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Beneath the shelter of night, when the vexing sun no longer stings her eyes, every one of his shortcomings is laid bare.
The boy knows how to hold his ground in a fight — credit where it’s due. Good reflexes. Has an instinct for turning the terrain to his advantage, and to his enemies’ ruin.
But those skills only have value here, on the surface. In the Underdark, Wyll wouldn’t last three days. Strip him of his warlock’s gifts, and Minthara wouldn’t give him three hours.
“Did battling Thorm’s underlings teach you nothing at all? A rapier is fit only for duels with your pampered nobility. How do you intend to deal with Gortash’s Steel Watch?” she grows tired of watching Wyll slash at the air again and again with that glorified needle he calls a weapon.
“Huh?” Wyll finishes his lunge and turns to face her with a dancer’s flourish. “Didn't know I had an audience.”
Minthara’s mouth twists in distaste. Posturing — that’s Wyll’s flaw. Everything about him is driven by the need to play the hero, someone who would look just as good in a ballroom as he would in the middle of some backwater, basking in the admiration of peasants for whom even a dead goblin counts as an unstoppable threat.
“An audience? Hardly. More like a witness to your embarrassment.”
“Well, it’s nice to see that you care about the impression I make, I guess.”
Wyll snorts and drags a hand across his brow, wiping away the beads of sweat. For once, the easy, good-natured smile that usually tugs at the corners of his mouth doesn’t appear. It’s not that he knows her well enough to resist trying his charms; he’s been like this since their arrival in Baldur’s Gate, an observation she made long ago. Not that she’s particularly keeping tabs on him, of course. It’s just a habit, this constant watchfulness.
“I don’t care about you, or this hero-posturing you seem so fond of. What I do care about is making sure my allies won’t falter when we face Gortash… and Orin.” A coldness coils somewhere beneath her ribs, spreading the instant that name leaves her lips; a dread Minthara fights to hold at bay, a dread that's already crawling through her body.
She stiffens for a moment. Something similar to irritation flares in her mind – she can’t let Wyll see this crack in her composure, can’t let him know how much power that name still holds over her.
“We’re up against dangerous foes,” Minthara says, each word slicing like a knife. “And we need everyone at their best to survive. Your patron is far from dependable. Learn to stand on your own, without relying on her handouts. Performative fencing won't help you there.”
“I’ve been on my own long enough,” he replies, voice steady but carrying an edge she can hear. “I can handle myself. Besides, we’re a team, and we’re in my city.” He doesn’t look away, but Minthara catches the tension in his shoulders, the way his hand trembles slightly near his rapier.
“If this is your city, then claim it back. Drop this Blade of Frontiers charade.”
Wyll’s lips quivers, half a smile, half a grimace, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“The Blade of Frontiers isn’t a charade,” he says, tone low, measured, yet charged with something she recognizes. Pride. “It’s who I am. Who I came to be.”
Minthara tilts her head slightly, letting her gaze linger, cold and unflinching. “Then you can't call this city yours.”
She expects him to snap at any moment; the devilish spark in his eye promises it. She feels the heat of his anger before it even erupts, a warning flare she can’t ignore. Mizora must have changed more than his face. One cannot bargain with a devil and walk away intact — which is why matrons in the Underdark favor consorting with tanar'ri rather than baatezu, choosing a fury they can command over debts they cannot repay.
A faintly predatory smile curls on her lips, a smile that has greeted many pathetic men in Menzoberranzan, and beyond, in the final moments of their excuse for a life.
But Wyll just… sighs.
“Perhaps you’re right. This isn’t my city anymore.”
He turns away with the same dancer’s grace and resumes his fencing drills.
Now it’s her who feels anger. What does this man take himself for, turning away from her like that?
For a second, she considers caving his skull in with her mace. In the long run, it would be even merciful for him, and for everyone forced to rely on him. Instead, she leaves out a sigh and walks closer to him.
“You’re wasting time and effort on nothing,” she says coolly. “Who are you training to fight? An imaginary enemy? Try lunging at me at least.”
He looks genuinely taken aback, surprise flickering across his face before giving way to suspicion.
“Why do I feel like I’m about to sign another contract with a devil?”
