King of Shadows, Queen of Light
English is not my native language. I appreciate any constructive corrections. It really helps me to get better, so please feel free to leave a review. Thanks for all of those who have already done so—you guys are great!
There is some language in these chapters occasionally; nothing really serious, but be warned if you are offended by such things. Hence the M rating so far.
This chapter's soundtrack included the following odd assortment:Szerelem, Szerelem (Love, Love) from Stellamara's The Seven Valleys, Full of Grace by Sarah McLachlan fromSurfacing, and Are We In Trouble Now from Mark Knopfler's Golden Heart. Hope this will make sense…
And, as always, I strongly regret that I do not own any of the main characters, especially a certain paladin… Arrighan is entirely my fault, though.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Are We In Trouble Now
No, I have no idea how I got back to my room. My hazy memories from the night included the rest of the bottles Neeshka procured and left in my room before we left for our 'information acquiring mission' as she put it later. I remembered her face, freckles dancing, crimson eyes with their corners tilted upwards, leaning closer, her hands and tail gesticulating wildly as she was describing the time when she met this paladin of Lathander in a theater in Waterdeep. Most of the details were lost in a pleasant haze of wine and other fine beverages. I knew that at some point that story took a decidedly risqué turn, making me blush so furiously that both Neeshka and Elanee threatened to throw me in some cold water to cool down. I also distinctly recalled that Neeshka tried to teach me some songs, although I wasn't so keen on the lyrics; that I tried to remember some songs from West Harbor that Amie liked so much; that at some point I broke out crying over that and they both comforted me with hugs. Then, when I got over that and got back to the giggling and sharing stories part, Elanee was humming something in Elvish in turn that she refused to translate. She also, at some point, jumped up—or tried to—and, blushing almost as bad as I did earlier, stammered out that she completely forgot that a certain dark-haired knight of the Nine was waiting for her downstairs… Neeshka kicked her out the door not too gently, then came back, poured us some more wine (this one was an oddly sweet but potent dark honey-colored one from Thesk; how it got to Duncan's cellar I could not even imagine), and continued with her story. Or with another one. I am not sure—things got rather fuzzy after that.
The only reason I woke up when I did was a ray of sunlight shining directly into my face through a slit of the curtains on the window. I groaned and slowly, very slowly tried to roll out of bed.
"This is the reason I don't drink…"I whispered through cracked lips. I felt like an entire family of pixies was taking very enthusiastic waltz lessons inside my skull and I did not even want to contemplate the taste of my mouth. I was in my clothes I had on last night, too and frankly, I reeked.
I started to remember some details of Neeshka's stories and was mortified. I also started to remember some of the questions she asked and some of the questions I did… and which directly contributed to the dreams from which I just woke up.
I shook my head to get that out of my mind. That was a mistake. The pixies retaliated by speeding up the waltzing and putting on wooden shoes.
"And that's two days in a row I missed my devotions." I moaned, utterly shocked. The sun was definitely up.
There was nothing to it… at least I wanted to have my prayers said… but first, I needed to get clean from the sour stench of spent drink-sweat that clung to my skin in a thin film. I grabbed some clean clothes, rather mismatched, a towel, and, eyes still half-shut, ventured out to the corridor towards the women's bath.
"Mornin'." Neeshka was sitting in one of the tubs, utterly submerged in the sudsy water except her head. She waved her tail at me languidly. "I left some hot water, so help yourself. How you feelin'?"
"Do you really want to know?" I croaked out, eyes still not fully open. Light hurt. Talking hurt. Her voice hurt. The humming of the pipes in the bathroom hurt. The noises I could hear from downstairs hurt.
"Probably not." she agreed. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't do this very often either." She picked up her washcloth from the edge of the tub and spread it over her face, leaning back with a sigh. "Definitely not very often."
Thatdid make me feel marginally better. Odd, that.
Firmly trying to ignore the pounding of the pixie family taking up residence in my head and the taste of swamp mud in my mouth, I slowly filled another tub with hot water, continuously blessing my uncle's name for having spent a lot on the magic furnace and pipes that provided it, and finally, shedding my smelly clothes I climbed in, letting out a content sigh. The hot water started to ease the aches in my limbs and the knots from my shoulders almost immediately. I also followed Neeshka's example and hid my face under a hot washcloth: that definitely helped with my headache.
"Hey, Rig?" I heard after a considerable amount of silence from the tub next to me.
"Mmm?" I said softly. The head still hurt, but I felt better and I did not want to risk any relapse.
