Epilogue
When the sun rose, many sunrises later, it rose over a saved Baldur’s Gate. Or what was left of it. Golden light skipped across the water in the docks, and shone upon the ruins left by the Illithid invasion. Towers laid crumbled, roofs still burned. But the people, they lived. Most of them, at least. I hoped.
I had left my friends sleeping in our room at the inn, to which we had escaped as quickly as we could. In the end we didn’t want to shake any hands, receive any gold or inspire any bards. We found we wanted to be alone, together. And sleep in soft beds.
Mizora looked unbelievable in the early morning light, ethereal, holy even. She would kill me if she knew I used that word to describe her. She met me by the water, the light catching in her golden jewelry, her red hair, her white smile. How else would I describe her? She looked like some horned aasimar.
I was immediately trembling with the need to kiss her, but she didn’t lean in. She only held out her hand between us, another scroll waiting in her palm.
”Are you sure you don’t want to tell young Wyllyam about this?” she asked. ”He could owe you a delicious favor.”
I took the scroll, and when our fingers touched I felt goosebumps rise up my arm. I thought I saw the same rise up hers. I unrolled the parchment and looked it over, but had no need to be thorough. I had already read it, many times by now.
”No”, I said to her question. ”I’m afraid he would thank me. It would make this something else, something it’s … not.”
I felt Mizora watch me as I read, and when I looked up she conjured a quill, without breaking eye contact.
”And what is this?” she asked softly.
I smiled, and simply looked at her for a moment, which made her knot her golden eyebrows at me.
”If you want me to say it just tell me to”, I said, forcing back what I feared was a giggle. ”You are well within your rights to order me around now. Always have been.”
Mizora’s face softened again. Her eyes cooled and her smile warmed.
”Say it, pet”, she said, and I shivered.
”Love”, I said, and took the quill from her.
She scoffed, smiling still. But as I lifted the tip of the quill to the scroll, I stopped. I looked up, and Mizora seemed about to roll her eyes again.
”There is one final thing that I want.”
”Zariel help me”, Mizora sighed. She did roll her eyes.
”I want to help rebuild the town.”
”You want to rebuild Baldur’s Gate?”
”No, not just me, I want to … help. Six months. Let me help for six months, then we will go. Then I will be all yours. Forever.”
Mizora let out a ringing laugh.
”Six months, you’ll learn, is the blink of an eye for an immortal.”
Expectantly, I raised my eyebrows, the quill still hovering above the paper. Mizora fluttered her eyelashes sarcastically.
”So demanding, my pet”, she said, and I almost signed my name instinctively. ”Yes, six months. And for the trouble you accompany me to this idiotic bureaucratic function I have coming up.”
Smiling like a child I signed at the bottom of the contract, next to the old, faded red signature of Wyllyam Ravengard. And just as I finished my name, in a fresh bloody color, my friend’s name disappeared off the page.
I let out a long sigh. I had been holding it in, I realized. For how long? Ever since my first night with Mizora, probably, many months ago. From that first touch, without knowing it, I had been waiting for this particular sunrise and this particular sigh. The sigh of relief, after finally having become hers. Forever.
I most have been staring out into nothing, feeling every wave of emotion that kept crashing and crashing over me, for Mizora reached out to trace the side of my face with a tender claw. When my eyes focused again I saw the fire in her gaze flicker with passion.
”You will be the most powerful warlock in all the realms”, she said, her voice a hot whisper. ”My servant. My empress.”
She cupped her hand over my cheek, and kissed me. I closed my eyes and kissed her back, leaning all the way into her, and the light of the rising sun made flames dance on the insides of my eyelids.
When she broke away I was breathless, tasting sweet, smoky blood in my mouth. I realized the contract had vanished from my hand, and I felt Mizora press something new, something papery into it. An envelope, with a broken seal of red wax. And immediately, a familiar scent filled my nostrils.
”You brought this upon yourself”, said Mizora. ”You are coming with me to this, even if it will surely be dreadfully boring.
I slipped the letter out of its envelope, and felt my pulse rise as I read it. A throb, somewhere low in my body, picking up. The letter was an invitation, not as much to a bureaucratic function as to a party. Nay, a ball. An invitation to Raphael’s inauguration ball in Cania, written in Haarlep’s hand. And I knew, immediately, that Raphael had no idea of its existence.
Mizora watched my eyes widen.
”Are you scared you might enjoy it?” she asked.
I answered without thinking.
”Yes.”
And Mizora took my chin between her finger and her thumb to lift my face. She locked my gaze in hers.
”You don’t have to be scared ever again, Tav”, she said, and smiled. ”Only of me.”
And I nodded, because I knew that this was true. Looking at Mizora, I felt my smile take on that mischievous curve that it used to have, that I thought it had lost.
”Can I bring a friend?” I asked.