Chapter Text
They offer you, of all things, a hot bath.
You find yourself too numb to resist as two of the servants lead you down a hallway. Lavinia starts after you, then hesitates. Her eyes—your eyes, you keep remembering, the same dark shade, the same slight curve upwards, even the same wrinkle at the edges when she winces—flicker between you and Astarion, who hasn’t made a single acknowledgement of your existence since the balcony.
Astarion flicks his hand at Lavinia.
“Oh, go on,” he snaps irritably. “She's already seen your face; you've done all the damage you could.”
Lavinia flinches. “Master Astarion—”
But he's already leaving, turning down another long hallway with his gaggle of look-alike servants following after him. Even Lavinia's dismay looks like yours: the tightening of her lips, the pinch of her brows.
“You'll get used to it,” you say.
Lavinia spins around to face you. “What?”
“His disapproval.” You would’ve shrugged if you weren’t so sure you displaced a bone or two during your fight with Astarion. “You'll get used to it, and you'll stop caring as much as you do.”
The other two servants exchange a wary glance as Lavinia's cheeks flame. “You don't know what you're talking about.”
You manage a tight smile. “Oh,” you say, leading the way down the hallway without looking back, “I think I know better than anyone else.”
After a beat of silence, you hear the sound of footsteps hesitantly following after you.
Astarion’s house feels… different somehow, now that you know it’s populated with collected versions of you. You cannot help but question everything. Even the golden curtains drawn back from the moonlit windows draw suspicion. Is it a coincidence that they’re in your favorite color? And doesn’t that painting on the west wall remind you of an all-too-familiar forest clearing leagues and a decade away?
Everything in this insidious house makes your skin crawl .
You didn’t know what to expect when you were walking into the vampire lord’s den, but how could one even brace themselves for this? A twisted shrine, born out of obsession rather than devotion.
But then again, is there even a difference?
“Milady,” one of the servants says behind you. “It’s the next door to your left, if you please.”
The door leads into a garish bathing room, a wide pool carved in the middle, gilded faucets perpetually filling it with steaming water but never to the point of spilling over. Sheer curtains offer a farce of privacy. A pile of towels rests on the pool’s edge, along with bars of soap.
It reminds you, all at once, of Harleep’s little corner in the House of Hope.
“Taking interior design inspiration from Raphael , of all fucking people,” you grumble, stepping deeper into the room and immediately balking at the saccharine scent of lilac and vanilla. “He’s further gone than I thought.”
The servants try to move inside, but you’ve finally gathered enough of your wits back to finally put your foot down.
“I can bathe myself, thank you very much,” you snap.
One of the servants—a dark-haired dwarf with the same smattering of freckles across his nose as yours—purses his lips hesitantly before saying, “The Master would rather not have you be left alone, milady.”
You stare at them, unamused. “So he thinks to hold me prisoner with you three as my custodians?”
“You are not being held prisoner, milady!” the other servant—oh, look, this one even has the same small scar on her top lip as you do—hurries to say, wide-eyed. “Quite the contrary. You are our esteemed guest. The most privileged guest we’ve ever had. We have been preparing—”
“Ayla,” Lavinia warns through gritted teeth. “That’s enough.”
You raise an eyebrow as Ayla visibly wilts under Lavinia’s glare. There’s a hierarchy here, that much is clear, and you can only guess how it came to be. From what Anton told you, Lavinia’s only been in Astarion’s employ for a handful of months at the most, and yet it seems she’s soared through the ranks in that short amount of time.
Perhaps it’s her potent connection to the Weave that made her so indispensable to the Vampire Ascendant. She certainly had enough power to shred your connection to Lathander, after all—although, admittedly, you were running on fumes by that point. Still, power is power, and if you know Astarion—and you do —you know he has always been drawn to it like a moth to the flame.
You size Lavinia up, and she seems to do the same to you.
“Fine,” you say. “ One of you may stay, if it saves you all from the vampire lord’s rebuke. The other two can stand outside the door if you’re so concerned I’ll sneak away. Stealth’s always been more of your master’s game than mine, anyway.”
“I can stay,” Ayla says, wringing her hands as she smiles brightly. “I’ve always wanted to meet you, milady, I’ve heard oh so many stories—”
“No,” Lavinia and you say at the exact same time.
You raise an inquisitive eyebrow at her as she flushes furiously.
“You talk too much, Ayla,” Lavinia says, stepping forward.
“Yes,” you say slowly, not looking away from your near-identical double. “Plus, Lavinia and I have much to catch up on.”
Getting Lavinia to talk, it turns out, is easier said than done.
“Humor me for a moment,” you say, “and tell me how it feels to be his favorite.”
You watch Lavinia through the steam as she moves about the room, her back straight and her head held high. She doesn’t acknowledge your question, merely pulls a gilded box off a shelf and places it at the mouth of the heated pool. She steps back against the wall opposite you, hands held behind her like some kind of soldier waiting for a command.
“I assume you’re his favorite, right?” you say conversationally as you run a towel down your bare arm, scrubbing dirt and blood off your skin. “He always reserves his sharpest words for his favorites.”
Lavinia keeps staring straight ahead, not meeting your eyes, tight-lipped.
You sigh. Anton, you better be taking impeccable care of my garden for the deep shit I’m willing to wade in for you.
Admittedly, though, the deep shit doesn’t seem too shitty right now.
You take a moment to begrudgingly commend Astarion for his tastes: the water is the perfect temperature, soothing your tense muscles, and his soaps smell just like you used to—
Grim understanding dawns on you. You toss the soap into the water in disgust, and instead cross the pool to the gilded box Lavinia laid out for you.
“What’s this, then?” you ask no one in particular, throwing open the lid and finding a dozen vials carefully laid across the box’s velvet-lined insides. The liquid is strange and shimmering in hues of purple and gold and green. You pop one open and immediately wrinkle your nose. “Ugh. Perfume? Really?”
“I am expected to make you presentable for dinner,” Lavinia says without inflection.
“Presentable.”
“Yes.”
“The woman who just tried to kill him, and is still trying to kill him. He wants her to be presentable.”
Lavinia finally meets your eyes. “ Are you still trying to kill him?”
You sit back in the water, your body hidden away by steam and soap bubbles. “There’s no other way for this to end. It’s either I kill him or he kills me. I don’t mean to sound biased, but I do prefer the outcome in which I am alive.”
The corners of Lavinia’s mouth tightens, and you wonder if that’s how you look, too, when you’re trying not to scream. “Do you truly believe he means to kill you?”
You cock your head to the side, watching the other woman carefully. “What else would you call a bolt of fire to the face and a knife to the throat? A marriage proposal?”
“Fire bolts and unpoisoned blades,” she snaps. “You and I both know he has means deadlier than mere cantrips . If he really wanted to kill you, he already would have.”
You raise an eyebrow at her. “Such faith you have in your master’s power. Is that why you’re here, playing dutiful servant in the hopes that he’ll throw you a bone from his silver plate?”
