Bride of Malekith (WHF Druchii Sorceress Quest)

A maelstrom rages beneath your skin, an endlessly devouring whirlpool that consumes everything you are and leaves only a nameless void in its place. You are trembling even now, exhaustion and exhilaration stealing your control, yet you cannot turn to slumber or even move from this spot. You are helpless in the thrall of some force you cannot even name, furious and distraught all at once, and your eyes bead with tears as it threatens to drown you all at once.

You look at Lilliana, comatose and restrained in a nest of vines, and oh, how beautiful she is. Her pale skin is like polished marble, the chiselled lines of her narrow face a sculptor's masterpiece, yet in her slumber there is an edge of vulnerability you have never seen before. You called her perfect once, a child's credulous lie, yet even maimed and crippled she remains beautiful. You remember how she looked when you found her, that expression of pain and terror upon your face, and somehow the thought only brings you pain. There is no sense to it, you cannot reason with or overcome it, the only way that this feeling makes any sense at all is if… oh.

"I love her," you whisper, and the world falls around your ears.

Love! The sharpest blade in Atharti's arsenal, the most potent curse at Isha's command, the magic that ruins you like nothing else. Love takes all that you are and binds it to another, so that her pain is your sorrow, her satisfaction your joy. It is the bane of kings and doom of heroes, the prince who casts aside his crown and the sailor who lashes himself to a sinking ship. Love has taken you, and now it will destroy you.

Your breath rasps painfully as you stifle it, placing a hand across your mouth and thinking of the future. Lilliana survived the night with your assistance, but the injuries she has suffered will leave her weak and feeble, crippled in body and soul. The others will rise against her, and as her favourite you will suffer as she does for any loss of status. Perhaps you will even die, slain out of hand by those who would see themselves elevated in your place. There is no path left where the future is brighter than the past, only degrees of suffering and lost, and even at your most idealistic you cannot contest the truth of this.

Should you kill her yourself, then, and parlay your deed into a favoured place alongside whoever takes her place? The thought burns you like fire, and you set it aside just as fast. No. That might be the smart thing to do, it might even be the only way you could possibly hope to live through what is coming, but you will not do it. Love has taken you whole, and in your strange humour you find you do not even care. The worst has already happened, so what is there to fear from anything less? Indeed, why not act, and seal with deeds the doom you have embraced in your thoughts?

Slowly, hesitantly, you lean in over the cradle, bracing yourself against one flowering root. With a trembling hand you push aside a lock of Lilliana's raven dark hair, brush the ash and soot from her pale skin. Then you lean in further still, and take her mouth in the softest, gentlest kiss.

Her lips are so soft. She has claimed you thus before, but always it was a hard thing, furious and hungry. This is so much more than that, cold as ice yet soft as silk, setting a fire in your heart as it draws you in to drown. Deeper still you fall, lost in the feeling and blind to all else, until at last the pain in your lungs forces you to stop.

You draw back for a breath and see Lilliana's eyes are open.

"Mistress, I…" the words catch in your throat, impossible to finish. You can see the churning waves in the older woman's eyes, the endless hunger and remorseless cold of the sea, and in the face of that what few words you have to spare seem grossly inadequate.

"You disobeyed me," Lilliana says quietly, as if she cannot quite believe what she is seeing, cannot trust the memories that swirl behind her thoughts. "I told you to kill me, to spare me from this, and you refused."

"I did," you say, straightening up and taking half a step back, heart beating so fast you can feel it hammering against your ribs. Yara hisses something in the background, but you don't have time for her now. Your thoughts are consumed by the faint sheen on Lilliana's lips, the echo of her taste still lingering in your mouth.

"Why?"

You stare at her for a moment, feeling every wound and stain, everything that makes you the wretched waste your soul screams you must be. Your eyes burn hot and your voice is a whisper. "You know why."

"I… I need to hear it." Lilliana pauses for a moment, breaking your gaze and looking aside. "I want you to say it."

Suicide, surely, but when you've already surrendered yourself to sweet damnation even that fear loses its sting. You've said it once before when she slumbered. Why not say it again to her face?

"I love you," you murmur, blasphemy through bloodstained lips.

