Chapter Text
Sterling watched the little chunk of ice in his wineglass, one of its facets catching the candlelight from the chandelier. The Goblin’s Head was always warm and welcoming, but at the moment he felt as cold and still as stone.
He looked up when heard Meltyre’s voice ask, “You’re sure?”
“Uh…yeah.” Fina looked…ha, sheepish. Embarrassed, which was rare for her. She rubbed the back of her head. “We’re pretty sure.”
“The man looks exactly like Sterling,” Velune said.
“Sounds like him too,” Betty added.
Sterling cleared his throat, which felt like about as much as he could manage as far as movement. “That’s still a rather…spurious connection—”
“He knew your mom,” Fina interrupted him. “We brought her up and he got a fond look in his eye, pretty boy.”
The nickname was meant to soften the blow. It was not successful. Sterling frowned. “That’s hardly conclusive.”
“I know it’s not, but you have to trust me, Sterling,” Fina insisted. “There’s something there.”
Sterling opened his mouth for another denial, and then closed it again. Such a repetition would be useless. And furthermore…there were several other emotions to address first.
“Did you ask about me?” he decided on, finally.
Fina hesitated, and then looked to Velune, who took the cue immediately. “We mentioned you, but he didn’t show any sign of recognition.”
“Do you know how long ago he knew my mother?”
“Years, he said,” Betty answered.
Fina shrugged. “Asking more would have been weird.”
“All this to say, we know where to find him,” Velune said, gently. “If you want to talk to him, that is. He’s in Ambitter.”
“You could go see for yourself,” Betty intoned.
Well he had to, didn’t he? He…he had to go see for himself.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said, hardly realizing what words he was saying.
“Uhhh…there is like…one more little thing,” Fina said, and waved her hand as if to dismiss any concerns. “Hardly matters, really. Not even a big deal. A tiny detail.”
“That doesn’t sound like a tiny detail,” Meltyre said.
“Psshhh, doubting Thomas over here,” Fina scoffed. Deflecting. “Seriously, just a minor…thing.”
“What is it?” Sterling asked.
“Killiker’s a bard,” Fina said.
The word landed in Sterling’s head like an arrow in a bullseye, the only word of this conversation he could actually process. He blinked. “He’s a what?”
*
Sterling stopped outside the North Star Tavern, the only place of any note in Ambitter.
Meltyre was with him—it had only been a day’s ride, and he felt that morning that he would need the support—and he felt Meltyre’s hand on his shoulder. “Do you want me to go in with you, or-or stay out here…?”
Sterling wanted to have worn all his armor. He wanted to go back in time to a week ago, when this wasn’t the only thing he could think about. He wanted to turn around and go home.
Of course, if he did, he’d regret it for the rest of his life.
“Would you…would you mind being across the room? Perhaps step in if I look as though I’m losing my temper?”
“Yeah, I can do that.” Meltyre gave his shoulder a squeeze before letting go.
Sterling took a breath. It felt like the first one he’d had in a while. “Thank you.” He turned to face his dearest friend. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
Meltyre frowned thoughtfully. “Answers? Closure?”
Sterling shook his head. Not quite.
“Then maybe…maybe a sense of yourself?” Meltyre suggested. “Everyone wants to know where they came from, you know?”
“Perhaps so.” That certainly sounded closer than anything Sterling could come up with. He squared his shoulders and stood up straight. “All right. I’m ready.”
“Really?”
“No,” Sterling conceded. “But if we don’t go now, I don’t know that I ever will.”
Meltyre chuckled a little, and slightly heartened by the sound, Sterling opened the door.
The first thing he noticed, besides the warm light of the North Star’s interior, was…the song. Gods, they were singing Fina’s song, the whole tavern, the one she’d written to directly spite the order of St. Cuthbert.
The paladin, a mighty man,
A hero brave and strong,
His honesty and courage was
His magic all along…
And if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, the man leading the singing was standing on the table, a tall animated elf with a booming baritone, whose voice brought the whole room alive—
A man who looked exactly like Sterling.
The paladin was right, and so
The order was all wrong!
