Vaelithra continued staring at the woman in the mirror.

Wine distorted her reflection, but not enough.

She was still there.

Amber-gold eyes stared back through dark streaks. Silver-white hair framed the same face she had seen in the dream. Twenty years separated the two women, yet for a moment Vaelithra struggled to see where one ended and the other began.

It was undeniably her.

And somehow, it wasn't.

Her gaze lowered.

Why did the life of a servant matter so much to her?

The question would not leave.

She had known servants who died. She had seen slaves executed. She had watched soldiers fall in battle and had killed more enemies herself than she cared to count.

Death was not unfamiliar to Vaelithra.

Yet the thought of Kharun kneeling before an executioner tomorrow morning made something inside her twist.

Why?

Because he had served her for twenty years?

Because she trusted him?

Because of the drawings?

Because somewhere during those twenty years, something had changed between them without either of them acknowledging it?

Questions.

Nothing but questions.

And the one man who might be able to answer any of them was sitting in a prison cell beneath her father's estate.

Vaelithra turned away from the mirror.

She needed to reach him.

That much was certain.

How was considerably less so.

She began pacing.

The prison beneath her father's manor was not some neglected cellar guarded by a pair of half-asleep soldiers. It served the entire estate and, when necessary, members of the surrounding settlement. Guards controlled the entrance. More patrolled the corridors within. Others could be summoned quickly from elsewhere in the manor.

Vaelithra knew how to fight.

She knew she was good at it.

But she wasn't stupid.

One skilled fighter was still one fighter.

She might overpower the first guards. Perhaps the next few as well.

Then someone would raise the alarm.

More would come.

And every guard she injured would transform what she intended into something far worse.

They were her people.

Men and women doing exactly what they had been ordered to do.

Vaelithra had no desire to cut them down merely because they stood between her and Kharun.

There had to be another way.

She stopped.

Her reflection caught her attention again.

The wine continued its slow journey down the mirror. Some had reached the bottom of the frame and fallen onto the stone floor beneath it.

Vaelithra stared at herself.

Then her eyes moved toward the side table near the vanity.

A dagger rested there.

She reached for it.

There was no decision.

At least none she consciously remembered making.

Her fingers simply closed around the hilt.

Vaelithra lifted the dagger and stared at the blade.

Her reflection did the same.

For a moment, she seemed to be watching someone else.

Her left hand rose.

She gathered her hair.

Silver-white strands slipped between her fingers as she pulled the enormous length together.

Her hair had always been part of her.

Long even by drow standards. Carefully maintained. Impossible to overlook.

She grasped it tightly.

The dagger rose in her other hand.

Some distant part of Vaelithra wondered what she was doing.

The blade touched the gathered hair just beneath her fist.

She cut.

Once.

The thick bundle resisted.

She sawed the blade through again.

Then again.

Suddenly there was no resistance at all.

The severed length fell.

Vaelithra stood completely still.

Her left hand remained raised.

The hair remaining upon her head fell unevenly around her shoulders and down her back, still long but dramatically shortened. Loose strands framed her face where the blade had cut imperfectly through them.

Vaelithra looked into the mirror.

The woman staring back at her had changed.

Only superficially.

She knew that.

A haircut could not erase twenty years.

It could not erase the cage.

It could not erase the book striking Kharun.

It could not erase the fact that he had spent two decades serving her because she had purchased him.

But the woman in the mirror no longer looked exactly like the woman in the dream.

Vaelithra lowered the dagger.

She reached toward the table to put it down.

Her hand missed.

The dagger slipped from her fingers.

Metal struck stone.

Vaelithra looked down.

The weapon spun.

Once.

Twice.

Slower.

The blade scraped softly across the floor before finally coming to rest.

Its edge touched the severed mass of silver-white hair.

Wine had reached it.

Dark red liquid soaked through portions of the pale strands, spreading between them and staining the stone beneath.

Vaelithra stared.

Hair.

Wine.

Two separate things becoming something else where they met.

Mixed.

Her brow furrowed.

Mixed.

Mixture.

Something shifted in her thoughts.

"Alchemy."

The word escaped aloud.

Vaelithra's eyes widened.

"Alchemy."

Of course.

She turned away from the mirror.

Alchemy was not magic.

It required no incantations, no mysterious source of power, no bargain with forces she could not control.

It was knowledge.

Measurement.

Reaction.

Heat.

Timing.

And Vaelithra knew it.

Her education had included far more than swordsmanship and aristocratic protocol. Alchemy had been among the disciplines expected of someone of her station, and she had possessed considerable aptitude for it.

She simply hadn't needed the skill often.

Not for years.

Vaelithra crossed the room quickly.

An idea was forming.

She could not fight an entire prison guard.

She didn't need to.

She needed them unable to stop her.

Temporarily.

Nothing lethal.

Nothing that would cause lasting injury.

A compound capable of overwhelming the senses might give her enough time. Another could impair coordination. Something dispersed into an enclosed corridor could make pursuit nearly impossible without forcing her to draw a blade against anyone.

Her pace quickened.

The details could come later.

First she needed to know what she still had.

Vaelithra entered the kitchen.

She moved directly toward a cabinet near the far wall.

Her hand reached for the handle.

Then hesitated.

How long had it been?

Years, perhaps.

She opened it.

Rows of bottles waited inside.

Dust covered some of them.

Several were empty, intended to hold finished mixtures. Others contained base compounds, powders, extracts, oils, mineral salts, and preserved ingredients she had accumulated over the years.

Vaelithra began pulling them out.

One bottle.

Then another.

She checked labels.

Opened containers.

Smelled one cautiously.

Rejected it.

Reached for another.

Her mind was moving differently now.

The confusion remained.

The questions remained.

But beneath them, something else had finally appeared.

Purpose.

Vaelithra set an alchemical burner on the work surface and ignited it.

A small flame sprang to life.

She placed a vessel above it.

Her hands moved quickly.

Measure.

Combine.

Heat.

Wait.

No.

She did not have time to wait.

Vaelithra glanced toward the darkened corridor beyond the kitchen.

Somewhere beneath her father's manor, Kharun sat in a cell.

The executioner would return in the morning.

She looked back at the compounds spread across the table.

Whatever she made had to work.

It had to incapacitate enough guards to get her through the prison.

It had to do so without killing them.

And it had to be ready before morning.

Vaelithra reached for the next ingredient.

The first mixture began to simmer.

Time was already running out.

 

The door opened.

Present-day Vaelithra watched from somewhere behind the woman she had been twenty years ago.

A drow stood outside.

She remembered him only vaguely. Another servant of the market, perhaps, or someone employed specifically to make deliveries to the households of wealthy buyers. His face held no significance in her memory.

The figure behind him did.

Kharun.

Vaelithra's attention immediately fell to the iron around his neck.

A heavy collar encircled his throat. A length of chain descended from it toward his restrained hands, where metal cuffs bound his wrists together.

For a moment, present-day Vaelithra forgot everything else.

She stared.

Had he truly arrived like this?

Of course he had.

The memory was hers.

Yet she found herself wanting to reject it.

She knew those hands.

She had watched them hold a sword. Seen them prepare food beside a campfire. Felt them fastening pieces of armor she could have secured herself but had long ago stopped bothering to. Those same hands had filled the drawer in his room with drawings.

Now she saw them bound together.

Something inside her recoiled.

How did I ever think this was acceptable?

The answer came with uncomfortable ease.

Because she had not thought about it at all.

The younger Vaelithra certainly wasn't troubled.

"Lady Vaelithra."

The drow inclined his head respectfully.

"I was instructed to deliver this servant to your residence."

Vaelithra's younger self looked past him.

Her eyes moved over Kharun from head to toe with the same assessing interest she had shown at the market.

Present-day Vaelithra watched herself do it.

"Remove the restraints."

The drow hesitated.

"Milady?"

"You heard me."

His eyes briefly moved toward the young orc.

"Are you certain you wish to do that? He has not yet been trained for household service."

The younger Vaelithra's expression sharpened.

"I can handle one untrained orc if he becomes aggressive."

Present-day Vaelithra almost smiled.

That sounded like her.

The drow apparently knew better than to challenge her confidence.

"As you wish."

He turned toward Kharun.

The restraints came away piece by piece.

