12.

He is late, and Adele is getting more clammy-handed by the moment.

She doesn't even remember the last time she was like this; not even in front of the Primarch, berating her for moral transgression and illicit trysts in the library with Cornelyan, not during her final examinations, not when she met Nasher Alagondar, Lord of Neverwinter the first time, not when she had to debrief after Undrentide…

Her hands are sweaty, but at least she's clean. The meeting with The Seer, Nathyrra, Imloth and the two resident Matron Mothers of the City (one of them, Zesyyr Maeviir being brand new after her mother regrettably didn't survive an unspecified 'accident', as Nathyrra said with an expression on her face that suggested Adele really shouldn't ask) lasted for hours, and was very detailed. She felt rather drained by the end, but glad it was over and decisions were made and that she finally could go to her room and clean up…

"See you in one hour. At the Seer's Moss Garden." Valen practically tossed that over his shoulder as they filed out of the war room; it sounded way too much like an order. She must have looked particularly dumbfounded, because his mouth twitched in that almost-smile of his so familiar by now and his voice softened a bit. "You know: that talk you promised we'd have?"

"Oh. That." Adele stopped, and managed to look competent and with it, even though what she really wanted was to fall asleep in a tub of extremely hot water. "Yes. An hour. I will be there."

And so she practically ran to her rooms, and got out of her armor and clothes in record time; contemplated burning the underlayers but decided that maybe they were salvageable; blessed her luck that the temple servants always knew somehow, as if by magic, when she arrived back and filled up the tub with water that was just the right temperature (exactly one smidgen away from screaming-hot); scrubbed herself in record time until her skin was red; threw on some clothes that were, yet again as if by magic, laid out on her bed, barely even paying attention of what they looked like, except that they were in the correct order: underclothes, shirt, trousers, boots; buckled on her belt with her secondary blade (she didn't wear Enserric in the city since an unfortunate accident at an armor-seller's booth); then, finally, raked ten fingers through her damp hair and decided that she'd better run if she wanted to make it.

And now she's here and he's late.

The Moss Garden is The Seer's delight: a small grotto hidden behind the temple, its bluish gray rock practically covered from the floor to the ceiling in soft, slightly glowing deep-green moss, with a tiny pool in the middle. The Seer likes to meditate here, and on occasion she even sleeps on the soft bed of green—she says Eilistraee visits her dreams more often when she does. There are tiny glow lizards living on the ceiling of the grotto, hunting the little insects that also make their home down here, and slim, pale fish dart in the depths of the pool around Adele's ankles, because yes, of course every time she comes here she has to take her boots off and stick her feet in the crystal waters, and why would this be an exception?

She recalls days at the white beaches of Tantras' seashore, gathering shells and odd-shaped driftwood with her siblings, after the tide was coming in and they watched with wide eyes the great waves slowly creeping higher and higher. When it was gone, the shore was littered with treasure for small children, and if she closes her eyes, she can still feel the rays of the sun on her face as it was setting on the horizon and the lapping of the waves at her ankles, smell the salt in the air and hear the wailing cry of the seagulls and the long caw of the ravens.

She misses it suddenly with a fierceness that hurts more than any wound she's received lately. It was simple, and beautiful and safe; before the coming of the Calling, the Time of Troubles, or being a Special Envoy—a childhood that will never come back, but the memories of which are still there and will always be as long as she wants to remember.

I really have to go home after this, she thinks, and it hits her that she still thinks about it as home, after all this time running around in Faerun: Tantras, City of the Waves. It's where she would always return, knocking on that slightly weathered oak door after her ship docks or her horse brought her to town, and endures the squeals of delight from her nieces and nephews and brother and sister and father and mother as they pile on her. It's the only place where she is always smiling, however much she hates when her family makes her do chores during her stays ('come on, Know-All, is it really beneath a paladin's dignity to whisk egg whites for a cake?'), or teases her about her manners or the way she doesn't speak about her assignments as Special Envoy at all. "Can't, sorry, Father," she had to say more than once when her father insisted that she explains a new scar or why she'd fallen quiet when someone said something in a particular way or whipped around tensely at shadows passing in front of the window. "Torm's business," that was her shield, and "please do not ask again," she said if someone really pressed with direct questions because after all, she was a paladin. And they always nodded and said, 'of course, sorry, love', and turned the conversation to another subject; but Adele knew that afterwards her parents' smiles got a bit sadder, their hands lingered on her arm or shoulder a bit longer, and at parting their embraces were much tighter around her.