You watch Lavinia’s face flush with anger. “Do not speak of me like I’m some dog —”
“Oh, but that’s how he sees you, you know,” you cut in viciously, feeling your mouth twist with derision. “That’s all you’ll ever be to him: the favored pet, tolerated and humored until you become more trouble than you’re worth. And then he’ll just put you down and go strolling through the pound for his next hound, maybe even one with the same shiny black coat and beady black eyes, lest anyone accuses him of having no sentimentality.”
Lavinia’s nostrils flare, her eyes flash, and you think, Got you .
“You think me leashed,” she says through gritted teeth, “when I am the freest I have ever been.”
“His riches and influence can only get you so far, Lavinia.”
“It isn’t about the riches! Or—Or the power, as you assumed. It’s not even about the love.” Her hands are clenched at her sides, so tightly that she’s shaking as she glares down at you with your own dark eyes. “Do you know what it’s like, dedicating your entire life to another person?”
You think about the scar on your back from a goblin’s ax, swung at Astarion while he was distracted. You think about teeth against your neck, drawing as much blood as he needed, and leaving you foggy-headed and weak-kneed day after day. You think about about seven thousand souls lost to the Black Mass, all because Astarion asked it of you.
“I have some experience,” you say bitterly.
Lavinia blinks, and you’re surprised to find tears caught in her eyelashes. “I love my brother. I do , I really do,” she says shakily, “but I just—I want more for myself. Is that too much to ask?”
Ah. There it is. A conclusion to the story that brought you here.
Lavinia isn’t some distressed damsel to be rescued. She’s a sister who didn’t want to be a sister anymore.
“Gods,” you say. “Couldn’t you have left the poor boy a fucking letter , at least?”
Lavinia holds your gaze stubbornly, even as her lower lip trembles. “I heard what you said, about me being missed. I didn’t think I would be. I left him money—”
“Anton walked half of Faerûn to ask for help for you .” Fury rises in you and you stand, rivulets and soap suds slipping down your bare skin as you force Lavinia to reckon with you. You don’t have time for shame; if anyone in this room should be ashamed, it should be the girl trembling in the corner. “He begged me to save you.”
“I didn’t ask to be saved!” Lavinia cries back.
“You will not condemn him for trying anyway. Not in front of me,” you say angrily. “You say you love him, and yet you would abandon him with no explanation, not even a single look back.”
Lavinia squares her shoulders and meets your eyes defiantly. “Don’t you have some experience in that, too?”
You laugh harshly. “Ha! Is that the sob story he’s peddling these days? I’m surprised he would still talk about me at all.”
“You’re all he talks about,” Lavinia says, and in the brief silence after her words, you hear a world of hurt . “We could be talking about nine ways to skin a displacer beast, and he'd still find a way to make it about you, you, you. Don’t you get it yet? Everything he does is for you. All of this is for you. Everything and everyone in this palace—all for you.”
You don’t let yourself linger on that thought.
Instead, you say scornfully, “Why, if I didn’t know better, you sound almost envious, Lavinia.”
“Of course I’m envious,” she says, straightening, slowly returning to her default servile stance. “Who wouldn’t want to be loved so deeply?”
“Love,” you repeat dully, sinking slowly back into the warm, bloodstained water. Love. It sounds unfamiliar on your tongue, like a word in an ancient language that hasn’t been spoken aloud in eons. “If you think this is love, Lavinia, then I have one more reason to pity you.”
The water washes over you in a soothing tide. Steam rises, obscuring your vision in shades of white and gray, and you know you do not imagine the sob that escapes from Lavinia’s mouth when she thinks you cannot see her anymore.
When you’ve washed the last of the blood out of your hair, when you’ve given her enough time to wipe her tears surreptitiously on her shoulder, you say, “Hand me that perfume. If your master wants me presentable, I have better use of my energy than wasting it on denying him.”
When you’re dried off with a towel around your body, Lavinia opens the door and lets in a steady stream of servants. There are suddenly half a dozen hands on you, turning your face to the light, taking your hand and twisting it this way and that, lifting your damp hair off your skin.
You make yourself numb to their ministrations. You let them shove as many rings on your fingers and as many golden bracelets on your wrists as they pleased. Let them apply kohl to your eyes, dark rouge to your lips, star-like glitter to your bare shoulders. Let them tie your hair back with scarlet-tipped pins to match the rubies they hung from your ears.
Let them slip you into a backless silk dress, the dark twin to Astarion’s shirt.
You only stir when they try to take your teardrop necklace from you.
“No,” you say simply, and they obey silently, letting the necklace rest between your collarbones.
When it is done, the servants slip away as quietly as they worked, leaving you once again with Lavinia, Ayla and the dwarf servant.
You look at the three of them. The three of them look back at you, expectant.
Your wide, expectant eyes, repeated threefold.
“Alright,” you say. “Let’s get this over with.”
The first thing you notice, after Ayla throws the doors open with a flourish, are the spawns.
You know what they are, instinctively, even without the telltale red eyes and the high collars hiding their necks. Your blood prickles beneath your skin at the sight of them lined up along the perimeter of the room, one spawn to each window of Astarion’s opulent dining room. You count thirteen.
They, too, look like you.
Crystal chandeliers hang heavy from a ceiling decorated with a fresco rendition of the Hells. Hellish bodies writhe across the ceiling, heads thrown back and mouths held open in either bliss or agony. The scene is made more macabre by the feast happening below it: a long dining table that could have seated all the patriars of the Upper City, bursting with plates of fresh fruit and still-steaming cuts of ham, carafes of half-finished wine, bowls spilling over with sheer excess .
And at the head of the table, sprawled across a seat that was more throne than dining chair, is the lord of the house.
He’s cleaned up, too. The black-and-red ensemble he wears is tighter than the flowing silk he wore just this afternoon, more guarded with its high collar and button wrists. His hair has been slicked back, giving you a clear view of his gleaming eyes, following each step you take towards him like a panther waiting for its prey to get close enough to lunge.
But there’s something else, too. There’s something in the way his gaze darkens as he takes in your bare arms, your exposed neck. Something in the way he inhales for a breath too long.
“How resplendent you are,” Astarion drawls, and you would have said he sounds bored of you already, if only you weren’t standing in a room full of his servants with your face.
“And how repulsive you are,” you say neutrally as Ayla sweeps forward to pull out your chair for you at Astarion’s right-hand side.
You ignore it and sit a few seats down in front of a tray of small cakes topped with coconut shavings—a childhood favorite of yours, as you once confided in Astarion.
“You wound me, darling,” he says, sounding unscathed.
He snaps his fingers, and Carys reappears from some dark corner just as Lavinia and the other two with you draw back into the shadows. The tiefling servant bends to refill Astarion’s goblet with wine from an all-too-familiar bottle.
