Jinarah gave up on her civilization when Singal was murdered, in part - the part she would admit - because there was no reason for it. She could understand and accept the idea that only who could contribute to the Reclamation had a right to live; accept that strength and cunning were all, that the weak would only weaken the blood, and that children who could not grow into worthy adults should be slaughtered where they stood. That was their civilization, the warriors of Aenarion, who conquered the demons of Chaos and became their betters in cruelty, whose civilization is a nest of slaves and whose greatest lust is to see the death of their enemies in their eyes, as they twist the knife.

But by these standards, murdering Singal was bloody stupid. There had been attempts on his life before, of course; there were attempts on everyone’s life; none of the children who might become Dreadlords would deserve the post if they died to assassins. When Mordri hired a blademaster to ‘spar’ with him as part of his training, Singal disarmed him and offered him his own sword ‘to continue the instruction’, which, unlike the blademaster’s, was both dull and unpoisoned. When Tomalik and two of his friends ambushed together him in a hallway, he left them tied naked in a supply cabinet for the slaves to find in the morning. Curses, monsters, assassins and betrayals all bounced off Singal’s hide, and when Ashvar escalated to binding a Bloodletter to kill him and was the first skull it took, Singal fought it to a draw until an actual Sorceress arrived to bind it. No, he wasn’t killed for being weak. He was killed because he made them look bad. What, after all, was the point of backstabbing for power, killing from the shadows, lying and stealing and wrenching power from the very realm of chaos itself, when some idiot with natural talent could draw a blazing blade and strike down everything in his path with a smile?

Poison served their purpose in the end, poison Mordri obtained from her mother - poison whose common use was to bring down hydras - and Ribath who cast the killing spell powered by the blood of ninety-three slaves that she should never have been given, and Tomalak who wielded the soul-stealing blade, and Velitroth who oversaw it all - four together, Mordri-Ribath-Tomalik-Velitroth who slew him, for the lust of the Druchii was to see the death of their enemies in their eyes as they twisted the knives. Mordri-Ribath-Tomalik-Velitroth, those four names to repeat, over and over again. A younger Jinarah might have appealed, all the way to the Witch King if necessary; an older one swore in wrath where none but she could see, and readied her plan. An older Jinarah excelled, fought, betrayed, tortured, slew hated and strived, and none remembered that she had once found a brave young boy a - useful tool. And if she was cold more than cruel, well, there was a place for coldness.

And so it happened that Jinarah was captain of the first raiding ship the School of Blood sent out, in her generation. Not a great Black Ark, raised from the rock by sorceries beyond elven comprehension and irreplaceable should it sink, but a swift corsair vessel to strike the coasts of Man, a single cabin for the captain and a hold full of slave-shackles and chests to carry gold, and in the crew were Mordri and Ribath and Tomalik, and Velitroth was the master-mariner under the young captain, Jinarah of the dreadlord’s line, and Jinarah brought them rich prizes, ships taken and towns burned and ports devastated in sudden blazes of fire. There had been four ships in their company and Jinarah said “we will do better on our own,” and her crew laughed, for they knew they had done more than a fourth part of the work, and had no more than a fourth part of the treasure. And in battle Jinarah fought with a sword at first, until a chance-bolt was deflected by her armor, and then she smiled to Mordri and said that perhaps she would fight in the first line and Jinarah would wield the repeater crossbow from the rear.

The crew were satisfied with their captain, for the most part; their captain who gave them wealth, who worked so hard for them; their captain who killed from the first rank or the second, and who gave them a chance to indulge in all their desires, their captain who never smiled. The few treasures she claimed were a handful of kegs to drown her thirst, and whenever the boats ran from the ship to the coast they were laden with warriors, and every time they returned they were laden with treasure, and what more could a crew want? And so they laughed when she turned up the coast of Estalia and made her run across the deepest part of the Black Gulf (for her thirst was not quenched), and Mordri and Ribath and Tomalik and Velitroth slept with only one eye open, for their captain would not kill them while there was more treasure to gain.

It was a Sartosan lighthouse that saw the midnight clap of doom, a Sartosan keeper who turned to his mate and said with a sigh, “Magazine went up,” Sartosan divers who dove for the gold and treasure at the bottom of the Tilean sea.  And it was Jinarah who threw the one body she’d needed to help her haul a single chest to the little boat over that boat's side, who buried her reaper crossbow in the sands by Wrecker’s Run with all that one chest of treasure that she could not carry or that might be recognized or that bore the Witch-King’s mark, and Jinarah who told everyone in Myrmidens “I’m a high elf looking for mercenary work, you know where the companies recruit?” For the lust of the Druchii is to see the death of their enemies in their eyes, even as they twist the knife, and Jinarah had had it with her entire goddamn civilization.