A Question of Trust - Chapter Nine

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A Question of Trust - Chapter Nine

Fandom: Dungeons & Dragons / Forgotten Realms
Rating: E
Warnings:
Relationship: Ashenivir Zauvym/Rizeth Velkon’yss
Chapter Specific Tags: Angst
Wordcount: 4240

AO3 / Neocities

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When a bed is empty, you can tell without opening your eyes. There’s a certain lack of warmth and weight, a flatness to the sheets that speaks of absence. There’s the breath that doesn’t sigh against your neck, the legs not tangled with your own, the kiss upon your shoulder that doesn’t come.

Ashenivir lay with his eyes closed for a long time, hoping. The bed was large enough that he could still roll over and find Rizeth on the far side of it. He’d be facing away, tense and awake and silent, as uncertain and sick from a night of poor reverie as Ashenivir was. It would be hard to reach out, but he’d do it. Touch Rizeth’s arm, start to apologise and before the words made it out, Rizeth would turn and pull him close and he’d cry again because he’d been so stupid, but it would all be fine now, because it was always fine. His Master never let things stay any other way.

When he rolled over, the bed was empty. His heart collapsed in on itself, his throat so tight it disconnected from his lungs. How he had any tears left was a mystery, yet on they came.

It was well into the morning by the time he made himself get up. He’d slept in his clothes, and felt grimy and wretched. The apartment was dreadfully silent, the bedroom door still closed—he paused with a hand on it, then went to take a bath instead. Afterwards, he put on one of Rizeth’s shirts and went to face the silence, praying he was wrong.

He wasn’t.

He curled the shirtsleeves around his fingers. This was all his fault. What kind of partner was he, anyway? Lying, sneaking around, ignoring Rizeth, and to what end? To learn more about a dynamic he was never going to have? To argue with a woman whose opinion didn’t matter, not one iota? Selfish, was what he was; a stupid, selfish child.

The ritual of making tea didn’t help at all, no matter how slow he breathed. He kept glancing at the door, waiting to hear it click. Rizeth had gone out, that was all, to walk and clear his head. He’d be back soon. Of course he’d be back soon.

Ashenivir tucked himself into the corner of the couch and sipped his tea so slowly it went cold before he was half done. The mug he’d left out sat and steamed and stopped and still Rizeth didn’t come through the door. His cuffs sat atop a stack of books on the table, and Ashenivir couldn’t look at them without wanting to start crying again, or maybe screaming, so he stared out the window instead. The storm had left clear blue skies in its wake, and beneath it the world rattled on, cheery and sunlit. Faint music and a smattering of laughter drifted up from the street below. He wanted to go out there and throw something; a heavy object, a spell—how can you laugh? How can you carry on like everything’s fine when it’s not!

He pressed his face to his knees. Guilt churned in his stomach, but the longer it did, the more a hard, bitter anger swirled through it. They always talked, why was this any different? Why couldn’t they fix this they way they fixed everything else? Why was he alone without the faintest touch of his mark or a sending or even a note to say he hadn’t been left alone in this city to fend for himself because clearly he couldn’t be trusted to care for anyone else.

Staying here was impossible. The whole time he was dressing he waited for Rizeth to walk in and stop him, but it didn’t happen. He got out his copper and stared at it for a long while, then shoved it into his pocket. He didn’t leave a note. Rizeth couldn’t be bothered, so neither could he. If his Master wanted him, he had every possible advantage to finding him—one of which was burned into the back of his neck.

He had no plan when he walked out of the apartment. He swayed from anger to misery to guilt and back again all the way across the city until he looked up and realised he was in the Trades Ward. Then it was just a matter of finding the one door there he knew.

River answered his knock, frowning. “Ashenivir? What’s wrong?”

He was crying again. He didn’t know when it had started, but he was crying again. He scrubbed at his eyes.

“Can I come in?”

---

He was a coward. Nearly four centuries of life under his belt, and his response to last night was to run and hide? Childish. Petty. Stupid and selfish and exactly the sort of behaviour he’d done such a good job convincing himself he’d grown out of.

Easy to see what he was; impossible to keep from being it. He’d spent the night on the couch, pretending he couldn’t hear Ashenivir’s muffled sobs whilst his mind devoured itself. He couldn’t go in there. He’d only make things worse.

