They had been wandering for hours it seemed like, though Neeshka did have the distinct feeling that her counterparts were right. Time did not exist here. She felt as though she had taken a thousand steps, but she was not hungry or thirsty, as she would have been, nor did she feel the need to step aside and expel the unused milk from her breasts as she did every so often during her trips away from her infant. The only thing that told her that they were indeed moving was the changing tormented faces along the wall. The trees were gnarled and stunted, the air moved only very slightly, like in the dead heat of summer when you long for a breeze and get only the promise of one, never the delivery. If it weren't for the constant tortured shrieking of the dead, it wouldn't have been an unpleasant place.

"This seemed like a better idea in theory," Sand admitted, looking around.

"Most things we think of do," Kailana admitted, putting her hand on the elf's shoulder.

"The excavation of the Mere of Dead Men worked out all right," Sand said.

"It," Kailana sighed, "It was good to bury my son. I knew he was gone, but I am grateful I am not seeking him in such a dreadful place as this."

Neeshka looked at the enchantress curiously. The woman was old, of course, well into her seventies, but it was so easy to forget most of the time. Her voice and manners were not that of an old woman, and while her hair was decidedly gray now, it was more often than not hidden under a veil. It was only when she spoke of her son, the late paladin Casavir, that she seemed wizened and diminished. Neeshka felt an involuntary panic seize her, thinking on her companion's pain. What if I had to bury my son. She imagined Khel - her Khel - grown into a warrior like her husband Cormick, and almost had to bite back an anguished yelp at the thought of him marching off to battle. Even though that day was fifteen or more years coming, the mere thought of it stabbed her heart through.

"I am sorry," Sand said, "I know this cannot be easy for you."

"Nothing is easy," Kailana replied, "My son was grown and he died doing what he wanted with his life in the arms of somebody he loved. We should all be so lucky."

"Amen," Neeshka said, her voice squeaking.

Kailana opened her mouth to say something, probably a lecture on parenting so that Neeshka would learn from her mistakes - she was fond of doing that - but over the plains, a familiar voice rang out.

I wandered again to my home in the mountain

"That sounds like…" Neeshka started.

"It couldn't be," Sand said, "Nothing works out this perfectly."

Where in youths early dawn I was happy and free

"Where's it coming from?" Kailana asked.

Sand's ears perked up and he pointed in a direction. He began jogging that way, with the two women on his heels. Neeshka heard all around her the wretched dead fall silent, soothed by the ethereal voice. It was Adahni, but it was also not her. This voice was not bowed by years of tobacco and whiskey, this was in its purest form.

I looked for my friends but I never could find them

I found they were all rank strangers to me

They ran, but they may as well not have made the effort. They past the time when Kailana's aged joints would have cried out to her to stop, but they did not. "This is futile," Kailana said, "I fear we've reached the limits of even our own ingenuity, Sand."

"Where is she?" Neeshka cried, "I swear I can hear her still."

Sand had stopped, and was gazing at a face in the wall. Neeshka followed his eyes and saw what she had dreaded seeing. The face of her longtime companion was serene, unlike the others around her. And she saw next to her, something that at least brought her a little satisfaction.

"She made her choice," Sand said, putting one hand on Neeshka's shoulder.

"It just doesn't make any sense," the tiefling said, "She wasn't devout or anything, but she was just… practical. She wouldn't have renounced all Gods. She knew the consequences. Why would she have chosen this?"

"She hasn't been here long," Sand said, "Look, it's almost as though we could pry her…"

"Don't be stupid," Kailana barked, "You would return her soul to a broken body in Gods know where? That might be a worse fate. Eventually here, she will at least cease to exist. Something that does not exist feels no pain."

"It's always him," Neeshka said, pointing at Bishop's face. He, too, looked out of place, out of character even as she had known him while he lived. Both their faces were calm, their voices not among the cacophony of anguish around them, "He always had a hold on her, and now…"

"She's not the only woman to be steered down the wrong path by loving the wrong man," Kailana said.

"I just always thought she was smarter than that," Neeshka sighed, "I admired that about her."

"She was a good woman," Sand insisted, "And a clever one. We will likely never know what transpired to create this morbid little bas relief here, but at least we can know that it is done. It is over. We can stop looking."

"And stop hoping," Neeshka said.