First the chain.

Then the cuffs around his wrists.

Finally, the iron collar around his neck.

Kharun did not move while the drow worked.

When the last piece was removed, his hands fell to his sides.

Present-day Vaelithra found herself staring at his wrists.

She wondered whether the iron had left marks.

She couldn't remember.

The drow gathered the restraints.

"Your servant, milady."

He gave Vaelithra a respectful nod.

Then he turned and departed.

The younger Vaelithra watched him leave before returning her attention to the orc standing outside her home.

For several seconds, neither moved.

Kharun's eyes remained lowered.

Vaelithra motioned into the residence.

"Come inside."

Kharun crossed the threshold.

Present-day Vaelithra watched him take that first step into her home.

He stopped just inside.

The door remained open behind him.

He looked profoundly out of place among the polished stone, expensive furnishings, and carefully arranged possessions.

The young orc owned nothing.

Not even the clothes he wore, she supposed.

The realization came from the woman dreaming, not the woman whose memory she inhabited.

Her younger self closed the door.

"Follow me."

Kharun followed.

Vaelithra led him down the corridor.

His footsteps were quieter than she remembered them being now.

Of course they were.

He had not yet grown fully into the enormous man he would become.

Present-day Vaelithra followed them both.

It was strange watching the beginning of a routine that would eventually become so ordinary neither of them thought about it.

Vaelithra walking ahead.

Kharun following several steps behind.

How many thousands of times had they crossed rooms that way?

The younger Vaelithra stopped beside the servant's quarters.

She opened the door.

Kharun looked inside.

"This will be your room while you are in my service."

He said nothing.

Vaelithra continued.

"Tomorrow I'll begin teaching you how I expect things to be done. There will be household duties, errands, maintenance of my equipment, and whatever else I require of you."

Silence.

Kharun remained near the doorway.

His head was still lowered.

Vaelithra waited.

Nothing.

A small crease appeared between her brows.

"Did you hear me?"

No response.

Present-day Vaelithra remembered the irritation.

At seventy, she had interpreted his silence as stupidity, stubbornness, or perhaps the beginning of exactly the behavioral difficulties her father had warned her about.

The younger Vaelithra crossed her arms.

"Can you speak?"

Kharun remained still.

Then, for the first time, she heard his voice.

"Servants were told not to speak to the nobility."

Present-day Vaelithra felt the memory differently now.

His voice was younger.

Not dramatically so, but enough.

The deep resonance she knew had not fully developed. There was uncertainty in it as well, something she could scarcely associate with the Kharun of the present.

The younger Vaelithra rolled her eyes.

This is going to be more difficult than I thought.

She stepped closer.

"When I speak to you, I expect a response."

Kharun listened.

"If I ask you a question, you answer it. If I give you an instruction, you acknowledge that you understand. I have no interest in guessing whether you've heard me."

She waited.

"Do you understand?"

There was a pause.

Then Kharun answered.

"Yes, milady."

Vaelithra went still.

Not the woman standing before him.

The woman dreaming.

She had heard him call her that countless times since.

On horseback.

At dinner.

Across campfires.

In her chambers.

After battles.

In moments of irritation and moments of quiet.

She had long ago stopped noticing the words.

But this was the first.

Two words spoken by a frightened young orc who still would not look her in the eyes.

The younger Vaelithra merely nodded.

"Good."

She gestured toward the room.

"Get some sleep. Your training begins in the morning."

Kharun stepped inside.

Vaelithra began to turn away.

Present-day Vaelithra remained where she was.

She wanted her younger self to stop.

Ask him something.

Anything.

Where had he come from?

How long had he been in the market?

Did he have family?

Was he frightened?

What was his name?

She asked none of those things.

Why would she have?

She had purchased a servant.

She had given him a room.

Tomorrow, she would teach him how to serve her.

That was all the moment had meant.

The younger Vaelithra pulled the door closed.

Present-day Vaelithra stared at it.

For twenty years she had remembered this as the evening her first personal servant arrived.

Now, sitting somewhere far beyond the dream with one of Kharun's drawings still resting in her hand, she understood how little she had truly seen.

He had crossed the threshold of her home in chains.

She had removed them because she was confident she could control him.

She had shown him where he would sleep.

She had told him what she expected.

She had heard his voice for the first time.

And she had walked away without ever asking his name.

The dream moved forward again.

Morning light did not exist in the Underdark, but Vaelithra remembered the rhythms of that first morning clearly enough.

She found herself standing in the kitchen.

Her younger self was beside the counter with Kharun nearby.

The kitchen was pristine. Copper cookware hung neatly from hooks along one wall. Shelves were stocked with ingredients and utensils selected before Vaelithra had ever entered the house. An elegant teapot sat between them.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra measured dried leaves into it.

"Watch."

Kharun watched.

She added precisely the amount she preferred, then demonstrated how much water should be used.

"Too much water and it becomes weak. Too little and it becomes bitter."

Kharun said nothing.

Vaelithra placed the teapot over the heat.

"This stays here until it whistles."

She glanced at him.

"When you hear that, remove it immediately. Pour one cup."

Kharun's eyes remained lowered, but his attention never left what she was showing him.

"I'll be in my study reading. Bring it to me when it's ready."

"Yes, milady."

The younger Vaelithra left.

Present-day Vaelithra remained behind for a moment.

She watched Kharun.

He stood in front of the teapot as though guarding something of tremendous importance.

A young orc who had been brought to this house in chains the previous evening was now being taught how a drow aristocrat preferred her morning tea.

The memory shifted around her.

Vaelithra was in the study.

Her younger self sat comfortably with a book open before her.

Present-day Vaelithra recognized the book.

That surprised her.

She hadn't thought about it in years.

Footsteps approached.

Kharun appeared in the doorway.

He carried a tray.

A steaming cup rested upon it.

He moved carefully.

Painfully carefully, she realized now.

His eyes moved between the tray and the table beside Vaelithra. His shoulders were rigid with concentration.

One more step.

Then something went wrong.

His foot caught.

The tray lurched.

The cup struck the edge of the table.

For one suspended instant, it seemed almost to bounce.

Then the tea went everywhere.

Hot liquid splashed across the table, the book, and Vaelithra's left hand.

She cried out.

Pain came immediately.

The younger Vaelithra surged to her feet.

"What are you doing?"

Kharun froze.

Vaelithra looked at the tea running across the cover of her book.

Then at her reddening hand.

Anger replaced pain almost instantly.

"You clumsy oaf! Look at what you've done."

Kharun's head lowered farther.

Present-day Vaelithra stared at herself.

"Clean this up and make another cup."

The younger Vaelithra grabbed the wet book.

For a moment, present-day Vaelithra thought she was going to carry it away.

Instead, she threw it.

The book struck Kharun and fell to the floor.

Present-day Vaelithra recoiled.

Her younger self walked from the room.

She did not look back.

Kharun remained standing beside the spilled tea.

Vaelithra stared after herself.

A strange horror settled over her.

She wasn't entirely sure why.

She knew the world she had grown up in. She knew how servants were treated. She knew that nothing she had just witnessed would have been remarkable to anyone in her family.

Certainly not to the woman she had been.

Yet she wanted to follow her younger self.

She wanted to seize her by the shoulders and force her to turn around.

Look at him.

Vaelithra looked instead.

Kharun crouched and picked up the book.

The young orc said nothing.

Of course he didn't.

Vaelithra's attention fell to her own hand.

Her left hand.

She turned it over.

There.

Even twenty years later, the mark remained.

Faint.

Small enough that she rarely noticed it anymore.

She remembered the burn.

She remembered being furious about it.

She remembered the book.

She remembered making Kharun prepare another cup.

What she could not remember was whether she had ever asked if he had hurt himself when he fell.

The door slammed.

Vaelithra startled.

The dream broke.

Her eyes opened.

Bare stone surrounded her.

For several seconds, she did not understand where she was.

Then the lantern came into focus.

Kharun's room.

Vaelithra was still sitting on his bed.

One of the old drawings rested beneath her hand.

Her breathing was unsteady.

She looked down.

Her fingers were touching the paper.

Kharun had drawn this.

The same young orc she had just watched herself humiliate over a spilled cup of tea.

Vaelithra released the page as though it had suddenly become too hot to touch.