Her answer is the strike of her mace.
Wyll leaps back, then laughs, flashes her a roguish grin, and inclines into a bow.
He never truly gets at her, of course, yet the heat of the moment makes her red-rimmed eyes flare brighter, and her blood surge faster.
The night slips away faster than she wants it to.
Raphael's House of Hope is a staggering disappointment, almost an insult to the very idea of hell. If all of Baator were like this, mortals would have nothing left to fear in the afterlife. Minthara scoffs every time they meet a lost soul in the hallways. How miserable must a life have been to end up in an even more miserable place, in the grasp of the most insignificant cambion to ever exist?
She still recognizes Raphael as a serious threat, of course, but the image of a mighty, cunning being crumbles the moment they cross the threshold of his so-called haven. Everything here screams of a vain, pitiful creature, desperate to prove its worth — and doomed to fail every single time.
Minthara isn’t the only one to think this way; nearly everyone seems a little more energized the moment they slain Raphael's incubus.
Wyll, however, is a whole different matter.
He's several steps behind their group, lingering near one of the windows, looking far, far away.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Minthara appears at his side in an instant, straightforward as always. “We need to move, and move fast. If you’ve chosen this moment to reconsider your life choices, you’ve picked the worst possible time and the worst possible place.”
She looks in the same direction as he does. Before them stretches an endless wasteland of red and rust, split by rivers of fire. Not only the ground but the very sky burns, and Minthara feels her head spin slightly at the sheer spectacle.
Something stirs — far, far from the House of Hope — yet a ripple of unease reaches them, as if they stand on the verge of something immense and unavoidable.
“The Blood War,” Wyll says quietly, almost to himself. “Raphael chose his hideout well, far from the fighting. But he could still watch if he wanted. Looks like there’s a group of lemures near… the shores of Styx, I think.”
Minthara notices them too — a writhing mass of molten flesh moving sluggishly across Avernus’ wasteland.
“Why bother paying attention to these abominations?”
“Karlach must never end up in a place like this again.”
Minthara stares at him. She thought Wyll was lost in thoughts of his own fate, silently weighing what his soul might cost when the time comes to leave this world — and whether it will be dark enough to become one of those formless, writhing heaps of meat.
But his mind isn’t on himself. He thinks of Karlach, who isn’t even here with them today.
“Why would she?”
“If what I’ve heard about Zariel is true, and I've heard a lot, there’s little hope we can fix her engine. And if we can’t…” He lets the words hang, leaving the rest unsaid.
“I doubt she needs your pity.”
“Oh, she certainly doesn’t.” Wyll’s voice is warm, almost gentle, and for the first time, Minthara doesn't want to mock or contradict him.
“She's strong enough to endure. Even Avernus won't have a hold over her.”
“No argument there. But still, the very possibility saddens me. Strong people don't deserve just to endure,” He pulls his gaze from the window, from the endless rivers of fire and the chaos of the Blood War, and locks with hers. Her eyes, red and burning like the very sky of Avernus, meet his. “Strong people deserve to be happy."
Minthara finds herself with no reply.
It doesn’t surprise her when he chooses to follow Karlach into Avernus. There’s an instinct, a foreboding, that he’ll be reckless enough to perform one last heroic act — not for a lover, not for a relative, but simply for a friend. Friendship still feels like a foreign concept to her, yet by the end of their war with Absolute, she has come to understand it, at least a little. So Minthara bids him farewell with a nod and doesn’t expect to see Wyll ever, ever again.
There are no miracles in the world; she knows that well enough.
And… it’s a pity. Minthara would have liked to witness at least one miracle in her long, very long lifetime — a lifetime with too many wars and too few reasons to hope. Too many losses, too many moments when the world, and the gods, and their chosen ones seemed determined to crush even the strongest.
So it does surprise her when she agrees to go to that party, it does surprise her that these friendships can actually work out; it does surprise her when she sees a blazing portal open and two figures step out; and it most definitely does surprise her when she looks Wyll straight in the eyes, delivers all her thoughts on his foolishness in a single glare, and kisses him so fiercely that he staggers back a step, caught entirely off guard.
Of course, that earns a smirk on her lips, and for the first time in a long while, the day finally feels good.