Azlia tugged sulkily at the hard grip he kept above her elbow, leading him circuitously down through the catacombs below the Hold. She'd been able to answer few of the questions he put to her, fueling his already smouldering ire. Callista had evidently told her minion very little before sending her on this fool's errand.
The air was humid and rank with the compost-smell of decaying vegetation, reminding Nerothos why he ventured here only rarely. After killing the former residents, the Shadow Council had made few alterations to these caves, too far below the surface to see much traffic. They'd cleared the corpses but left most of the plant-life to wither in place as the fel-magic taint seeped into the soil. The result was an earthy reek and a thin brown slime of liquified plant matter that glistened along with the condensation on the walls. Highly unpleasant. Better to have prisoners brought to him instead.
Azlia came to a mulish halt in front of an arched door cut from a single thick slab of oak. He noted with contempt the fuzzy green glow of an Eye of Kilrogg tucked discreetly into one of the many stone fissures near the ceiling. Sayaad were not the only creatures in Jaedenar that could move unseen when they wished. All the warlock's scrying would reveal was her own petulant minion, albeit with her arm crooked at an odd angle as he maintained his grip on her. This close, he could hear the soft murmur of voices filtering through the wood.
He pushed open the door.
A guttering ball of flame near the ceiling illuminated a large messy storeroom. Shelves lined the walls - Nerothos was sure they'd been arranged in no great order beforehand, but he could tell by the dust marks that a number of items had been swept from them hurriedly onto the floor. In the farthest corner slumped the body of a felguard with its hands still locked around the hilt protruding from its chest. The warlock's methods hadn't changed much, he saw.
Two bedraggled human men, one short with a dark mop of hair and one taller and fair, looked up warily as he thrust Azlia ahead of him through the doorway. A dwarf women with one arm in a frayed sling dropped a canvas knapsack back onto a shelf and stared at the succubus.
"Well?" she said.
Callista, who would have sensed the approach of her minion, didn't look up from her seat on the floor, absorbed in lacing one of her boots. She appeared considerably more disheveled than the last time he'd laid eyes on her. Aside from her half-shod state, she was dressed haphazardly in stained leggings and a light tunic that bared her dirty arms, out of keeping with the underground chill. "Did you find any -"
Her absent questioning was interrupted as Nerothos released his grip on Azlia's arm. She immediately skittered away from him towards the warlock, already starting to babble - "I didn't want to, mistress, he made me!"
Callista did look up, then, fingers stilling suspiciously on her bootlaces. "What are you -"
Now seemed like an appropriate time to reveal himself. Nerothos dropped his illusion, watching the resulting explosion of movement with callous pleasure.
Callista sprang to her feet with a hiss, the tongue of her unlaced boot flopping open like a startled mouth as flame limned her fingers. Her three companions scrabbled around the cluttered storeroom like rats in their alarm. The curly-haired man uttered a frightened yelp, injured leg buckling as he stumbled back, dragging a shelf's worth of junk down with him as he clutched at it in his fall. Human and trash alike rolled into the feet of the dwarf woman and unbalanced her as she tried to brandish a notched sword at Nerothos, awkwardly wrong-handed. Only the larger blond man seemed marginally in command of himself. The sword he leveled at Nerothos barely wavered, the pearlescent glow of the Light shimmering around the blade. A paladin. He could sense the poisonous burn of the blessing from this distance, but only just - not a very good paladin.
Nerothos stretched his wings lazily, but made no more aggressive move. His mere presence was threat enough. "Your company has not improved, warlock."
Anxious silence followed his words. It was broken only by the metallic ring of a round belt buckle, dislodged by the dark-haired man's flailing, as it wobbled across the floor and then toppled onto its side.
Startled dismay warred with fear on Callista's face and won.
She didn't dowse her flames, but the fire she'd wrenched from the air subsided to a seething palmful of green embers. For perhaps the first time since he'd known her, she seemed unsure what to say; her eyes briefly narrowed and she tilted her head, taking a deep breath. She actually almost shrugged before her gaze darted sideways to the paladin.
The man looked between the two of them in ignorant confusion. His jaw was tight with resolve beneath his unkempt yellow stubble, sword still pointed at Nerothos' chest, but despite his zeal he seemed to realize that actually attacking him would be suicidal. He wore no armor, only the leather padding that humans were accustomed to don under their plate. None of the mortals were properly dressed, in fact. Prisoners, then. The realization did nothing to assuage Nerothos' anger, only sent it crackling down new paths. He hadn't been informed of any recent captives.
"Stay back!" the paladin warned.
Nerothos ignored him, taking a step closer to Callista as scattered items crunched beneath his hooves. "What are you doing here?" he asked.
