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Revel's End is cold, and bleak, and dead.
Yet there is still more life here, in several square miles of snow-covered stone, than in almost all of Thay.
Xenk thinks this as his warhorse tramps through the tracks left behind by the most recent delivery of prisoners, and almost immediately chastises himself for the hyperbole. There are more undead in Thay than those who live, to be certain, but life still blooms there. If it does not precisely thrive, well, that is a different issue altogether. But there is life, and he would do well to remember it, for it is for the sake of Thay, as well as for all the rest of Toril, that he has accepted this sacred mission.
The cold bites at his cheeks, his beard and his winter cloak doing precious little to defend him against the sheer gale force of the wind. There are no trees here, no shrubs, no running water. Nothing but barren rock and ice, cliff faces that arc over the surging Sea of Moving Ice like teeth, and endless, blinding snow. Revel's End is intended for only Faerun's most dangerous criminals, and not for the first time he wonders at what sort of man this Edgin Darvis is. The Harpers have primed him on his crimes, of course, but beyond that he has been told little else. Only that Darvis is intelligent, if brash, and that he had been a decent bard, but an even better Harper. That he had abandoned his oath after the sudden death of his wife.
Privately, Xenk wonders if Revel's End is not just a bit much for crimes so clearly committed in grief. Then again, he is not the arbiter of justice. He is merely the sword by which it is served.
Revel's Keep rises above the snowbanks, huge and dark, a black stain against the otherwise faultless blue sky. Xenk stares up at it, and reaches for the scroll he has tucked into his belt, thumb settling on the catch of its case. This plan sits ill with him, based as it is on the taking of freedom from a sentient being, but it is not his place to question the Harpers, nor how they deal with their own people. He is meant to deliver Edgin Darvis to Neverwinter, where he will be given a chance to redeem himself. Whatever happens after that will be Edgin's choice.
He is, however, very fond of the idea of redemption.
His steed plows forward, digging great furrows in the snow as it forges onwards. White dusts the warhorse's withers until the satin brown sheen of its coat looks as though it peeks through delicate lace; it keeps its eyes forward, no sign of hesitation or fear, even when there is the call of some great bird from high above them. Xenk pats its neck as they approach Revel's Keep.
"You have done well," he tells it, and the horse tosses its head as he dismounts, and turns to look at him with one keenly intelligent eye. "Return, now, to your own plane, knowing your oath has been upheld."
The steed bows its head, and Xenk bows in turn, and then the horse – saddle, tack, and all – dissolves into a shower of golden dust. The guards stationed at the front of Revel's Keep shout in alarm, one of them bustling out through the snow, his fur-lined pauldrons and wide winter cloak doing nothing to keep him from shivering as he approaches Xenk.
"Your horse exploded," he says, out of breath and red-cheeked by the time he has gotten close enough to be heard over the roar of the wind. "Was it...supposed to do that?"
"It is a celestial spirit," Xenk says. Any opportunity to educate should be taken with generosity and kindness. "I called it here to serve as my mount, and now its duty has been fulfilled. I will call upon it again when I depart this place."
The guard shuffles from foot to foot. The chill bleeds into Xenk's boots, through his gauntlets, and no amount of fur or wool seems to do him any good; only the ring the Harpers had provided him offers any comfort. This place is nothing like the Thay of his childhood, with its warm vineyards and rolling fields, nor is it anything like the temperate Sword Coast, where he has plied his holy trade for the last seven decades. There is a desolate quality to Icewind Dale, the sense that it belongs to the wild, and all signs of civilization are an intrusion to be ousted with impunity. Its people have been shaped thus in turn, hard-edged and suspicious, and now the guard of Revel's Keep eyes him, clear in his uncertainty. Xenk bows his head, acknowledging his wariness, and produces the Harpers' writ from his satchel.
"For the master of the Keep," he says, and the guard takes the scroll, looking at it only briefly before stamping his feet and clapping his hands together.
"Right. Better come with me, then. Ilianus will want to talk to you personally. Not often we get holy people up here, begging your pardon, sir."
"I take no offense. These lands keep their own gods."
The guard opens his mouth to say something, but they are interrupted by another spate of icy wind, howling down from the Spine of the World. For the first time since he has come to this lonesome place Xenk feels himself shiver. Not even the ring of warmth that the Harpers had gifted him seems to make this cold abate.
"This way," the guard says, and wearily trudges back towards the keep.
Xenk follows him, casting his gaze once more up towards the dark tower of the keep, looming over the chill-blasted valley like a shadow. He shivers again, and together they pass under the great portcullis, the sound of it slamming shut behind them uncannily final.
+++
Ilianus Renarus is the sort of man that Xenk has very little time for, full of pomp and circumstance, proud of his position for no reason other than that he has inherited it from his predecessor. He has done nothing to improve Revel's End, and there has been no great uptick in reformation amongst the prisoners since he took his seat from Marta Marthannis five years ago, yet he boasts readily about its defenses, that it is the safest and most secure prison in all of Faerun, as he leads Xenk down the snow-spotted corridors towards the central chamber.
"Bastard's getting lucky," Renarus says as they emerge out into the weak winter sunlight, snow dusting his shoulders from the vast, open mouth of the atrium far above them. His breathing quickens as they begin to ascend the stairs to one of the upper levels. "Tomorrow the arbiters will be here. Reckon he'd be denied again. Stealing from the Harpers, that's wickedness, right there."
Xenk tilts his head. "It is my understanding that he had his reasons for doing so."
Renarus squints at him. "Reasons," he says. "You ask any bugger in this prison what their reasons was and you'll get a sad story from each of 'em. You don't get sent to Revel's End because you're sad, sir. You get sent here 'cause there ain't no other prison that will keep you."
They pass by cell after cell, one miserable, hunched figure after another. A Yuan-ti flicks their tongue out at him as they walk past, reaching out one dark-scaled claw. "Holy man," it croons. "Absssolution for usss? Blesssingsss?" Renarus reaches for something on his belt and the Yuan-ti shrinks back, cowering. A truncheon, Xenk sees, when the man turns away.
"Hold," he says, and Renarus pauses.
"Eh? We've still got two levels to go, sir."
Xenk nods. He removes his gauntlet, the ring of warmth glinting ruby fire on his finger. When he reaches out his hand, the Yuan-ti hesitates for long seconds before reaching back to him. "Sir!" Renarus sputters, and Xenk does not listen. He is thinking about home. He is thinking about small acts of kindness.
The Yuan-ti's claws curl around his fingers, soaking up the warmth of his hand.
"Blessings of Ilmater upon you," he whispers. "May the sun of your ancestors shine on you again. If not in this life, then the next." There is a pulse in the air, very nearly a sensation of pressure, and the Yuan-ti flicks out its tongue again. Its scales, scraped dull from the stone of its cell, lusterless from the cold, gleam a bit brighter. Xenk lets go and nods. The Yuan-ti bows its head in turn. He continues on.
"Shouldn't do that," Renarus says, huffing and puffing as he speeds up to match Xenk's stride. "Giving them false hope like that. That abomination killed four people."
"Would that there had been someone to give the people of Thay false hope a century ago," Xenk says placidly. "Perhaps things would have been different." He knows by the way that Renarus squints and puckers his mouth that he does not understand, but that is fine. Xenk did not do it for him. Some injustices can only be righted within one's own soul, and he has been battling this particular demon for a long time.
They climb. It is a grueling slog over ice-slick stone, and Xenk understands, suddenly, why the guards' steps crunch so ferociously wherever they walk. Their boots must be cleated, he thinks, as he himself struggles to maintain his balance on the slippery stairs. Renarus does not stop chattering throughout their journey up another two levels, even as he grows winded and his words become harder to understand. Xenk nods politely, and privately thinks that the world would be much simpler if an attempt was made to rehabilitate the guilty rather than lock them away, out of sight and out of mind. He, of all people, understands the value of a second chance.
"Here we are," Renarus says. They come around the bend of the circular hallway, their footsteps echoing through the hollow tunnel that leads up, up into the fierce blue sky. Here, though, beneath the eaves of a thousand tons of stone, it is dim and cold. The cell that Renarus has led him to is shapeless, hopeless, grey granite upon grey granite, containing three figures yet only two beds. One of the figures huddles in the corner, broad-shouldered, a massive being. Orcish, perhaps, or a hobgoblin of exceeding height – Xenk had thought his missive had described Darvis as human, Targosan, but perhaps he is mistaken. The other two in the cell, both human, a tall woman with dark hair and a middle-aged man fiddling with makeshift knitting needles, do not seem the sorts to commit such a heinous crime as the murder of eight Harpers and the theft of dangerous artifacts.
"Edgin Darvis," Renarus booms, once he has paused long enough to catch his breath. "On your feet, you chirpy bastard!"
The man and the woman glance at each other. The much larger figure cringes harder into the corner, and then seems to all at once regain its composure, for it sits straight up and stares, wide-eyed, through the bars. "No," it says. Red skin. Hobgoblin, yes. As he had suspected. "No, you can't leave me alone in here with her. I won't last the night. You can't! S'torture!"
"The Absolution Council’s not until tomorrow," the man says, hesitation in his voice. He, however, is the one who stands, tucking his knitting needles and his mangled-looking project into the folds of his furs. He approaches the bars and Xenk gets a better look at him, now that he is standing, and out of the shadow. He is of a height with Xenk himself, but with the bony, sharp look of a man who has not eaten well for some time. His skin has a dusky pallor to it that speaks of long hours without sunlight, and his cheeks and chin are covered in a bristly dark scruff, a few patches of grey settling becomingly at the hollows of his cheeks. His hair is shaggy, unkempt, but possessed of the same dark blond color, like sunlight shining through a thin pane of wood, thin slices of gold interspersed through a deeper, more nuanced ashy hue.
His eyes are extremely blue. Even here, in this shadowed and grim place, Xenk can tell that they would spark with glee and life were they to once more be exposed to the sun.
"Change of plans," Renarus says, and then he looks at Xenk for confirmation. Xenk studies the man who has come before him.
"Are you Edgin Darvis?" he asks, and the man straightens, adopting a rakish, confident posture that likely served him well when he was a Harper. It makes him at once easy to approach and physically enticing. Xenk is not immune to the charms of the beautiful; he can feel his own desire to look, to let his eyes be dragged to this man's mouth, to his hands, to observe him closer, and in greater depth. He tempers his want. He is not immune to charms, but he is exceedingly good at resisting them.
"Depends on who's asking," the man says, and Renarus makes a noise of contempt.
"That's the bastard," he says. "Edgin Darvis of Targos. Formerly of the Harpers." Renarus leans forward and spits at Edgin's feet. Edgin, to his credit, does not move, only makes a moue of distaste and turns his eyes to Xenk. He has accurately sussed who, here, has the greater amount of power.
"We don't talk about the Harper years," Edgin says. He smiles disarmingly.
"He'll start crying," the woman in the cell says, and Edgin turns, making a cutting gesture across his throat at her.
"Not helpful, Holga."
"If you are Edgin Darvis," Xenk interrupts, "then I have business with you. By order of the High Harpers, I am charged to bring you to Neverwinter."
"Do I get to know why?" Edgin asks. Xenk blinks serenely at him, and for long seconds that is all they do, is stare at each other. It gives him the opportunity to study Edgin's face in more detail. His lips are chapped, which makes sense given the cold clime, but beyond that he has the sort of mouth that is used to smiling. Xenk suspects that, when he smiles in truth, it is the type of smile to overtake the face. From his brief he is given to understand that Edgin was a bard prior to his disavowment of the Harpers – this makes sense to him. Bards are often those who smile widest and sorrow hardest.
"I am allowed to share a few details," Xenk allows eventually. "However, not here. One never knows what evil listens in these places."
