Part 4 - Agnese

3rd of Frostfall, 968 A.D.

They call me the first of his faithful. His aspect, the Sword of Souls. The one who stood beside Kerelan when he was still only a man, and helped carry him to godhood. It is not a title I asked for, but it is one I bear with pride. I built the first of his sanctuaries with my own hands. I wrote the hymns. I carried the banners when no one else would believe. I believed, because that is what it means to be his aspect.

Even when others said he had not earned his place, that a god who had once been mortal could never rule the souls of the dead without faltering, I silenced them. Not with violence, but with truth. Kerelan rose not because he sought power, but because the moment needed someone who would not look away. I carried Kerelan’s word like a torch through a grieving world. And I did not falter - because belief is what I do. Before Kerelan, there was another I believed in. Thalia.

She and I grew up together under Helm’s gaze. We were taught to kneel before his statue. We sparred in the same halls, knelt at the same sermons. In our youth, I thought we would serve side by side forever. But then Mystra died. Struck down not by her enemies, but by Helm himself, enforcing Ao’s divine decree, unflinching and absolute. Thalia stood by that decision. I could not.

We did not part with violence, only silence, one that stretched across years. She rose through the ranks and became the High Warden of the Empire, still carrying Helm’s standard. I turned away. I cast down my oaths to the Watcher and gave my sword to Kerelan instead. Sometimes I wonder if that broke something in me. Or if it mended something that was already shattered. I thought I was past all of it. Until the day the book arrived.

A simple parcel. There were no seals or magic, just pages bound in rough leather. The script within shimmered faintly. It was beautiful, almost painful to look at. There was no sender. I should have destroyed it.

Instead, I read it. I only meant to understand it. To protect others from it. But the words slid through my mind like oil through water - resisting nothing, clinging to everything. It didn’t demand belief. It simply became it.

The book told me of Cyric’s greatness and of his divine right. It told of his sacrifices, the pain he endured, the triumphs he achieved. It sang his praises with such intensity that I forgot how to disagree. Not because I was convinced, but because I couldn’t remember ever not believing.

The moment I finished it, I fell to my knees. Something inside me cracked. I felt it, an oath unraveling. But I am a paladin. My oaths are not just words. They are steel and fire. They do not bend. They do not break. And so, I split in two. Kerelan’s will still burned in me. But Cyric’s truth now sang through my blood. My soul was caught between the god I loved and the god I now could not not serve. That was when the madness began.

It came slowly at first. Doubt, sharp and sudden, where certainty once lived. I’d speak Kerelan’s name in a prayer and find Cyric’s name on my lips instead. I would lead a ritual with the words of peace and release, and then find myself laughing, loud and cruel, unsure of why. My sword hand trembled even when there was no enemy to strike. Then came the voices.

Not whispers, but sermons. Sermons praising Cyric’s mercy, his courage and his eternal truth. And though I knew these words should repulse me, my body knelt each time I heard them. Something in me still believed them. Not by choice, but by decree. Like they had been written into my bones. But my Oath, my true Oath, the one I swore to Kerelan and had lived by this past decade, was not gone.

It rose in resistance. Every time Cyric’s name passed my lips, a part of me screamed. Every time I smiled at a lie, the flame of my oath burned hotter. My prayers became battlegrounds. In my dreams, I saw myself wearing both mantles, tearing them off in turn, until my very soul was threadbare and fraying. I began to forget which god had my loyalty, and which had my mind.

Sometimes I’d see a child in need, kneel beside them to offer Kerelan’s peace, only for my hand to tighten around their shoulder just a little too hard. Sometimes I’d reach for the Cyrinishad in a fury, desperate to burn it, only to find myself cradling it like a holy relic. I would stare at my reflection, and hear both of their voices.

“Serve me.”
“Return to me.”
“You are mine.”
“You are forgiven.”

The worst part wasn’t the madness. It was that I couldn’t tell which voice was winning.

The only thing that grounded me was the memory of Thalia. Her voice, stern and clear, echoing in my head. I used to resent her faith in Helm, and her unshaken loyalty. But now I envied it. She never broke. I did. And so I knew there was only one path left.

I climbed the heights of the Temple of Passing Light - Kerelan’s first shrine. The wind howled around me. The stars above were distant and cold. I knelt at the edge of the sky, high above the world. In one hand, I held my blade. In the other, the Cyrinishad. I pressed the book to my chest and whispered: “I am sorry.” To whom, I wasn’t sure anymore. And then I plunged the blade into my own heart.

The pain was sharp, but the silence that followed was sharper. The madness stopped. The words stopped. And in that final breath, I felt something I had not known for a while. Peace.

I awoke in the Realm of Souls. Kerelan stood before me - not as a god, but as a friend. He did not speak. He didn’t need to. He placed a hand on my shoulder, and for the first time since I read the cursed book, I knew who I was - I was his. Not because of an oath, and not because of power. But because I chose to be.

Even in madness. Even in death.