“Chultan Fireswill,” Astarion says, noticing you notice. “I don’t care much for the taste, and there are much finer vintages in my collection. But I thought I might crack a bottle open for old times’ sake.” He raises his cup to you. “So here’s to nostalgia, an affliction I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”
He takes a large swig without waiting for you to reply, and Carys refills his cup again before retreating to stand behind him. It’s clear from the glassy look in Astarion’s eyes that that wasn’t his first cup of the night. Maybe not even his first bottle.
“Nostalgia,” you repeat derisively. “Is that what you call this, then?”
You gesture vaguely at the room, at the spawns with your eyes and your disapproving frown.
“I did tell you,” he says, leaning back in his chair without once taking his eyes off you. “The Lower City alleyways are filled with people just like you.”
Your hands curl into fists on your lap. You long for your mace, which you had to leave behind in the bathing room for fear that bringing it along would initiate a fight with the entirety of the Vampire Ascendant’s household that you were too drained to win. “Couldn’t you just hire some willing wizard to Polymorph themselves into a copy of me, if you were that godsdamned desperate?”
He shrugs. “Wasn’t desperation that drove me to it, darling.”
“Then what did?”
He holds your stare for a beat too long, and for a second you think you see it: a hint of the man he used to be, sweet and uncertain. But the second passes, and his gaze hardens as he shrugs again.
“Boredom,” he says, and you both know he’s lying. “Besides, where’s the fun in an enchanted wizard? It’s inauthentic and, worse, lazy . If I wanted a magical doppelganger—”
“—you’d bed a Bhaalist,” you finish.
An old joke, from a friendlier time. You shudder at the context it’s said now, but to your surprise, it draws a faint smile from Astarion’s lips.
“You remember,” he says, so quietly you think he might not have meant to say it out loud.
“I remember everything,” you say. Then, with a sigh, “What’s your plan here, Astarion? What are we doing here?”
He takes another long sip of his wine, then drags a thumb across his lower lip to wipe away the remnants. You find yourself lingering too long on the motion, on the pale curve of his wrist it exposes.
Another shrug, trying too carefully to be careless. “I never wanted you here. Trust me, if I did, I have better methods of dragging you out of whichever hovel you’d hidden yourself away in. When I heard you were coming—” A strange emotion crosses his face, gone too quickly for you to name it. “I wanted you gone. I still want you gone.” He raises his head to meet your eyes. “But, strangely enough, now that you’re here, I also want you to stay.”
Something sharp and bitter rises to your mouth. He sounded… almost earnest. Almost honest. Almost your Astarion again.
But you will not stake your life or your pride on an ‘almost’.
This is Astarion in his element. You cannot trust a word he says now, especially the ones that sound the sweetest. From the very beginning, from the moment you met on that beach, he's always been looking for leverage. You cannot allow yourself to forget that like you did ten years before.
You straighten stiffly in your seat. “So that’s your master plan behind this obnoxious display? Just keep me talking for as long as you want to keep me? Did you really think that would work?”
“You’re still here,” he says softly, “aren’t you?”
From somewhere deeper inside the palace, a clock chimes seven times.
Astarion blinks drowsily at the sound, as if he’s coming out of a long dream. He draws back and gestures at the grand spread before you. In a more measured tone, he says, “Well, it’d be a waste to let this grow cold. Do try the steak, darling. Carys outdid himself on that one.”
You are beyond petty defiance now, and besides, when was the last time you ate? You weren’t able to keep anything down this morning; the thought of finally facing Astarion made even the sweetest streetmeats in Wyrm’s Crossing smell nauseating. If he’s offering you a meal, you might as well take it, before your grumbling stomach can make this even more of an embarrassment to you.
Still, you’re careful. You take only from the plates he takes from. You bite only after he’s swallowed a healthy portion. You decline anything the servants offer you—wine, water, may we get that for you, milady?
“I have my own damn hands,” you snap after the third time a dark-haired spawn offers to cut your steak for you.
You almost feel guilt when they shrink back, but any apology you could have mustered up is interrupted by a dark chuckle from the head of the table.
You whip around to glare at Astarion, who chews lazily on a piece of meat as he points his fork at you and says, “You, my dear, are more distrustful than I remember you to be.”
“I think I am showing the natural amount of distrust for someone in my position.”
He raises an eyebrow at you. “When we met, you were more than eager to let any odd stray into our camp and any odd beggar into your coin purse.”
“I wonder what could have changed,” you say in a monotone drawl. “Truly, I cannot think of any life-changing, soul-severing event that would ever make me cynical of the world and its people. Can you think of anything, Vampire Ascendant?”
He rolls his eyes, but with more fondness than you thought he was still capable of. “You’re making it sound like I forced you to participate in the Rite.”
“You asked me to,” you snap.
“You could’ve said no.”
“To you?” You shake your head sharply, just once. “Back then, I would have given you the world if you said it would make you happy. I often wonder if you knew that. But, then again, wasn’t that your goal from the very start? To have a loyal attack dog, yours to command, yours to own?” You look around at the servants behind you, and their matching expressions of impregnable calm. “That’s what this is for, too, isn’t it? A show of control? You couldn’t Turn me, so instead you play pretend with a house full of other spawn.”
“Oh, please ,” he says acidly. “They’re not all spawn.”
That’s it?
Of all the things you said, that’s the only thing he denies?
It surprises you that even after all these years, even with the low opinion you have of him, you still have room for more disappointment.
You glance at his dutiful spawn, still standing with their backs against the windows, their silhouettes carved out by the silver moonlight. And then you glance at Carys, hovering behind Astarion’s chair. At Lavinia and Ayla, pretending not to be hanging on to every word said.
“Why aren’t they?” you ask, trying to puzzle out the intricacies of the vampire lord’s game. You remember the other servants you’ve seen flitting about the palace, and the servants that dress you for the evening. None of them were spawns, either, at least as far as you could tell. Was there a method to this madness, or are you trying to find sense in a world with none? “Afraid one of them will be your undoing like your Master’s before you?”
The wheel of fate does have a habit of echoing itself. Circles upon circles .
“ Ha ,” he says, throwing his cutlery down on his plate with a sharp clang. “Still trying to use dear old Cazador’s name against me, I see. That won’t work. I stopped fearing him the moment I carved those runes into his back and he screamed just like any mortal would. But, me? I am Ascendant. Why would I bother turning all of them to spawn, when my authority alone is sufficient? Watch.”
He snaps his fingers. Carys, behind him, stands straighter in attention.
“Carys.”
“Yes, Master Astarion?”
“Kneel for me, darling.”
Carys kneels.
Without looking down at him, Astarion reaches over to grab Carys by the chin. It’s morbidly captivating, watching the way Carys leans into his Master’s touch, his curved horns resting against the crook of Astarion's elbow. It’s like watching a baby bird get torn to shreds by a hawk—gut-churning, but enthralling in its inevitability.
And it might be because Carys looks so much like you, but it is easy to imagine yourself in his place, utterly and willingly under someone else’s control. It is a revolting thought—and a sobering one. This would have been you, if you had taken Astarion's deal. If you had allowed him to Turn you, if you hadn't instead pulled away, horrified at the monster you helped create.
