Wicked Turns - itspiri - Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Waking up on the beach, there is only one thought in Amma Theylin’s head:

HOLY sh*t, I LIVED.

She’s covered in grime and gore and she has no idea where she is and her skull feels like it’s broken but holy sh*t, she lived. She squeezes the cool sand of the riverbank between her fingers, breathes in the fresh, mossy air, listens gratefully to the sound of wind and trees and water. She glances around, trying to find the route that took her from freefall to lying safely on the ground, but she can’t see one. She doesn’t even have any broken bones. How? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. She lived.

Then, she feels the hideous squirm of an illithid tadpole burrowing through her skull.

Living won’t last long unless she gets that thing out of her.

She stands, takes some steadying breaths, looks around. The flaming remains of the mind flayers’ ship are cracked open around her, oozing, smoking. The chaos of the crash confuses the landscape. She inhales deep— tries to smell. It’s just river water, river air, the sickening scent of cooked illithid flesh. She goes to the river and touches the water. Cold. Not Neverwinter, then— the Chionthar. That’s good, she thinks; that means she’s not too far from Baldur’s Gate. (Hopefully.) Cliffs rise above her, all around, and she sees no buildings over their tall edges. Alright. Maybe she’s a little bit too far from Baldur’s Gate.

Regardless— she needs to find a healer. She needs to find a landmark, a settlement, anything recognizable, and soon.

She starts walking— south, or south-ish, she thinks. She’s not sure. Never was much good at navigating. (She doesn’t get paid to navigate.)

In minutes, she finds a familiar face: the half-elf girl from the nautiloid. She’s out cold on the ground. The lack of any carnage around her suggests that she, too, survived the fall. For a moment, Amma stares at her. Then, she crouches, reaches over, and gently works her hands along the edge of Shadowheart’s heavy chestpiece— aiming for the straps of her backpack. With any luck, Amma can steal its contents, sell it, and be on her way before the cleric knows what happened.

She doesn’t have any luck.

“Wh…”

Shadowheart stirs, her eyes flutter open. Amma removes her thieving hands and gives the girl’s shoulders a rough shake.

“What are you doing?” comes Shadowheart’s frightened voice.

“Just checking if you were alive,” Amma lies.

The half-elf doesn’t seem convinced. She sits up with a groan, then pulls herself to standing. Amma does the same. She stands far enough away that her skull won’t get immediately bashed in by the cleric’s mace.

“I’m alive, yes,” Shadowheart says. She watches the rogue warily. “... Thank you for the concern.”

She frowns, looks down at herself, around then at the carnage of the crash. “How am I alive..?” she mutters in confusion.

“Does it matter?”

She ignores Amma.

“I remember the ship, I remember falling… then nothing.”

She looks up at the drow expectantly, as though this total stranger might have further details.

“f*ck if I know,” Amma says. “Any idea what happened to the githyanki?”

Shadowheart shakes her head.

Great. Fantastic. Wonderful.

“Well, I’m going to look for her. If anyone can set us right, it’s one of them.”

“You think so?”

Shadowheart seems doubtful. Headstrong. Amma’s not above abandoning her twice.

“Yeah, I know so. She told me on the nautiloid.”

The rogue doesn’t wait for Shadowheart’s response before brushing past her and continuing her south-or-south-adjacent trek along the riverbank.

“Wait,” the half-elf says, jogging a few steps to catch up. “How do you know so? She could have just been lying, saying anything to get you on her side—”

“D’you know anything about githyanki?”

“Only that they’re from another plane—”

“Yeah, and they used to be enslaved by mind flayers. It’s like their whole deal. If anyone can cure us, it’s going to be them.” Then, glancing over her shoulder: “Unless you want to try your hand at brain surgery?”

Shadowheart grimaces and says, “Not really, no. Point taken. Do you study—?”

“No. Ran into some once on a job. Now, let’s go. We’re wasting daylight.”

“We ought to look for other survivors,” the cleric says, falling into step beside her. “I can’t believe it would be just us.”

“Sure. But if you slow me down, I’ll leave you all behind.”

“Your selflessness should be commended,” Shadowheart says dryly.

It isn’t long before they find another castaway. He’s up the hills a bit, a waifish-looking elf, seeming very out of place in his fine vest and polished shoes

“You there,” he calls anxiously at their approach. “Hurry! It’s one of those— brain things— there, in the grass!” He points. “You can kill it, can’t you?”

He’s vaguely familiar to Amma; she is sure that she’s crossed paths with him before, although she can’t remember where. His damsel act needs work.

“It’s a disembodied brain,” she says, not bothering to look where he’s pointing. “I’m sure you’re more than capable of killing it yourself.”

“Well. If that’s how you’re going to be—”

His damsel act needs work, but his highwayman does not. He’s quicker than she had anticipated. She gave him the opening, as she walked past, curious if he would simply tag along or if he’d press his luck; his luck was good enough already. Before she can dodge, he’s got a dagger at her throat.

“I’m broke,” Amma says. Shadowheart raises her mace; Amma holds a hand out to stay her. The cleric looks at her like she’s insane.

“I don’t want your gold, you idiot,” the pale elf hisses in her ear. “I saw you on the ship. What did you and those tentacled freaks—”

Amma throws her head back and slams the back of her skull into his nose. She hears him shout, and then— for a wild moment, she thinks somehow she’s hit him wrong, fractured her skull. But that’s stupid, she can’t break her head on someone’s handsome nose— and then that thought is lost completely as her mind seizes, and twists. She sees the streets of Baldur’s Gate by lantern-light, smells perfume, blood— then she’s blinded by a burst of light, sunlight, hot and blazing on her skin and terror—

“What was that?” He’s no longer smooth and calm; his voice is rough with fear. “What’s going on?”

While he’s distracted, she manages to slip free of him and draw her own blade. He recovers quickly, faces her, ready to lunge— hesitates when he sees two weapons drawn on him.

“I saw your memories,” he breathes. “They took you, just the same as me. And to think, I was ready to decorate the ground with your innards! My apologies.”

He gives a gay little giggle and a dainty wave of his hand, sticks his dagger back into his belt.

Amma does not lower her dagger.

“Better have more to offer than ‘apologies’,” she growls.

A smile tugs at his mouth and he gives her a little bow.

“I’m out of wine and flowers, so I hope an introduction will suffice. My name is Astarion. I was in Baldur’s Gate when those beasts snatched me. — But I know you, don’t I?”

“Doubt it,” Amma says, though she’s wondering the same. Has she robbed him? Poisoned his drink? She looks at the velvet and gold he’s wearing, then at her own tired, bloodstained leather. “I think we run in different circles.”

“Mm. Clearly,” he says. “So— these worms inside our heads. Do you know anything about it?”

She finally sheathes her blade. “Mind flayers. We have a week.”

“A week of..?”

“Living,” Shadowheart says.

“And then it kills us?”

Amma’s walking south (she thinks) again. “No, we turn into mind flayers,” she says flatly. She can hear Astarion’s cackle fade as she walks away.

“Hold on, hold on—” and now he’s following them, fantastic, “— you’re looking for a— an expert, right? Someone who can control these things?”

“Control them?” Shadowheart cries. “I want them gone!”

“Yes, well, first things first,” Astarion says hastily. “I assume you’re looking for another traveling companion, yes? Well, I’ve already told you my name. You are—?”

“Not looking for another traveling companion,” Amma says, gritting her teeth.

“Delightful. And you, darling?”

“Shadowheart. Keep that blade stowed, or things are going to get messy.”

“Oh, I like you.”

Amma’s had a very sh*t day so far.

She’s been abducted by aliens. She’s had a disgusting alien parasite crawl through her eyeball and into her brain. She’s almost been beheaded, twice, by people she just met. In the past twenty-four hours, she’s had to fight devils, dragons, mind flayers, and the forces of gravity to stay alive.

So, naturally, when a man’s arm pops out of a rock beside her— she sees an opportunity.

“Hey, teleportation circles don’t work if they’re broken, right?”

“Right,” Shadowheart says slowly.

“Hm.”

Amma picks up a rock and goes to scratch a line in the sigil.

“You’re ghastly,” Shadowheart says, pushing her aside and reaching for the arm.

Once he’s fully out of the rock wall, the wizard introduced himself as Gale of Waterdeep— though with a poorly-groomed beard down to his navel and rumpled purple robes, Amma thinks he looks more like Gale of Being Tucked In Cozy In Bed. He starts blathering about the Weave and how miraculous it is that he just pulled off whatever trick he did. (Amma doesn’t trust wizards, as a rule; wouldn't be surprised if this one was working with the mind flayers, somehow.) She reaches for her dagger.

Gale of Staying Home In His Pajamas is more perceptive than she’d realized— he looks at her and raises his hands.

“You really, really wouldn’t want to do that,” he says carefully. “Not a threat, just an— observation.”

The dagger stays at her thigh. She raises a brow. “And why would I really, really not want to kill you?”

Gale sighs theatrically. “Ten years of bad luck to kill a wizard,” he laments. “Why take the risk?”

(Fortunately for Gale, Amma happens to be superstitious. She’s never heard, specifically, of ten years of bad luck, but she’s heard plenty about curses and fireballs and being turned into a sheep. Best not to cross the wizard, she decides— at least, not until she knows who’d win.)

“Alright, magic man, you’re in the group.”

“Most excellent!” Gale says jovially as she nods at him. “A parasite shared is a parasite halved, or… something to that effect.”

She starts walking further into the forest. She already regrets helping him out of that portal.

“Oh— and before you think you’re about to embark on a journey with most ill-mannered a man,” he says, hurrying after her, “thank you for pulling me out of that stone. It was an act of foresighted kindness, I assure you!”

(It definitely wasn’t.)

“And I have a feeling ample opportunities will present themselves for me to return the favor!”

She doesn’t respond.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Turns out the nautiloid had crashed right at the edge of a druids’ grove. It isn’t the haven they all hoped it would be. For starters, they have to fight their way past a goblin raiding party to even get in. Then it’s packed full of refugees from Elturel, racist druids, and, wonder of all wonders, Volothamp Geddarm. Amma wants to fight him on sight. She’s been on so many caravans with people who actually believed what Volo wrote in his stupid guidebooks. Those people usually led her into extremely dangerous situations involving giants or dragons or mummy lords. Shadowheart says she’s never heard of him, but she puts a firm, restraining hand on Amma’s shoulder, just in case.

The adventurer who’d helped them fight at the gates— the Blade of Frontiers, Gale was quick to point out, a famous hero, adventurer, and slayer of monsters— came over and introduced himself when he was done kissing babies or whatever.

“You fight well,” he says, with a smarmy hero-grin across his face. He looks much younger up close. Terrible claws had raked his face more than once in the past, and the scars give him an air of world-weariness that doesn't show in his sun-bright eyes. “And I daresay you saved my skin back there. I am the Blade of Frontiers— but those who’ve raised their swords to aid can simply call me Wyll. What do you all call yourselves?”

“Assholes,” Amma says, before anyone else can say something stupider. “We’re not an adventuring party.”

“Really?” Wyll seems genuinely taken aback. Either he has no real adventuring experience, or he’s a very good actor.

“We’re just looking for a healer,” says Shadowheart. “Is there one?”

“I think so, yes, but— I’ve only just arrived, myself. Got some business to attend to and then I’ll be on my way. But…”

There’s always a but, isn’t there? Amma thinks. f*ckers.

“Perhaps you all could help me,” Wyll continues. “I’m hunting a particularly nasty foe. I’d be a fool to turn down extra help, if you’re willing to give it.”

“We’re on something of a time crunch,” Astarion says, brittle with forced cheer— but not before Gale opens his stupid wizard mouth.

“Of course!” says Gale of Royally f*cking Everything Up. “What are you up against? Fey? Fiend? Aberration?”

“A devil,” Wyll answers grievously, ignoring the self-proclaimed assholes. “And a most heinous one, at that. A war-born fiend with pure hellsfire for a heart.”

Fantastic.

He continues with a grimace: “But— well, I hate to say I’m winded by some goblins, but I think I’ll need that healer, too.”

“Have you got any gold?” Amma asks flatly.

Wyll blinks at her with his lips half-open, like he doesn’t quite know what to say to that. She resists the urge to knee him in the groin.

“I told you, we’re not adventurers. We got— shipwrecked. Go find us some supplies. And see if you can get a reward for the goblins, too.”

The Blade of Frontiers looks near-scandalized for half a moment, but he recovers quickly, and decides not to argue with his new companions. He takes his leave. Shadowheart goes with him, muttering that she has a few silver in her pockets. The rest of them find a shaded spot in a stone corner, tucked away from the overcrowded buzz of the grove.

“Gale, darling,” Astarion calls pleasantly. “Come here a moment, will you?”

The wizard obliges. As soon as he’s within reach, Astarion grabs him by the front of his robes, shoves him into a stone wall, and snarls: “What in every Hell were you thinking?!”

“That we owe it to the man to help him just as he helped us,” the wizard says, affronted.

“Did it occur to you that we may all have better things to do with our time than chase some pit fiend with the Blade of Frontiers?”

He sneers the last bit quite viciously. Amma’s interested, now; she listens in, eager to hear what other venom he might have for the wizard.

“Like, oh, I don’t know, learning more about these damn worms?”

Gale waves his hand dismissively. “We have days before that becomes an issue,” he says. “Not many, but— still, days! Plural! And for now, we’re stuck here. We might as well do some good while we can.”

“Do some good,” Astarion repeats. He seems to find the concept absolutely repellant. That interests Amma more than any insult. He releases Gale, throws his hands in the air, takes off. “Unbelievable. I’m going for a walk.”

Wyll returns with three healing potions, some meager rations, and not enough bedrolls. Amma’s ready to stab him in his stupid, pretty face. He gives her some excuse about how the grove is already full of refugees, supplies are hard to come by, and they should be grateful these people give them anything at all.

(Astarion seems resourceful; she makes a note to ask him if he’ll do some shopping with her later.)

(Read: stealing from the refugee’s supply wagons.)

“It’s not the end of the world,” Shadowheart says softly to her, after Wyll has gone to discuss their latest quest objective with Gale. “With any luck, we’ll be cured and gone by morrow’s end.”

Amma broods. But the cleric’s pretty, and she had freed her on the nautiloid— maybe she can get a reward for something after all.

“Where will you go, when we’re done with this?” she asks.

Shadowheart’s face angles away, just slightly, but she answers, “Baldur’s Gate. I have to get back there.”

“What for, in Baldur’s Gate?”

The cleric’s eyes narrow. It’s an innocent question. (Amma is not asking for innocent reasons.)

“Just trying to make conversation,” the rogue says. “I was on my way to the tavern when I got abducted. Sharess’ Caress. You ever been?”

(She had just cleared up a spectacular hangover, and was ready to develop another, even more spectacular one.)

“... No,” Shadowheart says. There’s something strange in it that Amma can’t quite parse. She chalks it up to clerical celibacy. What a shame.

Astarion’s graceful figure enters her field of view, then: he looks even more miffed than before. His fine vest is unbuttoned and his shirt collar’s come unlaced, exposing half his chest. He looks like something out of a Matilda Merceria novel. Seems the walk didn’t do much for his nerves.

“Hey, what do you do in the city?” she calls to him. “Where’d you get taken from?”

“Upper City. I’m a magistrate.” He sniffs daintily. “It’s terribly boring.”

Well, she doubts that’s true, because she has remembered where she’s seen his face before.

“Must not be that boring. How many lovers did you have last week?”

His eyes set fully on her, and she can see the tendons in his neck go taught, can see a harsh line on his cheek as he clenches his jaw. He looks ready to throttle her. She grins.

“I’m not judging,” she tells him. “I just think we should be honest with each other, if we’re going to survive.”

He huffs, turns his head— magistrate or not, he has a prince’s pride.

“I’ll be honest when you’ve earned it, darling, and not a moment before. Where were you snatched from? A pig-pen?”

Amma laughs. Gods, it feels good to laugh, even at her own expense. It’s a rough sound.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

When they finally get an audience with the archdruid—

“This is madness, Kagha.”

“No— this is our survival. You’ve seen what these hellspawn would unleash upon us if they had their way.”

“The tieflings didn’t summon her— they were afraid of her!”

“Does the mage not fear her chained demon? Does the man not fear his starving hound? One does not have to trust a thing to call upon it when they’re desperate.”

“And you trust the Rite of Thorns?”

Silence. Then:

“Leave my chambers, Rath. Meditate on your mistrust. Do not speak to me again without Silvanus’ wisdom on your tongue.”

As the group descends to the archdruid’s chambers— Amma and Wyll, Shadowheart and Astarion, then Gale— they pass a dark-skinned druid, and he doesn’t look at them as he goes up the stone stairs. Below, they see the head druid, with her back to them; a few others, with animal companions; and a little tiefling girl.

“Keep still, devil,” Kagha snaps. “Teela is restless.”

The girl whimpers. Now at the bottom of the stairs, Amma sees why: a viper curls around her shoulders.

Wyll steps into the clearing.

“What’s this about a devil?” he says. His voice is hard. He’s nothing like the warm adventurer they met.

Kagha looks up at him and half a smile pulls at her mouth. She’s a wood elf, looks younger than Astarion— but with druids, that doesn’t mean much— and she seems to be holding the little tiefling hostage. None of the other druids pay the child any mind.

(Amma thinks of Menzoberranzan.)

“This,” Kagha says, turning to the group and gesturing to the girl— the little tiefling tries not to flinch, and the snake hisses— “is a parasite. My circle has offered grace to her and her kin. We offered them shelter, food, water— and in return, they have rained misfortune on our heads. Goblins— devils— and now, this one has stolen our most holy relic— the only thing that kept us safe. She is a thief. And I intend to see her punished for it.”

Wyll glares at Kagha for a moment, then at the tiefling; he moves closer. He’s close enough for the viper to bite him if he isn’t careful. He kneels, bows his head and looks up at the girl.

“What’s your name?” he says gently.

The girl’s tearful eyes flick to Kagha.

Still gently, he tells the girl, “I didn’t ask her. I asked you.”

The girl looks back to him, then to the head druid once more; Kagha lifts her chin, but does not scold.

“Arabella,” the little tiefling says, in the tiniest, terrified voice.

Wyll nods. “Arabella, did you take the relic?”

“They were gonna make us leave,” Arabella whimpers. “Halsin said we could stay, but now he’s gone, and—” Her eyes dart to Kagha once more. With the look on the head druid’s face, Amma’s surprised the girl even has a chance to speak.

“Enough of this,” comes Shadowheart’s hard voice. She’s standing by Amma’s side, now, her face steely and her hand on her mace. “Your holy relic won’t be worth a thing with this girl’s blood on it.”

Kagha looks them over. Her face is hard to read. But:

“Ssifisv. Teela, to me.”

The viper drops gracefully from Arabella’s shoulders and coils around the druid’s feet.

“Out, hellspawn,” she tells the girl. “Before I change my mind.”

Arabella sprints away.

(Amma didn’t realize she was holding her breath.)

Wyll stands and starts talking with Kagha. He asks her what she meant about a summoned devil, asks her when it happened, what the battle was like. Kagha tells him there wasn’t much of a battle; the fiend was outnumbered and injured, and she fled the grove. She suspects the tiefling leader knows where the fiend ran to, but as long as it’s far from here, the druids don’t much care to ask him about it.

Amma tunes the conversation out. She goes to the edge of the chamber floor, looks down at the shimmering creeks below, across the old, moss-choked murals on the walls. There are rats scampering about on the ground.

She glances over her shoulder to make sure no druids are watching, and then she aims a kick at one. It evades her easily and hisses at her foot before scurrying off.

“Not a fan of animals?” Shadowheart asks her.

Astarion answers for her, his face sour as he spots more vermin on the floor.

“Oh, please. Nobody’s a fan of rats.”

So the druids won’t help them, the healer tried to poison them, and the only lead they have is maybe there’s an archdruid who’s been studying mind flayer tadpoles in some ruins out west. Maybe. If the goblins haven’t killed him yet.

Then, when they reach Zevlor’s chambers, tucked away in a cave, consulting maps and strategizing, everything goes from bad to worse.

Seated at the tiefling’s stone table is a massive fiend of a woman, glowing with hellsfire, broad and beefy. She’s speaking quietly with Zevlor, pointing here and there on his map with a clawed hand. One of her horns is broken off near the base, and that side of her head is more scar tissue than face or hair. And she’s on fire.

She looks up— catches sight of them— her expression turns stormy.

“Well I’ll be godsdamned,” she says. She stands and flexes her shoulders— flame and muscle ripple across the seared red flesh. Even before her unbroken horn, she towers over all of them. Amma can smell her from across the room: sweat, sulfur, iron. There is a metal plate where her left breast should be, the flesh around it warped and twisted. The plate throbs with molten, orange heat— Wyll wasn’t being figurative when he said she had hell’s fire for a heart.

“The Blade of Frontiers,” she says with a mock bow. “Thought I’d shaken you for good.”

“Friends of yours?” Zevlor asks dryly.

“That’s one word for it.” She draws her axe from over her shoulder, grips it— but doesn’t move for them.

“Karlach,” says Wyll. “The Fury of Avernus. The arm of the Archduch*ess Zariel. I am surprised you’ve left this place still standing. Gone soft?”

She laughs harshly. Sparks fly from the open grommets in her flesh.

“Oh, you wish, mate—”

“Karlach,” Zevlor warns. She seems to heed him— her bright eyes don’t leave Wyll, but she takes a few heaving, sighing breaths. Her flames shrink. She holds her axe up before her, horizontal, and then drops it.

“Right. So. I don’t need that to take your head,” she says to Wyll. “But I’m really hoping I won’t have to. If you wanna fight, then fine— but— let’s take it somewhere else, yeah?” Bitterly, she adds: “I’ve already f*cked these guys enough.”

Zevlor, now, steps forward.

“None of you are fighting,” he says sternly. “This place has seen enough bloodshed. Not by Karlach’s hand— but by the druids.”

Wyll is unconvinced.

“She served in the Blood War. I’ve seen it. That’s more than enough reason to end her.”

“Have you?” says Zevlor.

The Blade of Frontiers does not answer.

“If you’ve seen Avernus, then you know,” Zevlor continues. “Were you there, on the front lines? Were you there, the day the sky turned black over Elturel? I was.”

His voice is measured, but there’s a fury in it, colder than Stygia, deeper than the Styx.

“I know the Hells, boy. Better than any one of you. Karlach doesn’t come from there.”

“But,” the Blade says, and Amma thinks of a child, crying over what he thinks is fair, “the head druid. She said—”

Zevlor cuts him off. “Yes, I heard about what Kagha said. Do you really think that woman cares whether we live or die?”

Wyll says nothing. Neither does anyone else. Zevlor nods, first to himself, and then at his hellish friend, who sits heavily back down in her stone seat.

“She’s convinced that all of us are a blight on the grove. Karlach came here seeking sanctuary, but Kagha will hear none of it. And with the loss of the Idol of Silvanus, you can imagine how high tensions have become. Granted— it bought us some time, but—”

“But that witch has more venom in her heart than a snake in its fangs,” Karlach mutters.

Zevlor runs his hand over his weathered face. “Yes, well,” he says, trying to be a bit more sensitive. “She’s rather— protective of her people. She’s started a ritual to enclose the grove in thorns. No one enters, no one leaves. Either we fly now— unprepared and overburdened— or we stay, and the druids slaughter us with no hope for escape.”

“So?” says Amma, finally tired of the drama. “Just kill her.”

“A low thought, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t come to me,” Zevlor answers wearily. “That would get us out— but it wouldn’t get us to Baldur’s Gate. We’d be free to leave the grove and run straight into the blades of cutthroats on the road.”

Amma closes her eyes. She misses two days ago, when her objectives were simple, like “assassinate someone” or “pilfer something”.

“Right,” she says. “Okay. You need the goblins dead. They need the druid back. We need the best healer we can find. Is there anything I’m missing?”

“I need a bath,” says Astarion helpfully. “So do you lot, but I’m calling it first.”

“Great,” says Amma. She’s wishing the mind flayers had just killed her. “Fantastic. Good priorities, Astarion. I’ll get right on that.”

Karlach retrieves her axe. She says, “If it’s a healer you’re after, count me in. Might tide me over until Dammon’s work is done.”

“You would join us?” Wyll says to her. He seems genuinely surprised. “Karlach, I have sworn to take your life.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgive you for that,” the tiefling responds cheerfully. She locks her fingers and stretches with her hands above her head. She nearly touches the ceiling. “We can watch each others’ backs. And I can keep your dumb arse out of any further stupid situations, eh?”

“I like her,” Shadowheart says. “Looks like she could carry us to safety, should the need arise.”

“Would if I could, soldier,” says Karlach with a wry smile at the cleric, “but these sparks ain’t just for the intimidation factor. Got an infernal engine for a heart— see?”

She raps her knuckles against the metal plate in her chest. Amma notices, with a small surge of horror, that it’s not just solid– it’s got hinges and a latch. It can open.

“Damn thing’s been in overdrive since I escaped. Dammon— he’s the blacksmith— he knows infernal iron, reckons he can fix it…”

Just until we find the druid, Amma repeats over and over in her mind, trying to block out the inane ramblings of her companions. It doesn’t work. Bunch of idiots until we find the druid. Just together until we find the druid. Dear gods, please let us find the druid quickly.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

“Tiring business, isn’t it? All this traveling and adventuring.”

It’s been three days since they reached the Emerald Grove. The supplies Wyll managed to scrape up are more than Amma was expecting, to be honest; they’ve also salvaged what they could from bodies and broken carts up on the Risen Road. The group now has enough of something or another for everyone to sleep on, and a little cauldron, which Gale has been making excellent use of. Amma’s not unused to these conditions. She has most of her thieving gear, some daggers, and a bow she looted from the nautiloid. That’s enough to make her comfortable.

At least, she could be comfortable, if Gale would shut up for five f*cking minutes.

She watches him stand in the middle of their meager campsite, rubbing his hands together over the fire, looking very pleased with himself. What’s he got to be pleased about? Yes, adventuring is tiring. What an astute observation. Gods above and below grant her the strength not to put a bolt through his eye right now.

He has his pack at his feet— enchanted, she’s noticed, as it keeps producing things that could never logically be housed in it. So far, it has provided Gale with cleaning supplies for the cauldron, a full set of cutlery for each creature at the campsite, and a small fold-out spice cupboard. Now, he rummages in an outside pocket and pulls out a glass vial full of something misty.

He uncorks the vial and upends it. The mist pours and pours, flowing out across the ground, clouding up into a squarish shape. Then, it solidifies— into a tent.

“Impressive,” Shadowheart says, arms crossed. “Now do a Cormyrian galleon.”

Gale chortles. “Ah, this is no parlor trick, my friend! You’ve no doubt noticed my enchanted pack— quite luckily, it was on my person when I was abducted from Waterdeep. I had just set out on a journey. What kind, I wasn’t sure— I have been, er, house-bound for some time— and I’d finally decided, why, I haven’t got a shut-in’s soul! I crave adventure. And so, I started to prepare. I was headed to the local tavern to see if I might find a party in need of my not-inconsiderable talents.”

He pauses to catch his breath and then says fondly, “Suppose I have found one, after all. But enough talking! Come on, let me give you the grand tour.”

The wizard holds the flap of the tent open and beams at all of them.

Shadowheart takes him up on the offer. Then Karlach, then Astarion, then Wyll. Amma does not move from where she’s laid out on the ground with her hands behind her head. Gale watches her expectantly. She stares back at him. His smile falters.

“Plenty of room for everyone,” he says. “Also, I can’t hold the door open for more than a minute or the whole thing dissolves.”

She rolls her eyes and follows her companions into the tent.

Except, inside, it’s not a tent.

There is a foyer with a small stairway leading to a mezzanine. Straight ahead from the entrance, down a small hallway, is a thriving hearth and kitchenette–dining room combination; on the second floor, along the mezzanine hall, are several doors. One door opens and Karlach runs out of it— she leaves it open and Shadowheart follows, bemused. The massive tiefling leans over the railing and calls down to Amma and Gale in the foyer.

“Gale, you sly bastard, this is magnificent! How did you—?!”

“Not quite magnificent, that’s a bit above my spellcasting capability just now,” the wizard says, grinning up at his guests. “But your enthusiasm is appreciated nonetheless.”

Amma goes to a bench against one wall of the foyer. She’s not so easily impressed. She jabs her index finger into one of the plush pillows on the bench— expects it to vanish with a pop, like every other illusion she’s encountered. It doesn’t. She blinks. She pokes it again, harder. It remains stubbornly tangible.

“The rooms aren’t truly customizable, for which I do apologize— but anything left within these walls will remain until the next time it’s set up, so please, feel free to redecorate. So long as we have a ten-by-twelve space, I can summon the tent. It’s a magic item, so no need to worry about the toll it takes on me. And there are no illusions here— yes, Amma, I saw you attacking that poor throw pillow, what did pillows ever do to you? It’s all as real as can be! The only issue is it doesn’t come with anything consumable, like food or potions, but I’ve got most of those essentials somewhere in my luggage, anyway. Bedrooms are upstairs, kitchen’s downstairs, there should be a change of clothes and pajamas in the wardrobes in your rooms— and— ah, wonderful, you see this closet here? It’s got games! Take what you like. What’s mine is yours, my friends!”

Astarion’s head pokes over the mezzanine.

“Gale, your magnificent mansion only has one water closet, and it hasn’t any soap,” he says sourly.

“It’s not— well, I don’t control the layout, I merely summon the thing! No one’s stopping you from going back to proper camping—”

“And ruin my back more than it already has been on the dirt? No thank you.”

“Well, I’ve got soap in my pack. Let me get up there a moment, and I’ll wash up for dinner—”

Astarion says nothing, but he stands at the top of the stairs, drumming his nails on the railing and staring daggers into Gale. The wizard scurries up and vanishes into the hallway. A minute later, he emerges, looking ten years younger: the long beard is finely trimmed, the unkempt, gray-shot hair is cut at his shoulders and brushed to a gloss.

“You look positively professorial, darling,” Astarion says absently as he passes Gale, not even waiting for the door to fully swing shut behind the wizard. “Now, I’m drawing a bath, and if any of you need the lavatory, I don’t care. Piss outside.”

The fire roars high and warm. Gale gathers his ingredients for dinner and sets to work. When it’s ready, he calls them all to the table (except Astarion, who had managed to swipe his dagger under the water closet door and slash at the poor wizard’s toes when he tried to tell him food was ready). Gale uncorks a bottle of wine and pours freely into their cups. A cauldron full of delicious-smelling stew trails behind him, levitating and ladling out portions of its own accord. Amma tries to snatch the ladle and do it herself, but the thing smacks her on the back of her hand. f*cking wizards. She hates the whole pretentious lot of them. She’ll eat his stupid stew, she’ll drink his stupid wine, she’ll sleep in his stupid magic tent. But she certainly won’t be happy about it.

Once dinner and conversation has finished, dishes washing themselves in the sink and the table set for tea and biscuits (f*cking show-off, Amma thinks), Gale gathers their attention.

“Our little band is growing,” he says, with a fond look over all of them. But there’s something solemn in his eyes. “And while I firmly believe the more the merrier, there is— a matter of some import, of which I must discuss with all of you.”

Would it kill him to speak plainly? Just once?

“In the brief time we’ve been together, I have seen you all demonstrate remarkable guile, skill, and courage,” Gale continues. “It’s warmed my heart and bolstered my resolve, to know that we don’t face our challenges alone. From the moment Shadowheart pulled me from that rock, I’ve never doubted I was in fine company. Your hearts are steadfast, your talents many, and your intuitions canny. In short: I’ve grown to trust all of you. Very much.”

“You’re flattering us,” Amma says coldly. “What do you want?”

He takes it in stride. “I assure you, every word was spoken from my heart of hearts. But, to answer your question, there is— a truth I must reveal. Now, before it is too late.”

They all wait patiently. Gale waits with them, as if he hopes someone will speak out in support. No one does. He inhales bracingly.

“You see, I have this… condition. It’s very different from the parasite we share, but unfortunately, just as deadly. Not contagious, thank gods! No need to worry about that. But I would be lying if I said that my condition is no danger to the rest of you. However! It is quite easy to treat, if not to cure. I have been able to live with my condition for some time now. And— well— what it comes down to is this: I must consume the Weave in order to survive. Namely, by absorbing magic items.”

The party stirs as each reacts. Wyll, nodding stoically; Karlach, sympathetic; Shadowheart, frowning in confusion. Amma, annoyed.

“So what you’re telling us,” she says slowly, “is you’re addicted to magic.”

“Heavens, no!” Gale laughs, though the tension isn’t fully defused. “I don’t need it like a bottle or a pipe, I need it like a— like a cast on a broken bone, or a rotten tooth extracted. It’s not for fun. It’s quite literally life-saving to me.”

“I’d say you’re just fishing for loot,” Shadowheart says.

“Oh, please.” Gale’s getting frustrated. Good. “I have better things to do with my time than hoodwink gullible adventurers out of their trinkets. I know this is a shock, and quite a strange one at that, but— trust me when I say it’s all of vital importance.”

“So’s the locket Komira gave me,” Amma says. (It isn’t. It casts dancing lights. Who the f*ck ever uses dancing lights? She’s planning to sell it as soon as she can find a merchant.)

Gale scowls, takes a frustrated breath in and out, runs his hands over his newly-shaven face. Amma can see the shadows under his eyes, the blackened veins in one cheek; he looks far younger now, but his face is still lined with grief and worry, his hair still shot with gray. She wonders how he acquired his affliction, though not with any sympathy towards him.

“Alright,” he says, “fine.” He stands, walks over to her, crouches down in front of her. “I can show you the ailment I mean to remedy. Place your hand over my heart.”

She doesn’t want to. He takes her hand and does it for her anyway.

As soon as she touches him, she feels the tadpole quiver— she realizes, unpleasantly, that Gale is letting her into his mind. He presses her hand against his chest. The dining room melts away. She melts away. There is a book— bound— then suddenly, without a hand to aid it, opened. There are no words inside it, no illustrations, no paper— there is only darkness, living, twisting darkness, a mass of Weave unwoven that springs and closes like a bear trap. It’s teeth, it’s claws, it’s unstoppable. The shadows dig through flesh and take it over. And gods, is it ever hungry—

And then she’s on the ground, scrabbling away from him. Terror, horror, pain claws at her— she doesn’t know if it’s Gale’s or her own, doesn’t care, doesn’t want it. Wyll and Shadowheart spring to their feet, ready to attack or aid— Karlach looks on in worry.

“Terrifying, isn’t it?” Gale says pleasantly.

She’s sweating. Her breath is short, hard. All she can do is stare at the wizard and wait— she expects him to throw a curse at her, disintegrate her, tell her that the Matron wants her back. He doesn’t. He simply watches her with a pitiful half-smile and knows what he’s wrought.

“What the f*ck was that?” she finally says shakily.

“A long story better told on calmer evenings,” the wizard says. “But what you felt— that blight, that— orb, for lack of a better word… It’s balled up inside my chest. And it needs to be fed. As long as I absorb traces of the Weave from powerful enough sources, it remains quiet.”

“Give me one good reason not to cut your throat right now, and save us all the trouble,” she says.

He sighs, stands, brushes some imaginary dust off his clothes.

“I would deserve it,” he says softly. “But you would not. Were I to pass, the orb would be unleashed. The effects would be… well, unsavory, to say the least. There was a time I almost wished I’d died on that nautiloid, to be fully honest with you— could have blown the whole thing to smithereens. It wouldn’t have been a happy end, but… poetic, perhaps, in its justice.”

“That’s not happening,” Karlach says firmly. “We’ve got your back. You’re stuck with us, now.”

Gale laughs and wipes at his eyes. The conversation continues: some of them offer sympathy, some of them question how he got it. He remains evasive. Amma doesn’t pay attention to it. All she pays attention to is what looks like a liquor cabinet in the kitchenette. She goes to it and finds a bottle of gin, three-quarters full.

She’ll empty it by morning.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

“Ugh, it smells like something died out here,” Shadowheart says, wrinkling her nose. “Whoever tends these sheep is not doing their job.”

“That’s iron-vine,” Wyll says thoughtfully as he scans the swamp around them. “It’s an old monster hunter’s trick. If you can’t mask your scent, spoil it.”

As they round a bend in the path, they see the source of the stench: a Gur man, sat lazily on a tree stump. He has a small knife in his hand and he’s slicing up an apple. There is a bandage wrapped around his head, covering one eye. He pauses as the three of them approach— wary for a moment, then he seems to decide they are no threat.

“Ho there, adventurers,” he says. “Forgive the aroma— it keeps many worse things far away. I had not known this path to be well-trod. Is there a treasure or a tomb that I don’t know about?”

His un-bandaged eye is jovial, and his smile is warm. Wyll returns it easily, striding right up to the man and clasping his hand.

“If there is, it’s news to us. We’ve come for the herbalist. But you are a monster hunter, are you not? What’s brought you this far into the wilds? I have not seen hide nor hair of anything more dreadful than a gnoll.”

The Gur looks them over.

“Have you, now?” he says thoughtfully. “Perhaps it is no mere chance we’ve met, then. I am Gandrel, and I am indeed a monster hunter— slayer, too, when I can help it. I had an audience with the soothsayer this morning. I’d hate to say you came all this way for nothing, but— well, frankly, I needed her aid to catch my quarry, and such talents do not come without their cost. I’m afraid our conference may have spoiled her appetite for company today.”

“Wyll,” the Blade introduces himself, and then the others. “Karlach, and Shadowheart. If that’s the case, then I suggest we come again tomorrow—?”

His gaze lingers on Gandrel, then settles on Shadowheart as he posits his question. She nods.

Wyll continues, looking to the Gur again: “Though, if your business with her is concluded, perhaps we can be of some help to you. What are you hunting for?”

Gandrel shakes his head.

“Never you mind, my boy,” he says kindly. “I would not draw you into the dreadful business any more than I already have.”

“Aw, at least come back to camp with us,” Karlach says, looking between Gandrel and her companions. “Don’t know about you two, but I want to hear more about the monster hunting. We can have some drinks, tell some stories— pass the time a bit quicker, eh?”

Shadowheart starts, “Karlach, I don’t know if we should—”

“Aw, c’mon, please? I’m dyin’ to hear something that’s not Gale’s Tales. You can’t tell me you’re not, either. Also, it’s the polite thing to do, innit, Wyll?”

“I wouldn’t say no to the company,” Wyll shrugs. “— If you’re amenable, of course.”

Gandrel stands and slings his pack over his shoulder amicably.

“That I am, my friend.”

Gale is delighted by the newest addition to their group, even if it’s only temporary. Wyll managed to bag a large boar on their way back, and this has inspired the wizard to forego the magic tent in lieu of a more festival-type meal. There is a hearty, herby broth simmering over the campfire, and with a mold earth cantrip (he was very excited to relay that it was just a simple cantrip, practically anyone could do it!), he’s dug out a pit to cook the boar in. The whole campsite smells amazing. Karlach and Wyll are laughing with Gandrel. Shadowheart is helping Gale dig various ingredients out of his enchanted backpack. Amma has sat herself down next to the backpack, where she can sneak glances at the cleric every time she passes by; Astarion lurks behind her, on the other side of the log she’s sitting back against. They’ve all got a cup of something strong. It’s not the worst time.

“Yes, yes,” Gandrel’s laughing. “We blight your crops, sour the milk in your cows, seduce your daughters— Moonmaiden’s mercy, I almost wish it all were true! I’ve got a few farmers I would love to curse. Alas, my kin and I are simple wanderers.”

“I thought all Gur were vagrant cutthroats,” Astarion mutters distastefully.

“I thought all elves were smart enough to keep their mouths shut and stay out of trouble,” Amma mutters back to him.

Wyll asks Gandrel what he’s hunting.

“Something terrifying, no doubt,” Gale says, looking eagerly between the two monster hunters. “A dragon? Ettin?”

Gandrel laughs. His cheeks are ruddy with drink. “Nothing so exciting, I’m afraid— this time it is a vampire spawn.”

“A vampire?” says Wyll curiously. “I wouldn’t have thought this forest home to such a nest.”

“It’s not. This one’s flown far from his master, you see.”

Amma watches Wyll’s brow furrow. “To what end?” he asks.

Gandrel half-shrugs. “Lord Cazador Szarr has been the sworn enemy of all my kin for centuries. I imagine that he needs no motivation other than raining misery upon us.”

“Szarr,” Gale says, low and astonished. “That’s a nasty coven, if the histories are to be believed.”

“I imagine they are,” says Astarion coolly.

Amma looks him over as he takes another drink of wine. This close, she can see an old, faded scar peeking out from his loose collar— two puncture wounds along his jugular.

“Wonder if we’d get a reward, if we could find him first,” she says.

Astarion’s red eye lands on her. He tilts his head and looks at her sidelong for a moment, like a hawk spotting a mouse. She holds his gaze— unimpressed. Then she watches him clench his jaw, one harsh line appearing on his face as he glares pointedly away from the monster hunter. He looks like he wants to bare his teeth. Instead, his lips press together, tight and thin, to hide them.

“Less than is worth it to try,” he hisses into his cup.

Gandrel continues: “We have tried in vain to capture spawn of his, in order to interrogate them, to find some kind of weakness— but of late, I fear, the lord has called his children home. I managed to wound one of them, not a tenday ago, but lost him in the chaos of the mind flayer attack.”

“Thrilling,” Astarion says, draining his cup and looking very pointedly away from the monster hunter. “And when you catch him, you’ll, what? Stake him, cut off his head, burn his flesh to ashes, and dance over his grave?”

Gandrel chuckles, but it’s not exactly a happy sound. “Ordinarily, yes. But for this— my orders are to bring him back alive. Or, at least, still talking. I can’t promise the state of anything except his mind and mouth when I am done with him.”

“Well,” Astarion says breezily, “that’s all I need to hear. Sorry, darling—”

He stands and hauls Amma with him by the collar of her shirt. He pulls her back over the log, draws his dagger from his belt to put it at her neck— practiced, easy, just like he had on those cliffs over the Chionthar— but she’s a quick learner. So she sends her elbow back into his gut, hooks her foot around his ankle, and pitches him forward over her shoulder. He lands on his back with a groan. The dagger drops at Amma’s feet and she kicks it up into her hand.

Karlach gives a shocked, “What, it’s HIM?”— Shadowheart goes stiff, her eyes on Amma— Wyll’s at her side in a flash, his rapier drawn and leveled under Astarion’s chin.

“That’s not possible,” Gale says, staring down at Astarion as he grunts and blinks stars out of his eyes. The sun is setting, at just the right angle now that he has to squint. It makes Astarion look gold. “A vampire? It simply can’t be— he’s been in the sun, we’ve seen him, vampires can’t— oh.”

Gale blinks, and then says again, slower: “Ohhh.”

“Hypothesis, Gale?” Shadowheart prompts.

“It’s the tadpole, isn’t it? It’s overriding something in your body, making you immune to sunlight. Can you see as well in the daylight as you can in the dark? Does it irritate your skin at all? Or is it total—”

“Why alive?” Wyll calls sharply to Gandrel, not taking his eyes off the vampire at the end of his blade.

Gandrel, ignoring all of them, has gone to his pack and drawn out a coil of thick rope. He keeps one end looped around his hand and tosses the other to the ground— it’s enchanted, darting toward Astarion even as he ducks Wyll’s rapier and tries to roll and leap to his feet— the rope nooses itself around his ankle and he falls again, this time on his front. Amma watches it crawl up his body and ensnare him, bound at the wrists, looped twice around his neck and mouth. Gandrel begins to drag him closer like a dog unwilling to heel.

Amma puts her foot on Astarion’s back and anchors him in place.

“This one’s mine,” she says.

Gandrel looks at her sidelong.

“There is no coin reward for him, if that’s what you’re after, lass.”

“There’s a coin reward for everything. Just need to know who to ask.”

“He is a danger to you all.”

“Is he?” Amma replaces her foot on his back with a knee, fists her fingers in his white hair (gods, it’s soft, he feels like a spoiled little prince) and yanks his face up from the ground. “Are you dangerous, Astarion?”

