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In the Gauntlet of Shar, there was no telling night from day; there were no windows here, no hint of natural lighting, just purple banners and impassive stonework. Eternal, unending darkness. Rightfully so. They chose it to be the evening when they were tired, and they were, so it was evening.
Shadowheart knelt in a dark corner and recited her evening prayers: twice in the case of a skipped evening, and a third in gratitude to her lady. It was certainly deserved. She could nearly taste the opportunity on her tongue, the metallic tang of promise. Thank you, she murmured, for the opportunity to wield your spear, to become your Chosen. Thank you for seeing me.
Her more mundane duties awaited. The battle in the library had drained them, even further than the Self-Same trial already had. She was in dire need of rest. Sleep, preferably dreamless. Her head swam, a little, and her healing had no effect on it. But first, her companions.
"Thank you for your support. And for your flying scroll." she said to Wyll, as she waved a hand over his arm to stitch up a small laceration.
"You're always welcome. How are you doing?"
There was far too much sympathy in his voice. She hated that stretched-out thin tone of his. He should not pity her. She was so near reaching her potential. "Exceedingly well."
"You are to kill a Selunite," he said, pointedly neutral.
Her skin roiled, and she went warm and itchy. He doubted her, even after helping her through the trials.
She kept her voice calm. "We've dispensed death to many by now. Why draw the line there?"
It was like aiming for an artery. Wyll was meticulous in his moral decisions, and agonized over them long after the moment had passed. He could do a little dwelling on that, instead of picking on her.
It was a glancing blow. Wyll shook it off, and pressed onward. "We don't know who or what could be in there."
"There are far more guilty creatures in this world than innocents, Wyll. We've met and killed many of them." Guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Guilt is one thing. Sentencing is another."
"My Lady knows me. She would not ask this of me if it were not right."
Wyll didn't meet her eyes. He sighed. "Thank you for the healing, as always. Good night."
She moved to Karlach, who was quiet as she healed a burn on her leg. She had thought Wyll's questioning an ordeal, but Karlach's silence and constant fidgeting were almost worse. She too Avoided Shadowheart's gaze.
"Out with it. What's on your mind?"
Karlach rubbed at the base of her neck, where her engine thrummed. "This all makes me a little nauseated."
"It was a disagreeable dinner. It will pass." She, too was feeling off after their meal. It served them right for eating food they picked out of some random barrel.
"Dinner was fine. A little underseasoned, actually."
"A stomach bug, then." Not all of them had the constitution of a barbarian.
Karlach was silent for a second, and then the words spilled out, jumbled in their leaving. "I was thinking about what you said last night."
She had, in low words, discussed a bit of doubt she had with Wyll. A small bit of questioning borne from battle fatigue. "That was a private conversation."
"I know. But, c'mon, Shads. We're just looking out for you." Karlach looked at her reproachfully.
"It was a moment of bad judgment. I am secure in my convictions."
Karlach still wore that look of doubt.
"Don't you trust me?"
Now Karlach looked appropriately ashamed. "Yeah. I do. I'm here for you. Do what you need to."
Altogether, it seemed a rather ineffective round of thanksgiving. Not to be helped by her final target for the evening. Shadowheart took a deep breath and moved onwards.
Lae'zel, for once, was not engaging in her typical bit of grindstone-related noise pollution and was instead sat cross-legged on the ground reading a book. She always looked different like this, something between a monk in meditation and a wizarding student taking an exam. She almost looked peaceful.
"Good evening," she said to warn Lae'zel of her approach.
Despite her docile appearance, Lae'zel's words were harsh. "I do not require healing."
"You don't need to be so sharp. I just wanted to thank you."
This brought Lae'zel to her feet. Lae'zel always went through a certain transformation at the start of a battle: a new hungry gleam in her eyes, a coiling of her body to pounce. This time, the only weapon in her hand was her closed book, but here she was, ready to strike. "I've learned many things about Sharrans over the course of our journey."
"Have you?"
"So the saying goes. Know thine enemy." Enemy, she said so casually, all those bedside visits and crude remarks on the taste of ginger aside. But there was truth to the knowing. Throughout their adventure, she had collected every book mentioning her Lady or the moonwitch, every leftover bit of Sharran journaling in the Shadowlands, and every Nightsong book from the silent library. Gale had told her something about marginalia, and she had marked up each book with surprisingly neat handwriting. What she wrote, Shadowheart had no idea. Likely points of potential weakness. It had certainly been of use against those shadowed Dark Justiciars.