"I meant to ask earlier when at Hassim's…" I could hear the hesitation in her voice, even from under the washcloth.
"Well…?" I fished around for the soap and the scrubbing brush, still not opening my eyes. Things slowly started to ooze out of my pores that needed to be viciously scrubbed off. I felt I knew what she's going to say next, anyway.
"Your… birthmarks…?" She paused, delicately. "Is that something that all aasimars have? Like me and my freckles?"
"I have no idea." It was odd, decidedly. I used to be so self conscious about my birthmarks, taking care to cover my shoulders, not talking about them, feeling like somehow they were something that had to remain hidden, like the fact that I had the blood of the Higher Planes. Since I could hardly do anything about my eyes or hair, at least the marks could be covered. Maybe being a child born out of wedlock and growing up as an orphan had something to do with it. And of course, that attack by the Mossfelds also played a big part.
When I looked at it hard, I had to realize that I did not mind this group that gathered around me, this strange… family, composed of outcasts, misfits and miscreants know about them. Just the day before, I didn't feel the least amount of hesitation stripping down to my smallclothes to try the gown on in Hassim's shop. Likewise, I had no problems with climbing into the tub stark naked, with Neeshka in the next one. I never did this before, and the harder I looked at it, the less I understood what caused the change—but, at any rate, the pixies in my head did not exactly allowed for deep philosophical observations at the moment.
"I've never met another one of my kind… and remember that I didn't even know the name of my race until I met you. Or even that I had one." I leaned even further back. "All I knew was that I had celestial blood and that the god marked me to His service." I smiled. "My teacher was not exactly one inclined to give hour-long lectures. He had a more… shall we say, practical approach to paladinhood?"
"What, smite evil and look smashingly good in full plate?" She snickered.
"Something like that. Although Sir Aevan was not so handsome to look at." I remembered. "Forehead that carried wrinkles like the Sword Mountains, one eye missing, so black eyepatch… with a scar running across almost the entire left side of his face, huge ginger beard, hair to the shoulder… but his personality would have hit you like a thunderbolt. I was terribly afraid of him at first… " I wiggled my toes in the water experimentally to see if the pixies reacted to movement. They were quiet; my headache slowly ebbed to a persistent but tolerable throbbing behind my temples. "So, why did you ask about my birthmarks all of a sudden?"
"Well, they are unusual for starters. Two full marks, distinctly forming your god's symbols." she said, still a bit hesitant. I instinctively glanced at my shoulders: Tyr's hammer, entwined with the scales on the left, his sword with the scales on the right. "I mean, I heard that those with celestial blood get them, or other features, like eyes, gaze or hair color, they way us tieflings get the horns, or the eyes, or the tail, or the freckles."
"Hold on." I said slowly. "Are you saying…what? That it's an either-or thing and the fact that you have all of those and I have …"
I took the washcloth off my face and sat up; headache forgotten.
"Neesh, does this have any connection with how much extraplanar blood one has?"
She also lost the washcloth; her eyes were huge. Sitting in the tub with her knees hugged to her chest, she seemed much younger than her brash and confident streetwise self.
"That's why I asked…"she whispered. "I…" She swallowed. "I think you might be able to use that at the trial, somehow…?"
I was dumbfounded. She clearly was most uncomfortable discussing her ancestry; and still, she brought it up, risking the memories it dredged up, just that she can possibly help me out in my upcoming trial… That was pure unselfishness from the tiefling, and so uncharacteristic, that for a long time I could just sit there and stare at the slowly cooling water in my tub.
"Neesh…"I said at last. "I will have to think about that. Honestly, I have no idea how I could use it, but it might have possibilities." I smiled at her. "And thank you. Thank you for thinking about me, and… thank you for bringing something up that is obviously a rather painful subject to talk about"
"Yeah." she muttered into her hair, falling in wet strands in front of her face. "I never talk about it, do I?" She took a shaky breath. "Isn't this funny? I brought it up myself, so I cannot even blame it on anyone else that it upset me, huh?" She glanced at me, quickly. "I don't even know why… I guess it's because when you think no one's looking, you have this forlorn and... lost look on your face since that Sir Nevalle brought the news about the accusation. Even last night when we tried to cheer you up." She looked up and some of the twinkles were back in her eyes. I knew she was changing the subject now, directing the conversation back from waters she did not want to venture, not yet. "It's not just Casavir who feels for you, you know."