She also misses the temple: the great sprawling halls of Torm, lavishly rebuilt after the destruction of the Time of Troubles, with their lion-headed statues made of warm yellow sandstone and white rose pergolas fragrant in the midday sun. She misses the feasthall with its long trestle tables and black-and-white tile floor, where visiting knights from missions can merge with the residents and wide-eyed novices can share a meal and the great dinking vessel, shaped like a boot, moves around more and more often as the evenings pass. Once the novices go to bed, and only the more senior members remain, the mood usually changes, and there's less talking and even more drinking, often accompanied by terse toasts evoking the names of those who didn't return. Adele spent many hours there too: those evenings normally end up stumbling down to the temple's own beach under the white battlements in the pale moonlight, and finishing a last round of drink or two sitting on the still-warm sand and listening to the sea pounding the great stone wave breakers reaching far into the bay. Once or twice she even went with one of her brethren: Torm doesn't ask for celibacy and duty and righteousness sometimes give way to the need to share more than just drink and stories. By the morning all that's left is the taste of old wine in her mouth and the lingering scent of the other on her skin, along with that fleeting moment of contentment: the night might live on in some handshakes that are longer than usual and smiles that are warmer than what she shares with the rest, but it's never enough, it's never right and while it fills the void for a while, she knows that it is, like the seafoam on the beach after tide, dried up by the sun and gone by next day.

Being a Special Errant Envoy Plenipotentiary means that she's outside the structure of Torm's church: she only answers to the Primarch and his Small Council. It's a lonely existence as well: while on occasion she can share irrelevant-to-mission details during those evenings around the great hall's table, she is mostly bound to secrecy and is practically forbidden from forming attachments. Her Neverwinter mission itself, the first and longest of her career, is mostly missing from any records recounting the Luskan Wars: while the Wailing Death and the treason of the Helmites along with the betrayal of Aribeth of Tyr are in all good scholars' books on those years, Adele Welters is not mentioned anywhere but as part of 'a group of adventurers hired by the Lord Nasher', and she's perfectly fine with that. She was, after all, one of them, Torm knows the truth, and her deeds are recorded by the Primarch himself meticulously in a little book he keeps like all Primarchs before him, of the deeds other Special Envoys performed in the service of the Light.

But she's here now, in the Underdark, sitting by a pool of water on soft moss that glows in the dark, with her feet gently nibbled on by tiny fish, and she's waiting for someone with clammy hands she hasn't had since her first secret meeting with Cornelyan…

Well, that's just it.

Complicated.

Lord Torm help me, I am also prone to understatements, Adele thinks, swishing her feet around in the pool: the fish dart away, then come back again. But I was never too good with feelings…

"My apologies." Yet again, she has been surprised by how quietly Valen can walk. "Nathyrra has received news that couldn't wait."

"It's all right." Adele resists the urge to jump up and wipe her hands in her trousers; she remains where she is, and merely nods at Valen. "Judging by the grim expression on your face, they were significant."

"You can say that." Valen sighs deeply as he indicates a spot next to Adele on the ground. "If I may?"

"Of course," she says, and watches him to fold his feet under him, tailor-style, as he sits down. Without armor, the lethal grace in his movements is even more evident. Adele is reminded of the deceptively huge-boned sand-colored panthers at the edges of the great Anauroch Desert: the slow, quiet walk, full of coiled grace and strength that says there are very few who could be their worthy adversaries, the readiness for raining down horrible violence on the unsuspecting at every second, restrained by nothing but will alone. "What were the news?"

"Nathyrra's apparently managed to insert someone to the Valsharess' inner circle." Valen's mouth is grim. "Apart from the fact that she indicates the attack on Lith My'athar is imminent—which we've suspected anyway… this double agent sent a report that reveals, finally, the source of her rapid rise to power and how's she able to maintain it." He takes a deep breath. "The Valsharess somehow managed to make a binding and subdue a fiend of the Nine Hells from the highest level."

"A pit fiend?" Adele swallows.

"Much worse." Valen rubs his chin. "I didn't believe it at first but Nathyrra says this source is absolutely trustworthy. It's one of the archdukes."

"Torm save us!" Adele recoils, her hand coming up to rest over her heart, five fingers splayed, in the warding gesture of all Tormtar. All previous thoughts forgotten, she stares at Valen with something like a great ball of slowly dripping acid in her stomach. "One of the Nine Dukes? How is that even possible?"

