"You took everything from me."
Lucretia tips her head, acknowledging. "I know."
It is funny; for all the years she spent deceiving and deflecting and obscuring her true self, the truth comes easier than she'd thought it would. It hurts less on the way up, too.
Daniel is so young. His face goes blank from shock for a moment before hardening. He wants to seem older than he is, more experienced. He wants her to be scared. Lucretia smiles at him, bland and shakes her head ruefully. She is too tired to be afraid.
The old magic she felt in the temple swells then and Lucretia leans on the wall at her back as she loses her footing. The building shakes, the very foundations groaning, before settling with an awful grinding noise. The faint sounds of the waves crashing on the cliffs of Neverwinter, which were so quiet Lucretia hadn't even known she was hearing them, cut off abruptly.
Well. Maybe she's a little scared.
Daniel's lips turn up. He jeers at her. "You thought you would always have the upper hand didn't you? Well, we showed you different."
It's something in the way he holds himself that makes her do it; something in the way his shoulders are pitched too sharply back, something in the way his knees are locked, something in the way he's careful to keep his feet spread to shoulder-width, something in the way he won't meet her eyes for more than a few seconds makes her mouth open before her brain catches up.
"Is that why you are so afraid of me, Daniel? Because you think I believe myself to be all powerful?"
His sneer turns to plastic at the edges. "Don't patronize me."
"I would never," Lucretia vows. "What did you do to the building?"
"Teleported it," Daniel snaps back. It is only after Lucretia nods thoughtfully and glances at the slit window that he realizes what he's done. "You'll never be able to Counterspell it; we're using magic too great for even the amazing Lucretia of Faerun to control."
"There are a great many things I cannot control. It's something I've been working on accepting, actually. You might like to hear about it."
"I don't. I wouldn't. I'm done hearing about you." But he pauses, bated breath. "Don't you want to know why we're doing this?"
It is Lucretia's turn to smile. Her manacles chaff past the fabric she's woven around her raw wrists. Her head pounds, but she smiles anyway. "If you're anything like me, my friend, I have no doubt you'll want to tell me whether I say anything or not."
"I am nothing like you." He spits at the ground at her feet.
"Maybe not totally like me," Lucretia concedes. "I would've aimed for my face. But yes, I'm afraid, in other ways, you are quite like who I used to be."
"No."
"No? Tell me, then, if I'm wrong about you: you're young and you loved your family with your entire heart but you were unsure what to do with your life. Talented and intelligent but without a sense of direction, am I correct so far?"
Daniel's face twists. He looks ragged and a little shattered, almost. She's dredging up things he'd long since thought buried. Lucretia would pity him if she didn't think he'd be incredibly insulted.
"You don't know me, witch."
"No, but I know who I was, and that counts for something. I loved my family and I had little direction. And then something happened; a group of people came to me and said they could give me that. They took me into a beautiful place and told me I could use my smarts and my cunning and any magic I possessed-which at eighteen wasn't a lot, just so you're aware-and they told me I would be helping people I loved. So I said yes." Lucretia looks down. Her hands are older than they should be, and worn. She is-has been withering away and she has done nothing to stop it.
She is doing something now. "And then I lost my family and friends and everyone I ever knew. I did everything I could think of-sometimes I did horrible things, I made terrible mistakes-everything in my power to bring everyone back. And it was not enough."
When she looks up, Daniel is slack jawed. He pulls himself together but Lucretia sees it. She smiles once again and knows it does not reach her eyes this time. "Sound familiar?"
"I am not your friend," Daniel says, sounding a little faint. He gains force though. "If you knew what it was like to lose everyone, then you shouldn't have tried-done whatever it was you did with the barrier that let The Hunger destroy so much of our home. You should have stopped it. You should have been better."
"I have told myself the same thing countless times." Lucretia agrees. She steps forward, carefully, and Daniel doesn't seem to notice. Her right foot slides forward again and he flinches, so Lucretia backs off for now. Can't be too hasty. "I admit that I have hurt so many people; people I loved, people I hated, people I didn't even know, I have hurt them all. I was always trying to help my loved ones, to get them back so we could be together the way we once were, but hurting people never worked in my favor and it should not have even been an option. But Daniel, I have something very important to ask you."
He's upset, baffled, more likely to slide a dagger in between her ribs than to listen to her, and yet the young man still answers. "What?"
She tilts her head, catches his eyes with hers and recognizes the guilt she finds there. "Are you talking about what you wish I'd've done differently," she asks gently, "or are you perhaps speaking about someone else?"
He twists away from her, hands running through his hair. "Shut up, shut up. You're-you're lying or messing with me, I shouldn't listen-"
"I could've done so many things differently. I know that now, Daniel. But I didn't. And you could've been so different, but you aren't. I am so sorry for what I have done, I always will be, but that does not change the fact that I did them. In the end, all I have is who I am today, in this moment. All I can change is what I do, myself, in the future. I cannot control you. I cannot control my family or your friends, or the fate of the world, or the will of the gods, or the tides of the seas. All I have-all you have, Daniel-is the ability to change myself."
"You're not going to change my mind!" Daniel rages, turning back. She's advanced on him while his back was turned, pushing her advantage, but he doesn't seem to notice. "The others, they told me how you were responsible for all this loss and pain and-and they were my family and they're gone!"
"Yes."
"They're gone!" Daniel screams. For a moment he looks ready to strike her, but his fists fall more softly than Lucretia would have expected on her shoulders. He raises and lowers them slowly, tears streaming down his face, tapping at her gently where he should be punching. "They're gone, they're gone and if-if you know what it is to lose someone-if you know and you-you weren't trying to-"
"It is hard," Lucretia says quietly, "when your monsters wear a face you recognize."