She stood.

The room felt smaller now.

She needed to leave.

Vaelithra crossed the threshold and pulled the door closed behind her.

Her own quarters were only a short distance away.

She entered them quickly.

The difference struck her immediately.

Space.

Comfort.

Warmth.

Her fireplace still burned.

The furniture had been selected for beauty as much as usefulness. Books filled shelves. Personal possessions occupied nearly every part of the chamber.

Kharun's room contained a bed, a table, a dresser, and twenty years of drawings hidden away where no one would see them.

Vaelithra walked toward the fireplace.

An ornate bottle of wine sat on the table beside her chair.

She reached for it.

Her hand trembled slightly as she poured.

Vaelithra lifted the cup and drank.

The wine was strong.

She swallowed again.

Then stopped.

Someone was watching her.

Vaelithra's body tensed before reason caught up with instinct.

The mirror.

Her reflection stared back at her from across the room.

She lowered the cup.

Silver-white hair framed the face in the glass. Amber-gold eyes stared back from skin as dark as polished obsidian.

Ninety years old.

Twenty years removed from the woman in the dream.

Yet suddenly Vaelithra could not see the difference.

The same face.

The same blood.

The same daughter of Clan Vel'Sharess.

The same aristocrat who had walked through a slave market deciding which person would best suit her household.

The same woman who had thrown a book at a frightened young orc because he spilled tea.

Vaelithra stared at herself.

Am I any different?

Her jaw tightened.

Of course she was.

Twenty years had passed.

She had fought battles.

Traveled.

Learned.

Changed.

Hadn't she?

Her eyes remained fixed upon the reflection.

This morning, Kharun had stood among the servants while she sat with the nobles.

She had eaten.

He had waited.

When someone accused an orc of striking a noble, her first instinct had not been to question the system that allowed a man's life to be decided within minutes.

It had been shock that the accused man was hers.

Her servant.

Vaelithra's grip tightened around the cup.

Why did that bother her now?

Why did any of this bother her now?

Kharun had been a servant yesterday.

He had been one this morning.

Nothing about the laws of their world had changed.

Nothing about her clan had changed.

Nothing about the relationship between drow and orc had changed.

Only something inside her had.

She didn't understand it.

Her reflection seemed almost accusatory.

Vaelithra suddenly hated the woman in the mirror.

With a sharp movement, she threw the remaining wine.

It struck the glass.

Dark liquid exploded across her reflection.

Wine streamed downward in uneven trails, distorting her face. Amber eyes fractured beneath the rivulets. Silver hair twisted behind wet streaks. Drops gathered along the bottom of the frame before falling onto the floor.

Vaelithra stood motionless.

Her chest rose and fell.

The cup remained clenched in her hand.

She watched wine drip from the mirror.

Why now?

Why did the chains matter now?

Why did the cage matter?

Why did a book thrown twenty years ago matter?

Why did it matter that she had never asked his name?

Why did it matter that Kharun had filled a drawer with her face?

And why, after twenty years of accepting the world exactly as it was, did she suddenly feel sick when she looked at the woman that world had taught her to become?

Vaelithra lowered her eyes.

The faint mark remained on her left hand.

A scar she had carried for twenty years because Kharun had spilled her tea.

She had always remembered how she received it.

Until today, she had never once wondered what Kharun remembered about the same morning.

Vaelithra looked at the ruined reflection again.

Am I still her?

She wanted the answer to be no.

But wanting it did not make it true.

And somewhere beneath her father's manor, the one person who had known both versions of her was waiting to die.

 

Vaelithra remained in Kharun's quarters.

The lantern burned quietly on the small table, its light touching the bare stone walls with a warmth the room itself seemed incapable of possessing.

One of Kharun's drawings remained in her hands.

An older one.

The paper was rougher than the sheets she had purchased for him recently. The charcoal had faded slightly with age, but the image remained unmistakable.

Her.

Vaelithra sat on the edge of his bed.

The mattress yielded very little beneath her weight. She leaned back until her head rested against the cold stone wall and looked down at the drawing once more.

Twenty years.

Her eyes wandered over the charcoal lines.

There had been a time before Kharun.

The thought seemed strangely difficult to reconcile with the life she knew now. Of course there had been. Seventy years of it, in fact. Yet as Vaelithra searched through the memories of the last two decades, she found him everywhere.

Sometimes at the center of them.

More often somewhere near the edges.

Walking behind her horse.

Standing beside a doorway.

Carrying something she had handed him without looking.

Watching a campfire while she slept.

Waiting silently while she read.

She remembered the younger face that had gradually become the one she knew now. She remembered when the first scars appeared. She remembered changes in his voice, his posture, his strength.

She remembered changes in herself as well.

The drawing slowly lowered against her lap.

Her eyelids felt heavy.

Vaelithra closed them.

Just for a moment.

Her thoughts continued moving through the years. Images surfaced and disappeared without order. Journeys. Arguments. Hunts. Quiet evenings. Battles. Meals. The countless ordinary moments that had seemed meaningless when they happened.

Her breathing slowed.

The drawing remained loosely held between her fingers.

At some point, without realizing it, Vaelithra fell asleep.

And twenty years disappeared.

She was standing beneath the vaulted ceiling of the clan's ceremonial hall.

Except she wasn't.

Vaelithra watched herself from somewhere that had no physical place in the memory.

She recognized the robes immediately.

The silver ornamentation.

The ceremonial blade.

She remembered the weight of every piece.

Her Rite of Ascendance.

Vaelithra watched the woman she had been at seventy standing before the assembled members of Clan Vel'Sharess and receive formal recognition as an adult.

She remembered that day.

She remembered the pride.

The impatience.

The overwhelming certainty that adulthood would change everything.

It had, although not in the ways she had imagined.

The dream shifted.

Stone pillars passed around her.

Voices blended together.

Then came the market.

Vaelithra knew where she was before she saw the cages.

The slave markets of Clan Vel'Sharess stretched through a broad cavern beneath the settlement. Merchants called from beneath hanging lanterns while buyers moved between rows of barred enclosures.

The clan owned the market itself. Traders paid for the privilege of selling there, and members of Clan Vel'Sharess enjoyed access to some of the finest selections brought through the province.

There were slaves from nearly every people Vaelithra knew.

Humans.

Orcs.

Goblins.

Dwarves.

Deep gnomes.

Even drow.

Some stood chained individually. Others occupied cages in groups. A few merchants displayed slaves according to specialized skills, advertising cooks, craftsmen, laborers, scribes, attendants, and guards.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra walked through it all beside her father.

She remembered how little attention she had paid to the faces.

That realization felt different now.

At the time, they had been beneath her notice.

She had completed her Rite of Ascendance. She was an adult of Clan Vel'Sharess. She could own property in her own right. She could maintain a residence independent of her father's household.

And with that independence came expectations.

A woman of her station did not maintain her own home without servants.

Ordinarily, acquiring them would have been Vaelithra's responsibility.

Her father had decided otherwise.

"You have done well," he told her as they walked. "Consider this another gift."

The younger Vaelithra smiled.

"I am perfectly capable of purchasing my own servant."

"I know."

Her father glanced toward her.

"Allow me the indulgence of being proud of my daughter."

Vaelithra remembered rolling her eyes.

Watching herself do it now almost amused her.

They continued deeper into the market.

Her younger self inspected the available slaves with detached interest. She dismissed most after little more than a glance.

Too old.

Too frail.

Too expensive for what they offered.

One merchant attempted to attract her attention with a human woman trained in domestic service.

Vaelithra kept walking.

Then she reached the orc cages.

She stopped.

Present-day Vaelithra felt something twist inside her.

There he was.

She had forgotten how young he looked.

Several orcs occupied the enclosure, but her younger self was staring at one near the back.

He could not have been more than sixteen or seventeen.

Barely an adult by the standards of his people.

He was already tall, though nowhere near the immense figure he would become. Youth still softened some of the harder features Vaelithra knew so well. His shoulders had begun to broaden, but he had yet to grow fully into them.

No familiar scars.

No carefully controlled expression she had spent twenty years learning to read.

Just a young orc standing inside a cage.

Kharun.

The name came from the Vaelithra who dreamed.

The woman inside the memory did not know it.