"In jail, you mean," Edgin says, and Xenk bows his head. "You worried that Big Red over there's gonna foil your master plan?"
"Please don't leave me alone with her," the hobgoblin says again. "I'll do anything."
Edgin glances over his shoulder at the woman he shares his cell with. For a moment a smile flickers across his face, not the broad and comely one of an entertainer, but a real smile, small and intended for only one recipient. Xenk tries to remember the last time someone smiled at him, and only at him. Not because he had done them a service, not because of his oath or his raiments or his duties, but because of him. He thinks it has been a very long time. Traditionally, people find him...off-putting and strange. That he is Thayan does not help.
"What do you say, Holga?" he asks. "You want to go to Neverwinter?"
Xenk says, "I have only been charged to bring you, Edgin," at the same time as Renarus says, "Like Hells she's going with you." Their words clamor over each other, ringing through the atrium. A dusting of snow falls down from somewhere far above them, alighting on Xenk's pauldrons and dappling the soft grey of his cape with white.
Edgin's smile fades. The woman sitting on the bench is staring at him, her head cocked to one side.
"I'm not leaving without Holga," Edgin says.
"I cannot leave without you," Xenk says apologetically. "And if Master Renarus will not release your companion to my custody –"
"Not without a writ," Renarus says immediately.
"– then there is little I can do. I am sorry."
"No you aren't," Edgin says sharply. "None of you are. Just like Renarus isn't sorry about the bludgeoning we get on the regular."
"For disturbing the peace," Renarus says, and Edgin whirls on him. In his skeletal face, and shrouded as he is in poorly-cured and ragged hides, his expression becomes not a scowl but a death mask. Xenk is reminded of the raiments that priests of Kelemvor garb themselves in, the better to emulate the dead in their care.
"For singing," Edgin says, and Xenk blinks. Turns to Renarus.
"Is this true?"
Renarus' eyes flick back and forth. He puffs up, like a prideful bird. "I run a tight ship," he says. "And I won't have one of my own prisoners questioning how I do things here. Which one of you lot is that? Ulaf? Bring your keys here, get this door open. Tyr bless the day we rid ourselves of this soddin' nuisance."
One of the other guards approaches, a ring of keys in hand. Xenk recalls his earlier musings, that things would likely be much easier if the evil could be rehabilitated instead of simply...put away somewhere to be forgotten. He suspects that most of the prisoners here would jump at the chance to repent, and willingness to change is the first step.
Prisoners cannot question how Renarus runs things, but the Lord's Alliance can, and Xenk is not without contacts on the Sword Coast.
Ulaf opens the cell door, the metal shrieking and causing another shower of snow from far above. Edgin shrinks back.
"The arbitration is tomorrow," he says. "Just...just give us a day, let me tell my story to the Absolution Council, and then we can both go with you, yeah? Two's better than one!"
"I have no sway over the decisions of the Council," Xenk says softly. Ulaf grabs Edgin by the wrist, hauling him forward into the light. "Were they to deny your petition, we would be in the precise situation we are now. I have no doubt your friend will make a fine case, but she cannot come with us."
Edgin stumbles as he is yanked; he is not wearing boots suited to the weather, Xenk notes. They are thick hide, yes, but without the metal cleats the guards wear, and the stitches are rough and ill-spaced. Xenk has the fleeting, and horrifying, thought that perhaps the prisoners are made to sew their own clothes.
Yes, he will be sending a missive to the Lord's Alliance about this place.
The guard gives Edgin another rough shove, sending him careening into Xenk's chest. They both grunt, and Xenk braces all his weight against the push of it, his boots squalling against the ice and stone. Edgin tilts his head up, mouth turned up in a smirk...
...which becomes a puzzled little frown. His eyes have skated upwards, past Xenk's gaze, and come to rest on his hairline.
Ah, Xenk thinks, and closes his eyes briefly in preparation. Braces himself for the fear, the anger, the scorn –
"You're Thayan," Edgin says. There is a note of accusation in his voice that Xenk has heard many times over the last century, and no good deeds, no oaths, no shining armor has ever seemed to ease it.
"I was born in Thay," he corrects, though the distinction is often lost on those he speaks with. "I doubt that Thay would still claim me as her son."
Edgin pushes away from him, skidding on the icy stone. His arms pinwheel and his back slams against the edge of the cell doorway, making him grunt again.
"I'm not going with him," he says. There is more than simply fear or disgust in his expression.
There is hatred. Deep, abiding, righteous hatred.
"Don't got a choice," Renarus says, gleeful. "Ulaf, slap some manacles on him."
Xenk raises his hand. "There is no need," he says, and reaches, once again, for the scroll on his belt. He looks directly at Edgin as he does so. He ignores the guard, Ulaf, who has taken out his crossbow and has it trained over Edgin's heart. The woman in the cell has risen to her feet, eyes darting between Edgin and the guard. Renarus takes the moment to yank the ring of keys out of Ulaf's hand, swinging the cell door shut and locking it; he does it with quick and practiced ease and Xenk wonders how often he visits his prisoners. How often he finds use for the truncheon at his belt.
"I am sorry," he tells Edgin, and unfurls the scroll. He can see Edgin's throat working, his eyes so wide they are nearly all white, and Xenk finds himself once again hating that he must do this, that circumstances have demanded this of him, that he is bound by oath and contract to take the freedom from a living creature. It serves the greater good, he reminds himself, but it is a paltry comfort as he reads the words on the scroll, magic rolling easily off his tongue. He does not need to speak Draconic to understand the purpose of the spell, and when the final syllable of the incantation leaves his lips he feels the curious and rarely-familiar sensation of his will projected outwards, as though he has reached across towards Edgin with a hand that he had forgotten he possessed. His will slams against Edgin's, and there is a brief moment in which he wonders if this man will actually overcome the spell...and then he gives. Edgin blinks rapidly, shivering as the magic washes over him, and then lets out a shout of alarm as a circle of liquid light forms around his left wrist.
"It is done," Xenk says. He holds up his own right hand to demonstrate, displaying the golden light that is already sinking into his gauntlet and disappearing beneath. "We are bound, you and I, until the magic is dispelled."
"What the fuck," Edgin whispers. He scrabbles at his sleeve, yanking it up to examine the faintly-glowing runes that have encircled his wrist. "What the fuck? What do you mean, bound?"
"As I said. Neither of us can go far from the other without suffering ill effects. I have been charged to bring you to Neverwinter, Edgin Darvis, and though it pains me to say it, I will do so with or without your consent." It does pain him. To deny a creature their freedom is antithesis to the worship of Ilmater. That he now must do so in the name of his own oath sits heavily in his stomach, like a ball of lead. Worse still is the way that Edgin is looking at him.
Angry. Hurt. Betrayed.
"Go," the woman in the cell says. She has sidled closer, leaning herself against the bars. The guard swings his crossbow towards her, and then back to Edgin, seemingly unsure who is the greater threat. Xenk watches as the woman – Holga, he believes Edgin called her – puts her hand out through the bars, patting awkwardly at her companion's shoulder. "I'll catch up with you. Don't worry about it."
"Holga..."
"I said don't worry about it." Holga smiles. She smiles as though she is unused to the idea, vastly different from Edgin; her smile is a hesitation in her expression. Xenk wonders how two such obviously disparate people came to be such close friends...for there is no doubt in his mind that that is what they are. "I'm sure Jarnathan will listen. You go and see if you can find Kira. Maybe high and mighty there will let you make a detour."
Edgin nods slowly. Holga's hand squeezes his shoulder, hard enough that Xenk can see the man's teeth gritting, and then she lets go. Edgin straightens up, throwing back his shoulders – in the mound of hide and leather he wears it makes him look exceedingly broad and bulky – and gives Xenk a short, unhappy jerk of his chin.
"Fine," he says, and takes a cautious step forward. The crossbow swings back, almost nudging his chest. Ulaf's finger trembles over the trigger, and Xenk has the thought, the awful thought...
He knocks the crossbow aside. He is close, and it requires little reach on his part, and even less effort. Ulaf loses his hold on the stock at nearly the same time as there is a twang of a loosed bowstring, and an arrow goes whizzing past them, embedding itself into the stone some ten feet away.
Xenk stares at the guard. At Renarus. Neither of them say anything. Perhaps he will never know if Ulaf would have actually pulled the trigger, if his intervention was necessary or not, but the sight of the arrow buried several inches into the mortar of the wall is damning enough.
"I will be leaving now," he says, and Renarus swallows. "With my charge. I trust that his companion will be treated fairly in my absence?"
"Sure," Renarus says. "Yes. Of course, m'lord."
"I am no lord." Xenk bows his head. Humility is important. Then he turns to Edgin, standing with his back pressed to the wall, eyes wide and breathing hard. "Have you come to any harm, Edgin?"
Edgin swallows. His throat bobs. His mouth is very pink, lips parted in an 'o' of surprise as he searches for words, discards them, searches again.
"Fine," he says eventually. "I'm fine."
Xenk tries to smile at him. His smiles are often misinterpreted – he does not have the sort of face that is given to honest expression. He does not know if this is because he is Thayan, or because he has simply spent too much time apart.
Judging by Edgin's look, he has not gained any sudden skill in this area. Xenk lets his face fall back into neutrality. Easier. Simpler. He does not need someone to smile at him the way Edgin had smiled at Holga. He has no need for small, secret expressions made just for him. He has an oath, and a duty, and now a charge he must protect.
He turns. "Come," he says. "We will travel south to Bryn Shander, and from there take the Ten Trail to Fireshear. A ship awaits us there to carry us to Neverwinter. I will explain all I can along the way."
He does not wait for Edgin to agree. Edgin, as much as Xenk hates it, has no choice in the matter. They are bound, now, for better or for worse, and as he begins to descend the stairs to the ground floor Xenk feels the tug of the magic between them.
After a moment Edgin follows him, silent but for his footsteps on the stone.
+++
The other guards give them a wide berth as they exit Revel's Keep. Sound carries well through the stone atrium, and a crossbow discharging into a wall is apparently distinctive enough that none of Renarus' other men desire to impede their way. Xenk is grateful for this – it allows him a few minutes to ruminate on what he has seen, and gives Edgin some time to come to terms with his new circumstances.
It is still blazingly, terribly bright when they exit, and the wind scuds off the surface of the snow, kicking up wild flurries that shower them as they stand in the doorway, Edgin still several steps behind.
"I could run," he says, and Xenk turns his head to the side, looking at him from the corner of his eye. Out here in the light he looks significantly worse than he did within the keep. There are dark bruises beneath his eyes, and the sunlight is a harsh mistress, illuminating precisely how pale and drawn Edgin has become in captivity. "There's nothing stopping me. How do I know this spell does what you say it does?"
"It is meant to tether the essence of one living creature to another," Xenk says. "Your pain is my pain, and vice versa. I am told we have some leeway, however. We may move up to sixty feet apart, but no further."
"What happens at sixty-one feet?"
"Your pain is my pain," Xenk says softly. "I give you my oath that this was not of my design. However, the High Harpers deemed it necessary."
Edgin snorts. He takes his first tentative step out into the freezing open, pushing past Xenk with little care for propriety. Xenk finds that he almost enjoys it. Many others are hesitant to even stand near him, let alone touch him so casually. Even if the touch is...less than friendly.
"They were worried I'd do a runner, you mean."
"Yes."
"You're not very good at talking, are you?"
Xenk considers this. "No," he says, after a moment, because it's the truth. He is good at...grand speeches. Inspiring the hearts and minds of the downtrodden. But there is a vast difference between this, speaking to a man one on one, and what he encounters in the course of his duty. Small talk, he thinks, though he finds nothing about their conversation small.