He twists and wriggles. It’s no use. He can’t answer; the rope has wound around his mouth. His hands are tied behind his back, and she knows he’s trying to work them free— that’s what any self-respecting thief would do— so she shifts her knee a little lower, presses her weight down on his fingers. The tiniest pained sound escapes him.

“You can ask your questions or not,” she tells Gandrel. “Makes no difference to me. But he’s not leaving this camp.”

He watches her: when she is resolute, his eyes rove over each of her companions. Shadowheart moves to stand beside Amma. Karlach draws her axe. Gale sighs and sets his ladle down on a rock, groans as he gets to his feet, prepares to unleash an acid splash.

And Wyll— the Blade of Frontiers, famous defender of the downtrodden, rescuer of cats in trees, destroyer of mythic monsters— does not move.

Gandrel nods, slowly, and goes to Astarion. The vampire is still pinned under her knee, but he writhes like a rat in a talon, trying to shield his face when the hunter reaches out for him. Gandrel pulls the rope away from his mouth. Astarion spits on him. He wipes it away.

“Where is my daughter?” he says softly.

“Dead,” Astarion snarls.

Gandrel winces. “She is not,” he says. “I gave my eye to know she’s not.”

“Then you gave your eye for nothing, you worthless hen-thief—”

“You did not kill her,” the hunter says. “You had further instructions. What were they?”

Astarion’s face is truly awful as he bares his fangs and says, “If you’re lucky, you’ll find bones.”

There is a moment, here, when all of them consider the circ*mstances: Gandrel’s hand twitches for his own dagger. There are five of them if Wyll chooses his companions, four if he doesn’t, and only one of Gandrel. Amma still has Astarion’s hair in her fist. She also still has his dagger in her other hand.

She decides to see how dangerous Astarion can be.

It’s the dagger, first, slashing at his bonds, one long slice along his side. Then it’s her hand out of his hair and her knee off of his back. And Gandrel was not expecting this, because then it’s Astarion lunging at him like an animal— reaching for his wrist, dragging his nails into the tendons so the hunter cannot close his hand around his dagger, gripping the back of his neck with the other hand— opening his mouth— and tearing out the Gur’s throat with his teeth.

Wyll cries out, runs to Gandrel, wrenches Astarion off of him. Karlach raises her axe— Astarion doesn’t move toward her; he backs away, looking like a struck hound. The massive tiefling swears, then swears again, and throws her axe into the ground, resigned. Then she sits heavily and drags her hands over her face.

“Shadowheart, help him,” Wyll cries. “Heal him, for the love of—”

She kneels and puts her hands over Wyll’s. Her voice and hands are steady as she tells him it’s no use, he’s too far gone, she won’t waste a scroll on someone they barely know.

Astarion draws near again and aims a kick at Gandrel’s head, and if he wasn’t dead already, the resounding crunch of his temple has now done the job. The Gur’s face turns and does not move again.

Amma watches him back away again, reeling, like he’s never crushed a skull beneath his boot before. She watches his face. She can’t make sense of his expression. Something in her mind imagines the skull beneath his skin, and how it must be fanged and terrible, and under that, the blood and veins and meat of his brain— Astarion’s red eyes grow wide as he looks at her in fear.

“What are you—”

She can feel her tadpole turn a figure-eight behind her eye, and it’s sickening— his face lurches— her mind finds purchase in his own and bites.

She sees taverns. She sees ballrooms. She sees streets, and crowds, and oh, does she smell blood. A thousand faces, a thousand hearts that will be stopped. The sanguine hunger is a gargantuan sensation. As is the loathing. As is the fear. At the core of everything, his eyes, shining in the dark like raw, fresh, bloody meat, and his voice, cold, cutting to the core, commanding. He commands Astarion to feed and she can feel it in her mouth when he bites down, and it’s bloody, but it isn’t good. It’s fleas jumping down his throat and mange against his tongue and clumps of fur between his teeth. Not the tender neck of any of his darlings: a dead, putrid rat. The only thing his master lets him eat.

Reality returns with a dizzying wave of fear and disgust. Amma sways, and so does Astarion— clutching his temple, shrinking back from her like a struck hound. Her vision swims. The taste of blood lingers in her throat, coppery and sickly-sweet— is it from his memories? Or is it carnage in the wake of her own tadpole’s turn, trickling down from the basin of her skull? She can’t worry about that now, if he’s going to strike out at her—

— But he doesn’t.

She looks down at him on the ground, his shape more red than white, and Astarion stares back into her, piercing and unmerciful. The connection has been severed, but the memories remain. The way he looks at her— does he hate her now? Does he want to kill her? Is he sickened by his own thirst for blood? Does he want mercy? She doesn’t know, nor does she care, and she doubts she even has that in her anymore.

(What did he unearth in her while she was digging inside him?)

“He had you on a leash,” she says. She doesn’t know who he is, but it’s a relationship she knows too well.

Astarion doesn’t say anything. He just looks up at her with utter loathing in his face. His chest heaves beneath his now-crimson shirt. He’s trying to figure out a way to make it romantic, she can tell— trying to put a lovely shine on the grimy, evil thing inside him. To present himself as anything but what he is.

“Yes,” he finally hisses. “So you can see why I was slow to trust you.”

He gets to his feet, slowly, looking away from her and gritting his sharp teeth. His hands are shaking. When he stands, he pulls them in close to himself, hunches over, tries to appear small. And as he looks at her, his expression softens; it still holds the ugly twist of hate, around his eyes and the corners of his mouth, but almost out of habit.

From behind her— Wyll’s voice, rough and angry: “Enough of this.”

“No,” Amma tells him sharply, her arm held out to stop the Blade. “He stays. If you don’t like it, you can leave.”

There is a tense silence as she waits for Wyll to do so. He doesn’t. Nor do any of the others. Amma would say that they’re all fools for it, but, well— this was her idea.

She steps closer to Astarion. He stumbles back from her. He’s trembling and hateful.

“Go clean yourself up,” she says. Then— a calculated risk— she glances to the dead body on the ground, instead of watching him. He does not attack her. “I’ll take care of this.”

He starts to un-tuck his ruined shirt and nearly runs from camp. No one stops him.

He can scrub and scrub and scrub until his skin is raw, but of one thing, she’s sure: Astarion is a monster. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. A charming thing that rips and claws and feeds as soon as it can get the chance. From the moment they met, he’s never been anything else, whether his blade was at her throat or in a goblin’s belly. There is no quivering conscience in him— not like the others.

She could use a monster.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Before the nautiloid, Amma spent most of her time either working or drinking. Her greatest skills were slinking and stabbing, and plenty of people paid her to utilize them: security, larceny, assassinations— she did anything if it paid well enough. She’d been up and down the Sword Coast for the better part of a century. Her last job (caravan guard, not the best rate of pay, but plenty of opportunities for an enterprising individual to pad their income with freelance work) (read: stealing from the caravan) had ended in Baldur’s Gate some months ago and she’d been looking for her next. No luck so far, but it was easy to earn or steal enough coin to black out in a tavern more often than not, and that’s what Amma deems important.

This evening, she’s wishing dearly for a tavern. For a meal that isn’t magically prepared. For some real godsdamn privacy , to be alone somewhere and gather her thoughts. This, at least, can be attempted— she’s gone down to the river by herself to do so.

The water is cold, and she doesn’t have any soap, and she could have waited for Wyll to finish bathing in the magic tent, but she was too impatient. She didn’t like the thought of being naked in that place, anyway. Felt too vulnerable. Being alone in the woods is also vulnerable, in potentially a worse way, but she’s trying not to think about that. She lets her mind go blank and dark. She thinks of nothing but the small pains of rocks under her feet, of trying to brush her hair out with fingers.

The midsummer air is warm enough that she doesn’t shiver when she’s done. She’s not nature-minded, but she savors this solitude: the grass is soft below her; the moon is a thin crescent, and the trees block most of the stars. The river is a pleasant rush…

She hadn’t realized she was entranced until she wakes, abruptly. She’d been dreaming of the Matron. She doesn’t fully register the face before her own— just jerks upright and slams her forehead into it.

Astarion cries out in pain.

He stands quickly, staggers back from her, clutching his bloody nose. There’s a dagger hidden in her boot, discarded now beside her— she reaches for it, comes at him on the ground.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he panics, raising a hand to shield himself. He twists and she stabs into the ground next to his head.

“Yeah? Then why shouldn’t I?”

He draws his face into the now-familiar expression he gets when he’s trying to look harmless. “Because, I—” And then he catches her wrist and squeezes and twists and she drops the dagger with a shout of pain. He pulls her to the ground gracelessly, trying to pin her hands— she elbows his jaw, hard , and sends him reeling back again.

“ You —” he snarls, then catches himself, tries to act human, “I wasn’t— I’m not here to hurt you— augh , gods, can you solve anything without violence?!”

Amma knows she can’t risk the time it takes to fumble across the ground and find her blade, not when all he needs is his hands and teeth. She staggers to her feet and dashes ankle-deep into the stream. There is a fallen branch, just shorter than her leg— she picks it up and snaps it over her knee. If nothing else, it will intimidate him.

“No, no, there’s no need for that,” the vampire says, scrambling to his feet and holding his hands up defensively. When she doesn’t drop the stake, he takes another step back. Breathes in deep to calm himself.

“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he says again, too desperately. “I just— look, can we talk about this? Without you threatening to drive a stake through my heart?”

There is a long moment of consideration between both of them. She watches him— he’s relaxed, as best he can be in the moment. He’s not wearing a shirt. (Did Gale refuse to prestidigitate the Gur’s blood off for him, or has he even asked yet?) She’s not flattered at the niceties; she is annoyed.

“No, I think I’d like to have a stake in my hand, now,” she says tightly.

He glares at her. Takes another step back. Something on the ground catches his eye— the red glimmers as his gaze flicks between her and it— he bends quickly and retrieves her dagger from the grass. His back is scarred.

“Then I’d like to have this.”

“Alright, fine.” Oh, he thinks he’s so cute . She’s going to murder him. She’s going to run one of her stakes through his porcelain ribs and the other through his stupid pretty eye. “ Talk .”

Astarion looks at her feet in the water and clicks his tongue disapprovingly. He holds her dagger behind his back, the way someone might hold flowers to surprise a sweetheart— then he walks to the edge of the stream, places one foot on a protruding rock, and extends his free hand nobly to her.

“Come out of there and be civilized, will you?”

She doesn’t move.

“You can’t come into the water,” she says, half an observation, half a question. (Supposedly, he can’t walk in the sun, either.)

He looks down at the water around her ankles, eyebrows arched just-so. Then he looks back to her and holds her gaze— his eyes come alive in the dark, the red so bright and precious. He gets down on one knee and dips his fingertips into the water.

Well, sh*t .

“It’s the tadpole,” he says, nearly grinning, and she can see his fangs. He straightens up, shakes the water off his fingers, then pulls a hanky from his pocket— still holding her dagger, taunting her with it, the bastard— dries his pale hand. “I no longer need an invitation into someone’s home, either. Figured that one out last night when Gale set up the tent.”

“That’s why you’re always in the tavern,” she accuses.

His face turns sour. “No,” he says, “it’s not . At least, not in the way you’re thinking. Now, come out of there. I’m not having this conversation with you while you’re acting like a lunatic.”

A strange sensation courses through her, and Amma can feel her companion’s mind unfold, his secrets half-revealed. And she’s been hungry before— been a beggar on the streets, been starved for someone else’s fun, gone days without enough rations— but not like this . Not a bone-deep, lancing ache that is insatiable and animal. He closes the connection before she can register anything but starvation and the smell of blood— and the feeling of an animal, small and furry, twisting in her hands.

Again, he puts her dagger behind his back, and extends his free hand to her.

Reluctantly, she sloshes over to him, drops one of her broken sticks, and takes it.

His hand is cold, and soft, and when he closes his fingers around hers, it’s surprisingly gentle. He doesn’t pull her in so much as simply drift along with her. His touch is a whisper, the brush of a butterfly’s wing. He lets it linger when she’s on the bank with him, staring down at her; this is the closest they have ever been, without trying to kill each other. He is very, very pretty.

She pulls her hand away.

He gives a little half-smile, a sad laugh, turns his head away— steals a glance back at her.

“I’m sorry, I…”

His voice trails off as he looks at her. He stares at her like he’s never seen anyone so beautiful. It’s disarming, almost dizzying, to have his full attention like that. She suspects many hearts have fallen victim to this particular charm.

“What do you want , Astarion?”

“Ah— yes.” He blinks, recomposes himself. “I’ve been eating— animals. Rabbits, deer, whatever I can get. But earlier, with the Gur…”

His face twists with disgust at himself. Whatever effect he wanted that to have on her, she doubts it was achieved; she just feels a little bit disgusted too. If he was a killer, she would like him better. What’s the use in a monster who’s afraid of his own teeth?

“I just feel so… weak ,” he mutters. “It’s not enough . Not if I need to fight . If I just had a little of your blood, I could— I could think clearer, fight better. I’d be so much more than what I am right now.”

“No,” she says coldly. “Go take it from somebody else.”

“Oh, you mean the cleric? Or the Blade of Frontiers? Or the tiefling that incinerates everything she touches? Or the man who can explode me with his mind and also maybe body? No. It has to be you.”

“The hells it does.”

“I wouldn’t be asking if we had any other choice, ” he grimaces. “I need you alive. You need me strong. That’s the only way we’re going to save ourselves from these worms.”

She doesn’t trust him. But he’s right: he needs her alive, and she needs him strong.

And maybe she’d like to have him on a leash, too.

“Give me back my dagger,” she says.

“No, you’re going to stab me with it.”

“Give me back my dagger, and I’ll let you drink my blood.”

He co*cks his head, like a fox on a vole. The way he watches her is predatory, dissective; his eyes linger at her collarbone, her jaw, her throat. He slowly hands it over to her.

Her blade flashes in the moonlight, and she presses it into her own palm.

He moves to stop her, saying, “You’re making this far more dramatic than it needs to be—” but the blade flashes again, and she points it at him. He freezes.

“You can just lie back,” he pleads. “I only need a taste. I swear. I’ll be so gentle.”

“You’re not getting near my neck until I see how gentle you can be. Get on your knees.”

He hesitates, then does as he’s told. His eyes dart between the dagger and her wrist, her wrist and her neck, her neck and her face. He’s intrigued despite himself.

Amma draws the blade across her palm, a hot flash of pain, and then squeezes her hand into a fist. Blood oozes dark and thick between her gray fingers. Then, she holds her hand out to him. He takes her fist and pulls her fingers open to expose the bleeding palm. The wound is deep; she didn’t flinch about it, like a dainty thing, like her body was so precious. And she told herself that this would be detached, a transaction— but his pleasure in the act makes it perverse. He runs his tongue up the dripping crease of her palm, delving into the fold of her rent flesh, sucking on it, lapping up her blood with ecstasy. It makes pain shoot up her forearm, but she doesn’t stop him. She can feel the wetness of her own blood smearing against her as it drips down his chin; can see his handsome face go drawn and lustful. He’s beautiful. He’s horrendous. She never understood cannibals before.

Remembering his promise of a taste , she says: “Alright, you’re done.” She starts to pull her bleeding hand away from him. He doesn’t let her.

“Stop it,” she hisses, and drives the pommel of her dagger hard into the corner of his jaw. He releases her with a rough sound of pain— and for a moment, they lock eyes. She can see her blood dripping down his chin, coating his teeth, black in the moonlight. He can see the soft, naked pulse point in her neck.

He lunges.

Astarion knocks her to the ground and puts his weight on top of her the way a lover would— animal fear grips her in her chest, her gut— he bites into her neck. And it hurts . It feels invasive, overpowering, like being prey. He grips the back of her head so hard she can feel his nails in her scalp, exposing more of her neck, groans into her skin and sinks his teeth in on a better spot— she can feel her heart racing, such a stupid little muscle, betraying all her blood to him. She’s cold. And part of her is terrified, part of her is swooning at the way he cradles her. She wishes she had oceans of blood to give to him.

Still, anger and instinct give her one last strength: she stabs him. Her dagger drives easily into the meat of his thigh, and she can feel it grind something hard beneath, wonders vaguely if it’s his femur or the ground. He draws his head up from her with a horrible gasp, sending fat drops of blood across them both, lowing in pain.

“You wretched —”

He shoves her away, grits his crimson teeth together and removes her dagger from his thigh. The rest of his sentence devolves into a painful snarl.

She can’t feel anything. She can’t feel the rocks she must be lying on, the heat and wetness of her own blood spilling from her neck. She is too cold to be frightened. She is alone, and bleeding, and the last thing she sees is the white shape of Astarion fleeing, like a ghost in the night. She hopes he isn’t going to get help. She hopes he leaves and no one finds her. It’s a fitting way for her to go, she thinks— murdered in the dark, left to die and decompose in anonymity, too soon to be named in the adventure. He could tell everyone that she took off and they’d probably believe him. She can’t bring herself to be angry about it. At least she doesn’t have to worry about the tadpole anymore.

She fades away with the sight of her blood on his teeth, black in the moonlight, and the memory of his hand cradling her head. There are far worse ways to die.

“No, no, you can’t die — get up, damn you—”

There are hands at her chest, her wrist, her neck. Someone grips her chin and turns her head and it sends dull, throbbing pain all down the side of her torso. She smells blood, wet leaves, dirt. Back in prison? No, it doesn’t smell right. The wardens gave up trying to keep her alive after the fourth time she removed the bandages, anyway.

The hands leave her and she hears shuffling, rattling. She tries to turn over to her side. It’s hard. She’s so cold. So tired. Dimly, in the back of her mind, one dread thought forms: she got caught. The Matron will be angry.

Then, healing magic shoots through her like a lightning bolt. A pale elven face swims into focus above her. She punches it.

“ Agh! Gods damn it —”

Forest. Dawn, or close to it. Old, sticky blood on her hands. Astarion.

“I understand you’re upset, but let’s not get carried away,” she can hear him saying. It’s harsh and tight through gritted teeth. Amma sits up— difficult, painful. An awful, wet, metallic cough seizes in her throat. It makes her vision swim with pain.

“You f*cking killed me,” she manages after a moment.

“ ‘Killed’ feels like a strong word,” he counters quickly. She watches him dab his fingers at his lip, checking to see if it’s bleeding. It is. He grimaces. “Not many corpses have your— vigor . I just used a very expensive scroll on you, by the way, a thank you would be nice—”

She watches him. He watches her. The feeling of her body is starting to return. Her limbs feel weak, twitchy. Her neck throbs with every frantic beat of her heart. Her vision swims.

“Now, I admit, I got a little— carried away last night,” he says. He lowers his chin and flutters his pretty lashes at the ground. “I apologize.”

“Take more than an apology,” Amma growls. His stack of debts is growing.

“ Regardless , look at you now. Perfectly healthy! So let’s not fall out over this.”

She doesn’t feel perfectly healthy. She feels like, if she were to rate her bodily vivacity on a scale of zero to eighteen, with zero being dead and eighteen being full health, she’d be at a one right now.

His pale hand comes into view, open, delicate. He’s offering to help her up.

“We still need each other, after all,” he says.

She ignores it. “Do we?”

Clearly offended, he snaps: “You keep me fed, and I’m a powerful weapon. It doesn’t even have to be you. You know what I am now; I can use my teeth as well as my blade. Consider last night— an aberration. It will never happen again.”

“I didn’t trust you then and now I trust you even less.”

“You have my word. No more late night surprises.”

“Had your word you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“So I got swept up in the moment,” he cries, turning away from her and throwing his hands in the air. She expects him to kick something, strike at her— he doesn’t. She would have far less self control. Desire seems to be a noose around him; if he seeks the end of it, he chokes. ( He kept you on a leash , she’d said, and she had thought she wanted to keep him leashed and collared, too.) (Now she thinks: what if she could cut the rope?) “Can you blame me? I’d never— you were the first —”

He slumps against a tree, drags his hands through his hair.

“I’m not a monster,” Astarion says. He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more so than her. “I never wanted to hurt you. I can do better. Please.”

Amma is unmoved.

“Go back to camp. If they don’t kill you, we can talk about it later.”

“What— what am I supposed to tell them?” he says hesitantly. “If I go back without you—”

“It’s early. They might not even notice you were gone.”

“But if they do—”

“I don’t know,” she snaps. “I don’t care. Just go . You got yourself into this mess. You can get yourself out.”

He lingers.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” he asks. It’s— disarmingly soft.

“Count of three,” she says, not looking at him. “Then I’m punching you again.”

He goes.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

It’s Gale that finds her as she licks her wounds, because of course it would be.

“Oh, thank heavens,” he gasps, jogging over to her as she sits at the river’s edge. She’s been dabbing at her neck and hand with a wet rag, hoping each time she removes it that it will come away clean. It hasn’t. The hem of his purple robes comes into view and he reaches for her— she jerks away and slaps his hand like she’s parrying a blow.

“Apologies— may I?”

“No,” she snaps.

“Would you at least let me—”

“No.”

“But you really ought to—”

“No.”

Gale purses his lips. He’s crouched beside her, and she doesn’t want to look at him. He’s ruining her mood more than it already has been ruined.

“Alright,” he says. “If I am not allowed to lend you physical aid—” And he lifts his hands up, here, makes a show of putting them behind his back, like he’s a child who can’t be trusted in the candy store— “at least allow me to lend some magical.”

“You really don’t—” she starts, but he’s already casting minor illusion.

He presents her with an image of herself.

It’s been a while since she looked this bad.

Her hair is suffering dearly from a lack of dedicated care. Not that it wasn’t before the nautiloid, but— well, it’s loose now, not in a braid or tied back from her face, or hidden under a trusty black thief’s hood. She’d had it in the same long plait since before the nautiloid, and even then it wasn’t fresh. (It desperately wants cutting, but she can’t bring herself to do that. They kept it shaved in Ched Nasad.) Her mouth still tastes like metal and her lips have a crust of spit and blood along the inside. There are flecks of it smeared across the right side of her face as well. Both her eyes look bruised. She tries tilting her head to one side, to make the illusion follow her and expose the wound she knows is there— agony lances down the muscle, shoots into her jaw and clavicle. She sucks in an angry breath. Slowly, she draws her hair up with one hand, and pulls her collar loose with the other.

The bite mark is dark, and crimson, and still glistening. The skin around it has gone veiny and bruised. There are livid scrapes left from his non-fanged teeth, indicating how he’d bitten down when she had struggled. It’s not a pretty sight.

She closes her eyes and makes a frustrated sound deep in her throat.

“Where’s Shadowheart,” she asks Gale.

“Back at camp,” he tells her. “She may or may not be using Karlach to torture Astarion into confessing.”

Her head is pounding. This doesn’t make it better. She feels weak and shaky and she needs a f*cking drink.

“How did—?”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly subtle when he came back to us with blood all down his front,” Gale says. “Last I saw, they tied him to a chair so he couldn’t run off before I found you. Gods, I’m glad I’ve found you. Are you alright to stand? Here, you can use my staff, if you would like— or, better yet, hang on, let me…”

He rummages in his pack and pulls out a vial of mercury. He uncorks it, drops a single droplet on the ground, and casts floating disk. It hovers expectantly beside her.

“Up you get,” Gale says, holding his hand out to help her.

She doesn’t take it. She sits somewhat ungracefully on the disk, cross-legged and hunched.

“This is humiliating,” she tells the wizard.

“None of us think any less of you,” he says gently, starting their trek back to camp. The disk carries her along after him. “Personally, my opinion of you is even higher now than yesterday. Not everyone can fight off a vampire spawn and live to tell the tale.”

She wasn’t talking about the bite; she was talking about being levitated back to camp like a baby in a pram.

When they reach the campsite, Amma’s mood is lifted slightly by the sight of Astarion in deep distress. He’s tied to a chair as Gale said: his ankles to the legs of it, his hands down against the wooden arms of it— which was smart, Amma thinks, because if they’d tied his hands behind his back, they wouldn’t see him working them loose— and a length of cloth wound tight across his mouth, keeping him gagged. Karlach stands behind him with her axe resting on his shoulder, poised to separate his head from the rest of his body. Wyll is sitting on another chair, facing Astarion, slumped and silent with his hands folded between his knees. Shadowheart stands beside him.

“She’s alive,” Gale calls to everyone as they arrive. “I’ve got her, she’s alive, no need to worry— Shadowheart, would you—?”

He doesn’t have to ask; the cleric is already striding towards Amma.

She doesn’t ask before lifting the curtain of red hair and examining the bite wound. She murmurs a cure wounds, and Amma feels the skin itching as it knits back together. Then, the cleric puts the back of her hand against her forehead— her finger to her pulse in the un-injured side of her neck— lifts her top lip with a thumb to check her teeth. Amma doesn’t stop her.

“Still among the living, so that’s good,” Shadowheart says grimly. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Amma lets herself be shepherded. She doesn’t stop staring at Astarion, bound to the chair, and his scarlet eyes don’t leave hers, either. She can’t quite read his expression underneath the rope. He’s not relieved. Angry? Afraid? She doesn’t feel bad for him if he’s afraid. But she finds it interesting that he didn’t just run away, or kill the rest of them while they were sleeping. When Shadowheart draws her red hair over her shoulder— parts of it are crusted with river-muck and her own blood, disgusting— and pins it up, exposing the bite mark, Amma watches Astarion’s throat work up and down. He shifts under his bonds.

(She doubts that it’s desire, but she’d be delighted if it was. What an awful, needy boy.)

Wyll sits up, gets to his feet. Amma hears him talking, even though his voice is low, and steady:

“The way I see it, we have two options. Option one: Karlach makes you a fair bit shorter, and we don’t have to worry about this happening again. Option two: you apologize to Amma, and if you are forgiven, you continue eating animals— and only animals— and we still don’t have to worry about this happening again. Do you understand me, Astarion? Blink once for yes and twice for no.”

Astarion does his best to stare down the Blade of Frontiers, but eventually, he gives one long, hateful blink.

“Oh, let him feed on people,” Amma calls hoarsely. “Bet he’d be useful in a fight, like that.”

Karlach’s mouth twitches and she says, “Told you she would say that.”

Wyll pinches the bridge of his nose. “He’s not feeding on people,” he says, his voice going rough around the edges with frustration. “I don’t care if we meet Arkhan the Cruel tomorrow on the road. It’s animals or nothing.”

“Can we at least ask him if he likes eating animals?” Karlach says, putting one claw at the rope around his mouth. Astarion tries to flinch away; he’s bound too tight, he can’t.

Wyll throws his hands into the air. “Sure! Ask if he’d like us to build a nice coffin for him to sleep in, too.”

Karlach tugs the gag out of his mouth.

“I’m not going back to animals, you plebeian,” he spits immediately. “They’re slop.”

(Karlach gives Wyll a look that’s almost puppy-like.)

“And I’m not apologizing to her. She did far more damage to me than I did to her—” (“I f*cking died,” Amma says to him again) “— and I will not sleep in a coffin, that’s ghastly, if anything you should all be thanking me for having so much self-control—”

“Perhaps we should make him wear a bell,” Shadowheart says boredly from over Amma’s shoulder. “Like a little baby kitten. Dissuade any nighttime prowling.”

Amma smirks at that. Astarion is not amused.

“— And for f*ck’s sake, Karlach, will you untie me?”

“Promise not to go berserk?”

“The longer you take, the more tempting it is.”

“Aw, that’s our man,” the tiefling grins. She and her axe make short work of the ropes. Astarion leaps to his feet as soon as he’s able, shaking his hands as though he needs blood flowing back in them, glaring at them all.

Wyll goes up to him.

“If you bite another person on my watch,” he says, “then so help me, I’ll—”

“No innocents,” Astarion says lightly. “I can even limit it to fighting, if you like.”

Wyll grits his teeth.

“The consequences are on your head, Astarion.”

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

Amma was happy to know that she had never crossed a hag before, and she’ll be positively ecstatic if she never crosses one again.

To the rogues, the choice had been very clear: go to Ethel’s house, see if she could help with the tadpole, leave immediately when they realized what she truly was, then never see the hag again and just forget about whatever creepy magic sh*t she might get up to. Best to leave before she changed her mind and turned them into goats.

To Gale, Wyll, and Karlach, the choice was also clear: oh my gods, there’s a pregnant lady in distress, we have to help her, oh my gods, there are mind-controlled folk down in her basem*nt, we have to help them, oh my gods, how terrible, we have to save them, oh my gods.

This is why Amma never joins a group that isn’t paying her to be there.

She finds satisfaction in the outcome of the fight, even if her companions don’t— Mayrina is alive. That was the goal, and the goal has been achieved. If that stupid girl didn’t want her baby to be hag-bait, she shouldn’t have gone to a hag; and if her brothers didn’t want to die, they shouldn’t have looked for her, either. Simple as that. Amma had gone down to that awful cellar unwilling and outnumbered because— though she didn’t say it at the time, and likely won’t in times to come— she wouldn’t let the stupid do-gooders run straight to their deaths. But she knew that fight was lost from the moment they set foot in Ethel’s fetid swamp. No one seems to grasp how miraculous it is that they threatened a hag and walked away rewarded. What could a couple of folk heroes and four idiots with worms in their brains do that countless adventurers with gods on their side could not? What else did they all expect to find but misery? They’re all fools.

“Feeling stronger?”

It’s late in the evening. She’s sharpening her sword at the edge of the firelight, brooding, seething. Astarion’s stupid face looks down at her, smug; he was the only one beside her in favor of just leaving well enough alone. That, and whatever morbid fascination he awakened in her last night, is enough to allow him an honest conversation now.

“Haven’t used it yet.”

“Oh, come now, it’s hardly worse than a tadpole.”

Amma looks to the spot beside her, where she’s put her bandolier, and beside that, Auntie Ethel’s charm of strength. It’s a chunk of moldering scalp and hair. It smells of grassy tea and sh*t. A milky, pus-filled bubo glistens in the firelight.

“Alright, maybe it is worse than a tadpole,” Astarion concedes. “But it’s only going to get more rancid. Might as well eat the damn thing now.”

“I’ll eat the damn thing when I’m good and ready.” She wraps a rag around the matted hair and tucks it into a pocket for safe keeping; sheathes her sword, sets the whetstone down. “What do you want?”

“Just checking up on you.” He pauses briefly, taking in the stiff way she holds her cut-open hand, and the ripe, veiny bruise on her neck where he’d bit into it the night before. “How do you feel?”

“My neck f*cking hurts. How do you think I feel?”

“Alright, fair enough, that was a stupid question.” He gestures to the empty space beside her. “May I?”

Last night he had his tongue in her and tonight he asks permission to sit down! He’s casual about it, but asking highlights the uncertainty between them now. The lamb has a knife; the butcher’s collared. Who and what will be cut first?

“Don’t see why not,” Amma says, somewhat hesitant.

He puts on his innocent, look-at-me-I’m-so-cute-and-harmless expression and sits down beside her. After a moment of silence, without looking at her, he says: “I am sorry for last night, you know.”

It’s infuriating. She stares into the fire— would that she could just throw him on the flames and then be done with him.

(He didn’t see her washing her hand in the river after he left in the morning, holding that wounded palm to her mouth and testing it with her own tongue.)

“At any rate, you should be glad I’m just a spawn,” he continues. His mouth twists unhappily around the word spawn, like it’s dirtier than Ethel’s charm. “All I took was blood. All I left you with were bruises.”

“You owe me for it,” she says.

He looks at her, wary, a faint line between his eyebrows. He seems tired. Exhausted, even.

“Last night,” she starts, not looking at him, “when you said I was the first.”

“Mm.” He’s not looking at her, either. His finger traces a line in the bark beneath them. “What year is it now?”

“Ninety-two.”

“Ninety-two of what?”

Something lurches in her chest, like a bite taken out of her heart.

“Fourteen-ninety-two,” Amma tells him, and she’s surprised by how soft her voice comes out.

He’s silent for a bit. Then: “Two centuries. Believe me, had I been allowed, I would have drained every single pretty thing I snared.”

“Allowed?”

He sighs and looks up at the stars. Every passing second, there seem to be more of them. She watches a muscle twitch with frustration in his jaw.

“You don’t know a thing about these nasty creatures, do you?” he says, not exactly nicely.

“I know they’re f*cking annoying, if you’re any indication. But no— I’ve never faced a vampire before. Stayed well away from anything that might involve them. Undead give me the creeps. If I’m going to kill somebody, they ought to stay that way.”

Astarion laughs at that, cold and harsh, like breaking glass. She watches his chest rise and fall beneath the fine fabric of his shirt with it, white and perfect in the early night. He’s a curiosity; a contradiction. She doesn’t quite know what to make of him.

“Well, be thankful for that,” he says bitterly, “and pray you never face another one again.”

“Will there be more hunters after you?”

“If I say yes, will you throw me out?”

“No.”

“Then, most likely, yes. There will.”

“Because of what you are, or because of what you’ve done?”

“Does it matter?”

“Only if you’re running from something I should know about.”

He gives her a look— strange, unreadable. Not predatory. Guarded. He runs his finger absently over the place she’d stabbed him, on the top of his thigh.

“Cazador Szarr,” he says, “is a vampire lord in Baldur’s Gate. The patriarch of his coven. He’s a monster. Obsessed with power. Not physical power, magical power— I mean real power. Power over people. He’s been around for— oh, four, five hundred years now, maybe? Far longer than I’ve been his.”

Astarion’s face goes blank as he stares at the campfire.

“He came to me with money, first. Bribery— when I was a magistrate for the city. He wasn’t the first. He wasn’t the last, either. But he was the one that paid the most.”

(Oh, so he’s a corrupt politician! Of course he is.)

“It was harmless enough in the beginning. I helped him keep his reputation; he helped me gain mine. Anyone who bothered him enough wound up in front of me. He wasn’t interested in jail, fines, executions— he always wanted them to go and work off their debts at his estate. I never gave much thought to what would happen to them after.”

Astarion’s voice is distant, light. There is no remorse in it— plenty of regret, but not remorse. It’s dead compared to how he spoke when he apologized for killing her.

“Some Gur ruffians took umbrage with a ruling I had made. It was on Cazador’s behalf, of course. He wanted them out of the city. It was just one more payment to accept. It didn’t matter to me. Not until they jumped me in an alley and beat me to death. And then he appeared… killed them all, offered to save me. To give me… eternal life.”

He’s silent for a moment, his expression settling into bitter loathing. “Given that my choices were eternal life or bleed to death on the street, I took him up on the offer. It was only afterwards I realized just how long eternity could be.”

He goes on: “You see— when a vampire creates a spawn, it’s not just blood they take, it’s everything. Free will. Agency. The master speaks, and your body reacts— it’s all part of the deal. He owned me. I never thought I’d stop being his plaything.”

(Amma thinks of the Matron. Amma thinks of Bonnevance.)

“Even if I could escape— where would I go? It’s not like I could seek shelter in a church. Not like I could sneak in some place uninvited and hide up in the attic. We weren’t even allowed to feed ourselves. No, we had to work for it…”

(Amma thinks of Menzoberranzan. Amma thinks of Myth Drannor. Amma thinks of being sore and tired and not wanting to be touched, and knowing she will be touched, anyway.)

“He’d tell me to bring home the most beautiful people I could find. Not for me, of course. For him. If he was pleased, he’d feed me rats and bugs. And if he wasn’t… well. He’d come up with something worse than rats. He was quite creative on that front. And he was very hard to please.”

“... And now you have the tadpole.”

He grins. It doesn’t seem to sit right on his face.

“Which opens all sorts of doors for me, now, doesn’t it? I’m going back to Baldur’s Gate. And when I reach the city, I’m going to kill him. Painfully.”

“So you want to keep it,” Amma prompts. She’s scheming.

“Until I can find some other way of magically defying the monster who controlled me utterly for an immortal lifetime? Yes. These tadpoles are a power I intend to fully utilize.”

“You may be trading one master for another,” she says. “That’s no way to live.”

The grin slips off him and he looks at her sourly. His eyes glitter in the dim firelight, fine-cut rubies in the most delicate ivory face.

“No, it’s not,” he says. “But I’m not just saying things for sympathy. I won’t have someone holding power over me again. Not him— not you. I don’t care what it takes. I will be free.”

“Whatever it takes may be quite a lot,” she says. She speaks from experience. (There’s no remorse in her voice, either.)

“And I’ll gladly give it! Look, I’m telling you all this because you seem like a useful person to know, and you seem to— to understand. I’ll help you if you help me.”

Shadowheart thinks she’s good at manipulating people. She’s got nothing on Astarion. Amma sees the bear trap of his loyalty spread open before her: it puts her at odds with Wyll, with Gale. It pits her against good people, whoever those are. And the way he says he understands— that’s an insight she had hoped to avoid with this lot. He has her at a disadvantage with it. If she denies him, she’s forfeit. If she indulges him, she’s safe. She considers the trap. The spring, the teeth. The slightly more than transactional relationship they’ve now developed.

What the hells, she figures. Why not.

“I’ll help you,” Amma tells him.

“Thank you.” Relief floods his voice. “That monster hunter— it’s no coincidence, I’m sure of it. Cazador sent him. He’s got minions upon minions all through Baldur’s Gate. No doubt he will send others. We need to be careful— vigilant. Watch out for anything lurking in the shadows.”

“What, do you have a list?”

“Of sorts.”

“Well, give me a back and I’ll stab,” she says. It’s emotionless, matter-of-fact. “Just don’t let me f*cking die again.”

He flashes her a wicked smile.

“An eminently reasonable compromise,” says Astarion. “I’m glad we could establish that.”

With that, he stands, gives her a princely little bow.

“Good night, sweet thing.”

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Wyll comes to his bedroll late that night.

He’d been subdued after the fight with Auntie Ethel— more so than the rest of them, bone-sore and poisoned— and it wasn’t hard to see why: he had to watch an innocent woman and her innocent baby get traded to a hag by his own companions.

“You’re a monster,” he had said to Amma when the deal was done.

“No,” she’d told him, not insulted in the least, as she tucked Ethel’s charm into some burlap. “I’m a realist.”

After that, Gale had tried to convince him to sit for dinner with the rest of them, but Wyll had told him— not unkindly— that he’d be sh*t company just then. When he didn’t return after fifteen minutes, Karlach had loaded up a second plate and gone to find him. Amma wondered if they’d start fighting. Hoped for it, actually. She loved listening to other people being nasty and unpleasant. When that didn’t happen, she resigned herself to maintaining her swords and staring at the charm that Ethel had given her, as if she could somehow will the thing to be more savory.

“Brought you some nosh,” Karlach says softly to him.

Wyll gives a sullen look over his shoulder, but his brow softens on her. He’s sitting on the riverside, arms around his knees, hands clasped. He mutters, “I don’t think I’ll ever get my appetite back after what we saw today.”

Karlach sighs. Her breath clouds even this early in the evening. A few tiny plumes of smoke escape the grommets on her shoulder with it. Wyll won’t need a fire to keep his dinner warm, she supposes; that’s one positive to this whole situation.

“At least pretend to eat it,” she says, setting the plate down next to him. “Mush it up or give some to the fish, or something. Gale worked hard on this. I think he wanted to apologize with food.”

Wyll scoffs. He has a bottle of wine, uncorked, and no cup to drink it with. Karlach hopes it pairs alright with whatever the wizard magicked up.

“I don’t want his apology,” he says bitterly. “He’s—” He stops himself, gestures vaguely. His expression darkens again. “Well. You saw her.”

“That I did.” Karlach sits down a small ways away from him, trying not to overwhelm the poor man with heat. “But I saw you, too.”

Wyll’s whole posture softens as he considers her words. His thick shoulders go round and slumped. His mouth purses, infinitesimally. Karlach notices the tiniest bit of wine-red in his cheeks. Something in the look of him reminds her of Zariel before the Descent. They have the same stony set to their face— justicial, righteous. Trustworthy. He looks at her, and his good eye flashes warmly in the glow of her flames; it reminds her of buckwheat honey. And for all the scars, for all the anger— he still looks so kind.

That’s something Zariel never got, Karlach thinks. Kindness. The Lord of the First saw no difference between people and machines.

“You can’t save everyone, Wyll,” she says softly.

“Then what is the point?”

Karlach blinks.

“Look, I know it don’t feel like it, but you did the right thing back there—”

“We condemned a mother to lose her child— worse, we condemned that innocent child to see the tooth-end of a hag,” Wyll says angrily. “If you think that’s a good thing, you’ve spent too long in the First.”

Immediately, he winces at his own words. Before Karlach can really get angry, he’s apologizing, but she cuts him off.

“I didn’t say good,” she tells him. “I said right.”

The Blade falls silent. He stares at her, and his jaw is a little bit slack, his eyes pained. He has a face that’s aged too quickly too soon.

Gods, she wishes she could touch him. Give him a pat on the shoulder— take his hand— give him a hug. Anything.

Karlach continues: “And yeah, it was sh*tty. I hate that it happened, too. But we weren’t gonna make it out of there alive.”

Wyll simply looks at her. He doesn’t look angry so much, anymore— just sad.

(She’ll never understand that.)

The tiefling asks him, “Who sent you after me?”

He turns his head away, then. Stares out over the water. Takes a drink of the wine. For her sake, and more time to stall, he takes a few bites of the meal she brought him. (Gale’s really outdone himself. He’ll have to apologize later for missing the table.)

“Does it matter?” Wyll says finally.

Karlach considers this, briefly. “S’pose not,” she says. Then: “Look, I won’t pretend I know what’s going on with you and yours. But I’m not stupid, either. I know you’re s’posed to bring me back. But I’m not going. And you haven’t made your move yet, so— something tells me you’ve got more good in there than you might think.”

Wyll tries and fails to smile at her. “I thought you said right, not good,” he says.

Karlach gives him her own smile in return, real and hot. “Good is keeping me around. Right is keeping all those chucklef*cks alive. Trust me, Wyll— you can’t always do good. But you can always, always do right. No matter what anyone tells you.”

She stands, brushes sand off her pants, starts back to the campsite. The riverside is so much colder when she leaves.

“I’m beat, man. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t take too long getting back, eh? Or I think you’ll really hurt Gale’s feelings.”

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

Goblins are annoying, slovenly, stupid creatures. Like if wasps and gnomes had a baby. And that baby was raised by a sentient pile of hot, stinking garbage.

But, when they’re bowing before her and offering the spoils of their recent pillage, it’s hard not to like them, just a bit.

Amma strides at the front of the group, savoring the goblins’ fear and worship. The awful little creature she saved in the grove, Sazza, scrambles along ahead of them. “Outta my way,” she snaps here and there at the other goblins. “Piss off, git, I got important business with the True Soul!”

Sazza leads them through the ruined temple of Selûne: past a gaggle of mud-caked scouts, a pair of worgs squabbling over a dismembered arm while a bugbear tries to intervene without losing his own limbs, down into the dark, shattered belly of the place. It smells of damp stone and acrid torches. The air itself feels grimy in Amma’s lungs.

“Mistress! It’s me, your loyal servant! Sazza!” shouts the goblin, trotting into an antechamber. “I’m back! An’ I brought a friend!”

A cold, low voice answers. “How thoughtful. And how did you find this friend?”

As the party enters the chamber, they see their adversary: a drow woman, tall, noble. Leather armor wraps around her figure, made to look like silk and webbing— common armor for the Underdark, but this set is exquisitely crafted, its color lustrous in the dim stone chamber. Clearly not secondhand or looted. She brought it with her.

“They woz in some rickety druid’s grove,” Sazza explains, bending over to catch her breath after jogging through the entire camp. “Mostly full of tieflin’s, but— but them intruders yer after were hidin’ out there too!”

Amma feels a cold hand caress her brain as the other drow appraises her. It’s nothing like she’s felt before— not like the opening of her companions’ minds, like a wound in her own flesh; not like the dwarf in the forest, clutching desperately at her mind as he rattled his last breaths. Not like the Matron and her ceaseless whispers. The broken temple melts away, and Amma exists in darkness, nothingness… alone, but for the other drow. She thinks instinctively of altars, eight-sided rooms, torture. On the woman’s neck, she vaguely recognizes a House insignia tattoo. It’s from Menzoberranzan— Despana? Melarn? No— she senses it in the drow’s mind, possessing the knowledge without even realizing it. Baenre. Minthara.

