthys said. Stepping into the arch of two knotted trees above, Nevalle began on the forest path. He reached Axarthys, resting a palm on the crest of her head.

"If you are brave, I will be fast." He promised. The lack of her response solidified her sheer sadness at the truth, the gradual step of her gait attesting to her hesitance to surrender the knight for Neverwinter's behalf. Their journey to those looming spires of Lemoriax's palace was protracted, or perhaps it was fleet- time drifted and time soared in the Abyss, lacking consistency. Transcendence of extraplanar existence evaded Nevalle's mortality, dwarfed him and stripped consciousness of him, forcing him to ebb between understanding of abyssal passage of time and perplexity at the same ordeal. It numbed his pain at the thought of his immolation for Neverwinter's sake. But it could not dull the misery of abandoning his unborn child in death. Nothing could remedy that.

Nevalle gazed up at the forest canopy above. The trees were wet with salty dew. He could taste the flavor in the air. Perhaps it was but the sea winds. Perchance it was a false perception. Everything in that world seemed artificial, he realized, surreal and otherworldly and beyond his comprehension. Even Axarthys's fleeting form was blurred in ethereal radiance, her snow-tresses glowing preternaturally white and her wings waxy, their veins like capillaries of glass sheer to the scarlet blood that coursed them. As she trekked in front of him, her delicate paces quicker than his, she faded from his vision swiftly. Nevalle quickened his step, yet somehow was never close to her again. She was transitory, and he could never know why.

The journey, converse to the distortion of time and space, passed promptly. Each moment a gift, a lasting second of the last of his life, the knight emotionally soaked in their passing, absorbed what little feeling remained. No man could be prepared to enter hell, whether they had been paladin or knight, noble or commoner. Abyssal fears surely agitated his unpreparedness. It was death that instigated his restlessness most. A torrent of emotions consumed him: sorrow, terror, anger, panic. Of all things one thing was sure, and it anchored the storm in his heart: he loved Axarthys fearsomely, even more now that he had for a moment doubted that love. Following in her steps, regardless to where those steps led, was to the knight an honor unmatched by that which he felt entering Neverwinter's knighthood.

Perhaps hours had spanned since Axarthys and Nevalle had sailed upon the vessel, perhaps only a score of minutes. However much time had passed, it had been adequate to arrive at the city of Lemoriax. The city itself was twisted in its architecture, a scene from the darkest depths of dementia, despairing and melancholy. Lifeless constructs of grey stone like monuments pierced the rainforest floor and rose tall above the demon and the human walking. Demonic denizens alien and polished as Axarthys glided past the human, scoping him with inhuman eyes as desiccated as the desert without rain, empty of emotions. Hideous fiends and hulking beasts thundered, their gait like earthquakes quavering in tremors beneath the human's feet. As one balor wrung his whip longingly, Axarthys snatched her human's wrist and hastened her pace, plaiting the winding paths of the city towards the entry to the grand towers looming above them, the palace. At the base of the gargantuan mass, two armored suits extended their falchions, commanding mechanically, "No human enters, Ladyship Lamb."

"He is my present to our lordship." Axarthys smiled amiably. The guards retained their blades, heaving them back to allow the demoness passage. She slinked past them, Nevalle in pursuit. Axarthys glanced upwards, uttering as the pair walked further from the guards, "I am most frustrated you have not wings. Flight is preferable to reach Demogorgon's throne at the highest peak of these towers."

"As we are all aware, the lord of all demons would appreciate a little demoness leaping through one of his windows and landing square on his carpet woven of human souls." Nevalle replied. When Axarthys returned his sarcasm with a raise of her brow, he swallowed his fear. That description surely was no hyperbole.

"You think lowly of my people because they reap your mortal existence from you. Do not deny me that in my eyes you have seen compassion, or doubt the sincerity in Ladyship Balimynah's embrace of her Lamb. Where there is great chaos there is deeper devotion," Axarthys noted, pausing before she began to ascend the stairwell to Demogorgon's lair, whispering, "Devotion is all that remains to anchor us when all else is consumed in storm."

He replied, "You have called me anchor."

She trembled then.