"You are free to test the bounds of the spell," Xenk says, when no further words from Edgin seem forthcoming. "I require a moment to summon my steed."
"You're that sure about it? Got some Red Wizard magic I don't know about?"
"I am not a Red Wizard," Xenk says. He moves out of the doorway of the keep, settling on his knees in the snow some feet away. The cold bites into his skin, even through layers of armor and wool. He ignores it. Edgin is staring up into the sky, squinting at the sun. He appears, for a moment, as a man who has not seen the sky for decades, so sharp and sweet is the longing in his face.
Then he looks down, back at Xenk, forward again. Xenk watches him shake himself all over, and then begin to wearily trudge away from the keep. He closes his eyes in concentration. He wishes to summon his horse prior to Edgin discovering the limits the spell allows him.
Three minutes pass in silent prayer, his lips moving around the familiar words, and at the edge of his awareness he hears Edgin marching slowly away. Where would he go, if he were able to leave? He has no food, no water, no proper clothes for the vicious winters of Icewind Dale. He would be alone in the frigid wilderness. He must be a resourceful man, to think he would stand a chance.
Or a desperate one.
He has just finished his ten minutes of prayer when he feels a tug at his wrist. Xenk clenches his fingers and ignores it, watching, instead, as the familiar golden glow coalesces before him into the shape of his warhorse. "Hello, old friend," he tells it, and the horse nickers softly, greeting him with a butt of the head as he rises to his feet. Its seal-brown coat gleams in the sun; there is another tug at Xenk's wrist, this time accompanied by an ache that is not so easily ignored. In the distance he watches as Edgin takes another step, and then another. The ache grows worse. It travels up his arm, vibrating through his shoulder, spreading insidious tendrils of pain through bone and blood. It feels like burning. It feels like dying.
He holds firm, gritting his teeth, and some sixty-eight feet away Edgin collapses into the snow, retching miserably.
Xenk covers the ground quickly, closing the distance until the ache retreats to a dull throb, and then to nothing at all, as though it were never there. His mount follows sedately after him, forging through the snow, and in short order he stands over Edgin, still curled on the ground where he had fallen. Bile stains the white snow near his head, and when he tries to push himself up his arms shake miserably, and he goes down again.
His heart hurts at the sight. Xenk leans down, offering his hand.
"Let me help you," he says, and this seems to inject some fire into Edgin's veins, for he looks up with an expression of utmost contempt, an expression that makes Xenk's heart hurt even more. He does not even bat Xenk's hand away, only pushes himself up with a great show of effort, and manages at last to get his legs back under him.
"Fuck off," he bites out. His legs tremble as he finally gets himself to standing. "I don't need your help. How are you still walking?"
"I am familiar with pain," Xenk says. Edgin gives him an indecipherable look. Not for the first time Xenk wishes he were more...personable. More capable of understanding expression and tone. He thinks he must have been able to, once, but his memories of his childhood prior to Szass Tam's coup are so hazy...
Perhaps he has always been like this. Perhaps he was meant to be promised to Ilmater from the beginning.
Xenk gestures towards his horse. "Come," he says. "It is several days' journey to Bryn Shander, and the quicker we move, the less chance of being waylaid by storms."
"I'd rather walk, thanks," Edgin says. Xenk frowns.
"If you walk, it will lengthen our journey by months. We do not have that kind of time."
"Well, considering I don't know why in the Nine Hells you pulled me out a day before my arbitration...I think I'm entitled to that time." Edgin stares at him, a challenge. Then he turns on his heel and sets off through the snow. He knows where he is going, Xenk realizes. He has unerringly pointed himself southwest along the cliff face, following the shore of the Sea of Moving Ice visible far below them.
Xenk has little choice but to follow. He mounts his horse and clicks his tongue, turning it towards Edgin's retreating back.
+++
Xenk does not typically travel this far north. Icewind Dale keeps its own secrets, hidden away from the rest of the world by the unforgiving peaks of the Spine of the World, and he is not often called beyond their range. The Frozen North produces adventurers of its own, and they are often enough to handle whatever problems might arise in these desolate lands. Still, he had had the forethought to bring with him cold weather gear, provisions for two people, blankets and bedrolls. The Harpers had gifted him a bag of holding and the ring of warmth to ease his journey. He is as prepared as he could possibly be, considering his lack of knowledge of this area.
Edgin is significantly, detrimentally less prepared than even he, and he still manages to march, stubborn and silent, for several hours before he eventually stops and takes his rest beside a boulder.
They have been moving at a snail's pace, despite Xenk's misgivings. No amount of cajoling, however, would have been enough to pierce the thick hide of Edgin's ornery defiance, and even he is canny enough to recognize that. He has held his tongue for the past three hours, instead waiting for the moment when exhaustion or cold would set in enough that Edgin's mind would be turned. Now, he reins his horse in and comes to a stop beside his companion, leaning wearily against the boulder. They are in an unfortunately open space, and the tundra is home to frost giants. He would prefer to keep moving if possible.
"Will you ride with me?" he asks, and Edgin looks up at him. His face is drawn and tight, and his cheeks have gone a blistering, awful red.
"Piss off," he says. Xenk frowns. He swings himself down from his mount. There is a glaze in Edgin's eyes that he does not like, and when he reaches out and takes his gloved hands by force he receives a hiss of pain in response.
"You are injured," he says, and Edgin glares at him.
"You're a self-righteous prick," he counters. He does not pull his hands away. Perhaps it is because he does not have the strength, or perhaps he has resigned himself to his fate. Whatever the reason, he allows Xenk to carefully pluck the gloves from his hands. He cannot hide his wince at what he finds.
"How long have you had no feeling in your fingers?" he asks, carefully manipulating Edgin's joints, disliking the dusky look of his fingertips.
"Oh, you know, only the last hour or so."
"Your toes are likely no better." He casts around for a suitable area in which to perform triage, and judges that they have already, happily, come upon the only sheltered location within several hundred yards. He nods to himself, letting go of Edgin's hands and reaching for his bag of holding.
"I just need a minute," Edgin says. He sounds exhausted. Xenk suspects that there was not much opportunity for him to keep up his strength at Revel's End. "Fuck you. I don't need your help."
"You will lose your hands to frostbite," Xenk says. This seems, to him, a very practical concern. Edgin does not appear to know what to do with his lack of ire. Would it be easier, if Xenk were to grow angry? To feel insulted?
He feels no insult. Only the vague hurt that always accompanies being judged for a past over which he has no control. It is easily buried beneath the rising tide of compassion he feels for this man, who shows such strength of will and makes such fast and fierce friends, who has such fine and clever fingers, who gleams like gold or amber beneath the sunlight.
Edgin remains silent for long minutes as Xenk lays an oilskin upon the ground, and then a bedroll overtop that. He retrieves warming salves from his bag: though much of the healing will be done with his own faith, it will not hurt to give Edgin further insulation against the cold.
When he is done, Edgin looks between him and the bedroll several times before he makes a noise of deep disgust, and then uses the boulder to lever himself upright. He does not stumble so much as he tumbles onto the bedroll, going down with a whumpf of depressed snow and a soft yelp of pain from the man in question. Xenk kneels on the oilcloth beside him.
"I will need to remove your shoes," he says, and Edgin shrugs one shoulder.
"They're shitty anyways. Never was much of a cobbler."
A flash of anger jolts through him. He does not like to have his suspicions confirmed in this way, but it is valuable information to bring to the Lord's Alliance. He wonders what the arbiters see, when they make their once a year journey to the Frozen North. What the guards and their master allow them to see.
"You make your own clothes," he says, as he unloops the leather thongs from about Edgin's ankle. His boots are rough things, little more than hide and sinew. He wears no socks beneath them, and when Xenk manages to remove the first boot he finds Edgin's right foot to be pale, and cold, and the smallest toe turning an alarming shade of blue. It is this he focuses his attentions on first, taking Edgin's foot into his lap, shielding it from the worst of the wind and running his fingers over his toes, between them, up over the top of his foot and down beneath the arch.
"Yeah. It was either that or keep wearing whatever we came in with, and let me tell you, it gets cold in Targos but nothing compared to Revel's End." He swears under his breath as Xenk begins to channel, forcing divine heat into the veins, warming Edgin's blood and encouraging it to flow in an orderly manner. Over the next few minutes, as he lays on his hands, he watches as Edgin's toes regain a more healthy pallor. Even Edgin himself relaxes minutely, and once Xenk has finished, and lets go of Edgin's ankle, he flexes his toes in Xenk's lap.
"Why do you care?' he asks, and offers no resistance as Xenk takes his other foot into his lap. "You heard them, they don't give a shit what anyone thinks. Criminals don't deserve things like, you know, food or warm clothes."
"You are wrong," Xenk says softly. Edgin's left foot is worse than his right. Beneath the boot much of his foot has begun to turn red and inflamed, and two of his toes are dark down to the second knuckle. Xenk sets to work. "All creatures deserve a certain standard of care."
"I was being sarcastic."
"Ah."
Edgin huffs. Hisses in pain when Xenk begins to lay on his hands. "Ouch."
"I apologize. This will last only a moment."
He tries to be as quick as he can, but healing takes time. Edgin is squirming with discomfort by the time he is finished, and sags with relief when the flow of divine energy ceases to course into his foot. Xenk takes up his pot of warming salve and begins to rub it into Edgin's feet.
"You didn't answer the question," Edgin says. "Why do you care? You could bring me to Neverwinter in whatever shape you wanted and the Harpers would probably be fine with it. Figured that was why they sent a Thayan. Not like you're known for your oodles of good will."
"Not all Thayans are malevolent," he murmurs, and nods in satisfaction once he is certain Edgin's feet are sufficiently warmed. He helps to put the man's boots back on, in deference to his freezing fingers, and then he reaches for Edgin's hand. He is met with a stony stare, a flinch away. "I should hope that I have demonstrated to you my trustworthiness."
"You can't trust Thayans," Edgin says sharply.
"Yet you have no choice but to trust this Thayan, however little I lay claim to the title. I will not have you freeze to death under my care, Edgin. Nor will I allow you to come to harm when I have the ability to prevent it."
Edgin worries at his bottom lip. His fingers curl in the cold. Slowly, he holds out his hands, every inch of movement crying out his disdain for the act. Xenk sighs, and takes Edgin's hands in his.
"I was but a boy when Szass Tam rose to power," he says slowly. "I have had little to do with the course of the country since. I fled, as did many others, and have dedicated my life to the downtrodden and the suffering. Perhaps one day I will return to Thay, and bring hope to my people." Edgin's fingers are very fine, he notes. Long, musician's fingers, with calluses on the tips that no amount of time will fully erase. What instrument did Edgin play, before he was shuffled to this oubliette at the end of the earth? Xenk does not know enough about music to be able to tell by callus patterns alone.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but...Szass Tam threw his tantrum more than a century ago."
"Yes."
"Are you elvish?"
Xenk's lips quirk. "No," he says. He makes a judgment. It would not hurt to disclose some part of his past, if perhaps it means that Edgin will trust him more in the future.
It is a long journey to Neverwinter. It will be longer still if Edgin hates him throughout it.
"I was there with my parents when Szass Tam seized control of Thaymount," he says softly. "When he unleashed the beckoning death, we were among the fortunate few on the outskirts. The richest and most elite were granted seats closer to the Council. I managed to escape, though...not entirely unscathed." His hand drifts towards the mark he wears, almost against his own volition. An old habit, and one he had thought bested with time. He shakes his head. Returns to channeling warmth in Edgin's hands. "I linger in the cloudy place between living and dead. I require breath as you do. Food, warmth, light. But I do not age as I should."
"That's rough."