Lilliana shudders, perhaps in pain, perhaps in disgust. You watch silently, wondering if she knew what she had wrought. She ought to be proud. She took a baker's apprentice and made of her a weapon that refuses to become more, a servant that will not betray her even as she lies broken and bleeding. At your most cynical you could not have imagined a triumph so complete.

"Fetch my journal," she says, crushing the faint ember of hope in your breast with a word. Stiffly you bow and swiftly you obey, pausing only to grab the gossamer robe that Yara holds out in her taloned hands.

There are wards on the passageway connecting your rooms, subtle enchantments of the most vicious kind, but they recognise you and do not stir as you make your way up to the roof. Neither do the protections woven across Lilliana's desk or bedroom, nor even the stone bookcases full of tomes that hold all her secrets. In fact, now that you think about it, you don't think there is anywhere in this convent that Lilliana can go without you be able to follow. That means something, doesn't it? It has to mean something.

You stop short then, chewing on your lip hard enough to draw blood, shoving the thoughts to one side as you cast around for a distraction. From here you can look out over Har Ganeth, where the air stinks of blood and the hot wind carries the faint sound of screams to your ear. You can't see any of the dead from up here, but there is no disguising the blood that streaks the pale stone, nor the columns of thick smoke rising from the temple pyres. Death Night holds the city in its terrible grip, and here you are fretting over a woman you chose not to kill. You can only hope Khaine is satisfied with your earlier offerings, because he is not a merciful god.

Taking the journal from the shelves, you return to find Lilliana exactly as you left her, still suspended in the cradle of vines. She is watching Yara warily, the dryad keeping well clear but doing nothing to disguise the predatory intent in her eyes. Forbidding her from harming your mistress under any circumstance was one of the first commandments you issued, but Lilliana would not be the first sorceress to perish for trusting such bindings in a moment of weakness.

"Put it on the table," your mistress says in a hoarse voice, eying the journal in your grasp, "then approach."

You do as she commands, fidgeting slightly as you draw near. You can't stop your eyes from going to her leg, withered and blackened like the limb of a crone roasted upon a pyre. It must be agony, you know enough of curses to be sure of that, but Lilliana bears it without flinching. Another way in which she exceeds you.

"Whose name is this?" Your mistress reaches out with her one remaining hand, resting it lightly against your stomach. You shiver at the touch, then flinch guiltily. In all that happened you had quite forgotten the marks carved into your skin, or what they must look like to another.

"A witch elf," you murmur, knowing it futile to lie or prevaricate.

"You lay with her," Lilliana says flatly, and though it is not a question you find yourself nodding. Your mistress' eyes narrow at that. "She marked you like property. You are no slave, to bear another's brand."

There is an expectant edge to her gaze now, and you know what it is that she wants. You could wipe the marks away with a spell, a simple infusion of ghyran to heal the injuries and prevent them from scarring, but that would not atone for your transgression, so you swallow the lump in your throat and call the dagger to your hand. Lilliana is watching you closely now, and you can see the pain she is in, the distress her injuries cause her. Making you hurt yourself is her way of feeling better, but you know from experience she likes it more when it is her hand that inflicts the pain, so after a moment's pause you reverse the dagger and lay its hilt in her hand.

Lilliana stares at the dagger for a long moment. It trembles in her hand, shaking like a leaf in a storm, and then falls. Your mistress' lips draw back in a snarl as she looks away, shamed and furious at her own weakness. You nod, and this time when you place the knife in her hand you leave your own in place, cradling her fingers in your own. Then, oh so slowly, you bring hand and weapon to your skin and begin to cut.

It hurts, but the pain is an old and distant friend. Blood pours down your skin and across your entwined hands, hot and vital, and you find you don't mind that either. Lilliana is staring at you now, her eyes open wide, but she says nothing as you draw the knife in her hand back and forth. Only when it is done and you let the blade drop once more does she speak.

"Such a fool," she murmurs, as if lost in a dream, "My fool. My Thystra."

"My mistress," you manage, your voice trembling, your body wracked with pain and need, and in a fit of madness you cannot stop yourself there, "My Lilliana."