“Now, Carys,” Astarion says evenly, keeping his eyes on you, “tell our dear guest how happy you are in my service.”
“It has been a most enchanting time,” Carys says, and you balk at the sincerity that drips from his words.
“That’s enough, Astarion,” you say through gritted teeth. “You’ve made your damn point.”
Ignoring you, Astarion continues with his hand still gripping Carys’ face, “Tell her how she would want for nothing under our roof, how she was a fool to reject my offer then, how she would be doubly foolish to reject it now.”
Carys looks at you, his mouth frowning but his eyes bright with adoration. “You were a fool to leave him,” he says. “I would advise you not to make the same mistake again.”
“Astarion,” you say flatly, feeling your dinner trying to claw its way back up your throat, “let him go, or I swear to all the gods—”
“Ah, see, Carys? We’ve made her angry. She only ever calls on the entire pantheon when we’ve truly crossed one of her ever-shifting lines.”
You throw your steak knife. It sinks into the velvet padding of Astarion’s chair, just an inch away from his ear.
You hear distant commotion as the spawns rush forward in concern, but Astarion merely holds up his free hand, still not looking away from you all this time.
“You’re no fun,” he says, voice cold and low and dangerous.
But he lets Carys go.
Carys hesitates for a moment before standing up. He makes to pull the knife out of Astarion’s chair. He leans forward, and his gloved hand brushes against Astarion’s neck.
For the first time that night, Astarion takes his eyes off you and stares first at Carys’ hand, then at Carys himself.
“I—Master—” Carys stammers, looking absolutely mortified.
“Remove yourself,” Astarion says tightly.
“But—”
“Did you not hear me? Remove yourself, or I will do it for you.” He pushes his half-finished plate away from him, his face wrinkled with disgust. “As a matter of fact, all of you have spoiled my appetite. Clean up, and leave .”
The spawns are first to move, tugged along by the Vampire Ascendant’s compulsion. They take away your plates, one by one, until the table is completely cleared away. Ayla tries to take away your goblet, but you hold on to it with a shake of your head.
“I refuse to live the rest of this night sober ,” you say.
So they leave the glasses and they leave the wine, and finally they leave you alone. Carys and Lavinia are the last to go, lingering by the door with twin expressions of dismay.
“Master,” Lavinia says uneasily, casting a glance your way. “Are you sure this is the best course of action?”
Astarion stops mid-sip of his wine. Slowly, very slowly, he lowers his glass and stares stonily at the both of them.
“Do you think an unarmed, spell-dry cleric can do me any harm now, Lavinia?” he asks in a tone that expects no answer.
“That isn’t our worry, Master,” Carys says.
“You,” Astarion snaps, “don’t get to talk to me right now, sweetling.”
“I think what Carys means, Master,” Lavinia rushes to say, “is that we are less worried about what she will do and more worried about—” She glances at you again, and then, words heavy with meaning, she says, “About what you will allow her to do to you.”
There is a long pause, and you wonder if you’re about to witness the full extent of the Vampire Ascendant’s fury. But then, to your surprise—and Lavinia’s and Carys’—Astarion just throws his head back in a deep, throaty laugh.
“Oh,” he says, shoulders still shaking with dark glee, “ oh, you desperate things, you must have mistaken me for someone who doesn’t learn from his mistakes. Leave us. And no eavesdropping this time, sweet Lavinia, or I’ll bleed you dry and leave you to rot in the alley I found you in.”
Lavinia pales. “Of course, Master Astarion. We apologize.”
And with one last look over her shoulder at you, Lavinia closes the door behind her and Carys, sealing you in the dining room with the Vampire Ascendant.
Alone.
Truly alone this time, if his order to Lavinia was to be believed.
You turn to him. “What,” you say, “the fuck was that about?”
He raises an eyebrow at you, infuriatingly unruffled, and takes a long sip of his wine. “Well, they can’t always have the carrot, my dear. They need the stick, too. But worry not, Lavinia’s too valuable to lose over one mistake—”
“Not the empty threats of violence, you idiot,” you hiss. “I’m used to those from you. I meant holding Carys in the palm of your hand one moment and then sending him ass-over-teakettle out the door the next. Was that another petty demonstration of what my life would have looked like if I’d stayed?”
“Not everything is about you, darling,” he says breezily.
But you remember Lavinia’s words. You remember the faces of all the servants lining the walls. You remember the flowers you passed in the hallway on the way here, your favorites.
All of this is for you. Everything and everyone in this palace—all for you.
“What are the gloves about, Astarion?” you ask, thinking of the pearl-buttoned gloves Carys and all the other servants wore. The way that, even with those gloves on, Astarion shrunk from Carys’ touch, flinched away from the elven woman’s hold.
You have a sinking feeling in your stomach that you blame on the two glasses of Fireswill you downed.
Astarion grins maliciously, lips half-stained by wine. “Are we finally at the part of the evening where we bare our souls to one another? Because I think I might need more wine in my system to deal with that.”
You speak through your teeth. “What. Are. The. Gloves. About. Astarion?”
“Tenacious little thing,” he says under his breath. And then, with a clearer voice, he says, “Is it really a surprise that after what Cazador did to me, I might not enjoy anyone touching me as they pleased?”
You remind yourself this isn’t the Astarion you knew and cared for. You remind yourself that you owe the Vampire Ascendant no sympathy. You remind yourself that this entire day has been a long-running trick on you, and he might already be laughing at the punch line while you’re still trying to figure out the joke.
And then you let your heart break for him, just a little.
“Astarion—” you say.
“That’s because of you, too, you know,” he interrupts, eyes half-lidded as he watches you from across the table. “The only reason I know what I don’t enjoy is because you showed me what I do. Add that to the list of the curses you’ve inflicted upon me.”
You grip the stem of your goblet just to give your restless hands something to do. “I’ve never cursed you, Astarion.”
He barks out a harsh and bitter laugh. “Oh, but didn’t you? Remember, darling, the last night we had together. How you cursed me to realize my unhappiness a century from now.” His eyes soften. Actually soften, like they used to when you caught him by surprise, when he let his guard down enough to be vulnerable, when he used to doubt every bit of goodness that came to him. “I didn’t expect it to come so soon. Only ten years without you and everything has become so godsdamned lackluster . What in the Hells have you done to me?”
You only stare at him.
What the fuck did he expect you to say to that?
He must’ve read something in your silence, because he leans forward, moonlight and candlelight warring over his cold features.
“You should’ve stayed,” he says. “You never should’ve turned your back on me. Imagine the life we could lead, side by side.”
“Astarion,” you say in disbelief. “We would’ve been miserable together.”
“Ah,” he says, giving you a ghost of a smile, “but we’re so miserable apart, too. So where does that leave us, darling?”
“I’m not miserable without you, Astarion.”