Her eyes narrowed again and stayed that way this time, but, paradoxically, the spellfire in her hands ebbed. She splayed her fingers, palms out to show they were empty, then lowered her arms. "Good question," she snapped. "What are we doing here? Your forces seized us at the edge of Felwood and dragged us off. We had no quarrel with Jaedenar until then."
Nerothos laughed, casting a sardonic look at the gold light rippling from the paladin's blade. "Oh, I very much doubt that."
She followed his gaze, hesitating a moment before switching to Eredun. "Believe me, if I meant to be here I'd have come in through the front gate," she sneered.
"Not with these, you wouldn't have," he countered in the same tongue. He took another step, almost in arm's reach now, ignoring the way her companion tracked him with the tip of his sword. "Why were you traipsing around Felwood with a company of paladins? What were you hoping to find?"
Despite what most would have considered his alarming proximity, her eyes caught not on him, but on the coruscating point of her companion's sword. It hovered close enough to his elbow that Nerothos could feel its hungry burn on the skin above his bracer. From the misgiving on her face, the warlock seemed to be picturing the inevitable violence should he move it any closer. She shot the paladin a meaningful glance and then raised her hands, spreading her fingers a little in a conciliatory gesture that was only half directed at Nerothos. "You know I'm not lying," she said, still in Eredun. "This has nothing to do with-"
"That's enough!" the paladin said. Keeping his sword trained on Nerothos, he took a halting sideways step towards Callista, as though he meant to interpose himself between them and then thought better of it. It took no special senses to read his uncertainty - his gaze flicked from one of them to the next like a caged bird, lighting almost pleadingly on Callista's face before his mouth hardened again and he looked back to Nerothos. "What are you saying to her? What do you want?"
Fear billowed from him in waves, blood in the water, but he did not quail when Nerothos turned the full weight of his attention on him. A brave enough creature, though not overly burdened with perception. He wondered what sort of lies the warlock had been feeding the poor well-intentioned fool. Paladins rarely had dealings with fel-magic users, and her hands were no cleaner than most.
"It's alright, Aren," Callista said. She turned her head to look at him, but watched Nerothos from the corner of her eye. Wondering if he meant to allow her to salvage this, no doubt.
Nerothos could have refuted her statement in a number of damning ways, but for the moment he chose not to. More entertaining to let whatever facade she'd been weaving unravel on its own.
It didn't take very long. The dwarf woman was less blind than her human compatriot, or at least more willing to see. She slapped her sword back onto a shelf with an abrupt clatter, face shrewd beneath its spangling of bruises and freckles. "Not going to introduce us to your friend, lass?"
Azlia giggled. She'd retreated behind the relative safety of Callista at the start of the conversation, watching the spectacle with one hand on her cocked hip and her whiplike tail flicking avidly. "Ooooh, mistress doesn't tell you anything, does she?"
"Haven't you said enough today?" Callista spat.
Nerothos smiled companionably at her. "You're well aware of my thoughts on that," he said, simply to dig her in deeper.
She flayed him with a look, but seemed unwilling to betray any greater familiarity by retorting.
The paladin lowered his sword, finally, though he didn't unclench his fingers from the hilt. Betrayal made a stiff mask of his wholesome farmboy's face. "What is this, Callista? How do you...?" He gestured with his free hand at Nerothos, unable to bring himself to finish his sentence. "Why does this...?"
Callista crinkled her nose in a familiar blend of resignation, guilt and discomfort. He'd seen her look that way before - the warlock had an uncommon knack for convincing people of her essential harmlessness right before plunging them into a situation where no "harmless" response was possible. A useful talent, in Nerothos' opinion, though she'd do better if she stopped growing so fond of the fools she fell in with. Anyone duped so thoroughly deserved no more sympathy than a steer being fattened for slaughter.
"It's not what you think," she said. "I...I had an accident once, very far away. I never imagined any of it would matter. I'll explain everything later, I swear."
Nerothos made an amused sound at that.
The paladin swallowed, shaking his head in denial. He stared at Callista as if she were the walking corpse of someone he once knew, something familiar suddenly grown strange and monstrous. "You didn't think it would matter? Luciel died, Callista." His voice was a bitter rasp. "Did you know this was going to happen?"
Callista recoiled. "Have you lost your mind? You can't actually think I -"
She winced as the paladin's face contorted, voice shaking with anger. "What am I supposed to think, Callista! Tell me, please, because I'd love to know. How is this not what it looks like? What explanation do you have that will make this all go away?"
His outburst startled her; she sought the gaze of the dwarf woman but found no sympathy there. The curly-haired man wouldn't even look at her. "Is this really the time to discuss this?" she hissed, flicking a pointed glance at Nerothos.
