Six Years Ago, Luskan

The Dance of the Damned had been out of the Luskan Port for three months, and Adahni's eighteenth birthday had passed two months before. The winter had set in, covering the Docks with a snow and bringing the frigid winds howling in from the Sea of Swords. Adahni gazed at herself in the mirror, braiding her dark hair over her head and clipping it so it clung it two ebony wings above her ears. She looked at herself, sucking in her stomach, and adjusted her bust, grimacing in pain.

"Are you all right, Addie?" Kyla asked. She was sneaking in behind the younger girl and applying her makeup in a corner of the looking glass.

"I don't know," she replied, placing one hand on her stomach.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I... I'm off my courses," she replied, gazing down at her belly. It didn't feel any difference.

Kyla sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth, knowing what that meant, "Are you going to keep it?"

"Well," Adahni replied, "We're getting married anyway, might as well do it now as at any time."

"It's difficult," Kyla replied, "But having a child is wonderful. You've never loved like that before."

Adahni glanced up at her friend sharply, "And how would you know?"

"My mother said so," Kyla said quickly, and added, "I regret never having one of my own. Not that being in my line of business is the best situation for a baby."

"You're still young," Adahni replied.

"I'm twenty-seven," Kyla laughed ruefully, "I'll never marry. How long?"

"Two months? Three?" she said, "I used the potion from the alchemists shop, but these things are never certain…"

"So you're sure," Kyla said, "Do you want a boy or a girl?"

"Boy," Adahni replied, "Girls just grow up to break their fathers' hearts." She sighed, thinking of her father for the first time in a long while. She looked down at her belly, "I'm going to tell Dayven today. Do you think he'll be happy?"

"I don't know," Kyla replied, "It's always unpredictable with men. What'll you do if he puts you aside?"

"I suppose," Adahni said, "I'll have to ask for my house money back and bribe my way back to Neverwinter. Not that going crying back to my father with a belly is my ideal situation."

"Would your father beat you?"

"No!" Adahni exclaimed, "Never... but his anger cuts twice as deep as a beating. I've been away three years now, I wonder if he would even recognize or remember me."

"You never forget a child," Kyla sighed.

Adahni was about to ask what she meant by that, but thought better of it, and walked out into the frigid night to find Dayven.

They were wed by a low-level clerk in some administrative office. Adahni haphazardly followed Tymora, while Dayven never made his religious preferences known, and she was mostly interested in the legal implications of the union anyway. This way, he would be responsible for her, and the baby, and would have to support them even if he decided to up and leave. She, of course, would owe him the same, and would have equal rights to all of the money that came to either of them, and any debts incurred.

They spent the night in the room that Dayven called a flat. He had smiled at the news of the child, and did not want to lie with her, but he put his arms protectively over her abdomen and buried his head in her black hair. He looked haggard, she thought as the clerk had them both sign the appropriate documents and make the appropriate vows, but she figured that the assassins had probably been working him hard.

When she woke up, he was gone. It was midmorning, and she didn't have to work until late afternoon. It wasn't really what she had imagined her wedding being, waking up in a filthy flat in Luskan of all places. She never had any great expectations, even as a girl she'd been eternally cynical. A dark-haired ploughboy named Alden hadn't had to do too much convincing to get her to lie down in an empty bothy after the harvest was in. After he left her, she had resolved she would follow the next boy that loved her, and now here she was. Three months pregnant and a married woman just past her eighteenth birthday. A barroom wench whose best friend was a whore. The wife of an assassin - an incompetent one. She looked down at her belly and gave a small prayer to whomever was listening that perhaps her son would have better luck than she had.

She set to work, doing the work that she thought wives did, and cleaned out the room. She threw out the empty vials, and lined the full ones up along the corner. She imagined they were probably poisons that Dayven would use on his victims. She got into something resembling order. The day was dark, with snow clouds gathering in an angry sky. She gazed out the window and inhaled the air. She could see Kyla's small flat above the butcher shop across the street, and the Cuckoo's Nest several blocks away. She saw how small her world was, how few friends she really had, and suddenly felt the walls closing in on her. Gasping for breath, convinced that the room was running out of air, she ran out into the street, looking up, but even the sky was bearing down on her. She set her gaze on the horizon instead, and managed to calm herself.

