Sweat made my hair cling to me. Blood dried and made my skin stick to the leathers.

Reyne used a handful of earth to scrub blood and bits of fur off of his sword. He would have to use a tool to get all the blood off the molded parts of the pommel.

I glanced at him. "You looking forward to the accolades?"
He smirked. "I'm looking forward to using it as leverage. Taervelaine is the only lord left and several of the remaining noble houses were destroyed or disgraced. And humans often resent being ruled by elves. Perfect opportunity for me."

My hands fisted. At least I had guessed correctly. If I had any social graces, I would have known that now was not the time to spit vitriol. But I didn't. "To further Bane's tenets?" Whatever those were. The tenets of a tyrant couldn't be great though.

He heard the venom in my voice. "You told me you weren't going to judge me about it. Yet here you stand."

My eyes widened as I realized the mistake I had made. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"Then don't." He scowled. "Put some of your damned alleged perfect empathy to use and stop becoming like every damned other person."

Whatever I had said had hurt him. Maybe a shallow cut, but maybe something deeper. I couldn't tell. There was too much blood and pain and death in the air for me to pick out his emotional hurt.

I looked down and stepped back. He liked me because I wasn't like everyone else; I knew about his cult and I didn't really judge him much about it. I treated him like I treated everyone else, and he had liked that about me. Maybe he found me easy to manipulate or just a useful tool, but I think he might have liked me beyond the sex. I said, "I'm sorry. Let's just drop it."

He sighed. "Right." He shook his head. "Adrenaline. Too many nights with little sleep." He made a face. "You've got to stop being vitriolic about gods, Val. It's going to get you in trouble. So many places have blasphemy laws."

I snorted. "Then maybe their gods should smite me, if they're so mighty and powerful."

He rolled his eyes and started to turn from me. He exhaled slowly. "I have two fucking reports to make."

"One to your guild and one to some sod in a fancy hat?" I said. I could not resist the remark. Sometimes, it just flies out of your mouth like a thing alive and needs to be said, no matter how stupid it is to say it. No matter how much you might regret saying it.

Reyne checked the sword, but he looked irritated. "A priest."

"That's what I said." If I hadn't been so tired, I wouldn't have said it.

Reyne fastened the greatsword back into its sheath. "I'm sick of you trying to interject your anti-theism at me. It was amusing enough at first, but I'm a paladin." He picked up the baldric and slung it back on his back.

I jerked. "That's not—"

He glared. Being glared at by a paladin of Bane was not an event to be envied. "Most people aren't like you. You think you're better than the gods."

Exactly no one likes someone else telling them what they think. As much abuse as I was used to taking, as much as I could endure, I didn't want to take it from Reyne.

Deeply offended, I sneered. "I never said that."

"You don't have to say it in as many words. You call the gods useless. You're blunt about how they 'don't do anything' and you lump them all in the same damned basket. They're not all the same. Some of them are actually active and listen."

I met his glare, climbing to my feet. My whole body throbbed with bruises and aching wounds. "Maybe to you they aren't useless. Maybe not to someone whose prayers they answer. Do you think no slave in Thay ever asked a god for help?" I grit my teeth. "And they do nothing."

"You always act like you don't want pity, like you don't care for it, like you dislike people for giving it to you, but you're always so quick to bring up how awful your life was. If you really didn't want my pity, you wouldn't use every opportunity to talk about Thay."

I was shocked to silence and took a step back. My mouth snapped closed.

He was quiet a moment. "Stay still. Let me heal your back."

I was so angry I didn't want him to touch me, but—well, everything hurt. He had to pry out some of the dirt and fur with a knife and water, which of course did nothing for my temper, even after he healed the worst of it. I said, quietly, "All I mean to say is, we don't need gods to tell us to be kind to other people. And that's all I want, Reyne."

He snorted. "Kindness? Valac, you hold people up to these impossible ideals of kindness and whatever in your head passes as valor, then you have the audacity to be disappointed and contemptuous when people don't even know they're being judged." He sneered. "Or do you just look for justification for hating people?"

"I've never hated anyone," I insisted. "All I've ever tried to do is be understanding. No matter what was happening to me."

"You know what I think? I think you like the pity." He was angry now, and stepped back from me. "If you didn't, you'd have insisted Talia remove the collar. You'd want to be as normal as possible. You'd cut your damned hair and look at options to cover up the name on your face. But you like the attention, don't you."

His words stung like a slap. I should have backed down and let him cool off, but I was angry and hurt from the fight, tired, and I did not have to tolerate him treating me like this. "You're just bitter because I'm trying to break free and find out what I actually want, and you are still wrapped up in the trappings of your guild and your church. You don't make any decisions about your life or what you do, Reyne. You're as trapped as I ever was, and what's worse is that you choose it."

He glared. "Bane gives me power and magic. I learned how to be more than just an heir to my family name and holdings. I made something of myself. Maybe if you opened your damned eyes and looked at religions and gods, you'd find one that helps you too, Valac."

"When's the last time you even held a paint brush, Reyne?"

The guild and church were so integral to his life and who he was that I might as well have punched him. I should have, rather than mention the painting when I knew how much that hurt him. He had shared that with me because he had been opening up and starting to try to trust me.

When you know someone, it's so much easier to hurt them.

He stared at me. He said nothing. He didn't need to. The look of hurt, betrayal, and pain was enough. I had known where there was a chink in his armor and I had driven a dagger into it, out of spite.

I had never had any friends. No family. Any lover was for a night at most. How was I supposed to know how to fight with someone without irreparably damaging them with words? And maybe that was the problem—instead of apologizing, I was making excuses for my actions, bordering on justifying them given my past.

He turned around. He stuck a foot in the stirrup of his saddle.