“Oh?” He leans back in his seat, slouching like a king on a throne, his glass raised to you in a perversion of a wedding toast. “Go on, then. Regale me with tales from your perfect, happy life. What were you doing before my Lavinia’s vermin brother so rudely pulled you back into my life again?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything .”
His eyes shine with the keen interest of a tabloid writer hungry for a new scandal to cut into. “Oh, come now, surely you can spare an old friend a sordid detail or two. Tell me. Are you still Lathander’s obedient little lapdog, or did you find some other righteous cause to fight for? Saving the world once wasn’t enough to sate your savior complex, was it? Are you off carousing with a new band of misfits, maybe found yourself a new pet vampire to lavish your bleeding-heart attentions on?”
You polish off your cup and slam it, empty, down on the table with enough force to rattle the flower vases. “Repeating history is your modus operandi, not mine. I’m not stuck in the past, Astarion.”
“Maybe so,” he concedes. “You’re running from it, instead.”
You glare at him. He smiles back, feigning innocence.
You grab the bottle of Fireswill Carys left behind and pour until it nearly spills over your cup. And then you take another generous swig.
You’re starting to feel light-headed, but something tells you it isn’t just the alcohol that’s rattled you.
“I have a house and a garden and a good enough life,” you say casually.
He hums thoughtfully. “‘Good enough’ is not ‘happy.’ I could make you happy.”
“And what does my happiness look like to you, Astarion?” you demand. “You would have me docile and pliant, sated and weighed down jewels and gold. That isn’t happiness to me.”
He waves a many-ringed hand. “I’m sure we can negotiate on the terms.”
You could only stare at him in disbelief. “Negotiate the terms of my happiness?”
“And mine,” he says, matter-of-factly. “I am willing to concede some aspects of my initial offer to you, if you are willing to do the same.”
Your laugh is bitter and hateful. “And they say romance is dead.”
His lips pursed into a thin, angry line. “I tried romance with you, and in reply, you stabbed me in the heart—”
“You asked me to!”
“—so instead,” he continues, raising his voice above yours, “why not try bargaining? Here’s my new offer: stay with me. As my spawn or as my willing right-hand or my eternal guest or whatever you want to be. As long as you’re mine. As long as you stay.”
Your breath catches in your throat at the intensity of his plea.
By the looks of him, it seems even he’s taken back by his own desperation. Astarion straightens in his seat, blinking rapidly, and the voice in your head warns you not to trust this act, you’ve seen this before, you know better than to take anything he says at face value.
And yet.
And yet you don’t think you imagine the way his breath hitches when you stand up. The sound of your chair scraping back against the floor is like a crack of a whip, but you barely heard it over the rush of blood to your ears.
You don’t think you imagine his panicked glance at the door leading out and away.
He thinks you’re leaving. And you should . Because how dare he come to you like this now? How dare he masquerade as the boy you followed to the Hells and back? How dare he think he can somehow negotiate his way back into your life, that he can somehow haggle with it?
How dare he?
You stand your ground, fists trembling at your sides as you glare down at him on his velvet seat.
“I don’t understand you, Astarion,” you snarl. “You said you don’t want me, and then you fill a house with people who look like me. You said I’m replaceable, and yet even with all your replacements, you’re still asking me to stay. So which is it? Do you love me, or do you want me dead?”
He looks up at you and gods . He was always at his most devastating when he was devastated himself. He’s mastered the art of sadness so well that you never know where the art stops and the sincerity begins.
Those soft, unhappy eyes; those upturned brows; that soft, unhappy mouth.
“I loved you,” he says into the quiet of the room. “Even when I hated you, I loved you. Even when you were lost to me, even when I was with somebody else, even when I tried my best not to—I loved you then. I love you now. I will love you always.” He raises his chin, almost defiantly, almost daring you to laugh or interrupt. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Your chest tightens. You say on a strangled breath, “This is not about what I want to hear, Astarion. This is about the truth.”
He gets up from his seat, his lithe form awash in moonlight.
“It’s the truth you want, is it? Here it is, then.” He starts to stalk forward, slowly and surely, with that feline grace you still see often in your dreams, or over your shoulder, or just around the corner of your garden—a ghost you should have exorcised long ago, but never did and never would. “The truth is, my dear, that I have everything except you, and that makes everything null . I have this palace and I have my power until the end of my undying days, and yet I find myself short, all because I do not have you . Your leaving tore a hole through me that is never sated, no matter how much gold and jewels and bodies I toss into it. The truth is that I hate you. I hate you so much that I want to break you. I hate you so much that I want you to admit you were as pathetically unhappy without me as I was without you, because I cannot believe I should be alone in this suffering.”
His eyes—terrible, angry, apocalyptically beautiful—sear through you as he finally stops his slow advance. He towers over you, so close you can feel the ice of his skin, so close that he can see just how hard you are breathing.
He reaches for you. You don’t allow yourself to flinch. You stand there, stubborn, not daring to be the first to blink away, as he runs his knuckles over the curve of your bare shoulder.
It is a gentle touch, a familiar touch—one you’ve chased in a few half-drunken, ill-advised trysts in the cheap taproom near your hut, one that has never been matched.
There’s that voice in your head again, telling you to run while you still can. But your legs feel like lead. You couldn’t run if you wanted to—and you’re not sure if you do want to, not when he’s like this, not when you can finally remember why you fell for him ten years ago.
Like this, right now, with his sad eyes and his hand on your skin, he isn’t Astarion, Vampire Ascendant, Master of the Palace, Mass Murdering Monster, Bastard Heart-Breaker and All-Around Piece of Shit.
He is simply Astarion.
“I am sick with hatred, my sweet, beloved, loathsome cleric,” he says softly. “Won’t you cure me of it?”
Lathander, forgive me, you think.
And then you take a fistful of Astarion’s precious, expensive shirt, pull him in, and kiss him.
It is not a kind kiss. It is not the gentle, reconciliatory meeting of old lovers. It is not the soft sinking into familiar waters.
It is sharp teeth and angry tongues and brutal hands clutching at your hips and his mouth grinning against yours as if this means anything, as if this means he’s won.
But it is you who pulls away first. It is you he chases after with a frustrated groan. It is you denying him the victory he thinks is assured.
“This still isn’t love,” you say.
“Okay,” he replies breathlessly, and you allow him to kiss you again.
You go in hungrier this time. He tastes like wine, and you gladly drink .
He pushes you back against the table, his hands busying themselves with your hair, tugging and pulling at the pins until your hair cascades around your shoulders. He pulls back to look at his handiwork: you half-sprawled over his dinner table in the dress he chose for you, your hair undone, your chest heaving with each trembling breath.
In return, you survey the wreckage of your own making. They say vampires know no emotion but hunger. Looking at Astarion now—his pupils blown wide, his kiss-bruised mouth half-open in a breathless gasp, his hands stained with the diamond dust from your skin—you cannot help but admit there is some truth to that.
“I have waited—” he begins haltingly, still trying to catch his breath. “I have waited ages .”
