A matter of great importance, said the letter in Lord Callum's neat handwriting, appoint an interim commander at once and fly to Neverwinter if you can.

This is a cruel season to travel, but the urgent message hooks Casavir and pulls him forward like a fish out of his familiar waters. Again, he dismounts and walks his horse over the worse parts of the slippery road. Ice surrounds the two of them – ice on the path, ice in the air. A particularly strong gust of wind hits the man and the horse on the way uphill and leaves them shaking. Casavir wonders what made Callum summon him after two years of complete silence. What made the lord seal the letter with the Neverwinter crest and have him rush into the worst of northern storms.

He makes a halt for the night on a wide rocky shelf. A canvas and a small campfire make the evening a little brighter, and after some thinking Casavir gives the horse both the better place and the extra blanket. He can endure the elements with a warm thought or a memory; the poor animal had no reason to leave the stables. He inches closer to the fire and closes his eyes tiredly.

The garrison was so grim when he was leaving. Casavir himself had half the mind to cancel the trip: even bandits stop their attacks during winter storms. It will be four weeks before he reaches Neverwinter, and a good week before the first inn on his way. The road back will take several weeks as well.

He comforts himself that the routine in his forts is well-established and Black Ballard will do fine in his absence.


Neverwinter greets him with its regular clamour of streets, smells of soot and gutter water, and greasy looks of well-armed pedestrians who undress him with their indifferent eyes and put a price on every item he owns. They are not overly impressed with his riches, or maybe it is his military posture that discourages them. Casavir straightens his back involuntarily. He has had time to forget that crowded streets can be more dangerous than lonely mountain trails.

A doubt runs across his mind when he passes the Temple: a night's rest and several pots of hot water would be most welcome. He stops this longing dead in its tracks. Fly to Neverwinter if you can. Whatever it is it must be important. He rides right to Castle Never.

Lord Callum of the Neverwinter Nine is not in a hurry. Casavir's arrival is reported and a heavily mustached guardsman in an impeccably polished cuirass dismisses him until tomorrow morning. If Casavir is very honest, it stings a little, but he gives a mental shrug and exits the castle grounds in anticipation of hot food and a warm bed.

By the time he is back in the Merchant's District, it is almost impolite to knock on the Temple's door, so he hires a room and a meal at a small inn. Casavir's allowance has been rather generous to his modest standards, but he prefers to spend it on the things that matter more than comfort. He takes some time to write down the order he will place at the temple store tomorrow: potions, herbs, some sandalwood oil for burials. He had run out of it years ago. As an afterthought, he adds a royal wax candle to the list. Let the children see a proper ceremonial service once.


In the morning, he reports to the castle gates again. Two large guards with impressive halberds escort him to a magnificent entrance hall and tell him to wait in a tone that bears no hint of respect. Casavir schools his face into an impassive, unreadable mask. He is not a boy with a letter at the gates of Fenthick Moss's prison. He should not feel like one. He has spilt so much of his own blood for this city and has spilt so much of others' blood that he will never be able to repent it. In the wild north they see him as a representative of Neverwinter, of civilization, of more sophisticated mores and better life. He is Neverwinter just as much as these decorated men who line the corridors and these refined nobles who lounge on the velvet couches.

The doors open, Lord Callum beckons him to enter, and it must be the throne room, for Lord Nasher Alagondar is sitting on the throne high on the dais, and Casavir remembers to kneel and rise with his permission. He is introduced as 'Sir Casavir of Tyr', and the ruler of the city starts a conversation that may sound like small talk but contains so many questions it can just as well be an interrogation.

"So, you are the man who constructed three forts on his own?"

"And how exactly did you manage to enlist the help of Mirabar?"

"What would you need their help for?"

"And I guess that the correspondence with the treasury was rather annoying, wasn't it?"

"Are we supposed to assume that the road is as safe now as it could get?"

"Has Mirabar rewarded you generously for your effort?"

"The hammer is an honour indeed. What reward do you expect for your… service then?"