Their journey did not span much longer, and it was spanned in silence. Ascending the steps rendered both weary, likely more so from the nearness it proffered to the human's death. Axarthys's breathing became shallow and tearful, her movement plodding. The human reached for the demon's arm, clasping its upper half to draw her into his awaiting arms. Slung across his shoulder, he carried her the remaining way, the pink leather of her wings draped over his back and her spaded tail coiled around his thigh. He leaned into the cloud of her hair, basking in the sunlight of her presence and shivering at the chill of her touch. At the highest summit, where the stairs melded into the stone plains of the highest palace floor, Nevalle replaced Axarthys to her feet with the click of her heels. She continued to grasp his shoulders, her petite form pitiably slight recognized in full as he watched her loosen her tail from around his leg.

"Are you ready?" He asked her. She gnawed on her lower lip.

"No." She mewled.

They persisted regardless. Hand in hand, side by side, equal in pace they walked towards the gilded doors of the chamber. Axarthys clung to the human's arm, trembling as her knight clasped the doors' handles. She buried her face into the knight's side, weeping. The human would not prolong their misery, entering the room dragging the demon along beside him. She stumbled, winding her grasp tighter round his forearm.

The chamber was sparse, towering windows devoid of plush drapery. No warmth of wooden furnishings livened the room. All that distinguished it from a dungeon was the intensity of the dreadful, bitter chill that turned the human's breath a fog and matched the incessant cold of the demon's grey flesh. Axarthys could not have been happy there, even should she have ruled as the lord demon's consort. She longed for the luxuriance of satin curtains and the velvet cushions of plush beds, for ivory bathtubs and mahogany vanities.

Demogorgon emerged from shadows, the twenty-feet of ceiling barely enough to contain his lofty mass. His two heads focused on the demon first and then the human. Axarthys curtsied daintily, lifting the white skirts bound to her hips with porcelain fingers, her eyes gazing downwards in submission and reverence. The Demon Prince chuckled, the sound audible as it resonated throughout the bare room. Axarthys beamed superficially, un-cried tears rimming the sorrow of her pink eyes. Demogorgon lowered himself onto his knees to view her better, commenting, "I have been told you are the most beautiful of demons. It is why I sought you at first."

"Your efforts are well spent, for I am talented beyond the beauty I maintain." She responded. Demogorgon scoffed.

"Your worthlessness has become apparent since the time when I would have believed that. You lack physical strength. You could win no battle for me. Your reputation precedes you as an emissary, who sneers at the likes of my succubae for their means; you are renowned for your arrogance. Your scant talents include courtly etiquette and foreign tongues, both of which serve me little. You are a table ornament, and as I am now fully aware, you are made useless with the child you carry by the human who you risk carting to my throne." He scrutinized, expecting her shock. Even so she nodded, folding her hands delicately over her waist.

"Perchance a table ornament is more cunning than you would admit, my lord." She challenged dulcetly, adding, "You know not that I am with child. Surely your knowledge derives from the falsehood of envious succubae's tales, and their gossip is worth less than I would be to you pregnant."

"You seek to question my sources?" Demogorgon's heads smiled fiercely. Behind him a demon strutted haughtily forth, the knock of his newly-polished boots leonine, predatory. Wings as green as poison unraveled behind him, the metal studs of his armor as poignant as stars upon the black canvas of night. A black spaded tail like some ebony viper whipped at his sides behind him, his horns shimmering like oil from the disheveled tangle of his auburn hair. Heartless, unmistakable chocolate orbs focused on Axarthys, his grin callous.

"Hello, my Lamb." He growled. Axarthys clutched Legion at her side. He beamed sinisterly, approaching her predatorily with a sluggish limp, wagging a finger, "You are a traitorous little bitch, Axarthys. It's become your habit to seduce men, use them for whatever cruel means you have and then dispose of them. You are no better than the succubae you scorn, you whore. Look at you! You brought Nevalle here to die for you, and he walks willingly to his death, completely oblivious! Cheers to you, demon. I've never been capable of devising such consistent cruelties."

"Bishop." She hissed. He stopped in front of her, shaking his head, amused.

"My Prince may find you undesirable, but I don't. For my sworn loyalty, he'd trade me your life. Just like old times, my precious Lamb. Except we'd have your half-demon brat to maintain." He snarled, seizing a handful of her white locks to force her head back. His hand clamped over her mouth before she screamed, pinning her to his chest to taunt to the knight, "I will make her a noble of demons, knight. I will parade her upon my plane whenever I desire, fuck her whenever and wherever I wish, and in fact, I could do so with you in our presence and chained to the stone walls of my dungeons."

"You have no authority." Nevalle snapped. Bishop smiled sharply.