He once told you that years meant nothing to him—that a human’s lifespan was but a blink of his eye. And yet, here he is, reduced to a pathetic shadow of himself in just ten years, all because he couldn’t have you.
He slots his body in the space between your knees and leans down, but you turn your head at the last moment so his kiss catches on your cheek.
“Beg,” you say.
His lips scrape against your skin as he snaps, “What?”
“You heard me,” you say evenly, even as your heart ricochets against your ribcage. “You’re the one who said you wanted to try negotiating the terms of our relationship. Here’s my first stipulation: if you want me to stay, you’ll have to beg .”
He pulls back. You turn your head to watch him as he watches you, his expression inscrutable. For a moment, you think that would end his charade. That you’ve crossed the boundary of his ego far enough, and you’ll have to brace yourself for another fight.
But then, he says, “Never leave my sight again. Please .”
Perhaps he meant it to be sarcastic, even mocking, but that’s hard to believe when he’s looking at you like you’re holding his beating heart in your hands.
“Oh, come on.” You smile at him, sweet as belladonna. “We both know you can do better than that.”
He leans forward, his arms caging you in on either side of you. His eyes scan your face, and you can still smell the Fireswill on his breath as he says, “Do not abandon me again. I cannot— will not—survive it. You will have everything you ask for from me, just please, please do not ask to leave me.”
You tilt your head at him, considering.
“Well done,” you say. “I almost believed you there.”
He smirks. “Forgive me for being a bit rusty. I’ve become unacquainted with begging in recent years, as you can imagine.”
“Oh,” you say, grabbing him by the lapels of his fine shirt, “I’m sure I’ll reintroduce you to it soon enough.”
With all the strength you have left, you flip both of you over. He wasn’t expecting it—of course he wasn’t; to him, you were nothing but an unarmed, spell-dry cleric, after all—and so he could do nothing but fall with his elbows against the table, staring wide-eyed up at you.
“I want all your servants gone,” you say, standing between his knees, one hand gripping his thigh. “Carys, Ayla, Lavinia—all of them. With very generous severance pay, naturally.”
He raises an eyebrow. “And, pray tell, who do you expect to cook you breakfast and heat your baths?”
You almost falter at the image that conjures up—so lovely, so tantalizingly domestic, so false : a life of staying long enough in this damned palace to be served breakfasts.
“Get new servants,” you say. “Ones that don’t look like me, ones you haven’t thoroughly broken, ones that don’t have little brothers waiting for them at home.”
“You’ll break poor Lavinia’s heart, forcing her out like this.”
“You don’t seem to care too much.”
“You underestimate me,” he says. “I don’t care at all . What else would you have me do, dearest?”
You pause to think.
You would have been a very small price to pay to keep Astarion sated and in line. And now you could prove that theory. How much could you make the Vampire Ascendant part with before he starts scoffing? What is he willing to lose for you?
But more importantly: what are you willing to take from him?
Because you know a thing or two about obsessive devotees. You’ve seen worshippers give the clothes off their back for a scrap of divine generosity. You’ve seen worthier temples than the one Astarion made for you, paid for by coins believers willingly and happily slaughtered for.
If you ask him right now—when he was drunk on more than wine—you could take everything .
“I will not be your spawn,” you say. “I will not be your consort . If you ever, ever ask me to debase myself for you again, I will kill you, set this house on fire, and salt the ground so nothing can ever grow back.”
He tips his chin up at you, still somehow looking imperiously regal while stretched out over lace table runners. “Then what will you be?”
You don’t know the answer to that.
What you do know is that for the first time since you met, you’re playing a fair game. And you know you like this . Having power over him. Having something he wants. Forcing him to reckon with you. Punishing him for everything he did to you, and everything he did to himself.
It’s the closest you can get to vengeance.
“I’ll be yours,” you say. “Is that what you want to hear?”
“Gods,” he groans. “ Yes. Finally— yes.”
You kiss him ferociously, swallowing his gasp down with the greed you only allowed yourself to have when it was him beneath you. You remember long, sleepless nights in the forest. Stealing kisses in the heat of battle, in whatever dark nook you could find in the Underdark. Stealing into his tent.
You remember all of it as his hands slip into your hair, combing it back from your face as he kisses you deeper. You press closer, practically crawling onto the table to be as close as you can get. Your head swims; your body sings.
“Love—” he says against your mouth.
“I know,” you reply as you slip your fingers under the ruffled cuff of his shirt, letting them rest over his racing pulse. “I got you.”
You hear a soft sigh as his breathing evens out, and the jackrabbit thrum of his heartbeat slows to a more manageable rhythm.
You look at him. He looks back, eyes glassy with longing.
“Alright?” you ask.
He nods. “Come back,” he says, and pulls you back in.
Perhaps it was wrong to say you remembered it all. It is more accurate to say you never forgot.
You could still end it, you know. You have him pinned and needy under you; it would be so easy to call upon Lathander and incinerate the Vampire Ascendant within a pillar of holy light.
You pull back, holding your weight above him with your hands planted on either side of his head. As you do, your necklace slips from where you tucked it into your dress. The teardrop ruby hangs in the air between you, suspended by its thin gold chain.
Astarion’s eyes gleam as he catches sight of it. Before you can attempt to hide the necklace again, he reaches up and rolls the ruby between his thumb and forefinger, his brows furrowing in thought.
“You kept this?” he asks, not bothering to hide his disgust.
You think about the boxes you left in your hut, filled with old books still dog-earred on the last page he was reading before his Ascension. About the dagger he once gave you, still hidden under your pillow. About the white shirt you sometimes slip into when you have nothing else to wear, the careful red stitches on its collar the only indication that it once belonged to someone else, someone who took time out of their day to mend it for you.
He is not the only one who knows how to build memorials.
You shrug apathetically. “It completed the outfit.”
“You mean those rags you came in?” His mouth quirks, torn between a disapproving frown and laughter. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. When we’re together, you will have finer jewels than this.”
“Is that part of the negotiation? That you get to decide what I wear?”
He raises a brow. Without breaking eye contact, he loops the necklace chain around two of his fingers, once, twice. And then he yanks.
You come down with it, your face a breath away from Astarion’s, the back of your neck burning from the force of his pull.
“We’re both losing something, my dear,” he says. “That’s how negotiations go .”
“Alright,” you say evenly, refusing to be the first to flinch, not when you’ve come this far. “Saddle me with whatever fur-lined, jewel-encrusted monstrosity you can think of. But, in turn, you don’t kill anyone.”
“Only if they deserve it,” he vows, “and only out of your holier-than-thou earshot.”
“And whose definition of ‘deserving it’ will we use?” you prod. “Mine or yours?”
His smile is both begrudging and approving all at once. “We can argue the semantics later.”
“Or we can argue now.” You try to pull away, but his grip only tightens on the chain around your neck, pinning you in place. You glare, but he only blinks slowly at you with the rouge from your lips staining the sides of his mouth—the line between innocence and debauchery forever blurred. “Why don’t you try taking me seriously for once, Astarion? It might save you from an early grave.”