The streets were empty because of the imminent storm. The wind had risen to a roar. She looked out over the grayness of the seas and screamed. Nobody could hear her.

And she heard nobody. She didn't hear the men approach her, didn't hear them roll up their sleeves, and did not hear as one of them raised a club and brought it down on the back of her head.

She awoke to Kyla's voice, shouting her name. Her eyes blinked open. She was looking at the ceiling. Her head ached dully and her limbs felt leaden. Kyla's face popped into view, followed by Dayven's.

"Are you happy now?" Kyla snapped at Dayven, "One of them survived." Adahni felt Kyla rip something off of her bodice and thrust it into Dayven's hand.

"I swear, Addie, I didn't know they were going to do this," Dayven said, seizing her hand. She was still not quite understanding what she was hearing, "I swear, love, I didn't know..."

"Damage is done now," Kyla said, "I suggest you get their damn money or they're going to kill her too. You're pathetic, Elhandrien, you're a pathetic waste of life. Get the hells out of here."

"It's my flat."

"I don't care," Kyla replied, "Get out."

Adahni turned her head to look at what was going on, just in time to see Dayven's cloaked back retreating out of the door and slamming it behind him. Her hand came into focus. Her knuckles were split, but she didn't feel any pain. She tried to sit up, but her aching head swam and she dropped back onto the pillow.

Not before she saw the blood.

"It's dead isn't it," she said flatly.

"Trying to take you with it, too," Kyla said, "I'm sending my brother for a priest."

"So there'll be no child," Adahni said.

"Well, either they didn't know you were pregnant, or they didn't care. A blow to the gut will do that," Kyla said.

"What happened?"

"What matters it what happens now. I'm going to give you something to drink, and you're going to go back to sleep. All right?"

"Kyla... what happened?" the older woman held a vial to her lips and Adahni drank obligingly. She found herself in a deep and buzzing blackness that did nothing to assuage her worry.

She awoke again later, not knowing how long it had been. She felt better, somehow more whole than she had been before. The cuts on her knuckles were gone, the bruising around her throat had receded, and the pain in her gut had eased. Someone had removed her bloodied gown and replaced it with a white shift. The flat was cleaner and smelled better - evidently Dayven had not been there for several days.

She eased herself up and looked down at her belly. It was flat and empty, as though she'd never had the child. Instead of the sadness she had anticipated, she felt light and free as a bird. When she looked out the window, instead of the closeness of everything, the sky looked broad and infinite, and the walls were only walls.

She threw a cloak around her shoulders and walked over to the fireplace. She had just gotten the damn thing lit when the door banged open, letting in a blast of cold air and put it out again. It was Dayven, beaten and bruised. He looked cold and withdrawn, his green eyes dull and sunken in dark circles. He waited her to light the fire again, and then sat in front of it, his cloak pulled tight around him.

"Addie," he said, through chattering teeth. She saw with horror that one of his front teeth had been broken off. His gums were bleeding a bit, too. He had more razor-thin cuts on his arms, "I'm in trouble."

"You're in trouble?" Adahni said, quietly and angrily, "You're the one who's in trouble?"

"I owe someone a lot of money," he said, "I... it's not my fault. They gave me... they gave me it during my initiation. They said it would make me know no fear."

"Gave you what?"

"Some call it the Madness of Cyric, some call it Assassin's Blood. My master had to give it to me, when I was afraid, when we went to that little village... I cowered, when they handed me the torch, I wanted to run. My master sliced my arm, like... like I've been doing since, and pressed a cloth soaked in it to the wound. It heats you up, makes you warm and agile. It feels like you are the most powerful being on Faerun when you've just gotten a dose."

"Do they give it to all of you?"

