Chapter Text
Jarlaxle’s rage bubbled under his skin, frothed red at the edge of his vision, but he forced himself to smile. The wiser part of his brain bade him to wait, to cool down first. He ignored it, set the silver whistle between his lips, and blew.
He paced the length of the room he’d rented for the night, floorboards creaking under silent boots. Then the air sparked and opened like a wound, and Kimmuriel stared back at him through the portal.
Jarlaxle smiled and kept his mind blank.
“Please, come in,” he said. “This might take a moment.”
Red eyes studied him from the dark, but Kimmuriel stepped through the portal, his expression blank.
“This is earlier than I was expecting,” Kimmuriel said, the barest question in his voice. They had agreed to conference weekly, and he had just spoken to Jarlaxle days before. “Has something happened?”
Jarlaxle’s cheeks hurt from smiling. “Oh, many things have happened. Wine?” He was still the consummate host, offering a seat and a drink. Kimmuriel may have betrayed him, but that was only in his—their—nature. He was the odd one here, having expected any different.
Kimmuriel demurred and stayed standing and sober. There was a tension in his shoulders that said he was picking up on Jarlaxle’s temper. Jarlaxle forced himself to smile all the wider.
“Well. I could use a drink.” Jarlaxle settled into the wooden chair at the small table, conjuring a glass and a bottle of wine from his hat, a vintage he’d acquired from Vaasa all those years ago. He sat back and kicked out his feet, crossing his legs at the ankle. “I find that traveling on the surface again has made me a mite nostalgic,” he said as he poured. “But I am afraid my memory is not what it was. I was hoping you could help me with that.”
Kimmuriel’s blink was the only outward sign of his unease. “In what way?”
“I wonder… whatever happened to Entreri?” Jarlaxle swirled the wine in his glass. It looked blood red in the candlelight. “Now, I know how our partnership ended, how he betrayed me to the Netherese, but… what happened to him, after that?”
Coolly, Jarlaxle sipped his wine. He barely tasted it.
“I imagine he is long dead,” Kimmuriel said carefully, his eyes narrowing. “Why does that matter now?”
“I can barely remember what he looked like,” Jarlaxle murmured. “I have impressions, a sense of his general shape. That glare.” He smiled brittly. “But time has eroded the details. Or was that you as well?”
“Jarlaxle…” Was that fear in Kimmuriel’s eyes?
“Right. Enough of the games, shall we?” Jarlaxle saluted him sarcastically with the wine glass before knocking it back. He slammed it back onto the table, hard enough to break if it weren’t reinforced with magic. “You manipulated my memories, and I would like them back.”
“Jarlaxle—”
“Now.” Jarlaxle rushed to his feet, glaring directly into Kimmuriel’s eyes. “I know they’re still there. I can see…” He trailed off, throat tightening. Recklessly, desperately, he tore off his eyepatch and held out his arms. Kimmuriel rocked back on his heels, brows twitching together. “Please.”
That unsettled look seemed foreign on Kimmuriel’s usually stony features. They both knew how foolish this was, that Kimmuriel could easily double-down on what he had done, wiping his memories again, or worse. It was a leap of faith Kimmuriel had not earned.
“Jarlaxle,” Kimmuriel said again, softly. “It was for the best.” Rage bubbled up Jarlaxle’s throat, but Kimmuriel cut him off. “You were too attached to him. You were going to drag the rest of us down into ruin with him. Changing your memories was a mercy, and giving them back will not change anything.”
“I understand your reasoning,” Jarlaxle said, his words carefully measured. “I… might even agree. But you stole from me.” Another brittle smile. “Like you said, it will not change anything. So, what is the harm?”
Kimmuriel studied his face for a long, long moment. There will be quite a bit of harm, that look said as he haltingly reached for Jarlaxle’s forehead. “I will regret this.”
Not I might or I could.
I will.
But Kimmuriel returned Jarlaxle’s memories for the same undrow-like reason he took them away: mercy.
Jarlaxle’s head ached. A grinding pressure against his temples turned his vision into grainy spots, and he staggered, catching himself on the back of the chair. He had no sense of how much time had passed, if he had been standing there for minutes or hours, but when he looked back, parchment-yellow memories slotted back into the empty spots of his mind. It took a moment for Jarlaxle to remember how to speak.
“What happened to him?” he asked again, voice hollow. He knew Kimmuriel was right, that it was too late, that too many years had passed for any human to still be alive. That knowledge seared like a knife through his chest.
Kimmuriel hesitated, but a glare from Jarlaxle bade him speak. “He was bound to the sword. He became Alegni’s slave. He… The reports say he hanged himself.”
The taste of bile was thick in Jarlaxle’s throat. He turned away and willed himself not to retch, willed the blurring tears not to fall, willed his body not to react. His ragged breathing said he’d failed.
“Jarlaxle…”
Gods. He’d died thinking Jarlaxle had abandoned him.
Slowly, Jarlaxle turned back to face Kimmuriel, and now he knew that was fear in the psion’s eyes. “Kimmuriel, I made a promise to you years ago, that if you brought harm to him, I would kill you. If I ever see you again, know that I will make good on that promise.”
“Jarlaxle—”
Jarlaxle threw a dagger that narrowly missed his head. By the second throw, Kimmuriel was through a portal and far away. For a long while, Jarlaxle stared at the floor where Kimmuriel had stood, then he picked up the wine bottle to drink away the memories he’d only just gotten back.