Nerothos inspected one of his sharp black claws with satiric nonchalance - no need to stop on his account. Though he was still very curious to learn how this pack of idiots had ended up in his cellars, he'd heard enough to convince him their purpose was not a direct threat to Jaedenar. He'd have his answers soon enough. Besides - he found the meteoric pace at which their little alliance was fracturing to be highly diverting.
"My, my, warlock," he said, "what wild fables have you been telling these creatures." He paused a moment, regarding the paladin with a sardonic cant of his head. "You have discovered she's a warlock. Or has she convinced you that sayaad simply followed her home?"
The man's face colored angrily, but he seemed uncertain how to deal with an enemy who wasn't immediately assaulting him. He wore the bewildered-livestock look of a creature bright enough to realize he was being toyed with, but not quite clever enough to either play the game or upend the table.
He was rescued from his confusion by Callista, who dropped, finally, the flimsy pretense that they weren't familiar with one another. "Did you really come all the way down here just to editorialize?" she snarled.
Nerothos smiled. "Of course not. I came down here to hunt witless trespassers." He eyed the paladin with predatory intent, causing the man's knuckles to pale on his sword hilt. "Shall I continue?"
"That's enough out of all of you!"
The dwarf woman stomped forward to stand next to the paladin, managing to cross her arms sternly despite her sling by tucking her good limb into the crook of her injured one. Her braided hair had come loose, red wisps clinging to her cheeks and sticking from her head at crazed angles. Despite her diminutive size - she only reached the paladin's waist, which meant Nerothos could have stepped on her with no overly-taxing effort - she glared up at the dreadlord with much less fear than her human companion. "I don't know what your business is with Callista - and believe me, lass, we'll have a long hard talk on that later - but since it's clear you don't mean to kill us, you might as well tell us what you want. Why did your goons drag us in here? What have you done with the others?"
Nerothos appreciated pragmatism, even in small misplaced clerics. He was also quite interested in the answers to those questions himself. "My forces had no such orders. Who, precisely, "dragged" you here?"
"I'm no expert in fiends." The dwarf settled a jaded look on Callista. "Well? You were talking to them. Any ideas?"
The warlock squared her shoulders defensively at the way she bit off the words, then shrugged. "Mostly felguards, doomguard captain. Their sigil was strange - some kind of a twisted claw, orange on a purple field." Her gaze sharpened on Nerothos as a new thought struck her. "They mentioned a name. Bethrac, Belathract - something like that. Sound familiar?"
"Beltherac."
Some of his anger must have bled into his tone, because the mortals shifted nervously as the dwarf and the paladin shared a glance.
"Yes, that was it," Callista said. She continued to watch him closely. "They mentioned you, too, now that I think of it. Not friends, I take it."
All at once, this little encounter had ceased to amuse him. "Step outside with me," he said.
She must have caught the warning in his voice, because she hesitated but didn't protest. "Fine," she said.
"Out of the question," the paladin objected. He half raised his sword again - as if he'd dare to use it. "Anything you have to say to her, you can say here. In Common."
The human man, Nerothos decided, must be the leader of this ragged troop. Useful to know. He'd learn how little weight that carried here.
He swept him with a desultory glance, then stepped aside, allowing Callista to exit first. She paused, looking apologetically at the paladin, but he only set his mouth and refused to meet her eyes. Her lip twitched self-mockingly as she pulled open the door and slipped out into the corridor.
Nerothos followed.
The true reason for her swift capitulation became clear as she started in on him almost before the door thudded shut behind them.
"You have no reason to keep us here. We -"
"I have no reason to release you," he cut in. He took a few strides past her into the damp dimness of the hall before turning, requiring her to put her back to the door to face him.
She realized what he was doing too late to gracefully prevent it. Glancing over her shoulder, she gauged the short distance behind her before raising an irritated brow at him - really?
Nerothos didn't care that she knew what he was up to. He was still very much larger than she was. He stalked closer, forcing her to either concede the space or end up with her nose in his chest, only stopping when her back pressed against the wood. He spread his wings and leaned in to enhance the effect, switching to Eredun to deter any eavesdropping from behind the door. "No more evasion. Who are your companions? Why were you clashing with Beltherac's forces?"
He noted the accelerating pulse at her neck, but she did not flinch. For all that a year was a real amount of time to her people, she looked essentially as he remembered - dried blood matted her hair and flecked her chin, but she watched him with the same measuring look even the alcohol on her breath in that goblin port hadn't seemed able to dull. He hadn't been lying that time, when he said he truly hadn't expected her to join him in Jaedenar. Talented established arcanists didn't shackle themselves to the Legion with such little need. But she was mortal still, for all her cleverness...and she meddled so carelessly with so many things that could hurt her so very badly. One day, she might find herself outmatched...and then she would remember.
