The journal is plain, bound in clean black leather with sharp corners and a firm spine that gives a little when opened. It hasn’t seen much wear yet, but it’s been written in often enough to carry some weight when held. There’s a faint trace of her scent along the pages: dark amber, spiced myrrh, and a touch of black orchid. It clings in a way that lingers longer than it should.
Inside, the pages are crisp and smooth, only slightly creased at the edges. She writes in dark brown ink, the color rich and steady and easy on the eyes. Her handwriting is neat, with the occasional drift when her thoughts get ahead of her quill. Some entries are tight and focused, others loose and wandering, like she wasn’t entirely sure where she meant to stop.
It isn’t a diary. It was never meant to be private. Each page is written with the understanding that someone will read it. The entries are personal, sometimes painfully so, but there’s intention behind every word. This is a record of her choices, her thoughts, her wrong turns and fleeting triumphs. Not for approval. Not even for understanding.
Just so no one can say she was never here.
If they vote to cast me out, I’ll keep writing. I have to.
Not because I enjoy the sound of my own thoughts, though there’s some truth to that. It’s because I refuse to disappear. I was born a no one. I’m not going to die that way too.
The hearing is tomorrow. They haven’t said the word aloud yet, but it’s hovering in every corner of the chamber. Exile. The vote will be swift. Quiet. They’ll call it necessary.
I suppose I should be flattered it took them this long. Eight years of walking among them, smiling when it suited me, saying just enough of what they wanted to hear. I played the part beautifully. Enchantments helped, of course, but they only ever do what charm cannot finish. Flattery, closeness, a well-placed gesture here or there. They were all too eager to believe I was harmless, or worse, loyal.
I climbed slowly, never too fast. I helped with rituals I never believed in. I bedded a few when it made things easier. Not for love. Not for pleasure. Just to stay where the air was thinner, where people stopped asking questions and started making assumptions.
It worked for years. They never suspected a thing.
Until they did.
I still don’t know how they found it. A trace in my spellwork, maybe. Or a whisper from something I failed to contain. I’d grown comfortable. That was the mistake. The wrong person looked too closely at the magic, and there it was. Something old and wrong and not theirs. Not Weave-bound. Not drow-born.
Unseelie.
Now they act like they’re shocked. Outraged. As if any of them would’ve refused a sliver of the power I hold if it had been offered to them. But I didn’t ask. That’s the real crime. I made a deal without permission. I became something they couldn’t control.
So here we are. My crimes: unauthorized conjuration. Improper binding. Theft of relics I technically returned. Manipulation of Conclave members. Subversion of internal hierarchy. Failure to disclose extraplanar allegiance.
I did most of it. Some of it twice.
But I’m not sorry.
And if they vote to send me away, and they will, I’ll write. Every time I remember something worth keeping, I’ll put it here. Every spell. Every misstep. Every carefully placed lie that kept me ahead of them. Because if I’m going to vanish from their records, I’ll make sure I don’t vanish from the world.
They didn’t say the word. Not exactly. But they didn’t have to.
One by one, they voted. Quiet. Neat. No one looked at me when they did it. That part stung more than I thought it would. Not the exile, not the labels, not even the silence that followed. Just the fact that none of them had the spine to look me in the eye and call me dangerous.
They called it a mercy. Said I was being spared. That I could go, live freely somewhere less... structured. They don’t know me at all. I don’t need structure. I just need space.
I thought about disappearing completely. Changing names. Faces. Starting over in some city where they don’t ask the right questions. But no. That isn’t what I want.
I want reach. Influence. A way to keep pulling at threads. I didn’t trade my ending away just to wither in some dusty cave repeating the same few tricks until the Court comes calling.
So I’m going to Andunor.
It’s ugly and loud and crowded. Half the people there are liars and the other half are worse. But the politics are flexible, and the rules bend if you know how to lean on them. It’s the kind of place where someone like me can make a name, if not a reputation. And if not that, then at least something to be remembered by.
I hear things pass through Andunor. Secrets. Tomes. Names. Opportunities. If the end of the world ever decided to stop by, I’m fairly sure it would pass through there first.
I don’t remember the exact day. Just the air in the room, and how still it went.
There was no great voice. No prophecy. Just a ritual tucked between pages that shouldn’t have been open. The book was misfiled, left on a table where someone with better manners might have reported it. I read it twice, then a third time. I understood just enough to see it for what it was. Not a spell. A door.