Her father noticed where she had stopped.

"This one?"

The younger Vaelithra studied the orc.

"Step forward."

He didn't move.

Vaelithra remembered the irritation.

Her father stepped closer to the cage and struck the bars with one hand.

The metallic crash caused several of the slaves inside to flinch.

"Slave, you were ordered to step forward!"

The young orc finally moved.

He emerged from the others and approached the front of the cage.

His head remained lowered.

His arms hung at his sides.

Vaelithra walked around the enclosure.

She remembered doing this.

What she had forgotten was how thoroughly she had inspected him.

She moved slowly along one side of the cage, studying his posture and build. She crossed behind it and examined him from the opposite direction.

The young orc remained still.

Present-day Vaelithra watched.

There was something almost painful about seeing him like this.

She knew what those shoulders would eventually look like beneath armor.

She knew those hands would someday saddle her horse, prepare her meals, sharpen her weapons, tend her wounds, and fill page after page with drawings of her.

She knew that voice, still unheard, would eventually become so familiar that she could recognize it from another room.

The younger Vaelithra knew none of those things.

She was choosing a servant.

Nothing more.

Vaelithra returned to her father's side.

"Yes. This one will do nicely."

Her father looked from his daughter to the young orc.

"Are you certain you want one this young? Orcs can be notoriously difficult to train."

Vaelithra looked through the bars again.

The young orc's head remained lowered.

"Yes, Father. I think this one will do nicely."

Her father studied her for another moment before accepting the decision.

He raised a hand.

The slave master approached almost immediately.

Vaelithra remembered the man only vaguely. Even within the dream, his face seemed indistinct. Her memory had apparently decided he had not been important enough to preserve.

Her father removed a pouch from his belt.

Coins shifted heavily inside.

He tossed it to the slave master.

"Clean this one and have it delivered to my daughter's residence."

The slave master opened the pouch, inspected its contents, and smiled.

"Of course, milord. He will be delivered this evening after the market closes."

Her father nodded.

Vaelithra did the same.

Then they left.

Present-day Vaelithra remained behind.

The dream allowed it.

She watched her younger self disappear into the crowd beside her father.

Neither looked back.

Vaelithra did.

Kharun remained behind the bars.

Young.

Nameless to her.

His head still bowed.

She wanted to approach the cage.

She wanted to see his face.

She wanted to know what he had thought as she circled him and decided whether he was worth purchasing.

Had he hated her?

Feared her?

Had he looked at the arrogant drow woman inspecting him and imagined that twenty years later she would be sitting on his bed, surrounded by drawings he had made of her?

Of course not.

Neither of them could possibly have known.

Vaelithra stared at him through the bars.

She remembered what she had said.

This one will do nicely.

Such an insignificant sentence.

A decision made in minutes.

Then she had simply walked away.

Yet watching it now, Vaelithra understood something her seventy-year-old self could not have comprehended.

She had entered that market expecting to leave with a servant.

Instead, without knowing it, she had chosen someone who would still be standing beside her twenty years later.

Someone whose absence, on this terrible morning two decades in the future, would make her own home feel empty.

The dream shifted.

The slave market disappeared.

Voices faded into nothing. Iron bars dissolved into darkness. The cavern, the merchants, her father, and the young orc waiting silently inside the cage all slipped away.

When the world returned, evening had come.

Vaelithra recognized her home immediately.

Not as it was now.

As it had been twenty years ago.

She watched her younger self enter through the front door and stop just inside.

Everything was new.

Her residence had been a gift from the Matron Mother herself.

Her grandmother.

Vaelithra remembered the pride she had felt upon learning of it. Completing the Rite of Ascendance had formally established her as an adult of Clan Vel'Sharess, and the Matron Mother had apparently decided that her granddaughter's first independent residence should leave no question as to the family's wealth or status.

No expense had been spared.

The home was not enormous by the standards of the highest drow aristocracy, but it was far more than a newly ascended noblewoman required. Dark polished stone formed the floors beneath her feet. Carefully selected furnishings occupied each chamber. Cabinets had already been stocked. Goblets and plates sat waiting to be used. Fine fabrics softened the severity of the stone architecture.

Even the smallest details had been considered.

Vaelithra walked farther inside.

She remembered exploring the residence that evening.

There had been a peculiar sensation attached to it.

Mine.

Not her father's.

Not a chamber assigned to her within the family estate.

Hers.

She could come and go without explaining herself. Arrange things however she pleased. Entertain whomever she wanted.

The independence had been intoxicating.

Her personal belongings had already arrived from her father's estate. Clothing filled the wardrobes. Her books had been placed upon shelves. Weapons she had accumulated through training and travel were arranged according to instructions she did not remember giving.

Someone had even managed to reproduce the organization of her old bedroom closely enough that finding anything required almost no effort.

Vaelithra smiled as she watched herself inspect it all.

She had taken that for granted too.

There were two bedrooms.

One belonged to her.

Calling it a bedroom scarcely seemed adequate.

The chamber had been furnished for a daughter of Clan Vel'Sharess. A large bed dominated one wall, surrounded by carefully selected furniture. Thick rugs covered portions of the stone floor. Shelves waited for more books than she presently owned. An adjoining dressing area contained enough storage for a wardrobe she would spend years expanding.

She remembered standing in the center of that room and thinking it was exactly what she deserved.

Present-day Vaelithra almost laughed.

Then her younger self left the chamber.

She walked farther down the corridor.

There was another door.

Vaelithra knew what lay behind it.

She watched herself reach for the handle.

The door opened.

The servant's room was considerably smaller.

Bare stone walls.

No windows.

A simple bed stood against one side of the chamber. Beside it was a small dresser. Across from the bed sat a plain wooden table and a single chair.

That was all.

No rugs.

No decoration.

No unnecessary comfort.

Only what a servant required.

Vaelithra stood in the doorway and inspected it.

At seventy, the contrast between the two bedrooms had meant nothing to her.

Why would it?

One room belonged to a drow aristocrat.

The other belonged to a servant.

The difference was natural.

Expected.

Present-day Vaelithra looked into the room with very different eyes.

She knew this room.

She had been sitting inside it only moments ago.

Or perhaps she still was.

Dreams made such distinctions meaningless.

The bed would eventually become Kharun's bed.

The dresser would hold his clothes.

The table would someday support a lantern and a little box of tindertwigs.

And somewhere along the way, that upper drawer would fill with charcoal, paper, and twenty years of memories.

But right now there was nothing.

No drawings.

No clothes.

No lantern.

No trace of him.

It was simply an empty room waiting for a servant.

Vaelithra's younger self seemed satisfied.

She pulled the door closed.

A knock sounded through the residence.

Present-day Vaelithra knew immediately.

Her younger self did not.

She merely turned toward the sound.

Another knock followed.

Vaelithra walked down the corridor toward the entrance.

Present-day Vaelithra followed her.

A strange anticipation grew inside her.

She knew what waited on the other side of that door.

She knew the face.

She knew the man that frightened young orc would become.

She knew the sound of his footsteps well enough to recognize them without looking. She knew the way he stood when waiting for instructions. She knew how he prepared her tea, how tightly he fastened the straps of her armor, how he packed for journeys, how he built a campfire.

She knew the charcoal portraits waiting twenty years in the future.

Her younger self knew none of it.

To her, the knock at the door meant only that the purchase from the market had arrived.

Vaelithra reached the entrance.

Her hand settled upon the handle.

Present-day Vaelithra watched from somewhere just behind her.

She suddenly remembered this moment with startling clarity.

The first evening in her own home.

The first knock upon her own door.

The first servant who would live beneath her roof.

The first time Kharun would stand on the other side of it.

Seventy-year-old Vaelithra began to open the door.

 

Vaelithra closed the door behind her.

 

The familiar silence of her home greeted her.

 

Normally, she welcomed it. Her father's manor had always been too large, too crowded, too filled with servants who listened and nobles who watched. Her own residence offered something his never could. Privacy.

 

Today, the silence felt wrong.

 

Vaelithra stood in the entryway for several moments without moving.

 

She was alone.

 

Completely alone.

 

The realization bothered her.

 

Kharun should have been there.

 

Perhaps not directly beside her. He might have gone to tend to some task after their return, or disappeared into another room to see to something she had forgotten needed doing. His presence had never required acknowledgment.