"You do not mean to tell us that you want to return to that miserable place?"

"I see."

Lord Nasher is thoughtful for a full minute, drumming his fingers against the carved armrest. Casavir ponders his answers. He did not sin against the truth in the least. Perhaps his monologue about the people who look up to Neverwinter for protection and fight on through their lives with extraordinarily little support bordered on 'too passionate', but it is the truth. Lord Nasher raises his piercingly intelligent grey eyes.

"You must be a rare man, Sir Casavir of Tyr. I free you of your service as Commander of my forts in the Crags, and I will have you serve Neverwinter in this castle, under Lord Callum's responsibility. We appear in need of men such as you are."

Casavir opens his mouth, sees Callum shake his head, and closes his mouth. There is something in the air that he fails to understand, so without further protest he follows the blue Neverwinter Nine cloak out into the corridor, up the stairs and then into a large office. Callum tugs his starched collar open and suddenly grins at Casavir.

"I knew you would do better if I did not warn you, boy." He proceeds to pour some wine out of the silver jug on the side table and pushes an intricately molded cup into Casavir's hands. Casavir takes a polite sip and raises his eyebrows in a silent question. Callum shrugs.

"Did you think the high lords and ladies just kindly appreciated your pious insolence going to Mirabar behind their backs and painting Neverwinter weak and unable to provide for their own army? Did you think Luskan accepted the loss of Mirabar's tariffs gracefully and did not plot against the no-name who took to the fool's job seriously? You are lucky you walked out of that hall with the lord's benevolence and not in chains."

Casavir suddenly feels sick. He knows he should not be. He has done nothing dishonourable. Suspicion creeps up that the fort in the Crags could be, from the very beginning, intended to be an imitation of activity, an illusion of protection for the angry citizens, but he looks at Callum's face and knows the dwarf would not spend so much effort and time to teach him if it all were a smokescreen. It is more likely that twenty different interests intertwined into a decision Callum disapproved of, and he gambled on an honest person to neglect the politics behind it.

Casavir is not sure Lord Nasher Alagondar has a right to command him to stay in his service, but when he visits the Temple Judge Olaf explains to him that an honest service to the gods implies an honest service to those favoured by them to rule, and Casavir is obliged to stay. The Church will consider this sudden rise in the world as his mission now.

Casavir keeps silent for a long time, and then asks Judge Olaf if the Church can bless a missionary to build a small chapel in the Crags. Having received a hesitant nod, he files a request at the archives, finds Finley and implores him to volunteer for the job. Casavir entrusts the monk with all the money he has and a long letter to Black Ballard. He also tells him to find Tena, the clever girl who wants to become a paladin, and bring her to the chapterhouse should she wish to follow the path.

He is to serve the same people who sentenced Fenthick Moss to death to appease the crowd and had no mercy for Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande when she repented.

The streets of his native city have never seemed narrower to him.


Among these old men of power, he is again considered young and inexperienced. His opinions matter to no one but himself. His values are politely dismissed as dramatic ideals of youth. Casavir knows they have already taken shape and grown monolithic. He will not change much.

While formally equal in their voice and weight, the Neverwinter Nine have different responsibilities. Lord Callum's seem to include leading an army during wars and guarding the peace in the meantime. It mostly implies guarding the safety of the castle and Lord Nasher himself, for nothing starts a war faster than a highest assassination. This is where Callum needs Casavir – a person who cannot be bought or threatened into treason, as he puts it. It also means that to the world Casavir becomes a companion and a protégé of the city ruler. And to Lord Nasher Alagondar, the line between the truth and the appearance is always blurry. Casavir has seen people like that. They invent their own calculated opinions and come to believe them in the process of articulation.

