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Drizzt was gone when he woke. Entreri was not surprised, and he was not disappointed—he was not anything but awake. He turned his face to the vacant stretch of pillow beside him and inhaled. A man needed to breathe, after all. He lay there in the early morning dark, quite still, until a soft breeze brushed his back. The window was open.
It had not been open when they had gone to bed.
He was on his feet in a moment, dagger in hand, shoving into breeches and boots, ears straining, scanning every thin shadow. Nothing. There was nowhere for anyone to hide, not from him, not in here. And yet the window was open.
Slow, soundless steps took him to the window. Below lay an alley; dirty, dim, also empty. Across stood the dark bricks of a residence, no facing window on this side, no enemy clinging to the eaves. Artemis balanced a palm on the sill and leaned out, twisting sharp, expecting an attempted beheading—his blade was ready for it, the snap of pulse in his throat anticipating severance.
Bare feet hung above him. Slim, dark grey feet, one heel tapping against the wall.
“Good morning.” Drizzt leaned over the edge of the roof and offered a smile. “I apologise if I woke you—I did not intend to disturb your sleep.”
“What are you doing up there?” Entreri put his dagger on the windowsill, well within reach.
“Waiting for sunrise.”
“Why?”
“Come up and wait with me.”
Artemis hesitated. His palm itched for the blade hilt. Then he hauled himself out of the window and up onto the roof alongside Drizzt. The drow wore only his dark leather breeches, his hair a long and tangled snowdrift about his shoulders.
Entreri left a good half foot between them.
The city stretched out below, one of many just like it, and no place Artemis would call home. Home was south and south and south of here. Home was in the blade on the windowsill. Home was nowhere at all.
“I never get tired of it.” Drizzt leaned back on his hands, face to the lightening sky. Orange streaked up from the horizon, piercing a perfect blue that promised a finer day than most Artemis endured. The final moments of dull grey dawn would burn off in a moment, and though he squinted against the rising light, eyes watering, Drizzt did not avert his gaze. Entreri eyed him curiously.
“But it pains you.”
“Some pains are worth suffering.”
A hand touched Entreri’s. He kept his eyes on the rising sun, and let slim drow fingers intertwine with his own. Drizzt’s thumb stroked the side of his palm.
“I have to leave today,” he said.
“You never should have come in the first place.”
“I cannot seem to help myself where you are concerned.”
“Then you are a fool.”
Drizzt broke the gap Artemis had left as though it were nothing, and leaned his head on Entreri’s shoulder. “Perhaps.”
Entreri looked down at him. His eyes were still fixed on the expansive blaze of the sunrise, coating the sky with the kind of glory drow were not supposed to see. A faint smile curved his lips, unabashed wonder softening his face. Artemis turned back to the sunrise and tried to see it as Drizzt did, as something precious and worth revering. For a moment he almost managed it—his face grew warm in the glow, Drizzt’s hand in his turned comfortable, the shadows fell away from the world.
Then a door slammed somewhere below and the feeling vanished. Just the sun coming up, as it always had and always would.
He looked back to Drizzt and was taken by surprise when the drow kissed him—softer than last night, than any of their nights. Artemis closed his eyes, slid a hand into the tangle of Drizzt’s hair, and tried to swallow his warmth.
Some pains were worth suffering.