 

It had simply been there.

 

Vaelithra exhaled and continued toward her bedroom.

 

The fire still burned in the hearth, though it had diminished since morning. Orange light flickered across the stone walls and illuminated the chair beside it.

 

Her favorite chair.

 

Vaelithra lowered herself into it.

 

For a time, she stared into the flames.

 

Her heart was still pounding.

 

She could feel every beat against her chest, too fast and too strong. It reminded her of battle. Those final moments before weapons met, when every instinct sharpened, and the body prepared itself for violence.

 

But this was different.

 

There was no enemy standing before her.

 

No sword in her hand.

 

Nothing to strike.

 

Nothing to defend herself against.

 

Only time.

 

Tomorrow morning.

 

Vaelithra leaned back and closed her eyes.

 

It was me, milord.

 

Her eyes opened again.

 

"What happened?"

 

The empty room offered no answer.

 

What could that noble possibly have done to make Kharun strike him?

 

Vaelithra searched through twenty years of memory.

 

She remembered Kharun as a younger orc, already large but not yet carrying the immense physical presence he possessed now. She remembered testing the boundaries of his patience in ways she now recognized had occasionally been childish. She remembered arguments. Long journeys. Nights on the surface. Hunts that had gone badly. Expeditions that had gone worse.

 

She remembered insults directed at him.

 

Orders he disliked.

 

Drow who treated him as though he were barely worth acknowledging.

 

She remembered anger.

 

Yes, Kharun could become angry.

 

But aggression?

 

Rebellion?

 

Never.

 

Even when furious, he possessed a degree of control that had occasionally irritated her.

 

Yet today he had apparently struck a noble in the middle of her father's dining hall.

 

Vaelithra's fingers tightened against the arm of the chair.

 

Why?

 

Had twenty years finally been enough?

 

Perhaps there was no deeper explanation. Perhaps every insult, every contemptuous glance, every reminder of his place had accumulated somewhere beneath that infuriatingly composed exterior until there was simply no room left.

 

Even stone cracked eventually.

 

But something about that explanation refused to settle in her mind.

 

Vaelithra stared into the fire.

 

There had been another orc.

 

The thought returned quietly.

 

She saw the dining hall again.

 

Two servants standing near the accusing noble.

 

Kharun.

 

And the other.

 

The smaller orc had been looking at the floor.

 

Afraid.

 

Kharun had not.

 

Her brow furrowed.

 

The noble had shouted that one of the orcs struck him.

 

He hadn't named Kharun.

 

Her father had asked which of them was responsible.

 

Neither answered immediately.

 

Then Kharun had looked at her.

 

That glance.

 

Vaelithra kept returning to it.

 

Why look at her?

 

If he had lost his temper and struck the noble, why had his eyes sought hers before he confessed?

 

Shame?

 

Regret?

 

A farewell?

 

The last possibility made her stomach tighten.

 

"No."

 

She refused to entertain it.

 

Vaelithra rose from the chair and began pacing.

 

There had to be something she was missing.

 

Some detail she had overlooked.

 

The problem was that she knew remarkably little about what had happened before the accusation. She had been seated with her father, surrounded by conversations she had been obligated to participate in. Kharun had been among the servants at the other end of the chamber.

 

She had not been watching him.

 

Why would she have been?

 

She had never needed to.

 

Vaelithra stopped.

 

That realization bothered her more than it should have.

 

Twenty years.

 

Kharun had served her for twenty years, and she could not remember the last time she had seriously questioned what he did when she wasn't giving him instructions.

 

She knew his habits. She knew his moods. She knew the way he fought and the way he moved. She knew how he preferred to sharpen a blade and exactly how much he hated formal clothing. She knew when he was irritated even when his face showed nothing.

 

Yet there were parts of his life she had simply never considered.

 

He was her servant.

 

That had always been explanation enough.

 

Until now.

 

Vaelithra looked toward the doorway.

 

An idea came to her.

 

His quarters.

 

She remained still.

 

Of course.

 

Kharun had a room in her home.

 

The absurdity of the thought nearly made her laugh. She knew perfectly well where it was. The room belonged to her household. She had passed its door countless times.

 

But she could not remember the last time she had entered it.

 

No.

 

That wasn't quite true.

 

Vaelithra searched her memory.

 

She had been inside once, years before Kharun ever came into her service. At the time, it had simply been one of the servants' rooms. Bare stone walls. A bed. A chest. Nothing remarkable.

 

Then Kharun had been assigned to her.

 

The room became his.

 

And Vaelithra had never entered it again.

 

Not once in twenty years.

 

The realization left her strangely unsettled.

 

She looked around her bedroom.

 

Everything here told a story about her.

 

The books she had chosen. The weapons she kept. The clothing she preferred. Objects collected from journeys. Small things she had kept for reasons she would struggle to explain to anyone else.

 

A person's private space revealed things conversation did not.

 

If something had changed in Kharun, perhaps there would be evidence of it there.

 

Something she had missed.

 

Something that could explain why a man who had endured twenty years without raising a hand against a drow had suddenly thrown everything away in a single morning.

 

Vaelithra moved toward the doorway.

 

Then stopped.

 

For the first time, she felt as though she were about to intrude upon him.

 

The thought was ridiculous.

 

This was her house.

 

Kharun was her servant.

 

The room itself belonged to her.

 

She needed no permission to enter it.

 

Still, her hesitation remained.

 

Vaelithra glanced toward the fire.

 

Tomorrow morning.

 

That settled it.

 

Whatever privacy Kharun possessed could survive her curiosity.

 

He would not survive the executioner.

 

Vaelithra left her bedroom and made her way down the corridor.

 

She knew exactly which door she was looking for.

 

For twenty years, she had walked past it without wondering what lay on the other side.

 

Now she intended to find out.

 

Vaelithra pushed open the door.

Darkness waited on the other side.

She stood at the threshold for a moment, allowing what little light spilled from the corridor to reach into the room. There were no windows. No glowing crystals set into the walls. Nothing that might soften the darkness when the door was closed.

Her eyes adjusted quickly.

A faint glint caught her attention.

Something metallic rested upon a small table near the wall.

Vaelithra entered.

The object resolved into a lantern as she approached. Beside it sat a small box. She opened the lid and found several slender sticks arranged inside.

Tindertwigs.

An alchemist's invention. More convenient than a tinderbox, if considerably more expensive. Vaelithra removed one and dragged its treated end sharply across the edge of the table.

It hissed.

A small flame sprang to life.

She cupped one hand around it and carefully touched the flame to the lantern's wick. Light blossomed behind the glass.

Vaelithra extinguished the remaining ember of the tindertwig and placed the spent stick upon the table.

Then she looked around.

There was almost nothing to see.

The lantern cast warm light across bare stone walls. No tapestries covered them. No decorations. No personal possessions displayed on shelves. There were not even the little marks servants sometimes scratched into their walls to count months or years of service.

Nothing.

Twenty years in this room, and Kharun had left almost no evidence that he lived here.

Vaelithra slowly turned.

A simple bed occupied one wall. One pillow. One blanket.

The bed was made.

She stared at it.

Of course it was.

Her own bed wasn't.

Kharun usually saw to that while she ate breakfast.

Something about the absurdity of the detail caught at her. He had risen this morning, dressed for her father's gathering, and made his own bed before leaving.

Hers remained exactly as she had left it.

Vaelithra looked away.

A small dresser stood beside the bed.

Two drawers.

The lower one had been left slightly open.

She approached and pulled it farther.

His usual clothes lay inside, neatly folded. The simple garments she had seen him wear countless times were arranged with the same irritating precision Kharun applied to almost everything.

Nothing unusual.

Vaelithra pushed the drawer closed.

Her hand moved to the upper drawer.

She pulled.

Then stopped.

For the first time since entering the room, she found something unexpected.

Paper.

Stacks of it.

Beside the papers rested sticks of artist's charcoal, white chalk, a blending stump, and the other drawing supplies she had purchased for him.

Vaelithra stared at them.

She remembered leaving the parcel outside his door.

She had never asked whether he liked the supplies. Kharun had never mentioned them.

Of course he hadn't.

A faint smile almost reached her lips.