He lives in the castle now and accompanies the liege lord to meals and feasts, parties and balls, trials and public appearances. On the very first day Lord Nasher takes a distasteful look at his boots, and in the evening Casavir discovers that his modest possessions have been put away into a locked chest. The letter on his table informs him that he is expected 'to look his worth' and wear the clothes in the wardrobe. Casavir suppresses his initial burst of anger, looks out of the window longingly – his room is high and faces north – and resolves to treat this as a uniform. There is vanity of the rich and vanity of the poor, he recites to himself, the good path leads one past both. He can remember the dusty ancient page that featured the phrase in between other specs of wisdom. It is surprising how many of old monks' writings come to life and start to make sense as he grows older.

Callum reminds to everyone who listens – which is simply everyone, since his voice is extremely loud and the corridors carry it far – that Casavir is a veteran, a hero, one of those brave men who defeated Luskan. Lord Nasher awards him a medal that Casavir does not dare to refuse, for the ceremony is sudden, very public, and inappropriately well-attended. He hides it until his church sends him a letter that he must wear it: it shall remind the world that Tyr was with Neverwinter in the hour of trial. He obeys, and it burns his chest with its undeserved weight.

He would much prefer to be a silent statue at the back of the room – another nameless guard, deaf and blind. Instead, Lord Nasher engages him in conversations, pours compliments to his valour and loyalty, seats him in front of the Luscanite diplomatic emissary who grits his teeth and makes pleasant remarks dripping with poison. He demanded for you to be hanged, Eltoora Sarptyl, the head of the Many-Starred Cloak guild, purrs in his ear at a dinner and gives a silver laugh, smiling at the emissary. The eldritch woman takes to feeding him bits and pieces of that strange mix of intel and gossip that passes for information here at court – and she always laces it with flirting, touching his neck, leaning on his shoulder. Casavir assumes it is a cover to educate him, but he does not like it one bit. The woman scares him. He has no doubt she can kill a dinner guest and complain that the carpet needs to be cleaned now.

Lord Nasher leaves the capital for two weeks' hunt, and the entourage of half the Black Lake population follows him to the nearby forest. The unfortunate stag who had the audacity to cross their way is roasting over the fire; the courtiers drink and laugh and flatter one another on their courage in dealing with the poor animal. The pine scent is supposed to be cleansing, but the air smells of blood and murder.

Casavir does not sleep a blink for several days because if anyone wanted to kill the man he is to guard, the opportunities are plenty. Do not let the watchdog build your house, for it will construct a prison, he remembers another book while he shadows Lord Nasher on his evening walk around the hunting camp. Indeed. If the military rules, everyone is either an enemy or an ally and everything uncontrolled becomes a threat. Casavir tests the limits of his perspective and arrives at a regretful conclusion that he already has a lot of this military rigidity. The life he leads has grown into his introspective soul and it contaminates his once open and curious mind. His approach is limited in the very way he had tried to escape.

Perhaps this is the reason Lord Nevalle takes an immense dislike to him. His blue cloak is ever present, and Casavir guesses – correctly, as it will turn out – that the youngish lord is head of some secret police. He tests Casavir's patience with veiled implications, circles around him like a hungry hawk, and sometimes when they meet in the castle corridors Lord Nevalle stares at the paladin for that unnecessary second that makes people feel they are guilty of crimes unknown to them. Of all the courtiers Nevalle is the type Casavir would not appoint to the night watch, but Lord Nasher trusts the fair lord enough to stay alone with him, and Casavir lulls his own suspicions best as he can.

They all want to hurt you, Eltoora Sarptyl breathes out in his ear at a commemorative dinner to honour the anniversary of that hollow victory. Casavir focuses on his plate. I want to hurt you too, she continues languidly, but this is different. You are taking their place. You are eating out of the palm that feeds them by their birthright.

Casavir can see that a fake heroic copy of him is paraded for the public to see, and he feels trapped inside it.


