Night had fallen over the Lodge, and on the main level the only noises were the clicking and clacking of Adeline's nails on the hardwood floors and the faint, occasional rustle caused by the falling away of dying embers in the fireplace. Upstairs and collapsed across one of the cots, a large, insensible man snored, passed out in a drunken stupor. From another cot in the collective darkness, made less visible by the draping of a royal blue cloak over a makeshift clothesline, came the sound of a slight woman's soft weeping.
It had been a long day for Herald Ren of the Wayfarer Kinship, and sleep would not come to her until she had—almost like a wailing infant—emptied her brain of all the emotions with which hours of activity had filled it. And so she wept. Her pillow was damp against her face, the cotton mass an inert lump that cared nothing for the Pelorian who drenched it with the release of her pent up emotions.
She had done the right thing—as always—and at least she would be spared the infliction of shame. She had summoned Bri from Port-a-Lucine so that Bri and Io could be reunited. She hoped that seeing the two of them together, seeing Io not so often wandering about alone, clueless in the social graces that came so easily to her, would strengthen her own resolve that it was better one hurt than three. After all, such would return the world to its rightful orbit: Io and Bri had loved one another before, and Iridni had borne the loss of Alistar with as much equanimity as any good Pelorian ought. She would not become some evil-omened comet, her light twisted to a dark path that disrupted the shining stars' balance.
When the three of them had eaten Io's deer and turnip stew together, she had been so confident that all was mended. Even she was happy—happy for Io and Bri's sake, happy that she could be the agent of Io's joyful reunion with his beloved, her Pelorian sister. Yet why did Bri whisper to her in a way that made Iridni once more uncertain where her true course would lie?
She hoped the Krofburg Faire would take her mind off all this painful churning in her heart. In a way it did, as she was finally able to make right Alistar's debt to Mr. Laurier. Clearly, Alistar would never do so. A paladin's oath, it seemed, was more an inescapable obligation in regards to violence than to finances...and feelings.
She saw Emma Grace there, and trying to help that poor woman also kept her from thinking her own situation deserved Pelor's sympathy. What a sniveling little weakling in comparison Iridni was! She had so many friends and so much greater security than Emma, while needing both less.
Yet even at the Faire, she had watched Io in his flailing attempts at trying to find a goat for the race. This was his element, and she could not help but admire his persistence here, where he was confident of his success and knowledgeable about what he was doing. As much as he might disparage it—the same way he disparaged himself—this was his home, the place of his family and roots. No matter how ugly and crude she so often found him when she tried to look at him with objectivity, here he had a graceful competence that made her proud. She felt for a moment that she alone recognized it, but then her gaze swept toward Bri, and she knew that such was not true. She was being a foolish young girl again, with a romantic illusion that her feelings were unique and profound, rather than waiting to be discovered in every hut in Krofburg.
Afterward, she walked as quickly to the Lodge as her tired legs would carry her. She wanted no more company, no more words, only solitude and sleep. She felt herself revive upon seeing Master Yunon almost nodding by the fire. He had journeyed all these miles from the Iron Warden and left off his research because of having received her letter about Net'lia...and Io.
“I did not come back to attend these gatherings, young Ren, but to speak to you. I am concerned about you.”
It was almost too much for her to hold back then what she would save for her pillow later. She had so wanted and needed someone she could be weak with—how she missed her mother and father!—and here Yunon was. They talked for hours. Finally, Yunon said, “You're on a road which will make you bitter, I feel. I don't like the situation at all, and I'm sorry you've found yourself in it.”
“Bitter? By Pelor, I won't let that happen, Master Yunon. But if you can advise me, I would always welcome that.”
“We never say we'd let ourselves become bitter, hurt, or angry; those things tend to be beyond our control to contain, however.”
Yunon then told her his own story, which she promised never to speak of again, even to him. And so she locked it away in her heart, but like anyone as young as she, no matter her exceptional wisdom, she doubted the experience of age would ever apply to her. She had let vile bitterness about Roland's influence on Alistar ensnare her judgment once; its seed would never again find purchase in her breast. If she was devoted enough to Pelor, if she prayed hard and long enough, she was sure that in His infinite mercy He would keep her soul free of all evil and darkness.
For one night at least, her faith held: she forced herself to imagine a wedding, and in that wedding, she would join Io and Bri together in Pelorian matrimony, both of them now believers in the one, true god.
She still felt the hot tears on her face, but in the dark night she whimpered. O, Master Yunon, if you could but experience the power of my god! She licked at her lips, and the taste she found there was not bitter but the sweetness of joy.