It is uncertain how much time it takes to bring him back, only struggling less by the time the ritual room is in sight because he has had time to exhaust himself, sparing words for anything else that might save him, trying to feel something he can exploit, but the angle at which he is held is altogether too different from manacles. And then it is near them and he can see killers' eyes in the dark and the glints of blades. His breath is starting to catch.

And then, words.

Your life is not forfeit.

"What is this" It isn't quite whole against his lips, said in a daze because now he understands nothing about what is happening right now.

Joining. He said joining.

Blessed -- the words won't even come to him in mind. Is this an initiation ritual?

He feels himself shaking his head.

"I'm not--"

His feet stumble on the stairs and he's lifted and the air is leaving his lungs again.

He's not a Bhaalist. He reaches for that well of power, his boon, that presence that reassures him in his mind and grounds him in this world. He reaches for it only when he is on that precipice where nothing else he could possibly do would have saved him.

And there is nothing there.