Pain. It came and went in waves, leaving the Voice of the Tempest exhausted. Keyleth feared the pain would never disappear. It was like drowning in a bottomless well where no light could ever reach her. The pain was endless, but it was worse at sunrise when it would wake her up after only a few hours of dozing. She suffered so much that she had nearly forgotten who she was and what position she held, but in the end, too much rested on her shoulders for her to forget.

Once, long ago, the Voice of the Tempest had just been Keyleth, a young druid developing her powers and unsure of her place in the world. That Keyleth had one day left Zephrah hoping to discover what happened to her mother and fearing she would also disappear during her Aramenté, disappointing everyone. That Keyleth was supposed to become a warrior, protector, sage, and leader all at once. She doubted she would ever be even one of these things. The weight of responsibilities had almost broken her even before she had started her Aramenté.

The first night after she had left Zephrah, merely five hours away from her home, she almost ran back to beg her father to give her more time before she had to go on an adventure alone because she knew she wasn't ready. The only reason she continued once morning came was because she was too afraid to return and disappoint everyone. She knew she couldn't leave her people without a leader validated by the Aramenté. Her father had done what he could, but it was her weight to carry, not his. She couldn't force him to do it for another few years just because she was too weak. Keyleth knew she had to become stronger. She just didn't know how to do that.

She was still afraid when she arrived at Stilben. On her way, she had met two half-Elf adventurers. They were just like her, yet so different, filled with anger and distrust towards others, while her biggest problem was she was second-guessing herself all the time. Their experience of the world was so different it was fascinating to her. Keyleth had grown up in a community where half-elves were the majority. The twins had to deal with people mocking them and hurting them because they were half-breed. Her people had supported, guided, and cheered on her. The twins were hit and betrayed too many times, left alone by those who should have taken care of them. They only had themselves to thank for what they had become.

Keyleth had loved them immediately. It took longer for them to warm toward her, especially for Vex.

And it had only been the beginning. Within a few weeks, Keyleth had another family. First, she had met Grog, Scanlan, and Tiberius. Then they met Pike, and finally Percy. To them, Keyleth had become Kiki. For the first time ever, she had friends, and it was so nice. It was hard to have friends when every child around you knew you would be the next leader of your tribe. Keyleth had grown up alone, surrounded by adults. It may have prepared her for her role, but it was nice to be around other people than her father and teachers.

With Vox Machina, she understood what friendship was. With some of her teammates, like Percy or Vax, friendship came naturally. With others, like Vex, it had been more difficult, but it didn't lessen the strength of their friendship. Vox Machina was the big family she had always dreamed of having without even realizing it. Their help and support helped Keyleth to transform into a braver woman, the one she had to be to do her Aramenté. She would never have succeeded without them.

Keyleth had become the best version of herself, one who could live up to people's expectations, Keyleth of Vox Machina, a druid who had faced vampires, hordes of the undead, dragons and liches, a skillful and thoughtful druid, capable of overcoming any obstacle that fate threw her way.

Except one. Keyleth hated thinking about the day of their biggest failure, the day they lost Vax. None of them wanted to, yet the memory of that dreadful day never healed. That was how love worked. They had emerged from that ordeal not stronger, but weaker than before. Those who claimed trials made people stronger were fucking liars.

Still, these experiences, good and bad, had forged Keyleth, even if they hadn't made her stronger. She had become the Voice of the Tempest, the guardian of the Spire of Conflux, the bearer of the Mantle of the Tempest, protector of Zephrah and even all of Tal'Dorei on occasions, a druid capable of facing a dragon with all of nature's might, a protector who could take the form of a bear to take hits instead of others weaker than her. She was wise enough to think about the future without forgetting the weight of the past and traditions, and a leader capable of guiding Zephrah towards its future.

When she took the time to think about it, and it wasn't often because her work was grueling, Keyleth was proud of the person she had become.