But for now, they were not truly allies, whatever they'd been before.
She sighed and made to edge around him, but he pushed a clawed hand against the door, trapping her in front of him.
Her lip curled, then. "If that's how you want to play it." Her demonic bore only the faintest trace of a Stormwind accent - at one time, she'd had a great deal of practice.
"You precipitated this, not me." He squeezed his claws into the door, drawing a woody screech from its surface close to her ear. "If I need to question your companions, I won't be so civil."
"Is that what we're being?" She turned her head to study his hand, then twisted it away from the noise as he gouged the wood with his claws again. "For Light's sake, demon!" she snapped with no apparent irony.
She wasn't entirely as unaffected as she pretended - beneath her ire, he could sense a delicate trickle of apprehension. All the same, she neither answered his questions nor tried to move away from him again. Instead she pursed her lips and examined him, eyes sharp and inscrutable as smoked glass. Just as he leaned even closer to speak again, to threaten or cajole, he hadn't decided which, a ripple of annoyance passed over her features.
"Oh, Twisting Nether, this is pointless," she breathed. "You want the truth? Fine. I'd have told you earlier, but you seemed so deeply invested in padding my treason charges."
He laughed, unrepentant. "I'm sure you'll salve your clerics' wounded sensibilities well enough later. You always do seem to manage."
Her eyes narrowed, but he tightened his claws against the wood again, the sound forestalling her words.
"Go on," he said, inclining his head but making no move to un-corral her from the door.
She sighed again in irritation, but decided against prolonging the argument. "This was an Argent Dawn expedition," she said.
The wood creaked again - accidentally this time, as Nerothos eased his weight from the arm penning her in.
It was still one provocation too many. Callista's eyes slid to the side, sizing up his claws before she abruptly seized his bracer near the wrist. No spell burned in her hand - she simply tightened her fingers on the metal and watched him, inviting a reaction. When she didn't get one - aside from a noncommittal flex of his wings - she pulled, dragging his arm downwards away from her ear.
He dug his claws in enough that the wood continued its protesting squeal, but let her pry his hand from the door, satisfied he'd made his point. Few creatures would have dared, but the warlock had never let whatever fear or disgust she might feel for him get in the way of her pique. Though he noticed her hand didn't stray from his armor this time.
"We were looking for a human settlement that disappeared at the edge of Felwood a few years ago," she said, rubbing a knuckle into her ear but otherwise continuing as if nothing unusual had happened. "And before you start...no, I haven't joined the Dawn. They conscripted me, part of the general demon panic in Stormwind."
Nerothos clucked his tongue, contemptuous. "Pressganged like an illiterate pickpocket, yet here you still are, defending their soldiers. Such dedication to a realm that lets you fight its wars only so you might die in them."
She crossed her arms and settled back against the door. There was still tension in the way her fingertips pressed into her elbows, but she'd relaxed a little now that his claws were an acceptable distance from her face. "Oh, don't be dramatic. I was careless and paid for it. You should understand that."
"My people don't consider me an embarrassing necessity."
"Remind me to ask the next eredar I meet if that's true."
"The eredar know their role." This was not the topic he'd meant to engage on; he yanked the conversation back to relevance. "What sort of settlement?"
She quirked a lip at his unabashed non-segue, but answered anyway. "Refugees from old Lordaeron, not that it matters. We never got near the place. We'd barely entered the forest when a company of felguards found us - an ambush near a fallen tree. They must have used it before, because they had a tunnel. It didn't strike me as a simple patrol to secure the borders. They were too eager to capture prisoners. You really had no idea about this?"
He hadn't, in fact, had any idea - none of what she'd recounted had been done at his behest - but Nerothos did not admit ignorance unless strictly necessary. "What happened next?"
The skin around her eyes tightened speculatively, but after a moment she continued. "There should have been two more of us in your cells. A draenei and another human man. I...when they caught us, I tried to persuade their captain that I was a Shadow Council agent. He didn't believe me, not really, but I must've made him nervous enough to try to hedge. They took two of our party...somewhere, to some project of Beltherac's, I suppose, the guards didn't know - and left the rest here to see if anyone important started asking uncomfortable questions."
Nerothos did not visibly react, but there were several aspects to her tale he found deeply concerning. How he could be unaware of prisoners brought to his own dungeon, for one. Beltherac's penchant for collecting unfortunate mortals was less interesting to him than the fact he felt the need to hide it from Jaedenar. It made little sense - Banehollow would have happily provided him with any of their more worthless captives, even if his aim were only his own idle amusement. He must have been disposing of them in some way that the Shadow Council would not approve - but that made even less sense. He responded to Callista automatically, before she could read into his hesitation. "Which of course no one did, so you murdered your guards and escaped before they discovered you were both insignificant and a liar."