A thundercloud of a face, Ophala Cheldarstorn teases him in whisper at a public hearing when Lord Nasher announces that the eastern bridge will be renovated within ten years, why are you so grim, dove? Lord Nasher likes you. She is another member of the Nine, the most surprising one. A brothel owner and an art patron, a collector of rare magical items and a former adventurer, a wizard of no certain powers and a rumoured courtesan herself, a noble lady without a noble title. Casavir has to acknowledge her beauty – she wears it like a weapon and uses it as one, too. She is more human than most people here, and Casavir sometimes tries to imagine Lord Nasher and her on the road together – young, reckless, daring. All her fellow-adventurers are bald, wrinkled, and grey-bearded now; Ophala's magic keeps her fresh, and only her patronizing tendencies give out her age. Despite himself, he is often affected by her charm. He reminds himself that this charm is generally directed at the world and he is hit by accident. Collateral damage, friendly fire, seduction by proxy.

Lord Nasher does like him, but it is the kind of affection a lapdog would enjoy. Sometimes the lord is in the mood to talk and request his guard's opinion on the people they met during the day. Casavir soon runs out of polite ways to put that none of them have the intentions they claim to have. Lord Nasher listens to him with his head inclined and keeps his final judgement to himself. Only once he lets himself speculate aloud:

"We must be a strange folk to you, paladin. Holy warriors like you can notice every pretense, every falsity. A truly honorable person will be like a beacon to you, a silver light in a sea of darkness. I once thought I was suffocating in the presence of my superiors and their complicated compromises. Tell me if you sense a liar, Casavir of Tyr."

"You are a holy warrior yourself, my lord," Casavir replies quietly and wonders if that other paladin who was in Lord Nasher's service years ago was ever asked the same. What did she say?

Lord Nasher emits a mirthless laugh.

"Not much of a warrior now, and little of that holiness left. I am a humble believer. I know my sacrifices and my shortcomings – no ruler stays a saint. And you do not see any silver light around me, do you."

Casavir shakes his head sadly, and they never return to this conversation.


These nobles are a strange folk indeed. Casavir has never seen men and women of the same breed and class behave like two different species. These snobs also have shades of snobbism he had never suspected to exist. Born nobility and anointed nobility; landed gentry and landless gentry; born and landed, but not of a good breed; born and landed, of a good breed – but impoverished; Black Lake nobility or countryside 'peasants'; owners of ancestral Blacklake mansions or fake impostors who bought a property in it; finally, there is also a division into 'the better lakeshore' and 'the smelly lakeshore'. There are two hundred shades of pride, and not one of it is of merit.

I can smell you are blushing inside, Eltoora Sarptyl murmurs in her intoxicating voice at another banquet of convoluted speeches and rowdy gossip. Green and innocent like a spring leaf, you are.

Casavir remembers the days when he thought that those simple men in the army were rude and immoral. These noble men and women could embarrass the worst criminal with the stories they share at dinner. Is Casavir supposed to laugh at jokes that taste sour to his palate? He is to tell the truth; he wears the symbol of Tyr on his chest for everyone to see. At the receptions his liege attends, he gets asked most ridiculous questions. They try to catch him unaware. Ladies giggle and cover their iron claws with soft gloves. Lords exchange amused looks at his serious answers. Lord Nasher enjoys the discomfort Casavir causes them, and Casavir has a strong suspicion that he enjoys Casavir's discomfort as well.

Paladinhood is not a party game for their entertainment, he complains to Judge Olaf in a confession when he tries to cleanse his soul of the mud they bathe it in. Whoever holds the ruler's ear will pour the message into it, the frugal response is. Casavir inhales the familiar scent of wax and dust, feels the blessing sink under his skin and accepts this as another trial.

In an attempt to hold his ground, Casavir often imagines himself standing up, pulling the fancy doors open and running, running, running down the stairs into the night, out of the gates, into the woods. He blinks, and the candlelit halls return. This set of silver dishes could buy a hundred swords for a year. There is a plate of winter strawberries in the centre of the table. He does not feel like he owns himself.

His repulsion grows physical. In his dreams he is chained, trapped, buried alive or bound and thrown underwater. His hands shake during sword practice. Bile rises in his throat at any smell, any misgiving. It is as if the world has lost the sun, and colours faded. Casavir puts on his armour in the morning and endures another day.