He snatched about five minutes of reverie and left at the crack of dawn. The bedroom had been silent a long while, and he couldn’t bear the quiet any longer. He had a meeting first thing at the Tower of the Order, and paced the length of the High Road twice before they opened their doors for the day. The ache in his feet did nothing to distract him from the seething cauldron of bitterness that roiled in his gut.

Catriona. This was all Catriona’s fault—Ashenivir never would have lied to him without her influence. The number of times Elian’la’s frustrations could be traced back to one of Miss Hanali’s vicious whispers was greater than he liked to count. It hadn’t mattered so much at the start, when Elian’la had dismissed all warnings about cruel, possessive Menzoberranyr with an airy confidence, but when said Menzoberranyr proved himself both in abundance, she’d paid much more attention. The only reason it hadn’t been her Elian’la went sneaking around with in Mythen Thaelas was because she refused to set foot in the Underdark, lest it taint her precious elven soul.

He only went because you wouldn’t listen, like you never listen. The only voice that matters is yours, right? You always know what’s best for everyone.

He drummed his nails on the desk, shifting in his seat. The room was much too small; they ought to move Seldszar’s accursed apparatus elsewhere, somewhere he could breathe, for Mystra’s sake. And the wall-desk was far too low, it gave him a backache hunching over the damn thing, not to mention the uneven legs on this wretched chair—

The buzzing of silence finally broke through his thoughts. Lyzira had stopped talking.

“What?” he barked.

“What’s wrong?”

Rizeth shuffled the blank papers in front of him. “Nothing. Continue.”

“You know, the benefit of this contraption is that I’m the only one with an off switch,” she said. “So unless you go off and sulk somewhere else, I’m going to keep asking until you tell me why you’re being even more of a miserable bastard than usual.”

“We are here to work, Master Xiltael—I am certain both Archmage T’sonri and Lady Safahr would appreciate it if that is what we continued to do.”

Faezress distortion crackled in violet and amber across the lens as Lyzira leaned forwards. “We haven’t had nearly enough roadblocks for you to be stewing over them, you don’t sound sick, and I assume if some sort of war had broken out topside you’d be doing something useful instead of sitting here scowling at me, so what exactly—” Her eyes narrowed. “It’s Ashenivir, isn’t it? Rizeth Velkon’yss, what did you do?”

He rubbed at his bare wrists. He wanted his walls up, his shields back; a small dark place to hide until he knew how to fix this.

“We had a…falling out last night.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t just a disagreement about dinner. You apologised though, right?”

Rizeth said nothing, just dug his fingers into his wrists and wished he’d put his cuffs on. He wasn’t surprised she’d guessed he was the one in the wrong.

“Rizeth.” He glanced up. “You apologised, right?” When he still didn’t answer, she sighed, sending sparks of magic racing across the surface of the crystal. “That’s it, I’m coming up there.”

He started. “Don’t be ridiculous. You cannot afford months away from the Arcanum when—”

“Master Tasen’tek owes me a favour,” she said. “A high powered conjuration sized favour. I’ll see you soon.”

“Lyzira—”

But she’d already gone. He thumped the frame of the lens and accomplished nothing but a sore hand; as she’d said, she had the only off-switch. Rizeth put his face in his hands. All he needed now was for Kelran to find out, then he could get a smarmy lecture to really cap off the day.

He shoved his fingers into his hair. A part of him wanted to storm over to the Haven, find Elian’la, and scream at her. Oh, it wouldn’t help, it had never helped, but it would damn well make him feel better.

Just go home and say you’re sorry. That’s all you have to do.

“He lied to me,” Rizeth spat into the shadows of the tiny room. “I told him not to have anything to do with either of them, and he went behind my back and—”

He bit the words off, grinding his teeth. Sitting here wasn’t helping.

It was late morning, but everything was already too hot and too bright. By the time he made it home, he couldn’t think straight. Every drag of sweat-damp cloth made him want to tear off his skin; the feel of his hair clinging to his neck made him want to rip it out by the roots. He fumbled the key in the lock twice before he got it to turn, and stepped through into dead silence.

“Ashenivir?”

