In the heart of a temple, hidden from the watchful eyes of the city, a boy sits alone, his mother’s blood having hardly dried on his fingers. A butler, more a grotesque than a goblin, cleanses him and sings his praises. The sound of it is unfamiliar. This creature is full of promises of who he will become, and they fall on Syryth’s ears like cool rain. The boy straining his developing musculature hauling sacks of fungal flour and carts of bricks and stones an hour outside Menzoberranzan is dead. Prodding at animals and flaying them open to study their innards is below his station. His mother’s head mounted outside his family home is only the beginning. Sceleritas Fel scrubs his clumsy, amateurish violence from his body with a fragrant soap and a brush that’s too soft for his taste. The adopted drow, the one who bears servant’s tattoos from his false family, is born anew. Long live the son of Bhaal.

Syryth’s days are spent in a strange education. His new surrogate father, who he towers over at such a young age, pulls him through the halls that will become his. The upper levels are cast in finery, and the lower in piety. The cycle is the same for all of them: action, discipline, prayer, reward. It’s a set of adjustable parts that Syryth understands more than the fog of favour, reciprocity, or altruism. He learns who is valuable and why, he learns that the gears of the city are always in motion, and he learns there is no string too taut or thick to be pulled, if one is deft enough. 

Syryth requires no training in killing. Only in cleaning up. 

And despite the promises of power and encouragement of his darkest gifts, something shifts restlessly beneath Syryth’s skin, and sits stony and obtrusive in his stomach when he sleeps. 

When the night casts long shadows in the Temple of Bhaal, Syryth, like a cat filing down its claws, practices his brutality. He takes victims no one will notice are gone, or at least not care. Sometimes, he takes those followers of Bhaal who have transgressed far enough to have been lined up for punishment anyway. There is no scream he can hear, no skin he can peel or bone he can break that settles him. In three years, Syryth devises hundreds of ways to take a person apart and put them back together, more still to break a mind or a spirit. The practice that started in his own room moves to one adjacent, and then a pocket in the temple’s lowest floors. He doesn’t want them close. Mortals make Syryth’s stomach turn past what use he has for them— and while Syryth plies his emerging sexuality with live victims, he prefers dead ones. The thrill of the first pet lessens with each successive try no matter what he does. It is only the kill that brings him pleasure with the ecstatic rush of his Father’s divine love. 

At eighteen, Syryth is getting closer to the mantle of Bhaal every day, and still turning over awake in his bed, wondering if the hollow ache beneath his sternum would fill if he cut it open. 

— — —

A young woman’s tail drags on the stone floor as she walks. It has been a day’s journey without any indication of the sun moving. Mud builds on her boots, the leather of which has soaked through over hours, sending shocks of cold up her agile legs. A creature the likes of which Carmen has never seen before, clothed in the garb of a butler, pulls her forth by the hand, still babbling with enthusiasm after so many hours have passed. He apologizes profusely for a discomfort that never shows on her face, explaining that the above-ground doors to her new home only lead to those far below her station. Carmen had known, among her fellow guardsmen, that she was the most proficient in taking down an enemy. This creature knows the depths to which she craves the violence she passed off as service, and calls her prowess her birthright. Despite the strange company and the icy layer of water beneath the city, Carmen feels warm with familiarity. She had killed her family for the freedom to pursue her talents. Finally, the world is noticing that she is exceptional. 

In a week of adjustment, Carmen luxuriates. There is much that needs to be cleaned from her, not just the lower city’s dirt but its mannerisms. Sceleritas is her perfect attendant, brushing her hair and laying out her clothes, and gleefully accepting each time she tires of him enough to rip him limb from limb. In this time, Carmen receives persistent visions from her Father. She witnesses herself, elegant in her efficiency, tearing through flesh with blades and claws and teeth. She watches a thousand faceless bodies fall in worship at her feet. And in each of these dreams, a shadow presses at her right shoulder, an inexplicable heaviness that obscures her peripheral vision on one side. Carmen is certain that it knows her, and finds herself waking most days with a hand behind her, as if it was seeking out the presence. 

Carmen wakes one day to find a set of armour instead of robes. The symbol of Bhaal is laid into its breastplate, but the rest gleams like moonlight made into metal. Sceleritas lovingly fastens the interlocking plates, standing atop the lavish, wine-red sheets to do so. Carmen is led down a new hallway today. Arched stone leads to a room with a magnificent dining table, where animated, invisible hands lay down a feast. The scent is rich and overwhelming, though quickly pushed aside at an unexpected presence. 

Someone sits at the end of that table, his back high above that of his chair. He wears her same armour, and drums gauntleted fingers against the armrest. His head picks up from where his gaze was trained on the floor— he appears to lack the interest in a good meal that Carmen possesses. 

Two gazes meet, steely white and bloody red. Eyes widen in an instant. Syryth’s chest lifts. The shadow in Carmen’s dreams begins to take shape. Syryth’s hand falls flat and limp on the table. Carmen’s arms swing uselessly at her sides. They observe each other, slack-jawed, for a long moment. Their veins rush with a confusing, shattering recognition. 

I have always known you.