"Help! Help!" Bertro calling weakly, blinded by his own blood, Umbero sprawled senseless or dead over him.
Caladnei cursing just for something despairing to say as she starts to run right at the swooping wyvern with no spells left and only a broken sword in her hand, running like a mad thing into the jaws of doom because her friends need aid. . . .
[No, I'll spare you those deaths. Every bloodletting leaves a stain on those who see it. What of the death that overturned your world?]
No! No, damn you, mage! I don't WANT to-don't-
Her mother working late that last night, before the great blast that left her broken and burned amid the shattered shell of her front parlor. Magic killed her, of course, but whose? A wizard who hated her? No, someone hired to slay-but by the House of Arte-mel, or the Lathkules, or another?
Bresnoss Artemel himself had brought the tiara to her shop, ringed by eight bodyguards openly wearing Artemel livery. Its glory-rubies had been the size of Narnra's fist, even the smallest ones were as large as her thumb. They were to be recut and set in matched pairs into a navel-length pectoral.
Maerjanthra had pinned the fine chain of the pectoral up on a cloth-covered dummy to begin the task, even as word had raced through the streets that a tiara worth millions in gold had been stolen from the bechamber of House Lathkule, the finest jewelers among the nobility of Waterdeep. Then-
No! {furious turmoil, claw thrust shake} NO! I won't see this! I WON'T!
– Later, wandering alone and despairing across the pitiless rooftops, weeping and raging. The rubies gone from the shop before Narnra, flung out her windowsill by the heaving shuddering of the explosion, could even climb back inside to … to …
Get out of my head, Caladnei! Get back go away leave me!
On the rooftops months later, as that winter came stealing in with ever-colder breezes, still heartsick, still wondering: Had it been the Artemels, wanting to silence Lady Maerjanthra of the Gems so she could never reveal that the rubies had come to her in a tiara? Or the Lathkules, wanting to obliberate a long-time rival at gemcutting, perhaps thinking her the tiara-thief? Had an apprentice betrayed her mother, whispering to the Lathkules, or . . . ?
Caladnei! (sobbing anguish, blind clawing and fighting}
[My apologies, Narnra. I've known sorrow too.]
Hurrying home to Turmish on a borrowed horse after hearing the dark news, along winding upland lanes to the tiny Turmish village of Tharnadar Edge. Her mother had been born there and now was gone, lost at sea, not even any bones to bury.
Her father Thabrant, still tall but now dark-eyed, grim, uncaring. A hollow shell of a man with no vigor left in him, not even any tears. She'd cried for the both of them, arms fierce around him. He'd stood like a statue, quietly telling her he'd never trust gods again.
He told her he was going to go home to Cormyr to die. "On the smallest ship I can find, Gala, with the worst crew. I hope Talos and Umberlee take me when we're on the waves, as they did her. I'll go to their altars and curse them both before I go aboard."
No chance for either of them to say goodbye to the swift-tempered, passionate bird of a woman who'd been the hearthstone for both their lives: Maela Rynduvyn, slender, deft, and quiet-footed. Her hair russet, the same strange eyes she'd given Caladnei, dusky-skinned, most comfortable barefoot in old clothes. Drowned in a storm off Starmantle on her way to Westgate to see a long-lost sister.
Her father had held his gnarled woodcarver's hands awkwardly that day, the first time Caladnei had ever seen him do so. He'd cradled empty air as if he were carrying something precious or hoped to catch it by never looking at it but keeping always ready. He hadn't looked at the meal Caladnei had made for them both or at anything but her. She'd shivered often that night as she lay unsleeping in the dark watching him sitting by the window staring back at her-because she knew he wasn't seeing her but her mother. Only her mother.
Mage, I don't CARE about your dead mother or anything of your life! I just want this to be over and you to be out of my mind, my-my-
[Easy, Narnra. Easy. Show me the first thing that comes into your mind.]
Alone and hungry, that first winter, being passed a flagon by a man with an easy smile, slouched outside the open door of his hut in Dock Ward. It was more than wine, a fire in her belly that soothed and drove off the chill and helped her laugh. They told jokes and tales and snorted at each other's mimicry of the street merchants, and after a time Urrusk had taken her inside to swipe the flies from a half-gnawed roast goat-leg and hand it to her.
Her empty stomach had made her pounce on it and gnaw like a panther, and he'd laughed all the more, refilling her flagon often and just laughing when he fumbled with her lacings and couldn't find her belt and fell on his face against her shins.
Another man had lurched in the door and backhanded Urrusk away. "Dolt!" he'd snapped. "I hire you to lure the slaves, not ruin them!"
With a growl he'd reached up into the crowded tangle of oddments in the rafter and brought down some jangling manacles, advancing on Narnra with a glint in his eye that suggested he might continue where Urrusk had been hauled off, after he-
She fought weakly as he snatched at her wrists. His fingers were as cold and hard as stone when he caught her, and he'd lifted her like a doll toward a ring set into one wall, chuckling. Then up from behind him Urrusk had lurched, face twisted in rage, and thrust the chain of the second manacle around the larger man's throat, ere hauling hard.
The big man's eyes had bulged as he roared and tugged. Narnra had put her shoulders to the wall and kicked him between the legs, as high and as hard as she could, ending up bruisingly on her behind on the littered floor as he staggered, found a wall with his face . . . and she was out into the night like a rushing wind, running blindly with a Watch-patrol soon after her. . . .
{Fear disgust rage helpless rage revulsion}
[Narnra, be easy. You're not the only one who knew trouble in Waterdeep.]
Sweating and panting in that upper room in the house off Soothsayer's Way, where old Nathdarr ran his school of the sword better with one eye than many men can fight with two. Caladnei the only lass in the room, her desperate leaps and nimble blade-work slowly turning his contempt into grudging admiration, until the night when Marcon and Thloram burst in breathless to shout at her to flee with them-now!
While she worked to become better with steel, her companions of the Sash had run riot spending their coins in the City of Splendors. Rimardo and Vonda had foolishly tried to rob a noble, and his men had captured them and tortured them to death, forcing from them the names of all in the Brightstar Sash … as the noble's guards had jeeringly told Marcon whilst trying to impale him in a tavern, less than an hour ago.
He and Thloram had fought their way clear, with a mob on their heels and four guardsmen in livery dead, and now the Watch had joined the hounding. If she still had most of her gold, they knew where they could buy room together inside a crate being loaded onto a wagon for transport out of the city this night.
Nathdarr's look of admiration had melted back into sour disgust. He was shaking his head as they ran out the back way into the night-but when the mob came howling up to the front door of his training-room, he'd calmly put his sword through one, two, and three of them before drawing breath.
Such fun. So did you outlive all the others then come running to Cormyr to hide?
[Cruel, Narnra. I'll show you why I parted ways with the Sash. You deserve that much.]
With Thloram dead and buried in the Rift, Marcon was the only one left of the jovial band who'd plucked her up from her table at the Cracked Flagon. Oh, he'd found replacements-more blades and wizards than ever, younger and even more apt to swagger than Bertro had been-but the fun was gone. Too many sad memories, too many absent smiling faces.