“Oh, I’ve long ago accepted that you’ll be the death of me,” he says cheerfully. “I do look forward to seeing how you’ll go about it—and the undoubtedly long string of failed attempts leading up to it. You do remember my preferences, yes?”
“Quick and painless,” you say, feeling yourself smile despite yourself, tugged along by memories of a decade-old conversation. “You won’t even see it coming.”
“Good girl,” he says in a tone that would have made a younger maiden blush, once upon a time.
Now you hear it for what it is: a master commending his most loyal hound.
You shake your head ruefully, and as you do, your hair slips from your shoulders, cascading around him like a dark curtain.
Astarion inhales, deeply.
“I get to keep my eyes and ears on the city,” he says, a bit breathlessly. And so the negotiations resume, regardless of everything left unresolved. Business as usual.
“Fine. Your Undercity work might even benefit this city, in time. So go tussle with the Zhentarim and Nine-fingers all you like.”
“Balls and parties, twice a tenday. You will enter on my arm, and allow yourself to be introduced as the Lady of the palace.”
“ Once a tenday.”
“But you will dance with me.”
“Of course.” You have no doubt that will cause quite a stir: the Savior of Baldur’s Gate, waltzing with the Usurper Lord of the House of Szarr. You are not looking forward to having to explain this to Wyll, or Shadowheart, or—Lathander, have mercy— Jaheira . You can already smell the sermons and long, furious letters coming. “Is that all?”
He shakes his head. “Not even half of it.” He smiles, double-edged. “But that’s the nature of negotiations. We can always come back to the table for any amendments. Metaphorically speaking, of course.” His smile turns more vicious. “Unless you prefer we do this every time you have another demand?”
His leg brushes against your own, teasing, and you shiver. His smirk grows wider at your reaction, but before he can pull you in and drown you in him again, you say, “One last thing.”
“Anything, my love.”
“You can’t drink from me,” you say bluntly.
For the first time since you flipped him onto the table, he balks. “Don’t be absurd.”
“I’m serious, Astarion.” You scowl as he twists the chain around his fingers again, forcing you closer. “Drink from me, and I will ensure there will be nothing quick nor painless about your demise. Even begging won’t spare you from me then.”
His eyebrows furrow as he glares petulantly at you. “You certainly had no qualms when I supped from you every night on our journey together.”
“That was a deal I struck with someone else, someone I loved enough to keep happy,” you say. “And, as we’ve established, what we have isn’t love.”
He doesn’t speak for a long moment, but you know by the intensity of his gaze that you haven’t completely lost him yet. He’s thinking. Actually thinking about what you have to say—a courtesy he never spared you when he was first coming into his Ascendancy. Maybe he’s changed since then. Or, realistically, he just got better at pretending to care.
At last, he says, “You will change your mind, in time. I am sure of it.”
Your frown deepens. “It’s my blood, Astarion—”
“I wasn’t talking about that,” he says, his gaze so heavy with meaning you feel crushed by it.
This isn’t love. It never will be. It can’t be. Nothing he says and nothing he offers will change that.
You want to tell him as much. You want to see the look on his face when you do.
I hate you so much that I want to break you .
You lean down. You feel his lashes flutter against your cheek as you press your lips against his skin. He’s warm now, warmer than he ever was as a spawn. As warm as the sun.
“Well, perhaps it’s like you said,” you say, ghosting your lips across his skin, relishing in the way he trembles under that faint touch, as if he knows just how easily you could take it all away. “Perhaps we can find room for amendments .”
He gets the last word. He always feels like he has to, because he feels the need to steal even such a small victory from you.
But you don’t mind it as much, this time, because that word is a hushed and desperate “Please.”
You kiss him again, and there isn’t space for any more words after that. It is filled instead with tearing hands, hair clenched in trembling fists, gasps for air, cups of wine spilling and dripping red onto the floor below.
It isn’t love. Instead, it is your knees on either side of him, caging him in. It is his mouth against the palm of your hand, fangs scraping against the wounds still healing from broken glass, but not hard enough to draw blood. It is the sound of a snapping chain.
It isn’t love. It’s a negotiation. A bargain. A tenuous peace treaty. You have no doubt that, by dawn, he’ll have a thousand more stipulations, a thousand more counteroffers, a thousand more proposed amendments. You also have no doubt that he is perfectly capable and more than willing to go back on his word.
An ambition like his cannot be cured in a single night. Tomorrow, he will go back to being the Vampire Ascendant, dangerous, unpredictable, bloodthirsty. And tomorrow, you will go back to being the vengeful cleric, doing all you can to spite and foil him. The rest of your lives will be spent pulling at the other’s leash.
But tonight, he is all yours.
Tonight, you can fool yourself into thinking this has a happy ending.
You ruin him. You allow him to ruin you back. You ruin each other, again and again. It still isn’t love.
Lavinia is the last to leave. You see her out of the door, bundled in an expensive coat with the written directions to your hut tucked into her pocket.
You didn’t see the others go. Most of them were gone by the time you woke up that first morning in your new house. The few remaining were kept on as a skeleton crew until the new servants arrived to replace them. Carys certainly let his displeasure known before he departed, shutting the doors behind him so loudly you felt them rattle from the second floor. But at least he was gone. At least Astarion couldn’t hold any of them against you anymore.
That left Lavinia—stubborn, tenacious Lavinia, who managed to dodge around Astarion’s orders for two whole days before she eventually cracked. You don’t ask what he said to finally get her to leave. Her red-rimmed eyes say enough.
The palace grounds are still heavy with morning mist as you both step out. A carriage is already waiting for her down the steps.
“I say this very kindly, Lavinia, but I do hope I never see your face ever again,” you say. Then, with a shrug, you amend, “Well, except in a mirror, I suppose.”
Her expression tightens, but she says nothing. She only wraps her cloak closer around her small frame, her dark eyes staring out into the gray fog.
She’s so young, you think with pity, before you remember: But so was I.
You straighten as much as your heavy dress will allow you; Lavinia’s last act of service for the house was to help you into it. She said nothing then, either. But, once, as she helped the other handmaiden with the clasp of your diamond necklace, you met her eyes in the mirror, and you could see your own disappointment reflected back at you.
“You will find your brother,” you say now, calmly. “You will explain and you will apologize, to his face this time.”
When she speaks, her voice comes out hoarse and ragged. “And after that?”
You shrug. “And then you can be whatever you want, just like you wished for. You certainly have the money to indulge your wildest fantasies. But if you want my input, I’d suggest you go to Waterdeep. Seek out a mentor. Your talents were always going to be wasted under Astarion’s servitude. Oh, and tell Anton my hut is his.” You think of the poor, sad boy, still waiting around for his Savior to come back, still watering flowers that you’ll never see again. “He can keep it, sell it, burn it to the ground for all I care. I don’t need any of it anymore.”