She laughed quietly. "When you put it that way, it sounds much less admirable." Her expression quickly sobered. "Who is this other demon? What has he done with Vorthaal and Nathanial?"
Both excellent questions. "Beltherac is not your primary complication," he sneered.
His attempt at deflection failed. She cocked her head, uncrossing her arms. "You actually don't know, do you?" Her eyes searched his face, sharp with suspicion. "Something's gone wrong, hasn't it? What is it?"
Distantly, too soft yet for blunt human ears, he could hear the tramp of armored boots. "Touching as this misaimed concern is…"
She dismissed his deliberate misinterpretation with a snort. Having found a line of reasoning she liked, she pursued it with dogged and irritating accuracy. "How long were you on Xoroth before we found you, I wonder. Power does hate a void."
Nerothos was not in the mood for her arrogant over-shrewd guessing. He draped his wings forward to cage her more obviously against the door, relishing the startled twitch of her skin as their leathery edges brushed her arms. His shadow darkened her face, only partly the cause of the wary dilation of her pupils. "Such disproportionate interest in my affairs from a creature whose back is so literally to the wall."
She was not as inured to his presence as she'd once been. But after the barest heartbeat of hesitation she smiled - insincerely, without showing her teeth. "Someone been poaching on your lawn, demon?"
The sound of iron-shod feet echoed unmistakably off the stone. He felt her tense, her smug look fading as she glanced in the direction of the noise.
Nerothos laughed unpleasantly, withdrawing his wings. "I did warn you…"
One of the patrols assigned to this level jogged down the cave-like hall, stopping short with a gruff exclamation. Four felguards and a rangy orc whose name Nerothos could not recall, the latter clad in a battered coat of splintmail. The orc's broad face slackened in fear at the sight of him.
"Lost something, have we?" Nerothos said.
The orc's eyes darted to Callista. Despite her unease, she still managed a sarcastic little wave of her fingers.
"Sir!" the orc said, snapping his attention back to Nerothos and banging his fist against his chest in salute. "I see you, uh, found the prisoner. She...er...all the guards were dead, we didn't-"
"Was she alone?" he asked, studying the orc's sweating face the way he might a beetle he was considering impaling.
The orc looked at Callista again, tusked mouth working nervously. She widened her eyes at him - no help there. It was obvious even to this ineffectual peon that the question was loaded. Fortunately for his ill-favored green hide, he made no attempt to lie.
"Sir...I, uh, there were no records, but four of the cells were open."
"Good answer," Nerothos said. He would send Gurzon down later to take a thorough accounting of the prisoners here. This creature wouldn't enjoy his reward for his role in this negligence, but if he snapped the neck of every incompetent mortal in Jaedenar, he'd hardly have a city left to rule.
The relieved rise and fall of the orc's chest was visible even beneath his mail. He jabbed a thick finger at Callista, teeth bared with dislike for the cause of his angst. "What should we do with her?"
The warlock scowled.
Nerothos stretched his wings to their full span and then folded them comfortably. He paused for longer than his consideration required, savoring her uncertainty after her earlier needling.
After a moment she faltered, eyes drawn to his face.
His smile did not appear to reassure her in the slightest. She didn't trust him. How tragic. "Do nothing," he said. Then, to her: "You are free. To leave...or to bargain, as you prefer."
Surprise and distrust passed over her face like shadows. Her shoulders did not relax. "What about the others?"
Instead of answering, he delivered the order to the guards. "The other three prisoners are inside. Bind them and have them brought to the upper chambers. If they escape again, best ensure it's over your corpses."
The orc nodded curtly. If he found any part of these orders strange, he wasn't imprudent enough to show it. "As you command."
"Really?" Callista hissed. "At least let me talk to them first!" Her eyes flitted around the damp walls of the corridor, as if she were considering bolting, or squeezing herself into one of the crevices. Unfortunately for her, no convenient gap presented itself. How would it look, after all? Standing passively with their enemies as her luckless friends were marched off in chains to an unknown fate. She did not flee, however. As Nerothos knew she wouldn't - it was the only reason he'd offered a choice at all. Despite her duplicity and her careless handling of power, she understood loyalty, still.
Nerothos laughed, enjoying her helpless frustration. "You shouldn't concern yourself so desperately with appearances, warlock. I'm sure your companions won't jump to any unwholesome conclusions. After all, if there's one thing I associate with your paladins, it's nuanced reason."