No reply. He checked the bedroom, the bathroom, though he knew he’d find nothing; even went out to the balcony, as if Ashenivir might have somehow squeezed himself into the two inches not visible from inside. All he found were two mugs of tea: one on the floor by the couch, empty save for dregs, the other full and long-cold on the table by the stack of books he’d left his cuffs on.

He grabbed for a chair and sat down, hard. He’d known from the start he couldn’t do this. He wasn’t made for a real relationship. He started to reach for the mark, then caught himself. Ashenivir clearly wanted nothing to do with him; possessively tracking his whereabouts wouldn’t help matters.

The tea was lemon and ginger, Ashenivir’s new favourite since they’d gotten to the surface. He always added too much lemon, took one sip and made a face, then dumped in far too much sugar to counter it—but only in his own. Rizeth’s he made carefully, delicate citrus balanced perfectly with warm ginger.

Rizeth sipped the cold, perfectly balanced brew, and stared at the door for the better part of an hour, willing it to open.

It didn’t.

---

“He’s an ass,” River said.

“No, he—”

“He is! What a fucking thing to do, trying to tell you who you’re allowed to talk to. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this before.”

Ashenivir sank further into the pile of mismatched cushions he’d embedded himself in on River’s couch. “I crossed a line,” he said. “He has every right to be angry with me.”

“He ignored you and didn’t explain anything! You are not in the wrong here.”

“I lied to him!”

“He made an assumption about who you were with, you didn’t lie.”

“Omission is just as bad.” His eyes stung again, and he hugged a cushion to his chest, mumbling into it. “I knew what I was doing.”

And that I shouldn’t have done it. Why was it he could never just stop? More, more, more, always he wanted more—more magic, more attention, more knowledge he didn’t need. Had to have everything his way, regardless of what it meant for anyone else. Dance a permanent ritual without telling anyone, then hide from the consequences. Spend all his time playing bedroom games and neglecting his friends. Run off to the surface and abandon his family for a stupid crush on a stupid man who hated him now because he couldn’t be satisfied with what he had.

The couch dipped as River burrowed into the cushion pile alongside him. “This is not your fault,” he said. “Stop beating yourself up for making a mistake. Be angry at him for running away instead of talking to you like a damn adult. Nine bloody Hells, both of you are like four times my age.”

Ashenivir managed a thin laugh. “I know. And I think…I think I am angry with him. And I…” He sighed. “I don’t know. I hate this. I just want to go back to how things were.”

He leaned into River’s side, wishing it was Rizeth’s arm around him. He needed the comfort of his Master, the familiarity of his frame, the stilling calm of his touch. At that moment there existed two Rizeths in his mind—the one who’d caused all this turmoil, and the one who could help him through it. Why did they have to be the same person?

‹Where are you? ›

The words were flat, inflectionless, and as clear as if they’d been whispered right into his ear. Ashenivir bolted upright, and River grabbed his arm.

“I know that look—if that wasn’t an apology, tell him to shove it.”

The spell thrummed, waiting. Unravelling. Sendings didn’t hang around indefinitely, and by the time he’d decided to say something, it had collapsed. Cursing, Ashenivir scrambled upright, hurling cushions aside and knocking a stack of unfinished wedding invitations off the end-table in the process. He pawed at his pockets—copper, he needed his copper, where was his damn copper!

River caught his shoulder. “Don’t. You’re in no state to talk to him right now.”

“I have to! He doesn’t know where I am, he’s worried, I—”

“You don’t have to do a damn thing.”

He was crying again. He fell back, collapsing into the couch. His eyes hurt. His face hurt. Everything ached, as if he’d caught a fever. He needed to reply, he had to say something, even if it was only to remind his Master that he knew damn well how to find him if he really wanted to, and even without magic, couldn’t he take an educated guess given how fucking intelligent he was supposed to be?

“Breathe,” River said, and he realised he wasn’t. He sucked in air and pressed a hand over the pathetic sound that came out of his mouth. “Come on, in and out with me, there you go.”

Wasn’t love supposed to be easy? Or at least not make you feel like someone had shattered your heart and jammed the pieces back inside you all wrong? He clung to River for he didn’t know how long, wishing he’d never left the Underdark.

