Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(11)

Was she manipulating him? he wondered yet again. He knew that Dahlia was a calculating woman, a clever warrior, a strategic opponent. But was it possible that she was also his opponent? Did she see him as a companion and a friend, or as merely a plaything and a tool for her greater designs?

Drizzt tried to shake such dark thoughts away, but he could not. Standing there at the boughs of the tree, looking back at the beautiful elf, he could not help but be drawn to her. At the same time, though, Drizzt was reminded that he did not really know Dahlia, and that what he did know of her was not so innocent a lifestyle.

Dahlia, after all, had lured Jarlaxle and Athrogate to Gauntlgrym with the intent of freeing the primordial. Even though she had changed from that malignant course in the critical moment, she still had to bear more than a little responsibility for the cataclysm that had devastated the region and buried the city of Neverwinter.

She looked so young lying there in the morning light, and so innocent, almost childlike. Indeed she was young, Drizzt reminded himself. When he was Dahlia’s age back in Menzoberranzan, had he even left House Do’Urden for the warrior school of Melee-Magthere?

Still, he knew, Dahlia was in many ways much older than he. She had served in the court of Szass Tam, the archlich of Thay. She had witnessed great battles and had known more lovers than he, surely. She was greatly traveled, and deeply experienced in life.

Drizzt knew better than to allow any condescension to slip into his thoughts as he considered Dahlia. Spirited and dangerous, it would not do for anyone associated with her, friend, lover, or enemy, to underestimate her, in any way. So was she manipulating him with this soft look of hers, the alluring and more innocent cut of her hair and her unblemished face?

The drow smiled as he considered the obvious answer in light of yesterday’s events. The hardened Dahlia, braid and woad, had argued with him and even invited him to leave her side. She would take care of Herzgo Alegni herself, she had proclaimed. But that would be no easy task, obviously, for Alegni was within the city, and likely surrounded by powerful allies, including Artemis Entreri.

And as the day had worn on, and Drizzt had remained at her side, though still without committing to join her, Dahlia had morphed into this alluring and gentle creature, less warrior, more lover.

Drizzt looked out at the snowy forest and chuckled at himself. It didn’t really matter if Dahlia was trying to manipulate him, he supposed. Wasn’t that simply the truth of relationships? Hadn’t Bruenor manipulated him and everyone else, facilitating his own “death” after the battle with Akar Kessell that they might abandon Icewind Dale and head out on the road in search of Mithral Hall? And hadn’t Drizzt, in truth, manipulated Bruenor into signing the Treaty of Garumn’s Gorge?

The drow couldn’t help laughing as his memories spun back through the years. He recalled Bruenor’s deathbed drama back in Icewind Dale, when the dwarf had played out his greatest desires, so apparently lost to the winds of time. Coughing and sputtering and wheezing and obviously failing, clever Bruenor had shrunk before Drizzt’s eyes, as if entering the nether realm of death, until the moment Drizzt had pledged that they would head out and find Mithral Hall. Then Bruenor had hopped up, ready for the road.

Oh, what a fine play that had been . . . but also, of course, a deep manipulation.

That Dahlia was playing some games within the context of their relationship simply wasn’t that important, Drizzt told himself. He knew the truth of it, and within that truth crouched the hard fact that he could only be manipulated if he let her. It wasn’t simply lust, he knew, though surely Dahlia excited him. His intrigue with the elf went far beyond physical needs. He wanted to understand her. He felt that if he could learn about Dahlia, he would learn much of himself. Her way of looking at the world was foreign to him, a different perspective entirely, and that promised him an expansion of his own viewpoints. Perhaps he was drawn to Dahlia for the same reason he seemed forever drawn to Artemis Entreri—to consider the man, at least, if not to travel beside him. For both of them, Dahlia and Entreri, were possessed of a code of honor, albeit a stilted one in Drizzt’s eyes. Neither woke up in the morning with visions of creating chaos and suffering. Dahlia had shown as much with her inability to follow her master’s orders and release the primordial.

So, did he want to fix them? Drizzt wondered. Did he, somewhere in his heart, believe that he could redeem Artemis Entreri and guide Dahlia to a brighter light?

He glanced back at Dahlia again, just for a moment. He couldn’t deny his hubris. Likely, his desire to bring people out of darkness was part of the equation that had put Artemis Entreri in Drizzt’s thoughts so many times over the decades—nearly as often as he had wondered about Wulfgar.

It was much more complicated with Dahlia, he knew. For he was indeed drawn to her in ways he could never be drawn to Entreri or Wulfgar. He couldn’t deny it. No matter how many times he might convince himself that he should not be with the dangerous elf, that conviction couldn’t hold against the mere sight of her, particularly when she wore her hair and face softly.

He straightened up in surprise as he felt the elf ’s arm slide over his shoulder and wrap around his neck. Dahlia rested her chin on his other shoulder and kissed him on the ear. “A warm bed before a journey into the cold snow?”

Drizzt smiled. His expression only widened as Dahlia added, “And then we will go and kill him.”

Indeed.