Her glare was poisonous enough to stop the blood of a less hardy creature. Nerothos absorbed it with satisfaction as the orc and his guards shouldered past her.
This was by far the most backhanded favor she'd ever been done.
Callista reached a hand toward the deadbolt then pulled it back uncertainly. The felguards stationed beside the door ignored her, eyes staring fixedly ahead beneath the dark metal of their helms. Nerothos hadn't been lying when he said she was free to leave if she chose. But then, he hardly needed guards to keep her here now, did he?
She cursed under her breath, ears straining to hear any words coming from the other side of the wood. In hindsight, she realized that she hadn't handled this very well. She'd known encountering Nerothos was a possibility, but she hadn't expected him to personally accost her entire party like that. She'd forgotten how aggravating he was when he had the upper hand. Shouldn't he have had better things to do than demolishing her credibility and clawing up the decor like Sargeras' own outsized housecat?
Apparently not.
Callista did not like being blindsided. Azlia had better have a very excellent explanation, or she'd be scrubbing down the waterclosets in the Slaughtered Lamb until Callista was too old to remember why she'd put her there.
That wouldn't help her now, though.
She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, eyeing the iron-braced planks of the door. Waiting would only give her friends more time to think about what had just happened.
Putting a hand to the deadbolt again, she called softly through the wood - "It's me" - before sliding the lock back and easing open the door.
Only silence greeted her.
Ander lay stretched on one of the straw-stuffed pallets at the back of the room, staring listlessly at the cracked stone ceiling with Wynda sitting cross-legged near his feet. Aren stilled his pacing to watch her enter. He no longer looked angry; only wan and bloodied and very very tired.
The bolt clanked home as one of the guards shut the door behind her.
Still no one spoke.
Callista glanced around uncomfortably, unsure how to begin to explain herself.
At least this room looked more pleasant than their last accommodations. The walls were closely-fitted stone, but torches blazed in the sconces and a meagre assortment of rickety furniture had been shoved into one of the corners. Clearly this wasn't intended to be any kind of long-term holding cell. It seemed as though the guards had simply tossed them into the nearest unoccupied room. That boded well, maybe.
She moistened her lips with her tongue, still struggling to untangle the silence. It seemed to have grown a weight and texture of its own, filled with invisible things that nevertheless could wound. Words usually came so easily to her. "I swear, I wasn't involved in any of this," she said, hating the lack of conviction in her own voice.
Her speech had been directed at Aren, but he only continued to watch her - or rather, he continued to watch the empty patch of air over her right shoulder, as though he couldn't quite stand to look at her - broad shoulders slumped and face tightly drawn.
Ander answered instead, without breaking his stare at the ceiling. "That would be a lot easier to believe if they'd tried to tie you up like a roast."
Wynda rested her uninjured forearm on her knee, leaning over it to watch her with frank green eyes. "We're not fools, lass," she said. "We know that fiend was painting as ugly a scene as he could. But he didn't have to invent much, did he?"
Callista sighed. If she'd decided on honesty, she might as well commit to it, unpleasant as it was likely to be. Wynda had asked the question, but she steadied her gaze on Aren, willing him to believe her. She almost wished he'd start accusing her again; somehow, that had stung less than this hollow silence. "No," she said, "he didn't. He…we've met before, yes, but not for any of the reasons you might think. I...had an accident with a summoning spell, a little over a year ago. I ended up...off-world, somewhere very unpleasant."
"Draenor?" Wynda asked.
Callista hesitated. "No," she said. Haltingly, she sketched them a sanitized version of her attempt to summon a dreadsteed and the sequence of disasters that followed. It was a true account, in a broad sense; and if she'd left out a few of the uglier details, or that the demon had found her afterward and what he'd offered her...well. The omissions may not have been strictly honest, but some truths were even more misleading than lies. She wasn't in league with Nerothos now; that was all that mattered.
"And that was the end of it," she finished up finally. "He must have recognized Azlia. It's the only way he could have known I was here."
Ander had sat up halfway through her tale, hugging his unbloodied leg and resting his chin on his knee. "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard," he said, torn between skepticism and admiration.
Callista grimaced. "Believe me, I know. If I were lying, I'd have come up with something much easier to swallow."
Aren had listened with an air of close attention, but his shuttered expression didn't soften. Tiny lines gathered at the corners of his eyes; she'd never noticed them before, but the exhaustion carved on his face made her conscience jab her even harder. "Even if that's true," he said, "why would the dreadlord let you go now? Demons aren't known for their sense of gratitude."
"No, they aren't. He wants something, I just don't know what it is yet." Though she could hazard a few guesses. She tilted her head, squinting thoughtfully. "It's hard to tell with Nerothos, but he genuinely didn't seem to know why we'd been brought here. He clearly isn't fond of that Beltherac creature, either."
