Nys and Behzad stood alone beneath the Hallowed Falls, separated from Fern and Fable somewhere within the fractured reality of the cavern. The water around them was unnaturally still, and no answer came when Nys called for the others. Instead, another voice spoke from behind her. Sindatari, the Angel of Death, towered nearly ten feet tall over the Shadar-kai. Behzad stared at him. Sindatari stared back, apparently just as confused that Behzad could see him at all. After a long moment, Sindatari gestured toward the Dragonborn and asked Nys why the “overcompensating Paladin of my father” was looking directly at him. Behzad answered that perhaps he had been chosen for something greater. Sindatari was unimpressed. Anyone could become a Paladin with enough dedication to some make-believe oath; that did not make Behzad a Cleric. As far as Sindatari was concerned, Behzad had simply gotten on his knees like some whore, declared his love for J_On the Overgod, and convinced himself that made him special. Behzad suggested that perhaps J_On truly had chosen him. Sindatari conceded that perhaps He had. Or perhaps Behzad was simply a fanboy. Behzad responded that Sindatari himself was little more than a glorified messenger serving an irrelevant god. Nys turned toward him immediately.
“Behzad, don’t piss him—”
Behzad’s heart stopped before she could finish. His body collapsed onto the stone. For Behzad, the cavern, the Falls, and the entire world vanished at once. There was no light, no sound, no ground beneath him and no divine presence waiting beyond the veil. There was only an endless, empty darkness. Back at the Falls, Nys stared at his corpse while Sindatari calmly explained that he wanted Behzad to understand exactly where his present path ended. His sin of Pride had already damned his soul. Whatever knowledge he had bargained for from Tharizdun had come with a price, and someday, when someone finally stopped coddling him and slit the sanctimonious knight’s throat, there would be nothing waiting for him but that darkness. Nys asked the Lord Reaper to return him. She did not particularly want Behzad spending eternity in the abyss blaming her for what had happened. Sindatari rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. Behzad gasped as air flooded back into his lungs and his heart began beating again. He returned horrified, only for Sindatari to ask whether he had enjoyed his glimpse of finality. That was the price of Pride, all for a little bit of knowledge already melting his mind.
“There’s a reason we kept that knowledge away from humans.”
Behzad demanded to know why Sindatari cared. Sindatari assured him that he did not. He was merely offering advice. If Behzad could stop the clown act, be a good little choir boy, and keep his mouth shut for a few minutes, perhaps he might actually learn something. Then again, Sindatari supposed, the Clerics in Behzad’s temple probably usually told him to keep his mouth open. For once, Behzad said nothing. Sindatari nodded approvingly.
“Good.”
Sindatari turned his attention back to Nys. He had not awakened her from the illusion because he enjoyed their conversations; he needed her to find her “little vampire freak” and get out of Hallowed Falls immediately. This was where his sister had died. Jophiel, the Angel of Love, had been murdered here by the Crow during the ritual that transformed him into the Father of Monsters. Sindatari had no intention of allowing a second Crow to emerge from the same place. One killing spree already generated enough work for him, and if Fable discovered the ritual site and whatever remained there twisted her into something equally unpleasant, Sindatari might simply have to nuke the planet and start over. Nys called the information quite a revelation. Sindatari sighed.
“Yes. It’s literally in Revelations, but nobody reads that one.”
Nys admitted that, for a moment, she had hoped he had saved her for some nice reason. Sindatari reminded her that she had already received one nice resurrection.
“It’s one per masochist.”
Before leaving, Sindatari warned Nys not to try to kill whatever haunted the Falls. Jophiel herself was long dead, but a spark of divinity still clung to whatever remained of her, and fighting it would be comparable to trying to fight Sindatari himself. If Nys wanted to find her, she should listen for the crying. Nys froze as the pieces finally came together.
“SHE’S THE BANSHEE.”