But not today. Today, the Voice of the Tempest was nailed to the ground, or rather to the bottom of her bed. Once again, she was a child, hiding in her room so as not to face a bitter tomorrow. Her mantle was too big for her, her staff too heavy. Everyone had to see how unfit she was to lead. If they came to take her weapons and her role, she would have cried with relief. It was clear she was no longer worthy of it if she ever had been.

It was the pain speaking. Keyleth knew it, but couldn't keep quiet the voices in her head. She wasn't even sure she wanted it. They were right, after all. And a part of her wanted to never open her eyes again and pretend that the world around her didn't exist. Keyleth wanted to scream at everyone who waited for her to recover that she had given enough of herself to an ungrateful world that had taken everything she cared about from her. First her mother, then Vex, and so many other people. She had paid a heavy price for a role she didn't want. Couldn't someone else assume these responsibilities and the price that went with it, for once?

But Keyleth had finished her Aramenté years earlier, and she had lost the luxury of being able to hide in her bed. Never again would she be just Keyleth or Kiki. She would always be the Voice of the Tempest. She couldn't go back to sleep and the weight of responsibilities kept her away at least as much as the everlasting pain she was enduring.

Was she the only one who had to fight? No. Exandria had never lacked champions ready to stand and fight. Vox Machina had been these champions, but Allura and Kima were still there, Kasha and Zahra too, and those crazy Mighty Nein. Not to mention a young generation of heroes was rising, like Orym and his friends. But it didn't mean Keyleth could abandon her duties, so she would bear the pain. If only it went away for a few minutes, just so she could finally think of something else than her pitiful self. It felt like her brain was falling apart.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs forced her to open her eyes. Keyleth could hear two people, probably carrying a heavy tray down the narrow staircase. They stopped in front of her door and started whispering, probably wondering if they could wake her up. Trying to ignore the noise, she moved her head to look at the light coming through the window. It was well past ten in the morning. She had slept longer than she thought. Her tiredness had finally beaten the pain that had kept her awake for so long. Even so, she barely felt awake, but she couldn't afford to stay away from the news of the world any longer, even if she was in no condition to do anything about it. Reluctantly, she raised her voice.

"Come in!"

The door opened a little to let her mother's worried face pass through. For her, Keyleth found the strength to stand up on one arm and smile like she was all right. She always had the strength to smile for her mother. Even years later, she still couldn't believe she got her back. Life rarely granted her such miracles. In fact, it was the only time it had ever happened. All the other miracles she had witnessed had come at a price, but not this one.

"Don't move," Vilya exclaimed when he saw her move. "You'll reopen your wounds if you're not careful."

Because it was her mother, Keyleth suppressed the harsh remark that came to her lips. Whatever she did, Keyleth would reopen her wounds, whether she tried to sleep or was in a sitting position. They'd reopen even if she levitated a whole day, because that was how the poison worked. Keyleth couldn't stand anything anymore, neither her sheets nor her clothes. She could barely stand the sun and wind on his skin. Her whole body had been a raw wound for days and days. Keyleth didn't know how long one could endure such pain without screaming. She should have reached that limit days earlier, but was still refusing to cry. She had years to get used to the suffering, even if the pain she had kept at bay for thirty years was not physical, but she wouldn't say that to her mother. It would be cruel.

Vilya placed clean bandages and a solid breakfast next to her.

"How are you today?" Vilya asked with the voice people reserved for the sick and dying. Keyleth hated that voice.

"I'll survive."

Keyleth couldn't hide the sourness in her voice. Vilya frowned, then sighed.

"It's only a matter of hours or days, sweetie. Baerni and the others will soon return with something to treat you."

Keyleth turned her head towards the wall so her mother wouldn't see her scowl. The team they sent should have come the day before. She could feel something had gone wrong. They'd need to send another group and hope it would find both the flower and the missing team, preferably with everyone still alive. Keyleth could only hope it would happen before she went mad with pain, and with no more good men and women losing their lives. Worse, if the pain continued to destroy her piece by piece, she feared she would be ready to sacrifice thousands of lives just to stop the pain. Keyleth didn't want to turn into that woman.

