[Carillon]

Jaelle slips out of the bed again and removes an item sewn in to a secret pocket of her pack. When she slides in next to him in bed again, Trouble can see the item is a feather, jet black in colour. She smooths it between her fingers in the direction of the shaft, aligning the individual vanes, then hands it to him to look at.

That's hers, naturally. She gave it to me that night. Plucked it from her wings, as a sign of trust and devotion.


She hesitates, giving him an appraising look.


Do you know anything about scrying, dearest? Watching others and locating them through magic? It's a difficult art to practice, and belongs to the divination school of magic. There are a lot of subtleties to it, and the best technique for me seems to be scrying in a bowl of holy water sprinkled with diamond dust. That's the technique Connor taught me. It's easiest to do if you have a strong link with the person you're scrying on, but it's possible even if you don't, just more difficult. One thing that can make it easier is a scrying focus, though--a personal item, or something of them directly. For example, blood is sometimes used, or a lock of hair ...


She reaches over to play with his hair as she smiles, then gestures to the feather.


It really was a gift of trust. They'd used feathers from her wings to scry on her before. The Council had three that they'd pulled out in battle. One was destroyed in the first scrying attempt on her (I forgot to mention that, didn't I? It's not true of personal items, but organic components are usually consumed in the scrying process). Another was burned in a brazier ... another chapter of the story I shall come to. And the last of the three is also in my possession now. But that one ...


She gently takes the feather from his hands, running her fingers over it again.


This one was the only one given freely.

She sets the feather on the table by the bed, mindful of its presence. Later, after the story is finished, it disappears back into her pack. She looks pensive for a moment, considering something.


Perhaps that is why I helped her. I am not sure. Gods, they tortured me for it, though. When I finally had the strength to climb the rope over the city walls again and slump down on a bench, the square was still in an uproar, hours later. The dead that could be raised had been, and the others taken away. Someone had counted the bodies and figured out I was missing, and they were brewing for a witch hunt ... for her or me, I am still not certain.

Finally one of them, a mage named Timulty, noticed me by the fountain, trying to gather my strength enough to at least make it to an inn, and led me over. I imagine I was a sight, still wounded and covered in blood from the battle. And oh, they were relieved to see me, but they also poked and prodded me, tried to examine me for bite marks, pressed silver rings into my skin to see whether she had turned me. And all the while, my mind was spinning with what I had learned. Turned me ... I could have laughed! Of all of them, I was the only one who realized that was no longer possible.

The crush of people was unbearable. I'm ... not good with crowds, my sweet. You may have noticed. The more people there are, the quieter I often get. It's because I grew up alone, away from people, with only my mother and father, and then no one at all for many years after they died. So to suddenly be the object of all that attention ...


She shudders in remembrance.


There was a fellow I was seeing at the time ... his name was Brian. I let him deflect the worst of it. He, too, liked to play at protecting me. Connor was the only one I really spoke to afterwards, other than Brian. I trusted Connor, moreso than Brian certainly. Brian wanted to kill her, and thought I was allowing myself to be used to get close enough to her to bring her down. My motivations were never that clear though, not even to myself. I think I would have done it though, if she had tried to raise the demon then. Or at least I would have tried.


She pauses to gather her thoughts, smiling ruefully, and kisses him, light and sweet.


It's hard to tell stories, is it not? Especially long, complicated ones in which there are many twisting threads woven together to make the greater pattern. I suppose the important part is that Brian saw the feather, and didn't understand my objection to giving it to him so the Council could try and scry on her. He thought I was enthralled or dominated, but I wasn't. I was protecting her, though.

She and I met several times in secret after that fateful meeting in the square, and bless the gods, no one else died when we did. We chose other places, out of the way, and she kept her wings covered again. And little by little, things changed between us. I learned her story, that first beginning I told you, and more than that too. It is far harder to hate someone when you see them not as your enemy but as who they are. I looked at her soul and I saw the fault lines, and the parts of it that were dark and ugly, but I knew why they were there, and I dared to hope that she could be healed.

I continued to fight her, and she continued to pressure me for the names and the location of the third urn. At times I almost wanted to give them to her, just to have done with the threats and the fear, but I am uncommonly stubborn and I just couldn't do it. She told me what she was going to do to them. Save one, the woman with the child, she planned to torture and kill them. There was a blood lust in her that cried out for vengeance, but more out of loneliness and hatred than any pure evil, I believe. I wasn't certain I could keep the names from her forever, or that she wouldn't learn them from someone else, so I exacted an oath from her that if she ever took vengeance on them she'd make it clean and swift, no torture. She agreed. I think she meant it.


A slight pause. She runs her hands over him, cuddling closer and laying her head on his shoulder.


When I think of it, sometimes it is almost like a dream. Parts of it happened so quickly. She sought vengeance on the dwarf who had wounded her so grievously in the square--Skullcracker Headbang. She laid siege to Ulgrid's Fortress itself.


A soft sigh.


I knew, of course. I knew that she was going to do it. She was impossible to dissuade, so I let her go. She kept her word to me, though ... the promise I made her swear. You may recall hearing about the siege. No innocent women or children were killed during it, only warriors who opposed her undead. That was what she swore for me, and she kept her oath. She never lied to me, and never betrayed me. And while she was gone, I knew the Council was safe. For a while, at least.