Athrogate huffed and puffed, jogging to keep up with Jarlaxle. “Drow!” he called out, just to remind him that he was there. “Ye’ve already tried the last three temples!”
“Yes, and?” Jarlaxle tossed back distractedly, his rainbow cloak billowing behind him. This small building was more shrine than temple, but he could hear a priestess inside, going through her evening rites. A glance up at the symbol of a crescent moon over the door said this place was dedicated to Selune. He paused, remembering that the last time he’d stepped into a temple of Selune, Entreri had murdered its high priest. Perhaps this wasn’t the right goddess to ask.
Then again, maybe Entreri had done her a favor, and this was the perfect goddess to ask. He paused at the door, cracking it open but waiting for the priestess to finish her rites.
Athrogate’s armor clanked with each heavy step, slowing to a stop as he came up beside Jarlaxle. “Ye really think this one’ll be any different?” Athrogate said between puffs of breath.
No, Jarlaxle admitted privately. “Yes,” he said aloud. “Look, I can either sit around wishing, or I could at least try to make things right. Just think of death as a challenge! You know I like a good challenge.”
Athrogate’s side-eyed look said he didn’t believe him. “Uh huh.”
The priestess had fallen silent, and Jarlaxle peeked in to see her rising from where she had knelt, an arc of flickering candles backlighting her in gold. Her hood dropped to her shoulders, showing a young, soft-cheeked initiate with dark hair pinned up and braided. Jarlaxle pushed the door open completely, doffing his hat and greeting her with a wide, disarming smile. The smile was important, or she would think he meant harm.
The young priestess still tensed when she spotted the two of them.
“Good evening, priestess,” Jarlaxle said with a reverential bow of his head. He did not know what the custom was for shrines and temples of Selune, but he trusted that a soft voice and polite demeanor would be enough to get him through. “I hope we did not startle you. I am a traveler, come to seek the blessing of Selune.”
“I see,” she said with a confused smile that said that she didn’t. “All are welcome, of course. How can I help you?”
Jarlaxle paced the small space, hat in hand, making a show of looking the shrine over, tutting at the cracks in the stone, the water damage in the wood. “I wish to make an offering,” he said, reaching into the hat and pulling out a pouch, fat with clinking coins. “Enough, at least, to renovate this little shrine. Perhaps enough to expand it for the greater glory of Selune.” He set down the pouch gently next to other offerings that had been left: food, votive statues, incense. The priestess’ eyes widened. “In exchange, I would request your and the goddess’ help retrieving something—someone—very dear to me.”
“Retrieve?” Her brows knit together.
“He means he wants ye to revive his boyfriend,” Athrogate cut in, gesturing impatiently at Jarlaxle, who frowned at him. “What?” he groused at Jarlaxle. “He’s been dead near a hunnerd years. I’d rather it not take another hunnerd to get ter the point!”
“A hundred years?” The young priestess looked at Jarlaxle, who sighed.
“He exaggerates, but it has been decades. It is… a rather long story. But it is my fault he is dead, and I would like to rectify that.” Jarlaxle cleared his throat, careful not to let emotion color his voice. The loss was equal parts old and raw for him.
The priestess fidgeted with her sleeve, her expression soft, even pitying. “I… am humbled by your generosity, but I am afraid I do not have that… kind of ability.”
Jarlaxle smiled and nodded. “Then surely there is another priest or priestess who can? One more senior, perhaps? However much gold it will take, it is yours.” He fished out another pouch and tossed it to land heavily next to the other.
“O-oh.” The priestess worried at a loose thread on her sleeve.
“There is more where that comes from. Much more.”
“I am afraid that is not the issue. Decades is too long for any of us. I… cannot be sure what will come back.”
Jarlaxle gritted his teeth, swallowed past the desperate lump in his throat. “I just want to see him one more time.” He coughed into his fist to hide the way his voice cracked. This was unfairly difficult. He should be able to compartmentalize, to lock his emotions up to be dealt with and examined later. They should not be spilling over like this, out of his control.
The priestess’ eyes were large and doe-like, expressive in their sympathy. She was a soft touch, this one, and he believed that, if she could help him, she would. “I see. Maybe I could help with that, at least.”
Jarlaxle’s gaze snapped up to hers.
She shrugged. “I cannot bring him back. But I could, perhaps, give you a chance to talk to him, if only for a few minutes.” She flashed him shy smile. “Think about what you want to say him. I will get everything ready.”
Hours later, dizzy from smoke and frustration, the priestess of Selune closed her tome with a heavy thud. She sighed, rubbing at the lines of tension across her forehead and brushing back the sweaty tendrils of hair that had escaped her up-do. Jarlaxle’s hands had folded a crease into the edge of his hat, and Athrogate was snoring in a corner.
“Strange,” the young woman murmured, her gaze far away.
“What is?” Jarlaxle asked, his words frayed with nerves and exhaustion. “Why isn’t it working?”
“The goddess is willing,” she said, to Jarlaxle’s surprise. “But there is no one for me to summon.”
A million possible answers clashed against each other in Jarlaxle’s mind, but he waited, patiently, for hers. She chewed her lip.
“I apologize if this is a terrible question, but…” She hesitated. “But… are you completely sure he’s dead?”
For a moment, Jarlaxle forgot to breathe.