Sindatari shrugged. It was the closest thing idiot humans would call her. Nys asked where Jophiel could be found, but Sindatari refused to say. Ancient laws prohibited direct divine intervention in mortal affairs. Behzad pointed out that Sindatari had just killed him. Sindatari explained that Behzad had insulted him, which apparently made the situation different. He gave Nys one final instruction before disappearing: find the scabbard. The Lady would hate for that particular artifact to ever see the light of day again. Nys quietly thanked him, only for Sindatari’s voice to immediately answer inside her mind.
“Maybe don’t pray to me while saying that.”
Elsewhere within the cavern, Fern suddenly jolted awake screaming Velatha’s name. Fable stared at him and asked who Velatha was. Fern caught his breath, looked around the impossible cavern, and decided there was no reasonable way to explain the answer quickly.
“Long story.”
Fern and Fable found themselves among enormous stone pillars overlooking the cave, unable to see Nys or Behzad anywhere below. As they searched for a path forward, one of the nearby formations began to move. Stone twisted into flesh and tentacles until a Grick emerged and attacked. Its strikes hurt Fable, but when she looked down there was no wound. Blood splattered across the stone looked convincing, as did rubble disturbed by the fight, yet none of it behaved quite correctly. Fern unleashed a Flurry of Blows and destroyed the creature, only for the corpse to simply dissolve. Fable examined what remained and concluded that the Grick had been an illusion. Whatever force controlled the Falls could produce something that was not physically real and nevertheless make it hurt.
Far below them, Nys and Behzad entered another chamber containing a dark blue underground lake broken by smooth stones rising above the surface. Behzad began to ask Nys why seemingly everyone they traveled with had some personal connection to a divine power, but before she could answer he became distracted by the lake. He tossed a stone into the water. Both watched it strike the surface and saw the splash clearly. Neither heard a sound. Then the water began to move. It rose as though sculpted by invisible hands, taking the shape of a Water Weird that wrapped itself around Nys and attempted to drag her beneath the surface. Nys twisted free enough to attack while Behzad unleashed a Ballistic Smite and missed. His next strike connected, and he used the weight of the blow to Topple the creature. The Water Weird fell onto its back and passed directly through the surface of the lake as though the water did not exist. It vanished. Nys and Behzad stared down after it.
Above them, Fern and Fable suddenly saw a Water Weird erupt upward from the lake below their own ledge. It flew past them and continued through the ceiling, thrashing as though it were falling under ordinary gravity even while moving in what appeared to be the wrong direction. Fable realized that whatever they were seeing was not reality. From their perspective, the lake below looked shallow and jagged, the kind of drop that would kill anyone falling a hundred feet into it. The illusion had not removed the true terrain. It was more like a blackout curtain dropped across a theater stage: false scenery placed over a reality that continued to exist beneath it. Unlike ordinary illusions, however, understanding the deception did not cause it to become transparent or fade. The Falls were not merely showing them false images. Something was attempting to overwrite their perception of reality itself.
As they continued onward, Fern finally asked Fable what she had seen in her own vision. Fable admitted that she had returned to Octavian’s manor, only this time there were no scars, no imprisonment, and no monster waiting for her. Her father treated her like a daughter. He wanted to spend time with her, walk the grounds, and allow her to live the life she had supposedly always wanted. Fable had rejected him. She did not want to discuss the details yet; whatever controlled the Falls appeared capable of using emotion to reopen the illusion. Fern asked what finally convinced her to leave. Fable explained that Octavian had wanted her to walk outside toward the waterfall. She suspected that had she accepted the invitation, her real body would have walked directly over the Falls.
Their path eventually led to a ladder guarded by a Nothic, which greeted them with a demand for knowledge as payment for passage. Its single red eye opened, and Fable suddenly saw the Guildhall: Vulmer, Prophet, and Francis sitting together and laughing. For a moment she felt herself being dragged into the memory and locked inside it, but she resisted and the image shattered. Fern attacked the Nothic, only for it to disappear and reappear elsewhere. When Fern struck again, the creature transformed into Velatha. For an instant Fern no longer saw himself punching a monster; he saw his own hand tearing the Thorncrown from his daughter’s head. The Nothic laughed and assured him there were no hard feelings. It simply needed Fern’s divinity to repair itself. Its claws tore into him, followed by a Rotting Gaze, and Fern felt something being drawn out of him as the creature siphoned the divine essence buried somewhere inside his body. Fable charged and landed a perfect kick, throwing the Nothic over the ledge.
