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Dear Enver,
I hope this message makes it through. If it doesn’t, I… Maybe it would be for the better.
I’m not going to waste your time with much of the usual. Avernus is still hell. But it can be better. The House of Hope is still standing. Flying?
I did what you asked me for. It was not easy. But some of the imps had heard about him. The man you spoke of. Fhedré. He is alive, it seems. It is hard for me to follow up on it. I cannot leave the House of Hope. I could, possibly, but it would not be good. The hells are not a place for someone who is a devil. I need to be careful.
Following up on the rumors I heard, it appears that this man – Fhedré – is currently being held in the household of a duchess named Achaia. She is one of Zariel’s court. Maybe you have heard of her? You said you worked with Zariel. I am not sure. I have not seen him myself. But there is a human by that name. At least that is what the imps are saying.
I am not sure if it is true.
I cannot do much more than write this message and hope it finds it way to you. But I guess that is who I am. Hope.
Maybe we can see each other again.
Dears truly,
Hope
Enver sighed, as he folded up the letter.
He wished the letter had indeed not reached him. There had clearly been ample chance of it getting lost somewhere on the way between hell and the physical realms.
But now it was here. And now he knew.
Oh, the irony. He was quite aware of the irony.
A year and a half ago, he still would have loved to see the idiot hero go and get himself killed in the hells. He would have watched it – well, metaphorically speaking – and thought it was a good thing. But that person he had been then would not have inquired about this. That person had not even known that Hope was still alive.
He would lie if he said that he did not miss his anger. Things had been easier, when he had been angry. Not better. Easier.
And this was an outcome that was not at all easy.
He put the letter into the drawer of his desk.
He might try to answer. He probably should. But that was not the actual question that he had to face now.
The man the letter spoke of, he did not know him. He only had heard Tav speak of him. An old lover who had vanished, apparently selling his own soul to the hells to save Tav, which sounded about the right kind of noble stupidity one would expect from anyone would was around Tav long enough.
Enver did not know Achaia. He had heard the name before, yes, but the extent of his knowledge was that she was one of the duchesses of Avernus, and possibly another daughter of Belial. He was not fully sure on the latter part. He also knew she was part of Zariel’s court, so she was likely involved somehow with the Blood War, given that the Blood War was part of Zariel’s function.
So, if that man, Fhedré, was somehow involved with one of the people from Zariel’s court, chances were that he had been drawn into the Blood War in one way or another.
It made sense of course. Most souls that were sold would find themselves filling out the ranks of the armies of the hells, fighting against the demons that would seep in from the Abyss. The reason Raphael had been so opposed by other devils had been his constant refusal to contribute to the Blood War.
From what Enver know, it would be more than ten years since that man arrived in the hells. A long time for a living soul to survive the war, but so had Karlach.
A knock on the door of his study made him turn around. “Yes?”
“It’s just me, Enver,” Lash said, as she came into the room. “I brought you some tea.”
“Thank you.” He had to hold back a sigh, as his mind was still trying to consider his options.
She came over putting the tray with a pot of tea as well as a cup onto the desk, before noticing that otherwise the desk was almost completely empty.
“What were you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing…” he said, though he knew a moment later that his answer had come too quick.
“What are you hiding?” she asked.
“I’m not…” He gave a low grunt, evading her eyes. People said orcs were dumb, but it was probably just another prejudice. Lash was quite sharp – especially when it came to other people. And he was other people.
“What are you trying to hide?” She repeated the same question just a bit different, making him sigh.
“The letter I got. It was from Hope.”
“From the hells?”
“Yes. From Avernus.” He got the letter out of the drawer, looking at it once more, and sighed. “I asked her about…” He stopped. “There is a person Tav once knew who sold their soul to the hells.”
“Why would they do that?”
“For the same reasons most people do it, I assume,” he grumbled. “Desperation.”
“And that letter is from that person?”
“No. Not that. It is from Hope. As I said. I asked her to ask around whether someone knows about that person. And apparently she found some imps that do.”
“So that person is alive?”
“That is what it seems like.”
“Tav will be quite relieved I imagine,” Lash muttered, but then she saw his face. “Why were you hiding it?”
“Because Tav is Tav. He will go to Avernus and try to save that person. I am almost sure of that.” He got that letter out once more. “If that man was dead, I assume it would be tragic, but what is done is done. But if he is alive…”
To know that once upon a time he would have been giddy at the idea of having this information that would torture Tav. He would have been giddy at the idea, too, that the man would go to the hells and almost certainly die.
Or maybe it was not that certain. He was a chosen of Tymora’s after all. Luck was on his side. But then again, the gods’ connection to the hells was fleeting at times.
“Is there anything you could do to get that person back?” Lash asked.
Enver shook his head. He was almost certain there was not. After all, the hells were quite willing to trade a variety of things – but not souls. Not souls that were needed for the Blood War.
They might barter, but that bartering would mean a soul for a soul.
If he was more courageous, he might have tried it. He had escaped the hells once. Well, twice, technically. After all he had managed to break into Mephistopheles’ vault, and steal the Crown from him. That, too, had been more luck, than an actual plan, or an actual skill. He had prided himself for it, but really, thinking about how it had gone, there were about a thousand ways in which it could have gone badly.
It had been luck.
“I think you still need to tell him,” Lash finally said.
“Even if he is going to get killed over it?”
Her smile showed a bit more of her tusks than she normally did. “He is still someone who survives a surprising lot of things.”
“He is,” Enver muttered.
He knew almost exactly how this was eventually going to go. If Tav found an excuse to go to the hells once more, he would do it. And if he was there, he would probably also try to fix all the things he had not fixed. Because it was the kind of idiot he was. Wanting to fix all the problems.
And he would get himself killed. He eventually would get himself killed.
Maybe for him it was actually a promise. A wish almost. He was Tymora’s chosen after all. And a chosen dying a hero’s wish would have a better afterlife than whatever was still waiting for Enver.
“You really are worried for him, aren’t you?” Lash asked.
“I am,” Enver admitted. And some part of him was still bitter about it.
He had tried so long to hate the man, and yet here he was, having put effort into finding the man’s lost lover, only to now consider whether this information would be that idiot’s undoing.
His eyes darted over Hope’s scratchy handwriting once more.
Maybe he should not have asked. He probably should not have. He had been thinking that maybe it would be a kindness. But he realized that that idea had been dumb. There never had been a possible kindness.
People said that having a certainty about a loved one’s death was better than the uncertainty of waiting. But it was not, was it?
And now…
He looked at Lash. “I feel like an idiot.”
She shook her head, and shrugged. “It was right to ask about it. And it is right to tell him.”
“Is it though? Even if it would kill him?”
“Lying to him would be worse,” Lash said.
“Maybe,” Enver admitted. He folded the letter up once more. “I will talk to him, the next time he is over.” At least that might give him some time to plan out a way to convince the idiot bard to not throw his life away.
“You do really care about him by now?”
“I have a debt,” Enver grumbled. “And at least it should not be said, that I do not repay those.” Even though they both knew that those words were a lie.
He just knew that the man, who would always smile, would always help, would always care, was already breaking apart on the inside. And that the way he was breaking was possibly more insidious than the way Enver himself had been broken. Because if you broke and became a villain, at least people would see the cracks. It turned out, that if you broke into a hero, the cracks would be near invisible. And even if they became seen, people would see their beauty. Until it was too late.
