Inifra came to me after the celebrations died down last night. She appeared at my door shortly after I put my journal away and asked to be let in. It was the first time we’d ever been truly alone like that, my chamber the most private space I’ve had since leaving Sterling. It was the first time we’d touched like that. I haven’t been with a woman in so long.

What are we to do?

It was the unspoken question that hung over us this morning as she left. It plagues me even now. If there was any hope of keeping our distance, of keeping the curse at bay, it has been completely removed now. How can such a curse be real? I want nothing more than to prove it wrong, but I fear there is no course available but to prove it right.

I could stay here. Hembila has invited us to a dinner tonight where he intends to honor our accomplishments and name us friends of the Oaken Throne. Timber did manage to salvage it, though there are dark marks that will mar it forever. Hembila said that it was fitting. Such marks serve as reminders of what happens when the heart of the king turns from the good of his people.

We will be given a place here, titles and responsibility. There is a lot of work to be done to rebuild this place and we could easily find some way to help. Dionus is restless, however. I could easily dedicate myself to rooting out and extinguishing all traces of the Daedra, but then who will warn the Tetrarch? If they are as blind as Oroun suggested and a society like this could rise to such prominence in effective secrecy, then what’s to say there aren’t more like it?

I’m curious as to what Salisir will do as well. He claims he’s killed a Daemon, and now he’s helped unseat a Prince. As far as accomplishments go within the Tetrarch, it doesn’t get any more impressive than that. But I’ve seen it in him, that drive to put the Daedra down. If there is so little left to accomplish here, where will he go next to fulfill it?

And will Inifra stay here? It seems necessary for her to return to her own portion of the jungle, to resume her duties with her people. But shouldn’t she stay here, in the capital, and delegate those duties to her priestesses now that there is peace?

It would be so much easier if she left, if duty called her away.

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