The creature disappeared through the false lake and plummeted into the reality occupied by Nys and Behzad. It landed nearby, opened its eye, and attempted to Extract Knowledge from Behzad’s mind. For one instant, it saw whatever existed beyond the veil: whatever knowledge Behzad had taken from Tharizdun, whatever madness now lived behind his eyes, and whatever things humanity had never been meant to comprehend. The Nothic immediately exploded. Behzad stared at what remained. Nys asked what had happened. Behzad did not answer.
Nys and Behzad continued across the rocks breaking the surface of their underground lake. Nys made a running jump onto the first stone, anchored her grappling hook, and tossed the remaining rope back toward Behzad. He attempted the same jump, slipped, and passed directly through the water. Above, Fern and Fable watched a rope suddenly fly upward out of their own lake before Behzad himself erupted from the surface upside down. Fable immediately tore open a Feather Fall scroll, reversing his descent and bringing him safely down into their reality. Below, Nys stared at the rope. It remained taut but simply disappeared into the water. She began climbing. Something on the opposite side cut the rope, and Nys suddenly shot upward through the false surface. Fable caught her as she crossed between realities, their momentum spinning both women around before Fable slammed Nys safely onto the stone beside her. The severed rope continued flying upward until it passed through the ceiling. For the first time since entering Hallowed Falls, the party was together again. Behzad looked around at everyone.
“I guess you have it all handled then.”
Nys immediately grabbed Fable. They needed to leave. Now. A little birdie had told her what happened at Hallowed Falls. The Crow had murdered an Angel here during the ritual that transformed him into the Father of Monsters, and whatever power remained in this place wanted Fable. Fable pointed out that if she knew where the exit was, she would already have left. Nys explained that the banshee they had been hired to kill was no banshee at all. She was Jophiel, the Angel of Love. Nys looked toward Behzad.
“I guess the information was to die for.”
Behzad replied that knowledge was worth any cost. Fern slowly turned toward him.
“What the hell?”
Nys insisted that they stop exploring and find a way out. Sindatari had killed Behzad without effort, while his dead sister had apparently been manipulating reality for centuries. They were not equipped to fight her. Fern disagreed. They had promised to destroy whatever haunted Hallowed Falls so that Vali would provide the Rot medicine, and people in Dunedrift were still dying. Behzad agreed with Fern. Nys argued that there had to be another way, but the party continued deeper into the cave. This time she took Fable’s hand and kept her close.
A collapsed bridge of enormous stone pillars eventually led them into an ancient chamber. An onyx basin stood near its center, filled with blood that had dried centuries ago. Beside it rested a velvet-covered curved scabbard. A skeleton lay upon the stone, and although nothing remained of its wings, their outline had been burned permanently into the floor. Behzad examined the architecture and recognized the ruins as belonging to the Shattered Empire, the first great civilization of the Dwarves, whose subterranean dominion had once stretched beneath every continent during the dawn of humanity. Then, almost overnight, the entire civilization disappeared, leaving tunnels and ruins scattered throughout the world. Behzad stared around the chamber and wondered aloud how an entire civilization could simply vanish.
Fable remained on the bridge and refused to approach the ritual site. Nys removed the Taimavar cloak Behzad had given her and carefully wrapped Jophiel’s skeleton inside it, praying that Sindatari might at least permit his sister a proper burial before reaping whatever remained of her soul. Behzad looked down at the bones and remarked that the world was filled with pointless death. Then Nys noticed the scabbard. She approached the basin, picked it up, and fastened it around her waist.
Before anyone could examine it further, something appeared in the doorway. A white figure flickered like static. She vanished and reappeared five feet closer, vanished again, and reappeared another five feet forward, as though her body had forgotten how to move continuously through reality.
