The Letter

Dear Essa,

Urdna didn’t know how to start the letter. Dinner was done, her guests paid and put to bed. The streets were still submerged while the guard finished their final sweep. The Sunder Nets appeared to have held, as expected, so nothing large came down from the sea for them to deal with. No doubt her peers and colleagues in the surrounding houses were stomping their feet, hissing to servants and spouses about the delay. But safety comes first, even before meetings she postponed for her yearly trip, urgent requests for dowsing from dwarven colonies, courtesy calls, and the day’s mail. The streets would stay submerged for hours yet.

She had time, for once, and clarity. Yet all she could think to put down was:

Your rogue tried to climb a five hundred foot tower today and fell off.

She stared out of the window in her study. There came a sweep of light in the navy blue dim of the water outside, and Urdna watched as a guard in submersible plate tromped down the avenue. The guard had a drow by the foot and towed it along. Urdna guessed it got caught between buildings from the damage to the body. It wasn’t flushed to one of the kill points at the city’s edge the way the controlled release of the shield was supposed to push it. The Drakemantles would want to discuss this. They’d roll out the city blueprints again and start making radical marks. The Runemauls would argue about a magical solution. Garol Sunder would pass her a flask under the table that did little to help her growing headache, and then she’d have to get up and argue about the planning budget again.

Urdna rubbed at her unburned temple. She read her previous sentence over and added another.

Your rogue tried to climb a five hundred foot tower today and fell off. I miss Kor.

It felt like a floodgate opening. Admitting it, after all this time. She immediately hated the comparison, all those idioms were so trite living in a city where a deluge of water happened near-weekly now, but it was true. The feelings and the words came all in a rush.

Not just him. Everyone. Tris. Kieron. I even miss Gwinn, for all his dramatics. I missed Marris so much I ruined her life. For a decade. It hurts to write, let alone dwell on. Humans don’t have them to spare. Especially not her kind.

Kor used to joke, you know. “Me with half the wit of an elf, and you with all your dwarven pragmatism— how’d we end up in a party of humans?”

The rush stopped there. To this day, she didn’t know, or didn’t want to think about it. Urdna glanced at the time-keeper on her desk. Three days hard riding and the torrent of work that hit her the moment she stepped foot back in the house had left her utterly drained. She had to sleep.

It wasn’t restful. The water always made the city silent. Urdna was used to quiet because of the construction of the house, but the water drowned any sound that might have fought its way to her through it. Everything was too still. Her eyes snapped open at half six and she couldn’t make them shut again. She found herself wandering down the hall in her night dress, then back at her desk, staring down at the letter and the inkpen she’d left to the side.

Urdna sat down to write again. She wanted the letter done before the party woke, in case watching the drow die spurred them to ride at dawn. It wasn’t an easy sight. The view from her window was still dark and blue. She had time.

It was him, I know, Gwinn was the draw. But then it was us. The thing we made together. A family. A strange family, where you and Kor were sleeping with the same man, and whatever Tris and Alba were was also going on… but a family, regardless. A family for me after I abandoned clan and duty out of petulance. A family for you, with your blood alive and well besides. You were so good at it.

I missed you too, I realize now. Hating you made it easier. It gave me a reason to push away the misery. It let me walk back into Behlan with that sack of platinum and demand my title back. It gave them comfort. “Urdna,” they would say. “She ran off to play adventurer, but then she was burned, and now she knows her place.”

Hating you even made that easier to hear. Running this city, dowsing for these old fools, I could pretend it was all a holding pattern while I schemed to destroy my greatest enemy.

The house vibrated, suddenly. The view outside her window dissolved into bubbles and rushing water. She planted her bare feet on the carpet below her desk and felt the thrumming of the Drakemantle Pumps as they drained the city. The cleaners would be out to scrub it down and gather the Victory Fish, the bells would ring out, and then her day would begin. She pressed pen to paper with more conviction.

Now I’m here, with a house full of your new guild, watching them talk and make mistakes and live their lives as they can. I am thinking that my hatred did nothing but rob me of my chance to make something for myself again. It drove from me my closest friend. Your ranger was correct. I have no one to blame for the wreck I made of my life but myself.

I am sorry I couldn’t see it. I am sorry I couldn’t say all of this to your face. You stepped into Gwinn’s shadow when none of us would, you fought to keep us together— and I couldn’t forgive you for doing what I so wished I’d had the strength to do. I am sorry for wasting a decade of my life not being your friend. You don’t have so many decades for me to intrude on.

Give my love to your father, and your daughter. To Kor, and Tris, and Kieron, if you have a way to reach them. And if you have the time, I keep a mirror in my study…

Urdna glanced over at it. It was an ornate square of black glass in a gilded frame given to her as a “gift” by the Runemauls. Mostly, they scryed her to lobby for first-claim on new diamond. She’d begun to dread the glow as it activated. She took a deep breath and finished her thought.

I keep a mirror in my study. I saw your ranger with one. You know the way. If you have time for a stubborn, ungrateful dwarf, call on me.

From now on I will always answer, old friend. No games. No subterfuge.

Divitiae Gloria Vita

Urdna

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 8/22/2017 | REHOSTED 2/27/2024