Demogorgon interjected, "Bishop rested the crown of the Purging Duke from Alvarez himself. He is now the ruler of Torturous Truth, the plain of the lord of torture. His allegiance I seal with the consortship of Axarthys Saintrowe."

"House Saintrowe would not allow it!" Axarthys retaliated, freeing herself of Bishop's hand over her mouth as she struggled under his embrace.

The demon prince rumbled, "House Saintrowe requested Dantalion recover you for House Saintrowe. I permitted it under the stipulation that your consortship would be mine, and as such, it is also mine to give."

"I am not-"

"Now, now, little Lamb," Bishop purred, "You dare to refuse a station at my side, to deny your family the glory of having been elevated to consortship of a demon lord? You are selfish, Axarthys. We'll have to work on that. And we'll have to dispose of your pet, too. Demon queens command mariliths and succubae, not humans. They are beneath you."

"Ironic words spill from your lips, ranger." She snapped, squirming unremittingly, "Your low birth would stain the nobility of my name. I can nary stand the stench of your common flesh; I cannot fathom that I shared a bed with you."

"Well then, you'd better start. Soon my bed will be the only bed you will occupy, far from this high-born, useless knight." Bishop clutched her tiny neck, binding her head against the surface of his chest, eyes raised to the knight across from him, "And what a perfect example of your worthlessness. A knight that won't even rescue his precious damsel. Don't you want her back? To stow her away in the tallest towers of your castle and ride with her on white horses? Come and get her from me, Captain of the Nine, if she means so much to you."

"You suppose I would approach her, only to have you harm her? Release her first." Nevalle stipulated. Bishop boomed with laughter.

"Then it isn't called 'rescuing', knight. You always were a fool. You know, I wouldn't have ever considered you'd get your manicured hands on her; incredible, I must say. You were always so unfailing loyal, so blindly obedient, so trapped in your fairy-tale world of nobles and knights. Fool." Bishop snarled, a hand drawing away the leather encasing Axarthys's shoulder. She bucked under his grasp and the ranger muffled her shout with his palm, jerking her neck to arch against his torso. Axarthys stomped on one of the ranger's feet with a stiletto heel, eliciting a shriek from him, loosening his grasp. As he stumbled back she sunk to her feet, fleeting the knot of his grasp to roll cross the floor. In one sweep of her thin arm she wrestled Legion from her waist and brandished it viciously, thrashing its red braid in the air. Legion's impressive crack echoed the chamber.

"I will flay the skin from your body, ranger!" She shouted, raising the hilt of her weapon to strike him down as he limped backwards. Demogorgon's chorus of dual laughter emanated, the backdrop for Nevalle's calling for Axarthys. Before her weapon fell upon the ranger's flesh, he caught her arm and restrained her.

"Axarthys, no," he implored, "Let me offer myself instead. Don't do this."

"Neither of our lives belong to a traitor!" She proclaimed, breaking free of the knight's arms to lift her whip. Nevalle snatched her hard this time, the ferocity of his grasp enough to slacken her hand, relinquishing her weapon. Legion's thud on the floor brought Bishop to his knees, smirking unrelentingly. He got to his feet and limped towards Axarthys. Nevalle's arm coiled around her waist defensively.

"What grace, Axarthys." He hummed cruelly. He dipped the scabbard at his waist, catching his rapier as it fell from its casing. Twirling it he tossed its hilt in his grip, abruptly pointing its edge to the knight, "Surrender the demoness, or it shall be the second time you meet my blade."

"For her freedom, you could have my life instead." Nevalle countered. Bishop's brow rose, his smile fading.

"I planned on killing you any ways." He replied, annoyed. The knight shrugged, lifting his chin as Bishop's rapier pressed against his jaw.

"If you seek Axarthys's misery, reap from her what she loves most." He offered. Axarthys writhed in his embrace, shaking her head and uttering denials of her love's plot. Bishop listened closely to her, expression morphed from aggravation to intrigue. He shifted his blade to her, resting the point of his sword at the base of her neck.

"Would you give your knight to me, so that he is mine to torture? And when I tire of tormenting him, beating him, flogging him, could you live peacefully knowing I disposed of him?" He asked. She turned her face away from the sword, firmly pressing her lips together. Bishop brought his rapier to the other side of her face, forcing her cheek to realign so their gaze was level. Her tears were silent and ireful. Bishop lifted his brows in question, prodding, "Well?"

