Lord Parise Ulfbinder was among the most composed and dignified men in Shade Enclave, but the gulp and squeal that issued forth seemed more the cry of a startled child. He leaped up, his chair flying out behind him.
“A name you have mentioned before, yes?” Lady Avelyere said, grinning wider still.
“This is madness,” said Parise, rushing and stumbling around his desk to take a seat on it right before the woman. “Are you sure that you have not mentioned this name to her? Perhaps you inadvertently put her on the road to concoct this wild story!”
“I don’t know that I have ever spoken that name before, or heard it, other than in this very room.”
“But the child is magical. Perhaps she has slipped an insidious dweomer past your guards and read your thoughts.”
“That would be quite a scouring. I do not concern myself with the dark elf. I did not even recall the name until Ruqiah-until Catti-brie spoke it to me, and even then, it barely sparked recognition. It was not until she mentioned this Drizzt creature’s race that I even recalled our long-agohe had returned to Faerunanvertical-align: im conversation about Lord Draygo’s drow prisoner.”
“His lost prisoner.”
“We may find him, then, for this child is determined to find him sometime after the Year of the Awakened Sleepers. Indeed, she has fellow conspirators in this, who she intends to rejoin on the night of the spring equinox in that same year.”
“Bedine conspirators?”
Lady Avelyere shook her head.
“1484,” Lord Parise mumbled. “Five years, almost to the day.” He scratched at his goatee. “Interesting indeed.”
“What do I do?”
“Let her go!” Parise cried immediately. “And watch her, every step. We may witness a battle of Toril’s goddesses, and what a sight that will be!”
Lady Avelyere didn’t openly respond to that, but her expression spoke volumes, most of all revealing her relief.
“Why Lady,” Parise said teasingly, “you have come to love the girl.”
Lady Avelyere rocked back on her heels and considered the words. Her first impulse was to staunchly deny the accusation, but she quickly put that aside and honestly searched deep within herself. “She has such promise and skill,” she replied. “A curiosity and a hope, from her earliest days.”
“It is more than professional curiosity,” said her friend, who knew her well.
Lady Avelyere nodded.
“You think her a protege.”
“Thought,” Lady Avelyere was quick to reply, correcting the tense. “Now I understand that is impossible. Her loyalty is not to me and never has been.”
“But she has not crossed you.”
“True enough,” said Lady Avelyere. “And thus I am content to do as you say, and not to punish her for her duplicity and secret devotion to this foreign goddess.”
Parise Ulfbinder wore a sly grin, which elicited an exasperated sigh from Lady Avelyere. He was seeing right through her, of course. He recognized that she was wounded to think that this girl she had brought in and all but raised as her own might have a higher loyalty than to her and the Coven. To think that Ruqiah would walk away after all that she had done for her! And to think that Ruqiah would accept so much training, diverting the precious resources of the Coven toward one who knew that she would not remain!
So indeed there was a measure of anger within Lady Avelyere, a sense of being wronged by this girl. But more than that, she had to admit, there was sadness and disappointment. Ruqiah had been quite the project for her, and yes, quite the protege! Lady Avelyere had great affection for all of the sisters of her Coven, but none more than the curious little Bedine girl she had captured in a web years before.
It would not be easy to let her go.
Catti-brie rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and moved to the window, surprised that sunlight was streaming in. It was a west-facing window, after all, and usually remained quite dark until late in the day.
She pulled aside the sash and stared at the sun lowering in the western sky.
"The woman backed up a step and turn?” she asked to regard her unkempt bed. How could it be late in the afternoon? How could she have slept throughout the whole of the day?
She thought back to the previous night and tried to recall going to bed.
But she could not.
She tried to recall what day it was, and when she was supposed to meet again with her parents in the Desai encampment. She had a vague recollection of speaking with them recently, but that didn’t make any sense to her.
She dressed quickly, brushed her hair, and headed out, ready to apologize profusely for abandoning her duties that day.
Just a short way down the hallway, she ran into Rhyalle, who greeted her with a big smile and a gentle touch.
“Oh, but you are up!” Rhyalle said before Catti-brie could begin her apology. “We have been so worried about you.”
“I was only in my room,” Catti-brie replied hesitantly. She half turned to point back the way she had come.
“For a tenday,” Rhyalle replied. “We feared that you would never awaken, though Lady Avelyere assured us that your affliction would pass.”
“Avelyere? Affliction?” Catti-brie stammered.
“Yes, of course-oh, but you probably remember little of your fevered dreams. It was the spellscar, Lady Avelyere believes.” She grabbed Catti-brie’s arm and pulled back the sleeve, revealing the spellscar that resembled the seven stars of Mystra. “Others with such marks have suffered similar afflictions recently, from what we’ve been told. But it will pass-indeed, it has passed. You look so well!”
Catti-brie couldn’t begin to sort through all of that confusing information. One thing did leap out at her, however: The last memory that would come to her was that of her parents, in their tent. Was it there that she had fallen? And if that was the case, how had she come back to her bed in the Coven?
Catti-brie half-turned back the way she had come, then changed her mind and pushed past Rhyalle. “I must speak with Lady Avelyere,” she explained.
But Rhyalle tightened her grip on Catti-brie’s arm and held her back, then shifted to block her way.
“You need to remain in your room,” she said. “Lady Avelyere will come to you presently.”
“No, I-”
“Yes!” Rhyalle forcefully corrected. “I was coming this very moment to check in on you. Lady Avelyere has made these instructions quite clear. Come, back to your room.”
Catti-brie hesitated.
Rhyalle pushed her more forcefully. “No argument,” she insisted. “You are to await the lady in your room. You are not to leave your room until she has granted you permission.”
She pushed again and Catti-brie relented.
A few moments later, she was sitting on the edge of her bed, alone in her room, her thoughts spinning, her memories drifting in and around.
“A tenday?” she asked aloud, and she couldn’t begin to sort that out. Even her memory was playing tricks on her now-first she had thought her last memories to be of the Desai encampment, but now she wondered if those were older recollections. For it seemed now that her most recent memories were of doing her chores around the Coven and anticipating her next visitAlpirs and UntarisIanythingon to the Desai encampment. Yet even these seemed strangely removed, or had greatly receded at least.
None of it made any sense to her. Something was wrong, very wrong. She pulled back both her sleeves and looked at her scars, even running her fingers over each. Nothing seemed amiss with them.
Lady Avelyere came to her some time later, rushing to embrace her. She reiterated everything Rhyalle had told her, pausing every so often to gently kiss the young woman on the cheek and stroke her hair.
“I don’t …,” Catti-brie started to say, and she paused and shook her head. “Nothing of the last days … of the last …” She shook her head again. “Nothing makes any sense.”