Neverwinter (Neverwinter #2)(23)

“It’s not as much fun if it isn’t as dangerous,” Drizzt answered for her.

“When there’s conviction behind your complaining, perhaps then I’ll listen more attentively, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Dahlia replied. “For now, just accept that I understand the truth of your sentiments and will welcome your blades when trouble finds us.”

“You’re walking with purpose,” Drizzt said, thinking it wise to change the subject. “Pray tell where you’re leading me.”

“Pray tell me why you brought me here. My course would’ve been south, to Neverwinter Wood, remember?”

“There are questions I need to answer first.”

“To see if Jarlaxle survived,” Dahlia replied, catching Drizzt by such surprise that he stopped walking, and had to scramble to catch up.

“It’s obvious,” she said when he neared. “Your affection for him, I mean.”

“He is helpful,” was all Drizzt would admit.

“He is dead,” Dahlia said. “We both saw him fall, and witnessed the explosive fury of the primordial right behind.”

Drizzt wasn’t sure of that, of course, since he’d known Jarlaxle as the ultimate survivor of many seemingly impossible escapes, but he could only shrug against Dahlia’s assertion.

“I would know, too, of the power of Bregan D’aerthe in Luskan,” he said.

“Diminished,” Dahlia replied without hesitation. “It had weakened considerably those ten years ago, and it’s unlikely the drow have expanded once more in the City of Sails. What’s left here for them?”

“That’s what I hope to learn.”

“You seek Jarlaxle,” Dahlia teased, “because you care.”

Drizzt didn’t deny it.

Dahlia walked past him out into the middle of the street and motioned toward an inn across the way. “Seeing all of those decrepit farms and famished farmers has spurred my appetite,” she said without looking back at Drizzt.

The drow stood there watching her back as she walked away from him and toward the inn. She’d made that statement for his benefit, he knew, just to remind him that they were not alike, to remind him that she had an understanding of the world that was different—and greater—than his own.

He kept thinking that Dahlia would glance back toward him when she noticed he wasn’t following her.

She didn’t.





By the time Drizzt entered the inn, Dahlia was already seated at a table and talking to one of the serving girls. There weren’t many patrons in the inn at this early hour, but those who were, mostly male, focused on the exotic Dahlia. Even when Drizzt entered, he garnered no more than a quick glance from any of the men.

Dahlia waved the serving girl away as Drizzt approached.

“Did you think, perhaps, that I would wish a meal as well?” Drizzt asked.

Dahlia laughed at him. “I expected your sympathies for the poor farmer folk would force your belly to grumble for days to come. So that you might properly sob for them, I mean.”

“Why would you say such a thing?”

Dahlia laughed again and looked away.

Drizzt heaved a sigh and started to stand, thinking he’d go to the bar and buy a meal, but before he’d even stepped away from his chair, the serving girl returned, bearing two bowls of steaming stew.

Dahlia motioned for him to sit, her expression conciliatory, and at last more serious.

“It troubled you to see those farms,” she said a few moments later, the bowls of stew in front of them, Drizzt stirring his with his spoon.

“What would you have me say?”

“I would have you admit the truth.”

Drizzt looked up and stared at her. “I’ve always known Luskan to be a city of ruffians. I’ve always found many of the customs here, such as the Prisoner’s Carnival, distasteful, and I realized when Captain Deudermont fell that Luskan would know even darker times. But yes, it pains me to see it. To see the helplessness of the commoners trapped in plays of power and a reality made more harsh by the proliferation of pirates and thugs.”

“Is that what pains you?” Dahlia asked, and her tone hinted at some clever insight, which drew Drizzt’s gaze once more. “Or is it that you cannot make things right? Is it their helplessness or your own that troubles you so?”

“Do you seek to enlighten me or to taunt me?”

Dahlia laughed and took a bite of stew.

Drizzt did likewise and tried to keep his attention focused on the others in the common room—folks who watched him and Dahlia quite intently. He took note of one woman leaving in a hurry, though she tried to appear casual in her departure, and of another man who slowly walked to the exit and never stopped staring at the pair, particularly Dahlia.

By the time they had at last left the inn, midday had long passed and the sun was halfway to the horizon. Once more, Dahlia took up the lead.

“How many eyes are upon us now, I wonder?” Drizzt asked, the first words they had spoken since their pre-meal conversation.

“Us?”

“On you,” the drow clarified. “Do you believe it’s your beauty that attracts such attention, or your history here?”

While her appearance had changed fairly dramatically with her hairstyle and skin alterations, this was so obviously still Dahlia, the one and only Dahlia. Anyone who had ever met Dahlia, Drizzt knew, would not be fooled by such cosmetic changes, nor would anyone who had ever met Dahlia likely forget her.