“No,” Lavinia drawls, “you certainly won’t.” She looks behind her, back at the palace, its high turrets touched by the beginning light of the dawn. And then she turns back to you, her jaw set. “You’ve won.”
“Have I? Someone should have told me.”
She blows past your sarcasm easily; living with Astarion certainly would have given her ample practice. “None of us were stupid, you know. We knew our place. We never forgot what we were to him. But, every time he called me by your name—” A rueful shake of her head. “If I haunted someone half as much as you haunted him, I’d be celebrating .”
You can only stare at her, at this girl with your face and your old heart.
“Oh, Lavinia,” you sigh. There is nothing more to be said.
“Are you even in love with him?” she demands.
“Love has nothing to do with this.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Fresh tears well up in her eyes, but she refuses to let them fall. You can see now why she was Astarion’s favorite; beyond her face, she is just shades away from being you. “To think I used to worship you. The Savior of Baldur’s Gate. You were so golden in the stories, so brave . And now look at you. You’ve made your own tomb of this place.”
“And I’m sealing him in with me. I'm sure a talented bard can spin that into bravery for you,” you say curtly. You incline your head at the waiting carriage, making it clear that you and her are finished with each other. “May Lathander light your way.”
She stares at you for a few seconds more, searching your face for something she’ll never find. And then she turns away, and the last of Astarion’s replacements leaves his palace forever.
You feel him coming even before he comes up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you flush against him. He rests his chin on your shoulder, and you lean into him. You stand cheek-to-cheek, watching the sunlight slowly strip away the mist.
He is a solid presence against your back, warm and real and almost trustworthy.
“You’re up early,” you say.
“What can I say?” he drawls, his breath tickling your ear. “I missed you.”
“Try again, Astarion.”
You feel him shrug. “Had to make sure you weren’t going off to sneak into one of Lavinia’s trunks.”
You scoff. “And be discovered at the checkpoint by one of the Fists you have in your pocket? How stupid do you think I am?”
“So how would you do it, then? How would you run from me?”
You know he relishes the thought of it, of you desperately trying to find a way out and being thwarted at every turn. You don't give him the satisfaction. At least not today.
“Now why would I tell you and ruin the surprise?” You turn your head and give him a mocking kiss on the cheek. “Trust me, Astarion, the day I run from you, you won’t even be alive to give chase.”
Astarion laughs. The sound rumbles against your back. “My clever, furious Tyche, you do know how to keep me on my toes.”
He returns your kiss on your neck, fangs brushing against your skin with the promise—the threat —of digging in. But he doesn’t. Instead, he pulls back from you completely, and you turn to watch him go with a questioning quirk of your eyebrow.
“I have a surprise for you,” he says winningly, holding his hands behind his back.
“Oh, I wonder what it could be?” You pretend to give it a thought. “A venomous snake in my wardrobe, perhaps? Poison in my rouge pot so we both may die at a kiss? Or is it perhaps—”
You grind to a pause, as Astarion gets down on one knee. The dawn breaks around you, and the city—your city once, and yours once again—comes alive with the sound of birdsong and the start of the day’s labors.
Your god’s sun glints off the ring Astarion holds up to you. It is the most modest thing he’s ever offered you: just a simple golden band, engraved with a delicate pattern of roses and thorns. It reminds you of the kind a Lower City lover might save up for, setting aside humble wages for a few months in preparation. In another life, it would be the kind you would be wearing willingly.
In this life, it’s anything but.
“Warding Bond rings,” you say, recognizing the magic in the ring immediately. “Really?”
“Isn’t it darling ?” he says, the glint in his eyes like the edge of a blade. “I had it especially made, just for you.”
You stare down at him in disbelief. “You must think me stupid.”
“No,” he says slowly, as if he was speaking to a child. “I think you dangerous.” His smile grows, but there is nothing warm about it. “Just because I’ve accepted you as my eventual, inevitable murderess doesn’t mean I’m going to make it easy for you, my love.”
He holds up his left hand, where the twin to the ring he’s offering you is already sitting around his finger.
“See?” he says brightly. “We’ll match.”
A cold breeze blows in from the gardens, bringing with it the scent of dew and honeysuckle. Suddenly, all at once, the diamond necklace around your neck feels chokingly tight. The silver bracelets on your wrists are manacles. And the ring he offers you is nothing but another method of control.
As the world spins on under your feet, you think about all the things you could have done to change the way this ends. You could have killed him when you had the chance. You could have denied him Ascension, even if it meant breaking his heart. Hells, you could have taken the right turn ten years ago, one that led away from that beach where you first found each other.
If only I’d—
But the thought stops there.
With sure and sudden clarity, you know, deep down, that all your choices would all eventually, inevitably end here: with Astarion on his knees in front of you.
You begin to laugh.
He laughs with you, and anybody looking in would never know you’re both laughing about very different things.
What a life, you think, still laughing madly, deliriously, happily. What a damnable life.
“So?” Astarion asks, his laugh still lingering in the corners of his pretty, pretty mouth. “What’ll it be, my cleric? Will you make me the happiest man in Faerûn and seal our mutually assured destruction?”
“Sure,” you say with a one-shouldered shrug. “Why not?”
“Try again, darling. Like you mean it, this time.”
In reply, you wordlessly pull your silk glove off, finger by finger. You offer him your left hand, bare to the morning cold.
Astarion takes his hand in yours, his skin as smooth and as unyielding the marble beneath your feet. Then, slowly, without taking his eyes off yours, he slips the ring on your finger.
It is, unsurprisingly, a perfect fit.
Astarion gets to his feet as you fiddle with the ring, feeling its magic surge against you. It’s stronger than the usual Warding Bond spells you’ve come across; you have no doubt it’s been modified, but to what extent, you’ll have to find out for yourself. You wonder if Astarion made Lavinia craft it for you, because that seems like the sort of petty punishment he’d be into.
“There,” Astarion says, pleased. “I hurt, you hurt.”
You inspect your hand coolly, inspecting the way the sunlight plays across the golden band. “I wonder if you’ve thought this through.”
“I assure you, I have.”
You raise an eyebrow at him. And then, without warning, you twist the ring roughly around your finger, quick enough to make it burn . A furrow forms between his brows—barely there, but still there—so you know he felt it, too.
“I hurt,” you say, “you hurt.”
He crosses the space between you in one easy stride, standing so close you’re forced to look up at him. The dawn paints him in a faint, gold light, making his features softer—younger somehow. Ten years younger.
“That was always the case,” he says softly.
You search his face for any sign of sincerity, but you don’t think even he knows if he’s lying. “What a grave miscalculation you’ve made, Astarion.”
He loops an arm around your waist, bringing you closer to him. “Have I?”
You place your hand against his chest, splaying your fingers over his racing heart. “I might be trapped with you, my love,” you say, “but you’re also trapped with me.”
The Vampire Ascendant grins at you. “Oh,” he whispers, almost to himself, “what a terrible, terrible time we’ll have together, darling.”
You grin back, all teeth. The sun burns inside your chest.
“I’m looking forward to it.”