"Where is Shaera?" Varan said.
"Burnt on a pyre," replied Meisha. "She rests in the Climb alone." Her voice turned deadly. "I think one of us should join her."
"Do you want it to be you, Meisha?" Varan asked sadly. "Because it will be, if you persist in this. Powerful as you are, you are overwhelmed by grief and exhaustion."
"This is all because of your discovery!" Meisha spat. "Whatever great treasure lies buried beneath our feet that's more important than the lives of your charges!"
"I don't expect you to comprehend it, Meisha," Varan said, "but I thought you at least understood my own nature. I told you I was selfish. My Art is the only thing that brings me joy. You, the other elementalists, are a means to that end. I have no interest in being a father to any of you. The choices you make in the world are yours. The consequences of this, you alone will bear."
He stepped back, dropping the barrier. Moisture sizzled on the tunnel walls.
"Make your choice, Meisha," he offered her. "Use me—as I am using you—to learn what you can, and all Faer?n will be open to you. Or hurl your fire, and I will strike you down, grieve for a day at the horrendous waste of potential, and go back to work." His voice was harsh. "What will it be?"
Meisha's eyes leaked tears that evaporated almost immediately on her cheeks. She closed her eyes and let out a strangled, miserable scream that echoed off the cave walls. Her head snapped back, and she poured her power into the ground. Still, there was no visible flame, but the stone at her feet bubbled, burning through the soles of her boots. The release of power wracked her body; her neck muscles pulled taut.
Varan watched her until gradually the convulsions diminished and ceased. She pitched forward, senseless.
* * * * *
Jonal told her later that Varan had gone down the Climb to retrieve Shaera's ashes.
He kept a spell lock—his personal sigil—on Meisha's door during her long recovery. At Varan's behest, the water elementalist tended her basic needs, but left her chamber as soon as he could.
If the apprentices had not been sufficiently afraid of her before, they were certainly terrified now, Meisha realized.
Shaera had been the only one among them not truly frightened by her power.
When she'd healed enough, she went to Varan.
"Where will you go?" her master asked.
He stood in his workroom, as usual. Meisha stood in the doorway. She refused to enter the room ever again.
"To the Harpers," she said.
"An interesting choice." Varan had cleared the walls of magical writing. The room glowed with torchlight. "Much like wizards, the Harpers are not well thought of in Amn. You'll find them eager to take you, if you can find them, though I wonder if they will understand you as I do."
"I don't see how that matters," Meisha said. Her face was expressionless.
"Perhaps it does not. They may be able to give you what I could not, and that may be enough." He walked to the doorway, and might have touched her, but Meisha stepped back, a warning shining in her eyes.
Varan sighed. "You must let me say good-bye, firebird, and give you some words of caution. If you let the fire consume you, or use it to lash out, the Harpers will never take you. My promise to you stands. You have a home here for as long as you need it. You have my ring," he said, looking at her hand.
Meisha closed her fingers into a fist. The gold band pressed into her skin. She'd considered leaving it behind, and part of her wondered why she still wore it at all. She would never return to the Delve, even if the Harpers forsook her, and no matter how badly she might need Varan's sanctuary.
"Farewell, Master," she said.
"Good luck, Meisha Saira." The wizard smiled at her, the same affectionate smile she remembered adoring as a child.
Even now, the smile affected her, made her think he actually cared about her and her future.
Meisha forced herself to turn away, and she didn't look back as he chanted the spell that would send her back into the sunlight.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Amn
1 Marpenoth, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)
Meisha listened to the rush of the river Vudlur beneath her feet and watched the man stride up the western bulge of the Star Bridge.
He wore tarnished chain mail and a plain but well-kept tunic of mud-brown, with gauntlets and a studded belt to match. Standing easily at six feet, he had broad, muscled shoulders. His hair and mustache were bronze; his skin burned Calishite dark, but his blue eyes belonged in the North. Meisha knew better on both counts. Kall Morel was a son of Amn, and up until a tenday ago, Amn had believed him dead.
"Well met, Kall," she said, extending a hand.
"It's been a while, Meisha." Kall glanced at her bare fingers. "I don't think so."
The Harper smiled. "Still afraid I might burn, even after all these years?"
"Why do you think we're surrounded by water?" Kall leaned against the bridge rail. "I take it you've heard the news?"
"There's talk of little else," Meisha said. "Dhairr Morel's death shocked and saddened Amn, but she is inconsolable to learn his only son yet lives to claim his estate."
"I'm not surprised." Kall turned in the direction of distant Keczulla. "Thank you for making the journey. My father spent his last years in Keczulla. It's the only city where Morel assets survived intact, after the war."
Meisha nodded. In the years after Kall left Esmeltaran, humanoid armies led by two ogre mages—Sythillis and Cyrvisnea, allied with followers of the church of Cyric—had attacked the city and a fair portion of southern Amn. Amn's defenders—Meisha among them—hadn't been able to beat back their armies, and the port city of Murann had fallen to the new Sythillisian Empire. The cities of Esmeltaran and Imnescar had been devastated in the attack, and many of the merchant families lost their entire holdings. In the year since the war began, the humans and monsters had contrived an uneasy truce between them, but Amn had only just begun its recovery.
"You have a long road ahead," Meisha said, "if the froth at the mouths of the Bladesmile and Angathi families is any indication. From the gossip I've gathered, your father had a fair share of outstanding debts, which you've also inherited."
Kall sighed. "Judging by their eagerness, I'd say I have until Nightal to find a way to pay them."
"And what will you do once you manage this miracle?"
"I'll find Balram."
There was venom enough in those three words to fill a hundred rivers. "Yet you've found no trace of him or Aazen since before the war," said Meisha. "Thus far, they have eluded you. They could be dead, and you would never know."
"Balram's a survivor. I'll find him," Kall said. "What I need from you is information about the people who served my father at the time of his death. I don't recognize any of their names or faces."
Meisha was confused. "To my knowledge, Morel could afford little more than a skeleton household staff. They would not be a threat."
"There is also a wizard," Kall said.
Meisha snorted. "Morel, hire a wizard? In Amn? Impossible."
"His name is Syrek Dantane. He hails from Waterdeep and claims my father hired him a year ago for protection. I need to know if this is truth."
Meisha nodded slowly, considering. "Difficult, but I can try. Waterdeep is too large. The most accurate information will come from his time in Amn. Wizards are hard to hide. If he ever acted openly, someone will know of it."