10. (Docks District, Neverwinter)

It's an old trick, this wedging of the blade thrust through a body from behind in such a way that the bleedout is stunted while the suffering is great. It's a shortsword. It's a through-and-through, pinning me, the hilt through the back so that it's impossible to remove on my own. I could even have gone for help if they hadn't put such an intricate knot on my feet while I lay struggling with the cold steel introduced to my abdomen. There will be more pain before the end comes. It won't come right away. With this technique, I'll likely bleed for hours before the shock takes me. He hasn't gotten anywhere near my heart. That's a direct response to everything I'm doing and everything I've done. And I've got to hand it to the Thieves' Guild. They got me. They really made a good show of it.

Right here in the street, in their favorite part of town. No one will come to my aid. It's almost genius.

I've found it's more comfortable if I twist so that I am angled to the side. That way the weight isn't on the blade.

I thought I would fight more for my life. It's almost fascinating to me how passive I am as I move from one phase of the experience to the next. I focus on the cold ground beneath my head and the warm, oozing edges of the wound. Blood feels obscenely soft and velvety in the hands. Why aren't I infused with rage, or the need to at least attempt to work free of my bonds? I try to muster something, but indifference is all that finds me. It's not that I want to die. I simply don't care one way or the other.

All I wanted was one more shot at him. I'm not known for skipping out on a contract, and cancellations aren't permitted. It's an unspoken rule in this business. Once the money is in my hand, the mark is eating his last meal. How could I have failed so miserably with this one contract? To be beaten not once, but twice- even three times if you count that I didn't get the third chance to bring him down. It comforts me that at least I was able to steal one rush of pleasure, one incredibly satisfying ounce of power from the paladin. Let me be the seed of hate that he battles against. Let him carry me as the poison that corrupts. He won't forget what I took from him. By his own body betrayed, he gave me all that I wanted without a single cut.

"By the gods, Elanee," I say angrily. "Why did you call for us? Do you know everything she's done to us?" Summoning a charitable spirit is more than I can do when I look at the woman on the cot. Her breathing is coming faster now in such a way that I can tell she doesn't have long to live. Soon every part of her will begin to shut down, completely and irrevocably. To me it feels like the greatest of insults to profane my own room with the seemingly soulless shell of this assassin that has tormented us. Casavir leans over her on his knees. The shadows on his face have been forged by Triana's hands.

"You are dying," he tells her matter-of-factly. "If we remove the blade, you will bleed to death." His hands press down on her shoulders so that he can look her in the eye.

When I hear his next words, I begin to tremble. How can he- how can anyone- be so selflessly good? I can't fathom that he could find forgiveness for this creature that kills without qualm. But somehow he does, and somehow he puts aside the man in favor of the paladin. His voice takes on a sound of authority as he speaks. He is offering her absolution.

"If you have a need to confess, or forgiveness that you would seek, now is the time. I will accept your pleas on behalf of Tyr, the God of Justice. He will hear you. There is not much time. Speak."

The woman is hyperventilating, trembling, eyes going wide. Will she at this last moment embrace his offer? Elanee and I stand rigid like two sentinels of a minute that will forever be etched in time.

Triana whets her lips with her tongue. They part, struggling to form one word. "Die." It rises up from her like a hiss. And she takes hold of Casavir's shoulders, yanking him with all of her remaining might down on the exposed tip of the blade.

Panic is forced upward in my breast like scattered birds. Casavir has managed to pull himself free, but he goes down on his knees, staggering and gasping as his blood quickly soaks his tunic. I turn him to me, ripping at his shirt with all of my strength. The words of a spell are already pouring from my mouth. I clasp my palms to his chest, freeing a torrent of light that seals muscle and flesh. Blood that has no source now is caked in the hair of his chest and slick in my hands.

"Casavir!" I cry, cradling him against me, blood be damned. His eyes are very far away. But he is breathing, and he is alive. The assassin's eyes have fluttered away along with a spirit tearing free of the body that will no longer house it.

Elanee stands rooted to the spot as Casavir and I embrace each other. Her druidic magic has not been necessary.

"It seems that fate has linked the two of you in some way. The shard that entered your chest when your mother held you against her... and the blade that sought you, Casavir. It seems to bind you one to the other. Both of you have been offended by the point of a blade and lived despite it." Though her words have wisdom, for the moment I cannot see beyond the end of this small space. And when I answer her, it carries no end of bitter humor.

"Or perhaps some of us are just lucky." I kiss Casavir's lips gently. "Three times lucky."

(Faithless)

What is- and what was. What could have been. Two halves of decision peel one from the other; I can see the other half of my soul stripping away. Then there is swirling, chanting, writhing darkness. It spins me into its maelstrom. From the instant that I broke free of the dying flesh, I felt nothing but the chains that had hooks in me. I watched the Triana-of-remorse being lifted toward something not darkness. And I knew that she was me, but she was not. But I, who could not unbuckle myself from the driving need to destroy, had endless heaviness upon my soul. And it was craven, for it could not exist without lust. Lust for flesh. Lust for power and for blood. The lust to win.

I was always too heavy to walk forward into light.

At the edge of my senses come screams of hate and shouts of tortured agony.

Scrabbling claws open my eyes into holes that form and reform. There will be no death and no end.

Every face on the wall is like my own. We are nothing.

We see nothing but ourselves. We believe in nothing.

I lift my eyes to the disappearing spark of a soul that made the other choice.