Lord Nasher fails to notice the deterioration, and Ophala Cheldarstorn tells him directly that his pet paladin is about to snap. Casavir listens to the conversation they lead as if he is not in the room with them.

"Send me away," he says when they fall silent. "Give me a mountain pass to guard, an enemy to fight, a village to protect. Order me to patrol city streets at night. I am not myself in your service. I am a soldier."

Muscles roll in Lord Nasher's jaw, and his eyes take an unpleasant glint. Ophala rolls her eyes, and the shadow passes.

"No," the lord says blandly. "You will stay here, in Neverwinter, and if you need a task, there are many cut out for you. Let me think. Leave, you two."


Callum informs Casavir that Lord Nasher has signed a decree to establish a charity action to commemorate the fallen in the Luskan war, and Casavir is to supervise it. He is still to dine with the lord twice a week and report his judgement on those present. On other days he is free to abide as he pleases. Lord Nasher suggests that a monument is a good thing to start with. The treasury will assign a small sum to this purpose.

A monument is a strange choice when there are so many widows and orphans, so many veterans who ended up in gangs and prisons, so much reconstruction still not even started. Casavir puts on his old garrison cloak and sets off to wander the city streets. His measured steps and the night air help him think. Many families lost their dear ones, what will give them solace without becoming a bitter reminder? Many veterans work in the city guard, what will they say about spending money on another dead slab of stone? The city needs clean water, the city needs shelters, the city needs bread and literacy lessons and jobs. Casavir grows more and more excited, his heart beats its way out of his ribs, he knows his spark is back. Luskan. Water. Fallen soldiers. Dead stone. Life. Clean water. Jobs. He looks up at the stars and traces the outline of castle walls on the hill and tries to remember how high Black Lake is compared to the poor districts by the docks. He can write some of his dwarven architects and ask for advice.

In two days, he finds the perfect place: ruins under a rocky cliff, empty shells of poor huts, remnants of a road and a storage barrack. Nobody has settled here since the city fire. This idea will be expensive.

"I want to build a fountain," he mentions at a dinner when asked if he has thought about the design. "In the ruins by the docks." He smirks at the raised eyebrows and forks frozen in the air. "A fountain with clean drinking water, a legacy of the fallen bestowed upon the survivors."

He thinks about the pride of landed nobility and of the way their women turn into vipers because this is their only chance at being taken seriously. He establishes a committee and spends a week visiting all the old mansions. He spends the money from the treasury on thirty silver brooches. They feature a tulip and the words 'founding member', and they buy him twelve members at first – daughters and wives from important families – and enough gossip to make other noble ladies harass their families into participation.

He raises more than enough money within a month. The last three brooches go for an auction kindly organized by Ophala Cheldarstorn, and Lord Nasher buys the last one himself. He does not wear it, though. The lords at the court feign indifference and joke about the weird fashion this autumn.

Casavir spends a week at the city guard headquarters talking to the soldiers and the officers. His luck is true: Jane, his old partner from the plague patrols, is a lieutenant at the docks now, and her officers agree to do a small extra duty: tell impoverished and unemployed veterans, their widows and children to find Casavir and talk to him. He has work they would like to do.

Two wagons from Mirabar arrive one sunny afternoon. They creak through the city streets into the docks, stop by the cliff he described in his letter and six dwarves put up tents and unload boxes of instruments. Casavir arrives at the scene just as they are about to be arrested by Nevalle's men for camping in a public place, and after interference of Callum, the tents stay. The two lords, however, are both displeased with him for two different reasons.

The poor are paid by the day and more and more people show up each morning. They demolish the ruins, clean down the land and start construction under the dwarves' supervision. The dwarfs do the complicated work: they throw the pipes underground and carve the rock of the cliff into the shapes Casavir drew for them. By the autumn everything is completed.