He finishes his healing. Edgin's fingers have once again taken on a healthier, pinker hue, and so he briskly rubs them between his salve-tacky palms to give them some further defense against the cold. "It...is," he says slowly, unsure if this is commiseration or condemnation. When he looks at Edgin, he receives no hint either way. His face is as bland and neutral as the snowscape around them. Just as blindingly beautiful. Glowing, now, with renewed warmth.
"Will you ride with me now?" he asks, and Edgin blinks. Snow sticks to his lashes, tracks false tears down his wind-bitten cheeks.
"Fine," he says.
He still does not let Xenk help him up, but it is progress of a sort.
+++
It is three days from Revel's End to the Lonelywood, picking their way through ice fields and snowbanks tall enough to smother the unwary. Much of this time is spent in sullen silence. Edgin speaks only when spoken to, preferring the company of his own thoughts. Xenk does not begrudge him this. He shares his rations, observes Edgin saving half of his portions and wrapping them carefully in the hides of his clothes for later, and sacrifices half of his own so that his charge does not continue to starve himself. He does not give Edgin a choice – he simply starts giving him more food, and gradually he runs out of places to hide what he does not eat, and is forced to eat more as a result. The first time he does this Edgin glares at him. He is certain that he will hear the words again – I don't need your help – but then Edgin swallows, his eyes darting to the extra dried fruit and salt pork that Xenk has left with his share, and he slowly moves it closer to himself.
It is under the banner of a tentative peace that they pass into the darkness of the Lonelywood, following the trail to Termelaine.
Even this short ways south, it is warmer. The forest's pines are a sufficient enough windbreak that for the first time in three days they are able to camp comfortably, and Xenk celebrates by removing his armor all at once when they bed down, instead of piecemeal as he has done for the past few days. It is a relief, to be able to lie flat instead of sitting up as he has been doing, but between the biting cold and the constant threat of frost giants, or worse, he had been loath to remove his primary source of defense. Now, he lays out each piece and studies them, searching for signs of wear, checking each strap and buckle.
Edgin watches him in silence. He takes a hard biscuit from a pocket in his hides and begins to chew on it, wincing at the texture. He has not removed his own clothes for three days, barely even moving them aside when he has needed to relieve himself. Neither of them are at their most...perfumed, at the moment, though Xenk finds himself more keenly aware of it now that his armor is off.
Edgin smells like leather. Like a hearthfire. Like good mead. He also smells like sweat, stale and fear-tinged, and the generalized stink of poorly-cured hides.
"When we reach Termelaine, we will stop for the day," Xenk says quietly. He takes one pauldron into his lap and removes his pot of linseed oil and a clean cloth from his bag. Edgin continues to watch him as he soaks the cloth, and begins to polish his armor. "While we are there, we would do well to purchase you some better clothing."
"You don't like the 'lost for three months in the wilderness' look?" Edgin asks.
"I dislike that you have been forced to wear ill-made clothing in weather that grants no quarter for doing so."
"It was a joke."
"I am aware."
"You really don't get out much, do you?"
Xenk hums softly, holding his pauldron up to the light of their pitiful campfire. Any more than this dim blaze would risk drawing the attention of wolves, or crag cats. "I fail to see why this is a joking matter. You have been poorly treated. I would seek to rectify that."
"You still haven't answered me. Why you care. So, why do you care? Why...why give me extra food, why heal my hands, why..." Edgin stops. His throat works. Just beyond the firelight there are shadows, dancing and swaying, but here in this gilded circle of warmth it feels like they are the only two people in all the world. Xenk sets his pauldron aside and turns his attention to his companion.
He is struck, again, by how captivating Edgin is. He had thought it first in Revel's Keep, and then the man had been a skeleton of himself, pale and thin and desperate. It has only been three days, but already there is more color to his cheeks, and the firelight gleams off of his hair like sunbursts. His eyes are still fantastically blue.
He thinks of that small, secret smile Edgin had offered his friend. A thing meant only for her. A thing shared only between those two people, in that moment. How the way that Edgin is looking at him now, with bewildered suspicion, is also its own, secret thing. There are no others in the world precisely like they are at this moment. They are connected, here, by more than just magic.
"Do you require a reason beyond 'it is the right thing to do'?" he asks.
"People aren't that selfless."
"Perhaps I am not like most people." Xenk sets aside his pauldron. Takes up the other and begins to clean it. "Though I believe you are wrong. People are more naturally attuned to selflessness than they are to wickedness."
"So you're doing all this because...it's right. Because it's good."
"I swore an oath to escort you to Neverwinter," he says. "No part of that oath dictated how you must be treated, and so I treat you as I would like to be, were our positions reversed."
"It can't be that simple."
Xenk studies his pauldron. Deems it oiled well enough for his purposes, and sets it with its brother. Then he folds his hands in his lap, holding them slightly apart from his breeches to avoid staining them, and turns his gaze to Edgin.
He is just as beautiful as he was a few minutes ago, when last Xenk dared to look. Perhaps he is even moreso, for the fact that the suspicion has fled his face, and left behind only a terrible, vulnerable nakedness. It is only there for a moment, but he sees it. Then Edgin's expression shutters again.
"You would like the truth?" he asks, and Edgin nods. "Because I do not believe your story is so simple as the brief I was given on your history. I do not believe a man such as you would betray the Harpers for mere coin, no matter the amount."
Edgin snorts. And then he begins to laugh, a horrible, brittle laughter that echoes in the dark woods and causes snow to tumble from the pine branches above them. A bird takes up a raucous chorus in response, and for a moment the Lonelywood is not so lonely as its namesake, filled as it is with Edgin's laughter and the cry of nighttime animals.
"You've gotta be shitting me," he says once his laughter has calmed, and Xenk waits for clarification. "Is that what they're saying?"
"I have not told you what they said to me."
"That's...it was rhetorical. Nevermind. Yeah. Okay, yeah. There's more to the story than what they told you. A lot more. And that's enough to get you to treat me pretty, huh?"
"Treat you...pretty," he repeats, feeling the words on his tongue, testing them. Pretty is a word he associates with flowers, with butterflies, with things of too little consequence to be considered beautiful. Perhaps that is how Edgin sees himself. Too small and fragile to be worthwhile.
For a long moment there is just the quieting background noise of the woods. Then Edgin sighs, and stretches himself out beside the fire. "I'm going to sleep," he says. "Maybe I'll tell you the story in the morning. If we haven't been eaten by wolves."
"I will take the first watch," Xenk agrees readily. "I will wake you when it is closer to dawn."
There is another long beat of silence, and then Edgin says, "Wake me sooner. It's a miracle you haven't been falling asleep on your horse."
The moon climbs high into the sky, Selûne's tears her jeweled collar, and Xenk watches it as he methodically works his way through his armor, cleaning and oiling each piece until they glint in the firelight. He is not thinking of his armor. He is thinking of what sort of man would not jump at the chance to justify his actions. He is thinking of Edgin's hands, fine and clever and beautiful.
+++
They are lucky; the winter wolves do not come upon them until nearly dawn.
Xenk does not know if it was Edgin's laughter that called them across the lonely ice flats or if it was simple bad luck. It doesn't matter either way, in truth. What matters is that he wakes to the feel of a hand on his shoulder, shaking frantically, and when he opens his eyes it is to the sight of Edgin's face very near, and very pale. He has pulled the hood of his hides tight. It makes him appear like a wan moon, and for a brief moment Xenk has the absurd and fantastical thought that Edgin is about to kiss him, so close has he become. He is not sure what he would do if that happened.
He thinks he would not mind.
Then he hears the crunch of trodden snow, accompanied by heavy, animal panting, and Edgin whispers, "Wolves," and Xenk is on his feet in an instant.
He has enough time to don his breastplate and pauldrons with Edgin's help, and then the wolves are upon them: huge, monstrous things, the size of ponies, bounding out of the undergrowth. Their eyes gleam with horrific intelligence and their mouths are ringed with icicles from the drip of their saliva flash-freezing around their muzzles. Xenk draws his daggersword, placing himself between the duo and Edgin. Even only half-armored, he is more prepared to face such a foe than his charge is.
He feels, again, a hand on his shoulder. It notches between his neck and the collar of his breastplate, fingers digging into the skin. Edgin's hand is surprisingly warm. Close. Xenk feels a mouth press hastily near to his ear, a puff of humid breath ghosting across his cheek. "Steady on, soldier," Edgin whispers. His voice has a crooning quality to it, lilting as though he is singing-without-singing. Xenk firms his grip upon his blade and nods. He is a soldier of Ilmater, yes, and these are foul, unnatural creatures that plague these lands, raid livestock, kill children. He will not suffer them to live.
Edgin's words linger, a warm glow against his skin as he wades into the fray.
It is a long, hard-fought battle. Winter wolves are formidable foes to begin with, and he is not fully armored, nor had he expected the need for bloodshed. He is additionally both helped and hampered by Edgin, who has no armor, whose clothes are little more than rags, who has the good sense to try and stay out of the fight as much as he can but who seems compelled to do something to aid him. Edgin shouts directions, warns him of impending attacks, and when his voice rises in a scream over the whipping wind of the wolf's breath, "Get down!", Xenk feels the compulsion to obey like a hammer to his chest. He drops to his belly, sinking a good two feet into a snowbank, and senses the wintry blast of the wolves' breath just above his head.
He hears Edgin's agonized, "Fuck!" at the same time as he feels a searing numbness along his right side, coursing down his leg, freezing the blood. Xenk grits his teeth, waits for the flow of the wolf's icy spume to cease, and then heaves himself back into the fray.
By the time the wolves are dead they are both battered, bruised, Xenk with frostburns covering much of his arms and legs and Edgin sat beneath a tree, shivering and huddled and miserable. His breath comes in clouds of frigid mist, and as Xenk drops down to his side, the carcass of one of the wolves steaming in the early morning light not three feet away, he offers up a thin smile.
"Some fight," he says, and then winces fiercely. Xenk is reminded once more of the pain in his side, the numbness in his leg. He goes for these injuries first, peeling away Edgin's hides despite his weak protestations and exposing the flesh of his belly to the air. Frost has dappled his skin with lacy patterns, but beneath that delicate beauty the skin has gone blue and dark.
"I'm fine," Edgin says. Then he bites his lip as Xenk lays his hand over the injury, pushing warmth and healing into the frozen veins. "Shit. Piss, fuck, fucking Hells, ow."
"You risked your life to aid me," he says softly. He does not know what else to say. There are no words great enough. Edgin did not have to provide help at all; he could have sat the battle out, waited to see if Xenk was slain, then taken the chance to run afterwards. Xenk is not sure how the spell that binds them works; perhaps, if Edgin had been able to endure the pain of Xenk's death, he would be free.
Yet he had remained. He had helped.
Xenk still feels the ghost of his words against his cheek. The hot puff of breath, smelling of the clear icemelt they have been drinking, the dried fruit they have been supping on.
Edgin is watching him as he works. He wonders what the bard sees, if his experience with people grants him some uncanny insight into Xenk's own subconscious. If with eyes alone he can peel back the armor and the scars and the brand that marks his forehead and somehow see the man underneath.
Xenk's own eyes are drawn to the runes that still decorate Edgin’s wrist, glowing bright and beautiful as sunlight.
"Thayans killed my wife," Edgin says abruptly. The words sound as though they have been punched out of him. He is not looking at Xenk as he says them; he has his gaze cast fixedly out into the woods, and his throat bobs as he swallows. "Don't know if the High Harpers told you that. They sent me to help bring a Red Wizard in. I didn't know..." Edgin pauses. Takes a deep breath. "Anyways. They sent Red Wizards to our house. She didn't make it. I wasn't even there when it happened."
Xenk nods. Suddenly, the righteous hatred with which Edgin had viewed them upon their first meeting makes sense.
