Chapter Text
The air is thick with smoke, steel, and ceremony. The hall of Wyrm's Rock hums with tension. Steel Watchers stand immobile in their rows, lenses dim and waiting. Nobles shift in their seats, eager to see their savior finally ascended.
He is moments from becoming Archduke.
Everything is moving exactly as he designed. But there was one variable he didn't have time to account for.
The doors open.
He knows her silhouette before he sees her face. Recognition hits in a single, clean instant – so deep it bypasses sight, thought, strategy.
Deep crimson skin. Horns that curve like a ram’s, framing her face in a way he once found exquisite. A warrior’s gait: measured, balanced, predatory in its quiet confidence. The posture of someone who knows how to kill without hesitation.
His heart stutters.
For the first time in a year, Enver Gortash is not in control.
Ophelia. Alive. Walking toward him as though she had never died. As though Orin had never bragged about sinking a blade into her skull. As though Bhaal’s essence had never painted the floor. As though the last year of believing her dead, truly dead, had been nothing more than a dream.
He does not betray a reaction. His face remains a mask of polished steel. But the foundations of that mask shift.
She lifts her chin to meet his gaze, and something inside him seizes.
Not love. He does not love. He covets, he admires, he values, he possesses. But to a tyrant, a powerful ally and confidant may as well be romance.
His favorite assassin. His most brilliant co-conspirator. His equal. His match. The only person whose mind ever moved beside his rather than beneath it.
Seeing her now feels like a relic returned from the grave – an artifact he once wielded and cherished, lost to time and betrayal.
His gaze traces the familiar: the proud line of her throat, the ripple of muscle beneath armor, the careful elegance of her steps.
She is the same. And not the same. He notices it immediately. Instinctively. Her shoulders are not as squared. Her eyes not as sharp. There is hesitation in her steps where once there had been unapologetic intent.
What have they done to you?
The thought rises unbidden. He crushes it quickly. He has a coronation to preside over.
But when she stops before the dais, time folds.
Gortash straightens. A faint breath escapes him before he cages it again.
“My favorite assassin,” he says, voice warm with something dangerously close to delight. “I’m so glad you’ve returned to my side.”
Ophelia only frowns slightly. Confusion.
Ah. He feels the realization bloom like cold fire in his chest. She doesn’t remember.
He recovers instantly.
“We have important matters to address,” he continues smoothly, descending a step from the dais as if this reunion were the most natural interruption imaginable.
His eyes flick briefly toward Karlach before settling firmly back on Ophelia.
“My reunion with Karlach can wait – no offense to my old friend.” A small, private smile curves his mouth. “But it’s you I’ve been dying to see.”
He gestures toward her lightly.
“After all, you abandoned us some time ago. Left a rather uncomfortable hole in our plans.”
Her brow furrows further.
No recognition. Only polite confusion.
He exhales a soft, amused breath.
“Oh,” he says, almost gently. “I’d forgotten. Your memories are quite lost, aren’t they?”
His smile sharpens just a fraction.
“Orin told me she made a fool of you.”
Karlach stiffens somewhere behind Ophelia. Gortash continues as though discussing the weather.
“To think – you and Karlach traveled together all this time, and she hadn’t the faintest you were one of my nearest and dearest.”
He watches her carefully when he says it.
Nearest.
Dearest.
The words land. She feels them, even if she doesn’t understand them.
Interesting.
He lifts his chin then, addressing the party with theatrical ease, explaining – lightly, elegantly – the shape of the grand design now poised to reshape Baldur’s Gate. A crown stolen from hell’s vaults. A brain of impossible intellect brought to heel. A future forged through domination rather than chaos.
At last he lets the speech taper off, returning his gaze to her.
“And now, you’ve returned.” A faint smile touches his lips. “We can achieve all of our dreams still.”
He steps down from the dais entirely, closing the distance between them with slow, deliberate confidence.
“You remember Orin,” he continues quietly. “Unstable. Impulsive.” His lip curls faintly. “Tedious.”
A pause.
“I tolerated her.” He leans in just slightly, voice lowering into something almost intimate. “But I liked you.”
The word carries weight. Deliberate emphasis.
Liked.
He lets it linger between them like a shared secret.
Then his tone shifts again, the strategist returning.
“Renew our alliance,” he says. “Kill Orin. Reclaim your birthright.”
Her hesitation is brief but unmistakable. Her eyes flick to the Steel Watchers. To Ravengard. To the soldiers lining the walls.
Good, he thinks. Still calculating.
When she finally inclines her head, the faintest acceptance in the motion, relief breaks through him in the form of a quiet laugh. It is genuine. Rare.
“Then let it be written by the Black Hand of Bane. I, Lord Enver Gortash, swear I shall do you no harm.”
His gaze locks with Ophelia’s.
“We will rise together over Toril as a roaring sun.”
Her expression does not change. A stranger’s expression on a woman he once knew more intimately than anyone alive.
But he feels something stir in his chest all the same. A dangerous, quiet hope: Perhaps pieces of her remain.
And perhaps he can coax her back.