She forced back the tears in her eyes and placed her arm over her eyes, not wanting her mother to see how bad she felt. She sighed. How long would she need to see people die around her? Worse of all was when they died for her. She had lost so many people. Will, Derig, so many other Ashari… Vax.

"I'm tired, mom. I think I'm going to sleep."

Even with her back turned, Keyleth could feel the disapproval exuding from her mother. She was a little ashamed of her behavior, but too tired and hurt to truly care.

"You didn't even eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"At least let me tend to your wounds. We don't want them to get infected, on top of everything else."

Why did it matter, since they didn't heal and no balm soothed the pain? Couldn't they just leave her alone? Except, of course, she was the Voice of the Tempest. Only unimportant people could suffer in silence without people demanding impossible things of them, and it had been far too long since Keyleth stopped being an insignificant little thing. She meant too much for many people, on the scale of an entire continent, maybe even all of Exandria. Keyleth couldn't afford to curl up into a ball and cry, but couldn't she, just for an hour? An hour with no one coming to report a new disaster or that they were still without news of their allies. An hour with no one coming to beg her to find answers to some new problem they believed her already informed. Since they brought her back bleeding to Zephra, she hasn't had even ten minutes to think, outside of sleeping hours.

"No, you are right," she conceded to her mother. "You should redo my dressing. But please, let me sleep after. I'm so tired, Mum, I need to sleep, I can barely think. But leave the tray, and I promise I'll eat when I wake up."

Keyleth wasn't lying, not exactly. She needed to sleep as much as she lacked appetite, which was to say to a worrying level. She just didn't think she could do either and didn't intend to try. Her mother didn't see through her lies and did not insist, no doubt relieved that Keyleth was already ready to make some concessions and that she was not demanding to go back to work. She had tried, the day before, demanding a writing desk for hours before conceding she couldn't even hold a pen. After, she had insisted on dictating twenty letters in a row. She didn't address any of them to Vex. Days later, she still could not find the words to speak to her friend and tell her about what happened to Vax. Her councilors had completely rewritten her letters without telling her. If they had even sent them. The pain made her almost incoherent when she tried to stay awake for too long, and their allies didn't need to know that the Voice of the Tempest was crying in pain every time she tried to sleep.

A little ashamed of worrying her mother so much, and even more so for not having the strength to get back to work, Keyleth let Vilya do everything she could think of to ease her pain. She didn't cry when her mother brushed too closely against one of her many wounds and fought her instinct to turn into a beast to lick her wounds, which wouldn't be any stupider than what all those people around her were trying. The only reason she didn't was because she feared it would hurt more and that she would bite the hand that hurt her. But it wasn't Vilya's fault she was on edge, and anger would not make the pain go away. Everyone was doing their best in a fucked-up situation.

Keyleth closed her eyes and endured the ordeal without complaint. She was sure she had been through worse, even if she couldn't remember when. And if she repeated it to herself often enough, she would eventually convince herself.

When she was done, her mother's gentle hand brushed her hair. It awakened old memories from before Vilya's disappearance during her Aramanté. Vilya had comforted her like this when Keyleth was sick. The memory hurt because she had missed her mother's presence for years and now she was no longer old enough to take refuge in her mother's arms. Keyleth was the one who was supposed to solve everything now. Crying like a child wasn't something she could indulge in.

"There you go," Vilya said. "Should I let you rest, or would you prefer someone to stay with you?"

"Leave me alone. Please."

Vilya put a delicate kiss on her forehead. Her mother's perfume hadn't changed since she was a little girl. Keyleth tried to smile, but she could tell it wasn't very convincing. She was still glad for her mother's presence. It would have been so much worse to live through this without her, but Keyleth was too tired to do more.