"Reyne—"

He dropped into the saddle. His heels dug in hard and the horse took off like an arrow from a bowstring.

I was alone.

#

I thought Reyne might have waited for me somewhere, but by the time I found Macha, he was long gone.

I was aching and bruised, and by no means wanted to ride hard after the bastard, so I took my time and found a road. I could have gone north to Ten Towns. I probably should have, but I thought Reyne had likely gone to Luskan for supplies, and from where we were, it was closer.

I justified it, because I needed supplies to make it back to Ten Towns anyway.

I tried taking the armor to a leatherworker, but she said it was so stained and shredded that it was better for scrap. I didn't entirely trust her, given my vision of her, so I took it on advice, and left without.

I couldn't find him in the parts of Luskan I was actually allowed to look, and unfortunately, when I would go to describe Reyne, he wasn't terribly unique enough. Someone said they saw a Zhentarim mercenary company going east. I wondered why he wasn't taking advantage of the opportunity in Bryn Shandor he had seemed to be looking forward to. He wasn't really stunting his potential for advancement to avoid me, was he?

Or had something gone wrong?

I should have just left it alone. Maybe if he hadn't been the first person I had really connected to sexually and emotionally in my life, I would have moved on, went to Bryn Shandor. Danced with Talia at the ball and let Taervelaine shower me in accolades from my accomplishments. Maybe Aela would wear a gown.

The thought made me smile.

But I thought, I'll just go to the next town. It wasn't all that far out of my way, and Talia needed to move the scroll somewhere safe anyway, heal from her own wounds. It wouldn't cost me much.

On the off chance it was him, I followed where they had gone, but at a crossroad, we must have gone different ways, because I got all the way to Mirabar before I gave up, every mile telling myself just a little farther. Mirabar had a more honest leatherworker, and they expressed sympathy about the fine leathers ruined, but could offer little in ways to really fix it. So we discussed options, and I walked away with a different set in black, by their insistence to better compliment my pallor, and a couple pouches fitted to my belt in what was left of the white.

I needed to go back to Bryn Shandor quickly if I wanted to make it through the pass before winter set in. I'd miss my own ball.

I hated feasts and balls. I should just avoid the whole damned thing. I'd just be miserable the entire time anyway. Besides, Talia was the real hero. I worried about Visatrax, but I also got the idea that his armies would be just as frozen in the winter as anyone else's, and whatever he was up to was going to take a lot of time. Even then, what could I do? I was just one person, and I had told everyone that mattered all I knew to help.

I knew that all of it was just poor excuses and thinly crafted justification to keep moving. The thing was, I didn't want to apologize to Reyne as much as I wanted to think on some of the things he had told me. I wanted to reflect on a concept I had never given much thought to—what did I want?

Reyne didn't, and couldn't, have understood how monumental it was to me when I had lain under him and he asked me what I wanted. No one ever had. It was a profound question, because I had never been allowed to even wonder it. What did I want?

Not just out of sex, out of a lover—but that too—but for the next few months, the next year? The rest of my life, if my master was dead and I ended up spending my life free. It was dizzying and terrifying, and I needed to learn who I really was before I could ask myself what it was I was after. How could you find where you were going if you didn't know where you were at?

So I kept moving.

I wasn't keen on spending winter this far north, little experience as I had of it, so I worked to get hired onto a caravan, more out of interest of leaving the town than for money and they were superstitious about me so I knew I wasn't getting a great deal on that.

One thing I was good at, though, was being kind, helpful, and friendly, and by the time we reached the first town, I had a bit more standing, and a bit more bargaining room for wages. I stayed on all the way to Red Larch. The caravan master wanted to head to Waterdeep, and I thought it prudent to avoid it—given everything.

I didn't quite feel at home in Red Larch, and it had too many frequent people coming and going who could recognize me. I replaced my bow there and refilled my quiver.

The Cain Road led me to Wormford, and by the glares and the sneers, I knew I ought to move on. I passed Uluvin. I didn't think I had anything of value to offer the small farming community. Secomber had need of mercenaries to protect against hobgoblins, but after about a month of that, I couldn't bear it anymore; the entire place felt like a town at the edge of a battlefield and I felt it weighing upon me. Since I wanted to avoid the coast, going further inland seemed like the right idea.

Aela had spoken of how much she liked Loudwater's scenery, the Frontier, and in that way, it felt like I was following where she had been.

Loudwater seemed as good a place as any to try to find out who I was, what I wanted. Who I wanted to be. Maybe, it was a place where I could learn to dream of my future, instead of trying to learn to anticipate the wants of those around me and bend myself to their wishes.

Maybe, in this quiet place, I could learn who I was.

Author's Note:

If you want the meta, Valac is specced as a fighter/phantom rogue. You can kind of tell what level he's at by the end of it if you pay really close attention to the way his fighting changes throughout—but he starts at level 1, is 3 by the time he gets to Ten Towns. Shilset, he was level 5, and he finally gained a level to 6 after the hill giant episode. The attack on Bryn Shandor, he got up to level 7. Defeating Malar put him at level 8.

He has mostly basic equipment, except the obviously magic things he finds or the silvered items I point out.

Aela is a sidekick life cleric and around level 2 when Valac meets her, and ends at 3. Basic equipment.

Reyne is a paladin, he's around level 6 when Valac meets him, and ends at 9. He has a silvered sword and +1 armor. Probably some other things.

Talia is a wizard/adult silver dragon. I'll leave that one up for interpretation.

Taervelaine is a wizard. Never specced him out because it was just never quite relevant.

Alfred is a sidekick low level wizard, around level 2. Basic equipment.

Leeroy has guard + sidekick fighter stats, around level 5. Basic Equipment.

Commander van Umber has knight + werewolf stats

Another note:

This got too long for one story so I made a second book to this one.