You kiss her again, before you can stop yourself. She freezes at the contact, rigid as a corpse, and your heart sinks into the bitter mire gathering in your chest. Then the tension leaves her and she responds, slowly and hesitantly, as if picking her way across unsteady ground. When at last you pull back, she does not resist. Her eyes are closed, and her cheeks wet with tears, and as your guts twist you stagger beneath the weight of the feelings. Then you notice just how much of your blood is covering the floor and stagger your way over to the nearest chair. It takes a few minutes to muster the concentration to heal your wounds properly, leaving nothing save a faint sense of weakness behind, and Lilliana says nothing all the while. Only when you are done does she speak.

"You have ever been gifted with the jade wind," she says slowly, and you can see the pain and dread in her watery eyes even as she gestures at her own ravaged form, "your diagnosis?"

"Most will heal with a day of work," you say frankly, fighting down the urge to apologise, the fervent need to cast yourself to your knees and beg forgiveness for your failure, "The rest… the arm is lost. The nerve damage is too extensive, the cauterisation too close to the shoulder joint for regeneration. The leg… I do not even know where to begin."

Lilliana sighs. Your words cannot be a surprise, but you think she was hoping for something else, some miracle you might be able to work that could deny what she already knows to be true.

"No, I suppose not. Taria was a clumsy brute, but she earned her seat in our council," she murmurs, eyes lidded as she stares at something you cannot see, "I thought I had her controlled. I did have her controlled. Something must have changed, some backer or source of inspiration, something hidden from my eyes…"

Her voice trails off, and you let the silence sit. Your mistress is among the greatest practitioners of foresight and divination in all Naggaroth, yet it is clear she was caught by surprise. You could do it, you think, but only because you know her thoughts and habits so intimately. That someone else could slip such a dangerous threat past her gaze implies things you cannot even begin to handle.

"Very well," Lilliana exhales softly, sinking back into her cradle of vines, "We have a few days to work with, as everyone recovers from Death Night, but sooner or later there will be a council. When that comes, we must be ready."

You nod seriously, trying not to smile at the use of 'we'. You feared your mistress would cast you out, severe the bond she now knows exists between you, but it seems she cannot afford to do anything of the kind just yet. Good. You don't know what you'd do if she sent you away, not now, not after all of this.

"I await your command, mistress."

Lilliana glances over at you, then shakes her head. "Rest, Thystra. Recover your strength and your sense of balance. A dull blade is of no use to anyone, least of all me."

You nod again, suddenly and painfully aware of how true her words are. Your muscles ache, your gut burns with the echo of your dedication, your soul feels as if you were wrung out like a wet and ragged cloth. How foolish of you, to imagine that you might serve any purpose in such a dire state. How selfish.

You sleep, and dream of love.

Article:

At present Lilliana has three weaknesses which might yet destroy her – her lamed leg, her missing arm, and her ignorance. Which does she make a priority?

[ ] The Withered Leg
You are directed to conduct research in healing and the restoration of weakened flesh. Such research will likely bring you to the attention of Cassara Blackblood, the convent's foremost expert on poisons, curses and debilitating magic of all kinds.

[ ] The Missing Arm
You are sent to explore options for the creation of a prosthetic limb or similar aid. Such enquiries will inevitably bring you into the orbit of Shasen the Golden, the convent's most accomplished artificer and spirit-binder.

[ ] The Unknown Foe
You are sent to discover who might have backed the recent assassination attempt. Such enquiries will inevitably involve you with the friends, allies and minions of Taria Redflame, once the convent's most accomplished battle mage before her death at your hands.

-/-

Lilliana spends days recuperating in your quarters, dependent upon you for even the most basic of tasks. During that time you converse on topics significant and petty, and you find yourself seeing a side of your mistress you never did before.

What does Lilliana share?

[ ] Her Childhood
It seems strange to imagine your mistress a child, innocent and weak and mortal, but she is no more an exception there than any elf.

[ ] Her Faith
Your mistress knows of your fascination with the divine, and indulges you with discussion of her own experiences and viewpoints.

[ ] Ulthuan
Neither of you have ever walked those long lost shores, but your mistress has scryed it many a time, and there is a strange melancholy in her voice when she speaks of it now.