Aren just sighed, rubbing the heel of his hand against his eye. "Callista, how are we supposed to trust you?"
That was the fairest question she was never prepared to answer. She dropped her eyes, pulling up one side of her mouth unhappily. For all the times it had been asked of her, she'd yet to find a satisfactory reply. In her more self-recriminating moments, she wondered if there was one at all. "I told you the truth," she said heavily. "I don't know what else you're looking for."
He exhaled again, tired and disbelieving. "You told us the truth because you had no choice. Why didn't you say something sooner?"
She gave a short laugh. "Were you listening to everything I just told you? How do you segue into that? And even if I had, what good would it have done? People barely tolerate warlocks as it is. Somehow I doubt leading with the story of that one time the Shadow Council wasn't so bad would win me many friends. A hammer in the gut, maybe."
His mouth flattened into a hard line. "I told you weeks ago that we were going into Felwood. That was your opening, and you didn't mention any of this."
She knew she shouldn't have been sarcastic - Aren was thinner-skinned than most of the people she fought like this with - but Callista was beginning to be irritated herself, now. She understood how suspicious this looked; truly, she did. But, for once in her life, she sincerely hadn't done anything. Except, of course, be beaten, drugged, and imprisoned by demons because she'd been too foolishly softhearted to part ways with these people when she had the chance. And they were so furious with her...why? Because while fleeing a Legion stronghold, they'd encountered a dreadlord and he didn't try to kill them?
"Yes, you did tell me that," Callista agreed darkly. "And I told you it was dangerous, full of demons, and a terrible idea. What else was there to say? Besides, in case you've forgotten, I didn't exactly volunteer for this little mission."
He shook his head, finally looking her full in the face. Mistrust frosted his usually warm brown eyes. "No, I didn't forget. I also didn't forget how you never really answered when I asked you why you were still here anyway."
And there it was; the crux of the matter.
She let the silence linger for a long breath, already bitterly regretting whatever was about to come next, acutely aware of Wynda suddenly joining Ander in his intent contemplation of the chairs piled in the corner. "You know why I'm here," she said softly.
"I thought I did."
She'd braced herself for that, but was startled to find that the blow still ached, in a way she hadn't believed he'd been able to reach her. Callista scrunched up her nose in disgust, actually angry now, at him and at her own lapse in defenses. For a moment, she'd let herself believe...it didn't matter now. "Oh, for - if I were really a Legion agent, why did I let you out of your cells?"
Aren's face crumpled as he quietly failed to meet her eyes. "I don't know."
Incredibly, he somehow managed to look even more miserable than Callista felt. It made it impossible say any of the words burning in her throat.
"Twisting Nether," she hissed instead, stalking over to the pallet on the other side of Wynda and Ander and throwing herself down on it.
"Uh," Ander said tentatively, waggling a hand for attention. "Not to distract us all from ripping the head off our warlock - which, don't get me wrong, she definitely deserves, I mean, a dreadlord, really? Couldn't you have found a nice murderer, or maybe one of those snake monsters that keep strangling people off the coast of Darnassus - anyway, uh, not to get off topic, but what's going to happen to us now?"
"Well, I'm guessing that fiend doesn't mean to shake our hands and send us on our way," Wynda said dryly.
Callista had folded herself onto the pallet with the full intention of brooding silently against the wall, but she noticed, much to her irritation, that they were all staring at her again. Which is it? she could have snapped. If I'm such a traitor, why turn to me at all?
In the end, she only sighed. "I don't know," she said. "None of us are worth much as prisoners. Nerothos will find some use for us, I'm sure, though I doubt you'll like whatever price he sets on your release."
"It doesn't matter," Aren said. He would not look at her, but she could still read the anger in the bunched muscles of his jaw. "We do not bargain with the Burning Legion."
"Oh, no?" Callista said. Her resentment had not cooled - easy for him to cast judgment on her decisions, when he'd never been trapped in that vice, himself. "Well, then, since you've been so concerned about my honesty lately, let me come clean now. The list of things I'm willing to die for is very very short. And the Argent Dawn's glittering principles are nowhere on it."
"It's not for me to judge another's conscience," Aren said stonily.
Nether, if he were anyone else, she'd think he was riling her on purpose. Callista hated platitudes; insults rolled off her like water, but at least have an original thought about it. She knew she should bite her tongue before she said something (even more) regrettable, but couldn't quite manage. "Yes, the Light will get its crack at me eventually," she sneered. "But I bet it won't be today."
The rawness on his face only stirred her already queasy guilt.
