Zarenis sat on the bed in her tiny apartment room, thick curtains drawn against the morning light outside. She had handed over the censer to Lady Amloth -- or at least, to her manservant, for she felt reluctant to meet the drow herself now. She had been invited in, which indicated that she was expected, but had declined the offer. She had fulfilled her mission, and was now rid of the infernal artefact that she had been hired to collect. In return, she had a large payment of gold coins, enough to keep her in relative comfort for a while.
So it should all have been over. That was it, mission accomplished, her part in Lady Amloth's schemes completed. Except, of course, that it wasn't.
She looked at the sceptre she held in her hands. It was made of a bluish-black metal, either crafted with some sort of pigment worked into it, or perhaps made of a substance she could not identify. Its tip bore a set of three sharp spikes, arching around a clear crystal with a slight tinge of yellow. Those spikes had proved deadly when she had used the thing as a weapon, making it almost as much a spear as a sceptre, although it was a little cumbersome to be used as a true weapon of war. The shaft was hexagonal, engraved with writing in what she could only assume was an infernal script unknown to her.
The sceptre had much the same effect on her as the censer, or perhaps the latter's effect had not faded. Either way, while she had the transformation under control, it took an effort of will to maintain her normal form, keeping herself from being more noticeable among normal humans than she already was. In that form, she looked even more demonic than her father had, and the tainted blood had run stronger in his veins than it did in hers. She wasn't comfortable with it, preferring to vanish into the background... but the problem was, the sceptre spoke to her.
Not in words, as such, it was simply the impressions of the Presence in her head, nudging her in its planned direction. Lady Amloth was its chief servant in Haredil, that much Zarenis knew, and she wondered why the drow apparently knew nothing of the sceptre. Perhaps she did, and was keeping it quiet, but she sensed that that was unlikely. Perhaps the Presence's plans were more complicated than its own followers realised.
The Presence wanted her to anoint the sceptre with her blood. She didn't know why, although clearly it had something to do with her specifically, since the Celestial's blood had clearly had no particular effect -- and the sceptre had been coated in that until it burned away. But Zarenis was beginning to feel doubt. She had followed the Presence's prior instructions, acquiring the sceptre in the first place, but that had almost got her killed, with only Nyvara's opportune distraction saving her life.
So should she do this? And, if she did, what would be the result? She didn't know.
She was tired now, and would have to reflect on it more the following night, after a good day's sleep. It would be, she believed, her last chance, for the night after that something happened. Something that was special about that night, although, yet again, she did not know what it might be. The moons were both full, she knew that much, but that happened almost every year, and this had to be something more significant than that. She supposed that, either way, in two nights' time, she would find out.
She put the sceptre down, gingerly, on the battered old dresser opposite her bed. It could wait, at least for now. Then she undressed, and climbed into bed, wrapping the sheets around herself as she succumbed to sleep.
On the dresser, the crystal at the sceptre's tip glimmered, briefly, a dull greenish light flickering over it. The Presence did not intend for Zarenis' sleep to be dreamless...
──◊──
Age seven
Zarenis sighed as she bent over the broom, pausing just for a moment in her efforts to clean the floor. It was tiring work, but she had to keep the house clean for when Daddy came home. He would be angry if she did not, and it was scary when Daddy got angry. But he was all she had, all she had ever had, and, besides, what else could she do?
He had never talked about her mother, and the one time she had asked him he had shouted at her, told her that it didn't matter. She hadn't asked again. Her mother, she supposed, must be a normal human, like everyone else who lived in the houses nearby, because otherwise her horns would be long, like Daddy's, and her eyes would be blood-red too, not their actual garnet hue.
Would that be a good thing, she wondered? Then perhaps she would be scary, and the other children wouldn't tease her. Or would they be worse, because her heritage would be that much more obvious? But surely nobody had ever teased Daddy, had they?
But she looked the way she looked, and that was why she didn't mind staying in the house, keeping it clean, preparing her own food, as she had done ever since she was old enough to make the attempt. If you stayed indoors, you didn't have to face the other children, and they weren't nice to her. Especially the older ones, who sometimes kicked her, or pulled her hair. But even the ones her own age called her names, making fun of her horns, of her demonic heritage. The big children did that too, of course, but she didn't understand some of the words they used, although she knew they had to be bad.
So she stayed in here, away from people, away from the cruel world that only ever seemed to want to hurt her. At least, when Daddy was out, she could play games in her own mind, imagine a different world, in which she was a princess, or a powerful magician that nobody dared cross.