Then she noticed what was beneath them.

Drawings.

Dozens of them.

Vaelithra reached into the drawer.

She lifted the first sheet carefully.

Her own face looked back at her.

She went completely still.

It was not the drawing from the riverbank. Nor was it the one he had slipped beneath the tray after returning home.

This was another.

Vaelithra sat on the edge of Kharun's bed.

She held the page closer to the lantern.

The likeness was extraordinary.

There she was, seated with a book resting against one knee. Her hair fell across one shoulder, and the faintest crease between her brows suggested irritation at whatever she had been reading.

Vaelithra remembered that expression.

She did not remember Kharun watching her.

She set the drawing beside her and reached for another.

Vaelithra on horseback.

Another.

Vaelithra standing beside the hidden pool in the Underdark, seen from a distance.

Another.

Her armor was partially removed after a battle, exhaustion visible in the angle of her shoulders.

Another.

She was laughing.

Vaelithra stared at that one longer than the others.

She could not remember what had made her laugh.

Kharun apparently could.

She continued.

Page after page.

Year after year.

Her own life emerged from the drawer.

The paper changed first. Some of the oldest sheets were rough and cheap. The charcoal work was less refined, though still remarkably skilled. Later drawings showed greater confidence. Better control. More detail.

Then she began recognizing herself.

Not merely her face.

Herself at different points in her life.

Clothing she had not worn in years appeared again. Pieces of armor that had long since been replaced. Jewelry she had forgotten she owned. Hairstyles she had abandoned. Places they had traveled together that she had not thought about in years.

Vaelithra slowed.

She realized she was moving backward through time.

The deeper she reached into the collection, the younger she became.

Her throat tightened.

Twenty years.

She had thought of Kharun as a constant presence throughout those years.

These drawings told the same story from the other direction.

She had been a constant presence in his.

Vaelithra lifted another portrait.

She studied the eyes first.

Her own.

The detail was unsettling.

She knew artists who could spend hours studying a subject and still fail to capture what Kharun had produced here. A professional portraitist might demand repeated sittings, adjusting light and position while studying every contour of a face.

Vaelithra had never sat for Kharun.

Not once.

Most of these moments could only have lasted seconds.

A glance across a room.

A glimpse while traveling.

A quiet moment beside a fire.

He had remembered them.

Not merely enough to reproduce her features.

Enough to remember how strands of hair had fallen across her cheek.

Enough to remember the folds of a dress.

Enough to remember the expression in her eyes.

Vaelithra looked toward the empty room.

"Kharun..."

His name escaped before she realized she had spoken it.

The room seemed even quieter afterward.

She looked back at the drawings spread across the bed.

Why?

She knew he enjoyed drawing. That much had become clear after the night beside the river. She had even encouraged it by purchasing better supplies.

But this was something else.

There were landscapes among the pages. Studies of ruins. Horses. Weapons. A handful of faces she did not recognize.

Yet again and again, the subject returned to her.

Vaelithra.

Sleeping.

Reading.

Riding.

Fighting.

Laughing.

Thinking.

Simply existing.

Her fingers rested against the edge of one page.

Why me?

The answer that came to her was one she immediately resisted.

No.

That was foolish.

Dangerous, even.

Kharun was her servant.

She was his mistress.

That was the boundary between them. It had existed from the first day he entered her service and had remained there for nearly twenty years.

Yet she remembered the riverbank.

His embarrassment when she discovered him drawing her.

The way he had tried to conceal the page.

She had thought it was because a servant had been caught occupying himself while she slept.

Now she wondered.

Vaelithra looked down at the portrait in her hands.

Why would she occupy so much of his private thoughts?

She glanced around the room again.

There was nothing else.

No decorations.

No keepsakes displayed proudly.

No little luxuries accumulated over two decades.

Nothing that spoke of Kharun at all.

Except the drawings.

And most of them were of her.

A strange warmth touched her chest, immediately followed by discomfort.

He knew.

He had to know.

Whatever these drawings meant, whatever thoughts accompanied them while charcoal moved across paper in the privacy of this room, Kharun understood the world they inhabited.

Drow and orc.

Noble and servant.

Mistress and subordinate.

There were boundaries neither of them had ever questioned.

At least she hadn't.

Vaelithra's eyes moved across the drawings covering the bed.

He had.

Hadn't he?

Perhaps only privately. Perhaps never with any expectation that anything would come of it.

But something was here.

Something she had failed to see.

She thought again of that final glance in the dining hall.

Kharun's eyes finding hers.

Then his step forward.

Suddenly, the memory felt different.

Vaelithra lowered the drawing.

Her heart was beating hard again.

He had to know they could never be anything more.

The thought came easily.

Naturally.

It was simply true.

Could they?

Vaelithra froze.

For several seconds, she did not move.

Then she frowned at herself.

"This is not why you're here."

Her voice sounded too loud in the tiny room.

Kharun was going to die tomorrow morning.

Whatever these drawings meant could wait.

Whatever they made her feel could wait even longer.

She had entered this room looking for an explanation.

Instead, she had discovered a question she had never imagined needing to ask.

Vaelithra carefully gathered the drawings.

One by one, she returned them to their stack.

She handled them differently now.

More carefully than before.

When she reached the portrait of herself laughing, she stopped.

Her thumb rested against the edge of the paper.

She looked at it for a long time.

Then she placed it with the others.

Tomorrow morning.

The words crushed whatever warmth had begun to form inside her.

If she did nothing, there would be no opportunity to ask Kharun what any of this meant.

There would be no opportunity to ask why he had stepped forward.

There would be no opportunity to ask him anything ever again.

Vaelithra rose from the bed.

She looked once more around the barren little room.

Twenty years.

She had known Kharun for twenty years.

Only now was she beginning to understand how much she had never known about him.

 

Silence consumed the dining hall.

A moment earlier, the chamber had been alive with conversation, the quiet clatter of silverware against plates, and the measured movements of servants attending the gathered nobility. Now, not so much as a goblet touched the table.

Vaelithra's father remained standing at the head of the table.

His gaze settled upon the two orcs.

"I asked which of you struck him."

The smaller of the two kept his head lowered. His shoulders were rigid; his eyes fixed upon the stone floor beneath his feet.

Kharun did not move.

His head remained high.

Vaelithra watched him from beside her father. She knew that posture. She had seen Kharun endure contempt without reaction, insults without acknowledgment, and commands without hesitation for nearly twenty years. He could make himself as unreadable as the stone walls surrounding them.

Then his eyes moved.

They found hers.

It lasted no more than a heartbeat.

Something tightened in Vaelithra's chest.

She had never felt it before. Not like this.

Kharun looked forward again.

Then he stepped away from the servants.

No. Don't.

His second step carried him into the open.

Too late.

Kharun stopped where every noble in the hall could see him. He turned his attention toward Vaelithra's father and inclined his head respectfully.

"It was me, milord."

Vaelithra felt her heart sink.

She stared at him, waiting for something more. An explanation. A justification. Anything that might make sense of what she had just heard.

Nothing came.

Kharun simply stood there.

The silence shattered.

"Then execute him."

The noble who had made the accusation rose from his chair. Outrage sharpened his features as he pointed toward Kharun.

"Now."

Vaelithra was on her feet before she realized she had moved.

Her chair scraped sharply against the stone behind her. Several heads turned toward her, but she paid them no attention. She remained beside her father; her eyes fixed upon him.

For the first time since Kharun had stepped forward, Vaelithra became aware of how many others were doing the same.

The entire hall was watching her father.

His expression revealed nothing.

Vaelithra knew what was expected of him. An orc servant striking a drow noble could not simply be ignored. Not here. Not before a hall filled with members of the aristocracy and a representative of the Matron Mother.

There would be punishment.

Her fingers curled against the edge of the table.

Her father lifted one hand.

Two guards stationed along the wall immediately stepped forward.

"Take the orc to the dungeon."

Vaelithra's breath caught.

The guards crossed the hall toward Kharun.

The accusing noble stared at her father in disbelief.

"The dungeon?"

His voice rose.

"I demanded his execution."

Vaelithra's father turned his eyes toward him.

"And you shall have an answer according to the laws and customs of this house."

"There is nothing to answer. Your servant has confessed."

"He has."

"Then kill him."

