image [https://i.imgur.com/spj7R0e.png]

I woke to my door's lock being rattled. I sat up but only silence followed and the door sat unmoved.

My fingers ran over wrinkled cotton sheets, still unfamiliar despite the fact I had rested in them for two nights now. I felt permanently out of place since I had fallen from the familiar miseries of my fishmarket apartment and into a friendless world of intrigue. Under the thumb of the empire's secret police, I had no choice but to play my role as assigned, for a time at least, and prove my innocence in the supposed duplication of the Mane of Elsweyr.

A moment passed and it became obvious whoever had unlocked the door had moved on. Perhaps their confidence in my loyalty, or lack of agency, was growing. Breathing in the dawnlit quiet, I centered myself before rising to don the extravagant outfit I had extorted from Marius the previous afternoon — the clothes of the stranger I was to become.

The pants were too tight now, the gloves' red trim too garish for morning's sobriety. Nevertheless I rolled sleeves over my manacled wrists, slung my overstuffed satchel, and stepped into an empty hallway.

I wandered the manor halls, passing stray servants who took little notice of me. One of them I recognized as the dull fellow I'd instructed the night prior to secure my remaining belongings in my abandoned apartment in the city. Even he did not seem to recognize me. It's fair to say my expectations for his success were measured.

Unconsciously, I retraced my steps from the night of the party — through a now bare pavilion that echoed my hollow footsteps back at me until I was again beyond the pillars and looking over the city with Benezia by my side.

I had not expected to find her there, yet it felt as inevitable as sunshine following a rain. Only a grunt of acknowledgement came from my throat. She glanced up and pushed a bowl of hard boiled eggs to her side by way of invitation. "From the kitchen, help yourself."

I sat beside her before pinching an egg still warm from the pot. Across the river, what had the other night been mere silhouettes, were now marbled colossi covered in dark vines and the cracks of age. Some structures let off small trails of smoke from cooking or offerings to the gods.

She too was changed in the dawn light. Those wide merlot eyes that had once been so alluring to me now squinted at the skyline, over a pouting mouth. She was so small that even outfitted in the garb of a mercenary, a part of me wanted to take her under my arm and lead her anywhere but the path before us. Another part of me would have loved nothing more than to shove her down the stairs.

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I muscled down a mouthful of chalky yolk. "Benezia, I know having me accompany you wasn't your first choice, but I hope I'll prove myself to you."

She did that thing girl's do where they stare off like you're a plank of driftwood. I unwisely took this as an opportunity to continue speaking. "I know you may be concerned that things got a bit carried away the other night and gave me ideas, probably a touch hotter and heavier than even you intended… and no doubt you feel I spoke out of turn afterwards but—"

"My concern," she hissed, "is that I'll be preoccupied restraining a failed charlatan from exposing us both."

"See here, I wouldn't call myself—"

"And the pseudo-academic preening I'm going to have to endure! Perhaps it impresses some, but you stand out like a sore thumb. If you want to prove anything to me, you'll cease all your usual self congratulatory ponderings and predictions in my presence."

Her words stung me, deep in the sink of my gut where pretty girls' words so often find their target. "I can only promise that I will attempt to prove myself to you. I'd like this issue with the Manes done and dusted just as much as you do."

She shrugged before rising to her feet. "Finish eating and come out front so we can go."

I did so. Later, by the stables, I received an old chestnut mare by the name of Spinner, secondhand from Marius of course, but she appeared to be in fine shape. More surprising, it was none other than Marius himself handing me her reins. He even walked with us through the vineyard to the gatehouse, fussing at me to take precautions at river crossings and mountain trails, and to stay close to Benezia for protection.

I took it in good humor and told him it wasn't too late to join us — the thought of the old fop roughing it on woodland byroads bringing laughter even from him.

He smiled. "I'm not cut out for that life, but you're better off out there than in this miserable city for the moment. Maybe in a year we'll look back on all this and say it was for the best."

I clasped Marius' shoulder. "I think that's pretty likely. All the same, let's not do it again too soon."

He patted me on the back as I crossed the threshold to the country road.

Had I truly forgiven Marius? Consciously no, I was merely hoping to milk the toady for more funding should I survive the coming journey and find myself in a position to need it. Emotionally however, I knew I had pummeled the bald old dog thoroughly enough and believed him earnest in his well wishes towards me.

We mounted and I tutted Spinner on behind Benezia's gray steed. I took one last look back at the broad estate framing Marius' solitary form, his raised arm waving and behind it hung the pillar of the White-Gold Tower as a cloud. That image would remain frozen in my mind for it was such a small but bittersweet farewell to the city which had brought me so low.