She finished up her work, and pulled some bread from a cupboard, tucking into it hungrily. She hadn't eaten all day, and Daddy had forgotten to go shopping again, so there wasn't anything else to eat, and she had been saving this until her work was done, even if it was going a bit stale now. She had to eat, after all.
The door slammed open, and Daddy staggered into the room from the darkened street beyond. He was drunk, again, red eyes bleary, unsteady on his feet. He glared at her.
"Lazy little girl," he snapped, "just sitting there, stuffing your face! I don't know why I fucking had you."
She scrambled back off the table, just managing to cram the last of the bread into her mouth. He didn't mean it, and he would be different in the morning, when he was sober. Then it would be all right.
"Fucking useless little... where's my food? What you made for me, huh?"
She hadn't made him anything, of course. There wasn't anything, and he had, in all probability, had whatever he was going to eat at the tavern, before he started drinking. But now he was hungry again, and angry with her. Which was never good.
She ducked out of the way as he aimed a slap at her, but fortunately he was too drunk to get anywhere near.
"You're a fucking waste, that's what you are!" He snarled, then seemed to give in trying to catch her, "oh, never mind. I'll just get something tomorrow, like I always have to. Because you are so fucking lazy, and I'm the only one who does any work around here. Go to your bed. Out of my sight, waste-of-space girl!"
She ran into what passed for her room, although it was really just a cupboard -- the house, frankly, wasn't big enough for much more. Slamming the door, Zarenis dived into her bed, one that was already too small for her, and pulled the sheets over her head, trying to drown out the banging and cursing from the next room.
Perhaps things would be better tomorrow.
──◊──
Age fourteen
Zarenis stepped into the dark alley, casting her eyes about to make sure she was not being observed. The minor moon was almost full, casting its light -- fainter, and slightly more golden than that of the major moon, now below the horizon -- across the streets, but there was a patch here where two buildings came close together that was deep in shadow. No windows looked into this part of the alley, so, while it was far from ideal, it would do.
After all, she had to sleep somewhere.
She had walked out on her father just a few days ago, at last unable to put up with his abuse. Perhaps she should have done it years before, but she had been too young, and even now it was proving harder than she had imagined. She was desperately hungry, a gnawing chasm in her belly, and had barely managed to snatch a drink from some rainwater in a cistern earlier today.
She was nothing, she was nobody, a lost teenage girl wandering the streets with no means of support, and no roof over her head, owning nothing but the clothes she stood up in, and a kitchen knife she had taken for protection. She prayed she wouldn't have to use it.
She crouched down in the patch of darkness beneath the wall, and wrapped herself in the blanket she had managed to steal from a washing line the day before. For all that Haredil was hot through the day, it could get bitterly cold at night, the warmth rapidly vanishing into the cloudless, starry, sky.
She huddled down, long, ragged hair falling down over her face, and tried to sleep.
Her fitful doze was broken by the sound of footsteps, and she instinctively tried to push herself back into the wall, hoping she would not be seen. Too late, though, for the footsteps had stopped in front of her, and a man's silhouette was blocking the moonlight.
"Are you all right, my child?"
She didn't answer, kept her head bowed so that he couldn't see her face.
"Have you nowhere to go? There is an orphanage not far from here, somewhere you can get a little food. It isn't much, but it must be better than here. There will be other people like you there."
She still said nothing. She did not trust him, did not trust anyone. Why would he offer her help, when no one else ever had?
"You are frightened, I see that. But let me help you. You will be with others, safe and warm, at least. You can always leave if you change your mind. Why not try it, just for a night?"
She looked up at him, then, garnet eyes wide, hair falling back slightly from her face, trying to explain that other people her own age had never been safe for her to associate with. But she needn't have bothered, for he made her own argument for her.
He gasped as he saw her. "What?" he said, a steely note creeping into his voice, "let me see you!"
He reached out for her, and she saw the holy symbol of the Sun God on a cord about his neck. He grabbed her shoulder, and pulled her fringe to one side, exposing her forehead -- and the two miniature horns that sprouted there. They must just have become visible as she looked up towards him.
"I thought so! Demon-spawn! Tiefling!" He slapped her, hard, across the face, almost knocking her to the ground. "What obscene lusts spawned your creation, monstrous wretch?"
"I..." she began, but he would not let her continue.
"You think you can trick me? You think you can deceive me by pretending to be lost, and vulnerable? You want to get into the orphanage don't you? So you can corrupt the innocent with your demonic bile? Your filthy, evil, creed? Hell-spawned monster!"
He raised a walking stick, which she had not even noticed until now, and brought it down across her shoulders, striking her over and over. She tried her best not to scream, tried to huddle into a foetal ball, but tears welled up in her eyes despite her best intentions. At last, she could take no more.