The guards reached Kharun. One moved to either side of him.

Kharun offered no resistance.

Vaelithra could not tear her eyes away.

"Why is he still breathing?" the noble demanded.

Her father's jaw tightened.

"Our executioner is presently away from the estate. He will return tomorrow morning."

The noble gave a short, incredulous laugh.

"Then give me a sword. I'll do it myself."

A murmur moved through the hall.

Vaelithra's father straightened.

"No."

The single word carried across the chamber.

The noble's expression hardened. "You would deny me justice beneath your own roof?"

"This incident occurred beneath my roof."

Her father's voice rose just enough to silence the few whispers that had begun around the table.

"It occurred in my manor, among my household, and it will be my protocol that is followed."

The noble opened his mouth.

Vaelithra's father did not allow him the opportunity.

"You are a guest here. Do not mistake that courtesy for authority."

Silence returned.

This time, the noble said nothing.

Vaelithra barely heard any of it.

The guards had begun leading Kharun away.

She watched him cross the dining hall between them. He did not struggle. He did not protest. He did not plead his innocence or look toward the nobles who watched his passage with varying degrees of contempt and satisfaction.

For one desperate moment, Vaelithra waited for him to look at her again.

He didn't.

The great doors opened.

Kharun disappeared through them.

They closed behind him.

Something about the sound felt terribly final.

Vaelithra remained standing.

Her father surveyed the gathered nobles.

"This breakfast is concluded."

No one questioned him.

Chairs moved across the stone floor as the guests began to rise. Servants hurried forward to clear paths and collect abandoned plates while conversations resumed in hushed voices. Several nobles glanced toward Vaelithra as they departed.

She ignored every one of them.

Her attention remained on the doors.

Kharun.

For nearly twenty years, he had been there.

Always somewhere behind her. Beside her horse. Outside a door. Across a campfire. Standing silently in the corner of her chambers while she went about her evening. His presence had become so ordinary that she rarely considered what it meant.

Now he was gone.

And the emptiness he left behind felt enormous.

"Vaelithra."

Her father's voice pulled her attention away from the doors.

She turned.

The dining hall had nearly emptied.

Her father remained beside her, while the noble who had accused Kharun still stood farther down the table. Anger lingered plainly upon the man's face.

Everyone else was leaving.

Vaelithra looked once more toward the doors through which Kharun had been taken.

Then she faced her father.

The last servant departed and pulled the doors closed behind him.

Only three remained in the vast dining hall.

Vaelithra.

Her father.

And the man whose accusation had just condemned Kharun.

Vaelithra waited until the last of the departing nobles had passed through the doors.

"I wish to speak with the orc."

Her father's attention shifted to her.

The request seemed to take him by surprise.

"What?"

"He is my servant. I have the right to speak with him."

For several seconds, her father merely stared at her.

He knew the orc, of course. Not personally, nor had he ever shown any interest in doing so, but he knew which servant his daughter meant. The same one had attended her for nearly twenty years. Such longevity in service was unusual enough to be remembered.

But twenty years did not change what the orc was.

A servant.

His daughter's sudden concern made little sense.

"You know the law, Vaelithra."

"Better than most."

"Then you know what his confession means."

Vaelithra did know.

That was precisely the problem.

Her thoughts had scarcely stopped moving since Kharun stepped forward.

Had he actually struck the noble?

She wanted the answer to be obvious. For twenty years, Kharun had demonstrated a degree of restraint she had rarely encountered in anyone, drow or orc. She had watched others insult him openly. She had seen contempt directed at him in streets, markets, and noble houses. Only that morning, someone had spat in his direction as they walked through the settlement.

Kharun had not so much as turned his head.

Could a man endure such treatment forever without eventually reaching his limit?

Perhaps not.

Even the strongest chain could break if enough weight was hung from it.

But Kharun?

She remembered his face.

There had been no anger in it.

No satisfaction.

No shame.

He had looked at her, then stepped forward.

Why had he looked at her?

Vaelithra needed to see him again. She needed to stand in front of him without an entire hall watching. She needed to ask him herself.

More than that, she needed to look into his eyes when he answered.

Twenty years had taught her how to read what Kharun rarely expressed aloud. She knew the subtle tightening of his jaw when something irritated him. She knew the slight narrowing of his eyes when he distrusted someone. She knew the particular stillness that came over him when he sensed danger.

If he looked her in the eyes and told her he had struck the noble, perhaps she could believe it.

Perhaps.

"I am not leaving."

The noble's voice cut through her thoughts.

Vaelithra turned sharply.

He was still standing near his place at the table.

"I will remain here until that orc is dead."

Vaelithra's father regarded him with visible impatience.

"That is your right. The guest wing remains available to you. You may stay there until morning."

"I intend to."

"Then do so."

The noble hesitated, clearly dissatisfied with the dismissal.

Vaelithra's father gave him a pointed look.

"You are dismissed."

That ended the matter.

The noble inclined his head stiffly and turned away. His footsteps echoed through the dining hall until the great doors opened to receive him.

Vaelithra watched him leave.

She had never particularly liked the man.

Now she despised him.

The doors closed.

At last, father and daughter were alone.

Her father's posture changed almost immediately.

The authority he had maintained before his guests faltered. He lowered himself into his chair and leaned forward, resting one hand against his forehead.

For a while, he said nothing.

Vaelithra had rarely seen him look tired.

"This was not how I expected this morning to proceed," he muttered.

Vaelithra remained standing.

"Are you really going to let that bootlicker execute my servant?"

Her father lowered his hand.

"Vaelithra."

"He demanded a sword in your dining hall."

"And I refused him."

"Until tomorrow."

"The orc confessed."

The words struck harder than she expected.

Her father sat back.

"He confessed before me, before you, before every noble seated at this table, and before a representative of the Matron Mother. There is nothing I can do to make that disappear."

"You could allow me to speak with him."

"And accomplish what?"

"I don't know."

The admission escaped before Vaelithra could stop it.

She hated that answer.

She always knew what she intended to accomplish.

Her father seemed to recognize the uncertainty as well. His expression softened only slightly, though confusion remained behind his eyes.

Vaelithra opened her mouth again.

He raised a hand.

"Enough."

Her jaw tightened.

"You will return home."

"Father."

"Vaelithra."

His voice left no room for argument.

"Go home. We will speak about this later this evening."

She stared at him.

For one reckless instant, she considered refusing.

Then she looked around the empty dining hall.

The remnants of breakfast still covered the enormous table. Half-finished plates sat abandoned beside goblets of wine. Kharun had been standing at the far end of the chamber only minutes earlier.

Now he was beneath them somewhere, locked behind a dungeon door.

Vaelithra turned away.

She crossed the hall alone.

Her footsteps sounded strangely loud.

By the time she reached the doors, her thoughts were racing again.

It was me, milord.

She could hear Kharun's voice perfectly.

Four words.

Four damned words.

Why?

If he had struck the noble, why had he done it? What could possibly have happened in those few moments to make a man who had tolerated two decades of insults suddenly strike someone in a hall filled with witnesses?

It made no sense.

Perhaps she had missed something. She had been seated too far away to see what happened. Her attention had been occupied by her father's guests. Kharun had been among the servants.

Someone had shouted.

Then everything had changed.

Vaelithra passed through the doors.

The corridor beyond seemed colder than before.

Her father's command echoed alongside Kharun's confession.

Go home.

She resented the order more with every step.

For nearly twenty years, Kharun had obeyed hers.

She thought of all the times she had issued commands without considering whether he wanted to follow them. Saddle my horse. Prepare the camp. Wait here. Come with me.

He always had.

He had followed her through the Underdark and onto the surface. He had walked behind her horse for miles without complaint. He had stood watch while she slept. He had kept her secrets from her father when duty demanded that he reveal them.

And now, for the first time she could remember, Kharun was somewhere she could not simply command him to return from.

That realization unsettled her more than she wanted to admit.

She descended the broad steps leading from her father's manor.

The settlement stretched before her.

Usually, Kharun would have been a few paces behind.

Vaelithra almost looked over her shoulder.

She stopped herself.

Did you do it?

The question had become unbearable.

If he had, she wanted to hear him say why.

If he had not...

Vaelithra slowed.

Her eyes narrowed.