After Vilya left, Keyleth waited a few minutes lying on her bed, in case her mother came back to see if she was asleep. She felt like a child caught at fault and she was too old for that. At last, when she was sure no one would enter, Keyleth slowly stood up. It was a torture. More than once, she needed to suppress a cry of pain to not signal her intention to someone outside. Gritting her teeth, she seized her staff, which a kind soul had fortunately left within reach of her hand. Finally, she dared to put one foot on the ground. Fortunately, the assassin had not aimed for her feet. It was one of the few parts of her body that didn't hurt. Walking wasn't pleasant, not with all her wounds burning, but she could manage.

The bed was only a few steps away from the window, but crossing the distance took her ten minutes and long breaks to take her breath. When she collapsed into her chair, cautiously, given the wounds on her back and legs, it was the first time in days she felt victorious. The killer had harmed her but hadn't taken her down. Their plan had failed, at least partially. In these circumstances, it had to be enough. It gave Keyleth's side a chance to recover and prepare to fight back. Or they would if Zephrah managed to communicate with their allies, which wasn't as easy as usual. No news had come from Whitestone or Emon. Orym's fate, still unknown, was one of the countless things that kept Keyleth up at night. Almost all the surviving Ashari had returned using the trees closest to the battlefield, but he was still among the missing.

Keyleth looked outside. From her room, she couldn't see that awful bloody ray connecting Ruidus to Exandria people had described to her, and that she hadn't seen yet because she was too busy bleeding out on her bed. But it was there, from her spies' report. Exandria hadn't faced such a threat since the rise of the Whispered One. They couldn't fail. Keyleth couldn't fail.

Except that no matter how hard she thought, she couldn't think of a plan, even a hazardous one. As soon as she closed her eyes, she saw him appear in front of her again. And when she opened them, she thought she saw him emerging from the shadows of her room, just as she thought she saw a crow in each leaf carried by the wind.

Vax.

He had been there. Sometimes, when the pain woke Keyleth in the middle of the night, she wondered if she had hallucinated him, but he had been there. Keyleth had recognized Whisper before him, but she would have seen him in a crowd, not by his armor, his weapons, or his raven mask, but by the way he stood and by how his shoulders tensed in anticipation before the killing blow. Her throat had immediately gone dry. She had wanted to scream because even with her mind slowed by the chock and the pain, she had understood what was happening. After spending so much time in a predator's form, she knew a trap when she saw one. She just hadn't considered she could be the bait.

"Do not even try."

That's what he had told Otohan Thull. He had rushed to defend Keyleth. For all these years, he had been watching over her. Keyleth had known it all along and had noticed the raven visiting her every day, no matter where she was on Exandria, even when she had been told nowhere she would go. If she knew, their enemies did, too. It was obvious now. The assassination attempt she had survived years ago was not an attempt to remove her from the play before it began, as she had previously thought, but a rehearsal to test her resistance and see how brutally they needed to attack her to lure Vax into the trap.

"Do not even try."

Did he knew, then, that he was jumping into one? Maybe. Probably. He would have still done it. The man had no sense of self-preservation. Vex and she had despaired about it for years before his fate was sealed.

Keyleth let her heart fall into her hands.

"Damn you, Vax. You sacrificed yourself for us once, giving your life so that Vex could live. And yes, she's happy and her children are beautiful, we all know that. But do you think she's grateful you did it for her? Do you think I'm going to say thank you for doing it again for me?"

It hurt to think the last thing she saw before passing out was Vax dissolving into thin air. The scream he had pushed was still reasoning in her head. It was the only thing worse than the constant, throbbing pain from her wounds. Both prevented her from thinking and acting even with the clock ticking.

Keyleth looked outside again. The first time the raven had come to see her, she was standing right there. It flew around her window and went away for several days before it landed next to her, one day where she felt terrible. She knew it was Vax instantly. No actual bird would tilt their head to the side like it did, both mockingly and compassionately, and Vax always knew when she needed his company.

But there wouldn't be a raven at her window anymore, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Keyleth's memories of Vax's landing were hazy, but he was gone, she knew, and this time it was forever. No man could scream like that and survive even the Raven Queen's champion.