“Oh, dear,” Minthara purrs. Amma doesn’t need a tadpole to sense the drow’s mounting excitement as she thinks of a fitting punishment for the goblin. “Your prisoner is one of the Absolute’s favorites, Sazza. A True Soul .”

“Can’t be!” The goblin looks between them frantically, terror-stricken. “They woz in the grove, hangin’ around with the tieflin’s!”

“Undercover, no doubt, and carrying out the Absolute’s will. Oh, Sazza… You have made a grave error.”

The conversation melts away as Minthara details the goblin’s impending doom. As the Nightwarden’s attention shifts away, Amma steals her own consciousness back, feeling vaguely ill. She shifts closer to her companions. Someone touches her arm— she jerks away. Gale. He looks at her with concern and apology lining his face. She shakes her head. Some part of her understands that he’s only trying to be friendly, helpful. The rest of her wants to run as fast and far away from this place as possible. f*ck the Absolute. f*ck the grove. f*ck everyone trying to get in her head.

“It seems the inhabitants of the grove trust you,” Minthara’s saying. “Good. You shall be my eyes and hands, True Soul.”

The five companions’ thoughts surge into Amma’s mind, unbidden— Shadowheart’s artifact, Gale’s fear for the refugees, Karlach and Wyll’s desire to end Minthara here and now burning like hellsfire. Amma pushes them back, wills them to understand; she pictures the goblin raiders before the grove, then the goblins in the temple. They’ll be easier to take out with their numbers thinned. Even with the full party, starting a fight right now is not a risk she’ll take.

“Enough,” the Nightwarden barks. Their psionic connection breaks abruptly. “Speak only to me when you are in my presence. Now— show me.”

She touches Amma’s thoughts again, sifting clinically through recent memories— each one examined for a moment and then set aside, until she finds the one she seeks. Zevlor. Alfira. Mirkon. Mattis. Arabella. The archdruid Kagha, dull and white in death. Amma clenches her fists.

Finally, the Nightwarden releases her mind, a look of grim excitement on her face. “Return to the grove,” she commands. “Enter their sanctuary, as a friend. I shall follow with the warband. When the time is right… we strike.”

Amma lowers her chin. “It will be done.”

Minthara’s cruel smile returns. “We will burn the infidels and their profane idols,” she says, her voice low and fervent. “We will paint the ground with blood and ash. A glorious slaughter— one worthy of Her favor. Go, True Soul. And may the glory of the Absolute go with you.”

Amma does not wait for her companions to react. She turns on her heel and walks. Where, exactly, she doesn’t know, as long as it’s away from the Nightwarden. She can hear them speaking behind her as though from underwater: Astarion, excited at this turn of events; Gale, disapproving. They pass between the light of two torches, and in the gloom, someone shoves her into the wall.

Predictably, it is the Blade of Frontiers. She doesn’t move against him as he presses his forearm against her throat and his fist against her chest, close enough that both of his dark eyes flick between her own, searching for (or hoping to perhaps inspire) shame or regret.

“Gods damn you, Amma,” he spits at her. “What the Hells have you done?!”

“Shut up and think for once, you idiot,” she spits back. “We move against her here, we’re dead.”

He opens his mouth, but Karlach cuts him off: “She’s got a point, Wyll. This place is crawling with goblins— worse than goblins. There’s just too many of them to risk it.”

“So we gamble with the lives of innocents?!”

“No.” Gale, now, his eyes narrowed in thought. “We weight our dice.”

“The Black Company,” Shadowheart says, catching on. “That Zhent on the Risen Road gave us their passphrase. They’re bound to have something that will tip the scales— smokepowder, scrolls. If nothing else, we can make sure there’s no more grove to raid.”

Wyll gives her a glare as hot as embers. For all his talk of heroism, there is an ugly rage in him that struggles to stay down.

“We need a strategy,” Karlach says. She’s not just trying to diffuse the tension; Amma felt her rage, too, knows the head of her axe will be the last thing she sees if they don’t kill Minthara. The tiefling knows battle— she knows they’ll need a plan beyond just “blow sh*t up”.

Wyll looks at Amma, waiting.

She has nothing for him.

“Wonderful,” she can hear Gale mutter, glancing around to make sure no goblins can hear them. “Well, I hope you can come up with one. And quickly .”

Astarion: “Wait. Am I the only one who’s actually in favor of just letting the goblins in?”

Gale pinches the bridge of his nose. “We’re not letting them in.”

“I know we don’t intend to, but let’s be realistic. The six of us— alright, seven, if we can find the druid— squaring off against…” Astarion waves his hand. “All of this. The best option is we simply cut and run.”

Wyll releases Amma and steps away from her. She can see the anger that lingers in him— can see the pain, too. He wants so desperately to save everyone. He rages against fate like a finch rages against a cage: loud, and beautiful, and doomed.

“We are not running,” he says.

For a moment, they all stand in tense silence.

Shadowheart is the one to finally break it: “We have time,” she says lowly. “It will take them at least a day to rally forces and reach the grove. And you heard Minthara— she won’t act until we say so.”

Amma has stopped paying attention. Her mind lingers— seethes— on Nightwarden Minthara. It’s too familiar. The fervor to please— to be worthy. It never satisfies. It’s a need that grows and grows, devouring heart, devouring soul. It’s a dark star that drains the life of everything around it and then implodes. It’s an abyss with no end. She is a pawn that thinks itself a paladin. It reminds her of Myth Drannor. Bonnevance. It hurts.

“I say we look for Halsin first,” Shadowheart murmurs. “If he’s still alive, he’ll be here. If he’s dead— well, he’ll probably still be here, just in pieces. If nothing else we can tie up that loose end.”

“And if he is alive?” Astarion counters. “Then what? We just leave him here? Pat him on the head, tell him to sit tight while we lead the enemy right to his precious grove?”

The conversation fades away from Amma. She doesn’t listen, doesn’t care. She feels something tug at the edges of her consciousness— Gale. She meets the wizard’s gaze. He opens his mouth— closes it. Lifts his hand to touch her arm— thinks better of it, lets it drop to his side.

Gale looks at her like she’s an animal in a trap, and he came to save her, but he took too long and now she’s chewing through her leg and so he has to choose what’s kinder: try and free her so she dies wild, or just put her down. Maybe he’s right to look at her like that, but she’ll be damned if he can save her. She’ll bite through every bone she has if it keeps his hands away from her.

“Back there, when Minthara read our thoughts,” the wizard begins gently. “I won’t ask again, if you’d rather not talk about it. But… would you… like to talk about it?”

“No,” Amma says tersely.

She’s short with Gale all the time. She knows it isn’t fair to him— he’s been nothing but kind to her, and the others, and he really is an asset in the group. Even if she was willing to explain, to tell him about the Matron, about Ched Nasad, she knows he would not understand. She can imagine the way his face would fall when she told him what she’d done. The pity. The disappointment . The offer he would make to fix it . No, she won’t tell him a thing. She would rather eat glass.

On a whim, ignoring her companions, Amma takes off for the goblins’ interrogation chamber. She needs to do something petty and controlling. She’d intended to return when no one was around, pick the lock, and free their prisoner. Now she thinks she’ll make him look at his own entrails. There is a new torturer stationed— human. Scarred.

“New orders,” she says to the man without introduction. He turns. His face, his bare chest, his arms, all are a scourge of pocks and scars. She recognizes the symbol on his ragged robes: Loviatar. How fun.

“And you are..?”

“Just passing through. Nightwarden’s found her quarry. You’re dismissed. I’ve orders to kill this one.” (The boy dissolves into unintelligible pleas.)

The priest looks back at the prisoner longingly, one hand caressing a hammer on his belt. “Such a waste ,” he mutters as he leaves.

Once he’s gone, Amma moves to the boy on the rack. He’s been beaten, perhaps a few broken bones, but nothing truly serious. What a fool to cry like that. She’s been given so much worse.

“Please,” he whimpers. “P-please, I’ve told you everything I know.”

Amma doesn’t respond. She goes to the brazier in the corner. Picks up a strip of metal the goblins left in it. The end is red-hot.

“Alright, I think that’s quite enough,” comes Gale’s voice. He steps into view— between her and the boy on the rack. “Put that down .”

“Why should I?”

The wizard, for once, is speechless.

Shadowheart’s voice, distant, disgusted: “What’s come over you?”

Amma scoffs. She drops the heated metal on the ground, KLANG, and walks away from them without a word. She needs a distraction. She needs to hurt something.

She stalks down the corridor, gripping and un-gripping the hilt of her dagger. Could kill that goblin by the torch there. Could kill that goblin on the steps. Could kill the boy. What do they gain by freeing him? At best, he dies in the wilds between here and the grove; at worst, he dies sooner.

The sound of someone in pain draws her attention.

There— the priest of Loviatar: lecturing the goblin torturers. He has the arm of one outstretched while the other watches eagerly. Slowly, with practiced care, the priest draws a thin blade along the goblin’s forearm, peeling a layer of flesh with it like an apple skin. The goblin howls in agony while his compatriot claps and cheers.

“Now take his eyes!” the torturer shouts, like he’s watching a bar brawl.

The priest gives a long-suffering sigh. “And what would that achieve?”

“He’d have no eyes!”

“Yes. And that would be a great loss to both of you. The eyes, the ears, the tongue— these are just as important as the knife, the skin.” He severs the loose flesh from the goblin’s arm and holds the bloody ribbon up before its sharp face, wearing an expression of deep contemplation. The goblin wheezes in torment. “The expectation of pain can be just as powerful as pain itself. The mind is eager when the body is reluctant.”

The goblin torturer clearly has other ideas. “Make him eat it!” he shrieks, jumping up and down.

The priest closes his eyes, mouths something about patience, and shoves the flayed goblin away, throwing its own ruined flesh at it.

“Begone, wretch. I have nothing left to teach you.”

The goblins skitter out into the main hall. The man goes to a makeshift desk, washes his hands in a basin of already bloody water. His gaze finds Amma in the doorway.

“I see you made quick work of the prisoner.” It’s mildly disdainful. He dries his hands, then looks back to her. His expression softens.

“Forgive me,” says the scarred priest. “I am Abdirak, Whiplar of the Maiden of Pain. I was invited to discuss pain and its intricacies, but these goblins are… crude. I’m afraid they do not grasp such subtleties. They seek only to smash and break . Pain without purpose is a terrible thing, wouldn’t you agree?”

Amma holds his gaze. His mind is blissfully empty, quiet. No worm in him to open her with. He’ll have to use his hands. Good. “It’s appalling,” she hears her own voice say.

“Exactly.” Abdirak is thrilled to have someone who understands, finally. She walks into the room, towards him. “Pain is an intimate thing. It should be delivered with a loving and measured hand.”

She's beside him now. His eyes drink her in— the shadows under her eyes, the frown lines between her brows, the way she stands up straight as she was taught at the end of a whip.

“Oh, dear one,” he says gently. “Something terrible has happened to you.”

She says nothing. He puts his fingers on her chin, the slightest touch, tilts her face towards him.

“Do not be ashamed,” he tells her. “All have suffered in these dark times. It is little wonder you bear such scars of pain and anguish. Through Loviatar’s love, I may bring you peace… if you so wish it.”

“Wish it,” comes Astarion’s voice from behind her. She had honestly forgotten he was there. It’s— unexpected, but a welcome relief, to have someone else tell her what to do.

“I wish it,” Amma says.

Abdirak glances over her shoulder to the elf, a smile forming on his slashed mouth. “One to share your pain?” he says. “Exquisite. The goddess shall find such delight in you this day.”

The priest steps away from her, gestures to a blood-stained alcove in the back of the room. Amma can see a stone table in the corner laden with whips, blades, hooks, stinging poisons.

“Face the wall, and we can begin.”

She does not care that Astarion is watching. Enjoys it, even— the same way one would enjoy peeling off a scab and exposing the fresh, tender skin below. If anyone would understand what she’s about to do, it would be him.

She removes the belt of her sword and bandolier from across her chest. Unbuckles the sheath of her dagger at her side. Then, her leather gauntlets, quickly, pulling them off with her teeth; she removes her padded gambeson, her shirt. She goes to the blooded alcove bare-chested and shivering in the dank temple air. Her palms press into the stone.

Abdirak, true to his creed, does not warn her before the first strike comes. The morning-star slams into her back spiked and cruel, shredding furrows of flesh from her hip to her shoulder blades. He’s holding back. She bites the inside of her cheek.

“The pain will cleanse you,” the priest says, his voice alight with religious fervor. “Do not fight it.”

Amma forces herself to breathe evenly. On an exhale, she hisses, “Harder.”

“You want it harder?” She can’t see his face, but she can hear the smile. He’s pleased. “As you wish.”

This time, she can feel her ribs give way beneath the blow. A hot trickle of blood flows down her side. She’s seeing stars. Her hands ball into fists, but remain raised, pressed against the stone.

“Harder.”

Abdirak laughs, a joyous, ecstatic sound. “Wonderful. Shall I break you, dear one?”

With the third blow, she falls to her knees. Her forehead touches the ground as she curls over. It’s not as bad as Ched Nasad. Nothing is as bad as Ched Nasad.

“That’s it,” he says. “Welcome the pain. Let it become part of you.”

Her eyes are hot with tears, flooding down her cheeks, spilling onto the bloodstained floor.

“Harder.” Breathing is agony. Speaking, even more so. “Again.”

He’s come up close behind her— reaches down and grips her by the hair, pulls until she’s sitting upright, still with her back to him. She doesn’t fight him. She can feel her broken ribs shifting where they shouldn’t, poking into her lungs. Her hands are limp on the floor at her sides.

The final blow is a vicious upswing, so powerful it lifts her off the ground. It feels like her spine has been disassembled. Her vision goes white with agony.

Distantly, she hears Abdirak speaking to her; in a moment, she comes to. “My sweet child,” he’s saying, pulling her upright again by the hair and supporting her with a hand on her waist, careful of the ribs he’d fractured. His ruined face leans over her and presses a chaste kiss of the clergy to her forehead.

“You bore the pain beautifully, as a true believer. I am proud to have served you this penance.” He helps her stand, guides her to the stone bench where she’d left her things.

“You were holding back,” Amma mutters dully.

He chuckles. “Spoken as though by the goddess herself. Be proud, dear one. Loviatar has found your performance inspiring. She has deemed you worthy of her blessing.”

The priest disappears from view. She can feel Shadowheart’s small hands cradling her, keeping her upright, can hear the cleric murmuring a healing incantation. Her ribs knit back together. Abdirak returns with herbs and oil and begins his own ritual over her bowed head. As he finishes the chant, her vision glows crimson: a nine-tailed whip.

“And, on a personal note—” He touches beneath Amma’s chin once more, pulls her face to look at him. “— Thank you. Your suffering was divine.”

Shadowheart helps her put her shirt back on. Amma moves to pick up her sword and bandolier, but Astarion snatches it away from her, telling her something about You’re in no state to carry these. She tries to curse at him but it’s hard to make a compelling point when she’s on the verge of fainting. Every inch of her hurts. But her mind— her mind is quiet. Whatever’s been inflicted on her, it was her desire, her choice. She owns herself again. She finds serenity in this.

“Would you have joined up with her if you knew she was into this kind of thing, Astarion?” says Shadowheart.

“I mean…” There’s a spring in his step as he walks ahead of them. “I had my hopes.”

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Amma has at least three broken ribs. Even after Shadowheart’s healing spells, they’re tender, and breathing too deeply feels like they’ll shatter again.

She’s sitting in a half-barrel tub in Nightwarden Minthara’s chamber. The goblins didn’t stop them from walking in and setting up camp; all of the skrungly creatures bowed before them as True Souls (still not entirely certain what that meant), and a good number of them seemed under the impression she and Amma were related. The thought of that made Amma put her cheek between her molars and bite down hard, staying her tongue: There’s no way in all the Hells I’m pledging to another House, she wants to scream. Not sure how much goblins know of drow politics; it’s really her companions’ reactions that she doesn’t want to see.

The water, thrillingly, is hot— Gale came up with some complex system of ritual casting, some heated rocks, and a staff imbued with the create water spell. Amma sits in it with her knees to her chest, naked, bruised, and bloody, but blissfully at peace after a session of Loviatan penance. The hot, soapy water stings every inch of her. She basks in the pain and lets it quiet her thoughts.

“Much as I enjoyed seeing you do penance, I’d appreciate a little warning next time,” Shadowheart says from behind her. The girl is sitting on a stool at the edge of the tub, a bowl and bloody cloth in her lap. She’s dabbing at the worst of the injuries with a practiced care that Amma isn’t used to being given.

“Mm?” (Still hurts to talk.)

“I’d just like to know how many spells I should have set aside for your weird kinks.”

“Hm.” It’s the closest she can do to a laugh right now.

Silence falls over them. It’s not uncomfortable. Shadowheart dutifully smoothes the ragged flesh of Amma’s wounds, her hands practiced and steady. Amma can’t remember the last time anyone was so gentle with her. Perhaps they never were. She never thought she was worth tenderness.

(Bonnevance could never stand the sight of blood.)

“Your back,” the cleric says eventually, her voice barely louder than a breath. “When..?”

Amma’s not sure of the year, actually. It’s been so long. She doesn’t think about it. Hadn’t thought about it, until Nightwarden Minthara.

“A long time ago. I don’t feel it anymore.”

“And… here?”

“Githyanki Spelljammers. Nearly cut me in half.”

“And this?”

“Waterdeep. Running from the guards. Jumped out a window.”

Amma leans back, a dear test for her newly-mended bones, and looks at the cleric. She raises her hand— traces the scar over her nose and cheek.

“How’d you get this?”

Shadowheart’s cheeks are pink.

“I… honestly, I don’t remember. Not really. But I think I can… show you. With the tadpole.”

She looks at the crown of Shadowheart’s head, where her dark hair parts. She focuses on the white skin below. She imagines the muscle— the veins— the skull. She imagines prizing her mind open with the gentlest touch, first one finger, and then two, how hot and wet the brain would feel underneath…

Amma’s brows knit together. “Are you sure?”

Shadowheart hums, nods, once, consenting. Her eyes close and the rogue slips easily inside.

“I don’t remember how it started,” she hears Shadowheart murmur, close beside her. “Only how it ended. I was fleeing. There were wolves.”

She sees a memory: the flash of canid eyes in moonlight, the sound of hot, ragged breath through a many-fanged mouth. The fear of death. The fear of being eaten. Then— a hand on her shoulder, a face masked with Shar’s emblem. One shadow becomes many. The wolf is slain, the child rescued. The night unfolds and the girl that would be Shadowheart walks into it willingly.

“They asked my name,” the cleric says distantly. “I can’t remember what I said. I can’t remember anything before those woods.”

Amma’s thumb is still on her scarred face.

And she thinks of eight-sided rooms, of torture, of matrons and mistresses and being trained and used and being sold, and being one shadow among many— and the comfort of it, before everything had gone to sh*t. Of the sanctuary she still finds in darkness. Of silence. Of oblivion.

She kisses Shadowheart.

When Amma pulls away from her, the cleric does not move. She hardly even breathes. Her eyes are closed, and her cheeks are pink not just from the heat of the water, and her skin is soft beneath Amma’s hand— and she doesn’t move— until she does.

Shadowheart stands and looks around for something clean to clothe her patient in.

“You’re exhausted. You need rest.”

It’s late, but under a full moon, nobody needs candlelight. Shadowheart has gone down the ravine before the temple of Selûne and nestled into the shadow of the bridge. She’s washing Amma’s blood off her hands, her forearms— wringing it out of rags and her clothes into the river. Astarion lounges a little ways off from her. He found a lyre in a chest of Nightwarden Minthara’s things. He’s plucking gently at the strings, sounding out some tune Shadowheart doesn’t recognize or remember. He’s not helping, but he’s not really hindering, either, so she lets him be. They’ve all come to trust him well enough.

“Shadowheart,” he says aloud, like he’s testing the feeling of her name in his mouth. “Such a grim name… for such a beautiful flower.”

“Could you not stare so blatantly at my neck when you say that?”

“Oh, certainly, darling. Where would you rather I look?”

The cleric flashes him a warning glance, but the quirk at the corner of her mouth says she’s amused. Her expressions are subdued, secretive— but he’s been watching her, and he’s getting to know them, little by little.

“I’m surprised you could contain yourself earlier,” Shadowheart says. “All that blood, just waiting to be drunk…”

He curls his lip. “Out of puddles, on the floor, you mean? Please. I’m not an animal. I have standards.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Take Gale, for example,” Astarion continues, ignoring her jab, clearly lost in his own sanguine thoughts. “He struck me as someone whose blood is— rich, like a well-aged brandy. But who knows what kind of other flavors the orb has gone and leached into him? I doubt it meshes well on the palate. Karlach, too— she’d taste of rotten eggs and motor oil, I’m certain of it. If I didn’t simply catch on fire, first.”

Shadowheart’s small smile grows. Hard to tell if it’s because of the conversation or if she’s just imagining Astarion on fire.

“Amma is… well, she’s been around, I can tell you that much. Something acidic in her blood. Can’t quite put my finger on it. She’s like cheap wine that’s been left in the cellar too long.”

“But you’ll still drink from her? Doesn’t sound like much of a standard to me, Astarion.”

“Well, when you’re used to eating out of a sewer, even vinegar is a marked improvement.”

“Honeyed words, as always,” Shadowheart says.

“Oh, she isn’t around to hear them. Besides— just look at her. I bet she’s got a veritable feast of sweethearts all along the Coast, wondering when she’ll stop and rest her boots with them again.”

“And you, Astarion?”

“No sweethearts for me, thank you. I prefer them savory.”

Shadowheart makes a face. “My fault for asking,” she mutters.

Absently, just to rid her sight of soap and bloodstains, she looks at him. He’s ghostly in the moonlight. He stares up at the stars, his skin shining like a pearl, the stolen lyre dark and melodic in his hands. He shouldn’t be there, she thinks to herself— he shouldn’t be under the gaze of fickle, judgmental Selûne.

“Come into the shadow,” she calls gently to him.

He stops plucking at the lyre. There’s something strange in his face as he stares back at her— she can’t tell if it’s romantic, or predatory, or simply curious. She’s caught him looking at her like that a few times before. It worries her.

“Why?”

“Because I asked.”

He doesn’t move. Shadowheart’s eyes go heavenward, her lips turn down: a prayer for patience.

“I have something to say to you, and I don’t think the Moonmaiden deserves to overhear.”

He co*cks his head. There’s a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, not entirely reaching his eyes.

“If you’re about to disparage Selûne to me, by all means, do it in the moonlight,” he tells her. “I’m all for sin and blasphemy.”

Shadowheart scowls, but she gives in— washing was almost done, anyway. She goes to Astarion and sits on her knees beside him. It’s a practiced position, with her back straight and her hands flat, her gaze unflinching to whatever she may see. She is a perfect, penitent nunlet. It makes him want to gag.

“If I gave you my neck, right now, would you have the willpower not to kill me?”

He goes still— tense, like a prey animal. The cleric’s seen him do it before. By rights, she should be the one frightened as a rabbit in his bloody gaze, but somehow, it’s the other way around. He never knows what to do when someone is kind to him. Not that this is really kindness— it’s more the offer of it, an incentive for good behavior. She can’t decide if she feels sympathy for him or not. He is, above all else, unpleasant.

“It’s just you and me out here,” she says, and it’s a little bit mocking, a little bit vulnerable, offering. “No one to see, no one to hear…”

He seems to remember he has teeth. He grins. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

“If you want to be my midnight snack, you can just say so.”

Shadowheart grimaces. “Absolutely not. I’m simply curious— you’re spending quite a lot of time with our burglar as of late. Can I trust you with her?”

“If I say yes, you won’t believe me.”

“Maybe, maybe not. You won’t know until you answer.”

He sits up, away from her, putting her at eye-level. He makes no effort to disguise the look under flirtation: he’s sizing her up. He’s looking at her the way a pack of wolves looks at a single, eight-point buck. In theory, he could kill and eat her— in practice, it’s a risk. The cleric does not shy from him. She meets his gaze with her eyes bright and shrouded. There is a blazing cold to her— she is a weapon silvered.

Astarion chooses his next move very carefully. He has his suspicions about her, but he doesn’t want to say it, not out loud. Not yet.

“I think,” he says, wearing his familiar predator smirk, “you ought to worry more if you’d trust her with me.”

Shadowheart’s face turns sour. “What is that supposed to mean?”

His suspicions are confirmed. He looks away from her, tips his head back and cackles, like a wolf pack howling at the moon. His laughter doesn’t subside quickly. It’s not a friendly sound; it’s cold and vindictive. She’s surprised how much it hurts her.

“Oh, I’m only teasing! Never you mind, dear girl.”

With their quiet evening shattered, he stands and takes his leave of her. He doesn’t offer to help her carry the laundry back.“I’ll see you in the morning,” he calls, laughing once again and waving the lyre over his shoulder. “Watch out for wolves on your way back.”

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

Amma hasn’t spent much time in temples. Doesn’t like them; doesn’t often feel welcome in them. (For an abandoned half-wood drow, serving was a duty, not a privilege; the Lolthite clergy was quite clear on that.) But here, in the broken sanctum of the Moonmaiden, Amma feels— unreal. Ghostlike. Selûne is one of few gods she won’t spit on, but she’s never found herself within that guiding moonlight. It’s not for those like her.

With nightfall, and the fractional quieting of the goblin camp, her companions have taken to bed. Exhaustion met Amma quickly after being beaten and bathed, and her trance was refreshing, but now she’s got the whole night ahead and not much else to do with herself. So she wanders through the temple, her direction random but not aimless: she’s making note of goblin patrols, torch placement, vantage points. She came upon a long-forgotten silver chest up in the rafters— nothing worth more than a handful of gold, but it’s nice to be rewarded.

She comes to a new passageway. At the end of it, there is a door, with straw and bloody footprints spilling out from underneath. It must be the worg pens. She’s about to turn back, to creep back through the rafters and see if she can find Gut’s chapel— but she stops when she sees Astarion, ghostly in his own right, stalking down the corridor. He’s halted at the door leading to the worg pens by three goblins. Amma’s ears ring, and she sees the goblins scurry away. He used the tadpole.

He crouches and starts picking the lock on the heavy wooden door. Takes him a few tries (she could’ve done it in one), but he’s quick about it. Then he opens the door, slowly, and slinks through it like a wraith. He doesn’t close it fully. A strip of orange light floods into the corridor.

Her curiosity is piqued. She descends from where she’d been hiding in the rafters, creeps up to the door, and peers into the chambers beyond.

These are indeed the worg pens— she can smell it. She watches him press close to the wall, graceful, practiced. She recalls their first meeting: seeing the dark streets of Baldur’s Gate through his eyes. She hadn’t given it much thought since then. Now, watching him prowl through these halls, she’s fascinated.

He’s good. He doesn’t make a sound. Shrill goblin laughter rings out from further into the pens— he freezes. Listens. co*cks his head. A hawk, sighting a mouse.

The source of the laughter soon becomes evident, as Astarion creeps down the hallway— with Amma following some fifteen feet behind, either unnoticed or uncared for— his destination is the sunken pit before the pens, where a trio of tiny, bony goblin children have gathered before a cage door.

“See? It squealed!” shrieks the middle one. “Hit it again!”

The eldest, with somewhat adorable gravitas: “Keep yer hand steady, Three.”

The smallest one lifts a piece of rubble from a collapsed pillar beside her. She sucks in her cheeks, wiggles into a throwing stance, and chucks a rock into the cage. A frighteningly large-sounding creature growls in response.

“Again, again!” says the middle goblin child. “Make it squeal again!”

Astarion, from ten feet away, calls out to them sagely: “Something sharper might cut through all that fur.”

The goblins give him a chorus of excited howls: “Yeah, that’s right!” and “The cleaver, get the cleaver!”

Amma watches, intrigued. The eldest— One, presumably— skitters out of the pit, past Astarion, towards a table piled high with chopped-up offal and prisoners’ remains. The middle goblin— Two— jumps up and down excitedly. Three, the youngest, still working on her aim, picks up another rock and winds up.

And then the monster strikes.

Amma hears a long, high scream from Three— sees a flash of teeth— hears the goblin child’s voice go wet and crunchy as her throat gets torn out. Two, shrieking in terror, tries to run— Astarion catches her by the scruff of her shirt with one hand, throws the lifeless carcass of her sister to the ground with the other, sinks his teeth into the child’s neck. She thrashes and sobs. Without releasing her throat, the vampire grips her shoulders and twists— Amma hears a horrible SNAP— Two’s carcass dangles from Astarion’s jaw, and it’s unclear what actually killed her, exsanguination or a broken spine.

There is a moment of clarity in the chaos: Astarion moves to the stairs, looks for Three, finds Amma. His face goes slack. He has the same bright, animal bloodlust in his eyes he had the night he killed her.

Then Three comes at him with a rusty cleaver, and he drains the life from that one, too.

The worg pens fall silent. The massive creature turns restlessly within its cage, sniffing the air, but then retreats to a dark corner, simply relieved no one is bothering it anymore. Amma watches Astarion. He’s breathing heavy, slick white curls down over his brow, a dark smear of blood on one side of his mouth. He stares at her. He strides up the stairs.

Amma steps back, reaching for her ever-present blade— but he doesn’t go to her. Doesn’t even look at her once he’s started moving. He walks past her, quickly, silently. When he’s out of view, she lets out one long, steadying breath. She can feel her heart pounding in her chest. It isn’t out of fear— there’s something cold and cruel in him she covets heinously. She wants to be a villain with him.

After a moment of hesitation, Amma decides not to press her luck— she starts back through the corridor. Halfway down, her eye catches on a pale shape beyond an open doorway. She stops.

Astarion stands with his back to her, staring at something that glitters even in the light of grimy tallow-candles. She looks past him: sees the familiar emblem of Selûne, seven stars with the Moonmaiden’s piercing gaze between them. Beneath it, on a stone altar draped in fetid blue cloth, stands a mirror.

It’s broken, it’s dirty, it’s covered in cobwebs. But she can see herself in it. She can’t see him.

“If you’re here to tell me off, don’t bother,” he says sourly. “They would have done the same to us if given half the chance.”

“Well, I’m not,” Amma tells him. “I’m here to tell you good job.”

He turns to face her, his expression darkening. He looks so fragile, like porcelain. Could she break him, she wonders? Would he let her?

Would she want to?

“Do you remember what you look like?”

Astarion turns to the glass again, puts his hands on the altar, leans into the mirror. He presses his forehead against it. He lifts his hand and presses one finger into a large piece of the mirror, increasing pressure until the pane fractures underneath his fingertip. He’s thinking. He’s trying to remember. She can’t see his expression, but she can imagine it: pained. Angry. He’s searching for something that is his, just his, something nobody could ever take away from him. And he can’t find it.

“No.”

(Has no one ever sketched him, painted him? Two hundred years of lovers and not one of them could tell him what he looked like? How cruel is fate that he would look like this and cannot see it?)

Amma finally draws near to him. She’s not stupid; she stays out of his arm’s reach, just in case. But she takes in the princely slope of his features, the way his shirt lays rakishly loose on him, the delicate shape of his collarbone beneath it. He’s cold and white as marble, but she could never use that to describe him, he’s too soft. He’s like a perfect, white rose.

He looks back at her, realizes she’s staring.

“What?” he snaps, with the fair expectance she’ll say something cruel.

If he were anyone else, she would.

“You’re very pretty,” she says. There’s a gentleness to it that she didn’t think she was still capable of.

“Observant,” he says drily.

“I could show you, if you like. With the tadpole.”

“Absolutely not. You’ve lost your tadpole privileges after what you did to me with the Gur.”

“Fine, then. Your loss.”

He scowls at her. It’s a cruel expression, his tongue finding his fangs beneath his lips. When she doesn’t shrink from it, he straightens up, moves closer to her. He’s done it before, like a challenge— and every time, she tells him he’s too close, reminds him that she doesn’t trust him, doesn’t want him to touch her. She’s even met him with a shove or the sharp end of her dagger once or twice. But she doesn’t do that now. He stares down his nose at her like it’s supposed to be intimidating, but his heart’s not in it. He looks like he’s trying to work something out in his head about her.

(He’s sewn a lovely little bouquet of forget-me-nots over the hole in his trousers where she stabbed him.)

And then he asks her, “What do you see? When you look at me?”

A creature of the night. Fangs and claws and his face near-manic as he tears out someone’s throat. A charming creature that devours.

And he’s very pretty as he does it.

Amma half-shrugs, unable and unwilling to be candid. “I see you.”

“Don’t try to be cute, you’re bad at it.” He looks down at her, unsmiling. “Use your words. Describe it.”

She doesn’t know how anymore. It’s been so long since she was tender.

“You look… tired. You don’t have lines from where you’re angry. But you have lines from where you laugh.”

“Excuse me,” he says indignantly, “I was thirty-nine when I was turned. That’s hardly old enough for laugh lines.”

He turns his head and stares off haughtily at nothing. Then, back to her. The bitter wariness is gone, now; his face is a practiced mask of detached vanity.

“You can do better,” he says. “What else?”

“If you wanted flattery, you should have started out with that.”

“Yes, but then you wouldn’t go along with it.”

“True.”

“So go on. Flatter me. Tell me I’m beautiful.”

She lifts her hand, slowly, tentatively— barely touches him, but he goes still beneath it, like a rabbit in a loose dog’s sights. She can’t decide if she actually likes that or not. Whatever power they’re playing with, it isn’t just stabbing and biting. It’s deeper than that. It claws at her heart. She holds his jaw with just the tip of her finger, runs her thumb across his chin. It smears a fleck of half-dried goblin blood, a scarlet comet, the barest trace of something evil in him.

“You’re beautiful,” she tells him.

“Thank you,” he says finally, “but go away. I’m still hungry and you’re too tempting.”

She leaves him in the dungeon and returns to their campsite in Minthara’s chambers. She tucks herself back into her bedroll, trying to get some further semblance of sleep after her early trance, but rest eludes her now. Her mind is awash with the image of Astarion twisting the little goblin’s body until it breaks. When Amma lays a certain way, bends her neck at a certain angle, she can feel the half-healed bite wound on her neck stretch painfully. She lays that way now. Her gray fingers trace that tender spot, sore and scabbed— press down on it gingerly. Maybe it would be good to let him bite her again. Maybe it would make him even stronger. Maybe he could protect her.

He’s useful, to her. She’s trying to be useful to him, too.

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

They haven’t been using Gale’s magic tent, because it leaves them unaware of their surroundings. It’s a small comfort to be on furs and bedrolls compared to the magic tent, but it’s a comfort nonetheless. Gale casts alarm before they turn in for the night, and the elves take turns trancing, so there’s always someone awake. The stone echoes in the temple, anyway; it’s difficult to be unheard. The party does not feel the need to be particularly vigilant.

All of this to say: Amma hears Wyll trudge into the chamber sometime after three in the morning.

She’d honestly thought he was already asleep here with the others. Through her lashes, feigning rest, she watches him stand over his bedroll, sway, and sit down on it ungracefully. It seems the Blade of Frontiers has been drowning his sorrows.

She almost regrets not starting a fight earlier, when he’d bared his teeth at her— she would have made the Emerald Grove run red just to see the look on his stupid, heroic face when she betrayed him. And Minthara Baenre presents a direct path from their tadpole problem to their tadpole-less solution: follow her, and they find the Absolute. She is the easiest plan, the smartest— the plan that works. Wyll himself had said the words.

But for Amma, looking at the Nightwarden was like looking at a portrait of herself, painted over a century ago: she wanted to set the thing on fire. Much as she may pride herself on ruthless pragmatism, she is a creature driven by emotion in the end… possessing almost singularly the emotion of greed. The only thing she wants more than riches is revenge.

Nonetheless: Loviatan penance has indeed granted her serenity. She feels cleaner than she has in weeks after being beaten and washed. There is a quiet reflectiveness that the pain unearthed in her, and she’s been grateful to embrace that feeling. For all her life, she’s survived on being self-centered and vicious; the tadpoles had forced her into a group she never would have mixed with, otherwise. Ten days ago, there was not enough gold in Faerûn to make her fight alongside the Blade of Frontiers, two walking explosions, a fanatical cleric— a godsdamn f*cking vampire. But here she is.

Wyll’s breathing is heavy as he removes his gear, starts to take his boots off. He’s really been drinking.

“Feeling better?” Amma asks him.

He starts, swears under his breath, turns to her. His scars shine in the darkness, brown and deep. “Didn’t think you cared.”

“I don’t. But it’s nice to see you furious. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

He goes back to peeling off his boots, his gauntlets. He drops them in a clumsy pile. His rapier clatters to the floor, and he stares at it for a long moment.

“I’m sorry,” Wyll says eventually. “For earlier. I lost my head.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did .” He looks at her again, and his face is so tired. “Talking to Minthara back there, you were— two steps ahead of us. You were right. Karlach was right. You’re tactical. Make a good leader, when you’re up for it.”

She pulls her blanket up around herself, lets her head fall to her pillow. They’re not having this discussion.

“You’re drunk,” she says into the darkness. “Sleep it off, or I’ll let the goblins kill you.”

In the morning, they hold a team meeting in Minthara’s chambers.

Amma and Astarion dispose of the scrying eye first. Then, Gale wards the room: no one can listen in, no one can enter. Wyll rolls out a map of the Coast, trying to get their bearings; he scratches a crude layout of the temple grounds on the floor in white chalk, marks things here and there on it with red.

“One hour to Waukeen’s Rest,” Shadowheart is saying. “Less if we don’t run into trouble, which is a big ‘if’. Then however long the same to get back here. How long to load up the smokepowder?”

“Depends on who’s carrying it,” Amma says. “You, me and Wyll— maybe an hour? Add Karlach, and I’d say thirty minutes, tops.”

“You sure you want to risk that, soldier?” Karlach says anxiously.

“I think you’ll be alright,” Amma tells her. “If you don’t catch fire standing on some hay, then those barrels should be fine. They’re built to be handled. Just— carefully.”

The massive tiefling nods, not fully convinced.

Then, Shadowheart: “Alright, let’s say it’s a four hour trip to get there and back. Do we do that first? Or do we kill the goblins?”

“Kill the goblins,” says Wyll, pointing at the temple map. “If we start with that hobgoblin in the throne room, we can draw the fight back away from the front doors. And pray that those outside don’t hear us.”

“We’ll need at least short rest, then,” the cleric points out. “We can’t hold back against that ‘True Soul’. He’ll demolish us.”

Amma adds: “I’ve been watching the patrols. There are five or six of them off on their own at any given time. Astarion and I can get rid of those. Hells, we could even set the owlbear cub loose. I bet he could do some damage.”

Karlach nods approvingly; Shadowheart’s eyes go distant as she plans which spells to prepare and who she’ll need to cast them on. Wyll looks from Astarion to Amma, and when both of them are resolute, he nods as well.

“Someone should go with you,” he says. “Watch your back. Me or Gale?”

“Gale,” Astarion says quickly. “No offense, but— he’s got that cloud of daggers thing.”

“None taken. Gale? That sound alright to you?”

“Hm?” comes the wizard’s distant answer from the doorway.

“Take that as a yes,” Wyll mutters. “Alright. So that’s day one. Now what about day two?”

“When are we taking smokepowder to the grove?” Shadowheart says. “We can’t do it morning-of. Can we?”

Karlach: “No, yeah, I think we should. Tell that Nightwarden it’s for blowing up the gate. If she doesn’t believe it, well, she’s already f*cked just being there.”

They go on like that for another hour, plotting where to put the barrels, where to position themselves for the fight, what kind of supplies they’ll need. Shadowheart begins to catalog everything they have and then makes a list of things to ask for when they reach the Zhents. It’ll be a hard sell to make them give up the smokepowder— a point Amma has conveniently forgotten to raise so far— but the Black Company is on their way out already, so it’s not like they’ll be eager to transport the stuff.

“Oh,” she says eventually, as though it’s just occurred to her (it hasn’t), “also— I think there’s a bear down in the worg pens. Could be Halsin.”

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

It’s time to dungeon delve.

Into the worg pens the party goes: flagstones sticky with old blood, whatever remains of Selûne’s chantry now repurposed into a goblin abattoir. At a table in the corner, one stout goblin butcher hacks and chops at a humanoid leg, conversing raucously with another who shoves the cut-up bits into a bucket. They both ignore the party. The floor near the cages is no bloodier than before; last night’s massacre of children has not been discovered. Amma wonders idly what Astarion did with the corpses of the goblin children: if he stashed them somewhere, or if he simply fed them to the hulking creature they’d been tormenting. She would have helped him, if he’d asked.

The rogues have already managed to pick off eight or nine goblins throughout the place; they’re as ready as they’ll ever be to launch the full attack. Hopefully they’ll have an archdruid fighting with them.

The worgs snarl as they near the pits. They gnash at the cages, hungry. The goblin butcher calls out some obscenity and throws a hunk of raw meat down the stairs to them. It lands just out of reach. The horrible beasts snap at each other, slabbering on the bars, gouging the floor with their claws. The butcher cackles.

Across the room, the adventurers head toward the hulking shape of a bear. All of them, wordlessly, stop about fifteen feet from the cage door.

“Well, go on then,” Gale says to no one in particular.

“Do any of you have speak to animals?” Shadowheart asks.

Silence. Then, sensing their eyes on her, she adds: “Don’t look at me. I’m full up on healing for you dolts.”

“Karlach?” Wyll offers. “You’ve got— animals like you, right?”

“Sure thing, mate,” she says, half-sarcastic, a few sparks escaping from her mouth. “I’ll be right indispensable if we ever run into a nightmare. I can do that thing where I put my hand out to infernal horses and they get all calm.”

At this point, the bear stands on its hind legs. It’s massive. They all take a step back. The bear’s scarred muzzle twitches as it sniffs the air, its tongue lolling in its terrible mouth, its huge teeth glistening in torchlight. It falls heavily back to all four legs and seems to shake the room.

“Oi,” comes the goblin butcher’s warning. “f*ck off that thing. Priestess Gut’s got sommin’ special planned fer it.”

“Does she?” Shadowheart’s voice is light, innocent even, but she looks pointedly at the rest of them. Priestess Gut is currently bleeding out on the floor above, courtesy of Astarion’s rapier. The cleric’s eyes linger on the heavy metal lock holding the bear’s cage shut, then she looks pointedly at Amma. “Mind telling?”

In a practiced exercise, Wyll and Gale stand shoulder to shoulder, blocking the view of their veteran rogue as she crouches and pulls out her lockpicks. Astarion stands a half-step away from them and whistles a cheery little tune. Every few seconds he glances down to monitor her progress. (He stopped trying to compete with her for the position of party burglar after she managed to slip something into his pocket unnoticed— three times. First was a silver pendant, next was the wedding band from the beheaded elf in Ethel’s cellar, third was an old ruby ring. It’s undoubtedly a blow to his ego, but he’s taken it quite stoically.)

“Yeah, she’s gonna—”

Click!

They all sidestep the cage doors just in time to avoid being crushed— as the hulking creature within raises to its hind legs again, almost reaching the ceiling, it comes down against the rusty bars with gargantuan weight and strength. The cage door slams open. The sound of it rings through the room, sparking goblin shrieks and chitters.

The cave bear’s massive head swings toward Amma. It sniffs the air, jaws parted, its hot breath stirring her hair. Astarion reaches down, aiming to pull her back, away from the bear— the beast opens its terrible maw and growls at him, then goes back to investigating the drow.

Thankfully, that’s the exact moment a goblin hits it with an axe.

Between Karlach’s rage and the bear, there’s not much for the rest of them to handle. Astarion grabs the open shoulders of Amma’s padded gambeson and yanks her up. Gale raises his hands and unleashes a few magic missiles. In a matter of seconds, the chamber falls suddenly silent, except for the sound of Karlach’s infernal engine and the bear’s low, rumbling breath.

