Return to Thanta Isle

Within a few hands, Eta and I arrived on Thanta Island. For me, it had been much sooner than anticipated, following my tragically dashed plans to travel to the ends of the world and back with Circé of the House Veneficus. As much as I had once dreaded being alone in Ar, I now reminesce the bustling insides of her glorious walls with a certain fondness.

It was not to be the first time that I entered the Silk & Leather Auction House, hand in hand with an unknown kajira. But I had come to think of Eta as mine own over the past couple hands' journey. Asia too, seemed rather pleased that I had returned, and I wonder if she ever suspected that I might not have returned at all. For I loved the taste of freedom on the back of my tongue.

I loved that I could do and think and say as I pleased, without any sort of expectation or reprimand. I loved that I could, on my own and without Marius nearby to instruct, shake the hand of a powerful man like Agamemnon Sarce and look him right in the eye. I loved that my name was upon the tongues of many an Arian, and that I was not in the shadow of my Master's celebrity.

For the first time in my entire life, I do not know what the future will bring, nor whether I will alter the course of it by my own will.