"Gods, Neesh, don't you start that one up again!" I ducked my head under the water to hide my blush. "I mean, I appreciate the hells out of the fact that you and El and Shandra had that little… party for me last night, but…"
"Hey, we learned some interesting things, didn't we?" She winked and grabbed for her towel with her tail. With my head clearing, I started to recall some details of the questions I asked her, and I was very, very grateful that I could use that washcloth to vigorously scrub my face. "Like who can hold his drink best…" She wiggled her eyebrows. "An elf and a paladin… who'd have thought it? I mean, I can see Sand, kind of… he is a wizard specializing in potions and such here in the Docks, so he had to develop some kind of a substance resistance, huh? But seriously, Casavir?"
I swallowed. This conversation started to veer in a direction I decidedly did not want it to go. No, not once I recalled some details of my dreams.
Gods, I need to go to confessions, and very soon.
Determined not to fall into the trap she so obviously set, I went for the offensive.
"Oh, I can see it." I answered nonchalantly; from the time spent in the hot water, my voice luckily was no longer a feeble croak. "Given his upbringing, I daresay he'd had the opportunity to strengthen his constitution." I picked up my towel from the stand and wrapped it around myself as I stepped out of the tub. "I mean… look at me. I am a paladin and I swear like a fishwife sometimes. Who said that another one of my order cannot hold their drinks?"
"Don't remind Khelgar." She shook the water out of her hair and rubbed it vigorously with her towel. "He'd never live it down. Bested by one of Tyr's again…"
I smirked. Yes. Khelgar probably was inconsolable by now. First he gets the floor wiped off with him by a bunch of the god's fighting monks, then he is bested in an impromptu drinking contest by not only a paladin but an elven wizard…
I followed Neeshka's example and started to get the water out of my hair. Mine was much longer than hers.
"See, this is what I am talking about." she said suddenly. "Your hair, Rig." she continued impatiently as I looked at her. "You always keep it pinned up like some of the nuns in Helm's House that taught us, orphans."
"What of it?" I said. Where was she going with this? "I have to… otherwise I cannot fight."
"Then why don't you just cut it, hmm?" She picked up a strand from my shoulder and run it through her fingers. "Gold: yellow, red and white, all in one. That's special."
"Huh?" I shrugged. "I don't cut it, because…well, because… It just doesn't feel right to cut it."
"Precisely." Neeshka nodded sagely and started to put on some clothes. "And I keep mine short because that's how it feels right for me. Weird, huh?"
"I guess." I said carefully. "You are odd today, Neesh."
"Must be the hangover." She yanked her tight pants on and started on her boots. "Don't mind me, I get this way occasionally. Just think about what I said about your birthmarks. Please?"
She was serious, by Tyr. My rogue, having a precognition moment? I've never felt her infernal blood manifest in anything else but her uncanny ability to walk without making noise, help purses to walk away from their owners and the occasional bawdiness.
"You want me to involve Sand?" I was fussing with the fastenings of my breastband. You needed that when you fought on an almost-daily basis, and had arms practice daily.
"Gods, no." She shook her head vigorously. "No, just…I cannot explain it, Rig. It was like…a…"
"A hunch?" I said gently, and I saw the relief in her eyes. To acknowledge that she had some abilities of the arcane nature beyond what manifested in her rogue skills would have meant something unknown entering her life again… and she usually run from what she didn't understand. I half expected her to leave us after the first week on the road to Neverwinter.
"Yeah, that." She nodded, tying the lacing on her shirt. "Want breakfast?"
"Not just yet." Yes, she was ducking again. Well, at least she didn't run. "I have to do my prayers and my arms practice first. Why don't you go ahead and get started… and could you see if Elanee has something for headache, please?"
"Now that's an idea." she muttered. "I'll do that." She stood up and looked at me sheepishly. "Hope your Tyr didn't mind you having… fun with us last night?"
I grinned. She was concerned for me, again. That was sweet.
"I think he's not against having fun in moderation, no." I twisted my hair into a ponytail and secured it with a ribbon, then flipped it over my head and started braiding it. "There, see? I am doing something different with my hair. And, Neesh…just so that we are clear, Casavir and I are…well, he, I am sure he feels like he needs to protect and serve me, you know, it's one of those…" Do I really need to talk about this right now? I asked myself, and I had to realize that yes, indeed. Especially after last evening. But why did I sound like a stammering, defensive little girl? Just yesterday I was cutting through a man's chest with one thrust of my sword so that it came out clean on the other side with half of his lungs sticking to the blade…
"I am sure, Rig." Neeshka looked at me, amused. "Like Queen Wywar and Sir Eloth in the old romances, right?"