"Do not even try."

He knew it was a trap. Keyleth was sure of it. He had looked for her, that she remembered. It was the first time they'd seen each other in a long time, and he knew it might be the last. By the time she consciously understood this, it was too late to prevent the scenario Ludinus Da'leth had written.

With the mask, she hadn't even been able to see Vax's face one last time. Was he smiling underneath like everything was fine, or was he giving her that poor, sorry little smile that was so painful to see? Keyleth wanted to see his eyes again, to have the time to tell him everything she hadn't been able to say the first time and could never say to the raven because it was already too late and it would just hurt them both. Keyleth had always refused to blame him for his choice during his life. She would not start when he was just a raven with an overly intelligent eye who came to say hello every morning. It hurt to see him like that, but it was better than nothing. And now, she wouldn't have even this small comfort.

Keyleth could think of nothing else but Vax. She couldn't help but wonder if he had changed under his mask. Probably not. He was too young for time to leave its mark on his half-Elf features. Still, she was sure his eyes must have changed. His smile too, but she would never know how. Behind the mask, she had seen only two inscrutable shafts of shadow.

The gods should have given them this moment. They should have frozen time for them, if only for a moment. Keyleth didn't even ask for a kiss. Life didn't give those kinds of gifts, not to them anyway. She would have just wanted time to exchange a few words. She would have said "I love you, don't sacrifice yourself for me," for example, or maybe "Go away, idiot." He would have refused, but at least she would have tried.

Anything would have been better than that single second of joy and relief, when she had seen him standing there in the flesh, or something close to it, followed by the horror of seeing him disappear, screaming.

Vax was gone. She needed to accept that. She also needed to tell Vex, because, of course, she was the one left in charge of telling the truth to the others. Keyleth couldn't do it, either by letter or face-to-face. The only comfort they all had, Vex, Percy, Grog, Pike, Scanlan, and her, was the knowledge they would see Vax one last time. One day, after a very long time, if they had something to say, they would have seen him again and it would make leaving this world easier. And now, even that last hope was gone. How could Keyleth hurt the others by telling them what she saw? But even if she wanted to, she couldn't lie to them either. She would have to speak, but for now, she was almost relieved that contact with the rest of the world was so difficult. At least she had time before she had to say those three horrible words: "Vax is gone."

Her heart sank. She felt tears fighting to come out. This time they were no longer tears of pain, but tears of sorrow and anger, tears of rage. Through the window, she glared at the azure sky.

"I know you're listening," she spat angrily. "You took him from us and swore you would take care of him. You couldn't promise he'd be happy, but nothing was supposed to happen to him. He was to be your champion! No harm is supposed to come to the gods's champion, right? You're supposed to be powerful! So where is he now?"

Keyleth listened. She was a druid, trained to understand messages carried by the wind, but only silence answered her. The Raven Queen was unwilling to speak or too busy dealing with the after-effect of Ludinus Da'leth's plans to worry about an angry druid. Well, Keyleth would not sympathize if the goddess had too much work on her plate. It wouldn't be the case if she had done her job correctly. She was supposed to be the goddess of destiny. She should have stopped Ludinus before he was too great a threat to Exandria as a whole, and Vax in particular.

Keyleth could feel the anger fester and burn in her guts. Perhaps it was stupid to resent the Raven Queen, but she still did. For thirty years she had lived with the grief of having lost Vax forever, and for thirty years she had been angry with him for having sacrificed his life, with the gods for being deaf to prayers, or at least for not having the same priorities as mortals, with Pike and the others for not having found solutions to save Vax when they still could, with the people of Zephrah for never having given her time to mourn, with the elements for not having supported her when they lost him, with her parents for walking on eggs next to her as if she might break any moment, with herself because she knew it was true, with... Her anger had so many targets that she would have needed entire days to list them.

Anger was an old friend, warming her insides and helping her move forward. Keyleth didn't know how she could function without it. She knew her friends were angry too, but not like her, not like this. Not all the time.