"What was her name?" he asks, and Edgin's eyes flick back to him. His brows furrow, the same look he gets whenever he asks why do you care? This time, he does not voice the words.
"Zia," he says. Xenk pulls the hides of his clothes over the fresh, pink skin of his side, shielding him once more from the cold. "Her name was Zia."
"Zia," Xenk murmurs. Committing her to memory. He nods again. "I will pray for her."
"That's not…really necessary. She's dead. Red Wizard's blade. Not like praying is going to change anything."
"No," Xenk agrees easily. "But I will remember her. She deserves that courtesy."
"I remember her every fucking day."
"Now you will not be alone in this."
Edgin stares at him. Two spots of color have risen on his cheeks, and his gaze darts over the shape of Xenk's face, to his nose, his mouth, his eyes, even his ears. As though he is mapping him out. As though he is seeing Xenk for the first time.
"Okay," he says eventually, and Xenk pushes himself to his feet.
When he offers a hand to Edgin to help him up, there is a long moment of silence. Of no movement at all.
Then Edgin licks his lips, and uses the tree he has been leaning against to lever himself up. He does not take Xenk's hand, but as he stands, for only a moment, Edgin lays his fingers over Xenk's wrist. Barely there.
Then the touch is gone, and they go to break down their modest camp.
+++
Termelaine, according to Xenk's memory, is widely considered to be the jewel of Ten Towns. When they emerge at last from the Lonelywood three days later and spy the edge of the settlement ahead he finds it to be a quaint little village of some several hundred people, surrounded on all sides by the striking, wild beauty of Icewind Dale: tall, dark pines tower over the picturesque cottages, most of them braced against the wind by low, rubble walls. On the western side of town Maer Dualdon laps against the pale, rocky shores, casting tiny ice floes upon the ground. Fishing boats stud the water, and even this far away Xenk can hear the bellowing cry of the fishermen as they haul in their morning's catch.
He purchases them a room at The Eastside, a well-appointed inn on the edge of the village. Edgin immediately begins to tell the tale of how they felled the winter wolves; he is an animated storyteller, gesturing expansively, and the proprietor, Clyde, and his young helper Marta both watch, riveted, while Xenk proceeds to their room and removes his armor. By the time he emerges again – dressed in his winter cloak, but only his tunic and breeches beneath it – he finds that Edgin has been escorted to a table of his own and is busily wolfing down a steaming bowl of stew. He waves Xenk closer; there is a brightness in his eyes that he had not possessed in the wilderness.
"Dinner's on the house," he says, using his foot to slide the other chair out for Xenk to sit. "Clyde says those wolves have been a problem for a while. Every time a well-armed group went into the woods they couldn't find them."
"They are possessed of a fell intelligence," Xenk agrees. The innkeep's girl appears at his shoulder as he sits, and deposits another bowl in front of him. He takes a deep breath: salt, gravy, fish. He misses the heavily-spiced dishes of his homeland, the heat of peppers, the medley of flavors, sour and sweet and savory. But after several days of traveling with naught but hardtack and salt pork to sustain them he is as grateful for the warmth as he is for the meal.
"Yeah, no kidding. He said if we stopped in Bryn Shander the Speaker would probably pay us."
We. Us. There is a sweet bloom of warmth in his chest at these words. Xenk takes up his spoon and eats methodically, and very carefully does not think of the trust that Edgin has placed in him. How he had looked when he had spoken of his departed wife.
"I require no payment," he says. "Good deeds are their own reward."
"Oh...kay. I guess I don't have much of a choice in the matter."
And like that, frosty discontent has returned to Edgin's voice. When Xenk dares to look, he finds his charge staring down into his stew, fist clenched around his spoon, sucking at his cheek.
What will happen when they reach Neverwinter? Edgin will be released to the care of the High Harpers, he assumes. Xenk himself will remain close, should his assistance be needed, but the mission for which the Harpers need Edgin is one of subtlety, and subtlety is...not one of Xenk's strong points. But afterwards, assuming that Edgin earns his pardon – for Xenk has no doubt that this will be his reward for his aid – what then? Left alone in a grand city, with no company to care for him and no resources upon which to draw?
"...You assisted also," Xenk says slowly. "I require no reward, but it would be churlish of me to deny your role in that battle. I will inform Speaker Shane of your heroism."
Edgin scrapes the bottom of his bowl with his spoon. He eats a bite. He chews contemplatively.
"Thanks," he says, once he has swallowed. The warmth returns to his chest, a trembling, soft thing that Xenk has only rarely felt before. He wonders, for an instant, if it is some feedback from the spell, if some of Edgin's essence bleeds into him – but no. That would be foolish. These tender feelings are entirely his own. It would do him well to focus on the mission, on his oath, on anything other than Edgin's fine hands and the color that has risen in his cheeks now that he is allowed to eat as he pleases. The way his words come to him so easily, and each one is precisely the right word, tugging at Xenk's heartstrings without even intending to. The way his breath had huffed against Xenk's cheek. Steady on. Yes. Steady on.
Xenk grips his spoon so hard he worries he will crack the wood.
+++
He procures new clothing for Edgin from the Market Square, while Edgin himself haggles for rations a carefully-measured fifty feet away: a fine, fur lined cloak; fur-lined boots with the customary metal spikes on the heel to help grip on the ice and snow; a woolen tunic with fur lining the hem and the cuffs of the sleeves; trousers that are cleverly sewn with multiple insulating layers. He picks things in flattering shades of light grey and deep blue. Perhaps this makes him selfish, for dyed clothes are a greater expense than raw wool and fur, yet he thinks of how striking Edgin would be in well-fitted clothing that is intended to highlight his looks instead of hide them, and he finds himself handing over the coin without complaint.
"This is way too much," Edgin says, once Xenk has brought back their fresh supplies. He is carefully pawing through the clothes that Xenk had purchased; he lays the cloak out on the bed in their room at The Eastside, his fingers hovering over the fur. He does not touch it. There is dirt beneath his fingernails. His skin has a thin patina of sweat and grime over it that is more obvious under the lantern light of the inn. "You didn't have to get all this."
"I will not stand idly by while you freeze to death," Xenk says placidly. "You required clothes. I have provided them."
"These are..." Edgin trails off. He swallows, and when he looks up there is color at his cheeks again. "What do you want?" he demands. There is a fierceness in his eyes that blazes like blue fire. Xenk blinks at him. What does he want?
I want you to smile at me the way you smiled at your friend, he thinks. Worse than that. I want to know how you smiled at your wife. I want to know who you were before she died. I want to know who you are now. I want...
"Nothing," he says. "I do not need payment for kindness, Edgin."
"This isn't just kindness. This is..." Edgin's hand twitches. He scrubs it over his face, over his beard.
"You are not beholden to me," Xenk says quietly. "These things I do...I expect nothing in return. I rejoice in the knowledge that my compassion may fuel your own redemption."
Edgin barks a bitter laugh. "Redemption," he says. "So this is...rehabilitation through buying me fancy clothes."
"I bought you clothes because I believe you are a good man who deserves kindness," Xenk says. He hesitates. Adds, "I bought you beautiful clothes because I thought they would suit you." It is as much an admission as he feels comfortable making. Let Edgin make of it what he will. Xenk turns back to his bag of holding, carefully sorting through their supplies, making tallies in his mind as to what they will still need to purchase when they reach Bryn Shander, versus what will be provided to them by his contact with the Harpers.
He feels Edgin come up behind him. Not close enough to touch, but near enough to sense the heat of him. Xenk does not dare look. "You think I'm a good man," Edgin says softly. "Even though I've been shitty to you."
"Your treatment of me is not an indication of moral turpitude. You have reason to distrust Thayans. I understand." Xenk busily counts their rations. They have enough to take them to Bryn Shander, only a day's travel away by the road, but once they reach the larger town they will need to procure more food. Water, at least, is not a problem this far north – there is never a shortage of snow.
"Hey," Edgin says. A hand comes to rest on Xenk's shoulder. He freezes, unsure of how to take it. "I, uh. Honestly can't believe I'm saying this, but. You aren't...like most Thayans." There is a beat of silence, and then Edgin adds, "The chaining me to you with a weird essence spell is...still not great, though."
"Would that I had any other choice," Xenk murmurs. His heart is glowing with something like elation. He sees me, he thinks, wild and strange. He sees me, he sees me. "We did not have time to overcome our differences. Can you honestly say you would have come with me willingly?"
"Of course I would have, I wanted to get out of there."
"Even without your friend?"
The mention of Edgin's absent companion causes the man to flinch slightly. The hand leaves Xenk's shoulder, and some of the heady lightness in his breast eases.
"...No," he says eventually. "I wouldn't have left without Holga. And...yeah. We probably would have tried to ditch you as soon as we could."
"We are all, at times, forced to act against our natures," Xenk says. "I choose to do so in pursuit of the greater good. That does not mean it pains me any less. I have made myself less honorable in the hopes that doing so will serve a greater purpose than myself. I hope only that both you, and Ilmater, forgive me."
"Me?" Edgin asks, a note of surprise in his voice. "Me, forgive you?"
"Yes. It is you I have wronged most grievously. I have taken your freedom from you. This is no small act, and I did not do so lightly. You would be well within your rights to despise me for it."
"I don't despise you," Edgin says. He sounds almost surprised. "I think you're a self-righteous weirdo, but I don't despise you."
Something that had been tight and uncomfortable in his belly, underscoring the curious lightness of his heart, eases. He had not even been aware he'd carried that tension.
"That is good," he whispers. "It...would pain me, if you did."
He continues to catalog their supplies. After a long moment, during which there is only the sound of Edgin's quiet breathing, there is a shift of movement behind him.
"I'm going to ask Marta about a bath," he says. "Do you want one, too?"
He breathes a bit easier. "I would not be opposed," Xenk says.
"All right. Don't go too far."
A joke. That is a joke. What does he say? How does he respond? Does he laugh? He is not good with jokes. That he recognizes this one at all is a minor miracle. Ilmater help him, what does he say?
"I will endeavor not to," he says, falling, as he so often does, on blunt truth.
Behind him, Edgin snorts. It is a small, indelicate sound. It is beautiful.
Xenk feels himself smiling as he hears Edgin leave the room.
+++
Edgin does, in fact, procure baths for them. The Eastside furnishes them with two large, wooden tubs, setting them up in the kitchen once the ovens have been banked for the evening. Marta solicitously moves the tubs close to the hearth before she fills them, and so the water is only lukewarm instead of freezing; Edgin thanks her profusely, takes up her hand and kisses her knuckles like a gallant knight. She is a petite, dark-haired girl of fourteen or fifteen summers, and she blushes as red as a rose in the face of Edgin's charm.
He is careful not to overstep, Xenk notes. His hands touch only her hands; his eyes remain on her face; he charms her, but goes no further than that. The brief had spoken of Edgin's skills as a Harper, but to see them in action is different. He is different. Not the hardened, grief-stricken criminal that the High Harpers had led Xenk to believe.
"You are good with children," Xenk says, once Marta has left them. They are alone now, only the bathing tubs and each other for company. Edgin shrugs.
"Not many would consider her a child here," he says. "She's probably blooded already. I wouldn't be surprised if she's got her eye on a husband."
"You are from Targos, yes?"
"Yeah."
"I defer to your expertise, then."
Edgin snorts. He begins stripping himself of his tatty hides, shedding them as a snake sheds skin. They peel off him in layers of grime and mildew, and he deposits them on the floor without a care for where they end up. "I wouldn't call it expertise," he says. "Just...used to how things are done up here."
"In Thay," Xenk says slowly, "it is common for...arranged marriages. Amongst both the poor and the very rich. I was a boy when Szass Tam rose to power, but...had he refrained for only another year or two, I likely would have been engaged."