I blushed. Those were Amie's favorites, the legends of King Ertos and his knights, and she read from them aloud all the time, until both Bevil and I knew some of the passages by heart. I blushed, because although that particular cycle of the romances started out as the story of a knight's undying, pure and chaste devotion to his liege lord's queen, it quickly turned into a rather stormy love affair. One version of the legend contained a vividly described and verypassionate love scene between the queen and the knight that Amie in particular liked to relish reading just so that she could make Bevil go beetroot red and me exclaiming loudly with lots of 'ewww'.
"It's nothing like that, Neesh, for pity's sake!" I stomped before I could stop myself. Yes, like a little girl. Standing in the middle of the bathroom, barefoot, and arguing about feelings with a tiefling, that I had absolutely no way of proving or disproving, given who I and the other person in question was.
Goodness gracious—was my life messed up or what?
"Look, Neeshka…" I continued in a less hysterical voice. "I really cannot go into details about this; it's one of those… I guess you can call it 'mysterious paladin things'. But Casavir is kind of like my mentor, or mentor and protector, in the Order, so yes, we are close. But it's not…"
"Relax, dear." She patted my shoulder. "This is not the inquisition here, just Auntie Neeshka's gentle advice for the romantically clueless. If you want to take it slow, you take it slow. It's your business. But the way I see it, you're both in denial. And that's something you need to think about because sooner or later, the tension will get high." She shrugged. "Ask Elanee, if you feel uncomfortable talking to me. She's a druid, she probably knows more about how this thing works even from a pure mechanical point of view than I ever will. And stop blushing, for Sune's sake! You are a friggin' paladin, smiting foul things and all that, not a sixteen-year-old virgin noblewoman on her first day on a farm in the spring!"
I tried. I really did. But the more I tried, the more of that dream came back to me, and at the end, I could barely finish my prayers. I grabbed my sword as if it were an anchor keeping me afloat in stormy waters, and fled to the back yard, abandoning my incense-filled room and its small altar. There, barely wasting time to go through the warm-up exercises, I attacked the pell like it had anything to do with those sinful images running through my mind. I hit it with just about everything I had, and then some more, running through all the postures, guards and attack sequences from The Path of Silver Fire, until I had sweat running down my spine and my hair was fully wet again, my braid hanging limp on my back. I stood there, sword at the finish position lowered in front of me, breathing hard, every exhalation registering with a little vapor cloud in the cold air in front of my face, and realized that I was shivering. I looked down on myself, and it hit me that not only I did not put my armor on, but despite the chilly Uktar air, I only wore my sleeveless jerkin, not even a shirt underneath, leaving my sweat-coated arms, neck and shoulders exposed to the wind that tugged at my braid with great determination. My next glance told me something else, too.
The pell was destroyed. I used my real blade, not my practice sword; it cut the thin, wood- and-cloth dummy like butter. There were chunks or wood and wads of cotton batting everywhere, and it was obvious that I need to get a new one, and pretty soon.
"Oh, great." I muttered, trying in vain to keep the dummy's head from falling with a great thud to the ground as soon as I touched it.
I talked to myself an awful lot these days… it was probably the tension, part of which leaked out of my body during the assault on the dummy. But it was not enough, I realized. It couldn't be enough.
"Sand!" I yelled as I strode into the common room, looking wildly around. "Sand! Where are you?"
"Is it possible at all, dear girl, that you stop bellowing so?" The moon elf was sitting close to the fireplace, one delicate hand massaging his temple, the other curled around a steaming mug of what looked like one of Elanee's concoctions. "I am here, and eager to hear you out." He winced. "Just please, not that loud, not this morning."
"I need to go out." I said a bit quieter, and I saw the incredulous look in his eyes like a spark of a dampened fire. "To the Temple." I added, as an explanation.
"Out of the question." He pursed his lips and put his mug down, leaning forward. His voice was flat. "I am amazed you even bring this up. You made a promise."
"Sand, I need to go out." I heard the desperation in my voice I didn't realize I felt. "Please. I have to…have to talk to Prior Hlam."
"Absolutely not, unless you take every single member of your merry little band with you." He glared at me, dampened fire rekindled.