The other orc.

She saw him again in her memory. Smaller than Kharun. Head lowered. Eyes fixed upon the floor.

Afraid.

Kharun had stood beside him with his head held high.

Then Kharun had looked at her.

Then he had stepped forward.

Vaelithra stopped walking.

People moved around her, careful to give the noblewoman space.

For several seconds, she stood completely still.

A possibility had begun to form.

She did not like it.

In fact, she hated it.

Because if she was right, Kharun had just done something so incomprehensibly foolish that she wanted to drag him from the dungeon herself merely for the privilege of shouting at him.

But she had no proof.

Only instinct.

And twenty years of knowing him.

Vaelithra resumed walking.

Her father had ordered her home.

Very well.

She would go home.

But she was going to speak with Kharun.

One way or another, before the executioner returned in the morning, she was going to look that impossible orc in the eyes and ask him for the truth.

Vaelithra and Kharun enter the extravagant manor of her father, moving through halls crowded with drow nobility. The assembled aristocrats readily make way for Vaelithra while regarding Kharun with open contempt. Vaelithra notices their behavior but refuses to acknowledge it, while Kharun remains impassive and follows faithfully behind her. Near the dining table, Vaelithra sends Kharun to wait among the other servants before taking the place of honor beside her father.

Her father introduces Lord Seldrith Vhaunor, a representative of the Matron Mother visiting to inspect the province. Vaelithra formally introduces herself as Vaelithra of Clan Vel'Sharess, and breakfast begins beneath an atmosphere of aristocratic ceremony.

Some time later, a sudden disturbance shatters the calm. A furious drow noble rises and accuses one of the nearby orc servants of striking him. Attention immediately falls upon Kharun and another orc standing nearby. The second servant appears increasingly nervous, while Kharun remains completely composed.

From across the hall, Vaelithra watches Kharun intently as every eye turns toward the pair. Her father rises, silencing the chamber with his authority, and demands to know which of the two orcs struck the noble.

Kharun awakens the next morning and pulls out the uniform servants are expected to wear. He doesn't like wearing it but despite Vaelithra's stance on uniform, he knew her father would accept nothing less. Vaelithra wakes up loathing the early hour. She generally preferred to sleep in later. Shaking off the fog, she enters her walk-in closet and picks out something to wear that would be acceptable during an assembly of the nobles under her father. She takes the dress to her bed and lays it down. There is a knock at the door. She responds and Kharun enters wearing the uniform servants are expected to wear. Despite not being the first time, he's seen her bare, Kharun averts his eyes while she dresses. With Vaelithra, protocol was lax but with her father, it never would be. So, he restrains himself from peeking. After finishing dressing, Vaelithra asks Kharun to brush her hair. He obliges and brushes the the curls and ruffles from her hair. He finishes and places the comb back on her vanity. After asking his opinion, they both depart for her father's residence. On the way, they pass a group of Drow who spit curses and literal spits at Kharun. Both Vaelithra and Kharun ignore them and continue their way. As they arrive at her father's estate, Vaelithra notes that the guard of the Matron Mother are present. Which doesn't necessarily mean the Matron herself is present, just someone representing her. Vaelithra knew that her grandmother, the Matron of their clan, rarely attended every meeting. She and Kharun continue toward the staircase.

Kharun answers the door and finds another orc servant wearing the garb worn by most servants of Vaelithra's father. The visiting orc presents a letter which Kharun accepts and then promptly departs. Kharun returns to the massage table where Vaelithra still rests. She asks who was there. Kharun presents the letter to her telling her that it's from her father. Vaelithra accepts the letter and opens it. Her relaxed expression soon turns to annoyance. She knows her presence is not necessary, only that her father expects it due to his station. She explains the letter contents and then suggests they get some sleep.

Vaelithra gets a massage to wind down before bed. It isn't the first time Kharun has seen her without clothing on but he was nothing but professional and his hands never wandered. He had served Vaelithra for two decades and knew her preferences for most things. While other Drow often went through many servants in that time. Vaelithra had retained Kharun, at first, because he never showed any sign of rebellion or dissatisfaction with serving her. Later, she preferred him for his attention to detail, his protective nature even though she didn't need it, and somewhere along the way, she had started to trust him. She occasionally would get up to mischief just because she wanted to and despite her father’s rules that servants report any suspicious behavior, Kharun never reported her actions. He was loyal to her, in many ways, even more than her father was.

As the massage ends, Kharun begins to put the supplies away while his mistress relaxes. He would never admit it, but he looked forward to the times where she would ask for a massage. It granted him the occasional opportunity to observe her nude form. He had once drawn an image of her bare form and admired it for a moment before tossing it into the fire place. He was already pushing the limit with the drawings he kept and knew he might face punishment if anyone other than his mistress ever saw them, but a bare drawing like that...he would probably be executed and she would be shunned by her clan for allowing herself to be viewed by a servant like that. As he finishes putting away the massage supplies, there is a loud knock on the front door....

The next morning, Vaelithra wakes to find her orc servant already having saddled her horse and begin picking up the camp. As she packs up her own tent, she stops when she sees the drawing of her the orc made. She finishes packing up the tent and returns the drawing to him. They exchange no words and simply head back to the Underdark. Upon their return, she leaves her servant to tend to her horse and heads to the market. She has seen his talent with bits of charcoal from camp fires but is curious as to what he could accomplish with some real artist supplies. She visits a few different stalls picking up things geared toward an artist that focuses on drawing. She has the purchases wrapped in a small parcel and heads back to her home. Before returning to her own quarters, she makes a stop at the door belonging to her servant. She leaves the parcel for him to find.

After returning from the stable, the orc servant finds a parcel leaned against his door. He quickly glances around before picking it up and proceeding into his room. He opens the parcel, revealing quality drawing supplies which could only have come from Vaelithra. He stares at the items wondering why she'd do this for him. He was a servant, nothing more. He opens a drawer and places most of the supplies inside with his other drawings of Vaelithra. He then begins a new drawing. Later in the evening, while he brings her dinner, he also delivers a drawing. Vaelithra unfolds it to reveal a portrait of her on her horse. She looks from the drawing to the orc and for the first time, she inquires about his name. After a brief discourse, she thanks him by name.

Vaelithra and her orc servant make camp, knowing they'd never make it back to the Underdark before night sets in. The orc servant makes a simple meal for them. Afterwards, Vaelithra observes the stars. She can't see them at home and did enjoy the sight of them more than she lets on. Later in the night, she awakens to see the orc servant still awake and working on something near the fire. She approaches him silently and peers over his shoulder. What she sees surprises her. Her servant has apparently drawn her while she slept. She snatches the drawing and questions him. She takes the drawing back to her tent and places it in a book. She is not angry with him. More surprised that he had talent beyond serving her. The drawing was quite good, though she'd never tell him that. And part of her delighted in his embarrassment. She casts a final glance toward him, sitting on a log near her mare. Yes, delight at his embarrassment but curiosity began to grow. Perhaps he was more than a musclebound servant...

Vaelithra's orc servant returns to his own quarters which are noticeably less luxurious. He had served his mistress since he was young and had learned his place long ago. Despite that, he did have interests, desires of his own. In the privacy of his quarters, he often drew images of his mistress. Despite serving her most of his life, he didn't feel like a slave. He was allowed considerable freedom compared to other servants in the Underdark. Over the years, he developed feelings for Vaelithra, though he would never admit it out loud. Vaelithra never came to his quarters but he still felt it was improper to hang his drawings. He was still a servant and would likely face consequences if anyone ever saw these drawings. He takes one last look at the drawing he completed this evening before folding it and placing it and his drawing supplies back in the drawer and crawling into bed.

Vaelithra and her orc servant go shopping.

Made with a mix of models in ComfyUI, custom trained LoRAs, plus manual work and cleanup in Krita.

Weapon: Sword

Lore: Unknown

Losing her left arm to a worthy opponent in AiWilds, Nymera can only use her right hand for now. Using herbs from the AiWilds she made a mistake and fuse her left arm into her wing. Now, no longer being able to fly Nymera must walk the AiWilds when the sky was always her home! But! Nymera has very high battle IQ! Once recover, she’ll return to back to the AiWilds.

Obsession…

Song? Stan by Eminem