"You did receive a good education, paladin." Valen nods. "Then again, I would expect that amongst all mortals someone in your profession would know best. Yes, through some forgotten ritual or artifact long buried… who knows? The Underdark is vast, and the Valsharess amassed considerable power even before she marched on other realms and cities."

"Do we know which one?" Adele can't stay sitting any longer: she jumps up, feet all wet and sodden, and starts pacing up and down on the moss. In her head, she runs through the strictly guarded and rarely shared list of the known names of the archdevils: Bel, Dispater, Mammon, Belial and Fierna, Levistus…

"That is apparently a very closely guarded secret. The Valsharess never allows anyone to her innermost chamber where the archdevil's summoning circle is." Valen watches Adele with concern. "I thought it best to let you know, but not before I heard the whole report. If I offended you by my lateness, I…"

"No, it's fine." Adele rakes her fingers through her hair. "I mean it's not fine, obviously, we have a Duke of Baator on the Prime, but…" She sighs. "In the light of that, this is kind of trifling." She touches her fingers to her throat, and Valen's eyes cloud over with pain.

"I, of course, meant to apologize for that," he says with formality, as he rises to his feet and bows stiffly. "There's no excuse for me allowing that to happen, and…"

"Valen." Adele stops her pacing and, despite her mind racing desperately to try and form some kind of semi-coherent plan in light of the frightful news she's just heard, sternly orders herself to pay attention to the here and now.

He needs me.

"Listen to me. Your…taint is a condition. It's something in your blood. It is not you." She steps closer and puts a hand on his shoulder. "I was trained to recognize the difference; this is what I do."

"Sometimes…" Valen's voice is rough, and he's avoiding Adele's eyes. "Sometimes I fear it will take me over completely. Like in the Abyss." His right hand comes up and covers Adele's. "I do not want to hurt you ever again, my lady."

Adele feels like every pore of her skin is charged with something where their hands meet, and for a second her Sight opens up, allowing her to witness tiny sparks along the infinitesimally narrow edge where their auras meet.

"I don't think you would," she says after her moment of dizziness passes. "I do think…no, I do know you're a good man."

"I strive to be." Valen's chest rises with a deep sigh, and he finally meets her gaze with a slow and hesitant smile. His words are oddly formal, in a way that is so uniquely his. "My lady, your understanding humbles me even further: words can't quite express my shame over what I've done. Your forgiveness, however, allows me to hope that maybe one day I will even be worthy…"

He stops himself short there, and Adele sees a slight wave of red creeping from his cheeks down on his neck.

"There I go again," he says, and the frown returns to his features as he shakes his head. "Forgive my boldness, my lady."

He takes a step back, gently removes Adele's hand from his shoulder, and holds it in his own, as if it was something fragile and unbearably precious that is about to leave and never return because Adele is standing there and finds that she doesn't have the strength to say anything…

Don't you dare to do that, her inner voice speaks up suddenly. You know exactly what he needs, damnation and hellfire, girl…

"I will find a way." Adele suddenly hears herself say in a voice that is shaky at first, but gets stronger by the second. She grips Valen's fingers, as if they were her anchors to keep her from falling, and takes a deep breath. "I will find a way to free you from the taint. Do you hear me? I swear on my sword and mantle, I swear by the power Torm gave me, by my sacred oath as a paladin, that I shall not rest until I find a way to set you free, Valen Shadowbreath. So witness earth, so witness sky."

The wind comes from nowhere, whipping around them suddenly and sending the little pool's quiet surface churning. It's bringing with it the scent of white roses and the sound of a lion's roar, and Adele knows then that even here, in the Underdark, under unfathomable depths of stone, Torm yet again has heard her.

Valen's eyes are wide and disbelieving and full of emotions too complex to decipher, as his hands come up to frame her face oh so gently.

"Adele…" he breathes, and to the Hells with it, she thinks with the exact same fierceness of her oath just a moment ago, and takes that final little step…

"General!" A breathless voice by the grotto's entrance shatters the moment, and they spin, arms still around each other, to stare at the white-faced drow soldier gasping his news that fall between them like heavy stones of an impregnable wall again.

"General, the outlier scouts of Commander Imloth's Fourth just returned with news! The Valsharess' armies have been sighted in three days' march from Lith My'athar. It is war!"