Aren picked halfheartedly at the crumbs of hard cheese still stuck to the rind in his hand. Callista's demoness had interrupted the unpleasant silence that followed their argument, returning from her foray into the town that evidently existed outside this Legion pit with a haphazard collection of cured goods, weak beer, and sweet wrinkled apples that Callista assured them were free of demonic taint.
The succubus had delivered her basket of food demurely enough, then draped herself across the foot of the straw pallet Callista had settled on, preening under Ander's admiring stare. She was a lithe smooth-skinned creature, clad in a hardly-decent leather...something (it certainly didn't qualify as armor) that bared a long expanse of sleek purple-patterned thigh and a very generous swath of cleavage.
After his first irresistible gawk, Aren deliberately looked anywhere else. Not only out of propriety; he found that he did not like the sight of the demon, despite her beauty. It wasn't just her claws and oddly insectoid leg spines that ultimately repulsed him - something about the insistence of the desire he couldn't deny she woke in him seemed shadowy and false, and he found the mix of attraction and revulsion to be deeply discomfiting.
Fortunately, he didn't feel much like looking at Callista right now either, which made avoiding that entire portion of the room that much easier. Instead, he continued to silently shred the waxy cheese rind, not sure if the unease in his belly was from the unaccustomed richness of the food or simple anxiety and discontent.
What would become of them?
Where were Nathanial and Vorthaal? Was rescuing them even possible?
More immediately, what was he to do with Callista?
He dug a short nail into the rind, frustrated.
In his heart, he did not truly believe she'd betrayed them. But his heart, he was beginning miserably to suspect, was a compass moved by forces other than a true judgment of character. Any reasons he collected to either defend her or condemn were wound up too tightly with the memory of her skin; the feel of her laugh as she buried her face against his neck.
What stung the most wasn't even how much she'd hid from him (though that hurt, too) but how poorly her tale matched what he thought he knew of her. He'd wanted so badly to believe she was no more than what she seemed: a willful, clever woman whose curiosity occasionally overwhelmed her better nature, but who would choose well when it mattered. She'd chosen him, after all. But now...
He suspected now that the glibly ruthless things she sometimes said weren't only to shock her companions into amusement. Beneath the teasing words and the quick smile, she might actually be capable of them. The thought settled in his gut like icy water. He hadn't forgotten the perfunctory way she'd disposed of that felguard. And no matter how sincerely she insisted whatever alliance she'd made with that dreadlord was over, the demon himself seemed to have a different idea. What sort of temperament, he wondered, brutally twisting the knife in his own wounds, did it take to not only strike a bargain with a Legion commander, but also to conclude it so amicably that he'd show her leniency afterward?
He stared at the crumbled palmful of wax he'd made of the rind without really seeing it.
What a fool he'd been. And in the end, he had only himself to blame. She'd lied, but he was the one who'd fastened the blinders on his own wiser instincts. He'd known she was keeping something back, and instead of looking closer, he'd looked away.
It would not happen again.
"Muradin's beard, lad, quit staring like that or your eyes will stick that way," Wynda said.
Jostled from his musings, Aren looked up to see Ander sitting on the pallet next to Callista's with his chin in his palm, gazing raptly into the center of the succubus' breasts. His fascination was almost understandable. The neckline of the woman's - demon's - top was shaped like clawed hands, offering her up in a way that -
Aren glanced swiftly away.
"Shhhh. Don't distract me," Ander muttered, completely unchastened. "If we're going to die here, I want this to be the last thing I see."
Callista unsuccessfully stifled a laugh, letting out a choked snort.
The succubus curled her pink tongue over one of her fangs, favoring Ander with a smile. "Mmmmm, I like you," she said, leaning over in way that threatened to spill her totally out of her corset.
Wynda shook her head in exasperation, prodding Ander's leg with her boot in an effort to disrupt his stare. "Instead of snickering over there, couldn't you conjure that creature the rest of her shirt?" she grumbled at Callista.
"We could always trade," the succubus said with a sultry giggle, sliding her gaze down Wynda's front.
Wynda endured the creature's leer with her usual unshakable tolerance. "Save it for the fiends outside."
Azlia tossed her glossy black hair contemptuously. "Guards are boring. Paladins are boring. That dreadlord is boring. Can we leave yet, mistress?" She rested her horned head against Callista's knee, looking up at her with fawning eyes. "Xavilis' sect is in town. I bet he'll - "
The door slammed open and banged against the wall, interrupting the demon's simpering.
Aren stiffened, hands clenching into fists. One of the felguards stood in the portal; a hulking, glowering mass of armored muscle. He pointed at Aren and Callista in turn, addressing them in heavily-accented Common. "You and you, come with me," he said.
A/N: As always, thanks for reading!