A familiar sound tore her from her thoughts. Keyleth glared at the raven looking at her from the tree that was leaning towards her window.

"You're not Vax. Go away."

The raven hopped a little closer to her, tilting its head to the side to look at her better, in a way that she found unpleasant. Vax also tilted his head to the side to look at her when he visited her. The difference was Vax always held himself as he dared her to laugh at the situation while he wanted to. This crow was stiff and had a crooked eye. Keyleth disliked it instantly.

"I'll give you ten seconds to fly away. After that, I swear I'll strangle you in vines, turn you to stone, or reduce you to ashes. Ten seconds should be enough for me to decide."

The bird flew away. Keyleth sighed in relief. With her fingers covered in wounds that refused to heal, she wasn't sure she could have done a spell correctly.

Her eyes closed despite herself. She didn't want to sleep, but her body reminded her she was exhausted. Keyleth should probably listen to it. It would be easier if she didn't see Vax disappearing into nothingness every time she closed her eyes.

In a rustle of wings, the raven landed next to her hand. Keyleth made a move to chase it away, but she was too slow. The raven went away to land in the same place seconds later. She almost expected it to mock her, but it just tilted its head to the side to look at her again.

A little belatedly, Keyleth realized that even for a raven, a clever bird, this one behavior was odd. It wasn't a normal animal, but it didn't look like one of the Raven Queen's winged messengers either. Its eye was too canny, his posture too studied. And its eyes weren't black. They were two pits of bottomless shadows.

"It's you, isn't it?" Keyleth asked, her throat dry.

The raven nodded with an unnatural gravity.

"I called for you. But I didn't expect you to answer."

The raven tilted its head a little more to the side. It was probably the only way the goddess could communicate with her. The Divine Gate prevented her from acting more directly on Exandria. Overall, Keyleth felt very pleased that the Gods had been forced to leave them alone, and the mortals forced to fend for themselves. But this time, she would have wanted the Raven Queen to be physically present, just to have the pleasure of crushing her fist on her ivory mask.

"It's your fault," she spat. "Do you know that? Are you going to own it?"

The crow tilted its head to the left side, then to the right side. Yes, Keyleth translated, and no. She sniffed.

"You cannot recognize and deny your responsibilities at the same time. That would be too easy. Do you see me do that?"

Yes, was the raven's response.

Anger nearly choked Keyleth. How dare she? Keyleth was not responsible for the goddess's mistakes. She hadn't been blind to Ludinus Da'leth and his henchmen's shenanigans. Keyleth had acted before it was nearly too late, when others did not. She had mobilized her contacts and sent Ashari to follow the few clues they had. Orym had only been one of them. Orym... Where was he now?

The raven was still looking at her too calmly. Keyleth calmed down. Time had made her wise enough to recognize some similarities between the goddess and her. The goddess's silent message was unpleasant to read in the raven's eye, but Keyleth was used to the painful truth.

Indeed, her actions weren't so different from what the Raven Queen did. She was well aware of the dangers when she had made Orym her champion, asking him to do what she could no longer do, which was to bring light into the darkness and kick the asses of the fuckers who thought they could decide the future of Exandria. Then, when he had brought her the information she needed, she had let him fight, even if she knew he was probably not ready for it, because he had a personal interest in the matter and a score to settle with his husband's killers.

And now, Orym's fate was just as uncertain as Vax's. Definitely, Keyleth wasn't that different from the Raven Queen. Her Aramenté had made her a leader and as such, she had to make difficult decisions and use her best warriors as weapons. Sometimes, weapons had to be sacrificed for the fight to be won. But these weapons had souls and hearts. They could make their own decisions. Keyleth would have asked Orym to stay away if she had believed he would have accepted. He could choose his destiny. Keyleth had to accept it.

She was understanding now.

"You knew it was a trap. You both knew it, but he came anyway. I can't blame him. I would have done the same, probably. It's easy to blame you, but you let him use his free will. I can't blame him for using it."