The room exploded into cheers at the end of the song, and the man on the table bowed, grinning beatifically. “Thank you! Thank you all!”
“Oh my gods,” Sterling groaned, massaging the bridge of his nose.
Meltyre snickered.
Sterling shot him a glare. “This isn’t funny.”
Meltyre covered his mouth to stop the laugh. “It’s a little funny.”
“Is someone here going to buy me a drink or what?” demanded the elf good-naturedly, leaping down from his table.
Sterling sighed. “Well. Here goes nothing.”
“I’ll uh…I’ll sit over there.” Meltyre pointed to an empty table in the corner. “Call me if you need me, okay?”
“I will.” Sterling straightened. “Thank you.”
“It’ll be okay,” Meltyre assured him, before leaving him quite alone.
Right.
Sterling approached the bar where Killiker had settled. The elf was currently saying to the dragonborn bartender, “One more, Miss, if you please.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Sterling said, taking a seat two down from Killiker, and then added, once he saw that the drink in question was wine with ice, “One for me, as well.”
The dragonborn looked perplexed by the request, but shrugged. “All right.”
“I thank you, kind sir,” Killiker said grandly, sweeping an arm out. “Perhaps I can repay you with a song.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Sterling said hastily. “I would prefer a conversation.”
“That can be arranged.” Killiker looked at him properly now, and paused.
Sterling very carefully did not flick a glance to Meltyre for reassurance. Instead, he swallowed his nerves. “Is something wrong?”
“Hm? Oh, no,” Killiker said, focusing back on the task at hand. “No, it’s only that…well, I would say we were related, if I didn’t know better.”
“If you didn’t know better?” Sterling modulated his tone carefully, so as not to seem combative.
“Well, I see you’re a human.”
Sterling glanced over his shoulder; the only person in the tavern he could see looking his way was Meltyre. Carefully, as if he was doing it by accident, he twisted off the ring that he kept always on his person, the one Meltyre had enchanted for him, and watched Killiker’s face until the elf’s eyebrows shot up. Hastily he shoved the ring back into its place.
Killiker’s levity had started to evaporate. He rested his hands on his knees to lean toward Sterling. “Then we are related, are we?”
“I should think so,” Sterling said, quietly. Gods, was he speaking loud enough to be audible?
“And I suppose you already know who I am.”
“I do.”
“Forgive me for not being able to return the favor,” Killiker said. It was a hint. His manners were as fine as anyone’s at court. Or perhaps he had seen Sterling for the son of privilege he was and was mirroring him.
Sterling cleared his throat. “I am Sterling Whitetower.”
Killiker’s frown turned to alarm. “Whitetower?”
Gods, this was going to be terribly awkward. “Yes.”
“You—how old are you?” Killiker demanded.
“Twenty-six.”
The bard looked briefly into space, tapping off fingers to count, and then looked back at Sterling. “And Lady Daria—”
“My mother,” Sterling provided.
“Oh my gods.” Killiker fell back against the counter, staring at him.
Sterling didn’t know what to say. It was perhaps, he thought, a distinct marker of how far he’d come as a person that he chose not to say anything.
In a moment, Killiker jumped to his feet and circled Sterling, examining him like a naturalist with a specimen. “You’ve struck me speechless, you know. That’s not an easy thing to do.”
Still Sterling said nothing, taking advantage of Killiker’s inspection to hold an inspection of his own. He was a little taller than this man. A little broader. Sterling was shaped—not like his mother, no, but like the men of his mother’s family. But the dark sharp eyes that examined him now, the curve of the brow, the purse of the lips; Sterling knew them like his own face, because that’s what they were.
When Killiker finally settled onto the stool next to Sterling, never once turning away, he said, “You hide the ears.”
The statement annoyed Sterling. “Of course. If I didn’t—”
Killiker waved the sentence away. “No, I remember what Daria told me. She didn’t marry old Sam because she cared passionately about a stuffy noble land baron. Folks find out you’re mine and both of you are out an inheritance.”
Some of the annoyance dissipated. Sterling nodded.