"Cum tacent, clamant." She murmured. Bishop seethed, growling as he pressed the point of his rapier into her grey cheek, splitting it down from the eye to the jaw. She cupped it with a hand, the blood flowing and weaving between her gold-painted finger nails down to the curvature of skin between her fingers. Axarthys swallowed the pain, Nevalle pressing the end of his sleeve to her wound tenderly. She buried her face into his tunic, blood and tears colliding in emotional downpour. The knight's hardened stare met Bishop's.

"Torture her as you wish. It is I you bargain with, and you are a coward to strike a woman rather than me." He rebuked. Bishop's laughter halted, his tawny eyes run cold despite the autumnal warmth of their hue.

"Fine," he snapped irritably, replacing his rapier in its scabbard to cross his arms defiantly and authoritatively over his chest, "You have no idea what diabolical pact you're entering. You will become the first victim of the new Lord of Torturous Truth, and all those terrors you've seen in your castle dungeons, knight, you will now suffer."

"So be it." He replied composedly. Bishop grumbled.

"You will suffer forever. You will become immortal, live for eternity in pain. Death will only be your reprieve when I say so." The ranger growled.

"I came prepared to sacrifice whatever was asked of me, Bishop. If that is your price, then I'll pay it. Axarthys's freedom is priceless." He kissed the crest of her snowy hair, caressed the muscle beneath her neck. She shivered endlessly, arms clamped around her middle. Her misery pleased Bishop. If she suffered most knowing her knight suffered for her, the ranger would pay with her freedom. Ultimately, regardless of where she roamed, she would never be free of the guilt that accompanied eternally condemning her human pet.

Bishop circled the two, pacing. The offer seemed painfully sweet. Axarthys would ever know precisely where the knight was imprisoned, and as an emissary, traveling the planes was necessary as it was common. She very likely would search her pet out, and when she did, Bishop would seize her. He would have her and her precious human pet under his thumb, and like insects he would crush the life from their brittle exoskeletons, crunching like paper as their innards bled. That thought pleased the ranger. He nodded slowly as he limped around them, responding, "Very well then. We have sealed out pact. Surely, though, Demogorgon would first approve before your spilled blood officiates our compromise. My lord?"

"It is acceptable. The demoness is as worthless as the knight." Demogorgon announced.

Axarthys hissed mutedly, divorcing from Nevalle's embrace to thrust her bloodied fists down, her wound leaking freely, "I am worth in gold more than the entirety of your kingdom, demon. You are no one to appraise the fortune of my emissary's occupation nor will you ever be fit to do so."

"Then perhaps you are fit for sentencing as well, insolent female." Demogorgon snapped.

"Already I am damned by birthright alone," Axarthys returned, "I can be no further punished. You have taken my soul of me, pried my love from me. All hope of happiness amongst mortals is dead; the siege of Neverwinter has shattered any chance that ever I may live peacefully there. You would condemn me further? Then imprison me in that bleak instant when I lay frozen and dying upon Faerun's shores."

"Axarthys, no." Nevalle insisted.

"May I ever be as miserable as in that moment!" Axarthys taunted the demon prince, half in spite of tears and mostly for deep-rooted rage in the confiscation of her human by her own kind. She turned upwards her palms in victorious surrender, her faith the treasure she offered the throne of her people. What remained for her? No longer could she act as emissary, not after Neverwinter's siege. No more lived the hope of spending her days in the gardens of Castle Never, losing herself and her knight in the labyrinth of hedge mazes. There would be no more sunlit orchids, no more blue ribbons, no more Amontillado. Luxury no longer was defined by these pleasures. Luxury then would have been Nevalle's life spared, Axarthys's dignity considered. Masquerades, pearls, rare silks, wineglasses, these became distant dreams, as if they existed eons before. Axarthys was reckless for it.

Or perhaps she was brave.

If such was true, Demogorgon had little regard for her courage. Axarthys was a diplomat, not a warrior. Courage to ambassadors was to risk reputation, not life itself. Reputation was worth a trowel of dirt to abyssal beings. And so the demon prince mocked Axarthys's words, shaking his head gradually, "Your impertinence I find aggravating, little Lamb. But your suggestion is a wise one, and one I am sure you will regret a hundred thousand times over in the coming years of your existence. You will be granted your wish when you have crossed the threshold of this chamber, which will be now. I grow weary of these vocal skirmishes; I, unlike you, have little patience with politics. Speak whatever final words you have for the human for my amusement, then leave me. I am weary of the face and name of Axarthys Saintrowe."