The raven leaned its head to the side. Yes.

"Fuck Fate," Keyleth grumbled. "Hate it and hate you. Hope you know that. "

He has a good back. If a raven could have shrugged, this one would have. Reluctantly, Keyleth bowed her head in thanks. The Raven Queen had no obligation to come, yet she did, out of respect for Vax's sacrifice, which they both wanted to honor.

Vax had made a choice. Keyleth could not deny him this right. She probably would have done the same in his place, seeing him again after thirty years. She would have done the same a few days earlier if she had had enough strength left to get up to throw him to the ground and take his place. Everyone from Vox Machina would have done the same. That was how they were built, for better or worse.

Keyleth didn't have to love it, and she couldn't say she was glad for the Raven Queen's visit, but it helped her accept Vax had made his choice and there was nothing she could have done or said to stop him. She did too when she sent Orym to investigate and when she led the attack on Ludinus' excavation. The Raven Queen did too. People could only take responsibility for their own choices, not for how others responded to them.

She felt guilty for wallowing in her suffering for too long. Time for her to pull herself together. She had responsibilities to get back to. The problem everyone had with arcane magic proved she had failed to handle the situation like she should have. Now all of Exandria was paying the price. Not counting Vax.

"Did they kill him?"

She needed to hear it, even if she feared she already knew the answer.

This time, the raven didn't move for a long time, and Keyleth's heart froze. Did it mean the Raven Queen herself couldn't tell what happened to Vax? Maybe. Or perhaps it was too hard to explain something this complicated with a nod of the bird's head or a beat of its wings. It gave her hope. It terrified her. The Raven Queen was the goddess of fate and death. How could she be ignorant of a mortal or immortal's fate? What torment could Vax suffer if he was still alive? And it was all her fault.

No. Not her fault. She may have made mistakes, but it had been the right choice to attack Ludinus when everyone on Exandria seemed paralysed by fear or unable to act. Reports from her spies said they had weakened the Vanguard's forces. It was a minor victory, perhaps not even a victory, but it was still that. Maybe it would be enough to tip the scale, but at least she had given the world a chance to survive. She didn't do it for the gods; she did it so that Vex and Pike's children would grow up in a world that wouldn't be dominated by megalomaniac fucks like Ludinus. If she could, Keyleth would give them a world without fear, a world full of love.

Keyleth had to make a tough choice. Vax had paid the price, Orym too, and his team. But if she had known the price to pay beforehand, she would have made the same decision. She would not regret trying to make the world better. She exhaled and forgave Vax and the Raven Queen. No more wallowing in grief or trying to make others responsible for her pain.

Having made that decision, she breathed more easily, and the pain receded a little. Good. Now it was time to be the Voice of the Tempest once again.

When she opened her eyes, the raven was gone.

Keyleth raised her head toward the sun and smiled. It was the first time since the attack on the Vanguard she felt good, or at least something approaching. The pain was still there, but she could live with it. Keyleth would eat, sleep, and recover. Her people would help. The Vanguard had knocked her down, but they had made a deadly mistake. They should have finished her. Keyleth would get back up and make them regret that mistake.

Next time assassins tried to hit her, they would met her wrath. Keyleth would face them with claws and fangs. She would teach them the bite of frost and the burn of fire. They would learn to fear her thorns. These fanatics, wherever they could be now, these morons who believed they could use Vax's love for her from beyond the grave to commit an abomination, would pay. Keyleth's smile turned bitter as she thought of them. They had thought her weakened by the poison torture, but they were going to learn it had only fueled her flames. "Do not even try," Vax had said. They had tried, they had played, and now they believed they had won. Keyleth would prove them wrong.

Rather than the Voice of the Tempest, people should have called her the Fury of the Tempest. She did not want to speak in the name of the elements. She wanted to embody her destructive power and throw herself at her enemies, swallow them and release them only when only bones remained.

She was the Voice of the Tempest. And the Tempest would howl.