“Need Divinity…”
Another flicker brought her closer.
“Need Energy…”
Jophiel reached toward Fern.
Nys immediately ran toward the deeper passage, but the cave changed around them. Jophiel transformed into Velatha, begging Fern to save her as the rest of the party became agents of Gruumsh. Fern rejected the illusion and attacked. His fists struck Jophiel with far less effect than expected. Nys shouted for him to stop, but Fern continued. Jophiel’s featureless face began to change. One Elf appeared, then another, then hundreds, then thousands: every Elf who had ever died, crying out toward Fern and begging their father to help them. Fern stood his ground and resisted the terror completely. Somehow that frightened him more. He recognized some distant connection to the faces, yet he did not know them. He did not feel what he imagined Corellon should have felt. Jophiel reached for him again and again, but Fern knocked her hands aside, holding her back while Fable used the opening to spider-climb deeper into the cavern.
Behzad inhaled and lightning began building in his throat. He turned toward Jophiel. Before he could release his breath, the nature of the choice became clear: Jophiel was one of the four Archangels, a direct child of J_On, and knowingly attacking her would mean turning Behzad’s divine oath against one of the children of his own god. Behzad made his choice immediately. His head turned toward Fern and lightning exploded across the cavern. Fern barely twisted out of the way.
“What happened to not fighting her? Classic Corellon being a hypocrite!”
Fern stared at him in disbelief.
“Have you finally lost what’s left of your mind?!”
Behzad accused Fern of attacking one of the four Archangels after everyone had agreed she should be spared. Fern insisted that he was creating a buffer so the others could escape. Nys screamed for both of them to stop, then turned toward Jophiel. Something about the Angel felt familiar. Nys stopped trying to think of her as an enemy and spoke instead. She told Jophiel that her brother had explained what happened here and that she was sorry. Jophiel answered that neither her brother nor her father had saved her. She had begged, and nobody had come. Nys understood. When she had been murdered, she had called out as well, waiting for someone divine to hear her. No god had answered.
Jophiel stopped. For the first time, a halo appeared behind her head.
“I heard you.”
Nys stared at her.
“True love was severed. My domain.”
When the Mincer murdered Nys, he had severed the love between Nys and Taurion. The Angel of Love had heard her final cry even though she had been unable to save her. Jophiel turned toward Fern, and her grief exploded through the chamber.
“BUT HE IGNORED YOU JUST LIKE MY FATHER IGNORED ME!”
Fern stumbled over his words. He had not done anything. He had not known any of this.
“I’m not who you think I am!”
Nys began to cry. She told Jophiel that she understood. She knew what it was like to call for someone who did not answer and to have love ripped violently away. But Fern was not trying to hurt her. He was Nys’s friend. She begged Jophiel not to hurt him. For one brief moment, the remaining divine spark of the Angel of Love listened to the prayer of a woman whose own true love had once been severed by death. Jophiel looked toward Fern.
“How ironic…”
The cavern fell silent.
“Those who you sentenced to death…”
Jophiel looked toward Nys.
“…pray for your mercy while you ignore theirs.”
Then she vanished.
Fern lowered his fists, only for Behzad to immediately demand to know what the fuck he had been thinking. What possible right did Fern have to strike down the remnants of one of J_On’s Angels? Fern insisted that he had been creating a buffer and that whatever Jophiel had once been, she had clearly fallen far from it. Behzad stared at him.
“And what about you, then? You’re a far cry from what you used to be. Should you not be struck down, then?”
Fern shook his head.
“I’m Fern—”
Nys screamed over both of them.
“ENOUGH!”
Both men stopped. Fable was missing, and that mattered more than whatever theological argument they were having. Nys looked between them through tears.
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
Neither argued.
Fable had descended into the bowels of Hallowed Falls, where the stone eventually opened into something completely different. Plants grew throughout a hidden sanctuary filled with ancient, primal power. Her scars began to itch. Something reached toward her, and her Will-o’-Wisp familiar emerged. Fable finally understood Sindatari’s warning. He had not been warning her about Jophiel. He had been warning her about this place. Whatever remained of the Crow’s ritual was still here, and something within the sanctuary offered her a choice.
