Hark: Christmas went by and I didn't write... Bad me. But now it's new year and I actually thought of something to write. Will be continued soon (I hope).



Chapter 32: Second thoughts



It was raining again, a perfect weather for a funeral, Shandara thought. She was wearing a warm black dress and a thick cloak, but still she felt cold. Aran had told her to stay in the guild, but she hadn't paid any attention to him. Faershan wouldn't have missed her funeral. Entreri was standing behind her and she hated herself for feeling happy that the man was there. This had gone too far. Everything had gone too far. Everything had gone too wrong. She hadn't been able to sleep last night because of the screams. Some spies of Aran had finally found few thieves working for the new guild and they had been tortured to reveal the location and the leaders of hte guild. It hadn't worked, Erik had told her in the morning. The thieves hadn't been able to tell anything even when they wanted to, after hours of torture, because of some kind of blocking spell. Erik had tried to broke it, but hadn't been successful. Now the thieves were locked up and heavily guarded, possibly until Erik came up with a way to break the spell or until they would be killed. Shandara wasn't sure which she wanted more.



The priest had started talking and Shandara let her mind wander. She knew the old priest who was speaking, and although he was a nice and harmless person, at that moment she hated him. He hadn't known Faershan very well, he didn't know anything about Faershan's goddess, nothing about what she would have wanted to happen at her funeral. Hundred colourful butterflies, Shandara thought, almost smiling. Something stupid and inappropriate, she would have loved that. She realized that the priest had stopped talking and was staring at something. She turned her head and there, in the middle of gray, rainy day, a small humming bird was flying in little hoops. It landed on Aran's shoulder, pecked his cheek very gently and then flew to Mirjami, Isaldora, Mitsu and Shandara, making little hoops in front of them all. Shandara reached to touch it, but it flew away and disappeared back into the grayness where it came from.



"I think that..." the priest said, looking a bit baffled. "We could... if you... I mean that..."



"It's all right," Aran said, touching his cheek where the bird had touched. "I think that we have no reason to be here any longer. She's in peace now."



For a moment Shandara thought she saw tears in Aran's eyes, but then the Shadowmaster turned his head and when he looked at her direction again, there were no sign of the tears. She dropped the simple blue flowers she had carried into the grave and then walked back to Entreri. The assassin was wearing his usual back clothes and the strange hat that Jarlaxle sometimes made fun of. Shandara looked at him and smirked; the sight of the water running down the hat around the assassin's face was almost too much for her.



"What are you laughing at?" he asked and then flashed him a quick and rare smile. "We should get you this kind of hat too. Better than that hood," he said and wiped her wet cheek. "Or are these tears?"



"No," Shandara said. "Strange, but I don't feel like crying. I just feel so tired. I think I'll go to my room and rest after this. If you want to go to the dinner, I can take care of myself for a moment. The guild houses are now so well-guarded that I'm in no danger while I'm inside. I want to sleep."



"If that's what you want," Entreri said and Shandara felt like screaming. She waned the man to protest, to argue, to do something else than go along with everything she said. She would have to leave him soon and she wished that she would have a good reason to do so. 'I might fall in love with you otherwise' didn't sound right. A fight, an argument, that's what she needed. A clean cut away from him, and for him a clean cut away from her. He had changed and she was afraid that it had been because of her. She didn't want anyone loving her. She couldn't control whether she fell in love with someone, but she could make potential love die in the hearts of men. She had practised.



Breaking the heart of a famous assassin, Shandara thought. If he has a heart, that is. Entreri was, despite everything that had happened, still a mystery to her. He could be gentle, jealous and deadly, but she could never be sure if a feeling was real or not. She had done her homework on him and had found out that Entreri was the master of disguises and pretending. He could walk to her in a street wearing a disguise and she wouldn't recognize him, so it didn't seem impossible that he could show her feelings that were as fake as his altered appearance. Maybe everything was real, maybe everything was a lie. She wasn't sure whether she'd ever find out.



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Tassas was feeling bored. After she had abandoned Aran and the Shadow Thieves and joined Theroieon in his new guild, she had been forced to stay indoors. She didn't complain much; the manor was beautiful and he gave her new clothes and jewels whenever she asked for them. But she couldn't show those clothes to anyone and that was what bothered her. She wanted to be adored, but also envied, and her vanity couldn't be fed with envy of other women, because there weren't any women around who she could consider her equals. There were the servant girls, who were stupid brats. There were female thieves, who couldn't care less about fancy dresses that would just get into way in their profession. Theroieon could give her nice things but offer no opportunities to show them around, and she was getting frustrated.



She had heard of Faershan's death. One of Theroieon's assassins had bragged over a easy kill and after few more details she had figured out that the half-elf healer had been the victim. She wasn't sure how she should have felt. After all, she had left the guild because she hadn't liked her life there and she had despised the people who worked there, but still... Faershan had always been kind to her. Then again, Theroieon wasn't killing people based on how nice they were. He was determined to kill enough guild members, no matter who they were, so that the guild would be weak. Not an open war, Theroieon had said, but small attacks that would in time start destroying the guild from the inside. Distrust and panic were the best weapons. And they had time, Theroieon had added. Nobody knew who they were, nobody even knew their name, if they even had any. Tassa hadn't heard it, but then again she wasn't told many things. It seemed that people were afraid that she would run out and tell the information to anyone who crossed her way. Of course there wasn't much danger of that while she was forced to stay inside.



A servant girl came into Tassa's room and told the latest news. Tassa gave her some money if she told her what was going around the guild and so far Tassa had gained some useful information. This seemed the most interesting thus far; the Shadow Thieves had captured some of Theroieon's spies and were torturing them for information. So far they hadn't been successful, but Tassa knew that in one way or other Aran would get the information he wanted. She could only hope that Theroieon's guards would keep her safe when the Shadow Thieves started their attack.



Sometimes she really regretted leaving the guild, no betraying the guild, but there was nothing that she could do about it now. If Shadow Thieves caught her, she would die, there was no doubt about that. Her only hope seemed to be that Theroieon's murderous plans worked. For some reason that thought didn't make her feel any better, but that was the only way for her now.