Then, with a swirl of leaves and a splatter of muck, Archdruid Halsin drops his wild shape.

“So you loosed a bear without knowing if it would savage you,” he says, his voice deep and full of laughter. “I don’t know whether to congratulate you or to call you lunatics. Either way, you have my thanks— I am Halsin, head druid of the Emerald Enclave.”

“You have ten seconds to tell me what you know of mind flayers,” Amma says.

“I think what my companion means,” Wyll interjects, stepping to the front of the group, “is that we’ve been through quite a lot trying to free you, Archdruid. And we’d be very grateful for any reciprocal help that you could give us on our own quest. We mean no harm to you and yours. We are protectors of the grove. We come to you in peace.”

Halsin extends his hand to shake Wyll’s— looks down at it, still covered in gore from attacking as a bear— grimaces and tries to shake off the worst of it.

“Pardon the viscera. One should cherish all of nature’s bounty, but… goblin guts are quite far down on the list.” Halsin tenses. “Did you say mind flayers?”

“Nettie sent us,” Shadowheart says. “She said you could remove our tadpoles.”

Halsin’s face falls.

“Oak Father preserve you, child,” he murmurs. “All of you?”

“Save for me’n’im,” Karlach says, jabbing her thumb at Wyll. “We got other problems.”

“Yet— here you stand, in aid to me.” Halsin’s suspicion is clear, but quickly fading. He seems more sad than anything. “You’re different from the other True Souls. You’re aware of the monster… you act against the Absolute’s command. How is this possible?”

“We were hoping you could tell us,” Gale says.

“That… is easier said than done.” The archdruid spreads his arms. “I can’t give you answers— not yet. But,” he adds, aware of Amma’s hand tightening on the grip of her shortsword, “that doesn’t mean I can’t help.”

“Help is all we need,” Wyll says diplomatically.

“I’ll gladly give it— but not here. I know I’ve no right to ask it of you, but I need your aid once more.”

Of course he does. Is it too much to ask, just once, that they simply get a couple hundred gold and continue on their merry way?

“There is work I must finish here,” Halsin rumbles. “Blood that must be spilled. I cannot allow these butchers to threaten my grove. The natural order must be protected. The True Souls brooding in this shattered sanctum— the drow Minthara, the hobgoblin Dror Ragzlin, that perversion of a priestess, Gut— they are the ones holding this great parasite together. Remove them, and the rest will scatter. Nature then will cure itself.”

The archdruid puts his fist against the symbol of Silvanus on his chest, bows his head solemnly to them.

“Fight with me to save the Emerald Grove, and then, I shall be free to aid you on your own quest.”

“You have my blade,” says Wyll, before Amma can spit whatever venomous retort she’s been thinking of. “As you have all of ours. By all the watching gods, the grove will stand tomorrow— the day after— ‘til the heavens crash and all cities are fallen.”Heroes, Amma thinks. Disgusting.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

It’s after midnight. Facing down a wholesale battle in the coming hours, Amma’s trance is restless, and she thinks the sleep of her companions likely is, as well. They’re sleeping in the green cradle of the grove for what could be the last time. It’s been two days since they spoke to Nightwarden Minthara and sent her on the warpath— in the interim, they’ve managed to slaughter the remaining goblins, coordinate their battle plan with Zevlor, and rescue the archdruid everyone keeps fawning over. Halsin is… something, alright. Amma’s just glad that he’s on their side.

To her credit, she’s not drinking herself into oblivion tonight. Much as she might like to.

Before she can change her mind about that, someone— she has a good idea who— steps lightly to her bedroll and flops to the ground beside her.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Astarion says, chin on his hand, and his tone betrays exactly what kind of thoughts they were.

She ignores him.

“Remembering our time together,” he continues, unfazed. “The things we’ve shared— and I don’t just mean your lovely neck. I like you. Honestly, I do. And you clearly like me, too, sooo…”

“... So?”

“So, why don’t we steal away for a bit? Get to know each other better?”

“I’d rather f*ck a bugbear.”

“Ha! Alright, maybe there’s more to you than I thought.” He seems absolutely delighted by her refusal. “A bugbear? Really? That’s what you’d prefer? All that hair?”

She rolls to her back and stares up at the sky. “I’m going to kill you,” she says. “I’m going to f*cking murder you.”

“Oh, don’t be so cruel.” He’s thoroughly enjoying this. “Or is that what you’re looking for? Someone to return the favor? You do seem the type. I could tell, on that first night we spent together—”

“I f*cking died.”

“And I got stabbed so deep it nicked the bone. If you wanted me to stop, you would have aimed higher.”

He is, unfortunately, right. And he knows it. And he knows that she knows it. She says nothing— won’t give him the satisfaction. With the full force of his attention on her like that, though, it’s hard not to swoon. What an abysmal time to have a heartbeat he can hear. It’s only by her own inertia that they’re still apart— if he kissed her now, she’d traumatize the campsite. She can’t help but wait a few moments, just to see if he will. He doesn’t. Pity.

“Whatever it is you want— let me give it to you,” he says. “We’ll go somewhere we can lose ourselves, forget all this madness.”

Unable to look at his beautiful face when he’s talking like that, she says: “You just want me for all of the blood that I have. That’s my blood. I made it. I need it. For me.”

“Or perhaps I’ll give you a night you’ll never forget. Only one way to find out, isn’t there?” He stands, brushes some dirt off his trousers. He’s so f*cking smug. Awful. “I’ll be at the beach, darling— when you change your mind. Take as long as you need.”

He disappears into the dark. She spends a few minutes debating whether she should just ignore him and go back to trying (and failing) to rest. It would be good for him to get stood up like that, she thinks. Might humble him. Make him less annoying. She’s got hands, after all— an imagination she’s putting to good use right now.

But, they might both die in a fiery explosion tomorrow…

The beach is blue and gorgeous in the moonlight. Astarion is lying on a blanket in the sand, with a little candle, a bottle and two goblets, and a cup full of flowers. Stupid bastard got her flowers. And Amma’s stealthy as a habit, but she can see his head twitch when her foot hits the sand, a sharp, instinctive movement. He looks over his shoulder to her and smiles like a wolf.

“Hello, lover,” he gloats.

Taking it all in, she is— surprised. She expected something rushed and desperate. Something more like what she’s used to, as an alcoholic blade-for-hire: the dark alley, the cheapest room, the barn behind the tavern. (She’d prefer silk sheets, but she takes what she can get.)

She goes to the blanket, crosses her legs and sits wordlessly beside him. She feels somehow underdressed in a linen nightshirt and no perfume. Still, he looks at her like she’s the only creature in the universe. He pours them both a glass of wine, she thanks him quietly, they drink.

She has to ask: “Doesn’t this taste bad to you?”

“Why— does it taste bad to you?”

“No, I just— it’s not blood.”

He laughs. “It’s not a piece of bread, either. You enjoy it, don’t you? I don’t have to need something to want it.”

She drinks again. It’s a strong, bittersweet red— heavy in her mouth and warm in her fingertips. It’s good. It’s very good. She doesn’t recognize the label; suspects it was pilfered from Waukeen’s Rest, either from the inn or the Zhents. The druids don’t have things this fine.

Astarion is quiet, watching the river lap against the shore. Then, he looks back to her: at her hands, resting in her lap. He motions to her right.

“May I?”

She holds her hand out to him, palm up. He takes it gently in both of his own. She thinks back to how gentle his hands were, when he helped her out of the river— how he stilled under her touch in the temple— how he’d looked at her that night after Ethel. He’s so soft for her. She’s trying so hard to be soft for him, too.

“Blood is… the essence of life,” he says, turning her hand over, letting his cold fingers drift across her palm, over the barely-healed cut she’d made there for him. “It’s the font of all we are. And some creatures have so much more life in them than others. An animal is simple— it eats, it makes more animals, it dies. But a person— a thinking, living person? There’s nothing else like it. You can taste the things they enjoy, the places they’ve been. One drop of blood can give you someone’s whole life if you know what to do with it.”

She catches him eyeing the blue veins in her lichen-gray hand. He continues absently: “I am grateful, you know. For that night. You trusted me. I won’t forget it.”

Amma lets her hand lay warm in his. It’s not enough; she wants more of him. She turns, moves to him, puts her hands on his shoulders and her weight in his lap. He leans back and watches her with lidded eyes. His face is languid— pleased— a perfect smile on his perfect mouth.

“What was it like?”

“You mean before you turned me into a pincushion?” Astarion laughs. What a lovely sound. What a lovely thing that she’s brought out of him. He deserves so many lovely things, she thinks— sneaking jewelry into his pockets is not nearly enough. “It was… oh, it was amazing. It was the first time in two centuries I’ve truly felt… happy.”

He leans in to kiss her. She doesn’t let him: with one hand fisted in white curls at the base of his neck and the other braced against his chest, what ought to be a simple thing becomes a struggle. His expression slips toward sour. She can’t keep amusem*nt off her face. He tries to kiss her again, and this time, even though he doesn’t make it very far, she leans away just to annoy him.

“Say please,” Amma tells him.

“Is that what you want?”

His red eyes crawl over her, searching, hungry. He sits up— shifts the balance between them, so she has to rely on his hands at her waist to not fall on her back. She concedes, and drapes her arms around his neck; now he can draw close.

“Please,” he whispers, ardent, with his lips against her ear. “I’ve been waiting so long for you. I knew from the moment I saw you.”

“Liar,” she whispers, but she’s grinning. She likes him better for it. “Does this work on patriars too?”

His teeth are sharp and shimmering in the moonlight when he grins at her. She can feel him through his trousers, grown warm from the heat of her body; his grip tightens, and he pulls her down into the movement of his hips. She shudders. Her eyes roam over him— drinking in his crimson eyes, the bow of his lips, his pale chest, the line of his pelvis underneath his skin. He doesn’t know his own face but he doesn’t need to when people look at him like that.

“It’s working on you, now, isn’t it?”

He’s so f*cking pleased with himself. He’s ready to see her debased, and he doesn’t much care if he’s the one to do it, or if she does it to herself on top of him.

“I could see it, you know— the way you looked at me that night. It wasn’t just my teeth you wanted in you. Let me repay you for your noble sacrifice.”

“Is that all you want?” Amma asks him. “To repay a debt?”

She holds his face in her hands. His eyes aren’t smiling. So she pitches her voice lower, soft as she can make it, almost lost beneath the sound of the river and the trees.

“Because I like you, Astarion. I think we could have some fun together. And—”

She leans in— his eyes slip down to kiss her, but that’s not what she’s doing. She goes to the muscle where his neck becomes his shoulder and she bites it. It’s a fraction of the things he’s done to her (a large fraction, not nearly enough to break the skin) and he lets out a gasp, a cry of pain.

“Now we’re even,” she says, drawing back, delighted at the way his eyes go sharp once more.

(Her hands aren’t on him. He can push her off. He can say no. He doesn’t have to be here. She simply isn’t kind or sweet enough to say it in so many words.)

He lays her down on the riverbank and kisses her. She wouldn’t have a chance to stop him if she wanted to. Gods, he’s nice to kiss. His tongue is barely warmer than the night and his mouth tastes like the wine. He puts his lips to her neck and kisses her there, cold and soft under her jaw, over her collarbone.

He draws back just long enough to pull his shirt over his shoulders and toss it carelessly aside, and her words are rough and breathless when she tells him, “Oh, don’t stop there,” and he laughs, and the rest of his clothes are discarded in a pile. Meanwhile, she’s fumbling with the tie at the collar of her nightshirt: she’d been too quick, and now as she tries to pull the ends undone, the knot only gets tighter. So she swears and rips the fabric open to her shoulder. He laughs again, and this time it’s a stifled giggle, like he hadn’t expected her to be so eager. She throws her nightshirt at him when she gets the damn thing off.

She starts on her underwear, but then he’s over her again, and his fingers meet her wrist, and at the silent question, she puts her hands up at her head. He trails kisses down her legs as he pulls the last of her clothes off— trails kisses back up to her hip, her waist, her breast. When he returns to her mouth, the next kiss is long and deep and leaves her gasping for air by the time he’s done. And then, at her neck—

“Can I—”

“Yes.”

Astarion does not hesitate. He lets his tongue press flat against her, something more animal than a kiss, sucking on the skin before he bites her. When he sinks his teeth into her flesh they are something worse than lovers. It hurts; Amma rewards him with a cracking moan, a mix of pain and adoration. He presses close against her. His length rubs into her folds, not inside, but close. The shock of pleasure mixed with the bite makes her dizzy, and she tugs at his hair— he lifts his head— makes an obscene sound of satisfaction. She loves it.

“Gods, you’re beautiful,” Astarion murmurs into her skin, and his breath is hot from her own blood in his mouth.

Amma reaches for him between her legs. It’s not enough. She wants more of him.

“Shut up.”

She’s dizzy by the end of it. She doesn’t know if it’s from the blood loss or the sex, and she doesn’t particularly care. All she cares about is her head on his shoulder, her fingers on his collarbone. She’s mesmerized by his breathing— that he has to breathe at all. The trance is blissful when it finally takes her.

Amma wakes to vague light in the morning. She lifts her head, squints her eyes. It is the soft blue before true dawn. Astarion is watching the sky gain color, already dressed and sitting next to her.

“We should blow more things up, if this is how you’re going to prepare for it,” he says when he notices her waking.

She punches him in the shoulder. (Lightly.) “f*ck you,” she says. (Nicely.)

“Again? Tempting.” He stands, stretches. “But this may not be the time or the place.”

“Hn.”

She stands with him, brushes sand off her knees, her thighs. When she pulls her nightshirt back on, she hears him click his tongue.“Trade shirts with me,” he says, his eyes on the seam she’d ripped, the wounds he’d put there when she beckoned. “They’ll think I’ve savaged you.”

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

“This is it,” says Zevlor. “Everything turns on this.”

He starts a rousing speech to the pitiful hope of a militia they’ve gathered. Amma isn’t listening. She can feel Minthara’s excitement— her religious fervor, her bloodlust. Psionic tendrils crawl into her ears, her nose, reaching for her brain. She tries to shut it out, but it’s like holding a chunk of ice in her hands and trying to stop it melting.

In her mind, she hears the cold voice of the Nightwarden: A pretty speech. It almost brings a tear to my eye.

Amma realizes— this is the overwhelming authority she has used on others.

Now slit his throat and open that gate, Minthara commands. The Absolute wants all of them dead.

Her mind is flooded with desire to open herself— to open the grove— to be laid bare before the Absolute. To be part of a whole, to be nothing— yet to be everything. The horrors of her past, the crimes she has committed, the pain she’s felt— all will be forgiven, forgotten, under the watchful gaze of the Absolute. She is loved.

Amma remembers her time in Ched Nasad. The city was built on spiderwebs, suspended over a huge chasm that would eventually swallow the place whole. The prison was low in elevation, out at the edge of the citadel— there was no webbing beneath it. Just stone walls and metal grated floors that opened directly to the endless nothingness of certain death. They could see it every waking moment. They could look down and be afraid of falling. They could look down and wish to jump. Some of the prisoners were given special cuffs or wards to dampen their inherent magical power— there would be no fly, no feather fall. The only way anyone got out of that chasm was liquified in a drider’s stomach.

She hadn’t been recorded as a mage when they arrested her. That was a mistake. With borrowed arcane talent, she managed to kill at least six other prisoners; she doesn’t remember the exact number, she never kept track. After that, they put her in cuffs, chains, and a muzzle. It kept her from summoning shadow blades and disappearing into darkness. It didn’t silence the Matron.

Eventually, she convinced her cellmate to remove the sigil tattooed on her back. They offered to simply slash through it; that should have been enough. She made them carve off the whole piece of skin. There was nothing to dull the pain during the affair, and no flesh left to sew together after; she’s honestly surprised she didn’t bleed to death within an hour of mutilating herself. When the wardens found her, they cauterized the thing with acid and wrapped her in the bare minimum amount of bandages to prevent infection. She tore them off as soon as she was awake. Then they beat her until she was unconscious, poured more acid on her wounds, and wrapped her up again. This happened three times. After the fourth time, the wardens stopped caring. She can remember how this all felt: the makeshift knife, slowly, dully cutting through her flesh; the wet popping sound of her own skin being peeled away from her gristle; the sharp, metal grating of the floor against her face when a guard smashed her head down into it. The blessed, feverish sleep of that first night after— the f*cking ecstasy of having her mind empty of the Matron’s whispers.

All at once, the string of these memories is shot into Minthara’s head, vicious as a poisoned arrow. She sees the Matron’s face, proud, absolute in her will to restore her House to glory. She hears the Matron’s voice: you are nothing, you are everything, I am watching you, my Theodosia.

From across the battlefield, Amma can see Minthara shudder. There is no conscious thought behind the psionic assault she’s launched— there is nothing but centuries of rage.

Amma Theylin serves no House, no Matron, no god. She will not serve anyone ever again.

Traitor, the Nightwarden catapults into her mind.

f*ck YOU, Amma drives back.

Minthara’s face twists into a terrible mask of fanaticism. I’ll dissect you.

The battle is a blur. The goblins run, the barrels explode, the green cradle before the grove’s gate becomes a wide deathbed of fire. Wyll barks out war cries to the tieflings. Minthara is on her back foot immediately, leaping down into the flaming fray, meeting Karlach’s axe head-on. Amma’s half-deaf for the rest of the battle, her eyes stinging, her throat burning. She shoots two goblins with her crossbow, neat, through the skull, they go down instantly— three— four— she tries to keep a giant spider’s jaws at bay with her shortsword and dagger. Somewhere between then and the end of the battle, she falls.

She wakes to Halsin’s big hand on the back of her head, his rough voice murmuring a healing prayer over her. She jolts upright and reaches for her sword. The archdruid holds her steady, and he’s speaking quietly to her, saying that the battle’s over, they’ve won, she’s safe, it’s alright— she sees Karlach, bloody and burnt but upright, tended by the blacksmith— Shadowheart healing one of Zevlor’s archers— Astarion strumming Minthara’s stolen lyre for the children— Wyll and Gale, laughing with relief as they clasp hands with tieflings. She’s strangely relieved to see them all alive. But she has to know— she has to see—

She stands, Halsin steadying her, wrestles her way out of his gentle grip as he calls after her. She strides to the gate. She crosses the smoldering battlefield. Distantly, she is aware of Zevlor and his hardiest spreading out across the ashes, driving their blades into the bodies of goblinoids to ensure they’re really dead. It’s a wise practice. But she has to know. She has to see.

Nightwarden Minthara’s body lies charred and broken at the edge of the field. The fine features of her face are nothing but a smear of blood and flame-puckered skin; what little is left to recognize as an elf lies split in two by Karlach’s axe. Dead. Good. Within the exposed soup of Minthara’s brain, Amma sees a tadpole wriggling.

She reaches into the gray-pink mess and catches the thing between her thumb and forefinger. It’s absolutely horrid to look at. Even worse to know there’s more than one inside her own head, now. She tries not to think about it too much— if one tadpole hasn’t turned her yet, what harm could a couple more do?— but at times the horror of her situation hits her and she wants to gouge out her own eyes with her fingers.

“Funny,” she hears Astarion’s voice calling to her. She tears her gaze away from the Nightwarden’s ruined skull, watches as he picks his way daintily toward her. “They’re always quick to slither away after the host is dead. Where to, I wonder?”

Wordlessly, she holds it out to him.

He stares at it.

“You wanted to try more,” Amma says.

“Yes.” He sounds distant— a thousand miles away. “Yes, I did…”

He doesn’t reach for it.

“Do you want it or not?”

“Yes, alright, no need to get testy—”

He reaches for it.

She drops the awful worm into his palm. Its distressed wriggling slows, and Astarion watches it crawl along his fingers, turning his hand over with it. He looks at it with abject curiosity, like a child watching an ant they haven’t crushed yet.

He asks, “Does it hurt terribly?”

“Only for a second.”

Astarion lifts his hand to his face. He makes a little bridge with his finger, allowing the tadpole onto his cheek, grimacing slightly as it crawls with renewed vigor toward his eye. Amma watches it slide past his eyelid— he grunts in pain, disgust, claps his hand to his newly-infected eye. She can see his veins run black as the illithid power takes hold. Then, he blinks, and all is as it was.

He presses his palm to his eye, rubs the socket underneath to get rid of the cold, slithering feeling that the tadpoles leave behind.

He looks at her— strangely. She realizes, with an unpleasant pitch in her stomach, that he may be seeing what the Nightwarden saw: what Amma showed to her. Ched Nasad. The Matron. But just as quickly as he recovered from the tadpole addition, he recovers from this, too— his attention leaves Amma and he bends to retrieve the Nightwarden’s enchanted mace.

“Shadowheart might like this,” he says thoughtfully, and walks away.

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

“Beautiful night, don’t you think?” Gale says, inclining his head to her with a smile and a raised goblet. “Nothing like a brush with destruction to make one appreciate the majesty of the celestial canvas.”

Amma doesn’t look up at the celestial canvas.

“I’d rather appreciate the wine,” she tells him.

Gale chortles. “Ah, that’s not to say I don’t appreciate such worldly pleasures either. Though— well, I’m unaccustomed to such revelry.”

She had wondered why he was off in a corner by himself. But then he starts talking about his companion, and being curled up by the fire, alone together, and she regrets coming over. She takes a long pull from her goblet to hide the throwing-up-in-her-mouth expression as he monologues.

“Gale, I really don’t care to hear about your enchanted love life,” she interrupts him finally, when she truly can’t bear any more.

“My love l— oh, Amma, you misunderstand! I’m not speaking of a lover! Heavens, no. Tara is my cat . Well— my tressym. Well— she is a tressym, who has been my confidante and cohort for a good many years.”

Amma stares at him blankly.

“Well, they’re brilliant creatures, you see. Fine company for any self-respecting wizard. She’d be most impressed by our saving the tieflings, I think— proud, even.” He takes a thoughtful sip from his own goblet, face falling just a tad. “And truthfully, I’ve given her little to be proud of, recently. I hadn’t left my tower in a year before I met you lot. When I— contracted my affliction, as it were— I was inconsolable. I’d given up on myself. But dear old Tara never did. After so long being cared for by someone else, well, it feels good to do the caring on my own, for a change. Not for Tara, of course, but for these poor Elturians. Is this the kind of thing you do, as an adventurer?”

It takes her a moment to realize he’s actually asking her, and not building up to another multi-stanzaed self-discussion. She scoffs.

“Not if I can help it,” Amma tells him.

“Oh, that can’t be true. I saw how you reacted to the Nightwarden. You hated her. You couldn’t wait to run your dagger through her back.”

“Not because I have a conscience, Gale, I assure you.”

“Nonsense. If you hadn’t one, we would be celebrating with the goblins now, not the tieflings.”

Amma’s cup is mostly full. She drains it. The wine is cheap and too sweet and it swirls in her stomach sickly for a moment, then settles in.

“Gale, whatever goodness you might see in me is a projection of your own,” she says, and leaves him to ponder that.

“It’s very special and enchanted,” Astarion says. “It even has a name and everything. We could get quite a lot for it, from the right buyer— but then I thought, why not give it to you? I’m sure you could make much better use of it than some trader on the road.”

Shadowheart turns the late Nightwarden’s mace over in her hands. It’s not balanced quite the same as hers, but Astarion is right— the weapon almost seems to resonate, to hum , imbued with magic. She tests the weight of it. Shifts her grip to a few different positions on the haft.

“Why not sell it?” she asks warily. “Like you said— it would fetch quite a lot.”

“Well,” he answers, and she can tell he’s really laying on the patient tone, as though he’s explaining things to a very small and stupid child who’s had this same thing explained to them twenty times already, “I’d rather the very special, very magical weapon goes to someone who will use it to keep me alive. Consider it a— peace offering.”

“Peace offering, huh.”

Shadowheart settles in her grip and swings the mace, once, lightly, testing how it reacts to her movement. She adjusts her grip minutely. Then she swings three times in quick succession— a deadly exercise that even Lady Shar could not remove from muscle memory. The heavy macehead whistles and shimmers. A trail of tiny, purple motes trail after it, highlighting rocks and nettles at her feet— faerie fire . Useful.

Still, the cleric knows he’s fishing.

“And what makes you think we need to call a truce?”

Astarion fixes a less-than-dazzling smile onto his face. “Because,” he says, voice still smothered in fake patience, “I want you to trust me with our burglar.”

Shadowheart is even less amused than usual.

“She’s her own person, Astarion. I don’t tell her what to do.”

“Of course she is. But you have your opinions, don’t you? And I don’t think I want to hear them. So I thought perhaps I’d give you some—” (he searches for a better phrase than “bribery”) “— advance payment, to look conveniently the other way at times.”

“I’ve looked away plenty already,” Shadowheart tells him, her tone distasteful. “You insist on making everything a spectacle with her.”

“I do not .”

“Oh? Then what was that barn with the ogress? And the Loviatan rite? And the time you asked her how she’d like to be murdered if she started turning, and you made it sound like foreplay?”

“A friendly exchange between like-minded individuals,” Astarion says primly. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“I understand more than you’d think. Have you even kissed her yet?”

He’s taken aback by that— or maybe he’s just insulted. Stops him talking, at least. But then, he does something that’s much worse than talking: he grins. He steps toward her. She’s no damsel, but he revels in the thought of it— just her , and him , alone , in this dark forest — all that’s missing is a red cape and a basket.

“You like to cause trouble, don’t you?” he says. “For all your talk of knowing what’s at stake , and being bound together, and watching each other’s backs —”

He takes another step closer. She takes a half-step back.

“You just can’t help but think all this is temporary,” Astarion says. His voice is growing soft. His eyes are on her like a pin in a moth. “You’re just waiting for them all to abandon you. Because you think no one will ever—”

Shadowheart punches him.

He finds himself immediately on the ground. He scrabbles back, away from the cleric, fearing holy retribution— she stays where she is. He can see tears in her eyes.

“I could, you know,” he says, and his hair is mussed down over his brow, his eyes are glowing at her in the dark. The smile still pulls at his mouth. “I could. If you would let me.”

“Thank you for the mace,” she says. Her voice is over-loud compared to his. Her tone is cold and brittle.

She does not look at him as she walks back to camp.

By now, Amma’s in her cups enough to lose whatever doubt that Gale and the wide-eyed tiefling kids had sown in her. (And thank the gods for that: the only thing worse than being nice to a child, for her, is letting any child think she is a role model. Mol seems to understand this; some of the younger ones may not. Mol will set them right, though. She’s a smart one.)

She finds herself now at the far edge of the campsite, on the muddy gravel of the river shore, hidden from the revelers by reeds. She’s searching for Mol, to find something stronger than the plonk Alfira’d given her. Instead, she finds Wyll.

He’s skipping rocks into a calm eddy of the Chionthar. He glances back at her when she approaches— too drunk to keep her feet silent amongst the sand and gravel, too sober to fall— gives her a strange look.

He’s crying, she realizes as she nears him. He’s f*cking crying .

They saved the grove. The tieflings are alive. What else does he want? What now does he have to cry about?

“Ah, Hells,” he calls thickly to her. He’s got his own bottle in his hand— Dragon’s Breath brandy, from the smell and shape of it. “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice I was gone.”

“f*ck are you doing sulking out here by yourself? Go find Alfira. She wants to write a ballad for you.”

Wyll laughs, but there’s no joy in it. He swipes his palm across his cheeks to wipe away his tears.

“Oh, the Blade doesn’t sulk ,” he says. “ Brood , maybe, but never sulk . I was just… reflecting on what’s happened. Not wanting to be Mister Serious at a celebration.”

Amma consults her own bottle. It’s more than halfway empty, and it’s still too sweet, and it’s not as strong as she had hoped. Certainly no Dragon’s Breath. She pours the remaining wine out onto the ground and then throws the bottle into the river as hard and far as she can. It’s a petty, wasteful thing to do. She savors it.

She says: “Wyll, I think you’re the sh*ttiest hero I’ve ever met.”

Wyll tells her, “I think you might be right.”

He stares out at the water, watching the bottle bob, then disappear. She hadn’t expected him to agree.

When he doesn’t break the silence, she says, not looking at him: “Those people are alive because of you. That’s not something to be ashamed of.”

He turns to her now, but she’s no longer looking at him, she’s watching the water. He’s had a few different ideas of her since they met outside the grove: she keeps proving him wrong. Not always in a good way. Almost always not in a good way, actually. She has no morals he can make sense of.

He says, “The first time I saw you, I figured you a champion. A woman of valor. Integrity. I thought you blessed by Corellon, perhaps, for your skill with a bow. But you seem intent on proving me wrong.”

Wyll picks up a rock, turns it over in his hands, pitches it out onto the river before them. It skips twice. He seems disappointed.

“You have the skill and ability to help people . You can save lives. You could be a hero. But all you seem to care about is the clink of your next coin. Are you truly so simple, Amma?”

“Yes.” She doesn’t hesitate. It’s flat, fact countering fact. “No point being alive if you can’t afford to stay that way.”

Wyll considers this. And then he asks her, his voice low and rough around the edges, “Have you ever wanted something so desperately, you’d sell your very soul to get it?”

(The sunrise. The charred portrait. The scars on her back.)

Amma’s quiet for a beat. She doesn’t know, exactly, what he’s asking— if he’s looking for another reason to be disappointed in her, or if he’s offering a truce. But Wyll looks at her briefly, sees her expression, and nods his head: yes, she has. He takes another swig of the brandy. He says: “Then I reckon you’ll understand.”

(What she wants is to stay alive— what she wants is freedom. He asked her if she wanted something so bad she’d do anything to get it, and there’s his answer: she was someone’s puppet, once, and she’ll kill everyone she loves and skin herself alive to keep her fate from that again.)

“If you’re going to tell me your tragic backstory, I need another drink.” She holds out her hand. He gives her the bottle without comment. It is indeed Dragon’s Breath— burns in her mouth and throat, burns in her belly. It’s a welcome feeling. She doesn’t pass it back. He looks back out over the river— the moonlight dancing white on the current, the reeds whispering in the cool night breeze. He says:

“My father once told me, ‘One does not pursue a champion’s life. One merely answers its call.’ I never really believed him. Not until I heard it calling out for me.”

Amma truly doesn’t care to hear whatever tragedy made him into the man he is today. Heroes are all the same to her— stupid, self-righteous bastards squabbling over right and wrong, good and evil, making their own personal creed into everyone else’s problem. But if she takes off now, he’ll likely want the brandy back, and she has no intention of letting that happen. So she humors him in silence.

“It was out near Cloakwood. I was riding, and I knew a place to stop for a drink, rest my horse a bit. But when I reached it— goblins had razed the village. I could see the smoke, smell the fire. Hear the screams.” He shuts his eyes, pained. “There were bodies… everywhere. Innocent people— farmers, children — all left to burn and bleed and die in fear. I tried to help, I tried to save them, but… gods, there were so many…”

Boo f*cking hoo, Amma thinks.

“I could hear a woman in the fields. Crying. When I got to her, she… It was just her son left. A little boy. Couldn’t have been more than five years old. He was weeping, holding his mother as she bled into the soil, calling out for every god he knew. None of them answered. — You’ll want another drink before the next bit,” he adds. She swigs obligingly.

“I didn’t have a sword, or bow, but there was a pitchfork I could reach. Don’t remember much of the fight, except for one of them coming at me with a knife. Little bugger went straight for my face.” He touches the scarred flesh on his cheek, his voice bitter. “I woke up in a puddle of piss and blood. The boy was dead. The goblins were gone. I didn’t know where they’d run to. I held the boy’s corpse, wiped the tears from his cold little face… and I swore to all the Hells and Heavens that what happened to him would never happen to anyone else. Not if I could help it. The world would not be like this within the reach of my arm.”

“I swore that, once,” she says quietly.

Wyll looks at her, his eyes wide and honest, his scarred mouth slightly open in surprise. She’s not looking at him. She’s staring at the river.

Because she knows, intimately, that the world is going to be however the world wants to be, no matter how many arms are holding it. Trying to save it only ends up making the place sh*ttier instead. The fates are never fair. If they were, she would be tucked into a lavish bed in Myth Drannor, smelling all of rose and spices. Instead, she’s here, smelling of dungeon-muck and relying on charity for clothes.

“You can see how well that worked out.”

She sighs, stares out at the river, and then raises the bottle in a toast.

“Here’s to disappointing you, hero,” she says bitterly. “Let’s hope I live to do it plenty more.”

On Amma’s way back to the campsite proper, and the revelry therein, Halsin intercepts her.

“I saw you on the battlefield,” says the archdruid. “Your ferocity is unmatched, my friend. The grove is truly blessed to have you as its protector.”

“I usually take coin over blessings. You haven’t got any stacked away between your muscles, have you?”

Halsin laughs, a big, warm sound from deep in his core. It reminds her of a rockslide, of the sound of stone grinding over stone, heavy and mutable. (She hadn’t meant it as a joke.) Her eyes are wandering already; she’s looking for someone less wholesome.

“You were examining Minthara’s corpse, were you not?”

“Wanted to make sure she was really dead.”

“She certainly looked it to me,” he rumbles, still chuckling. “I saw Karlach split that woman’s head in twain like it was firewood. Ah, but I did not come to speak of battles and bloodshed, Amma. Forgive me. I wanted to thank you again for freeing me. I do not much believe in fated meetings, but— yours and mine, I think, may be such a one. In truth, I grew too cloistered in the comforts of the grove. I am eager to be out amongst the Oak Father’s creations once more.”

“Shouldn’t you be out there shaking hands or something?” Amma says. She’s sick of being thanked. She didn’t save the grove because it was the right thing to do; she did it because she wanted to see Minthara dead. It rankles to hear people think otherwise.

Halsin simply smiles and shakes his head. Gods, but he’s annoying.

“The victory is yours. As are the spoils. As am I, if you would have me.”

Amma chokes on the brandy.

Amma coughs, and hacks, and looks him up and down.

And when she gets her breath back enough to speak, Amma laughs at him.

“I wouldn’t,” she manages between harsh cackles, and leaves before he can make himself look more a fool.

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

When Amma finally returns to the celebration, she finds Astarion lurking at the treeline, nursing three bottles on a boulder and not enjoying any of them. She’s almost surprised: figured the vampire would be trying a sampler flight of tieflings who no doubt wanted to thank him for his heroism. She flops down beside him, offers Wyll’s brandy wordlessly. He dumps his cup out on the ground and lets her fill it.

“This is swill,” he says sullenly. “I even gave that little imp five gold for a better vintage, and it’s still disgusting.”

“Think of it as an investment,” Amma says. She can’t help but delight in his misery, even if she agrees with him. “Bet she’ll use that gold for all sorts of trouble once she’s past the Gate.”

“I shall not,” Astarion says. “I never wanted to save lives. I never pictured myself as a hero. And now that we’re here—”

He drinks deep from his goblet, as though the brandy will change his mind, but— “Eugh, I hate it. This is awful.”

“Oh, I can think of a few ways to reward you—”

Before that line of discussion can go any further, Shadowheart sways into view, her own wine in hand. She has not bothered with a cup. Her cheeks are vibrant and dewy, and if Amma had to guess, she’d say the cleric is already down a bottle and halfway through the one she’s holding. (Astarion is almost impressed: it hasn’t been more than fifteen minutes since she punched him.)

“There you are,” says the cleric fondly, and only to Amma. “I was wondering if you had run off somewhere with all our things.”

She has a lovely smile, Amma thinks— mischievous and secretive. Tempting. And the rogue can’t help but smile back with her own mischief in mind.

“Night’s still young. Don’t rule it out.”

Shadowheart laughs. She sits down on Amma’s other side, much to Astarion’s displeasure; Amma keeps him there with a hand set firmly on his thigh.

“You know, I think if you really want something, you should take it,” Shadowheart continues, doing a very good job of staying upright. “None of this asking and waiting and playing games business— full offense, Astarion— better to be straightforward about it.”

“You are a child,” he responds from over Amma’s shoulder. “A tiny infant. I could hide behind this rock and you would forget that I existed.”

“Go on, then, I’d love that.”

Amma stares down at her mouth and says, “I could take you, sweetling.”

Shadowheart falls silent. She looks out across the party; takes a swig.

“Why did you agree to save the grove?” she asks.

And so Amma reconsiders mischief. Her eyes still linger on Shadowheart, hungry, uncertain.

(She really is a pretty thing, and she knows it, too, the way she holds herself, the way she barely laces up her tunic. Amma wonders if vanity is a vice Shar tolerates, or if it was something that this girl was taught to wield, just as she was taught to wield hers.)

Amma takes another drink of brandy.

(Her thoughts have been thoroughly consumed with the fantastic image of the cleric’s hair unbraided, loose down to her elbows— how it would smell— the feeling of dragging it between her fingers— the sounds Shadowheart might make if she grabbed and pulled it taught.)

(She had kissed her, that night in the temple. She had kissed her and she’d been kissed back. She knows it isn’t disinterest or chastity that pull Shadowheart’s attention from her. But the girl’s attention pulls away, nonetheless, and if she won’t give it, Amma certainly won’t reach to take it.)

“Spite the Absolute,” she says.

“Half of these people will be dead before they reach the Basilisk Gate,” Astarion says bitterly. He’s tracing her knuckles on his thigh. “I’m starting to worry you might just have a heart in there after all.”

“We could go with them,” Shadowheart offers.

Amma scoffs. “Sure. And then half of us would be dead before the Basilisk Gate, too.”

The cleric leans back against the tree stump. Two pairs of eyes move to the pale bow of her throat as she tips her head back.

“Well, I’m certainly not here to talk about tomorrow,” she says. “Suppose I just wanted to… spend time with you. Talk to you. Would you tell me something more about yourself? And no adventuring or burglaring or some grand assassination, I want to hear about you.”

“Burglaring and grand assassination is mostly all there is to me.”

“Oh, don’t be coy, it doesn’t suit you. Wouldn’t you agree, Astarion?” (Shadowheart doesn’t wait for his answer before continuing, her voice lilting and innocent.) “Haven’t I earned a secret from you, Amma?”

And she’s delighted at the sound of her name in Shadowheart’s mouth— almost as much as she’s delighted by Shadowheart telling her what not to do— almost as delighted as she is by Astarion taking her free hand and kissing her fingers quite jealously.

“You first.”

The cleric’s mouth quirks up at the corner. “I like night orchids, and I can’t swim,” she says. “That’s— about it. I can’t remember much else. Not of myself, at least. Now, come on, tell me something.”

Amma considers the request (demand?), holding her own drink in front of her mouth as the cleric often does. There’s a lot that she could tell. Most of it’s unpleasant. Shadowheart shouldn’t hear unpleasant things, she thinks— nor Astarion, for that matter— they’ve had enough unpleasant things between the three of them already.

“I like roses and I like swimming. I could teach you, if you like.”

Astarion pulls her fingers out of his mouth indignantly, as she knew he would.

Shadowheart surveys them both over her wine, inscrutable and painfully darling.

Amma is nearly drunk enough to weep with joy that she’s between these creatures of the night.

“Sweet of you to offer,” the cleric says finally, “but I think you’ve got your hands full, at the moment.” Then she rises, stumbling a little as she chugs the last of her bottle, and departs for her tent.

Astarion sniffs, “And here I thought I was going to be the one making a conquest through the camp. You’re a cutthroat of the highest order.”

“Jealous, are you?”

“Should I be?”

They’re already close, but Amma closes the distance, their legs touching and her head falling to rest on his thin shoulder.

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“And where else could you be? I saw you talking to Gale, earlier— and the bear— and Wyll, too, if I’m not mistaken. I can smell him on you, darling. Quite cloying.”

Amma scoffs quietly, a rasping thing in the back of her throat.

“I don’t like them. I like you.”

He sighs, one hand tracing circles on her thigh, the other swirling brandy in his cup.

“Yes. Who wouldn’t, after last night?”

She frowns. “I liked you before that, you know.”

“Did you really? Had a funny way of showing it.”

“I can show it better.”

The firelight flashes in Astarion’s red eyes when he looks at her sidelong. He holds his drink up to his mouth and watches her— calculating, predatory. He doesn’t take a sip. That familiar, self-satisfied smirk blooms across his face, and as if to prove his point, she wants to slap him. Dreadful man. Terrible. She’d have her hand down his pants already if there weren’t children running around.

“And how exactly would you show it, pet?” he says.

“However you like.”

The way he looks at her is awful. Monstrous . His eyes linger at her throat, at her mouth. His gaze grows teeth and she lets it gnaw her raw. She thinks, truly, the only thing stopping him from ripping out her neck right then and there are all the witnesses.

Slowly, without taking those red eyes from her, he twists and sets his goblet down on the rock behind them. He lets his arm fall down around her on the way back, drawing her in, and with his hand gripping her shoulder gently— he kisses her. It isn’t forceful, but it’s deep, and searching, and as she kisses back, he hopes he finds what he was looking for.

Her hand finds his face— the lightest touch, framing his chin with two fingers and a thumb. One kiss becomes two, two kisses become three, and three kisses become her sitting up on her knees. She’s taller than him, here, and she leans forward, still holding his jaw so gently, puts herself almost on top of him. Alfira’s strumming out a lovely tune in three-fourths time.

When he breaks for air (well, for her to get some air, he doesn’t need to breathe, which is unfair, because she’d like to keep on kissing him), she whispers: “I’ll ravish you. I’ll bleed for you. I’ll be your sweet thing in the woods. However you want it, lovely. I’ll be just for you.”

She can hear Astarion’s breath catch on that, and he goes to kiss her with renewed enthusiasm— her hand on his jaw becomes a vice, keeping him at bay. Just like before, he has to earn it.

“But,” Amma says to him with a grin, “dance with me first. Let me be a gentleman about it.”

There are three couples swaying to Alfira’s lute. None of them know how to waltz properly.

She’s betting he does, though.

(Astarion looks physically pained at her demand.)

“Oh, don’t let’s,” he pleads, even as she pulls him to his feet. All it earns him is a snicker. She drags him mercilessly to the clearing, to the music and the couples dancing.

“You’re trotting me out like a pedigree pup,” he whines.

“So give them a show, pup,” she says, pulling his arm around her waist. She sways a little drunkenly— the wine is wearing off, but the brandy stays, just enough to make her happy. It’s so rare she’s truly happy anymore. “Win me a prize.”

She was right: he does know how to waltz. He moves in perfect time with the music, graceful as a prince— how very refreshing it is to meet someone cultured.

“You are terrible,” he whispers to her. “You are absolutely the worst. I should have left you dead.”

“Yes, you should have,” comes her gleeful, vicious whisper back. “I’ll make sure you live to keep regretting it.”

She rests her head against his shirt. There is no heartbeat underneath. The coldness of him is a welcome respite from an otherwise very warm night. She does, regretfully, step once out of time; his hand at her waist keeps up for her, drawing her flush against him and nudging his toe under her foot. (She tells herself she doesn’t miss it because he’s sweeping her off her feet. She’s mildly drunk and out of practice. It’s been a century since she had reason to waltz.)

“Oh, I think I’ll have plenty more chances to correct that particular mistake,” Astarion says breezily into the top of her head. “In fact, I think I’ll have a chance quite soon. Tonight, even. When we’re all alone…”

“Am I forgiven, then, so easily?”

“No, I think I’ll make you work for it.”

“Now who’s being terrible,” she says, but she’s still smiling.

Astarion draws his hand and hers both to his chest, and coaxes her face up with their tangled fingers at her chin. He looks perfect and radiant, as always. The light is hazy on him from the drink. Gods, but he is such a lovely, wicked thing. She wants to set him loose on the tieflings. If there were no heroes here to put him down, she would.

“My little treat,” he says— and when he grins, she can see his fangs, and a chill of desire runs down her back at the memory of his tongue on her flesh— “your cheeks are flushed.”

Alfira finishes the song with a flourish. Amma blames it on the drink when Astarion manages to hook his foot around her ankle and send her falling gracelessly— except he’s got his arm around her waist, and the movement ends in a perfect dip. He holds her close enough that he could kiss her. She remains cruelly unkissed.

“Bastard,” she says, breathless from the fall and catch. “You’re beautiful.”