"I cannot!" I found myself raising my voice again; for some reason it irritated me beyond belief that I was standing there if front of him and asking permission. It was too much like Daeghun's house again. "This is private, and…"
"If it's private, then stop yelling!" Now he was standing, too, all five feet of him, looking up at me like a beagle at an Icewind Dale wolfhound. "I am amazed, amazed that after yesterday you just stroll in here and ask me this." He was almost shaking, but fought to keep his voice under control, explaining things like to a child. "You can be assured that after your performance yesterday the remainder of Luskan's agents is dispatched in a last and desperate move to render you silent…we simply cannot risk…"
"Sand!" Of course, I kept yelling: he reminded me too much of Daeghun at that moment. In the last couple of years he and I butted heads quite a number of times, in particular over my training and devotion to Tyr. The way Sand stood, the way he tried to limit me dredged up too many memories, and something in me just snapped. Our nose almost touched at this point, as I was kind of bending over him, and he was tilting his neck upwards to meet my eyes. The absurdity of the scene would, at any other time, have been dissolved easily enough, the tension broken, my sanity return… but I was half-mad by then from the returning headache, exhaustion of my workout, thirst combined with the sight nausea of hangover, and the inability of getting thosedreams out of my head, those unfamiliar and sickening thoughts that came unbidden and unsought… the incomprehension of what made those dreams and thoughts appear all of a sudden out of nowhere…
I slammed my sword, with belt and all, in front of him on the table. I was dimly aware of my fingers grabbing the robe at his neck.
"I gotta go! I need a fucking confession!"
"Then fucking let me go so I can go out and get you your fucking confessor!" he yelled back on the top of his lungs.
That brought me right back from the verge of losing it completely—which was probably exactly what he intended to do with the uncharacteristic profanity.
"Sorry." I mumbled, letting go of him and retreating a step.
"Next time…"he took a deep breath and smoothed down his collar, "…you will think before going berserker on me, I trust?" He regarded me with one of his icy glares. "You smell of hard physical work, desperation, incense, lavender soap and ever so faintly Cormyran red wine. In that order." He sniffed. "You also…hmmm." He didn't finish that sentence, but awarded me a much less stern gaze. Almost gentle, in fact. "I didn't think that…"
"You getting cryptic on me again, Sand." I sighed, in my normal voice. "If that's my punishment for losing my temper with you, I accept. I seem to have an inexcusably short fuse these days."
"Not inexcusable, dear girl." He reached up and patted my shoulder absentmindedly. "And I suppose I should have noticed earlier." Yes, he was cryptic, definitely. Because the other option was that he could read me like an open book, and that was a lot scarier.
"So… you said you would go and get Hlam for me?" I asked, sheepishly. He nodded. "Why?"
"Because you need him?" He raised an eyebrow. "In case you haven't noticed, you are acting highly irrationally, and, as your attorney, it is my responsibility to ensure you'll be in perfect condition by tomorrow's great event. If you need the good prior to ensure your spiritual well-being, than, by all means, it shall be done." He looked me up and down. "But perhaps, you might want to put something else on. Your… present attire is charming, no doubt, and I could name some who definitely would admire your… physique right now, but… "
"Sand!!" All of a sudden I became horribly self-conscious. But he was right, a sleeveless leather jerkin and my old black pants I normally wore only under armor as they were tight and form-fitting, riding boots and my sweat was not the proper attire in which to make confessions, especially not if your confessor did you a courtesy and made a house call. "Really!"
"Indeed." He chuckled, the tension of the past minutes evaporating, like the slowly drying sweat on my back and arms. "After you are done with your confessions, my dear, we need to talk." He shook his head, seeing my expression. "Oh, don't fret so. I am reasonably sure that the charming rogue and druid duo organized a great evening for you, given how at least one of them ended up…"
"What?" I exclaimed. He got me with that sentence as I was thinking about the best way to tell Duncan he needed to get a new dummy, and as I turned around to look for him, I understood.
"Uh. Good morning." I opted for my most formal tones and bow, as I noticed the new face at Elanee's table. "Sir Darmon?"
"Squire Pendwyr." The dark-haired knight bowed as he sat; his eyes were laughing in his angular face. He pretended he didn't hear anything from my little exchange with the wizard. "I was dispatched by Lord Nasher to… insure your proper security until the trial." He had the good grace to blush a bit, considering Elanee was sitting next to him, her usual serene smile now tinted by a little smugness.
"Proper security." I nodded. "I understand, of course." I looked at Elanee. "Any chance getting one of your concoctions this morning?"