"Start hoping for something different," Kailana corrected her.

Since her ascension to the lordship of Crossroad Keep, Neeshka had avoided Neverwinter as much as possible. While most of the ragamuffins she had run the streets of the Docks with as a child were dead and gone, or had shaped up, she always feared running into someone who would recognize her. This time, as journeyed along the rainlashed Sword Coast aboard one of Lord Nasher's own vessels, she was grateful to see the smoky light of the city and see the currents in the water where the Blackwater emptied out into the sea.

Cormick met her on the dock, little Addie in his arms and Khel on his back. Neeshka took both her children in her arms, grateful for them.

"Did you find what you were seeking?" her husband asked, helping her into the waiting carriage. The knight captain nodded, but was silent the rest of the jolting journey up through the Docks and Market districts to Castle Never. She never quite ceased to be awed by the grandeur of the castle, though she dwelled within one herself now. She left the babies with Cormick as one of the Nine led her into an audience room. She seated herself at the table in a chair just a little bit too high for her to sit comfortably with her feet on the ground. She swung them absently, waiting for her lord to arrive.

Lord Nasher was a little older, a little grayer, but all in all much the same as when she had last seen him, shortly after the Battle of Crossroad, when he had presented her with the position of Knight Captain. She imagined him one of those ageless men who went bald before thirty, but kept looking the same well into their seventies. He sat down across from her.

"Knight Captain!" he greeted her. She was confused, should she curtsy? How could she curtsy when she was seated? Oh Gods, she was supposed to stand. She stood, and sank into a curtsy, then rose again and sat again. That was stupid.

"We miss you at court, my lady. Though I suppose if I were given the chance to skip all the pomp and ceremony I might also choose to do so."

"There is much to be done, it has been but three harvest seasons since ruin was brought twice in swift succession to the lands surrounding the Keep," she replied. Also I had to learn to read. At twenty-five years of age.

"No matter the reason. I have heard the rumors that you have further news on the search for your predecessor."

"I do," Neeshka said, consciously making sure her voice didn't squeak as it was wont to do when she didn't purposefully modulate it. She had the report, written, signed, and sealed by Sand, Kailana, and Ammon Jerro for good measure, "There's good news and bad news."

She handed him the report, but he didn't open the scroll. "Did you find her body?"

"No," Neeshka said, "The details are in that scroll there, but the short version is we found a way to observe the Fugue Plane, to travel to the City of Judgment."

"And you were going to search out the records there? To see if she was among the dead?" asked Nasher.

"Not quite," Neeshka said, "We weren't looking for her. We were looking for the Betrayer of Crossroad. And we found him, in the Wall of the Faithless. Both Kailana Andarion and Sand have attested to that fact. The thing is… we found her too."

"In the… Wall of the Faithless?" Nasher asked, knitting his iron gray brows.

"Yes."

"Now, I'm no theologian, but isn't that a punishment reserved for those who do not follow a God?"

"That is my understanding," Neeshka said, mindful of her language.

"That's unfortunate," Nasher said, "Though I suppose I did not know the woman personally." He put his hands out in front of him, his fingers steepled. He was silent a moment. "How would you propose we announce this?"

"Me?" Neeshka squeaked involuntarily, but composed herself quickly, "I don't… I don't know if it's a good idea if we announce it. Not the whole thing. We can tell them that the Betrayer of Crossroad is dead and in the Wall of the Faithless. People like punishment for the wicked." Her mind raced. "But… maybe we say that we journeyed somewhere far away, I don't know, Rashemen or Thay or something, somewhere almost nobody would have been. And we say that maybe we found out that she maybe followed him there to avenge her companions. And she was buried in a grand ceremony after they struck each other down. With bagpipes and everything."

"Command suits you well," Nasher said, a smile playing about his bearded lips.

"I know what people want to hear," Neeshka said, "I also think you should be the one to announce it, not me."

"I'll have Nevalle put out a memo for the heralds. I think this will be good. This manhunt can finally be called off. You must commend Sand for me for thinking of this. It would not have ever occurred to me to seek them in the afterlife."

"It is good for it to be over," Neeshka said.

They said their goodbyes, and she left for Crossroad Keep that very night. She couldn't help but think, as they jolted over hill and dale, that there was something very important she was missing.