The offering was simple. Something personal. Something final. I was supposed to give them a future I hadn’t yet lived. Not a life. Not a soul. Just the end of mine. How it would close.
I hesitated. For a moment. Maybe two.
And then I thought—What would Lolth do?
She wouldn’t ask permission. She wouldn’t beg for favor or wait her turn. She would take the power and shape the consequence later. That was all the answer I needed.
I don’t remember the words, just the way the air pressed against my skin like it wanted in. The room didn’t change, but I did. I felt it slide into place, quiet and cold, like a weight that fit too perfectly to be new.
Afterward, everything was easier. My spells answered quicker. The gaps in my knowledge filled themselves in, like I’d already learned what I hadn’t studied yet.
The magic didn’t feel foreign. It felt earned.
They like to say I sold myself. I didn’t. I invested.
I don’t know what the Court looks like. I’ve never asked and they’ve never shown me. I don’t think it matters. They give me what I want, when I need it, and in return, they keep the ending.
Andunor is starting to feel less like a place I ended up and more like a place I chose. Not entirely, but enough.
It’s filthy, loud, and full of people who speak like knives, but I’m starting to learn which ones are all edge and no handle. I’ve found a few worth keeping close.
Dharzra is steady. Sharp-minded, no nonsense, and her punches sound like they’re breaking stone. She’s literal to a fault, which makes it easier to trust her. No games. No posturing. Just fists and focus.
Indigora, on the other hand, is chaos in boots. Loud, brash, and entirely herself. I don’t think she’s afraid of anything, or if she is, she hides it better than most. She makes me laugh. That’s rare. I call them my ladies, and they haven’t corrected me. That counts for something.
Then there’s Lazrik, quiet, solid, like he was carved instead of born. He doesn’t talk much, which I like. When he does speak, it matters. He watches everything. Not suspicious, just aware. There’s strength in him that doesn’t need to be shown off. It’s there in the way he moves, the way he carries himself. I don’t know if he realizes it.
I like being near them. I like that I don’t always need to speak to be understood. That’s not something I’m used to.
The Court has been still lately. Watching, I think. They get like that when things shift. Not worried. Just curious. There’s a tone they take in the back of my thoughts when they’re paying attention. Like laughter being held just behind the teeth.
I don’t think they mind where I’ve landed. There’s enough here to twist, enough paths to walk in circles. They like that. So do I.
I don’t think they’ve noticed the irony yet. Or maybe they have, and they’re just too polite to mention it. Either way, I joined House Virak the other day. Tenders to the End. That’s what the name means. Fitting, really, considering I traded mine away some time ago.
Not my life, just the ending of it. The part where everything’s supposed to make sense, where the threads tie themselves off and the story concludes. That doesn’t belong to me anymore. The Court has it now, tucked away wherever they keep such things. I don’t know if they’ve written it already, or if they’re still deciding what would be most interesting.
Either way, I doubt I’ll like it.
Still, Virak. The halls are quiet, more than I expected. Not dead, just… still. Like the walls are listening, or waiting. They carry a kind of weight I don’t mind. It’s not unwelcome. Just deliberate. I think that’s what sets them apart.
I’m not sure what they see when they look at me. I move differently than they do, speak differently too. Maybe that’s why they tolerate me. Maybe I’m entertaining. Or maybe I’m useful in ways they haven’t worked out yet.
I wonder if they believe in fate. Not just the word, but the shape of it. Whether it’s something you walk toward with purpose, or something that finds you when you finally stop looking. I meant to ask, but it slipped my mind. Might come back to me later.
The pendant’s still on the desk. It catches the light even when there isn’t any. Could be the magic. Could be the way I cut the gem. Sometimes I wonder if it’s reflecting me, or something else entirely.
I’ve been thinking about them more than I should. Not in the way most would assume. This isn’t about love. It’s about consequence.
Duvall is everything I was raised to admire. Accomplished, clever, dangerous in that quiet, practiced way that doesn’t need to prove itself. He knows how to move people without raising his voice, and I respect that. He gives me information others wouldn’t dare whisper.
Still, I’m always second. Never in name, of course. He wouldn’t be that foolish. But the Matron’s shadow stretches long. I don’t enjoy being beneath anyone’s heel, no matter how gilded it is.
Then there’s Imraen.
I don’t know what to do with him. He caught my attention before I even meant to give it. It wasn’t some big, dramatic moment. Just a conversation. But something about it stuck. It was easy. Too easy.