“Would you like to embrace your potential?”
Fable refused. She turned around and left whatever power her grandfather had left behind untouched, never learning what accepting it might have given her.
When Fable returned, Nys immediately ran toward her and wrapped her arms around the Vampire. The final illusion shattered. The false cavern vanished, and sunlight poured through a doorway leading back toward the Falls. An act of love had broken whatever remained of Jophiel’s hold over them. The party escaped into the night, only for Jophiel’s crying to begin again behind them. They had survived Hallowed Falls, but they had not put her to rest.
Standing on the now-peaceful beach, Nys looked back toward the cave and decided they could not simply leave Jophiel there. Someone needed to bury her. She asked Behzad for help, and he agreed. Whatever had happened in the cave, tending to the dead remained one of his responsibilities as a Paladin. He described himself simply as a kneeling follower of J_On. Fable offered to help. Before they departed, Behzad approached Fern and asked whether, despite everything that had happened, he would offer his divine blessing for Jophiel’s funeral. Fern said nothing. He turned away, returned to the Honeymoon Suite, and did not attend.
Behzad, Nys, and Fable sailed to a small island in the upper lake carrying Jophiel’s remains. Behzad began by attempting to sanctify the ground, improvising a prayer about Love, Light, and a father finally accepting his daughter home. The words faltered and the rite failed. Nys reached forward and encouraged him, giving him the inspiration he needed to try again. This time, the ground was consecrated. Together they dug the grave. Behzad began placing offerings inside: a weapon so Jophiel might defend herself in whatever came next, gold in case her brother still intended to charge her, flowers, and food for the journey. Finally, he used the Taimavar cloak to cover her naked remains so that she might enter the afterlife with some dignity.
“We all come from J_On. Even the Elves, in a weird way.”
Using a piton, Behzad carved a simple marker for the grave. Then Nys, Fable, and Behzad began filling it, not by carelessly shoveling the dirt back into place but one scoop at a time, each pouring earth over Jophiel with their own hands. Yet when the burial was complete, something remained wrong. The rite had failed. Something was missing. Nys stepped forward and spoke to Jophiel. She knew what it was like to love and to be loved. She knew what it was like to lose that life, to die, and to return as something that was neither fully alive nor properly dead. In some ways, Nys told her, they were the same. She wished Jophiel the peace that had been denied to both of them. When her eulogy ended, they attempted the burial rite again. This time, everything fell perfectly into place.
Behzad prepared the final rite. He filled his censer with incense and mixed in the ancient dried blood recovered from Jophiel’s basin. He had very little magic remaining, so he offered all of it. Every spell he still possessed. Everything he could give. Behzad cast Ceremony. Jophiel screamed from somewhere beyond them.
Behzad continued. The Hallowed Falls shook, and then Jophiel’s voice disappeared. The screaming that had haunted the valley ended. For the first time in centuries, Hallowed Falls became peaceful.
Then something impossible happened. Rings of light began emerging from Behzad’s censer. J_On’s Rings of Creation appeared above the grave, and for one fleeting moment the presence of the Overgod touched the world again. Behzad felt that power moving through him and understood that, briefly, he could direct it. He did not use it on himself. He did not ask for knowledge, his soul, Wolford, or recognition. Behzad thought of Dunedrift: the guards, the civilians, the victims of the Rot, and everyone still suffering from the Dragon Attack. The Rings expanded, and divine healing swept outward from Hallowed Falls toward the city.
“It’s the best way to honor Jophiel and the Love she represented.”
The Rings disappeared, and the Overgod was gone. Fable and Nys stood silently beside Behzad. He thanked them both. Fable admitted that this had been the first funeral she had ever attended. Behzad looked toward the grave.
“Hopefully your last.”
Nys brushed the grave dirt from her hands. Behzad asked whether she was alright.
“No.”
Nys looked across the water. Her voice alone had not been enough to reach the Overgod. Behzad reminded her that countless people called out for help and most received no answer, but at least tonight one call had finally been answered. Nys looked back toward Jophiel’s grave.
