Streets of Hope

Did the men you sent after Meris try to come up with some convenient excuse about why they didn't bring her head back to you? How much confidence did you have in Meris being able to escape and reach the surface?

"Luckily, the general expectations and my feelings were in synch...

I wanted to tear into my Chamberlain's throat with my bare hands and toss his limbs over my palace's balcony. I prayed for one of the deities from the world above to suddenly manifest and free us all, or maybe give me enough power so I'd be able to run away with her after beating back my city's guards. I've never been so angry and so sad before or since. There was only one thing I could do.

I shouted at her pursuers in the Black Speech, infusing my words with more of Their power and more of my own hatred than they could've endured. I destroyed their minds, gave myself those single few minutes of justified violence, and then blamed my actions on their incompetence, like any disgustingly proper Augur would have.

Publicly, I'd acted like a reasonable plutocrat and pleased the monster I'd be forced to endure for centuries. Privately, it was the only outlet I had for the sorrow I felt at the obligation of all but murdering my own son and betraying my wife.

I'll confess I couldn't think straight, at the time. I couldn't consider Meris' odds of survival, when all I had on the mind was my own betrayal and how... sick it made me feel. I found myself almost praying for one of the blathering idiot's assassination attempts to succeed, as I didn't see myself as worthy of living on the same plane as the one woman I'd loved, and whom I'd abandoned when she needed me the most. I wanted death and, ironically, it made my gloomy dispositions rather appealing to the Prelacy.

It took the idea of my venturing on the surface for my spirits to improve. At least, if I saw Meris again, I thought, I'd know I could've trusted my killer.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and I deserved her fury ten times over. Even if, at the end of it all, I did what I did so we'd have a chance of common survival."