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He looked down as he drew the curtains closed, raising his left arm, brow furrowed as he pulled his sleeve back to stare at the pale skin of his wrist. Every day since he had slain Sathariel, he had studied the strange scar that had been burned into his flesh, a divine sigil, some kind of angelic script that tugged at his memory and gave him only fleeting visions of the Astral Sea, flashing images of the bright and powerful gods he had once followed. They looked upon him in the visions, cold and uncaring, speaking to him though he could not hear what they said.

The bell on the front door rang downstairs, drawing his attention away from the scar, listening as footsteps crossed the bookshop floor and took the first few steps leading to his small room. They climbed the stairs slowly, as if dreading what they might find or the reaction they might garner.

Jinnaoth looked from the closed door to the foot of his bed, finding the sister symbol to the scar on his wrist glowing on the blade he had stolen from the Vigilant Order and had left embedded in the smoking armor of Sathariel atop the House of Thorne. Since then he had thrown it away dozens of times and seen it destroyed by a skilled blacksmith who was well paid for the effort.

But each time it returned to him, appearing someplace close by, occasionally returning to his hand or slipped beneath his belt, hanging ominously at his side. He had thrown it away again that morning, casting it into the sea after hearing the broadcriers at dawn, selling tales of his last night in Sea Ward, his name and description curiously absent from the printed text.

As Quessahn lightly knocked on his door, Jinn felt he was ready to accept the responsibility of the sword, though he wondered-and feared-if the eladrin would accept him along with it. He crossed the room and reached for the door, letting his actions be guided, for once, by hope.