After a small debate, Joy reluctantly agreed to let me leave Ugz with her. His skill in climbing along walls made him ideal for scouting out the temple, but I did not want him going in there alone. There was an intense pressure emanating from the threshold of the black stone ziggurat. The feeling made me uneasy about magical interference, and I worried about Ugz’s ability to communicate mentally through the barrier.

Instead, I had argued, Ugz could hide with Joy and keep watch while she rested. If she came under attack, my familiar could warn, or assist her by borrowing my magic. Failing that, Ugz could physically let me know she needed our help.

Being the proud, independent Wildling that she was, Joy was not at all happy about being relegated to having a babysitter. Fortunately, she was so worn out from her injuries that I did not have to argue with her for long. I had not wanted to leave her behind at all, but once she decided the issue for us, I wanted to do so with all haste. Every second we wasted talking made me more irritable; it felt like we were conceding an advantage to explore the temple without interference. Joy picked up on my urgency and relented, only after getting the last word in about how she could take care of herself. I chalked her increased difficulty up to her severe injuries, which I am sure rattled us all in ways we had yet to understand. A close brush with death had dashed apart our youthful belief in imperviousness that we did not know we possessed.

True to my prediction, crossing the threshold of the temple created an instantaneous obstruction with my ability to talk with Ugz. His mental voice became distant, sounding almost muffled. Likewise, I sensed he could scarcely hear my commands, as he only responded after multiple repetitions.

I pulled back immediately and told the others. A lurch of unexpected anxiety stopped me from stepping back across the threshold.

“I need a moment,” I said to Raxx. The Harak did not reply, but I felt his presence behind me, and it gave me comfort.

For a moment, I confronted my willingness to continue into the depths of the unholy ziggurat. It was not just the fear of danger that stalled me into inaction. Though I worried most about leaving Joy behind us, I needed to understand why I continued down this path.

The accuracy of my prediction of magical interference disturbed me. A year ago, if someone told me I would be in a long forgotten temple making intuitive leaps about the particulars of spell interference, I would have declared them mad.

My station in life had changed to such a radical degree that I was not sure I would accept it in totality for some time. That is to say nothing of the adjustment required to accept the physical changes Vascora blessed me with—which, I admit, mostly, gave me more pleasure than concern.

But social class and looks were external things. They affected how other people treated me. Though jarring, I never doubted my ability to adapt to surface level circumstances. In fact, I might say that until Sabine’s tirade on Merchant Street, my every waking ambition had been toward that goal. Increasing the wealth and influence of my father’s business had been what I lived for. I now recognized that the beautiful Sabine had even been a part of that desire. After all, who would not look upon such an ugly boy with a gorgeous wife and think he must have influence. A beauty like Sabine might have even broken the homely Horste family curse for our children! Nevermind that her most encouraging quality was that she had not beat me with a broom on sight.

Those superficial things were easier to accept, and I had already, in part, learned to embrace the societal trajectory my life had taken. Hobnobbing with nobles, no matter how awful, and the well-to-do of other kingdoms has seen to that.

My knowledge of the arcane, though? I realized now that it was not a change I felt confident accepting. The unearned expertise sat in my head, not just like a tool waiting for me to use, but a voice influencing my every decision. How quick I was to rush into battle now, after developing a skill with a polearm through the use of gods-given resources.

As I stood there on the precipice of that yawning tunnel, I wondered what in the abyss I was doing. The rage that nurtured my every step forward had been quenched as easily as that lightning had struck Joy down. Clarity came to me, and it told me I did not recognize the person who guided my actions.

Confronting eldritch horrors in a temple to avenge my father against a noble was insane. The peasant boy that had spent a lifetime avoiding confrontation would not do that. I was no longer the man I believed I was, and I just discovered that it terrified me. I was adrift in a world of monsters, gods, and demons.

Was I nothing more than an agent of the divine now? Did I really have a say toward my life? It felt like I had done nothing but react to the obstacles placed in my path since arriving at Ashmere. My only true choice had been to pursue Angelina for a favorable match, and that had failed.