It is late afternoon – a strange time for a grand opening. The sun is already low in the west. Lord Nasher and his entourage are the last to arrive to the monument site.

The old knight stops his magnificent warhorse and takes in the sight. It is a new square at the crossing of three roads. It will be lined with apple trees. They are small dead sticks now, but a garden will grow here in several decades. The ensemble of the square is six new buildings to host small, but clean and well-lit flats, and the streets are marked into lots for more. In the middle of the square there is a fountain. No sculptures adorn it. It looks more like an enormous pile of roughly cut rocks. Water flows out of three pipes into granite pools.

It is nothing spectacular, nothing ambitious, nothing monumental, but people here and there cry. The crowd parts, and Lord Nasher can see Casavir. The paladin walks up to him – tall, strong, proud, his blue eyes so bright and clear – and the crowd watches him hungrily with the kind of admiration Lord Nasher used to inspire himself.

"Is this the monument?" He demands in a cold voice to mask the nostalgic emotion.

"Can you see it, my lord?" Casavir gestures at the cliff on the right. Lord Nasher takes a lasting look at his sincere face and turns in that direction.

The setting sun falls on the fountain and the cliff behind it. Every edge throws a sharp shadow against the rock. It is like the cliff itself is a painting in red and grey – hundreds of silhouettes are climbing the hill, they fall to their knees, they stumble and rise, they carry flags and spears and each one has a recognizable helmet. As the sun sinks in the sea, each shadow lengthens and dies.

It is a beautiful sight. It is a heart-breaking message. It is so powerful it is almost a treason.


The court is eating Casavir alive. A brief period when he was free to construct the monument was over too soon, and something changed. The paladin is ordered to resume his guarding duties, and every minute of his is filled with pregnant, heavy interactions. The only moments of respite are his morning sword practice and his late evening lessons with Ophala: Lord Nasher started to find fault with his chapterhouse-schooled manners and the Moonstone Mask owner volunteered to educate him. Her teaching methods are… unorthodox, for the lack of a better word, but she is intelligent and well-travelled, and Casavir desperately needs conversations without traps and hidden meanings.

It is Ophala who tells Casavir that the committee he founded met without him and voted on the future of the district he envisioned. No further construction will be done, and the committee will organize a ball in honour of the lords who led the war effort. Casavir grips the windowsill so hard that his knuckles go white. When she strokes his taut shoulder, he does not shake off her caress. The only good thing he has done at the court over these empty years is sinking into the abyss underneath his feet, and he is too overwhelmed with this sudden defeat to bear it alone like he is used to.

Everything goes awry slowly. Lord Nasher is impeccably polite in the presence of others, but distant in the way that borders on hostile. Casavir talks to every member of the small council and asks them to voice their support for the construction, but they smile and evade and redirect the conversation. Ophala is the only one who promises to talk to Lord Nasher on his behalf, but she brings sad news: the city has no money for such follies, he said. Orc tribes in the Sword Mountains have stopped all trade in the south; we cannot afford sending even a small garrison to Old Owl Well. The city budget is running low, and land is expensive. The lots of land around the square are city property and will be auctioned.

Casavir tries not to question her joy when he returns her comforting embrace gratefully. She tried.

Their relationship acquires a strange routine: she invades his space, he gives up inch after inch. He is thankful that her company drives loneliness away, but he is uncomfortable. He would much prefer to be friends – Casavir knows how to tread that ground, but Ophala is determined to speak with touches, and it is easier for him to drift with the flow than reject the only person he genuinely likes. Every time he is expected to kiss her, he withdraws. He cannot explain his own lack of enthusiasm. He had been dreaming of a love to purify his soul. Love is strangely missing all its power.


Sir Peris, a fifth son of a minor house, approaches Casavir in the castle's training grounds one dull grey morning and informs him conspiratorially that Casavir has his full support. The paladin is surprised and answers that the city can afford to give some land to the poor at no cost, but the man laughs at that and says he understands this noble veteran charity is a lovely idea to mask the real plot. The one with sharp knives and one presumptuous ruler. Casavir stares as Sir Peris leaves and decides to tell Callum about this incident.