“No hiding the rugged good looks, though,” Killiker said, attempting a smile.
Sterling sighed. “Pretty boy.”
“Beg pardon?”
“One of my friends calls me pretty boy,” Sterling explained.
Killiker grinned. “Your friend is right. We’re a pair of beautiful bastards.”
Sterling winced.
“Ah, poor choice of words,” Killiker backtracked, and then paused. “I met some of your friends, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“That’s how you found me?”
“Yes.”
Killiker rubbed his chin. “I wondered why they asked about Daria. It was a funny connection to make.”
Sterling swallowed. “Then you really didn’t know about me.”
Killiker shook his head. “She never said anything. Nothing at all. I tried to see her again, you know, a couple years later, but she refused. I assumed it was because old Sam was home.”
Sterling looked away. Hearing the man the world knew as his father called “old Sam,” made him feel very young. He wasn’t that young, but the portraits of Sir Samuel that hung in his home portrayed a time when he was very young indeed.
“Does she hate me?”
The question pulled Sterling’s attention back. “My mother?”
Killiker looked genuinely mournful. “I wouldn’t blame her if she did, really.”
Sterling shook his head. “I asked her about...about you. Once. She said you were a friend to her, when she needed one. She doesn’t hate you.”
He frowned thoughtfully. “Is that all she said?”
“She wouldn’t say anything more.”
“I’m almost offended,” Killiker muttered, and then said, “I don’t know what you must think of me—”
“I don’t know what to think of you,” Sterling said.
“Truthfully, I don’t know what to think of you either,” Killiker said carefully. “I’m not...I’m not altogether disappointed, you understand. Just surprised.”
Perhaps that was the best Sterling could hope for. It was certainly better than he’d feared.
“I’m sorry,” Killiker offered. “If I had known...well. I wasn’t the same person, twenty-six years ago, but I hope I would have tried to...be there. If I had known.”
Something hard and cold in Sterling’s chest started to unravel. “Thank you for that.”
“I’m sure you have questions,” Killiker said.
“I have a few,” Sterling admitted.
Killiker hesitated, and then raised a hand to call the bartender over. “Excuse me, we’ll need…” He paused and turned to Sterling. “You’re no lightweight, right?”
“No?” Sterling said.
“Right, rum, five bottles if you please, and two cups.”
Sterling frowned. “Why are we…”
“Sterling, I may be putting on a very good show, but that is merely by virtue of my profession,” Killiker said. “Frankly, I am afraid. And this will help.”
“I’m not entirely sure—”
“Might help you be a bit less stiff yourself,” Killiker added, accepting the glasses from the dragonborn and pouring them both a glass.
Well that was inarguable. Sterling gave up and accepted the glass, and when Killiker threw back his whole drink, Sterling did the same.
“Right,” Killiker said, pouring them both another. “Go on, then.”
“Why did you leave?” Sterling asked.
“Oh, gods,” Killiker said, and downed his second drink. “Ahhhh, it was never meant to be a permanent arrangement. I was just passing through, you see.”
Sterling exhaled. “All right.” It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but it was what he expected. He emptied his own glass.
“My turn, I think,” Killiker declared.
“Are we taking turns?” Sterling said, suddenly bewildered.
“It’s only fair,” Killiker said, refilling his glass. “Are you the same Sterling Whitetower that was involved in that royal scandal?”
Sterling’s heart sank. “Yes. But it was a lie, I was falsely accused—”
“Well of course you were, people would have noticed the ears,” Killiker said, waving his hand at his own head. “But does this mean you have a reputation?”
“Only after the fact!”
“Ah, so, this is not a matter of ‘like father like son,’ then,” Killiker teased.
Sterling covered his face and groaned. He just knew he was blushing.
“Well I’m glad I didn’t pass on that particular foible,” Killiker said lightly. “But you turned out all right though, didn’t you? They say you’re a hero.”
“I was only trying to do what was right,” Sterling muttered.
“Hm.”
Sterling looked up. “What?”
Killiker mused, “I don’t think you got that from me.” He took a sip from his glass and said, “Your turn.”