I probingly stepped across the threshold again, as if doing so might shed light on the distress that danced among the shadows of my thoughts.

A throbbing, electric sensation pulled at my center, making my hair stand on ends. Raxx, just behind me, looked especially hysterical, with his hair pointing out in all directions, looking for all the world like a blue dandelion with teeth. Neither of us were in the right frame of mind to be amused, however.

“Should we go?” I asked Raxx, turning to face him fully.

I expected an instant affirmation, but Raxx surprised me by tilting his head to consider the question. Almost as if my unwillingness had seeped into him.

A moment later, he looked me in the eye and nodded.

“Why?” I asked softly. One simple word for an incredible, and complex question.

“He killed your kin,” Raxx stated with a shrug.

His answer gave me pause, crashing through all my doubts like an avalanche.

Was it really that simple?

I was no Harak sea raider to hunt down and slay others in the name of a blood feud. Nonetheless, his easy reasoning resonated with me. Despite all the danger I had overcome, I was a person guided by a sense of vengeance. When I thought bandits took my betrothed, I spent everything I had and went after her. Confronted with the offense of pity, I spurned a duchess of the realm publically. I made an enemy of Reynold, a prominent noble of the kingdom, all because he unfairly hurt a boy that I barely knew. Because, for all the bullying I endured over my life, I would not stand for it happening to another. Not when I finally had the strength to make them suffer in turn.

Night after night, I had prayed to Vascora as a boy, not for salvation or deliverance from the curse of ugliness I had been born with, but for revenge. I had wept, praying for her to afflict those that had made my life a living hell. And, for all of her succor to the outcast, she was foremost a goddess of misfortune. Her every bestowal granted me a way to cause doubt and bring calamity to my enemies.

There was precedent for my conduct, I concluded. Anger notwithstanding, fear set aside, I could say with absolute certainty that the boy of a year ago would have chased his father’s killer to the ends of the world for retribution. That was not emotional supposition, but cold logic.

And for all that, I may have stood at the end of the earth. Its asshole, anyway.

I was in control. If I wanted to, I could gather up Joy and convince Raxx to wait for the Ashmere regulars to arrive. The warlock was dead; we had no stake in going further beyond my desire. Indeed, the groups en route would be better equipped to handle the excursion.

The difference was that for the first time in my life; I felt like I had something to lose.

Vascora had not taken my agency away with her gifts—she had granted me the autonomy to do what I had always asked. It was the freedom that scared me.

Finally, I understood what was in my heart. Reynold needed to die by my hand. Standing resolved before the unknown, I pushed away the prodding fear and protestations of the cowardly boy that still dwelt in the background of my consciousness. I buried that overwhelming terror that Joy’s injuries had given me, with the clarity that I would have done the same for her.

Yet, I did not have the stomach to risk my friends if I did not have to. My desire was not strong enough to thwart the bonds of family I had created with Raxx and Joy. Knowing it would not work, I tried in vain to go it alone.

“Let me do this by myself,” I said to Raxx.

Raxx smiled, a snout revealing too many missing teeth.

“It’s our choice to risk our lives, Harald,” Raxx said.

His angry tone caught me off guard. Until then, I do not believe the Gnoll had ever spoken to me with such severity.

My eyes met his, but the beastman did not back down. I knew somehow that nothing I could say would stop him from helping. We were a pack now.

“Fine,” I said, looking away in surrender.

We took a few steps forward, then an idea sprang into being, and I changed tact. “Give me ten minutes to scout ahead. I promise if there is something dangerous, I won’t engage. I'll come back up so we can discuss a strategy.”

“Ten minutes?” Raxx said, narrowing his eyes. It was obvious it did not convince him that my intentions were for safety.

I nodded, my eyes pleading with him.

He did not care.

“No. Get over yourself,” Raxx said, motioning toward the darkness.

Together we stalked forward, into the awful depths of the tunnel.