Callum sighs and tells Casavir to wait. He sends a page for Lord Nevalle, apologizes, and leaves the chamber.

Lord Nevalle does not blink an eye and tells Casavir that by reporting Sir Peris he has passed the test. A conspiracy has been brewing among the lords, so he has set up the rumour that Casavir was the one leading it. Should anyone approach him again, Lord Nevalle will be waiting for his report.

Casavir is aghast. It must be written on his face, for Nevalle nods contentedly and informs him that if he fails to name the people who approach him promptly, he will be considered a betrayer and a conspirator himself. He knew Casavir's honour would be a problem, so the choice was taken from him. It is a necessary measure. Casavir can see Nevalle is neither evil nor a liar; yet there is that moment of utter hatred flaming up his soul, and he is disgusted by himself just as much as by this whole matter. Lord Peris disappears and Casavir knows this is his own fault.

Obedience is not a sin, Judge Olaf tells him after this confession, if your rightful ruler is in danger, it is your responsibility to find the source of danger and eliminate it. Casavir closes his eyes and hopes Judge Olaf will believe the gesture to mark the assent Casavir does not feel. This is the moment when the core of his heart tells him: Judge Olaf is wrong. His Church is wrong. His Church has been wrong for many times. It is dishonourable to provoke would-be criminals into crimes to prove them guilty. It is dishonourable to design this lie.

Casavir thinks of unconflicted times when he had clarity. In this world of noble politicians, his every word is twisted into a lie. One day Lord Nasher summons him to the large council without warning, pulls him right into the tribune without any explanation and asks if he fought in the battle against Aribeth and her forces, yes or no. Casavir is obliged to respond in the affirmative. He attempts to clarify that he did not fight Lady Aribeth herself, he just happened to be on the same battlefield and their ways never crossed, but Lord Nasher proceeds to speak as if he hears nothing after the 'yes'. Casavir is dismissed and escorted out of the hall.

Sometimes, when he passes along the streets, he can sense rumour bite at his back. He hears the words "hero" and "that bitch Aribeth" and he cannot sew them together. They make no sense.

Ophala laughs it off when he asks her. She never answers his questions anyway. He feels guilty all the time he is with her, and he feels guilty every time he chooses to neglect the daily visits she demands. He is cold and a piece of rock and a senseless statue, and he does not deserve her. She cries, he embraces her; she kisses him, he responds with a heavy heart; her hands wander over the border of decency, he freezes, apologizes, finds an excuse, and flees. Something is wrong with him. He is lucky to have her. He does not deserve her. He cannot abandon her, it is nonsense.

Why does their relationship even exist?


Callum invites Casavir to his office a month later. The dwarf scratches his cheek and grimaces.

'Ah hells, I am not good at beating around the bush. You are to pose for Master Pepin Pollo starting tomorrow." Callum takes in Casavir's obvious bewilderment and clarifies. "It is art. Painting. Lord Nasher needs your portrait for the gallery of military glory he is going to start in the palace."

Casavir has an ominous feeling that flashes across his mind like a meteor in the night sky.

"What do I have to do with military glory? I will not pose. This is the kind of vanity the gods forbid."

"Look here, boy. You are deep in the game you fail to understand. The large council voted to award you another title. You shall be called "A Hero of Neverwinter" and your portrait will be in that damn gallery whether you want it or not."

Casavir digests this information.

"Lord Callum," he says slowly as the truth dawns on him. "Is it done to erase the name of the Hero of Neverwinter, the real Hero of Neverwinter, from our history?"

Callum frowns, and this is all the answer he needs. Casavir is horrified that he did not see it earlier. The medal, the receptions, the lord's benevolence, the rumours, his account at the large counsel – they all suddenly make sense.

"It is not possible. Hundreds have seen him. I have seen him."