Eventually, somehow, he got up. River went out and bought lunch, which Ashenivir poked at listlessly. A few days ago, Rizeth had made them soup from scratch and fed it to him on thick, seed-studded bread. The fried fish had come out of the harbour fresh that morning, but it tasted dull as ash in comparison. No-one had ever cooked for him before, not the way Rizeth did. They’d had a cook at the estate, but his mother had never made anything by hand, not even when he was a child. Rizeth downplayed his skills, but if he’d been the worst cook in the world it wouldn’t have mattered—he cooked. He cared. Even before Ashenivir had said a word about how he felt, he’d cared.

But not, apparently, enough to apologise.

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” River asked. “Cain won’t mind. I could tell Mara to come over—or we could go out, get some fun drinks?”

Ashenivir shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, River, but I think I just…need some space.”

“If you’re sure,” River said, eyeing his barely touched plate with concern. “You can always come back here if you need to.”

“I know.”

He walked to the Haven, rather than take a dray, to give himself time to change his mind. He kept his fingers hooked into his collar the whole way, twisting the links back and forth. The whole point of what he and Rizeth did was that they shared themselves. No lies, no secrets, and yes, he’d lied—River’s thoughts on the matter aside, he had lied, more than once—but how did that make it fair for Rizeth to shut him out the way he had? Anger, at himself, at both of them, squirmed beneath his skin. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all.

He paused at the door of the Haven and put a palm to the back of his neck. He needed to clear his head. Work out what came next—what he wanted to come next—and he needed to do it by himself. For himself. He bit his lip, throat tight, and then quickly, before he could change his mind, deactivated the divination runes in his mark. The magic shivered for a few seconds, then dissipated.

Alone now, in a way he hadn’t been since Rizeth had burned those lines into his skin, Ashenivir stepped into the Haven and closed the world out behind him.

---

When the sending collapsed, Rizeth nearly tried again immediately. But there had almost been a reply; he’d felt it gathering in the magic, and the fact it hadn’t become one said enough. Ashenivir didn’t want to talk to him.

He refused to touch the mark. Ashenivir would feel it, feel trapped, hunted. There weren’t that many places he might have gone, though, so—despite his trepidation at what harm such chasing might do—Rizeth gathered his wits and took a hire-coach to the House.

Ms Rivers wasn’t on duty, and the halfling in her place had no idea who Ashenivir was, but hadn’t seen any other drow, or so he said. Rizeth went into the ballroom anyway, hoping to find Ashenivir and his friends basking in the cooling charms or out on the porch or even entangled in a playroom together; he’d forgive that, forgive anything, just let him be here, please. Because if he wasn’t here, he was at the Haven, where Elian’la would also be, and Rizeth would not be welcome. Not any more.

The library was his last hope, but it did not contain Ashenivir and a collection of books Rizeth would rather he not have read. It instead contained the person who’d like as not picked them out for him: Catriona Hanali, in a silk robe and her Master’s chains, poring over a selection of rope suspension diagrams. She raised her head as he entered, a vicious sliver of a smile curving her silver-painted lips.

Rizeth didn’t bother with preamble. “Where is he?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” she said. “But if he’s not with you, it’s for the best, don’t you think?”

“I do not have the patience for your petty games, Miss Hanali. Where is he?”

“Believe me or not—most likely not, since you never listen to anyone save yourself—I truly don’t know. But surely you can find him with that little tracking charm you branded him with, no?” Her mouth twisted into a sneer. “Elian’la refused, so you found a pretty young thing who didn’t know better to say yes. I’d say I’m surprised, but I do so hate to lie.”

Rizeth’s jaw tensed. “If you do not know where he is, I have no further reason to waste my breath on you. Good afternoon.”

“Off you go then,” she called as he turned to leave. “Drag him home and make him sorry. Tears are so much sweeter when they’re real, aren’t they?”

“What exactly do you want, Catriona?” He whirled back to her, slapping his palm on the table hard enough to make her gathered papers flutter. “You put ideas in his head, throw Elian’la at him, drive him from me—nearly seventy years and you remain a foul viper of a woman.”

“And you remain the same monster you were born,” she spat. “You don’t deserve him. You don’t deserve anyone after the way you treated Elian’la, and if you thought I’d sit by and let you drag that poor, innocent boy down into the depths of your Lolthite depravity—”

“Miss Hanali.”