Final words.

Emissaries' treasured words. They were the paints the brushes of their voices created masterpieces with. Axarthys was not prepared to paint the final attestation of her love, not yet. No, not ever. What joy would be taken in such sorrowful art when no more happiness would follow it? The darkness of this work would overshadow the brilliance of the scenes she had captured on warm, radiant mornings when the sun was pale as pink pearls upon the orange morning sea in words cooed to her love. After this scene, there would be no more masquerades of sunshine-orchids and rare pheasant's feathers, no more diamonds strung round her neck for the occasion of celebrating alongside mortals, dancing as if one of them however much she could not mesh with their masses. No, what ached most was the thought that this departure was abandonment of the man she adored to eternal torture for her and her child's sakes alone. The moment her heeled boots clicked on the stone outside that room, she would forever suffer cold, yes, but his fate would be sealed. It would be her allowance of his agony in her name. Axarthys's back, facing the knight, melded into the curves of the front of her torso as she turned to face him, her back to the past that had been the ranger Bishop, gazing at the future of her world in the spheres of two brown eyes. Axarthys would be forced to see those eyes each day in the eyes of his child, a child's life bought with its father's in exchange. No. It was too noble, too selfless, and after too many times' selflessness Axarthys had to offer him salvation, whatever salvation a demon could provide.

She stared at him, solemnly and fiercely with devotion. Silent knowingness spanned between them, shared like fine wine- savored just as reverently. He spoke no words, gentlemanly to any end. Axarthys summoned strength to murmur, "You know I do not need to speak the words."

"No," he agreed in an utterance, "But one final time I would ask them of you, my lady."

She had to do it. She had to.

Axarthys retreated, stepped backwards towards Bishop. Her lips trembled. Left hand opened from its fist. Arm rolled back slowly. She poised herself for the words. Her mouth opened then closed. She shivered, the snow-tresses of her head rustling like fallen leaves in the wind. Suddenly, she coiled her hand around the hilt of Bishop's rapier, leaping forward to draw it from its scabbard. Bishop lurched at the movement, too slow on his feet to recapture the blade. Axarthys lunged forward, Nevalle instinctively withdrawing. Bounding from the ground, she drove the point of the rapier into his chest, her momentum powerful enough to plunge the blade out the other side of his heart. The knight staggered, descending to the floor on his knees with both hands wrapped around the hilt of the blade as Axarthys released it, cupping her eyes as she gasped devastatingly, sinking to his side. She lamented, weeping, overwhelmed, "I had to free you, my knight. I had to stop this… this senseless suffering."

"Axarthys-" he breathed.

"I love you," She sobbed obediently, mewling, "I'm sorry."

He whispered, "I forgive you."

"My prince!" Bishop shouted in the background. Demogorgon howled wildly, commanding his subordinate.

"Kill her, you fool!" The demon demanded.

"You will do no such thing."

Axarthys gazed up. At the door there stood Sedna Belladonna and Casavir accompanied by her sister the Fawn. A choir of angels surrounded them, their auras blinding, white wings like clouds themselves emanating arrantly divine light. The planetar's golden battle armor reflected her heavenly light, illuminating the chamber like the sun itself. The Fawn cried her sister's name, dashing from her company to fall astride Axarthys, bracing her tiny arms around her. She cried out, "Lamb, you're alive! I was so terrified! Balimynah sent me with Dantalion to alert Neverwinter of you coming here, and I thought you would be dead. Oh, Lamb!"

"Perchance it would have been better had I fallen." Axarthys cried in response. The Fawn frowned and glanced down at the human, nearly introducing herself. When she saw the sword through his torso she squeaked, cupping her mouth with her hand and releasing a frightened bawl. A number of the celestials had knelt behind the knight, one pushing Axarthys aside to remove the blade. She backed away, quivering, shielding her eyes. The Fawn grasped one of her sister's shoulders, Casavir joining them. Axarthys gasped as she breathed between tears, admitting to the paladin, distressed and devastated, "Now I know what it is to lose what you love most."

"I would never have wished this upon you." Casavir hushed. She shook her head, sobbing. She had no words for her undoing.

Sedna Belladonna had stepped before Demogorgon. Bishop swiftly backed from the planetar, fumbling with his empty scabbard as his back impacted with the stone wall behind him. The celestial firmly stated, "You have no power over this knight, Sibilant Beast. His life and soul belong and are contracted to Tyr."