He simply quirks a brow and tells her, “So I’ve heard.” Then, he draws her up and grips her hand, leading her away from the center of the campsite. He makes a beeline for the darkness of the forest. “Now— about your apology?”

“Apology? ”

“Yes, you were quite wicked to me, earlier. And you said if I was good, you would reward me. Haven’t I been perfect, lover?”

The noise of revelry dies quickly in between the trees. He leads her fast and far, and some small part of her thinks this is a very bad idea, letting a bloodthirsty vampire whisk her away after she’s already given them a reason not to look for her in the morning (theft and abandonment)— but a much larger part of her thinks that this is a very good idea, letting this charming monster search for her heart with his teeth. Astarion, perhaps, thinks he’s unforgivable: Amma thinks there’s nothing to forgive. They are both villains, after all.

There is a ruin out here in the gloom, low stone walls softened by age and moss; a chunk of foundation still stands thigh-high, and it is this he lifts her onto without question, hiking her legs up around his waist, one hand searching for the buttons on her trousers.

He leans over her, cool and comfortably heavy— kisses her (what a wonderful thing, to be kissed by him!) as he untucks her shirt. His fingers are cold enough to make her shiver, but he warms quickly on top of her. He always does. He pulls her trousers and her smallclothes off with expert hands. Just like before, he trails kisses down her legs and then back up. This time, though, he stays kneeling on the ground, watching her for a moment, before pulling her thigh over his shoulder. He presses his lips to a spot six inches above her knee: achingly close, teasingly far.

He draws up for a moment— which is too long, as far as Amma is concerned— and tells her, every bit a hungry thing in the woods, “Can I—?”

“Wait,” she manages, “hold on— oh, let me up—”

He makes a show of pouting as he does. She’s naked and panting already and Astarion is not even open by one button. Unfair. It takes her a long moment to think through the weight of adoration and desire, but she manages, breathing heavy and propped up on her elbows.

“Is that what you want me to do?”

When he doesn’t answer immediately, she slides off the wall away from him, gets to her feet. He stands as well. Being bare doesn’t intimidate her, nor does the monster who had stripped her, nor does the task at hand. She considers him: his face, his posture, the lack of any indication in his trousers that he wants to do this. And he seems— confused, by that. Uncertain. The brandy’s wearing off. The desire, and the promises, have stayed.

“I said I’d reward you,” Amma tells him softly. She steps toward him and takes his hands in hers, looking up at him— she presses into him, sighing into his collar at the feeling of his fine blouse against her skin. “Is that how you want me to do it?”

She draws back enough to watch his face. She almost wishes that he had a heartbeat, just so she could feel it, to know what made it jump.

“I want… what anybody wants,” he murmurs, running his thumbs along the back of her hands— but his eyes are searching. He’s looking for a sign he’s said the right thing. “Pleasure. Yours. Mine. Our… collective ecstasy.”

She betrays no effect his words may have on her.

Then, slowly, purposefully, watching his face just as he watches hers— Amma goes to her knees before Astarion.

“Did you really think I didn’t like you?” she says gently, and rests her chin just under his waistband, looking up at him. It’s a deliberate placement of her throat over his co*ck, and she can feel him getting hard at that, but her hands are folded in her lap, his clothes are all still on. She won’t continue unless he gives permission.

She watches him swallow. She swears she can feel the movement shudder all the way through his body. His eyes haven’t left her, bright and precious, and still she watches.

(She is asking. She is asking. He’s stalked her since the temple, and this is his way of ensuring that she fights for him, and she knows it, but she’s asking.)

(Amma knows how it feels to be asked instead of taken from .)

“Astarion.” Her voice is so soft. She didn’t think it could be that soft anymore. She thought she didn’t have a heart. Now the damn thing won’t shut up about him. “Do you want me to f*ck you?”

He swallows again. His co*ck is straining at his pants. She still hasn’t touched him, but to lay her chin against him.

“Yes,” he whispers.

“How do you want me to f*ck you?”

“How—” (he clears his throat) “— however you want to.”

He’s still searching for a tell. She still hasn’t given one.

Then, Amma sighs, and turns her head; she lays her cheek against his hips, her ear against the curve of his pelvis.

“Can I touch you?” she says gently.

He manages a sharp, high laugh: “Won’t you?”

Her hands roam up his knees, his thighs, his ass.

“Can I taste you?”

“If you like.”

“Would you rather taste me?”

He swallows again, and his voice still has laughter in it. “You— you are a tease.”

“I am not. I just want to know what makes you happy.”

She untucks his shirt, presses one kiss to the white skin at his stomach, another kiss, again. He obliges and tugs the blouse off, drops it on the ground. His hands are shaking when he starts unbuttoning his pants.

“But maybe I’m biased,” she continues. “Honestly, I’ve been thinking about you in my mouth for days.”

“Tease,” he says again.

“Well, would you rather have it here, or on the wall, or on the ground, then? Get comfortable and I’ll make good on everything I’ve said.”

When Astarion doesn’t answer her immediately, she looks up at him again, and takes her hands away. Desire is a noose around him. If he seeks the end of it, he chokes.

She yearns to cut the rope.

He reaches down and cups her chin, his touch so gentle, like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to, like he is afraid he’ll maul her if he isn’t on a leash. Sweet, stupid, awful, lovely boy. She watches his face for the moment that rope ends— and then the moment that he finds himself still breathing.

“Here,” he gasps.

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

Wine roils in Shadowheart’s stomach as she searches for the river. There’s something about water she finds soothing, though it holds no special place in Sharran literature— she supposes it’s to do with not knowing how to swim. There’s something comforting about the thought of slipping underneath the surface of it— feeling that dark oblivion close around her like the arms of Shar— sinking to the bottom. It’s a gentle way to go, she thinks.

She can remember enough about Baldur’s Gate to know that there are plenty of canals and riverbanks accessible throughout the city.

She can remember enough about herself to know she could have asked someone to teach her how to swim, but hasn’t.

She searches for the cold water of the Chionthar now, alone and nearly out of drink. She doesn’t know exactly what she hopes to find— purpose, direction— forgiveness, perhaps. She misses what she remembers of the cloister. She misses the close dark. She misses the sense of belonging.

Shadowheart wraps her arms around herself and whispers to her goddess.

“Mother of Night, darken my step as I walk among the light. Hear my prayer.”

The sound of revelry fades, overtaken by the faint rush of wind in trees. It’s unfamiliar to the cleric, after growing up in the city— not unpleasant, though. Calming.

When she finds a creek, she takes her shoes off and puts her bare feet in it. The water is cold and clear and the current feels gentle.

“Blessed Nightsinger,” she murmurs, “witness my adoration.”

(I could take you, sweetling, Amma had said.)

“See that I serve you, and only you.”

(She still had bruises. Shadowheart could have healed them. Could have put her hands on Amma’s bare skin again. Could have touched her.)

“I have emptied my heart of falsehoods.”

(I could, if you’d let me, Astarion had said.)

“In the darkness I see your truth.”

(She is afraid to touch him. She is afraid the holiness will hurt him, even with his life given to the night, even with the tadpole.)

“Embrace me. I am your loyal warrior.”

(She’s afraid she won’t want to stop touching him.)

“Cloak me in your shadow.”

(She’s afraid she won’t want to stop touching either of them.)

“Guide me to your victory.”

(But she had left them there, together— she had left them to be by herself. She had left them to pray. They were both beautiful. They had each other. Even if she had stayed, even if they’d let her touch them— it was inevitable that they would fall into only each other’s embrace, in the end.)

“Lady Shar’s will be done. As sure as night shall fall.”

The only answer to her prayer is silence.

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

“Gods, what a sight,” he breathes.

Amma has been drifting, but at the sound of Astarion’s voice, she opens her eyes and lifts her head.

The revelry is over. The air is midnight-cold. The world is asleep, save for criminals and creatures of the night— both of which apply to them.

“The stars, I mean,” he says as she stirs beside him. “I could take or leave your face.”

“Took it well enough earlier.”

She can find the shape of his fangs when he smiles, even though his lips are closed. She nudges her finger into his mouth and thumbs one like she’s testing the sharpness of a blade. He takes her wrist and bites her finger gently.

“You know— we could do this in a bed,” she says absently. “With a fire. And blankets. A roof over our heads.”

“No, you’re much too loud. You’d wake the dead. I should know.” He pulls her hand away, presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist, and sets it on his chest. He’s not looking at her; he’s looking up at the night sky. There’s a wistful smile pulling at his mouth. “Besides, I’d miss the stars. You can’t see them this well in the city.”

She inhales deeply, sighs into the night. She’s not looking at the sky. She’s looking at his hand. He’s wearing one of the rings she slipped into his pocket days ago: an oval-cut ruby, very slightly tarnished, but still elegant. It matches his eyes.

She mumbles: “I hate them.”

“Who?”

“The stars. It just feels like— eyes. Like being watched.”

He’s silent for a while. Perhaps he thought she was more fantastic than that. It doesn’t bother her; if he wanted fantasy, he would have f*cked the wizard. She’s practical. She survives. She wants to slit throats and steal purses and if he wants to join her, he’s welcome. If he doesn’t, well— it’s less fun, but she’ll live. Perhaps the night is over. She rouses herself, props up on an elbow, looks for her shirt.

Then: Amma feels his lithe arms wind around her back. He pulls her on top of him and holds her close against his silent chest. All she can see is his skin. No stars, no night. Just him.

“No one’s watching us,” Astarion says, so softly, his breath stirring her hair. “No one can see. I promise.”

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

In the morning, Amma wakes up on her back, alone. She sits up, squints in the sunlight— finds Astarion standing some ways away, his back to her, wearing just his pants and basking in the sun. It’s already blazing warm and golden on him.

She pulls her knees up to her chest.

She’s never seen his bare back.

She’d felt the scars, briefly, and she had thought them from a whip.

Looking at them now: she can imagine, from her own experience, what it must have felt like when the jagged lines were carved into his flesh. How the blade must have dragged. How the blood must have run down his sides.

And Amma Theylin has never cared that the world was cruel and unfair, has never cared to distinguish right from wrong, has never cared for justice but to dodge it. She is a malefactor of the lowest order. She’s never wanted to protect anyone.

Now, for him, she’d risk her life to do it.

He angles his head— catches sight of her.

“You sleep light,” he says. “I thought you’d be exhausted after last night.”

She is. There are plenty of delicious aches in places she’d forgot that she could ache in. Less pleasantly, there is one now in the recess of her heartbeat, too.

“Your scars,” she says quietly, knowing the answer, hoping she’s wrong: “He did that to you?”

When Astarion exhales then, he shrinks.

“A poem,” he says. “A gift.”

The hate in his voice is as clear and scabbed-over as the runes scarred on his back.

“Cazador fancied himself quite the artist. I could never disagree; he wouldn’t let me. One night he said he wanted to try his hand at poetry— but he didn’t want to waste the ink on drafting. He composed seven stanzas for his seven favorites in just one night.”

Astarion’s shoulders rise and fall as he sighs, shrinking further into himself, his voice gone soft with resignation after centuries of torture. He says these things so cavalierly; it’s like he doesn’t realize how horrible it is until the words are out of his mouth, and by then, he may as well keep going. May as well let the horrors see the light of day.

His voice is so small and bitter when he says, “He made a lot of revisions as he went.”

What can Amma say to that? She’s sorry that it happened? He didn’t deserve it? Someday she’d like to split Cazador Szarr from his groin to his gullet for what he did to such a beautiful boy? No, she can’t. It’s true— but she can’t. The world isn’t fair, and if anyone understands that it’s Astarion and herself, and offering to save him now is nothing. It’s pointless. Worse: it’s insulting. No one has saved him yet. Why would she be any different?

(No one ever saved her, either.)

All Amma can do is hum mournfully, and say, “Prettier than mine.”

He turns his head, and looks— confused. Surely he felt it? Surely he saw it?

Apparently he didn’t.

That ache in her heart hurts far worse now.

Amma stands, bare but for the curtain of her auburn hair, lank and loose down to her hips. For a moment, she watches him— tries to see any recognition in his face, any sign he knows what she’s about to show him— but he doesn’t give it. So she pulls her hair over her shoulder, exposing her back, and turns around.

He does not see the slash across her side from a githyanki spelljammer. He does not see the nicks on her collarbone where she jumped out a window in Waterdeep to avoid the guards. He does not see the faded tracks where she was whipped as a child, nor does he even see his own handprint bruised into the divot of her hip.

What he sees is a massive cicatrix, a span of pale scar tissue that twists and puckers from her shoulder blades to the base of her spine, the reach of it rivaling his own.

“Tell me that’s not from the goblins’ priest,” she hears him say.

She doesn’t answer him immediately. She’s thinking. How much of the story does she need to give him in order to make any sense of it? How much does he deserve to know? How much does she want to tell him? (How much has he already seen and felt in her own memories, in the things she showed to Nightwarden Minthara?)

She starts with: “House DeVir lost the favor of Lolth a long time ago, but that only made them more ambitious.”

“House,” he says. “Menzoberranzan?”

“Imagine a city ruled by eight little Cazadors, all trying to kill each other. I belonged to number four. They bought me as a slave when I was— I don’t know. Young. A child.”

He’d tell me to bring home the most beautiful people I could find, Astarion had said.

She was younger when the Matron bought her than he was when Cazador took him.

“One of their daughters wanted to experiment with magic. I didn’t have any talent with it, but I was pretty enough and smart enough and killed enough people that I was her favorite, so she had a sigil tattooed on my back. It was meant to— pull in strands of Weave, or something, somehow. I don’t know.”

Amma squeezes her eyes painfully shut, waits until she sees stars behind her eyelids, opens them wide. She lets herself be blinded by the sun on a rock face nearby.

“It let me… manipulate the darkness. I could summon blades from shadow, I could disappear in it. It let her watch me, too— it let her talk to me. I could be ten thousand miles out of the Underdark and still she could control me. I was just— a tool. A weapon. Eyes to watch, ears to listen, hands to stab.”

For a moment, she almost speaks of Bonnevance— but no, she swallows that impulse. She won’t tell her current lover how she made herself a widow.

She runs her fingers through her tangled hair to remind herself that it’s been more than a century since Ched Nasad, and concludes bitterly, “I had the godsdamned thing flayed off in prison.”

“You,” Astarion says, and he’s right behind her now, “did this? To yourself?”

“Made someone else do it for me. I couldn’t reach.”

He touches her back carefully. She freezes, but she doesn’t stiffen, doesn’t stop him. She can feel him running his fingers over the edge of the scar, feeling the spot where smooth gray skin becomes thick and pale.

“What did it feel like?”

“Like I was being slowly skinned with a dirty shiv and had nothing but my screams to dull the pain,” she says flatly. “I thought I’d die. I was okay with that. I’d do it a thousand times over if I could.”

Astarion’s thumb, almost warm from standing in the sunlight, presses at a spot between her shoulder blades. There are no nerves left there. She can barely feel it.

“Why?” he asks. He sounds more fascinated than anything. His fascination interests her, in turn: she didn’t tell him to earn sympathy. She doesn’t want sympathy from him. She wants understanding. She wants them to trust each other to do terrible things.

“Because it cut her out of me, too. Because it made me free.”

She thinks he may have bent his head and kissed her there. Maybe he just wanted a closer look. She doesn’t try to glance back at him, and sensation eludes her.

“And your mistress?”

“Gone.” She considers leaving it at that, but— “I don’t know where. The House fell not long after. With any luck, she’s dead.”

Without further embellishment, Amma moves past him and starts picking up her clothes.

“Come on, we should get back. Wyll’s probably sharpening his stakes if you show up alone again.”

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

“Hastening me won’t make things any easier, I’m afraid. Traveling to Moonrise is no small task— expect dangers like you’ve never seen before. The lands have been choked with shadow for over a century. The place is well and truly godsforsaken.”

Amma is only minimally offended that they’re having this discussion without her. The only thing more conspicuous than her own absence this morning is Astarion’s. She can forgive them starting talks without the rogues, because neither absence is commented on— nor is the obvious rosy tint in the vampire’s complexion that he only gets after drinking something fresh, nor is her loose hair, which she only ever uses as a curtain for bite-marks anymore.

Wyll, Karlach, and Halsin are all poring over a map of the Sword Coast, spread out on the dining room table in Gale’s magic tent. Shadowheart is muddling herbs for a healing potion in her mortar and pestle, looking thoughtful and intent. Gale’s cooking breakfast at the stove. Amma watches him drop a piece of sausage at his side for— the owlbear cub. Because of course the owlbear cub is following them around now. How wonderful. She hopes the damn thing bites his fingers off.

“But it can be traversed, can’t it?” Wyll says. “Otherwise the cultists would all die. There must be a secret way they know.”

“Perhaps some type of ward or charm,” Gale points out. “Something to shield them from the curse, so they may travel freely.”

“Spell, ward, charm, blessing— I know of none that will not fail, sooner or later,” says Halsin.

On that uplifting note, Amma chimes in: “You said we could avoid it if we went through the Underdark.”

“Avoid some of it,” the druid replies. “The Sharran Ketheric Thorm had some way of passing between the temple of Selûne and his home in Reithwen. It was he who razed Selûne’s temple, not the Absolute.”

(Amma locks eyes with Shadowheart for a moment. She nods minutely— if Halsin’s lingering resentments to Shar become problematic, they’ll just kill him, wild shape or no. Might lose a couple body parts on the way, but that’s what healing magic is for, isn’t it?)

“And this passage was within the Underdark?” the cleric prompts.

“It could be nowhere else,” the archdruid replies. “I have spoken with all manner of creatures of the land, the sea, the soil and the air, and none have been able to describe anything like Thorm’s passage would require. There are no arcane sigils or hidden paths through the wilds. And those who survived the temple’s fall have told of black knights rising from the ground, like shadows come to life.”

“We’re above Deep Shanatar,” Amma says, half-squinting in thought. “I know that terrain. Be easy to find some tunnel or another that would take us there.”

Halsin looks at her, pleasantly surprised. “Indeed it would, my friend. Do you hail from the Underdark?”

“Menzoberranzan.”

“Ah! A beautiful place, the City of Spiders… I was a guest of House Mizzrym, some three centuries ago. It was a time that taught me much.”

Amma, more than a little hungover, sore and cold from sleeping on the ground, and edging towards quite a dangerous amount of blood loss, thinks that she deserves a f*cking award and a thousand platinum for not murdering him on the spot.

“That’s nice,” the rogue says dully. “I grew up on the street, stealing for food.”

Halsin’s face falls. “Ah,” he says again, somber this time. “No city is without its wayside, I fear. Is that what inspired you to go adventuring on the surface?”

“You could say that. I like having money, you see. To live.”

The archdruid actually laughs. In her mind, she briefly lives a fantasy where Astarion had never eaten those little goblins, they’d never rescued Halsin, and the bear had died a thousand slow and painful deaths at Minthara and Dror Ragzlin’s hands.

“Straightforward,” Halsin says. “Honest. I respect that.”

“Right, well, good to know I have your approval,” Amma mutters, searching for a mug.

(Can druids be poisoned? She can’t remember. She had to have traveled with one, sometime, did it ever come up then..?)

Then, Wyll says: “I won’t be going through the Underdark.”

Ah, mutiny. She wondered when this fate would come.

“I’m sorry, but— it’s—”

His jaw tightens and he turns his head away from them. His chin holds high, and his jaw sets strong— his heroic profile muddles against Gale’s crackling hearth. Amma can’t read anything on it.

“My father,” he says, “Duke Ravengard. He was taken from Waukeen’s Rest— I saw it in a letter in Minthara’s chambers. I have to save him.”

“Wyll… Ravengard ,” says Astarion. “You’re WYLL RAVENGARD? ”

Shadowheart’s brow cinches, trying to remember why the name is familiar. “Is he from Baldur’s Gate?”

“ From it? Darling, he practically runs the place! Duke Ravengard is the most influential man in the entire city! He leads the Council, the Flaming Fist—”

Amma, furious: “What, so we could have been ransoming you this whole time? ”

Wyll laughs. It wasn’t a joke.

“I— wouldn’t go that far,” he says. “We haven’t spoken for the better part of a decade.”

“You completely disappeared ,” Astarion says gleefully. “We spent weeks talking about it! Petras thought it was a gambling debt, I thought you’d run off with someone daddy dearest didn’t like—”

“ Regardless of the circ*mstances of my birth ,” Wyll says tersely, holding up a hand, “Duke Ulder Ravengard is the binding force that keeps the Gate together. Without him, the city faces collapse. I think that’s likely the very reason he was taken. No doubt the Nightwarden would have had him sent to Moonrise— though to what end, I dare not guess.”

“Don’t be foolish, Wyll,” says Shadowheart, and there is actual, real, genuine worry in her voice. “We’ve all got answers waiting for us at Moonrise Towers. Travel with us.”

“I can’t. The overland route is faster, and I cannot waste a moment.”

Amma, eager to be rid of him, asks: “Can’t, or won’t?”

“Both.” Wyll meets her gaze, his face cold and hard as stone. “You leave no room for goodness in your path.”

And she realizes, suddenly, that he isn’t just a spoiled little rich boy throwing a tantrum. Wyll is genuinely trying to do the right thing. To save the day. Not just to be the hero— but to be truly good.

Karlach stands. “I’m coming with you.”

“ No — no, Karlach, I won’t put you in any further danger. M—” He stops short and flinches, like something wet and unsanitary just found its way into his open mouth. “My… my path is solitary. It’s my burden to bear, and I can’t ask you to hold it for me. You’re far safer all together.”

“Yeah, and what does that make you all by yourself, idiot?” the tieflings says, bright heat flaring on the metal in her chest. “Split the party if you like, mate— but I’m not letting you go on alone.”

Halsin puts his hand on Wyll’s shoulder. Wyll isn’t a slender boy, by any means, but Halsin’s fingers span the whole width of his shoulder. (Gods, but he’s gigantic. Built more like an ogre than an elf, Amma thinks.)

“You will not walk alone, Wyll Ravengard,” the archdruid rumbles. “Karlach is right. If your companion knows the Underdark, it may be safer for her there— but the overland route is surely more direct. And without tadpoles, we three have no need of the artifact—”

Shadowheart says angrily, “You can’t be serious.” Then, looking at the three of them in turn: “Oh, Lady of Loss preserve me,” she mutters in vague anguish. “You are serious, aren’t you?”

“You’re welcome to join us,” Wyll says. “I’ve seen you do some good, whether you knew it or not. Promise I won’t tell.”

The cleric hesitates. Then: “I can’t,” she says. (If she was truly as pragmatic as she says she is, Amma thinks, she wouldn’t even entertain the thought.) “Whatever may be in that passage— whatever’s left by Ketheric Thorm— it could be useful, to us.”

Wyll goes to her. “On my honor, Shadowheart, we’ll meet again.”

He holds his hand out for her to shake— a solemn farewell, the last goodbye of brothers-in-arms. She throws her arms around his neck instead. Everyone is rightfully shocked, but Wyll takes it like a champ. He even hugs her back.

When she pulls away, she stares at Karlach, and it’s so openly yearning to touch . The tiefling’s own eyes yearn back. (Amma throws up in her mouth a little.)

“You keep him safe, Karlach,” says the cleric.

Karlach salutes. It’s a playful gesture, but her face is set. “I will,” she says. “Every god as my witness, I will.”

The farewells were brief, but heartfelt, and still too long for Amma’s liking. She would have packed her things and left without a word or second glance if they had let her. But Shadowheart was clearly feeling things , and Gale gave the rogue a stern look when she stood too far away for too long— so Amma gave an offhanded good-luck to Karlach, and Wyll actually shook her hand. But the highlight of the morning was when Halsin ambled up to her as she was packing up her blades.

“I take it you hold no love for the Great Houses. I’m sorry, if I have offended you— my first view of the Underdark was through a Mizzrym window, and the charm of it has never truly left my sight.”

She pauses. Debates how nasty she really wants to be to him. They’re going to meet again, sometime, somewhere, she’s certain of it, and she’d much rather they were allies than enemies when that comes about— but gods , she really does despise this man.

“House Mizzrym is a cuckoo chick,” she says spitefully. “All it does is beg for food until someone else is stupid enough to let it take their nest.”

“Hm,” the archdruid says. “Such creatures have their places. What is your pale elf companion, if not a pretty cuckoo?”

When she answers, she enunciates every syllable of her companion’s name. (Five thousand platinum, an estate in the Heartlands, several awards, a galleon ship in her name, and an efreeti bottle.)

“ Astarion . Is useful . I’ve found that his benefits outweigh his quirks.”

“Of that I have no doubt.” Halsin looks away from her, across the campsite, to where Astarion is cheering Gale on as he tries to levitate a rock with psionic tadpole-power alone. “But keeping a vampire is somewhat more risky than a bird.”

“He’s not my pet .”

The archdruid gives her a strange, concerned look.

“I did not mean to presume— only to warn you that some things cannot be tamed.”

Amma tightens the final strap of her pack, slings the thing over her shoulder. She brushes past the druid.

“Never said I wanted him to be.”

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

They find the githyanki warrior bleeding to death at the bottom of a well.

They are all, more or less, also bleeding to death at the bottom of a well.

Let’s go down through the Underdark, Amma had said, let’s avoid the shadow curse for as long as we can, like Halsin said, I know the terrain, we’ll be fine. Now they’re fighting a bunch of phase spiders and they haven’t even broken through the surface. Stupid. Who the Hells put her in charge? Why are they still listening to her? Obviously she is not qualified.

Gale is doing his best, hurling fire and acid at the damn things; but at this point, it’s him and Amma holding the line while Astarion swears at Shadowheart for the verbal component of his healing word, trying to get her conscious enough to throw up a spiritual weapon, a mirror image— anything. At this point, it’s not skill keeping them alive, but pure refusal to die such a humiliating death as this: escaping mind flayers in Avernus only to get eaten by some giant bugs, at the bottom of a dried up well, in the middle of bumf*ck nowhere.

Then: seemingly from nothingness, the red-and-silver glow of an alien sword flashes bright and bloody. The gith knight impales from below, and she is tall enough to lift the spider off the ground as it twitches. She flings it over her shoulder and it’s dead before it hits the ground. She is fearsome. The arc of her longsword flows beautifully from one spider to the next, slashing through its knees, bringing it down, then impaling through its head— she misty steps, apparates into midair above the last remaining spider, and uses her falling momentum to cleave it clean in half. She lands in a perfect, practiced crouch.

Filthy with cave refuse and blood, eyes alight with battle-fury, the githyanki warrior rises, ready to cross blades with the party— but Gale lifts a hand— the warrior crumples.

“Just asleep,” he assures them quickly. “My tir’su is a little rusty. I’d rather not try to parley and insult her on accident.”

A too-familiar voice tells Amma, in her head, This one has a True Soul parasite. You ought to take it. It can increase your power.

She ignores it.

The githyanki warrior is tied to a post. Not the best impression to make, but— well, desperate times and all. She is denied her sword, her arrows, and on Amma’s intuition, the sidearm dagger hidden at the edge of her breastplate. When she wakes, she does not struggle.

“You carry a githyanki relic,” the warrior snarls. “I will have it— or your heads.”

“This thing, you mean?”

Amma sits in front of their alien captive, far enough away that she can’t be kicked (she’s been tied up plenty of times before, she knows how to get out of it) (she’s tied people up plenty of times as well, she knows how to do it right) (she’s an assassin, of course she knows these things). She holds out the strange artifact: polyhedral, inscribed, pulsing as though it is alive. None of them know how it came to be in their possessions: Gale can’t eat it, Astarion didn’t steal it, and Shadowheart says it’s not a Sharran artifact. When Amma found it in her pack, she’d tried to sell it to the trader in the grove, only for him to inform her it was touched by strange magic he wanted no part of. Looking at the thing makes her feel the same overwhelming comfort as the Absolute did, for just a moment, when Nightwarden Minthara tried to dominate her mind.

It’s powerful, which means it’s valuable, which means someone will come looking for it. Amma would rather feed it to the owlbear cub than keep holding on to it— but the damn thing is linked to all the Absolute–tadpole–Dream Guardian bullsh*t, somehow, and it’s been made very clear that simply getting rid of it is not an option.

“It protects us from mind flayer domination. Is that why you want it?”

The warrior is silent.

“How did you survive, without it?”

Still, she gives no answer.

Amma draws on the tadpole: she envisions the skull beneath that yellow skin, the seams atop it— envisions placing a chisel into the line where one bone plane knits into another. She envisions striking down with a hammer, and pries the gith’s mind open.

Lae’zel, she hears— a name cried out in battle, scolded by superiors, stated in greeting by knights, inquisitors. She can feel Lae’zel’s consciousness gripping on to her like a hand at the back of her neck: the warrior is letting her see what expedites this conversation, and nothing more. It’s fair enough, so Amma doesn’t fight her. She sees other githyanki— a red dragon— a silver sword. She sees a monastery, abandoned— no, overrun, there are skeletons left to molder on the floor— Lathander. (Seems the Morninglord didn’t care enough about his followers to save them.) She hears orders: Find the Astral Prism. Take it from the interlopers. Cleanse it of its ghaik corruption. Do this, and ascend: my kith’raki hunt as well. Succeed, and you will join them. Fail, and your meat will feed their dragons.

“Ch’mar, zal’a Vlaakith,” the warrior murmurs as she cuts the memory off, forcing Amma out of her mind with ease. “Vlaakith’ka sivim hrath krash’ht.”

“The Lich Queen sent you to kill us.”

Lae’zel’s lip curls. For the first time, she raises her head and looks Amma in the eye: her pupils are oblong in the dark.

“Vlaakith the Deathless, Queen Undying, ruler of my people, has declared that I will return the Astral Prism to her grasp. If I must take it from your corpses, then so be it.”

“Astral Prism,” Gale says, clearly lost in thought. “Do you know what it does, Lae’zel?”

“Need I know the inner workings of the thing to carry it? Chk. No. It is not my place to know. My queen desires it; that is enough.”

They could go back and forth like this for days, and Amma knows they would get nowhere. She recognizes the same fire in Lae’zel as she saw in Nightwarden Minthara— the same fire she once had, a flame lit by the Matron deep in her chest, and later fanned by Bonnevance.

Amma drives a chisel into Lae’zel’s skull again.

This time, it is a struggle: Amma claws and digs her way deeper into the warrior’s memories, and Lae’zel’s mind grapples her, both of them fighting like dogs for dominance.

My child— my Lae’zel, says Vlaakith’s fell projection. You have allowed your head to be the womb of worms. You defile what is mine and in my image. But know this: I may yet grant you purity.

Lae’zel pitches back. Myth Drannor is reborn, the Matron says. The Council is selected. They are your assignment. Do not fail me.

Amma sees row after row of felled githyanki. Instructors— warriors— youths. Hears their screams and battle cries at the end of Lae’zel’s sword. She feels the burn of steel and silver blades in her flesh, the ringing in her ears as the illithid tadpole takes over mind and body, wielding her like a bludgeon, striking with her over and over and over and over. She must survive. It must survive.

She feels the rain on her face and hears Lae’zel’s voice from her mouth in the memory: falling to her knees on the broken stone of the monastery, unable to die, weeping to the heavens, VLAAKITH, VLAAKITH, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?

I cannot kill him, Matron, Theodosia says to shadows. I will not kill him, I love him, he is better alive. You can not make me.

No one answers when Lae’zel screams, IS THIS TO BE MY PENANCE? IS THIS WHY I MUST CRAWL AMONG MY OWN PEOPLE, LOWER THAN THE BELLY OF AN ASP?

Bonnevance dies anyway.

Autonomy begets consequence.

With a flinch as she releases Lae’zel’s mind, Amma says, unkindly, “She sent you here to die. She sent you here to be a beacon for her dragons. You have doomed us all, you stupid—”

“SILENCE,” the githyanki commands. She is obeyed. “I will not hear these words from you! It is heresy. It is wrong.”

But Lae’zel doubts. Amma senses it. There is something she is missing, some puzzle piece that the warrior knows the edges of, but not the shape within. She thinks that it is Vlaakith— it is not. It is the Prism. It is whatever dwells within the Prism.

If there is someone inside, and they can stop illithid domination— why would the githyanki ruler want them dead?

“Lae’zel, she is using you,” Amma says, and she knows— knows she will be heeded, because of everything she saw in the warrior’s mind, because of everything she saw mirrored in her own. It hurts. She’s furious. But none of them can afford to discuss the finer points of slavery and servitude right now. “You are not Vlaakith’s knight. You are the paper that she’ll use to wipe her ass. If she wanted to save you, she would have let the ghustil kill you.”

She didn’t know the word ghustil before.

“I need no one to save me,” snarls Lae’zel, and that is confirmation enough. “Free me, now— and I will consider letting you live. Paralyzed from the neck down, unable to feed yourself, to starve to death in days. Or shall your death be quick? I will do you one last honor of choosing your own demise. It is more than you deserve.”

“Yes,” says Amma. “It is.”

She cuts the rope tying Lae’zel to the post. None of her companions move. She can sense their fear, their anger— can sense Lae’zel’s shock and wariness, that she expects this to be some kind of trick.

“We all have worms inside our heads,” the rogue says harshly. “Either we stick together, and we lose them— or we fight, and then we die. It’s your choice.”

Amma turns her back. She hears the clink of Lae’zel’s armor, and the whistle of a fist— the githyanki warrior punches into the cavern wall beside her head, and it leaves a tiny crater in the stone.

“You are a disgusting creature,” Lae’zel snarls. “I will pull your lungs from your ribs while you still breathe.”

“Get in line.”

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

For the first time in over a century, Amma finds herself back in the Underdark.

It’s just as unpleasant as she remembered.

Everyone else is enchanted by the subterranean landscape: they’re delighted by the glowing fungus, the abundant crystals, the great karsts and stalactites piercing through the gloom like spears of stone. Gale starts to cast light on his staff; Amma promptly slaps it out of his hand, because that’s going to attract something hungry, quickly. For a minute or so, the other five companions simply watch as Gale fumbles around on his hands and knees to find it.

“You do realize he can’t see a thing down here,” says Astarion.

“He’ll figure it out.”

“I most certainly will not!” (He’s crawling in the wrong direction.)

“I think we’ve got a scroll of darkvision,” Shadowheart says thoughtfully, but she hasn’t moved to find it.

“No, I pawned it to the goblins.”

“Oh.” The cleric doesn’t sound concerned at all. “Well, sorry, Gale, sounds like you’re out of luck.”

Lae’zel’s patience runs out now. She picks up the wizard’s staff in one hand, and with the other, she picks up the wizard himself, hauling him to his feet by the scruff of the neck and shoving the staff back into his hands.

“Only a fool steps where he cannot see,” she says. “If we shall have no light, then I will carry him. However— I can hold the wizard or my sword. Which one will serve me better, hm?”

Amma wrinkles her nose. If it was up to her, they’d just let Gale trail along as best he could, and whatever happened, happened.

“Alright, fine. Hang on, he can use my lantern—”

She digs through her pack to find it, lights it, quickly lowers the hood so it releases only the barest sliver of light. She hands it to the wizard.

“Don’t open it more than halfway,” she hisses, “or you’ll be something’s dinner, and I’ll let it have you.”

Meekly, the wizard nods.

It isn’t long before they come upon a ruined village, tucked away on a plateau. They’ve taken a very wide berth around the myconid colony; their path may be more fraught than strictly necessary, but Amma would rather add a day or two to the journey than drown in fungal spores that root and grow inside her lungs. The village is simple— looks more like a glorified farm than anything— and as the rogue scans their surroundings, she spots a building nestled in a dark corner overlooking the village, draped in fetid silk and long-abandoned cobwebs.

“Stop,” she breathes.

The party stops.

She stares up at the building. She recognizes the shape, the placement: it’s a cenoby. Old. Lolthite. One tiny window is alight. “Go, go, go,” Amma whispers to her companions— ushers them quickly behind the cover of a ruined hut. She holds their position for minutes on end, watching, waiting, for the whistle of arrows, the shine of eight-legged exoskeletons. None assault them. Carefully, she creeps out from behind the hut, into the center of the village. She finds nothing but silence and crumbling stone. She returns to the party.

“Lights on in the priory,” she mutters. “I think we should ask for shelter. It’ll be safer in with them than out here on our own.”

Shadowheart’s brow furrows deep beneath her bangs. She leans past Amma to see the building in question, her chain shirt clanking softly.

“Priory to who,” she hisses.

“Sehanine Moonbow,” Amma says. (She raises her voice above a whisper so the sarcasm can be clearly heard.) “Look around. Who do you think?”

“Safe is not the word that comes to mind when I envision places meant to worship Lolth,” Astarion mutters. “I thought you hated her, anyway.”

“They don’t have to know that.”

Gale offers: “I have a scroll of seeming. I was saving it for Moonrise, but it may be prudent now to make us all appear a tad bit more— ah— arachnophilic.”

Amma nods. “White hair,” she says, “or gray. Red eyes. Not like Astarion’s, drows’ are— dimmer. And make the skin more violet than mine.”

The wizard nods, digging in his pack for the scroll. “Any requests?” he asks the party.

Five drow approach the Lolthite cenoby. The second-to-smallest, shrouded all in black, kicks a boot into the metal door, once, twice, three times. The sound echoes ominously through the building, and quieter across the cavern. They wait. A few moments later, the door creaks open, just an inch. A wrinkly, crimson eye peers out at them.

“What be ye who tread so far from home?” the old drow asks, with a voice like rickety stairs.

“Travelers,” the second-to-smallest drow answers. Her voice is rough— she’s a smoker, or a screamer, or both. Behind her hooded shape, her four companions stand in silence: a silver-veiled cleric, a velvet-and-jewel-draped mage, a knight in blackened steel, and a statuesque feminine figure whose dress is more undergarment than armor. “No more a danger than the wind. We seek shelter for the night.”

The nun cracks the door open just a tiny bit farther; her face is lined deep.

“Fortune-hunters, more like,” she says disdainfully. “Come to raid our chapel silver.”

“Please, Mother,” the shrouded woman says, letting desperation sound clear in her rough voice. (It occurs to Astarion that he’s never heard her say the word like that before.) “We’ve come from Guallidurth. All we want is a floor to sleep on.”

The door stays ajar. Amma, sensing weakness, continues with the grift: “There is a threat across the Ebonlake— illithid cultists. The Weaver bade us cut them down.”

The nun’s dreadful red eye travels slowly across the group. Gale doesn’t hear her recite an incantation, nor does he see her make an arcane sign with her hands, but he still has to steel himself against a shudder as the old drow looks them over, as though she could dispel seeming with a glare. He can sense Shadowheart tightening her grip on her mace.

The nun says, “Hmph. If the Weaver bids, then I shan’t question.” And she pulls the door open to admit them.

It’s midnight. They’ve set up camp in the foyer of the little priory, which is really just an open space beside the main chapel. Sisters Elynel and Tris and Mother Akatha, as the vestal drow had introduced themselves, had provided a few provisions; after confirming that their chamber doors were well and truly locked, and that the nuns were well and truly preoccupied with evening prayers and meditations, Astarion had stolen back downstairs and given the all-clear: seeming was dismissed. Now, he’s got first watch (it’s habit by now) while the companions are asleep.

Amma, in a corner, is honing one of her daggers with a whetstone. Aside from him, she’s the only one who still has their eyes open; even the owlbear cub is dozing by the fire. There is a languid, methodical lilt to her movement that makes Astarion think she could do it asleep anyway, and she wouldn’t cut herself. She moves like the blade is an organic part of her— not just in battle, but whenever the thing is within arm’s reach, which seems to be always. Amma almost feels incomplete without something sharp in her hands.

“So… the Spider Queen,” he says, and leaves it hanging between them, letting her form the question on her own.

“Don’t get excited,” she tells him. “I only put us up here so we’d have a real roof over our heads. Didn’t want to wake up with darkmantles on top of us.”

“That’s some kind of terrible Underdark beastie, isn’t it?”

“Mhm.”

“Disgusting. What do they look like?”

“Big stalactites.”

She takes far too much joy in watching Astarion shudder as he realizes they’ve passed dozens— hundreds— of stalactites on the way here. How many times have they narrowly avoided death? (Amma’s actually never known darkmantles to venture this close to civilization, even an abandoned one; they seem to prefer places where the cavern ceiling is lower.)

“I think that’s one right there to your left,” she says, inclining her head with a pointed look into the darkness. Before he can think it through, his head whips around to look at the corner. There’s nothing. Of course there’s nothing. Why would there be anything? They’re indoors.

“That’s a very mean trick to play on someone who’s risking their life to keep you four alive,” he pouts, turning his back to her once more. “Don’t distract me. I’m keeping watch.”

The burglar scoffs again. Astarion hears the clip of a buckle on her pack, the shunk of a dagger being sheathed. Then what only he can hear: her thief-soft footsteps approaching, her breath as she draws close behind him, her steady heartbeat as she puts her chin on his shoulder.

“You’ve no idea how distracting I can be,” she murmurs in that rough voice, and that makes him shudder all over again.

“Alright, no need for a demonstration—” He twists out from under her, flashes her a smile, leans away and looks back to the campsite at large. “I’m serious, I’m keeping watch. This is important. This is life or death.”

Amma sighs, but she’s not that disappointed; it’s fun to make him uncomfortable. (Once, as a child, she’d found that the spiders in her own cenobium hated the sound of a finger ringing around a cup— so she’d spent the whole afternoon serenading them with it. Her affection for Astarion is a lot like that.) She sits beside him, but not too close. He won’t have to lean.

“There’s nothing to worry about out there. If there was, those nuns would be long gone. But you know me. I can get restless.”

“Do I?” he says absently. He seems lost in thought for a time. Then, finally, he looks at her. “I suppose I do. This isn’t just a social visit, then— what’s going on in that head of yours?”

She looks back at him, and it’s a strange look— one he’s getting used to, from her— a mix of curiosity and wariness. (Often tinged with flirtation, but not just now.) It’s a look that says she’s weighing her options. It’s a look that he’s been trying, very hard, to not let her see on him.

Amma says, “I’d be much more comfortable sleeping in an empty chapel than a lived-in one. Consider it… payback. Consider it my Gandrel.”

But at this, he can’t help it— that same morbidly curious look now creeps into his expression, settling into the crease between his brow, the heavy shadows under his eyes. She’s not prone to speaking figuratively. When she does, she has a tendency to cut right to the throat of something larger. Amma’s eyes flicker across his face, searching for something— but her expression is inscrutable. Whatever she finds, or doesn’t, she keeps the meaning of it hidden well.

He puts his finger to his lips and considers. He does want to offer up his services— it’s fun to spill blood just to prove he can, after so long being denied the stuff. But surely, the old spinsters wouldn’t taste good (Astarion doesn’t know much about Lolth, but he knows her nuns would be no vestal virgins) (and even if they were, they looked like they had more dust in their veins than blood), and killing worshipers in their own temple seems evil beyond even Amma’s usual cruel pragmatism.

“Why?” he asks. Her mouth tightens, and it occurs to him what she’s looking for: doubt.

“I grew up in one of these.” Then, hesitant for a moment, she continues: “You saw the scars.”

“Ah,” Astarion murmurs. “Alright.” Then, putting his finger on the scale: “But I have one condition.”

This changes her expression— her eyes narrow minutely, her blue-emerald eyes dig deeper into his own.

“What?”

“Invite me.”

Her head tilts, curious. (A hawk— a mouse.)

“I thought you didn’t need an invitation anymore.”

“True, I don’t— though, even if I was invited here, I think I might’ve exploded as soon as I crossed the threshold— oh, but it’s nice to be invited. Makes one feel wanted.”

“Alright,” she says flatly, “you’re invited.”

“Splendid. Shall I bring my daggers too, or am I just moral support?”

“Bring whatever you want. I just intend to slit their throats.”