Kelran’s firm voice cut through her rant. He stood in the doorway, arms folded, regarding both of them coolly. “Master Aloro is waiting for you in the demonstration room, Miss Hanali. I suggest you join him.”

Catriona shot a glare at Rizeth, then shoved back her chair and pushed past Kelran without a word. Kelran eyed the mess of papers she’d left with his lips pressed together, annoyed. “Catriona I am unsurprised by. You, I expect better from than an argument I can hear from the second floor.”

“Perhaps it would behove you to stop eavesdropping on other people’s business, then.”

He wanted to leave, but Kelran blocked the door, and Rizeth knew he wouldn’t be permitted to pass until the meddlesome fool had extracted his pound of flesh. He gathered up the diagrams, rolling them rougher than they ought to be handled to fit them back into their scroll tubes. “Is Ashenivir here?” he asked curtly.

“No,” Kelran said. “And I’d appreciate an explanation, if you don’t mind. I’m aware Elian’la is back in the city—I assume her presence has something to do with this foul mood you’re in.”

One of the papers sliced Rizeth’s forefinger deep enough to draw blood. He hissed in annoyance. “Ashenivir spoke to her. Catriona masterminded the meeting. Among other things.”

“And you reacted with your usual grace and decorum, I see.”

“He lied to me about it!” Rizeth slammed the lid onto a scroll tube so hard the wood cracked from end to end. “About who he was with, why he was there. I told him not to talk to Catriona, and he’s been going behind my back to do so.”

“Talk to her about what?”

Rizeth cast the broken scroll tube to the table, where it rolled and thudded to the floor. This was a waste of time. All he wanted was to find Ashenivir and fix this. Apologise, yes, a thousand times, but more than that he needed to see him, touch him, know he still existed, that he still…that he still wants to be with me.

“What did he talk to her about, Rizeth?” Kelran pressed.

“I’m certain you can guess.”

He’d had enough. Ignoring Kelran’s sigh, he closed his eyes and reached for the mark. Reservations be damned, he needed to at least know Ashenivir was somewhere safe. The magic opened to him, and he raced along the threads of divination that ensured they were never apart, not really, and right where Ashenivir should have been, he hit a wall.

He inhaled sharply as his eyes flew open. He tried again, flinging his mind out desperately. Nothing changed. The threads went nowhere.

Ashenivir had locked him out.

“Rizeth?”

“I…it’s gone.” He sagged, hands braced against the table to keep him upright as his insides turned hollow. His voice shook, unfamiliar, a stranger’s far-off, fragile tones. “The divinations, they…he’s shut them off.”

They were designed with a suppression, for privacy, autonomy—on purpose, because the gift freely given wasn’t free if it came with a permanent chain—and now Ashenivir had made rightful use of it. Why would he want Rizeth to know where he was? Cruel, careless Rizeth, who didn’t listen and couldn’t love anyone the way they needed because he was too broken to know what the word meant.

“I’ve ruined everything.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Kelran said, near now, reaching for him with undeserved understanding. “He loves you. You’ll work this out.”

Elian’la had loved him. Rizeth ducked Kelran’s well-meaning hand and fled the House. He had to go home. He needed to be there in case Ashenivir changed his mind. He wouldn’t, though. This had been inevitable from the moment Rizeth had entertained the insanity of indulging in an actual relationship. Who did he think he’d been fooling, playing at romance?

The apartment was as silent as he’d left it. The empty mugs sat on the table, his cuffs on the stack of books. They were Ashenivir’s books, Ashenivir’s notes; all the work he’d abandoned chasing the very thing Rizeth had once wanted so badly he’d destroyed every happiness he’d had for it.

He tried to make tea, overheated the teapot and cracked it; sent the sugar tin crashing to the floor. He stared at the scattered white grains blankly, the idea of sweeping a physical impossibility. The magic for it wouldn’t come either, Weave stuttering and falling from his fingers. He sank into a chair and put his head in his hands.

The sun went down. The silence pressed in on him, full of absence. And, because he deserved it, he reached for the mark over and over, beating his Weave against a solid wall of nothingness until his magic was as raw and ragged as his heart.

---

Author's Notes: i'd apologise for 2 chapters of angst in a row but in my defence i did give you the dessert of that power word pleasure first so now you gotta eat your vegetables :p

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