"Do you think that many people know the truth? That more than a dozen cares? That bastard betrayed us all. He did not follow his honour to the end, he claimed the trial was a fake and that justice was a fraud. He was exiled. His name is soiled. His example can inspire and lead no more." Callum gets more and more agitated as he speaks. "You, you were on that battlefield. Is it so hard to assume it was you who brought her to justice? The Hero of Neverwinter is as good as dead. A decade will pass and the rumour travels farther, absorbs detail, is reiterated for so many times it becomes true. All great legends were made like this. Think about it. If someone worthy carries that mantle, it will inspire generations."

A bitter taste fills Casavir's mouth. He wants to run. He is a caged animal, and the cage has grown so small that its bars press into his flesh.

He walks all the way to the Moonstone Mask. It is raining, and his wet hair sticks to his forehead. Ophala rolls her eyes and orders a room to be prepared. He is cold and wet and miserable, and sick with himself, and he feels so helpless, so unworthy, so incapable of anything good. He has no will to reject her when she shows up in his room. The feeling of the trap only intensifies with her caresses. He is defenseless and she has all the power in the world. Ophala does not have doubts, Ophala is invincible, Ophala knows what she is doing. Why not give her the passion she obviously wants, even if it feels wrong – everything feels wrong. Everything rots and rusts and sinks in filth. He used to imagine this kind of situation. If he were himself, he would want her body now.

The truth is that he does not.

Ophala groans dramatically and rises from the bed.

"I give up. This is the hardest bet I have ever made, and I lost it. Enough."

Casavir sits up and watches the furious woman silently. She is telling the truth now, and this is what was wrong. He had felt her lie and he was choosing to ignore it. He watches another catastrophe unfold as if it does not concern him. A bet, oh.

"You, you are a block of ice. You just don't have the drive at all, do you, sanctimonious freak? Eltoora laid her claim on you and I was stupid enough to rise to the bait. I bet she was laughing at me all the time! Seducing the vowed paladin who cannot be seduced. What a shame. I was afraid I would have to propose you to get you into my bed. Are you married to your ugly god? Are you incapable? You know: I do not care. Enough."

Casavir regards her without words. He would cry if he could scrape up enough emotion. His service was a cover, his effort was a fraud, his relationship was a fluke. He does not have a single soul he can trust. It is so painful that it is almost easier this way. Ophala picks up her clothes and makes her way to the door. She turns back to him in the doorway.

"It felt good to be loved and famed, didn't it?

Casavir lets these words cut deep because he deserves them. He sits in the rumpled bed for another ten minutes, listens to the rain outside, thinks of the map of Neverwinter he remembers from one of the beautiful books of his childhood. There is blood threaded through his thoughts.


In the early morning of the next day, he returns to the castle and packs his old bag. He weighs the Mirabar hammer in his hand and sighs. Leaving this marvellous weapon behind would be a shame even if he is more confident with a sword. Casavir wraps the hammer in his spare clothes and his bedroll. He will need it.

His official letter of resignation is left on the table in his room. He walks out of the castle grounds without looking back, buys a nameless horse at the Golden Apple inn and saddles it carefully, checking all the straps for the long way. He inhales air as if he can breathe out the pollution that is choking him.

Casavir trots through the city streets and listens to hooves clink against the pavement. The sound is soothing. The wind is cleansing. The road always heals.

He thinks about looking back when he passes the gates, but a sudden fear grips his heart – a fear that he will be sucked back by the city – and he spurs his horse on.


A young sorceress from a faraway Merdelain village pauses to admire the city walls and the diverse folk hurrying in and out of the gates. She thinks of the famous Academy and of the hundreds of books waiting for her. This city may be her destiny. She lets her mind inspect the idea without a hurry, for she has learnt to recognize and appreciate these moments when her fate pulls at her to pay attention.

A stern man on a chestnut horse gallops past Ingrid, and Ingrid turns back to stare at his billowing cloak, too warm for the weather, too faded for a decoration. For some reason, she is caught in an intense sense of sorrow.