He’s brash, ambitious, unrefined in the way that reminds me of how sharp potential can be before it’s polished down. He says things that make me laugh. Real laughter, not the rehearsed kind I use when I want something. He understands me, or at least, he’s trying to. And it doesn’t feel like a game with him. It’s strange. I’m usually the one pulling the strings, weaving the spell.
But with him, I feel like I’ve already been seen. Not studied, not assessed. Seen.
He makes me want to linger. That’s the part I didn’t expect.
Duvall gives me leverage.
Imraen gives me something I don’t have a word for yet.
One feeds the part of me that climbs.
The other reminds me what it feels like to just be.
The Court has remained quiet, but not absent. I can feel them watching this unfold with the kind of amusement that never quite speaks aloud. I don’t think they care who I choose, only what it might cost me.
I’m not ready to decide. But I know I’ll have to. And when I do, they’ll be listening.
Duvall read Imraen like a book. I should’ve known he would. He didn’t gloat, didn’t press. Just... stepped aside. That’s how he operates. Graceful, controlled, and always one step ahead.
I showed him my journal. Not because he asked, but because I thought he should see it. I wanted him to understand the way my mind works, how tangled it all feels sometimes. Maybe part of me hoped he’d find his name in there and read it the way I meant it, not just the way it was written.
But he paused when he reached the line. Duvall gives me leverage.
It sat between us like a stone in water, not loud, just heavy. I don’t think it was the only thing he took from what I wrote, but it was the thing that stayed with him. I meant it as honesty, not dismissal. I don’t think it mattered.
He didn’t fight it. He didn’t have to. His silence said enough.
We shared one last night together. Not out of pity or obligation. Just closure. A kindness, maybe. Or something close to it.
I was leaning toward Imraen before any of this, but that didn’t make it easier. It just made it final.
That’s how it started, anyway. The name doesn’t carry weight. No crest. No legacy. Just a handful of syllables passed down by two people who never expected much from the world.
My mother, Velryna, was a silk-weaver. Her hands were always stained, fingertips rough from the loom. I remember the smell of the dye vats more than I remember her voice. She wasn’t cruel, just tired. The kind of tired that gets into your bones and never leaves. She’d hum when she worked. Low, rhythmic, almost like a chant. I used to think it was magic. Maybe it was, in her own way.
My father, Zhaedren, was a tradesman. He sold common spell components to students who barely knew what they were buying. His stall was tucked in the shadows near the lower arcana halls. He wasn’t a mage himself, but he understood people who were. That was his trick, reading the customer, not the product. He liked patterns. Quiet ones.
I grew up in a modest quarter near the merchant tier. Not poor, but never seen. The kind of life that starts quiet and ends quieter. Our home was lined with shelves of fraying books, old silk samples, and boxes of powdered chalk and bat guano. Strange mix. Smelled like ink and heat and something always burning.
Azael was my older brother. He still is, somewhere. Twenty years between us, but we were always close. He was quieter, softer in his way. People called him studious. I just thought he listened better than most. He used to read aloud when my reverie refused to take hold. Said if my thoughts were going to drift all night anyway, I might as well learn something useful.
We’d sit at the edge of the weaving room while our mother worked, him with a book, me pretending I wasn’t listening. Those were the good nights. No screaming, no slammed doors. Just the click of the loom and his voice.
I started learning magic properly around fifty. Late by some standards, early by others. I was good at faking what I didn’t know. That helped. I talked my way into an apprenticeship under a minor mage, some forgettable name I never bothered to keep. He needed someone obedient. And I needed access. We both got what we wanted for a time.
Sshamath doesn’t operate the way people think it does. It isn’t cruel, not on the surface. It’s polite. Cold. Measured. A city where your value is calculated down to the last spell slot. You rise by being clever, but not too clever. Useful, but never threatening. Always just enough, never more.
You spend your life there trying to prove you're worth something, only to find out they were never watching. That’s the trick of it. You believe the city sees you, but it doesn’t. Not unless you shine too brightly. Then it looks. Then it snuffs you out.
I don’t fear death. But I do fear vanishing. Fading into some quiet corridor of memory where no one says your name again. My name. Naevira T’Sarran. Or is it Naevira Virak now?
My mother once told me that silk doesn’t remember the hand that wove it. It just becomes what it’s told to. I think about that more than I should.
I don’t want to become something. I want to shape something. Something lasting. Something that won’t slip into stillness once I’m gone.