The cenoby of Lolth is small— the foyer and chapel downstairs, a narrow stone staircase, and two cells at the top of it. One room for all the Sisters to share, and one room for the Mother in solitude. The same basic structure is found in priories and cloisters all throughout the Underdark: it encourages the underlings to plot and scheme and resent their leader. The Mother should be able to dispense apt punishment to any who’d usurp her; if not, she falls, and someone smarter will replace her. (Lolth doesn’t need to cull the weak if her followers do all the culling for her.) For most of Amma’s early years, sharing a large chamber with a dozen other children far more obedient than she, she was actually afraid she’d end up on the altar for her trouble— that was before she realized how much promise the vestals saw in her, and that she could spin that unwillingness to kill her to her own advantage. Even a mongrel pup can learn to beg for scraps, as the Matron once had told her.

More out of paranoia than courtesy, she lets Astarion pick the lock on the westward door. He does it skillfully and it’s a pleasure to watch him work. Regrettably, she’s too focused to let her eyes fall on his knuckles, the tendons in the back of his hands, his lithe fingers— she’ll have to let him do this more often, just to watch. The lock clicks into place and he eases the door open ever so slightly. He co*cks his head and listens, with vampiric specialty, to confirm the entranced breaths of their victims beyond. Then: he nods at her. Once. Purposefully.

Astarion opens the door and leans back to let her go before him, one fluid movement, then follows less than a half-step behind her, quiet as a shadow. He stops the door from closing loudly with one expert finger.

Within the cell, it’s nearly pitch-black— no need for candles now; the only light is the wan violet sheen of glowing fungus overtaking the room that the nuns haven’t bothered to eradicate. Sister Tris lies on one side. Sister Elynel lies on the other. Their bodies sit heavy on their beds, entranced and dreaming.

Amma does not put any ceremony into crossing the room in two steps, placing a hand on Sister Elynel’s forehead, and cutting her throat ear-to-ear before the drow can even wake. She doesn’t wait to see the look of horror as Elynel sputters blood, fumbling stupidly at nothing, not even realizing that she’s dying— she crosses the room again and does the same to Tris, sending a vivacious spatter of blood onto the wall. Astarion inhales the smell quite appreciatively. It’s better than he expected.

“You can eat them later,” Amma mutters, brushing past him without a second glance. “Now let me into the Mother’s room.”

He obliges, much the same: the easy lock, the quick intrusion, the silent closure of the chamber door behind them. (His mouth is actually watering. How undignified.) He watches his companion stride without a sound to the old priestess’ bed. He expects another mercenary strike— perhaps a full decapitation, or a dagger plunged into the vestal’s heart— but instead of killing her instantly, Amma sits on the very edge of the bed, leans over Mother Akatha, and places her hands on either side of the old woman’s face. Astarion is only a little disappointed that she’s going with a broken neck on this one.

But no— she waits for Akatha to stir and wake. Astarion watches the assassin’s face with intense curiosity: he knows how utilitarian a murderer she is. If there is any embellishment, she’s working up to something truly heinous. He looks for any betrayal of intent within her expression. All he sees is a blank slate.

“Wh—” the Mother begins to say, but Amma interrupts her with a chillingly gentle, Ssshh. She strokes her lichen-gray thumbs against the Mother’s violet cheeks. Akatha tries to sit up, but Amma presses her hands hard into the old woman’s face, keeping her down on the bed. Astarion can smell fear stronger with every beat of the nun’s decrepit heart.

Without warning, without preamble, and without mercy, Amma drives her thumbs into the Lolthite priestess’ eyes.

Mother Akatha screams, then— claws at the rogue with wordless horror, too much in shock and pain to utter arcane words and save herself. Amma releases her and shifts back onto the bed, watches with vague, passive malice as the Mother rises, swinging her arms and stumbling blindly. She runs into a dresser and knocks over some bottles, unlit candles, books. Glass shatters. She steps on it. Her screaming takes the shape of oaths, insults; Astarion can hear the party rousing downstairs. Amma stands, takes the Mother’s shoulder so they’re face-to-face, and drives her dagger deep into the woman’s lower belly.

Then, she slices up.

Mother Akatha falls silent but for the sounds of her intestines spilling. Amma steps away, her only expression something mildly loathsome around her eyes— she doesn’t want to ruin her boots, Astarion realizes. She’s already cleaning her dagger on a corner of the bedsheet. In another moment, the door slams open behind them, and Lae’zel leads the charge into the tiny chamber.

Astarion moves to a corner— he doesn’t want to get in the way of anyone’s weapon— more importantly, he wants to see how Amma handles this. There’s something detached and inhuman in her that he’s only seen in smallest glances, like something stirring deep in darkness.

It’s something that he rather likes.

“What in the Hells is going on up here?” Gale manages a moment later, as he realizes there is no more fray to enter.

“They were going to kill us in the morning,” Amma lies, easily, naturally. Astarion doesn’t think her heartbeat even changes, but he can’t be sure. There’s certainly no other tell to her deceptions. “I heard them talking. I’m sorry. But we’re safe now, so you can all go back to bed.”

Gale realizes the full scope of the carnage— Mother Akatha’s organs in a pile outside her body, the blood and eyeball-jelly on Amma’s hands— turns a little green, and whirls back downstairs in a hurry. Lae’zel surveys the room and gives a hard look to Amma, but then she nods minutely, and departs as well. Shadowheart lingers. She seems like she’s waiting for something.

“They would have killed us,” Amma says to the cleric, softer than she said it to the group at large.

“Did you know?” the cleric asks.

Amma doesn’t answer.

Shadowheart’s eyes move from Amma, to the corpse, to Astarion, still pressed into the corner like a bat. Her expression hardens on him. She manages to make him feel something uncomfortably close to guilt— though over what, exactly, he isn’t sure.

“What did you hear them say?” she says. “What were their exact words?”

Amma steps around the nun’s stomach, punctured and slowly flooding her half-digested final meal onto the floor. She looks down at Shadowheart from all of four inches above. Astarion can’t tell if Amma’s eyes read murder or devotion to the girl.

“A mongrel pup will always bite,” Amma says.

The cleric searches her face. Whatever she finds, it sends her wordlessly out of the room with the others.

There is a brief, not-unpleasant silence after they are left alone in the cell. Astarion listens to Amma’s breathing settle. He watches her crumple the bloodied bedsheet and toss it to the floor now that her dagger’s spotless, watches her look down at the mutilated corpse with the same amount of emotion one might feel for an ugly carpet in someone else’s home. There is a very large pool of blood on the floor now. It’s still growing. The smell of it fills his nose, his mouth, his throat— he has a feeling it does for her, too, just with less of a starving hole inside her stomach— makes it hard to focus on anything else. But he’s not some animal. He’s been able to control himself for two centuries.

(Granted, that was two centuries he was leashed and muzzled and starved by Cazador, who’d told them all they would be nothing but mindless, rabid beasts without their master’s discipline, but still— Astarion is not about to prove the bastard right. He doesn’t need Cazador to give him orders anymore. He’s better than that.)

Unfortunately, he seems to have taken a bit too much interest in that pool of nun’s blood, because Amma says, with only a smidgen of mockery, “Would you like a glass?”

(Gods, was it that obvious?)

(No, he wants a whole damn bathtub.)

For an answer, and because he can’t focus enough to think of something equally acerbic in response, he bends to the floor and retrieves a jewel-encrusted goblet that the Mother had knocked over. He rubs his thumb along the inside, blows a crypt-cold breath into the cup, and polishes it with a hanky. Then, with his usual insufferable guile, he tips the thing to her and leaves the room.

The two lesser vestals remain much as he had left them, save for most of their blood now soaking into their beds instead of safely in their veins. (He can’t help but cluck his tongue in disapproval; if he’d really been thinking ahead, he would have brought a bowl or bottle with him, and collected all of that. What a waste.) Still, he gets a few good goblet-fuls of the stuff and drinks it.

Their blood isn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be— actually, it’s not bad at all. It’s heady and bittersweet, like a good oak-aged white wine; more of a dessert than a main course, but he’s not complaining. By four drains of the goblet, he’s pressing the edge of it into the nuns’ slashed necks, trying to coax out the last few drops.

He notices Amma in the doorway, watching him; he turns to her, leans back on the bed like there isn’t a corpse in his way, lifts the half-full goblet to her.

“Cheers to you, darling,” he says happily.

She moves to him and puts her fingers over the cup before he can drink.

His immediate reaction isn’t anger; it’s more… displeasure. He’s suffered through all that wasteful bleeding with nary a word, he didn’t even try to convince her to let him drain them instead of doing it herself— he’s earned this, to the very last drop, and he intends to take what he is owed. But if she’s stopping him, there must be a reason. And if Amma has a reason, it must be— if not a good one— an interesting one.

“What,” he says, much sharper than intended. He blames it on the hunger. She doesn’t flinch.

“You can feed on me tonight, if you want,” she tells him, and it’s so quiet, he would’ve thought that he imagined it had he not seen her mouth move around the words.

He can feel his face working of its own accord: smug, to wary, to warning. She’s playing a game with him but she doesn’t know all the rules, he thinks— she’s playing a game and she’s going to lose. Because this isn’t a game to him. This is his own survival.

Astarion maneuvers the goblet out from under her hand, saying coldly, “Don’t be a tease.” He turns his head away from her and drains it. It’s worse, with her right there— it’s not hot, it’s not fresh, it’s not beating and gushing into his mouth like her heart would rather feed him than keep her alive. He pushes that thought away swiftly.

“No, I mean it,” she says, and her face— her face isn’t smiling. “I’m serious. If you still need it, you can take it from me.”

He drops the goblet. It clatters, loudly, and rolls under the blood-soaked bed. He’s staring at her. He’s thinking.

“You don’t want that,” he says. “It’s not like it is when we’re— together. I need more.”

“So give me a cure wounds and keep going.”

She’s insane, he thinks. She’s suicidal. She has a death wish.

Why else would she keep letting him do it?

Slowly— so slowly, it makes his legs ache, he’s almost trembling trying to keep himself balanced— he stands. He looks down at her. She looks up at him.

Astarion puts his hands at her shoulders and steps forward— pushes her, guides her— she’s docile and pliant under his grip. Her back barely brushes the stone wall when he stops. He moves one hand to her chin, tilts her head just-so, drinks in the sight of her neck, the muscles, the veins. Her armor has a thick strap of leather buckled across the throat to keep it protected, but she’s not wearing it now, she’s only in a camisole and trousers, ready to turn in for the night. He could rip into her with just his nails. His head dips and he lets his nose brush her jaw, lets himself inhale deep the scent of other people’s blood on her.

“Are you really, very sure about this, my sweet?” he breathes, and it’s a warning.

“Only what you need,” she says lowly, and that, too, is a warning. Her thumb brushes the bouquet of forget-me-nots on his thigh.

“Not one drop more. I shall be… gentle as a babe.” (The pause isn’t just for dramatic effect; he’s trying very hard not to run his tongue along the tendon in her neck.)

She relaxes under him.

He holds her jaw with the one hand and grips her shoulder with the other, anchors her back against the wall. He puts his teeth against her skin.

When he bites down into her, he can feel her whole body twitch— the prey instinct to run that every living creature has. Her inhale stutters; he can feel it against his chest. The tiniest sound of pain escapes her. He doesn’t stop, but he runs his thumb along her jaw, soft and slow and (hopefully) reassuring. She’s trying too hard not to struggle. If she tenses up like that the whole time, she’ll just make it difficult for both of them. Finally— reluctantly— he draws back from her neck.

Amma can feel the stream of blood, hot and wet, running down to her collarbone. She’s breathing heavy. Her jaw is clenched.

“You’re making this much harder than it needs to be,” Astarion says, releasing her chin. Her head lolls back against the wall. She looks pained. (She looks— well, maybe he’s conceited, but she looks like she didn’t want him to stop.) He runs one finger up her neck, leaving a long, scarlet stain across her skin, then puts it to his lips.

Her breath stutters again at that.

It’s increasingly difficult for either of them to think that this is just a simple transaction between friends. There’s nothing simple or friendly about the way she looks at him now— in this singular moment, with her eyes fluttering and hazy, and her ribs shaking, and her whole body so warm beneath nothing but cloth—

— And he gets a tremendously, spectacularly, deliciously bad idea, the latest in a long line of them, that he can’t help but act on.

With his head at her shoulder and his lips against her open wound, he breathes, “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

Every instinct tells him that she shouldn’t— that he’s taking advantage, that he will hurt her, that she’d kill him if she knew what was good for her— but he still wants her to. He’s finding that it’s very rewarding to be trusted.

He bends and picks her up by the back of her thighs, props his knee against the wall to keep her steady. She doesn’t hesitate to wrap her legs around his waist, nor her arms around his neck— and he tells himself that he’s doing this because he wants her heartbeat faster, because making her come will relax her and make her blood course quicker for him. But then he’s kissing her, blood still pooled behind his teeth, starving in every way— and then his hands are at her belt, unbuttoning her trousers— one holding her up against the wall and the other questing deeper, seeking where she’s already slick.

“You’re incredible,” he whispers, without strategy. “You’re perfect.”

She shudders at his words, bucks her hips when his grave-cold fingers find her. She can feel him grinning against her collarbone.

“Greedy,” he says.

“You started it—”

Whatever’s left of her usual surly demeanor dies with a desperate whimper in her throat. Then she makes the sound again, and louder, when he slides two fingers easily inside her. Ordinarily, that would be cause for some line or another— he’s got fifty of them. Instead, Astarion sinks his teeth into her neck, and gives a ragged, blissful moan at the taste of her blood grown sweet from desire.

(He was right: it’s so much easier with her heartbeat racing. And he does, as predicted, give her a cure wounds— twice, in fact— and keep going.)

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

“Earlier,” Gale is saying. “At the shrine of Lolth. Please, forgive my ignorance, but I had assumed…”

They fought a spectator today. And a bunch of its un-petrified drow pissbaby minions. And then all of those minions had tried to kill them, again, once the spectator was taken down. Amma was fully dead for eighteen seconds before someone managed to revivify her. Gale fell unconscious twice. Somewhere in the fray, he also dropped his pack, and a good number of potions, gold, and their beloved magic tent all fell into the abyss, never to be seen again.

So Amma’s got a big bottle of ithbank, now, and she just wants to drink until she can’t see straight, and to forget everything that’s led her to this moment, and to hand him mushrooms to be cut up for dinner, without speaking.

(They’ve all deferred to her to choose the meals while they’re in the Underdark. She was very tempted to tell them timmask was a delicacy after today.)

“Nothing to forgive,” she says. Gale is lucky she’s too tired to be vicious. “I fit the mold.”

“Fit it?” The wizard looks at her, his eyes all deep and dark— he reminds her of a cow, something big and innocent that doesn’t know it’s heading to the slaughterhouse. “My friend, you break the thing into a million pieces.”

Amma scoffs.

Gale continues, undeterred: “No, I mean it! You’ve been quite the formidable opponent since we met. You’re clever, you’re quick, you’re practical— a little bit cruel, perhaps, but it keeps us on our toes. And yet you stood in front of a crossbow to prevent that goblin getting murdered. You saved that poor little boy from harpies. You talked us out of that hag’s lair and kept everyone alive. Amma, you are one of the most surprising individuals I have ever had the pleasure— and the privilege— to know.”

She doesn’t bother to correct him: she had only put her own body between Sazza and a crossbow because she knew the tiefling didn’t have it in her to shoot someone her own size and it would be immensely easier to infiltrate the goblins with one as a guide; she’d only saved Mirkon because she knew any tiefling deaths would result in an all-out riot in the grove, which would make every aspect of their own quest harder; she’d parlayed with Ethel because she didn’t give a crusty quipper’s sh*t about Mayrina or her family, and if they’d left that cellar without some kind of tangible reward, she would have garrotted Wyll in his sleep for dragging them all down there in the first place.

“What is this,” she asks him, voice more than a little slurred. (Anger is easy. Drinking until she can’t feel anything is even easier.) “Do you need another magic item.”

“No— merely an answer.”

Amma looks at him tiredly. His face is always so open and earnest, but she can never quite trust it. Maybe it’s the blackened veins creeping up from the orb seared into his chest; maybe it’s the puckish turn of his mustache. More likely it’s just that he’s a wizard at all.

“Do you miss it?” Gale asks.

She frowns. “Miss what?”

“Here. The Underdark.”

“Gods, no.” She swigs from her wine again. By now, he knows better than to offer her a glass. “Getting out of here was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He waits for her to elaborate. She doesn’t.

That night, they all dream of a beautiful woman, tugging on strings of the Weave like a bard on a harp. She plays the most sad and wondrous song they’ve ever heard. Gale is the only one to remember in the morning.

“That tree isn’t agreeing with me,” the wizard says quite seriously.

Amma ignores him.

“I feel it too,” Astarion says, vexed.

“Then I shall pick up slack for you,” Lae’zel’s rough voice declares. “As I have been.”

“Hrm.” (Amma doesn’t realize they’d left Gale behind until he calls out:) “Lae’zel, would you be so kind as to hold still a moment?”

She does, turning to face him at soldier’s attention, her chin above his forehead, her yellow eyes looking down at him like a cat. He jogs up to her and raises his hand in the familiar sign of guidance. He murmurs the incantation, and the spell flows from his fingers, effortlessly— only to vanish like embers in the wind before it reaches the githyanki.

“What curse has befallen you?!” Lae’zel cries.

That gets everyone’s attention. Slowly, they all turn to look at the wizard. He seems almost purposefully lost in his own thoughts— he paces theatrically through the group, winding up to another insufferable monologue.

“I believe,” he says, shaking his finger, “that that is a sussur tree.”

Nobody knows what that means.

“Nobody knows what that means, Gale,” Shadowheart says, with less than the patience of a saint.

“Right.” The wizard pauses, spins on his heel, making his purple robe flare dramatically. (Amma wonders idly if he puts weights in the hem for just the right amount of twirl, or if the thing’s enchanted.) “I believe that tree— which I do have reasonable suspicion is a sussur tree, if my memory of arcano-botany remains correct— has the rather singular property of…”

Amma tunes him out. She recognizes signs of hook horrors around, but she’s going to let them all walk into it, just for fun.

That night, they all dream of the screams of young githyanki, shorter than the longsword that cleaves through them. They wade through pools of blood. Their head is cradled by a man they thought they trusted. He tells them Vlaakith lies. Lae’zel is the only one to remember in the morning.

As if the bulette wasn’t bad enough, now they have an audience.

The sound of one person’s enthusiastic applause is what alerts them, first: then the smoke, and then the smell of sulfur and cologne. Amma looks up from where she’s helping Shadowheart to see a man she deeply hopes is not what he appears.

“Brava! Brava! Bravissima!” the infernal merchant crows. “A truly inspiring performance. I must say, I had not expected you to make it through with all your limbs. I’m reminded of a lullaby, you know—

“The mouse smiled brightly; it outfoxed the cat!

Then down came the claw, and that, love, was that.

“They do know how to write them in Cormyr, don’t they,” he concludes, savoring the tense discomfort of his bloodied audience. “Well met, travelers! I am Raphael. Very much at your service.”

By way of her own greeting, Amma spins a dagger in her hand and tells him, “Walk away while you still have legs to walk with.”

“Bah,” Raphael sneers. “It looks like a drow, but it speaks like a beast! Must be the surroundings. One feels so… exposed. This quaint little scene is decidedly too middle-of-nowhere for my tastes.”

And with another whorl of acrid smoke, the party finds themselves in a lavish dining hall: pentagonal, august, marble-floored and mahogany-walled, a large table groaning under the weight of a sumptuous feast.

“There,” says Raphael, thoroughly satisfied. “Middle of somewhere.”

Amma looks around. The room is beautiful— comfortable— inviting, even. The wide, crackling hearth warms her to her bones. The food smells amazing, and she becomes very aware of how empty her stomach is, how much she’s aching for a good, stiff drink and a pull on a pipe. Still— she doesn’t trust apparated people, as a rule. Gale was a very reluctant exception. Raphael, whatever he is— and she has a very good guess what that might be, just now— is not about to join that singular rank.

But, she’s not an idiot, and she knows better than to twice insult the likes of him.

“Impressive,” she says dully. “Care to be more specific than ‘somewhere’?”

Raphael is undeterred by his lackluster reception. “The House of Hope,” he announces, waving his hand across the room, drawing their attention to plush benches, squashy armchairs. “Where the tired come to rest, and the famished come to feed— lavishly.”

“Cool,” Amma says. (She begins, very slightly, to panic.) (Well, it’s less about fear, and more about murder. She’s wondering how easily a group of novice adventurers could fell a devil and carve their way out of his home.) (The odds aren’t great.) “I assume you have an ask in mind?”

“To the point, then, is it?”

And Raphael reveals himself to be as she suspected: carmine skin, a crown of wicked horns atop his brow, and eyes aglow with hellsfire. His leathery wings flare huge and bloody in the firelight.

A devil.

A very handsome one.

The fiendish host now struts around the room, turning his fingers lazily and summoning five chairs beneath his guests. Gale shouts in surprise as he gets scooped up. And then they’re seated at the devil’s table, and gods, does it smell good. She can feel her mouth water.

Raphael places himself at the head of the table and grins down at all of them. His teeth are sharp.

“I promise you, the vittles are exactly as they seem. This table is not poisoned, nor is it enchanted— I have no interest in trapping you all here. So I entreat you: eat, if you are hungry. Drink, if you thirst. Sleep, if you are tired. And above all, be merry. All that happens here between these walls shall happen of your own free will, and it shall not bar you from returning to Faerûn.”

“I’d sooner trust a wolf to watch a lamb,” Shadowheart says harshly. Raphael laughs.

“Who says I’m the wolf, my dear? I come not to you with my teeth bared. I come with crook and crozier.”

Gale is scrutinizing a bowl of grapes before him. His eyes flick momentarily to their fiendish host, then back to the fruit, as though it holds a riddle he’s trying to puzzle out.

“Devils aren’t known for charity,” the wizard says.

“Why, I never,” Raphael says, and he drapes his clawed hand over his heart. He’s putting on a show. Amma realizes: he’s enjoying putting on a show. “You’re all quite paranoid, aren’t you? Allow me to assuage your fears, then.”

He keeps his hand on his chest, and holds the other one up with two fingers raised, as though swearing an oath.

“Your souls are safe, friends, I assure you. I care not for what you have— but what you may come to find.”

Shadowheart, again: “And what makes you think we’d deal with a devil?”

“Because,” Raphael tells her, leaning down over the table, “you’re all in deep over your tadpoled heads.”

With a flash of silver, Lae’zel’s sword is at his neck.

“I have a bargain of my own, devil. Cure us, if you truly can— and I shall let you keep your head.”

But Raphael simply chuckles his rough chuckle again, and pushes the blade away with the back of his hand.

“Your martial prowess is a credit to your people, Lae’zel, but your diplomacy leaves much to be desired.”

She growls and lifts her sword again— Raphael twists his hand and the blade glows red-hot. Lae’zel drops it with a grunt of pain.

“As I said,” he continues, amused, “you’re all suffering from a unique affliction: one skull, two tenants, and no solutions in sight. I could fix it— but why would I? You’ll find these tadpoles have their uses. And that use is not to you alone.”

Before any of her companions can do something stupider, Amma says: “We’ll need to think this over.”

“By all means! Shop around. Beg, borrow, steal— exhaust every possibility. But the druids weren’t much help— nor Volo— and none of you were up for Ethel’s price. I assure you, I would ask for something far less dear than eyes. Why destroy such a comely creature prematurely? After all, all those pretty little symptoms— sundering skin, dissolving guts, fracturing bones and tentacles— they haven’t manifested yet, have they? Quite a hopeful diagnosis.” Raphael’s grin turns sharper, and he chuckles to himself.

“Hope. Ha! Such a tease. Now— do try not to die before we meet again, will you? If you’re still alive come Baldur’s Gate, we shall have much further to discuss. For now—”

The fire in the hearth explodes, and with a blinding, stinking flash, the party finds themselves dumped unceremoniously back in the Underdark. The only sign of Raphael’s existence is the quickly-dissipating smell of strong cologne and sulphur— and a tiny rectangle of hard-pressed paper, black as pitch with gold embossing. It flutters down through the air, singed at the corners, and Amma catches it. The front part reads:

INVITATION TO THE HOUSE OF HOPE.

And on the other side:

This ticket shall allow the bearer, and up to ten adjacent allies, to descend unmolested through Avernus, First of the Nine, into the House of Hope, and therein to an audience with Raphael du l’Agonie de Marguerite, Marquis de Mephis, at His Grace’s earliest convenience. Simply tear and be transported.

That night, they all dream of eating rats. Astarion remembers, but he doesn’t think much of it. He’s just glad it wasn’t the crypt.

Chapter 26

Chapter Text

“Oh, good morning,” Gale says, rubbing his eyes. He doesn’t look like he’s having a very good morning. He’s been especially drawn of late— they have all told themselves it’s due to lack of sunlight, and not the strange orb slowly eating him alive.

“My apologies, but I— I may not be at my best today.” He sounds surprised by his own weakness. He flexes his fingers and winces; they’re stiff, almost arthritic. “I’m exhausted… Still don’t feel quite right after that sussur tree. Would you mind terribly if we were a little slow, today?”

“Define slow,” Amma says.

“Honestly, I might be in the same,” comes Shadowheart’s voice. She almost sounds shaken, which is not something anyone expected her to sound like. “This place is beautiful, but… it’s not without its toll on you and I. Hypothesis, Gale?”

“Hrm. It could be something encoded in human genetics,” he says. “But we haven’t even mapped human the genome yet, let alone account for things like gods making babies—”

“Ah, that might do it,” Astarion says, sparing everyone the rest of that conversation. “Because I’ve felt fine since we got here. Aside from hating every second of it, of course. But that’s just on account of not seeing the sunlight in two centuries and then finally having it for a couple of glorious weeks before cruel fate drove me to the shadows again, and all of you enabled it.”

“Yes, we’re well aware,” says Lae’zel tersely. “You may have mentioned it, I don’t know, seven times since we descended.”

“Only seven?” the vampire mouths to himself. Then: “Wait, are you actually counting?”

“Let’s just take the day off then,” Amma says, loudly, over all of her companions. “If we all feel like sh*t, there’s no point pressing on. I’ll go do some—” (she gestures vaguely) “— scouting. Find some mushrooms or something, I don’t know.”

Gale, annoyingly, perks up at this. “If you’re only planning on some light adventuring, I can handle that, Amma.”

“I’ll be twenty feet away at the edge of the cave.”

“Oh, no need to limit your radius of exploration! I’ve been meaning to ask you more about the subterranean flora, actually. I value the tale of the layman as much as the instruction of the master.”

She’s pretty sure that was a compliment.

“Right. Okay,” she says, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Fine. I’ll tell you about the— f*cking— mushrooms.”

Once they’re at the little mouth of the cave they have made camp in, she sees Gale murmur a spell behind himself. She assumes it’s some wizardy ritual to make him better at learning, until he says, “I apologize for the subterfuge, but— I wanted to ask you if you’ve been having any… strange dreams, of late.”

Immediately, Amma tenses. She looks back at the campsite. Everything seems to be in order; Shadowheart, Astarion, and Lae’zel are all still milling about, as they were ten seconds ago.

“What did you just do,” she asks him tightly.

“Oh, that? Just a silencing spell. I didn’t think you’d want everyone to hear us talking about such a— erm— potentially sensitive topic. As dreams.” He blinks. “You— have been having strange dreams, I take it? I believe we all have.”

Amma grits her teeth. Gale has earned a lot from her in the days they’ve known each other: the right to not have his arm lopped off by a malfunctioning portal, a handful of measly common-level enchanted items, and a modicum of her respect, if only for the extensive stock of his summoned liquor cabinet. He has not earned this.

“Gale,” she says.

“Yes?”

Quick as anything, her dagger’s out and at his throat. He freezes.

“If you ever cast a spell on me again, or perform some kind of ritual on me, or give me some kind of blessing, or imbue me with a certain power— without me asking— I will make you eat your own kidneys. Do you understand?”

“Mmhm.” It’s high-pitched with anxiety. Good. She removes her dagger.

“This is bluecap,” the drow then says, crouching and digging up a small passel of thin-stalked, grey-blue mushrooms with the blade. “It doesn’t taste like anything until you cook it.”

“You’re not in touch with the Weave, are you?” says Gale.

“Nope,” says Amma.

“I mean— you don’t feel it at all. I’ve known plenty of elves, and I’ve done some studies in biology— there is an innate capability to your kind. Which, of course, I’m sure you are aware of. But I’ve never seen you draw upon it.”

“Is there a point to this?”

“Well, I can think of a fair few times it would’ve been convenient to have someone else able to cast darkness and faerie fire, and save myself the spells,” he says, somewhat bluntly. “But— aside from that—it’s like you are a void in terms of the arcane. You don’t sense it in the atmosphere. You don’t cast spells endemic to your ancestry. I’ve never even seen you use a scroll, which nearly everyone can do, since the instructions are right there—”

“I’m not a wizard, I’m a thief,” she interrupts him blandly. “It’s not my f*cking job to razzle dazzle.”

“Of course not. But—” Gale pauses, apparently considering his next words carefully. She wishes he would do that more often. His lectures are insufferable. Then, he asks gently, “Does it hurt?”

“... What?”

“Does it hurt?”

“Does what hurt?”

“Alright, hurt isn’t the right word,” Gale says, almost to himself, shockingly calm in the face of her swiftly growing murderous rage. “Ache, perhaps— no, not that— yearn? Is it a lack of understanding, or of capability? Are you aware of it?”

“What the f*ck are you talking about?”

“Your lack of magic,” he says.

And he looks at her exactly as she knew he would: with so much f*cking pity.

She takes a very quick, very deep, bracing breath. Closes her eyes. Prays to any god or demon or fey or ghost that hears her to not let her take his stupid, black-veined neck and snap it.

“Gale, I don’t know if this is a conversation I am capable of having safely with you,” she says, still keeping her eyes closed. “Because I respect you, and I need you in the party— but you are asking things I really do not want to tell you. Things you will not want to hear about.”

Somewhat indignantly— no, wait, he’s actually hurt by that— he says softly, “Do you truly think so little of me?”

For the sake of civility, she chooses not to answer that.

Gale continues: “Amma, I won’t ask you to bare your heart— gods know we’re all entitled to our secrets, one way or another— but whatever slight’s been done against you, please, don’t blame me for it.”

“I am not a nice person, Gale,” she says through her teeth. “I am not good.”

“And you think that precludes our friendship?”

“Why did you ask me about dreams earlier?”

He seems disappointed in the change of subject. Good.

“Ah— yes. Well, I believe they may be related to the tadpole, regrettably,” the wizard says.

“Regrettably for who? I’ve given you like seven of those things.”

The wizard scowls. “For all of us. This dream visitor, the one that speaks of power and potential— they spoke to me again, last night. They had rather canny insights into some… particular events… that have been weighing on me, as of late. Events that I had dreamed of— or thought I dreamed of— the very night before.”

“So you’re having weird dreams because you have like eight illithid tadpoles swimming in your brain,” says Amma coldly. “I think there’s a more likely explanation than ‘the magical man in my dreams is real and speaking to me’.”

“Mine isn’t a man.”

f*ck.

Amma decides this is the end of the conversation. But before she can step away, Gale asks her, “Who do you see?” in such a haunted tone, it makes her wonder what could possibly be worse than Bonnevance, distant and unreal but undeniably Bonnevance, telling her that he’ll protect her.

“A noble elf.” It’s not a lie; if Gale tries to glean details from her with psionics, it won’t ring untrue. Then, morbid curiosity gets the better of her: “Who do you see?” she asks the wizard.

“I see a… a cruel delusion. A figment of my imagination, given some mockery of life.”

She squints at him. “What, like— necromancy?”

He laughs, and it’s one of the saddest sounds in the world.

“No,” Gale says, “just a… well, it’s someone who I know, categorically, would not be so kind to me, were we to meet again. But who was— and still is— very dear to me, and occupies a great deal of my memories. And it’s because of this that I believe the dreams and tadpole are related. One, a carrot— or, perhaps, a cane— the other, a yoke.”

“Speak plainly, Gale.”

“The tadpole wants to be used. We are being saddled. But who is the rider? And where are they driving us?”

Well, that’s an unpleasant thought.

Chapter 27

Chapter Text

“We need to talk about the tadpoles.”

Amma doesn’t bother with a preamble; she simply stands in the middle of the camp and raises her voice.

Astarion’s head snaps up. Shadowheart looks mildly interested. The rhythmic sound of Lae’zel sharpening her sword falls silent.

“Gale thinks they’re being piloted by something else,” Amma says, gesturing to him without looking.

Lae’zel stands, an angry turn to her thin mouth. “A certainty that I have raised before, which was then met with mockery and disregard,” she growls. “I know you do not trust the wizard, and I know you have been bending ears to hear gaikh whispers. What has changed?”

Amma simply looks at Gale, mildly expectant. She’s not interested in debating ethics with the gith. He sighs.

“We’ve all been having… experiences brought on by the parasite. Dreams, visions, strange memories— whatever they are, they have occurred to all of us, at once. However, it has recently come to light that we are not all having the same experiences. Some of us see a guardian— others, a lover— but it is not as it appears.”

“Again, a point that I have made,” Lae’zel snaps. “If you think these ideas novel, then your senses are more scrambled than I thought.”

“Yes,” says Gale. He sounds genuinely patient and apologetic. “You made that point indeed. Illithids are incredibly intelligent, of course it’s not unreasonable to think their larval forms would have some kind of psionic camouflage, encouraging their use. But this strange visitor— whatever it is— it is more than simple instinct. It is a sapient individual. A group, perhaps, or one representative of such.”

“Gale thinks that the more we use it, the more illithid we’ll get,” Amma interrupts, sensing the party’s attention wavering.

The wizard nods emphatically. “And— I do apologize, but— the best way to arm ourselves against it is to take away its ammunition. By which I mean: we must all be truthful to each other. We must turn over the rock of our desire and examine what— what tentacled creepy-crawlies are beneath.”

“Common,” Shadowheart says, annoyed. It’s become one of their daily phrases: it indicates to Gale that he must de-purple his prose.

“Right, yes.” The wizard clears his throat. “My theory is that, by discussing openly the appearance, demeanor, and promises of our discrete visions, we may be able to ascertain better the collective motivation.”

“We know the motivation,” Astarion throws in. “It’s to turn us into mindless cultists like the ones at Moonrise Towers. Don’t any of you pay attention?”

Gale waves his hand dismissively. “I don’t mean that. I mean whatever is beyond that. I mean the heart of the Absolute.”

“And you think you’re going to discover this by… what, sitting in a circle and talking about our feelings?”

Lae’zel stalks to the fire at the center of camp, sits down, and waits, her eyes fixed straight ahead. Gale gestures approvingly at her, gives a pointed smile at his companions, and then goes to sit across from her. Immediately, the githyanki speaks, her voice clipped as always:

“In my dreams I see a chained Githyanki. He says the only way to free him is to embrace the mind flayers’ disgusting spawn. I have refused. And I shall continue to refuse.”

Shadowheart sits next to Gale. Gods, they’re actually making a circle, aren’t they?

Amma shoots Astarion a look— ew, feelings— and he shoots the same look back at her. Together in disgust, they fill in the last two spots.

“We’ll go clockwise, shall we?” Gale offers. “I’ll speak, and then you, Astarion, and so on. And, actually— if I may— Shadowheart?”

The cleric raises a brow.

“Zone of truth, if you please,” the wizard tells her.

From the sneak-thieves, a chorus of dissent: “Oh, come on, you don’t—” “That’s not even—” “— think that’s necessary—” “— seriously?” “— never felt so unappreciated—”

“ENOUGH,” Lae’zel barks.

The sneak-thieves fall silent.

Shadowheart obliges.

Once the spell is in place, Gale scratches his chin thoughtfully. He’s working up to a long story— trying to decide where he should start.

“I see an avatar of Mystra,” he begins. “I am… well, I was a rather gifted wizard. You see— I have met this avatar before, many times, throughout my life. The goddess blessed me with instruction— inspiration— her time, her company. But I wanted… more.”

The wizard lifts his hand. It has been bandaged for a while; Amma had assumed he got splashed with acid from the bulette fight, or misfired a fireball, or simply wrapped it for support after such grueling tasks as dicing carrots.

“If I am anything, it is human,” he says distantly. “I carry all the hubris and ambition of the years that I won’t live.”

He begins to unravel the bandages. Amma realizes the tips of his fingers on that hand are discolored, something between jaundice and frostbite.

“I was a young man at the time. Impressionable. Prone to dramatics, shall we say. I was a schoolboy, sharing a room with a goddess. What else could I do but fall in love? And when that love was not reciprocated— what else could I do but try to win her over? I did not want to be her calf to shepherd. I wanted to be a shepherd beside her. She knew best, of course… but it was maddening, to look upon that boundary, and not to be let across.”

He sighs, world-weary and sad; at this point, he’s talking more for his own benefit than any of his companions’. This story has been well-rehearsed within the theater of Gale’s mind.

“Mortal creatures can only access so much of the Weave, you see. An archfey, or a demon prince, or a lich— they can access more. But to have understanding of it… true, real, tangible understanding— one must be unto a god.

“There was a man, once, who almost succeeded. Karsus: the Archwizard, the Arcanist Supreme, He Who Knows Everything And Tells Naught. He attempted to usurp the goddess of magic herself— Mystryl, she was then. He almost succeeded. For one moment in time, man and god were like an ouroboros, eating each other alive, inseparable, one and the same— then Mystryl bit down, severing the tail. The goddess sacrificed herself and in so doing she removed any and all ability of mortals to control the Weave.

“Imagine what it must have felt like,” Gale says, pulling bandages away from his palm, his wrist, wrapping them methodically around the fingers of his undamaged hand. His newly-revealed hand is— wrong. “To be a god. To know yourself to be untouchable. To be mistaken.

“But this was all some time ago. Hundreds of years before even Dale Reckoning. I appear far later in the story. For I had met the avatar of Mystra, the shape of Weave in human form, and I had glimpsed that ouroboros’ missing tail… and I had wanted to complete the circle.”

Gale holds up his unbandaged right hand, and it’s an awful thing to see. The skin is mottled as though weeks-rotten. The bones bulge in his knuckles, in the joints of his fingers; the fingers themselves are crooked, jutting out at wrong angles. The necrosis travels up his wrist, his arm— all the way, Amma realizes, to his chest, his neck, his face. The orb is not just astride his heart. It’s spreading all across his body, corrupting him, consuming him.

“Hence I opened a forbidden tome,” the wizard says, “and hence I was taken by this Netherese blight, and hence, the orb within my chest. I sought to return a long-lost magic to Mystra… instead, I had made myself the host of her own undoing. And so she cast me out. She took away what she had given me.”

He winces and puts his palm over his heart. He looks like the most despicable creature in the world. He looks like he knows it.

(He is, after all, the villain of this story.)

“I shared a bed with a goddess, and still, I wasn’t satisfied. If that’s not ambition… well.”

And he leaves it at that, uncharacteristically ineloquent.

There is a brief silence as the party processes his speech. They’re no strangers to gods— already met Vlaakith CLVII and a weird lich, brushed elbows with the Archduch*ess Zariel, and wouldn’t be surprised if Shar herself was on the docket for tomorrow— but even this is a lot to take in.

Then, Amma: “I’m sorry. Are you saying you f*cked Mystra?”

Gale opens his mouth, clearly furious— Astarion cuts him off before the discussion can get any worse.

“I see a pretty virgin who blushes like an apple when— ooh! I didn’t think that I could say that! I was lying. Good try, darling, you’ll get me on the next one. Anyway, I see a dwarf, I’ve no idea where he came from. Shadowheart?”

“I see a tiefling. And I— I thought they were an avatar of Shar, but now I’m not so sure. I can’t remember where I know them from. Or if they’re even real.”

Gale looks at her with the now-familiar expression of sympathy and pity intermingled, and says, “You must have memories of them, somewhere locked away. The tadpole is searching through your mind, seeking any image that repeats enough to be important. It doesn’t know why the image is important. It only knows you’ll pay attention to it. Now— Lae’zel’s already done, so Amma, if you would?”

“No, I think we really need to address you f*cking the goddess of magic,” Amma says.

Gale flinches. He’s doing a very good job not being outwardly angry. “I’d appreciate it if you would refrain from using such vulgarities, at least when I’m within earshot,” he says.

“And let’s unpack your sh*t, too, Astarion. This is a great chance for team bonding time! Tell them what Cazador—”

“Why don’t you tell them about your time in Ched Nasad?” he snaps back at her, grinning in that empty, hollow way that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m sure they would love a walk-through of the maximum security—”

“BOTH OF YOU, ENOUGH.”

Lae’zel’s voice actually makes a bit of dust fall from the ceiling.

Astarion shrinks; Amma does not. She’s trying to pierce her own palm with her nails.

She grits her teeth.

“I see my dead husband. And don’t say you’re sorry,” she snaps as Gale opens his mouth, “I’m the one who killed him.”

There is a long, uncomfortable silence. Something in Lae’zel’s face changes minutely. Amma hates it.

“I’m sorry, you WHAT,” Astarion says.

“Alright, I think that part of the discussion is finished,” says Gale quickly— and for once, Amma’s actually grateful to him. “We started this because we needed to address the tadpole situation, so let’s get to it.”

The rest of the afternoon is a muted blur. Lae’zel and Shadowheart are angry that it took the other three this long to realize that maybe snorting alien tadpoles is a bad idea. Astarion and Gale are defensive, citing Amma’s own reasoning that if one didn’t kill them, or dominate them, or turn them into mind flayers, then really, how bad could two or three or eight be? And then of course the counter of, Well, how do you know you’re not being dominated? How do you know you’re truly yourself? And so on and so forth. The seminar does nothing but widen the divide between pro-worm and anti-worm party members. None of them can come up with a definitive reason for the Absolute’s existence, beyond “turn everyone into mindless thralls”.

Amma does not contribute much. She’s too busy trying to wall off memories of Bonnevance.

Chapter 28

Chapter Text

The first few nights they’d spent down here, it wasn’t so bad— they were close enough to the surface that the air still moved, and every so often, they would find a fern or a newt or something that was familiar and native to the land above. But, now, further down— past the Lolthite cenoby, past the Zhentarim outpost, and down to a moldering abandoned village on the shores of the Ebonlake— they may as well be on another plane entirely.

Amma has little use for regret, but she regrets this.

That night, they all dream of a drow priestess.

She is proud, and not without reason. Her face is chiseled, her eyes violet and deep, and sweeping white hair pools over her shoulders; she is clever, and cruel, and to her slaves, she may as well be Lolth incarnate.

Theodosia, she says.

And Amma’s voice is unfamiliar without the rasp of smoke and drink and age, but it is undeniably her— with long auburn hair and eyes like summer evenings, with the subtle hook of her nose and a mole beneath one eye, another one above her lip— when she answers, Yes, mistress.

The Matron asks her: What are you?

And she answers, I am your eyes and ears and hands, mistress.

(Blood trailing down her legs and a healing hand on her forehead. For the imperfection of letting her last target hit her face when he fought back, Theodosia was whipped until she could not walk.)

The Matron asks her: Who do you serve?

And she answers, I serve Lolth, mistress.

(Her face is healed but that doesn’t matter when it gets pushed into a pillow. They care about bruises on her face and nowhere else. She’s staring at a wine bottle on a desk in the corner of the room, counting the seconds until she knows the poison will take hold, waiting for the voice of shadow to tell her that her job is done.)

The Matron asks her: And how do you serve Her?

And she answers, Through you, mistress.

(Her forehead against stone. Her own back bleeding, opened, raw down to the muscle. The wet plop of her own skin being dropped onto the floor as her cellmate flays the arcane tattoo off her. No more hands she doesn’t want to be touched by. No more whispers in her head.)

Except the Matron still speaks, and it’s like a vice-grip around her throat when she says: You should know better than to hide from me. I can find you anywhere that there are shadows cast. I am with you always, Theodosia.

When Amma wrenches herself out of her trance, she has to bite her knuckle not to scream.

She doesn’t bother to get dressed before she leaves her bedroll and searches for Astarion.