Daniel sobs. His knees give and he collapses against Lucretia, sagging. She hooks her arms around him on the way down. He shakes apart in her grip and Lucretia allows her own tears to slip through. Just a few, though; it would be unseemly for the Director to cry before she is freed.
I don't fucking want this, Taako had said.
Two more weeks. You'll live for two more weeks, Lucretia had promised. Then you know what has to be done.
No, Lucretia thinks, tired beyond belief. There is something bright in her chest, some light that has only flickered on in the last few hours, that jumps at the thought. I have come to realize I don't know jack shit.
It is only when footsteps approach from outside that Daniel draws away. He sniffles, gasping. His face is flushed, dark skin turning darker, and he looks slightly embarrassed. "I-"
"Not a word," Lucretia promises.
His face blanches for a moment, before his eyes turn frantic. The boots outside sound heavy and numerous. "They're coming to kill want-want to make a spectacle of it, for-revenge or-or-"
"What do you want Daniel?"
"I-I don't think I can kill you." He admits. He's wringing his hands, looking like a schoolboy who has been caught and will be punished. "I thought if I could get closure or-but you're a person and you-you wanted to die, that first day, didn't you?"
Lucretia tilts her head.
"That's why I couldn't do it without talking to you. I thought maybe it was a trick but-it's not. You-you're just a person."
Lucretia can see the cogs turning in his head, sees him doing the math, but it is not enough; a second later, the butt of a spear slams into the back of Daniel's head and he drops like a rock.
The small spark of hope-that's what it is, that's what it is!-extinguishes and Bella meets Lucretia's eyes with a grim smirk. Two other members of the Ragged Harmony flank her; an orc man and an elf both sneer.
"He never was a big picture guy," Bella says. "Time for your big show, Director."
The temple rumbles again beneath their feet, as if in agreement. The three of them need to brace, but Lucretia is already on her knees, stable. Something bold and resigned curls in Lucretia's chest as she glances down to see Daniel's blood pooling a little on the stones. She is not free. She is hurt and has been thinking about death for months. Her mind is warped and her limbs feel like lead and Lucretia's heart hardens at the realization-the bizarre, fantastic, sudden realization-that she does not want to die.
"Forgive me if I don't go down without a fight," she replies, and, focusing solely on what Killian insisted on teaching her in the old days, sweeps her left leg out quickly.
Bella goes down with a shout of surprise. Lucretia has to stop herself from automatically reaching for her staff, which is somewhere back in her destroyed quarters. Instead she rolls on top of Bella and rabbit punches her twice in the face. It's not graceful, not dignified, and worst of all, it's weaker than she would usually be if she'd been taking care of herself. Her ribs ache. The new skin on her stomach threatens to split, and yet Lucretia still manages to rake her fingers like claws over Bella's face-something soft gives under her nails and Lucretia wants to cringe away but instead hooks her fingers in deeper-before the other orc lifts her, struggling, into the air. The elf pulls the shackles on her wrists tight, forcing Lucretia's arms behind her, and the orc drops her heavily to the floor.
Lucretia's knees buckle. She kneels, panting. When she looks up, Bella is already on her feet, spitting mad. But Lucretia curls her lip anyway, the other woman's blood splattered across her cheeks and throat; Bella is missing an eye.
"You can't say I didn't try." Lucretia gets out before promptly being struck in the head.
She doesn't fall unconscious, exactly, but she's limp in the male orc's arms as he drags her out of her cell. The world is hazy, swimming before Lucretia's eyes even as she tries to do more than flop like a dead fish. The elf keeps hold of her chains; Lucretia can feel when they get too far behind the orc when the chains jerk her back suddenly, forcing her downward before the orc rights her with a grunt.
Before she can truly regain her senses, the very air around them shifts, becomes less stale, flows around them instead of being still and oppressive. The temple rumbles again. Sound filters into her ears and this is what lets Lucretia finally begin to piece reality together again. There is shouting, stomping, screaming. It is not afraid, no; this is a revelry, a party. This is a happy occasion.
Oh joy, Lucretia thinks, and opens her eyes as she is lowered to her feet. She sways, the colors of the world ripping into her retinas so sharply she almost closes them again, but she does not need the elf's extra yank on her chains to stay on her feet.
If I die, Lucretia thinks, as she stares out at a roiling mob, thirty or more strong, that all celebrate at the thought of her demise, gathered in a huge circular stone temple room, staring at her on an altar, I will die on my feet.
The stones of the temple are old and fading; whatever mosaics were on the walls, they have long since eroded into fine lines barely discernible from the rest of the walls. The ceiling towers over them, coming to a peak fifty or sixty paces up. The altar Lucretia stands on is more of a raise dais. The elf is behind her, radiating heat and rage and gripping Lucretia's manacles tight so that her wrists are crossed and she cannot perform magic. Light filters in weakly from broken windows high overhead. The space is packed, creatures of all races heaving to and fro and hemming each other in. A few reach out to touch the base of the altar she is on only to draw back when her bleary eyes meet theirs, hissing or spitting or jeering. Her ears ring and Lucretia feels she might faint; that knock to the head is small trouble compared to the rest of her injuries.
But there is no more time for Lucretia to get her bearings, to come up with a cunning plan and cheat death one last time. The Raven Queen always collects. The bill always comes due.
A hand grips her chin from behind and forces Lucretia's head back. The fingers clench tight under the hinges of her jaw and Lucretia has to admit it's a smart move; she'd have tried to bite them otherwise.
The cold of metal presses at the fragile, thin skin of her throat. Lucretia doesn't need to be the smartest person in the realm to know a knife when she feels one against her carotid artery.
"Lucretia of Faerun," Bella says, voice booming over the cacophony before them, "the Ragged Harmony collects your debt."