Edgin's hands pause on the ties of his trousers. He is looking at the wall, not moving. "Were you poor?" he asks eventually. Xenk begins to remove his own clothes. He is more careful with them than Edgin, but then, they are his clothes. He has not been forced to wear them as a source of punishment and humiliation.
"I was a slave," he says. The words hold very little hurt, now. He had been too young to understand the finer points of slavery when he had been one, and now he is a free man, and none may place him in bondage that he does not first approve. "So, by the measure of Thayan society, I was very rich indeed. The man who owned my family was a Red Wizard, and his merits were our merits."
"Fuck," Edgin says softly. "I...I didn't...Sorry."
"Why?"
"For bringing up bad memories? For being an asshole? Pick one."
"I will pick neither. I am a slave to no one and nothing, Edgin, and I have already told you that I do not begrudge your distrust of me. I only hope that, despite our circumstances..." He trails off. Licks his lips. Folds his tunic neatly and sets it aside. "...perhaps, eventually, you will come to place as much faith in me as I hold in you."
"In me?"
"Yes. Though you forswore your oath to the Harpers, your oath has not forsworn you."
Edgin laughs. It is bright and musical and startled. "That doesn't make sense. Just because that sentence is symmetrical doesn't make it not bullshit."
"You may call it what you like." Xenk turns at the same time as Edgin moves, finally undoing the ties of his trousers and letting them fall. He steps gingerly out of them, grimacing at the sight of his own body, sliding his boots off and kicking them aside until he is standing bare, and Xenk finds all the words he had been turning over on his tongue have now dried up in his mouth.
He suspects he is staring. He cannot make himself stop. Edgin is beautiful; in the flickering light of the hearthfire he is made of red and golden shadows, the cut lines of his hips dark, the vee of his groin a shape chiseled in sun-brightened marble. His ribs are stark, his belly concave, but there is lean muscle along his arms, and his calves and thighs are fine, and strong, beautiful and shapely. Dark brown hair dusts them, and nestles in a thatch at his groin, and there is a smattering of it across his chest that Xenk finds his eye drawn to over and over.
"It's all healed," Edgin says. He turns, gesturing towards his side. "Not even a scar. Good work."
Xenk blinks. Regains control of himself. He is aware of his skin in a way he has not been for...months. Years, maybe. Aware of a heaviness between his thighs. "That is good," he forces himself to say.
He turns away when he removes his breeches, and feels Edgin's eyes on him as he folds them and then steps, still facing towards the hearth, into the tub. He sinks down into the water with a sigh; it is lukewarm, but it is clean.
There is a splash behind him, the displacement of water, and Edgin yelps quietly, then moans. The tips of his ears feel very hot. He wants to turn his head and look. It takes an extraordinary effort of will not to.
He manages.
Barely.
They soak for several minutes, letting the sweat and the rind of filth they have accumulated over the past several days loosen under the onslaught of the water, and then Edgin says, "Can we stop in Targos? Just for an hour. Not even."
"There is nothing there we require," Xenk points out. "And it will take us several hours out of our way. 'Twould be better to leave directly from Bryn Shander."
"Please," Edgin says. Xenk has not heard Edgin say 'please' before. Worse, this is not merely a request – this has the uncomfortable feel of begging. "We don't have to talk to the Speaker, we can skip getting the money, I just need...I just need one hour. One."
"This means something to you," Xenk says. Edgin is silent. He imagines the water lapping against his arms, the sinewy, corded muscle there. He imagines the firelight dappling Edgin's chest. He imagines what it would feel like to be seen by him this way, the both of them bare and vulnerable.
"Yeah," Edgin says softly. "It does."
"That is all I need to know. We will stop for however long we may."
There is a shift in the water. A hand reaches into the corner of his vision, touches his forearm. Edgin, stretching out across the short space between them. His fingers leave wet trails on Xenk's arm that gleam almost crimson in the light of the hearth; they linger there, warm despite the tepid bathwater.
"Thank you," Edgin breathes. His fingers twitch, as if he intends to squeeze, and then he takes his hand back.
Xenk resolutely ignores the sudden ache in his groin, the pounding of his heart, and wonders if these are considered a sort of pain. If, through the machinations of the spell that binds them, Edgin feels it, too.
+++
"I can sleep on the floor," Edgin says. There is only a single bed available in their room; Xenk had been planning to sleep beside it on his bedroll. He opens his mouth to protest, and Edgin fixes him with a stony look. "You're the frontline fighter. You should get some rest."
"I am more accustomed to my bedroll than to a proper mattress," Xenk says. "It would make more sense for me to take the floor."
They stand on opposite sides of the bed, staring at each other, neither willing to budge. Edgin's hair is still dark from the bath, sleek back against his head, falling into waves around his temples where it has begun to dry. Outside the winter wind howls, and all of Termelaine is dark and empty. The only lanterns kept lit are just outside the inn, bathing its front door in welcoming gold, but the streets, the pines, the lake, all are quiet and black.
"We could share," Edgin says. He says it hesitantly, as though he expects to be refused. Xenk turns the idea over in his mind. Judges it sound. The bed is large enough for the both of them, and he is a tranquil sleeper.
It will require that they sleep beside each other. Edgin's side pressed to his, Edgin's thigh just there, within reach, Edgin's long-fingered hands and his hidden, golden heart with the cracked edges that Xenk longs to find the roots of, how deep do they run, searching for the core of kindness that he has seen glimpses of and wishes to know, wishes to see as Edgin has seen him in brief flashes...
He nods, slowly. "That is...acceptable," he says. "Please do not hesitate to wake me if I disturb you in any way, Edgin." That seems a politic way of putting it. If Ilmater is kind, he will not wake with Edgin in his arms. He will not overstep any boundaries while he slumbers. If Ilmater is kind.
"Sure. Right." Edgin does not bother to remove his new clothes. He only takes off his boots, and then turns back the sheets and stretches out beneath them, sighing in pleasure as he sinks into the bed. The mattresses here are stuffed with wool and fur – straw is too precious a commodity to waste on anything but livestock. "You coming in?"
Edgin peers up at him. The single candle on the bedside table does little to illuminate his face, but Xenk can make out the quirk of his lips, tugged up in a slight smile. His mouth goes dry; his ears go hot.
"Very well," he says, and stiffly removes his boots, and just as stiffly lays down atop the sheets. He hears Edgin huff, and then clever, fine hands are yanking the sheets out from under him, and enfolding him, and he is warm and close in the humid dark. He can feel Edgin's hip bumping against his as his charge leans over and blows out the candle, plunging the room into pitch blackness. Leaving nothing but the whitish glow of the snow outside, and the howling wind.
Edgin settles beside him.
They lie in silence for minutes. Perhaps hours. Xenk is trying to control his breathing. He has been struck with a wanting so paralyzing that it has frozen his limbs and stolen his blood. He wonders if Edgin would, paradoxically, be able to see him better here in the darkness.
"I have a daughter," Edgin says. His voice is a whisper. "She's...she's the most amazing thing in my life, and I made a stupid mistake, and I need to find her. That's why I need to stop in Targos. Before I was...before. I asked a friend to look after her. Keep her safe."
A shoulder butts against his own. Edgin turns upon his side. Xenk stares up at the ceiling, breathing, breathing. Pieces falling into place.
"Why did you attempt to rob Korrin's Keep?" he asks, and Edgin huffs.
"They didn't tell you? I guess it's hard to sell me as a remorseless criminal with the truth. They had a tablet of reawakening."
Realization strikes him like a blow. "You would have brought back your wife."
"Yeah. But, I fucked up. Trusted someone we shouldn't have. Now we're here." Edgin sighs. "I didn't even tell Kira the truth. I didn't want to get her hopes up, in case I failed."
"You are a good father."
Edgin snorts. "No, I'm not. But thanks for lying."
"I do not lie."
"That just means I'm an excellent liar, for making you believe that."
Xenk turns onto his side. This close he can make out the shape of Edgin's nose, his mouth, but no fine details. He is shadow and darkness, and he wonders what Edgin sees in turn. If there is something about the lack of sight that allows them to view beyond the flesh.
"Perhaps you are," he allows. "But I believe I know you better than you think, Edgin Darvis. And I hope...that you will come to know me, as well. Beyond the mark I wear."
Their combined breath makes the caught space between them warm, nearly cozy. He cannot see the blue of Edgin's eyes, nor the shape of his expressive mouth. However much insight the darkness grants, Xenk finds himself resenting it. He wants to look upon Edgin. He wants to see hope in his eyes. He wants to hear him speak of his daughter.
He wants to put his hand on Edgin's hip. He wonders what it would be like to kiss him.
The thought is a sudden, flighty thing, there and gone again, but it leaves him shaken. There is too much between them to want. There is not enough. He has known Edgin for less than a tenday.
He feels like he has known him forever.
"Ed."
Xenk pulls himself back. Reins in his emotions. It is to be expected that he feels a connection, he tells himself. It does not mean it is real. It does not mean that Edgin would reciprocate. "Hm?"
"Most people who know me call me Ed."
Xenk's chest flutters. "Do I know you, Edgin?" he asks. In the darkness, Edgin shrugs.
"As much as anyone does," he says. Perhaps he imagines it, but to Xenk's ears his voice sounds almost wistful. "You definitely have more faith in me than anyone else."
He swallows. "It is not a hardship to have faith in you, Ed," he whispers.
The wind moans. The darkness creeps in. Beneath the sheets, Edgin's hand finds Xenk's wrist and holds on.
+++
They leave Termelaine with the first creeping light of dawn.
Edgin cuts a fine figure in his new clothes, and now that he is bathed and no longer starving there is a merry presence to him that oozes outwards, and seems to provide them both with restful cheer. It is easy to feel good when Edgin is feeling good, and as Xenk kneels in the snow outside of The Eastside to pray for his steed, he hears Edgin begin to hum.
Without thinking about it he times his prayer to the beat of Edgin's song, and when he opens his eyes he finds that the horse he has summoned is familiar, but not familiar, a warhorse of the same size and strength, the same shape, but with a grey coat which reflects the wild sky above them, such that the silvery sheen of it appears blue. It is very nearly the precise shade of Edgin's eyes, but all that Edgin has to say is, "Neat, the horse is a different color today." Then he waits for Xenk to mount before he does so himself.
The roads between Ten Towns are typically well-maintained, and they encounter very little trouble on their short journey to Targos. They must stop and hide during their second hour, as in the far distance Xenk spots several hulking figures working their way slowly through the snow. Edgin watches it with a light of familiarity in his eyes, his lips parted in awe. For all that frost giants are wicked creatures, they do make for an impressive sight as they herd their mammoths across the tundra, and Edgin turns his head to follow their path.
"I've never seen them so close," he says, and Xenk worries, briefly, for the future of Icewind Dale. Another thing to bring to the Lord's Alliance, once they have left the isolated reaches of the Frozen North.
For now, though, he dares to nudge Edgin's shoulder with his own and, after a moment, feels Edgin nudge him back.
They continue on their way, and meet no hardships worthy of note, other than an encounter with some goblins only a mile out from Targos which ends with the creatures setting fire to their own makeshift war machine, at which point both Xenk and Edgin simply leave, and are not pursued.
"There's a certain charm to them," Edgin says. His eyes are brighter, and he speaks with his hands as much as with his tongue. Xenk can feel them gesturing behind him, over his shoulder, brushing against his cloak. "A little bit like...I don't know. Having a rat in your pantry, but it's been there so long that you've named the rat and it's almost like family."
"You see the best in people," Xenk tries, and Edgin laughs.
"Fuck, no. Goblins are awful. They steal livestock and they raid caravans. I'm just saying that...I don't know. You gotta find what's good, even in the awful stuff. Otherwise we'd go insane. You gotta take what you can, when you can."