His tent is set up in not quite the opposite corner of camp, tucked a bit away from everyone for privacy. Lae’zel is on watch but she barely spares a glance. The fire is low but it’s been stoked enough to keep them warm; Amma veers through the pool of its light on her way across the cavern, and when a pocket of sap pops and fills her nose with the smell of fresh pine, she wants to dive into it.

She wants to pick a fight with Lae’zel that she knows she’ll lose. She wants to dance and cartwheel along the ledge of their cavern campsite, see how her balance compares to a probably-not-lethal drop. She wants to take one of her stiletto knives and gouge the tadpoles out of her own skull.

Instead, she finds Astarion.

He’s not entranced. He’s reading a book. He has three candles next to him, and beyond that, he’s bathed in the dim, blue light of Komira’s locket, hanging from a pole at the apex of the tent. (When did he take that? She thought Gale ate it days ago.) The shimmering orbs of light turn this crimson canvas to an orrery. It’s as otherworldly and distracting as Astarion himself, lying on his back with perfect poise, his bowed lips barely parted at the sudden disruption.

“Well, hello,” he says bemusedly. “What can I do for you?”

Amma does not ask before straddling his hips and putting all her weight on him.

He quirks a brow (“Lonely, are we?”) and drops his book without bothering to mark the place. She braces herself with a hand against the floor and presses her other palm against his chest. It’s silent there as always. He’s smiling at her, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

And if he wasn’t awake, she would have woken him up— wants to think she would have been gentler to him in doing so, been kinder, but truthfully, it’s doubtful. Because she is not a gentle person. She is not kind. And she does not want to ponder why she’s like that. For one moment in her wretched existence, Amma wants to feel good, and to not think about why she is the way that she is— when even avoiding it is a way of thinking about it, when it’s interwoven with the skills on which she’s built her livelihood, when it’s written plain across her back— she wants to forget about it.

“Hate to disappoint you,” he says softly, glancing down at her hand over his heart. “Though, if anyone could make it beat again— I think it would be you.”

(He thinks he’s using her. She can tell— she’s been used more than enough to tell— so she doesn’t really feel bad about using him in turn. And they’re both bad at being kind and gentle, but they’re good at being used.)

She keeps her hand pressed against his chest. It’s cold and unfeeling and it’s him . What a vile thing to crave about someone.

“What am I?” Amma says, and her voice rasps in the silence of the Underdark.

“You’re beautiful,” Astarion says as a reflex. “You’re perfect.” And then, tailoring to her: “You’re— you’re incredible.”

“What am I, to you? ”

Astarion can hear the dull thud of her heart, slow and constant, and he wants to smother himself in the space where her hair is soft and loose before it pulls into a braid. He draws his arms around her, pulls her down against him— buries his nose in her shoulder. She smells like sweat and fear and ithbank wine.

“Good,” he tries. “Sweet. All mine.”

He can feel the waves of heat in her blood beneath her skin. The words are rote. She’s not good, or sweet, and he’s surprised she didn’t hit him for being so possessive.

“Show me,” she says.

He sits up and keeps her in his lap, watching her eyes flash and glitter in the dim light of the locket. She isn’t smiling. There’s something familiar in the set of her face: it’s the same look she had in the broken temple of Selûne after meeting the Nightwarden. And he wonders— and without meaning to, his mind touches hers— and he only realizes once she opens up to him, once she floods him with a clumsy tangle of memory and desire. Her body is her own. She’s giving it to him. So what is she to him? Hands? Mouth? Blood? Useful? She’s never wanted to protect anyone but herself before. She wants to protect him. She’s never wanted someone to protect her before. Is she worth Astarion’s protection?

His cold fingers find her cheek, her jaw, and he presses tight into the bone beneath her teeth, turns her face to the side to expose her neck. She lets him. She keeps her eyes on him.

Astarion’s answer is instinctive and unpracticed, the memories messy, jumbled and hungry. Her knife in his leg. Her blood in his mouth. Her hand in his hair. A wordless confession of desire, a question of consent.

She reaches for his other hand and puts it to her throat.

They both understand that pain is an intimate thing.

He says nothing as she pulls the tie slowly on her ruined nightshirt and lets it fall down to her hips. She doesn’t pull it up over her head— doesn’t want to lose his grip on her. Astarion watches her do it and she can see him run his tongue along his teeth. He doesn’t bother trying to look less like a predator for her; with his newfound freedom it’s become so natural for him to claw, to stalk, and to consume. Almost as natural as seduction. He rakes his hands down her front, trailing welts from her clavicle to her breasts to her ribs to her waist, and she doesn’t stop him. He digs his nails into the swell of her hips and she doesn’t stop him. She’s stronger than him but she goes limp and pliant when he shifts his weight and puts her on the ground, lets her hands go up beside her head, lets him pull her clothes off beneath him. And the hard set of her jaw is gone— her eyes track him and she knows what he wants to do to her— still she doesn’t stop him.

No one has been so soft for him like this before. No one has seen his teeth and survived to have the chance. But she did. The assassin, the thief, the malefactor, the cruel and heartless blackguard who did not run screaming when she saw him killing children. She’s evil. She’s a coiled snake— an arrow ready for an eye.

And she’s soft for him.

Amma lays back with her hands above her head, defenseless, and it’s easy, so easy, to pull her flush against him, skin to cloth. No body has ever been so warm on his. He cradles her head in his elbow and rests his cheek on hers for a long moment— savors the heat, the smell, the submission— and then he bites her.

Not for the first time, it seems that her heart is more concerned with feeding him than keeping her alive. It quickens at the feeling of him, cold and sharp, beats blood hot and wet into his throat, binds his life to hers for just the briefest moment. He waits for her to push him away, to tug on his hair and signal him to stop— because she’s greedy and unclothed and this won’t stop with just her blood— but she doesn’t. So he sighs into her skin and licks the wound and kisses it— gives her one more chance to save herself, which she doesn’t take— and then sinks his teeth into her neck again. He puts one hand on her back and pulls her closer. The movement of it arches her spine and she tips her head back over her shoulders. He could weep with joy to have her in his mouth. He could tear at her like a carrion bird, he could eat her heart up like a plum. He thinks she might let him. The feeling is blissful and terrifying in equal, overwhelming measure.

She says something— almost a whimper, low into the air above his ear— he’s too hungry to hear it. She doesn’t have a dagger now. She pulls at his hair but her grip is weak. Something in him panics. More things in him don’t care.

She makes the sound again.

“Too much.”

Gods, he doesn’t want to, but— he stops. He’s on top of her and he’s panting into her shoulder and he’s licking her blood from his teeth but he stops.

“Are you—”

He doesn’t even finish the question; he can see she isn’t. He rises to his knees and fumbles for his pack, pulls out a very expensive healing potion, presses it into her hands. She needs help to tip it up and drink.

When she’s done, she gives up a miserable groan: “One of these days I ought to let you kill me.”

Astarion can’t keep his voice from sounding bitter and unkind when he snaps, “Don’t be a fool.”

(He is not kind. He wants to possess her. He wants to be inside her where it’s warm and alive and he wants to feed .) He tortures himself by lapping up the crimson streaming down her skin, and she knows it’s torture because of the sound he makes, the way he presses down on her for a moment and breathes raggedly against her neck. Still, he keeps his teeth out of her flesh, and tells her:

“I happen to quite like you alive, you know.”

She doesn’t respond.

He kisses the wounds on her neck again and says, “Gods, it’s like you were made to ruin me. Don’t be so wretched. Let me know you’re still alive.”

“I’m still alive,” Amma murmurs, and she sounds like she hates the world for it.

“There we go.”

When he kisses along her jaw and to her mouth, he leaves a trail of scarlet. It’s splendid and obscene. He loves it— loves her, he thinks, in as much a way as he can love anything, in the way a dog loves a carcass so much it will burrow in between its ribs to find more meat. He cups her face between his pale hands and watches the color return.

“You’re a dreadful cheat, you know,” Astarion tells her, barely more than a whisper. He’s through with misery. He wants to see her smile again.

Her mouth quirks up just the tiniest bit. His dreadful thirst is never sated, and it was not kind to her; she looks like she’s gone days without sleep. He strokes his thumb feather-light along the pitted shadow underneath her eye.

“How’s that?” she says weakly.

“I was trying to be chivalrous, and you quite ruined it.”

Amma scoffs quietly into his palm.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“I mean it. I wanted to be good to you. I could be your knight in shining armor. I could be Prince Charming.”

“Astarion—”

“And that again,” he sighs dreamily, and grins at her in the dim blue light. His eyes are dark in it, like uncut garnet, like raw meat gone bad. There’s still red between his teeth. “A thousand accolades couldn’t compare to the sound of my name in your mouth.”

She grins back at him. There’s still dried blood on her cheek, she can feel it stick.

“How long have you been waiting to use that line?”

“Not long at all. Well , I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘long’. Well— I had planned to use it after the grove, but you seemed very determined to undermine my best efforts, just then.”

(To hide his offense, he starts kissing her knuckles.)

“Also, I think if you put on a set of shining armor, you’d collapse before you took a step.”

“I would not.”

“You would. You’re built like a fairy.”

He tightens his grip on her hand, tries to pull it closer to him, but she sits up, and it becomes a struggle— a brief one. Even recently exsanguinated, all she has to do is clench her fist and he’s left clawing at her forearm like a kitten. She laughs.

“Cruel,” he pouts. “Despicable. I love you.”

Amma laughs even harder. It’s hoarse, like she’s forgotten how.

“You f*cking liar.”

Astarion tsks. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not— but that’s a rather fun one, don’t you think? And it could be true, tonight. It could be true any night you want it to.”

She keeps laughing for a while. When she catches her breath, she’s grinning at him, eyes shining with tears he hopes are mirth.

“I don’t need you to love me, beautiful.”

“But you’d like it if I loved you,” he insists. His smile doesn’t lay quite right on his face. “Everyone always wanted me to love them. I could love you. If you’d let me.”

Amma scoffs again and sits up, searching for her clothes.

“If you’re going to be like this, I’m leaving.”

“No, no, stay here,” he says, but he doesn’t reach for her. “Oh, you are a wicked, dreadful thing. I’ve only ever been so nice to you.”

“Since when have you been—”

He grips the back of her head and swallows that up with a kiss, forceful (it doesn’t take much) and searching (she’d been waiting for it) and he can’t stand any more talk of death tonight. He wants to live. (He wants to be alive with her.) When she pulls away to gasp for air, she does it like she hadn’t wanted to at all, like her prey instinct took over and made her stop. She can barely get any before he’s taking it again; he licks into her mouth like it’s marrow from a bone, fists his hand in her hair and pulls her head down below his.

“Every day,” he says (breathless even though he doesn’t need to breathe, dead hands feeling her heart race beneath her breast, holding her with corpse’s arms). “I’ve kept up my end of the bargain, haven’t I? I heal you when you’re wounded. I kiss your neck clean when I drink from you. I keep you safe. I keep you alive.”

Amma’s voice is husky when she tells him, “You could be even nicer to me now, you know.”

So he releases his grip on her hair and lays down on his side, his jaw resting on his palm, one leg draped over her bare thighs. And he tells her, “Say please.”

“Please.”

Her hand finds the back of his neck and she pulls him close enough to kiss the tiniest wrinkle in between his eyebrows. She sighs.

“Please,” she says again, unprompted, and her voice is soft and cracked and desperate. Her fingers card so gently through his hair. She kisses the bone over his eye. (Astarion has never had the privilege of making someone beg, and Amma doesn’t hesitate. The sound of it takes this encounter out of being nice and places it firmly in the realm of enjoying himself.) “Please. Touch me. I’m all yours here. Do whatever you want. I just need to feel you.” She kisses his temple. “Please, lovely.” She kisses the spot just before his ear. “Please.”

“Well.” His head is swimming. “I’m a little overdressed for that, don’t you think, my sweet?”

“I can fix that,” she whispers. Kisses his jaw. “If you let me.” Kisses just below his earlobe. “Please.”

He sighs— always one for dramatics— and says, “I suppose.”

Then, as her fingers bury in the fine fabric of his shirt, he catches her wrist. Holds it for a moment. She stills.

“If you ruin my clothes, I’ll kill you,” he says soberly.

She smiles.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?”

“It is.”

He hadn’t realized that he’d wanted so desperately to see her smile all this time, and he’s even more surprised to find himself smiling back. She’s swift and careful to undress him once he lets her. He didn’t have to let her. He could have stayed all buttoned up, could have just touched her and hidden his face in her neck, could have kept this transactional— but what’s the point of any of this if it’s just transactional? He’s allowed to want things now, and he wants everything she’ll give him.

And it’s not like Astarion truly enjoys the sound of begging— it’s not like he truly enjoys much of any of this anymore— but there’s something about it from her. That she would do it just because he asked her to. That she would offer up her neck time and time again even though she knows he can’t be trusted with it.

He’s not lying this time.

“I want you alive,” he murmurs, kissing along the crest of her pelvis under her gray skin, crawling down between her knees. “I want you like this.”

Her pulse sounds in his head like a vesper bell. He knows what desire tastes like in her blood, and it’s sweet , and he’s drunk on it now, and he could sink his teeth into the soft inside of her thigh, could find the artery that hides there like a secret spot to kiss— he reminds himself that potions don’t just magically appear whenever he has need of them. Still, his mouth waters at the thought.

He puts it to good use.

“f*ck,” Amma hisses through her teeth. Her breath catches and she shudders on his tongue.

He looks back up at her for a moment— runs his fingers up her thighs, her waist, her stomach. He traces his thumb along the space between one rib and the next. Her heart feels like a caged bird underneath it. Her hands find his hair and he braces for the harsh pull— it never comes. She smooths white curls away from his forehead and watches him work. And this— he wasn’t lying when he said he wanted her like this. He likes the feeling of her warmth around him. He likes the sounds she makes. He likes this, with her. He leaves one hand at her chest and strokes at her folds with the other, fingers not quite cool, his lips warm from her own heat.

When she moans, high and cracked and loud, he draws up, away from her— the tips of her fingers push gently at his shoulders, desperate to have his mouth on her again— Astarion grips her hips, hard enough to bruise, and pulls her roughly closer to him.

“I told you once already, you’re too loud,” he grins, smug and slick between her thighs. He runs his tongue over his teeth again. The shell of his pointed ear is pressed against her artery, and the sound and feeling of her pulse in it is better than any sex he’s ever had. The taste of her blood and her c*nt and the feeling of his fingers thrusting into her is better than any sex he’s ever had. She’s not a pretty pet to play with, but gods, does he want to toy with her tonight— it’s a messy, vile thing, this desire she’s awoken in him, and he doesn’t want to try and disentangle want from need from lust from hunger at the moment. He wants to overpower her. He wants to make her beg. He wants her to enjoy it.

“If you can’t keep quiet, then I’ll have to stop,” he murmurs into her thigh. She makes the same needy, breathy sound again; it’s like the wonderful groan of a dagger scraping against glass, a thief gaining entry to whatever prize awaits beyond a jeweler’s window. And Astarion is much worse than a thief. He touches her with just the barest tip of his fingers, now, barely teasing at where he was buried to his knuckles just a heartbeat ago. “Wouldn’t want to make the others jealous.”

Amma squirms beneath him, tries to work her hips and chase sensation, but he pulls his hand away.

“Oh, you little—”

She throws her head back, here, pants for a moment— struggles to think and catch her breath— tilts her chin back down again and looks at him. He simply smiles at her, teeth shining, his cheek against the soft inside of her thigh. She props up on her elbows and something in her face gives way. Her expression becomes almost slack; vulnerable, exposed.

Soft for him.

“Astarion,” she says, breathless, staring at him like she actually cares if he says yes: “Please, can I f*ck you?”

“No,” he says, just to be a brat, and because he can’t stand the thought of spending one more minute on his back to earn his dinner.

“But, since you asked me so nicely—”

(There are worse ways to earn his dinner.)

He was gentle and attentive, that night on the beach. And after the revel, he was perfectly polite, asking where to spend himself (she’d simply stuck her tongue out, lewd and grinning) and returning the favor for as long as she would let him and staying with her after. He was nice to her. He’s only ever been nice to her. And she said she didn’t need love. So, tonight, he reasons, he can afford to be a little selfish.

Astarion is less than tender when he pushes Amma over on her front. But she’s eager, arching up with her knees apart for him, messy and desperate. He grabs her ass to pull her closer and his nails break her skin. (She laughs, breathless, there’s a creak in it like a piece of furniture unused to being utilized.) Even eager himself, he continues to tease her (because he can afford to— he has the time, the method, even the desire) (and she’s always so cruel to him, he figures this is the safest way to exact petty revenge) until he (though— if she was kind— would he have cared to f*ck her?) can’t bear nothingness when he could be feeling her. So he pushes into her. And moves. And moves.

Amma reaches back to grab his thigh (her skin is so much warmer than his there, it nearly burns) and with half of her mouth in his bedroll, she rasps, “Gods, you feel so good—”

She can’t see him. She wants to, though. Her hair is loose all over her back and shoulder; Astarion winds his fist in it and pulls. She can’t see him now. It draws a noise from her totally involuntarily, air catching on her voicebox, inelegant. He doesn’t have anything against inelegance. His other hand comes to rest at the base of her throat, without pressure.

“Too loud,” he scolds, and clicks his tongue. And pushes deep. Makes her gasp. Tugs her head back far enough to bend forward and peck a small, twee kiss against her sweat-dewy forehead before letting up. “Must I cover your mouth?”

“YES.”

Astarion claps his cold palm over her grin.

“Oh, you are a villain,” he croons into her shoulder. His grip softens in her hair and wanders, fingers splayed, to meet the edge of the great scar along her back. (He pauses there— an unspoken question— she stiffens.)

“I’m sorry,” Astarion whispers immediately, removing his hand. “I shouldn’t have—”

Amma turns her head, his grip now slack against her chin, and looks at him. She’s panting.

“Do you want to stop?” Astarion asks.

Amma shakes her head.

“Doesn’t it…” She searches for the word; he can’t help her, he has no idea what it could be. She finally settles on, “Bother you?”

He braces his hands on the floor instead of her. “What, to stop? Of course n—”

“No, I meant touching my scars, dumbass—”

“Don’t call me a dumbass, I could strangle you right now.” He’s only mostly joking.

“You don’t have to,” Amma says, exasperated.

“What?”

“You don’t have to touch me on my scars.”

As far as mid-coitus surprises go, this is a new (and utterly benign, but no less baffling) one for Astarion. He flounders briefly.

“Do you not want me to?”

Amma’s head lolls onto the ground. “I don’t care,” she says, now sounding slightly annoyed. “I just didn’t want you to feel disgusted—”

His hold resumes against her hip, a handful of the ruined flesh above the divot of her pelvis, at the base of her spine. The scar tissue underneath his palms is coarse. He grips hard enough for her to feel a pinch.

“Darling, what in the sweet Hells ever gave you the idea that I find these anything but wonderful?”

Heat pulses through her.

Astarion fixes his lips to her shoulder, her neck, her jaw, and thrusts into her. He puts one hand on her back and the other against her cheek, turning her head so he can kiss her on the mouth. She moans soft against the daggers of his teeth. There’s nothing keeping his weight off her, now; but he knows she can support them both. After kissing all the breath out of her mouth, he returns to the cicatrix.

“You’re beautiful,” he says fervently against Amma’s once-flayed flesh. He digs his fingers into the dry, taught shape of her scars. She’s alive. She did this to herself, and she’s alive. She’s free. Astarion puts his tongue on a puckered groove beneath her shoulder blade. “Gods, you’re beautiful. You’re perfect.”

When she comes, she says his name.

(He truly doesn’t think any accolade will ever beat that.)

Exhaustion washes over him when he releases her.

(And then doubt, as she pulls herself together and searches for her underwear and nightshirt. And then disgust, when she leaves without another word. And then he feels horrible for ever touching something living.)

(But he’d wanted to. They had both wanted to. He knew that she’d wanted to. Why else would she have come to him, if she hadn’t wanted to?)

(He’d wanted to.)

(He’s wanted to before.)

(There are worse ways to earn his dinner.)

Chapter 29

Chapter Text

Sailing out into the unknown abyss of the Ebonlake is a terrible idea, but it’s the only idea they’ve got.

For a brief moment, when another zurkhwood skiff pulls up alongside them— manned entirely by deep dwarves in Absolutist garb— Amma really, truly thinks they’re all going to die.

One of the duergar calls out to them in Undercommon. Astarion watches Amma glance to Gale for a moment, something unspoken passing between them, and she nods minutely. Then she answers the duergar in, presumably, the same language.

Gale digs in his pack and pulls out a stick of charcoal— shakes his head, rummages again— pulls out a small wrapped stick of incense— mutters, “Oh, for the love of—” and goes nearly up to his armpit before he finds what he was looking for: a small clay ziggurat. Satisfied, he drops the first two components back into the depths of his enchanted pack and cinches it closed, before casting tongues on the whole party.

“Gekh f*cked it,” Amma’s saying. “Rotflowers. His whole crew is dead.”

The duergar curses. Then: “Nere’ll lose his head over this.”

“That’s the idea,” Astarion mutters. Amma holds up a middle finger behind her back. Shut up, you idiot.

“Keep patrolling,” the duergar captain tells his crew, and then— much to Amma’s displeasure— he jumps aboard their own craft. “Give me the helm. You’re explaining things to the sergeant.”

They sail in uneasy silence— duergar at the helm, symbol of the Absolute around his neck, the rest of them standing on-deck— until it occurs to Gale that he could just thunderwave the cultist overboard and leave him to the lethal waters. As the thought comes to him, it comes the same to everyone else, the tadpole urging them to self-preservation.

One spell later, they’re mooring in the ruins of the dark citadel of Grymforge, and the duergar is sinking to the bottom of the Ebonlake.

In less than five minutes, they’re up to their necks in subterfuge.

Amma’s trying to make sense of all the duergars’ loyalties, but it’s hard with a nagging, screaming voice in the back of her head— Nere, presumably— saying he’ll die under a rockfall if they all don’t hurry up. The duergars’ clan elder hates Nere. That’s good; they can work with that. And while watching a dozen svirfneblin get whipped and insulted isn’t Amma’s idea of a good time, she’s had worse— and it’s well worth it when the gnomes turn out to have their own schemes going. That’s also good, and they can work with that, too.

(She does take more joy than would be laudable in seeing the little gnome from the blighted village— Marcus? Darkus? Barcus, that was his name— being held captive once again. It’s nice to see old friends, remember old memories. He doesn’t have anything left to extort, though, so that reunion is short-lived.)

So they’ve got a True Soul with less than a day of fresh air to sustain him, another True Soul who’s sweating her ass off trying to rescue him, and a bunch of deep gnomes and dwarves who couldn’t give less of a sh*t. Maybe a barrel of smokepowder. Maybe a legendary forge.

“We are killing him, yes?” Amma says to the group at large. They’re perched on a high ledge, fathoms above the scrying eye and duergar slavers, having a midday snack and contemplating their next move.

“Obviously,” says Shadowheart. “If only for the gnomes’ sake.”

Astarion makes a face and a childish sound of dismay.

“Must we always be the ones to rescue people? He’s going to die regardless. Why don’t we just leave him there?”

“What part of ‘for the gnomes’ sake’ did you not understand?”

“They’re gnomes,” he says, waving his hands, as though this explains everything. “Crafty little bastards! They don’t need a rescuing committee, they need a distraction so they can run away. Which I’m sure they’re more than capable of doing on their own.”

“Or, they’re not, and innocent people will be punished for our own inaction,” Gale interjects dryly.

“We must free this Nere.” Lae’zel, now, her voice emotionless and sure. “He may have useful information. If not, then he will be weakened by the rockfall, and we shall finish him all the more readily.”

None of them can argue with that.

“Fine,” Astarion concedes, “but you’re the ones who are getting him out. I am not going to ruin my nails digging through a ton of rock for someone we’re just going to kill anyway.”

“We’ll just blow it up,” is Amma’s elegant solution. “Brithvar said that runaway’s got smokepowder.”

It’s clear where the duergar have or haven’t dug. The stonemason and his crew cleared a good way up looking for the Adamantine Forge, but it seems they’ve been pulled back to help unearth True Soul Nere. Amma almost wishes the stonemason was with them now. Pieces of the walls look— wrong. Broken. Melted.

(“Sulphur,” Gale had said with a curious frown when she pointed it out to him. He pried off a chunk, sniffed it, grimaced, weighed it in his hands as he considered— and then he simply shrugged and tucked the yellow mineral into his pack. “I wonder if there was a lava flow through here. Could have been a shifting of the cavern floor, a bubbling of molten rock beneath, that sort of thing; I’ve heard tell of similar happenings around Mount Hotenow…”)

So melted, in fact, that they almost miss a heavy metal door behind some long-cooled drips of stone.

It takes a bit of a roundabout path to get in, but they manage well enough— Amma’s thoughts race at the possibility of legendary armors, priceless metalwork, jewels and gems as big as her fist, or bigger, or—

— All they find is a makeshift alchemy lab that reeks of illithid scum and stale blood.

And an alchemist still working at it.

The white-haired elf does not turn from her bubbling contraptions as she says, “If you’re here for explosives, I’ve already told the Sergeant, it’s beneath my—”

The alchemist stops mid-sentence but does not immediately face them. A cold shiver runs through the party as a psionic tendril creeps toward them, and Amma braces to put up a wall— but the probing never comes, and the hivemind greeting is cursory; barely even strong enough to recognize. The uninitiated duergar had been the same. There are no tadpoles here but for the ones in their own heads. Though, this one is a drow; Amma can see pewter-purple ears poking out from her white hair. When she turns and looks at the party fully, her eyes are an oily-looking shade of red.

“Ah,” she says simply. “More True Souls, I presume?”

Amma doesn’t answer that. Instead, she simply crosses her arms, leans against the doorway, and says, “You don’t seem bothered by the whole ‘Nere’s buried alive with toxic fumes and a couple mad gnomes’ thing.”

The alchemist sighs, struggling not to let her eyes roll back into her skull.

“True Soul Nere is as stubborn as a deep rothé and nearly half as bright,” she says. “Truthfully, I almost wish I’d had a hand in his demise myself. This search is a waste of time and resources. The sooner we return to Moonrise, the better.”

“Search,” Amma repeats. “For what?”

The alchemist co*cks her head and reconsiders all of them.

“For General Thorm’s immortality,” she says. “Did they not brief you when you left the Towers?”

Amma says nothing. Nor do her companions. She’s so proud of them for learning to be cagey, she could almost dance a jig; but her joy is tempered by the sense that she’s just put them all in deep, deep sh*t.

“You have been blessed by the Absolute,” the alchemist is saying. “And yet— you’ve not been listening. That ought to be impossible.”

“Everyone keeps saying that. Maybe we’re just special.”

“Or maybe you were on the nautiloid that crashed a stone’s throw from Minthara’s station. I imagine the Sergeant could be forgiven Nere’s death if she delivered five rogue True Souls back unto the Absolute, that they might behold Her full glory and beg for Her forgiveness—”

Lae’zel’s sword inches out of its sheath. The alchemist laughs— a cold, fluttery thing, like a moth against glass.

“Oh, I’m only teasing! I’ve not been listening to Her either. This is a fortuitous meeting, my friends. I assume you seek to cure yourself of your illithid parasites?”

Gale says hopefully, “I don’t suppose it would be a bit too fortuitous to ask if you possess said cure?”

“Not here,” the drow alchemist answers. “Not yet. The Absolute is more than you can know. But if you leave me be, and I can help you disentangle from Her web.”

Amma’s not a fan of mincing words; she’d rather stab first and ask questions later. Every second they spend talking to this woman is a second that the cultists grow suspicious.

“Why should we believe a word you say?”

The drow’s face brightens at this, and she introduces herself: “Because,” she says, placing her jaw on her hand, “I am Araj Oblodra, hemomancer adept, trader in blood and the sanguineous arts. I am an alchemist, a diviner, a necromancer. And if you’re willing, I am at your service.”

“Oblodra,” Amma says warily. “I thought you lot fell into the Clawrift ages ago.”

“Oh, yes, the House compound did. My cousins loved to boast about the view. I imagine they have quite a lovely one of the Abyss, now. I would see my House restored, kin— and failing that, my own misfortunes wrought tenfold back on all of Menzoberranzan.”

Amma’s jaw twitches.

“Lolth’s forgiveness will destroy you.”

Araj merely quirks an eyebrow.

“So I’ve heard,” she says, and her eyes rove across what little she can see of Amma’s features underneath a dark masked cowl. Skin that’s more green-toned than violet; eyes that would have come from someone on the surface. When Araj comes to the truthful conclusion, she addresses Lae’zel instead.

“Have we reached a truce or not? If you’re here for sabotage, I won’t stop you— but please, be on your way. I have experiments that need tending to.”

The githyanki lifts her chin. “You would turn so quickly from your patrons?”

“I patronize myself. The Absolute is simply a convenient ally. I doubt they’ll tolerate me for much longer. As I said— this is a fortuitous meeting. We can help each other. Here— I’ll even give you this as a token of good will. Far more potent than standard smokepowder, I assure you. You’ll have Nere out in a snap.”

Lae’zel looks to Amma. Amma nods. Lae’zel takes the offered pouch and pockets it.

“End your experiments. You will join us after Nere has been disposed of.”

Below on the main level of Grymforge, they drop Araj’s pouch at the base of the rockfall, and slaves and slavers alike all scatter. Gale launches a firebolt. As the dust of the explosion clears, True Soul Nere strides out of the rubble— triumphant, regal, furious. He throws a little tantrum over the whole thing. Amma can feel Gale bristle as Nere turns on the gnomes; she gives him a warning look. Now is not the time to show their hand. Besides— if Garl Glittergold didn’t want gnomes to die from being launched bodily into a river of lava, he shouldn’t have made them so throwable.

Nere is even dumber than initially predicted, because he only kills the gnomes (and Sergeant Thrinn, but that’s because Amma egged him on, just to see if he would do it). This leaves roughly half the duergar workforce to turn against him and fight alongside the party. It’s close, but they manage without anyone dying. Five hundred gold pieces is not nearly enough for their troubles.

As the duergar elder walks away, barking orders to his clan, Amma leans over to her companions.

“We’re killing all the rest of them too, right?”

Gale rolls up his sleeves. Shadowheart nods, grim and ready. Astarion wipes a smear of blood from his lip— not his own, feral little bastard— and sucks it off his thumb.

“Action, not words,” Lae’zel growls. “Let your intent be read on entrails. Theirs.”

The resulting fight is almost laughable. None of the duergar had expected a triple-cross, apparently. And this is where Amma thrives: in betrayal and bloodshed. She actually finds herself enjoying the work as her blades split flesh from bone, cleave limb from body— gods, she missed being able to just kill everyone and take their sh*t. No morals. No rules. Just simple, mindless violence. It’s the closest thing to home she’s ever felt.

Chapter 30

Chapter Text

“That’s a merregon,” Gale says, rubbing his beard thoughtfully and staring down at the pile of ash.

“Not anymore,” Amma says, scattering the pile with her boot. Maybe there’s something useful in there.

“Well, yes,” the wizard says— he seems bemused. Amma doesn’t know if it’s because of the footsoldier fiend or because of her irreverence for its remains. Nothing of value in the ashes, though, so she doesn’t linger there. She moves to the other end of the room. It looks like an altar; there are some urns and such, and another merregon mask. She starts opening the urns. Incense, incense, and more incense. Gods, would it kill somebody to leave a platinum bar in a basket or something? Just once?

“Those aren’t known for being particularly tactical creatures— or solitary ones, for that matter. What on earth was it doing here? Oh, it’s times like this I do sorely miss dear Karlach, you know,” Gale continues wistfully. He tamps at the ashes a bit with the end of his staff. “She’d have all sorts of stories about merregons, I wager...”

Shadowheart ignores him. Amma can’t see her, but she can picture the exact expression on her face— eyes narrowed underneath her dark hair, her little mouth puckered with distaste— as she says: “We’re looting holy sites, now, are we?”

“Oh, no one’s going to miss it all the way down here,” Amma says. (She replaces the lid on the jar she’d been inspecting and sets it back down on the altar. She does not pick up another.)

“That’s not the point and you know it. I—”

Amma waits for the lecture.

It does not come.

“... Shadowheart?”

The cleric stands in the center of the room. Her mouth is still open, halfway through her next word, but her face has gone blank and slack as she stares at the altar. Amma looks at her— at the altar— tries to see what kind of priceless holy relic she could have possibly defaced that’s got the girl in such a state. Other than the jars and urns, there’s nothing. Just the scuffed-up plane of a large onyx disk: Shar’s holy symbol, a subversion of the mirrors and eyes they’d found in the ruined temple of Selûne.

She moves to Shadowheart and says her name again.

The cleric blinks.

“Sorry,” she says. “I— I don’t know what came over me… just then.” She shakes her head minutely, seems to come back to herself. Then: “Gale’s right. We oughtn’t linger here. Who knows what other monsters might have moved in?”

She walks past Amma without smiling.

“I really don’t like this,” Shadowheart hisses.

“Neither do I, but if it’s that well-guarded, it’s got to have something good in it,” Amma says.

They’re all standing at the turn of a corridor. Behind them, it branches off deeper into the unplumbed heights of Grymforge; beyond them, there is a large, ornate chest behind a barred alcove. The hallway looks extremely unassuming. That’s the problem.

“Yes— and there’s a reason it was left here,” the cleric says. “At best, it’s an offering, and we should not disturb it. At worst, it’s trapped— or another mimic, even.”

“Chk. Shall I send a mage hand, if you are all so jaded?”

“No—”

“Yes, Lae’zel, I think that’s an excellent idea,” says Amma.

The githyanki nods and summons up the arcane hand. It glides effortlessly across the corridor, through the bars, and raps thrice on the chest. It’s definitely full. No poisoned darts shoot out of it, nor do any gouts of flame come up from the floor, nor does it sprout teeth and try to eat the mage hand.

Amma gestures, looks to Shadowheart. “See? Perfectly harmless.”

The cleric is unconvinced.

“Yes,” she says. “Go on, then. No one’s stopping you.”

“You just said I shouldn’t pocket anything from here.”

“Do you want to open the bloody chest or not?”

“I’m just saying— it’s your goddess, maybe it was left there for some enterprising Sharran—”

“Oh, Nightsinger’s mercy,” Shadowheart says, her eyes nearly rolling back into her skull. “Fine. But I’m keeping anything I find in there.”

She squares her shoulders and steps carefully into the hall.

Amma can tell she’s being smart about it: the cleric’s looking at the floor, the walls, counting tiles and skipping steps where she thinks there may be a pitfall. She starts weighing the pros and cons of stealing from Shadowheart sometime in the night. Would she notice, if it was gold? Would Amma feel bad about it? Shadowheart would certainly take notice if she stole it all at once, but if she managed just a little bit, here and there, when they’d been trading recently or—

Click!

“Trapped,” Astarion says beside her, feigning surprise with his finger on his chin. “How considerate.”

Shadowheart stands frozen in the center of the corridor, three-quarters of the way down. None of them know what will happen if she takes her weight off the pressure plate she’s triggered. None of them want to find out, either.

“Astarion,” the cleric hisses.

“Coming, darling—”

He follows her careful path with ease, up on his toes like a dancer. When he reaches her, he does a careful circle— checking the tiles around her, looking for tripwires, false floors, anything— then pulls out his trap disarming kit and kneels down next to her foot.

“You know, I’m curious,” he says, running his fingers along the edge of the tile carefully. “If you just kept walking, what do you think would happen? Is this one of those ‘leap of faith’ ordeals? Or is it more of a ‘kill everyone, let Shar sort them out’ type of thing?”

“Well, now that you’re here, I’m more than happy to oblige.”

Astarion grips the inside of her leg, just above the poleyn.

“Ha, ha. Adorable. Don’t move a muscle.”

He sets to work on the trap. It doesn’t take long— it never does; he’s got a talent for finding the ends of cogs and wires in a way that Amma never could wrap her head around— but Shadowheart finds her lungs aching as she holds her breath. She hears a spring give way and the tile shudders underfoot.

“There. Now, I’m going to hold this, and you’re going to very carefully step off, like so—”

His hand returns to her leg, further up this time, and gentler. The cleric waits for him to guide her. He doesn’t.

“You’re shaking,” Astarion murmurs, still on his knee beside her.

“I didn’t want to move,” Shadowheart hisses.

“And you’re very good at following directions, aren’t you? Come on. Up you get. Little forward— there you go. That’s a good girl.”

(He says it so absently it might just be a habit. He’s still focused on the trap, doesn’t even look up from the floor as he navigates her off of it. And for this, she is very grateful, because she can feel her face burning.)

Now that the cleric is out of harm’s way, Astarion pries one side of the tile up and works a screwdriver under it. With a last reluctant whirr, the trap is fully disarmed, and he gets to his feet. He gives a small sigh of relief.

Then he catches Shadowheart’s eye, and the way he grins makes her face grow even hotter.

“Would you like some help with that chest, too, darling?”

“Piss off.”

Shadowheart is kneeling over some skeletal remains in darkened plate.

“This armor,” she says, and she runs her fingers along the breastplate— it holds the same purled black disc as her own. “These people… They were Dark Justiciars. The most elite of all my Lady’s forces.”

Araj watches her curiously, though she knows better than to mock the cleric now: “From what I understand, something very big and very scary rampaged through here before Ketheric Thorm’s first death. He’s not keen to share the details.”

“Apostate,” Shadowheart hisses furiously. “Betrayer. False prophet. Death first to vultures and scavengers.”

“Isn’t that what we are, sweetling?”

Amma can’t help it— she’s on edge. Stress makes her dagger-happy; a lack of stabbable companions makes her say things she shouldn’t. But Shadowheart just wrinkles her nose at the pet name, and says, “If not for me, then yes. Best keep on my good side if you’d like to stay that way.”

(Though, the corner of her mouth twitches up at that, and Amma feels a small knot in her chest unfurl with relief.)

Shadowheart’s hand lingers on the symbol of Shar, long-since tarnished and cracked, over the carcass’ ribcage. She bows her head, and they all wait in silence as she murmurs a death rite to the bones.

“May you find endless peace in Her embrace, martyr,” the cleric finishes softly.

She rises and the group continues on. Gale is fascinated by the decrepit citadel, antithetical as it may be to his own chosen god— Shadowheart is desperate for any breadcrumbs that Shar may have left behind— Lae’zel is eager to press on, but even she can’t resist the chance to unearth the Adamantine Forge and avail themselves of such superior weapons and armor. Astarion and Amma just want to wring this place as dry as possible. So they climb through the broken halls and towers, searching ever higher, sweltering near river-falls of lava. The ancient fortress is littered with Sharran skeletons here: some strewn about at random, others still hanging by the neck or run through by spears and axes. The onyx halls are silent as a skull.

When they reach a rusted atrium— they’re close to the forge now, with hammers and molds lined up on the walls— all six of them spot it at the same time: four figures, slumped but upright, standing vigil still over their holy site.

Shadowheart walks right into the middle and realizes too late that they’re not alive or dead at all: they’re animated suits of armor.

Araj curses. Astarion curses as well, and darts up onto a table just shy of the animated armor’s greatsword. He jams his dagger hilt-deep into the tiniest gap between the gorget and helm— and were this a living enemy, he would have sent them to their grave— instead, the armor simply clanks and shudders and rounds on him. Gale buys him seconds with a chromatic orb, but it won’t be enough.

Amma doesn’t waste the breath to speak with the wizard: she simply shouts into his mind with the tadpole.

Sussur flowers.

He slips his pack off and holds it out to her with one hand and sends off a magic missile with the other. She reaches in blindly and her hand wraps around a small velvet pouch. If it’s the wrong one, she’ll cut off his nose.

But the giant blue bud flies from her hand and paps against the armor bearing down on Astarion, falls to the ground, and renders it completely harmless as the enchantment nulls.

It’s a neat trick that works well on animated armor.

It doesn’t work on the lava elemental.

They’re all screaming at each other across the forge— Amma and Astarion peppering it with arrows that don’t even seem to penetrate the metal shell, Gale loosing every element at his disposal, Shadowheart enlarged and swinging at it with mace and magic both. Even Araj’s corrosive bombs do nothing.

“MOVE!” the alchemist is screaming, “MOVE AWAY FROM IT! NOW!”

Shadowheart grabs Astarion and lunges for the platform. Lae’zel misty steps past them. Amma looks at Araj like she’s insane— which Amma’s fairly certain she is— and the alchemist grins wildly as the forge guardian lumbers closer to them, heat rolling off of it so strong it feels like their skin is peeling, its wicked blade raised over its head— closer— closer— Araj throws her entire body into a heavy lever at one end of the platform.

The hammer falls with a BOOM so loud it ought to crumble the entire cavern over them. The forge guardian is crushed with a deafening screech and hiss of deformed metal, and as it tries to rise again, Araj pulls the lever once more. The hammer falls again. White-hot lava drains away from the forge guardian’s now-shattered body, and it does not move again.

Lae’zel screams in triumph and takes the damn thing’s head as a trophy. Shadowheart gets a new adamantine shield, and Amma gets a scimitar the same. Astarion laughs like a madman. Gale laughs too. Araj laughs with them. Shadowheart and Lae’zel don’t join in, but their fierce joy is palpable, crying out their victories to the empty forge.

And Amma— Amma, despite herself, laughs too.

Chapter 31

Chapter Text

With the darkest depths of Grymforge looted and the cultists dead and the party narrowly avoiding joining them, it’s time to finally, finally rest.

There aren’t any Selûnites to sacrifice, but aside from that, they’re doing their best to have a good Nightfall Feast. It seems a fitting way to celebrate their survival so far. According to Araj, the passage out of Grymforge is close, and they’ll be on the surface again in less than a day. She still has not revealed exactly how they’re meant to travel safely through the Shadow-Cursed lands. Amma begrudges her that, but she can’t say that she’d do any different, were their positions reversed— in her eyes, information is the only thing keeping Araj alive. She can’t imagine Shar would complain about a non-Selûnite sacrifice if it was done eagerly enough.

Gale hasn’t stepped away from his fire all evening, happy to provide snacks and treats for all of them. He’s enchanted the Nightwarden’s stolen lyre to continue plucking out whatever tune Astarion started on it for the night. Amma had convinced Shadowheart to dance, and then Astarion had chided her for being too drunk to do it properly, so now he’s got his hands on the cleric’s waist and Shadowheart’s cheeks are flushed and she’s smiling and it’s— good. It’s just really f*cking good.

Then Araj plops down next to her, and she’s tempted to drain her bottle.

“That one,” the alchemist says, her firewine eyes on Astarion. “He was on the nautiloid?”

Araj holds her liquor well. Not as well as Amma, but Amma’s had a good two centuries of practice.

“Same as all the rest of us.”

“Hm,” Araj says simply. “I wouldn’t mind learning to dance, you know.”

“Think he’s got his hands full at the moment.”

(Astarion pulls Shadowheart’s hand over her head and makes her do a little spin. The cleric isn’t exactly graceful, but she’s had enough to drink that she isn’t embarrassed, either. It’s sweet. It’s good. She’s laughing. He’s grinning. Amma can see his fangs.)

“Perhaps I’ll ask him for a private lesson later, then.”

Amma decides that once Araj outlives her usefulness, she’ll send her back to Menzoberranzan, hopefully in several different pieces.

“Have fun with that.”

When Astarion finally enters his tent, he finds it taken up by someone else.

“Hello,” Araj says, twirling her white hair and smiling at him.

Astarion lets the flap fall shut behind him and he does not move from the entrance. He watches her. She’d been wearing sparse leather armor and heavy alchemist’s robes when they first met her; now, she’s in black ankle-breeches and a sleeveless tunic. He can see dark veins under her gray-violet skin.

“Traditionally, one waits for an invitation,” he says without moving from the threshold.

“Oh, my apologies. I wasn’t aware we were observing tradition here. Shall I find a flogger and some chains?”

“If you like. But I charge extra for those, darling.”

“Traditionally, you should be honored if I did,” the drow says, arching one brow at him, unamused. “Suppose it’s your lucky night, though— I’m feeling generous, and not very traditional.”

