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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7430518" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 165Xeeta found that she could not sleep.  She was certainly tired enough after the long day’s travel, and she knew that the road ahead would only become harder as they progressed deeper into the mountains.  It wasn’t the hardness of the stone shelf that served as her bed, or the throbbing in her legs and backside from two days spent in the unfamiliar confines of a saddle.  She’d slept through worse, had had to learn to take her rest where and when she could find it.It wasn’t the Demon, which had been quiescent of late.  She had not had the need to use her magic since the fight in the sewers of Severon.  She had grown in power since the Silverpeak Valley, and there were times when she worried that there would be a price to pay for that.  But that wasn’t what was keeping her up tonight.She finally rose from her bedding.  She could see Bredan sitting near the fire, staring into the flames.  For a moment she considered him, and why she was here.  She didn’t have to come with them back to Severon.  She’d decided not to remain in the Silverpeak Valley with Rodan, but there were plenty of other places she could have gone, especially now that she had the magical amulet that concealed her dark ancestry.  But her new companions—her new friends—had been there for her when she had needed someone.  And Bredan most of all.  At first, she’d thought it just simple compassion, a sentiment that she’d been trained to exploit, growing up in and under the streets of Li Syval.  A weakness.But it had been more than that, she now knew.  Bredan possessed empathy, and it was a trait that did not make him weak, rather the opposite.  And some of it had apparently seeped into her, for as she covertly watched him she could sense and understand some of what he was feeling.She crossed the room, her bare feet not even making a whisper on the stone floor of the waystation.  Konstantin was just a vague shadow in his bedroll, a low hill compared to the mountain that was Quellan.  A low, growling snore came from the cleric, but he didn’t stir as she passed.Bredan hadn’t moved from his intense vigil.  Xeeta didn’t want to startle him, but as she hesitated he shifted slightly to make room for her.“I have always been fascinated by fire,” she said, keeping her voice low so as not to wake the others.  “Even before my powers began to manifest.  Such beauty and destruction, bound together.  A power that is neither evil nor good, just… raw, primal.”Bredan didn’t respond.  After a few moments Xeeta went on, “When the magic began to grow in me I was confused, and afraid,” she said.  “They called in the Demon, the ones who had created me.  They were excited by it, excited and pleased, for not all of the ones they bred possessed that gift.  They made me to be a weapon, shaped me to be one, under their control.  But the Demon could not be controlled.  And after a while, after a long while, I could not be either.”He slowly turned his head to look at her.  “You chose to be something more than what they made you,” he said.  “I don’t know if I will have that choice.”“You’re still who you are,” she said.  “You’ve changed since we first met.  We both have.  But that hasn’t changed.”“I’m afraid,” he said.“I know,” she said.They sat there together, sharing the warmth of the fire as the night deepened outside their shelter.In the morning, the dwarves were waiting for them.</blockquote>

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