This is likely the same mentality that led Edgin to a life of crime in the first place.
Except...it wasn't.
It was the death of his wife. Needing to provide for his daughter. A dozen things stacked against him, until the tower of his burdens had at last toppled over, and there had been nothing to do except to start from the bottom.
"I am not good at...taking things," he says. Edgin's hand touches his hip. His fingers feel like a brand.
"I've noticed," Edgin says. And then Targos rises before them, smoke trailing from dozens of chimneys, the call and response of the fishermen on Maer Dualdon filling the broad, rambling streets with noise. Between Edgin's sudden excitement and Xenk's own, equally sudden, bewilderment, there is no time to ask what Edgin meant.
+++
Edgin leads them to a dilapidated house along the southern edge of the town; the door hangs open, hinges rusted and broken, and the roof is in such a state of disrepair that Xenk can spy holes poking through the wood where rot or worms have set in. The rushes on the floor inside are mildewed. A dining table lies overturned in the middle of the main room.
Edgin looks over the mess, fists clenched and eyes blinking. Xenk thinks he spots the shine of tears in them, and he lifts his hand hesitantly, intending to offer...comfort, perhaps. A shoulder upon which to lean.
"Ed," he says, and touches the outside of Edgin's elbow, just briefly. He feels a shudder run through the man, and then Edgin is turning, and facing him fully, and his eyes are red-rimmed, a thin line of liquid silver along his lower lashes. He dashes his hand furiously against them. Sniffs once.
"I thought it'd be easier," he says. He straightens his shoulders.
"It does not need to be easy," Xenk says softly.
"Can I have a minute? I just need..."
"Of course. I will wait without."
"Without," Edgin repeats. He looks down at where Xenk still touches his elbow, his expression wondering. "I guess...not really, huh? 'Cause of the spell." Xenk tilts his head, inviting further explanation, and Edgin raises his left hand. Displays the runes still golden-glowing about his wrist. "Neither of us is without the other."
"I am sorry," Xenk says. His heart aches, but Edgin shakes his head.
"Don't be," he says. "Remember what I said about finding what's good in the bad? This is...if it had to be anyone, then I guess I’m glad it's you."
You have known me for less than a tenday, he thinks, watching Edgin disappear into the house. You began this journey hating me. You would not even ride beside me. You would not take my hand.
He can still feel Edgin's fingers on his hip. Burning through his chainmail.
He waits. He presses his forehead to the star-shaped blazed between his horse's eyes. He stands at attention again. The sound of Edgin scuffling about in the house is so quiet compared to the bustle of the streets around them. A woman stops and stares at him; he gives her a cordial nod, and her gaze skates over his armor, his sword, his warhorse, and then she hurriedly glances away and continues down the path.
"Fuck," he hears from inside the house, and Xenk is moving before he has even realized it, coming to a stop in the doorway to the sight of Edgin crouching on the floor, letting some scraps of cloth filter through his fingers, a well-worn lute lying by his side. He looks up. Xenk is not stealthy in his approach.
"Nothing," he says. He sounds frustrated. He sounds sorrowful. Xenk wants to kneel in the detritus beside him and put his arms around him and lay his hands on whatever wound he can find, only this is a wound not of the body, but of the heart. "No sign of her. No sign of Forge."
"Forge," Xenk repeats. His mind stops in its tracks. Skids. Realigns, more pieces falling into place. "Forge...?"
Edgin looks at him, exhaustion writ in the lines of his face. "Yeah," he says. "That friend I told you about, who was supposed to look after Kira? That's Forge. Forge Fitzwilliams."
"Forge Fitzwilliams," Xenk says, "the Lord of Neverwinter."
Edgin's face does something complicated. His mouth opens and closes, and he blinks several times, and then he swallows. "Lord of Neverwinter?" he says.
The High Harpers had not wanted him to share overmuch of their plan with Edgin. The High Harpers had also said nothing of the conditions of Revel's End. Had said nothing of hide clothes rotting off the skin, nor starvation in an icy prison, nor a golden heart hidden beneath a layer of snow.
The Harpers pursue a higher truth. So does Xenk.
He is not a Harper.
He holds out his hand. "I believe it is time I told you what I know of the reason you have been summoned," he says, and Xenk peers up at him. His gaze softens.
Ed picks up his lute.
He takes Xenk's hand, and lets himself be pulled to his feet.
+++
It is some two hours still from Targos to Bryn Shander, where a Harper agent waits for them with a guide and enough provisions to last the journey from Icewind Dale to Fireshear.
Xenk takes his time explaining. It is closer to three before they spot the high walls of Ten Towns' greatest city, and the sun has risen high in the sky, high enough that he knows no guide would be willing to set out until next morning's light.
Perhaps this makes him selfish, finagling things so they have one more night here in the dark and the cold. And yet Ed had said that sometimes one must seize what one wants.
"That's why they sent you," Ed says, as they approach Bryn Shander's first outpost. "If they're worried Sofina is a Red Wizard..."
"...I am one of the few on the Sword Coast uniquely suited to confronting her," Xenk agrees. It is easy to agree with Ed. Dangerously easy. He is the sort of man that one might give up a life for. The sort of man who might join a life.
"So why do they need me?"
"You knew Forge Fitzwilliams. You were friendly with him. They hope to convince you to gain his trust, and learn more of Sofina's plans in secret."
Ed snorts. "They didn't think she might cotton on? You know, considering I'm supposed to be locked up? Oh, and also she betrayed us."
"Now that I know more of your history, yes, it does begin to seem like something of a desperate plan. Most are, when they involve the Red Wizards."
They pass beneath the arch of Bryn Shander's wall, and the sun blazes its bloody path through the sky at their backs.
"So what do we do?" Ed asks. Xenk glances over his shoulder; there is a strange set to Ed's mouth, and his eyes are very blue, and very focused, like light through a prism. All of the focus is on Xenk.
We, he had said. What do we do. Xenk's heart beats like a drum.
"I will admit I am not the most...strategic-minded of men," he says slowly. "Ilmater asks his faithful to provide succor in the most expedient and straightforward way possible. I assume this would not be helpful here."
"Against a conman like Forge? No. No, it wouldn't."
Xenk stops before what looks like a promising inn. Kelvin's Comfort, the sign says. "No guide will escort us this close to dusk," he pronounces, and catches Ed squinting at him from the corner of his vision. "Best that we spend one more night gathering our strength before we leave."
"Sure," Ed agrees readily. "One more night. Not like I can sneak off." He reaches out. He taps Xenk's wrist, fingertips stroking over the gilded runes. "Not like you can, either. We're stuck with each other."
Xenk swallows. There is something in Ed's voice that he cannot place, and does not want to put a name to unless he is certain. So many times before he has failed to read some subtle sign, some quirk of the mouth or sigh or twitch at the eye. He has made a fool of himself, and he has gained the reputation for not caring, because he has done it again and again. It is better not to care, when one cannot change one’s faults.
"Until we reach Neverwinter, yes," Xenk says. His tongue is a thick, odd thing that refuses to cooperate, lies at the bottom of his mouth like something dead. "I swear to you on my honor, Ed, that the spell will be removed then. I would remove it now, were I capable."
"Dunno. I think you're pretty capable."
"You humor me."
"Nah. I'm flattering you."
Xenk frowns. He cannot study Ed's face the way he wishes to, mounted as they are. He still cannot place the tone of Ed's voice.
He dismounts. He offers Ed a hand, and his chest tightens and beats and flutters when Ed takes it and uses it to help slide himself from the saddle. He dismisses his horse.
"Come on," Ed says. "Let's get a room."
+++
Ed negotiates with the dwarven proprietor. Xenk hears him exclaiming loudly, over the sound of drinking and tale-telling, "Oh, no. Just one room left? With a single bed? I don't know if that's going to work." He glances at the bar, where the dwarf is leaning with his elbows on the wood, staring up at Ed, appearing deeply unimpressed. Ed leans down and says something that Xenk does not catch. The dwarf sighs.
"That's right," the dwarf says, raising his voice to be heard over the din. "Only one room, with one bed. You'll have to take it or leave it, lad."
"I guess we've got no choice," Ed says emphatically, and then he turns to Xenk, and catches his eye, and gives him a thumbs-up. Money changes hands – Xenk's money, that he has given to Ed, and he is not even sure when he did that, only that it had seemed like the appropriate thing to do. Ed is better at talking. Haggling. Charming.
He is so very charming.
Ed approaches him with a heavy iron key dangling from his finger, swinging it idly. He whistles while he walks, and smiles brightly once he is within earshot of Xenk. Far from seeming discouraged by the knowledge of his friend's involvement with a Red Wizard (potential or not), he seems invigorated. Xenk thinks again about how Ed is the sort of person one might join a life for. Start a new life. Begin again.
"This suits you," Xenk says, as they ascend the stairs to the second floor. Ed looks at him quizzically. "The life of a Harper."
Ed snorts. "I'm not a Harper," he says. "Fuck those guys. I'm doing this for Kira first, and to rub Forge's nose in it second."
"Whatever you choose to call it," Xenk says gently. "It suits you. You are a far cry from the bedraggled man I took from Revel's End."
"Guess I just needed a little inspiration," Ed says, and lets them into their room.
The Kelvin's Comfort is one of the larger inns in Bryn Shander, yet the room that they find themselves in is small, cozy, close. There is, as had been mentioned, only a single bed, but it is more than large enough for two to share, and it is covered with a thick-looking down duvet that would rival the luxury of any southern port. Xenk pauses by the bed to touch it, to let his hand sink into it. There have been more comforts afforded him during these past few days than he has allowed himself for months. Mostly because of Ed.
Entirely because of Ed.
"Nice place," Ed says. He leans against the wall, casually observing the room as Xenk goes through the familiar motions of stripping off his armor, unbuckling, unlatching, untying. The armor is as much a part of him as his blade or his brand, and to be without it, even when he knows he should be, feels strange. It feels stranger still to have Ed watching him. There is something charged in the air between them, and when he glances at his wrist he finds that the runes, which have thus far limited themselves to a desultory glow, are now lit so fiercely from within that it seems he wears the sun like a bangle. He wonders, if they never went to Neverwinter, if the spell were never removed, would it eventually fade? Would the runes become faint red lines, the same as the mark on his forehead?
If Ed died, eventually, of old age or illness or simple bad luck, would Xenk survive it, and wear the runes as a memory ever afterwards?
He sets his armor aside, leaving it piled neatly on the single table in the room. He puts his boots beneath it, to prevent Ed from tripping should he rouse in the night. He considers his cold weather clothing, the thick overcoat, the wool-lined tunic and the heavy cloak.
The cloak, he takes off. Drapes it over the edge of the table beside his armor. The rest...he is still thinking. The night is cold. It would make sense to keep on all the clothes that he can.
He turns, and finds that Ed has already removed his shirt.
"Warm in here," Ed says, and fans his face. It's true that the heat of the hearthfire below them filters up through the floorboards, but it is still just barely more comfortable than outside, beneath the sun's dying rays. Gooseflesh has risen across Ed's shoulders; his nipples are peaked, and nearly as pink as his mouth. Xenk’s eye is drawn to Edgin's chest, the same as it was when he observed it while they bathed.
"It is warmer than outside," he says. He swallows. Looks away. He is not an innocent, however much people view paladins as the epitome of chastity – he has been taken to bed before. Has felt the hands of another on his skin, a mouth hungry on his lips, the warm pulse of arousal in his gut.
But it has been a long time. Decades. He has only grown further and further apart with age, and he can no longer explain it away as youthful naivete. He should know how to be seen. He should know how to let himself be...open. Wanting. A part of the society that he protects.
He still does not. He knows the blade, and the armor, and his god.