"Then have him, foul planetar!" The demon prince roared. The celestial remained still, standing righteous and poised.

She responded sternly, "That is not a matter of question or your permission. My declaration of such intent is merely a formality. In a similar fashion, the life of Lady Piccadilly Saintrowe is contracted to Tyr and will not be infringed upon whilst she stands within any of the layers of the Abyss. Likewise, Tyr extends his protection to the Ladyship Emissary Axarthys Saintrowe."

"You are too late! She has already agreed to a diabolical pact, the curse of permanent cold." Demogorgon boomed triumphantly. The planetar remained motionless as the demon prince howled in laughter, waiting for the complete dissipation of the sound until she spoke once more.

"Very well, then that is her curse," she announced, "Regardless she will return to the House of the Triad alongside my choir of angels, her fellow Saintrowe and the paladin with the knight. Indeed there upon heavenly planes your control over them will ever be lost, and you will be rightfully powerless in face of the god of justice. Zadkiel?"

An angel glanced to her, "Yes, my lady?"

"Is the knight Nevalle prepared to depart?" She inquired, stone eyes stationary upon Demogorgon. The angel examined the blade extracted from the human, then to the wound itself. Even sealed, scarlet heavily darkened the blue of his tunic over his heart. His breathing grew shallow.

"Yes, but we must leave swiftly. He fades from us." Zadkiel finally decided. Sedna Belladonna raised her brow evocatively.

"And we shall. Casavir, travel with the knight. I will accompany the Lady Saintrowes," She instructed. The group readied themselves, Axarthys leaning on her sister's shoulder feebly. Had her resolve not been so drained of her, she would have entreated to travel with her knight. The sight of him fallen she could not bear. She had struck him down, and all for naught; the planetar had rescued them. Casavir, mind swollen with the chaotic cruelty of the realm and sick with the fall of his friend and captain, trudged in spiritual exhaustion. Propped on the shoulders of the celestials, Nevalle wavered between consciousness and collapse. As they marched towards the threshold, entering the planar portal, Sedna Belladonna lingered before the demon prince. When all had departed, she said, "Once, the rapier that struck the heart of a knight impaled the flesh of his side. Twice has that blade pierced his skin, both for the Lamb. It will not happen again."

"You speak of her as evil," Demogorgon seethed, "If that is true then abandon her in the Abyss. Tyr cares not for the fallen."

Sedna Belladonna's solemn face hardened further, expression steadfast. Her heavenly glow intensified, leaving the demon prince squinting in the intensity of her divine aura. Her armor shone gloriously, mirroring Bishop's terrified, shaken face and poison-green wings upon the surface of her cuirass. She admonished, a fire in the cool grey of her eyes, "I once told the knight Nevalle she was outside Tyr's mercy. Then moments ago, she sacrificed her own happiness in order to end his suffering. Those thousands of years lived wickedly she overcame. Do not tell me now that evil is beyond salvation."

The planetar turned her back on the tanar'ri, on the Abyss. She followed the righteous to the House of the Triad, faith instilled in those that could still be saved. Damnation was no permanent state, not for those who wished not to be damned. Hope remained that redemption lived, that hope itself remained. Hope lingered that love could still awaken the heart of a demon who had brutally killed, that sacrifice could cement the ephemeral ideals of chivalry, that faith could erase the pain of memory, that familial love could reunite siblings. A mother, a father, a sister, a friend, a child had been saved that day, not an emissary, a knight, a demon, a paladin and an unborn life. For that, there was hope.

There was hope.

-

Author's Notes:

Over a month's time and thirty-three pages later, the closing chapter is complete. Amidst moving into college, embarking on my double-major and recovering from pneumonia, my writing time has been severely limited. I am grateful for your patience and sincerely hope this chapter was worth the wait. I hit a lot of roadblocks writing it, including changing the ending seven times! Nevertheless I am proud of the final product and am excited to have the opportunity to share it with you.

I will begin writing the epilogue in a few days, so expect about two to three weeks for it to be completed and posted. Until that time, please feel free to email or review me your thoughts; having been an art student, I enjoy hearing how viewers perceive differently than the artist, and your thoughts are priceless to me! What you observe inspires me greatly.

Oh, I can't leave without saying this: Dantalion gets the best line in this entire story- "Your mortal incapacity to control with your head what swings between your legs ended with my daughter becoming pregnant…" Muwaha! Poor Nevalle.

Peace, Love and Happy Reading,

-Valah