"I…oh, I don't have much left." Elanee confessed a bit embarrassed, waving her hand around in the common room. "It seems everyone requested some and…"
"Everyone." I followed her pointing hand with my gaze. Yep… Neeshka and Khelgar were at their usual place, their feet up on the table, noses in two large mugs; Khelgar just grunted, while the tiefling waved her tail at me apologetically.
"Sorry, Rig." She had the good graces of sounding a tad sheepish. "Got here a bit late. Coffee, maybe?"
"If you want that, you need to get it yourself." Elanee interjected. "We didn't see Duncan or Shandra yet."
"Goodness. And I thought I slept in. Must have been quite a night." I managed to get that out with a straight face, and I heard Neeshka snicker into her drink. I threw her a stern glance, and discovered that Grobnar, holding his head over another mug of the druidess' foul tisane, was also sitting nearby. "Me, let loose in Uncle Dunk's kitchen. Quite an honor. Or a comedy, I haven't decided yet." I turned to the knight of the Nine. "Can I go all by myself, or do you need to come with me and check if there are any Luskans in the larder?"
"My dear, no need to be mean to the good knight." Sand was talking over his shoulder by the door; he was on his way out, good to his word. "I think your uncle keeps some of my hangover cure in the kitchen on the third shelf of the cupboard by the sink." He pointed with his elegantly carved wizard's staff towards the back.
"I think I know which one you are talking about, thank you, Sand." I shuddered a little: if that tasted like licorice as well, my day definitely did not start out good. "I will grab it and then head back upstairs to obediently change into something less…" I stopped, looking for the right word.
"Adventuress-y?" supplied Darmon, a bit enthusiastically. Elanee, to my utter amazement, smacked him, gently, upside down the head. "Ow." he protested, half-heartedly. "What did I say now?"
"Later." my druidess said with storm clouds in her eyes, but her mouth was drawn into a smile. "Later, I'll tell you. Rig, want me to make you that coffee?"
"But you don't like it." I protested. "Not to make too fine a point, El, but if you don't like something, would you really be able to…"
Neeshka giggled.
"El, just leave it be. Otherwise we are in for a long lecture on the nature of love, or something, and I don't think you really need that right now."
"What? Oh." Once realization hit, I fled to the kitchen. Hastily rummaging in the cupboard Sand indicated, I found a couple of the pale pink cures I learned to recognize (Uncle Duncan used them often enough), gulped one down, and ran back upstairs.
"Hope y'all get better!" I tossed back behind my back; I heard Neeshka's chuckle and Khelgar's harrumphing in answer, and the pressure in my stomach and head eased up a little. Oh good, the potion started to work, I thought, shook my head and turned down to the corridor leading to my room…
Just to collide with Casavir.
"Ow!" Now it was my turn to exclaim much in the way Sir Darmon did except mine had all of my heart in it. He was solid. I put a hand out to keep my balance, and grabbed his shoulder, while I felt his arm going around my waist reflexively, steadying me. "Sorry!"
I pulled back and looked at him; and, just like that, that sweet, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach was back…because I've seen him just like that in the dreams I tried to forget all morning… with nothing but a moss-green towel around his waist, droplets of water glistening on his smooth skin, black hair wet and tousled…
He must have just come out of the men's bathroom; last night's drinking traced some black circles under his eyes, but it wasn't responsible for what moved in their depths as he took in my unusual attire.
"My…lady…" he whispered, the rest caught in his throat. My heartbeat sped up, and that strange fluttering in my stomach intensified.
I was helpless, utterly helpless under the heat of his azure gaze, like a small animal getting mesmerized by a serpent. I felt my silver and crimson fire uncoiling, rising like an answer to the feel of his fingers brushing up along my spine. My hand, the one that wasn't resting on his shoulder, rose as of its own volition to smooth a stray strand of wet hair out of his forehead, then moved again...
just like in my dream…
…to trace a line down through his cheek…
what was I doing…
The main artery on his neck was pulsing so fast I could barely see the pauses between beats. His hand convulsed on my back, pressing me closer to him…
In a flash, a brilliant, blinding, dizzying vista opened up to me, like an answer to the uncoiling of my power: silver and azure lightning storm, held behind a slender steel barrier that was barely withstanding the raging outburst of…
Such a storm…
"Casavir…" I whispered. "Casavir…please…"
"Lady Arrighan, you happened to leave this downsta… Oh, sorry!"
Grobnar! Is there a Smite Gnome spell somewhere?