"What have you learned? About my faith." She amended the statement quickly. She didn't need Lae'zel's commentary on her shortcomings.
"I have learned the expression of gratitude is against Sharran doctrine."
Suddenly Shadowheart was warm. "You're lying," she said, even though she knew Lae'zel didn't lie, even as a cruelty. "Show me."
"It is here, and irrefutable." Lae'zel met her gaze. There was no warmth in her expression, but no malice either.
She hoped Lae'zel had perhaps read something wrong, but Lae'zel's Common was near impeccable. Lae'zel handed her the book. Underlined, marked with a small arrow, "Expressions of gratitude are contrary to the teachings of Lady Shar..."
"An old teaching. It doesn't matter now." All they did was blunder into old buildings, where any Sharran books were old and outdated. Surely it wasn't relevant now. Or perhaps they both misread it. Fatigue had squeezed her skull to the point of misunderstanding.
"Revoke your thanks."
"No," she said, feeling altogether a little silly. Her stomach turned. Karlach's stomach bug may have been contagious.
"Tell me why."
"I know my faith. I know what is right and wrong."
"So you do."
Again, the horror of being seen, like a scalpel down her sternum. Shadowheart wanted to kill Lae'zel. She wanted to pin her to a wall and shut her up. She wanted to stop feeling like she was swaying on the edge of some great precipice, and Lae'zel was some answer, if not the right one.
Lae'zel was as precise with her words as with her weapons. "This conflict in you. The twist to your stomach, the taste of bitter wine. Should any of your goddess's words prove indigestible, reject them, as you have done now."
This disobedience was no mark of her unfaithfulness. Her Lady was a lover of contradictions. Really, worship of any god was just an act of justification, and Sharrans were the only honest ones about it. And yet.
"Very well. Thank you," she said again, because there was nothing else she could say.
"I do— trust you." Lae'zel stood, with a wavering she had only seen once before. Now that she had gotten her initial blow in, she had lost her surety. "You've led us thus far. For that I am grateful."
"What was that?" By that, she of course meant to say it again, because she didn't think Lae'zel would. She was ever so calm and collected. She was now glad she didn't pin Lae'zel to the wall, because Lae'zel would have rightly observed her increased heart rate, the warm flush of her skin. Now, though, she still had the upper hand.
Lae'zel turned her back to their camp. "Thank you," she said like it was a secret, with the tone and breath of some clandestine amorous exchange. Which, with Lae'zel, perhaps it was. She reached out for Shadowheart's wrist and left her fingertips there.
She hadn't done this before. Not this acknowledgment of whatever was between them, in full view of the camp. And not this much care put into it: deliberate, but not desperate.
Shadowheart couldn't stand any form of tenderness tonight. She needed to rest and keep herself sharp. She replied, brushing her hand across Lae'zel's palm and pulling away, and went to her tent, where she did not sleep for some time.
On the platform, the spear was warm and comfortable in her hands. She had adjusted and readjusted her grip, and had bent and spaced her knees until they ached. She was ready for this.
Wyll, Karlach, and Lae'zel stood behind her. They said nothing, did nothing, other than watch.
She didn't know what to imagine-- perhaps had deliberately not imagined it. Snatches of it had passed through her mind unbidden, both in dreams and in waking: she would bravely defeat some cowering creature, or some manic one, irradiated with moonlight, that needed putting down. A beast deserving of killing, not this eight-foot-tall angel.
"For I know you - a lost child, frightened by wolves in the dark," said the Nightsong, pacing and ranting. Wild, frenetic, but no beast.
"Close your heart," commanded her Lady. "Strike and rise!"
She shut out all outside sensations. She closed her eyes, just for a second, clearing out her mind of fatigue, of minor doubts, of anything other than simple mechanics: she didn't remember any of her training, not explicitly, but her body did.
That allowance was enough. Memory invaded, and she remembered: the sharp edge of Lae'zel's nails in her back; some tiefling child, wide-eyed in thanks; the ache of some long healed bruise she had forgotten getting; the full moon, stark between the trees; Scratch's fur between her fingers; the aroma of roasted meat over a campfire; Lae'zel, reaching for her hand.
Amidst everything, the taste of bitter wine.
Shadowheart readjusted her grip on the spear, one more time. She swallowed, hard, and did what she knew to be right.