“All of it,” she said more seriously to Niraj and Kavita, “the truth of the past, the truth of my arrival into your home, and the promise of the future.”
She motioned to the small table and chairs in the tent and the three sat down, Catti-brie placing Nayan on a rug right beside her chair, Kavita tossing her a bunch of plains-grass dolls Niraj had made for the child, to toy with or chew on as he chose.
And so Catti-brie somberly told her parents the truth-everything, from the details of her previous life to the journey that had led her from Mithral Hall to the divine forest of Iruladoon to Kavita’s womb. These two were not simple nomads; both were trained in the Art, and though Catti-brie noted the doubts expressed initially on their faces-surely they thought their daughter had lost her mind-she could see that she was clearly breaking down the barriers of denial. She watched as Kavita’s hand crept nearer and nearer to Niraj’s, finally clasping his hand tightly and squeezing as if to save her very sanity.
And he was no less glad of the grasp.
Catti-brie told them of her departure from the Desai, trapped and dragged to her time in Shade Enclave with Lady Avelyere and the Coven. She told them of Longsaddle and her journey to fulfill her promise to Mielikki and go to Drizzt, her drow husband-which raised a few eyebrows-on Kelvin’s Cairn. She told them of the war in the west, the Silver Marches.
She told them of Gauntlgrym, of her other father who was now king, of her current quest to rebuild the Hosttower of the Arcane, and the mission that had brought her back to their side.
She finished and leaned forward, placing a hand on the knee of each. “Every word I told you was the truth. You deserve that much at least from me.”
Kavita nodded, but Niraj just sat there staring blankly, trying to digest the amazing story.
For a long while, they sat in silence, other than when Nayan found something particularly amusing or tasty.
“The Netherese remain in the hills below where Shade Enclave once floated,” Niraj confirmed for her, finally.
“You cannot go to them,” said Kavita, shaking her head. “The war is over, but they are no friend to Desai. They will throw you in shackles and use you-”
“I go with the imprimatur of a very powerful friend, who is allied with Lord Parise Ulfbinder,” Catti-brie replied. “An urgent request the Netherese lord will not ignore, and so he will not dare threaten me in any way.”
“You cannot know!” Kavita retorted, but Niraj put his hand on her leg and nodded comfortingly to the rightly-worried mother.
“Perhaps our little Ruqiah has earned our trust,” he said.
Kavita looked into Catti-brie’s eyes. “Our little Ruqiah,” she echoed in a whisper. “Can we even call you that?”
“Of course you can,” said Catti-brie, grinning happily, but that smile did not charm Kavita.
“A mother wishes to pass on wisdom to her child,” she said. “A mother hopes to give to her child all she will need to be happy in life. How can I call you my Ruqiah? You needed nothing from me other than nourishment in your earliest years. You needed none of my wisdom or experience. It seems that your life-both your lives-were more filled with experience than my own.”
Catti-brie shook her head through every word.
“I wish you were my Ruqiah,” Kavita finished. She lowered her head and Niraj grabbed her close.
“You are wrong,” Catti-brie flatly declared. “I thought the same thing, even when I was leaving you. I was grateful-how could I not be?-but I, too, saw this life here with you as a stopover, and feared in my own heart that you, that you both, were no more than innkeepers along the road of my journey.”
She could see from Niraj’s shocked expression and from Kavita’s bobbing shoulders that her honesty stung them, but she pressed on.
“But now I know I was wrong,” she said. “I knew it from the moment I returned to this land on a separate matter, not so long ago, and now again that I have come back. I knew it without doubt when I looked upon Niraj, my father, and upon you, my mother, and upon my baby brother.”
Kavita looked up and stared into her eyes.
“There was little you could teach me about being an adult, true,” Catti-brie went on, and she gave a little laugh. “Even then as your infant, I was older than you by two decades! But being a parent, being a family, is much more than simple education. What you gave to me was your love. Even when I put you in danger, were your thoughts anywhere but upon my safety?”
The two Desai looked at each other, then back to Catti-brie.
“I carried that with me, that knowledge that somewhere out there were two people who would forgive me, no matter my actions, who would love me, who would do anything for me. That was my crutch and my armor. Those feelings, so deep and so true, helped me more than you can imagine on those dark and difficult stretches of my journey.
“And now my joy at the victories my friends and I have achieved is tenfold because I have shared it with you. And now my quest, as difficult as anything I have ever tried to do in my life-in both of my lives!-is easier. Because I know that even if I fail, you will be here for me, loving me. Not judging, but helping. I cannot tell you how important that is to me. My steps are so much lighter … I go to Shade Enclave unafraid. I return to the Hosttower’s ruins confident. I am not afraid of failure because I know you are here.”
The tears flowed freely, from all three, and the hugs lasted a long, long while.
Then it was Kavita and Niraj’s turn to tell Catti-brie about the war on the plains of Netheril, of how they fought side by side, adding their sorcery to the sheer grit and muscle of the proud and fierce Desai.
Catti-brie was horrified to learn that the two had battled the same Lady Avelyere in a contest of fireballs and lightning bolts. Avelyere was much more accomplished in the ways of the Weave, Catti-brie was certain, but Avelyere’s principal studies were on the arts of deception and clever diplomacy.
The auburn-haired woman found herself breathing an audible sigh of relief to learn that Avelyere, too, had left that field very much alive-and Catti-brie hoped that was still true.
Her reaction caught her parents off guard.
“She was kind to me,” Catti-brie explained. “And she did not kill you when I fled her coven, though under Netherese law, she could have. Perhaps there is some good in our enemies-in some at least.”
“I don’t know if she lives or if she perished in the war,” Niraj said.
“That battle was early on, in the first attack by the Netherese,” said Kavita. “Long before Shade Enclave fell from the sky.”
“I hope she is alive and well,” Catti-brie admitted. “And I hope that my hope is not troubling to you.”
“The war is over,” said Kavita. “Neither side is unburned in a simmering pot.”
The sheer generosity of that remark had Catti-brie smiling yet again.
“So be it, but I fear you going there,” said Niraj.
Catti-brie nodded, understanding his sincere concern. “I am a capable priestess and sorcerer,” she said with a wry grin. “And I’ve been trained to fight by the most capable warriors in the land. You should witness the spectacle of my drow husband wielding his twin scimitars!
“But I’ll need none of that. I come with a message from-”
“Yes, yes,” Niraj interrupted.
“A drow husband …” Kavita whispered, and shook her head.
“He is as fine a man as I have ever …” Catti-brie started, but Kavita stopped her with an upraised hand.
“If he makes you happy, then he makes me happy,” she said. “But it is beyond my understanding!”
“You will meet him and your understanding will change,” Catti-brie assured her. “And your expectations, too, I expect.”
“This does not change the fears I hold for you going back to the Netherese,” Niraj said.
“Find the finest warrior in the tribe and send him to me, and I will leave him sprawling in the mud,” Catti-brie replied.