Araj moves toward him. Her fingers trail lightly up his chest, his shoulders, and she drapes her arms around him.

“You’ve been drinking,” he says. She isn’t as warm as he expected. Something about her smells worse than the alcohol.

“So have you.”

“It’s late.”

“I’m not tired.”

“We both ought to rest.”

Araj grins.

“What, and leave you hungry?”

His mouth curls open like a dog’s angry smile. His fangs prick over his bottom lip.

“Trader in blood— of course you’d want that. You ought to recognize a spawn when you see one. You know I can’t turn you.”

“Oh, you misunderstand, darling. I don’t want to be turned. I just want to feel it. My life’s blood slipping away, dancing on the edge between life and death— nothing else compares, I assure you. I’ve tried it all.”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Let me be the judge of that, won’t you?”

Her hands are clammy on the back of his neck. She smells like formaldehyde. He can feel her heartbeat against his chest, the sensation pulsing against his tongue and throat as living blood-scent catches in his nose, but it feels out of place. She feels more dead than alive. The thought of putting his mouth on her makes his stomach turn.

(He’s done worse for less.)

Astarion puts his hands on her waist and walks her further into his tent. (For a moment he tries to pretend she’s someone else, but the smell is too cloying and rotten, piss and iron in his nose. The more he tries to imagine spiced wine and roses the more his stomach revolts.) He looks down his nose at her and her eyes are so red— he wonders if his own are like that, alien and unforgiving, a bloodied blade. (His eyes are focused on her mouth. It’s too full for the fantasy he’s trying to save himself with. Amma’s lips are thin. Araj is missing the beauty marks.) She tips her head back and she sighs (not the right sound) when he sweeps her hair out of the way (not the right color, not the right length) and her neck is exposed (dull purple instead of lichen gray) and he can see the artery pulsing under her skin and it would be so easy to bite her and he can’t even pretend he wants to. A week-bloated plague rat would be preferable.

With Araj nearly boneless in his arms, her eyes closed, her throat exposed— Astarion opens his mouth— and the smell of her floods in. And it’s wrong. And he doesn’t want to.

Astarion closes his mouth, draws back from her throat, and drops his hands from her.

“Get out,” he says quietly.

“Excuse me?”

“I said—” Why is he whispering? He wants to scream. Screaming never did him any good before. But that was before, and this is now, and he’s better than that. “I said GET OUT.”

Araj tries to press against him, opens her mouth, goes to her tiptoes— he shoves her. She spills out of the tent and onto the stone floor of the campsite, and he has to stop himself from kicking her even further.

“You impudent dunce,” she hisses, “I’ll have your bloody eyes for—”

“What’s going on here?”

Gale’s gone to bed. Shadowheart is falling asleep on a bench. Lae’zel is wrapping a burn on her arm. Amma’s on her feet, ten feet away from Astarion and Araj, frowning at them both in turn. She looks angry. She is angry— Astarion can tell, this time— and instinct tells him that’s a bad thing, while conscious thought tells him it’s a victory. He’s never been so relieved to be found out.

“Your new friend seems to think that I’m in need of charity,” he says.

Amma’s mouth goes into a hard line as she looks down at Araj. Her eyes flick to Astarion for a moment— searching— he doesn’t have it in him not to bristle. Amma’s face turns even bitterer as she looks down on the alchemist again.

Araj gets to her feet, and keeps well out of both their reaches.

“No friend of mine,” Amma says. Her hand is on the ever-present dagger at her thigh.

Araj’s expression goes as sour as her tainted blood. Her gaze lingers on Amma’s face, Amma’s blade, and then Astarion, but just his mouth. She waits for one of them to let up. Neither of them do.

“How disappointing,” she says finally. “I suppose I’ll just entertain myself tonight, then.”

She leaves for her own corner of the campsite. Astarion watches her go. Amma watches Astarion, all of him. When the alchemist is out of sight he turns on his heel and goes to his own tent— pauses at the entrance.

(He’s certain that it smells like her now. And if it doesn’t, his imagination would make do just to torment him.)

He turns again, walks up to Amma, cups her face, and kisses her.

She makes a sound— tiny, surprised, not displeased— he steps forward and takes her with him, opens his eyes and watches over her shoulder as he moves them both to her tent, and she fumbles behind her to keep from running into something— he can hear Lae’zel scoff, and Shadowheart makes a theatrical vomiting gesture— and then they’re in her tent. It’s blue, bright blue, how he imagines the ocean is against the white sands of the Sword Coast. Her bedroll is simple and well-worn. She has a stack of books in one corner and a small wooden chest and her weapons are laid out in a neat line on the floor, ready at a moment’s notice. There is a lantern in the corner that she hasn’t lit.

Astarion nearly pushes her to the ground. She doesn’t tell him to stop, but he doesn’t give her much of a chance; he wants to see and hear and smell and taste her, he wants to stop thinking about Araj, he wants to feel safe again. He sits back on his heels and pulls his shirt off. He’s going through the motions on reflex, on instinct. There’s no desire in it: just desperation. Amma is still fully dressed in her camisole and trousers. She catches his chin in her hand.

Her eyes are turquoise with a tiny ring of red around her pupils. She smells like sweat and cloves and smoke. Her palm is so warm after Araj’s corpse-wax touch; it feels almost hot enough to burn him.

“What happened?”

“She wanted me to bite her.”

Amma seems confused. “And that— pissed you off?”

“There’s something wrong with her blood. It reeks. It smells like mind flayers. I’ve had enough illithid filth in my head, I don’t want it in my stomach as well—”

He kisses her again; her mouth, her jaw, her neck. He pulls the strap of her camisole down off her shoulder and kisses the bump of her clavicle beneath.

“Hey,” she says softly into his hair.

He kisses the hollow beneath her throat. He kisses the top of her sternum.

“Hey. Astarion. Stop.”

He freezes.

(She hasn’t pushed him away. Her knees are around his waist, her hand is on his cheek. She’s looking at him so softly. He hasn’t even put his teeth in her. Why is she telling him to stop?)

(This is what they do, isn’t it?)

Amma’s thumb runs along his cheekbone and she coaxes his face up from her chest and she whispers, “Are you alright?”

“Splendid,” he says numbly.

“You don’t seem splendid.”

He feels like she’s strangling him. He feels like she’s sunk her dagger deep into his heart.

“Astarion,” she whispers, “do you want to be here?”

“Yes. No. Yes.” He’s miserable. He wants to be back on the beach in the grove with her blood in his mouth. He forces himself to go limp and docile on top of her, arms around her waist, and buries his face in her neck. There’s nothing wrong with her blood. It’s perfect, always, just for him.

“Yes,” he says against her skin, and he’s miserable, but he means it. He’d take this over anywhere else he could be right now.

“Do you—” She falters, turns her head and her breath is hot on his ear, and it’s comforting. “Do you want me to stay here with you? I can leave, if you want.”

(He doesn’t want to have sex with her. He doesn’t want to have sex with anyone tonight. He should, though— should do something with her to show he’s not broken beyond repair, that he’s still valuable even if he doesn’t play so well with others.)

(What else would she stay for?)

“Hey,” Amma says again, and she’s so soft for him, still, she’s holding him like he’s a person and not a gorgeous thing to be groped and grabbed and used for pleasure after hollow, pointless pleasure, and it makes him feel like a cornered dog. She smooths her hands through the hair at his temples and simply looks at him and sees him. And he’s terrified of it. At what point does she stop liking what she sees?

What use is a monster that’s afraid to use his teeth?

She tells him: “Look. I’m exhausted, Astarion. I’m not really up for much tonight. We can fool around, if you want to, but—”

“That’s fine with me, darling, I can do the work—”

“Do you want to?”

He doesn’t answer that.

“We don’t have to,” she says gently.

He pulls his face out of her hands. For a moment, he thinks he’ll leave— that he’ll storm off and she’ll regret being so soft for him, and she’ll come to him later when they’ve both had time to reconsider and get good and angry, and they’ll set right everything that has gone wrong this evening— and then he thinks of the smell that surely lingers in his tent, and the locket that doesn’t mimic sunlight quite well enough, and it feels so f*cking vulnerable to go back alone. It feels like a punishment. It feels like the crypt.

So Astarion adjusts his position to be touching her in as many places as is feasible, curled around her like a snake with a rabbit, and he puts his ear against her chest and listens to her heartbeat.

“Then what else can we do?” he whispers.

“This,” Amma whispers back to him. “We can just do this. You can stay. You can sleep here. We don’t have to do anything else. You can just be. I won’t touch you. I won’t even speak to you, if you don’t want me to.”

“Speak to me.” There’s a quiver in it that he wants to say is laughter: that he’s amused by the absurd notion of just sitting and talking when they could be furiously ravishing each other. His eyes are stinging. “Please, speak to me. I—”

He swallows. That doesn’t help. He squeezes his eyes shut and clears his throat.

“I want to know you’re there.”

“I’m here. Did you know you have a cowlick at the back of your head?”

Astarion laughs wetly. Amma examines the offending lock.

“If she’d been normal, would you have bit her?”

“Does it matter?”

Amma shrugs.

Astarion doesn’t think he likes that response.

“Would you be terribly offended if I had?”

“I won’t keep you from eating.”

“No, you never do.” At this, his hand comes to her neck, fingers brushing hair away, palm flat and cool against her pulse. His thumb strokes along her jaw. The touch is soft, content to simply rest on her— nothing like the night before. She wraps her arms around his shoulders.

“What is this, Astarion?” she says after a pause. “What am I, to you?”

He considers.

(Blood. Hands. Mouth. Eyes. Skin. Touch. Soft. Fun.)

(Safety.)

“Mine,” he tells her, and it’s a line, and he can hear her heartbeat quicken, and he’s disgusted by how much he means it.

“Yours,” she says, and it’s like she’s considering it too, like she’s trying the words on for size. It seems to satisfy her. He can feel her eyes on him when she continues: “And you’re mine?”

(Safety. Protection. Possession. A collar. It’s familiar. It feels natural. It’s what he’s used to.)

(It reminds him that he’s a dead body and that’s all he’ll ever be.)

“All yours, my love. Until you’re sick of me and still more after. I’ll eat you up.”

“Oh, will you?”

“Mhmm.” He pulls himself up to her neck. “Every drop, if you would let me. Which you won’t—” (this is a reminder to her more so than him) “— and so I’ll have to make it count.”

He tries to make it count. He really does. He’s as gentle as he knows how to be with his teeth in her neck, and he’d put his hand between her legs if she wasn’t holding it. But she holds it. Too soon, she tugs at his hair.

As always, he closes her wound with a kiss, and he feels happy.

“Stay here?”

He stares at her.

Then he lays down on his side, with his back to her, and he can hear her unbuckle her belt, and the happiness skitters away— she’d said they didn’t need to do this, that she didn’t want to, but of course she’d change her mind after he bit her, of course she’d lie— his spiraling is cut off by the sharp intake of her breath.

This is the first time they’ve truly had a chance to rest since they came to Grymforge. Gale’s casting of tongues is still functioning on all of them.

“Astarion,” Amma says tightly, “he wrote it in Infernal.”

Chapter 32

Chapter Text

When Astarion throws himself out of Amma’s tent, Shadowheart expects screaming to follow. Fury, heartbreak, arguments about what kind of sex they’re having, anything— they’re both volatile people, so it’s natural their relationship would prove volatile, as well. She is not disappointed.

“Bloody poetry,” he’s snarling, “bloody fancy knife, all his godsdamned rituals—”

“Astarion, wait—”

“For what?! I’ve waited two centuries already! I am more than owed—”

“— don’t know what you’re f*cking with, could do more harm than—”

“— hardly think it can be worse than when the damn thing was given to me, can it?!”

“Just stop and think for once—”

Astarion strides across the onyx floor to Shadowheart, who is half-asleep, sat upright on a bench. She blinks and wills the room to stop spinning when she realizes he’s coming toward her. She doesn’t much fancy playing couple’s counselor to them. (Or maybe she does. She was thrilled to see him storm out of Amma’s tent like that. For one wild moment, the cleric was seized with fantasies of drying her burglar’s tears, of comforting her through heartbreak, of telling her she’s beautiful—)

The vampire drops to a crouch before Shadowheart and puts his hands on the stone bench on either side of her hips, leaning close enough that his cold breath stirs her hair. He grits his sharp teeth and tells her, “Heal me.”

Shadowheart struggles to focus. She’s exhausted, she’s still considerably drunk, and he’s talking nonsense.

Astarion gnashes his teeth and scrapes his nails against the bench like claws.

“There are scars on my back,” he hisses. “I want them gone.”

The cleric hiccups. Considers. Lifts her hand and draws a little circle in the air with her index finger.

“Turn around, then,” she says.

He wraps his arms around himself when he does as ordered. His fingers claw at his shoulders, his biceps, his ribs— he’ll tear furrows in his flesh if he keeps on like that.

And when Shadowheart sees what’s been done to him, she wants to cry.

She doesn’t look beyond him to see Amma’s face, a wretched mix of disapproval, possessiveness, pity, fear— she doesn’t see beyond that to Gale’s head poking out of his own tent, nor somewhere off to the side, where Lae’zel has gotten to her feet. The whole party (sans Araj, who is likely still licking her own wounds) can see him standing there before her.

“You are cruel,” Astarion says, low and tense, to Amma watching them. “You would cover me in poetry.”

“I would not, you ass, you’re far too pretty.”

Then he turns his head and eyes Shadowheart over his shoulder.

“Well?” he snaps.

“Astarion, this is no poem,” the cleric whispers.

“I’m not asking for a style commentary—”

“No, it’s— I don’t think anyone could heal this—”

With a flash of teeth and lithe white fingers, Astarion’s hands are around the cleric’s throat. He drags her off the bench— she gasps, coughs, tries to pry his hands away from her— he drags her to the edge of the fractured floor, toward the drop into a chasm full of lava. He’s tall enough to lift Shadowheart to her toes as she chokes under his grip. She’s out of spells— she is unarmed— she tries to hit him but it’s useless, she can’t reach—

Gale is too slow, Lae’zel does not intervene, and Araj is probably cheering from her tent. But Astarion freezes when an adamantine scimitar catches just beneath his chin.

Amma’s blade is lighter than a whisper, colder than the grave, and he is under no delusion that she’d hesitate to use it on him. The edge of it is turned away from his throat not as a mercy but for a chance to ponder his own tenuous grip on immortality.

The rogue’s voice is even harder than that blade when she says, “Let her go.”

He drops Shadowheart. She falls to her hands and knees and coughs hoarsely, clutching her neck— Astarion looks down at her, his face sour and hateful, but he holds his hands out in surrender. If they did not know him, he could look saintly.

Amma pushes the blunt side of her scimitar against his skin and guides him further back. She puts herself between the cleric and the vampire. She does not lower the blade.

“It’s not a poem,” Shadowheart rasps from the ground. “It’s a contract.”

Astarion’s lip curls. “I assure you, I was not asked to sign it.”

The cleric catches her breath and sits up. Her hair is disheveled, her neck is bruising. (A wave of shame runs over him like ice. He tries to drown it with the heat and thrill of hurting something other than vermin for his food, of having power over someone else for one glorious moment in his miserable life. It is his nature to be monstrous. It’s not fair that he must always blunt his fangs.) She wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand and holds him with her cold, clear eyes, and he expects her to say that he’s too dangerous to keep.

Instead, Shadowheart’s mind lances into his like a needle, and she shares the image of his scars— and what little she could glean of the Infernal contract they’re a part of.

“Whatever has been done to you, we’ll find a way to undo,” the cleric croaks. Her compassion is cold. It feels like barbed hooks in his skin.

“You think so?” Astarion says. He looks at her strangely— tries to rearrange his face into something less loathsome. He doesn’t quite succeed. “How sweet.”

Without another word, he stalks out of the campsite, and no one stops him.

Shadowheart looks up and finds Amma much closer than she was before.

“Are you alright?” the rogue asks softly.

“Do I look like I’m alright?”

The rogue grimaces.

When she holds out a hand to help her up, Shadowheart takes it.

Chapter 33

Chapter Text

Amma’s head is beginning to pound.

She imagines Shadowheart’s is, too, if the deep purple imprint of Astarion’s hands on her throat is any indication.

She supports the cleric with an arm around her waist, more because she’s still drunk than that she’d actually been harmed. If they’re lucky maybe she won’t even remember this in the morning. (That’s an idiotic thought; they’ve never been lucky, and the bruise will linger. Amma chews the inside of her cheek painfully. She can’t afford to be so sentimental.)

When they reach the cleric’s tent, Amma dumps her on her bedroll. The air within is heavy and bittersweet from incense. Shadowheart was the only one of them truly prepared for an adventure: panels of lush purple and deep black instantly muffle the sound of outside, and a change of clothes are folded neatly in the corner.

From the ground, Shadowheart groans and flops over to her back.

“That was exciting,” she says. “We should all get into fights more often.”

“You’re drunk,” Amma says.

“Spectacularly so.”

“You gonna puke?”

“No. Wait— no.”

“Hold it in til I get back.”

“Nooo, where are you going—”

Amma ignores her and leaves the tent. She takes a cursory study of the campsite now: it’s midnight, or perhaps half-past, but repeated disturbances have apparently kept everyone awake. Gale is brewing tea with Lae’zel at his side. The wizard very pointedly does not look up as Amma passes them; the gith does, and cuts a withering stare to her. She ignores it. Astarion is nowhere to be seen, and she can’t decide if she likes that or not. He’s owed a slap. A broken nose, perhaps. She continues to the metal grating that Araj has put up as a makeshift screen to separate her sleeping space from the rest of the campsite.

Amma raises her hand to knock, decides that’s just too civil, lowers it.

“Oblodra,” she says.

“I’m not at home.”

Amma closes her eyes and wills for patience.

“Have you got anything for bruises?”

At this, she hears a rustle and a resigned sigh from the alchemist.

“Come into my parlor, then, if you insist on being needy.”

Amma walks past the metal screen and into Araj’s space.

She has a bedroll, no pillow, and a menagerie of alchemical supplies. A small wooden rack holds what Amma can only assume are texts of her trade, two shelves tall and with no uniformity to its contents; beside that, all manner of vials and beakers packed into their casings, and a bulky leather wrap she knows is full of surgical implements. It all smells faintly and unpleasantly of copper.

Araj herself is laying on her side, a book open before her, completely at ease despite the infighting she’d instigated. Her eyes flick over Amma’s neck and shoulders and she clicks her tongue.

“A little too rough with your toys?”

She says it to get a rise. Amma knows she says it to get a rise. She still wants to kick Araj’s teeth in.

“Do you have something or not.”

Araj watches the rogue for a few moments. Amma can tell she’s weighing her options. Neither of them have as much power as they’d like in this situation.

Eventually, the alchemist fishes a small blue vial from her things and hands it over.

“Rub this in. Don’t use too much or you’ll both go numb. Some tingling is normal; if it burns, you’re having a reaction. Don’t get it in your eyes or you’ll go blind. Or do. I clearly don’t have any say in what you choose to do.”

Amma wants to smash Araj’s skull into the floor.

Instead, she says, “Thanks,” and heads back to Shadowheart.

The half-elf is still on her back, as Amma’d left her. She has not vomited, which is commendable, but she did fall asleep, which is problematic. The rogue nudges her thigh with a foot before crouching down beside her.

“Eyes open, kid. You need to be awake for this.”

Shadowheart groans and rolls over to her side, curls in on herself.

“Come on. I’ve got something for your neck.”

Amma eases her onto her back again, props her head up on a pillow. There is a heavy, dewy layer of sweat on her— on all of them, probably— and it makes for an unpleasant sensation when the rogue smears Araj’s cold balm across her hot, sticky skin.

“You’re being too gentle,” Shadowheart mumbles after a moment. “It’s not going to absorb if you don’t push deeper.”

Amma pauses.

“I don’t want to make it worse.”

“You won’t.”

She hesitates, but the cleric doesn’t flinch as she presses a thumb harder into the bruises on her throat. She knows it must ache dearly. She can feel all the muscles and tendons underneath her skin. They fall into silence as she works, and when she’s done, she goes to wipe her hands on her trousers; Shadowheart catches her fingers and prestidigitates them clean instead. Amma sets the blue vial next to the cleric’s clean clothes in the corner.

“What will you do, when all this is over?” the cleric asks her softly. She has not let go of Amma’s hand.

“... I don’t know.”

“Go back to knavery?”

“Probably. It hasn’t done me wrong so far. … What will you do?”

“... Go back to Baldur’s Gate, I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

“That’s where… I’m needed. That’s where the cloister is. I… Mother Superior will be very angry with me.”

Amma’s quiet for a moment. Then, she whispers, “When was the last time you let your hair down?”

Shadowheart can’t remember.

“I have to take it down to re-do the plait,” she offers as a half-truth.

“I’ve never seen you with it down.”

“You haven’t?”

“No.”

Shadowheart hums vaguely without opening her eyes.

“Would you take it down for me?” she asks.

“... Yes. Sit up.”

Amma’s fingers are deft, as the cleric knew they would be. What she hadn’t expected was just how warm she’d be when they brush against her skin. Amma is gentle with her, taking her time to unwrap the metal ornaments, to unravel the worn leather strings that tie the braid off. She works slowly from the end of Shadowheart’s black hair to the crown of her head. Once the braid is fully undone, she drags her fingers carefully through the length of her hair, and Shadowheart can’t help but sigh— from pleasure, from yearning, from joy at the simple act of being touched, she doesn’t know. The cleric sways forward and puts her forehead on Amma’s gray shoulder. After a moment’s hesitation, Amma continues petting her hair.

This is a punishment, the cleric thinks— this is a punishment, because she wants it, but she cannot have it. This is a punishment that she is more than willing to take.

“I’m sorry I kissed you,” the rogue says quietly.

Shadowheart tells her, “Don’t be.”

The half-elf doesn’t have darkvision and her tent is dim. She drags her head up from the rogue’s shoulder to look at her face and the only thing she can see is Amma’s eyes. They flash in the low light like a cat’s, otherworldly and dangerous. They’re close. Shadowheart is breathing heavy and she wants to fill her lungs with Amma’s smell instead of incense. She sways. Farther, closer. An ebb and flow. Waves seeking a shore they’ll never touch.

“If you want something,” she says, “I think you ought to take it.”

Her hand fumbles for Amma’s thigh and she leans in.

“You’re drunk,” the rogue tells her softly.

“I’m lonely.”

Shadowheart nearly falls on her face when Amma gets up from her spot on the floor. She hadn’t realized she’d been leaning so heavily on her for support. She’s anchorless for a moment, head swimming with drink and exhaustion and her own pining thoughts, and then a strip of orange light cuts through her tent as Amma lifts the flap and leaves her.

“Sleep it off.”

Chapter 34

Chapter Text

They have a clear path forward, but within the shattered citadel, there is more tension in the group than ever. Astarion was back at camp when they all awoke, but he still has not met anybody’s eyes. Shadowheart has a hangover. Amma also has a hangover. Araj has reigned herself in somewhat, but that doesn’t make up for the problems she has already caused. Gale has been quiet. Lae’zel’s disapproval of them all is palpable.

But the closer they get to the surface, the more they press together.

The darkest corners of these great onyx halls seem to buzz. The shadows at the edges of their vision almost vibrate, pulse , like they’re alive. Amma doesn’t like it at all. (Reminds her of the Matron.) And Amma’s walked the darkest places of the world: from alleys to old tombs to the harsh frontier, she’s been through terrible places, cursed places, seeking the clink of her next coin. She is a creature of the night. But this— this is no night.

This is a mouth of despair and hopelessness swallowing her whole.

When they reach the surface, the gray sky looks bruised and ill; the air feels foul in her mouth and nose, insidious, clawing at her lungs like Gale’s orb inside him. It’s drizzling rain. The whole atmosphere feels damp and moldy from it. From what they can make out, the ground itself is fractured and jagged; it’s difficult terrain, pathless, easy to get lost in. A barbed throat leading to the belly of their horror.

So at the heavy doorway out of the Underdark passage, the party pauses, all standing close together. Amma sets her pack down and pulls her hooded lantern from her pack.

“That won’t be much use,” Araj says dryly.

Amma ignores her.

It takes the rogue three tries to light a match and get the flame to take. Even with the lantern fully open, the light doesn’t extend as much as it should. Once again, she has the dread thought that this darkness is malicious and alive: that it’s swarming at the edge of her lantern-light like maggots on a corpse.

“I can hardly see my own toes,” she hears Astarion say, quite distastefully. Then, checking in with the rest of the group: “Daytime creatures?”

“This is but one more finger on the gauntlet,” Lae’zel answers. “We shall persevere. It is our nature.”

“Hey. How about we don’t, actually?” Amma says, still trying in vain to brighten her lantern. “How about we just turn around instead.”

“And go where,” Astarion reminds her, not quite kindly.

“Oh, chin up,” Gale says, tapping the end of his staff with a light cantrip. (He moves out of Amma’s reach before doing so, just in case.) “Steel yourselves and press on. We won’t find answers where we’ve been already. Besides, Araj knows where we’re going, yes?”

“I know— how to get us where we’re going,” Araj says, which does not make any of them feel safer. “We need to head east.”

Shadowheart isn’t listening to the conversation. She walks slowly, carefully, away from the heavy door separating Grymforge from the surface. Her armor gleams as she reaches the edge of Gale’s cantrip. Beyond that— nothing, the impenetrable dark.

“Shadowheart,” Lae’zel says sharply in warning.

“Does it not put you at peace?” she breathes. “I never imagined that a place could be so…”

The cleric stares up and around, her face almost— serene. Amma wonders if she’s gone fully and completely mad.

Then, Gale— and his voice is definitely tinged with something close to awe: “I suppose this is as much Shar’s domain now as the Shadowfell. I’ve some experience with the Shadow Weave, but this… ”

The wizard, now, rummages in his pack for a moment, into his spell components— pulls out a handful of glossy red berries and pops one into his mouth. He chews it and spits the mush into his palm (disgusting) and with an arcane phrase, the mush glows yellow. A tiny woodland sprite flies from his hand. He sends it off into the grasping shadows.

A moment later, they all hear the sound of tiny fey bones crunching as it gets devoured by the dark. Its life-glow dims, flickers, and then vanishes.

“Everyone stick close to me, if you please,” says the wizard, unnecessarily.

Shadowheart, either willfully disobedient or fully in the throes of a religious mania, puts one hand out toward the darkness. She skims her gauntleted fingertips along the edge of light, the way she might skim her fingers along cool water on a hot summer day. She runs her fingers back and forth for a brief while— before sliding her entire hand out into shadow.

Gale starts, horrified, “What are—”

“It’s alright,” the cleric says reverently. “Look.”

She sways her hand slowly to and fro beyond the sphere of light. Tendrils of shadow wrap around it, run over it, fluid and ominous like smoke across the metal joints of her glove— but it does not consume her like it has everything else. She does not look afraid. If anything, she looks happy.

“It doesn’t affect me,” she says, and her voice is a soft chapel-whisper. “It’s not hurting me.”

She removes her gauntlet and places her naked hand back into the dark. A moment later, one black claw takes shape out of the darkness, and drives its talon through the back of her hand. Shadowheart sucks in a breath and yanks her hand back from the shadow curse.

“Not hurting me quite as bad as it could be,” she corrects herself with a slight frown.

She rotates her marked hand in front of her face. There is a small hole in her palm, like she held it over a candle flame; the wound is bloodless and uncorrupted. It goes all the way through to the back of her hand.

“Do you know what this means?” Shadowheart breathes, still staring at her own hand with reverence.

Something holy, Amma would guess.

The cleric, almost to herself, answers for them: “She touched me,” she breathes. “She… chose me. Lady Shar can see my heart. She is protecting me where others are left to face Her wrath. She— she loves me. She must do.”

“I don’t know if ‘love’ is the right word for that,” Amma mutters. (The Matron’s love left plenty of marks on her.)

“If not love, then what?” Shadowheart says, looking up at the rogue with her big, pale eyes. Amma wants to draw the cleric into her arms and scream. “We walk in rows of Shadow Weave. This is the Nightsinger’s dominion, through and through. To traverse it safely is impossible— we have a hundred years of proof of that. By all rights, I should have lost my hand just now. But I didn’t.”

She cradles her hand again, rapt with faith and ecstasy. Amma watches her run her thumb over the wound as though she’s worried it will smear away like ash.

Gale picks his way carefully toward the cleric. The rest of the party follows, not keen to test their own familiarity with living shadows.

“Be that as it may, we shouldn’t go sticking our hands out into strange cursed places,” Gale says delicately. Shadowheart, thankfully, sees the sense in this request, and nods, regains some of her usual stoicism.

Then: “Do not stray far,” Lae’zel says, and even her voice is lower than usual, terse and uneasy. She draws her sword and walks up to the front of the group with Shadowheart and Araj. “Fighters at the head. Sneak-thieves behind. We close ranks around the wizard.”

For once, her orders are heeded without comment.

Araj leads them slowly through the shadows. Their destination, she says, is a ruined tower, a windmill. There may be other cultists there. She will do the talking. Amma doesn’t trust her, but she’s the only one who knows where they’re going. It rankles.

“You know,” Araj says after a while, half-looking over her shoulder to Gale and Amma— and Astarion—, her voice ominously light and conversational, “I do think this was the right choice for all of us, to join together like this. You might be a little naive about how all this works— but I see promise in you. Ambition.”

Gale takes his eyes off the shadows for a moment to quirk a brow at her. “And you’d like to direct that ambition somewhere beneficial to you, I presume,” he says.

“Beneficial to us all, Gale of Waterdeep. We may have our differences— we don’t have to, do we?”

“We certainly don’t. And we certainly won’t, if the Absolute has its way. What’s your point?”

Araj sighs dramatically. “I simply worry that you’re not considering the myriad benefits to having your condition. Dozens flock to Moonrise, but more still are infected. Hundreds of creatures. Thousands, possibly.”

“Oh, yes,” Astarion says, disdain clear in his voice, “an army of goblin trash and village idiots. How thrilling.”

He’s taken to wearing an iron mask he’d found in Grymforge— said it made him feel like a dashing rogue from the old penny-dreadfuls. Shadowheart informed him it was a Dark Justiciar mask, meant to inspire terror; he said that was all the better, and polished it to shine. The cleric did not give further comment. He’d only started wearing it after the unpleasantness with Araj.

“Not just goblin trash and village idiots,” the alchemist says, impatience coloring her tone in turn. “You think the Absolute sought merely armies? Please. The Absolute seeks power, and Moonrise is the seat of it. Why destroy such a perfect system, already in place? Why not take it over for yourselves?”

This is a possibility that has crossed Amma’s mind already. The tadpole grants all of them powers— to charm, to coerce, to intimidate— and she’s finding it quite convenient to have those at her disposal. It ensures that her lack of conversational skills won’t necessarily lead to bloodshed, should she find that counterproductive.

It also means Astarion is free.

“Power at the expense of others’ free will,” Gale points out. “I don’t call that ambition; I call that domination. Tempting, to be sure— but it leaves a poor taste in my mouth.”

“Oh, don’t be so naive,” Astarion says. He seems to be on the same train of thought as Amma. “We needn’t go for world domination. We could simply bring our own worms under control— keep perhaps a hundred people with to do our bidding, make sure things go over smoothly—”

“We are not taking over the cult,” says Shadowheart firmly. “We are curing ourselves and then going our separate ways.”

“There’s no reason for us not to stay together if we’re all heading to the Gate anyway,” Astarion counters. “I’ve got business there, you’ve got business there— why not take over the cult? Recruit some extra members to our cause?”

“Again, there is a fundamental difference between a willing companion and a dominated one,” Gale points out. “I’m not opposed to embracing the tadpoles’ powers, should it continue to prove beneficial— but I will not be party to a— a mass brainwashing operation.”

“Spoilsport,” Astarion mutters.

“I must say, if you were to take it over,” Araj continues, clearly entertained; “you could liberate the infected, somehow, I’m sure. It’s just as Astarion said: the power would be yours to do with as you wish. Keep it— destroy it— give it away.”

Amma finally joins the discussion. “And what exactly would you get out of this, Oblodra?”

“Nothing that you’d need to be concerned about. My talents are best served un-tadpoled, but I won’t pretend I am so indispensable that I could never be infected. It serves my interests just as much as yours to see the Absolute taken over rather than destroyed.”

Lae’zel snarls at the front of the group.

“You are corpses walking, k’chakhi. There is no freedom to be found in this. Power, yes— influence, yes. But freedom? ” She spits angrily. “To fall under the Absolute’s thrall and to enthrall it to yourself are one and the same. You will be chained either way. It is evil. Beyond that, it is stupid. Speak more of it and I shall have your tongues.”

“I’m just saying it’s an option,” Araj says innocently. “I’d hate for you to show up unprepared.”

Amma knows that the alchemist is keeping still more information to herself, doling it out here and there to maintain her usefulness. I’d hate for you to show up unprepared— f*ck that. Unprepared is exactly how she wants them. If she’d been tadpoled, Amma would crack her skull open like a coconut and slurp up every juicy secret she was keeping in there. Araj isn’t telling them anything out of the goodness of her heart. She benefits from usurping the Absolute just as much as any of them— perhaps even more so. Tempting as it is, there are just too many variables for Amma to entertain such a foolhardy idea.

But the worm keeps Astarion free.

When they come into view of the ruined windmill, she can see the wan glow of torches.

An orc greets them. There are two others waiting in the torchlight, and a handful of goblins slinking at their feet.

“You have the lyre, True Soul?” the first orc says as he approaches.

Araj looks to Astarion.

Astarion doesn’t know what she wants.

“The Nightwarden’s lyre, True Soul,” she says pointedly. “The one you borrowed from her?”

“Ah! Of course. It’s right here, just give me a moment—”

He holds it up. He still doesn’t know what she wants.

Araj closes her eyes.

“Play it, you imbecile.”

Astarion scowls, but he strums a few lovely chords.

The darkness seems to lift a bit.

The darkness is lifting a bit.

Something is coming toward them with a lantern— an unbroken version of what Nere was carrying, its light more brilliant by far than any torch or spell. It twinkles and chimes softly as the moon-lantern sways. For a moment, it’s so bright they can’t make out what holds it.

But Amma sees the arachnid legs, and Amma hears the clicks and chitters, and Amma is quite well acquainted with the most despicable of all Lolth’s creatures.

“Yesss. I hear them, your majesty. Calling usss. New flesh for you, my queen.”

The drider’s words send pricks of cold fear down their spines like spiders’ legs. The voice is humanoid, but not enough. The mouth is fanged. The face has far too many eyes. Amma has seen driders before, but only at a distance— the outline of their bodies crawling in the darkness below Ched Nasad, or a flash of their legs skittering away from a Lolthite priestess. The Matron kept one as a pet; said it had once been her brother, that she was bound to him as a reminder of Lolth’s power, of what it meant to fail Her. She often threatened to set him on her underlings if they displeased her. The horrid things are even worse up close.

“You have more worshipers every day, majesssty. Yes… yesss. They’ll do nicely. Are they true to you, my queen? Do they hear your whissspers?”

The drider’s mind connects with all of theirs. Amma hears a whispered voice— she severs the connection abruptly, before any of the words are understood.

(Her hair is long. Her back is scarred. This voice is not the Matron.)

The drider grins.

“We have our queen’s favor,” it says, apparently satisfied. “She ssspeaks to us. Protects us. Graces us with Her blessing. Bless us again, majesty. Shine your light. Come.”

The monster turns and starts to walk. Its legs click. The moon-lantern reflects iridescent in its hardened flesh.

“Follow and stay close. Do not leave the light. Do not feed the shadows.”

Astarion still has the lyre in his hands. He plucks idly at it; the drider’s head twitches, either from irritation or attraction to the sound. After a few moments, it hisses angrily.

“It must stay quiet. It will call worse things than usss if it continues, mistress.”

“Oh, but I was feeling rather inspired,” Astarion says innocently. “I thought I might play something for Her.”

The drider snarls again to itself, but does not round on him. His fingers are as adept with the strings as they are with a trap as they are with the tie on someone’s clothes as they are with a rapier or a dagger. His random tuning forms a pattern, then a round, and he hums something to himself before settling on the song.

“Young man came from hunting, faint and weary
What does ail my lord, my dearie?
Oh, brother dear, let my bed be made
For I feel the gripe of the woody nightshade.”

He’s never sung for them before. He lets the chord ring long on -shade, bends down for a moment to pick a flower from the ground. It’s purple and twisted: a night orchid. He holds it out to Shadowheart (she takes it, trying not to smile) before continuing.

“Many a man would die as soon
Out of the light of a mage’s moon
And it’s not by bone, but yet by blade
Can break the magic that the shadow made.”

Something creaks in the darkness behind them.

“This young man, he died fair soon—”

Amma hears a gasp and a thump, quickly muffled, as one of the orcs is swept away by a huge tendril of shadow. Astarion continues as if nothing happened.

“—By the light of a hunter’s moon—”

The other orc is impaled by the darkness right beside her. The goblins screech at that, drawing their jagged blades and waving their torches— Amma catches Astarion’s gaze, torn between horror and amusem*nt; beneath the tragic visage of the iron mask, his red eye winks at her, and she can hear him grinning as he sings on.

“—‘Twas not by bone, nor yet by blade, but
Of the berries of the woody nightshade.
Oh, daughter dear, lie and be safe
In the path that the shadow made.”

Shadowheart stops in her tracks. She watches the goblins turn to her, their weapons raised— she looks curious, as though she’s caught on to something in Astarion’s tune that the others haven’t heard yet. She raises the hand that the shadow-curse had wounded.

All around them, tendrils of the malignant dark raise too, mirroring the gesture.

Shadowheart flicks her wrist.

The goblins go flying into the darkness in the grasp of those awful tendrils.

Astarion finishes with a flourish on the lyre. Shadowheart can’t keep a satisfied look off her face. Araj lifts a brow, then claps daintily.

The drider’s legs crash down before Astarion, its many eyes black and furious, the moon-lantern swaying haphazardly.

“HEATHENS,” it snarls. “TRICKSSSTERS. POISON AND LIES.”

The bard simply blinks.

“Perhaps they weren’t faithful enough to the Absolute,” he says innocently. “I certainly am— and you certainly are. A queen must have loyal subjects, after all. Wouldn’t you agree, drider?”

The monstrous thing growls and gnashes its fangs, its claws twitching, wanting to wrap around Astarion’s throat— and then it turns with one last snarl, continues on the path before them.

“My queen has ordered me to guide Her followers through the dark, and so we shall, and so it mussst be done,” it mutters. “However ssstupid they may be.”

Chapter 35: Interlude: The Last Light Inn, 13 Marpenoth, 1492 DR

Chapter Text

“Alright, Karlach,” Dammon says. “I’ve got good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?”

“The good news, obviously.”

“I’ve figured out a way to let you turn up the heat again.”

The blacksmith pulls a piece of tarp off of his work: a set of cogs and pistons and dials, made from infernal iron. Karlach makes a small, wondrous oooh and goes up to inspect it.

“Your engine’s been corroding the casing I made for it. Not bad enough to be an issue, yet,” he adds quickly, seeing Karlach’s sparking eyes go wide, “but, erm— indicative of one that might crop up, eventually. And when you mentioned feeling better after that last fight, when you let loose, it got me thinking.”

Dammon puts his hand to the heavy dial at the front of the machine. With a heavy shunk, it clicks over to the left, like the hand of a clock. A valve opens deeper into the cage of iron strips.

“Turn this, and you get more air flow. It’ll cool you off some, but the added oxygen will feed your flames, too. First turn should set you right in the morning. Second turn’ll put you back at the level you used to be before. Third turn is… well, let’s say it’s for special occasions, and not just any old ghoul or goblin.”

Karlach whistles.

“Dammon, you are a godsend,” she says. She bends over his worktable and touches the new apparatus with just the tip of her claw, eases the valve open and shut a few times, shunks the dial on the front of it. The sound and feel of it satisfies something deep within her.

The blacksmith laughs a little uncomfortably. He’s glad to help Karlach— thrilled, excited even!— but this knowledge didn’t come from gods. Even when it’s used to save a life, there’s something inherently cruel to infernal smithing: the metal almost seems to eat away at the tools, the techniques are hard on the body— forging infernal iron feels like what Dammon imagines breaking a wild horse must be like. It resents being shaped. It fights back. It is the craft of devils, after all.

“When we get to the city, remind me to look for a shrine to the goddess of luck,” Karlach tells him, still enraptured by the machinery. “I’m gonna leave some flowers there, as thanks for you.”

“Yeah. Um. Well, I think you’re gonna want to hear the bad news, too, before you pick which ones.”

Karlach waits a beat for him to elaborate. When he doesn’t, she straightens up and looks at him, her eyes sparking brighter than the forge.

“Well, spit it out, then,” she says, nervousness edging into her tone. “What’s the bad news?”

Dammon takes a long, ragged breath, and looks up at her: the infernal script etched into her horns, the few inches of her skin still left un-scarred. He knows he’s told her more about the engine in her chest than she has anybody else, even Wyll, who she looks at like a mother duck to her own duckling— but she hasn’t told him everything about what she did down in Avernus. He asks because it’s important to the work, and he respects her right to withhold things from him. Gods know he’s withholding things from her. It’s just— well— he can read the script carved into her.

DEMONSBANE.

Zariel never meant for her to see the sun again.

“Your engine. It’s… I mean, it’s amazing you’re alive, considering. And it’s a truly marvelous piece of craftsmanship. It’s a whole new school of thought, to replace a heart with something— mechanical. From what I know, you’re the first person it’s ever been attempted on.”

She raps her knuckles on the iron panel that replaces half her ribs. As if in response, the engine’s pace kicks up for a moment, sending plumes of smoke and sparks out of the grommets in her shoulder.

“‘S a good thing, too,” she says. “Cause I dunno if anybody else would have survived this.”

“Karlach, I don’t think you survived it.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

Dammon says, “The corrosion— the heat— to have an infernal engine that small, contained within a body— it’s just— it’s not possible. Not permanently.”

“... But if I get more infernal iron,” she says. “If I get more of it, then you can— you can still fix it, right?”

“I— for a while, yes, but— I can’t say it would be worth the cost, Karlach. That thing is going to keep on ticking as long as you’re not in the ground. And as long as it’s ticking, it’s going to burn you, and burn itself. It’s only going to get worse. Your body wasn’t made for this. And the engine certainly wasn’t made for a body.”

She’s quiet for a long, horrible moment. Dammon hates himself for saying this to her, even if it’s true— hates that he couldn’t whittle out the kindest parts of him even in Avernus, that he can’t whittle out the part of him that misses Carixim’s forge now. He feels torn in half. He’s sure that there are other tieflings out there, survivors of the Descent, who feel the same— he hasn’t met them. Anyone he talks to now about it meets his words with horror. Karlach isn’t horrified, but she doesn’t smile about it, either. She doesn’t miss it.

He’s the blacksmith. He should be able to fix anything. He should be better than this.

“How long is a while?” she asks.

“A matter of tendays,” Dammon tells her. “Few months, at the most. I can’t promise you’ll see Nightal.”

“But you can promise me touch?”

He looks at her. She doesn’t miss Avernus, but she made a living there. She didn’t want to serve Zariel, but she volunteered to have an infernal engine for a heart. Because somebody lied to her. Because somebody told her she would be alright. Because she trusted somebody, and they burned her in every way.

Dammon takes her hand firmly in his own.

“Yes,” he says.

Karlach’s yellow eyes shine bright with tears. She grips his hand back, both of them calloused, rough. She’s missing two fingers on this hand. He hadn’t noticed, at first, but then he’d seen how the leather on her axe-grips got broken in, and when he asked her about it, she had laughed and told him such a lively, horrible story about fighting in the Blood War.

“And you can promise me tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

She nods. Her lip trembles. And then, like the sun breaking through a cloud, she smiles.

“Alright, then, soldier,” Karlach laughs, sniffling and scrubbing her nose with the back of her hand. “Let’s get that thing hooked up. Let’s go.”