"No," he replied, hiding his head in his hands, "Only the cowards. I need it, Addie, without it I'm nothing. Just... just they refuse to give me anymore, they say that only the weaklings grow to crave it. So I stole it when I could, and when they caught me, they beat me. So I started to buy it, you can get it on the black market, but it's expensive, and I... I owe someone a lot of money, Addie. That's why they jumped you..."

He took a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.

Have fun with the missus tonight. Have our gold by dawn or she'll have worse than this. "They pinned it on you when they left you in the doorway."

"This was your fault?" she asked, looking at him, her eyes glinting dangerously, "They killed the child, Dayven."

"I know, I know... I can't... believe me Addie this pains me as much as it does you..."

"I assure you, it doesn't," she lied.

"They came after me tonight. I need the money or they'll kill me, and you."

"I already gave you everything I had!" Adahni protested, "You take all my wages... and you throw them away on a drug?"

"I promise," he said, "I'll find a way to stop, just, for now, I really need it. They're going to kill me!"

"How much?" she sighed.

"Six thousand gold," he said, turning his head away so he wouldn't have to look into her eyes.

"Six... thousand?" she gasped, her stomach sinking. If her calculations were correct, her wage of 10 gold a night, over three years, counting the days she had taken off, less the amount she needed for food, clothes and liquor, would have given him almost five thousand gold already. And that was only from her wages - what about his own? Between his initiation the year before and now he had managed to spend more than the two of them made in a year on... on what? Why couldn't he just get drunk to conquer his fears like the rest of the world?

"I don't make that much in a year," she said, "How do you expect me to come up with that money?"

"Kyla can make almost five hundred a night," he said quietly.

"Kyla's a whore," Adahni replied, "You... you want me to what? Dayven, I just lost a child!"

"Please, love," he pleaded, his eyes lighting up a bit, "I promise, I promise, I'll find a way to stop this madness. I will, I just need this one thing from you. I'll make it up... I promise."

"You filth!" she spat, "You drag me all the way to this hateful town, take all of my money promising me that we'll go home eventually, and now you do this? This is too far, Dayven Elhandrien, I have had enough!"

He was silent for a moment. She waited for him to burst into tears, apologize more, throw himself at her feet. Instead, he launched himself at her with agility that she didn't know he had, knocking her to the ground. The back of her head hit the floorboards with a crack and she saw stars dance in front of her eyes. She didn't make a noise, just stared up at him with fear in her eyes. He looked at her in horror, and backed away.

"Please, Adahni, I... I'm not right in the head."

She rose and nodded, her eyes brimming over.

"What... what are we going to do?" she asked.

A cold dread settled over her as she hurried through the darkened streets. She had two realizations that night. First was that Dayven was not ever going to be the same, and second, that she didn't think she really loved him after all. She had come to Luskan for love, and stayed in love with him, even when he wouldn't see her for weeks at a time. And then the war had started. And then the baby. Poor bastard, she thought, I'm nobody's mother, and Dayven's certainly not anybody's father. Death in the womb was a kindness.

She had heard tell of Cyric's Madness. It was extracted from plants that grew high in the mountains, distilled like moonshine in copper kettles, and applied to a self-inflicted wound. It raised the temperature, increased speed and agility, and killed fear where it stood. The Circle of Blades did not give it to many assassins. They gave it to those they were afraid would escape. The chains of addiction bit deeper into the flesh than iron or steel. Dayven would never be free.

Her only thought at this point was that she had to get herself out of it, or at least survive until the war ended and she could slip back across the border. She cursed fate for bringing all of it together - his addiction, the child without whom she would never had married him, and the thugs. He was correct about one thing; they would come after her again, and the next time they might be worse. They might cut something off, or outright kill her.

"It's just my body," she said out loud to the night and the snow swirling around, "My body is mine again and I can rent it out if I want to." She thought of her father and felt hot tears gather and run down her cold cheeks. If he ever knew that she was having the internal argument she was right now, how ashamed he would be... She bowed her head and set her jaw. She would never cry for him again, she vowed.