...He knows Ed's fine-fingered hands. He knows Ed's quiet humming, dulcet as a songbird. He knows Ed's hidden, shining heart. What does Ed know of him? That he was a slave? That he is Thayan? What has Ed seen, while Xenk has been all unaware?
Lust sits heavy on him, worse than the winter cloak, worse than a thousand layers of stifling wool and leather. And worse than the lust, he wishes to take Ed's still-thin face into his hands and gentle him. Tell him he is worthy. Reassure him that his daughter will be safe.
He turns down a corner of the sheets, and when he looks up again Ed is there.
"Okay," Ed says. He crowds into Xenk's space, until the backs of Xenk's knees hit the edge of the bed and he can go no further without toppling over. He considers the merits of doing so, of letting himself fall, and judges it unwise based on the stubborn fire in Ed's eyes. "I feel like I'm going crazy. Am I reading the signals right? Because I thought I was."
"Signals," Xenk repeats, his mouth going dry. He tries to lick his lips, and Ed's eyes follow the movement of his tongue. Has he been sending...signals? He had thought he was keeping himself under control. He had thought...
Something in Ed's expression softens. The fire in his eyes banks down to a sweet hearth. The gooseflesh across his shoulders and arms has settled, and now he is all smooth, pale skin, with a gold cast from the candle on the windowsill and his own shining inner light. This close, Xenk is able to see that his arms and torso are littered with scars. Mostly small: near misses, tiny nicks, pinpricks. A few larger, silvered slashes, low on his belly.
"You can't keep your eyes off me," Ed says, pronouncing the words slowly, deliberately. It sounds like a conviction. Like the arbitration that Ed had awaited, and which Xenk had stolen from him. "You keep finding excuses to touch me. The other day in the bath, I thought you were gonna jump me right there."
"I..." Apologize, he means to say. It sits on the tip of his tongue, ready, but Ed is not to be deterred. He bowls Xenk over, overwhelms him with his presence.
"Do paladins do things differently?" he asks, and then does not wait for an answer before he says, "Because this is fine. I'm fine with this. I got a single bed and everything."
"You said there was only one room left," Xenk says. His voice comes out low, throbbing as hard as his heart, as the heat at his groin. Ed smiles. Quicksilver.
"I lied," he says. "I told you, I’m a good liar. Sorry. But I'm not lying about this." His hands come up, his long, clever fingers touching Xenk's cheeks, scratching through his beard. Ed's thumbs sweep under the shelf of his jaw, and he shivers. Ed looks suddenly concerned. He leans back, though he does not remove his hands.
"Am I wrong?" he asks. His eyes search Xenk's face. "Did I read it wrong? If I did, forget it, forget all of...this."
"You are beautiful," Xenk says, unable to contain the truth any longer. Honesty is a tenet of devotion, and besides, he is not so fine a liar as Ed. Xenk swallows, and feels Ed's thumbs shift with the movement of his throat. His companion looks fascinated. "I have thought you more than passing fair since I first saw you."
"Covered in hides and smelling like mildew? Really?"
"Your beauty cannot be hidden beneath clothes, nor even skin. It is a beauty of the soul." Ed snorts. His hands inch upwards, no longer cupping Xenk's cheeks, but reaching up to stroke his hair. He barrels onwards, heedless of the danger, of how being seen necessarily means being known, and how less than a tenday ago Ed had hated him, had hated him down to his marrow for little more than his provenance of birth...
'I don't despise you,' Ed had said.
"You need not ever search for treasure," Xenk whispers. He keeps his hands clenched and stiff at his sides; he does not dare reciprocate until Ed has made his intentions as plain as possible. "You carry it within you. Your heart is made of gold."
Ed takes one hand back. Scrubs it over the bottom half of his face, pulling at his lips. "Shit," he says, and then laughs, high and a little bit wild. "Well, shit. I'm, uh. I'm flattered. You get all that from the magic binding spell?"
"You think I speak falsehoods." By the way Ed flinches, he knows himself to be right. "But I have...as you said, I have been unable to take my eyes from you. I have seen you."
"You tell a guy your backstory and suddenly he knows you," Ed says. It sounds like another jest. Xenk shifts uneasily.
"I understand if my attentions are unwanted," he offers, and Ed's eyes snap back to his face. "I have taken your freedom. I have taken you from your companion. I..." Ed's hands come down to Xenk's shoulders, gripping him firmly.
"Didn't I just say I was fine with this?" he asks, and then he hooks Xenk in by the shoulders and kisses him.
If there is a more obvious permission, Xenk does not know it. He lets his fingers uncurl, puts his hands on Ed's trim waist while Ed's lips move over his own. His kisses are delicate, dedicated, a bee sipping at nectar until Xenk relaxes under the relentless gentleness, until he is sure. Then Ed sweeps inside with his tongue, hot and pressing; he licks at Xenk's teeth, at his lips, tilts his head and slots their mouths more firmly together, and Xenk can do little more than be taken. To let Ed move as he will, and move Xenk in turn. He holds on to Ed's hips, dares to trip his fingers up the skeletal rungs of Ed's ribs, and feels both relief and gratification when Ed shivers under the touch.
Then he is pulling away, his lips darkened to a reddish glow, his blue eyes blazing. The shining light of the runes about his wrist draws Xenk's eye, and Ed follows his gaze.
"Don't worry about it," Ed says.
"I have wronged you."
"Then make it up to me. Do you want this?" He sways back, just enough to allow a wash of cool air between them. Even beneath all of his clothes, Xenk feels it pierce down to his bones. He cannot imagine that Ed is comfortable, standing here in naught but his trousers. Ed sweeps a hand down, gesturing at himself. "Do you want me?"
Xenk swallows. Once again, Ed has accurately determined who truthfully holds the power, here, and it is not Xenk. Perhaps it never was.
"Yes," he rasps. "For all that I have done to you, I would still seek your regard."
"Cool," Ed says. "We're on the same page. Finally." Then he puts his hands in the center of Xenk's chest and pushes him backwards, onto the bed.
+++
The room has grown hot. Steam thick on the window while the wind gusts outside, nightfall but not yet full dark. Spring in Icewind Dale is long, and the sun's rays linger.
Ed, above him, groans. Leans down to kiss him again. His right hand tangled with Ed's left, the runes glowing bright enough to rival a star. Ed has removed his clothing. He is not certain where it has gone to, only that it is gone. Sweat is slick on his chest, and Ed scrambles to duck his head, to lick a beading droplet from the center of his pectorals before it can slide down into the sheets.
"Fucking gorgeous," Ed says. "How are people not falling all over you?"
"You were not falling all over me," Xenk points out, and Ed rolls his eyes.
"Changed my mind," he says. "Hearing a guy's backstory can do that." He sticks out his tongue and drags it over Xenk's nipple, until it is a hard nub under his lips. Then he takes it into his mouth and sucks, and Xenk knows very little else other than skin, and heat, and Ed sitting astride him. Ed wriggling out of his trousers like an eel and perching himself in Xenk's lap. Ed taking both of his hands, folding their fingers together, pushed up against the headboard while he rolls his hips and Xenk gasps into his mouth.
"Don't suppose you've got oil in that fancy bag of yours," Ed whispers. He does. He has oil for his sword and armor. He has holy oils for anointing the penitent. Perhaps it is ironic that it is the holy unguents he reaches for, when Ed slides off of him long enough to fetch his bag of holding from the table.
The room is filled with the smell of myrrh and sandalwood as Ed pours oil into his palm. It glistens like liquid gold, and is warmed by the heat of his skin when he reaches between them. Takes Xenk in hand and touches him until he is gasping again, wrings pleasure from him until he is leaking it like a sieve, until his own spend joins the oil on Ed's hand. He can do little more than hold on, touching what he can: Ed's thighs, his belly, his sides, stroking, petting. Gentle. I see you, he tries to push into each delicate brush of fingertips. I see you, I see you, I see you. When he takes Ed in his own hand it pulls a groan from the man above him, the runes about his wrist glowing fiercely. He is uncertain; it shows in the hesitancy of his touch, and so Ed folds their hands together around the length of him. Shows Xenk how to bring him pleasure.
"Like that," he groans, and the sound of his voice is nearly a song. "Fuck, yeah, just like that. Mm. Love your hands. Thought about them the other night. In the bath. Touching...oh. Touching me. You climbing into the tub next to me..."
"The tubs were not large enough to hold both of us at once," Xenk says, and Ed tips his head back, laughing. He pushes into Ed's hand, and the laughter becomes a stuttering moan.
"So literal," he says, words beginning to slur. "Like that. Like that I don't have to guess. You just, hah, you just tell me."
"I would not lie to you."
Ed leans down. Presses close. The smell of holy oil is so pungent that it wraps around them like a cloud, and his eyes are so, so blue.
"I know," he says. His mouth is slightly open, tongue peeking out to swipe along his lips. He says it again, "I know, I know you wouldn't," and then he groans, and Xenk feels his lips, burning like a brand, touch the raised edges of the mark on his forehead at the same time as he spills into Xenk's hand. The words are a cacophony in his ears: I know, you, I know, I know you...
Ed collapses onto his chest, driving the breath from him in a loud huff. He wriggles a bit. He lets go of Xenk, and Xenk lets go of him. They do not shift apart, but lie together, the candle flickering, the wind outside wailing.
"Mm," Ed hums. Even now, sex-roughened and sleepy, his voice is tuneful. "Good. Thanks."
"You are welcome." He slides his hands out from between their bodies. Spend links, sticky, between his fingers; he lacks a cloth to clean his hand, and he does not wish to disturb Ed by rising. Practical solutions are a paladin's bread and butter: Xenk licks the shimmering strands from between his fingers while Ed watches him, eyes wide and glittering.
"Holy shit," he breathes. "How are people not falling all over you?"
The taste of oil sits heavy and bitter on his tongue, nearly drowning out the salt and musk of Ed's spend. Xenk cleans his fingers fastidiously, and then when there is nothing left but his own spit he rests his hand on his chest to let it dry. "People find me strange," he says slowly.
"You are strange. Doesn't make you less hot."
"You would be one of the few to think so."
"Yeah." Ed reaches up. Taps the brand in the center of his forehead. He lingers, tracing the shape of it with his fingertips, and Xenk's vision is filled with the low, pulsing light of the runes around Ed's wrist. "But I know you."
You see me. You see me. You see me.
The room is warm. Filled with gold. Gold the man in his arms and gold the binding on their wrists and gold the feeling in his chest, spreading roots, sinking in, mapping out the shape of his insides and coating everything in a sheen of sunlight.
Xenk puts his hand at the small of Ed's back and lets the weight of him bear them both down into the bed.
+++
In the small hours of the morning, before the sun has risen, before the lanterns have been lit along Bryn Shander's streets, Ed prods him in the side until he wakes. Xenk blinks into the darkened room, the only source of illumination a soft, whitish glow from the moon reflecting off the snow outside, and even that only reaches the edge of the bed before it is swallowed by shadow.
He is warm. Ed is warm in his arms, still, and peering at him, one leg tangled between Xenk's, toes poking into his calf, icy despite the layers of blankets bundled over them.
"I've got an idea," he says, and Xenk grunts. "We're gonna need a team. We can go back for Holga, and Simon might still be in Triboar..."
Xenk listens to the sound of the wind outside, and the sound of Ed's crooning voice here beside him. Seeing, being seen, even without light, Ed's animated, fine hands sweeping gestures over his bare chest as he explains his plan. From Bryn Shander back to Revel's End, thence to Neverwinter to dispel the binding, and to Triboar...it will add another tenday to their stay in Icewind Dale alone.
Yet he has already journeyed to the ends of the earth for this man.
Perhaps just a little bit farther, he thinks, and lets Ed's voice wash over him, soothing him back to sleep.