“He must answer for this.”
Behzad did not ask whom she meant.
“Justice comes for all of us. We will all pay the price we rack up in the end.”
As Behzad packed away the remaining clergy supplies, Nys finally asked why he had attacked Fern. Behzad explained that, in that moment, he realized how differently he and Fern now viewed the world. They had agreed not to attack Jophiel. Nys had told them to leave. Instead, Fern continued fighting, and Behzad believed he had endangered everyone. Nys stared at him.
“You could have killed him, Behzad.”
She began walking along the beach as the tears returned.
“I’ve had enough death.”
Behzad stood motionless, suddenly unsure what to do with himself.
“I think we all have.”
Fable remained behind for a moment, staring at the grave. Behzad asked whether she was alright. Fable remembered a conversation from shortly after Behzad had returned from death, when she asked how far he was willing to go to accomplish his goals. She told him that she hoped he would think long and hard about what he was truly willing to sacrifice. Behzad assured her that he had.
“I have. I will continue to do so.”
Fable looked directly at him.
“If you tell me to take my grandfather’s power, and that I will regret not doing so, then you clearly haven’t.”
She turned and walked back toward the Honeymoon Suite.
Inside the cabin, Fern sat alone before an unlit fireplace. He had not yet found the energy to light it. A small flame spun idly between his fingers as he stared into it. Fable entered and asked whether he was doing alright. Fern looked at her, struggling to put the evening into words.
“I just… He attacked me!”
Fable paused.
“I think I missed that part.”
Fern threw the flame into the fireplace and the logs caught. Fable sat down beside him as he stared into the growing fire.
“I just… I— It’s so hard to wrap my head around… Is he still an ally?”
Fable admitted that she had wondered the same thing ever since Behzad stuck his head into the fountain.
“I don’t know who we are looking at anymore.”
For a while, neither spoke. Fable eventually observed that it had been a long day. Fern laughed bitterly and said he had learned more about himself that day than perhaps ever before, and he had not liked one bit of it. Then, finally, he told Fable what he had seen in his vision. He had been Corellon again, standing in the Feywild with Velatha before leaving to confront Tharizdun and his armies during the Dawn War. Velatha had begged him not to go. She wanted Corellon to withdraw the Feywild from the Material Plane entirely and leave the Material to fend for itself. She did not want to become Queen. Fern now knew exactly what she would eventually become and what the Crown Wars would do, yet in the vision he had been forced to crown her anyway.
Fern opened his hands. The puncture wounds left by the Thorncrown were still visible in his palms.
“The weight of that crown is the heaviest thing I’ve ever had to lift.”
Fable took his hands and began wrapping them in cloth while Fern continued. He had been forced to knowingly place the crown upon the head of the girl who would become the architect of the Crown Wars while she pleaded with him not to do it. Then Jophiel had shown him hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dead Elves, people he had never met yet somehow felt some vague connection toward, all crying out for their father. Fern collapsed deeper into the chair.
“I can almost see why he had to have the divinity cut from his bones.”
Fable finished wrapping his hands and told Fern that, even if he had been forced to relive those choices, they were not his choices. He was not responsible for his past lives simply because he could still speak to them. He was not Corellon anymore. He was Fern. She could not imagine what he was dealing with and did not really know how to help, but she knew that much. Fern chuckled.
“It’s just a lot to take in. I’m sure you know that feeling.”
Fable certainly did. Everything that had happened during the past week had already been more than she knew how to process, and the bar somehow kept being raised. Now apparently the banshee they had been hired to kill was actually a dead Angel—or something close enough that the distinction hardly mattered. She suspected all of them would feel the aftershock of Hallowed Falls for a while. Fern thanked her for checking on him and assured her that she did not need to worry. Fable blinked.
“Actually, I came back to zone out and look at the water.”
Fern looked around the room.
“Well! I don’t have any water.”
Instead, Fern began shaping the flames. Small illusions appeared within the fireplace, tiny figures dancing across the burning logs.
