A Thank-You Letter

Sitting on the edge of their bed with the small, hand-written note in her hand, Maphistal struggles to focus her thoughts about Grims in a productive way. Grims was short with her, and she understands why, logically; Of course he was, she's being stupidly sentimental about Ulganna. Knowing it and not feeling it, however, are two different things.
Flashes of memory are all she has of her years with Zehir, and most of those memories are focused on him, not her other - well, friends isn't exactly the right word. The others there with her, under his sway, were never really her friends. And so much of her life is simply lost, in ways she forgets don't apply to other people. She hasn't been able to verbalize the truth with Grims, to find the words to communicate the selfish underlying reason that she wants to keep Ulganna alive. 'We were best friends' sounded wheedling even to her, from her own mouth; not a lie at all, but inaccurate. Not the right terms. It's something uglier and more vulnerable than that - we were both victimized; we were both brainwashed to do literally anything to earn Zehir's approval and favor; we both happily participated in our own degradation.
It's not, she knows, that she has any real affection for Ulganna; it's that Ulganna is a map she can use to find her own forgiveness. If Ulganna really is an evil monster, that tells her one thing; if Ulganna can be freed too, like Maphistal was, by the death of whatever replaced Zehin Zehir - that tells her something else.
But the dread still swims in her guts, the self doubt. That Zehin Zehir didn't really need to do very much; that he didn't really do anything. That she loved all of it. That part of her, some untamed inner vileness still craves it. Being the center of attention, the victim of every crime, the reason for the gathering, the broken vessel begging for mercy but begging even more plaintively for more abuse. And that's only the things done to her, not the things she did herself - murders, she knows, and far worse. Things she probably could remember in a lot more detail if she tried; things she could never admit to anyone, least of all Grims. If he can't even begrudge her a little mercy for wanting to spare her only friend's life, he has none of the mercy needed for forgiving any of the rest.
Perhaps, she realizes, it's not about sparing Ulganna or trying to save Ulganna. Ulganna deserves no mercy, on that she heartily agrees with her lover. Perhaps the better solution - the obvious solution - is silencing her. Burying her.
And the thought that follows this idea knocks the air out of Maphistal: By whatever gods there might be, Ulganna certainly knows more about what Maphistal did as a Carpocratian than she herself knows. Zehir reveled in tales of blood and violence and perverse acts of senseless destruction, but the current one's tastes are nothing like that. He likes to play at being wild, but in reasonable ways that don't need stitches and leave scars after the fact. Ulganna was already a fixture in the cult when Maphistal showed up as a fifteen year old runaway; Ulganna has seen it all and under any kind of questioning is going to reveal everything Maphistal did. Maphistal can't remember enough to argue with anything, no matter how horrible it was.
Grims wants Ulganna dead, and Maphistal just wants to do whatever makes him happy; he saved her life, so he kind of owns her, just like Zehir did. It's disheartening how comfortable that submission makes her feel.
She sets the small note on their nightstand. She should have mentioned it to Grims, she knows, but in their terse exchange that just ended with him leaving her behind, there wasn't a good time. But she can leave it where he can see it, so he knows it's all right now, no matter what it was that he did with Brindisi that night when he could have been home with her - whatever it was that prompted Baroness Brindisi to send the lovely thank you note for spending such a pleasant private evening with him, two nights ago.
Maybe that's where he's going now, but really, that's all right. Submission suits her, she reminds herself. Having no will of her own, no desires of her own, is a comfort. Grims deserves an elegant wife who elevates his status, with power and lands and riches of her own, not a trash Tiefling rescue and some other guy's son. And then her horrible secrets will be safe.
But first, she needs Melizax to let her into that prison cell somehow.