“This is the best entertainment I have.”
Outside, Nys and Behzad remained standing on the now-peaceful beach. For the first time since they had arrived, the sorrow hanging over the Falls was gone. Behzad remarked that it was nice to enjoy a moment of peace without the screaming. Nys looked across the water and said it was still sad that so many people cried out and were never heard. Behzad nodded.
“It brings tremendous pain to any god who would hear such calls. It’s why He’s grown so distant.”
Nys remembered something Behzad had once said to her. He had questioned her dedication to the gods. Behzad admitted that the conversation felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. Nys told him she had held onto the anger from it. Behzad apologized and said he understood now that everyone had their own way of carrying out divine will. Nys looked toward him.
“It’s easy to carry one’s voice in accolades to the divines to make themselves heard over the cries of crowds and declare themselves the most pious. But not always is dedication loud. It is normally quiet, or held in the heart.”
Behzad did not claim to be the most pious. Most of his own prayers went unanswered just like everyone else’s. What had happened at Jophiel’s grave had not truly been his doing either. He had offered whatever spell slots and dedication he possessed, but without Nys’s eulogy he doubted anyone would have answered him at all. Nys understood why.
“It’s because of one thing, Behzad. In order to beseech someone, you have to know their heart.”
Nys knew what it was like to love, to be loved, to lose that life, and then return as some strange half-life that was no longer entirely what it had once been. She looked back toward the island.
“In some ways, I am her.”
Behzad considered that. Understanding the divine was one thing; experiencing their lives was another. If only his own heart were filled with such experiences, perhaps he could reach them the way Nys had. Nys shook her head. Behzad did not need more experiences or greater revelations. He needed to learn how to open his heart to other people. Behzad looked down at the sand.
“It’s hard to love others, trust others, when they call you a madman and insult your beliefs. Call your revelations mad ramblings and try to undo or destroy what you believe in.”
Nys asked whether he remembered Wolford and the oath she had made to him there. Behzad did. Nys told him that she would never pretend to understand everything happening inside his heart or mind, but every time he questioned her loyalty, accused her of betrayal, or made some snide remark suggesting she would abandon him, those words hurt. Her voice broke.
“Those things hurt, deeply.”
Nys began crying again.
“And perhaps you won’t believe it. Maybe my words can’t reach you anymore, and I don’t think I can take it anymore.”
Behzad swallowed. His eyes dropped toward the ground, fully ashamed. He had never meant anything by the comments. He was sorry. But Fern—no, Corellon—
Nys immediately stopped him. He should not mistake her words for a defense of Corellon. She was angry with Corellon too, so angry that she could scream louder than Jophiel and never stop. He had abandoned her people. He had abandoned Nys herself. Corellon had been unable to endure his own pain and had walked away, but what about everyone who remained behind? What about the people who had suffered for eons waiting for their father to return and hear them? Jophiel had cried out to her father and received only silence. The Elves had done the same. Eventually others, like the Taimavar, answered those cries instead, leaving ordinary people trapped between impossible choices because someone else had been willing to answer the calls their god ignored.
“All we wanted was the love of our father.”
Behzad asked how she could not resent Fern after he had tried to strike down the very Angel they had all agreed to spare. Jophiel was the embodiment of—
Nys cut him off. Of course she was angry. But when she looked into Jophiel, she had seen herself. She understood her pain and could not bring herself to fight her. Fern had been misguided and believed he was protecting them, but once again he had made a decision against the better judgment of everyone around him. Nys had asked the party to follow her. She had specifically told Fern to follow her. He did not listen. Nys stopped walking. The tears would not stop. For months she had watched the people around her argue, escalate, pursue revelations, make impossible decisions, and ignore her warnings until afterward. Finally, she looked directly at Behzad.
“Why won’t anyone listen to me?”
Behzad had no easy answer. The two resumed walking toward the cabin in silence. As they reached it, Behzad finally spoke.
“How many wrong choices until they pay the price?”
Behind them, the Hallowed Falls remained silent.